A Rush of Blood to the Head Ch. 04

I did and reflexively smiled. We'd had a lot of parties over there when we were kids. Shari returned my smile, knowing exactly what I was thinking.

"Come tomorrow, around 1? Okay?"

Michael stomped back over, sighing that his mother was taking too long.

"Okay. I'll be there."

She waved and then pushed the cart away, singing to her baby.

************

"I'm so happy you ran into her! She's such a nice girl." Mom sipped her tea and smiled. "Her mom is a sweetheart, too. She moved down to Florida with her husband, gave Shari the house."

I zipped my boots up and stood from the table. My hands were shaking and fear squeezed down my throat. "I'm nervous."

Mom blinked up at me. "Why would you be nervous? It's Shari. She works in the office at the high school—maybe she can get you a job there—and she's stable and sweet. She's a doll, and she is exactly the kind of person you should be socializing with. You're too isolated up in your room."

"Exactly. She's a nice girl, and I'm not."

Mom rolled her eyes. "Are you going to tear yourself apart all the time or can I look forward to a day where you accept the blessings that come your way with silence? Because self-loathing becomes old after a while, I must say."

My heel snagged on a crooked tile in the kitchen and I nearly fell. Frustration bubbled up and all I wanted to do was go back to bed. "That's it, I'm not going over. I'll say I'm sick or something."

Mom got up and angrily breezed by me, rinsing her cup in the sink. "You are going over there! I'll ram my foot up your ass if you don't go. You aren't working. You aren't socializing. Every day you're submerging yourself deeper into depression. I refuse to watch it passively anymore."

"Mom, I am not—"

"No, this is what you're doing. You're going over to Shari's. You're going to allow yourself to have a good time. And tomorrow? Tomorrow you're listing that house. Tomorrow you're going job-hunting. Tomorrow you're taking a deep breath and you're going to start forgiving yourself. It is time to come back to the world of the living."

******

I parked Mom's car outside Shari's house and took a deep, calming breath. Her house was as lovely as I remembered it; a large porch wrapped around the front, filled with potted plants and children's toys. Dozens of crystal wind-chimes hung from the porch. The house looked so warm and cozy with large, welcoming windows and deep honey-colored siding with maroon shutters.

My heels clicked against the wood of her porch, which I assume someone heard, because the door flew open and a gigantic dog came panting towards me. I nearly fell but a man came out to help me, laughing and cooing at the dog.

"Gina, baby, calm down!" He tugged at the dog's collar and smiled at me. "Lucy, nice to meet you."

Michael came out to help his father drag the dog back by her collar. "Hi, Lucy," he said distractedly, as if I came over all the time.

"Lucy!" Shari came to the front door and waved me in.

I forced a smile and followed. John and Michael dragged the dog in behind me and closed the front door.

"Gina is a sweetheart, really, but she's so big! I hope you aren't scared of dogs. Sorry I didn't mention her yesterday but I totally forgot! If you're allergic or something we can—"

"It's fine," I cut in. "Really. I love dogs." I bent over to pet Gina to ease Shari's mind. Gina came closer to me and passed out on my feet, her gigantic tongue lolling out of one side.

"She likes you!" Shari giggled.

John cleared his throat and reached over to shake my hand. "I'm John. It's nice to meet you. Shari was very excited to run into you."

"Oh, right, this is my husband! Isn't he gorgeous?" Shari danced over to him and wrapped her arm around his waist. "He's gorgeous, I know it. He knows it. We all know it. I just like to remind everyone."

Her husband looked simultaneously embarrassed and amused, and it tickled me to think of what it must be like to live with Shari all day long, every day. Michael rolled his eyes, but I think he was blushing.

I couldn't contain it anymore: I burst out with laughter. Shari was ridiculous and cute and absolutely a mood lifter. I calmed down a little and shook my head.

"Sorry, but it was something about Michael's expression..." I tried to suppress a snort and failed horribly. John and Shari began to laugh with me. "It's very nice to meet you."

Anna came running out with a handful of markers in her hand. John sighed and took them from her, checking to see if she had gotten any on her skin.

"Okay," he groaned playfully, "we're going out for ice cream and giving you ladies some space." He smiled again and I knew why Shari loved to remind people he was gorgeous, and that he was hers. He seemed like a really nice guy, too.

The three of them were out the door five minutes later. Then Shari dragged me through the kitchen and out the back deck.

"It's a little chilly, I know, but it's such a sunny day. I made us some sandwiches and mimosas. And don't worry, darling, I may be pregnant but I made John get you some champagne so that is definitely a real mimosa."

"Thank you, that's very nice of you," I murmured, taking a sip of it before even sitting down. "Your house is even more beautiful than I remembered. And your family is wonderful."

They really were. They were exactly the kind of family I always envied-loud, bustling, warm, happy.

Shari settled down in her chair and gave me a sweet look. "Thank you. They really are wonderful. I'm very lucky." She picked up a sandwich and inspected it before taking a big bite.

"When is the baby due?" I looked her over. If she hadn't said she was pregnant, I never would have guessed. She definitely wasn't showing.

Her mouth curved in a soft smile and I finally got what people meant when they said expectant mothers glowed. "Early April."

"Wow, that's great. A Spring baby."

"I know, right?" Shari poured some more orange juice in my glass and then reached over to put a splash of some more champagne in, too. "Enough about me. Let's talk about you. I know you went off to college with Janie—who I don't talk to anymore, by the way, we had a huge falling out years ago, she's such a bitch—and I know you got married to some big deal guy. A lawyer, right? Your mom told my mom a little, but that's really all I know."

"That's really all there is to know. His name is Mark. We live in a nice neighborhood just outside the city." My voice began to shake. I tried to cover it with another sip of mimosa but Shari's smile was dimming and she was studying me with a great deal of concentration. "He's... Well, we don't have kids and a big dog or anything. There's not very much to talk about."

Shari leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Uh, oh. You're not telling me the truth. As a mother of two—especially, the mother of a boy—I know when someone isn't telling me the whole truth."

"It's...delicate. And I don't think it's very interesting. You should give me a tour of your house or something."

"It's none of my business, sorry."

I could tell she wouldn't be able to leave it there and sighed. "It's okay. What do you want to know?"

"There are rumors, you know." Shari shrugged and looked off towards the back of her yard. "I don't typically listen but this morning I ran into someone and they started telling me about you. That you moved back with your parents." Her soft green eyes met mine and she reached over to take my hand. "It's okay, you know. I'm not going to judge or make a big deal of it or send you pitying glances all day. I just want to catch up with you, and help you if I can. I know divorce is no picnic, if that's what's going on, and if you need a shoulder to cry on or someone to go beat him up for you, I will. I'm a lot stronger when I'm pregnant, even John thinks so."

So she imagined me as the injured party. I wanted to correct her, but at the same time I wanted to relax for one afternoon and not think about what I'd done.

But that was cheating, and I'd done enough of that.

I leaned over to her and said, "I cheated on my husband."

She sat back in her seat, eyes wide. "Wow."

"With his coworker."

Her eyes popped open even wider. "Double wow." She looked down at her hands. "Why?"

So many reasons. So many excuses. I couldn't pick a good one, or one that felt right to say, but eventually her gaze met mine and I couldn't lie.

"I must've been unhappy but I didn't know it. And I didn't show it, not really, so Mark had no way of knowing. God forbid I tell him what I was thinking..." I looked away and swallowed a lump of sadness. "We had a strange sort of relationship. We were friends and partners, but we also never really let the other person in on what the other was thinking. Or maybe that was just me. Then this guy started working with him and came over to a party one night. Luke. He was good-looking and smart, and he paid me attention. And he didn't just stare at my boobs, or patronize me or anything like that. He was different from the others. He listened, or seemed to, and I don't even know when it started but suddenly I was fantasizing about him. He was attracted to me, too, and the next thing I knew we'd begun something I didn't even imagine happening."

"How did Mark find out?" Shari asked a few minutes later. I'd zoned out.

"Someone caught us and told him," I said slowly. I came back to the moment and looked across the table at her, preparing myself for her to politely but resolutely tell me to fuck off.

She didn't do that. I wasn't sure what she was thinking, but I relaxed a little when her expression didn't twist with disgust.

"That's terrible. Then what happened? He threw you out? Or did you leave?"

"He threw me out. And now we're divorced." I stared down at my mimosa. "I miss him. It's strange. I feel like I don't have a right to, that I don't have a right to still love him. But I do."

"Phew," Shari said. "And Luke? What happened to him?"

I forced myself to stay calm thinking about him. "He moved to Boston. He's engaged. He was secretly engaged the whole time, pretty much. I'm not sure if they're married yet. I just keep thinking 'Poor girl' which is funny considering the situation I'm in."

Shari shook her head. "Jeesh. No wonder you didn't want to get into this. It's horrible." She brought her chair over to my side of the table and watched me carefully. "Have you talked to Mark at all? I mean, if you want to reconcile you should tell him. I'm sure that time has quelled a little of his anger. I know you're divorced and all that but Liz Taylor and Richard Burton remarried or something right? Maybe he'd listen to you, if you said you were sorry. But, again, only if you want to reconcile."

God, she was such a romantic.

I opened my mouth and then shut it. I never considered there was any other possibility. Then I thought of Mark the day I left, how his eyes glittered with such disdain. No, there was no other possibility. And we were done, in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of Mark.

"I think," I began, "that I don't have an answer to that question. Not a satisfying one. He's all I've known for nearly eight years. I feel like I want to say "yes, I don't want him out of my life" but it's biased because change is hard, and it sucks, and I might just be resisting it."

"I think you'd know the difference," Shari remarked with a sad smile.

I couldn't help it; I folded. I told her everything in greater detail. How Mark and I came to be married, how we passed the years and how I completely annihilated our marriage. Shari listened calmly, commenting here and there but never interrupting me.

Only when I was done and when I realized I'd been crying did she react.

"You sound like you've had a very bad time of it, Lucy."

"It's all my fault."

"Is it? Hmm. Sounds like there are a couple of things going on here. Part of it is absolutely your fault. Okay, maybe a bigger part of it was your fault. I wish I could say otherwise. But regardless, even if you were Eve in a past life and all this shit was your fault anyways, what's the next step? I mean, are you going to hide out at your parents' house for eternity?"

I blinked. "I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it."

"What about a job? A career? What did you study in college?"

"I was only there for a year and a half. I didn't know. I thought maybe about being a nurse."

"A nurse sounds like an excellent job to have! Hard work but you're a smart girl. You could handle it." Shari got up and fiddled with her cell phone. "I'm checking Craigslist for jobs. And you should take a look at some of the community college's programs. They have a pretty good nursing program. I know because John's sister went through it a few years ago."

I was breathless. She was still being nice to me, even after everything I told her, and she was raising some important points.

"You don't have to look for me."

Shari's eyes met mine. "Why not? I can still talk while I'm doing it, don't worry."

"I just don't want you to go through the trouble."

"It's no trouble," she smiled. "What are friends for?"

*********

Dad was out on the deck when I got home. "Where's Mom?"

He looked up from his paperback. "She ran to the store. We're out of milk."

I sat down. "Kinda cold to be out here, no?"

Dad put down his book on the table and gave his full attention to me. "Your mom says you're very down on yourself."

Well, what a wonderful change of topic. I was slightly suspicious Mom ran out to get milk on purpose to put my father and me together.

"After what happened..." I shrugged. "Certainly not thinking of myself very highly, Dad, no. And I'm embarrassed and ashamed to be here with you guys when I stayed so distant for most of my marriage. Then you also know what I've done, which is doubly humiliating."

Dad's expression was befuddled. He was never one to voice his emotions, to say exactly what was on his mind, to offer comfort. I could tell he wanted to say something, but I wasn't sure if it was good or bad. Eventually he cleared his throat, but kept his eyes on the dying trees in our backyard.

"You messed up. Doesn't mean you're not my daughter anymore. I love you, and I always will, and there isn't much you can do to change that." He glanced at me with a smile. "And I really am glad to have you back, even if it'll only be for a while. It was lonely and quiet without you here. And now Linda has someone else to tell her gossip to, thank God."

He got up, groaning as he stretched.

He had a few more parting words for me before he went back inside.

"You have to go on living, Lucy, you know. Your mother told me she said the same thing to you, and I agree. The world doesn't just stop when you do something wrong. You say you're sorry—and you mean it—and you try to pick up the pieces. You can't mourn here forever."

"I know, Dad," I whispered, tears in my eyes.

**************************

I picked up a job at a local florist run by a tough guy named Randy, who also happened to be a volunteer firefighter. How the hell he ended up owning a successful flower shop was beyond me.

He was maybe about fifty and divorced three times. He was dating a girl now, probably a decade younger than he was. When we got better acquainted with one another, I asked him one day if he thought maybe he'd been married enough.

He laughed and pinched my cheek. "You're silly."

If he even got a hint I was in a morose mood, he'd be on top of me with corny jokes and amusing but long-winded tales of his past. He became a dear friend to me, almost instantly. He was loud, tall, with ruddy cheeks and dirty blonde hair that always needed a trim. And he always wore plaid, which made me think of a lumberjack.

And he was lewd. He loved, loved dirty jokes and pulled them out whenever he saw me becoming too maudlin.

One day I was ripping the Snapple label off the bottle. He came over, carrying a dainty bouquet of lilies (the dichotomy of such a huge, masculine sort of guy carrying such delicate flowers always amazed me).

"If you tear the paper off your drink bottles, it means you're sexually frustrated."

"Ew, Randy."

"It's a scientific fact, sweetheart."

Another day he was playing with his phone.

"Hol-eee shit. Lucy, come over here."

Sighing, because I had an idea of where this was heading, I walked over to him. "What is it?"

"I can't believe what I'm reading on Tweeter."

"Twitter," I corrected for the billionth time.

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. This is complete insanity. Mind is blown right here, Lucy."

"What is it?" I asked again.

"Like, men from the Middle Ages? They used to chop off their left nut." He nodded when I made a gagging noise. "They thought the sperm in the left testicle made girls."

"Ew, where do you read this stuff?"

"I follow informative Tweeter pages."

Randy also hooked me up with a car, so I didn't have to borrow my mother's anymore.

And when Spring came, I signed up for the nursing program. My parents were happy for me, and Shari was over the moon. We quickly became good friends.

Pregnancy looked good on Shari. She was getting bigger by the day, but she truly looked beautiful. And she was so fucking nice that sometimes I stared at her in awe, wondering how the fuck we were friends. How she could stomach me.

Sometimes I babysat her kids so she could go on dates with John before the newborn madness descended again. I figured I owed her. At first I was terrified. Diapers, bottles, tantrums and the Disney channel made me dizzy.

But it turned out it was easier than I expected. Michael was a good kid who did his homework quietly, and he even liked to read. John had set up a whole X-box for him in his room, too, so that ate up a lot of his time.

Anna was a bit more challenging. SpongeBob would end but she wouldn't accept it.

"Pongy!" she'd scream, throwing her bottle across the room. "Pongy!"

"Jesus Christ," I said under my breath. I looked over at Michael for help but he was heading to his room, likely to avoid yet another tantrum.

Then one night I got a splendid idea.

"Anna, baby, SpongeBob went to sleep." I wiped away her tears and picked her up. She was delightfully heavy and warm in my arms. I could kind of understand Shari's craziness for babies. "SpongeBob needs sleep, just like you do. He went to sleep in his little pineapple, and Gary the snail is snoring next to him."

"Sweep?" she asked, instead of 'sleep'.

"Yes, honey, he's asleep."

She stared at me for a minute, gauging the truthfulness of my words. And then she set her drowsy head on my arm, nuzzling her face into me. It sounds ridiculous, but the small gesture of intimacy brought tears to my eyes.

********************************

It seemed like my new life was forming and cementing together. I quickly became used to heading to Randy's flower shop in the morning, and then dashing over to the community college when my shift was over. Weekends were typically spent gardening with my mother (I hated gardening but I owed it to the woman) or with Shari, playing with her kids in the backyard or rubbing her feet if she was particularly tired.

The life I'd lived seemed to drift away from me, as if it were all a bad dream. All that was left was my old house to deal with.

One April morning I woke up and called real estate offices until I found one who'd help me put the house on the market. I called my lawyer, asking him to relay to Mark's attorney that I'd be selling the house, and that he should retrieve what he wanted or needed from it. I also wanted him to know I'd be sending him half of whatever I got for it. It was only fair, in my mind.

I was mellow the next day. That was my last tie to the Lucy I used to be, and to the privilege, the excess, of the life I once lead. Now I was plain old Lucy Gallagher and I loved that, but a part of me became nostalgic and wistful thinking about the house I'd made a home in, that I'd decorated with such care, that I'd lived in with Mark.