Beloved Evangeline (17 page)

I was preoccupied trying to make a decision all week long. I didn’t want him to think I’d put off the decision until the last minute, which I of course had, and infer that I wasn’t looking forward to his visit, which I was. It seemed every spare moment was spent searching online for the perfect place to eat. I already knew about almost every place in town, so for the most part, my efforts were completely pointless, but I kept hoping that by some miracle, a compromise would magically appear.

I’d finished my special project assignments within two days. The projects were interesting but not very substantive. I didn’t have anything else to occupy my time, so I emailed Mr. Oxley with the complete assignments and notified him I’d be taking sick leave for the remainder of the week.

Being away from the office had deprived me of the opportunity to solve the mystery of how my work managed to get done and the accompanying ridiculous story that had been relayed to Mr. Oxley. None of the possibilities I went through seemed very plausible, and the only way for me to get any more information while not in the office would be to start fishing. I’d need to call or email my friends at the office to do that. Considering my strained relationships with Simon, and now Nicky, and whatever weirdness was going on with Gavin—the options did
not
seem appealing. Lyle would’ve told me already if he’d known anything so there was no sense bothering him. For now it seemed, the mystery would have to remain just that.

Astonishingly, Friday evening arrived before I was at all ready. The entire week had been consumed with anxiety about my father’s visit. In addition to being an unabashed restaurant snob, my father is also a manager for a very well-known, perhaps even infamous, financial institution. His standards for me had been impossibly high, but in a direction I was just never comfortable with. For whatever reason, I just don’t fit into his strata of society. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate nice, finer things; I absolutely do, but I feel no reason to be a snob about it. I love art, for instance, and architecture... and travel... and adventure. I can appreciate real beauty wherever it’s found. But can’t I have all of that and still be a down-to-earth tomboy? His answer would be,
No, absolutely not. Stop being a martyring imbecile
. His ultimate dream for me was to be some corporate ice queen, a female version of himself. At this thought, it occurred to me that he’d gotten his wish after all. As it happened, due to unforeseen circumstances, I had become something of an ice queen, just not in the way that he imagined for me.

In typical fashion, my brother arrived 20 minutes late to pick me up. He’s more than six years younger than I am, and he never really knew our mother. I’ve always felt guilty about that. It wasn’t fair that he never got the chance to know her at all. I know it was harder on him than it even was for me. He refuses to speak of her.
Ever
. He hates even coming to the house and will never venture farther than the front doorway. I think our mother was the main reason why he ended up in Savannah. I decided against mentioning the possibility of meeting our grandfather for that very reason. If there was any money involved in the estate, I’d have to lie and tell him I’d won the lottery or something just to get him to accept his share.

As soon as I opened the door, he greeted me with an enormous smile and a subsequent punch to the shoulder. For several painful moments, my arm felt as though I’d never be able to move it again.

“
Happy birthday, big sis.” His smile remained in place as he hugged me with genuine warmth and affection. It always felt so good to see him.

“
Where’d you decide to drag dad to this time? Another crab shack? Or, hey! Maybe Ethiopian? Let’s watch Dad try to sit down on the floor in his Armani!” He ribbed sarcastically.

I shook my head. “No, Chris, I’m not in the mood to antagonize dad today,” I scolded mildly.

“
Come
on
,” he whined, “Don’t be such a chicken.”

Laughter burst free before I even had a chance to stop it. No matter how old I get, my little brother seems to retain the ability to make me feel like I’m 12-years-old—and a boy. “You’re hopeless,” I said futilely before grabbing my coat and closing the door behind me.

I wore a camel-colored cowl-neck sweater and taupe baby whale corduroy boot-cut pants, which I paired with burnished brown high-heeled ankle boots. I thought it looked nice without trying too hard, which was always my ultimate goal—to look
effortless
, like I just picked up any old thing off my bedroom floor without any forethought, and hopefully without it looking all dirty or wrinkly. Doesn’t always come out the way I intend—but nobody’s perfect.

“
So where
are
we going?” Chris asked, “Please don’t say we’re going to some crappy chain restaurant,” he complained.

“
Since when have I ever picked a
chain
restaurant?” I retorted in annoyance, before realizing he was just teasing me, trying to rile me up. He broke into hysterics, just like when we were kids. “Maybe I’ll just drop you off at McDonald’s for a Happy Meal, Chris.”

I sighed, and then proceeded to give him directions to Magellan’s Fish Camp, not at all the type of place my father would approve of. I wasn’t thinking of the large collection of taxidermied animals or the claw machine filled with live lobsters when I made the decision. For some reason I couldn’t articulate, I’d been secretly aching to go back there for some time, and it was
my birthday
. No matter what my dad might say, Magellan’s is right on the water, and truly lovely in the evening.

My dad, who had flown the 140 or so miles from Savannah to Jacksonville, was already waiting for us outside the restaurant when we arrived, his brow furrowed in disapproval. The hug he gave me was stiff and formal, like I was his accountant.

I ordered a jumbo shrimp salad with avocado and mango salsa.
Amazing.
My brother had the jumbo fried shrimp, with fried gator appetizer, and cleaned his plate. My dad ordered some sort of fancy pasta and spent the evening pushing it around his own plate.

“
You’re looking too thin again, Evangeline. I hope you’re taking proper care of yourself,” my dad ultimately chided once he’d dropped the pretense of eating. This was his favorite way of making conversation with me.

I took a deep breath to prepare myself. “I’m doing my best, Dad.”

“
I don’t like seeing you wasting away like this, Evangeline, wasting your life.”

Here we go.
The real issue was my “wasted” life.

“
Time is moving by, and you’re just standing still. I mean, are you even seeing anyone? When was the last time you did?”

That whole subject made me sick to my stomach and he knew it. I said nothing.

“
So you’re going to chose nothing?!” He practically shouted. “You know, you and Jack were
not
perfect together, Evangeline. You’ve idealized him in such a way that I’m afraid no one will ever measure up. Don’t you remember the two of you fighting all the time? He was trying to pressure you into getting married right away? You had
other
things to do.
You
wanted to wait.”

I sucked in a breath.

“
I’m not judging your decision,” he held up his hands in retreat, “But you’ve got to get this idea out of your head that Jack was the
one
perfect guy in the world. He was a nice enough kid, but not perfect.”

I took a long blink. This night was really not going as well as I had hoped.

“
Dad, I know what you’re saying, but I just can’t do this right now. You’re going to have to let me…” That was the first time I’d had the courage to even begin this much-needed dialogue with him. Now that the words were hanging in the air, however, I regretted the decision to assert myself. And my dad let them hang there for far too long.

“
As your
father
,” my dad finally started angrily and much too loudly, “I believe I should at least have some input when I see you hiding from important decisions. Staying in Jacksonville, for example, is just the wrong move for you. There are plenty of men in Savannah, and it would get you away from...”

“
Dad
, Dad,
we got it. Like, literally, the whole restaurant got it,” Chris interrupted, “So she does things a little differently—what’s the big deal? There’s nothing wrong with Jacksonville... honestly, I like having an excuse to come down here. I’m sure there are just as many random dudes for her to date here, with lower standards even. Besides
, I’m
happily single...” Chris boasted, “And you never give
me
any crap about that.”

“
You
are interacting with people, Chris.
She
is not,” He surveyed the variety of seemingly happy couples at the surrounding tables, shaking his head as though their happiness were the cause of his annoyance. “I bet she’d be spending her birthday alone if we weren’t here...”

Thankfully the waitress arrived with our check.

What he failed to understand was my true love was dead. Any attempt at dating is, therefore, a completely wasted effort. I’d been handed my soul mate at a young age and without any difficulty. The mere thought of another man is almost enough to make me throw up. I realize it’s not a popular perspective.

Though I’m sure he loved my mother in his own way, I very much doubted his capacity to understand my feelings. Then again, my entire life is an experiment in failure; at least my father had a career he seemed to enjoy and had had his own family. By comparison, his life was a smashing success.

I’d started out striving for an extraordinary life and had fallen painfully short. In fact, I hadn’t even been able to achieve an ordinary life. No husband. No children. Not even a fabulous career or social life to make up for not having the other two things. What I’d actually managed was a
sub-ordinary
life—literally worse than ordinary. The visual analogy that came to mind was of me, teetering at the very top of Mt. Everest, reaching toward the heavens. Just as I’m about to reach them, I lose my footing. The fall would be spectacular, but the image I can’t get out of my head is the resulting impact crater. The crater is like 3,000 feet deep, thereby placing me 3,000 feet in the wrong direction, 3,000 feet
below
the starting line. I would’ve been much better off had I just staying on the ground.

Another aspect of my life making it difficult for me to move forward was being forever stuck in my own fantasy world, thinking of things just like this mental imagery instead of actually living in the real world. It’s no wonder I had no idea what to tell my dad, though, admittedly fighting with him on my birthday would probably seem an unappealing idea to just about anyone.

What could I tell him to shine him on and deflect the interrogation?

Well, Dad, now that you mention it, I just shared a very
unromantic
evening with a guy named Steve while he tried to bed me for sport—he’s a perfect choice
.
But wait
!
Another longtime friend of mine has a masochistic, unrequited crush.... maybe I focus on him instead? On second thought, his best friend, the one that hates me—maybe him? Or, more likely, instead of someone I actually like, why don’t I just hook up with someone at random—better yet—someone I despise. So much the better when he’s run over by a truck .

I suppressed a laugh at the lunacy of my life.

“
This is serious, Evangeline! Snap out of it!” His bark and accompanying fist-bang on the table were loud enough that people at the surrounding tables paused and glanced up from their meals. “You don’t get another shot at your life! I’m going gray worrying about what might happen to you, but you don’t even seem to care. You’re always in this fantasy world of yours, just like...” He trailed off, stopping himself.

But it was already too late. I knew what the rest of that sentence would be. I could’ve finished it in my sleep. I
have
finished that sentence in my sleep. He was fighting dirty.

Poised as I was for a fight, Chris was able to catch me unaware, pulling a card out of his jacket pocket and plopping it on the table before me. “Happy Birthday, big sis,” he said, ever the family mediator. “And don’t worry about the dating thing,” his speech was slightly slurred and his hand waved exaggeratedly before his face. Apparently, he was slightly flushed from his three or four (or five or six) drinks. “I’m just glad I don’t have to chase the men away from you or defend your honor or any of that other brotherly sh...”