Leaving Amy (Amy #2) (33 page)

“Amy?”

I stopped abruptly. My box with my ladybug stapler,
I Love Lucy
mousepad, and crocheted cozy was feeling a little ostentatious at the moment. I’d failed to tell anyone outside of work and Jim that I was leaving. Kate was definitely someone I didn’t want to be bumping into at the moment.

“Kate, it’s good to see you. Thank you, by the way, for the scarf. It’s simply beautiful.”

She gave me this gorgeous teal scarf for Christmas with a lovely card attached, thanking me for changing her life. No pressure there on staying away from Tom as though he had measles with a touch of rampant Ebola.

“It was nothing. I saw it in the window of Bergdorf’s.” She touched the box I was holding. “What’s this?”

“It’s just a few of my things.” I tried not to appear guilty.

“Are you going somewhere?”

I felt like the Grinch when Cindy Lou asked where he was taking the tree. I wondered whether Kate would believe I was taking all my things to the workshop to have them fixed. I somehow knew she was smarter.

“I’m cleaning my office for the New Year.” Technically not a lie. It would certainly be cleaned—
cleaned out
.

That’s when God intervened and someone came up to Kate, asking where a set of plans were for a builder who was growing impatient waiting for her return.

“I’ve got to go, Amy, but let’s have lunch or something. In fact, would you like to come to New Year’s? Tom and I are going to my friend’s house. That is, if you have no other plans.”

And miss a night of shaving my legs and reading,
You
’
re Alone, Now What?

“No thanks, I’ve got plans. But you say you and Tom are going out?” I hope that didn’t sound too criminal-like. Like I was going to case out the joint. In fact, I just had a brilliant idea to go and get the keys to the moving van when he wasn’t there. I’d call him when I was on my way to Diana’s. That way he couldn’t stop me. You know, with his body…getting in the way with mine.

I snapped out of the fantasy when Kate spoke up. “Yes. If you change your mind, let me know.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Ashley was sitting on the porch when I pulled up to Jim’s house.
Kill me now.
I didn’t want to see her. I had texted her, telling her that several times. I needed to get away from her most of all. I was tired of perpetually being hurt by her all my life. When did it kick in for her to grow some type of familial ties and stop trying to destroy me? I had a long list of evidence, since childhood, of how she’d tried to do me in.

“Ashley, before you start, don’t.”

She got up from where she leaned on the railing. Her rosy cheeks looked as though she’d been waiting a long time. It was New Year’s Eve.
Why wasn
’
t she somewhere wearing a short dress and Wesley on her little finger?

“Amy, we have to talk. I’ve given you time to cool off. I can’t go into the New Year with you hating my guts.”

“I see. So, it’s all about easing your conscience.”

She shook her head as I walked by. “What? All I’m saying is I need to clear the air.”

“Hurry up, then. I don’t have a lot of time.”

I’d just spent an hour at the moving van store trying to get a spare key to my van. I just wanted to pull up to Tom’s house and jump in and leave, not go in and have a walk down memory lane and cry looking at his chair and coffee cup. I told Jim the address where I would leave his car in the driveway; he could pick it up when he returned from his trip.

Needless to say, they didn’t have a spare. It was good I went, though, because they were about to tow it away. It seems I wasn’t getting their online bill and hadn’t paid for the month it’d been storing my things. I told them I was taking it out of state, paid what I owed, and would square up my final bill within the week.

“Where are you going?” She looked at my cases on the floor by the door.

“I’m taking a small vacation.”

“Where to?”

I looked her dead in the face. “I don’t think you get to know that information. What do you care anyway? I’ll be out of here. You can have Wesley all to yourself. Just do me one favor.”

She squinted.

“Don’t leave him broken when you start to chase another dream.”

“I’m hurt.” She grabbed her chest. “I love Wesley.” Funny, she wouldn’t know love if it came and beat her about the head and shoulders.

“Well, you have a strange way of showing it.”

“Amy, you never wanted to move back in. If you did, you would’ve had your things delivered. Instead, you just pretended to be staying there.”

“Okay, don’t pretend to know something that isn’t true. I told you, I couldn’t find the key to the van.”

“I don’t think you wanted to come back.”

How dare she? How dare she try to psychoanalyze me?
I
’
d give her something to analyze.

“What are you talking about, Ashley? You have no idea what it’s like in my world. You’re so used to flying by the seat of your pants, you wouldn’t know commitment and obligation if it found you and took a bite out of your ass.”

Heat rose from my face.

“You’d know it, for sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, your whole life you did things for other people and hated them in the process.”

“Okay, I don’t know what planet you’ve been living on.” I walked away from her.

“Remember the ‘Little Girls for a Change’ troop Mom made you join? You hated going away every summer and you cried for weeks up until she drove you to the bus stop. Why didn’t you tell her you hated it?”

I had forgotten that stupid troop. We were forced to go and stay in different cities every summer and work in churches. I never knew where I’d be living for those weeks. One summer I had to stay in the basement of this man’s house. Sure, he was a priest, but ten girls huddled in a dank basement, working day after day cleaning yards and feeding the poor, got old—and scary. When I tried to tell Mom about how I didn’t want to do it anymore, she’d just smile and say I was doing work for the community. People who were less fortunate than me. And, I wanted to please Mom, because I knew Ashley wouldn’t try. And I knew Dad sometimes made her cry. Anyway, it put a feather in Mom’s cap that I went on the sacrificial trips. The church would call both of us up on Labor Day weekend and clap for our commitment. My commitment.

“I hated that troop. I hated the little girls in it. They were mean.”

“Exactly. And what about the time you wanted to go to Harvard? You snuck and sent in your application. When Dad found out, he told you we were both going to OU.”

“Dad just wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”

“But you wanted to go to Harvard and practice law.”

That’s why I didn’t get a law degree. I thought if I had to go to OU, I wasn’t going to become an attorney.
Yeah, that certainly hurt Dad, didn
’
t it?

“Ashley, what’s your point with all this? To rub salt in the wound? To recap what a wonderful life I had? Trying to please everyone around me, at the expense of my happiness?”

“Not at all, Amy. I just want to tell you how I saw it. And despite the stupid way I went about it, I knew you didn’t love Wesley any more. You were fulfilling a duty. Just like you did all those summers ago with that girl troop.”

Maybe she was right.
Who knew Ashley was perceptive?

“I might let obligation rule me too much, but you have no sense of duty.”

“I’ve grown up a little bit in California. And although I’m not willing to sell out with who I am to fulfill something, I realized I wasn’t complete without what I left back here.”

Tell me it wasn
’
t Wesley. Tell me this isn
’
t some type of epiphany. And they
’
ll live happily ever after. That was supposed to be mine.

“I know it’s difficult to hear. Or maybe it isn’t, because I really don’t think you’re in love with him or you’d come home with all your things. But I know now that I love Wesley.”

“I hope the two of you will be very happy.”
And choke on tortilla seeds.

“I know you don’t mean it, but I hope you will one day.” She reached out to touch my arm. I pulled away. “I’m sorry for hurting you, Amy. Whether you believe it or not, I am sorry.”

I looked down at my shoes. “Okay, you can go now and feel better about yourself.”

That was so mean, wasn
’
t it?
I’m not that mean. But it was the hurt talking. Taking over voice command and telling her how I was feeling. And she was right; time would soften my heart to those two jerks for going about it in the wrong way. Truth be told, it was duty that kept me from leaving him sooner. I only hoped whatever happened for them in the end that it didn’t involve white doves and children in matching outfits, catching fireflies in the dusk as they sat on chairs, sipping champagne.

The sun had all but left the sky as I drove over to Tom’s house. I’d backed out of my plan several times. But for what?
What was better than leaving this place? Living here and bumping into Wesley and Ashley at the grocery store? Seeing Kate beaming at work like an eternal eclipse because she was so madly in love with Tom?

No, this was the only way. I’d phoned Margaret and told her I was moving. She understandably was preoccupied with Jeff and wished me luck. The foundation would survive without me. With me there or not, it would continue.

I took a deep breath as I pulled down Tom’s street. I checked with Kate before I left work, as if I was toying with the idea of coming to the party, and asked what time it started. She said she and Tom were going to dinner first and then arriving around ten o’clock. She’d be lucky if he made it to the party after dinner. It didn’t sound like Tom’s cup of tea. He wasn’t one for family parties and being out past twelve. Either way, I was pretty sure he’d at least go to dinner. I looked at the clock on Jim’s radio. It was seven o’clock. It was a godsend that my car was in the shop. This way Wesley could pick it up when it was fixed and I’d buy another one when I got to South Carolina.

I crouched down and stared at Tom’s house from the street. There was a light on in the front room. He always left this on when he wasn’t there. Just as I became at ease about breaking into his house, the garage door opened. I fell down in my seat as he pulled out.
Crap! That was a close one.
At least I knew he’d just left. I had a good amount of time to get the key, put my things from Jim’s car inside the truck, and leave. I’d already had the letter I’d written to Tom in my pocket. I told him in it that I was taking a vacation. I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t returning.

When I got in the house, I looked around. This is the place I’d miss most. The person I’d miss most.
It
’
s okay; the New Year would bring great possibilities.
That’s what I kept replaying in my head.
New place, new chances.
My chances here were all used. Or sacrificed to the less fortunate.

“Amy, what are you doing here?”

I jumped and screamed at the same time, grabbing my chest. My heart was out of control. Calibration was trying its best to reset normal rhythms.

“Tom! What are you doing here?”

“When there’s a strange car parked across the street from my house, I tend to wait and see what
they
’
re
doing.”

Crap, he was such an investigator.
I should’ve waited another hour before coming.

“I’m just getting the key to the van.”

“Why?” He came closer. I took equal steps backward.

“I’m driving it to my house.” I felt pasty when I said it. Like recovering from the flu and still getting sick at the sight of food.

“Home?”

My eyes darted back and forth.
Did he know something?
“Yes.”

“What’s that?” He pointed to the letter I had in my hand. It had grown limp from the perspiration leaking in my hand.