The Do-Over

The chrome faucet shook from the abundance of hot water streaming out. Mara Jane Mulligan held her bathrobe close at the neck and made a wish. She wished that her house had hotel quality water pressure so baths could come instantly, without planning, without waiting, without earning. Even to her it seemed like a small thing to make a wish on, but sometimes a bubble bath was more than a bubble bath. It was the one thing that stood between a working mom and her ability to make it work.

She could hear the travel alarm clock, the second hand ticking along the thirty minutes she’d managed to carve out of an entire week. She needed to hurry, or she’d have no time to relax. She reached for a beige hair tie and made a tidy ponytail, the tie disappearing like camouflage. She reached for the iridescent bottle of Luscious Bubbles, unscrewed the pearly top and, breathing in the lavender sweet musk of it, tipped it over the tumble of water.

Nothing.

She waited, found herself half looking into the bottle as if it were just slow to arrive.

Nothing.

She shook it three times.

Nothing.

She was out? After she’d gotten Logan packed for his stay at Grandma’s, cleaned the entire house, stocked the fridge for Dan’s days without her, prepped a workshop for thirty-five middle-school teachers, and driven the four hours into Seattle, she was out? Her stomach rumbled. She’d even chosen a bath over dinner. A simple little bubble bath, the one thing she’d claimed for herself, and she was out?

She shook the bottle as hard as she could and watched two drops fall, disappearing in the cascade of water. Empty. And hadn’t her whole day gone like that? She’d started it jammed under her side of the bed, reaching for a suitcase that after fifteen years had suddenly migrated to the other side. Wedged beneath the box springs, she’d spread in half a snow angel and reached for something she couldn’t get a grip on. How had it gotten so far from where it had always been? And when had one tiny thing for herself become impossible to manage?

She was going to enjoy a damn bubble bath. She smacked her palm twice on the bottom of the bottle. She wasn’t going to settle for a tub of plain, hot water. She wanted a restorative bath of scents and silk just like the label promised because she deserved thirty minutes in the middle of a sea of work and responsibilities and the unceasing grind of the normalness of a day. But nothing came out of the Luscious Bubble bottle, and she knew nothing would. Seeing it tipped in unjustified optimism, she felt her neck muscles jerk then tighten like they were too short a tether for her frame, and she stumbled backwards. Her hip rapped on the edge of the sink, and she sat down on the toilet lid, afraid she would lose her balance and hurt herself. Just the thought of hurting herself and not being able to do the million things everyone needed her to do made her breath hitch. That one irregularity was followed by another, until she couldn’t get enough air, and her heart followed, tripping up on its usually steady beat. Her eye caught the sweep of the second hand. Twenty-seven minutes. Twenty-seven minutes wasn’t going to help her any. She still had a couple of hours of work before she could even think about going to bed, and she was never going to rally with only… Twenty-six minutes. The ticking made her light-headed, and her breaths fluttered in and out, quick and shallow. She had to get out of the bathroom.

She turned the faucet off and rushed out, trying to force herself to take a couple of deep breaths, but moving to another room didn’t seem to help. She set the bottle down on the low dresser next to the bed and watched her hand shake. She just needed to get dressed and everything would be fine. She didn’t over-react to things. She was steady, reasonable, logical. Isn’t that what anyone would say about her? She’d get a hold of herself once she had her sweats on, and who wasn’t a little tired after a long drive? She reached into her suitcase and felt her heart keep up its racing pace. She ignored the sheen of sweat in the cup of her palms as she pulled the pants on, her foot struggling through the bunched gray elastic at the bottom. The matching sweatshirt was easier, her head popping out just in time for more air. Breathing. Breathing. Breathing. She could hear the air whoosh out of her lungs, hear the pound of her heartbeat against her ear drums. She wished she knew how many breaths there were supposed to be per minute. An average number to aim for would help her.

She needed… she scanned the room, so small, so bland, it offered nothing. She needed… her eyes rested on the bottle of Luscious and its reflection in the mirror. Both empty. She grabbed the bottle, and held it above the dull metal trash can. A simple bath. She took a shuddery breath and tried to still the speed of her nervous system. She’d sacrificed plenty of them, thousands maybe, definitely hundreds. She’d given up whatever small indulgences she needed to, so she could get to the grocery store, drive Logan to basketball practice, volunteer at the school. Her resources were limitless. Sometimes it hadn’t felt like her resources were limitless, but hadn’t she always managed to have the hours and the energy she’d needed for work and home and community and whatever else made a request for a piece of her?

The Luscious bottle hung in her hand. What if she couldn’t do it anymore? Her heart kicked once then galloped even faster. What if she was tired for real? Worn out, used up, ruined, nearly forty, out of bubble bath, and incapacitated? How could she let that happen? Her family, her house, her job would collapse in ruins. She had to keep on, keep moving, keep working, keep giving. Logan had five more years before he was even eighteen. She had an instant picture of her high school graduation, the purple cap and gown, the diploma in her hand, and only her father beside her. She jerked the bottle to her chest and reached for her purse. She’d find Luscious somewhere and get what she needed to go on.

Janie held the empty bottle in one hand and in the other a jug with a pink soap face with a smile she didn’t return. “Mr. Bubbles?”

The teenage boy, eyes droopy with disinterest, shrugged her off. “It’s bath stuff.”

She studied his unlined, still round face. What did he know about drawing the line in the sand? He was maybe nineteen. How many compromises had he made in his life? The grind of work hadn’t even touched him yet. And he was a
he
. Labor, real labor, breast-feeding, the bulk of errand running, and most social obligations would pass him by even when he did hit thirty-nine. Heck, at that point in his life, he’d probably be reminding his wife they were out of facial tissues and couldn’t she just stop by the warehouse store and buy eighty-six boxes of them when she gets back from her conference where she’s working even though, like all school administrators, he’s mostly off all summer and-

“Lady, there’s a whole bunch on aisle twelve or thirteen.”

She wiggled the jug. “I got this on twelve A.” She moved the empty bottle closer to him. “I need this one. Can you suggest another store?”

“Maybe a mall, lady. But it’s, like, after nine.”

Janie let out a slow breath to keep herself in check and focused behind the boy’s head so she didn’t panic again or give in to the absurd and inappropriate impulse to lean over the counter and give him a stinging flick on the forehead. She tried to keep her breathing steady and studied the produce sale prices posted behind his check stand. Good deal on artichokes. They could be pricey even in the summer. Calendar. July. Good month. Warm. July first. Canada Day.

The boy looked closer at the back of the bottle. “Guess you gotta go to Vancouver.” He turned her hand so the back of the bottle faced her, and his nail bitten finger pointed. “They make it in Canada.”

Janie glanced at the calendar again. July first. Canada Day. Vancouver, British Columbia. “How far?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know.”

She gave him her mom look, and he straightened. “A couple hours, I guess, but you’re not gonna drive to Canada for soap.”

“Of course not. That would be crazy.” And there was one thing Mara Jane Mulligan knew about herself. She was a
responsible
wife and mother. She wasn’t driving to Canada so she could buy soap. She was driving to Canada so she could breathe.

“Don’t stop me now.” Janie sang along with Freddy Mercury about having a good time. The classic rock station had kept her company for an hour with a Queen retrospective. At the start of the hour, she’d learned the singer’s name was Freddy Mercury, the band was Queen, and the choruses were pretty catchy. The songs had been vaguely familiar, maybe heard through a dorm room wall. But the lyrics were new to her and so well done. She’d removed the Enya CD as soon as she’d turned the van toward Canada. A spontaneous drive to another country required something a bit edgier than New Age sighing with strings.

She glanced down at the half-empty bag of nacho cheese chips, glad that she’d gone for the family size. Interstate Five would take her straight to Vancouver, and it looked like the chips would hold out. She had plenty of time. It was two-and-a-half hours from Seattle to Vancouver, and if she estimated an hour to hunt down Luscious and two-and-a-half hours back to Seattle, she’d have time for a bath and maybe even an hour or two of sleep before morning. Everything was fine. She felt fine. Better than fine. There was nothing wrong with her a bath wouldn’t cure.

She took a gulp from the seventy-eight ounce cola, not diet, that she held between her thighs. She’d discovered that real sugar tasted like real sugar, and the bladder-buster size didn’t fit in the van’s drink holders. She’d take it as a good sign, a kind of square peg in a round hole situation. How better to refill her energy than to do something that didn’t fit her normal life?

Queen kept rocking, and she turned it up far louder than Enya ever needed to be played. Freddy sang about Lady Godiva, and she took her eyes off the dark freeway just long enough to grab the king-sized Snickers bar on the passenger seat. She’d open the party-sized bag of Hershey’s kisses later. She took a queen-sized bite of chocolate and sang along about re-loading a sex machine.

The border crossing had been painless. She’d passed through the Peace Park wondering if it would impart a state of calm to her, but she only felt the zing of caffeine and a desire for even more. At the booth, the border patrol wore his national security face sternly but asked questions easy enough to answer.
What is the purpose of your trip?
Shopping. That was true, and she certainly hadn’t been tempted to tell him she needed a bottle of bubble bath. Neither of them had enough time for that conversation.
Weapons?
No. She wasn’t even sure she could defend herself from herself.

Selling? Giving?
She had no intention of either.

Home?
Yes. She had one where people needed her in a well-tended development east of Seattle.

Occupation?
Middle school teacher trainer.

And then he’d waved her into his country. Why would she ever have trouble crossing a border? No one in the international community would peg her for a person of interest. She didn’t peg herself for a person of interest. She wouldn’t endanger the citizens of Canada, plus who even worried about woman nearing middle age? They weren’t a demographic that filled prisons. They didn’t have time to break the law.

She could see the city of Vancouver clustered ahead of her. Canada. It seemed even more of an adventure when she considered that she was actually in another country, socialized medicine and all that. It was a foreign land and Vancouver, an exotic port. Even in the darkness, when exact shapes were impossible to determine, the city had a utilitarian quality, like a place the Jetsons might have found homey. Maybe it was the sense of change she felt looking at it, with so many buildings rising unlit in the midst of construction.

She followed the flow of traffic, considerable for so late at night, and assumed it would eventually lead her to an open store. Along the way it shot past established neighborhoods. At the edge of the sidewalks, large houses hid behind towering hedges. The growth rate with the climate had to be amazing to get ten, twelve feet of green.

She worried for a moment about getting lost. She had no map, no orientation devices in the van or inborn. But she had no real destination either. Just a place that sold bubble bath. And the lights were green, green as far as she could see and flashing. It wasn’t enough to signal go. In Vancouver the lights said go, go, go! She’d trust the signs and flow with the Vancouverites. Would they be called that? They all seemed to be heading somewhere. She’d let them lead her and end up somewhere herself.

It didn’t take more than a half a mile for residential to turn into commercial, and she pulled into the well-lit lot of an upscale grocery store, betting Mr. Bubbles did not make an appearance in the aisles. She grabbed her wallet and got out, brushing off the layer of chip bits that had accumulated in her lap.

The street sign on the corner said
Robson
, and the shop fronts said
fine things can be found here
. Even the shush of the automatic door sounded different, not like her grocery store at home. Inside she spotted three clerks, standing at their registers, waiting for their late night shift to end at dawn. One woman looked as tired as Janie had felt when she’d headed for that failed restorative bath. A woman like that could help her.