The Do-Over (13 page)

Stella studied the photos, her expression all business, then she turned to John. “What do you think?”

“I think Mara’s amazing.”

She met his eyes and saw he wasn’t looking at the photos at all. She felt herself blush and couldn’t remember blushing before. She couldn’t verify it without a mirror, of course, but her face felt warm and flushed and she did know pleased embarrassment when it zinged through her.

Stella continued to study the photos, and Mara felt the desire to please her, to hear her approval. “Stella?”

“Hmmm.” Stella picked one up. “I’ll tell you what. I like them fine, but we can’t know what the customers will think until we hear from them. They’re the ones that count. The catalog costs a hell of a lot to make.” Stella laughed. “That’s why we gave you a shot at it. You’re really cheap.”

Mara acknowledged her circumstances with a little shrug and a smile.

“Let’s set up a table at that warehouse store on Expo and give some samples away on Saturday. You mock up a catalog page and see what kind of response you get.”

Mara felt the noose of domestic life slip over her head and squeeze her trachea. She managed to squeak out, “warehouse store?”

Celia jumped in to help. “Yeah, you must have those in the States. You know, those places where you buy huge jars of everything, and you can’t get one thing, you end up with ten boxes of—”

“Facial tissue.” She didn’t know if she could survive it.

Celia registered amazement as if Mara was a mind reader not a housewife in her former life. “How’d you know?”

She had a wooden framed canvas propped against the end of the couch. Her coffee table trunk held faded fabrics from clothing Gretchen couldn’t sell, a rose-tinted chintz, a blue calico. There was stick glue, school glue that was supposed to disappear when it dried but left things wrinkly, a commercial grade staple gun that could shoot through the wooden frame, a calligraphy pen for the penmanship challenged, and some glitter because if all else failed glitter would distract people. Maybe she could slip into the warehouse store wearing glitter camo and pretend she wasn’t really a homemaker on the lam.

She’d start the catalog page by covering the canvas with the nice chintz, work with the photos, and add the product blurbs she’d searched her entire vocabulary of adjectives to write. 

She reached for the hunk of fabric and tried to wrap it around the canvas. It went easily around the edges, having been a large woman’s dress at some point in its history. It was the keeping it there while she grabbed for the staple gun that was the problem, so she wedged the board between her thighs and picked up the gun. Before she could get a staple in, the slick fabric slid off of one corner then the other. Her impulse was to stay calm, to provide a good example for her son, but he was in another country with Grandma, and she was alone. Alone and free to…

“Shit! Shit and shine-ola!” She didn’t know what shine-ola meant, but it went well with shit. “Hell! Hell!” She pulled the fabric back over a corner and the opposite end pulled off. “Crap! F’ining A!” What did that even mean? She felt confident that she could define the f’ining part, but what about the A? “Ass. Asshole. Anaheim. Ambrosia. Artichoke anal anabolic anachronisms?”

“Janie,” Dan’s voice boomed through the door. “Are you swearing in there?”

He was such an…“amazingly
obtuse
aardvark.”

“What?” His voice was muffled but still judgmental. She could hear that part even through two inches of wood.

She set down the canvas, and the fabric completed its escape, slipping to the floor in a pool of faded flowers. She walked to the door, swung it open, and stood blocking Dan’s entrance. “I know that obtuse doesn’t start with an A. I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were.”

“No, just F’ing O, old.”

“What?”

“F’ing O is better than f’ing A because
obtuse
has more clarity than ass and really is meaner.”

“Okay.” Dan tried to see past her into the loft. “What are you doing?”

He’d said it with the implication that he’d find a man in there, the jerk. His mind hadn’t dwelled on sex that much before. Hers certainly hadn’t. She looked over her shoulder toward the empty bed and gave it a little wave. “I’m doing the invisible man.”

Dan’s eyes narrowed with that suspicious look she’d not seen prior to that first fight in McDonalds but had become one of his favorite new faces. “You were never funny before.”

“My bad.”

He waited, and she knew he could wait forever. She’d seen him stare down junior high boys until their eyes bugged out of their heads, and they were ready to cry or wet themselves, whichever came first, and one of those two things always came first. But she was no middle schooler. “Spare me the stare. I’m a catalog designer this month. I’m working on a display, a representative page from the catalog so that I can see what people think of it.”

“John.” Dan said his name with the same tone she’d used for
f’ing A
.

“It’s for shoppers.”

“At Abundance?”

“Not exactly.

“Gretchen’s?”

“At another store.”

He crossed his arms, waited, and she broke. “At a warehouse store. Are you happy?”

He smiled, a mean one she’d also not seen in the years they’d been married. “While you’re there could you pick up some—”

“Stop yourself before I pick up that staple gun and—”

“You’re using a staple gun?” He dipped past her and advanced on the craft area, grabbing the gun as if it were a murder weapon.

She ran across the loft and stood at his back. “Drop it.”

The gun in police custody at his side, he turned. “Do I need to remind you of the glue gun burns? The weed whacker incident? The day you tried to install the bug zapper?”

“That’s low.” She shook her head. “It didn’t have instructions, and it wasn’t my fault.”

“You electrocuted a sparrow.”

“That bird had no business going anywhere near that zapper. It’s for bugs. Everybody knows that.” She lunged for the staple gun, but he dodged to the side, and she fell onto the couch, looking up at him, shocked to find herself there and even more shocked by the pleased look on his face.

He waved the stapler as if luring a cat and began to walk backwards.

Who in the F’ing O did he think he was? That was her staple gun, and she was the only person who was going to possess it. She launched herself off the couch, pleased at the look of surprise on his face just before he hit the floor, his breath knocking out in a whoosh as he involuntarily blocked the fall for her.

Dan’s own attention seemed to be on recovering his breath. “Hell, Janie, you knocked me down.”

And shit, he’d get the gun in a heartbeat. She took advantage of his distraction and grabbed it. “Mine.” She shifted then realized she was laying on top of him, and it felt different. His body beneath hers was as foreign as if she’d never been this close to him before.

He studied her, their faces inches apart. “Give it to me.”

Instead, she grabbed the collar of his t-shirt with her free hand, noticing for the first time that he wasn’t wearing his typical oxford shirt. She stretched it away from his neck, and he smiled, shifted beneath her as if he also noticed the foreign contact. “If you want my clothes off just ask.”

She smiled back, jerked the t-shirt even farther from his body and held the staple gun over the fabric until his eyes narrowed in threat. “You wouldn’t.”

Ca-ching. She drove the first staple into the soft wood floor.

“Janie.”

Ca-ching.

“Janie, I’m warning you.”

Ca-ching. Ca-ching. Ca-ching. She moved along his shoulder, pulling the fabric away from his arm since she didn’t want to draw blood. Much blood. Ca-ching. Ca-ching.

He tried to sit up, but his shirt held him to the floor until he jerked upright, his t-shirt ripping away from the staples. She could see light through the tiny slashes along the shoulder line just before he grabbed for the staple gun. She was quicker, tossed it toward the rug and watched it land with a thunk, far enough away he couldn’t get it. It made her feel warm all over. She turned back, realized she was straddling him and felt an added rush of pleasure that she’d actually stapled him to the floor, not just wished it. “F’ing O.”

He cupped the back of her head, pulled her to him and kissed her hard. She felt the edge of his control slip as she reached for him, the kiss so intense she needed more of it. She tightened her thighs around his waist, felt him respond by pulling her closer, moving up, harder against her body.

And then she found herself sprawled on the wood floor, looking up at Dan, who’d gone from kissing her to standing above her and not looking like he wanted to kiss her anymore. He looked like he wanted to leave. “I don’t know who you are.”

She sat up, watched him grab the staple gun, and head for the door. “Hey, that’s—”

He stopped for a second, his grip on the stapler strong enough she could see the strain in his hand. “Maybe I can’t stop you from hurting yourself.” He lifted it up. “But I’m taking this.”

She watched him leave, watched the door close behind him, her body still shaken from the kiss, and she understood if she hurt herself, she’d hurt him too.

A walk would be good. It would take her mind off the kiss, the staple gun, and the possibility that she’d not be fully free to enjoy her vacation from her life, if her life kept knocking on the door and confusing her.

She made her way down the street, certain that she’d seen a cafe in the next block. She’d get a decaf, but she didn’t know what came after that. She’d drink the decaf. She knew one thing that came after that, and it would postpone returning to the loft, where she’d be alone with her head again.

Up ahead she spotted half a dozen people standing on the sidewalk outside a movie theater. The window wasn’t open yet, judging by the dark inside. The line certainly hadn’t formed because a blockbuster was playing. When she’d first noticed the ancient neon marquis it advertised
The Sound of Music
. She liked to think every city still held an independent theater, surviving despite cable, cineplexes or downloads. She moved past the people standing in line. Standing on queue. The
on
part was a Canadian mystery to her. In the states they’d be standing in line, although standing
on
line did make more sense than standing
in
it.

“Mara.”

She stopped, turned back around to see who on queue knew her, and John gave her a wave not unlike the one she’d given to the invisible man in her loft. She walked closer anyway, entertaining herself trying to determine who he was with. Not the woman ahead of him with the spiky hair that made her look a little mean and not the man behind him who appeared to be with his wife…

“Where are you heading?” He looked pleased to see her. He had that kind of focus, and it was easy to imagine even amid a line of movie goers that they were alone. She should go.

“Uh,” she considered how to answer the question. She’d just stapled Dan’s shirt to the floor, been kissed, been dumped onto the floor, and out of confusion found herself headed for decaffeinated coffee anywhere. “No where.”

He stepped back to make room in the line, but she didn’t commit herself, although a movie beat decaf. And it wasn’t like she’d planned to see a movie with John, that she’d set out to, or he’d asked her ahead. It wasn’t a date or anything. She could just have easily run into Celia or Stella after she’d nailed Dan to the floor. It just happened to be John standing there, smiling with his boy-trouble eyes. It was her neighborhood theater and since she did live, for the month, in the neighborhood, she ought to check out her local theater. It was the community thing to do.

“Mara?”

She stepped in line beside him as the window opened. “There’s nothing wrong with seeing a movie.”

“It’s Woody Allen. Not everyone would agree with you.”

Mara laughed, unsure what anyone thought of Woody Allen, although she was pretty sure she’d never seen him in a movie.

“That’s exactly how I feel.”

John leaned forward an inch, studying the screen. “Like you’re on a train?”

She felt Woody’s suffering as he rode on the train and watched another pass, the train with the happy people, the one with the glitter, and the elevated joy of traveling in an other-worldly grandeur. “It’s like I’ve seen the other train. The train you didn’t even know you could have gotten on.”

“It’s never too late.”

She thought about Dan, the worn out argument about power tools, the way he’d just dumped her on the floor. She didn’t know if it was too late and didn’t even know what it was or wasn’t too late for. She didn’t even know why Woody could make swallowing look anxious. She didn’t know anything.

John leaned closer, and she felt his elbow rub against hers on the shared armrest. “There’s a good jazz bar in the neighborhood. Let’s get a drink after.”

The right answer was
no
. The answer she wanted to give was
yes
. She did know that much, but maybe she could have one drink on the glittering train. “I’d like that.”

The bar, neighborhood and low-key, relaxed her as they waited for their drinks and listened to a piano player do a fair job of
Someone To Watch Over Me
. He probably meant the song to be moody and longing, but when a man asked someone to watch over him, it meant his wife needed to buy bulk facial tissue at a warehouse store.

A vision of giant jugs of laundry detergent came to her, and she vowed to put her own looming warehouse visit right out of her head, focus on the music, and try not to feel like she was on a date. She was only on a neighborhood outing. She studied the pianist’s face and decided he looked like the guy who’d installed the new furnace last winter. It was interesting how sometimes you couldn’t see creativity on a face or even in a body, but there it was.

The server cruised by and set down a beer for John and a Kahlua and coffee for her, complete with a mountain of whipped cream and a tiny red straw too ridiculous to drink out of.