The Do-Over (32 page)

She laughed, hugged him hard against her, and they rolled across the bed and onto the carpet.

Real dawn came into the room, the kind a person couldn’t just blink away, the kind that even the most tightly closed eyes couldn’t keep out. On her side, facing the window, Mara unclenched her lids and could feel her pupils dilate, blinded in the sunlight. She rolled over on her back and spread her arms and legs out like she could make a snow angel in the sheets. She closed her eyes and pictured the sun hitting it, a sparkling cotton imprint in the middle of the bed. Middle of the bed.

She sat up and looked over at Dan’s side, the left side. For a decade and a half he’d slept on the left side, but it was empty. “Dan?” She waited for an answer from the bathroom, listening even though she knew she was alone in the room. Maybe he’d gone out for breakfast and any minute he’d walk through the door with mangoes or Canadian duck liver pate or red licorice. 

She’d just watch TV and wait. Maybe she’d find a wrestling program and experience a smackdown. She’d never seen one before, and the ads indicated they were both epic and dangerous.

She didn’t need to wait long for either wrestling or Dan. She’d watched three matches of men grappling with other men, and they all seemed to have an unhealthy attachment to eyeliner. Still, as epic and dangerous as the smackdown choreography was, she’d made coffee to keep herself awake. When the knob turned, she smiled as Dan stepped into the room, a pastry box in his hand, a bunch of bananas under one arm, and a large coffee in his other hand.

She started to ask him what Canadian sugar product he intended to ply her with when she noticed his haircut. Short again. It was exactly the same haircut he’d worn forever. He’d gone out and found a barber who knew that American middle school administrators needed to look like each other.

He set the box on the bed like everything was fine. “Thought we needed breakfast.”

“You got your hair cut.” She felt her body tighten and consciously lowered her shoulders. Just because he got his haircut didn’t mean everything wasn’t still good. She needed to just relax.

“Yeah, I was overdue for one.”

“And your clothes.” She pointed a shaky finger at the oxford shirt and chinos she’d missed when she could only stare at his haircut. “Where’s your T-shirt? Where are your other pants? The rumply ones. Who ironed you?”

He looked down at his shirt and pants as if there was something wrong he’d missed. He shook his head, sat on the bed, and cracked open the donut box.

“Who,” her voice shook, and she took a deep breath, “ironed you? And why?”

His eyebrows came together in confusion. “The hotel has a laundry service. I had my clothes taken care of when I checked in, and now that we’re going home, I put them back on.” He looked at the TV, shook his head, and reached for the remote as a giant with a blond mullet slammed a folding chair over a smaller giant who faked a seizure.

She registered the click. Click. Click. A sensible news show came on. The Federal Reserve Board did something, something sensible, no doubt, in their short haircuts and ironed oxfords. She could hear the earnest reporter giving the details of how important it was even in Canada that some stupid American interest rate climbed a quarter of a point.

“Dan.” There, that sounded good and calm.

“Hmmm.” He broke a banana off from the bunch and neatly punctured the top with his thumbnail, making quick work of the peel.

“Dan. I don’t want to go back today.”

“Hmmm.” He took a bite of the banana then his head jerked toward her. “What?”

The
what
sounded muffy with a mouth full of banana, but she knew. She knew the real question was more like
what the Hell are you talking about?
He had the
what the Hell are you talking about?
face on even as he chewed the banana, prepared to swallow, and then yell at her.

She reached over and patted his arm, felt the swallow all the way down his body. “I just thought that we would stay and, you know, enjoy this time. It’s fun and different, and—”

He leapt off the bed and threw his banana on the floor. “I don’t want different!”

She leaned over and eyed the sad banana on the carpet, its body half flattened on impact. “Well, that’s different.” She looked at him and knew there was something desperate, pleading on her face, something more important than the prime rate. “Let’s stay and throw fruit.”

He grabbed his hair, noticing too late he didn’t have much of it to grab. Still, he continued the motion, a mime of a man pulling his hair out. “You’re making no sense.”

“And?”

He made a choking sound. “And? You’re supposed to make sense. It’s what grownups do.”

“Oh, don’t pull that on me.”

“Tell you that you’re not a kid? Excuse me for stating the obvious. You’re a grownup. Hello?” Dan pretended to hold a phone up to his ear then held it out to her. “Adulthood calling.”

She scooted out of bed, naked, and didn’t even care. She backed Dan into the TV set. “Who says?”

He mimed the phone again and jerked it toward her, his eyebrows raised so high they practically rested in his hairline.

“Nobody says.” She reached for the pretend phone and threw it with great exaggeration on the floor near the banana. “When it comes to your life, you say, I say. People get to decide what their lives are like. You don’t give that up just because you stop being a kid. Hell, kids don’t even get their own lives. If you don’t get a say when you’re grownup, you never do.”

“I’m going home.”

She sucked in her breath. He’d said it like it was some kind of ultimatum. But she’d be damned if he was going to answer the adulthood phone for her. She’d taken it off the hook three weeks before and wasn’t reconnecting service for eight more days. She crossed her arms over her chest, a motion that felt entirely different naked. Weird, she decided, as she felt her cool forearms over her breasts, but not bad.

He shook his head, and she felt it coming, the middle school administrator look. Or worse, the middle school administrator talk. Instead he walked toward the bathroom, and she stood facing the news, her own belly reflected over the news anchor’s head. It looked white, glowing white in the sunlight pouring in the window.

She heard Dan rustling in the bathroom, heard the familiar sound of his travel bag, the zipper closing over his razor, small toothpaste he always kept in there, spare toothbrush so he didn’t ever forget.

He came out. She kept watching her belly light up the TV, but she heard the bag hit the bottom of his suitcase, the shuffle to make room for his jeans, T-shirts, the louder rasp of the suitcase zipper. She felt him waiting for her and turned her head away from the TV, tried to anticipate what he’d say, what he’d do to make sure she’d go home with him.

He held his suitcase in his right hand, his left straight at his side. “I’ll be home. Logan flies in a week from Tuesday.” He shrugged, swallowed. “We’ll be there.”

He turned and walked toward the door, and she waited for more. That was it? He was just going to go and see her a week from Tuesday?

He stopped, his hand on the doorknob, and met her eyes. “You’ll be there or not, Janie.”

He left, and she knew he’d gone, really gone, when the door clicked shut. Just a click, nothing loud or dramatic. It was like the remote changed channels. You’ll be there or not. Click.

She looked back at the TV. A storm in Calgary had brought high winds, and the trees dipped low, dust swirled in the streets, odd bits of debris swept by. She stood, her belly alone over the chaos of the storm, vulnerable in the sting of flying remains of things broken.

She’d driven to the loft and made it inside, unsure how she’d managed it. But the part of her brain capable of auto-pilot had kicked in for her. When the world tipped oddly on its axis, sometimes only habit remained. A woman in crisis showered because it was morning. She put on makeup like a recitation of a loved poem from teen years. She dressed in the proper order of items. Underwear under. Outerwear out. Right shoe. Left shoe. All done from a lifetime’s memorization.

And then she needed to think about what was next, what was happening, had happened, would. But even the questions were so hard to form, they hurt. She let herself move out the door, down the stairs, along the brief sidewalk, and into Abundance.

No Celia on Sundays. She kept moving into the work room. Dylan, headset on, tipped his head to her as he trudged out the back door with a pair of garbage bags.

She stood in the empty workroom and watched the back door clank shut behind him. Above, John’s office door seemed to open in response to the sound. He darted to the rail, cell phone in his hand and looked to the door, disappointment crossing his face as he realized it was an exit not an entrance.

She watched him find her. “Mara!”

He ran along the rail, bounded the stairs, skipping every third or fourth. She couldn’t think clearly enough to brace herself, and he would have knocked her over had he not picked her up.

Her feet left the ground as he spun her and shouted nothing she could decipher.

He set her down but didn’t let go or stop talking so quickly she couldn’t entirely track what he was saying. “I’m throwing a party, a huge one. You’ll get a beautiful dress.”

“What’s…” she cleared her throat, stiff from silence… “what’s going on?”

“That’s the surprise. Tuesday night everyone from Abundance gets to hear the news together, and you’ll be right beside me. The last page of the catalog, we’ll need that, and Renny and Celia, we’ll get them to sing. And Lobster.” He laughed, hugged her close, held her away. “The gangster of the sea.” He kissed her with a joyful enthusiasm she neither understood nor shared.

He stepped back, laughter gone from him as he looked behind her. She turned and saw Dan, his hand holding something, extended to her. His arm didn’t move but rested there like he held a gift, offered, but frozen in time.

The three of them stood there for what felt like whole minutes. Then Dan pulled his hand back and put it in his pocket. “We’re separated now, Janie.” He turned and disappeared around Celia’s desk.

She didn’t move but watched the place where he’d been. She watched as if he’d return in just a second, but she knew even a man like Dan had to run out of patience, maybe love, eventually.

John stood beside her, and she felt him study the side of her face. “I’m sorry, Mara.” She half expected him to trace the lines she wore, but he tipped his head to where Dan had gone. “I wish I could say I’m sorry about that.”

She felt her breath hitch and glanced up at Stella’s closed door.

He gave her a hum of understanding. “She’s home.”

Stella opened the door and jumped back in surprise, which only made Mara cry louder. She’d been so concerned about driving safely through the blinding tears, she hadn’t even considered how she’d look to an unsuspecting Stella. It was one more thing to add to her list of misery. “I’m separated, and I’m scary.”

Stella reached for her arm and pulled her into the apartment, scanning up and down the hallway as if to assure herself the neighbors hadn’t been exposed. “You’re not scary, Mara.”

“I scared you,” she wailed and it made her cry harder because she never wailed, and she really, really was.

“Hardly at all. Now, we’re gonna get you cleaned up before those mascara stains become permanent.”

“Dan said he was going home and I’d be there or not and then he came to Abundance and John kissed me, and I’m so sorry, Stella, and now he separated from me. Dan, not John. Dan separated from me. Is that right? Is that what you’re supposed to say? I’ve never been separated from before. I deserve to look like a raccoon. I…” She hiccupped and couldn’t stop. One after another they jumped around her vocal cords and stopped her breath, already jerky from the crying.

Stella steered her through the kitchen and down the hallway towards the bathroom. “No one deserves to look like God’s furry pickpockets. We’ll put you in a nice hot shower, and you’ll feel better.”

“I’ll…” hic. “Never…” hic. Hic. Hic.

Stella leaned her against the bathroom counter and waited for her to stay upright. “You been drinking too, or is this just separation anxiety?”

“I’m completely, hic, sober.”

“Too bad.” Stella fiddled with the cold and hot water taps.

Mara turned to see her reflection, screamed at the scraggly black-eyed mess that had formerly been her face. She couldn’t even count on the familiarity of seeing herself in reflection.

“Good. Nothin’ like a scare to stop a bad case of the hiccups.” Stella cranked the handle and the shower shot on. “Get in and then we’ll fix the sober part.”

Mara launched into another round of tears, but bit her cheeks for control when Stella gave her the stern Mom look and pointed to the shower.

A chenille pink bathrobe, with an embroidered old-timey mermaid on the pocket, hung on the peg next to the seafoam green towels. Mara stepped out and felt incapable of any quick movement. It took forever to towel off, and she needed three tries to wrap a towel around her head, a skill she’d possessed since the age of ten.

At last she managed to slip on the robe. She felt fear but looked at herself in the mirror anyway. Slowly. Eyes red not black, skin a whiter shade of pale, lips shaky, but she looked better. She didn’t feel better. She felt hollow and achy, but she looked more human.

She shuffled out of the bathroom, down the hallway, and into the living room where the entire shipping crew waited.

“Oh.” She pulled the robe closer up to her chin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a meeting.”

“No meetin’…” one of the Martha’s said between sips of her martini, “this is a code blue.”

“Code blue?” She walked further into the room and hoped nothing bad had happened to one of the crew. She scanned the room. Martha. Martha. Sadie, still little and still pining away for the milkman if the speed she sucked down her drink was any indication. Velma, healthy in her dour disapproving way. And Jennie, holding out a plate of baked goods. 

Mara took a brownie. “Thank you, Jennie.” That was everyone. She felt relieved that code blue didn’t involve one of the ladies, a gurney, and a hospital visit.