The Do-Over (6 page)

On top of the last skirt, a bias cut teddy shimmered, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever be up to high-level lingerie. She definitely wasn’t going to try it on, but wasn’t it just too beautiful not to buy?

“You need furniture?” Gretchen asked over the chenille curtain.

“I’m renting the loft upstairs.” Mara experienced the elation of saying it.

“Well, welcome to the neighborhood.”

She felt a rush of tears at Gretchen’s friendly voice. They’d be neighbors. And it wouldn’t matter if she danced to French music, wore anything that pleased her, or forgot her garbage bin at the curb, which her neighbor back home took such delight in nailing her for. She’d bet that Gretchen, unlike the horrid Mrs. Laird, wouldn’t jump on every covenant infraction. There probably weren’t covenants at all, or garbage bins for that matter, or even curbs. Vancouver was going to be great.

“I just picked up a pretty good-sized estate at auction. You know, Grandmother dies, and nobody wants to sort her things. I’ve got some furniture out back. It’s mixed, but there’s some interesting stuff.”

“That’s exactly what I’m looking for.” Mara slipped an orange floral dress over her head, the straps wide enough to cover an old-fashioned under-wire bra, “interesting stuff.”

The storage area for Gretchen’s was as eclectic as the shop itself, and even amid the piles and boxes, there was an art to the arrangement. Mara listened to her new butterfly flip-flops slap on the cement floor and felt the flutter of chiffon against her upper arms. Clothes were fun. She’d never gotten that before. Clothes had escaped her awareness unless they were producing anxiety. They’d never been joyful, creative, or transforming. It made her wonder what exploring couches and tables was going to feel like.

She let Gretchen steer her toward a pyramid of furniture that had clearly not been arranged for storage yet. The large pieces, mainly couches and over-stuffed chairs, formed the base. Footstools, pillows, boxes, and a lamp perched on top.

One couch was worn velvet, faded the color of rose lipstick. In its seams it still held onto the bright red it had been. Mara admired its ability to age so well. “That couch.”

Gretchen moved a floor lamp next to it, the gold brocade shade also softened by time.

Mara could see the two pieces showed the same beautiful resiliency. “Yes. The lamp. I’ll need a pair of chairs and maybe a little table.”

“A tea table.”

Mara smiled. She loved Canada. “A tea table.”

A dark green wicker chair poked out from behind an oak dresser. Mara pulled it out. The chintz seat cushion had once been vibrant and silky, but the peonies still bloomed, and it seemed to invite her to sit down. She didn’t sit enough. She’d get the chair too.

Gretchen made her way from box to box, draping a handkerchief print cloth over the tea table and sliding a solid trunk into the mix for a coffee table.

Mara sat in the wicker chair, heard its reassuring creak, and felt like she could sit all day. She wondered about the woman who’d owned it. She’d gotten to the sitting part of her life. Probably raised children, worked hard and longed for a minute to enjoy her chair, enjoy her life. And then rest had come, maybe all at the end. Too much time for sitting spread out in front of her. Maybe every stage lacked balance, but wasn’t that what a vacation was for? To restore some?

Mara watched Gretchen work. She was quick, efficient, and excited about building her business. It looked like nothing could distract her. Gretchen was just beginning and full of energy, and somewhere rested the recently deceased grandmother who had taken comfort from the wicker chair. Mara knew that numerically she was in the middle of her life. The problem was what did the middle mean? She was neither fish nor fowl. That was something the grandmother would have said. And it was true, but maybe she could figure some of it out. Maybe for a month she could balance excitement and sitting and make something better than fish or fowl. She’d putter around the tiny kitchen. “Oh, I’ll need a pan, a two quart.” If she wanted she could not cook at all and nobody would pester her. “No, a one quart.” Or she could cook for hours, forever, for as long as she was enjoying it. “And a bar stool. I have a counter.”

Gretchen pointed back out to the store. “I have a pair of stools, painted white, and I think I might have some cushions that would do. No cookware but there’s a kitchen shop a couple of blocks over. And I don’t have a delivery service. Sorry. It’s just me.”

Mara wondered how many sodas it would take to get Dylan to hold up one end of the couch. Even with help, it looked substantial. She’d figure it out. She’d managed to move to Canada; how difficult could a couch be?

“Holy shit!” Dylan’s voice was muddled.

Mid-way up the stairwell, Mara looked down the length of the shockingly heavy couch they struggled to hold on to, and only the top of his head was visible. He crouched low with the side of his face squished against the faded velvet, while Mara gripped the other arm with cramping fingers. She deeply hoped she wouldn’t lose her end of it. She couldn’t live with herself if the couch shot back down to the sidewalk and took Dylan with it.

“Holy shit!” Dylan muscled it up a stair.

Mara tried to pull the red monster up another one but couldn’t budge it. “Does swearing help?”

Dylan grunted, so she decided to try. “Holy shit!” It scraped up another stair. “Hey, it does.”

They began to work with rhythm, swearing and listening to the answering thump of one more stair behind them. “Holy shit!”

“Janie Mulligan!”

She lost her grip, felt the couch slide, and reached out in panic, but Dan stepped in to help Dylan anchor the bottom. He tipped his head toward Dylan in guy sign language that said
let’s do this
. The sign also had just enough eye movement to say
women
. Dylan lifted his eyebrows in fraternal agreement, and the two of them lifted the couch and shot it up the stairs to her front door. Mara kept her end up as much as she could and trotted backwards to save her toes.

They twisted it toward the top to aim for the doorway, but even then it took a giant shove to get it through. Mara looked across the couch at Dylan. “Thanks, I owe you a case of soda.” Dylan waved and made time down the stairs and back to Abundance because even a teenage boy, normally clueless about the social climate, could sense the kind of tension vibrating between her and Dan.

She watched him look around the loft. He seemed to take it all in, then stared at her as if he could figure something out if he focused enough, and she realized she was patting the couch and stopped herself.

His eyes followed when she smoothed down the hem of her chiffon blouse, and then they narrowed. “And you’re moving this couch in here because…”

She cleared her throat, looked toward the windows, and cleared her throat again. “I’m, uh, renting the loft? For a month.” She’d said
month
nice and firm, that ought to help. On some planet where husbands completely understood their wives, nice and firm ought to help. But he let out a choked coughing sound and waved his arms around in the air, his body bending and twisting. She’d seen their son do it once over a pack of gum. He’d been two-and-a-half.

She tried to step back from the tantrum, but it was Dan. Dan pitching a fit. She found herself watching with the kind of sick fascination she usually reserved for the evening news.

“You. Are. Not. Renting. This!” He pointed from the wall of windows to the kitchen. “You have a house, a home in Washington. The United States.” He slapped his palms against his chest. “You have a husband and a son.”

Mara held up a finger. “A son who is gone for a month.”

Dan slapped his hands harder against his chest. The thump echoed in the loft and probably hurt him a little bit too. “Your husband isn’t gone for a month. Your house isn’t gone for a month. You have a life, Janie. You don’t get to walk away from it.”

She felt light-headed, taking in Dan’s frustration, and her own fears that she was screwing everything up. What if she upset the balance of her whole life? What if… she swallowed. What if it was ruined, and she couldn’t just take a month then go back home and have everything be okay? She watched him, the man she’d fallen in love with at twenty-two and felt so lucky that he’d chosen her. He was expressionless now, like anyone suffering from post-traumatic shock would be. She’d like to help him with that but wasn’t sure she could even help herself. Besides, she couldn’t undo it because she’d already done it. The minute she’d left Seattle and driven to Canada for bubble bath, she’d sent a ripple out that altered everything. It was too late to smooth the water now. Her head pounded, a Morse code of dashes and dots she didn’t want to translate, she wanted to medicate. She moved toward the kitchen hoping to find a loose aspirin somewhere, anywhere.

She spotted the bag of silver chocolate kisses on the bar, ripped them open, and popped one in her mouth. She waited for the calm of chocolate and listened to Dan’s shallow breathing. Maybe she could help him at least understand. “How about we think of this as a vacation?”

“You don’t get a vacation from your life!” Dan, recovered from his shock, grabbed the front of his oxford shirt and bunched up the fabric in his fists.

He wasn’t even trying to understand, not even giving her a chance to explain what she needed. She may not fully understand it herself, but she was making an effort. “You get a vacation from your job, don’t you? If you went away, you’d get a vacation from your house, your town, your state. You could even take a break from your country.”

She watched him squeeze his fist-full of shirt so tightly his fingers looked arthritic. She sure wasn’t going to iron that oxford. “Oh, and teachers get breaks from being teachers. Principals get a break from being a principal. Why can’t a mom, whose child is at
your
mother’s house, have a vacation from being a mom? A wife from being a wife?”

Dan let go of his shirt to point at her. “You
are
having an affair!”

“Stop thinking with your dick!” She put her hand over her mouth, and they both stopped breathing and stared at each other. What had flown out of her mouth? She dropped her hand, and a little laugh of surprise escaped.

“Did you just say,
stop thinking with your dick
?” His eyes were huge, and she considered that he may be in need of blankets or oxygen or one of those electric paddles to get his heart rolling again. She wouldn’t mind zapping him once or twice, if it was for his own good.

He began to sputter. “I am
not
thinking with my dick. You’ve never said
dick
in your life.” He shook his hand toward the door. “And you were saying
holy shit
in the stairway.”

“What about that? What were you doing skulking around my apartment anyway?”

“I didn’t even know it was your apartment.” He stopped, his scowl deepening. “You live in Washington! And I’m your husband.”

“Oh, I suppose marriage gives you the right to stalk me?”

“Uh, yeah, it does.”

Did it? He couldn’t legally hit her, file a joint tax return without her signature, or sell their house without her permission, but could he stalk her? “Well, I don’t know if you can or not, but this is my apartment. So you can only be here if I give you permission. And,” she looked up to the ceiling and back, “your visit’s over.”

Dan’s eyebrows came together in a disturbed V. He looked around the loft as if something could help him, and she tried to shake off the guilt that landed on her when he reminded her of her obligations. Maybe she’d give him one piece of chocolate and then kick him out. But before she could move, Dan shot across the loft toward the stacked milk crates that held her new clothes. He’d spotted the lingerie, of course. He hooked the teddy on his finger, held it up, and watched the fabric swish, and she crossed her arms over her body, leaning back against the bar counter. There was no point in defending herself when he had circumstantial evidence in his hand. “It’s bias cut.”

He shuddered like she was uttering phrases in a porn movie, and he was a senator from a southern state, so she rolled her eyes at him. “It’s a fabric term. It’s cut on the bias to make the satin extra drapey.”

He shook his head. “Drapey.” And he said it with such distaste, she rolled her eyes a second time, and it felt so good, she did it again.

“You are not going to…” He squared his middle school administrator shoulders, “use this.”

Mara felt the last bit of patience leave her like a good habit crumbling in the face of opportunity. She barreled over to Dan, snatched the teddy from his surprised hand, and stalked back to the bar. She laid it down next to the chocolate bag and rooted around in the kitchen for the one drawer that always held the flotsam of a house. She yanked out an ancient stapler, and met Dan’s eyes as she dumped the kisses onto the satin. “I had thirty days.” She counted out thirty chocolates. “I had one day in Seattle and my drive here.” She unwrapped the chocolate, popped it in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. She tossed the wrapper on the floor and reached for more chocolates. “Day two at Abundance. Day three… you’ve been very busy. You yelled at my cleavage this morning at McDonalds, and you tried to boss me into going home this afternoon.” She jammed both chocolates in her mouth, chewed a bit longer, but mostly swallowed them whole.

She arranged the rest of the kisses in rows and began to staple them to the teddy. Logan once had an advent countdown to Christmas with tiny candy canes sewn on a stocking. A month to herself was way better than Christmas, and wasn’t freedom a better use for lingerie than sex?

Dan moved closer, his face a picture of growing confusion.

Mara held up the chocolate teddy calendar. “I have twenty-seven days left.”

She moved around the couch and put her hand on his arm. She’d done it a million times, but it felt completely unfamiliar. Maybe it was because the shirt she touched looked like it had been wadded up under a bed where no shirt of Dan’s had ever resided. Maybe it was because she’d never really told Dan what to do before. But for certain things felt different because she hadn’t ever imagined she’d be standing in her own loft, and one day she’d kick Dan out of it.