The Life List (The List Trilogy) (30 page)

“Well, well, well, look who decided to show her disgraceful face…
and disgraceful outfit
!”

“Yeah, what’s this look all about Chrissy? You look like homeless Barbie!”

“Hey, back off, Nic! We
all
look disgraceful here!”

“C’mon, what’s wrong with Chili’s?!”

“Ahhhh gee, nothing, Kelly if you’re celebrating a five-year-old’s birthday party or have a hankering for an awesome blossom.”

“Nice to see that the attitude matches the outfit, doesn’t it girls?” Kelly looks annoyed, so I do what I know will annoy her even more and give her a big ol’ hug and kiss on the cheek.

“I love Chili’s because
you
love Chili’s, Kel.”

“I don’t loooooooove Chili’s. It’s just close to my house! I’m sick of driving to all those fancy shmancy places in Danville. It’s my pick tonight and I pick economical!”

“Fine with me. The med school payments, the house payment, the car payment…it’s all killing Kyle and me these days. What about you, Courtney, making a dent in your student loans?”

“Not even a spec. They’ll
always
be there!”

Then it gets quiet. So quiet, you can actually hear the people at the table next to us getting fatter. I can tell my friends have a million questions for me but no one wants to be the first to dive in for fear of getting their ass handed to them. Watching them squirm is the most fun I’ve had in weeks.

“So, do they have hard alcohol here or just the wimpy stuff like beer and wine?”

“Yeah, they have all the gross stuff you like, Chrissy.  Just remember you have a long drive home, so take it easy.”

“Not that long, Kel. I’m staying in Pleasanton.” There! It’s out. Have at it girls.

All three of them tilt their heads and do the, “I feel so sorry for you” pouty face. As usual, Courtney takes the lead in all serious conversations. She gives Nicole and Kelly the “I’ve got this” look.

“Staying with your folks?”

“Yep, it was only a matter of time.”

“Is there any hope for you guys?”

“I don’t think so…but then again, maybe. But not maybe because we’re gonna magically turn into super happy married couple; it’s because I don’t have the guts to do anything other than spend the night at my parent’s house or my co-workers house in the city. It’s weird, guys. Every week I go home to pick up more clothes and it’s like Kurt’s totally oblivious to what’s happening right in front of his face.”

“Hasn’t that always been your problem with him, though?”

“Among other things.”

“Has he gone to therapy like you asked him to?”

“Nope.”

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

“Would anyone have to convince
your
husband to go to marriage-saving therapy?”

Courtney sympathetically shakes her head.

“I didn’t think so. Please, I’d rather die than have my friend convince my husband to love me.”

“Do you still love him?”

“I do. But I’m not
in love
with him anymore. I think I feel for him how he’s always felt for me, except for me, it’s not enough. I want truly, madly, deeply love, something he could never comprehend.”

“Well, you
seem
okay.”

“Maybe you just want me to be okay, Kelly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I dunno, it just seems like all of this is just a little too much for you.”

“Jesus, calm down. I didn’t mean to…”

“I can’t calm down! I’M NOT OKAY! If I leave, everyone’s gonna think I rejected him, but I feel like I’m the one who got rejected. If I leave, no one’s gonna feel sorry for me. No one’s gonna think I need support. I’ll be alone, Kelly. Do you know how bad all of this makes me feel? If I stay, I’ll feel bad. If I leave, I’ll feel bad! Everything makes me feel so bad that I wonder if I’ll ever be okay. I need a drink! Where’s the fucking waiter!?”

Kelly knows better than to say another word, so she retreats back into the red pleather booth and keeps her mouth shut. Courtney though, she can’t help herself.

“It’s like a death. Studies show it takes six months for every year you were together to get on with your life after the death of a loved one. I imagine the same will be true with your breakup with Kurt.”

“So you’re talking six years before I can get on with my life?”

“Yeah, but the pain fades over time, Chrissy. At first you might think about Kurt every minute of every day but soon it’ll turn into every other day, and then every other week and then one day you’ll realize it’s been months since you’ve thought about him.”

“So eventually he’ll be dead to me? Lovely, Courtney, that’s just what I wanted to hear.”

“Hey, I don’t want you guys to break up, but this isn’t about me, it’s about you, and from what I can tell,
YOU
don’t want to be with
HIM
. I’m just trying to be a friend and sometimes friends have to deliver bad news.”

Courtney’s always right. She bugs me.

“For fuck sake, where’s my drink?!”

“We didn’t order any yet.”

“See! This is why I don’t like this place!”

“You’re stressing her out, Courtney, let me in on this. Have you seen  Leo?”

I want to beat Nicole over the head with the stale bread sticks for asking me that question.

“What!? Look, we can either talk about boring stuff like our kids or we can talk about your boyfriend. Pick.”

“
Ex
-boyfriend. I haven’t seen him in months.”

That was a lie, but since it’s really over this time, they don’t need to know how far things went, and I certainly don’t need Kelly’s infamous eye roll to further degrade my time with him.

“I wonder if he ever ended up with that Megan girl.”

“Jesus, Nicole, you might as well punch me in the stomach or better yet, why don’t you throw the drink
THAT I STILL DON’T HAVE
in my face!”

“Geez, I’m sorry, Chrissy. I didn’t know he was
that
special to you.”

“It’s nothing vodka can’t fix.”

The girls’ eyes are darting back and forth at each other. They’re too afraid to talk. They’re smart to keep their mouths shut until I have some alcohol in me. Oh! Finally the waiter!

“Hey, dude, I’m not talking to these women until you get me a double shot of vodka on the rocks with a lime twist.”

“Uh, like, what kind of vodka?”

“Kettle one.”

“Uh, I don’t think we have that.”

“
THEN WHY DID YOU ASK
?! Just give me whatever.”

“Great Chrissy, now he’s gonna spit in our food.”

“Puleez! Look where we are.   Like it wasn’t gonna happen already!”

Silence again. I’ve scared the begeezees out of all of them and now no one has the guts to speak. I want to feel bad about it, but I don’t care about anything anymore. After a few minutes of pretending to look at the laminated seventeen-page food-splattered menu, I roll my head up in disgust and see Courtney staring at me.

“Something you want to say?”

“Were you in love with him?”

It was so much bigger than love. It was belonging, it was sanity, it was bottomless and reciprocal. One by one, my tears fall on the dirty menu. Nicole reaches her hand across the table to take mine, while Kelly and Courtney exchange concerned glances. I’ve always been the crier of the group, but these tears were different from all the others they’ve seen me shed over the years. They weren’t like the ones I splattered all over the place when I didn’t get voted homecoming queen. They weren’t like the ones I spewed out when someone else wore almost the exact same dress to my senior prom as me. They weren’t phony like the ones I squeezed out when I held their newborn babies. These tears were coming out of makeup-less eyes, they were unrehearsed, and they didn’t care who saw them.

“Yeah, I was. I am.”

“Do you think you’ll ever see him again?”

“Not if I can help it, because I NEVER want him to know I was married…I mean
am
married.”

“Why? I mean, it’s a part of who you are, and if he feels the same way about you that you feel about him, he’ll understand.”

“How could he possibly understand, Courtney? What I’ve done to him is sick. I lied to him and manipulated him for six months.”

“But you love him. How do you ignore that?”

“Not easily. Christ, sometimes it even feels like I’m interfering with destiny by breaking it off with him.”

“Only time will tell.”

I look up at Courtney with hopeful eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“When things are meant to be, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it from being so.”

“She’s right. If you’re so crazy about him, why don’t you get on with the divorce? Free yourself up to see what the possibilities are with him?”

“Because I’m a chickenshit Nicole, and I want Kurt to be the one to end it.”

“That’s never gonna happen…unless he finds out about Leo.”

“Right, and according to my therapist, that makes me a pretty pathetic person”

Our drinks finally arrive, and Nicole makes a toast.

“Here’s to Chrissy, who’s not only wasting precious time and energy but also her good looks that she naively thinks will last forever. You’re gonna need those to find yourself a new husband, hunny! Get the fuck on with it.”

After what some people might call dinner, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom to throw it all up. Kidding! I wish I possessed that skill; it would’ve saved me many, many hours in the gym. I pee, wash my hands and out of habit, search for my favorite Mac lip-gloss. By the time I find it, I remember I don’t care how I look anymore and throw it back in my bag. I get back to the table just as Kelly’s getting up to leave.

“You outta here?”

“Yeah, I promised Craig I’d be home in time to tuck everyone in.”

Good Lord, she only has one kid. Does that mean she tucks Craig in, too?

“Well, I didn’t drive all the way out here for that crappy drink. You two wanna find somewhere to get a real drink?”

After making Kelly promise me she’ll never make me eat at a place where half of our high school graduating class works, I spank her on the butt and receive my final eye roll of the evening. She sets off to her blessed home, getting there just in time to snuggle in next to Craig and catch the last twenty minutes of
Dateline
, making it the perfect ending to her day.

After driving around for thirty minutes, Court, Nic, and I realize there
is
no place to get a real drink in Freakmont, so we buy a bottle of vodka, a bag of ice, plastic cups, and a lime and drive to our old stomping ground, the house in the Mission Hills that MC Hammer used to live in.

Sitting on the grassy hillside bordering the compound, we roll around in laughter as we exchange stupid stories from our past. As it turns out, I’m the only one of the four of us who didn’t lose her virginity here.

“God, look at this place! How do you go from all this to declaring bankruptcy in like five years?”

“I know, Chrissy! Wasn’t he supposed to be too legit to quit?” I abruptly sit up.

“Omigod you guys, I’m like MC Hammer! I was supposed to be too legit to quit! But now I’m a fraud just like him. I’m a big, baggy-pant wearing, washed-up black-rapper fraud!”

“Okay Nic, time to cut her off.”

“I’m serious, guys. Did you see how Kelly looked at me tonight?!

WAIT, how she
wouldn’t
look at me.”

“It wasn’t that bad, Chrissy.”

“My ass it wasn’t. It’s like she forgot about the sister pact the four of us made at high school graduation.  You know…to always be there for each other no matter how stupid the reason. But
where’s
Kelly now? Not here! And you know what? We’re all close, but she and I should be even closer. Oops, sorry. I spit a little when I said that. Hey! Are you guys even listening to me?!”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re lis--”

“I mean, didn’t those years that Kelly and I lived together in college mean anything to her!?”

“Sure, they--”

“God, those were good times. We were so excited when we moved into that apartment…decorated the whole place in turquoise and peach. It looked like Miami Vice vomited all over it. We felt so grown up cooking dinner for our boyfriends and paying bills. Did you know we had the exact same class schedule and worked part time at the same bank? We were always together…”

“Chrissy, I’m not saying you guys aren’t close anymore, but all that stuff was like ten years ago. Life gets busy after college.”

“No duh, Nicole, I GOT BUSY TOO! But busy doesn’t mean you grow apart. For Christ sake,
we were each other’s maid of honor at our weddings
! I picked out her wedding dress and she picked out mine. Okay, shhhhhh don’t tell her, but I
hated
mine! You know…I kinda feel like she convinced me to get an ugly one so she would look better!”

“Jesus, how drunk are you?”

 “I’m not drunk… I’m pissed!”

“Well, did you guys ever talk?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Kelly. All those years you were together…did you talk?”

 “Of course we fucking talked Courtney.  Hard to do all that stuff I just told you about without talking.”

“One more sarcastic outburst and we’re leaving you here. Got that?”

“Fine.”

“What I mean is, did you two ever talk about serious stuff? You lived with her and did some fun stuff, but think about it, who were you on the phone with night after night when you and Kurt broke up for that one week?”

“You and Nic.”

“And when your dad had the heart attack, who drove home from college and spent five days with you at the hospital?”

“You and Nic.”

“And who did you call when you were crying your eyes out after Kurt’s parents bailed on his college graduation?”

“You and Nic.”

“Right, because Kelly can’t talk about the bad stuff, Chrissy. You knew it back then, so why don’t you know it now?”

“I guess I don’t feel like I can make all these really hard choices without everyone’s support.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to because not everyone’s gonna agree with your choices. Chrissy, you can’t let everyone else’s opinion dictate your life.”