The Plan (10 page)

“Hey, how was your blind date?” Claire asked, the question shaking Gia out of her newspaper daydream.

“We only had drinks.”

“He didn't make it to the dinner round?”

“Definitely not,” Gia said, turning to the “Life and Culture” section.

“What's wrong with this one?” Claire said, loading the last plate into the dishwasher and turning it on.

“I didn't like his job.”

“What does he do?”

“He's a mortician.”

“And…”

Gia looked up from the paper. “I can't date a man who touches dead people all day. It'd creep me out to have him lay his hands on me.”

Claire chuckled. “Weren't you weirded out by the last guy's job, too?”

“Yep. He was an odor tester,” Gia said, kicking off her flip-flops and resting her legs on the chair across from her.

“A what?”

“He tested deodorants to make sure they were free of funk.”

Claire giggled again. “I must've still been in my zombie zone to have missed that one. Whatever happened to being a plumber or a banker?”

“Exactly,” Gia said, with an exaggerated, exasperated moan. “I will never meet a man.”

“No, you'll meet a man,” Claire said, wiping down the counter tops. “I'm just not sure he'll make a living doing something that pleases you.”

“A girl's gotta have standards,” she retorted to Claire.

Claire opened the door to her fridge and stood motionless, staring inside. “I have no milk.”

“Nope.”

“And there's no food.”

“Nope,” Gia replied, her nose still in the article she'd begun to read.

“Why is that?”

“Why is what?” Gia looked up, trying to pay attention to what Claire was moaning about.

“Why do I have no food in my fridge?”

“Oh,” Gia said, returning her gaze to the paper. “Because shopping would entail you leaving the house.”

“Good point,” Claire said, closing the fridge door and finding a seat at the table, next to Gia. “Don't they have those services where you can order your groceries and they deliver them to your door?”

“If they do, I'm not giving you their number.”

“Why not?”

“Because
you,”
Gia said, pointing her finger at Claire, “need to go out. Even if it's just to the grocery store.”

“Listen,” Claire said, as if she hadn't just heard Gia. “I know you do this for me all the time, but next time you go out, can you pick up a few things for me? I don't need much.” She stood up and took down the magnetic grocery list pad off the side of the refrigerator. She grabbed a pen from the junk drawer and began to jot down a few items.

“Nope.”

“Come on,” Claire said, opening the fridge door and digging around inside, trying to determine what it was she needed. “Nothing much. Milk, eggs, bread, soup.”

She wrote down a few more things.

“No.” The word was firm. There was no mistaking the meaning.

Claire looked up at Gia, her face full of surprise. Gia could see some hurt there, too. Damn. She hated that. She hated to hurt Claire. A part of her wanted to take it back—to say, sure, she could run to the grocery store for Claire. What was the big deal, really?

But it was a big deal. Everything was a big deal nowadays. Getting Claire to leave the house, even for thirty minutes, was a big, big deal. The times when Gia had convinced Claire to actually attend a movie or go eat in a restaurant, Gia had felt like throwing a parade in her
own honor. It was so difficult to get Claire to do anything. Sometimes, Gia thought the only place Claire ever went during the week was to her therapist, and Gia was pretty certain that if she, herself, didn't drive Claire there and wait for her in the lobby, Claire wouldn't do that, either.

Still, Claire was doing so much better, it was difficult to complain. Gia had been able to move out just a month after Claire destroyed the kitchen. The weekend before she left, she and Claire had gone to Bed, Bath & Beyond and purchased some of the necessary items Claire had destroyed. A few days later, Gia had moved back into her own apartment. Though only six miles away, Gia had worried so much that first night over leaving Claire alone, she'd almost rushed right back over. But she didn't. Claire needed to learn how to live on her own again. And Gia needed to stop being such a mother hen.

Gia wished she could say the transition had been an easy one for Claire, but her friend had struggled. Every night, around bedtime, Claire would call Gia, apologizing for bothering her, but saying she just needed to hear someone's voice. And then, more often than not, Claire would burst into tears. A few times, she'd even shown up on Gia's doorstep around ten o'clock at night.

“Please tell me you don't have a man in here!” she'd say, the second Gia opened the front door.

Gia's reply, each time was, “I should be so lucky,” and she'd let Claire in.

Gia had worried she was enabling Claire, not forcing her to handle life on her own. But whenever she decided to be more firm with the woman, Gia had been overcome with a landslide of guilt. After all, who was she to tell Claire how quickly she should move on? Gia didn't know a single person who'd come through something so tragic. She was in no position to judge.

At times, Gia's other friends would get on her case. “You can't be
her nursemaid forever,” the teacher, in the room next door, would say. “It's really rude of her to ask that of you.”

Gia knew the comment wasn't intended to be harsh, but she still wanted to slap the woman. Claire wasn't asking anything of Gia. If Gia was ever too busy to hang out, she told Claire. And, she'd been telling Claire that more and more these days, as she, herself, began to regain the life she'd put on hold the night of the accident. Claire was always extremely understanding and apologetic.

Gia had finally gotten Claire to agree to a little field trip to a quaint town about two hours away. They'd done some shopping and gone out to lunch. Claire had seemed so relaxed that day. The weather had been perfect and they'd eaten outside on the front sidewalk of a cute French bistro. They'd even laughed together. Gia hadn't heard Claire laugh since before the accident. She was reminded of what a joyful sound it was. There was no laughter in the air today, though.

“No,” she said clearly. “I will not go to the grocery store for you.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked,” Claire said. Her cheeks flushed bright red, a look of absolute embarrassment on her face. “I depend on you way too much.”

“Claire…”

“Of course you don't have time to go grocery shopping for me. You have a life. Or, you did. Before I hijacked it. I am so sorry! I know you think I take you for granted…”

“Claire…”

“…but I really don't. I promise. I am so grateful for you. So, so grateful. I could never have survived without you. You must be so angry with me.”

“Claire!” Gia hadn't meant to yell. Claire jerked back in shock. “I'm not mad at you. Not in the least. You asking me to go to the grocery store was not an inconvenience to me. I totally have time to go. That's
not
the problem.”

“It's not?” Gia could see the relief rippling across Claire's face.

“No! Not at all. The problem is that
you
need to go on your own.”

“I hate going to the grocery store,” Claire said, leaning her elbows on the kitchen island so she was facing Gia.

“Everyone hates going to the grocery store.”

“No. I really hate it. I mean, I always hated it. You know, bringing three kids grocery shopping totally sucks. The whole process takes twenty times longer than it should.”

Gia smiled. She remembered the funny stories Claire used to tell her about trying to purchase all the ingredients for a huge holiday dinner while having the kids in tow. More often than not, Gia or Jack would have to run out right before the rest of the guests arrived to go grab cranberry sauce or dessert napkins because, in the chaos of shopping with the little ones, Claire had forgotten what she'd gone shopping for in the first place.

“But as much as it sucked to grocery shop with them, and I remember it clearly,” Claire continued, “the thought of shopping without them now—well, that sucks so much more.”

Claire didn't start to cry. She was able to keep her composure better now that the first year had passed. Not everything brought her to tears. But her eyes were still full of a deep sadness.

Gia wanted to give in to her. Why should Claire have to face the cereal aisle without a kid in tow? It'd be so easy for Gia to go herself.

But she couldn't. Coddling Claire wasn't helping her. It was enabling her. Claire needed to find her own strength and not be allowed to crumble and die.

“All of that makes sense. It really does, but…listen, sweetie,” Gia began. “You spend too much time alone now. You need to get out. Meet new people.”

“At the grocery store?”

“Bag boys need friends, too.”

The sadness that had tempered Claire's blue eyes was gone. Instead, she rolled them at Gia.

“Claire,” Gia continued. “It's been over a year now. You—we—have lived through all the firsts without everyone. I know they weren't easy, but we survived them. Maybe, it's time to start living again.”

“I don't know what that is anymore.”

“And you won't until you get back out there in the world. Take baby steps. Go somewhere besides your therapist's office, and go there
alone
. Have lunch with friends—besides me. Everyone misses you. Grocery shop. If you don't, you're gonna be awfully hungry for the next seventy or so years.”

“ 'Cause you're not going for me?” Claire asked apprehensively.

“I'm not going for you,” Gia stated, winking at Claire.

“I don't know…”

“Well, I do,” Gia said, grabbing the keys from the table and throwing them to Claire.

Claire turned her car away from the highway and veered onto a side road. She couldn't manage the large supermarket just yet. Not with its car-shaped shopping cars and parent-with-small-child parking spaces. If she saw one cashier hand a little boy or girl a sticker at the checkout, she might just crumble into a puddle on the floor.

It was better to stay close to home and McGord's, a small grocer, wasn't far from the house. She'd shopped there regularly, for years, when she needed a few items and didn't want to run into town.

Claire pulled into the small lot and turned off the engine. Her hands were sweaty on the steering wheel. It seemed ridiculous to be so nervous about grocery shopping.
Grocery shopping.
An activity she'd done a million times before. Taking three deep breaths and wiping the palms of her hands on her khaki shorts, Claire opened the car door and stepped outside.

The heat was sweltering. Gia hadn't been kidding.

Claire hurried across the parking lot, anxious to reach the air-conditioned store. The blast of cold air was a welcome relief.

She grabbed a small hand basket and rested it over her forearm. She surveyed the store. It looked exactly the same as the last time she'd been in here. Claire and the twins had run in for a few snack items to take on their road trip. Time seemed to have stood still for the tiny shop. The same chip displays. The same rack of flip-flops to the right of the door. The same misspelled “Donught” sign over the bakery counter. Nothing had changed.

Except, everything had changed.

Claire decided not to think about any of that and instead, hurried to complete her shopping. She looked down at her list: milk, eggs, butter, bread, Coke—she couldn't navigate her life, especially now, without her Coke—apples, bananas and ice cream.

No self-respecting, grieving individual could survive if they didn't drown themselves in ice cream. Especially if she scooped it into some of that Coke.

She found Rocky Road ice cream to be the most therapeutic. But, if McGord's didn't carry that, she could get by on plain chocolate. Or chocolate chip. Mint would be even better.

She'd never been the type of person who used food for comfort. But then, she'd never before needed so much comfort. She'd lost so much weight over the past eighteen months, even she couldn't help but notice how gaunt she looked. She hadn't had any appetite. However, it seemed in a single day, something had changed and, instead of feeling nauseous at the thought of food, she now found it to be a tremendous way to cope with the sadness. A lot of pain could be pushed down by smothering it in chocolate sauce and Cool Whip.

She assumed the weight would begin to pile on any day now. With the crap she was eating, how could it not?

Lost in thought, Claire didn't see the cart until she walked directly into it.

“Oh! I'm so sorry!” Claire said instinctively. “I didn't see you there.” She rubbed her leg where the metal had stung her thigh.

“Claire?” a slow Southern drawl purred.

Claire glanced up into the heavily mascaraed eyes of Loni Thompson.

Of all people…

“Hey, Loni,” Claire said, with all the sweetness she could muster.

“Oh, my heavens, Claire! I wasn't really sure that was you when I saw you walk into the store. I said to myself, ‘No, it couldn't possibly
be Claire Matthews. No one has seen her since her family'…well, you know. No one has seen you…” Loni's voice trailed off.

“Well, here I am,” Claire said, with a lift of her hands. “I'm alive.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.

“You look so skinny!” Loni said, ignoring the awkward comment. “We need to fatten you up!”

She pinched the skin on Claire's upper arm. Literally, pinched it. Claire couldn't believe it.

On second thought, yes, she could.