The Unexpected List (The List Trilogy) (7 page)

“I miss you!”

“You just saw me three months ago.  You can’t miss me that much.”

“We usually do this every month though.  Why did we get off schedule?”

Kelly’s always been a pale girl, but not right now.  Her eyes are bright and her cheeks are rosy.  She looks more alive than ever.

“There really is no schedule here.  They say it takes time to adjust to that.”

Shoving garlic cheese fries into my mouth, “Who’s they?”

“You’ll find out one day.”

“Dude, what’s going on with you?  It’s like you’re talking in circles or something.”

Playfully throwing pieces of bread at me she says, “What’s going on with me?  More like, what’s going on with you?!”

“What the heck did I do?”

“You stayed with Kurt.”

I abruptly stop dodging the bread and stare at her, confused.

“No, I didn’t. 
Did I?”

“Didn’t look like you were going to, but you did.”

Shaking my head in frustration because I can’t seem to remember shit from crap to set her straight, “Kel, how come I don’t know what my life is like?”

 She stands as she says, “I don’t think you have it figured out yet.”

“Wait, why are you leaving?”

“I’m still busy settling in, and I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Settling in where?”

“Sorry, Chrissy, but I don’t know if I can be here next month either. Things are constantly changing.”

“What are you talking about?  Nothing’s changing!  This is what we do!  We eat the same crappy food and drink the same stupid drinks.  It’s a tradition!”

Totally confused, I stand up and watch her walk away.  But then she turns, runs back to me giggling and whispers in my ear, “Guess what?  You’re about to be a mommy.” And then she disappears into the mad rush of happy hour at Chili’s.

With the sheets drenched in sweat, I bolt straight up in bed and scream at the top of my lungs, “KELLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

“Baby, baby, baby, it’s me!  You’re having a bad dream!”

Leo grabs me tightly to try and stop the trembling.

My eyes dart around the room looking for her, before I tell him, “Kelly was here!”

“She’s not, Chrissy.  You were having a dream.”

“No, it wasn’t a dream!  Her voice was crystal clear!”

“Baby, I just came back from getting a glass of water, you were sound asleep.”

“NO, LEO!  SHE TALKED TO ME!”

“Okay, okay, okay, I believe you.  What’d she say?”

Clutching my stomach, “She said…she said…”

“It’s okay, you can tell me.”

“She said she loves me.”

What?  It’s not a lie.  It’s an omission.  Completely different.

With Leo gently rubbing my back as I try to fall back asleep, I think, wow…dodging poop and talking to dead people.  Yep, probably rushed things a little.

Shit…
heads

May, 2001

“Okayyyyyyy
and what are you gonna do the first time you get the stomach flu?”

I remain silent.

“You’re gonna shit your pants is what you’re gonna do!”

Sitting on the picnic blanket on top of Kelly’s grave for the third-month anniversary of her death, I continue to endure a verbal beating from Nicole and Courtney.

“Everyone poops Chrissy!  Do I have to let you borrow the book on the subject that I bought for my two-year-old son?”

With beer nearly snorting out of her nose, Nicole chimes in with, “So…like does Leo think he landed the only non-pooping human being on earth?”

Going in for a gulp of my beer, I mumur, “Are you guys done yet?”

“No!  It sounds like you’re up to the same old shit, no pun intended…that you were up to with Kurt!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re pretending to be something you’re not.”

“Yeah, Chrissy.  Seems like you’re trying to be all perfect.”

“Hey, guys!  It’s not like I’m taking up ice hockey or scuba diving for the guy!  Is it so wrong that I wanna keep the passion alive in this relationship for as long as possible?”

“Whoa, thought you weren’t afraid of the passion disappearing with this guy!”

“I’m not, Nicole!  Jesus, if it makes you guys feel any better, Kurt didn’t think I went number two either.”

“Girl, you need to be studied.”

And then Courtney, “No, more like committed!”

I gulp down the rest of my beer as I trace the outline of Kelly’s name on her tombstone while the two of them try to compose themselves.  When they can finally breathe again, I ask the question I’ve would’ve thought the two of them would’ve asked me by now.

“So do you guys wanna meet Leo or what?”

Their quick glances at each other before pointing their heads down to their bottles offers me no assurance that they’re in a hurry.

“What’s the problem?”

“Oh, it’s not us.  Trust me, we’re dying to meet the guy who stole you away from Kurt.”

“Let me clarify this for the millionth time, Court!  Leo didn’t steal me away from Kurt.  I just happen to meet him at the exact moment I realized Kurt was totally wrong for me. Now it’s your turn to clarify…if you want to meet Leo so badly, what’s stopping you?”

I sit in irritated silence as I listen to the two of them stumble through their answer.

“Well, you know how far back we all go…”

“…Yeah, and it’s hard for our husbands to….”

“…You get it right?  They just don’t want to lie to Kurt about…you know…”

Now it’s my turn to laugh at my friends.

“So let me get this straight.  Your husband’s
forbid
you from meeting my boyfriend?”

“No way!  Kyle doesn’t forbid me from doing anything!”

“Yeah and neither does Guss!”

Sure looks like I hit a couple of doctor nerves.  Never one to back down to their over-achieving asses…

“Great.  So then you guys have no problem meeting me and Leo for drinks on Friday night, then?”

Their nervous glances scream, HUGE PROBLEM!

“Wow, thanks so much for your support.”

“It’s not like that, Chrissy.  You know we support you!”

“Yeah, you just have to try and see things from Kyle and Guss’s perspective.  They still want to protect Kurt.”

“He’s a grown man!  He doesn’t need their protection.  Shit….Kurt barely cared when I left him, why should they?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s because they’re husbands.”

Hopeful she’ll lend some mature perspective to Nicole’s stupidity, I ask Courtney, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They sort of think Leo should’ve walked away the minute he found out you were married, like he broke some kind of guy code or something.”

Now I’m the one with beer snorting out of my nose!

“Do they actually think Leo walking away would’ve made a difference in the end result? You know what?  Why don’t you refresh their memories and remind them that Leo did walk away, and he stayed away for over a year and half…until Kelly convinced me to beg him to come back!”

Their disgraced faces tell me they already tried this route and it didn’t work.

“So that’s it, then?  Kyle and Guss are choosing sides?”

It’s almost comical until a nauseating thought occurs to me and my jaw literally drops to the dirt that’s covering Kelly.

“OH MY GOD!  But you know who didn’t leave for a year and a half?”

If shame had a face it would look exactly like the two of theirs.

“Did they meet her?”

 Courtney, the tougher of the two, speaks up in their defense. “Guss and Kyle are two of Kurt’s best friends.  Of course they met Kayla.”

Searching for some kind of common sense, my heads snaps in the direction of every tombstone within sight. I scramble to my feet and yell like I’ve never yelled before!

“AND YOU TWO ARE SUPPOSED TO SHOW ME YOU’RE MY BEST FRIENDS BY BEING EXCITED ABOUT MEETING THE GUY WHO STOLE MY GOD DAMN MARRIED HEART!”

But their married hearts tell me their hands are tied.  I quickly shove my shit in the picnic basket and mumble, “Your husbands can go fuck themselves,” and then I turn and make my way to my car.  But another nauseating thought sucker punches me on the way there, and I instantly run back to confront my fraidy cat friends one more time.

“The two of you have never lied to me before so don’t start now.”  They can see it coming, and they hang their heads low when I scornfully ask, “Did you meet her too?”

Their non-response tells me everything I need to know.  This time I DON’T mumble.

“On second thought, you can ALL go fuck yourselves!”

Puffalumpa

May, 2001

“Why do you care?”

“What do you mean
, why do I care
?  They’re my best friends!”

“Is it that you feel like they lied to you or is it that you consider it a betrayal that they hung out with the other woman?”

“Kayla isn’t ‘the other woman!’  It’s not like he left me for her or anything!”

“Exactly, so then why do you care?”

I’m staring at Slutty Co-worker like she’s lost her ever lovin’ mind.

“Did they get to you?
  Seriously, this isn’t like you to be
alllllll
let go and let God-ish.”

Wrapping her arms around me she lovingly says, “I’m just screwing with you, hunny.  I’d be pissed too.  Maybe you should just give it some time to work itself out though.  Men are big fucking babies, and sometimes it’s just easier for the women they’re with to let their poo-poo baby shit go away on its own rather than do something about it.  Sure as hell explains why I’ve never wanted to be in a relationship.  Committed men are way too much work if you ask me.”

I wonder if that means it’s only a matter of time before Leo’s too much work for me.  Dammit, why are thoughts like this suddenly haunting me? 
What am I so afraid of
?

“So, how come I’ve never met these best friends of yours?”

“Are you kidding?  I’m doing you a favor.  They’d hog tie you, blindfold you and take you to some secret science lab in the desert to test you for a new strain of venereal disease!  Trust me, I’m doing you a favor.”

Or, more like I’m doing myself a favor by keeping my two worlds separate, but she doesn’t need to know that.

Focusing back on work, Slutty Co-worker points to a box in the corner that Barbara Cooper dropped off before any of us arrived to work this morning.

“Are Megan and I ever gonna get to meet that woman?”

“Let’s just give her a little more time to adjust to the production deadlines before I scare her with a face to face introduction.  Lord knows, meeting you could set her back years in therapy!”

With that, I head out to Kendall’s daycare.  It’s my day to pick her up at two-fifteen.  On the way, I leave Barbara a message thanking her for the delivery and that I’d like her opinion on other handmade crap we could offer in the studios.  She calls me back within minutes of the message, giving me her ideas and sounding as nervous as the first time I talked to her in Dr. Maria’s parking lot two months ago.

“Oh, and Barbara, I have one more thing to tell you.”

“What’s that?”

“My partners really want to meet you.  They’re impressed with the work you’ve done so far and like me, want to talk to you about being more involved with the business.”

“Will you be there when I meet them?”

“Of course!  And, I promise…you’ll love them.”

Pulling into Kendall’s daycare, “Actually, there is one more thing I should tell you.”

I can’t even hear her breathing on the other end of the phone.  That’s how quiet she is.

“I have a three-year-old Goddaughter.  In fact, she’s my best friend’s daughter…the friend of mine who died.”

Still not a peep.

“I think you need to know that Kendall…that’s her name…is with me a lot.  I hope this won’t be hard for you if you decide to work with us.”

After a long pause, Barbara slowly speaks. “It’ll be very hard for me.”

Thinking that’s that and I’ll never see Barbara ever again, she continues, “But, maybe not any harder than crocheting again.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”