Unfinished Business (13 page)

No point in asking, because the whole thing is over and all the ladies are on their feet and pounding through a round of applause that would make Kid Rock jealous.

Well…probably not since most of these women are too old and too sober, still, these are some powerfully positive people.

“She is so right,” Josie gushes as we weave through the crowd to the parking lot. “Why waste time with whiners and losers? They only bring you down.”

For some reason I don’t want to uncover, all the excitement is really depressing me. Why can’t I be energized and thrilled about the positive possibilities for my life?

The horror. Am I one of the whining losers?

Maybe I should I ask. I glance over at Josie’s shining face. Maybe I shouldn’t.

* * * *

About thirty minutes later, Josie and I are at The Fitzgerald, a cigar bar near the Renaissance Center. It’s the sort of swanky place where successful business types go after work to smoke overpriced cigars while they admire each other and network.

Josie is still basking in the afterglow of the loud lady’s pep talk, and I’m still reeling with confusion that feels a little too much like regret. Regret as in, why did I ever think self-improvement was a good idea? Why did I have to open this whole can of worms? What compelled me to search for my inner self? Why does life have to have meaning? Maybe I don’t care if I’m a messed-up whining loser and my life goes nowhere. Maybe I want to hide from everyone back in the country and the truth about why I left home.

Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.

“And then she came back two days later and asked me to cut it again. The picture she brought in wasn’t anything like what she had with her the first time. Some people have no idea what they want.”

No kidding.

Josie taps her cigarillo into the ashtray and scans the crowd. “Check out that guy staring at you.”

I spin around and lock eyes with Todd Winslow.

Impossible. But true.

He grins like the sturdy farm boy he is and waves. Unfortunately, his arms are so big that he nearly knocks out some blue-suited, gray-haired guy who is trying to get the attention of a blonde in a red dress. I ignore him, looking past his giant body. It does no good. He waves again. A weak smile wrinkles my mouth. I know what will happen next as surely as I know I am helpless to prevent it. He’s blundering through the bar, turning more than a few heads as he goes. Who could miss a bear-sized guy in pressed flannel and Carhartts?

“Do you know him?” Josie asks, astonishment trimming her voice.

I nod but she’s staring at me, wanting more than just the obvious answer. “He, um, does some stuff with my dad.” It’s actually
for
my dad, like help burn brush piles, sell scrap metal, and trim flight feathers on the chickens. And, well, he is the best friend of Waylon Walker, my high-school sweetheart, the guy I was engaged to, planned a wedding with, and bought a dress for.

There is that little, teeny, tiny thing.

As Todd moves toward us, easily maneuvering through the after work crowd, I’m sure my face is becoming a mixture of horror and despair. Each step that brings him closer is another step that pulls my two worlds together.

He plants his oversized county self right in front of us and grins. Then he looks me square in the face and says, “Hey, Hayley. Whatcha doin’?”

Hoping to look casual, I place my hand on the bar to steady myself as I set my other hand on his shoulder and give him a painfully fake I’m-totally-cool-with-seeing-you-here hug and manage to speak, “Hi, Todd.”

He holds out his hand and Josie takes it. After he jerks her arm up and down a couple of times, he lets go and stands awkwardly. There’s an uncomfortable bubble of silence, which I know should be filled by me, introducing Josie and Todd or by me saying something friendly to my hometown friend, like the lie, ‘
It’s great to see you’
, but my mouth is dry and my eyes can’t believe what I’m seeing.

“So whatcha doin’?” he asks me again, plowing through my shock, dread and what must look like rudeness.

Gripping the edge of the bar, I tip my head at our drinks. “Having some Diet Cokes.” I finally get myself together enough to introduce them.

“Cool.” He holds up his glass in salute to Josie. “I’m havin’ a Vernors.” His square head moves slowly as he looks around then comes back to me. “I can’t believe I ran into you. I’m staying overnight at the Pontchartrain down the street. My dad was supposed to come but our hired man got sick.” He turns a proud smile to Josie and says, “We’re dairy farmers.” Then gets back to both of us, “Dad bid on a PBS auction and got the night at the hotel and dinner at The Greektown Casino. Geez, what a place. All those lights and all that money. Bet you guys go there all the time.” He looks right at me “That’s the sort of stuff you came here for, right, Hayley?”

I glance over at Josie, to see if she is horrified that I know this guy but, to her credit, she’s ignoring the odd way he’s looking at me. Like he’s trying to see into my brain and figure out what I’m thinking. I recognize the expression because I saw it often in the weeks before I packed up and moved. “Are you having a good time?” she asks him.

“Sure. I wish my dad could’ve come too. He would’ve loved that casino. All those lights and stuff.” Todd’s mouth shifts to the side. “It wasn’t as much like the movies about Las Vegas as I thought it was going to be. There seemed to be less…um… I mean, more…”

Josie jumps in with, “Less hotties and more old people?”

His head bobs up and down and a boyish smile slants across his mouth. He’s forgotten about me and I’m glad. “Yeah.”

Josie laughs and he laughs too. For a few minutes after that, he and Josie chuckle about the casino, the ridiculous monorail that nobody uses and everyone calls the Mugger Mover and the crazy escalators in the RenCen. The next thing I know, Josie is telling Todd about the seminar and all the great advice the loud lady had. He’s nodding and looking totally convinced.

While they go on from there to talk about movies then somehow get on the subject of spring break horror stories before finally landing on jobs. Josie puffs on her cigar and tells him about her dating discs business. Through it all I take sips of my drink, nod occasionally and pretend that I’m right there with them. But I’m not with them at all. I’m in my own world of shock. Unfortunately, their conversation ultimately loops around to include me as a topic.

“You seein’ anybody, Hayley?” Todd asks.

I blurt out the answer, “No.”

Todd leans away from my outburst.

“What about Nick?” Josie says with a soft smile.

For a brief second I actually think I’m going to pass out. Then I get myself together but still sound bewildered when I reply, “Nick and I aren’t going out. We’re
friends
.”

There is a pause, then Todd and Josie laugh. Together. At me. I did sound kind of crazy for a second there, but I get sick of people giving me shit about Nick. I have enough of my own confusion to deal with. And the tension crawling up my spine is screaming for a way out.

Once Todd stops chuckling, he looks away from Josie long enough to ask me, “What about you? How’re you doin’?”

That’s quite a loaded question, isn’t it Todd?
“Great. Fine. Good. Okay.” But of course he really wants to know if I’m over
it
.

“Waylon’s great,” he says, probably hoping I’ll take the bait and ask for more.

When I don’t, he continues, “He started a new company doing painting, carpentry, that kind of stuff.”

My face gets hot and my throat closes up. I look away from both of them.

Todd keeps talking, “Guess he didn’t want to be a farmer either. Want to know where he moved to?”

Again the one word tumbles out, “No.” No to that and no to all of this. This conversation. This whole night. That whole part of my life.

He smiles and toasts me with his Vernors. “Sure. Yeah. All on your own. Just how you wanted it, then. Huh?” Then he turns to Josie. “You guys must have met here, in the city, huh?”

Josie looks from Todd to me then back and forth. Finally she rescues me by talking, “Yep. I saved her hair from a bad color job.”

It wasn’t bad color, it was a horrible, disgusting, embarrassment of bright orange streaks. Something I tried to get away from myself.

While I’m standing there, dumbstruck, Josie talks for both of us. “I figured that anybody who had hair like that needed a friend. After I saved her hair, she took me to the mall to look at clothes and then she bought us lattes at Starbucks. A couple of weeks later she brought her friend Riana in to get her hair done. The three of us have been hanging out together ever since.”

“Cool. Girl stuff.”

I sit there a while, listening to Josie and Todd chit-chat about nothing. Finally, Josie runs out of steam. Todd fumbles around with his hands until deciding to give us both hugs. She seems fine with it but for me it’s really awkward because the last time I hugged him was after he’d agreed to be the best man at my wedding that never happened. Finally he lumbers his way out, the brown of his jacket disappearing behind all the tweed suits.

“Was that kind of tense or what?” she asks.

Leave it to Josie to be direct. “Yeah. But it’s no big deal.”

She picks up the cigar she’d set aside and relights it. After a few puffs she slides a look at me and lifts an eyebrow. “Have any more to add ’cause it seems like I’m missing something. Who’s Waylon?”

“Guy from back home.”

“Yeah. I guessed that part.” She taps her cigar. “And?”

“And we broke up.”

“Don’t want to talk about it?”

I shake my head, trying to look casual like it’s no big deal that humiliation and shame follow me around like twin ghosts, passing on the judgment and gossip of a whole town.

She takes another puff and I think she’s going to press me for more but she doesn’t.

I know now it’s only a matter of time before I have to come to terms with what happened at home and go back and undo the one lie I left behind.

Chapter Fourteen

Don’t be a Fool This April

Saturday March 31
st
— Short-term Goals for today—

1. Throw away trash covering countertop

2. Throw away rotting fruit in fridge

3. Throw away the unopened bank statements

4. Avoid thinking about Waylon

5. Avoid acknowledging that dark cloud of judgment floating around me

6.

7.

Okay. I admit it.

Some of the seminar did rub off on me. And that kick in the ass from running into Todd, yeah, that stirred me up for sure.

When I’d arrived in Detroit I’d been full of determination. I’d gotten an apartment and a job, signed up for school, even had gone to class that whole semester. Where did that motivation go? What the hell happened? Never mind. I don’t have to answer those questions. I am upright and dressed before ten o’clock on this rainy weekend morning. If it weren’t for the rain, I’d be able to open the window and get rid of some of the smell drifting up from downstairs. Whatever he is cooking down there smells like old man feet.

I pull my scented candle closer.

Josie made me buy the loud lady’s
Optional Handout Packet
. So I’ve read that and even started filling in some of the worksheets. I like lists, I excel at short-term planning, and I always like to do the easiest thing first, so here I am. If only I could think of some more essential tasks to add to my list of short-term goals. Perhaps something more elevated than throwing away trash. I let my mind wander and it lands on the second part of last night. Josie and Todd. Talking.

The two worlds of my life have crashed together and I am not happy about it. I wanted them to stay separate. That way, when I am here, at home in the city where I belong, I can pretend the other place—the place I left—does not exist.

My gaze goes to the corners of the three bank statements sticking out from under the magazines. The oldest one has a coffee mug stain from when Nick and I stayed up all night watching
The Walking Dead
. One I used as a bookmark until I realized what it was. The third one is from last week. If I had the nerve to open them, they would show that I hadn’t touched that account since the day I made the one deposit. I take a fortifying breath, grab them all with one tight pitch of my thumb and forefinger then carry them to the trash can by the sink.

There.

Gone.

I look back at the list. Must write something down.

My phone hums and saves me from the impending sense of failure threatening to turn me into a complete losing whiner.

“Oh, honey. I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you today.”

“Hi, Mom.” I stare at the screaming white space on my goal sheet. I’m afraid I’m already disappointed.

“They had to change the date for the April Fool’s Dance. Now it’s April twenty-first.”

“Hello? Mom? April twenty-first? Doesn’t that seem kind of strange, even for out there, having an April Fool’s Dance on April twenty-first?”

As usual she ignores my sarcasm. “There was a mix-up with the hall schedule.”

“That’s a pretty big mix-up.”

“Are you real disappointed?”

Oh! This means I don’t have to spend my Saturday night sitting with the farm ladies talking about who’s doing what for their 4-H projects and the price of pigs at last year’s county fair. I won’t have to answer questions about where I buy my clothes and whether or not it’s true that everyone in the city gets mugged. Best of all, I won’t have to pretend not to notice when people stare. I won’t have to hear those notes of assumption when they ask, ‘
How are you, really
?’. “I’ll get over the disappointment, Mom. Really, don’t worry about it.”

“You’ll still come for dinner?”

Won the battle but lost the war. “It won’t be chicken will it?”

“No, they had problems at the processor. Machines broke down last week.”

Lucky me. Lucky birds. “What time?”