Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (46 page)

"You don't catch food poisoning."
"Fine, fine, whatever." Old dogs, new tricks.
A     couple of days later I woke up and felt...different.
I didn't know what it was. I lay under my duvet and wondered. The light outside had altered:
pale lemon, springlike, after the gray drear of winter. Was that it? I wasn't sure. Then I noticed
that I wasn't in pain; for the first morning in over a year I hadn't been woken by aches in my
bones. But it wasn't that either and suddenly I knew what the difference was: today was the day
that I'd completed the long journey from my head to my heart--finally I understood that Aidan
wouldn't be coming back.
I'd heard the old wives' tale that we need a year and a day to know, really know, at our core, that
someone has died. We need to live through an entire year without the person, to experience every
part of our lives without them--my birthday, his birthday, our wedding anniversary, the
anniversary of his death--and it's only when that's done and we're still alive that we begin to
understand.
For so long I'd kept telling myself and trying to make myself believe that he would come back,
that somehow he'd manage it because he loved me so much. Even when I was so angry over
little Jack that I'd stopped talking to him, I'd still held out hope. Now I knew, really knew, like
the last part of a jigsaw locking into place: Aidan wouldn't be coming back.
For the first time in a long time I cried. After months of being frozen to my very center, warm
tears began to flow.
Slowly I got ready for work, taking much longer than I usually did, and as I pulled the door
behind me to leave, Aidan's voice said, in my head, Put some hurtin' on them L'Or�al girls.
I'd completely forgotten how every morning he used to say something similar, a rousing "go
team" form of encouragment. And now I'd remembered.
96
T    he bags containing our dinner had arrived. Rachel plonked a stack of mismatched plates
onto the middle of the table and began dishing it up.
"Helen, you're lasagne." She handed her a plate. "Dad, pork chop. Mum, lasagne."

She slid Mum's plate in front of her, but instead of thanking her, Mum stuck out her bottom lip.
"What?" Rachel asked.
Mum said something into her chest.
"What?" Rachel asked again.
"I don't like my plate," Mum said, this time a lot louder.
"You haven't tried it yet."
"Not the food. The plate."
"What's wrong with it?" Rachel was frozen in position with her serving spoon.
"I want one with flowers on it. She got one." Mum indicated Helen with a savage twist of her
head.
"But your plate is nice, too."
"It's not. It's horrible. It's brown glass. I want white china with blue flowers, like she got."
"But..." Rachel was perplexed. "Helen, I don't suppose...?"
"Not a chance."
Rachel was at a loss. This was only Mum, Dad, and Helen's first night in New York. There were
another two weeks to get through and already they were acting up. "There aren't any of the blue-
flowers ones left. Dad has the only other one."
"She can have mine," Dad offered. "But I don't want the horrible brown glass one either."
"Will a plain white one do?"
"It'll have to."
Dad's pork chop was moved onto a white plate, and the swap-over of Mum's dinner was
effected.
"Everyone happy now?" Rachel asked sarcastically.
We settled down to our food.
"Anna, how's your new brand going?" Luke asked politely.

"Great, thanks. Just today, the Boston Globe did a comparison of five supercreams: Sisley's
Global Anti-Ride, Cr�me de la Mer, Cl� de Peau, La Prairie, and Formula Twelve. And Formula
Twelve got the highest. They said--"
"Yes, but your new crowd don't do lipsticks or anything, do they?" Mum clearly thought my new
position was a demotion. With that, the subject was closed, but not before I'd had a flashback of
how Aidan used to celebrate all my coverage and the dingbats of my rivals. How many times had
he come home waving a newspaper and saying something like "Rocking good news. USA Today
didn't like the new Chanel cream. Girl said it clogged her pores. Whooh! High five!" Clap. "Low
five." Clap. "Behind-the-back five." Clap. Lifting his leg, he'd go, "Under-the-knee five!" Clap.
"And through-the-legs-and-out-the-back five!" Clap.
I was distracted from this unexpectedly happy memory by someone shouting, "Get out!"
It was Helen: Dad had walked in on her in the bathroom.
"You'd want to get a lock on that door," Mum said.
"Why?" Rachel asked. "You don't have one on your bathroom door."
"That's not our fault. We'd like one."
"Why don't you have one?" Luke asked.
"Because Helen filled the keyhole with cement."
We all fell silent as we remembered that day. Helen had got the cement from the builders who
were converting next door's garage into a granny flat, and when she'd finished filling the
keyhole, she went on to cement around the bathroom door, trapping Claire, who was in the bath,
doing a home-spa day. Dad had to spend hours on his knees, in a chiseling frenzy, before she was
finally freed, by which time the stairs and landing had filled with concerned neighbors and
builders doing a vigil. The granny of the granny flat who was the cause of all the trouble had
even suggested saying the rosary.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Neris Hemming
Your rescheduled appointment with Neris Hemming will take place on March 22 at 2:30 P.M.
Thank you for your interest in Neris Hemming.
"I'm not interested," I told the screen. "Neris Hemming can go and fuck herself."
Two seconds later, I put the date and time in my organizer. I hated myself for it, but I couldn't
help it.

A    nna! Hey, Anna."
I was hurrying along Fifty-fifth Street, on my way to a lunch with the beauty editor of Ladies'
Lounge, when I heard my name being called. I turned around. Someone was running toward me:
a man. As he got closer, I thought I recognized him but I couldn't be sure. I was pretty sure I
knew him...Then I saw that it was Nicholas! He was wearing a big winter coat, so I couldn't see
what his T-shirt said, but his hair was still sticky-up and cute.
Before I knew what was happening, he'd scooped me up and we were hugging each other. I was
surprised by how warmly I felt toward him.
He put me down and we smiled into each other's face.
"Wow, Anna, you look great," he said. "Sorta sexy and scary. I like your shoes."
"Thanks. Look, Nicholas, I'm sorry I never called you back. I was going through a really bad
time."
"That's okay, I understand. Truly."
I felt a little embarrassed asking, "Do you still go to Leisl's?"
He shook his head. "Last time I was there was about four months ago. None of the old gang go
anymore."
In a strange way I felt sad. "Nobody? Not even Barb? Or Undead Fred?"
"No."
"Wow."
After a little lapse into silence, we both started talking at the same time. "No, you go ahead," he
said.
"Okay." This was something I had to ask. "Nicholas, you know when Leisl used to channel your
dad? Do you think she really did? Do you really think you were talking to him?"
He thought about it, fiddling with his funny string bracelet. "Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. But I
guess that at the time, I needed to go and hear what I heard. It got me through. What do you
think?"
"I don't know. Probably not, actually. But like you said, it did what it needed to do at the time."

He nodded. He'd changed since I'd last seen him. He looked older and bulkier, more like a
grown-up. "It's good to see you," I blurted.
He smiled. "And it's good to see you. Why don't you call me sometime? We could do
something."
"We could investigate conspiracy theories."
"Conspiracy theories?" he asked.
"Yes, don't tell me you're not interested anymore!"
"Oh, sure, I am, it's just--"
"Got any good new ones?"
"Um, yeah, I guess."
"Well, tell me!"
"Okay. Um, like, haven't you noticed how many people are dying by skiing into trees? One of
the Kennedys, Sonny of Sonny and Cher--lotsa people. So what I'm asking is, is it a
conspiracy? Is someone interfering with the direction-ness of their skis? And instead of `tonight
he sleeps with the fishes,' the new Mafia catchphrase could be `tonight he skis with the trees.'"
"`Tonight he skis with the trees,'" I repeated. "You're lovely. You're absolutely hysterical."
"Or maybe we could just catch a movie," he said.
97
W      hich one of you stole my Multiple Orgasm?" Mum opened her bedroom door and
shrieked down the hotel corridor. "Claire, Helen, give me my Multiple Orgasm!"
A middle-aged couple, wearing practical sightseeing clothes, was just leaving their bedroom.
Mum saw them and, without missing a beat, did her "polite greeting"--a strange chin-raising
gesture--and said, "Lovely morning."
They looked scandalized and hurried toward the lifts; as soon as they'd disappeared around the
corner, Mum yelled, "You let me have nothing!"
"Calm down," I said from inside the room.

"Calm down? My daughter's getting married today even if it isn't in a church and one of you
five bitches has stolen my Multiple Orgasm. It's like the time you stole all my combs"--this was
an often-repeated resentment--"and I was going to mass because it was a holy day of obligation
and I had to comb my hair with a fork. Reduced to combing my hair with a fork! What's your
father doing in the bathroom, he's been in there for days. Go down to Claire's room and see did
she steal my lipstick."
Claire and family and Maggie and family were also staying in the Gramercy Lodge. Everyone
was on the same floor.
"Go on," Mum urged. "Get me a lipstick."
Out in the corridor, JJ was kicking a fire extinguisher. He was wearing a wide-brimmed yellow
hat, what Helen might call a "lady hat"--part of Maggie's wedding ensemble, I deduced. I
watched his spirited assault on the fire extinguisher and wondered about what Leisl had said;
why was JJ so important to me? Why would he become "more important"? Then it hit me:
maybe Leisl hadn't been talking about JJ at all. She'd said "a blond-haired little boy in a hat" and
"the initial J"; little Jack fitted that description just as much as JJ did. Maybe Aidan--through
Leisl--had been trying to tell me about him? A shiver shot down my spine and I was suddenly
covered in goose bumps.
So had Leisl really been channeling Aidan? I didn't know. And I supposed I would never know.
And what did it matter now anyway?
"What have you done with my good hat?" Maggie had rushed out onto the corridor; she was
wearing a sober navy suit. "Give it to me and stop kicking that thing."
From Maggie's room came the sound of baby Holly singing her head off.
Then Claire appeared. "This place is a kip," she said. "Mum said it was lovely."
"The radiators don't work," Maggie said.
"And nor does the lift."
"It's handy, Mum said."
"But handy for what? Kate, don't kick that, it might explode."
Claire and Kate, her twelve-year-old daughter, were wearing very similar clothes: knicker-
skimmingly short skirts, tottery high heels, and a lot of glitter.
By contrast, Claire's six-year-old daughter, Francesca, wore old-fashioned buckle shoes and a
puff-sleeved smock, trimmed with broderie anglaise. She was like a china doll.
"You're gorgeous," I told her.

"Thank you," she said. "They tried to make me wear all that shiny stuff but this is my look."
"Has anyone an iron?" Maggie asked. "I need to iron Garv's shirt."
"Give it to me," Claire said. "Adam will do it."
"He's more like an indentured houseboy than a man!" Helen's voice shouted from a nearby
bedroom. "How can you respect him, even if he does have a larger-than-average mickey?"
O     utside the Quaker hall everyone was milling about, looking their shiny best; clear-skinned
12-steppers, elderly, red-faced Irish people, mostly aunts and uncles, and big-haired Real Men,
so many they looked like they'd been bussed in from Central Casting. Through the throng I
spotted Angelo, all in black. I'd known he was going to be there; he and Rachel had become
quite pally since the terrible day I'd showed up at his apartment. I gave him a polite smile--not
unlike Mum's chin-raising gesture--and positioned myself ever more in the thick of my sisters
and nieces. I didn't want to talk to him. I wouldn't know what to say.
"I'm opening a book on how late they're going to be." Helen was circulating and gathering
money.
"Rachel won't be late," Mum said. "She doesn't believe in it. She says it's disrespectful. Put me
down for right on time."
"That'll be ten dollars."
"Ten! Oh, cripes, here's Mr. and Mrs. Luke! Marjorie! Brian!" Mum grabbed Dad by the sleeve
and sailed forward to greet them. "Lovely day for it!"
They'd met a few times in the past but they didn't know one another well. Mum had never seen
any point in getting to know the Costellos until their son had done the "decent thing" by her
daughter. Wreathed in bright, brittle smiles, both sets of parents circled one another warily--like
dogs sniffing one anothers' bums--trying to ascertain who had the most double glazing.
Someone called out in alarm, "Don't tell me this is the happy couple!" Everyone turned to see a
champagne-colored vintage car heading our way. "It is! It is the happy couple. Right on time!"
"What? Already?" startled voices asked. "Come on, better get in." A ministampede ensued as
everyone stormed the door and crowded, with unseemly haste, into seats. The hall was festooned
with spring flowers--daffodils, yellow roses, tulips, hyacinths--and their scent filled the air.
Moments later, Luke marched up the aisle to the front of the hall. His collar-skimming hair was
glossy and neat, and although he was wearing a suit, his trousers seemed tighter than necessary.

"Do you think he gets them taken in specially?" Mum whispered. "Or does he just buy them that
way?"
"Dunno."
She gave me a sharp look. "Are you all right?"
"Yes."
This was the first wedding I'd been at since Aidan had died. I'd never admitted it but I'd been
dreading this. However, now that it was happening, it seemed to be okay.
Up the aisle came Dad and Rachel. Rachel was wearing a pale yellow sheath dress--it sounds
horrible but it was simple and stylish--and carrying a small posy of flowers. A thousand camera
flashes lit her way.
"Your father's tie is fecking crooked," Mum hissed at me.
Dad delivered Rachel to Luke, then shoved his way into our row and the service began: someone
read a poem about loyalty, someone else sang a song about forgiveness, then the freelance
minister spoke about how he'd first met Rachel and Luke and how suited they were to each
other.
"For the vows," the minister said, "Rachel and Luke have written their own."
"They would." Mum elbowed me to share the joke, but I was remembering my own vows. "For
richer, for poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health." I thought I was going to choke
when I remembered "All the days of our lives." It felt like a hand around my throat. I miss you, I
thought. Aidan Maddox, I miss you so much. But I wouldn't have forgone my time with you. The
pain is worth it.
I pawed around in my little handbag for a tissue; Helen pressed one into my hand. My eyes filled
with tears and I mouthed, "Thanks." "'S'okay," she mouthed back, her own eyes brimming over.
Up on the little dais, Luke and Rachel held hands and Rachel said, "I am responsible for my own
happiness, but I surrender it to you; it is my gift to you."
"Before I met you," Luke said, "been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely,
lonely, lonely, lonely time."
"...as we strive for self-actualization, together we will be more than our respective parts..."
"...all that glitters is gold and you are my stairway to heaven..."
"...I pledge to you my loyalty, my trust, my faith, and no passive-aggressive acting-out..."