Bridge To Happiness (24 page)

“You could talk to her a little more tactfully.”

Ellie, a woman on a mission, walked past MC. “Why?”

I merely groaned. The sun was shining brightly, too brightly. I covered my eyes with my arm. “Go without me. I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat. ”

“I have all the
Froot
Loops anyone could ever want.”

“And we need to feel like we’re helping you— although
Harrie
couldn’t get away today, too many patients—so don’t give us any crap. I know you too well.” Ellie’s voice drifted off.

I slowly raised my head. MC stood alone by the bed, her expression apologetic. I looked around the empty room and whispered, “Where is she?”

“In the closet,” MC mouthed.

“I’m picking out some clothes for you. If I can find any around all these handbags,” Ellie called out. “Get up.”

I flopped back on the pillow and yawned. “I can’t. I have to make cookies for a bake sale at Mickey’s school, The school band needs to travel to DC. I signed up back in January. Before . . . ” I stopped, searching for the words.

My new life was defined in
befores
and
afters
. Happiness and sorrow. Then and now. Pre-Mike and Post-Mike, like Sunday football commentary. “Before,” I repeated understanding how a single word was more than enough. I sat up and shoved the hair out of my face.

“You get no say in this. We’re making an intervention.” Ellie came strolling out of the closet carrying a red cashmere sweater and a pair of gray pinstriped slacks on one arm, a classic gray-plaid Burberry scarf slung over her shoulder and a pair of suede flats dangled from her other hand. “You’ll have plenty of time to make cookies later this afternoon. Let’s go. Chop. Chop.” She dumped the clothes in my arms and pulled me up. “I don’t have all day.”

“You could just go away,” I offered.

“Fat chance.”

“What time is it?” I turned toward the clock.

“Eleven thirty.” Ellie took me by the shoulders, studying me for all of three seconds, her normal attention span. “You look like hell.”

“Thank you,” I said with as much indignation as I muster.

“Well, it’s true. You’re wallowing. Don’t look at me like that, MC. I know she has a good reason, but enough is enough. And she doesn’t need everyone tiptoeing around her, especially us.”

“You have never tiptoed around anything a day in your life,” I groused. “And you don’t have to talk around me. ‘She’ is in the room, you know.”

“Could have fooled me. Honey, you aren’t even in the same universe as the rest of us.” Ellie walked me toward the bathroom. “Wash.”

“But I—” I turned around but Ellie closed the door in my face.

“And put on some make-up,” came the obnoxious voice of authority through the door.

A small storefront
restaurant in San Francisco’s Sunset District was the home of some of the best Mexican food north of Veracruz. The fresh menu, handwritten everyday on parchment and slid into a plastic and leather holder the color of jalapenos, touted
chile
rellenos
dressed with succulent pork and dried fruits, and an unforgettable seafood paella of
Guaymas
shrimp, Manila clams and halibut swimming in a sweetly-herbed sea created from fresh tomatoes grown on vines in the small garden behind the building.

The day’s special was baked sour cream and spinach enchiladas with lobster and red pepper sauce. Famous for its handmade tortillas, always served soft and blistered, the place also boasted crisply fried chips that cried out for a dip into a chunky pool of the house specialty: spicy, burnt-
chile
, mango, and avocado salsa.

In a city that was known for its amazing food establishments, competition and the constant influx of the finest of culinary artists made quality, nouveau California cuisine, and consistency the only surefire recipe for a restaurant’s continued success. So things like parking, the little extras and hands-on service distinguished the locals’ favored spots from the tourist traps.

Sitting to the right of each place setting were steaming plates of complimentary mini tamales made of sweet
masa
and prime meat. Just the smell of the air over the table could make the average person willing to forfeit fresh white bread (even
Boudin’s
famous sourdough) and buttery potatoes for that golden grain ground out from a simple stalk of sweet corn.

For too many years to count, we had spent many long lunches here, and I found myself actually glad to be there. “Everything smells so good.” I was instantly famished. Food had become my best friend.

“How long has it been since you’ve been out?”

“Out?” I unwrapped a tamale.

“Yes. You know. To a restaurant.”

“I had lunch with my sons,” I said, but that had been a few weeks back and both boys encouraged me to stay out of the office, which did horrific things to my ego as well as my plans to keep myself powering forward through life.

I knew what my friends would say if I admitted the truth: that I hadn’t left the house for almost two weeks. I suspected Ellie knew that anyway. Probably one of my snitch children had called and tattled on me.

Evidently, I was becoming a drag. Molly hated me, my sons didn’t want me around work, and my youngest wanted to be a man and choose his own college. No one needed me.

“In other words, you’ve been wallowing indoors too long,” Ellie concluded with her maddening ability to know everything you wanted hidden. “All those times you blew us off. I knew you needed a lunch. You need a serious drinking lunch. I, your friend for almost forty years—God, that makes me sound old—am here to get you completely shitfaced.”

With perfect timing the waiter placed three glasses in the center of the table and added a large wooden salt shaker and a blue and yellow pottery bowl filled with sliced limes, before he poured shots from an ornate silver and blue bottle.

“Well, looks like I’m going to drink today,” I said dryly.

“You complaining?”

“No. But I didn’t see you order these.”

“I called ahead. Now bring us a pitcher of margaritas please Tomas, then we’ll order.” Ellie waited until our waiter left and raised her glass, looking at me without a lick of the pity that was in everyone else’s eyes. Still, there was an empty pause before Ellie said, “To Mike.”

It was 5:30 pm
when I stumbled out of the back of Ellie’s limo and grabbed onto the door, weaving a little, my hair hanging in my face, because it was so windblown from standing up through the sunroof and singing
We Built This City
at the top of my lungs as we drove through rush hour traffic.

I turned and leaned inside, where the car smelled like leather and tamales. “Thank you, both for a lovely lunch.” I straightened and turned to try to walk toward the house, but Ellie’s driver, Eugene was there to help me.

Eugene had a great face, like Ernest
Borgnine
, kind of rough and fatherly at the same time. “I love my friends,” I said to him.

MC was giggling like a teenager, tequila did that to her. Ellie turned down the volume and crawled across the seat like
Catwoman
. “Remember. Find something to do. You’re living in a vacuum. Do
not
let your kids keep you from work. You don’t need protecting. You need to keep busy.”

“Your boss is way too bossy, Eugene.”

“Let me help you, Mrs. Cantrell,” he said gently.

I sagged back against his shoulder and looked up at him. “I’m not Mrs. anymore.”
What am I?

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

I’m a ma’am?
Ugh. “God . . . I’m old,” I said, disgusted.

“You’re not old and even if you are, don’t ever admit it, or worse yet, use the word ‘old.’ You’re just sloshed,” Ellie said. “Get her to the door, Eugene.”

“I can walk,” I insisted. My throat felt scratchy from singing so loudly. But I took two steps up the drive and had to grab his arm. “Maybe you can guide me, Eugene. You can be my personal GPS system.” I laughed.

He took my keys from my newest purse, a pearl-gray leather Vuitton, and unlocked the front door, while I leaned against the side of the house and insisted I was just fine and could easily use the key and walk into my own house without falling face down. “I am a woman of a ‘certain age’ after all,” I said.

I managed to get rid of him, closed the door and leaned back against it, holding onto the handle. The alarm system was beeping in my left ear. Thirty seconds to punch in the code. Squinting, I put in the numbers and turned too quickly, and the room spun. But I told myself I was fine, disoriented, but fine. It felt good to let go. It felt good to drink myself into inhibition, to sing like school girls as we drove through the city.

The stupid alarm began to tick again, the yellow warning light blinking. “What’s wrong with this thing?” I entered the code again, the light changed to green again, so I walked across the limestone entry, surprisingly steady considering.

He was there . . . .sitting in the living room, his head bent over a book, flecks of gray all through that dark, thick, familiar hair.

“Mike?” My blood began pulsing. My skin grew hot.

Behind me I heard the alarm begin to beep again. “Mike?” He didn’t look up. I ran toward him. “Mike!” It had all been a mistake. It was a bad dream. A joke. “You’re alive!” I was crying as I reached for him, expecting him to laugh at me. “Mike!”

I kept my eyes glued to his image, afraid to blink or look away.

The house alarm continued to go off.

“Mike!” I yelled, desperate and needing to touch him. Something stopped me, tripped me, was blocking my way to him, and suddenly I was falling.

As if he couldn’t hear me shouting his name, he stayed in the chair, calmly reading, wearing his red polo shirt with the blue ink stain on the pocket.

I never could get that stain out.

My head hit the coffee table, and the image of my husband instantly turned to black.

It turned out that the alarm company called Molly, who met the police and paramedics at the house. Despite all the blood everywhere and my bruises and aches, I didn’t need stitches or a trip to the local emergency room. The gash causing all the blood was in my hairline and head cuts always looked worse. But as the emergency crew packed up their duffels and gear, one of them mentioned that I shouldn’t be left alone or allowed to sleep for a few hours.

While I knew what he meant, that I might have a concussion, his words said something else altogether.
She shouldn’t be left alone.
Which appeared to be the singular truth about me. I was broken. I was a mess. I hated what I had become, but I couldn’t seem to stop anymore than I could stop seeing Mike all over the house.

I lay on the sofa, my head throbbing, trying to look as if I were fine, but alternating between embarrassment and frustration. Somehow I had managed to lose a shoe, and a bloody towel lay on the floor next to me.

Molly let the EMTs out and picked up the bloody towel. I searched her face for the hateful look I had seen before, but thankfully it wasn’t there. She was staring down at the thick ivory guest towel; it made of expensive imported cotton and trimmed in satin and lace with small seed pearl trim and came from an ultra-upscale Italian bedding shop off of Union Square.

I had forever scolded one or the other of her older brothers for using the guest bathroom to wipe their ‘grubby’ hands on the good towels. “Mom, you know I’m good,” Phillip would tease me, or “I am a guest,” Scott would argue. “I haven’t lived here for over a decade.”