On the Rocks (5 page)

“I don’t know what he’s doing,” I whispered. “But I hope whatever it is is causing excruciating physical pain to his reproductive organs.” Truth be told, I did kind of know what Ben was doing. I had elevated Facebook-stalking to a science. The Internet made it possible to stay linked to people without ever seeing them, and I admit, I had developed some unhealthy cyber-habits in addition to the unhealthy eating habits. I checked his Facebook page dozens of times per day to see if he had posted new pictures, or changed his status, or written anything that could give me some insight into what he was doing. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn much, because Ben was never really much of a Facebook person. You know, except for when he used it to break up with me.

I knew it wasn’t healthy to keep tabs on someone who clearly couldn’t care less about me, and eventually I realized that the only way to get over him was to deactivate my Facebook account, because even if I didn’t stalk him, I’d definitely follow his friends. Unfortunately, Ben found other ways of staying connected to me, and now we sometimes, on occasion, emailed and texted. I’m sure qualified therapists the world over would say that also was unhealthy––which is precisely why I’d avoided seeing one. He sent me messages every once in a while, asking me how I was doing, telling me he still wanted to be friends, making me laugh and reminding me of what I’d loved about him to begin with, and I answered them. We were broken up but we were still attached, and I looked forward to hearing from him despite what he had done to me, though I had no idea why. It was so pathetic it made it hard for me to look at myself in the mirror in the morning. Truth be told, the extra twenty pounds I’d packed on didn’t help with that either.

“So what do you think?” Grace asked.

“What?” I had started to daydream again. Or more appropriately, day-nightmare.

“Are you listening to me?” she asked as she readjusted her bag on her shoulder.

“Not really. I can’t hear you above all the screaming in my head.”

“Abby, I know your grandmother left you some money when she passed away last year. Since you’re still living in your tiny walk-up apartment, I assume you haven’t ripped through the cash. I think spending it on a fun summer that you desperately need would be exactly what she wanted you to do.”

“I was planning on saving it for a rainy day. Not spending part of it on a beach house—where, coincidentally, rainy days would render it a complete waste of money.”

“Umm, Abby? It’s been raining on you for the last six months. Think about it.”

“I don’t think I’m ready,” I admitted, rubbing my temples as if I could somehow massage out the dull pain I’d been feeling for what felt like forever.

“Which is exactly why I’m giving you three months to prepare for it. Look, I don’t blame you for being miserable. If I were you, I’d be a million times worse. I don’t even know how you go to work and smile and play with those kids all day without losing your mind. Nobody wants to make you uncomfortable, but you can’t seem to snap out of this on your own, and I’m afraid you’re heading for a full-blown depression.”

“Heading for it? I collided with full-blown depression months ago. I think it’s okay, though. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the stages of grief. Stand back when anger hits, it’s going to be ugly.”

“That’s the point. I know you better than anyone, and I know you’re scared, but we need to shake up your routine a little bit, get you back out there, reintroduce you to the dating world. I think you should get out of the city. You need to expand your circle and spend some time in a place not haunted by memories of him.”

I sighed.

I felt like the upheaval of my personal life overflowed into every other area of my life and made me question everything I thought I wanted. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be a teacher anymore, and that was something that I had wanted since I was old enough to play school with my friends in my basement. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I take great pride in knowing that I’m helping to mold a future generation of leaders at a prestigious Catholic nursery school in the Back Bay. But after ten years and the reality check that this last year had provided, I was starting to wonder if I made any impact on the kids whatsoever. I mean, it wasn’t like I was teaching chemistry or economics or calculus. I was teaching kids not to eat glue. Most of them would be able to figure that out on their own, eventually. The last week of February I caught a girl stuffing extra Oreos into her kneesocks at snack time. So much for molding future generations of America’s leaders. Apparently, the only thing I was molding was a future generation of petty thieves with eating disorders.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

To add insult to oh-such-severe injury, my little sister Katie’s wedding was fast approaching. There really ought to be some kind of written rule that says little sisters are not allowed to get engaged while their big sisters are dealing with the utterly fantastic destruction of their own relationship. Now, I’m not one of those people who have an issue with a younger sister getting married before them, I swear, I’m not. I do, however, have a really big issue with wearing a pink taffeta dress and opera-length gloves in July, or anytime, really. There should be written rules against that too, but I don’t think Emily Post ever got around to tackling this specific wedding dilemma in any of her books. So all has not been quiet on the home front either, and fighting wars on two fronts is never a good idea.

Just ask Napoleon.

Grace snapped her fingers in my face, forcing my wandering mind to focus on the conversation instead of on the image of myself walking down a church aisle looking like a giant stick of cotton candy. “If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me. I have to get out of the city on the weekends or I’ll go crazy. Please come with me. We both need to get away, and you know it.”

“Sorry, what?” I asked as I shook my head, hard, as if thrashing my skull would get the image of myself in that dress out of my head like it can get water out of your ear. For the record, it didn’t. All it did was make me look like I had a serious mental problem.

Awesome.

Grace, despite being one of the smarter girls I know, was in a very sticky situation at work. Actually, “sticky” probably wasn’t the right word to describe having an affair with a married colleague. I have no idea how you describe that. Don’t get me wrong, I love
Working Girl
just as much as the next person, but I really didn’t think that this love affair was going to end with her sitting in a corner office while “Let the River Run” played through a loudspeaker at her law firm. It was hard to be supportive of something that could single-handedly ruin every aspect of her life, but she was my best friend, and I would never turn my back on her. I hated what this relationship was doing to her and feared that she was on a collision course with disaster, but I was in no position to judge. I mean, I was basically having an affair with the frozen food section of the grocery store. For smart girls, both of us were pretty stupid when it came to handling relationships with the opposite sex. In fact, we sucked at it.

“So you want me to dip into my savings so that you can keep yourself busy while Johnny is home with his family?”

“No. You should dip into your savings because you’re too young to give up. If that’s not enough of a reason, then yes, you should do it because I’m your best friend and I need you and I would do the same for you.”

“I work with nuns. If I was having an affair with one, we’d have a shitload of other problems.”

“You know what I mean. It will be fun. My friend Bobby from law school is out of work right now. He’s living at his parents’ beach house for the summer with a friend while he looks for a job. I’m sure he has other friends he’s known forever bouncing around down there too. Some of them have to be cute and interesting, right? And since you’re very much single, and you clearly won’t be meeting a guy at work, I think it’s a great opportunity for you to start over. How many straight guys teach at your school anyway?”

“Zero.”

“Exactly. Which is why you should come to Newport and spend some time with normal adults. Get a tan. Drink some cocktails with umbrellas. Go for walks on the beach that will help your mental health and get you exercising again. Hang out with me and meet some new friends. And quit acting like you have so many more appealing options.”

Clearly, I didn’t. That being said, I still had some reservations.

Summer rentals are infamous for throwing disparate groups of people together who would otherwise never speak. Sometimes real friendships develop. But since I had no interest in meeting anyone new in my current mental state, I was pretty sure I was going to hate everyone. I had no doubt that Grace’s friend was a nice guy. At least, I really hoped that was the case, because the last thing I needed was to be forced to hang out all summer with another sociopathic male. The old me would’ve loved to be at the beach, but the new me was really worried that this random combination of people was going to cause more stress than anything else, and I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to make it through three months without spearing someone to death with barbecue tongs. Of course, the alternative was going home to my mom’s house to escape the brutal summer heat and living with my wedding-obsessed sister and intolerably psychotic mother. So maybe hanging out with a bunch of strange dudes and risking a lifetime sentence in a women’s prison somewhere was worth considering. Life has its trade-offs.

“Please don’t make me beg,” Grace added, looking at me with an expression that I had seen only a few times before, and then she was usually giving it to her father when she was trying to convince him to give her the car keys or let her go out with the captain of the football team in high school. No wonder he always gave in.

“Even if I did spend some of my savings on this, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ll be in the city all week. What will I do by myself? I don’t think spending that much time alone is necessarily good for my mental state either, ya know?”

“I told you. That’s what I think is great about this. You’ll be no more alone out there than you would be if you stayed locked in your apartment in the city. Get a job, hang out with Bobby and his friends. I’ll be working during the week one way or the other, so who will you hang out with if you stay here? I think getting a summer job is huge. It will give you extra money so you can stop bitching about the cost of the house, and it will get you away from your laptop and that toxic cyber-relationship you’re clinging to like a security blanket. He’s gone, Abby. He’s not coming back. Answering his messages is an epic waste of your time and only makes him feel like less of an asshole.”

I knew she was right. Once again, my mind drifted back to Ben.

Damn. Make that eleven times since I woke up. I was so hoping that today would be better.

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll come. You’re right. I have to do something.”

“I’m so happy!” Grace squealed as she clapped her hands together and wrapped her arm around my waist. “You know, even on your worst day you’re still the best. I just want you to have a little fun, remember how to laugh, be social. You have to stop punishing yourself,” she whispered as she gazed in the window of Chanel, adoring the clothes neither of us would ever be able to afford. “I think we both could use a little break from reality.”

“True.” I nodded. I really didn’t want to go, but I was tired of feeling depressed and rejected and unworthy. I wanted to feel better, and sadly, that was never going to happen if I hung around Boston and the memories the city held. I needed a change of scene, some excitement, some racy X-rated encounters with impossibly tan guys in some exotic hot spot with limitless possibilities and countless opportunities for personal growth.

Like Rhode Island.

Grace was right, getting out of my apartment and going somewhere else wasn’t a bad idea. I needed to stop cyber-stalking. I needed to stop answering Ben’s stupid, pointless texts. I needed to remember who I used to be and at least try to make some positive changes in my life before it was too late. My decision was made. Summer at the beach would be great for me. Clean air, soft ocean breezes, new friends, flip-flops, and cocktails made in blenders. If that doesn’t help a girl’s mood, well then I just don’t know what will.

Chapter 4

Khaki Folders

U
GHHHHHHHH
! H
URRY UP,
you enormous idiot!” Grace leaned on her car horn and gave the middle finger to the driver of the red convertible Mercedes in front of us. She pressed her bare foot on the gas pedal and inched up to within a hair of the Mercedes’s bumper before slamming the brakes again, causing the car to lurch forward. My seat belt locked across my chest, keeping me from having to brace myself against the windshield.

“Grace!” I screamed as I rubbed my right clavicle, where the strap had burned my skin. “Would you please calm down? It’s not like we’re going to get there any faster if you kill us!” I readjusted my seat belt and smoothed the fabric strap across my chest to keep it from wrinkling my silk shirt. I turned to stare at Grace and sighed. We had been friends for as long as I could remember, and I anxiously awaited the day when I wouldn’t envy her for her looks. Today wasn’t the day. She looked like goddamn Jessica Rabbit.

“Seriously, who the hell designed this stupid highway? What asshole thought it would be a good idea to narrow the entire thing down to one lane?” Grace gripped the steering wheel so tightly I thought she might tear the leather with her bare hands.

Beach traffic, in a word, is a bitch.

“What’s the big rush? The bars will still be there when we get there,” I said, smiling out the open window and breathing in the crisp air. If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be spending the summer in Rhode Island in an attempt to redefine myself and incite some kind of personal growth, I never would’ve believed them. Go figure.

“Well, aren’t you all calm and collected? I like it, you seem like you’re in a good mood.”