Sweet Misfortune: A Novel (4 page)

“No, I could never—”

“What then? You’re not actually a doctor? There’s a large alimony check you never told me about? An STD?” She gasped again and put her hand over her mouth. “Oh. Don’t tell me that
I
was the other woman. You’re married, aren’t you!”

“Sophie!” he shouted, trying to get her to listen. “No! Nothing like that! I can’t believe you’d even think those things about me!”

“Then what?”

Speaking more softly than before, he said, “I told you, I can’t tell you here. I need to sit down with you where we can really talk. It’s complicated, and it deserves your full attention. One date, that’s all I ask. You choose the place.”

Just then the bell on the door jingled lightly, and a young mother with two small children entered. Garrett backed away from the counter and sat down on one of the empty stools near the window, making room for the kids to get a complete view of the treats in the display case. He hoped they didn’t pick the Misfortune Cookies.

While the mother helped the kids pick their goodies, Sophie considered what Garrett had said about her.
He’s cruel
, she thought.
Yanks happiness away from me, and then shows up out of the blue and accuses me of not being happy.
But as she stood there thinking, Sophie knew that Garrett had not been the first person to take happiness and love away from her without warning.
That’s the story of my life. How can I blame him for adding another chapter?

Dropping her hands to her side, Sophie glanced down again at the display case. At first she saw the children’s faces from the other side, licking their lips as they evaluated each chocolate one by one. Looking harder, her own reflection took shape once more in her mind. Like a forgotten friend, there she was, a smiling little girl, laughing and playing on her father’s lap, then giggling as her mother tickled her toes. Sophie’s eyes watered, causing the image in her mind to shift. Now she was a few years older. Not old enough to fully comprehend the slim odds that she was even alive, but old enough to remember every detail of the accident. She was cold. Cold and miserably wet, and nothing in the world seemed real. Everything felt wrong, because she knew that it was all her fault. Sophie blinked hard and the image vanished. The only thing looking back at her was the familiar face of an almost-thirty-year-old woman.
Happiness is fleeting
, she reminded herself again.

“Garrett,” she said, after the family was gone. “Listen. Whether or not I’m happy is really no concern of yours. You left, remember? You don’t get a say in my life. And as far as this awful
thing
goes, that you want to share with me? Honestly, I think I’d rather not know.” She paused, watching him carefully. “I really think we should just leave the past alone. All right?”

Garrett sat quietly, staring at the floor. After several long moments he stood up and spoke. “Sophie, just for the sake of argument, what if you’re wrong? What if happiness
does
exist? The kind that lasts. What if we had it right there in our hands and I blew it? What if…?” He hesitated, and took a slow step toward her. “What if there’s still a chance that we could have that?”

“There’s not,” she insisted. “And that’s a lot of
what ifs
.”

“Then how about a
what would
?”

“Huh?”

“What would it take to get you to agree to one date? What I have to tell you isn’t just about me, Soph. It’s also about
you
.”

Sophie tapped her fingers lightly on the countertop, watching the man who had once treated her like she was the sun, the moon, and the stars, all rolled into one.
Right up until the day he walked away
, she reminded herself.

“Tell you what,” she said. The finger tapping stopped so she could twirl more golden hair. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

Garrett’s eyes perked up. “What sort of deal?”

The kind of deal you have no chance of winning
, she thought. “Well, ever since Evalynn got married, she keeps telling me that I need to find a man so we can better commiserate. Last week she even tried to get me to place a personal ad in the newspaper.”

Garrett chuckled. “Like, ‘Single white female seeking—’?”

“ ‘Seeking anything but a foot doctor.’ Yes, something like that. Anyway, I told her I’ve always thought those ads are just people looking for a fling—they’re not really searching for lasting happiness. But true happiness shouldn’t require a relationship, right?” She waited for him to answer. “
Right?
”

“Oh. Yeah, of course. I mean… it can help. But it’s not an absolute must.”

She grinned. “Good. Then since you brought up happiness, and you’re so sure that it exists, how about you try to find it for me?”

Garrett’s brow narrowed. “How?”

Sophie’s grin expanded. “The newspaper! There are ads for everything else in there. Why not one for happiness?”

“I don’t get it. You want me to run a personal ad for you?”

“No. I want a
want ad
. Something simple, like, ‘Wanted. Happiness.’ You run that in the
Seattle Times
, and if you can get, say, one hundred people to respond with something intelligent, then I’ll consent to a date.
One date
.”

“Can I put the ad online?”

She shook her head. “That would run the risk of reaching too many people. Printed paper only, please.”

Garrett studied her. He knew the likelihood of anyone responding to an ad like that was slim at best, and a hundred replies would be near impossible. “You really don’t want to hear what I have to say, do you?”

“Eleven months ago, yes. Now? Not so much. But hey, at least I’m giving you a fighting chance, right?”

He frowned, looking slightly dejected. “Sure. So are there any other stipulations to this deal that I should be aware of?”

Sophie tapped her fingers again on the glass while she thought. “Ummm… yes. This has to be completely anonymous. You can’t recruit any of your friends, patients, or anyone else to send in responses. And everything has to go to the PO box I have for business stuff. I don’t want any nutjobs showing up at my house or here at the store hoping to make me happy.”

He kept his gaze fixed on her. “And what will constitute an ‘intelligent response’?”

Sophie laughed. “Whatever I decide when I read them. Obviously, I only want rational, thoughtful statements of happiness. Nothing sexual. Nothing creepy or weird. And most importantly, nothing that fleets.”

Garrett made a little snorting sound through his nose. “I can only post this in the
Seattle Times
, I have to get one hundred responses, and none of those things count?”

“Those are the rules if you want a date.”

“Is there a time limit?”

“Nope. The offer stands until the day I die, which is probably about how long it’ll take to find one hundred happy people through the want ads.” Sophie was pleased with her idea, and her ruthless smile showed it.

Garrett, on the other hand, was obviously frustrated. It had taken him eleven months to build up the nerve to share his secret with Sophie, and now that he’d made the effort, she was shutting him down. He turned and walked to the door, his shoulders
sagging. He paused only a moment, as if considering stopping right there and telling her everything he wanted to say. But he must have thought it was too complicated for that, because then he kept going. Before opening the door, he turned and looked back over his shoulder. “Good-bye, Sophie.”

Part of Sophie wished that she hadn’t been so hard on him. After all, it wasn’t like she didn’t think about him all the time, silently wishing that she were still his. But she knew that that was an impossibility, and she refused to let her heart get crushed again. “Good-bye, Garrett.”

His eyes scanned Sophie from head to toe, taking in every detail. “I’ll be sure to stop by periodically to see how the responses are coming. But if we never reach one hundred,” he added softly, “please know that I always loved you, Soph. Even if I was a coward and a jerk, my feelings for you never changed.”

Sophie didn’t allow herself to cry until after he was gone. “Me too,” she whispered, once the door had closed.

Chapter 5

You’ll never really be happy. How sad.

A
LTHOUGH SOPHIE ENCOURAGED EVALYNN TO GO HOME
to her husband on three different occasions after Garrett left Chocolat’ de Soph, her friend didn’t budge.

“It’s not like you’re paying me to be here,” she balked. “I chose to spend the day with you, so unless you physically remove me from the premises, you’re stuck with me until we get off the bus in Gig Harbor.”

“I’m not riding the bus home,” Sophie muttered.

“Whatever,” Evalynn said, thinking she was teasing.

“I’m serious, Ev. If you’re riding the bus, you’re on your own.”

“Why’s that? Afraid another cute guy might try hitting on you?”

Sophie showed her disappointment with a frown—after so many years, Evalynn should have known without being told. “Because there’s something else I need to do tonight.”

It finally registered. “Oh, yikes! I’m sorry, Soph. Of all the insensitive things. You’re going to the cemetery, aren’t you?” Evalynn paused, watching Sophie’s expression tighten. “Do you want me to come with you this year? I mean… can I?”

Sophie relaxed her face enough to smile. “You’ve done enough already. Really. But this is something I need to do alone. And you need to go be with Justin.”

Evalynn smiled back, then gave Sophie a hug that said,
It’s going to be all right.
But inside Evi was thinking,
When is it going to be all right? It’s time to get over the past and move on.
It wasn’t for lack of understanding that Evalynn felt that way. Like Sophie, tragedy was something she knew a thing or two about, having lost her mother to a prison sentence when she was eight. It was their mutual lack of family that ultimately brought the pair together as children and forged an inseparable bond between them. But for reasons Evalynn didn’t fully understand, Sophie’s scars ran deeper than her own, and losing Garrett had only heightened her feelings of loss and hopelessness.

Evalynn released her grip on her foster sister. “Are you absolutely sure? You don’t always have to go alone, you know. And Justin would be perfectly content if I didn’t come home right away and interrupt Monday night football.”

“I’m sure.”

B
Y THE TIME
the evening help showed up at the store at five o’clock, in the form of a redheaded college kid named Randy, Sophie was completely spent. Physically, the day hadn’t been any more demanding than every other day, but emotionally she was wearing thin. Usually she would stay for a short while after Randy arrived to get a jump on preparations for the following day, but the September sun was already starting to dip, so time was becoming a critical factor.

Hailing the first empty cab she could find, Sophie made her way north to Seattle. She couldn’t bring herself to visit the cemetery more than once per year, but that was often enough that she knew the route by heart. She gave the cabbie directions, even though he swore up and down that he knew exactly where he was going without her help.

Traffic along I-5 was, predictably, a nightmare. By the time the cab pulled up in front of Evergreen Washelli Cemetery on Aurora Avenue, the sun had dropped much lower on the western horizon. Sophie paid the fare and got out quickly, hoping to avoid spending any amount of time among the headstones after dark.

Inside the cemetery’s fenced perimeter, she followed the main road as it curved around to the east. The road split near the base of a famous World War One statue called
The Doughboy
, which depicted an American soldier returning from battle with mud on his boots and a smile on his face. From the statue she took the path to the left, heading north over and around several small, rolling hills lined with tall cedar trees. “There, by the hedge,” she said several minutes later, as her eyes fixed on a point at the top of the next hill. Nobody was around to hear, but speaking out loud helped calm her nerves.

Picking up the pace, Sophie stepped off the main road for the final hundred yards, zigging and zagging around shrubs, small trees, and scores of graves until she reached the tall row of birch trees at the top of the rise. With twenty-five yards to go, she reached a point where the hedge no longer blocked the view of her parents’ burial spot. She stopped dead in her tracks. A man was there, squatting down in the grass, looking at the handful of graves at the precise location to which she was heading. The man’s hands were tucked deep in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, his back turned to her.

Sophie wondered what the odds were that the only other person in the entire cemetery happened to be visiting a grave right next to her parents.
Not very good
. She didn’t panic, but the thought of being alone near dusk in a cemetery with a strange man who happened to be hovering over the tombstone of her dead family gave her a chill. Turning slowly, she tried to slip away undetected.

She made it only three paces.

“Hello! Don’t go! I’m leaving now.” It was definitely a man’s voice, but there was a strange, singsong quality to it. Something decidedly… unique.

Sophie spun back around.

The man was short with broad shoulders, and he wore dark sunglasses in the piercing last rays of daylight. He walked toward her, smiling, and she noticed a peculiar skip in his step. “Really,” he continued in the same voice. “I’m done here.”

Sophie watched the man as he approached. He was younger than she, maybe nineteen or twenty years old. Under different circumstances she might have felt terror, but something about his demeanor told her not to worry. As he got closer, she noticed that his head was a bit larger than normal, and that his face was slightly more rounded. She wanted to see his eyes, but they were hidden beneath mirrored lenses. Sophie swallowed the lump in her throat. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked tentatively, when he was just a couple of steps away.

He grinned but didn’t stop, or even slow down. “I was just passing through,” he said with a little laugh. “Had something to do for my dad.” The man smiled even wider, shoved his hands deeper into his sweatshirt, and continued walking right on by.

Sophie watched the stranger with curiosity for several more seconds. She was contemplating the unusual pitch of his voice—a tempered lisp that rang out like a melody—when another movement near the base of the small hill caught her attention. It was an arm, waving.

“Sophie! Wait up!”

She didn’t need to hear anything more than her name to know who the voice belonged to. Remaining completely still, Sophie watched as Evi, who was also wearing shades, hurried past the curious young man and continued at a quick pace up the hill to where she stood.

“I thought I told you I wanted to be alone.”

“Did you?” Evalynn asked.

“Don’t play dumb.”

“Fine… here’s the thing. Justin thought I’d be out late, so he invited some friends over to watch a football game. I’d have been a fifth wheel, so I hopped in the car and drove up.” She paused just long enough to watch Sophie’s expression tighten into a frown. “I figured this way you won’t have to pay for a cab ride home when you’re done.” She smiled mischievously. “You can pay me instead.”

The muffled laugh that escaped Sophie’s mouth helped lighten her mood. “Not on your life. But I’ll be happy to buy us both something to eat on the way. I’m starving, and I really feel like drowning my sorrows in a greasy plate of onion rings and a large chocolate shake.”

Evalynn smiled. “Sounds perfect. Now, can we go see your parents?”

Sophie led Evalynn to a simple headstone on the far side of the hedge, directly beneath the outstretched boughs of an aged cedar, which marked the final resting spot of Thomas and Cecilia Jones. The engraving read,

Husband and Father
Wife and Mother
Loved their daughter and each other fully and forever.

“That’s sweet,” whispered Evalynn after reading the inscription. Then she looked around at the surrounding grave markers. “Is your grandmother nearby, too?”

“No. She’d wanted to be buried with her husband—my grandpa—at a cemetery somewhere else in the state. Camas, I think. I’ve never been there.”

Evalynn nodded. “Tell you what, I’ll just hang back a bit so you can do your thing without me hovering.” She stepped away.

“No need,” Sophie said, waving her forward. “Believe it or not, this will be a quick stop.”

Evalynn watched with curiosity as Sophie reached into her handbag and pulled out a small chocolate box from its depths. Opening the box, Sophie picked up one small truffle from within and placed it carefully on the gravestone in the space between her parents’ names. Then she reached once more into her purse, this time finding a small slip of paper and a straight pin. She knelt down in front of the headstone, then gingerly poked the pin through the paper and stuck them both into the center of the truffle.

Before standing, Sophie did one final thing that perplexed Evalynn. A flat, smooth rock, perhaps two inches in diameter and half an inch thick, lay near the corner of the gravestone. It was clearly not there by accident. Much of the rock was translucent agate, including several sections that were nearly see-through. The rest of it was opaque, but with brilliant flecks of silver and burgundy peppered throughout. Sophie stared at it momentarily, marveling at its beauty. Then, without any fanfare, she picked it up, dropped it in her purse, and jumped up off of her knees. “Let’s go,” she said.

“What?” Evalynn asked, surprised. “That’s it?”

“I told you. Quick stop. I’m all done.”

Sophie took several steps back the way they’d come.

Evalynn didn’t move. “But Soph, it’s the twentieth anniversary. Don’t you want to, you know… say something to them? Or at least spend a little more time?”

“Why?”

“
Because
,” Evalynn shot back, her voice rising above a whisper for the first time in several minutes. “They’re your parents!”

“It’s okay, Ev. I did what I came here to do. I’ve made my annual peace.”

Evalynn looked down at the grave marker. “The chocolate? Do you leave one every year?”

Sophie nodded.

Glancing once more at the gravestone, Evalynn asked, “What’s with the paper you stuck on it? Is that an annual thing, too?”

Sophie shook her head. “That’s a new addition this year. After…” She stopped, biting her lip nervously. The words were clear in her mind, but speaking them out loud—even to Evalynn—was hard. “After the whole thing with Garrett, I think my perspective on life changed a bit. The note is just my way of sharing what I feel, without having to verbalize it.”

Evalynn smiled sympathetically. “That’s good! You need to express it one way or another. Do you mind if I…?” She hinted with her eyes at the paper.

Sophie shrugged. “This is a public place. Knock yourself out.”

Evalynn turned and knelt down. Reading the words on the paper proved to be a difficult task in the waning light, especially with sunglasses on. It would have been easier to pick up the ensemble and hold it to her face, but she didn’t want to disrupt what Sophie had taken such care to assemble. Getting on all fours and leaning her head close to the ground, she lifted the sunglasses to her forehead, squinted hard, and then slowly read the tiny words aloud. “
You will take a chance in the near future, and win.
” From her position on the ground, Evalynn snapped around and looked up at Sophie, who was now smiling contentedly. “Sophia Maria Jones! You come all the way here to visit your parents, just to leave them a message from your stupid cookies?”

Sophie chuckled dismissively. “Hey, that’s not one of mine. I certainly wouldn’t write something so rosy. I stopped by Panda Express yesterday after work. There were actually two fortunes in the cookie, and I had a hard time choosing between them. The other one said, ‘
Opportunity knocks. Will you answer?
’ Nice, right?”

Evalynn stood and brushed off her hands and knees. “Oh, for crying out loud. I don’t care where it came from. What I care about is
you
. I thought you said this was your way of expressing how you feel. How does this even remotely express your feelings about your parents?”

“I said it expressed how I feel, but I didn’t say it’s how I feel about them.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Sophie looked around and squinted at the setting sun. “Think of it this way. Right now, today, it’s beautiful outside, sunny and warm. But what about tomorrow? I expect that by then the rain will have set in, the wind will be blowing, and that fortune will be gone.
Ruined
. And the truffle? A hungry squirrel or raccoon will likely scarf it down by dawn. So the fortune and the piece of chocolate are just little reminders—to my parents, to me, to
anyone
—that eventually, hopes and dreams just disappear.” She looked down and silently read the inscription below her parents’ names one more time. “It’s the story of my life. Everything fleets.”

Evalynn watched her without speaking.

For a moment Sophie refused to look at her best friend, choosing instead to stare at the ground and rub her arms slowly with her hands. Finally she looked up and saw the concern on Evalynn’s face. And the confusion. And maybe even a little disappointment. She let a deep breath escape in a long, heavy sigh. “This is why I wanted to come alone. I don’t expect you to understand, Ev. I’m sure now you think I’m nuts, if you didn’t already.”