Take Two (4 page)

Small children were tossing balls at
the far end,
ducks were follow
ing one another near the edge, and several teenagers were
taking turns on a jet ski.

I couldn’t remem
ber the last time I came
ho
me and relaxed
on the lake. CUNY’s w
riting program and my job
at
The New York Appeal
k
ept me away for years
and
I never needed
to come home, never wanted to.

In fact, m
y parents
insisted on flying
to New York for the holidays
and cook
ing
Thanksgiving and Christmas
dinners in my
tiny
apartment.
Sean
had
promised me that we would visit them in Memphis after our honeymoon.

Oh well.

As the drizzle turned to rain,
I stood up and headed back inside. I caught my reflection in the
screen door
and gasped.

My
skin was the color of porcelain. N
o matter how many times I pinched my cheeks, no color returned. My eyelids were inflamed
. M
y eyes were
bloodshot
. My
lips
were gray and cracked,
licking them just made them
look
worse.

Despite looking horrible all over,
the one thing that
struck me hardest was my hair,
my
Sean
-influenced-this-
ugly
-
shit
-
brown-colored-hair.

I rushed
to my room and dumped the clothes out of my carryon
. I put on
white jeans, a T-shirt, and
my mismatched tennis shoes
. I ran
to the garage
and
found
t
he spare keys to my mom’s Jeep.

Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
red. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I told the beauty clerk at CVS.

I carefully eyed the box as I sto
od naked in the bathroom. I
dragged
the elastic band away from
my matted ponytail an
d shook my head back and forth.

My hair didn’t move.

I stepped into the shower and applied the dye generous
ly. I let it sit for twenty
minutes
longer than necessary
and stayed in the shower for another hour.

I wanted to go back to sleep, but I forced myself to take out my laptop. I
’d
missed two weeks of film
and book
reviews
, and
my work
inbox was surprisingly
empty.

I
decided to
log in to watch the latest
Matt
Sterling film,
Summer Nights
, knowing
that I would never get that hour and thirty minutes
of my life ba
ck.

In between watching that dreck and taking notes, I painted my nails black—a color
Sean
loathed.

I should’ve tackled him at the wedding. Why didn’t I tackle him?

As the movie cam
e to an end, I typed a
review and emailed
it t
o my office.

I
walked
into the living room and eyed the mountain of unope
ned wedding presents. I didn’t think I was
ready to face that part of my pain, but I plopped down in front of the pile
anyway
.

I picked up a small
red box and gently tugged
its silk
y white
ribbon. Exhaling
, I removed the to
p.

There was a card:
“
Dear Mrs. Scofield, I know you’re probably going to open this one first. You’ve always loved
red
and I’ve always loved
you
. Your husband and love for all eternity, Mr. Scofield.
”

Ugh. What the fuck!

I crumpled the paper and
tossed it across the room. I rummaged through the tissue paper and took
out the gift: A
multi-strand pearl
necklace by
Kenneth Lane
. It was
an exact replica of
the one Audrey Hepburn wore in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
.

I clasped it around m
y neck and ran my fingers along the pearls
.

I picke
d out another box,
a
blue
one
,
and like a two year old at Christmas, ripped the packaging apart: Cookware.

Boo!

I went about this for another hour, making two separate piles. The first pile was for cookware, anything that said “His & Hers,” and w
ell-wish cards. The second pile, the “keep” pile,
was fo
r jewelry, money, and mementos.

After opening every gift, my “keep” pile had amassed $
4,60
0, three diamond necklace
s, a Rebecca Moses dress, five
bracelets, and a collection of f
ramed Hollywood movie posters.

I wasn’t sure what to do next.
Watching
TV was out of the question and I was
sure
that my parents hadn’t updated their DVD collection in years.

I wandered
from room to room
, failing to fee
l any nostalgia, any ties. T
hey’
d remo
de
le
d the house
beyond recognition
.

The staircase that once served as the backdrop for family photos was stripped of it
s soft beige carpet and fitt
ed with hardwood and white paint. The family den, the
former
home of
celebrations
—graduations,
milestones, birthdays—wa
s now a great room with a
dining table and tw
o sets of oversized furniture.
My childhood room wa
s no longer a pink Barbie-haven. I
t was a yellow guestroom that reflected my parents’ love for the beach.

I ran my finger
s
across our
old
family portrait and s
miled
. My
younger
sister Jennifer an
d I looked like twins back then.
O
ur red hair hung loose and wild, our green eyes glimmered underneath the
hot Memphis sun. My mom’s squinty eyes were nearly covered by her
blunt
bangs
, but
her toothy
smile made up for it. My dad stood to her side, bald and
stone-faced
,
wearing his trademark black suit.

I stood by my former
wind
ow and ti
l
t
ed the blinds.
The rain was
still
falling
heavily and the lake was
long
abandoned.

Somethin
g in me snapped and I headed outside
again. I was soaked
within seconds
, but for some
reason
I began to laugh. I stepped down from the
deck and waded into the lake.

I waded further and further, farther and farther
,
until my feet no longer touched the bottom.
I
flipped over on my back and brought my arms over my head, paddli
ng with no destination in mind.

If Sean had been there
, he would be yelling at me, telling me to get out of the water
immediately
.

That was the
one thing he and I didn’t share:
a love for the open water. He preferred
pool
s with designated depth markers
while I
preferred unrestricted
oceans and large lakes.

I shook the thought of him out of my mind and kept swimming in the rai
n, relishing in the freedom
.

“Melody!” my mom shouted as she and my dad came through the front door.
“You’re a redhead again!”

“Hey Mom. Hey Dad.”

“I see you went ahead and took my advice on the wedding gifts,” she nodded.

“Yea
h
,” I sighed. “I’m going to write out the thank you cards tonight.”

“And I assume
that the pile with the cookware is staying here?”

I laughed. “Of course.”

“Have you heard anything from
that boy
?” my dad hissed.

“No, I haven’t.
Whoa! N
ice watch!” I eyed his
wrist
.

He smiled and
held it to the light. “Thanks!
It’s an
Audemars Piguet
!
Sean
bought it for my birthday this year. He sure did know his jewelry.”

“R
eally Dad?”

My mom
slapped the back of his head and they
both
walked over
to the cookware pile.

I
went
to
my room and plugged my phone into the wall:
forty seven
missed calls,
twenty nine
voice messages, and
seventy three
text messages. There were no missed calls from
Sean
, but he’d sent me
fifteen
texts.

Coward.

I wasn’t going to call everyone back, and I wasn’t going to listen to any voice messages. I deleted my call log and called my sister.

“Melody!” she picked up on the first ring. “I told you to call me as soon as you landed!
It’s been like two weeks!
Are you alright?”

“Yeah,
I’m okay. How are you?”

“Stressed. I’m still not done with my thesis and—who cares? Don’t worry about me. Has that asshole said anything to you?”

“No,” I
felt a lump rise in my throat.

“Good
!
I told him to never call you
again
or I would have my
guy friends come
to
that store and beat him up
.”

“Jennifer!”

“What? It’s the truth. Let me know if he calls okay? I bought some new pepper spray yesterday.”

I laughed at t
he excitement in her voice. “
Wer
e you and Lilly able to get
my stuff out of his condo?”

“Yea
h
, but we weren
’t able to get
all
of it
. There wasn’t enough room in the car and Lilly had to go back to Jersey.”

“That’s okay.
I guess I’ll get those when I get back.”

“Oh my god, please tell me when you go! I’m dying to test out this new spray!”

“I love you
,
Jen.
I’ll talk to you later.”

“You better! I love you too.”

I hung up and smiled at the thought of Jen and her friend
s beating
Sean
to a pulp i
n
Belazi
.
Then again, he’d p
robably charm his way out of it
or offer them
jewelry to get
them
to
go away.

I called my office.

“
Melody
Carter’s
office,” Sophie answered.

“I take it every
one at work
heard about the wedding?”

“Miss Carter! It’s
so
nice to hear from you!” she coughed
and changed her tone
. “I did as
much damage control as I could
ma’am.”