The Do-Over (37 page)

Velma screamed, and Mara jostled her way closer, ready to give aid for a stroke, a seizure, a heart attack, but Velma began to pump her hand in the air and shout, “profit share, profit share!”

John laughed, and Mara felt herself smile in relief. Mean Velma wasn’t ready to check out yet. Of course, the world wasn’t ready for mean Velma to have disposable income either, but it better brace itself. She watched the shipping crew hug each other, and Dylan grin like a boy about to graduate to the next level of car ownership. She watched John step down from the stage, greeted by a dozen people who lined up to talk to him.

“Mara.” Renny’s voice called out, and Mara looked for her out of the human instinct to be named and answer to it.

Renny left the stage, approached her, and took her hand. “You okay?”

“No.”

She felt Renny’s hand clutch hers tighter. “Am I?”

“No.”

“Shit. Should we run away?”

“We already did.”

The music started up again, and Celia waved with exaggeration. Renny didn’t let go of her hand, but took her up on the stage, and Mara felt her legs shake even as they managed the steps up. They stood side by side at the microphone, the music quiet but building behind them. First, strings and then Renny’s well-worn voice singing about knowing true love ways. So close, Mara felt she was singing too, a tandem parachute jump that let her share the updraft of magic.

Celia joined in, the band playing so sadly behind her, and Sadie waved at her grandgirl from the dance floor then gripped the young waiter who practiced an abundance of patience. Sadie had once had her milkman. She knew true love ways.

Mara felt John watching her and studied him back. There was no real history there. Three weeks. That had been part of the appeal. She’d met him and misjudged him. There was nothing true there. He did seem to want Mara. She believed his offer to stay in Vancouver, to stay in his life. But John wanted Mara. He’d never even met Janie.

Renny squeezed her hand, and Mara could see her eyes shine in the spotlight. Renny knew true love ways, and even in the sadness the song sent through her, Mara felt some joy about that. She looked down, saw her own red shoes glimmer next to Renny’s. She caught Renny’s eye, tipped her head to Celia, singing with open joy on her face, then to Gretchen standing still in the swaying crowd. She pointed, their fingers still linked, at Renny’s shoes. “Go home.”

Renny took a breath in, whispered, “I’m scared.” But Mara smiled and pointed to the shoes again, letting out a held breath when Renny laughed and clicked her heels three times.

Mara saw a future for her, a future Gretchen and Celia didn’t even know they’d share. And the shipping crew would keep on and Abundance would administer Code Blues bathtub by bathtub because John would see to it. She listened to the music all around her and knew it was the song she’d danced to earlier when the evening held nothing but promise.

Renny sang out about sharing joy with those who really care, and Mara saw John at the edge of the dance floor waiting for her. And what was ahead for her? Everything about him at that moment, the tilt of his head, the way his body leaned forward, the intensity of his gaze, asked the same question.

She’d left her life for thirty days, left Dan and Logan, left her work, her house, herself. She could feel Renny and Celia harmonizing beside her. “You and I know true love ways.”

You and I. She didn’t know what she knew with John. She met his eyes and swallowed the tears back, afraid she’d never catch her breath in the flood of them. She didn’t know what she knew with Dan either, but Stella was right. A woman could leave a marriage, even when a child was bound up in the commitment, but things had to be too knotted up to ever be made right again. Even Dorothy hadn’t escaped that understanding.

In the blur of Renny’s voice and the sharp target of the spotlight, she gave John a last smile, shook her head
no
and watched the question leave his face. He nodded once and stepped back into the crowd. She clicked her heels three times and felt the tears come, splintering the spotlight into a million shards.

A last Kiss lay melting on her tongue. She stared up at the ceiling, cheery as could be in yellow. The bulky sweat suit that she’d put on after the party, still wore the stain of her first happy chocolate and made her feel hot. Hot. Not Farrah hair hot. Not push up bra hot. Not Abundance blue gown hot. Polyester/cotton thick gray knit Janie hot.

The morning light made its way through the wall of windows, and she wanted to appreciate it, acknowledge the beauty of the last few moments in her loft before Janie went home, but even trying to channel the discipline she’d once possessed, didn’t help her lose willingly what she’d come to love.

She rose from the bed, stopped herself from kicking her purse or running around the room and wildly packing the clothes she had to leave behind, the clothes Janie wouldn’t wear. She picked up her purse instead and walked over to the coffee table trunk. She grabbed the face-down watch, threw it in her bag without checking the time, and made her way to the kitchen. 

She tossed her wedding ring in as well, but on her way to the door, she reached for the smiling daisy cardigan and tucked it inside. She’d wear it on laundry day when all the usual clothes were spinning and drying and even sensible people had to put on the odd thing at the back of the dresser drawer.

She made her way to the door, knew the key winked on the counter next to the five chocolate kisses she’d lost. She wouldn’t look back, didn’t want closure. She’d imagine for the rest of her years that somehow a part of her just went on living that life. 

It was Mara’s place. Mara worked at Abundance and wore anything she wanted, and went to Woody Allen movies with John and picnicked in English finery and spent time with a great bunch of gray-haired ladies who put dollar bills in male stripper’s underwear and listened to her friends sing songs that only made her sad in good ways.

Janie closed the door behind her and refused to hear it click shut. Mara would turn on French jazz any minute and sink into a deep tub of Abundance. Mara would do something just like that.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, she looked straight ahead to avoid seeing the quirky teapots in Gretchen’s window or the silver-blue of Abundance, but a flash out of the corner of her eye made her turn her head out of instinct. Gretchen waved like a wild woman. Damn. Maybe she could walk fast enough to…

But the door flew open, and they all spilled out, like they’d been waiting for her, every woman she knew in the entire city of Vancouver, every woman she loved in the entire city of Vancouver. Only John was missing, but it looked like she was going to get closure whether she wanted it or not.

Sadie grabbed her arm and hauled her closer with surprising strength. “Mara! You couldn’t go without—”

“Janie.” It came out like a rusty whisper, and she cleared her throat and started over. “It’s Janie. It’s Mara Jane really, but everybody calls me Janie.”

“We don’t.” Renny grinned, Gretchen close beside her.

Celia threw her arms around Janie’s neck, “I’m gonna miss you so much.” She squeezed so hard Janie had to close her eyes and concentrate on breathing.

“You’ll come back and see us again.” Stella stepped forward, gruff and waving Celia away.

“Will I?” Janie felt her heart pound.

Stella shrugged. “Hell if I know.” Then she smiled, and gave a quick hug. “Just take care of yourself and life will work out.”

“Or not.” Velma held out her hand, and Janie hesitated as if it was a cranky old lady trick. Maybe Velma palmed one of those electric zappers or sticky gum or a fake spider. Janie shook her hand anyway. “Well, they’re not paying me to attend a going away party for gay people. And you an illegal alien too.” Velma headed back to Abundance, herding the waving Marthas, and Jennie who blew a motherly kiss. Stella followed, pulling Sadie and Celia away too.

Gretchen hugged her. “You’re a great gay illegal alien person.”

Janie tried to laugh but only teared up more.

“And a great friend.” Gretchen started to cry, this time without ducking away. There wasn’t a rack of funky gowns to hide in, and maybe Gretchen, like Renny, had made the decision to hide less and live more.

Janie hugged her tightly back. “Thank you. For so much.”

Renny pulled a couple of tissues out of her pocket, handing one to Gretchen, one to Janie.

“And,” Janie faced the two of them, “never ever buy facial tissue in bulk.”

Gretchen looked at the tissue in confusion, and Janie made a quick wish for their future. “Just trust me on this one.”

Renny hugged her and the two of them went back to the store. Janie stood alone for a moment, sniffed, straightened the bottom of her sweatshirt, and before she could get to her car, John emerged from Abundance. He stopped a few feet from her and waited. Of course, the brilliant last thing ever said between them would fall on her. She was the one leaving.

“I, uh…” It needed to be something beautiful or terribly witty or timeless, a
here’s looking at you, kid
, or
frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn
, or
you had me at bubble bath
. But there was nothing for a married mom in a chocolate stained sweatsuit to say.

He closed the gap between them, leaned over, and kissed her on the cheek, and she closed her eyes as the smell of Abundance surrounded her. “Goodbye, Mara.”

When she opened her eyes, he’d already made it back to Abundance, and she watched the door close behind him, and the silvery blue sign swing once, twice, three times.

She turned toward the van and whispered her own closure. “Goodbye, Mara.”

The drive was such a blur, she worried as she pulled into airport parking, that she might have made some terrible mistake like exceeded the speed limit, run a red light, killed somebody.

She parked and made her way through the cool dim of the garage. Logan would arrive within the hour and disembark. She’d already done that. She’d think of her time in Canada as a kind of disembarking, a time when she’d lived in the parentheses of a thirty-day break from her life. But when she’d left Abundance, she’d really disembarked, left behind whoever she’d been there. Maybe the drive had killed somebody.

She walked into the airport and knew it was time again to concentrate on Logan because that held the only known joy. She’d hug him for the minute he allowed and smell his hair, which wouldn’t be soft, sweaty boy hair anymore, but something richer, like shampoo and promise.

She stepped onto the escalator, all silver and teethy, and committed to also concentrating on practical things like her all-purpose walking shoes. She’d be glad she wasn’t wearing anything silly like butterfly flip-flops. The real world was a dangerous place and people probably lost toes every day in the name of frivolous fashion. 

At the top of the escalator, she tried not to look for Dan. Not that she didn’t want to see him, she just didn’t want
the moment
of seeing him. It would be awkward and odd. He’d be surprised, maybe, and that would hurt, as if she would abandon her family, or he’d not be surprised at all and that would hurt. Did he think she was the kind of woman who could turn back into a caterpillar after having been a butterfly?

He saw her first. She felt it, the awkwardness she’d feared. It grew around her, and she turned. He stood buttoned down and neatly trimmed. Was he waiting for her to come to his side, be the campus tour girl he’d met in college who became a warehouse shopping middle school teacher trainer wife? She closed the distance between them and they stood, side by side watching the arrival signs. Together they would meet the plane, and their son would come home.

But then he turned toward her, and she held her breath. He would, he would say what was on his mind, in his heart. “Chocolate.”

Chocolate? Chocolate was supposed to evoke feelings of being in love, but what exactly was he trying to say?

He pointed to her chest with the same judgment of motion he’d once used for her cleavage that fateful McDonald’s morning.

She felt her mouth open but only a hiss of air came out. He could acknowledge a smear of chocolate on her sweats but not her presence, her absence, his presence, his absence, the second half of their lives, the second half her mother didn’t even get to have? It was so like him. 

What deep insight would he reveal next?
Gee, Janie, hope there’s still a gallon of pre-wash spray in the laundry room, we might be low.
“Fuck you!” She took a step back as if the expletive, like a rifle, had a kick back. She spotted several travelers speed by with their rolly bags, keeping her in their peripheral vision until they were out of range.

Dan wore the big divot between his eyes. “Fuck me?”

“About that…”

“Fuck you!”

She blinked. This was a man who gave countless juveniles detention for inappropriate language, and he had the nerve to… “fuck me? Oh, because I have chocolate on my sweatshirt? There isn’t anything more important you’d like to
fuck me
about? Oh, well, you know what I mean. There isn’t anything, Dan Mulligan, you want to say to me?”

“No.” He folded his arms across his chest.

She wanted to jack hammer them loose but took a deep breath instead. “Of course not.” Then, of their own inspiration, her middle fingers saluted him. “Well, fuck you double!”

He pointed both index fingers at her. “Fuck you to Hell and back!”

“Fuck you past Hell to middle age. And I hope your hair falls out and nobody ever obeys your…” she lowered her palms in front of him, “quiet hands again.”

He sucked in a breath. “I hope your Canadian cleavage ends up at your knees, and the Charlie’s Angels franchise dies, so there’s never another movie.”

“I hope your hair falls out!”

“You already said that.”

She panicked. She couldn’t re-use the same insult and win, and then it came to her. “Your pubic hair!”

The
fucks
might have gone unnoticed, but the word
pubic
brought security within seconds. Janie and Dan sat across a table from a man who looked old enough to have retired and tired enough to be working part-time against his will. The clipboard in front of him held an inch of paperwork.