The Do-Over (4 page)

“They had Abundance there?” Celia asked, bringing Janie’s attention back to the table.

“Just the Luscious Bubble Bath in with some other brands of soaps.”

Stella pointed at Celia. “When we get that catalog done, we’ll find ourselves in lots of places.”

“It was the color.” They all looked at her, waited for her to continue. She felt unqualified to give them any marketing information. What useful thing could she say about packaging or anything else? She’d just reacted. “I bought it because of that silvery-blue color.”

Stella nodded. “Celia helped with the bottle design.”

Janie watched Celia sit up taller. “I’m a singer, but I paint a little. We decided that pink was what women
think
they should like, but it isn’t restful. I mixed the blue and silver and came up with Abundance blue.”

“That’s why I picked up the bottle.” Janie refilled her teacup. Celia was so simply pleased with herself, Janie wanted her to keep on feeling that way. “Tell me about your singing, Celia.”

“In high school she was in the Vancouver Junior Chamber Choir.” Stella delivered the pride of it with a gruffness that made Janie want to grin at her.

“That was two years ago.” Celia sighed like an octogenarian recalling the beauty of her youth. “Now, I’m trying to be a professional singer. I’m saving my money to make a really good demo tape to send out.”

Janie wanted to hug the girl. She had everything ahead. “That’s great, Celia.”

“If business picked up, I think I could have enough in about six months.”

Dylan sat back from his twice-filled and now empty plate. She’d also noticed the three glasses of caffeinated soda he’d downed. If he was anything like Logan, he’d take a breath once he was full, and then start over again. “We all get part of the profits.” He motioned to Stella and Celia.

Stella snorted. “Nothing motivates lazy teenage boys like money.”

Janie had certainly learned that one. If no one had come up with the allowance system, homes would be overrun with snack wrappers and filthy socks. “So, Dylan, what are your plans?”

Dylan shrugged, the non-committal guy answer Janie had come to learn meant either
I don’t want to talk about it
or
there is literally nothing in my head at this moment
. Occasionally, she suspected it meant both.

Stella gave a scratchy laugh. “He plans to
invest
in cars.”

“Do you restore them?” Janie asked him.

“He just tries to get girls to
ride
in them.” Stella raised her eyebrows.

“Even girls who don’t let
guys
drive.” Celia gave Dylan the kind of smile a little sister torments a brother with.

Dylan picked up the challenge. “What’s that thing your Grandma says about leopards changing their spots?”

Celia laughed. “That they can’t.”

“Oh.” Dylan shrugged her off and reached for another round of dinner.

Janie felt a wave of missing Logan. He’d be, maybe at the same very moment, eating an obscene quantity of food and shrugging off most of a dinner conversation with his grandparents. He was growing up, and, she was sure, enjoying his time away. She would enjoy hers too. “I’m really glad I came to Vancouver. I love Gastown already.”

Dylan shrugged. “It’s better than Strathmore. I Left there when I was fifteen, and I’m never going back.”

Never going back. The words, said with such certainty, made her feel both queasy and breathless. Not that it mattered. She was going back, going back right after dinner.

She was going back right after dessert. “You’re right, Stella, this is real apple pie.” Janie looked across the Formica topped table then around the old-fashioned diner. The booth’s upholstery held the red a good vinyl ought to, but to be even more authentic, the place needed a waitress with gray-blue locks gathered in a hairnet.

Janie discretely checked out her own hair, reflected in the gleam of the napkin dispenser. The highlights glowed in the wash of florescent overheads. The haircut and cleavage had been nice boosts, but the feeling of pure enjoyment she’d had all evening was enough to make her dizzy. She’d expected to feel awkward during the dinner, but she’d been treated like she always joined Abundance for Teriyaki Tuesday. Now, alone with Stella, she sipped her coffee and waited.

Stella stopped eating, returned the look, and took a deep breath.

Janie knew this time Stella was going to say something really profound, something wise, something inspiring that would impart the will to go. Janie only wished she had a daughter to pass the knowledge on to.

Stella sneezed. “Bless me.”

Janie blinked.

Stella went back to her pie, and Janie felt robbed of a mentoring moment. “That’s it?”

Stella reached for her coffee. “Oh, you were expecting me to help you? Tell you something so amazing you couldn’t wait to get back home to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and clean the john?”

Janie sat back. When Stella put it that way, it sounded like a job no one would want.

“I was married for thirty-five years before I lost my husband. We raised four kids, and I have five grandchildren. Two years ago we started Abundance, and it keeps me busy. I’ve had a good life, but it doesn’t have anything to do with yours.”

Janie felt her mouth open, and when nothing came out, she closed it.

“When it comes to marriage, I don’t think you have to stay together until somebody dies to win. When it comes to raising kids, you do your best, but you have to take care of yourself too, or they won’t be taken care of very well.” Stella shrugged. “I don’t know much more than that.”

Well, okay. That was a lot to know.

Stella waved for the waitress to bring more coffee. “You don’t want to go back tonight.”

That much she did know. “I don’t.”

“Then don’t go.” Stella lifted her coffee cup to the waitress. “Thank you.”

Janie started to cover her cup with her hand. She’d be up all night. Four o’clock was a reasonable cut-off for caffeinated beverages. She lifted her cup instead. “Thank you.”

Stella reached into her purse and pulled out a set of keys, placing them on the table between them. “Once when my husband and I were new parents, we were in a restaurant with our first girl, Laurie. She was just a toddler and squirmy, and we were doing our best to keep her busy. We didn’t eat out much back then.”

Janie remembered the baby days with Logan and how once they’d taken him to a movie in desperation to get out, only to have him cry so loudly, they had to run out of the theater.

“We were just finishing our dinner and pretty frustrated from all the work, and this older woman comes up to our table and gives Laurie a dollar bill. She said
this is a good little girl. I’d like to treat her to an ice cream
.”

Janie could picture Stella and her husband, young and struggling. That woman had done them a kindness. And wasn’t that sometimes all it took?

“With that ice cream dollar, she told us it was okay, and we felt like it was.” She took a drink of coffee, and Janie waited, pleased to know that Stella’s pauses were worth waiting for. “I have a loft apartment next door to Abundance. It’s right above Gretchen’s clothing store. Haven’t gotten around to renting it after the last tenant.” Stella took a big hunk of pie on her fork. “You can stay if you want.”

Janie felt herself tear up. A dollar for ice-cream. Another night, another day. She could drive Wednesday and get to Seattle in time to check out of the hotel. She’d be home before anyone missed her.

She opened the door between the Abundance shop and the vintage clothing store. The stairwell, narrow and sharply lit with a bank of florescent lights, took her to the apartment door. She keyed it and stepped into the dark loft, feeling along the wall until she found the lights and flicked them on. It lived up to the name loft, large and open, with a floor that seemed to spread like a sea of dark wood. Along one wall, windows spanned from ceiling to floor and brought in the streetlight from below.

But it was the wash of yellow, the sunshine glow the walls held even at night that made her want to stay. The ceiling, so high it should have felt cavernous, reflected back the warmth of citrus. She walked across the room to the small kitchen, cozy and inefficient, and she instantly loved it. The bar, separating the kitchen and living area, was just large enough for two. It lacked seats, but two could sit at it with some planning. She crossed to it and set down her purse, opening it and pulling out a bag of chocolate kisses, the only food that had survived her eating frenzy during her drive from Seattle. There, she’d moved in. She leaned against the rounded white refrigerator, indulging herself in imagining what she would do if the loft were hers.

First, she’d need some books. They’d stack at all angles in the wonderfully rickety bookcase that ran low along the length of one wall, just below the windows. She’d have dozens of books she didn’t even normally read. She’d buy mysteries, self-help, erotica. She considered that erotica maybe was self-help.

To the right of the window there was a spot for a table and she’d need a wicker chair or two. Yes, two chairs and a small table and none of them would match. She noted the bed, a double mattress on a rusty metal bed frame definitely needed a headboard, something fabric and unusual. It surprised her that she didn’t care that there were no sheets or even a pillow. She didn’t feel sleep coming on any time soon. The three cups of coffee must have kicked in, and she had to stop herself from running out and furnishing the place because she wasn’t staying and she really had to go to the bathroom.

She crossed the room to what she hoped was the bathroom. She found it and loved it, beautifully tart in lime with its fixtures forties pink. The pink had such a timeless charm, and the lime tweaked the mood from nostalgic to something entirely new and quirky. Luscious Bubbles would look great all foamed up in the deco tub. And there’d be music. A small boom box sat abandoned on the vanity as if maybe the previous tenant had run off with the circus or been called out to sea. She hit the play button and zippy jazz sprang out, a woman singing something flirty in French. Of course, the previous tenant had headed to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower and dance the cancan in its shadow. Janie knew instantly what she needed to do. First, go to the bathroom. Second, dance the rest of the coffee off like a Parisian gypsy. Then she’d take a Luscious bath, and in the morning, only in the morning, would she think about going back.

Four hours of sleep had never felt better. She stretched toward the ceiling, her muscles nicely tired from what must have been an hour of dancing, and she didn’t even dance. After a while, she’d also learned to sing along to the CD. The songs might have been about foot fungus for all she knew, but the words sounded great. She began to sing again. Maybe Mara was French. She laughed at herself, glanced around the loft for the last time. Its yellow looked even more buoyant in the morning light. As she passed the bar, she patted the bag of chocolate kisses. Back home she didn’t indulge in carbs, and she’d miss them, but she hoped Stella would enjoy them for her.

She made her way slowly to the door and stepped into the hall, stopping herself from double checking the lock. She’d bring coffees to the Abundance folks, give Stella back her key, and drive. She heard her heels tap down the flight of stairs to the street. She’d tried to force herself back into baggy sweats and tennies, but she just wasn’t ready to do it. She’d change back at the hotel in Seattle and hope no one spotted her first.

She pulled her cell phone out to call Logan. He wouldn’t expect it for several days since it was lame at thirteen to need to talk to your mother every day. The previous summer, the unspoken deal had been every other day. She hated to think it had become a mandatory three day waiting period.

She stepped into the summer morning, saw the Abundance sign sparkling silvery blue over the door, and began to dial, but spotted the tiny envelope icon. Messages. She hadn’t heard the phone ring at all. With a start she remembered she’d turned the ringer off that first evening in Seattle and scrolled through the list. The messages, a dozen, were all from Dan.

In a panic, she put her hand over her heart, felt her own cleavage, and jumped. Did he know she was gone? A dozen messages? He’d not called her that many times ever. He knew she was gone. Who was she kidding? But she didn’t want to listen to them. She was so in the wrong. She’d just call him and straighten it all out. She could explain. Explain? No. It was better not to think about it, just apologize and drive. She punched in his number and cringed when she heard his voice after the first ring.

“Janie?”

“Hi, Dan.”

“Where the hell are you?”

Yeah, he knew. Damn. “Well, that’s kind of a funny thing. I needed some bubble bath and—”

Dan yelled, “You went to Vancouver for bubble bath?”

She pulled the phone a couple of inches from her ear and in defense, mumbled, “How did you—”

“Your credit card, Janie. The head of the Middle School Association called to check on you. The teachers were worried after your disappearance.”

Disappearance. To
disappear
sounded so much worse than the other prepositional phrases she’d considered. To take a trip. To run an errand. To draw a bath.

“What the hell’s going on?”

She felt her eyes fill with tears. What was going on? What had she been thinking? She couldn’t explain it, not in any logical way, but she could fix it, return, and never think of it again. “I’m driving right now, Dan. I’ll be in Seattle in two hours, get my things from the hotel, and come home. Everything’s fine.”

“If everything was fine, Janie, you’d be at the middle school teacher’s conference, and I’d be home right now. But I’m tracking down my wife in Vancouver. Vancouver, Janie.”

She jerked the phone farther from her face and mouthed the word
shit
over and over again. She hadn’t been in trouble since she was… well, she’d never been in trouble. Why had she ever thought she could get away with something so stupid? “Damn bubble bath!”