The Do-Over (7 page)

Taking advantage of his opened-mouthed surprise, she herded him toward the door, and when he cleared the jamb, she smiled at him. “It’s just for a couple of weeks.” She closed the door, locked it, and felt giddy at the click. 

When she heard the slow but fading sound of Dan on the stairs, she knew she had to do something with every moment that she had. But what? Freedom might take a little practice. She looked around the loft. In her regular life what did she never have time for? There were so many things, why was it was hard to think of any? She should sit down and make a list. Sitting. She rarely had time to sit. She’d given up reading for pleasure. That was it. She’d start with reading, uninterrupted reading. She’d hit a bookstore and hit it hard, with cleavage. First, because she wanted to know the exact definition of giddy. She’d never had need of the word before and felt compelled to know more about it, and second, she wanted to sit in her very own place and read until her eyesight was blurry, just because she could.

She found just the bookshop in the Gastown neighborhood, her neighborhood. The place had dark green shelves, golden carpet, and the walls were plastered with clocks. There were regular clocks in black and silver but also sunflower ones, two sailboats, and a fairly disturbing clown. It was a unique place, and that was harder and harder to say about bookstores. In college the bookstores she’d frequented were all independents. There was an adventure to book shopping that the chains had diminished. You never knew if you’d find the book you wanted or a cat or free tea or a set of twin babies corralled up in a playpen in the corner.

Once she remembered coming upon a stuffed cat, a dead pet some taxidermist had taken a run at preserving. Its golden marble eyes needed a dusting, but it was perched, somewhat naturally, in the self-help section. Personally, it hadn’t made her feel any better about the advice dispensed on the shelves below it. It wasn’t that she read that sort of thing, but she was certain she wouldn’t be able to embrace
Living Life Authentically
or even
Making Love to a Man, with Zest
when faced with a sawdust-filled, matted cat corpse.

She had shopped non-fiction faithfully when she was pregnant with Logan. She’d bought every baby book in the world, read them, taken notes, and then discovered that no one knew anything about her baby. She’d had to figure him out over and over again. He’d changed with every stage, sometimes with every day. The early years were exciting and exhausting. Then when he’d started school, the family had found a rhythm. It was good, the stability, the predictability. When had it begun to drain her? When had she realized that even
that
would change, and he’d be leaving home?

She stopped at the reference section. There were so many answers she felt in need of, but it amazed her that readers required reference for
Shopping New Hampshire’s Furniture Outlets
or finding
Free Stuff for the Rabbit Lover
.

She reached for a small paperback dictionary. Portable was good for her current nomadic lifestyle. She smiled. Nomadic lifestyle, that was good. She flipped through the G’s, getting derailed for a few minutes by
germinal
, of or relating to a germ;
get-up-and-go
, which she had no idea was hyphenated; and
gewgaw
, a showy trifle.
Giddy
. She’d nearly forgotten what she’d been looking for.
Causing dizziness
. That didn’t sound very appealing.
Not serious
. Better.
Frivolous
. Frivolous had promise. She’d never been accused of that before. Maybe she’d enjoy having that hurled at her. Mara Jane Mulligan… she looked up
frivolous
. Your
lack of seriousness
is appalling. That was excellent. She flipped back to
giddy
.
Silly
. She turned to the S’s and the first definition hit her heart.
Happy
.

“Anything I can help you with?” An older woman, her bi-focals attesting to her power as a reader, stood alongside her.

“Yes.” Mara held up the dictionary, “I’ll take this, and I’m looking for something new to read.”

“What kind of books do you like?”

“I mostly read teaching methodology texts, but I want something entirely different. Something giddy. Something happy.”

The woman blinked, then gathered herself like any good worker in retail sales would. “Romance? We have a humor section. Some of the newer mysteries are a lot of fun. Fantasy might be good.”

Mara held the dictionary to her chiffon covered chest, the pages still opened to
giddy
. “I’ll take a mixed dozen.”

Vampires had eyes like hers. At least the vampire described in the third book she’d read did. Blood red. She wondered if vampire eyeballs were as gritty, as tired and dry, as hers were. She’d read for so many hours, she’d lost track of a day. It had grown dark and then light again, if her squinty eyes were accurately perceiving the early morning sun. She automatically turned her wrist to check the time and remembered she’d taken her watch off. It lay face down on the coffee table trunk, its little silver hands going unheeded. She’d leave it there as long as she could and enjoy what was already the most relaxing time of her life. She’d really escaped into the books, not just sipped them when she could steal a minute. She’d lived vicariously and enjoyed the supernatural lives, the dangerous lives, even the steamy ones. 

She rose, stretched, then kicked out at the pizza box just because she’d seen guys on TV ads kick at their pizza boxes, and it might be her only chance to do it. She saw the tea pot and empty mug on the trunk and wished she’d thought ahead and had a beer so an empty bottle could roll under the couch and make that great TV ad clinking sound too.

She’d go to bed, even though it was morning and the rule was to rise in the morning, and she’d sleep. She’d sleep for as long as her eyes needed to heal. Then she’d… she’d do whatever the hell she wanted.

Afternoon sun lit up the loft, and there was no alarm clock to tell her to get out of bed and no one who needed her to help them get out of theirs. No one even to buy facial tissues for. She rolled over, and it felt amazing, so she rolled back and over again. She spread out in the middle of the bed and moved her arms and legs up and down, a snow angel in the cotton. She thought of her day planner, the family calendar, the answering machine, all back home, all out of reach, all unable to reach her.

Her stomach growled, and she patted it. Her appetites, and her appetites only asked to be fed. She sat up to speak directly to her belly button. “What do you want? What do you want? Whatever it is, let’s go get it.” Her stomach growled again. “Heavy Italian for brunch? An excellent choice.”

She rose and headed for the shower with the intention of staying in it until she’d drained the hot water tank.

She’d planned to get dressed but then Three Dog Night came on the radio, and she’d had to dance. She turned up the music so loud, the little boom box buzzed on the trunk, but Jeremiah was a bullfrog, and he deserved some attention. She spun around the room, enjoyed the feel of her body, both strong and jiggly, a combination she’d not appreciated before. She sang along and felt the desire to throw away cars, bars, and wars just like the song suggested. And then she’d take their advice and do nothing but make love in the world. Music needed more of that kind of sweet optimism.

The pounding at the door made her jump, but she kept dancing as she scooped up her towel, wrapped it around her, and made her way across the room to open the door to Dan. Dan, who looked like he’d spent the night at the bottom of a hamper fully dressed and without any access to water, soap, light, or maybe oxygen.

He swayed in the doorway. “Were you singing in there wearing that towel?”

“No.” She shook her head. He needed food. He always got shaky if he didn’t eat regularly. “I was singing in here wearing nothing.”

He blinked but seemed to have a hard time tracking, so in a flash of guilt, she decided to take him for Italian before she sent him home. She pulled him into the loft by his collar, shut the door, and leaned him up against it. “I was dancing. It’s Three Dog Night. Remember? It’s on
The Big Chill
soundtrack.”

Dan closed his eyes for a moment as if in concentration. “They only needed a weekend.”

She stopped on her way to her clothes. “What?”

He opened his eyes and shook his head. “In
The Big Chill
they had a weekend away from their regular lives. They only needed a weekend.”

It had been a weekend. The whole movie, the changes, the realizations, the end, had only taken a couple of days. Well, some people required more. She needed more because… “They’d all been free-spirits in college, remember? They’d done whatever they wanted when they were younger. I took elementary ed. classes and gave campus tours. I wore a university sweatshirt, with that god-awful Peter Pan collar and told incoming freshmen, who after twenty-four hours on campus had already had more fun than I’ve had in my whole life, about the penalties of drinking in the dorms.”

Dan scowled. She smirked at him. He knew she was right. He’d seen her do the tours, for God’s sake. She didn’t need to tell him what a model citizen she’d been, but he wasn’t going to concede a damn thing. “It’s going to take me a month. A whole month. I’ve lived in captivity for nearly forty years.”

She walked over to the bed where her new old clothes waited. She grabbed a peach floral dress and the sandals with plastic butterflies, and headed toward the bathroom. She needed rhinestone sunglasses. She’d have to pick up a pair after lunch.

She reached for the bathroom door and only cringed a little when the Temptations began to sing about a woman wanting to leave. She hoped it wouldn’t trigger any more of Dan’s pointing and
you’re having an affair
talk. At least she didn’t need to worry about Dan singing along with
Ain’t to Proud to Beg
. It wasn’t grammatically correct.

“Is the trolley okay?” The hostess paused. “It’s the only table left.” She held the long menus that promised carbohydrate nirvana.

“Yes!” Mara felt hungry enough, and Dan looked hungry enough, to eat in the alley if they had to. She followed the hostess because whatever a trolley table was, she was taking it. But when they rounded the corner she saw that it was an actual trolley and not even an Italian one. She was pretty sure Italy had trolleys, but this was a Canadian one, and it sat smack dab in the middle of the Pasta Emporium, all red and lit up with hundreds of twinkle lights. Well, she’d never eaten on one of those before.

She let the hostess lead the way up the rubber treads of the steps to set two menus down on one of the slim tables flanked by worn wooden bench seats. Mara sat and flipped open the menu before she realized Dan hadn’t joined her. She looked toward the stairs and saw his head appear as he stepped onto the bottom rung. More of him emerged until he stood near the steering wheel, its leather worn from years of driving. Of course, a trolley was too weird for Dan. It was lit up. Everyone in the restaurant could see them eat. She watched his discomfort and could hear his voice in her head. It’s a
trolley
, Janie. She would have felt the same way even the day before, but she didn’t anymore. She was even willing to sit in the driver’s seat and scarf down linguine with a giant serving spoon.

Dan slowly sat down across from her and stared at his unopened menu. He looked… what? Homeless maybe. Mara felt the unwelcome pain of it. She’d driven Dan to wrinkled clothing, disorientation, and emotional turmoil. 

She studied his face. He was actually growing a beard. His hair stuck up, and she felt guilt, like the heaviest edge of responsibility, land on her and squish her flat. My god, she didn’t even know where he’d slept. He might actually be homeless. “Where are you staying, Dan?” But part of her didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to know the specifics of his torture.

Dan picked up his menu but seemed too tired to open it. “In the car.”

“You slept in the car?” God, she was horrid. She was a terrible, selfish person who was cruel to a man who’d never done anything wrong.

Dan turned his head to the side, seemed to concentrate more as he watched her.

She focused on the menu and tried to erase the guilty face she knew he’d spotted. Maybe she could distract him. He was smart, but his blood sugar was low. “
Hmmm
, minestrone.”

“It got pretty cold last night. No blanket.” Dan’s shoulders hunched a little.

“It’s July.”

He shrugged and kept going. “I haven’t eaten in days.”

Mara felt the danger. She knew she was close, close to the edge of giving in, of giving up, of caving in to reason and logic and doing the right thing. Who’d come up with that one anyway? Do the right thing? The right thing for whom? What was right for somebody was always gonna be wrong for somebody else.

Dan’s blue eyes widened. “You make really good minestrone at home.”

He did. He did really love her minestrone. She leaned back, fighting being sucked into the undertow of her obligations, and glanced down at the floor. Her sandals weren’t leather or practical or well-made or even a match for her dress. They were plastic, and the butterflies were pink, and she was wearing them with a peach dress. A reasonable woman who took care of her husband so he had an ironed shirt and didn’t live in a car and was well fed on an Italian tomato based soup, well that woman certainly wouldn’t wear peach with pink. But she liked it, she liked it a lot.

“And we’re out of lots of things at the house. You were supposed to go the warehouse store, remember?” Dan’s mouth quirked up at the corners.

Was he getting ready to smile? Over the warehouse store? The giant cans of tuna. The paper towel packages that required a forklift to get into the van. Mara held up her hand. “No.”

He continued anyway. “Tissues, and, hey, we could use some new pillows. Don’t you just love it when you replace the pillows? That’s a good feeling. You like that.”