The Life You've Imagined (5 page)

“Well, since you’re a lawyer now,” Sarah says, “I don’t suppose it was
just
a number.”

I say, “Well, I think—”

“Oops, I’m getting a call. If you’ll excuse me,” Anna says, rummaging in her purse. I don’t remember hearing a ring, or even a vibration. She continues, “This could be a client. Nice to see you all. Congratulations, Amy.”

She cuts across the grass toward the house, murmuring into the phone.

I whirl on the girls. “Why did you have to be like that?”

“Like what?” Sarah says. They stare at me blank-faced. “We were just kidding around. It’s a compliment that she’s so smart and did so well.”

“Yeah,” Kristi says. “Not our fault she can’t take a compliment. She always did have a stick up her ass.”

“She was always very nice!” I shout, sloshing my drink again, so I suck it down to keep from spilling it.
Nicer to me than you ever were
, I almost say.

“Geez, Amy, relax. What’s gotten into you? We better get you something to eat.”

“Not too many carbs,” I say, watching my feet wobble in the grass as one of the girls steers me toward the food. “No pasta salad and definitely no bread . . .”

I
don’t feel so good. Paul is saying something to me, but it’s echoing funny, like he’s speaking into a metal pipe.

He’s talking about getting me home, but I’m having a hard time going down this hill, was it always so steep here, whoops!

He scoops me up like a doll. “I’m glad I’m so thin you can do this,” I tell him, but I don’t think he hears me. He’s saying something like “good grief” and “how many did you have?”

My fingers won’t hold still long enough for me to count.

He plops me into the passenger seat of his car and hands me a bottle of water, but I can’t get the cap off. As the car starts to turn in the circle drive, it’s like a rollercoaster and . . .

Uh-oh. That’ll be tough to clean up.

“Dammit!” Paul says, stopping the car and pulling out a hanky from his pocket.

I lean against the cool glass of the window and mumble, “I was only trying to live a little.”

Chapter 7

Anna

“N
ice to see you all,” I lie, and then, “Congratulations, Amy,” which is not a lie, because I’m happy for her that she lost all that weight and landed an eligible bachelor.

Bully for her.

When I’m pretty sure the girls can no longer tell I didn’t get a real phone call—though it wasn’t so plausible, since my phone never rang—I drop the phone back in my bag and turn toward the bluff over the lake, always my favorite spot here at the Beckers’.

The sun is poised like a diver, ready to plunge into the haze over the lake. The sun burns red and casts the clouds around it in blushing pink. There are probably pretty sunsets in Chicago, but frankly I never see them. My office window doesn’t face west.

When will Cami get back with the food? I feel like the rest of the party is circling me, wondering why I’m here, and it’s only a matter of seconds until someone else approaches to fish for whether I’ve returned for good. Can’t a girl take a vacation? Bereavement leave, whatever.

“Anna? Anna Geneva?”

“Anna-Anna Geneva, at your service.”

“As I live and breathe!” Mrs. Becker swoops in on me and touches my shoulders lightly. “I’m so happy that William ran into you at the store!”

Sure, he
ran into
me there. As if the county’s most successful property developer stops by the Nee Nance Store to buy Miller Lite. No, he heard from somebody who heard from somebody . . . but anyway, I don’t care how. “I’m happy to be invited,” I tell her. “It feels like home here.”

Mr. Becker comes up behind her, and as he moves to stand next to his wife, I see his son coming up behind him to join us.

I step forward into Beck’s embrace, and it’s not as tight as it would’ve been in our huggy-kissy teenage days, but it’s comfortable all the same. “Good to see you in something other than digital form,” I tell him.

He sets me at arm’s length and smiles big enough that I can see his front teeth aren’t crooked anymore; he must have fixed them with all that Becker money. His hair is higher up his scalp but still all in sandy curls that never stay combed right. My hand wants to reach up and brush that one curl back in place. His face crinkles up more when he smiles.

I’m sure I look different to him, too.

“Yeah, e-mails aren’t quite the same as living color,” he says. “You look wonderful.”

“Well, thank you, I –”

“Will.” A tiny brunette has appeared seemingly from nowhere. “Maddie’s tired. We ought to be getting home.”

Beck clears his throat. “Sam, this is my old friend Anna Geneva. Anna, this is my wife, Samantha.”

“How do you do?” I say. I start to extend my hand, but Samantha has already nodded and turned away from me, so I take my outstretched hand up and fiddle with a curl, as if I’d intended to do that all along.

“Will, we need to go. She’s falling asleep on Aunt Tabi.”

“I thought I might stay a while, do some catching up.”

“She likes to have you read her a story.”

“If she’s that tired, she won’t even notice I’m not there.”

“She hates breaks in her routine.” Samantha has folded her arms and gone all taut. The elder Beckers and I now pretend to be invisible and deaf, looking at the grass, the lake, anywhere but at the young couple or each other’s eyes.

After a long moment, Beck says, “I guess I’d better go. Catch you later, Mom and Dad. Anna?”

I come back to life again, looking at him directly and avoiding Samantha’s face.

He says, “It was good to see you. Maybe I’ll . . . Anyway. Bye.”

Samantha leads the way across the grass and Beck follows with his hands in his pockets.

Mrs. Becker twirls her wedding ring, watching them go.

“So,” I say brightly. “How nice about Amy and Paul.”

“Yes,” William Becker Sr. says. “We’re pleased to welcome her into the family. Too bad we couldn’t have had you, too.” He leans in to take my elbow and peck me on the cheek, and then he’s off across the lawn, his own wife in tow.

I glimpse Cami striding toward me across the grass, waving one long arm and balancing a huge plate of food on the other, but I turn my gaze back to the retreating form of Mr. Becker.
Too bad we couldn’t have had you, too?
What an odd thing to say to your married son’s old high school love.

Chapter 8

Maeve

W
ithout Anna here, the store rings with silence. Even the customers talk less when there’s only me here. Funny, she’s only been home a week and already I’m used to her presence again. And now that Cami comes in, too, picking up her old job as if she’d only taken a few days off, the Nee Nance Store is feeling more like home than it has in years.

Just as I’m about to lose it.

When Randy finally finishes scratching off his instant ticket—leaving the discarded cardboard and silver scrapings all over the counter, the dust of his irrational hope—I am truly alone in the store.

I finally get to read Robert’s letter. I promised Anna I wouldn’t respond; I never said I wouldn’t read it.

Oh Maeve, my dearest Maeve Callahan, I’ve missed you and couldn’t wait for you to write again. I just had to tell you something exciting. You know Charley? I mentioned him in the last letter? Turns out he’s got some property up north in Michigan! We worked out a deal, and get this, sweetness—at last I’m going to build you that house. Can you believe it? The one I always promised you?

We’re going to be coming up in August to check things out up there, and I hope you’ll agree to meet me then. I know I have a lot to say, a lot to make up for, and we’ll talk about it, I promise.

I’m a new man, finally deserving of you.

Write me back at the Tennessee address, I’ll be there a couple more weeks.

With great love from your wayword and repenance Robert.

I smile sadly at his mangled grammar and fold the letter back up, carefully slipping it back into the envelope

He’ll build me a house at last, he says. I tip my head back on that old office chair and remember all the times he used to talk about it. He even used to sketch it, back when we lived in the bottom floor of that dodgy rental, when Anna was still drooling and gumming her pacifier.

I can hear him now.

“Baby,” he would say, “look at this. Would you like a picket fence?”

I’d just gotten back into the kitchen from placing a drowsy Anna in her crib, having tiptoed down the short hallway for fear of waking her.

I smiled at his drawing. “Why would we need a picket fence in the woods?” I kissed the top of his head, which smelled like tobacco.

“Because picket fences are things husbands are supposed to build for wives.”

He started sketching in the little picket points.

I heard a soft knock on the door. “Must be Veronica. She’s coming to show off her engagement ring,” I told him, squeezing his shoulder. “Why don’t you just build me a nice gazebo? Put a hot tub in it and I’m yours forever.”

“You better be mine forever, Maeve Callahan.”

Veronica plunged into the house, left hand out first, almost like she was punching me. I chuckled and admired her ring and told her to keep her voice down so she didn’t wake Anna. We girls had white zinfandel and Robert cracked another beer and we sat in the kitchen, listening to her extol the virtues of her fiancé, Grant. His dad ran a huge boat dealership and repair service that he would take over someday, and his family had not only a cottage in Spring Lake and a house in Haven to be near the business but a loft in Grand Rapids, too . . .

After a while, our smiles froze on our faces. Veronica seemed to forget we were even there, and by the time she left, I was giddy with suffocated giggles because every time she’d turned her head, Robert had pulled a face or kicked me under the table.

When we locked the door behind her, Robert said, “What’s up with that broad?”

“Oh, stop. She’s happy to be engaged, is all.”

“She’s happier about that rock, I think. I’m surprised she remembers the guy’s name.” Robert circled my waist from behind me, squeezing lightly, resting his chin on my shoulder.

“She’s not that bad.” We’d been friends since middle school, back when we were both new kids in school and neither of us had any money. Why shouldn’t she be a little extra giddy because she wouldn’t have to scrimp?

I couldn’t say that to Robert, though. He’d take it personally and probably pop open another beer or three and be all fuzzy in the morning.

Robert brushed my neck with his lips and murmured, “Would you love me more if you had a big diamond?”

I turned in the circle of his arms to face him. “Oh, honey, you know size doesn’t matter.”

Robert looked blank for a flash before he got the joke. Then he laughed and silenced his own laugh by kissing me hard on the mouth right there, the porch light splashing onto us through the small windows in the front door. I fumbled for the off switch and we fell into darkness.

“I’ll teach you to joke with me when I’m horny,” he whispered, and scooped me up caveman style. We fumbled down the hall like that, taking care not to bang into walls or giggle too loudly, lest we wake the baby.

The clanging phone makes me jump half out of my skin.

“Nee Nance Store,” I mumble. “Yes, we’re open until ten tonight. Yep, bye.”

The Nee Nance was supposed to be temporary. Just something to tide us over until we saved up enough to buy some property. What savings, to live and work in the same place! The landlord cut us such a sweet deal on the rent we couldn’t refuse. We named it Nee Nance Store after Anna’s baby-talk attempt to say “convenience store.” She learned to walk cruising the shelves in the candy aisle.

If I’d had any idea that the scrubby grass in the front yard of that old crummy rental house would be the last chance I had at a real lawn, I would have put my foot down about moving here to begin with.

I finger the edges of Robert’s letter. Maybe it wasn’t my last chance after all.

I slip the letter back in my pocket when the jingle bells on the front door ring. It’s Sally. Today she’s changed wigs, wearing a bright red eighties-era Reba McEntire number.

“Hey, doll,” she croaks. “What’s shaking?”

A headache has begun to grind away behind my eyes, but I only now notice it, with Sally’s arrival. I fish under the counter for my bottle of Excedrin.

“Nothing, Sal. Need some smokes?”

“Nope, just loaded up at the grocery store. Just feeling like some company.”

Business seems slow for a bright Saturday, when people ought to be coming in for their chips and drinks and ice cream treats. So I don’t argue when Sally pulls out some cards and starts shuffling.