Better in the Morning, page 4
After thirty blocks, two avenues and two exclamations of “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I’m pouring my heart out like this,” the blond woman knew that John and I had been dating for two years, that I was twenty-nine, that I’d never been to London, and that as appealing as the thought of quitting and moving to London with him was, I needed more than a “Come if you want. It’s up to you.”
That didn’t leave much time to hear about her, but I learned she lived in my neighborhood and was on her way to a friend’s for dinner. I also learned she had another friend who’d dated a guy for five years before moving to Santa Fe with him. Then when the friend turned thirty-six, her boyfriend broke up with her and married a twenty-five-year-old yoga instructor/pottery maker.
When the cab arrived at her stop, she said, “Good luck,” as she shifted the cake box to her left hand and opened the door. Before she shut it, she leaned in from the rain, looked me in the eye and said, “You’re doing the right thing.”
When Felix, the doorman, handed the shopping bag to me, I immediately grabbed the envelope and tore it in half only to see a flash of silver fall out. I fished it out from the bottom of the bag. It was a spoon ring I had purchased at a store in Soho. I loved that ring, but it wasn’t the ring. My heart fell.
I rested the bag on the floor and kneeled down, making sure to check every inch of it. Nothing. I put my head in my hands.
“Are you all right there, Veronica?”
I stood. “Was there anything else, Felix? Another envelope maybe?”
He shook his head as he scanned his desk. “No, no, that’s all John gave me. Want me to call him?”
“No, it’s okay. Is he home?”
Felix buzzed me through the glass doors to the elevators.
John and I would have to meet face-to-face. I wanted to retrieve my grandmother’s ring, and I also didn’t want my exit from Yoki Suru to be the way he remembered me.
“Hey,” was all he said when he answered the door.
“Thanks for leaving these.” I lifted the bag and put it down in the foyer. “Mind if I do a double check of ‘my drawer’ in the bathroom?”
“Sure.” He had clearly just gotten out of the shower. His hair was wet, and I saw beads of water on the back of his neck as he let me in and shut the door. I wanted to hug him and kiss him and smell the scent of his aftershave.
“And if you find anything else of mine, just leave it with Felix,” I said.
“Okay.” He walked past me, down the long hallway into his living room.
I followed and made a left to the bathroom. I frantically opened and re-opened every drawer. Nothing.
I knew it couldn’t be anywhere else. I had my designated drawer, though sometimes it overflowed to another drawer, but that was it.
Fuck.
I went back to the living room, where he was taping a moving box shut. All of the artwork was off the walls. His fancy rug that he’d bought in Turkey was gone. There were several other boxes lined up in such an orderly fashion that it looked like a sample sale or a really high-end yard sale. Leave it to John to transform the packing process into a well-oiled machine.
I glanced down at one of the open boxes along the wall. It was filled with expensive shoe boxes, neatly stacked. In another one, I saw a Rolex watch case.
“You’re shipping your watch?”
“No. I’m going to wear it. That’s just the case.” He was focused on the stack of books he was organizing. He read each cover then placed it to either the left or right side of the box in front of him.
I remembered when he bought me a watch. It was a year into our relationship. I had been wearing my old one from law school with all its nicks and scratches. I still liked wearing a watch. I was old-fashioned that way. I’d been planning to buy myself a new one, particularly after John commented, “Why do you still wear that beat-up thing? You’re a lawyer now. Get yourself a nice watch.”
“I know.” I stared at it. “I haven’t found one I liked yet.”
“And some of that jewelry you wear is loud. You wear that to the office?”
“Hold it. All of the jewelry is my grandmother’s. Off the table. Not up for discussion.”
“Well, you need a new watch.”
“Yes. I know.”
Not long after that, we were cooking dinner in his apartment when he asked me to get an onion from the crisper. I opened the crisper and found a Gucci box inside.
“What do you keep in that Gucci box in your crisper?” I asked as I shut the refrigerator door and placed the onion on the counter.
John stopped chopping. He turned toward me and looked me in the eye. “Veronica, honestly?” He smirked. “Why don’t you open it?”
Lightbulb. “Oh, okay.” I opened it. It was a gold Gucci watch. For me.
Even though it wasn’t what I would have picked for myself, I appreciated it and tried to wear it often. But not every day. Not like my grandmother’s ring. I found it hard to swallow as my throat constricted at the thought of the ring. I consciously shifted my focus back to John as he continued to organize his reading material.
I hadn’t told him I’d lost it. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice I wasn’t wearing it. I didn’t want to hear what a “Hurricane Veronica” I was—always tripping, falling, and misplacing things. He was right about that. I just didn’t want to hear it at the moment.
“So, do you have that much more to do?” I asked as I watched John go through another stack of books. Lee Iacocca. Jack Welch. Some finance textbooks from his MBA days at Columbia before we met.
“The movers are coming Friday, and they’re going to pack up the rest of my stuff, all the kitchen stuff, bathroom, pantry. I just have to figure out what I want to keep.”
I watched his triceps flex each time he flipped through a book. He looked great in suits but just as handsome in a white T-shirt, jeans, and barefoot.
John was exactly the type of man I’d dreamed my husband would be when I used to play “bride” at my grandparents’ house. At seven years old, I would march down my grandparents’ stairs with my mother’s old veil on my head, holding a chipped porcelain flower figurine that my grandmother had kept in the bathroom. My grandfather would play the role of celebrant. He would never get up from his recliner, but he would put the footrest down and sit up straight, pretending to read from the Bible.
Whenever it came time to announce the new Mr. and Mrs. Whomever, my grandfather would always come up with a different name. They were always Italian. Mr. and Mrs. Marino. Mr. and Mrs. Rizzo. Mr. and Mrs. Vicidomini.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving already,” I said.
“Well, it’s been in the works for a while.” That made my throat constrict a little too. A while?
He had moved on to a box of wine glasses and reached for the roll of bubble wrap.
I wonder if he’ll go to any wine-tasting events in London. We’d met two years earlier at a charity wine-tasting event. John had been in line to taste some sort of Australian pinot noir, and I had stood in line behind him with a napkin full of mini spinach quiche.
“Did you know they had wineries in Australia?” He turned around and smiled at me.
I had a mouthful of quiche and couldn’t answer him, so I shook my head.
“I thought it was all Vegemite and koala bears there,” he said.
I tried to laugh, but my mouth was too stuffed. I suddenly became aware of my napkin full of even more quiche and held up my hand to offer him one.
“Nah, I’m good. Gotta keep the palate clean.” He winked.
What guy winks? No, rather, who winks and doesn’t make it look sleazy? John.
“I’m Veronica.” Finally able to talk, I reached to shake his hand.
I could tell from his handshake that he had nice hands. I also got a peek at them when he scratched his neck. Yup, nice ones. Thick fingers, but not too thick. Veiny, but not too bulging. Perfect, masculine hands. The kind I would like brushing up my lower back as I walked into a restaurant or stepped into the back of a cab.
We talked our way through five different Australian wines and a few from New Zealand. When Jada came over to inform me that everyone was going to regroup at a champagne bar, I politely asked her to get lost. She obliged. She was a good friend.
Eventually, John and I left together and found ourselves sharing falafel at the hole-in-the-wall next door. It had definitely been the first and last time John had ever set foot in such a place. I must have suggested it, though I couldn’t remember much after the fourth Australian wine except that I couldn’t wait for our first real date.
“Are you going to miss me?” I blurted out now as I picked at a piece of duct tape on a box in front of me. Did I really just ask that?
He raised his head and, for a second, I thought he looked sad. “Veronica, I told you that you could come, that you should come. I actually thought you’d be happy, excited, to quit the job you hate. But it wasn’t good enough for you. You had to storm out of the restaurant like a child.”
“Wasn’t good enough? You said it’s ‘up to you.’ I don’t want to hear it’s ‘up to you.’” My voice was louder than I wanted it to be.
He walked away from the box of books and came toward me. He reached out to hug me, but I backed away. I don’t want your pity! Again. Say the right thing! I headed for the door, hoping to leave before he saw me crying. Oh no, not another tearful exit.
“You’re going to regret this, John. You’re going to seriously regret this,” I blubbered. “You will never, nev-er, find another girl like me.”
Tears flowed. Get out of here now, you idiot. This can’t be the way he remembers you!
Then, in true “Hurricane Veronica” form, I tripped over the wire of a lamp that was on the floor in the hallway.
Ouch. My knee took the brunt of that. That’ll be attractive. Fuck.
“Are you all right?” John was behind me, but I didn’t look back.
And now my nose was running. A lot. This was not the look I was going for. And definitely not the exit I was planning.
I opened the door and limped as quickly as I could to the elevator with my hand under my dripping nose. When I got to the lobby, I couldn’t make eye contact with Felix. I hurried to the corner and hailed a cab. I was halfway home before I realized I’d left the bag with my stuff.
Of course. Cheeri-fucking-o.
Chapter 5
I love this dress I’m wearing. I don’t actually own this dress, but it’s adorable. It was white with red polka dots, a thick red belt, and a full A-line skirt. And I had on the cutest red kitten heels to match. I never wore anything lower than three-inch heels, but I liked these, and they were easier to vacuum in than what I normally wore.
The vacuum I was pushing was heavy. But I couldn’t use both hands because I was holding a martini in the other.
“Where are we?” I asked my grandparents, who were sitting, arms crossed, on the couch in front of me. I had to holler over the roar of the vacuum.
Grandpa Sal shrugged. “Some house,” he called out with his hands cupped over his mouth like a megaphone. “Nineteen fifty-five.”
1955. Hmm.
It was a small house. The living room had long yellow curtains. The couch was beige, and the lamps had fringe in the same color yellow as the curtains. That was another great thing about my dreams, or visits, or Heaven, or whatever they wanted to call it. We could be anywhere.
The way my grandparents had explained it was when a person died, he passed to the “other side,” but it wasn’t actually a physical place. Our souls continued to exist, but just on another plane, in another place, a place called the “other side.” And us living souls could actually still communicate with our loved ones who had passed over, but when we were awake, that hardly ever happened. We were too guarded and distracted when we were wide awake, walking around, living our lives. The best “visits” and communications happened when we were asleep, when our hearts and minds were more open and receptive to “meeting,” even if we didn’t remember the meeting when we were awake. And together on that different frequency, on a different plane that was not a physical place, we could be anywhere, any time in history.
“Oops!” I spilled a little bit of my martini on the carpet.
Grandpa laughed. Grandma shook her head.
I couldn’t find the off switch on the vacuum. “Is it in the front?” I whispered to myself and tripped over the cord. Another spill.
I was about to yell “How do you turn this thing off?” when I noticed Grandma Ant standing behind me. She pressed some lever with her foot before sitting back down.
“So, this”—Grandpa Sal made a hand motion as if he were slowly twirling invisible pizza dough with one hand—“This is what ya want?”
I took a sip of my martini then grabbed the vacuum handle and swooshed the quiet vacuum and my hips to the left. “Yes!” Swooshed to the right. “Yes, it is.”
“Ya’d rather do this than be a lawyer?” Grandpa Sal asked.
Swoosh left. Sip martini. Swoosh right. “That is correct.”
“And what if your husband leaves you? What do you do then?”
I stood up straight. “He won’t. I’m not going to marry an idiot like my father.”
I searched for a reaction, but their faces betrayed nothing.
I looked down at what I was wearing and ran a hand over my pretty dress. I noticed Grandma’s ring, even here, was gone.
I’d been through every drawer in my apartment and in my office, but I still couldn’t figure out what I’d done with it. It had to be around somewhere. I felt naked without it. I felt awful that I’d misplaced it, let alone that it was all for nothing.
“And this is what you want to do all day?” he asked.
I went back to swooshing. “Yes.” I giggled.
I caught Grandma Ant pinching the bridge of her nose.
“What’s so great about this?” he asked.
I paused mid-swoosh. “I realize we’re in the nineteen fifties here, probably because I’m always saying, ‘Why couldn’t I have been born fifty years earlier?’ So, thank you for this fun jaunt. But I could do this in the present day. Why not? It’s a free country.” I grabbed the vacuum cleaner handle and pushed hard. Swoosh. Sip.
“I hate to repeat myself, ya know, but what’s so great about this?” Grandpa Sal asked again.
Ugh. He doesn’t get it after all. I grabbed one of the heavy dining room chairs and dragged it into the living room. “Let’s see. Well, for starters, no one is yelling at me. There’s that. No one is making me read hideously boring documents. No one is telling me to ‘really think about it.’ Oh, and no one on the other end of the telephone is begging me to please not have my client seize their only source of income and force them into bankruptcy. Should I go on?”
I straightened my back against the stiff chair and continued. “I don’t know if you see what I go through on a daily basis, but—”
“Oh, we see. We see everything, my little brasciole,” Grandpa Sal said.
I cleared my throat. “What do you mean by everything?”
“Well, we know you don’t vacuum.” Grandpa Sal laughed. He looked like a happy Buddha statue with his big belly and smiling face.
Grandma Ant piped up. “Let’s see. How do we explain? We see the things we want to see, the important things. We don’t see the private things. We don’t care about that stuff. Believe me, honey.”
Thank God. Not that I’m some sort of floozy, but no one wants to think their dead loved ones have seen all of the drunken hookups of their 20s. Mortifying.
“Can you see the future? Do you think I’m going to get fired for helping this Trista woman?”
Grandma said, “We can see things as if we’re a fly on the wall. But we can’t see the future like a crystal ball.”
“That’s too bad.” I took off my kitten heels. They were starting to pinch.
So I guess they couldn’t tell me if John would regret not proposing once he got to London. But it didn’t even matter at that point. He had made his feelings clear. It was over.
I took a deep breath, hoping to loosen the sudden tightness in my chest.
“Let’s talk about the fella, John,” Grandma Ant announced.
“What’s there to say?”
They watched me as I traced and retraced a small half circle with my right foot in the thick carpet.
“All right, one thing at a time,” she said. “Let’s talk some more about your job.”
“Do we have to?”
“Oh, Madone, then we might as well go back to sitting here in silence while you vacuum,” Grandpa Sal said. “Maybe you can dust a little too. Bake a pie while you’re at it.”
I scrunched my nose. “Nah.”
“Got over that fast,” he said under his breath.
“Ya know what the next step is—” Grandma Ant continued as if I’d said yes, I wanted to talk about my job.
“Listen, I’ve looked for other jobs,” I interrupted, “and yeah, I’d be around different people, but they’d probably be grumpy too. Worst of all, I’d still be lawyering. Day in, day out, in an office, in front of a computer, trying to decipher the most uninteresting crap. As far as jobs outside of law, well, you know, I’m not a trust fund kid. I’d love to do something different, but I have bills to pay, school loans, rent.” I pushed one of the kitten heels with my toe. “It’s a vicious circle.”
The vicious circle actually began a long time ago. I became a lawyer because when a girl grows up in a you-can-do-anything-boys-can-do generation and in a town considered to be “working class” with teachers who declare you to be “really smart,” you’re brainwashed into becoming a doctor or a lawyer. It was as simple as that. I sucked at math and science, so I became a lawyer.
“Veronica, what I’m hearing… and seeing, now correct me if I’m wrong, is that law is not your passion,” Grandma Ant said, holding out her hands like she was serving something on an invisible tray.
