The Year of Second Chances, page 16
We ventured forward toward the south end of town, just a few minutes’ drive to the farmhouse with the chipped white paint, and too soon we were making our slow way down the driveway toward the dark house. The car came to a stop, but I didn’t make any moves to leave. I didn’t even unbuckle my seat belt.
“Today was fun,” he said.
“Yes,” I said automatically, my insides jumping.
“What if I told you I didn’t want it to end?” He said it slowly, in his pleasant, unflappable way, but his hands were still tight on the wheel.
I was still frozen in the front seat. My mind darted to and fro, trying to find an acceptable response, but I had no precedent for this. No template. All I knew was that I was ready to kiss him, here and now, but something would keep me in the car. Something about how still the farmhouse was in the dark, something I couldn’t yet disturb. I could name it, I supposed: it was Gabe. He was there. He would always be there.
“I don’t want it to end either, but . . .” I swallowed, nodded toward the house. “Not here. Not yet. Does that make sense?”
“No, no, I understand.” He looked away, not stung, but the rejection showed on his face.
“But we could go somewhere else,” I said quickly. The words were too simple, but I had a feeling we were speaking in code. I needed to find some way to communicate how much the day had meant to me, much more than my sleepiness and awkwardness about the house had implied. Sparklers ignited in my chest again.
He let out a breathy, nervous laugh. “Would you be ready for that? My place, I mean?”
A smile grew on my face. “I think so, yeah. I mean, definitely. Let’s go to Pole City.”
He turned the wheel of the Prius without a word, putting it in Reverse.
When we reached Jake’s entryway, we scattered our snow gear on the floor. He led me upstairs, my hand in his. On his powder-clean bed, his mouth was warm and wanting, and his hands slipped up the back of my neck, through my hair. My skin felt ultrabare, almost chilly, but I was too busy watching his body to be self-conscious, his palms on my waist and thighs, marveling that such a thing was possible, that I was allowed to be so close to this new person. He had a barrel chest and a mole on his shoulder and those freckles I’d noticed on the bridge of his nose.
The novelty became pure sensation. From inside the waves of pleasure, I remembered how to ask for what I wanted when he touched me, to respond to the movements of his hands and his hips. My eyes began to close out of necessity, my breath catching and holding as my thoughts melted together.
After, as our breathing slowed, I waited to feel something bad, something akin to guilt, the way Gabe’s absence sometimes came over me at home, like a chill or a fever. I waited for his voice in my head. I must have fallen asleep, waiting.
In the early morning—what I assumed was the early morning—something did come. A soft pressure like hands. I jolted, raising my head from the pillow, listening for the creak of feet on the farmhouse floorboards, looking for that dark shape I sometimes mistook for a presence, Gabe’s coat hanging on the closet door. But it was a cat on my hip, kneading a foreign white bedspread.
Jake stirred beside me, yawning. “That’s Tiger,” he said, sleep in his voice.
“Hi, Tiger,” I said through cracked eyelids, reaching out for her striped fur. I was not at home, I reminded myself. I was at Jake’s, and Gabe was never here, would never come here, had never even known this place existed. But that was okay. Everything would be okay.
Jake lived in a row of townhomes on a hill. A balcony off the bedroom looked out over the farms and forest surrounding Pole City. I stood behind sliding glass doors while I drank French press coffee, taking it all in. Behind on the white walls, bicycles and skis and kayaks hung on racks, unadorned except for a few blown-up photos of family, post-mountain-climb pictures with friends.
That evening, we lay curled together on his giant gray couch, watching TV while the sun fell in Creamsicle-orange strips through his blinds. Between episodes of a detective show I was barely paying attention to, he asked me what I usually wore to work.
“Not this,” I said. I was in his 10K for Pole City Kids! T-shirt, underwear, and socks. “Why?” I asked, and in answer, he’d gently rolled me on my back.
Everything felt smooth. I suspect it was because we had been talking for so long, even the occasional awkwardness felt natural. We knew how to interpret each other’s expressions and silence, how to give and receive, and how not to talk, lying together on the cushions in sweaty silence until one of our hands moved down the length of the other, until one of our mouths met skin, and we’d start all over again. Soon, it became too late to go back to Brokenridge.
On Monday, we carpooled into Minneapolis together, me in one of his sweaters, reluctant to leave the Prius in the drop-off lane until a bus blew its horn. On the commute home, we agreed we both should take time to breathe after our forty-eight-hour date.
“Until the next one, at least,” Jake said and kissed me.
15
This year, I’m going to . . .
Finally learn the rest of the words to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
Later that week, in the corner of my mom’s living room, I played catch-up on the restaurant’s books, receipt paper from the Green River’s old-fashioned credit-card machine winding around my elbows like a ribbon. Usually this was a mindless task—even comforting, watching each sum click into place—but since I’d parted with Jake, I craved contact with him like I craved sweetness after a meal. I checked my phone for his name. Nothing yet. The house still smelled of the vanilla candles Mom had burned at Christmas, though February was just around the corner. The fake tree was still up, casting red and green light over the old plaid couch, the piano Theo used to play, the days-old snow piling up outside. I yanked my focus back to the screen. Lunch Sales: $1,857. Dinner Sales: $3,009. Liquor Sales: $986.
As I had predicted, the fancy wine Mom had invested in was not moving. Only two glasses purchased for the whole week, which meant an entire bottle had been opened and wasted for a few cents. I massaged my temples, fighting a headache.
Car doors slammed outside.
As Mom and Theo hobbled in the back door with a gust of cold, I met them in the kitchen. They had gone to get dinner, which from the looks of it, was two pizzas from the gas station and a six-pack of Hamm’s.
“I’m never going outside again,” Theo said.
“Oh pish,” Mom protested. “Ain’t bad for this time of year. How are the books looking, Robbie?”
“Not our best week,” I said, the understatement of the year.
“Ah, well.” Mom set the pizza on the counter. “We’re always slow in winter.”
The I-told-you-so rose in my throat, ready to rant about how liquor sales were below average, no thanks to the wasted pinot noir sitting on a shelf below the bar. But what was the point? I’d highlighted the numbers in red. That was about the best I could do. I swallowed my retort and put a slice of pizza in my mouth instead.
We sat around the kitchen table.
“There’s just something about Casey’s pizza,” I said as I went for a second slice. “Is it the crust? Is it because it sits for hours under a food heater? God, I can’t put my finger on it.”
“It’s not just good-for-a-gas-station good,” Theo agreed. “It’s, like, legitimately good.”
“You know,” Mom said, pointing at Theo, “this might work for the party.”
“Mm,” Theo said excitedly, patting his mouth with a napkin. “Good idea. Just use the restaurant as a space, and you don’t have to worry about making food for all those people.”
“What people?” I asked. “What party?”
Theo and Mom looked at each other. I felt a spike of annoyance in my chest. A bit of envy. The two of them were always close, even closer now that Theo was apparently coming back to Brokenridge every weekend.
“I’ve decided . . .” Mom sounded uncharacteristically formal “. . . I’m doing sixty-five!” She coughed and banged on her chest. “’Scuse me. And I’m doing it big.”
My hackles rose, though I wasn’t sure why yet. “Sixty-five as in your birthday sixty-five?”
Mom reached for the fridge and cracked open another beer. “Yepperoni. Sounds fun, huh? Kind of a half party, half St. Paddy’s Day festival thing.” They were going to invite the whole town, Mom and Theo informed me. They were going to block off the Green River parking lot and buy a couple of kegs. Theo was going to cover the cost of the beer, and Mom would be in charge of getting everything together for the band.
“The band?” I asked.
“Rick’s band does Grateful Dead covers, but they said they could do some Bee Gees and Elton John, too,” Mom answered, businesslike.
“Great,” I said, sarcastic. “Thank goodness they do Bee Gees. I was worried about that.”
“Don’t be nasty, Robbie,” Mom warned, pointing her half-eaten slice at me.
“I’m sorry, Mom, but if you’re hosting a party at the restaurant that day, what’s the plan for keeping all the parade business?” The Brokenridge St. Patrick’s Day parade attracted people from all over the county. It was one of our busiest weekends of the year. They looked at me like I had just told them I was an extraterrestrial.
Theo let out a thoughtful hm and glanced at Mom. “What do you think, Ma?”
“Well, yeah. We might have to close, unfortunately,” Mom said, a poor excuse for regret in her voice. “But it’s worth it.”
I scoffed. “Why can’t you just have it on Monday, when we’re already closed?”
Theo rolled his eyes. “People can’t come out on a Monday.”
“If you’d planned it enough in advance, they could.”
“Well, we didn’t, okay?” Theo said, testy. “It’s out there now. There are already, like, a hundred attendees on the Facebook invite.”
Mom opened the fridge and handed Theo another beer. My pulse rose. I took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling as I tried to pin down my racing thoughts. “You already invited people? So I’m the last to know, here?”
“You haven’t been around!” Theo said, exasperated. “You’ve been too busy with dating. Not that I disapprove, but . . .”
“So you decided to throw a frat party for our sixty-five-year-old mother?” I could feel frustration bubbling up in my voice. All I could see were red Excel numbers. “We’ll be playing catch-up for months, possibly all year.”
“Theo, can you be a doll and get my slippers?” Mom said to Theo.
“What, are you just excusing him from the conversation?” I said as Theo stood. “Yeah, leave. Let the adults handle the money, and you enjoy your party.”
He flipped me off as he left the room, eyes on his phone.
I turned back to Mom, shaking my head. “You are really going to close down.”
“This is not the most profitable thing, I get it, I know.” She lifted her shoulders. “But you know better than me that it’s been a hard year, huh? We deserve a little fun. You only turn sixty-five once.”
“No, you’re right,” I said and put on a smile. “I just thought you’d be retired by now. Get off your feet.”
Mom waved a dismissive hand. “Nah. Sixty-five is still young. Just gotta drink a little less. Smoke less.”
I would agree, of course, but I’d told her that before, and telling Mom to slow down only made her want to run farther away. Faster. So you learned to offer her water rather than ask her how many she’d had. To pick up Vicks whenever you were at the pharmacy. “Are you going to do it?” I asked tentatively. “Cut back, I mean?”
“Having a drink or two is part of my job. People come to the Green River to take a load off, and if I have a beer or two, I give ’em permission, you know? It’s a social profession.”
“Right,” I said.
“You think I should cut down,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but she seemed to expect a reply.
“Might be fun to try something new?” I offered tentatively. “See if you like the clear head?”
“A clear head. That’s hysterical,” she said with a wheezy chuckle. “That’s the point of the drink, hon. To clear your head.”
“But you know it affects your health. You saw what it did to Dad—”
“Yes, Robbie, damn it,” she snapped.
I leaned back in my chair as if I’d been slapped.
“Whew,” she breathed. She raised her eyebrows. “Did not mean to curse.”
“Sorry,” I said automatically.
“How ’bout you live your own life, Robbie?” Her voice was tired, clipped.
“I’m trying,” I said, my voice still feeling thin in my throat. I thought of all the new things I’d felt this weekend, waking up next to Jake, while Mom was waking up alone. Had woken up alone for years. She deserved to celebrate, I told myself. She deserved joy wherever she could find it.
“I’m not stupid. I know how to cut down when I need to cut down. And I’ve been in this business for years.”
“I know.”
“We’re family. Let’s be sweet to each other.” She reached over and patted my cheek.
“Okay.” We smiled at each other. Mom winked.
I felt a mixture of relief that the tension was gone and the same hopelessness I’d felt when I looked at the books earlier. Like I was fighting a windmill, here. Like no matter what I tried to say, it was always already done. The slump in business after Dad died was just temporary, Mom had assured me, and I had some idea how to fix these things—clean the grease trap, take better inventory so we weren’t serving frozen food—but between the accounting job and helping Gabe, I could only do so much. And there were the supposed turnkey investments, the morale boosters. The portable Popsicle cart that now sat unused under a tarp near the dumpsters. The automatic paper-towel dispensers in the bathroom that stopped working three weeks after they arrived. The four cases of completely unnecessary pinot noir. And now, the party. Weekend to weekend, we had survived, but Mom was still working twelve-hour days.
Theo came back in, handing Mom her slippers. I wrapped the leftover pizza in aluminum foil: maybe Mom would want it later, when she noticed she’d barely eaten. The idea of her eating cold pizza alone in the kitchen, shuffling around in her slippers, was enough to make me want to reach for her. Hold her.
Before I left that night, I went back to the computer and turned the red numbers black.
16
If I could rule the world . . .
Mandatory naps. There would be no war if we could all take more naps.
“So fancy,” I said as the appetizer arrived. Jake and I were at something called a pop-up, which I thought sounded delightful and sugary and popcorny, but it turned out to be an abandoned Chinese-takeout restaurant that had been temporarily transformed into a softly lit lounge with abstract art on the walls. This particular appetizer held what looked like a carefully constructed tower of raw vegetables in a puddle of olive oil.
“I know,” Jake whispered back, amused. “Too fancy for us.”
I was just happy to sit across from him, his usual T-shirt replaced with a button-down, his ball cap sitting beside his plate. We both seemed to be jittery with all the rituals of romance I’d forgotten: the pleasure of being picked up from work on a Friday evening, of kissing someone’s cheek, of holding hands on the street. “What the hell is this?” I lifted a hard purple squiggle that might have been a carrot or a radish at some point. At my inquiry, people from nearby tables turned. “Am I too loud? Why is everyone talking really quietly?”
“Maybe they figured out that we’re spies,” Jake said in an intentionally loud voice, and we both laughed.
A chime sounded from the bell at the entrance—left over from when the place specialized in takeout, most likely—and I glanced over Jake’s shoulder to see a familiar professional-wrestling-size form at the entrance, chatting with the hostess. “Oh, my god,” I called, attracting more stares from the other patrons. “Levi, hey!”
Levi looked up and found me waving. His face broke into a grin. A tiny, svelte woman stepped in beside him, removing her fur-lined hood to reveal white-blond hair and wide-set blue eyes. The famous Christy.
“Do you know them?” Jake asked, turning to look.
“Yeah, this is my friend and his girlfr—the girl he’s seeing, I guess? What a coincidence.”
I laughed to myself. Levi had sent me a few texts over the weekend asking how Bubbl was going, so I’d sent him a couple back. Sorry, was on a date for like 3 days?? He’s taking me to dinner again tomorrow at a pop-up in St Paul!!! I guess Levi showing up at the very pop-up I’d mentioned was viable, depending on how common such venues were in the greater Twin Cities area. Christy certainly looked like she fit in here.
“Well, well, well,” Levi said, approaching our table. “Looks like we’ve got a few crudités going on.”
“Crew de what?” I said. I followed Levi’s attention to the nest of vegetables. “Oh. Yeah.”
“You must be Jake,” Levi said, holding out his hand. “I’ve heard so much about you, man.” So much was a bit of an exaggeration. Remember the guy from Pole City who I cried at in the parking lot of the corn maze? I’d said in my text updates. That was about all Levi knew.
Jake returned Levi’s handshake, a confused smile forming. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, Levi helped me . . .” I started saying to Jake, swallowing a sip of water to stall, wondering how to put it exactly. Helped me avoid fuckbois? Helped me find someone like you?
“We’ve been putting together a little event,” Levi finished. “And she mentioned you.”
I looked up to lock eyes with Levi, grateful. Nice save. I turned to Christy, trying to sound chipper. “Hi, I’m Robin!”
“Robin, Christy,” Levi said, suddenly very chipper himself. “Christy, Robin.”
Christy turned her unblinking blue eyes to me. “Gabe’s widow, right?”
