“But you’re happy now, right?” I asked. “You own your own business. You’re a productive member of society. You obviously have a unique fashion sense. You’re not still consumed by anger-slash-bitterness, right?”
“Well, not all of the time,” she conceded. “I still have twinges, every now and again. But for the most part, yeah, living my own life makes me very happy. You’re going to be okay, Lacey, I promise.”
I’m pretty sure my expression was somewhere along the lines of disbelieving, because Maya let me have the last egg roll out of pity.
“So what does the future hold for me?” I asked. I cracked open my fortune cookie and read aloud, “Your true love could be closer than you think.”
“Sorry, you’re not my type,” she said, breaking open her own cookie.
“Thanks.”
“You will share an incredible moneymaking opportunity with a new friend.” Maya read, grinning at me.
“It does not say that!” I laughed.
“You’re right,” she turned the slip of paper in my direction. “It actually says, ‘Those egg rolls were frozen.”
I couldn’t sleep. I read. I watched endless movies. I stared out the window into the darkness, but I couldn’t close my eyes.
Three days before, Maya had departed, promising to give me a month or so to think about Season’s Gratings. She gave me her e-mail address, her cell number, her business phone, and her other e-mail address, just in case I wanted to contact her. I was torn. I liked Maya. It was comforting to see that someone in my situation had emerged relatively normal. Well, functional, at least. But I didn’t want to rush to a decision just because I was grasping at the beginnings of an adult friendship. Also, she wasn’t subtle enough not to pressure me in “friendly” communication.
The proposal package she e-mailed to my account that night was slick and impressive. Her designs ran the gamut from elegant pinstripes and monograms to her Arsenic and Bold Face package, which featured a skull-and- crossbones motif. And her prices were not cheap. If Maya’s clients wanted to effectively humiliate their significant others, it was going to cost them. And as a shareholder in Maya’s venture, I could work from home and be comfortable. Of course, that was assuming the whole thing didn’t blow up in our faces.
Foolishly going to bed with a bellyful of doubts and Chinese food, I had a dream that I was standing at my stove in my house in Singletree, scrambling eggs for Mike’s breakfast. It was like someone had hit the great cosmic rewind button and everything was back to the way it was. Breakfast, a review of our schedules, and then adjourn until dinner. I was right back where I started, only now I knew exactly how much my life sucked. I bounced up from my pillow, drenched in sweat. Furious, I swatted the bed next to me, to assure myself that it was empty. And if it wasn’t, at least Mike would get a good smack I could blame on night terrors.
So for the past three days I’d been afraid that if I slept, I would wake up and find that I’d been dreaming all this time. In some sort of weird Bobby Ewing-style regression, the last few weeks had been a prolonged hallucination and I would have to go back to living my life as it had been. I’d be left wondering if Mike really loved me and live the rest of my life following him to work and looking through his e-mail and credit-card statements.
I watched every movie in Grandma’s collection, and when I’d watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir for the umpteenth time, I even delved into Emmett’s movie collection. I got as far as watching the trees come to life in Evil Dead and used the remote to turn the TV off from the other room.
As soon as I could, I was going to put a serious hurt on Emmett.
I stretched, rubbed my eyes, and went into the kitchen to grab a Coke. Outside my window, I saw Monroe’s lights on.
Because I had very little to otherwise entertain me, I’d decided to follow Emmett’s advice and give Monroe a downright icy shoulder. If nothing else, it seemed to confuse and disorient him. And it cut off his opportunities to be rude.
For instance, the morning after the Chinese-food nightmare, a very sleepy yours truly stumbled out onto tie driveway in sweats and sneakers, ready to take on the ass-busting hills of Cove Road. Thanks to the ice cream and all those damn grilled cheese sandwiches, I was having a hard time buttoning my jeans. I was definitely missing my gym time. But the closest thing in town was… well, there was nothing close to a gym in Buford.
I padded out to the end of the driveway, carefully stretching, as I could not remember the last time I’d exercised. Cove Road was a barely paved two-lane winding through thick trees for miles before it reached the main highway to Buford. It was easy to imagine you were the only person on the planet. There were no houses, no traffic. Just miles and miles of silence.
Running was the only sport I’d ever been good at considering it requires no hand-eye coordination. If this were the gym, I’d set the treadmill to random and zone out to my run playlist, occasionally taking time to snicker at the guys who took weight lifting way too seriously. But I’d forgotten my iPod in my flight from Mike’s house, so I didn’t have the elegant techno of E. S. Posthumus to keep me company as I loosened my legs on those first small dips in the road.
I had hit my stride, my legs stretching on in front of me, long and powerful. I loved that feeling, before the fatigue sets in and you feel that intangible pull of the road in front of you. The hypnotic rhythm of my feet pounding on the pavement filled my head. There was nothing but my newly shore hair bouncing against my head and the sun warming my cheeks. No angry future ex-spouses. No slutty secretaries sleeping in my house and, most likely, listening to my iPod.
As I rounded the bend toward the highway my footsteps seemed to echo. I snapped my attention away from the road in front of me and looked up. Mr. Personality was running about fifty yards ahead of me. Monroe’s T-shirt was soaked dark gray between the blades of his shoulders as he huffed and puffed along the edge of the pavement. His stride had a bit of a hitch but he was making good time, considering the limp. I guess he heard me, too, because as he looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes narrowed and he seemed prepared to make some disagreeable face.
Well, screw you very much, cranky neighbor man. I increased my pace, pushing my stride even longer. Hearing me getting closer, Monroe picked up his own speed, even though it seemed to cause him some discomfort.
I was on his heels in just a few minutes. I saw his shoulders tense, as if he was anticipating actually having to socialize with someone. I let myself fall into step with him for a few beats. He watched me out of the corner of his eye, his lips pressed together. He increased his pace. I matched it. We ran full throttle until we reached the incline of one of the road’s steepest hills. I grinned, for his benefit as much as mine, and pulled ahead of him.
“Your shoe’s untied,” I panted.
Monroe stumbled slightly as he looked down to check his laces. I heard his heavy breathing and slowing footfall behind me. I streaked ahead. As I climbed the hill, I called “Made you look!” over my shoulder. Actually, it was more along the lines of, “Made” (huff, puff) “You” (wheeze) “Look!”
If I wasn’t mistaken, I heard a wry chuckle behind me as I reached the crest.
Since then, I’d enjoyed myself thoroughly by pretending he didn’t exist. Was it immature and more than a little petty? Yes. But it also annoyed him, so ultimately it was a wash.
At the moment, Monroe was hunched over his laptop, scrubbing his hands through his hair and looking vaguely Christopher Lloyd-ish. And he seemed to be talking to himself the computer.
Coke can in hand, I grabbed a sweater from the couch and padded barefoot to the dock-all the while muttering to myself, “I am not afraid of evil trees. I am not afraid of evil trees.” While fifty years of use had left the dock a little rickety, it had also worn the planks down to satiny softness. Gammy Muldoon taught me to bait a hook on this dock, refusing to take me fishing before I could. Of course, Gammy’s version of fishing was one of us grandkids rowing her rusty old rowboat while she drank daiquiris out of a thermos and threw cork floaters in the water.
In an entire childhood of fishing, I think I caught a grand total of three fish.
But the point of fishing was our talks. Gammy would tell me about the adventures she had before she got married, sneaking away to Memphis for weekends with her high school friends, serving as a nude model for art
