Elena Undone (11 page)

“Hook? It’s not like selling a Toyota, Emily,” Peyton had remarked.

“It’s gotta have some kind of angle.”

“How about women are amazing and we never take enough time to see who they really are—their flaws, their strengths, everything that makes them so—”

Emily yawned with feigned exaggeration. “Whatever. It’s so Seventies—no one cares anymore about what makes a woman. We’ve gained our independence, our freedom. We fuck who we want. Give me a hook…celebrity women, or a cause—breast cancer—something. I can’t sell it on just ‘women.’ No one gives a shit.”

So while Peyton made her money on freelance articles and ghostwriting, she kept gathering all the materials to do this coffee-table book which would be not only a verbal ode to women, but a visual one as well. She could never really find the time to work on it, and as her mother became more ill, she only spent moments daydreaming about the structure, whether it should be about women of all ages, women of fame, women who worked, and then decided it should be about all of them. All women. That’s what made the project so wonderful. She had oodles of ideas and research sucked away in her brain for fodder, and was always meaning to get to it, and after her mother died, she didn’t have any extra energy for anything other than what she had to get done. Now she felt it was time. Time to really pursue this—

PING—an e-mail popped up from an [email protected]. Who the hell was that? Some religious nut? Peyton dumped it into her spam file and went back to work.

*

Elena brought in the groceries and set them down. She wandered over to her laptop, checked her inbox, then shook her head, and headed straight back into the kitchen. She put everything away and began to pull out the hamburger meat for the burgers she had promised Nash earlier. She meticulously put together the special ingredients she and Nash had concocted for “the best burger on a bun” as Nash had nicknamed it and then remembered she had to send an e-mail to Millie.

Back to her computer. She sent the e-mail to Millie and sat there a moment. She checked her Send box. Yes, the e-mail had gone out.

*

Peyton’s phone rang. It was her agent asking her to look at the e-mail they had just gotten from the women’s magazine,
MORE
, offering her a recurring op-ed position. Emily was hugely excited and Peyton knew this was a great opportunity so she sat down, opened up the e-mail and had to agree that the offer was generous, wouldn’t take too much time from this project she was committed to working on, and sent off her CV and clippings.

As she sat and read other incoming mail, something nagged at her. Nagged and nagged twn,and naghat she’d missed something. She looked through all her e-mail trying to decipher what was niggling at her and finally checked her spam folder. She opened the one from [email protected]

Hi Peyton,

I was the one you were so kind to at the adoption orientation. Thanks for helping out a perfect stranger. Hope you’re well.

Elena Winters

Peyton read the e-mail a couple more times and then smiled. That’s right, the poor woman with the lost keys. She began an e-mail back:

Hi Elena, glad you wrote

Now what? She had no idea what to say to this person. What was the point? But she didn’t want to be rude. She started again. Backspaced. Wrote something truly innocuous. Backspaced again. She started a third time, and tried to figure out what it was she was trying to say. When she finally finished she read it aloud, then shook her head. “Yeah…some brilliant writer, Peyton.”

She was giving it one last go, when the doorbell rang. She wondered if it was Wave, but Wave would just walk right in.

Peyton made her way to the door, opened it and there stood Margaret.

*

“…and then Tyler said it would be cool if I did my Amazing Person paper on him so I’ve actually been getting into all this soul mate research, which at first you know I thought was just so much hokum.” Tori was helping Elena clean up the dishes after dinner as she charmingly went on with one of her informational riffs. “You know, cuz, I’m all about the facts and the data, but, ya know, now that I’ve done a bit more digging on the whole thing, it’s pretty amazing how some of these soul mates have met—like with the kind of randomness no mathematical algorithm can explain, and ya know what else is sort of whack, is how enduringly it’s existed within our consciousness.”

“Hmmm.” Elena half listened as she always did because she always had a million things on her mind and she simply couldn’t take in all the information that Tori offered up, even when Tori was at her most absolutely charming. The huge databanks in Tori’s brain were truly a feat. She never provided information in a show-offey manner, nor was she even remotely annoying about it. It was all delivered as off-handed matter-of-fact knowledge, but also with a sweet conviction that what she was telling you was very much meant for your own well being. And, everyone agreed, it was often quite fascinating.

“I mean we’re talkin’ as early as Plato where he explained in this megasymposium that humans were first identified as a body with four legs and four arms but only had one head but—get this—one head that had two faces. Zeus wasn’t havin’ it because he believed that this being was too powerful so he ripped it in two—yeah right down the middle which left these two halves disembodied and endlessly on the prowl for the other half so they could become unified and whole. Isn’t that wild?”

“Yes, Tori…yes, it is.” Elena smiled, put the last dish away. “Okay, sweetie, as always—”

“Get this, it was a mystic Hindu belief, and I memorized this, that man ‘yearned for a second. He became as large as a man and a woman locked in close embrace. This self he split into two; hence arose husband and wife…Oneself is like half of a split pea.’ Isn’t that crazy? I mean people think soul mates are relatively new—but Tyler’s entire Soulemetry religion goes as far back as the origins of mankind.”

“Okay, Tori, I understand…it’s been around forever and please do not start harping on the ultimate flame—or whatever it is that Tyler’s always going on about.”

“That would be the Twin Flame, Momma Bear, and you already got that in Poppa Bear.”

But even as she said it, Tori’s voice got quiet. They glanced at one another.

“Well, gotta get back to Nash. Help him with that science.”

Tori left Elena in the middle of the kitchen. Sighing, she looked at this kitchen she stood in every single day. Suddenly it seemed far more drab than she remembered. Maybe new wallpaper. A splash of paint… Whatever she was going to do, she had already decided she was not, NOT under any circumstances, going to look at her e-mail again tonight. But within moments she returned to her laptop.

She sat there. Sighed. What was wrong with her? Why did she even care? She was never going to see this person again. Well, she thought, the reality is that she just wanted to make sure that the nice woman knew that Elena was grateful for her help. She shook her head, closed her laptop. Done.

*

Peyton sat at the counter at Pinot Latte the next morning as Wave finished with a customer then joined her friend.

“Lombard, I’m not sure what language you need to hear it in, but you are NOT—I repeat NOT—going back to that psycho.”

“Look, I know it’s easy to make her the villain...and what Erin did to you was really crappy. But Wave, Erin was—”

“Look, you think I didn’t know Erin was a momentary lapse in judgment? You think I don’t know I’m like…like the lesbian Jennifer Aniston—without the looks or the hair. So—I’m lousy awful picking girlfriends...what can I say?” Wave furiously wiped thsly wipe counters.

“Wave.” Peyton put a hand to Wave’s arm to stop her. “I’m not excusing what she did to either of us. It’s just I have to take some of the blame.”

“So that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your happiness to make it up to her.” Wave stopped then, sat next to her friend and coyly moved into the fold of her arm. Peyton looked at her as if to say,
What’s up with you?

“Now don’t think I’ve gone and lost my last burner here Peyton.” Wave seemed a bit sheepish which was completely out of character. “But there’s this love guru who does these amazing readings that’s helping people find their one true love.”

Peyton laughed.

“And we’re going, Saturday night.”

Peyton just shook her head, didn’t take Wave seriously.

“I mean it. I’ve already got us tickets.”

“Wave, I’m not going.”

“Come on. What have you got to lose?”

Another customer entered. Wave got up, leaned into Peyton’s face. “In the meantime—can you skip the I’m-just-dandy diet and all-I-need-is-my-work distractions? And under no circumstances are you to have anything to do with Mata Hari.”

Wave scribbled hastily upon her pad. “Listen to me. You are under strict orders to only do things that make you feel good. Good. Not bad. Good. Very simple instructions to follow.”

Wave set the order down before her:
You just need to do stuff that makes you feel good. Good. Not bad.
Peyton smiled and picked up her prescription, folded it and put it in her pocket.

*

Elena’s hope for getting a response from Peyton soon faded. It had now been nearly a week since she had sent the e-mail. She found herself usually checking at night, before she went to bed, but then decided this last night she was done. She looked for the final time.

     “So, oh God, this was like, so random.” Erika, a twenty-seven-year-old Italian bank manager shakes her head like she still can’t believe it. “I was supposed to be babysitting my niece, but my sister gets sick and asks if I’d fill in at the PTA. I’m like are you kidding me? What am I going to do at a PTA. I don’t know the first thing about kids and school, and…”
     “And my mom is the niece’s teacher,” Bruce adds, smiling. He’s in his early thirties and as tall and slender as Erica is petite and chubby. “I had to go pick her up because her car broke down. I got there early, thought, oh well, I’ll go check out her classroom.”
     “I’m standing outside,” Erika continues, “trying to get m ing to y nerve up to go inside when this football—
     “—Yeah out of nowhere completely mashes into her, knocking her over and this casserole she’s got like totally spews all over everything—”
     “I would have totally freaked if Bruce hadn’t run over and saved the day. The minute I looked into his worried eyes I had this flash— I’m going to marry this man.” She looks astounded, laughs sort of shocked, like it’s just happening again. “I mean it. No shit—it just literally flashed through my head as if I knew it for absolute certain.”
     “And I just took one look at her and I was like...I’m in love.” Bruce stares at her adoringly. “It really did happen that fast.”
     “We were both somewhere neither of us remotely planned to be—”
     Both finish at the same time: “Some things are just meant to be—”
     “Yeah...,” Erika sighs, “even when you try like hell to un be them!”

Twinkling lights completely enveloped Tyler’s Soul-Blim-In-Nation gardens to celebrate his “A Night Under the Stars” event in the courtyard surrounding his sanctuary. Tyler fastidiously lit candles, refinessed their placement, humming “Dancing Queen” as he moved about in lyrical anticipation.

Lily approached and placed a large platter of crudites on the food table as Tyler fussed about. Wearing her chicest Armani, Lily walked right in front of him, stopped him a moment, and looked directly into his eyes.

“It’s going to be stellar, honey.” She planted a gentle, yet passion-filled kiss to settle him. “Because you are!”

*

Elena completed the final touches on her wardrobe. She stood in front of the mirror, clad in one of the few dressy outfits she owned, her sleek Diana Von Furstenburg; the shape accentuated her slender figure, the pearl black tone highlighted her dark features. She tied a red floral scarf around her neck as a subtle accent, finished her lipstick and went to the kitchen to put a casserole in the oven for everyone’s dinner.

As she made her way into the dining room, she bumped into Tori who was clad in black tights, a black turtleneck and semi-assembled all over her body was a half-baked Halloween design filled with data, research components, bits and numbers.

“Information,” Tori announced to Elena, “that’s what I’m going as.”

Elena admired Tori’s creative design and knew all the hard work she had put into the scientific attire to make the statement of her most sacred passion. “Tori—you’re a genius. That costume is priceless.”

“Thanks Momma Bear. I’m not nearly finished.” Tori smiled proudly at her achievement. “Now I just gotta figure out what Nash is going as. A professor, a mad scientist—”

“Mad scientist, please.” Nash walked in, checked out his mom. “You and Dad goin’ out tonight or what?”

Barry walked in at that moment, stopped to admire his wife. “Whoa... Where are you going so dolled up?”