Friday Mornings at Nine (11 page)

He glanced sharply out the kitchen window, suddenly fascinated with a squirrel or something in the yard. “We let each other down,” he said finally. Then he looked her in the eye. “In a bad marriage, it’s never just one partner’s fault, you know?”

She shrugged. “I suppose not.” Though she didn’t quite believe that. Then, to break eye contact with him, she glanced at her watch. Seven
P.M
.
Shit.
Where did the time go? Jon might actually be home by now. “Oh, God, it’s getting late, Aaron. I didn’t realize…I should head home.”

“Okay.” He pointed to the veggies and cookies on the table. “Wanna take some with you?”

She shook her head. “No, but it was delicious. Well, I mean—” She feigned a shrug of indifference. “The broccoli was just
okay,
but my vegetables were outstanding.” She stood up.

He stood up next to her and gave her the elbow. “Shut up, neighbor, or I won’t invite you back for the zucchini harvest.”

She grinned at him, even as her hyperawareness of his body’s proximity to hers intensified. He was so close, and he’d
touched
her. Not that this meant anything, but it created in her a strange kind of
zing
she hadn’t felt in years. Decades, perhaps. “You were gonna invite me back? Gonna make me zucchini bread or something?”

“Not if you keep being so mouthy.” He called Sharky to come say goodbye.

“Thanks for talking,” she told him, completely serious for a second. Completely meaning it.

“Welcome. It was a nice break for me, too.” His Adam’s apple jumped as he nodded at her, and then the man and his dog watched her as she walked away—she’d glanced back to check—Sharky wagging his stubby tail, Aaron just standing there, a half smile on his handsome face.

She shivered as she strode back toward her house. There was a chill in the evening air that hadn’t been there during the afternoon. Though maybe her emotions contributed to that. She felt a range of them, managing to be both excited and at peace simultaneously. Maybe because being with Aaron at his house had been that way: interesting and engaging without being overstimulating, but equally quiet and calm without that pervasive sense of loneliness she’d grown so accustomed to in her own home. She could relax in his company in a way she hadn’t been able to do with anyone, not even her best friends, for a long time.

That sense of peacefulness was shattered the moment she spotted the closed garage door. Oh, damn. Jon had beaten her back. She sped up, unlocked the front door and there he stood, in full reprimand pose at the top of the staircase, glaring down at her.

“It’s after seven,” he spit out. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Just down the street—” She pointed her thumb behind her as if to say “right there” without giving away specifics.

“Didn’t you remember when I’d be back? I’ve been wondering for an hour when you’d show up, Tamara.”

“Well, now that burning question has been answered, hasn’t it?” She slammed the door shut, her temper rising, a predictable thing these days. It twisted and snapped like firewood into shards of well-practiced irritation. “You’re gone for
days
at a time, but what? You expect me to wait by the door for your return like some little nursemaid whose only purpose in life is to attend to your fucking needs?”

“No. But the garage door was wide open—like you were just out for a few minutes. You didn’t have your cell with you. I couldn’t reach you. I didn’t know if you wanted me to makeshift a dinner or if you were out picking something up. Your car was still here, though, so, unless someone else drove you somewhere, I didn’t think you’d gone far.”

“So, that’s the real reason you’re so pissed off? It’s about
dinner?
Because you didn’t know if you’d be required to make yourself a sandwich or heat up a can of soup?” Of course, he was upset because of
that,
not because he was worried about her.

He shook his head. “Look, I’m tired of always arguing with you. It just would’ve been courteous to let me know where you were. A note or something.”

She kicked off her shoes. “You know nothing about courtesy, Jon.”

He laughed. A nasty, sarcastic sound. “Well, you’re so damned angry and aggressive, I’m not sure you’d be one to recognize it.”

She stared at him. “Me?”

“Yes,
you
. You don’t want to have a meaningful discussion with me about anything. All you want is to incite a new argument. Even when you’re clearly in the wrong.”

What she
wanted
was to yell at him, to react in some way, but her interest in engaging him for one more measly second of debate suddenly abated. A bad habit she’d grown weary of keeping. Instead, she studied him. His fair skin, black eyes, dark hair still thick even as he approached fifty. That crease between his brows where he collected his frustration. The hint of stubble on his tensed jaw.

How could he know so little about her? How could he, after nearly two decades of marriage, not realize how much she craved a true conversational connection with him? It wasn’t that she didn’t want it. No. It was that she’d given up—years ago—the hope of ever getting it.

She shrugged and said, “Think whatever you want. You’re going to anyway.”

He regarded her with an expression she’d most closely describe as contempt before shrugging and turning away. “Oh,” he said, making it clear he wouldn’t waste unnecessary words on her. “Your cell kept ringing. I finally checked the number. Wasn’t one I recognized. Vermont area code, but not your aunt’s number.”

“Thanks for telling me.” She waited until he’d disappeared into the black hole of the hallway, more than fine with the prospect of him not returning for a few hours. She saw the light in his office switch on. The door closing behind him.

She spotted the day’s mail. Jon had brought it in but left it in a heap in the middle of the living room coffee table, of course, so
she
would have to deal with it. She sifted through the stack as she listened to her cell phone messages. The caller had tried three times but only left one message. It was the voice of an older man unknown to her, at least not at first.

“I’m calling for Tamara,” the man said. “I was hoping to catch you in person, but I didn’t have luck in reaching you directly. My apologies for telling you this via message. I’m Al Jeffries, a good friend of your Aunt Eliza. I’m sorry to say, your aunt has been rushed to the St. Augustine’s Medical Center in Montpelier. She had a stroke and is in critical condition. I just—”

Tamara dropped the gas bill and the drugstore circular back onto the coffee table and struggled to listen to the rest of Al’s message. Pretty much all she could grasp after that was that the man would keep her posted and, if she had any questions, she could feel free to give him a call.

She immediately hit Callback.

“Hello, Al? It’s Tamara. I’m so sorry I missed your call,” she said when he answered his phone, but that was all she could manage before the tears overcame her. Not soft, gentle droplets. These were sobs. Sobs loud enough to drag Jon out of his office to peek at her. To actually walk down the hall to see what the big problem was.

“Tamara, dear. I’m glad you reached me,” the older gentleman told her.

She sniffled. “Is she okay? Or at least kind of stable now?”

There was a telling silence. “No.” He cleared his throat. “No, we lost her a half hour ago. But there wasn’t a thing either you or I could’ve done to stop it. She slipped into a coma right after the stroke, and the medics weren’t able to revive her. Even had you known, there wouldn’t have been anything you could’ve said or done—here or there—to turn back the clock.” He gulped some air. “She was a stubborn one, that aunt of yours. Always said when she was ready to go, no one would stop her….”

Tamara could hear the affection mingling with sadness in his voice, both so powerful she could feel them through the line. “I can’t believe it, Al,” she whispered, and, for a few moments, that was all she could say. The immensity of the loss engulfed her. Then, “I wasn’t—I wasn’t ready for her to go.”

“Me, either.”

After that, they just stayed on the line for a while, saying nothing, really. Clinging to their phone connection as if it were their last link to Eliza herself.

Before Tamara hung up, she told Al she’d fly out to Vermont right away to handle the funeral arrangements. He said he’d be more than willing to help. Then he added, “I’m sorry we’re meeting for the first time under these circumstances, my dear, but I’m glad we’ll have a chance to get acquainted finally. Your aunt loved you immeasurably. Her phone conversations with you brightened her days. Some people—” His voice broke as he said this. “Some people only remember their elderly family members when they die. You were there for her in life.”

When she clicked off, Jon was standing behind her, not even pretending not to have overheard. “Sorry to hear the news,” he said, his voice gruff but, for once, devoid of his usual tone of accusation. “I know how much you loved her.”

“Thanks,” she whispered. She gazed at him and, for a brief, rare moment, she felt a glimmer of the closeness they’d once shared. But the moment passed, so she ambled to the bedroom to begin packing. Alone. Jon had commitments, of course, but was it too much to offer to help? To even give her a consolation hug? Apparently so.

After booking an online flight out east, she e-mailed Jennifer, whom she knew would be checking messages.
No Indigo Moon for me tomorrow,
she typed, explaining quickly about her aunt’s death and the funeral.
Please pass along the news to Bridget for me. Have fun, though, and I’ll see you both soon.

But she didn’t know if she would. For the first time in three and a half years she was relieved to have a good excuse not to go out for Friday coffee. Appreciative of the upcoming days away, regardless of the reason. Grieving yet somehow grateful.

Friday, September 17

J
ennifer arrived three minutes early and slipped through the front doors of the Indigo Moon Café, not surprised to be the first one there. She’d received Tamara’s message, of course, and would relay the news to Bridget upon her arrival, but she more than suspected her dark-haired friend would be late. Which suited Jennifer just fine this morning.

She’d come prepared for calm—and quick—pleasantry, and she’d dressed accordingly. She’d fixed in her mind a set departure time, and the greater the number of minutes that passed before she had to enact her charade of normalcy in front of Bridget, the less time she’d have to spend onstage overall.

She unbuttoned her light, beige overcoat, designed for both appropriate warmth (the fall mornings could be chilly) and anonymity. The latter she accomplished by eschewing all marks of distinction, such as colorful silk scarves or identifying broaches. There would be no golden oak leaves or bright red apples pinned to one of Jennifer’s coat collars, thank you.

Of course, David would laugh at her if she wore anything with an apple—decorative or not. “Turned into a Mac person now, have you? Christ, what’s the world coming to?” So, the fewer items she wore worthy of comment, the less she’d be forced to reveal.

Jennifer let the hostess lead her to the usual corner table. She made herself as comfortable as possible on the squishy vinyl, picking at her short fingernails with the edge of the laminated menu and contemplating prospective opening lines for when she and David met next week.
It’s been a long time
. Or,
Hey, nice to see you. You haven’t changed a bit.
Or,
Before you take even one step closer, tell me why you left me
. Well, maybe not that last one.

At precisely 9:09, Bridget burst through the front doors, spotted her and made a beeline for their table.

“Sorry I’m late,” she panted, removing a maroon Windbreaker with a faded red, white and blue “Obama Mama” button on it and tossing the jacket on the seat beside her. The thin jersey Bridget wore beneath was an eye-popping swirl of teal and lavender, the visual equivalent of smelling salts on Jennifer’s psyche.

“That’s okay,” Jennifer murmured as she tried to blink away the color cacophony. Didn’t work.

“The kids were driving me insane this morning. ‘Where’d you put my granola bar?’ and ‘Are my new jeans washed yet?’ and ‘Can I go over to Leo’s or Kara’s or somebody’s house after school?’” Bridget mimicked, plopping herself onto the vinyl cushion next to Jennifer. “Evan almost didn’t make it to the bus because the two older ones kept—” She stopped midsentence and glanced around, the dark hair swinging behind her like a superhero’s cape. “Hey, where’s Tamara? Is she running late, too?”

Jennifer told her about the funeral.

“Oh, that’s just awful!” Bridget exclaimed. She covered her mouth with her palm and glanced down, but she didn’t know if she did it quickly enough to mask her relief. It wasn’t that she wanted Tamara’s aunt to die—no! It was just that she’d kind of needed a break from Tamara. Jennifer, while quiet and often so hard to read, was at least an easier companion.

After the two women had discussed with sufficient solemnity the sadness of their friend’s loss, they took concurrent deep breaths and ventured down a less grim path of conversational exchange. The result—the morning’s relative cold snap—coincided with the arrival of their waitress, her pen poised for order-taking.

Bridget had been being careful again about her calories. She’d made an effort to “dress for success” more often these days (she could hear her mother pithily quoting those words to her some twenty years ago), and she’d noticed her wardrobe choices expanded exponentially when she was down eight or ten pounds. So, she waved off the tempting muffin options and focused on her skim-vanilla latte, which she intended to redress with dashes of cinnamon and lace with sprinkles of cocoa powder.

“And for you, a small mocha-soy latte made with a squirt of coconut syrup and a hint of nutmeg, right?” the waitress asked Jennifer.

If pressed, Jennifer would’ve said it was the air of smug triumph in the waitress’s voice that pushed her to finally choose a different beverage option, but that wouldn’t have been the whole truth. In just six days she would see David again. The unnatural jitteriness caused by anticipating this disquieting event made her certain she must forgo all forms of caffeine—coffee and otherwise, today and all week—and opt instead for a soothing decaf chai.

Bridget looked stunned by her choice, the waitress duly chastised for presumption, but Jennifer would have shouted to the world at large, “Don’t be so sure you know me!” had she believed more than a tiny handful of individuals would’ve cared.

Bridget continued to stare ominously at her for several seconds after the waitress disappeared. “So, um, what’s been going on in your life? Any…news?”

Having no interest whatsoever in self-disclosure, Jennifer began to mumble something about getting a few new Web design clients in the past week, but Bridget interrupted her. “No, I meant from David.” She paused, tearing a series of millimeter-sized rips in the side of a Splenda packet. “What are you, um, hoping will happen with him? What do you want by seeing him again?”

Jennifer squeezed her eyes shut until she could see the David of her youth in her mental viewfinder. He wouldn’t look like that guy anymore, she reminded herself, but it had never been his physicality that had drawn her in anyway. It was that essence of him. It was that quality of a potent understanding between them. A connection.

She opened her eyes and glanced at her friend, fighting to rein in the truth but finding herself being candid anyway. “I’m hoping—I think—that in seeing him again I’ll know more. I’m counting on…a feeling, I guess. Of rightness or wrongness. And I—I don’t usually rely on feelings, but in his case…” The sheer honesty of her own statement was enough to glue Jennifer to the vinyl and paralyze her tongue, but Bridget didn’t look nearly as surprised by her disclosure as she had by her order of a new beverage.

“I rely on feelings a lot,” Bridget said with ease. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making decisions based on logic, but sometimes it’s just better to give yourself over to intuition. Know what I mean?”

Jennifer did
not
know, but she nodded anyway.

Bridget continued. “I can feel in my bones that I made the best choice for me way back when in marrying Graham, but things between us are different now. I wonder whether the people we are today would’ve chosen to be together if we’d met this year instead of all those years ago. And, how bad is it, really, to want to sort of step back from a relationship that isn’t working so I can be a part of one that might?”

Jennifer nodded again. She could discern the importance of Bridget’s struggle. Indeed, in many ways, she shared it. For herself she wanted closure. To know her rebound guy was the right guy after all. Or, at least, that the original guy
wasn’t
the right guy, and she’d made the correct decision in moving on (or trying to) all those years ago. However, this notion of being able to “feel in her bones” that one choice had been the best—at
any
time—was beyond her grasp.

Bridget, meanwhile, marveled at her understanding of Jennifer’s problem, though mere issues of certainty weren’t at the forefront of her mind. Her battles differed in that, despite the shakiness of her faith, she still believed she had God as her judge, not only herself. It was the intrinsic rightness or wrongness—of the
act,
not just the feeling—that concerned her. The sin or the not-sin. Dr. Luke was Catholic, too. If the situation didn’t involve him directly, she’d have asked him his opinion. Was infatuation just one of God’s tests or a sign of something else? Was marriage, after a decade or more, something that must simply be
endured
for most couples? Or, was it part of God’s divine plan that she must fully become the woman she longed to be no matter
what
the consequence?

Somehow Bridget didn’t think her childhood priest, Father Patrick, for all his gentle kindness, would sanction the latter.

Jennifer mumbled some platitude about how she was sure “Graham would meet her halfway,” and asked if she had “talked to him at all about her feelings.”

Bridget’s cynicism shield rose. She knew when she was being fed a pat response. Jennifer may have been momentarily open with her, but Bridget was aware of her friend pulling back again.

So, she murmured that, yeah, her husband was a good guy and, perhaps, she could try to work up the courage to discuss this with him, carefully. They both laughed lightly at that and returned to superficial chitchat: a pregnant PTO friend, gossip about a school-board member who was leaving, whether Kip and Leah Wiener would host their annual Hallowiener Party at their McMansion next month and, if so, how they could get out of going. The usual.

All the while, Bridget couldn’t help but think of what a kind but closeted soul Jennifer was. So reserved. So different from Tamara. It was funny, the closest Bridget ever came to Tamara’s abrasive manner was with Jennifer. She always wanted to shake her up. Get some emotion flowing in her. It almost didn’t matter if it was positive or negative. Bridget just wanted the other woman to feel
something
.

Of course, she might get a reaction if she told Jennifer about Dr. Luke and her upcoming lunch date with him. She waffled on it. What if Jennifer judged her as harshly as Tamara did? What if Dr. Luke cancelled out? Then it would look like she’d made up the invitation.

Before she could talk herself into sharing, Jennifer announced, “I’m going to have to leave for yoga in ten minutes.” She pointed toward her light gray sweatshirt with the petite pink Downward Dog pose encircled inside the Glendale Grove Yoga logo on her left shoulder. Only then did Bridget notice the black yoga pants she also wore and the easy-to-slip-off white sneakers.

“Oh, no problem,” Bridget said, hurrying to finish her latte but wondering why someone who was already so quiet, so calm and frequently so expressionless had to go anywhere to “get centered.”

As they paid the bill and collected their few belongings, Jennifer brought up Tamara again. “It must be so sad for her. She was really close to her aunt.” Bridget acknowledged this, but didn’t say anything when Jennifer added, “I’m sure she wishes she were here having coffee with us instead. I wonder what she’s doing right now.”

Tamara, however, one thousand miles away in a tiny northeastern section of Vermont, was not wishing she were drinking coffee, wondering whether her friends were talking about her or remotely curious about what they (or her husband, for that matter) were doing in her absence. She was standing next to the man who’d loved her dearest relative and choosing a coffin.

“I don’t know which one to get,” she whispered to Al, unable to see the models at all clearly because of the watery blurriness in her eyes.

As she reached out to touch the ivory fabric lining the inside of the mahogany one, she felt Al’s hand cover hers and squeeze.

“This one looks fine,” he whispered back. “Your aunt would’ve said, ‘Life’s too short for such unpleasantness, especially when the results are irrelevant.’”

Tamara nodded. “That sounds like her. She would’ve been right. As usual.”

And when they buried her aunt in that very coffin on Sunday afternoon, Tamara fought—and lost—against a torrent of silent, angry tears. How could Aunt Eliza leave her? Who would give her the levity in her day, the strength to face the frequent annoyances, the unconditional love she knew she could count on, if only from one source?

Tamara’s mother had driven up from Massachusetts for the funeral, arriving only a few hours before the service. She stood—not beside her daughter, of course, but across the grave from Tamara—head bowed, staring coldly and with dry, resigned eyes at the mahogany box as it was lowered into the ground.

Tamara’s mom and Aunt Eliza…sisters…had never been close, which Tamara had always thought was a shame. Now she realized it was far more than that. It was a loose end that could never be tied. A lingering dance of unrest that would never cease its motion.

Tamara felt her anger abate as she tossed her obligatory handful of moist New England earth onto the shiny coffin.

Goodbye, Auntie. I’ll miss you. I’ll always love you. I’ll do at least one truly wild thing every season in your honor. One joyful, crazy, risky, loving thing. I promise….

As she stepped back, she knew one truth was truer than ever: that, while she’d deeply miss her aunt, she didn’t have so much as one tiny regret about their relationship. Tamara glanced at her mother again, knowing this feeling was not universally shared. Tamara’s loss wracked her body with aches, but the pain was pure. It was a single, powerful strand, but it was untainted by missed opportunities, closed hearts or any hint of relief.

She also knew, more than the legacy of financial riches Aunt Eliza had willed to her, that the knowledge of life’s fleeting nature was her most precious inheritance. The bestowal of wisdom. The parade of happy memories. The joy of real conversation. Gifts her aunt had given her freely and, now that Tamara knew of their power, she’d no longer be able to ignore them again.