Georgia on Her Mind (2 page)

I
dial Chris’s cell and office phone, but he doesn’t answer. Chances are he’ll show at our place, Pop’s Diner, eventually.

I park close to the door and dash inside, dodging raindrops. Snippets of my conversation with Attila the Hun replay in my head.

Mike Perkins. Go on the road as a trainer. Been there, done that! If you don’t want to come aboard…

I slide into a booth by the door. Elizabeth, the waitress, sees me and comes over, snapping her gum.

“What’ll it be?”

“Double order of fries. Make sure they’re hot.” I’m blowing a day’s worth of Weight Watchers points and I want it to be hot and salty.

“Starting out a little early, aren’t you?” she asks, jotting down my order.

“And a large Diet Coke.” I wrap the edge of my napkin around my finger.
I’ve lost my job….

Whoa, wait. If I’m no longer a manager, what happens to my salary? What about raises and bonuses? I’d planned on this quarter’s bonus to replenish my savings account and pay for Christmas.

I drop my forehead to the tabletop and try not to cry.

If Mike is me and I’m, well, still me, but a plain-Jane techie, do I have a plain-Jane salary? Does he have my salary? I’ve heard of that happening before. A person is reorganized to a different job where the pay is conveniently less.

I feel a swoon coming on. Do women still swoon?

I’ve just been shoved off the career path of the upwardly mobile into the proverbial ditch of the down-and-out.

I lift my head when Elizabeth sets down my Coke. “Having a nice day?” she asks.

“No.” I tear the paper off my straw.

My cell phone chirps and I answer hoping it’s Chris. But it’s Lucy, which is just as good.

“I’m at Pop’s,” I say when I answer.

“Macy, oh no. It’s not worth it.”

“Too late. I’ve ordered double fries.”

She sighs. “I’m on my way.”

Lucy O’Brien hasn’t eaten junk food since a 1994
60 Minutes
exposé. If I’d said I was standing on the ledge of the Melbourne Causeway about to plunge ninety feet into the Indian River, she couldn’t have responded with any more urgency.

So seeing Lucy, a slender, redheaded
Florida Daily News
investigative reporter, dash into Pop’s like a superheroine almost makes me laugh. Almost.

“I got here as quickly as I could.” Lucy slides into the seat across from me, stowing her umbrella and pulling a wet wipe from her purse. She towels off the table.

But it’s too late—my cheeks are fat with fries. I wash them down with a slurp of soda.

“That stuff is going to kill you, Macy.” Lucy wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue. “How you and Chris eat this stuff is beyond me.”

“This won’t kill me. Veronica Karpinski will kill me.” I shake a long salty fry under her nose.

She shoves my hand away with a “yuck” expression on her face.

I bite the fry. “You do not know what you are missing, my friend.”

“Veronica Karpinski can only ‘kill’ you if you let her.” Lucy makes air quotes around the word
kill.
As if either of us thinks this conversation is literal.

“She’s doing a pretty good job of killing my Casper career.”

Lucy taps my hand. “You’re going to be okay, Macy. This whole thing will straighten itself out, and you know what? I bet you’ll be Roni’s boss this time next year.”

“Are you crazy? She would never,
ever
let that happen. She eats, breathes and sleeps that place. She broke off her third engagement because the guy asked her to take one weekend a month off work.”

I hold up my drink glass for a refill.

“What does Chris say about all of this?” Lucy asks, ordering a cup of herbal tea when Elizabeth brings me a new drink.

Good question. “I tried to call him, but he’s not answering his phones. Maybe I’ll run by his office….”

Lucy’s hazel eyes pop wide and her gaze is fixed on something behind me. “Oh, no, don’t look.”

Of course, I look. There’s Chris, finally, dashing into the restaurant. Now the sun is shining. I lift my hand to
woo-hoo
him over to our table, but he’s with a petite, smiley, bleached blonde wearing low riders and platform shoes. The two of them are wet and laughing.

“Who is she?” I wonder out loud.

“Not his sister,” Lucy mutters out of the corner of her pinched lips, and points out how snugly his hand is resting on her hip.

“Maybe a friend?” I pretend the slicing pain in my chest is indigestion. His hand is
not
that snug on her hip. Not really.

“Oh, for crying out loud, Macy, get a clue. I told you not to eat this junk. It’s decaying your brain.” Lucy shoves me out of my seat. “Go see what he’s up to.”

“Chris?” I bellow without considering where I might take this scene.

“Macy.” He jumps away from the blonde as if he’s been bitten by a dog—that would be me, I guess.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Early lunch.” I cross my arms, glaring at him, studying her.

With a confused look on his face, he asks, “Did we have plans for today?”

Obviously neither of us is paying much attention to this relationship. “I tried to call you,” I say, arms still crossed, eyes still fixed on this cozy couple.

“I’ve been out all morning.”

“I guess so.” I smile at the blonde.

Chris fumbles forward. “This is Kate Winters. Kate, um, this is, um…”

“Macy Moore.” The buffoon forgot my name. If we weren’t in public I’d kick him in the knee, then the other knee.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Kate offers her hand.

She seems innocent enough. Intuition tells me if I want the truth about this situation, she’s my best bet.

With a faux chuckle I commence my investigation. “You two work together?”

Kate laughs. “Oh, no. I just moved into my new apartment and Chris is helping me furniture shop.” She smiles all too sweetly. “He loves double cheeseburgers, so we came here for lunch.”

Of course he loves double cheeseburgers. Odd that she would know that. “So, you two know each other from where?”

Giddy Kate jumps right in with an explanation. “I’m a graduate student at Florida Tech. Chris was my economics adjunct professor last term.”

“How about that?” I give Chris a look.

Kate continues, beaming. “I didn’t have classes today, so Chris took the day off to be with me.”

Ah, it’s becoming clear. Yes, crystal clear. Chris is cheating on me. Or cheating on Kate, I don’t know which. I decide to out him.

“Kate, for the last six months I’ve been Chris’s girlfriend. At least I was until about five minutes ago.”

“Chris?” Kate stares up at him. Oh brother, I think she’s going to cry.

Chris goes into weasel mode. “Kate, Macy, I…”

All at once Lucy is beside me, jerking me toward the door. “Come on, Macy. He’s not worth the effort.” She hands me my soda, refilled. Drops my coat onto my shoulders and slips my purse onto my arm.

“Six months, Chris. Wasted.” What a rotten, weaseling, two-timing scoundrel. I stop at the door and offer Kate a word of advice. “Runnnn!”

Lucy pushes me into a nippy February drizzle.

“What is going on?” I gaze heavenward, arms raised. The dissipating rain sprinkles me. “Lord, hello. It’s me, Macy Moore, Your friend. What are You doing to me?”

Lucy shushes me. “People are staring.”

“Let them stare.” I flail my arms about, the contents of my cup sloshing over.

“Macy, really.” Lucy grabs at me, indignant.

“What was I thinking, Lucy? Chris Wright. Ha! More like Chris Wrong,” I shout toward the restaurant, hoping he’ll hear me. “Did you see her? Him with her?”

“Yes, I saw.”

How did I not see this coming? Grad student, indeed.

“That’s what I get for dating a man who likes to play with other people’s money. Nothing is sacred to him.” Like the mature woman I am, I kick a newspaper stand and nick my fancy boots.

“Macy, please, gather yourself.”

“Gather myself? Lucy, my career has tanked, my boyfriend is…I don’t know…dating another woman and this…drink…is watery.” I head for my car, flinging the drink into the nearest trash can, and wipe my chilled hand on the sleeve of my coat.

“Where are you going?” Lucy trails me.

“Home. I need to think, sort this out.” I regard my dear friend for a second, then stride over to where she’s standing and give her a hug. “Thanks for being there for me.”

“I’m coming over tonight.”

“Bring Chinese.”

A
rriving home, I decide to do what any woman of my education and stature would do—pout. Pity party for one, please. I change into my party outfit, a ratty pair of red sweats.

Earlier, I couldn’t get Roni’s attitude out of my head. Now I can’t stop picturing Chris with that incredibly cute woman.

In the mirror over my couch I check my appearance. My hair is matted together from the rain, my eyes are puffy and red, and black mascara residue has pooled under my eyes and left streaks on my face. I look like a member of Cirque du Soleil.

Comparing myself to a perky Florida Tech grad student right now is stupid. But stupid hasn’t stopped me before.

It occurs to me as I fall onto the couch that in this dark hour I should pray. But dialoguing with God feels, at the very least, hypocritical. We haven’t been on intimate speak
ing terms for a few months, and going to Him now because my life is in ruins doesn’t seem right.

Okay, maybe that’s when one
should
run to God. But quite frankly, when I met Chris I sort of took over the rudder of my life. “Thanks, Lord. I have my career and a good man. I’ll take it from here.”

I flop over onto my stomach, bury my face in a thick, fringed pillow and punch the sofa cushion until my arm tires three whacks later. (Mental note: renew gym membership.) I backtrack over my life with Chris to determine where it went wrong.

I met him at a community work party, cleaning up parts of downtown Melbourne, right before my thirty-third birthday and right after my biological clock sent its first alarm: Hello, you’re a thirtysomething, Macy.

That shook me. I desperately wanted a career and life outside my small hometown of Beauty, Georgia, but I never, ever wanted to be one of those workaholic women who wakes up at forty-five and says, “Oops, I forgot to have a family.”

So, with baby bells still chiming, I ran into Chris a few days later at Pop’s and he asked me to dinner.

He took me to the Chart House—very nice!—and we simply clicked, as if we’d known each other forever. Suddenly getting married became a priority. I hadn’t met a man like Chris in a long time—handsome, goal oriented, sweet, well-spoken and moneyed. My personal I-don’t-want-to-bean-old-maid fear factor precluded asking God for His opinion.

So this is where that plan has brought me. Broken-heartville. Drat.

The phone rings, calling me out of the pity pool. I fumble to find the portable, lost somewhere under the coffee table. I bump my head reaching for it.

“Hello?” I sit up, rubbing my forehead. Winter’s afternoon light falls across my living-room floor. I check the time on the mantel clock. Two o’clock.

“Macy?”

It’s my neighbor across the street. “Mrs. Woodward, how are you?” The words come out slowly and high-pitched and it sounds as if one of us is an imbecile and it’s not her. “I see you came home in the middle of the day. Are you ill?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Oh, dear. Well, I have soup on.”

I wince. That’s the umpteenth time she’s called me for a meal this year and it’s only February. I have yet to accept because I’ve been busy. Really I have.

“Thank you, Mrs. Woodward, but I just had lunch, and to be honest, I’m not very good company right now.”

“I understand. How about for dinner?”

I wince again. “I have a friend coming over.”

“Boy or girl?”

Oh, brother. “Girl. Lucy. You remember Lucy.”

“Of course. I can set a place for her, too.” Her voice goes up on
too
as if she’s tempting me with a million dollars.

“She’s bringing Chinese.”

“Well, then, another night. Ta-ta.”

“Yeah, ta-ta.”

Lucy bungles through the door around seven-thirty with bags of Chinese comfort. I’m starved.

“Here.” She hands me a few pieces of mail. “Dan Montgomery said they were in his box.”

Ah, handsome Dan, the condo community’s resident hunky lawyer. Think George Clooney meets Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“You look horrible,” Lucy says, walking toward the kitchen.

“Thanks. I was going for hideous, but horrible is good.” I glance in the couch mirror again. No, I think I achieved hideous.

“Go wash up. I’ll get the plates. You do realize Dan was about to knock on your door.”

“Oh, really?” That would have been the icing on the cake of my day. Opening the door to handsome Dan while looking like a dead skunk. I bet his girlfriend, Perfect Woman, was with him.

In the downstairs bathroom I scrub my face with soap. I’m too tired, too I-don’t-care to run upstairs for my over-priced facial cleanser. Soap will do.

Lucy is yelling something at me. “What?” I holler back, turning off the water.

“Remember your dinner with him?”

“Him who? Chris?” Of course I remember.

“No, Dan. When you first moved into the complex.” Lucy passes by with a plate of food.

I pat my face dry. “Oh, Dan, yeah.”

She laughs. “You asked him where he went to church—”

“And he said, ‘Check, please!’” I laugh with her. Some things aren’t meant to be. A few months after our little dinner disaster, Dan started dating Perfect Woman and they’ve been thick as thieves ever since. I call her Perfect Woman because she has no known flaws, at least that I can see.

I light the gas logs in the fireplace, fill my plate and plant myself in the lounger. It’s good to have Lucy here.

But she gets personal before my first bite of moo goo gai pan. “So, how do you feel about the Chris thing?”

“Happy and breezy, like a day in the park,” I snarl. The idea of him with Kate may just ruin my appetite. May.

“Hey, I’m on your side. Be thankful you didn’t get stuck with him for life.”

“Eligible men don’t grow on trees, Lucy. Can’t just go out and pick a new one. Especially Christian guys.”

She shakes her bony finger at me. “You were about to settle, weren’t you?”

Egad, I hope not. “Settle is not the word I’d use.”

“Are you even sure he was a Christian?”

I feel flushed. “Well, he went to church with me.” When we went. “He shook Pastor Ted’s hand and said, ‘Good word.’”

“Oh, please.”

I didn’t think that would fly, but the truth is, I never really asked him much about his faith. He respected my beliefs and I liked him, perhaps loved him, and for the time being that was good enough. So maybe I was settling.

“I heard him tell Reuben Edwards the night we went to the movies he thought Jesus was simply a great man.”

“Stop. This day’s been bad enough.” I don’t want to hear it. I know. I know. I overlooked a few things with Chris. Important things. It was that biological clock, I tell you. The ringing confused me.

Lucy scoops more fried rice onto her plate. (Chinese is her only fast-food weakness.) “Just because you’re thirty-three doesn’t mean you have to be desperate.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Lucy ‘I-have-a-date-every-weekend’ O’Brien is in the house.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “I do not. Not every weekend.”

Last spring she dragged me kicking and screaming to a singles event up in Cocoa Beach. “Can’t go,” I protested over and over. “I’m allergic to singles functions!”

My eyes watered, my throat tightened and I couldn’t breathe. I needed air.

Anyway, I caved to her demands and attended this singles shindig when she reminded me I hadn’t been on a date in over a year. It was a Hawaiian luau with a bonfire on the beach, roasting pig on the spit, twilight volleyball and candlelit pavilions. All serenaded by a ukulele band with its very own Don Ho impersonator. I had to admit, a very nice event.

But, as I suspected, it turned out to be the classic, textbook church singles function. Five girls for every guy, and every guy a dud—in my humble opinion. The one cool guy who showed up without a USB data stick slung around his neck, polyester pants or Velcro sneakers gravitated right past me for Lucy.

“Mace, hey, earth.” Lucy snaps her fingers. “Come in, Macy.”

“What?” I jump into the present.

“What about Casper? What’re you going to do?”

Oh, that. Between the upheaval at Casper and the upheaval with Chris, I’m not sure how to find right side up.

“I don’t know. My beautiful life…an ash heap.” With that, I’m depressed. Knowing it is one thing—declaring it is another.

“Don’t take this wrong…” she starts with a thoughtful expression.

“Oh no, I love conversations that start with ‘Don’t take this wrong.’” I brace myself for one of her friendly cuts.

“Your career was becoming your God.”

“What?” Now, that’s not fair.

“This last year, you changed, went berserk with work. Then you met Chris—”

“Berserk with work?” I echo, biting into my egg roll.

“You got hung up on climbing the corporate ladder and it took some zeal out of you,” Lucy says.

“Zeal? You just said I was berserk with work.”

She looks at me for a long second and I know she’s about to utter something profound. “Your zeal for Jesus faded. Like frizzy perms and oversize belted blouses.”

I’m cut to the quick. Comparing my spiritual life with distasteful ’80s fashion. I fire off my rebuttal. “I’m zealous for Him by doing my job with excellence.”

“Don’t twist things, Macy. Your identity was becoming that whole corporate, yuppie world. The cars, the clothes, power lunches, working fifty-, sixty-hour weeks.” Lucy picks up the fried rice carton and shovels another round onto her plate.

“So what are you saying? Give up on my dreams?”

“Of course not. I’m saying make an adjustment. Remember what you do in life is merely a reflection of who you are as a Christian, one who loves and serves the Lord.”

Her words shake me. She’s right. I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it. I hate these kinds of “duh” moments, like realizing the light has changed to red just when I’ve shifted into fifth gear.

“Casper obviously doesn’t seem to appreciate all you’ve sacrificed for them, and Chris showed you how much your love means to him today. He forgot your name, Macy.”

“He did, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did.” Lucy reclines against the back of the couch, plate in hand, and reaches for the TV remote. She stops on the latest installment of
The Apprentice.

“Luce, hey, do you mind?” I point at the TV with my chopsticks. “I don’t need a reminder.”

I wonder if Donald would fire me. Better yet, fire Roni Karpinski. “Veronica, you’re fired.” Hmm. I feel a little better.

Sigh.
But my life is not a reality TV show. It’s worse. Seeing my name on that Casper org chart dropped from the manager box into the slush pile of staff names was painful and humiliating, then running into Chris with Kate…

I wonder if I should call him and sort this out. What if he’s with her? I can’t bear it. I won’t call. Makes me look desperate. If he’s got something to say, he can come say it.

In the midst of my mental and spiritual debate the phone rings. Lucy answers and hands it to me with her eyes popping, her finger over the mouthpiece.

“It’s your boss,” she whispers.

“You don’t have to whisper, Lucy.” I yank the phone out of her hand.

“Hi, Roni.” Maybe she’s watching
The Apprentice,
too, and is calling to apologize.

“Macy, it’s Mike Perkins.”