One Less Problem Without You (31 page)

Later that morning, she got the call that Diana's husband, Leif, died. At first she was shocked, horrified, but then she wondered what she was supposed to feel for her. Diana hadn't seemed happy, of course, and he'd seemed abusive and horrible. And Prinny didn't sound like they were midcrisis over there. Still, she sent her best wishes.

It wasn't until she volunteered to help Prinny and Diana clean out Diana and Leif's house that she knew exactly what to feel.

They'd been mostly packing up kitchen stuff, makeup, clothes, things that Diana wanted to take with her. She wasn't messing around with junk drawers or old Halloween decorations. She was having a sale, letting people pick through her things for anything they might want; besides that, she was hiring someone else to deal with “all that crap.”

And if Chelsea hadn't glanced at the mantel and unflipped a facedown photo, she would never have known.

Leif. She knew Leif. Well, no.

She knew “Lee.”

There was no mistaking that face. The smile lines, the tan skin, the nice eyes with devilish cruelty hiding extremely well within them.

No wonder Diana had always seemed so haunted. No wonder she'd been such a mess, so cynical, the night Chelsea had first met her. Look at who she'd been dealing with.

Living
with!

An extremely illogical part of her heart felt sadness that the man she thought she'd met was
dead
now. The guy who had sat next to her laughing and eating tacos was … completely gone.

Of course, that man hadn't really existed.

Everything made sense. Poor Diana. Chelsea had seen, even just in her one night, a slice of the spectrum she'd had to deal with. She saw the charm, and she saw the brutality. No wonder Diana was so completely conflicted.

Over the coming months, it was hard not to tell Diana or Prinny what had happened to her, and who the guy had turned out to be. The last thing either of them needed was to have Leif's actions stay alive with one more revelation. She didn't need to lead to even one more pang of betrayal, heartache, or anger on behalf of him. He might have wanted everyone in his life to be miserable, but she didn't.

She told Andrew, so that he called off the dogs. And after she and Jeff became friends, and then started dating, she had eventually told him. Both men had responded with kindness and an appropriate measure of sympathy. Neither had judged her for her own part in it—and they didn't need to. Like any other woman who has been through it, she did enough beating up of herself for her foolish actions that night. She didn't need anyone else to mention it, and the only two people she told weren't going to condemn her.

Diana and her fierce independence since the loss of her husband had been a huge inspiration to Chelsea. Not only was she happy and capable on her own, but she showed that the biggest mistake was in allowing the misery to run your life. Whether misery was tangible enough to be a human being or remained a green, toxic mental ether, it needed to be cut out of your life. Once you did that, you could be okay.

And now, Chelsea could look around the table at the other four people there with her and think how, whether that jerk liked it or not, he had finally done something good for every single one of them.

He had died.

*   *   *

THEY LEFT BRUNCH
almost two chatty hours later. She hugged each of them good-bye, and they said they'd see her later on.

Jeff insisted on walking her home, so they held hands and talked all the way there.

“You nervous at all?”

“Not really. It never really bothers me to be in front of people when it's a stage. Put me in a party where I don't
know
anyone, and I might be freaking out on the inside, but you know. It's different.”

He smiled. “Good. That's not totally what I meant, though.”

Jeff looked at her. He knew her so well already. He knew how to communicate with her and when.

“I think it'll be okay.”

“I know it'll be okay. But that doesn't mean you might not be having a couple of nerves about reliving some of this stuff.”

“It's not a direct translation, you know that.”

“I know, I know.”

“But yeah, a little, anyway.” She confessed. “I know it's cathartic. And I mean, I've felt pretty disassociated with it during rehearsals. It's just going to be a bit different with everyone there tonight. I think it might be a little hard for everyone … but in a good way, you know?”

“I do.”

She knew that it would even be hard for Jeff. As she said, the play wasn't completely based on her own life. It was mostly about a terrible man and the effect he can have on so many different lives. Chelsea played the wife.

When Andrew had become so vigorously, angrily inspired by everything Chelsea had told him, she had talked to Diana. She hadn't revealed her own secret about the situation, but she had asked if it was okay if a bit of reality was used in a play.

Di had told her to go ahead. In fact, Di had said,
The more times that sonofabitch dies, the better.

She'd even let Diana read the script beforehand. All she'd had was extra details to toss in. No cuts. No offense taken.

*   *   *

THAT NIGHT WHEN
she was onstage, she had given a performance that felt emotionally sapping and got glowing reviews from every critic in town.

Andrew, the play, and Chelsea, were a hit.

Which meant that, against all the odds, and despite all the genuine hardships Chelsea, Diana, and Prinny had been through, their
lives
were, in fact, a hit.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Diana

I don't like the designation “widow” much.

In fact, I never understood why the Merry Widow was a cocktail. I suppose if you drank enough of them you might
become
merry. Mostly “widow” is a downer, though. You'd be surprised how many forms have that box to check. Most people check “single” or “divorced” and never even noticed “widowed” there.

I never used to.

But for a little more than a year it's been a very real part of my life. In fact, being Leif Tiesman's widow was a full-time job for a while. There was so much paperwork, so many administrative loose ends to tie up. Fortunately, he had a good lawyer who helped guide me through the whole process, but still … once the worst of it was over, I had to take time off to go away and just be alone for a couple of weeks.

I chose a place in a corner of Fiji that I'd seen on some terrible reality show. And, believe it or not, it did the trick. I don't know how other tourists enjoyed it with a film crew there, but it was almost completely private when I was there, and the solitude was as healing as a medical treatment for an illness.

Now my life back in D.C. again is filled with work, and I couldn't be happier. I still have plenty of solitude, but I also have enough company in my friends and co-workers to keep me from going bonkers.

Every once in awhile I do miss that companionship I once imagined I had with Leif. Don't get me wrong: I don't miss Leif himself; he burned that bridge so well that even once he was dead and gone I was hard-pressed to have a kind or tender thought about him. But I well remembered the feeling I had when I first met him and all the things I imagined my life was about to become.

I missed that optimism.

I missed believing in love.

Now? Forget dating. The prospect of going online, posting my smiling pictures as an advertisement to come try me out … well, I would rather be alone. And so I will remain alone, at least for now. I don't see a crazy “meet cute”—like Chelsea and Prinny each got—in my future.

The last relationship was still just a little too fresh.

Would it always be?

When the doctor came to tell us that Leif had passed, it was sincerely the worst moment of my life. I had so many feelings, and none of them felt appropriate. Plus, I was sitting there with Prinny, who seemed genuinely sad, and her husband (well, not her husband then), whom I'd only just met. Some stubborn, polite part of me felt like I had to be, I don't know, the hostess or something. Like I had to keep it together so as not to make Alex and the doctor feel awkward.

So I did keep it together.

I believe everyone saw that as odd.

The funeral was huge, though I recognized at least fifteen men there as guys Leif had vowed to take down in business, so I'm not sure they were there to pay their last respects so much as to make sure he was dead. No one took a mirror out and held it under his nose, as in the movie
Charade,
but I would wager more than one wanted to.

The will? Well, for a guy who spent so much time and energy—and
money—
trying to take Prinny's inheritance away, I'm sorry to say he didn't have a will. That meant the state got to take a bit of his estate for “administration,” but who cares? Like I said, it took a long time and a lot of effort, but we worked through probate and got everything in order.

I would like to say that I distributed many of the funds to causes he cared about so that his energy could go to something good, but there were no causes I could think of that he cared about as much as himself, so I decided there was no harm in picking a few myself: Children's Hospital, the Red Cross, the American Humane Association, and a few more that have come to my attention as I've gone along.

I didn't move back into the house we shared. It was too big for two of us, so it was definitely far too big just for me. Besides, I had always felt it was haunted in some way. With Leif gone, it could only feel more so.

Instead I just kept the apartment in Georgetown, and I pay Prinny a good rent. She didn't want me to pay her anything, but I know she donates the proceeds, so it all works out. And I like being in that little place. It feels much more like
me
than the big McMansion ever did.

Plus, it's right there where I work. Within two months of starting Cosmos Medicinal Tea Co., we designated the expanded second half of the store entirely for that purpose and hired two new employees. I make the teas upstairs, and the downstairs is retail. It's doing so well that it looks like we might hire a third employee, someone to apprentice with me and learn the craft. The demand has been high from walk-ins, but our online business is booming, too.

The key for finding someone to work with and to teach is that I have to find someone very, very responsible. It's extremely tricky and dangerous dealing with herbs. They are not candy, to be consumed without regard for safety. Even one leaf of a particularly potent herb—say, digitalis (aka foxglove, a beautiful purple flower you can find growing on roadsides all over)—can create symptoms of arrhythmia or worse. Someone who is hospitalized with those symptoms and given the standard course of treatment—digoxin, a derivative of digitalis—might well end up suffering from digoxin toxicity, which leads to cardiac arrest and death.

Yes, one must be very, very careful.

 

DIANA'S DRINKS

30 Recipes to Make You Feel Superb

Kava Tranquili-Tea

A very relaxing, magical tisane blend sure to bring peace of mind to even the most troubled soul.

1 ounce chamomile leaves

1 ounce kava

½ ounce lemon balm

½ ounce rose petals

½ ounce lavender

4 cups boiling water

Place all herbs in a teapot, cup, or jar and carefully pour the water over them. Steep for fifteen minutes, then strain and serve hot or cold.

FOUR DRINKS

 

Let Him Eat Humble Pie

A spiked soda with a boozy layer of orange on the bottom. Make the blood orange reduction by simmering blood orange juice down to a thick syrup. Alternatively, use orange vodka, like Amsterdam or Skyy blood orange.

1 ounce vodka

1 ounce Aperol

1 dash triple sec

¼ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ ounce blood orange reduction

3 ounces club soda

Garnish: slice of lemon

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add vodka, Aperol, triple sec, lemon juice, and blood orange reduction. Shake and pour into an Old Fashioned glass filled with ice.

Top with club soda and garnish with lemon.

ONE DRINK

 

Marry Me Mimosa

The key to a great mimosa is to use freshly squeezed orange juice. Cheap sparkling wine is okay, though a good brut champagne is best. Top with a dash of Grand Marnier if you like it sweet.

This is not a breakfast drink only. Enjoy it and celebrate all day.

Since this is a drink that requires no ice, chill your glass in the freezer—or by filling with crushed ice that you pour out—before serving.

2 ounces freshly squeezed orange juice

½ teaspoon grenadine

dash orange bitters

4 ounces sparkling wine

dash Grand Marnier, optional

Garnish: orange slice

Pour orange juice, grenadine, and bitters into a chilled champagne flute and top with sparkling wine. Add a dash of Grand Marnier, if you like, and garnish with a slice of orange.

ONE DRINK

 

Lavender Lemon Balm Tisane for Nerves

This is a soothing, cheering tisane, excellent iced or hot, and will lift even the dullest of spirits.

6 sprigs lavender

6 sprigs lemon balm

4 cups boiling water

1 ounce gin, optional (preferably a more floral gin like Nolet's)