The Life You've Imagined (9 page)

When I awake, my mouth feels cottony and I’m dizzy, disoriented. It takes me several moments to remember what just happened. I creep down the hall to peek down the stairs. From this view I can see the store in operation, and I can hear Anna’s voice as she rings up purchases. She also seems to be on her cell phone with her office.

I slink back to my room, avoiding squeaky spots on the hallway floor. I close the door gently and press the lock down. It snaps into place and I relax a bit.

From under my mattress I withdraw Robert’s last letter and a pad of paper. My pen remains on my nightstand from when I last used it.

Dear Robert,
I begin.

You asked me when you first wrote if I believe in second chances and at the time I said I didn’t know. I needed time. And actually, just recently I tried to stop writing you. It suddenly seemed so foolish to even entertain the notion of seeing you again, after everything.

But I re-read your letter every night and I couldn’t bear to think this could be the last I hear from you, if I didn’t write back at all. It was like you were disappearing again, only this time it’s up to me, it’s in my hands.

I can’t promise it will be like it was. But you’re sorry and you love me and you’re coming back after all, and since I can’t stop thinking of you . . . I guess this means I still love you, too.

All this means that yes, I’ll meet you. Just tell me when and where.

I don’t know what the future holds for us, if anything. But I’m willing to see.

Maeve

The envelopes are downstairs. I’ll have to wait until Anna is asleep, or out, or, if not before, I can mail it Monday, when she’s gone back home with her fancy education and expensive suits and her utter confidence that she’s so much smarter than I am.

Chapter 13

Amy

M
y mom looks around for a chair to sit on.

We’re in Agatha’s Boutique, and for most people a chair is nothing, almost nonexistent, like the spoon in your hand or the mirror on the wall, serving only as a means to an end.

Only when you’re fat, none of this is nothing.

“Here, Mom,” and I take her elbow and point her toward a low bench, upholstered in crushed velvet. It’s wide enough for two, or wide enough for her. I remember sitting there myself when looking for a prom dress. I gave up in disgust and stayed home.

She nods her relief at finding a place to land. She crosses her legs at her ankles because she can’t cross them at her knees.

I still remember the joy the first time I realized I could cross one knee over another.

She’s still breathing a little hard. We had to park far away.

“Well,” she says with a little puff of air, fanning herself with a tissue. “Let’s see this vision of a dress.”

It’s still the store model. Mine isn’t in yet, but Mom wanted to see it, insisted on it, in fact. Aunt Agatha appears with the dress over her arm.

Mom gasps. “Oooooh, look at that. Will you just look at that.”

I accept the dress from Aunt Agatha and step into the large bridal fitting room, alone, by prior arrangement with my mother. She fussed at me over it, complained, “Why are you so modest? I wiped your butt; I can see you change into a dress.”

I told her I just wanted her to see it all at once, and get the full effect when it was already on.

I don’t let Agatha in here, either. She offered before, because climbing into a wedding dress alone is hard. Too big to step into, too heavy to pull comfortably over the top of you. So I hang it on a hook and wriggle into it from underneath, reach up, dislodge the hanger, and then let it fall down on me. I perfected this after trying on a dozen or more dresses, with Kristi, Sarah, and Nikki tittering outside the doors.

I poke my head out and let Agatha in so she can do up the buttons at the back. The model dress is too big—such bliss! For something to be too big!—and she pulls on it and bunches it up in her hands behind me so it hugs my body.

Only then do I look in the mirror.

We head out into the store like that, me holding up the hem so I don’t step on it in my bare feet and Agatha like a caboose hanging onto the back.

Mom puts her hands over her face. She looks horrified, only I know she’s not. Her tears are running over her fingertips and sliding down her cheeks, but she makes no sound.

“Well?”

It’s an off-the-shoulder white gown, with seed pearls and lace, and lace swooping down the skirt, and a crinoline.

“I know it’s a bit lacy and princessy for a woman my age,” I say.

“Nonsense,” breaks in Agatha. “Every bride can be as princessy as she likes, I don’t care if you’re eighty.”

“So beautiful,” my mom says. “Just . . . I always said you were such a beauty.”

“Well, now, Maryann,” Agatha says to my mother, who also happens to be her niece. “What do you say we look at some gowns for you?”

At this she flushes deep. “I don’t know, Aunt Agatha, I’m not sure I’m up to that today. I’d like to drop a little weight first, you know . . .”

“Mom,” I say as gently as I can. “The wedding is in August.”

“I know, sweetheart, I just . . .” She looks up at Agatha.

Agatha blows a piece of her gray hair off her forehead. “Maryann, I can always take it in for you when you lose those pounds. It wouldn’t hurt to start looking. I’d hate for you to be stressed and rushing, last minute. How about I just find you a few candidates, for starters?”

Without waiting for a response, Agatha disappears toward the mother-of-the-bride dresses.

The gown is loose now that Agatha has let go of the back. I feel like I’m lording over my mother, so I crouch down next to her, sitting cross-legged under the billow of my dress. “What’s wrong?” I ask her, though I already know.

Her voices comes out raspy. “I’m a disgrace to you.”

“No, you’re not at all! You’re beautiful.” I almost choke on it because I heard her say that to me hundreds of times when I was fat and I knew it was a lie every time.

She sniffs hard. “Don’t kid a kidder.”

“Do you want me to help you lose some weight?”

“Oh, I can’t do it like you did it, honey. I’m too old to go running around town in some Nikes or something.”

“You don’t have to run. What about swimming? You could join the Y, and . . .”

“I can’t swim and you know it.”

“They do those water aerobics, right in the shallow end.”

My mom shakes her head, loose pieces of red hair flopping over her eyes. I would love to talk her out of that dye job. It’s fire-engine red and tacky to the extreme, but her appearance is a touchy subject.

I can’t stop thinking about how it will look in the wedding pictures. How she will look.

The hair, though, isn’t the real problem.

“Mom, you’ve got to do something.”

“Something like what? Like you said, the wedding is in August. This”—she sweeps her hand through the air over her lap—“is a lost cause.”

“I wasn’t talking about the wedding,” I rush to say, but I can feel a flush creep up my neck as soon as I get the words out. “I’m worried about your health.”

“Don’t start on me with the health thing. It’s not like I don’t know it. I have lousy metabolism. So do you. You had to run yourself to death and eat like a rabbit while your girlfriends ate whatever they wanted.”

“But you can’t—”

Agatha has returned with an armful of gowns, which she hangs on the outside of fitting room doors, to display them. They’re all tents, really. Huge sacks with some neck detail, in pastel colors. Gargantuan parodies of Easter eggs.

I squeeze my mom’s hand as she flinches away from them.

S
tepping out of the air conditioning at Agatha’s, we get the full smack of afternoon sun right in our faces. Mom grimaces. “Oh, Lordy, it’s hot,” she says, and I know what she means. Heat is so much worse when you’re already wrapped in layers of excess skin and fat. It’s like being cocooned.

“Let’s get you a bottle of water before I take you home and head back to work.” The Nee Nance is between Agatha’s and our car.

Mom lumbers to a bench outside the store, next to the ice cooler. The Nee Nance isn’t air conditioned, anyway.

Anna’s at the register. “Hi!” I wave to her.

She looks through me for a second, before she blinks and says, “Oh. Hi, there. You’ll never guess who was just here,” she says, scrubbing with vigor at the surface of the front counter while I grab two cold waters from the cooler.

“Who?”

“Your fiancé.”

Her voice sounds odd. I feel like I’m missing a punch line or something. “Oh,” is the only thing I can think of to say. “Well, his work is just down the road.”

“Right. His work at Becker Development, my mother’s new landlord.”

“Really?” I put the bottles on the counter, but she doesn’t look at them. She has stopped scrubbing the counter and she’s staring at me now. “Isn’t that interesting.”

“The new landlord who’s evicting her.”

Evicting? “What? No, he wouldn’t . . . Are you sure?”

Anna narrows her eyes. “How would I be unclear on something like that?”

I know he must have a reason; there’s more to this story, something important I’m missing, that Anna’s missing. But I don’t know what it is; I learned early on Paul hates to be pressed for details. He shares on his own agenda.

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t get involved in the business, really.” I drum my fingers on the counter and check on my mom, in silhouette out the front window. She’s fanning herself with her hand. She’s baking alive out there. “My mom is waiting for me, and I’m late for work.”

Anna punches the register buttons hard, and it seems like she has had to start over, because it takes her longer than it should.

“Look, I didn’t know anything about it. Anyway, it’s not up to me.”

“I suppose that’s true. Do you want a bag for this?”

I shake my head, and I take my change from her. “I’m sure Paul has his reasons for what he’s doing. He has the best interests of Haven at heart.”

“Because this store, my family store, is a blight on the neighborhood?” Anna gestures around the store.

“No, but . . . I mean . . . He’s not a bad guy.”

“I’m sure he’s swell. I bet he rescues kitty cats from trees.”

I snatch the water off the counter and stomp outside.

I help my mom stand up and we begin our slow progress down the block to the car. I look over my shoulder at the outside of the store with its pukey green siding and the one
e
hanging sideways and the beer posters, and come to think of it, actually, it does look like crap.

Chapter 14

Cami

L
ucky for me, it’s not hard to beat my dad to the mailbox.

Lucky
is not a word I use often, or if I do, I have to laugh as soon as it occurs to me. Lucky that my dad is usually so drunk he’s still passed out when the mail gets here on Saturday?

I take what I can get. The mail truck pulls away with its distinctive rumble, and I dash out into the hard summer rain.

It was sticky-hot all morning until the clouds crashed the party around lunchtime, and now all the wet is pouring out of the air. I love it, actually. If it weren’t for the rain streaming so hard into my eyes I can’t see, I’d just stand out here and let it soak me cool.

But anyway, the letter. By my calculations, Trent has had enough time to get the letter by air mail, look at the photo, and tell me who those people are. I only hope he hasn’t forgotten it and tossed the envelope in some big stack of bills. It’s not like he spares much thought for anything back here in the States.

I see it right off; the foreign stamp gives it away. I slip the envelope into the back of my pants and put my shirt over it, in case Dad or that skank Sherry happened to wake up just now.

The house still seems quiet, so I duck into my room and latch the door.

Cami,

Sorry to say I can’t figure out who these people are. They don’t look at all familiar to me. I guess I can’t help you.

I’m a little worried about you. Do you need anything from me? I could loan you some cash if you’re strapped. Just let me know.

Trent

I study the photo again. The people look wealthy, though it takes me a minute of squinting to figure out exactly why it seems that way. It’s the setting. There’s a low stone wall, and a large porch behind them. A huge old tree, and in the distance, yes, there’s water. A huge lake. Maybe the sea.

I look at the back of the photo again, and it does not specify a date or place.