Time Flies (3 page)

“Have you called the boys yet?” I asked, partly to change the subject, but also because I knew he hadn’t.

Kurt gave his slow, long-suffering head shake, one of my least favorite moves in his repertoire. “That’s not what we’re discussing here. Listen, we have three choices. One, I buy you out, which I think makes the most sense all around. Two, you buy me out, though I think it’s way too much house for you. And three, we put the house up for sale, take our losses in this abysmal market.”

When he reached up to check the wet spot on his T-shirt, I could almost pretend he was putting his hand over his heart. That he’d had a change of heart, even that he
had
a heart. That somehow, against all odds, there was a fourth choice: We could rewind past the last few years back to the days when we’d sit out on the deck with a glass of wine before dinner and watch the hummingbirds drink from the flowers. And we’d talk about our days.

Because if we could go there again I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

I made myself look at Kurt. There was nothing heartfelt in his eyes. The purse of his lips was cold and dismissive.

“It’s time to move on,” he said. And then he walked over to the wall and pushed the button for the garage door opener. The heavy double door cranked open slowly and relentlessly.

Without another word, Kurt walked through the opening.

He kept walking, without looking back, leaving my box springs and me exposed for the whole wide world to see.

CHAPTER 3

The guest room mattress had seen better days. Or maybe it had always been this uncomfortable and now I knew why our guests never stayed very long. I tried one more toss and a couple of turns, and then I gave up and kicked off the covers.

I tottered out to the kitchen on legs that didn’t wake up quite as quickly as they used to, like an aging Barbie whose arches had fallen into flex position. After I started a pot of coffee, I stood over the sink and ate a breakfast yogurt while I stared out the window at nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.

I turned around to face the kitchen island, thinking maybe a change of scenery might do me some good.

My laptop glittered up at me from the countertop like a beacon of hope.

I picked it up and circled the island in the direction of my bar
stool, at the far end of a matching row of four. They were chunky and traditional, oak throwbacks to the eighties stained a shade that suddenly flashed back to me: Burnt Passion.

“Ha,” I said.

“So funny I forgot to laugh,” I added as I slid onto my stool. Wait. They were all my bar stools now. I moved down the row and tried out the other three stools, one by one.

I cut short the Goldilocks reenactment and went back to my own seat. I sipped some more coffee while my laptop came to life. Then I scrolled through my daily serving of email spam. An invitation to change my life by changing my Internet provider. A recipe for a refreshing summer gazpacho. A Groupon to save up to 53 percent on a helicopter tour.

An email from B.J. sailed into view like a lifeboat.

To:
Melanie

From:
B.J.

Subject:
5 Reasons To Go To Your High School Reunion

1. You’ll laugh like crazy. Who laughs enough these days?

2. You won’t have to wish you’d been there when you see all those pictures online.

3. It will give you fresh perspective and make you realize you’ve come a long way, baby.

4. You won’t have to lie about your age. Everyone there will be older than dirt, too.

5. You’ll regret not going more than you could possibly regret going.

To:
B.J.

From:
Melanie

Subject:
5 Reasons NOT To Go To Your High School Reunion

1. I don’t want to.

2. I really don’t want to.

3. I really, really don’t want to.

4. I really, really, really don’t want to.

5. I don’t want to more than I could possibly want to, which is not at all.

I pushed
SEND
and went back to scrolling through my email. An excellent opportunity to work at home. An old family friend I’d never heard of mugged in Wales while sightseeing writing to me with tears in his eyes. Substantial savings on a penis enlargement patch. I thought about forwarding that one to Kurt just to get a rise out of him, but managed to restrain myself.

I reached for my coffee cup. Midway to my lips, my hand froze.

To:
Melanie

From:
Finn Miller

Subject:
blast from the past

Melanie,

I found your email address on the Facebook page somebody made for our class. If you don’t remember me fake it okay because you only get to break my heart once.

Now that we’ve got that settled. I’m writing to see if you’re going to the reunion. Holy shit time flies. How the hell did we get to be this old huh? The way I look at it we should go to this one. Because by the next time one or both of us could be senile. But even then I’ll still remember the way you used to look walking into math class. One hand holding your books and the other yanking down one of those teeny little mini skirts you always used to wear.

To me you were the prettiest girl in the whole school. I bet you still are.

Sorry to hear about your marriage. Mine bit the dust too.

Fond memories from math class and beyond.

Catch ya later,

Finn

Finn Miller. Finn Miller. I could almost picture him. At least I was pretty sure I could.

I read his email again, then closed my eyes. All I managed to see was the Pythagorean theorem, two smaller squares with a bigger
one balanced on top, sketched in white chalk on an old oak-framed blackboard.
The area of the square built upon the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares upon the remaining sides
popped into my head from a gazillion years ago. How bizarre that I could still remember this when lately I had to use the calculator on my phone to add on the tip at a restaurant.

I concentrated. There was a boy at the blackboard. Tall and lean, his baggy flannel shirt making him look like a puppy that hadn’t quite grown into its skin. Long brown hair, faded bell-bottoms. One hand resting on the chalk tray, the other slowly writing out the algebraic version of the theorem, as a couple of the boys in the back row gave him the answer and coughed to disguise it at the same time.

a
²
+ b
²
= c
²

“Well done, Mr. Miller,” the teacher said. He paused. “And company.”

The class burst out laughing and the boys in the back row let out a chorus of apelike grunts. I waited for Finn Miller to turn around so I could see his face.

I scrunched my eyes tighter and conjured up a vague image, more good looking than not good looking, more early Beatles than Rolling Stones, kind of a retro Every Boy.

I read the email again. Finn Miller had liked me, he’d really liked me. Imagine how devastated he’d be that I couldn’t exactly remember him. And, not that the bar was high, but it was hard to ignore the fact that his email was quite possibly the most exciting
thing that had happened to me in a while. Maybe even in this millennium.

Okay, so I’d fake it.

To:
Finn Miller

From:
Melanie

Subject:
Re: blast from the past

Hi Finn,

Of course I remember you! I remembered you right away, and I’m actually amazed that you remember me. Some days I don’t even remember myself.

If I don’t make it to the reunion, let me know how it goes, okay?

2 Good 2 B 4 Gotten,

Melanie

CHAPTER 4

I pulled up MapQuest on my computer and typed in my address and the address of Art in the Park, the regional art show that had accepted one of my pieces. I’d emailed them a photo and entered it in the sculpture category months ago. They’d bumped it over to the mixed media category, but at least they’d taken it.