Time Flies (5 page)

“Good to know all that tuition money wasn’t wasted.”

The waiter placed Troy’s bison burger and my turkey wrap in front of us. We ate in comfortable silence as if we were back at the family dinner table. Even with my muddy clothes and damp, grass-flecked feet, I wished I could freeze my life right here: my incredible son across from me, a piece in an art show down the street, a beautiful day, an uneventful drive over. Or maybe I could call Trevor first and have him fly out and sit down at the table with us. And then I’d freeze my life.

Troy took a long sip through his straw, and I flashed back to him drinking out of a Juicy Juice box as a toddler. When I looked at my kids now, I sometimes saw the whole trajectory of their lives, as if they had time capsules encased just under their adult skin.

“Remember,” I said, “when we used to spend a month in
Marshbury every summer and you and Trevor practically lived at the beach? Grammy and Grandpa used to say if you got any wetter you’d start to grow moss between your ears.”

Troy nodded and stabbed a french fry. “Yeah, that was fun. I hated leaving my friends at home though, so I was kind of glad when we stopped going.”

“Remember when you and Trevor built that pirate float for the Labor Day parade? That was so amazing.”

“Mom, I think you basically built it for us.”

“And you threw chocolate gold coins off it as Dad drove you along the parade route? And that huge crowd of kids followed you?”

“Yeah, and the chocolate melted all over the place and Trevor got stung by a bee.”

“Really?” I said. “I don’t remember that part.”

“You always do that.”

“Do what?”

Troy shrugged. “You know, turn your trips down memory lane into a Disney movie.”

I considered this. I took another bite of my turkey wrap and sipped my unsweetened iced tea. As long as I’d lived here, I still hadn’t acquired a taste for Southern sweet tea. And I’d had only a handful of decent iced coffees that didn’t come from Starbucks. People in this neck of the woods didn’t seem to know you can’t just pour a pot of hot coffee over some ice cubes. You have to brew it extra-strong and then refrigerate it.

Troy took his phone out of his pocket and screen-tapped a message.

I waited until he finished. “So,” I said. “Have you talked to Dad?”

He shrugged. “I never talked to him that much before.”

“But he’s your father,” I said, as if this might be new information.

My younger son took another bite of his burger. I’d never really thought about it before, but he even chewed like Kurt.

Troy looked up. “What?” he said.

“Never mind,” I said. “It’s just—”

“Mom, it doesn’t matter whether I’ve talked to him or not. Either way, I’ll deal.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just trying to help.”

Troy focused on his remaining french fries. I focused on keeping my mouth shut, the biggest mom-challenge of them all. I picked up a sweet potato fry, took a bite, put the rest of it back down on my plate.

Troy cleared his throat. “What matters . . .”

I waited. Troy shook his head.

“Say it,” I said.

Troy tried to run his fingers through his hair, then pulled them out when they got stuck halfway. “What matters is that you stop worrying about whether me and Trevor have talked to Dad.”

“But—”

My younger son looked me right in the eyes. “Mom, you’ve gotta move on with your life.”

My eyes teared up. I reached across the booth and rested my hand on his. “Thanks, honey. But I’m f—”

Troy pulled his hand out and placed it on top of mine. “I mean it, Mom. You need to get over Dad. Go somewhere. Have an adventure. Or whatever people your age do.”

The waiter came over and asked if we wanted dessert. I bit
my tongue while we waited for Troy’s peach cobbler so I didn’t ruin our lunch. I mean, thanks a lot. What did he think I was, a dinosaur? The funny thing about your kids as they grew up was you’d start thinking you were on the same wavelength, that they really got it, got
you
, and suddenly they’d come out with a zinger like that.

Although come to think of it, what
were
people my age supposed to do?

I’d reversed the MapQuest directions and printed them out, which I knew defeated the tree-saving aspect of using the Internet, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Things were going so well that I could even imagine making it to Ikea one of these days. There had to be a non-highway that would take me there.

I braked at a light and looked around. The growth was so incredibly lush here, and the gardens so beautifully maintained. There were many things to love about the South—the mild winters, the friendliness of strangers—and I’d learned to love it here, in a way, even if I hadn’t fully committed to it.

So why did I have to be the one to leave? Why couldn’t Kurt and
Crissy
have an adventure? Or whatever people their age did.

Finally, the light changed and the eternal traffic started to move. I poked along and then picked up speed, my favorite Atlanta classic rock station, 97.1 The River, keeping me company. When “Stairway to Heaven” came on, I reached over to turn it up, casually, as if I’d never been afraid to take my hand off the steering wheel. Once in high school, we’d decided to stay up all night
at a pajama party to see how many times in a row we could listen to all eight minutes and two seconds of the long version. I dozed off somewhere around number 30, and when I woke up, B.J., who was still Barb back then, swore up and down she hadn’t missed a note and that “Stairway to Heaven” was now on its 387th spin on the turntable.

The road widened suddenly, which I didn’t remember at all from my earlier ride today. Up ahead, I could just see a sign for Interstate 285, the highway loop that encircles Atlanta, creating what Atlantans call the Perimeter. In some parts it was six lanes wide in each direction, and I’d read that it was one of the most heavily traveled roads in the entire country. For me, it was the scariest highway of them all.

Just the thought of that highway made my mouth go dry. “Relax,” I whispered. “Good thing you don’t have to go there.”

Still, my hands and arms started to prickle. The baby elephant sat down on my chest.

The car behind me beeped the Southern way, short and polite, but unmistakably telling me to pick up the pace. I forced my shaking right foot down harder on the gas pedal.

I wasn’t even on the highway and my whole body was telling me I had to get off.

I tried to lift my hand up to turn on the blinker, but it wouldn’t go. The car behind me beeped again, sounding a lot more Northern this time.

There was a scream in my ears, but I couldn’t tell if it was real or imagined. I tried to breathe but I couldn’t seem to remember how.

I jerked the wheel and pulled off the road. The car behind me beeped, long and loud.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

I started to cry then, long raspy sobs. Hot tears rolled under my sunglasses and down my cheeks, mixing with the sweat that had broken out across my face like a rash. I bumped my way to yet another half-deserted parking lot at yet another fast-food restaurant. I cried until my breathing slowed down and the baby elephant got off my chest and went back to wherever it was that it lurked, waiting for the next time.

I just wanted to go home. I wanted to go home more than I’d ever wanted anything. And the worst thing about it was that I didn’t even know where home was anymore. I wanted to click my heels together and be magically transported to wherever it was that might make me feel like whoever I was supposed to be now. Instead of an empty shell that had followed all the rules only to have her husband pull her life out from under her.

I picked up my cell phone. I sorted through the short list of people I could call to ask them to come get me—my older sister in Marshbury, who would probably find a way to get me out of here, but first she’d have to inform me that she’d never had driving issues herself, or any issues for that matter—and she’d have to slip in a mom-brag, too, in her endless quest to prove that her kids were better than my kids. As for B.J., sympathy wasn’t her strong suit, so I wasn’t sure what she’d say if I called her, but whatever it was, I didn’t think I could handle it right now.

Troy would be here in a heartbeat, and Trevor would jump on a plane immediately if he thought I needed him, but I didn’t want them to worry. Even Kurt would probably come, too, eventually, but I wasn’t going to give him the ego boost of needing anything from him ever again. My closest Atlanta friend had moved away about a year ago. I thought about my other local friends, but it seemed like too big a litmus test for friendship to ask any of them to drop everything and come get me. Maybe I could call AAA and just pretend my car had broken down?

I dropped my phone on the passenger seat. I’d only tried explaining my driving thing once, just weeks after Kurt left, to my primary care physician at my already scheduled yearly physical. He’d nodded a few times, then dashed off a prescription for a beta-blocker.

I took it for a few days. I didn’t feel any worse, but I didn’t feel like driving on any highways, either. Then I dropped a piece of metal on the garage floor while I was welding. When I bent over to pick it up, the whole world started to spin.

May cause dizziness
jumped out on the list of side effects when I Googled the beta-blocker later that day. In my profession, dizziness could mean a really bad burn, or worse. I kept reading.
May cause weight gain
clinched it. Kurt might have left me, but I certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking it made me get fat. I threw the pills away.

I looked around the fast-food parking lot, wondering how I was ever going to get out of here. The smell of fried pickles was making me nauseous. I knew it was a Southern thing, but I mean, really, why the hell would anyone want to fry a pickle?

Rationally, I recognized that all I had to do was drive past the entrance of Route 285, get to the other side of it, and I’d be fine for the rest of the ride home.

But it took me four tries, and every ounce of willpower I had, to make myself do it.

Finally, finally, some twenty-five long minutes later, I was able to put on my blinker and turn onto my own street. As I pulled into my driveway, a voice whispered in my ear:
Get out. Get out. Get out while you still can
.

CHAPTER 6

To:
Melanie

From:
B.J.

Subject:
Spin-the-Bottle Reunion Centerpieces

Save your empty wine bottles until you have one for each table at your reunion-to-be. Using a paintbrush, cover bottles thoroughly with black chalkboard paint. Let dry and write “Spin the Bottle” in white chalk on each bottle. Guaranteed to get the party started!

Super cute, huh?

P.S. Did you book your flights yet?

To:
Melanie