Dance for the Rain
by
Kristina L. Woodall
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Kristina L. Woodall
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
***
Prologue
I dreamt that I walked toward a misty veil of scented rain as it teased upon a little garden drenched in the center of light.
And realized the beauty.
Dancing for the rain was every flower of every height and every width, of every color of every shade of every hue, offering up splash and taste and giggle of nature in life.
No clear line separated red from orange from blue from yellow from white from stem from leaf from blossom. All were sprinkled and dashed and tossed together in a potpourri of pure heaven.
And I was love.
Then I looked up and saw yet more dazzling and brighter gardens growing higher upon higher.
Suddenly, my heart fluttered as the ground shuddered and shook beneath my feet, having me feel the rumblings and yearnings and strivings of life around me struggle to ascend.
And to end their battle, die for me.
And I was afraid.
But peering through the thinning veil, I saw that what appeared to wither and rot into the soil beneath me, sprouted then fresh and new upon the level of the next higher bed of soil, lighter in light.
The anguish at what appeared lost was forgiven as I knew what crumbled and withered beneath was the essence of seed in ripening stem and leaf and blossom above, and yet above and above.
Repeating level upon level, spiraling higher upon higher to someday reach so high as to dance for the sun.
And I saw the truth.
It was a beautiful dream.
Then I woke up and forgot what I knew, and remembered what only a journey of a lifetime of step-upon-step could have me ever truly come to know. . .
***
Chapter One
Life sucks.
It does.
No kidding.
Sorry, didn't mean to swear or anything.
I usually don't. Go around swearing.
Except, I guess, for those phases or periods or moods, or whatever else you want to call them, during which I do.
Go around swearing.
Like a freaking sailor.
But I don't mean what you probably think I mean anyway.
About life. Sucking.
Right.
It is.
Time to flip over. Onto my back.
On my bed.
I mean, as good a time as any. Considering.
Considering that it is still my bed.
Yep, still my bed, still my bedroom, still my top-floor, two-bedroom, two-bath corner apartment, which is still perched on the summit of the last hill before the plains hit the mountains.
You know, the Rocky Mountains.
Well, now you know.
Still on the edge of Denver.
Anyway, it is. Time to flip over and stare up. At the white popcorn ceiling. My white popcorn ceiling. Still my white popcorn ceiling.
Yep, still plenty of time to stare up.
To spin memories into cobwebs.
Just to get swept away.
Right.
Piss on that.
Maybe just another nap.
Yep.
A haunting snippet of beauty from a dream I’d just had flashed through my mind. I tried to follow the disappearing thread, but the harder I tried, the faster it faded into nothingness.
Right.
Whatever.
Just a dream.
Using pillows for back-up props, I sat up and stared out at my bedroom.
Still my bedroom. For now.
Sorry, I know. You get it.
But anyway, I do, sometimes. Swear. Usually, it's because I’ve just seen a movie or read some book where every little character in it, including the main character, is swearing up and down and all over the place. Then, after I've read that book or seen that movie, I go around swearing like a real pro. Or, at least, you know, how I would imagine a real pro would go around swearing.
Not that there are any though. Real pros. Professional swearers. But if there were, and I was in that particular frame of mind, I could do it. Be it. A real professional swearer.
Yeah so, I made up a word. Get used to it.
But still, I am impressionable. Most definitely.
It probably has something to do with the fact that I have no real personality of my own. I'm just like some big wad of silly putty rolling around sticking to things I happen to come in contact with. Then, with nothing better to do, I just kind of mold myself nice and tight around whatever the object happens to be and soak it all up.
Then, when I’m good and ready, I pull myself away until, schplick, boom, ta-dah, I am a perfect copy of whatever it was that I just unstuck myself from.
I’m good at it too. If they're tough, I'm tough. If they're sweet, I'm sweet. If they swear, I swear. If they smoke...
Well, I don't smoke. I just act like a smoker. You know, I get that arrogant, nobody-can-tell-me-what-to-do, and I-can-kill-myself-nice-and-slow-if-I-damn-well-feel-like-it attitude.
Sorry, I don’t mean to offend any smokers or anything. It's just that I can't imagine why anybody would want to do it.
Smoke.
I mean you might as well go out and find a nuclear landfill somewhere, get down on all fours and dig around until you find a nice glowing pile of uranium, or plutonium, or whatever it is that actually glows and pull out the old knife and fork and eat it. The whole pile. It would probably have the same effect as sticking a burning wad of tobacco in your mouth and sucking its toxins through your body for say, twenty, thirty years.
Dead is dead, you know.
You know. I know.
Well, actually I don't know. What dead is. And I don't think I really want to know what dead is, so just forget that too.
"Too" as in, if you want, you can choose to forget anything or everything else I’ve already said or am about to say.
No problem. Because it's not like I know what I'm talking about or anything. Because I don't. Not at the moment.
Not now.
Well, at least not anymore.
Not at all.
Not like I used to anyway.
Yeah, rambling.
Sorry.
But I did. Know. I mean, when I was little, I think I knew just about everything I needed to know. I knew up from down, a friend from an enemy, right from wrong, a slide from a swing, and all that other good stuff you're supposed to know and basically build your life on.
Upon.
Once upon a time. Back then. I knew everything.
Yep.
Now, I don’t seem to know anything.
Kind of like that Beatles song, Help.
You know, the one about being younger and not needing anybody’s help in any way. But, now those days are gone and I’m not so self-assured.
So help me if you can.
You know, that song. That song from the Beatles CD that one or more of my sisters used to play all the time. I mean, all of the time. Day and night. Night and day.
But that was a long time ago. When I was younger. When we, my sisters and I, actually lived together under the same roof with the same parents and kind of sort of, I don't know, lived the same lives.
We don't do that anymore. Live together.
We don't even know each other anymore.
But, it’s not like we lived together for all that long anyway. Because they were older than me. Way older.
Six years, to be exact, between me and them.
Or, at least, between me and the youngest of them. My three older sisters.
Anyway, they were right. The Beatles. When I was younger, I didn’t need anybody’s help. Because when I was younger, I pretty much had a handle on things. I was cool. I knew how things stood and where I stood in relation to them.
I knew that I was going to be a writer. I knew that I was going to go to college and then get a great job. I knew that I was going to get married to that little boy who was out there somewhere just waiting to grow up to be my husband. I knew that I was going to have children and teach them everything I knew, which was just about everything there was to know.
Yep, back then, I did. Know everything. And everything was cool. And it didn't matter that I had older, brainiac sisters and a distant, workaholic mother who never could get our names straight.
Yep, it was cool, and mainly it was cool because I had dad.
Dad was cool. And I was cool.
Me and dad. Dad and I. Together, we were cool.
Ask anybody.
Except dad. You can't ask dad anymore. Dad's dead.
He fell asleep at the wheel and catapulted and tumbled himself and his plumbing van right off a highway embankment. And died. On the day I graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver with a degree in English and a minor in Journalism.
Police report said that he rolled his van at least three times and, since there seemed to be no one else involved, they said that he’d, more than likely, simply fallen asleep at the wheel.
Simply. Fallen asleep.
After spending an all-nighter fixing a leak in someone else’s pipes in someone else’s basement.
After going home to change into one of his two nice suits.
After jumping back into his plumbing van to drive to my graduation.
Not that I really know. I mean, I wasn’t there.
I wasn’t with him.
I’d already left. Without him.
To graduate.
And my last words to him, offered as he prepared to charge off and rescue someone else’s pipes in someone else’s basement the night before my graduation, in spite of my protests, were the angry words, “Don’t be late.” Delivered with an added glare that threatened dire consequences if were to dare to show up late.
To my graduation.
He wasn’t late.
He never made it at all.
He died.
As did I.
No, I didn't catapult myself off a highway embankment or anything.
I just died.
On that same day. At about the same time that I stopped being angry with him for being late and started being angry with him for dying.
No doubt. That’s when I died. Or maybe it was four days later at the cemetery, when I last saw him. Wearing his other nice suit.
But, it doesn’t really matter now exactly when I died, just that I did.
Die.
Of course they all tell me I've just been using that as an excuse for dying. Dad's dying and all. And they're probably right. But that doesn't change anything though. Them being right.
It just makes them right. That's all. Big deal.
It doesn't fix anything. And now, right this very minute, I can very clearly remember how it feels to die.
Helpless.
No, no one new has died. At least no one that I know.
No, nothing that horrific.
I mean, nothing that horrific to anyone else.
Just horrific to me.
But you’ll laugh if I tell you.
Yes, you will.
Right. Get to the damn point already.
Fine. Right now -- right this very minute -- my best friend in the world, my best friend since sixth grade, Lisa, is hauling her stuff out of her part of our two-bedroom, two-bath apartment perched on the summit of the last hill before the plains hit the mountains.
Yep, still the Rocky Mountains.
She's moving out. She's deserting a sinking ship.
She’s getting married.
Yeah, I know I should be happy for her. Should be jumping up and down, and blowing up balloons, and dancing on tables for her.
But I’m not.
Can’t.
Can’t seem to muster the selfless maturity right at the moment for such grandess, such magnamity, such wise old soulness.
Yes, I do have a dictionary. But it happens to be a million miles away. Like in another room.
Like her. She. Lisa.
She’s in another room.
She's with John. In her bedroom.
On the other side of this wall.
My wall. Still my wall.
For now.
At least until she finishes packing up and moving out, forcing me -- quite unable to pay the full rent -- to start packing up to move out myself.
All by myself.
At the end of the month.
This very month.
June.
Yes, I know. It was inevitable that one of us would get the idea; that one of us would find the right man, or at least the closest thing to it in this world, and move on to the next stage.
That's life. That's growing.
That’s a pain in the ass.
Right, I am a big girl. And, sure, I should be able to move on and take care of myself. Find a new home. Live alone.
Do this life thing alone. All by myself.
Yeah, right. No problem.
Yeah, I do know that lots of people do it.
Mainly because lots of people have to do it.
Like mostly people who never had a best friend and old people, that is. Old people that don't have any family left who just up and die of loneliness out there all by their lonesome.
That’s who. That's all.
People who are old and alone.
No, that’s not me.
Making that noise.
That’s them.
Giggling.
For Heaven’s sake, they’re probably tickling each other again, or something equally juvenile.
I mean, gag me. Giggling is for little kids.
Yeah, and lovers. I guess.
Maybe. I mean, it’s not like I would know.
I yanked my legs in toward my center and tried the yoga thing, tucking myself into somewhat of a square.
I mean, it’s not like I’ve giggled in forever.
Or been in love.
Okay, well, not since Keith. Not since I told Keith that I never wanted to see him again. Not since I told him that I didn’t love him instead of how much I loved him.
Same difference. I didn't want to love him.
And yes, I had my reasons. You bet I had my reasons.
Believe me, I always have my reasons.
I’m good at having my reasons.
But he’s married now anyway.
To someone else.
Right.
It does hurt.
My knee. My left knee.
No, I don't know who I was trying to kid, or whom. I couldn't do the yoga thing when I was young enough to do it, and I certainly couldn’t do it now.
Not that I'm horribly old or anything, because I'm not.
I'm twenty-three, barely. I mean, I only just recently turned twenty-three.
Old enough though. Old enough to know that I can’t sit yoga-style with my legs tucked into a square and survive intact.
Too bad. I mean, I don’t feel like summoning the energy it would currently take to unsquare myself.
So I won’t. Muster it.
Waste it.
Energy.
Pain or no pain, I can be like that. Stubborn.
I mean, I can continue to do stupid and idiotic and moronic things until the end of like forever. Even if it's bad for me. Even if it kills me.
Really, I can.
Especially if somebody or someone tells me not to do it.
Especially if somebody or someone in my family tells me not to do it. Then no way, too bad, I won't stop doing it for any large amount of money.
You should be married.
Well, I'm not getting married. So there. You think I need a man to be whole? You think I need to be married to have a complete life? Well, I don't and I'm not getting married.
So there.
You should have kids.
Kids? No way. I could hardly take care of that cat my neighbors paid me to watch for a week when I was 12.
No kids. No way. I mean, raise them in this world? Gangs, terrorists, and other assorted lunatics with automatic weapons wandering unimpeded around street corners and down school hallways.
Right. No way. No how. No kids.
You should exercise more. You should lose weight. You should wear more make-up. You should put your hair up. You should put your hair down. You should get out more, meet more men, go on more dates; have more fun.
You should get a life.
Well, I already got one. I just can't help it if it ain't up to their standards. At least it's my life.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Mine to live. Mine to screw up if I damn well feel like it, you know?
Yeah, well, they don't know. All they know is, you should; you should; you should.
Easier said than done.
Advice always is.
Besides who needed to get out more and meet more men and have more fun? That's what Lisa, my best friend since dinosaurs ruled the Earth, was for.
Is for.
Has been for.
Eleven years, for Heaven’s sake. I mean, we’ve been best friends now for eleven years.
We grew up together. Went to college together. Got our first and, so far, only apartment together.
Eleven years. Longer than most people are ever married. A long time to rely on each other for day-in and day-out companionship.
At least that's what I'd done. Relied on her. For companionship. At least until she’d met him.
Prince Charming.
John.
Then it was, "Hey, Callie. How was your day? Oh, by the way, John and I are getting married next month, so I'll be moving out. Hope you can find another roommate. I know how much you love this apartment and I'd hate for you to have to move and, well..."
Hope you can find another roommate? Whoa, tell me if I'm wrong, but isn't the implication there that that's all I'd had? A roommate?
Funny, I'd thought I'd had a best friend. Another human being I'd done everything with. A person I'd loved so much that I would've died for them.
Silly me.
Silly, all right, because when I say we did everything together, I pretty much mean we did everything together.
Except for that. We’re not gay or anything.
We just basically lived our lives together. That’s all.
We backpacked, and swam, and biked, and rafted, and read, and watched TV together. We met Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck at Disneyland together. We played in rain puddles and made snow angels together.
We even talked together. I mean really talked, about everything and anything. No holds barred. No bars held.
We even fought together. All the time. But it was always the kind of fighting where you knew the other person wasn't going to walk away afterwards and never come back. Or never forgive you for something you said while you were really angry. For something you never really meant to say anyway.
You're probably getting the picture. Which is good. Which is that Lisa is my best friend on this planet. The kind of friend in the kind of friendship that doesn't come along very often to very many people. The kind of same-sex friendship that a lot of people don't understand because either they've never experienced it or they don't see anything coming from it, like children.
Of course, I'll admit, to have the same kind of friendship with a man, with my husband, would be Heaven on Earth. But what are the chances of that?
Fat chance.
But it doesn't last forever. Didn’t last forever.
Nothing lasts forever.
Time sucks.
And no, I haven't the slightest idea how I’ve let myself get so dependent on this friendship that I am, right here, right now, about to fall into a zillion pieces because the thought of losing that friendship has me incredibly lonely and afraid.
Call me crazy, but I just damn well don’t want to go out and buy my own groceries, or get gas, or eat in a restaurant by myself. On my own.
Call me a baby, but I don’t want to go in and sit in a movie theater by myself.
I don’t want to argue with myself.
I'd always win. Where's the fun in that?
I mean, I feel like I'm getting a divorce or something, which is weird, I know, but that's how I feel.
No, like I already said, we’re not gay. Sometimes I wish we were though. Really. Then although we'd have to deal with the societal rejection, the sneers, jokes, potential disease, and all that other fun stuff, we'd still have each other in the end.
But no. I'm not gay.
Even the thought of Lisa in that way makes me want to barf, you know, upchuck.
Not that I hadn't tried a thought like that or two. Just to see if I was gay. I mean, a lot of people thought we were gay, because we were so close in every other way. And hey, what the hell, I figured that if I were gay I'd have to face it sooner or later, so I should. Face it.
And I did. But I wasn't. It totally and completely repulsed me. Not that it isn't an appropriate choice for other people. People that it doesn’t repulse. Because it’s not.
I mean, more power to them. And, while we’re at it, more compassion, and a little more understanding.
To them.
But not to me. Not for me. Not for that anyway.
Besides, it's not like that changed anything anyway.
Us not being gay. People think what they want to think whether it's true or not. And a lot of people have been going around thinking and saying that Lisa and I are gay, or were gay, or have been gay. Or whatever else their sick little minds can come up with to say.
Even our families. I mean, they thought it was just too weird that we were so close for so long.
But no longer. I mean, I'm not sure if we're going to be real friends for all that much longer, considering.
Considering the fact that she's getting married in a few days and will probably have to do everything with him from that point on.
Yes, it is. The normal course of things.
Of life.
One of us getting married.
But that doesn’t help me much, now does it?
Doesn't help me at all.
Just helps her. Lisa.
My best friend.
My ex-best friend.
Right. I should be concerned with her happiness.
Maybe later. I will be.
But not today. Today, for some odd reason I feel like being concerned with my happiness, because if I'm not concerned with my happiness then no one else is going to be concerned. With my happiness. Especially since I don't really have any other friends and I’m not entirely sure that I know what real happiness is.
Right. Jackie.
Yeah, I guess you could consider Jackie a friend. Of mine.
Sort of. I mean, a crazy friend. My complete opposite.
Tough. Strong. Does what she wants when she wants and to hell with anyone who gets in her way. I mean, she’s got places to go. People to see. Things to do. Her way. Or no way.
But hey, it takes all kinds, right? Well, sometimes I wish I were that kind. But I’m not. That kind. Tough. Strong. In control.
Yeah, Jackie's a friend. But she could never be a best friend. To be a best friend you have to be willing to give as much as you take, and to take as much as you give.
That's not Jackie. Jackie’s all take and no give.
You know the type. She only wants to talk about her problems because she's the only one with problems. Nobody else could possibly have any problems. And even if they did, she wouldn't want to hear about their problems because she has enough problems of her own, thank you very much. Besides, her problems are so much more important than anybody else's problems could ever be.
So there.
Not to mention, I could never tell her the things that I could tell Lisa without fear.
No way.
Jackie would laugh. I'm way too tame for her. Too mild. Too meek. Too shy.
Too me.
And, yeah, there’s Tess and Joe. My downstairs neighbors. I guess I could say that they’re my friends. But they’re nearly eighty years old apiece, which means they come from a different time and place. A time and place from the distant past.
Jurassic Past.
I mean, every time I see one or both of them, it’s always, "Why aren't you married? Such a pretty girl. Such a waste. You need to get married. You need to have a family. You're getting too old to be alone."
Yep, they always cheer me right up. Sure they do. Real cheery couple, those two.
Now it'll be worse, because now I really will be alone. Now, I'll be lonely.
Now, I'll have to avoid them.
Like the plague.
Right. Not a problem.
They won’t be my downstairs neighbors anymore.
Because I won’t be living...
Shit.
Yes, it had to be one or the other of them.
Knocking.
At my door.
I froze.
No, it wasn't like I was moving or anything, but I froze anyway.
Another knock. "Callie?"
It was the new Lisa.
The old Lisa would've never knocked.
She would've never needed to.
Knock.
"What?" I said it very snotty, very indignant as she opened the door and peeked in.
I mean, really, that’s what she gets.
For knocking. And peeking.
"Sorry, just wanted to tell you we’re going to go now. I’ve got the last couple of boxes of my stuff. Um, you need anything?" she asked, timidly stepping into my room.
Yep, different Lisa. She kind of looked the same as the old Lisa. Short black hair, feathered lightly around to the back of her head. Chocolate brown eyes. No makeup. Perfect complexion. Short little body, all muscle. No fat.
Short, but strong. Could kick the you-know-what out of anybody she felt like kicking the you-know-what out of. Probably because she was like so into sports and everything. Especially now that she was a full-fledged softball coach at Mountain View High School.
Where John was an English teacher.
Right.
Did I need anything?
"No, I don't..." I pulled my left leg out from under my right leg and laid it straight across the bed. It had no life of its own, just like its owner, and the sudden surge of pins and needles spreading across it really pissed me off. Dumb leg. "...need anything."
Lisa put her weight on the other foot. The foot she hadn't been putting her weight on before.
Not the old Lisa at all.
Feeling a little guilty, no doubt. As well she should. Dumping me without so much as a last walk in the rain. Dumping me just because she had found love and realized it was time to move out and move on.
I looked out the window.
Yeah, I know who should be feeling guilty.
And who shouldn’t be. Feeling guilty.
Right.
Lisa hovered near the door, with John no doubt hovering somewhere close behind her. No doubt. I mean, because I think he, John, was a little afraid of me. You know, not quite sure yet exactly where I fit in.
Of course, it might have something to do with the fact that every time he saw me I was a real bitch.
Jerk.
I mean, what does blond hair, blue eyes, a muscle-rippling tan and perfect white teeth have over a best friend?
Never mind. Dumb question.
"You still coming tonight?"
Still coming? What the hell was that supposed to mean? I jerked my head in her direction. Just because I was mad, and she knew I was mad, didn't mean that I wasn't going to be there for the wedding, much less the rehearsal dinner. "Why?"
"I don't know. You just seem, mad, or something."
Duh.
Feeling a glare coming on that I couldn’t quite stop, I jerked my attention back out the window. I’ve always had a hard time controlling such things. But I have, at least, learned to try and not direct them at people.
Especially people who are leaving.
People who may never be coming back.
Crap.
I mean, really, I wanted to be a mature, understanding adult. I wanted to tell her how happy I was for her and how everything was okay.
But I couldn't, because I currently didn’t feel like life was ever going to be okay again. How could it be? It was changing into something that wasn’t the same anymore.
Into something that would never be the same again.
Into something different.
Different sucks.
But I couldn’t say that either. Not to her. Not right now.
She wouldn’t agree. And that would hurt even more.
So I didn’t. Say anything. At all.
Waiting for a response she obviously wasn't going to get, she just shrugged and looked over her shoulder at John. Probably to make sure he hadn't left or anything.
"I'll see you tonight then," she said, smiling her fake smile.
I didn't even have to look at her to know she was doing it. Smiling her fake smile. I mean, I'd seen it too often, usually aimed at others, to not know that I was now its intended target.
Right. Who could blame her?
Me, that’s who.
Biting back the sarcastic nastiness crashing around in my mind, I instead turned and flashed my fake smile right back at her.
And didn’t say a thing.
Not after she stood there for another second or two waiting for me to say something. Not after she shrugged and timidly left the room to join herself back to John, still standing in the hallway.
Not even after she took herself, and her stuff, out the front door and closed it behind them.
Not even when it was too late.
Right.
I didn't move. Didn't want to move. Probably couldn't move. Probably couldn't even think of a good reason to move.
I considered crying, but I just wasn't up for it. Besides, I knew all too well that if I did, start crying, that the lump in my stomach would explode and I'd never be able to stop it.
Better to not start at all. Safer that way.
Better to not give in.
Just like dad’s funeral. Didn't cry there. Never cried. It would just bring me face to face with the reality of pain.
Not a good thing. Not for me. Nope, it was much easier to ignore it. Just pretend there was no reason to cry.
Besides, she hadn’t died. After all.
She was just getting married.
A good thing. For her.
I slapped myself back down on the bed and stared. Up. At the same old white popcorn ceiling.
I thought about counting the popcorn, on the ceiling, but for some reason I was suddenly, incredibly tired.
No, I don't know why. I mean, it was only around noon. Still, I felt like I’d just tried to chase down a train or something. Exhausted. Totally drained.
Just like somebody had sucked the life out of me.
Life sucks.
That's what I meant. Before, when I said that.
Life sucks.
Sucks you dry.
Anyway, I was tired.
Yep. Most definitely a good thing that I hadn't gone to work today. I'd have been way too tired for that.
Too sick. Or at least that’s what I'd told old Bob Castle, my creep of a boss.
That I was sick.
Sick of work.
Didn't tell him that part though. I’m not crazy. I just told him that I was sick. Just plain old normal sick.
Right.
Bitch.
I mean, she hadn’t even made me her Maid of Honor.
Which didn’t bother me at all.
Like hell.
But, hey, sure, no problem. At least that’s what I’d said when my so-called best friend’s dragon of a mother had announced that Lisa’s sister, Theresa, was going to be Lisa’s Maid of Honor.
Not her best friend. Her sister.
What else could I have said with all of them staring at me? Hey, shit for brains, I want to be your Maid of Honor. You owe me that much.
No, you can't say things like that when family is present.
Especially when it isn't your family.
Actually, you shouldn't say things like that at all.
Thinking things like that is okay, I guess. I mean, it's a lot harder to control what's going on up in your head. It's probably a good idea, however, to insert some discretion before it's going on in your mouth.
Although, if it had been Jackie she would've told them that they could all take a flying leap off some nearby multi-story rickety old tower, because if she wasn't going to be the Maid of Honor, she wasn't going. Period.
Hey, I still get to be a Bride's Maid. Consolation prize. Me and Lisa's three cousins. All Bride's Maids. Me and three short, squat, black-haired, brown-eyed cousins Lisa hasn't seen in seventy-nine years. Yep, that's where I belonged. Standing next to them, whatever their names are.
It's not that Lisa didn't want me to be her Maid of Honor. She did. At least she’d told me she did. Apologetic as hell too.
It was just that Lisa's mother didn't want me to be Lisa's Maid of Honor. Lisa's mother wanted Lisa's sister to be Lisa's Maid of Honor. And Lisa would never think of upsetting old mom.
No way. She would much rather upset me.
Just easier that way, I guess.
Right. Rambling again.
I tend to do that.
Sorry.
Time to close my eyes. A nap. Just a short nap. A nap would be good. It would take up time. Sleeping would be good.
Yep, just a short nap. Then I'll get up, grow up, and get on with my life like a normal person. I'll go to the rehearsal dinner tonight and Saturday I'll go to the wedding.
Then Sunday...
Yep, a nap. A real short one. Maybe an hour or so.
Right.
I rolled over on my stomach and put my arms under my body for warmth. Yes, it was the middle of June and at least ninety-nine-point-nine degrees outside, but you could've fooled me. It seemed pretty damn cold in my room to me.
Pretty damn cold.
***
Chapter Two
"Good ravioli, eh?" the sixty-some-year-old woman in the brown polyester outfit, whose turn it was to stand next to me, asked.
I nodded and took a fraction of another bite. She gave me no choice. One has to be polite.
Even in Hell.
"Agatha made it," she said, going on to the fettuccine or whatever it was next to the ravioli pile she had on her plate.
Agatha? My eyebrow went up. Yeah, just one. I couldn't always control the thing. Congenital problem. Still, Agatha didn't sound very Italian to me, and Lisa’s family was Italian.
All Italian.
"Anthony's wife," the woman said, reading my eyebrow.
She pointed a loaded fork in the direction of about twenty people, one of whom I assumed was Agatha, or maybe Anthony.
I wasn’t sure. I just nodded and smiled with my mouth shut. It was the only thing I could do, considering the wad of food still pinned to the roof of my mouth.
Sighing, the woman picked up her plastic glass of wine, or cola, or whatever it was that she was drinking, and waddled off into the rehearsal crowd.
The crowd rehearsing the wedding. Lisa’s wedding.
I sighed, snorted, and coughed the food into my paper napkin. Then I threw it, and the entire plate of food, into the nearest trashcan.
Tough. Time. I was having a very tough time. I mean, it was hard to pretend to be so happy for so long.
And yes, I must confess, I was actually relieved that I wasn't Lisa's Maid of Honor. Way too much attention. I'd much rather blend in, kind of blend away, you know.
The Bride's Maids didn't get nearly half the attention the Maid of Honor gets. Was getting.
Not up for that, you know. I mean, I was getting a little sick to my stomach and the room was hot, and my face was hot. A glowing ember was probably more like it.
Rudolph the red-nosed Bride's Maid. Quite embarrassing.
No. It's not that I’m shy or anything, because I'm not. I just don't like a lot of attention aimed at me.
Makes me want to puke, you know, barf.
No, I don’t know why. I mean, I don’t have a problem communicating with people one-to-one. But, for some odd reason, when it comes five-hundred-to-one, I've got a slight problem.
And Lisa definitely had the biggest extended family I had ever seen. Cousins, aunts, uncles, double-cousins, great aunts, nephews, nieces, and brothers -- four brothers. All older. All married. Of course. Momma wouldn’t have it any other way.
Yep, momma, who was now in Heaven on Earth, had it all. Her precious little Lisa was finally getting married and everyone, and I mean everyone, was damn well going to be present to bear witness to the blessed event.
All of them. All of them there, here, for the rehearsal dinner. Here in this gray, dingy basement of this colossally old red brick and stain-glassed gritty inner-city church. Yep, all present and accounted for. Even if they'd had to come from the ends of the Earth to be accounted for, they were now present.
Now isn't that a bit strange? I mean, I thought rehearsal dinners were supposed to be intimate little affairs for just the wedding party. Well, figure me wrong.
Not this one. This one was a major frigging family reunion. And I don't want to sound like I'm spouting stereotypes, but Lisa definitely had the stereotypical Italian family.
They were all over each other, hugging and kissing and crying and wailing like somebody had just died and gone to Italy.
Happy, gee, major understatement. I think Lisa's family had just about given up hope that she would ever get married.
Just as mine had.
Yet here she was. Now getting married.
Yippee.
And they weren't about to let anything change her mind.
Not only were they all over each other and all over Lisa, they were stuck to John in a seriously embarrassing way.
Poor guy. I actually felt sorry for him.
Because he was out there. Alone. Without relations.
Just John. Just John and five million of Lisa's closest relatives.
No doubt he was as bewildered as I was, but I'll give the guy credit. He was cool. He smiled like a real millionaire and never cracked, not once. Him or the smile.
I caught one of his smiles and almost smiled myself. Fortunately, I stopped in plenty of time and saved myself from the lie. I didn't feel like smiling. Sure, a fake smile. No problem. But not a real one.
And I certainly didn't feel like eating. Food.
Not that you'd believe me or anything, but there was food out the door and down the sidewalk and around the church. No lie. We're talking raviolis, fettuccini, linguine, spaghetti, and pasta, pasta, pasta. Carbs. Carbs. Carbs.
Every family member who had arrived, had arrived with food or had not arrived at all. And trust me, they had all arrived. There was food enough to feed the entire homeless population of metro Denver and all the surrounding suburbs for the month of June. Or any other month for that matter.
And I was trying. I really was. You have to give me credit for that, because I really was trying. To act normal. I had followed everyone's example and piled my plate with food. I had nodded and played with it. I had smiled and croaked every few minutes when another total stranger had come up to me and asked me who I was, and just what exactly was I doing at their niece's, cousin's, friend's wedding?
Weird. It was. Like some circus show that I had a part in. Only no one had bothered to come around and tell me exactly what part it was that they had gone around and decided to give me.
The side show. That's what I ended up being. The side show.
The old show.
“Here! There’s plenty of food. No reason for it to go to waste,” another sixty-some-year-old woman said, handing me a plate of something that looked and smelled exactly like what I’d just tossed in the trash.
I tugged out a smile to cover what was probably all too obviously a look of sheer terror on my face.
She didn’t notice. Turning, she picked up a metal spoon and piled something from a glass pan onto a paper plate, and handed it to the next empty-handed passerby.
I edged away from her. In another direction. Then, staring down at what she’d given me, I prayed they’d all just leave me alone. I had the urge to cry again, but I didn't give in.
Loneliness sucks.
Knowing that you should be happy for someone else, but not being able to pull it out and give it to them sucks even more.
Really, I missed her so much already I could've just died and believe me, I actually think I wanted to. What the hell was wrong with me? She was just getting married. She was just another friend and it was time for her to move on.
Time for all of us to move on.
Get real. Grow up. I mean really, I was almost thirty. Well, you know, eventually I’d be thirty.
In about seven years.
So it was about damn time that I grew up. Whether I wanted to or not.
That's the rules.
Somebody's rules.
Somebody else's rules.
But we all had to play by them. Or else.
I moved the food around on my plate. I piled it here and I piled it there, and occasionally I looked up to see where she was and how she, Lisa, was surviving it all.
Flitting here and flitting there; trying to visit with and please everyone. Poor Lisa.
I mean, stuck to her. Her mother. Proud. Gloating. Gleeful. Parading Lisa around from relative to relative.
Big. Tough. Italian. Mother.
Rigid scales. Sharp teeth. Flaming tongue. Dragon.
Yeah right. Poor me. I hid from her.
Lisa’s mother. She never liked me. Figured I would keep Lisa all to myself and never let her get married.
Almost. Right.
Blah.
The food tasted like cardboard. It did. All of it. But I had to actually, eventually, put something in my mouth. People were beginning to notice.
Putting objects in your mouth, however, and then actually swallowing them are two definitely different things.
Yew, ugh, gulp, smile, smile.
Gag.
And it’s not like I hadn’t done my part already. I had.
I'd come and paraded down the aisle behind Lisa. I’d stood next to the other three Bride's Maids. I'd listened to the mock ceremony that would, for real tomorrow, join Lisa to John till death or divorce parted them.
I'd chatted and nodded and smiled at all the relatives who wouldn't have missed me if I hadn't come. I'd dabbed and patted and piled and even sort of tasted the food that was strewn all around the all-too-small Catholic church, and now it was definitely time to go.
I was done. Done for. And it was time to leave. Depart. Vamoose. Go home. Alone.
No, they weren't married yet, but Lisa was spending the night at momma’s house. Better place to get up and prepare.
To get married.
I guess.
Then, after tomorrow, she’d be with John.
She wouldn't be coming home with me tonight or any other night ever again.
Well, maybe on a sleepover, but probably not for a long time. Not until she got used to John. Not until she got tired of John. At least tired enough to be without him for a night.
Weird. Definitely strange. I mean, I was more used to leaving with her than without her. It was kind of like leaving without an arm or a leg. Or a piece of my heart.
But leave I must. If I was going to be depressed, I knew I shouldn't do it around Lisa or her family. They were just too happy and the last thing they’d want hanging around was a wet rag.
Not that they'd even understand. What? Depressed? You could get married yourself, you know. It's not too late.
Gee, thanks. Not too late. Right. I'll just go to “LosersLikeYou.Com” in the morning, give my credit card number to PayPal, and voila, a husband. No problem.
Right.
It's not like I hadn't been looking my whole life.
It's not like I hadn't tried.
Yeah, maybe I should have just married him. Maybe it wouldn't have killed me.
Maybe it wouldn’t have killed him.
At least I’d be married and everyone would now have sufficient cause to leave me the hell alone.
Right.
I went to the bench by the door and picked up my jacket.
Yes, a jacket.
Yeah, I know, mid-summer.
But there’s always a chance for rain.
What with the drought and all.
Anyway, it, my jacket, was something to hold on to and fiddle with. Play with. Be distracted with and by and for and whatever else worked in the moment.
Right.
Not looking up, I put my arm through the closest sleeve of my jacket and hoped it was the correct one. Jacket, not sleeve. Although that would have been about right for the evening, putting my jacket on upside down or inside out or something. Putting it on all wrong, because that's how I felt. All wrong.
"Leaving?" Lisa asked, slipping up behind me.
I nodded, putting my arm through the other sleeve without looking directly at her.
"Sorry."
Damn well better be. "For what?" I mean, for which particular thing was she currently sorry?
"I didn't know they'd all be here."
Oh, right, that thing. "No problem." I still couldn't look at her. I sat down on the bench and zipped up my jacket.
“You cold?”
“Yeah.”
"You didn't eat anything, did you?"
It wasn't like she didn't know me.
"You want to go get a hamburger when I’m done here?"
I looked up, but still not directly at her. That would have been just too much. I wanted to go "get a hamburger" more than anything else in the world, but it wouldn't help. Not really. It wouldn't change anything.
Besides, they would never let her go. "You know you can't go anywhere tonight."
Sighing, she sat next to me on the bench and looked at all the people in the room. She looked as tired as I felt. "I just want to go home, to the apartment. You know?"
"No you don't." Not exactly what I wanted to say, but it had to be said, even though it really pissed me off that I had to be the one to say it.
She stopped looking at everyone else and looked at me. "You want to talk about it? We haven’t really had a chance to just sit down and talk. About anything. It’s all happened so fast.”
She started to look at me, actually focus on me.
Then she spotted him. Moving toward us.
You know, him. John.
Her eyes got soft and dreamy. “I can't believe I'm getting married. I thought we were going to be old maids together."
"Guess I'll just have to handle that all by myself."
"You'll get married."
As if that were a requirement for final acceptance into
society.
Well, piss on society. Outdated chauvinistic jackasses.
I stood up. “I don’t think so.”
John reached us and she stood up and put her hands out.
For him.
He grabbed her hand as soon as he was close enough to touch her. "You have a great family. Big family."
What else could he say? He looked like he'd been run over by a truck.
"I have to go," I smiled at him. A real smile. He deserved that much. I mean, although I hated to admit it, I think I was starting to like the guy.
Hey, it happens.
He dropped her hand and took mine. "Thanks for coming."
The smile vanished.
Mine, not his. I mean, just who the hell was he to thank me for coming to my best friend's rehearsal dinner? Who died and elected him Lisa's social greeter and de-greeter?
Right. Lisa. That's who.
I took his hand and nodded. "Yeah."
"You’re coming early? In the morning, right?” Lisa looked about twenty years older than yesterday. "I’m going to finish getting dressed and ready here at the church. You could come and help me? Theresa and the other's will be here, but..."
"What time?"
"Ten?"
"Three hours before the wedding?" That's a long time to hang out with Theresa and the cousins.
"Yeah, well, I just want to be ready."
"Okay, I'll be here at ten.” Not matching the way I felt, it came out like I was doing her a favor.
She smiled, looking maybe one or two years younger.
This wedding stuff could obviously kill you if you let it.
"Well, bye," I said, not moving.
"Bye," John said.
"Bye," Lisa said. She started to, got ready to, made a move to hug me, but I jerked and she stopped.
Reflex. We never did that. Hugged. Not in public. Not even really in private. Back to that gay thing. We didn't want anybody to think anything, so we never did anything. Never touched. Never hugged.
Yeah, I know. Stupid. But, hey, people had been accusing us of that -- being gay -- since we were in High School and, you know, it starts to get to you after awhile.
Even when you know that it’s not true, it starts to get to you. Even when you tell yourself it’s not going to get to you, it starts to get to you.
Until it completely gets to you.
I mean, appearance is everything. Truth is nothing.
Right. As if it mattered anyway. Or anymore.
I mean, she was getting married. We wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore.
Well, she wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore.
Great. Just great. I mean, unless I tied a man to my loins, I was probably going to still have to worry about that.
"Bye." I waved a short little self-conscious wave and turned and left the room. Left the church. Went home.
While it was still my home.
***
Chapter Three
I ran into her.
Well, not directly right smack dab into her, but close enough. Almost right smack dab into her. Tess, my seventy-something-year-old downstairs neighbor.
She was coming up the stairs from the laundry room, conveniently located in the basement of my apartment building.
Convenient for the tenants anyway.
Tenant who get to stay tenants, that is.
I could tell she was coming from the laundry room, if you really want to know, because she was carrying a loaded laundry basket. One of those old brown wicker types. Like everybody used to have.
Like mom used to have.
"Hi, honey," she said, just about dead. Tired.
Wiping one strand of gray hair out of her eyes, one that had escaped from her bun, she took a breath. She had to. Take a breath. Or she probably wouldn't have been able to say “hi, honey,” or anything else for that matter. Coming up that last step, she looked like she was about ready to keel over.
"Hi," I nodded, looking between her, her basket, and the rest of the twenty or so paces to her apartment door.
No way. No way was I going to take it from her. The basket. I wasn't going to do that. Because, you know, if I did, then I'd have to go into her apartment and I didn't want to do that.
No way.
He was in there. Old Mr. Joe. Tess’s husband.
Besides, I wanted to go into my own apartment. I mean, it wasn’t my job, was it? To look after her? Or Joe. Or anyone else for that frigging matter. I was having a hard enough time just looking after myself.
I took a step past her, toward the first stair that lead up, up, and away. To the floor above her apartment. The floor with my apartment. Toward escape.
"You okay, honey?" she asked, wheezing past me on her slow crab crawl toward her apartment door.
“Yeah.” Considering.
Considering that life sucks.
Tilting her head, she narrowed her focus on me. “You don’t look so good.” Fumbling with her basket and her forward momentum, she tried to pull her keys out of her apron pocket. Her belly was trying to help. I mean, it was kind of big and round and she was trying to rest the basket on it, but it just wasn't enough. It wasn't working.
Wasn’t going to work.
Crap.
I took a step toward her and slipped the key and the basket from her hands. “Here, let me.” I pounded back toward her apartment, reached around her, and unlocked the door.
And, sure enough, there was Joe.
Just inside the door. Just Joe. Sitting there.
Old. Gray. Small. Old Man Joe.
Not that he was always small. As in tiny and frail. Nope. That’s not what I’d heard. I’d heard that he used to be big and strong. Used to be, that is. When he used to play football back in High School. Back in Nebraska. Back when he lived and worked on the family farm. In Nebraska.
Big man. Back then. Strong, durable, rustic. Back when he raised five children with Tess. On the family farm. Doing the tractor thing, and the planting, and the reaping, and the harvesting.
And the going broke. And the losing the farm.
Back in Nebraska.
Back taxes.
He wasn't so big anymore. Except maybe his hands. They were still big. Big and arthritic. Kind of bent over and stuck in kind of a painful looking position. Like for the life of him he couldn’t pry them loose from something he still wanted. Something he didn’t have any more.
The rest of him though. Not big anymore. Tess was much bigger than Joe. Now anyway. Now that they lived in the city. Now that they never heard from their children or from their grandchildren. Except for maybe at Christmas time. When they sent cards. Christmas cards.
Joe was small now. Little. Bent over little. Didn't get up out of his chair much. Didn't eat a whole lot. Didn't talk a whole lot. Didn't do a whole lot of anything. Except watch TV.
Right. Get it over with.
I kind of, sort of, took a step inside the door. Just enough inside the door to let Tess come inside behind and around me.
One step in. One step out of the way.
I put the basket on the chair. The chair nearest the door.
He looked up at me. Joe. From the television. And kind of, sort of, I don't know, jerked his head slowly. In greeting. To me. At me.
I guess. I mean, he didn't say anything. To me.
Not a real talkative type, like I said.
Ugh. I tried to hold my breath, but it hit me anyway. It always hit me. That smell. That sweet, kind of stale near-death smell. Their apartment. Them. Him.
Hated it. Hated that smell. Hated that the harder I tried not to breathe, the harder I had to.
Suck it in.
Joe's smell.
Not Tess’s smell. Not really. Tess smelled like those purple flowers. Lilacs. She smelled like lilacs and lavender. And spring after a fresh rain. Like, if you were a bee, you'd be in Heaven.
Not like Joe's smell. Not like Joe.
Tess smelled like life.
Joe smelled like death.
"Sit down, honey," Tess said, giving me a look like she thought I was about ready to cry or die, or maybe something in between.
Because I was. About ready to cry. Or die.
I mean, really, I just wanted to go home.
I just wanted to go home and crawl up into a ball and hide in the back of a closet somewhere.
Somewhere where no one could find me.
Somewhere where no one would even look for me.
"I've got some lemonade in the ice box. I'll go get us some, okay?" Turning, Tess headed into the kitchen, picking up and taking her basket, and all of the available fresh air, with her.
Sucking the last breath in, I sat down on the edge of the couch. The farthest edge of the farthest seat from Joe, who was in his old brown recliner.
She took all the light too. Tess. She took all of the light with her. And all she left was just, you know, brown.
Brown walls. Brown pictures on the brown walls. Brown carpet. Brown furniture. Old brown furniture. Old brown Joe.
I bit my bottom lip and tried not to breathe. Tried not to look at anything. Anything that was brown.
I looked at Joe’s hair. His white hair. All white. Except for the brown spots under the thin white hair.
Did she say ice box? Lemonade in her ice box?
Yeah, right.
Ice box. Cute. Only a seventy-something-year-old person would call a refrigerator an ice box, right? I mean, who else would call it an icebox?
Not me.
Only seventy-something-year-old people. Only people who knew what a damned ice box was.
Right. Okay. Calming down now.
Getting a grip.
I stopped tapping my foot on the brown carpet. It’s not like I’d even realized I was tapping my foot on the brown carpet. Nope, just realized, eventually, that I should stop.
Before Joe noticed and said something.
Way before that.
So, I just sat there. Not tapping. Just sitting. On the edge of the brown couch, next to the brown recliner Joe was currently entombed within so that he could watch the television.
I couldn't even figure out what was on. The television.
I mean, it was some old Western. Some loud old brown faded Western with some old brown faded people busy riding some old brown faded horses. Eating dust. Killing Indians.
Or, actually, killing white people pretending to be brown. Indians. Native Americans.
“That girl still getting married?” a voice much stronger than the body from which it came, boomed at me.