by Ethan Joella
Ginger pulls her hair back into a sloppy bun and slips her clothes back on. She hears Mags whispering loudly to Cecilia about the dress. Even the girls who didn’t know each other have bonded over their hatred of paisley, but Ginger doesn’t care. She cares that she will come to the wedding alone, without Johnny. That she will leave the wedding and sleep in her brass bed with the ruffled comforter at her parents’ house and then fly home alone, her paisley dress still on the hanger in her old bedroom.
She is disappointed not to have seen Mrs. Crowley, Luke’s mother, here, but of course right now she’s at that birthday party probably holding a garbage bag to pick up stray napkins, maybe having a quick taste of cake. “My figure!” she always said when Luke tried to get her to eat pizza or have a scoop of rocky road.
Ginger wonders what she would have said to her. When Ginger first heard the fitting was here at Crowley’s, she imagined coming in the front door, and Mrs. Crowley looking up from the register. “Heavens, Ginger! Is that you?” She imagined hugging her, that smell of Mary Kay moisturizer and hairspray from a fresh wash and set at the hairdresser’s. Though Luke’s mother put him down—she really did, hardly ever coming to see him sing, always telling him not to slouch or asking what dumpster he got his shirt from—Ginger felt nothing but love from the woman. “Darcy Crowley’s so clenched,” her mother said once, “she could make tree bark into paper.”
“Not once you know her,” Ginger had said. She looks around the dry cleaning shop, and it is all so her: neat and sterile with precise notes on the dressing room doors about garment fitting instructions, and a sign by the cash register about returned checks. Behind the counter, instructions for the employees about turning lights off and putting fifties and hundreds in the safe. Oh, Mrs. Crowley. Such a time capsule of a woman, but still so modern.
Ginger used to love to sit back and watch her in action: barking at Mr. Crowley about how long to leave the meat on the grill (he’d just raise his eyebrows and ignore her, chuckling); clearing the dining room table after a big meal in mere seconds, not letting anyone help, or ordering a new gadget from a home shopping channel and insisting it would improve their lives (a toothpaste dispenser, a cordless phone with an intercom, a posture perfect desk chair). Ginger looks at the sweater over one of the chairs in the back and knows it belongs to Mrs. Crowley: a lilac color. She can just see her slipping it on and off throughout the day. What a gutsy woman, starting up a business from scratch that she knew nothing about after her husband died. Where did she find the nerve? Ginger hugs her arms to herself and wishes Mrs. Crowley would drop by right now. She misses her as much as she misses Luke, doesn’t she? The seamstress then comes back to the counter, smiles politely, scoops up all the dresses, and lays them together in a pile that looks like a green rowboat in front of her. “Back to work,” she says.
“Thanks for your help,” Ginger says, and waves.
Out in the parking lot, the girls hover around their cars. The sky is clear and blue, and the occasional leaf slowly zigzags to the ground. At the intersection only one or two cars get by before the light turns red. Ginger hands the toy crown to Cameron after Suzette and her sister drive off. “So about one o’clock tomorrow to set up?”
“I’ll bring the champagne,” Cameron says.
Cecilia buffs out a smudge on the door of her RAV4. “Have paisley dreams, ladies. And we’ve got to talk to Carrie about bachelorette weekend.”
Ginger nods. She opens the door to her mother’s van. After this she will pick up the heartworm pills for Thunder, a six-month supply with stickers her parents can put on the calendar. She should check in with Johnny. She should. But the idea makes her feel uneasy. She breathes. Being back in the old neighborhood, so near the park where Luke sang that summer night, with the small Italian restaurant where they would sit at the lopsided table and drink cheap wine, with Luke’s parents’ house just a few blocks away and the bike trail where they would ride their matching Trek bikes to the lake with a picnic in Luke’s backpack, she can’t think about Johnny.
She looks at the ring he gave her. The alternating emeralds and diamonds. “Must have cost a pretty penny,” her mother said when she saw it.
“I guess,” Ginger said (even though she knew exactly how much, which was more than she ever wanted a piece of jewelry she wore to cost).
She should call Johnny, but she turns the radio on as she pulls out of the parking lot. Madonna is singing “Like a Prayer,” and she gets lost in the words as she drives past the string of factories and then Woodsen Park. The stage is empty, and she can still imagine Luke standing there. Twelve years ago. Twelve. She remembers when she could subtract twelve years from her age, and it would take her back to being in elementary school. Now twelve years takes her to still being an adult. Luke onstage. Luke. His guys in the background on drums and bass, Luke’s voice the great connector between them. She swore some women cried. Even the men mouthed the words. Yes to looooove you. And it wasn’t just at the park. At the small clubs, at the backyard parties, when Luke sang, a stillness came over the crowd. He could switch from Sinatra to Elton John to Bon Jovi, and he made it his own. He was that good. Did he know he was that good? Did she ever tell him he was better than any guy on the radio? She loved him before he sang, but, God, the power of his voice made it impossible not to crumble.
It wasn’t just his voice. His voice was rock solid. But he brought soul to every song. She hates the word soul, it makes her uncomfortable, but it is the only word for Luke’s vulnerability, the understanding he seemed to give the sad lyrics, the happy ones.
Does he still sing? She hopes so. But wouldn’t his sister post a picture of him at a concert every so often on Facebook? Wouldn’t Ginger see his name anywhere when she searched it? Luke Crowley. Luke and the Killers. Nothing. If he doesn’t sing, what does he do? What else could Luke do? She should have asked him, but she sensed something was off. She knew the question wouldn’t make him happy. How did she still understand him so well?
She should think about Johnny. She is lucky to have him. He’s probably in their apartment right now. Johnny, with his slight southern accent and dark, dark eyes, his tie loosened, his Burberry oxford shoes and Rolex. He says, “How goes it?” whenever he sees her, holds her hand when they’re out, and will listen when she talks about a cat that bit her or an old dog that died from anesthesia on the operating table. Johnny, in his late thirties, has a son named Jeremy, eleven, who lives forty-five minutes away. He loves that kid, and seeing them together, seeing how Johnny would die for this boy, makes Ginger love him more. Johnny’s got a deal in South America on the day of Suzette’s wedding and can’t come.
Leda, her neighbor who has been in the building the longest, sized him up. “Looks like a young Paul Newman. Charming,” she said.
In the beginning of their relationship, Johnny would drop by her office to see what she did. To see her checking a kitten’s throat or filing down the teeth of a pet bunny. The other ladies—the vet techs, the receptionists—would watch him the whole time. “Where in all of Georgia did you find him?” one said. “Holy hotness,” another said, and the fact that he smiled at them, that he joked with them, too, just made him more popular. But Ginger finds there is a limit to his charm. She hates to say it, but she could sometimes take him or leave him—and she doesn’t know why. When he goes on trips with Jeremy, like the two-day skiing vacation they took last winter, she feels a thrill when he leaves, when she knows he’ll be gone. As soon as the apartment door closes, she silently celebrates. She hates that she feels this way. He doesn’t deserve that.
Maybe it’s Luke’s fault. Maybe she can’t trust anything to be real—even something that appears to gleam with certainty and possibility—since her first major relationship dissolved the way it did. She should call Johnny right now. She should say she misses him. She does miss him. She does. She misses his sounds—his throat clearing, his burpees and push-ups in the apartment, his fingers hitting the laptop keys, his blender whirring with a p
rotein shake. She misses the way he stands behind her and says, “How’s my girl?”
She knows she shouldn’t think about Luke. Ancient history. She just wonders why she saw him. Maybe the universe wanted her to. Is the way she felt when she watched him sing, when she would wake up next to him in her apartment and just study his silent lips, his long eyelashes, how she should always feel?
The day his dad died, she wanted to never leave him. She never felt a person just disintegrate the way he had: his face slick, his breath bad for the first time. She knew, knew he was using something at that point. She never knew what. He slept too much, he would be too punchy when he’d call her late at night. Was it terrible she didn’t think badly of him for it? That she just thought he was sensitive, and sensitive people felt things so deeply, to the point where it could wound them. If he needed to take a pill or two, smoke a thing or two, even though she was never, ever that person, wouldn’t she be able to get him back to where he should be? But she couldn’t. The day she returned to Georgia, after his dad’s funeral, it was March. It was still so cold. The ice hung on the power lines, the ground was frozen. She remembers thinking “Come find me, Luke” when her plane finally was cleared for takeoff.
But he didn’t.
Two years now with Johnny, and he will probably propose soon. Why doesn’t that make her happy? He makes her happy. He does. She loves his smile, his sense of humor, juggling apples and imitating Leda’s voice perfectly. She loves to lie naked with him on a Friday night—to go away with him to Jamaica, a bed-and-breakfast in St. Simons. She thinks of a poem she read once: This is what the living do. Yes, this is it. If you’re lucky enough to have someone like this, you never let them go. You love them back, fully. But at the end of the day, she can’t ever see herself wanting to do what Suzette is doing; she doesn’t want to walk down the aisle toward Johnny.
* * *
She forgets to stop at the vet’s for the heartworm meds. She passes right by. She turns off the radio and knows she shouldn’t drive over to Luke’s old house. But it’s so close, she feels like she needs to.
Mrs. Crowley’s house—does she really live there all alone now?—sits on a charming street. There are rocking chairs on the front porch and electric candles in every window. The same stone swan sits at the top of the porch steps, and on the door is a rope wreath with an autumnal bow.
Ginger sees the basketball hoop in the driveway and remembers how she and Luke would stand out there in summer and he would guard her, but then back off so she could shoot. She sees the hydrangea bush and remembers the white one he picked for her. How it dried perfectly to a brown-pink and she kept a piece of it for years and years in her jewelry box. She may still even have one last petal in there.
She should call Johnny. She should say, “I miss you,” to him. She should tell him that they should take Jeremy someplace fun soon—to Michigan fishing, or to one of those kid-friendly island resorts. Maybe you get out what you put in, and she has not put enough effort into Johnny. She wants him to be right. God, how she does. He really is a decent, lovely man. She thinks of him talking to Jeremy—that kind, kind voice he uses. The way he can’t resist pulling his son to him and kissing the top of his head. She thinks of the way he holds the door open for her, how he reaches over when he’s driving and puts his hand on her leg. She could marry him, couldn’t she? Couldn’t she?
She pulls over for a moment and dials his number, but she is on Luke’s street, and it feels disrespectful. She hits end before it rings. Luke’s neighborhood has not changed one bit. It makes her happy to know this: the trees, the driveways, the streetlights. Time has barely touched this area.
She wishes she had gotten Luke’s number. Maybe she would suggest drinks now. Tell him to drop by and see Thunder, who would certainly wag his tail and remember his old buddy. She stares at the clear road in front of her as she starts driving again and waves at the two little girls playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. What’s done is done, she thinks. Luke looks okay—mostly. A little disheveled, his wallet a bit bare. How could she even think about getting wrapped up in that again? Who knows what his story is? Maybe more drugs. Maybe unemployed. Hell, he may even have a girlfriend. Five girlfriends. What does she know? Does she need all that? But that sad smile. Those eyes. God. Her heart is thumping fast, and she hasn’t felt this nervous in years. She has never cared as much about anything as she did about him. That is what she is feeling now: the leftover particles of the care she once felt. What do you do with that?
Her phone rings in her lap, and she jumps. It’s Johnny. Maybe he can sense that something is different, that she’s gone to a place right now she won’t be able to return from. She ignores the call.
When she came home this time, she’d hoped to see Luke. She wished for it, and poof, there he was, waiting in the toy shop like a gift. It has to mean something. Luke. Goddamned Luke. She imagines him onstage singing each word, holding each note, watching her, her always waiting for him out in the audience.
6. Trying to Wake Up
Dear Mom,
I want to say I’m sorry for how I acted at Lizzie’s party. I had a lot going on that day, and the thought of Betsy being ripped apart made me feel crappier. When you said I smelled like smoke, which you always have to say, it got under my skin, and then you said calm yourself, which I hate, and then you exchanged looks with M. J., so it was a triple whammy. But I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I know it’s your job to say stuff like that, and if I had a kid (which I don’t don’t don’t, no panicking necessary), I wouldn’t want him to smell like smoke either. My point is, I get it. I get why you worry.
I started this letter and thought I knew what to tell you, but I think the only thing I want to keep saying is I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m a waiter. Sorry I don’t have anything going on that you can tell Patty and Helen at Bridge Club about, or that I messed things up with Ginger, and that I quit playing Grandad’s trumpet, and that I dropped French my junior year in high school, and that I didn’t do that internship you wanted me to do at Garroway & Associates, and that I look like hell when you see me, and that I still haven’t taken my drum set out of your basement. I’m sorry about all of that. I wish I was more like M. J. She is such a together person, and I watch her with Lizzie and wish I could have turned into something kind of the same.
Yesterday, I walked a few blocks to the Regent Theater because they are hiring a special events curator. For a second, I imagined myself there, more serious, working as part of the team, maybe even holding a clipboard and fountain pen, and it excited me. I didn’t know how I’d convince them, but I wanted to. I stood up straight. I wore a wool coat. I held a folder with my résumé in it. But when I got to the main door, a woman in the lobby asked if she could help me. I froze. I couldn’t do it. The ceilings were too high. The floor was too polished. The whole place seemed so big to me. I had to just reach for a brochure and leave. I don’t know what that’s about.
I’m trying to wake up. I’m trying, Mom. I wish something in me would snap, that I’d be closer. Closer to what HE was. Man, I still can hear his voice so clearly. Can you? I wish I could fix Betsy with my own hands, that you’d see me driving her and you’d feel proud, and somewhere, wherever he is, he’d feel good about me, too. It hurts. It hurts that I’m like this.
Maybe it’s better if you and I don’t see each other for a while. Maybe we should just write. I don’t want to fight with you. Maybe I can be better soon.
Love,
Luke
7. The Blue Bicycle
There are some things Alex Lionel can’t accept, and one of them is that St. Vincent’s switched to electric prayer candles a few years ago. As people shuffle out of five o’clock mass, he and Kay make their way to the front of the church. He rests his hand between Kay’s shoulder blades on the peacock-blue coat she’s had for years. She limps slightly from her broken ankle over the summer (she slipped on their wet deck steps) and his elbow has been bothering him (too much golf?). He wonders how
they became an old couple all of a sudden, slowly making their way up the aisle.
He smiles at Theresa, the organist, who has just lit her own candle, and he nods to Will Garlin, who lost his wife last year. A boy in his twenties with longish dark hair and an old overcoat sits in a pew by himself in the middle of the sea of polished wood, looking up at the ceiling. He holds a book that Alex thinks for a second is a Bible, but then recognizes it as A Separate Peace, something Benny read once in school.
The priest is gone, the lights are dim. The electric candles flicker in their fake way, but there is still something touching and holy about the whole thing. The ceilings reach high, and in a few weeks, they will bring in the poinsettias stacked in a pyramid behind the altar, and place greenery along the aisle.
“Do you have money?” Kay asks, and Alex holds a ten-dollar bill in his hand and makes it dance for her.
“Silly.” She stands in front of the candles. Her face is still young in the glow, and he cannot believe they have been together for fifty years. They met in college. He remembers asking her to lunch that day, how she turned her head to the side. “Lunch?”