by Robyn Carr
“Not to burst your bubble in case you were feeling special, but I think Marty has put the moves on every woman he’s ever met.”
“I think I’m at least a dozen years older than he is.”
“And according to Jake, he’s got a serious girlfriend. And two ex-wives. And kids.”
Justine just laughed and headed for the kitchen. “Not my type, sorry.” She put her groceries on the counter and located the cutting board. “Help me out here. I need olive oil, a large skillet or wok and your spice rack.”
“I haven’t done that much cooking,” Adele said, rummaging around for things. She turned up garlic that was spoiled and black, but Justine had bought new. No soy sauce, but Justine had anticipated that as well, and bought some. There was olive oil, since it was important to Adele’s new diet. The spices, kept in a drawer, were bleak and old.
“Okay, I’ve got this now,” Justine said. Amber was on her phone in the other room, Olivia curled up on the couch with a book. “Pull up a stool and just talk to me. Tell me more about your new job.”
“Well, the best part is that I’m in counseling, by accident. A couple of times a week I get about thirty minutes with one of our best social workers, and she’s hearing my life story. Are you getting any counseling?”
“Not at the moment,” Justine said. “That marriage counselor Scott had us seeing, to what purpose I can’t imagine, was so useless, it turned me off counselors for the time being. I’m feeling pretty good at the moment. I might wake up tomorrow feeling horrible, but right now I feel good. But I think counseling is a good thing and I’m glad you’re going.”
“I had no idea how much I wanted someone to listen to me until Ross, the social worker, said, ‘Tell me everything.’ And I did.”
“That’s fantastic. Tell me more.”
Adele explained that they talked about everything in her life from junior high on. There was still so much to talk about because in a couple of thirty-minute sessions, they’d barely scratched the surface.
There was a knock at the front door and Adele let Jake in. He’d brought a bottle of wine, flowers and some ice cream. “For the girls,” he said.
The five of them sat around the table, enjoyed a light and delicious meal of teriyaki chicken, stir-fried veggies and rice, and conversation. Amber and Olivia both got phone calls, which they took care of quickly. Then as they were about to pick up the dishes, Justine’s phone chimed. She looked at it and saw it was Scott. “I’ll get back to him later,” she said. But her phone chimed again and again. “Well, I guess he won’t give up. Sorry, Adele.”
Jake took that opportunity to carry dishes to the kitchen but Adele stayed where she was, nursing a glass of wine and listening.
Justine answered the call. “Scott, couldn’t you leave a message?”
“No, I couldn’t,” he said. “Have you asked the girls to refuse to meet Cat? I want to take them to dinner. They’re refusing to go.”
“I have not told them anything. I have said more than once that it’s up to them, but it’s entirely possible they know how much I disapprove of that idea. I find it very painful. She is the woman you left us for. You can’t expect us to be happy with either of you, but the fact that you do means you’re more oblivious to the damage you’ve done than I thought.”
“We’re divorced,” he said angrily. “I expected you’d get over it by now!”
She laughed. “In a few weeks?” she asked incredulously. “Check back with me in a few years.” She disconnected. She looked at Adele. “Sometimes this divorce seems like it exists on another plane. In another solar system. He just said he thought I’d be over it by now. We’ve been apart three months and divorced three weeks.” She laughed again. “I don’t even know him anymore.”
“He really said that?” Adele asked.
Justine rolled her eyes. “He’s taking this all so well...” she said facetiously.
“If you think about it, Scott has never been overly concerned about anyone but himself. I mean, he seemed a nice enough guy and I suppose he was a good dad, but he had one primary concern. Himself.”
“I think you’re right. But I did think he loved me,” Justine said. “Now I wonder if he’s had many girlfriends over the years. God knows he had the time. I’ve decided not to burden myself with that question.”
“You’re different now, Justine,” Adele said.
“So are you,” Justine tossed back with a smile.
“How am I different?”
“Well, you’ve taken the world by storm. You have new confidence. Do you even realize how beautiful you are? You’ve always been, but you never seemed to wear it so well. I think it’s the combination of the new job and your new weight loss. I noticed it first with the job. Even when we talk on the phone you’re stronger and more self-assured. I’m very proud of you.”
“It started with you,” she said. “Or, more accurately, Scott. I know it must have hit you hard, but it had a wallop effect on me. I remember thinking we can’t count on anything. Or anyone. If Scott could leave a brilliant, beautiful woman like you, there is no point in counting on anyone but ourselves. It motivated me. The first thing I did that very morning after leaving your house was find a weight loss program and began an earnest research of jobs.”
Jake brought the bottle of wine to the table. “You girls just visit while I clean up.”
“Leave it, Jake,” Adele said. “I’ll get it later.”
“I’m having a good time watching you two visit. I’m happy to pitch in. Then I’ll join you.”
When he left them, Justine said, “I should have been so much more supportive of you and all you did, Addie. I regret that now. I can’t remember the last time we had a nice dinner together. I gave all that energy to a man who didn’t deserve it.”
“It makes sense that the divorce, especially after so many years, would have a huge impact on you but I didn’t expect this change. I have never seen you this relaxed.”
“I am, at the moment. But it comes and goes. When I wake up in the morning without that stomach cramp, when I realize the feeling of abandonment and betrayal wasn’t my first feeling when I woke, I just pray it lasts all day. Or that I have a few mornings in a row like that. It’s getting better. I’m learning to enjoy a day without feeling lost. And afraid.”
“I never once thought of you as lost or afraid,” Adele said.
“Law school tends to train you in the appearance of confidence even when you don’t feel it. There is something I noticed, however. Once I realized that no matter what, I would never take Scott back, I started to get a new feeling. It was the sudden realization that I don’t ever have to care if Scott is happy again. I felt like I lost a ton of deadweight.”
“Did it just happen?” Addie asked.
“Kind of,” she said. “I did get a piece of good advice. A friend encouraged me to start focusing on what I have rather than what I lost. I’m finding that very helpful. I think in a year or so I’ll be very happy. When I’m done being so pissed I could bludgeon him.”
“I’ll be happy to wipe your fingerprints off the club,” Addie said, smiling.
Then they melted into laughter.
* * *
It was nearly ten by the time Justine and her daughters left, their sides aching from laughter. Adele, Jake and Justine had told stories from the days before the girls were born, back when their parents were friends and played cards every week. They told of neighbors like Mr. Swank who fed stray cats and when he passed away it was discovered he had over forty living in his house. And Mrs. Hall who spent twenty-five years as a crossing guard and no one knew she had never been hired by the school district. There was the librarian who had a years-long hot romance with a studly lifeguard, and the pair of brothers who ran a local farm who it turned out were never brothers at all. Jake had a hundred funny stories related to running the neighborhood market.
>
Adele promised to leave a key under the flowerpot in case her nieces wanted to drive down from San Jose to go to the beach, since school was out and both girls had part-time summer jobs. Olivia was babysitting and Amber was working at the food court in the local mall.
When they said goodbye, they all hugged as though they’d just wrapped up a holiday dinner.
“I’ll call you,” Justine promised Adele.
“And I’ll call you. We’ll have to do this again.”
Then they were gone, and Adele and Jake stood on the front porch, waving goodbye until the car was out of sight.
“I guess I’ll shove off,” Jake said. He draped an arm across her shoulders. “This was a nice surprise, Addie. Thanks.”
“I guess you should thank Justine. I need to see more of my sister. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had that much fun with her. I should find a way to put a few pounds on her without putting pounds on myself.”
“I’m going to tell you what I told Justine—you look great, but you were always beautiful. You just never seemed to know it.”
“I think I did it to myself,” she said. “I became a shut-in. I called myself a caregiver and I did help. I did take care of my mother the last few years. But I had a broken heart and I was hiding away.”
He gave her shoulders a light massage. “There was a lot you didn’t tell me.”
“Do you want to come in for a while?” she asked him.
“Sure, but you don’t have to tell me.”
“Thanks. Let’s see what comes naturally.”
“Can you handle it if I have a bowl of ice cream?”
“Sure. Of course.”
So they went inside. Jake had ice cream and Adele talked. She told him about some of the problems she had come to know in her new job, no names or descriptions, of course. She explained how she was starting to relate to them. She’d shut herself away for years because it was easier than facing the world and risking her poor heart again. Even though Jake knew all about her pregnancy and the stillborn baby, they had never talked beyond the surface of it.
“I guess I was traumatized,” Adele said. “Well, my dad’s injury was bad. He was in and out of the hospital so many times, having surgeries on his back, stuck in a wheelchair, and here I was, my belly growing bigger by the day. I hardly even cared that he was angry with me for getting pregnant and having no husband. I made a nursery for the baby, did you know that?”
“I’ve never been upstairs,” Jake said. “My mother was the one who told me the baby didn’t live.”
Jake had sent flowers at the time. Adele hadn’t had a proper funeral for her baby. She had her mother, father and sister and they buried him in a lone plot, not a family plot. He had died before he was even born. She didn’t talk about it, she didn’t tell Hadley, who she assumed couldn’t care less anyway, and she didn’t get any kind of help for her grief. Her parents, not in the best shape anyway, seemed relieved that she didn’t want to talk about it.
“This counselor I’ve been talking to, she wonders if maybe I need a little closure on that. On a lot of things.”
“Hmm,” he answered. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. My whole life has started to change, and I almost feel like a normal person. For the first time in years.”
“Addie, I don’t know all that much about counseling and stuff, but here’s what I think. I think you do whatever makes you feel like you’re growing into your best self. You seem happier these days because you’re active and you’re with people, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’re needed at that new job.”
“I am feeling that way, slowly but surely. You’ve been just about my only friend the past few years.”
“Nah. Everyone in town knows you, Addie. Everyone waves, honks, yells hello. You know a lot of people. You just haven’t been too social.”
“Yeah, but I’m talking friend, Jake. I want you to know that I’m really grateful.”
Chapter Nine
“Is it too late?” Justine whispered into the phone.
“No,” Logan said. “I’m watching a movie. I’ll pause it. Everything okay?”
“Yes, better than okay, and I just wanted to tell you. I had a beautiful day with my girls and my sister, a day like I haven’t had in a million years. We went shopping with Addie. She’s lost a lot of weight and needed new clothes...”
“But you said you and your girls go shopping all the time,” he said. She could hear him sitting up in bed, getting a little less comfortable.
“Not like this,” she said. “We always need something, so we have to hurry, can’t waste any time, rush, rush, rush. Today we were all about getting good deals and nice clothes and laughed a lot. Then we went to Addie’s house, the house I grew up in, and I made dinner. We kicked back, took our time, laughed our heads off, and didn’t worry about when we got home. I’m at home tonight. Tomorrow night I’ll be in Jean’s guest room. But Monday I’m back on the prowl, checking out law practices. After spending the evening in Half Moon Bay, I remember why I liked it so much. I like the speed.”
He chuckled. “Maybe I should give it a look.”
“Well, it’s out of the question for me,” she said. “The other woman lives there. And I assume Scott will be spending a lot of time there. I’d be happier if he’d move to Florida.”
“Scott and the other woman could just as easily be in San Jose, so just get over it.”
“What are you saying?” she demanded. “I don’t want to see them. Especially together!”
“I understand, but if you let that be your criteria, you might miss out on the best experience for yourself. You could reject a job or location because you’re avoiding them and settle somewhere you like far less. Then what if they do up and move to Florida? Justine, you are now free to serve your own needs first.”
“Huh,” she said.
He laughed. “This is all still so new, isn’t it? The idea that it’s just you.”
“Well, me and my girls. But what if I run into them and I throat punch her?”
“First offense,” he said. “You won’t have to serve too much time.”
She laughed at him. “There is a law practice in my old town, a one-man firm. He’s been there forever and I found, during my search, he’s been looking for an associate. He might be thinking of retiring, but he’s been looking for a long time. I had pretty much written it off. Not only is it in the town where Scott had his affair, my girls go to school in San Jose. There’s a potential opportunity I’m going to visit in Monterrey.”
“All these small coastal towns... You’re going to have to just think of where you want to be without regard to Scott and his girlfriend. Thinking of them will only slow you down.”
“Can’t you relate?” she asked. “Were you willing to see your ex?”
“I wasn’t happy about anything for a year or more, but you forget. I know I told you. My ex and my sister are best friends. I ran into her all the time. I had to sit across from her one Easter dinner. It was excruciating. And then I ran into my ex and her new partner, a woman who hated me on sight.”
“How long did you wait before you started dating?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe a few months, but I didn’t get involved. Just a little companionship. A couple of years after my divorce I dated a woman who was fairly serious—we were a couple for about three years. Then a few years later, another woman I was semiserious with. Till she took back her ex.”
“Hmm. Well, I was hit on today,” Justine said. “A man at least a dozen years younger than me asked me out. He was so gross about it. He said he heard I was on my own now and so was he, so...?”
“Did you like him?”
“I’ve known him forever. I think I might’ve babysat him, but I don’t recall. I told him I wasn’t ready for my comin
g out just yet.”
“Justine, there are going to be men. Lots of men. You’re beautiful, successful, fun, smart and there will be men. I know you think that isn’t going to happen right now, but there will be—”
“I don’t want a man,” she said resolutely. “I want good people in my life. I want trustworthy friends. I am not looking for a man.”
“And I’m not looking for a woman,” he said. “But I have an open mind. There’s a street fair in Carmel tomorrow,” he said. “Hell, Carmel by itself is a street fair. Why don’t we go together? You can practice running into people. You can learn how to say things like, ‘Didn’t you hear? Scott and I are divorced.’ And ‘This is my friend Logan. We’ve worked together on a couple of cases.’ We might even hold hands so you can get used to the idea that a date doesn’t automatically lead to marriage and divorce. I’ll buy you something to eat, we’ll have a glass of wine at one of the outdoor bars with a view of the bay and maybe you’ll see a painting or macramé you just have to have.”
She was quiet for a moment, thinking. If she was going to have a date with anyone, she’d like it to be Logan. But she was barely divorced, and she was seriously afraid of letting a man into her life. If she was honest, she hadn’t had a man in her life in years. She had Scott who, she was beginning to realize, wasn’t that much fun. And he was a liar. So she finally said, “What time?”
“I have a couple of things to do—chores. Let’s meet at noon. Parking will be annoying, so let’s meet on the edge of town at Blueberry Hill restaurant. It’s a little breakfast place with a big parking lot. Wear comfortable shoes and we can walk into town.”
When she was falling asleep after her phone call, she was thinking about so many different things; it was like a mosaic. There was a lifetime of Scott in many different incarnations, from the loving father who cried when his daughters were born to the self-centered oaf who said, without much regret, “Don’t you want me to be happy?” She thought of Addie, changing her life after losing so much and giving so much; Addie who was every bit the butterfly coming out of the cocoon. About her girls, taking on the next phase of their lives without the father they had known and trusted. And Logan, the last thing she had expected—handsome, sexy and smart Logan, who would hold her hand so she could practice saying, “Yes, this is my friend Logan, whom I’m seeing.”