"Good morning, Nancy. Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, and you? Did they wake you up?"
"Nah, I was already awake." He smiled. "I'm a kind of night owl, I usually sleep during the day..."
"So you'll fall asleep now? What do you do?"
"He's a wretched musician," Uncle Bill said, leaning forward with a conspiratory look on his face. "One of those wretched rock 'n' roll guys."
"So do you have a band or something?" asked Debby, who stood in front of them with her generous chest bumps as puffed out as she could make them. She probably wore a bra and was proud of ot. Unlike Jennifer and Nancy, Debby had her mother's dark blond mane and no freckles. Nancy had no idea if she had a boyfriend – she hadn't been interested in that so far.
Which reminded her she didn't have any bumps on her chest yet. But she had her monthly. Bummer. She missed Frank's answer, but she didn't care. She went to sit by the fire, pondering. Was she a woman or not? Technically yes. But did she feel like it? Not really. Frank was cute, but she wasn't ready to think about boys... or was she?
"Hey." Jennifer sat next to her and pinched her arm. "Your mom says you've had them too... I have had monthlies three times already, it's not really a big deal!"
"I know." Nancy shrugged. "I don't know why anyone would make a big deal out of it."
"Isn't that Frank cute? I wonder if he has a girlfriend," Jennifer continued, staring at him as Grandma joined the crowd leaning on Uncle Brad's arm.
Yes, he has Uncle Bill, Nancy wanted to say, but by now they were all there, so it was time to unwrap gifts.
For some reason that year she got fewer toys and more clothes. As if everybody knew she was growing up, and she didn't need another Polly. While she dressed for lunch, Nancy observed her doll that sat dejected on a small armchair in the bedroom – a place of honor. For the forgotten. Much like her teddy bear that had sat there until someone had thrown it away.
She patted the doll's head. "We'll have to part, Polly." She sighed. Her gaze went to the window and she noticed it was snowing again. With a squeal of delight, she invited her cousins to a quick battle before lunch. Frank and Uncle Bill joined them while the parents prepared the table.
Again they all sat together in the kitchen, and Uncle Brad asked Uncle Bill when he was going to bring home a girlfriend. Aunt Bettie added that he wasn't getting any younger and he should really start a family. And Mom concluded that she and Nancy could move to Grandma's and take care of her so he could have his own life.
"We're not throwing you out of the house," Uncle Brad concluded. "But we'd really love to come to your wedding."
Uncle Bill had listened with his eyes on his now empty plate and a lingering smile on his face. Nancy also kept an eye on Frank, who sat back with an amused expression and his arms crossed over his chest. And then she glanced at Grandma who seemed oblivious to the discussion, as if what her offspring said didn't matter to her anymore. Nancy wondered if her hearing had gotten worse.
"You can come to my wedding," Uncle Bill said at last, looking at his siblings first and at his in-laws after. "But it's going to be very unconventional. So feel free to stay here with Mom if you don't feel like it."
"What do you mean?" Aunt Bettie asked, puzzled.
"I was wondering what you were waiting for," Grandma said. "It was high time you brought your boyfriend home. And why should I miss my younger son's wedding? I was beginning to think you were waiting for me to die!"
Nancy giggled. Grandma was smarter than they credited her.
"Mom!" Uncle Bill looked shocked. "I wish you could live forever! But are you sure you want to attend my wedding?"
"If it's with the gorgeous young man sitting by your side, I wouldn't miss it for all the king's gold! Not that there's a king anywhere near here, but whatever..." She chuckled as everybody gaped, except Nancy, who smiled at Frank and Uncle Bill encouragingly. "Now I'm going to pout because you told your niece and not your mother."
She pretended to pout as Nancy burst out laughing.
"They didn't tell me anything, Grandma!" she said. "But I saw them kissing yesterday..."
"Sneaky little girl, I'll get you with the next snow battle," Frank threatened playfully.
"Oh, boy!" Jennifer's disappointed sigh echoed Debby's and Lisa's.
"I wasn't hoping you'd take it this well, Mom," Uncle Bill said, touched. "After all, for you it must be hard to accept..."
"Not that hard. Not the first I met either." Grandma exchanged a glance with Aunt Bettie who blushed and averted her eyes. "True, you're my son, but you know what? I want you to be happy. If the young man makes you happy, so be it."
Nancy wanted to hug Grandma. And Uncle Bill. And Frank. And then her own mother who looked lost again. Since Mom was closer, she hugged her.
"We'll be all right, Mom..." she whispered, as more comments flew around the table. "Did you plan on moving here without telling me?"
"I was thinking about it, Nancy. But I don't want to uproot you. You already lost your father. What would it be like if you lost also your childhood friends?"
"I don't know..." Nancy pondered. "New year, new life? Frank is very nice, don't you think?"
Mom's lips trembled into a smile, and she caressed Nancy's hair. "We'll see, honey. We have a few more days to think about it..."
Nancy smiled. She felt light for the first time since her father had passed away. Even though her body was changing, her cousins were changing, her whole life was changing. It was Christmas, so it could only be good changes.
She closed her eyes as the voices faded out. Can you see me, Dad? We'll be all right, won't we?
She could swear she heard a "yes" as a lingering smell of cigarettes wafted through the room where nobody was smoking.
Changes
1.
The day Rick turned forty started as usual – rushing out of the house, dropping the kids off at school and parking at the train station on his way to the office downtown. As he stood squeezed among the commuters, he remembered what day it was and realized Penny had chosen that week to go on a short photographic trip with her best friend.
So not only was he getting older, but for the first time in seventeen years, his wife wouldn't be there to celebrate with him. Oh, well... he'd ask his sister to come and watch the kids on Saturday so he could go on a date with his wife...
Living in Evanston might be quieter, but it meant traveling downtown on the Purple and Red Line every day, which seemed to be slower than usual that morning. The Chicago public transportation really sucked sometimes. Rush hours were crowded and smelly.
He snorted, disentangled himself from the crowd of commuters and jogged to the skyscraper where he worked – reaching it ten minutes late. He quickly crossed the lobby and squeezed himself into the elevator, adjusting his tie on the way to the eleventh floor and mentally blaming the CTA.
He got out of the elevator and quickly walked along the corridor. The glass doors of the company slid open, making his supervisor – the harsh Mrs. Gold – scowl. But then a smile blossomed on her coffee-colored face, and she put a hand on his shoulder.
"Happy birthday, Rick."
He was surprised Mrs. Gold knew what day it was when Penny had been so oblivious. Unless it had been Roxy's idea to go away when it was his birthday. Rick never liked Penny's best friend for various reasons.
"Thanks," he said, heading for his cubicle
He sat on his wheeled chair and put his briefcase on the floor, still breathless but ready for the day's work. Birthdays came once a year, and they should be special. Especially numbers like forty. He wondered what would be special about today, though, considering Penny wasn't by his side.
She'd been on a photo safari in the Yosemite National Park since Sunday, and he already missed her. It was only Tuesday, after a manic Monday with to time to think and three more days of taking care of the kids without her.
Now that he thought about it, it was also the first vacation Penny did with her friend instead of t
he family. Just a week, but still... did that mean he could have a week with the boys when her birthday came around?
He smiled at the thought. Hanging out with Robbie and Leo, and Frank and Andy like it was still the 1990s... He shook his head and snapped back to reality. His twenties were long gone. He was a family man now.
The cleaning lady had moved things on his desk again – namely his mouse and screen. He took time to adjust them, logged in, then fished for a file in his briefcase. Birthday or not, it was business as usual.
He glanced at the reproductions of Andy Warhol on his walls – the company's idea of art – and scoffed. If the cubicles weren't all horribly alike, he'd have asked to move his office somewhere else!
Workplaces are all equally frustrating and ugly, he thought caressing the framed picture of his family on his desk. But his salary paid the mortgage and everything his family could wish for, and he hoped to get a promotion soon, to spoil them even more.
He placed his iPhone next to the frame, crackled his knuckles and dived into work. He was in the administration division of the company with a dozen other employees – all under Mrs. Gold's supervision – dealing with invoices and payments. One elder coworker planned to retire soon, and Rick hoped to take his place, as long as it didn't take away too much time from his family.
Bea and Julie were the first to sneak up on him and wish him a happy birthday. Kevin was next. His friends texted him. Robbie's message read I'm right behind you although Robbie was six months younger than him. But that was what best friends were for.
As he toasted with coworkers at the coffee machine, his iPhone chimed.
"Whoa, that's my dear wife," he told everybody before checking her message.
His smile vanished as he read.
I'm leaving you. I'm not coming back on Saturday, and don't bother calling me. Have a great birthday and enjoy taking care of our kids.
Rick gaped at the screen. If it was a prank, it's wasn't funny.
"You look like you were hit by a tornado," Bea said, poking him. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I..." Rick put away his iPhone and pasted a smile on his face again. "I'm fine. Just some stupid prank, I think."
"Took you by surprise, huh?" She nodded, thoughtful. "Let's get back to work."
He threw away his paper cup and followed her out of the break-room. He sat at his cubicle and read the message again. It hadn't changed. I'm leaving you. As in "I'm walking out of our marriage and couldn't care less" leaving? Without taking the kids?
He read the message one more time before it sank in. She was gone. On his birthday. That was her surprise gift. How could she?
He tried to call her, but her phone was off. Maybe she was in some valley where there was no signal? He didn't have Roxy's number, even though she had tried to give it to him – but at the time it had sounded too much like a flirting offer for him to accept it. Did he know anyone else in the group?
He slumped back in his chair and dropped his hand into his lap. His eyes kept going to that stupid iPhone and he felt a tightness in the chest. They had busy lives with three kids, but when had they become such strangers that she could dump him with a text message and completely take him by surprise?
He tried e-mailing her. He checked for more messages, wrote to her on WhatsApp, tried to call her again, then gave up.
He called Robbie, but he must have been traveling, since his phone was off. Robbie must have sent his message before boarding whatever plane he was on. Rick had lost track of Robbie's travels. Sometimes he envied Robbie who still had their youthful dreams, but then, Robbie didn't have a wife and kids and a white-collar job.
Still, Robbie was his best friend, and Rick would have loved to hear what he had to say about Penny's sudden message. Had he missed something – any clue that maybe Robbie had caught?
There was no answer for now. He'd better get some work done.
He threw his iPhone in a drawer and his gaze fell on the framed photo of his smiling family again. He rubbed the back of his neck, frowning at the picture – at Penny's smiling face, mostly. She looked like a stranger, all of a sudden.
He snatched the frame and threw it in the drawer, next to the iPhone. Face-down.
He slammed the drawer shut and ran a jerky hands through his dark, curly hair.
Focus, Rick. He closed his eyes, but the message kept dancing in front of his closed eyelids. He took a deep breath and looked around again. Office. Cubicle, not open space. Thank God. Everybody would have noticed he was upset in an open space.
Stuffy, though. Lack of air. He loosened his tie and tugged at the collar of his shirt, unbuttoning the top button. The walls of the cubicle seemed to close in on him.
The computer screen stared back at him with its meaningless colorful windows. He hid his clean-shaven face in his hands. He wanted to go back to that morning when he'd woken up to what he supposed would be just another working day. He wished the cubicle would vanish.
He felt trapped. He wished he could be with Robbie wherever he was headed – to some audition, probably, where he'd sing his heart out and maybe show off some dance moves. He wished he could go back to his twenties, and the short-lived boyband he had joined with Robbie and a couple of other friends.
Only Robbie was still in the entertainment business, though. Rick, Leo and the others all had white-collar jobs and families.
Another long, deep breath, and he dived back into what felt like unfamiliar waters for the first time in ten years with the company.
***
Bea stopped toying with her pen and focused on her computer screen. She should stop thinking about younger, handsome coworkers who turned forty and suddenly looked lost! One thing she appreciated about Rick was his honesty. He was very bad at pretending – the message from his wife had obviously upset him, but he didn't want to talk about it. And she wasn't going to ask.
It's none of my business, she thought. She often felt there was too much saccharine in Rick's marriage, it couldn't be as perfect as he said it was. Maybe he'd fought with his beloved Penny or something else had happened... his unwillingness to talk about it meant it was probably serious.
Bea sighed and tried to concentrate on her work, but it wasn't easy. At forty-nine, she loved to sleep alone and couldn't understand the world's obsession to find a soul mate or set up a family, but she had a soft spot for Rick, since he was one of the nicest guys in her dull office.
Her real life was outside of the company where she earned her living. She needed a day job, since her creativity wasn't enough to pay the bills. She did comics – now web comics in the new millennium – and had lately started a strip of her so-called life. A very romanticized version that included her favorite coworkers and that she wasn't going to publish any time soon.
She jotted down a dialog with Rick – imaginary, since she'd never actually prod him into speaking. Maybe she could ask Kevin. Julie was out of the question, if she smelled Rick had trouble at home, she'd do her best to destroy his marriage. She hadn't attempted anything so far only because he was so obviously in love with his wife that it seemed a waste of time.
Bea liked Julie, but her obsession with men sometimes got on Bea's nerves. Julie was single because she couldn't keep a man, Bea was single because she wanted to. Well, sort of. Since she'd come out with herself as asexual, Bea couldn't care less about finding someone. Maybe she'd become also aromantic, while Julie didn't seem to feel complete without a man by her side.
Bea's cubicle was much like Rick's but less personalized. She didn't have family pictures or even her drawings pinned anywhere. She quickly checked her author page on Facebook, then went back to work before Mrs. Gold realized her mind had wandered off again.
She liked to think her life changed at forty, since after a few months of slight depression, she had found a new dimension. She had started to upload her works and was slowly building a parallel career outside of the company, which filled her with happiness and dread, mostly because she didn't have many peop
le to share her passion with. She was attracted to creative people, but had seen too many just quit or drop their dreams to become something else.
Rick was one of them, a meteor of the music business that had left traces on YouTube and made her wish she'd met him twenty years ago. Before Pretty Penny, before he became an employee like her.
Except it probably wouldn't have worked anyway, since twenty years ago she was even more shy and introverted as she was now, and wouldn't consider someone so much younger.
But at forty she had found the strength to follow her inclinations without bothering with what everybody else thought. At work she could talk about her hobby – or her "real work" – only with Kevin, outside of the company there were very few people who were interested in her experiments, failures and successes.
At lunch she saw Rick again, and his smile had vanished. She sat with him and Kevin and Julie at the cafeteria, and noticed he was quieter than ever and spoke only about work. Kevin suggested they have a drink together to celebrate Rick's birthday before they went home, but again Bea noticed that lost look on his face as he hesitated.
"Not today," he said quickly. "I need to go back as soon as possible."
"It's your birthday," Kevin said with a shrug.
"Can't blame you if you don't want to spend it with boring coworkers," Julie added with a chuckle.
"It's not that, I..." Rick avoided eye contact.
"It's okay, you don't have to give reasons," Bea told him, patting his hand.
He shot a grateful glance at her. Julie and Kevin didn't insist, and they all headed back to their cubicles, but Bea thought Rick was definitely acting strange.
"Rick, you're forty. It's the start of a new life," she said before they split at their cubicles. "You'll be just fine."
"I hope so." His smile looked frail.
Bea wished she could be more direct and force him into some kind of confession. It might actually help him to talk about it...
None of my business! She went back to her workstation, trying to keep Rick out of her mind.
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