The Fall in Love Checklist

by Sarah Ready

  When we get close enough to the room I send a quick furtive glance at the plaque on the wall.

  It reads, Chemotherapy Lounge.

  Shock punches me and I recoil. I don’t want to go anywhere near that room. Laughter or not.

  The women cackle again.

  I wrap my arms around myself.

  “Are you cold, darling? Would you like a shawl?”

  “No, Mother. I’m fine.”

  “Of course you are, darling. Of course you are.”

  She lays a beige cashmere shawl across my lap.

  The smell of antiseptic chases us through the halls and clings to my skin. At the entry, Karl, our driver, opens the door to the Jaguar.

  “Good to see you, Miss Drake. Mrs. Drake.”

  He gives me a polite smile.

  “Thank you, Karl,” I say. I slide into the leather seat, careful not to pull on my stitches.

  My mother glides in next to me.

  “Now that this ghastly illness is over with, let’s discuss the future,” she says.

  She takes my hands as the Jag pulls out of the parking lot and into traffic.

  “Shawn has jumped ship,” she says.

  “He’s merely scared. A small misunderstanding.” I attempt to pacify.

  My mother pats my hand. “Exactly. I’ll consult with the plastic surgeon. Perhaps you should go to New York, rather than Stanton Medical. Yes, I think that’s best. A makeover. I just love makeovers. Why didn’t you marry Shawn years ago? I told you to. I warned you.”

  “Of course,” I say.

  I think about Shawn. About our home. It’s a beige sided new construction executive home that his parents gave him as a college graduation gift. It came with the promotion to President of The Boreman Group, his family’s business. I always wanted to paint the walls different colors, burgundy, ice blue, saffron, maybe sage green, but Shawn said a beige interior was more refined. For five years, I’ve been cocooned in beige.

  At least my childhood home isn’t beige. It’s white. All white.

  “And why are you still working? At least you took a break for this blip. What would they say? You know Drake women don’t work. They marry powerful men who work. It’s your job to run a household, be a hostess, sit on charity boards. Darling, why didn’t you marry years ago? You’ve wasted your life. Don’t wrinkle your brows. You know I’m right.”

  I sigh. “You know why. Shawn wanted to wait until he turned thirty. He said it’s passé to marry before then.”

  “Well, far be it from me to naysay, but your father’s not impressed.”

  My chin falls to my chest. My father. I’ve always craved his good opinion.

  When I was three months, my biological father left. As my mom tells it, he was her one true love, and she rues the day she ever laid eyes on him. He got the Russian model, my mother got me and a one-hundred-thousand-dollar divorce settlement. Dad number two left after one year and my mom received a cool million from the prenup. There was another after that. And another. When I was six, I’d already had four dads and my mom had climbed up the prenup ladder to independent wealth. Enter my current father. My mother told me that he wouldn’t leave us if I acted like a lady. She wanted this marriage to stick. At the engagement party my mother introduced me. I curtsied and lisped “how do you do?” My father-to-be was charmed and declared me his English rose. From that point forward I learned that in the world of the Drakes, I was to play the part of the lady, and if I played my part well, I’d be loved.

  And I’ve been well loved and cared for. From age six to twenty-four.

  Unfortunately, English roses don’t get breast cancer.

  It’s messy. And gross. And makes people uncomfortable.

  My mother pulls out her phone and opens her calendar. “I’m making a reminder to call the plastic surgery group in Manhattan. The Hollywood set uses them, not that I follow their vulgarity, but still, if it looks good on the silver screen…”

  I watch out the window as we pull into the drive.

  There, a half mile down the gently rolling, weeping willow-lined driveway, is my childhood home—Rolling Acres. It sits like a diamond, nestled in emerald green lawns. It was built in 1881, after Thaddeus Drake, my father’s great-great-great-grandfather, made his first million. It’s a palatial white rectangular mansion with long, tall windows and a dozen chimneys. Wide marble front steps sweep up to the front door.

  When I was little I imagined it was the palace in a fairy tale. It filled me with wonder.

  “Welcome home, darling. You may stay a few days.” She sighs as she looks me over. “A week or two at most. Oh, darling.”

  I lift my sagging shoulders.

  Karl opens my door and my mother helps me out of the car. We walk up the front steps, then my mother opens the heavy wooden door and I step into the white marble entry. Our shoes echo on the stone floor. I look up at the domed ceiling and columns and grand staircase. The thirty-two steps never seemed such a great distance to climb before today. I ignore my clammy palms as we climb the stairs and then walk down the wide hallway.

  My bedroom is one of seven on the second floor. When we reach it, I open the door. The room is the same as I left it five years ago. White walls. White bedding. White carpet. Three hundred square feet of clean, white, colorless, pristine…room. Looking at it makes me unreasonably sad. And tired.

  “I’m going to lie down,” I say.

  My mother hesitates at the door. Finally she puts her hand on my arm and squeezes. Words of meaning have never come easy to her.

  “I’ll have chef send up a dinner tray,” she says.

  Which I know means I love you.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  My mother closes the door. I listen to the soft rustling of her satin skirt until the sound fades. Then I step away from the door and look around the empty room. Nothing to do now but move forward. I pull out my phone and look at the screen. It’s a picture of me and Shawn at his parents’ house. We look happy. We were happy.

  Before I can think better of it, I tap his name.

  He answers on the third ring.

  “Daniella,” he says. His voice is short.

  “Hi, Shawn.” I silently push for him to say something. When he doesn’t, I continue. “I’m out of the hospital. My mother said you sent over my things.” My heart thuds inappropriately loudly in my ears.

  I hear a voice on the other end of the line and Shawn mutters something in return.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says.

  There’s another short silence. My legs start to shake. I walk to the bed and sit down on the edge.

  “Look, I don’t want to make this awkward and rehash what I said yesterday. Can we let this drop?” he asks in a tight voice.

  I lean forward and take a deep breath. No, we can’t, I want to scream, what are you thinking?

  Instead, I say, “I thought…I thought you may have changed your mind. I’d like to come home. To you.”

  He says nothing, so I whisper, “I know this was a shock. It scared me too. But I’m better now.”

  Silence. And I hear in his silence how pathetic my request sounds. How sad and small.

  “Daniella. Please don’t make a scene.”

  My breath is sharp and short. I’ve never in my life made a scene. The white room swims around me. I grasp the comforter with my free hand and the white fabric bunches in my hand.

  “What can I do to fix this?” I ask.

  He sighs, long and low. “I don’t know.”

  “So, there’s something I can do?”

  “No, that’s not what I said.”

  “But you don’t know one hundred percent that things are over.”

  The voice sounds again in the background, high and thin. Who is that?

  “We can still get married. We don’t have to cancel the wedding. You still love me, I know—”

  “I have to go,” he says.

  “Can I see you? Can I come home?”

  “No. Maybe. No
. Look, Daniella, you are home. Please don’t make this hard.”

  He hangs up and I’m left holding a silent phone to my ear. I pull it away and stare at our picture on the screen. A peculiar stinging sensation rushes through me and I can’t believe he’s done this, I can’t…I can’t…the feeling threatens to erupt, and I shove it back down. My phone screen goes blank and I see my reflection. Pinched mouth, wide eyes. I smooth my face into the picture of calm.

  A thick lump sits in my throat. But I won’t cry.

  I can fix this.

  I survived the mastectomy. I can get Shawn back.

  For a moment, my world feels like it has broken, and all the glass pieces are reflecting a different reality. One where, even though I am kind, and good, and give all my love to others, they don’t love me back. They hurt me. It’s a world where I have no one. I always expected that if I was nice, if I smiled and nodded and agreed, if I gave and helped and loved, that I would be loved back. Was I wrong?

  I shake my head.

  No. I can’t have been.

  So, what now? I can’t go home to Shawn and I can’t stay here. I need a place to live.

  I work through my contact list, all my friends in and around Stanton are friends of Shawn too. They can’t help.

  I don’t know any work colleagues well enough to ask.

  Finally, after two hours of texting and calling, I admit defeat. No one wants a post-surgery, post break-up disaster sleeping in their guest room or on their living room couch.

  Okay.

  If my mother means it, and I really can’t stay here, then I’ll rent an apartment.

  It’ll be fun.

  Shawn will come around soon. I’ll get him back and I’ll get my life back. There’s nothing in the world that can stop that from happening.

  7

  Dany

  * * *

  Two weeks pass. I rest. I get my drains removed. I have physical therapy. I start to feel almost myself again. My mom hints that I need to find another domicile. My dad hints how much he’d like Shawn as a son-in-law. Shawn ignores my calls.

  On a dry but blustery early spring Tuesday, I call about an apartment.

  It meets my single criteria—available immediately. Surprisingly, there’s a severe shortage of housing in Stanton.

  The landlord says to swing by at ten. There’s something familiar about his voice. But I ignore the niggle. Last night at dinner the tension with my mother and father was palpable. They must be desperate to enjoy solitude during their “second wind.”

  The taxi pulls up to the house on Rose Street five minutes before ten. Karl, our driver, asked if I needed a ride, but I want to do this on my own. I pay and step out of the back seat.

  The front yard is a postage stamp. Tiny. And full of scraggly brown winter grass and overgrown bushes. An empty wooden porch wraps around the front of the house. I take a minute to look my fill.

  The house is a little bungalow with peeling yellow paint and rotting wood around the windows. There are weeds clustered at the foundation. I can’t help feeling that it’s a sad little place. It’s in a neighborhood of teeny Cape Cods and bungalows, all bunched together and lined up closely to the road. This house is the most tired, though. The others are well maintained.

  I wrap my coat closer and burrow into its warmth. Maybe this was a mistake. I look at the house again. The torn screen door on the porch flaps in the cold wind. Its hinges squeak as it bangs against the wall.

  My heels click on the sidewalk as I walk to the front door. I watch my step on the stairs. I’d hate to fall through a rotted board. I reach up and ring the bell.

  It chimes a little old-fashioned melody.

  No answer.

  I ring again. It echoes inside.

  I shift uncomfortably. I feel a little queasy. To be fair, I skipped breakfast. My stomach gurgles. I’m tempted to turn around. I could call a taxi and go home, back to my mother. But no. I’ll get my life back on track on my own.

  “Door’s open,” I hear a man’s rich drawling voice. “Come on in.”

  I frown. Who leaves front doors unlocked? Who lets people in without knowing who it is? I turn the old brass doorknob and slowly open the door.

  I step into the dim interior.

  “Hello?” I call.

  The interior of the house is a construction site. The brown carpet is partially torn up, the avocado wallpaper is half peeled off and hanging in grotesque curls, there are saws and hammers and drill thingies and…I think I’m in the wrong place.

  “Hello? Mr. Jones?”

  I step over a pile of debris.

  “In the kitchen,” he calls.

  I walk down the hall toward his voice. Again, it sounds familiar. Not only from the phone call, but from something else. Stanton is a small city, maybe we’ve met?

  I make it to the kitchen and let out a surprised huff.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say.

  I’m talking about the stained-glass window over the large farmhouse sink. The window is maybe four feet across and four feet tall. It’s clear beveled glass with panels of colored glass showing scenes from a garden. Yellow roses, white lilies, purple hyacinth, butterflies and green grass. I can almost smell the grass—fresh mowed springtime. The sun is shining through the window and little rainbows are glinting on the white marble countertops. I smile at the farmhouse sink. There’s a hand-painted wheelbarrow in a flower garden.

  “Mind giving me a hand?”

  I startle at the man’s voice. “I’m sorry. I was admiring the view.”

  He chuckles and the sound reminds me of warm honey dripping over freshly baked buttery biscuits. My mouth starts to water.

  I peek around the kitchen and realize he’s on his hands and knees. His head is buried in a cabinet and his backside is…goodness. My mouth stops watering and goes dry. His backside is gorgeous.

  “Admire away,” he says. I choke a bit when I realize what view he must think I’m talking about. “But while you look, do you mind giving me a Phillips head?”

  “Pardon me?” I say. What’s a Phillips head?

  He cranes his neck around and stares at me from the darkness under the cabinet. Prickles form along my skin. I feel an electric pulse and I’m itchy and uncomfortable. I shift under his hidden gaze. Then I wonder, is Phillips head another term for head? Is he propositioning me? My face heats.

  “A Phillips head. There’s a connection here that I need to screw.”

  I gasp. “I’m sorry, I came here about the rental. Not…” I clear my throat. Not about screwing.

  He mutters something under his breath. He backs out of the cabinet and stands. As he turns, I take a step back. And another. He fills the space. Absolutely fills it.

  I ignore the electrical feel lighting in my body. I ignore the rainbows from the glass window shining on him. I ignore the halo of light surrounding him and the thought that he was sent from heaven just for me. Not a chance.

  “You,” I say.

  Dark brown wavy hair. Gray eyes. Full, smiling lips. A dimple in his left cheek. I know this man.

  I hold up my hands, warding him off. He witnessed the most mortifying moment, the most pathetic moment of my life. To be honest, he made me feel like a fool. Embarrassment washes through me.

  “Me?” He smiles and looks down at himself then shrugs. “Give me a minute, honey. I need to screw something real quick.”

  My mouth falls open then I snap it shut. Not me, he won’t. “Just because I said I’d marry you”—I hold up a finger—“while I was under heavy medication, mind you, does not mean I’ll screw you, or give you a Phillips head, or do anything else your opportunistic mind comes up with. I’m here about the rental. But not any longer.”

  “Wait a minute. What?”

  I hurry from the kitchen. I hear him coming after me. My embarrassment becomes righteous anger. I turn around to face him. Our faces are inches apart in the cramped space of the hallway. The light is dim again and I blink until he comes into focus. His l
ips. They are so close to mine. I shake my head and look into his eyes.

  “I think we have a misunderstanding,” he says in a low, slow drawl. It reminds me of the way he spoke to me in the hospital. My body itches to move even closer to him. I scowl.

  “There’s no misunderstanding. I will never give you a Phillips head, or a screw, and I will never, ever marry you. I was post-surgery, you cretin. I was here about the rental.” I put my hands on my hips and try to look firm. Because, sad to say, when I emphasized the words “head” and “screw,” certain images entered my mind. Images I liked.

  He’s trying to respond. He starts. Stops. Runs his hand through his hair. When he does I can smell wood chips and oil and leather. I start to take another breath, then stop myself. This man is not Shawn, he’s exactly the opposite of Shawn. Which means, he’s the opposite of what I want and need. My heart falls in my chest and gives a sad little ping. I don’t want to think about why.

  “Pardon me, I’ll be going now,” I say.

  I can’t live here. Because, one, it’s under construction. I don’t do construction or fixer-uppers or whatever. Two, this man witnessed me vulnerable and pathetic. I don’t do that either. And three, every time he’s near I feel antsy and confused and forget about Shawn and start thinking about other things and…no. Just, no. I liked my life the way it was, and this situation here is not going to help me get it back.

  “Goodbye,” I say. I step into the living room. My eyes fill with hot tears and my vision blurs.

  “Watch out,” he says.

  I look down, worried I’m about to step in something. But down was the wrong way to look. My head smacks a wood plank and I stumble back and then fall on my butt. Sticky, gooey cold liquid soaks through my pants.

  I cringe and scramble back like a crab. A plastic tray sticks to my butt. I lurch back and smack against a roll of old carpet.

  “There’s a two by four. And a paint tray.” He leans down next to me. “Are you alright?”

  I shake my head. He looks me over and something shifts in his eyes.

  “You’re bleeding.” His mouth tightens into a firm line.