About two months into the separation, they bumped into each other at the grocery store.
He looked worn and thin, and his eyes lit up when he saw her. She looked at this man with whom she’d shared a bed for the entirety of her adult life, and tried to feel something, anything even slightly positive.
But for the life of her, she couldn’t dig up any emotion but irritation. He’d sucked any and all good feeling toward him out of her long, long ago. She was long past forcing out feelings for this child-man that weren’t there.
“You look great,” he’d told her forlornly.
“Thanks,” she’d said lightly, unable to return the compliment. He looked like hell. In fact, he looked like, he hadn’t figured that since no one was around to make his meals and wash his clothes and charge his razor, he should to do it himself.
“I think . . .” he began, and stopped to clear his throat; her breath caught in her own.
She thought he was going to confess, at last, that he’d caused the rift in their marriage by refusing to work. By refusing to do anything but get stoned, play video games, and work in his studio on music that he never finished recording—let alone make any attempt to actually start a musical career. To apologize that it hadn’t mattered how many times Suzanne had begged the management of whatever waitressing job she’d held at that moment to let him play on open mic nights. To apologize that it hadn’t mattered how many times she’d broken down and told him he was going to work her to death, that she needed help, that she needed a break. To apologize for the fact that her needs and feelings simply hadn’t mattered to him.
I don’t do things I don’t want to do, he had told her at eighteen; at eighteen, it was rebellious and badass; by age twenty-five, it was disgusting. At thirty-eight? She had no words for it.
Standing there in the grocery store, she’d held her breath anxiously; she had been waiting a long time for this apology.
“I still think,” he went on, “that when you’re tired of being on your own, when you feel like you’ve made your point, you’ll be back.”
She let her breath out again but found she wasn’t disappointed. He’d disappointed her so many times for so long that she was immune.
Being on my own, she wanted to say, is so much better than carrying you on my back.
But he wouldn’t understand it—he never had. It was supposed to be her joy and pleasure, remember?
Not so much, as it turned out.
“I hate to break it to you,” she’d told him, and she couldn’t keep the cheer out of her voice, “but I’m never, ever coming back to you. Not sooner, not later, not ever.”
“My mom says,” he started, and Suzanne wondered how many times she’d heard him begin a sentence that way, “that women over thirty-five have as much chance of marrying again as getting slaughtered by a serial killer.”
She reached into the freezer and pulled out a gallon of two-percent milk.
“Tell her I’ll take my chances with the serial killer,” she’d replied, and then happily pushed her cart down the aisle, leaving him staring behind her.
One of the great things about staying with her mother was the food, of course. Ava’s cooking had begun in an effort to keep herself busy after she’d quit hitting the bottle, but it soon became an addiction in and of itself. Here was a constant stream of snacks, appetizers, and entrees going at all times, not to mention several canisters waiting on the table by the door—this one was for her AA meetings, that one was for Ava’s next-door neighbor’s granddaughter’s bridal shower, yet another was for Fritzie at the Senior Center’s retirement bash. Any excuse to bust out the apron was a good excuse, it seemed.
Suzanne found herself struggling to maintain her size-eight pants, although, she consoled herself, would a size-ten thirty-six-year-old really be that bad?
After all, she reasoned, they say the average American woman is five-foot-four, one hundred and forty-four pounds, and wears a size twelve. I'm still in the one-thirties, and I’m five seven and a half.
But more than anything, it felt nice to take a break, for a change. A break from being the responsible one, the grown-up, the caretaker. A break, during which someone took care of her for awhile, while she sorted out her future.
It was wonderful . . . but after eighteen years, it was quite hard to get used to.
She kept waking up in a panic because an alarm hadn’t jolted her into consciousness. She found herself leaping to her feet, sure that she’d left the stove on, that she was late for one of her two (and sometimes three) jobs, that she had to go pick Molly up somewhere, that Steve needed something fetched or dropped off or purchased, or that there was clean laundry wilting in the dryer.
And then she’d remember where she was.
At a place where her laundry was washed for her, folded and hung up neatly. Where the stove always had at least two burners going of things she hadn’t had to cook and wouldn’t have to clean up after.
All Suzanne had to do with her free days was to come up with a game plan for the next few decades.
Nothing in her life before this had trained her for such a task.
Her mother, such a burden once upon a time, was now a blessing. She was downright fun and energetic; she acted like Suzanne’s visit was an ongoing slumber party. And, to her credit, not once had she trotted out the I-always-told-you-I-never-liked-that-boy speeches. Through a Herculean effort, Suzanne was sure, Ava was holding herself back, and that alone was a miracle, almost as big as her newfound freedom was.
Suddenly, she lifted her head off the lounge chair, hearing bits of a conversation floating to her from the sidewalk.
“Wow, I can’t believe you knew my grandfather.” Molly’s sweet voice came floating across the yard. “That was one karmic bus ride.”
My daughter, Suzanne smiled happily, getting up from her chair to greet her, the great believer in pre-destiny, post-destiny, and all the destinies in between.
“Oh, I more than knew him,” an older man replied. His voice was strangely familiar. “He was my best . . .”
And then his eyes fell upon Suzanne, and he fell silent.
Suzanne’s eyes widened in shock as she froze mid-step, completely stunned. Oh my God. It can’t be . . . Can it?
TWO
“Hey you!” She crushed out her American Spirit hastily and searched her pocketbook for a mint. Molly hated cigarette breath, and there was nothing like a lecture from your own kid to dampen the mood.
Popping a Life Saver, she watched Molly cross the lawn. There she was, her one and only baby. Her hair was falling out of a ragged ponytail, and the mascara she’d put on that morning had run all the way down to her nose ring. Her black clothes were skin-tight and so tattered and torn that Suzanne wondered if she’d gotten them from the Goodwill dumpster.
Only Molly could look so completely disheveled and so achingly beautiful at the same time.
“Get over here!” Suzanne called. “I haven’t seen you for a month; I need a hug right this minute!”
“Squishing, Mom!” Molly laughed her wind chime laugh, pushing away her mother’s overeager embrace. “Hey, you’re not going to believe who was on the bus with me.”
Suzanne put her hand to her throat, heart suddenly pounding, and approached the handsome older man, holding out her trembling hand for a handshake.
“Excuse me, this is going to sound crazy, but you look just like . . . I mean, what I mean to say is . . .” She took a deep breath and tried again. “My name is Suzanne Lauder, but it used to be Suzanne . . .”
“Applebaum,” the distinguished gentleman cut her off smoothly, “which is German, but everyone always thought you were Irish because of all that red hair . . . and because your daddy ran O‘Shenanigan’s, the greenest of the Irish pubs here in New Hampshire. By the way,” he looked down his nose reprovingly, “after all those books you used to read by all those fuzzy-legged, braless feminists in high school, are you seriously telling me you took a man’s name when you got married? W
hy didn’t you just put on a dog collar and hand him the leash?”
It was him.
“Oh, Buddy! Buddy McKinley!” She hesitated for only a second, looking down at his cane, before she threw her arms around his neck (what the hell, he’d always been strong as an ox), wanting to laugh and cry all at once.
“The one and only.” He hugged her back, and cane or not, his arms were just as strong as she remembered.
“I can’t believe it. Just look at you. You look wonderful! Not a day older—not an hour older!”
“You gorgeous little liar.” He let her go, and tugged on her hair just like he had when she was a little girl, and all of a sudden he was Uncle Buddy—her hero, her daddy’s best friend, the man who could do no wrong, at least not in twelve-year-old Suzanne Applebaum’s eyes. “I look like a retired old man, that’s what I look like. But, I have a golf handicap of thirty-eight, and good enough eyesight to drive my sports car when it’s not in the garage—although it seems like I ride the bus an awful lot. But enough about me. Let’s look at you.”
Suzanne pranced around in a circle like a proud little girl; out of the corner of her eye she saw Molly put her hand over her eyes, cringing, and laughed.
“You’re not the only hot ticket in this family, Missy,” she reminded Molly.
“You’re the one who hasn’t changed a bit in twenty years,” he told her proudly, “except to get even prettier.”
“Oh, listen to him.” Suzanne blushed like the teenager she’d been when she last saw him. “But, go on, tell me more.”
Buddy would have been more than happy to oblige, but Molly interceded.
“Hey, Mom, guess what?” She grabbed her mother’s hand excitedly. “Buddy’s going to be our next-door neighbor. Isn’t that great?”
Suzanne’s heart stopped, for just a second.
“Well, technically, he wouldn’t be our next door neighbor,” Molly amended, “considering that we don’t live here in the retirement village permanently. But until Dad coughs up the dough for the house, and I get my dorm assignment, it’s home.”
“Home,” Suzanne agreed. She wondered if there was some safe sort of tranquilizer to give alcoholics, because when Ava found out, she was going to shit her pants. And not in a good way.
Buddy glanced over at the centerpiece Ava had been working on.
“Ava’s still up to her arts and crafts, I see. She used to make the most unbelievable things for the pub . . . Sometimes she’d even take a table at craft fairs and farmer’s markets. I take it those are for me?” He touched the petals lightly. “Or rather, they were, that is, until Ava finds out who her new neighbor’s going to be.”
“Oh, Buddy.” Suzanne laughed nervously, putting her arm around Molly. “I’m sure Mother’s forgotten all about that by now.”
“Grandma? My grandma, Ava Applebaum, forget something?” Molly roared with laughter, beating her knee. “Stop joking please, I might pee my pants.” She ignored her mother’s cut-that-out look and hauled her backpack up on her shoulder. “Anyway, I’ve got to take a nap and a shower, and then I’ll be human again, so any lecturing can wait till later. It was nice to meet you, Buddy!” she called out, giving him one of her sweetest smiles, usually the kind she reserved for asking for a big favor involving money or a car.
Suzanne thought, Buddy must have made his usual charming impression. Some things never change. Suzanne found herself recalling all the times Buddy’s smooth manner and earnest charm had warded off many a bar fight, or an angry employee, or an irate distributor whose product wasn’t selling quite as well as it might at the Irish pub; the man was an artist with words.
“You too, Pumpkin!” Buddy called; the charm was apparently mutual. He sat down on his bench and patted the space next to him.
Suzanne skipped happily over to him, but then she remembered that while seeing him made her feel like a child, she wasn’t one, and hadn’t been for quite some time. As if to prove it, she lit up a Spirit, exhaling slowly.
“So, Miss Suzanne, you sit down for a minute, and tell me all about what you’ve been up to for the past twenty years. Are you setting the world on fire yet?”
“One needy, codependent ex-husband at a time.” She giggled again, embarrassed. Last time they’d seen each other, she’d been a die-hard, college-bound women’s libber, not a thirty-six-year-old divorcée with a resumé full of barely-above-minimum-wage jobs. “Actually, on the way to women’s studies, I took the old marriage/children detour. You know how it goes.”
She hoped fervently that he did, in fact, know how it went, so she wouldn’t have to try to explain her list of life failures further.
“For shame!” he scolded, patting her hand to take the sting out of his words.
“I know, I know.” Then she brightened. “But! This very winter, I am finally going to college. To UNH specifically, same time as my daughter goes for her undergrad at Vassar. Vassar! Can you believe that? Full tuition scholarship! Her entire school career, her lowest grade was one A-, and that was in gym. Considering she has Steve and me for parents, I have no idea where she gets it. I, on the other hand,” she rolled her eyes ruefully, “will be paying back student loans from the grave.”
Her last sentence, Suzanne thought later, could have been, “Naked ladies are parachuting out of a helicopter!” and Buddy wouldn’t have heard a syllable of it; for at that exact moment, Ava stepped out of her house.
“Your daughter,” Ava said disapprovingly as she glided down the steps, “is dressed in clothes I’d be embarrassed to have seen in my garbage cans.”
“Mom!” Suzanne pasted a smile on her face, the kind usually reserved for company and job interviews. “Look who just bought the house next door.”
“Well, hello there,” Buddy drawled, swallowing a couple of times, his throat having suddenly gone dry. “It’s you.”
“Well, hello there, it’s you too,” Ava agreed amiably, pulling out her glasses from her jacket pocket, “but actually, I don’t have my glasses on yet, so who knows, it might be someone else altogether.”
Then she slid her glasses on. For a long moment she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, or even blink, it seemed. And neither did anyone else.
“It’s . . . you,” Ava said tonelessly.
“Yes, indeedy, it’s me.” He whispered to Suzanne, “I thought you’d said she’d forgotten all about it by now.”
“You’d already unpacked,” Suzanne whispered back apologetically. “What was I supposed to say?”
“You’re . . . a . . . a . . . a stalker, that’s what you are!” Ava sputtered. “A stalker!! I’m calling the police. Police!!” She stomped up and down the driveway, waving her arms frantically. “Police!! Police!!!!!”
“Mother, for God’s sake,” Suzanne shushed her before she could attract the attention of the patrol unit. There were several nosy neighbors, however, who were more than happy to watch the show. Life could get boring in a retirement village; scenes like this broke up the monotony of daily doctor reports. “You’re making a complete fool of yourself!”
“Just out of curiosity,” Buddy asked, genially enough for a man accused of a felony, “what am I going to be arrested for? Just, you know, so I can be sure to dress properly for the mug shot.”
“I just told you, you big jerk!” Ava spat. “You followed me here! You’re a stalker!”
“I did no such thing.” He leaned on his cane and pulled his pipe and tobacco out of his hip pocket. “I didn’t follow you; I bought a house. And if it took me twenty years to find you and corner you, then I’m one shitty stalker, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone. After all, a man’s got his pride.”
Suzanne giggled, but a glance from Ava cut the noise off like a slash from a scalpel.
“Which is more than you deserve.” She fumed. “My James didn’t have much pride left after you got through with him.”
Ava’s arrow hit its mark directly, and the wounded look on Buddy’s face was more than Suzanne could bear.
“Mother, that was such a long time ago.” Suzanne stepped between them. “Besides, it’s not good for you to get worked up like this. Dr. Maloney said so, remember?” She reached for the pitcher. “Here, let me pour you a nice glass of iced tea. You love iced tea on a hot day, right? Come on, take this, calm down, and drink up.”
“After he sells his house and moves away!” Ava refused the tea. In her rage, she sounded amazingly like Molly.
“I’ll do no such thing.” Buddy took a moment to light his pipe, and the smell brought Suzanne back twenty-five years. It was as though the past had leaped up and put its flavor in her mouth. “Do you have any idea the amount of time it takes to pack up an entire house? Especially wrapping all the little knickknacks my mother and sister have given me over the years? No siree, Bob.” He shook his head vehemently. “I spent six solid months up to my ass in Styrofoam peanuts and plastic wrap, and if you think I’m doing it again, you’re nuts.”
“Mother, I really think you’re overreacting here.” She looked pleadingly at Ava. “Buddy was such a good friend to you and Daddy for well over twenty years . . .”
“And now,” Ava spat furiously, “he’s a stalker!”
“As much as I hate to burst the bubble that your pretty little head is encased in,” Buddy said, not unkindly, “I had no idea you lived here. I didn’t see you once when I was unpacking, and my nephew said all he saw was a silly old lady in a funny hat peeking in the windows. Looking back, I guess I should have guessed it was you, but I didn’t.”
“And you expect me to believe that one?” Ava was aghast. “Look, bub. There’s a set of perfectly fine brains under this funny hat. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
He eyed her up and down. “Clearly.”
Suzanne gave him a look that said, Was that necessary? Buddy was too busy smiling at Ava’s reaction to notice.
“I want you out of here, immediately,” seethed Ava, “or, I’ll, I’ll . . .” She couldn’t think of anything bad enough to finish the sentence, and so she stood there, sputtering, her fists clenching and unclenching.
She Effin' Hates Me Page 3