The Life You've Imagined

by Kristina Riggle

  Mom glances at the door to make sure there are no customers coming in. She drops her voice lower. “I hope she didn’t . . . You don’t suppose, if she forgot what year it was and thought some guy was her boyfriend . . .”

  “I hope not, but I don’t really know. Like I said, she wouldn’t talk about it.”

  I don’t say it out loud to my mother, but along with the chance that Aunt Sally had sex with a stranger because she was out of her head, she could have been raped. Actually, one is the same as the other, because the guy in question would probably have known she was acting strange, not in her right head. I suppose we could drag her to the sexual assault crisis center, have a rape kit administered, and try to get to the bottom of it.

  Or, we could leave her alone.

  “It’s not your fault,” I tell her.

  Mom averts her eyes. “In any case, we’d better watch her close.”

  My cell phone bleeps. I read Beck’s message.

  Moving into a house in Poplar Bluff. Buyers pulled out of sale. Dad needed a tenant. Big enough for two.

  He includes the address in the message.

  I snap the phone shut and resume straightening the cans.

  “Who was that?” Mom asks, leafing through a magazine.

  “Shelby.”

  I’ve got duplexes and apartments circled in the newspaper, mostly two-bedroom. Mom is assuming all three of us will be staying together, at least for now, and it’s the only option that makes sense. I have savings, but not so much that I can pay rent on two apartments without a second thought, especially given how grim the job market’s been looking lately.

  The thought of sharing four beige walls in a rental unit with my mother and batty maiden aunt is almost enough to send me crawling back to Chicago and begging Miller Paulson for my job back. Almost.

  And now here’s Beck with his “big enough for two.”

  Too fast, and yet, wasn’t it years in the making? His text from last night said his wife had found an attorney.

  So it seems she’s prepared to divorce.

  They are, however, keeping everything as quiet as possible until after Paul’s wedding, in which Maddie is going to be a flower girl and Beck is a groomsman. That will be their last public appearance as husband and wife, he’d said.

  My invitation to the wedding had arrived just yesterday, along with one for Mom. Mom threw hers in the garbage. I’ve got my RSVP marked with “regrets” and ready to go out with the day’s mail.

  “I think I’m just going to close the place down,” Mom says abruptly, slapping her magazine closed. “Who cares now?”

  “Right now?”

  “Not this minute. Maybe next week—Friday should be our last day. Then I’ll take a drive up north.”

  “A drive?”

  “Sure, why not? I never get weekends off. I’ll just drive up north and get some air.”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  “Would you be offended if I said I just need some alone time?”

  “Not at all.” I understand all too well.

  I glance at the calendar behind the counter. That’s the Friday before the Becker wedding. “Well, it’s as good a time as any. I’ll make a ‘going out of business’ sign.”

  “Don’t bother. I don’t want any fuss.”

  Indeed. That’s all we’ve had lately. A whole lot of fuss.

  Cami comes down the stairs, her face looking much better already. She’s pulled her hair back.

  “Hey, you fixed your glasses,” I say, noticing they’re back on her face as normal.

  “I glued them. I can’t fold them up anymore, but at least they stay on. And no tape on them, yeah?”

  “So, are you feeling okay?” Mom asks, giving Cami that slit-eyed once-over she always used on me after a bad test at school or a tumble on the playground.

  “Right as rain.” She puts her hands on her hips. “Need a break, Maeve? I’m bored.”

  “You’re on.”

  “We have to look at some apartments, anyway,” I tell Cami after I line up the SpaghettiOs. “And I have a complaint to file in circuit court, and then we’ll go get your stuff from your dad’s.”

  It felt funny, last night. I couldn’t sleep after failing to find Sally, so instead, I got back to lawyering. This time I wasn’t sitting at my huge desk in my office with my high heels kicked off under the desk; I was cross-legged on my narrow childhood bed with my laptop, Cami asleep on the floor. It didn’t take me long to write; climbing back in the saddle was easy. I saved it to a thumb drive so I could go print it out.

  It was fun, even, gearing up to kick some ass. Not that I didn’t kick ass at Miller Paulson; I kicked plenty, and though I believed every word I wrote, everything I said at the time, looking at my work there with some distance, all the battles were usually between huge entities or wealthy people scrapping over money.

  This ass-kicking is personal and deserved. I’m not a mercenary now, hired to carry out the battle plan; oh, no.

  Cami reclined in the office chair. “How long could this take?”

  “It will take some time. It depends how hard he fights, whether he hires his own lawyer. He might settle, which would be faster but might get you less than what you’re owed.”

  “Hmmm. Less, huh?”

  “Sometimes speed is preferable. Depends what your goal is. What you really want.”

  “Mmm.” Cami tips her head back in the chair and spins herself in half circles, idly stroking her fading bruise with the tips of her fingers.

  Chapter 45

  Cami

  Anna slows her car in front of my house—scratch that, Dad’s house—and if we see his truck or any sign of movement in the windows from Sherry, we are outta here. Seems safe, though, so we exchange a look and pull up front.

  I go quickly across the grass, pulling out my keys as I do. I’d like to just mosey, as an act of defiance. I’m not afraid of him. He already knocked me cold and slapped me around. Do your worst! I would like to say, and spit on him, just for that extra hit of drama, because why not? But I’ve got Anna here, and I wouldn’t like her to get beat up on my account.

  The key doesn’t even go in.

  “Piece of shit changed the locks on me.”

  We look for open windows, but they’re all shut.

  “C’mon, let’s head out back.”

  Our feet crunch on the gravel and as we walk down the drive. That’s when my dad’s neighbor slams her window shut. Anna jumps. “Hey, cool it, there, 007,” I say, elbowing her.

  On the back porch, I find a window open halfway. “Stand back,” I tell Anna, and grab an old beer bottle. I smash the end off, then use the jagged edge to rip the screen out.

  I turn to Anna and wink. She looks like she might throw up. “You’ll defend me against a breaking and entering charge, yeah?”

  “You bet.” She doesn’t smile, though.

  I wriggle in through the half-open window and open the back door for Anna. I gesture for her to follow me into my room, where I stop so quick she bumps into me from behind.

  My dresser drawers are standing open; my folding closet door is off the track and hanging akimbo from the hinges. Everything’s empty. Even the sheets are ripped off the bed, which has been moved away from the wall.

  There are shoeprints all over my sunny yellow paint.

  I lead Anna down the hall and there, in the living room, is my stuff in a pile, like it’s ready for a bonfire. On the top of the mess is the framed photograph of Mom, Trent, and me, the one that fell off my wall the first day back. Its glass is cracked with a spider-web pattern, as if punched.

  I slide the photo out of its frame and fold it inside an old math book.

  “Let’s go,” I tell Anna.

  “Don’t you want me to find some boxes or something? For all this?”

  I shrug. “It’s just stuff. None of it means a damn thing.”

  A pounding on the door make us both jump this time. It’s not my dad because this person is too
short; anyway, he must have his own key.

  I open the door to find Sherry, looking around her frantically, like she’s being chased by a lion.

  “You guys have gotta get outta here. Now.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Your dad got a call at the shop. I was on my way out when I overheard. The neighbor called to say you were breaking in, and he started cursing and talking about a citizen’s arrest. He’s really lit, too.”

  I don’t have to be told twice. But halfway across the weedy yard, I stop and turn back to Sherry, still on the porch. “Hey, um, thanks for that. He’ll be pissed if he catches you here, yeah?”

  “Probably,” she says, pronouncing it “prolly.”

  “So, go already.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’d better.”

  She looks lost. She might not have any class and she’s definitely no intellectual giant, but she just risked her ass for me and I can’t just let her stand there. “Hey!” I snap my fingers at her. I can see Anna has already started the car. “You gotta go.”

  “Well, I kinda got tossed outta my place, so . . .”

  “Uh-uh. I’ll tell you right now that a cardboard box is better than this. You know that yourself; tell me you don’t.”

  “Cami!”

  We lingered too long. His truck skids around the corner, and I flinch because he’s headed right for Anna’s car.

  “Dad!” I scream as his truck slides, fishtailing, until it’s nose to nose with Anna’s bumper.

  He stumbles out the door, looking from me to Sherry. “You!” he bellows, jabbing a finger at her. “You helped her bust into my house. My own house!”

  “I didn’t, Tim, I swear!” She holds her hands up like he’s going to shoot her.

  I sure hope he doesn’t have a gun.

  He whirls on me, but I don’t shrink away. For one thing, he’s still several feet from me, and it’s broad daylight. In the corner of my eye, I can see Anna muttering into her cell phone.

  “And you! You’re always leaving me!”

  “What the . . . ? You threw me out! After beating the crap out of me!” I point to my eye.

  “How could you leave me all alone like this?” he bellows like a wounded bear.

  I gasp and clutch my chest. He said that to my mom, just before she went into the hospital that very last time. As if she got sick on purpose, just to hurt him.

  Movement to my left catches my eye. Anna strides across the grass, looking very lawyer-like, despite her capri pants and ponytail. She walks right up to my father and smacks him in the chest with some papers.

  I suck in a sharp breath, but he seems to be so stunned all he does is take the papers and frown at them.

  “You’re being sued, asshole. For the money you stole from your daughter.”

  “C’mon, Cami,” she says, and walks backward to her car, one eye on my father, who is reading and becoming more scarlet by the moment.

  “Sherry! You coming?” I say, doing my own backward walk. She just shakes her head.

  Please? I mouth the word to her, across the lawn, pointing at the car. C’mon!

  She shakes her head slowly, waving her hands at us. You go on.

  Anna does a Y-turn and drives off in the opposite direction of the sirens.

  “She’ll be okay. The police just got a tip about a drunk and disorderly. If we’re lucky, he’ll get in his truck and start driving so they can get him for that, too.”

  “Lucky, yeah.” I say, sinking back in the seat and taking out my family picture to look at myself in my pig-tailed youth. “We could use some of that.”

  Chapter 46

  Maeve

  I’m in front of my bathroom mirror, primping. When was the last time I bothered? My freckles stand out bright against my skin, like someone scattered dust across my chest. Robert won’t mind, though. He used to kiss them, pretending to kiss each one individually, until . . .

  I haven’t felt this way in so very long.

  I stayed up most of the night finishing the dress. Sally did ask me what I was working on, and I just told her I wanted a new summer outfit.

  I wish I could get a full-length view, but we don’t have a full-length mirror in the place. I’ll have to content myself with admiring the neckline in the bathroom cabinet mirror, and trust that the hem is even.

  The last day of the Nee Nance. The day I see Robert again. There’s a certain poetry to that.

  My wedding ring is in a zippered pocket in the lining of my purse. It would be exposed if I wore it with this dress and its scoop neck, and I don’t want Robert to leap to any conclusions if he sees it there.

  I hope I can put it back on my finger, though. And soon.

  I have makeup in my purse, too, which I haven’t worn since the last wedding I went to, which was probably two years ago now. I dare not put it on yet; Anna would ask too many questions. Anyway, it would fade off in the long drive to Cadillac.

  It was good of Veronica to lend me her car, since the Buick died, and agree to keep an eye on Sally for me. I’d brought her a cake from the bakery in the next block by way of apology for blowing up at her earlier suggestion Anna was “cracking.” I told her I was hoping to get away for some personal time, and she readily agreed to help, telling me I should ask for assistance more often.

  Anna will watch the register today. I told her I didn’t want to be there for the end of it all, and she could close up whenever she felt like. There’s no point in commemorating the last sale or the last customer. I’ll be punching a register again anyway.

  I walk back to my bedroom and put a pair of medium-high heels into my large bag and slip some flat sandals on for the drive.

  I may buy some perfume on my way out of town. I sniffed some from my old collection, but they all whiffed vaguely of vinegar.

  I come down the steps, catching sight of my own legs in the dress, and the effect is dizzying, because I mostly wore dresses around Robert. If I don’t look too close, my legs could be those of a twenty-year-old.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I do a double-take at the store’s bones sticking out. The shelves emptying, the advertising posters taken down, the sign with our hours gone.

  “Hi,” says Anna, then she stops sweeping, leans on the broom. “Well. Don’t you look pretty.”

  “Feels like an occasion, somehow.”

  “Sure you don’t want me to put a sign up? People around here might be sad to know they missed out on the Nee Nance’s last day.”

  “They can come gawk at the wrecking ball.” That came out as more venomous than I meant it. I take a deep, deliberate breath. “You know I don’t like a spectacle.”

  “Right. No fanfare.” Anna resumes sweeping. “So, Cami’s bringing Sally to Veronica’s house. She sure is being a sport about this, and lending you a car, too.”

  “That she is. I just don’t want you two to have to worry about Sally while I make this little escape.” I laugh to cover what I just said, though there’s no way Anna could know what I’m really doing.

  I will tell her, and soon. And by then I hope to make her understand. She has been less guarded lately, since she rescued that girl. Maybe all is not lost for father and daughter.

  I step forward to hug her, and I don’t feel her stiffen under my arms like she has so often. She rests her chin briefly on my shoulder, curving down to do so. It’s still time-warping, feeling my daughter loom over me, when I used to hold that chubby little hand, reaching up to grasp my pinky finger.

  “I better go. I need to get going . . .”

  I turn away hastily before Anna can ask me what’s wrong, quickly wiping under my eyes as I walk out the front door and the Nee Nance jingle bells clang against my knee.

  There’s too much time to think on this drive. I should have brought along some tapes. I can’t abide talk radio, all those people yelling at each other. I have no use for current music. I hear enough of that thumping out the car windows of wannabe gangsters cruising Shoreline Drive.

  I f
lip on the oldies station, having long ago reconciled myself to being out of date, when I was still young enough to try being hip. I always felt older than my peers, partly due to my mother’s strict rules for my clothing and comportment, and partly because of my own mysterious preference for the movies and songs of a previous era. I’ve always been nostalgic for a time I can’t even remember.

  The Eagles start wailing in harmony about giving me the best of their love.

  Two memories assail me at once. Robert crooning that to me over the phone, badly on purpose, trying to make me laugh after a fight with my mother.

  And that day at the bowling alley.

  I was working for my uncle Mike, waiting tables from the snack bar. Certain memories are so fierce they crystallize, complete with smells, sounds, full color, slow motion, and instant replay. Fresh smoke and sweat, the thunderous crashing of ball into pins, and echoing hoots of victory, and yes, even the Eagles singing over the tinny speakers about the best of their love, sweet darling, every night and day . . .

  There was this guy. That’s all he was, I tried to tell myself, just a guy, of a certain type who liked to be lewd. I certainly never invited this with my conservative attire, but for a certain malicious subset of his kind, it was like blood in the water to wear a high-necked, shapeless blouse.

  I had learned to step away from grabby hands and to lean away when setting down drinks. But waitressing—even at a bowling alley—forces physical proximity. No protective counter or cash register.

  There was nothing special in how his hand grazed my breast when he reached for a napkin and I set down his friend’s drink. Nothing revolutionary about the smack on the bottom he gave me when I walked away or the jeering I got for refusing to cooperate with a sexy wink or a knowing smile.

  This is what I told myself when holding my hand over my heart behind the bar, trying to breathe.

  Uncle Mike was so busy that night—a Saturday—that he barely glanced my way, and anyway, I was a big girl, right? I was eighteen, after all. A grown-up. I was afraid he’d fire me if I couldn’t handle the customers, and then my mother would accuse me of asking for the attention.