Time Flies: A Novel

by Claire Cook

  The longer I waited the worse it would be. Marion was only going to get more and more pissed off that she hadn’t heard from me. What else was new. Even as kids, I’d never been able to please her. She was always bossing me around, telling me what to do, what to wear, what to say, as if I was somehow a reflection of her.

  And when I’d finally had enough, and who could blame me, and yelled “I hate you” or threw a hairbrush at her, she’d sigh and say, “Oh, grow up,” as if she hadn’t been the one to start the whole thing.

  Our mother lumped us both together like we were joined at the hip, which didn’t help. Girls, can you set the table? Girls, can you peel the potatoes and put them on to boil? Girls, clean your rooms—now.

  I found the way to my father’s heart by helping him wash the cars, shovel the driveway when it snowed, and load up the trunk with trash for a trip to the dump on Saturday mornings.

  “Great,” Marion would say as she flapped her hands like an idiot to make her nails dry faster. “Turn yourself into a boy so he’ll like you better than me. Be the son he never had.”

  “I hate you,” I’d say.

  “I hate you more,” she’d say. Then she’d shake her hands harder. “You’re such a child.”

  When Marion finally went off to college the year I started high school, I was delirious with happiness. B.J., who was still Barb then, and I waited until my parents were out and then rifled through every square inch of her room, the scent of our Coty Wild Musk oil overpowering the powdery residue of her Love’s Baby Soft perfume.

  I stood in front of the mirror on the back of Marion’s closet door and held up a preppy, navy-blue wraparound skirt. The ties ran through double metal loops at the sides and it had large hip pockets and a bouquet of three big tulips, two red and one yellow, appliquéd over the left thigh.

  “Far freakin’ out,” B.J. said sarcastically. “Come on, even Marion had the sense to leave that nowhere skirt behind.” She adjusted her own chocolate-brown shawl over her black Danskin leotard, then reached down to make sure the long fringe on her suede belt was splayed evenly over the right thigh of her perfectly patched dungarees.

  I ditched the skirt and threw my chevron-striped pom-pom poncho onto Marion’s bed so I had full use of both hands. I found her stash of cotton balls and dabbed my face with Bonne Bell 10-0-6 lotion from an almost empty bottle, then helped myself to a forgotten strawberry Lip Smacker. I slid her white vanity chair over to her closet and climbed up. Way in the back corner I found her old pink jewelry box tucked behind some stuffed animals.

  After I climbed back down with it, I couldn’t resist winding it up. When I opened the lid, the tiny ballerina circled to the tinkling notes of “When You Wish Upon a Star.” I hated that her jewelry box still worked and my identical one, possibly a casualty of overwinding, no longer did. I wondered if I could get away with switching them.

  I shook my head and reminded myself that Marion hadn’t been all bad. When I was a little, little girl and my mother wasn’t feeling well, sometimes she’d help me unpack my book bag after school. “Good job,” she’d say as she attached my best paper of the day to the refrigerator with one of our two identical Bozo the Clown kazoos that doubled as magnets. And then she’d get us cookies and milk and actually sit with me at the little kitchen table until we finished them.

  My eyes teared up at the memory. I went out to the garage and found a cardboard box. I gave each box spring lady a hug and a loud smack of a kiss and then I rolled her up in a blanket of bubble wrap and rested her gently in the box on a soft bed of tissue paper. I added more tissue paper on top, like a white down comforter. Then I scheduled a UPS pickup.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” I said before I taped up the box. “I’m going to ship you to Marion’s house to break the ice for me. She’ll be so busy oohing and aahing about how beautiful you are and how talented I am, she won’t have time to yell at me for not living up to her sister standards. And then, after the cookies and milk, we’ll get the hell out of there and you can cruise around town with B.J. and me.”

  B.J. had been after me for years to find a place up north to carry my work and give me an excuse to visit more often, so we could check out some shops and galleries while we were out and about. And of course, Finn would want to see the box spring ladies, too, because everything I did would be endlessly fascinating to him.

  As a plan, it wasn’t half bad.

  CHAPTER 12

  My next-door neighbor was pruning her Knock Out roses when the car arrived to take me to the airport. I thought briefly about asking her to keep an eye on the house. But it would certainly tie up loose ends if it managed to burn down while I was gone, so I decided I’d take my chances.

  She was wearing crisp white capris and a sleeveless pink blouse, and even from this distance I could see that her roots were freshly dyed and she was fully made up. I couldn’t tell from here, but under her strappy sandals I just knew her toenail polish matched her blouse.

  I took a moment to regret my own lack of polish, both literal and figurative. Then I double-checked the timer on my lights and locked my front door. I bumped my carry-on down my stone front steps.

  The driver popped the trunk open and got out of the car. He took a moment to slide his black suit coat over his white buttondown shirt and to don his black chauffeur cap.

  Then he wished me a “Good morning, ma’am” and we agreed it was going to be a hot one. He took my carry-on with one hand and opened the rear door of the car for me with the other. Once my luggage and I had been safely stowed away, he stood in the blazing sun and took off the jacket and hat again and climbed back into the car, something I’d never seen before. Maybe his boss had told him he had to wear them, but forgot to specify for how long. In any case, there was something both silly and chivalrous about his minute or two of dressing up for me.

  I’d never called a car service for a ride to the airport before, or to anywhere else for that matter, and I was pleased with myself for coming up with the option. It was expensive, but not all that expensive in the scheme of things. Maybe not quite cheaper than paying for parking at the airport, but definitely cheaper than therapy. I felt relaxed and independent, as if I were a woman with things to do and places to go. Perhaps there was even an air of mystery about me. I liked that.

  As the driver backed out of my driveway, I rolled down the window to say something to my neighbor. I considered an ironic Don’t mind my town car or even a generic Have a nice day.

  Our eyes met for an instant and then she turned her back as if she hadn’t seen me.

  There are true friends and then there are couples friends. Up until that moment, this particular neighbor hadn’t declared herself, so it stung. She and her husband had shown up on our doorstep with a loaf of banana bread when we’d moved in all those years ago. I’d been so overwhelmed at that point that it was all I could do not to burst into tears at their generosity.

  Kurt invited them into the foyer, boxes piled everywhere behind us, and we chatted for a bit. “Oh, you’re so nice,” the woman said. “Now I’m really glad we didn’t help ourselves to your plants.”

  Her husband gave her a look.

  “Um,” she said, “it’s just that the old owners were big gardeners and they told us to feel free to take whatever we wanted before you got here.”

  The conversation bumped along for a while, and then we thanked them again for the banana bread. Later that day, Kurt and I toured our yard and noticed the conspicuous holes for the first time. Two evenly spaced identical bushes, then a big gap like a missing tooth, then two more. A half circle minus one of identical clumps of daylilies, irises, and plants we didn’t recognize.

  “Wouldn’t you think they would have at least filled the holes back in?” Kurt asked.

  Sure enough, whenever something in our yard bloomed, an identical plant bloomed next door. Kurt loved nothing more than to wave at our new neighbors with a big grin on his face while he was mowing the lawn. “Those yellow flowers of yo
urs are looking great,” he’d yell. “And how about the blooms on those pink things.”

  Eventually we decided we liked them anyway. As two couples, MelanieandKurt and TiffanyandHunter, we’d seek each other out at neighborhood functions and occasionally have each other over for a laid-back cookout, and our collective kids had free rein in both yards.

  Kurt golfed with Hunter regularly, so maybe the almost friendship hadn’t really ended. KurtandMelanie had just morphed into Kurtand Crissy. Maybe my next-door neighbors were even relieved that I’d been replaced in our foursome. Maybe Tiffany had only put up with me because Hunter had liked Kurt so much.

  Come to think of it, she’d never once, in all these years, acknowledged my work in any way, even though I asked about her job at a local boutique all the time. Did she not like the rusted metal calla lily fountain nestled in the shady corner of our front yard? Was she jealous of the local press I’d received? Or was I just somehow beneath her interest? Maybe I was simply the crazy welding lady to all my neighbors, the one who they reluctantly let into their lives because her husband was such a nice guy. Ha.

  The driver’s voice broke in. “Which airline, ma’am?”

  “Delta, please,” I said.

  Delta was based in Atlanta, and a Delta flight left Atlanta for Boston practically every hour on the hour. For the first few years after we moved down here, way back before you could just go online for these things, I’d called Delta reservations and written down the schedule in the spiral address book I used for directions. Some nights, when Kurt was working late and the boys were doing their homework, I’d flip through until I found the page and think: If I took Flight 1100 at 7:15, I’d be in Boston at 10:02. If I waited until 9:50 and left on Flight 412, I’d be there at 12:33.

  I held my breath as the driver pulled onto I-75 South. I waited for my early warning symptoms—dry mouth, racing heart—but they didn’t arrive. Maybe it was riding in the backseat? I wondered if I could rig up a way to drive my own car from there—maybe an extension pole with metals claws welded to it that would grasp the steering wheel.

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

  Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the busiest airport in the world, with close to ninety million passengers traveling through it a year, so the security lines were crazy long as usual. They moved fairly quickly and efficiently, though, and before I knew it my carry-on rolled under the scanner and back into sight and I was sliding into my flip-flops again.

  Instead of taking the airport tram, I walked along the center corridor next to the moving staircase all the way to Terminal C so I could stretch my legs and shake off my post-nap grogginess. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep in the town car. I hoped I hadn’t snored or talked in my sleep. Or drooled. I pictured the driver looking in his rearview mirror and rolling his eyes at the middle-aged woman sprawled untidily across the seat. I didn’t think I’d ever fallen asleep in a car before, at least as an adult. I was always keeping a watch on whoever was driving, a second set of eyes, alert for potential disaster.

  Maybe I’d crank it up a notch or twelve, and try to earn enough money as a metal sculptor to hire a driver. Or more likely an intern who had her driver’s license.

  Once I found my gate, I hit the nearest bathroom and then bought a bottle of water, the yin and yang of the quest for hydration, before I sat down to wait for my flight to be called. A woman about my age was standing sideways and holding on to one arm of a black leatherette chair at the end of a long, bolted-together row. Her knees were bent and her feet were flat on the floor. She bent her elbows and lowered her butt almost to the floor, then straightened her arms again.

  So that’s how you got rid of flabby upper arms at the airport. I smiled at her to show my solidarity, but she was lost in her endorphins. I took out my cell phone, simply because everyone around me but the triceps-dipping woman seemed to be interacting with theirs. I tried to remember what non-exercising people used to do at airports while they waited for a flight. Read a book? Flip through a magazine? People-watch? It was so strange how we were never alone now—our cells connected us to anyone we wanted to be connected to, like two tin cans with a wireless string between them.

  Oh, I could see the sculpture already. Two little metal boys—or hints of boys—dashes of metal, really. One with corkscrew metal curls and the other would have short metal spikes for hair. Two recycled tin cans, something vintage if I could find it—the splurge would be worth it if I could track down original Planters Peanuts or Rodeo coffee tins at a flea market or even online, but Campbell’s tomato soup cans would work, too. I’d cover the labels with several coats of polyurethane to keep them safe from the elements. A long coil of eighth-inch steel rod would stretch between the boys as they talked into their makeshift walkie-talkies.

  I could see it so clearly I was dying to roll up my sleeves and get to work right away, but I had to settle for rooting around in my purse for a receipt and jotting down a few notes on the back of it so I wouldn’t forget anything.

  When first-class passengers began boarding, I stood up and stretched and found my ticket. Eventually my section of the plane was called, and I fell into line with the crush of passengers. The covered jetway was no match for the Atlanta humidity. The temperature inside the plane wasn’t much better. I found my seat, hoisted my carry-on up to the overhead bin, and reached up for the air dial the moment I sat down. A pitiful puff of warm air greeted me.

  My phone rang just as a man finished stowing his carry-on and then waved his ticket toward the seat next to mine.

  I checked the name on the display.

  “What,” I whispered into my phone.

  “That’s my seat,” the man said.

  “Not you,” I said to the man. I stepped out into the aisle.

  “You didn’t call me back,” Kurt said on the phone.

  One of the flight attendants was shutting the door to the plane and another was speaking into the microphone and telling us it was time to turn off our cell phones. “Not now,” I said as I plopped into the empty seat next to the man. “I’m busy.”

  “What else is new,” Kurt said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.

  “You know, it might not be a bad idea for you to get out of that studio of yours once in a while.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re right. That’s not the point here. I’ve put together a list of things I’d like to go over. How about we meet for a drink tonight, like civilized people. Say six thirty at that pub on Johnson’s Ferry I like?”

  One of the flight attendants was looking right at me, shaking his head.

  I pushed the END CALL button. I pretended I was turning off the phone while I opened a call-blocking app that Troy had installed on my phone, which I hadn’t thought I needed. Until now.

  I typed in Kurt’s cell number and pushed SAVE.

  CHAPTER 13

  To: Melanie

  From: B.J.

  Subject: Itinerary

  1. I pick you up at Logan, then we stash our stuff at Jan’s beach house, staking our claim on the best available room ASAP so we don’t end up on the floor. Then we walk the beach and eat. Or eat and walk the beach.

  2. We party with the masses at Jan’s until we hear from Veronica.

  3. If we don’t hear from Veronica within a reasonable period of time, we drive to the Cape to get her so she can party with us, too.

  4. We fit in primping, shopping, tattoos, and seafood as time allows.

  5. As our grand finale, we party like it’s 19-whatever at . . . drum-roll . . . The Marshbury High School Best Class/Best Reunion Evah.

  To: Melanie

  From: Finn Miller

  Subject: forgot to say

  What song will be playing when we finally see each other after all these years? Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues of course. I can hear it already.

  To: Finn Miller

  From: Melanie

  Subject:
Re: forgot to say

  Breast song ever.

  To: Finn Miller

  From: Melanie

  Subject: Re: Re: forgot to say

  Oops. I meant best. Sorry, just linked email to phone and still getting goosed to autocorrect. I mean used to.

  I couldn’t wait to see B.J. and give her a great big hug, to feel her dogged determination wash over me like a cool salty breeze.

  I’d fallen asleep on the flight, too, something I’d never done before. At takeoff, the guy next to me gripped his armrest as well as the one we were theoretically supposed to be sharing. I watched the woman diagonally in front of me close her eyes and then mouth some words that looked like a prayer.

  Despite the fact that I was surrounded by nervous wrecks, I was just so relaxed, more relaxed than I’d been since I started sleeping on that awful guest room mattress, not that that was saying much. I wasn’t really sure why. Maybe it was because I wasn’t in the pilot’s seat, and there was no hope of even backseat-driving this mammoth chunk of metal. We’d make it or we wouldn’t, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to influence the outcome. So I had to let it go.

  As we landed, I stared past my armrest-gripping seatmate and out the window at one of the most beautiful landing strips in the world. Inlets edged with sea grass twisted and turned, and it looked as if we were going to land with a plop right into the water. I imagined the smell of salt air. I could almost taste the briny water and feel the way it would dry on my arms and legs under the hot summer sun. Once the ocean gets under your skin and into your heart, it never lets you go.

  “Nights in White Satin” was stuck in my head, playing over and over again, my new endless loop. I was still a sucker for that melancholy flute. And all these years later, just what the truth was, I sure as hell still didn’t know anymore.