by James King
April jumped at the sudden turn of the doorknob, which was followed by an impatient knock and her mother’s fingers-on-chalkboard voice.
“April, why is this door locked?”
“Because I’m dropping acid.”
“That’s not funny. Open up.”
“I’m changing!” April yelled from the bed, not moving. “God!”
“What are you changing for?” Her mother’s voice was only slightly muffled by the door. April thought of a new song title: “Door Voices.” No, people would think it was some sort of Jim Morrison cover. “Doors and Voices.” Better. “Voices through Doors.” Yeah.
“Where are you going? You didn’t tell me you were going out. And who said you could go out?”
“I’m not going out, so don’t worry about me having any fun,” April said. She bit her lip. Her answer had been totally reflexive—a habit of saying the first thing that contradicted whatever her mother had just said. Even though this time it was the truth—she wasn’t going out—she didn’t want her mom to know that. She had been thinking about calling Megan or Erica, but they’d probably all immediately ask where Heather was, and she didn’t feel like making something up. So what she had just told her mom was, sadly, true. The best April could hope for was that her mother would go shopping or to the grocery store alone so that she, April, could have some time to herself, maybe crank up DC full blast, fill the house with sound.
“Then why are you changing?”
April had forgotten her mother was there.
“Because the clothes I wore to Grandpa’s are gross,” she yelled. Fast thinking, eh, Rox? “I can still smell the smoke from his pipe.”
“Ugh, I know what you mean,” her mother said. “I have no idea why he’s taken that up. It makes absolutely no sense.”
April went on high alert at the sudden, friendly change of tone.
“You want to go to the diner for dinner?”
There it was: the ultimate trap—stuck in a diner with your mother on a Saturday night. It would be like putting a sign over the booth: “Loser with No Friends Having Dinner with Mommy. Feel Free to Ridicule.”
“No, thanks,” she called out. “I want to get a head start on my English paper.”
April held her breath. What would come next? The disbelieving On a Saturday night? The commanding You’ll have plenty of time afterward ? Or the pouty and sarcastic and guilt-trippy I’ve had a really rough day and wanted to go out but I guess I’ll cook dinner so that you aren’t in any way inconvenienced?
“Okay. Then I guess I’ll start dinner.” April heard her mother start to walk away. “And unlock this door.”
April looked in her closet for other clothes to change into. She congratulated herself again on her quick thinking about her grandfather’s pipe. Then she started thinking about her grandmother’s picture. Her mother didn’t talk much about her, but when she did, she usually said something like, “Things just weren’t the same after she died. Your grandmother was the glue. She knew how to handle your grandfather . . . and your uncles.”
Her uncles as kids was a hard concept for April to get her brain around. She had trouble thinking of them as anything but too old and too boring to get into any sort of trouble. Not that she knew them all that well. She saw Uncle Nick occasionally; Uncle Mike and his family, never. She had met her cousins only once, when she was around six, and she often wondered if, meeting Clare somewhere and not knowing it was her cousin, they’d each think the other was cool. April hoped so, but with the cast of characters in her family—highly doubtful.
Her grandfather, though, had potential. April liked the way he traded insults with her mother, something not too many people even attempted. She especially liked the way he was all set to toss her the keys to his car, until her mother lived up to her billing as Primo Party Pooper.
Old guy . . . living like a pig . . . three kids but none of them see him that much. April closed the closet door, rushed to her desk, and pulled her notepad out of her pocket. She was glad she always kept it on her, especially when sweet moments like these popped up, when words seemed to barge their way into her brain, impatient as hell, begging to be written down.
What you thinkin’ ’bout, Mr. Ear Hair
Sittin’ alone in your newspaper chair?
Watchin’ tube, collectin’ dust
While your joints and memories
Turn to rust.
Something about TV-dinner trays would have to be worked into the lyrics. That could be a song, couldn’t it? The kind Roxie might sing? The kind she, April Shea herself, could sing . . . after she changed her name and got into a band of her own?
April stared at the words for a while before closing the notepad and putting it back in her pocket. She began rummaging through her drawer for a top.
The only way she was going to escape this ridiculous life of hers was to get as far away from it as possible. But she’d need a car to do that, and she’d have to wait more than a year—two, if they passed that stupid law raising the driving age—before she could even get her learner’s permit.
Unless her mother had a sudden and completely out-of-character change of mind and agreed to teach her.
Or unless someone else was willing to teach her.
What you thinkin’ ’bout, Mr. Ear Hair?
April opened her bedroom door.
“Mom, we can still go to the diner, if you want,” she called out. “I kind of have an idea for my paper I want to ask you about.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Nick Warrington slowed. He wanted to be careful. He was surprised—“amazed” might be a better word—that he was with this woman.
“Keep going?” he asked.
Peggy Gallagher looked up at him, a shiny line of perspiration clinging to her upper lip.
“What are you, a machine?” she asked. She waved her hand in front of her face, soap opera style. “What will people say when I’m walking funny tomorrow?”
Nick blushed. Less than an hour together and she felt comfortable enough for a double entendre. But maybe that wasn’t her intent at all. He told himself not to make assumptions.
The Woodlake High School track was filling up with walkers, some carrying pink banners. Many wore casual street clothes and sneakers, but most were dressed in running outfits. A lot of the women sported matching nylon pants and jackets. As far as Nick was concerned, none looked as athletically slim as Peggy did.
“As cochair, it might look bad if I sit down now,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t take a break.”
Peggy nodded. “Tell me again—how many laps are in a set?”
“Four. Each set confirms a pledge.”
“And how many have we done?”
“Sets? Or laps?”
“Sets, silly.”
Nick wished he didn’t blush so easily. Her “silly” was an endearment, a caress.
“Well, together, we’ve done three-quarters of one. But I walked three sets before you got here.” He hoped that didn’t sound like he was annoyed. She had been more than an hour late, but he hadn’t been irritated so much as . . . expectant? “I committed to five, so I had to get here early,” he said quickly. “I got someone to handle cleanup so we can leave when I finish.” Nick bit his lip. My god, I’m acting like I run Exxon. “We could grab a bite somewhere. Maybe the Filling Station.”
“You like the Filling Station?” Peggy asked.
Had his choice of diners said something about him? He and Marilyn used to go to the Filling Station frequently. They switched to the Parthenon when the Filling Station’s Greek omelets started getting too runny and too stingy with the black olives. Marilyn had to have her Greek omelets. Nick hadn’t been to the Parthenon since the last time he and Marilyn ate there. He had no plans to return and wasn’t about to suggest it as an alternative.
“Anywhere works for me,” he said. “I just figured that since we’d be wearing our running stuff, we probably wouldn’t want any place too fancy.”
&n
bsp; “Then the Filling Station is perfect.”
Peggy waved at someone on the side of the track. Nick saw Peter Jackson, standing next to the “Walk for a Cure” banner, wave back.
“You know him?” Nick asked, immediately regretting the question. Obviously, she knew him.
“My ex and I were friends with him and his ex,” Peggy answered. “She moved away with her new husband. Pete’s still a friend.”
A friend, she had said, as in No big deal. And it wasn’t, as far as Nick was concerned. After all, he had plenty of friends who were women. Well, he could have plenty of female friends, if he put his mind to it.
“Why don’t we do one more lap together before I take a break,” Peggy suggested.
Something about the way she said “together” made the other walkers disappear for a moment. A cool breeze ruffled through his T-shirt.
“Sure,” he said.
Peggy removed a pair of sunglasses from her pocket. “Getting too bright out here.” She adjusted her baseball cap and tugged gently on the blond ponytail that stuck out of the opening in back. Nick wondered how such simple actions could look so . . . feminine.
She unzipped her running jacket. Underneath, she was wearing a pink tennis shirt. Marilyn had not been a tennis player. Her sports were running and swimming. They had, in fact, met at a Bowling Green State University swim meet. Nick was covering it for the BG News, the campus newspaper. The women had just won a division title and Nick needed a quote from the team’s captain. Marilyn answered all his questions without making him feel like a nerd, and Nick would forever remember being distracted by the smell of chlorine in her hair, her slightly bloodshot eyes, the closeness of her near-naked body, and most of all the reddish brown freckles that, sprinkled lightly across her forehead and cheekbones, formed a snowy pattern that forced your eyes down her neck to the rounded smoothness of her shoulders and the soft valley formed by the ridges of her collarbone. He ended the interview by asking her out. She declined. But he had been a persistent nerd, and eventually he would spend countless hours running his fingers over her skin, over the freckles he was not allowed to call “cute,” marveling at the patterns, exploring the places they led him.
“So, how did you get involved in the charity? Son or daughter?” Peggy asked.
Nick frowned. Was she asking if he’d lost a son or daughter?
“My son picked this charity for his community project,” Peggy continued before he could respond. “Bobby Gallagher? On the lacrosse team? Maybe your son or daughter knows him.”
“Oh, I see. Actually, I don’t have any kids. We just never . . .” Answer the question, idiot. “I actually got involved in this through my wife.”
“You mean your ex-wife, unless you were at the Suddenly Single meeting under false pretenses, naughty boy.” She chuckled.
Nick felt a drop of sweat run down his back.
“Actually, not my ex-wife. My wife. She, um . . . Well, we got involved in this when she was diagnosed.”
“Oh my god.” Peggy leaned forward and placed her hand just below her throat, as if the surprise had knocked the breath out of her. “I am so sorry! Here I assumed you were like everyone else around here—divorced, and glad of it.”
Nick laughed. “No, no,” he said. “We’d been married for fifteen years. Hardly ever fought. But when we did, we made up quickly. Always followed that saying about never going to bed—”
Nick stopped. He was speaking about Marilyn to another woman. He had said the word “bed.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk like this.”
“No, no. That’s all right. How long has it been since she died?”
“Three years.” It was, more accurately, three years and two months. He was learning to not be so specific, so absurdly aware of exactly how long he’d been without her, just as he was learning not to cringe every time someone said “died” when talking about Marilyn. That morning, while lacing up his running shoes, he stared at Marilyn’s Reeboks, which he hadn’t yet donated. He had vowed not to even think about Marilyn for at least the rest of the day.
“Three years,” Peggy said. “You must be getting sick of the dating scene by now.”
“I don’t exactly—”
“I’ve only been divorced nine months and, frankly, the whole thing is worse than high school,” Peggy continued. She pointed an accusatory finger at Nick. “You guys never change. You want one thing and one thing only, and you just can’t take no for an answer.”
Next to the small brick concession stand, a young couple was stretching. The woman sat with her legs straight in front of her, holding on to her toes. The man was bent over at the waist, fingers grasping at his feet. He looked at her and said something. Nick saw her laugh. He smiled.
“Actually,” he said, “you’re my first.”
Peggy stopped. She was nearly rear-ended by the walker behind her, a hefty woman wearing a dozen or so pink ribbons on her chest. The woman scowled, stepped to her right, and lumbered past.
“No way! This is your first date in three years?”
Nick nodded, the shame weakening his knees. He knew the picture he was painting: the dead wife, the long grieving period, the continued involvement in the charity for the disease that killed her. Upbeat, man, he told himself. Don’t be a drag.
“C’mon,” he said, forcing energy into this voice and his step. “Just a half lap to go.” He strained to think of a different subject.
“Wow, three years,” Peggy said. “That’s admirable, I guess.” She picked up the pace slightly. “So what made you finally decide to get back in the game?”
Was that what this was, a game? Nick didn’t like to think of it that way, but he supposed Peggy was right. After all, convincing Marilyn to go out with him had been a game of sorts, with all its feints and dodges, its timing of certain maneuvers, the planning for the move after the next move, the constant pursuit. Peggy was right to call it a game. She was being straightforward. An admirable characteristic. One to be emulated.
“I saw you at the Suddenly Single meeting, and then the next night at the steering committee meeting for this. Sorry how this might sound, but I took it as kind of a sign. You’re . . . very attractive.” Nick waited. Had she heard him?
“Steering committee? Oh, yeah. I had to drag Bobby there. I keep telling him that he has to show up at more than just one event if he wants to put this charity on his application. What if an admissions officer asks about involvement? But he was too busy, of course, with his new girlfriend. So I helped him out a little by going, you know, as kind of his proxy or whatever.” She shook her head. “Like I said—one thing on the brain.”
“Well, not mine,” Nick said. “I mean, that’s not why I asked you out.” He didn’t bother trying to stop. He’d just told a woman not his wife that he found her attractive. There was nothing left to lose. “I mean, you’re extremely attractive, like I said. But that’s not why I asked you out. I mean, not the main reason. The main reason is I figured you were the kind of person who gets involved, who believes in giving back. I admire that. That’s the main reason I asked.”
“So, you would have asked me out even if I looked like a line-backer?” Peggy smiled.
“Well, no, of course not.” Nick paused. “I don’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just . . .” He forced a laugh. “Marilyn used to say that my mouth sometimes runs faster than my brain. She had me pegged pretty well. Fortunately, we could be together for hours and not say anything, and it was all right. Anyway, I guess I’m a little out of practice. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry so much,” Peggy said.
Nick appreciated that. He was beginning to think that Peggy Gallagher, in addition to being pretty, was someone who didn’t care a lot about small talk or choosing words carefully. She seemed nice. And he wondered if, all things considered, Marilyn would like her.
“But as a woman and a friend,” she said, “let me offer some advice. You might want to watch how much you talk about your wife. It
doesn’t bother me. In fact, I think it’s sweet. But other women might not want to hear about this perfect woman. Which no woman is, by the way.”
Nick felt his face redden yet again. “You’re right,” he said. “Sorry.”
“So here’s a question.”
“Okay.” Nick liked Peggy’s breezy way of moving on to a new topic.
“When you asked me out, of course I had to check you out. So I asked Peter about you. Maybe he’s the one that told me you’re divorced. Anyway, he said you’re an editor of some kind? That you work for one of the major magazines?”
Not exactly correct, but not entirely wrong, either, now that he was doing more freelance editorial work for the magazine that used to employ him full-time. But now was not the time to get into the differences between freelance and full-time. There would be opportunities later, he hoped, to correct the perception about his work that she apparently held—and admired.
“Right,” he said. “I do a bit of writing, too.”
“That must be so interesting.”
Nick attempted what he hoped was a modest shrug of the shoulders. “It’s not as glamorous as a lot of people think,” he said. “But, yeah. I’ve enjoyed it. And thank god for that. I kind of threw myself into it after Marilyn died.” His stomach dropped. Enough about your dead wife.
“I have an idea . . . a kind of favor, actually, for our next date,” Peggy said.
He wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d said, “How about letting your wife rest in peace,” but instead she had said “next date,” an indication that he hadn’t completely turned her off yet. And was it his imagination, or had she moved closer to him?