by Hannah Ford
“Nicole, did you want these shoes?” her mother asked, holding up a pair of battered green and white Nikes.
“Those are from junior year of high school. I think I ran in them until the soles pretty much fell off.”
“So, do you?”
“No. Thanks.” She walked to her desk and looked at the various stickers and glittery, sparkly pens and pencils that were collected next to her old notebooks.
“I’ve been wanting to turn this room into an office,” her mother said. “And now that you’re an adult and getting married, I thought it was about time.”
Nicole tried to smile past the awkwardness she knew was coming. “That sounds like a fantastic idea.”
“What about these sweatpants?” her mother asked, holding the ugly blue pants high in the air for her to see.
“No. Definitely not.”
Her mother made a face. “So much good clothing going to waste. And at the time you probably cried to me and complained how cool it all was and how badly you needed it.”
“About that whole getting married thing,” Nicole started.
Her father looked at her, waiting for what came next.
Meanwhile her mother was busy sorting and folding. “We don’t even need to go through this again,” she said. “You know how we feel, but we support you completely. Now we just want to know what date and where.” She looked up at Nicole. “And if possible, I’d like to have some input on invitations and seating.”
Nicole turned her gaze to the floor. “I don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”
“Well, why not? Are you so sick of me that you won’t even let me make a suggestion or two?”
“It’s not that.” She tried to think of how to phrase it, but she was suddenly afraid to say it aloud.
“Well then…” her mother pressed her lips together and looked at the piles on the floor. “Oh, I know what I meant to show you.” She leaned over and grabbed Nicole’s high school yearbook. “What about this?”
Nicole accepted it, paging through and smiling a little at the memories. She’d been a quiet kid, so there weren’t tons of pictures of her all over the place. But people had written some sweet and funny comments in the front and back pages. “I don’t know…maybe I’ll keep it,” Nicole said softly, closing the yearbook.
“You’ll want to show your children someday,” her mother said confidently.
“So, I need to explain about the wedding.”
Instantly, her mother made a face. “You don’t have to explain for my sake.”
“There’s not going to be one.”
“One what?”
“A wedding. We broke up.” She felt her jaw tremble and instantly told herself to knock it off.
Don’t cry in front of your mother—anything but that.
Her mother tried not to show her relief, but Nicole could see it written on her face, plain as day. “That’s too bad,” she said, trying to sound supportive. “What happened? Did you have a falling out?”
“It just didn’t work out,” Nicole said.
Her father hugged her and she put her face into his chest. He smelled like cigarettes, just as he always did, and it comforted her some.
“I think it’s for the best, honey,” her mother said.
She didn’t respond.
After they spent some more time cleaning her old room and putting clothes and things into plastic bags, they went to the kitchen and she helped her mom cook chicken breast and rice for dinner. This was like going back in time—the same patterns, habits and routines they’d always had.
The familiar patter between them was comfortable, if a little depressing at times. Her mother making comments and “suggestions” that Nicole invariably ignored. But there was one piece of advice that she couldn’t just ignore.
“What about the ring?” her mother asked, as she rubbed garlic powder into the chicken breast with her fingers.
“My engagement ring?”
“You returned it, I assume.”
“No. Not yet.”
Her mother stopped kneading the meat and turned to her. “Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Nicole was chopping veggies for the salad, but her knife was paused momentarily. “I suppose the right opportunity hasn’t presented itself.”
“There’s no right opportunity to return an engagement ring, Nicole.”
“True.”
“You need to send it back to him as soon as you get home. Stick it in the mail and be done with it.”
Nicole hated to admit it, but her mom had a point. Keeping that ring stuffed away in her shoe was just holding on to the past. A few tears rolled down her cheek now, as she thought about the act of putting her engagement ring in an envelope.
She was crying as she chopped the veggies, but it was okay. There were enough raw onions to have an excuse.
***
She got back to the city the next afternoon and rushed home, wanting—needing—to get the ring out in the mail that day before the last pickup.
It was still there, stuffed into the toe of her shoe. She dug it out and unwrapped it from the surrounding tissue paper. There it was, glimmering in the sunlight that streamed through her bedroom window. Nicole sat on her bed and stared at it, turning the ring over in her hands.
Saying goodbye to it was like saying a final goodbye to him. They’d only been together a short time, an inconsequential amount of time, really. Everyone had pointed that out to her, as if the heart cared a whit about time.
As far as her heart was concerned, Nicole and Red had loved each other for eternity and then some. Yet, intellectually she could explain how false that sensation was. Love required time and patience and attention, it took years to build a real, lasting relationship.
Then why did this feel like agony? If their short time together had been so meaningless and silly, why did she feel like this was going to kill her spirit?
Nicole couldn’t explain her emotions away. She was crying again as she wrapped the ring in newspaper until it was indistinguishable from anything else that might end up in an envelope. The last thing she wanted was for some nosey mail carrier to figure out what was in this plain looking envelope being delivered to the fancy house in Connecticut.
At around four o’clock, Nicole went to the nearest drop box and, without hesitation, pushed her envelope down the dark hole where it joined hundreds if not thousands of other similar pieces of mail.
Now it was truly done with.
***
A day and a half later, Nicole was at her first Yoga class. She’d decided that she needed to get out of the apartment more. Less watching TV and eating ice cream with Danielle, more motivating and getting the blood flowing again.
There was a tiny Yoga studio called Nirvana, just down the street from their apartment, and they had classes on Wednesday night at 7pm, which worked perfectly for her.
The only problem with the class was that she’d been ambitious and signed up for an intermediate session. The main reason she’d chosen this particular class was that it fit her work schedule best. And then she’d assumed that having done a bit of Yoga with friends in college (and considering herself to be young and somewhat fit), she wouldn’t have too much trouble adjusting to the intermediate poses.
She’d been very, very wrong.
From the start of the class, Nicole had known she was in for it. The instructor was this tiny little woman with a severe expression on her face and the attitude of a drill sergeant. Her name was Lilly and she yelled a lot for a Yoga teacher.
“Marianne, straighten your left leg. No straighten it. Okay, I’ll come over and do it for you!”
This was a typical rejoinder. Lilly would adjust arms and legs and make comments the whole time, usually about how lazy or bad everyone was at doing the positions.
Nicole was sweating and shaking from the first asana. By the time they’d gotten to downward dog, she thought she might not make it through the first fifteen minutes. Her legs were shaking. H
er arms were shaking.
“Come on, Nicole,” Lilly said, stalking towards her as she spoke. “Elbows straight. Straight. Butt up. Pretend a string is pulling your posterior to the sky.” She walked behind Nicole and pulled her hips skyward. The relief on Nicole’s straining forearms was immediate and she wished Lilly would stay there.
But the teacher quickly moved on to the next sad sack.
Why am I doing this? She asked herself. It had seemed a good idea when she signed up a week ago, a way to take her mind off the empty space in her life. But straining and sweating and shaking, just minutes after getting off the train from a long day’s work—now she thought it was one of the stupidest decisions she’d made.
“And, let’s move into Salamba Sarvangasana, otherwise known as shoulder stand,” Lilly called out.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nicole muttered, as everyone else instantly rolled into near perfect shoulder stands.
She was sitting there, debating whether or not to just get up and walk out, when she saw him at the door. First he was just a shadow, but even before she saw his face—Nicole knew. She knew Red had come to find her.
He strode purposefully into the studio of women with their toes pointed in the air, and the little strident instructor turned to stare at him. “Excuse me sir, we’ve a class going on.”
Red ignored the instructor.
He was dressed in jeans and a white and blue Armani shirt that managed to show off his incredibly broad shoulders and chest. His dark hair and dark eyes were darker and more intensely beautiful than ever, she thought.
“Nicole, we need to talk,” he said.
The instructor shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir—I really must ask you to leave. Now.”
“Nicole.” Red stared at her unwaveringly.
The women had dropped out of their shoulder stands and were watching the scene now.
Nicole tried to breathe. Tried to think.
Did she want to have this conversation right now? What was he going to tell her?
“She doesn’t have to go with you,” the teacher said, protectively.
Nicole had to give the lady credit, she was a real spitfire. “It’s okay,” Nicole told Lilly, standing up and grabbing her Yoga mat. “I should have signed up for the beginner’s class anyhow.” Smiling with some embarrassment, but mostly relief, Nicole followed Red out to the street.
Outside, it was pleasantly cool, and the sweat began drying on her sore body.
Red looked at her, his eyes pained. “Why?” was all he asked.
She knew what he meant without further explanation. “Because,” she said, “I didn’t think it was right for me to keep your ring. And it wasn’t healthy for me to hold on.”
Red broke off from looking into her eyes, instead choosing to look at the ground. “When I came home and found the envelope with your address on it—for a minute I thought you’d written me a letter and my heart sang.”
“I wasn’t trying to mislead you or upset you,” she told him. She’d never seen Red look this way. Even when he was throwing dishes and glasses, he’d looked frightening. But now he was just…drained. Almost like a fighter who’d been beaten, staggering around the ring with nothing left to give.
“I know you weren’t trying to hurt me,” Red said softly. Now he looked at her again, and when their eyes met, the old shock hit her full blast—the feeling of being known and knowing someone totally.
“I didn’t want us to end like this,” she told him. She was holding her Yoga mat like she was grabbing onto a life raft, like it would somehow save her from this ocean of pain and despair she felt.
“Opening the envelope and seeing the engagement ring sitting there, wrapped in paper, and nothing with it. Not even a note. I’d rather you threw it down a sewer.”
“I’d never throw away something you have me.”
“You did throw away something I gave you,” he replied. His jaw trembled slightly.
“That’s not true,” she whispered.
“Isn’t it, though? I gave you everything. I was going to give you half of everything I’ve built, my fortune, my business—all of it.”
“I didn’t ask for anything.”
He waved her excuse away like he’d swatted a fly. “I don’t even care about the money. But I gave you my trust, Nicole.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do this, Red. You can’t just come back into my life and dump everything on me.” She started to walk away from him.
For a moment he didn’t follow her, and then he came running and grabbed her arm, spinning her towards him. His face was closer to hers now, and she could read every conflicting emotion in his expression. “I’m sorry I lost it that night at my house,” he said. “I wanted to tell you…” his voice faded.
“Why can’t you explain it?”
“Because, it’s too painful.”
“Can’t you at least try?” she said.
He laughed and put his hands on his hips, looked around at the people walking obliviously past them on the street. “Just another day in the city,” he laughed. “This city has seen it all.”
“Don’t avoid my question, Red.”
“I’m not.” He exhaled deeply. “It’s something that I try to pretend isn’t there. Something that won’t ever go away, no matter how much I wish it would.”
“What won’t go away?”
“Who I am. My penchant for pushing people away who get to close to me.” He smiled bitterly. “I’m well aware of my tendencies, but that doesn’t make it easier.”
“You wanted to push me away that night,” she said.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“It started when you told me I was naughty.”
Red flinched slightly. “Yes. That’s probably true. Having you in my home was something that triggered something…something dark.”
“Why?”
He laughed. “I have a feeling you won’t stop asking ‘why’ until I tell you everything.” Red stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Let me take you out for a bite to eat.”
“I don’t know,” she said, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Let’s grab a beer then. It’s too difficult to talk like this.”
She’d never seen Red Jameson beg before, and it was unnerving. He was making himself vulnerable for her—she had an idea of how difficult that was for him.
Finally, she assented. “Sure, one beer.”
He grinned, almost looking like his old self. “How about that little pub on the corner?” he asked.
It was called The Cask ’n Flagon and Nicole had never been there before. Inside, it was dingy and mostly empty, which was strange for that time of night. But then they sat down at a booth and the server came to their table and Nicole instantly knew why nobody was there.
The server, a young woman with bad skin and a bad attitude, barely even looked at them. She slapped down two menus and walked off without even asking if they wanted a drink, or saying hello.
“Someone’s having a bad day,” Nicole murmured, as the server stalked off.
Red chuckled. “Aren’t we all?”
Nicole tapped her fingers on the tabletop nervously. Red seemed to relax in his chair, comfortable now that the two of them had some time to speak.
The moody waitress came back and took their order. A couple of beers and nothing else; she wasn’t impressed and left in a hurry.
“You said having me in the house triggered something,” Nicole reminded him.
The smile faded from his lips and his eyes grew cold. “Yes.”
“I don’t understand why.”
He shifted in his seat. She could tell he truly didn’t want to talk about it, the conversation was making him anxious—and nothing ever made Red anxious.
“It sounds silly,” he began, hesitant. “But when I was a kid—“
The waitress stomped back to their table and plopped down the two glasses of beer. “Should I start a tab?”
Red checked with Nicole, which
she’d never seen him do.
She shook her head. “Just these, I think.”
The waitress rolled her eyes. “That’ll be ten dollars and fifty cents.”
Red immediately paid with a twenty. “Keep the change.”
She didn’t even thank him, just took the bill and clomped off again.
“What happened when you were a kid?”
He held his beer and examined it, turning the glass this way and that, tilting it, finally he drank deeply, licked his lips. “My childhood wasn’t so easy,” he said, finally. “I don’t want to make it overly dramatic, though. Plenty have it worse.”
“Why was it hard?” She asked. She could see his body language changing drastically.
He was closing in on himself, shutting down. His eyes stared off into the distance—a thousand yard stare. His arms were crossed, he turned slightly away from her. “My father and mother divorced when I was three and my younger brother was just under a year old. Dad moved about sixty miles away, and we saw him rarely. Weekends at first, then once a month, and soon it was less than once a year.”
She tried to picture Red as a child, needing the care and guidance of a parent. Somehow she couldn’t imagine it, as though he’d always been a capable adult. “So you lived with your mother and brother?”
“Yes. And my mother was…” he paused and searched for adequate words. “She was very strange.”
“Strange,” Nicole repeated. Her stomach felt tense, her shoulders tightened with nervousness as he continued. She picked up her beer and drank a large gulp, feeling some awful revelation was coming her way.
“I didn’t know as a young boy what was wrong. Only when I got older, much older—I started to realize that she wasn’t normal. And when I finally moved out and went to college, really got out in the world, I began to see just how screwed up my childhood was.”
Nicole sipped her beer again. “Did she abuse you?” she asked suddenly.
He shrugged. “I guess. I don’t think of it in those terms.”
“She hit you…or…something else?”