by Mary Campisi
They sat huddled at a small table near the far corner of the restaurant where a ring of televisions hung from the ceiling like Chinese lanterns, relaying current world affairs according to CNN, ESPN, and Real World.
“What’d he get you, Cyn?” Shea asked.
“A gift certificate for a Maid-for-You mixer.”
Shea nodded. “I love mine. It’s the Sugar n’ Spice one. Very practical. You’ll really enjoy it, especially at Christmas, when you’re making sugar cookies.”
“Shea, for her birthday?” Derry rolled her eyes.
“At least she got something. Some men don’t buy their wives anything, or they just tell them to go out and charge something. What kind of present is that?”
“As long as it’s bling, it’s a great gift.” Derry fingered the gigantic diamond on her left finger. “We still love Sammy, even if he is a little dense.”
“I don’t mind.” Cyn looked at them and shrugged.
“Men just inherently don’t get it,” Derry said. “It’s a deficiency in the chromosomes.”
Of course she would say this, given recent events in her life. “Too much testosterone,” Shea said with a knowing nod. “Good for some areas, bad for others.”
Derry laughed. “Speaking of testosterone, is this going to be the miracle month for you and Richard?”
Shea looked away, blinked twice before she met her friends’ curious gazes. “I’m four days late.”
“No kidding?” Derry leaned in close and whispered, “I thought it was all bullshit. I mean, after three years of trying you’ve got to wonder, especially since you had twins when you were practically a kid and then nothing for all those years. The math doesn’t work.”
“I wasn’t married the whole time. You can’t count twenty-five to thirty-four.”
“That’s right, you were the Virgin Mary back then.”
“I didn’t say that, but I wasn’t trying to get pregnant either.”
“So now what?” Derry rifled a hand through her spiky black hair. “Think Richard will spend more time with this kid than with the two grown ones he has?”
“It wasn’t his fault, Derry.” Shea clamped her hands together and pursed her lips. “He wanted to, but his ex-wife refused to let him see them.”
“You keep telling yourself that, see where you end up.”
“Look, you and Alec aren’t getting along right now.” Shea pressed her fingertips to the corners of her eyes to stop the tears that inched out. “But that doesn’t mean you should spoil other people’s happiness.”
Derry’s face, a perfect cream oval, turned white. She worked her mouth open to a slit. “You don’t know a damn thing about it.”
“So tell us.” Shea reached across the table and grabbed Derry’s hand. “You’ve been miserable. You say such hateful things about Alec, the man you idolized a few months ago. What happened? Let us help you before you destroy yourself and everyone around you.”
The waiter, wearing Mickey Mouse ears and a black ball on his nose, took this exact moment to appear. “Have you decided?” he asked in a nasal twang.
“I’ll have a scotch, neat,” Derry said. She eyed the waiter’s name tag. “And, Todd, once you bring my drink, don’t bother us again until it’s gone. Okay?” She flashed him a brilliant smile, reminiscent of the old Derry.
Cyn and Shea waited, taking small, practiced breaths through their noses so as not to scare Derry who at the moment resembled the proverbial deer trapped in headlights. She didn’t trust easily, but who could blame her? It must be terrible to go through life without ever knowing who your real parents are.
When the waiter returned with their drinks, Derry swallowed a mouthful of scotch and said, “Charlie is Alec’s son.”
“What?” Shea stared at her, confused.
Cyn hid her shock better, but she’d always been the poker player in the bunch. No one ever knew what really went on in her head, her marriage, or her life. When she did speak, she only asked, “How?”
Derry raised an eyebrow. “Without much speculation, I’d guess in the usual way.”
“You know what I mean. How can Charlie be Alec’s?”
“That’s crazy, Derry,” Shea said.
“You need a Botox injection, Shea.” Derry pointed to Shea’s forehead. “Right there. It’ll make you look ten years younger.”
“Not everyone needs to inject themselves to be happy.”
“You’re right. And in case you’re wondering, it doesn’t make you any damn happier. It just makes you look like you’re happier.”
“Derry, how do you know Charlie is Alec’s real child?”
A half hysterical laugh escaped Derry’s lips. “Real as compared to unreal? I guess that’s what I am, right, an ‘unreal’ parent? But not Alec. He’s a real parent, the natural one.” She sighed and stared at her drink. “It was so innocent actually, one simple piece of paper and there it was, in black and white—Alec’s name listed as the father, and hers, Angela Sortelli.”
“Where’d you find it?” Shea leaned forward, massaging her temples with her fingertips, easing and gently pulling the edges of skin toward her scalp.
“In his office. I went there to take him to lunch, spur of the moment, because Charlie had class and I had an appointment in the city. He was finishing up with a meeting so I just wandered into his office.” She blinked hard. “Just like I’ve done hundreds of times before. But this time, I see a key turned in a drawer, and I wonder why it’s locked. Alec doesn’t even lock his car doors, for Chrissake. I was just curious, nothing else, except as a way to pass time. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I had the drawer open and saw the envelope with Charlie’s name on it. It was the return address on the corner of the envelope that got me—Bureau of Vital Statistics.” Her voice turned scratchy. “Then I knew, before I opened the envelope, I knew.”
“Who’s the woman?”
“Some law clerk who interned under him. Under him, get it? Alec swears he never knew about Charlie until she contacted him two years ago to tell him she had advanced ovarian cancer and would be dead in six months. Even if he hadn’t had the paternity test, you just have to take a look at Charlie to see Alec’s genes smeared all over him.” She let out a laugh that bubbled into a hiccough. “And here I was gushing over the adoption agency’s uncanny ability to find such a close match. How many times did I say Alec and Charlie were almost identical? How could I have been such a damn fool?”
“Sometimes we want something so much we refuse to consider anything else,” Shea said gently. “Even if it’s glaring in the window at us.”
“Derry.” Cyn’s controlled voice pierced the lunch din of chatter and dishware. “You can’t go on like this, it’s not healthy.”
“What’s not healthy? Look at me. I look great, and three months from now, I’ll look better than ever.” She pointed to her breasts. “Augmentation is my new best friend.”
“I think you need Prozac.” Shea’s gaze narrowed on her. You could take the lady out of the hospital but you couldn’t take the hospital out of the lady. “And Wellbutrin.”
“I’m on both.”
“Then you shouldn’t be drinking.”
“I know.”
“Are you going to counseling?” Shea again.
“On and off.”
“Well they can’t help you if you can’t commit.”
“I know.”
Shea shook her head and hefted a huge sigh. “Alec loves you, Derry. Yes, he screwed up by not telling you up front that he was Charlie’s father, but most of us would kill to have a man worship us like that. And Charlie’s just a little boy. He deserves a mother.”
“And I deserved the truth. And another scotch neat.”
“Maybe he didn’t tell you because he knew you’d act this way.”
“Shut up, Shea, okay? Just shut up. He knew for two years before he told me, and he brought Charlie into our house letting me believe it was God and the Northern Virginia Adoption Agency that matched
us up. And not once, did he ever open his mouth with the truth, not until I found out myself.”
It was Cyn’s turn to try. “You’ve got to find a way to move forward or you’ll destroy yourself, Derry.”
“Ah, Christ.” Derry buried her head in her hands. “Why can’t it be like when we were kids, and we could just call a do-over?”
“Because we’re not kids anymore.”
“You know, Shea, sometimes you can be a real pain in the ass,” Derry mumbled. She lifted her head and swiped at her eyes. “But if you could start over, just think of it.”
“I think you need your medicines adjusted.” Shea leaned in to examine Derry’s eyes. “And lay off the booze. You’re becoming delusional and it’s freaking me out.”
“What about you, Cyn? What if you could do anything you wanted to—forget all the shit you’re tied up in right now, if you could cut loose, what would you do?”
Shea rolled her eyes. “God, this feels like a bad remake of Thelma and Louise.”
Derry threw back her head and laughed. “If it is, I get Brad Pitt.”
“They died in the end, remember?”
“Shea, just for a second, pretend you could change your life. Call it, the Great Do-Over. What would you do?”
“I deal in milligrams and deciphering doctors’ notes, not pretending.”
“Humor her, Shea,” Cyn said.
“Fine.” Big, overinflated sigh. “I hate the name Shea. Nobody can ever spell it and they always ask me what it means. Is it Irish, or Scottish, or just made up? And I’d take all this red hair, and dye it platinum blond, and then I’d change my name to Marilyn and I’d wear stilettos and tight sweaters.”
“You’re on your way, kid. You’ve already got the boobs.”
“I was only kidding, Derry.”
“You think you were only kidding.” She slid Shea a knowing smile. “Somewhere under all that fuss is a tiny kernel of truth.”
“Like what?”
“Marilyn Monroe. I’ll bet deep in your subconscious you want to be like her, a sex object for once instead of a mating machine.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Am I?” She turned to Cyn. “What about you? What if you could bag Sammy and the girls?”
“That’s easy.” Cyn slid back in her chair and fluffed out her dark hair. “Just call me Sophia, darling,” she said in her best Italian accent.
“Hah! I guess that only leaves me with one choice.”
“Good God, who? Elizabeth Taylor?”
Derry laughed and drawled, “All my close friends call me Liz.”
Chapter 3
Life was funny. Sometimes, the most outrageous possibilities turned out to be not so farfetched.
Like now, for example. What were the odds that three, middle-aged women would be imagining their lives in altered, totally different circumstances? What started out as over-the-top fun, with a few exaggerated gestures and accented speech patterns, soon had Cyn wondering what it would be like to change her life, to have a naked canvas once more where she could be anything she wanted. And, erase the last five months.
The Great Do-Over, as Derry called it. Shea wouldn’t play the game. She said her life was right on track, exactly where she wanted it and there wasn’t a thing she’d change, not even the gray hair poking through her scalp.
Doubtful.
Cyn toyed with Sophia Loren’s accent, swept a hand through her hair in a slow, sensuous motion which got the attention of Todd, the Mickey Mouse waiter, who had just returned with more Diet Cokes and another scotch neat.
“It’s the accent,” Cyn said, after the flustered and blushing waiter backed away from the table.
“You sound like Zah Zah Gabor,” Derry said. “Drop your voice a little.”
“How’s this?”
“Sophia, what big eyes you have.”
“Thank you.”
“And what big…hair, you have.”
Another laugh. “Ah, yes, it’s the olive oil and garlic I massage into it. Don’t you love the smell?”
“Deeeeeevine.” Derry threw herself into a perfect Liz imitation. “And Sophia, pardon my saying, but what big tits you have.”
“This is ridiculous.” Shea frowned, crossed her arms over her chest. “You two are acting like children.”
“Mickey Mouse boy doesn’t think we are.” Derry pointed to their waiter who stood by the kitchen gawking at Cyn. “Sophia’s got an admirer.”
“Oh, for goodness sake.”
“Okay, Shea, we’re done.” Cyn straightened in her chair and cleared her throat. “Just us, right Derry?”
“Imagine.” Derry’s voice vibrated between them. “Imagine if we could just start over. Be anybody, go anywhere, do anything—”
“That’s called a fairytale.”
“Shea, you have no sense of adventure.”
“I’m forty-one with two college tuitions to pay, a full-time plus job with a supervisor I can’t stand, a body that jiggles, sags and puckers like a deflating balloon, a garage full of real estate signs and flyers, and maybe, just maybe, a baby on the way. So, no, right now, I have no sense of adventure. Zero. And I wish you two would just lay off and,”—her voice wobbled—“let me be who I am.” The tears started then, huge drops spilling down her face, her chin, into her Diet Coke.
“Shea.” Cyn reached for her hand and covered it with her own. “We didn’t mean it. We were just playing.”
“I wasn’t.” Derry sipped her scotch and said, “I want a Do-Over. I’m thirty-nine and if I don’t take it now, when will I get it? When will any of us get it?”
“Come on, Derry. You can’t just leave your family,” Cyn said. “They’re not paper towels you use and throw in the trash.”
“I know exactly who they are.” She paused to enunciate, “Father and son.”
“Who need their wife and mother,” Cyn added.
“Right.”
“Don’t do this to yourself.”
“One month, that’s all. I’ll pay. It won’t cost either of you a penny.” Her eyes glistened. “Let’s go away, anywhere, just the three of us.”
“What purpose could it possibly serve?” Doubting Shea piped in between sniffs.
“Who knows? Maybe it’ll be nothing more than a grand vacation, away from husbands, children, good God, life. Or, it could turn out to be so much more.”
“Like?” Shea again.
“Like maybe you’ll find a tiny crack in a window and you’ll look through it and see what your life could really be like. A Do-Over, Shea. A Great Do-Over, starring the three of us.” And then a big smile split Derry’s face. “Just think of us as the Marilyn, Sophia and Liz wannabees.”
“No thanks.”
“Haven’t you ever done something just for the heck of it?”
“No.” Shea’s hazel eyes narrowed on Derry as though she was from Mars. “You’re not even being practical, Derry. Who would take care of our families? Cyn’s got two daughters in high school and a husband.”
“For God’s sake, Shea, it’s only a month.”
“Families fall apart in half that time.” She sat up straighter, ran a hand through her thick hair. “Teenagers are the worst.”
“You just shipped Kirsten and Kyle off to school. All you’ve got is Richard.”
“He needs me.” Shea’s voice slipped.
“Cyn? What about you?”
“I can’t, Derry. How would I justify it? The girls are running in a hundred different directions and Sam’s starting a new project in North Carolina soon.” She let out a squeak of a laugh. “Husbands aren’t much better than kids, I guess.”
“Kids so busy they can’t even remember your birthday, can they, Cyn?” Derry threw her napkin on the table and pushed back her chair. “You know, even if we never actually went, it would’ve been nice to know the two of you thought enough of yourselves to consider it.” She stood and worked her arms through her jean jacket. “I’ve gotta go, sorry about the lunch.” She slammed
three tens on the table. “Happy Birthday, Cyn. Call me when you pick up the mixer.”
She turned and wove her way to the entrance, sidestepping tables of toddlers with balloons tied to their highchairs and blue-haired women crunching Heart Smart salads. Then she was gone, blasting out of the huge double doors, her black head bobbing to Steppenwolf’s, Born to be Wild.
“I’m glad I’m not Alec right now.” Shea sucked the last sips of Diet Coke from the bottom of her glass, pressed her fingers to her temples and gently pulled. “Do you think I need Botox?”
“No.”
“Really? What about whiteners? Do you think I should bleach?” She gritted her teeth and leaned close to Cyn.
“Stop, Shea.”
“I see all these young things flitting around in their shrink-wrapped jeans with their belly button rings and long blond hair and I think, how are we supposed to keep up? Look at them, Cyn, I’ll bet not one of those young things has ever seen a stretch mark or a spider vein.” She pressed harder against the skin of her temples, pulled until her eyes became slits. “They’re invading us, Cyn. They’re taking over and we’ll be crushed under their stilettos.”
“It’s not just about what’s on the outside, Shea, you know that.”
“People only say that to people who have no hope of ever looking good. You know that. I look like an old hag, don’t I? I mean really, tell me the truth, I can take it.” Her gaze roamed to the young waitress three tables over. She was long-legged, bronzed, with a butterfly tattoo on her calf.
“I think you’re a very attractive woman.”
“Sure, sure I am.” Shea slumped back against the chair and muttered, “And probably a pregnant one, too.”
“That’s great, Shea. It’s what you’ve been hoping for, isn’t it?”