by Joy Argento
Carrie forced herself to her feet and headed for Mike and the friendly brown-eyed woman. “Excuse me, Mike. I need to speak to ummm…” Carrie realized she didn’t know the woman’s name. “…er, um, this beautiful lady here.” Oh my God, I can’t believe I just said that.
“Will you excuse me?” the beautiful lady said to Mike as Carrie pulled her away by the elbow. She turned to Carrie. “Thank you so much. I couldn’t seem to get that guy away from me.” Her smile spread across her face. “I owe you one.”
“I was actually thinking of leaving. I am not sure this is the group for me,” Carrie confessed. She shrugged her shoulders.
“How about I buy you a cup of coffee somewhere? I don’t feel much like staying either. My name is Hope by the way.” She put out her hand. “Hope Garret.”
“Carrie Martin,” Carrie said, shaking Hope’s extended hand. “I would love to go get coffee, or maybe a drink? I feel like I could use a gin and tonic about now. I think there is a quiet little bar that we could walk to just down the street. If that’s okay with you.”
“Sure, that would be great. Should we say something to Eric, or just leave?” Carrie looked at Eric. He was engrossed in a conversation with two women.
“I say we sneak out,” Carrie answered in a low husky whisper.
“Then let’s do it,” Hope said. She grabbed Carrie’s hand and headed towards the door. She dropped her hand as soon as the door closed behind them. Both women burst out laughing.
“Oh my God. That was intense. Except for that Mike guy. He was just gross. You didn’t have to leave with me. But, I’m glad you did,” Carrie said, tucking a stray lock of her blond hair behind her ear. A blush crept into her face giving her normally pale skin a pink glow.
“No, I was glad to leave. I really didn’t want to be here in the first place. Now let’s go find that bar.”
The early evening air was unusually warm for mid-September. The weather in Western New York could vary greatly in late summer but the past week had been unusually sunny and warm. The women made small talk as they walked the two blocks under the bright streetlights to the small bar on the corner of Monroe Avenue and Club Street.
Carrie held the heavy, wooden door open for Hope. She blinked several times as they entered to let her eyes adjust to the darkness inside. A few booths with thick green cushions, lined the wall to the right and small tables with chairs were set around the center of the room. Shelves of alcohol, surrounding a mirror sporting the name Budweiser in the familiar logo, sat on the back wall behind the long bar. The place was empty except for two older men playing pool at the table in the corner and two younger men sitting at the bar drinking. A barstool separated them. Soft music drifted through the air, cut occasionally by the sound of pool balls hitting together.
Carrie led the way to the stools at the far side of the bar, away from the two young men. “How’s this?” she asked Hope.
“This works,” Hope answered. She set her small purse on the bar as she slid her body easily onto the tall barstool.
Carrie sat on the stool next to the wall, swiveled it towards Hope and said, “I hope you don’t mind that I suggested a drink instead of coffee.”
“No, not at all. I was just glad to get out of there. Although I did feel a little like a teenager skipping out of class.” Hope smiled, revealing a row of perfect, white teeth.
Carrie laughed. “I know what you mean. I felt a little weird leaving like that, too. But going there was a bad idea.”
The tall bartender appeared in front of the two women. His long bleached blond hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. His quick smile revealed a wide gap between his front teeth. He wiped his hands on a small towel tucked into his waistband and asked, “What can I get for you ladies?”
Hope looked at Carrie and said, “You wanted a gin and tonic, right?”
Carrie smiled and nodded, surprised that Hope remembered the drink she had mentioned earlier.
Hope turned back to the bartender. “One gin and tonic and I’ll have a umm…I’ll have a screwdriver, please.” Hope looked momentarily flustered before she added in a low voice. “Hold the vodka.”
The bartender smiled and leaned closer to her. “One gin and tonic and one virgin screwdriver, coming right up,” he said in an equally low voice.
Hope tilted her head slightly and looked over at Carrie, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t really drink,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against it. I just never developed a taste for alcohol.”
“I am so sorry. We should have gone for coffee like you suggested,” Carrie said.
“No, no. You get your drink and I am perfectly happy with orange juice. Not a problem at all.” She opened her purse, took out a bill and set it in front of her. “So,” she said turning once again to Carrie. “If you don’t mind my asking, how come you think going to that meeting was a bad idea? I don’t mean to be so blunt, but who was it that died?”
“Hmm, well, I guess that’s the problem. No one died. Yet,” Carrie struggled to explain.
“I’m not sure I understand. Doesn’t one usually go to a grief support group because someone died?” Hope’s words were soft and kind.
“My grandmother is actually still alive, but she has been in a coma for almost three months. A vegetative state, the doctors call it. I go and visit her a lot and talk to her, but she can’t talk back. I’m not even sure if she can hear what I am saying to her. I just miss her so much that I thought it might be a good idea to go to a grief support group.”
Carrie thought for a moment that Hope was going to touch her shoulder, but placed her hand on the bar instead. Her eyes never left Carrie as she asked, “So why did you decide that it wasn’t a good idea after all? Why did you want to leave?”
“Because I felt like I was writing my grandmother off as dead already. I felt like I was being disloyal to her. Does that make any sense?”
“It makes perfect sense,” Hope said to Carrie. The bartender set the drinks down in front of the woman and picked up the money in front of Hope. “Keep the change,” she told him.
Carrie lifted the drink to her lips and took a long swig. The liquid felt cool in her throat as it went down, but warmed when it hit her belly.
“So, I assume you’re close to your grandmother?” Hope asked.
“Really close. She lived next door and I was over there all time when I was a kid. She lived in this big old farmhouse. It had like five bedrooms in it and only one teeny, tiny bathroom. But it had this huge kitchen that always smelled so good.” Carrie watched the ice dance as she swirled the drink in her hand. “My grandmother always paid attention to me, even when I was just a kid. She made me feel special.” Carrie took another swallow of her drink. “She is the best baker and the two of us were always making something delicious. She taught me what comfort food was. I can’t eat a piece of pie or cake without thinking of my her.”
Carrie paused before going on. “My grandmother may still be alive but she isn’t there anymore. I miss her a lot, but I guess I’m not ready to grieve for her. I just couldn’t face telling a room full of strangers that I missed my grandmother who was…is…still alive. Especially when those people were all talking about someone who had died.” Carrie looked into Hope’s amber brown eyes. “Oh my God. Here I am going on and on and you were there, too. You must have lost someone that you love. I am so sorry.”
“Oh, no, no. Don’t be sorry. Yes I was there, but only because I promised my sister Marcy that I would go. She thinks I’m in denial.” Hope drank a big gulp of her orange juice.
“Denial is the first stage of grief isn’t it? Does your sister think that you are stuck in the denial stage?” Carrie asked.
“Yes, denial is the first stage, but it’s not that I’m stuck there. It’s that I’m not grieving at all. It’s a really long story but the bottom line is that my husband died after a three-year battle with cancer. I didn’t…um, well, I didn’t…”
Carrie sensed her discomfort.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Hope searched Carrie’s deep green eyes. Something in Carrie’s face told her it was okay to go on. “I’ve never said these words out loud to anyone before.” She paused and took a deep breath. She looked down at the drink in her hand, looked up into Carrie’s eyes and continued. “I was going to leave my husband. I was going to leave him, but he told me he had cancer so I stayed.” Hope swallowed hard. “I had even found an apartment for myself and my son, Derrick. Derrick was sixteen at the time. I was going to sign the lease the following day. My marriage hadn’t been working for a long time and I felt like it was time to leave. But my husband Tom was diagnosed with colon cancer, and I decided to stay to help him through it. It ended up that he didn’t get better, and I stayed and took care of him until he died.”
“Did your husband know that you were going to leave him?” Carrie asked quietly.
“No. No one knew. I wasn’t going to tell him until I had everything for my new life worked out.” Hope sighed. “I didn’t want him to try to talk me out of it. I wanted to be ready to go when I told him. And I never told anyone else out of respect for Tom. I didn’t think it was fair to tell someone else before I told him. So I hadn’t said anything to anyone. He wasn’t a bad guy or even a bad husband. He just wasn’t the person I wanted to come home to every day. I’m not sure he ever was. So when he died my primary feeling was guilt.”
“So, you felt guilty because you were going to leave him?” Carrie asked.
“No, I felt guilty because I felt relieved when he died. I know that sounds terrible. But it’s true. I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I have never told this to anyone.”
Carrie put her drink down on the bar. “I feel privileged that you feel comfortable enough to tell me,” she said.
“I’m sorry to burden you with all this. You don’t even know me, yet you are kind enough to listen to me ramble on.”
“Sometimes the best person to tell your secrets to is a complete stranger,” Carrie said. She picked up her drink again and finished the last sip of it. She held it up to get the bartender’s attention. “Round two is on me,” she said to Hope. “Can I get a virgin screwdriver this time?” she asked the bartender as he took Carrie’s empty glass. “And get my friend here a refill, too. Thanks.”
“You don’t have to stop drinking alcohol because of me,” Hope told her. “I don’t have a problem with it.”
“One is my limit when I am driving,” Carrie answered honestly. She accepted the tall glass the bartender handed her. She pulled a ten-dollar bill from the front pocket of her jeans to pay for the drinks. “So go on,” she said to Hope.
“Well, I don’t think a group for grief is going to help me with the feeling of guilt. It’s not that I wanted him to die, because I didn’t. I didn’t want my son to be without his father for one thing. I never wanted that. I fully expected to stay with him until he got better.” Hope sighed. “Tom would be okay for a while, and I would think he would get better and live. Then he would take a turn for the worse, and I was sure he was going to die, and I would set my mind to accepting it. Then he would get better again and the cycle would repeat. My emotions were like a damn yo-yo. It was so draining. Finally he took a turn for the worse and just got sicker and sicker, and it got harder and harder to take care of him. But I did. I took care of him until the end.”
“You are a very special person to do that for him,” Carrie said.
“I certainly don’t feel special. I did what anyone would do.” She finished her first glass of juice and pushed it towards the back of the wide bar before she pulled the new drink closer.
“I disagree. I think you did much more than most people would have done. I don’t think you have anything to feel guilty about, Hope.” Carrie reached over and patted Hope gently on the hand.
They sat without speaking for a couple of minutes. Carrie broke the silence. “So you have a son?”
Hope’s face lit up. “Yes, Derrick’s nineteen now. He goes to college in Buffalo. He is probably going to go into business like his father. He’s a good kid. I’m very proud of him.”
“It shows.” Carrie smiled as Hope brightened with her talk of her son.
“He’s the kind of kid that never causes too much trouble, you know. Well, if we don’t count the three years he was in middle school and his first two years of high school.” Hope let out a small laugh. “But I hear that happens a lot. Luckily, he seemed to come to his senses when he was a junior. I’m pretty sure I heard a loud pop one-day when his head came out of his ass. Not that it doesn’t go back in every once in a while.”
Carrie nearly spit out her juice trying to suppress a laugh. She managed to swallow the liquid without spewing it across the bar and wiped a drip that escaped down her chin.
“Sorry,” Hope said with amusement in her voice. “Didn’t mean to make you choke.” She let out her own wave of laughter.
Carrie smiled at her. “Yeah I can tell by your laugh just how sorry you are.” She shook her head.
“I really am sorry,” Hope said when she finally got the laughing under control. “Oh my God, I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”
“You should do it more often,” Carrie told her. “It looks good on you.”
“Thanks.” Hope sipped her fresh drink. “Okay, enough about me. Let’s talk about you. Married? Boyfriend? Kids?” Hope asked.
The bartender set down a fresh bowl of pretzel in front of the women. Hope reached for a handful and pushed the bowl closer to Carrie.
Carrie shook her head at the silent offer. “None of the above.”
“Never?” Hope asked between bites.
“Well, I have had boyfriends if that’s what you are asking. But no, I’ve never had a husband or kids. And no current boyfriend.”
“How come someone as stunning as you doesn’t have a boyfriend?” Hope said. “Sorry. That didn’t sound quite right.”
Carrie smiled wide at the comment and at the flustered look on Hope’s face. “Thanks for the compliment.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t had anyone special in my life in quite awhile. I just can’t seem to meet a guy that holds my interest for more than a couple of dates, and some for not even that long. My love life is a sad, sad thing.” She grinned at Hope. “ But that’s okay. It gets lonely sometimes but I’m happy with my life for the most part. I certainly don’t need a guy to make me happy.” Carrie thought for a moment. Her face betrayed her regret at her choice of words. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was insensitive of me, considering everything you have been through.”
“Oh stop it. I didn’t take that personally. I don’t want you to have to watch every word you say,” Hope said.
“Okay, thanks.”
“So what do you do for a living?”
“I am a logistics manager at the Freddrick’s Company. I’m in charge of the warehouse inventory, transportation, some of the customer service area. I know it sounds glamorous, but not so much.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you don’t get to wear an evening gown to work with three inch heels, and the tiara every day?”
“Oh, well, yeah I do. So if you count that, then I guess it is pretty glamorous,” Carrie laughed.
“Wow, doesn’t your evening gown get dirty in the warehouse?”
“That’s why there are several big, huge men whose only job is to carry me around and keep me away from the dirt.”
“Sounds like a dream job,” Hope smiled.
“Actually, it is a pretty good job. I’ve been with the company for twelve years. The benefits are good and I’ve got about a million days of vacation time built up.”
“A million, huh? That’s a lot of vacation time. Do you get that every year?” Hope sipped her drink.
“No, I get four weeks a year because I’ve been there so long, but I haven’t taken much of it, so it just accumulates.”
“You don’t ever take vacations?”
“No, not usually. I don’t feel like going anywhere alone, I do too much alone. I have friends but most of them have husbands or families. I used to take my grandmother to North Carolina every year to visit my brother, but it got hard for her to travel, so we haven’t done that in a while.”
“So what do you do when you aren’t working or visiting your grandmother?”
“I draw and paint,” Carrie said. “I love creating art.”
Hope leaned forward. “What kind of painting do you do?”
“I oil paint…still lifes mostly but I occasionally do portraits or figures. In fact I have been working on a series of rough sketches for a figure show in New York City in April that I want to show my work in. I just need to find a model…” she suddenly stopped talking and looked at Hope.
Hope raised her eyebrows waiting for Carrie to finish. “What?” Hope asked.
Carrie cleared her throat. “Um, I was saying I need a model to use for a set of two paintings for this show in New York City…and I was just deciding if I had enough nerve to ask you if you would consider posing for me.”
“And what did you decide? Do you have enough nerve?” Hope smirked.
“No, probably not. I don’t want you to think I am some sort of weirdo asking you to pose for me when you don’t even know me.”
“Who says I don’t already think you’re a weirdo?” Hope’s smirk turned into a full smile that brightened her face.
“Well, in that case what do I have to lose? Would you consider posing for me? I would pay you, of course. You wouldn’t get rich from it, but I could give you something for your time.” Carrie cleared her throat and watched the look of amusement on Hope’s face. “Have you ever modeled before? I mean, have you ever done modeling for art, for an artist.”
“Actually, I did some modeling for the art classes in college but I was young and beautiful then,” she smiled. “Now I’m old and wrinkly with stretch marks. I’m not sure I would be what you are looking for.”
Carrie smiled back. “You are very far from old and wrinkly, and a few stretch marks won’t hold me back.”