Left to Chance

by Amy Sue Nathan

  “I don’t know,” I whispered, talking to myself more than to Shay. “I haven’t thought about doing something like this for a long time.”

  I didn’t want to be part of anything here except Shay’s life—and the wedding, as its photographer. Because of Shay.

  “Please say you’ll think about it, Aunt Tee, okay? C’mon, be brave.”

  She may have been mocking me, I wasn’t sure, but I gulped back a swell of emotions. That’s exactly what Celia had said.

  That time, I’d said no.

  I’d been sitting on the edge of Celia’s hospital bed and we were playing War, like we had when we were kids, the card piles resting on her lap. “I want you to be brave,” Celia had said, lifting one of my hands and holding it between hers, gripping as hard as I knew she could, which wasn’t hard at all. “And I want you to promise me something.”

  “This isn’t a real war, you know, it’s a game.”

  Even the joke hadn’t warded off the chills that crept up my neck, urging me to shiver. I would promise her anything.

  “I want you to promise me you’ll leave,” Celia had said.

  “What are you talking about? I just got here.”

  “No, Tee, listen to me. I want you to follow your bliss, your dreams, forge your own path, dance like nobody’s watching.”

  I’d rolled my eyes on purpose.

  “Go ahead, roll your eyes.” Celia laughed and then exhaled. “You deserve to be happier than you can be here. It was right for me, but it’s not right for you. I want you to be brave and leave Chance.”

  “Hell no,” I’d said.

  Celia never knew that I’d done as she’d asked. But, running out on her funeral, abandoning my apartment, and driving away with my foot on the gas, ignoring the rearview mirror as if I were living inside a chart-topping country song, was anything but brave.

  And here was Shay using that same damned word.

  “I’ll think about the contest,” I said. “That’s all I can promise.”

  Shay grabbed my arm and jumped up and down like she wanted a dollar for the ice-cream truck. I felt like she’d just reached into my gut and ripped out an organ. Maybe two.

  “What are you going to think about?”

  It was Miles.

  “Nothing,” we said.

  * * *

  In the parking lot, Miles and Beck fist-bumped like fraternity brothers.

  “See you soon,” Beck said.

  “Absolutely,” Violet said.

  “We’re going for ice cream, Aunt Teddi.”

  “Oh sweetie, I’m exhausted. I’ve been up since yesterday, I think.” I looked at Miles. “If it’s not out of the way, would you mind just dropping me off?”

  “I’ll drive you. It’ll give us time for some girl talk,” Violet said. I must’ve gone pale. “About the wedding. I would love to talk to you about the wedding photos,” she said.

  “Yes, we need to do that, but if you don’t mind…”

  “You’re tired, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s your big day. And that’s why I’m here.” I smiled at Shay.

  “How about if Daddy drives Aunt Teddi, and you and me meet him at The Frosty Fox?”

  “You and I…” Violet said.

  Shay rolled her eyes. “I don’t have class until noon tomorrow, Aunt Tee. Will you meet me for breakfast?”

  “Just text me in the morning.”

  Shay hugged me and as she pulled away I held on to her arm. “Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  But she was already walking away with Violet.

  “I’ll drive her home. I mean, to Nettie’s on Lark,” Beck said. “You go catch up with the girls. I’ll meet you there.”

  “You sure?” Miles asked.

  Beck nodded.

  No one asked if I was sure.

  “You’ll be over tomorrow to talk wedding, right?” Miles asked.

  “Right.”

  “Well, good night, then.”

  “Night,” Beck and I said in unison.

  “Which car is yours?”

  Beck pushed a button on his key fob and the lights in his SUV flickered nearby. My heart pattered in time.

  “You’re still close to Miles.”

  Beck’s eyes narrowed; the smile and light he had around Shay had left. Please, Beck, say something. Don’t make me do this alone.

  “I’m Miles’s best man.”

  “Wow, I had no idea.” The best man, who will be in all the wedding photos. My throat burned and my eyes stung as pressure built.

  “Of course you didn’t. How could you? Miles and Shay are still my family. And Violet’s great.”

  So I’d heard. So I’d seen.

  “It’s not too hard for you? It’s none of my business but—”

  “You’re damn right it’s none of your business.”

  I jerked back.

  “Don’t look so surprised. You went away. Disappeared. The rest of us stayed and helped each other through everything. If anything, it made us all closer.”

  “I can see that. I just…”

  “Just what?”

  “I never stopped caring, you know.”

  Beck walked away and then turned around. “Bullshit!”

  I stepped away.

  “Don’t yell at me. This isn’t easy for me either.” My voice cracked and the words sputtered through. “I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t behave like someone who’s sorry.”

  “I know. But I am.”

  “You’re sorry you left or you’re sorry you left without saying good-bye to me?”

  “Both.”

  “You expect me to believe you?”

  “No.” I patched the holes in my ego with the truth. “But it’s true.”

  * * *

  It was the longest ten minutes of my life.

  “Why did you insist on driving me if you’re not going to say one word?”

  “So Miles could celebrate with Shay and Violet. This art class is a big deal. Shay had to submit a portfolio to get in and this was her first show.”

  “A portfolio? At twelve? I didn’t know that. She’s amazing.”

  “You’re right. She is.” Beck clamped his lips, then opened them. “So, you two were thick as thieves before we left.”

  “I suppose you could say that.”

  “Everything okay? With Shay I mean?”

  I placed the brochure on the center console between us. “She wants me to do this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s a photography contest and I’m a photographer?”

  “You’re a wedding photographer.” His emphasis was condescending.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s not supposed to mean anything. It’s just what you are, right? Isn’t that what’s on your fancy business card?”

  “Wow, Beck, I—”

  “Do it if you want. Not like there’s anyone stopping you, but don’t you think the scales are unfairly tipped in your favor?”

  “How so?” How was anything ever tipped in my favor, especially in the past five hours?

  “You already get paid to do this. Isn’t that enough recognition? How much attention do you need?”

  “Oh my God! I wouldn’t be doing it for me! I’d be doing it because Shay asked me to do it. Like the wedding.” He thought so poorly of me. I’d earned that. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure she’ll forget about it by the morning.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Did you stop to think it might not really be about the contest?”

  I waited for him to say more.

  “Of course you didn’t. I’ll spell it out for you, but only because I don’t want Shay to get hurt. She wants you to have a reason to come back, or at least to care. But you’re right, it was probably nothing. How could someone possibly think you feel a connection to here?”

  “You don’t live here either.”

  Be
ck sighed and shook his head. “No, I don’t. I live a whole hour away. But I didn’t shed this place like old skin the way you did.”

  Be brave.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk, Teddi. Not now. I just want to get through the week. I’m happy for Miles, but you’re not the only one who remembers that if Cee were here, none of this would be happening.”

  I turned away, my selfish veil falling between us. I opened the car door but stayed in my seat.

  “I’ll see you at the wedding rehearsal.”

  “I’m not going home until after the wedding, so you’ll probably see me tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “It won’t be intentional, don’t worry. You’re back in Chance. If you walk around the block—”

  “I know. You see everyone twice.”

  * * *

  I sat on the porch swing, watching moths buzz around the lights, that flanked the front door. They bumped into each other to reach the glow. That’s the way people were drawn to Celia. In good times and in bad, even fucking cancer bad.

  After Celia had been diagnosed, it was never again just plain ordinary cancer, as if that was a thing. It was fucking cancer. The kind that couldn’t be blasted or banished. The kind that didn’t last long, except for eternal consequences that began when I went back to my apartment and climbed into a bottle of wine, before Beck arrived and pulled me out of it.

  “We can’t fall apart when Cee needs us the most,” he’d said. “Pull yourself together.”

  Soon, “You’ll be all right” had turned into “We’ll be all right” and we’d moved next to each other on the couch. Over Chinese takeout and bubble tea, Beck and I became grown-up friends and confidantes, and had planned to see each other the next night. And then, the one after that. To talk about anything and nothing. To watch movies that made us laugh and forget. To eat food that Celia couldn’t bear to smell. To cry when happiness was unbearable.

  After a month, he kissed the top of my head.

  Took you long enough, I’d thought.

  He’d lingered, his nose pressed into my hair. My head was near his chest, and I smelled Irish Spring and a musky aftershave. After a childhood full of Celia’s and my attempts to ditch her little brother at the playground—I didn’t want him to move one single inch.

  I looked up and examined his features. Forehead: smooth, his hair trimmed short. Eyes: blue-gray, almost translucent. Eyelashes: blond and blinking. Nose: straight and somewhat broad, but well proportioned. Upper lip: razor stubble. Mouth—

  I kissed him. Without interruption he kissed me back. The sadness tried to wiggle its way through so Beck kissed harder. I didn’t stop him, because that pushed away everything else. After minutes, or maybe it was hours, I stopped, but kept my hands on his chest. I unbuttoned one button on his shirt and he lifted my face with his hands and kissed my nose and chuckled, but not in a way that made me self-conscious—his voice deep in a way that steadied me, as if I were on a rocking ship that had just been towed into a calm port.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  I was sure. It didn’t matter what we did or didn’t do, Celia would still die.

  That began the best and worst months of my life.

  Chapter 4

  TAP TAP TAP.

  I heard it again. Tap tap tap. Then the sound of paper sliding under the door. I sat, my muscles sore the way they always were when I stowed away for a night or two on the couch/guest bed/kitchen of my parents’ Winnebago. My jaw clenched from a dream I’d forgotten, or maybe it was from everything I remembered. Chance, Shayna, art show, contest, Beck, wine. The wine! On the counter sat my glass with a respectable—or shameful, depending on your point of view—amount missing from the bottle. My dress hung over the arm of the rocker.

  I loved that dress, with its ribbons of vertical blues and contrasting orange stitching. Celia had always said blue was my best color, so when in doubt, I wore blue. A smile tugged at the sides of my mouth and I was grateful for the little moment of joy. I experienced them infrequently now, those specks of time where I forgot Celia was gone, that I couldn’t talk to her later. Gone was a given.

  After breakfast I would visit Celia’s grave.

  I’d never been there. Not after the funeral, when I should have been tossing a small shovelful of dirt into the earth. (I had been busy breaking my lease and packing my bags.) And not for the “unveiling” a year later, when I should have seen the headstone before retreating to Chance Hall for lox and bagels with Celia’s family. (I was busy managing a photo shoot in Santa Monica.)

  I blamed my job for keeping me away.

  The note.

  The note was scribbled in dark pencil on a torn piece of sketch pad paper.

  I scampered back to the bed and dug under the blankets. I toggled the switch to turn my phone on. Beeps meant Annie. Chimes meant Shay. It was different, being with Shay on her home turf. When we met up each summer in Chicago, I’d whisk her around the Hester, arm in arm for our weekend adventure. The staff knew her as my niece and I’d never corrected them. Since the summer she turned seven, I’d flown to Chicago from wherever I was working, while Miles had driven to Chicago with Shay. Then he stepped back for forty-eight hours into his complimentary room (or so he thought), allowing me and Shay quality girl time in my suite and beyond.

  In Chance, Shay was showing me things and showing me off, taking the lead in both good ways and bad. She’d planned our morning. I didn’t know what would happen, who I would see, or what I would feel. A haze of worry unsteadied me. I grabbed on to the dresser. When these feelings had tapped me on the shoulder over the past six years, I’d shoved them into drawers in one city and moved on to the next, because everywhere and nowhere was my home.

  I imagined that if Simon had it his way, I’d call San Francisco my home. I also imagined that if Simon had it his way, I’d call him my husband.

  * * *

  The early-morning air hinted of the humidity that would later stifle the county. I swore I could feel my hair frizzing at my scalp, but I left it down anyway. I tiptoed across the porch and down the four wide wooden steps, as if everyday footsteps would wake the neighborhood. I skittered to the other side of Lark Street like a car was zooming toward me, but the only sound was the whoosh and whirl of the automatic sprinklers next door.

  I stared at the house, grand in its appearance, simple in its comforts. Looking through the viewfinder, I zoomed in. The white paint on the banister had tiny chips at the edges. Was that from use or from time? Was it an oversight? I moved the camera away from my face.

  At work, I scrutinized everything. I captured images and then created perfection. I also stole morning moments like this one to experience the hotels’ mountain views or beach sunrises without any filters, without making any adjustments. I was still taking pictures just for me, beauty stored on a memory card. I didn’t do anything with them, but I held on to them. Like one of those harried parents who had given up on the grand idea of a scrapbook, I’d stopped saying someday.

  In world-class cities, I sat in our hotel lobbies sipping coffee from a monogrammed paper cup, a folded newspaper in my lap, and watched as the world awoke in slow motion. I loved the way that high-heeled footsteps ticked on marble floors, the way rolling suitcases hummed or bumped along with a broken wheel. And I loved to watch men and women stride ahead, all purpose and intention, on their way to … somewhere.

  Today it was my turn. I sashayed down Lark wearing my light blue sundress, as if I were the star of an elaborate tampon commercial. All that was missing was the voiceover. I seemed to be the only person outside. So much for walking around the block and seeing everyone twice.

  At a Hester hotel, someone was always up and about and milling around, tidying up from one event, getting ready for the next retreat or wedding or bevy of families on vacation. There were always people around, yet I was almost always alone. This was different.

  I turned rig
ht onto Main Street, stopped, and my mouth dropped open. “Close your mouth before you catch flies,” my mother would say.

  Main Street splayed in front of me as if in a Hallmark movie. I lifted my camera and watched through my lens where the world existed only within the frame. Men and women ran through Chance Square, doing laps on the perimeter, stopping to stretch, to chat, to guzzle water. Women with ponytails pushed strollers up and down both sides of the street, some with an extra mini-me trailing behind, wearing plastic sunglasses and carrying a sippy cup as if it were a latte. A yoga group was setting up just out of the way of a climbing wall.

  I continued down Main, slowing my pace and my thoughts. I pushed away each bit of work that tried to wind its way through, although I tapped a few notes onto my phone for the sake of safekeeping—and sanity. I set a second reminder to call Mr. Thomas—Henry—and a third to confirm next week’s appointments. I stood under an awning, looked up, and snapped a picture. No one even turned their head my way.

  I sat on an iron bench before the sun could transform it into a frying pan. People milled about on the sidewalk in front of me. Behind me I captured the homespun scene from another angle. I didn’t remember such bustle.

  I turned back and as the last of the crowd dissipated, I saw my reflection in the window in front of me. I was more fit than I’d been in my early thirties; after two years of promising myself to use the gym three times a week, I had finally done it.

  My shoulders and arms had never been flabby, but now they were slightly defined. I surreptitiously curled and uncurled one arm and watched my bicep expand and retreat. I stood straighter and shifted from left to right and my dress followed. I grabbed my pockets as if to curtsy, lifting my dress enough to see a few inches above my knees. Beck had called me Chicken Legs when we were kids, but my legs—and his opinion of them—had changed over the years. I let go of my skirt.

  Shit. Was that someone on the other side of the glass? I stepped forward and squinted and beyond my image saw a tall table with carafes and containers. Shit. Shit. Shit. How had I not realized I was standing in front of—wasn’t this the tailor, or had it been the shoe repair shop? I stepped back and saw the sign on the door as it opened.