How to Change a Life

by Stacey Ballis

  “Damn, Claire, you are getting very philosophical in your old age,” my mom says.

  “Middle age, thank you very much,” Claire says.

  “Um, unless you are planning on being a hundred and thirty, I’m pretty sure you are old,” Mom says. “But wise. I have to say, it’s possible your aunt here has some valid points.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I have to think about it. The whole Shawn thing is a complication that might make it ultimately impossible. If he and I stay together, and I dearly hope we will . . .”

  “As do we,” my mom says.

  “Definitely,” Claire says.

  “Well, Lynne is his ex-wife and it was not an amicable split. If I am, as you say, going to benefit from having her in my life, how on earth do I manage that? How do I keep them both?”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Claire says, as my mom wanders over to check on the chicken. “And be a bit soft with Marcy. She’s been your one and only bestie, as the kids say, for a very long time. I suspect Lynne and Teresa being back in your life can feel a little threatening, and Lynne seems the easiest place to dump her jealousy.”

  “You think Marcy is jealous of Lynne?”

  “I think Marcy fills the role with you that Lynne did, so if Marcy were going to feel pushed aside or replaced, Lynne would be the one to make her feel that way. I don’t doubt her sincerity, or her protectiveness of you, but I also know that it must be hard on her. She had all these years of encouraging you to be more, do more, get out there, and then Lynne swans in and there is this bet and suddenly you are doing all the things she suggested and you ignored, and you are doing them successfully. Plus you have this wonderful boyfriend, which is another drain on the time you can spend with her.”

  “I never would have thought . . .” Marcy has always been so confident, so strong, in a million years I would not have thought she could be jealous, especially over me.

  “I know. It’s why I mention it.” The doorbell rings. “Saved by the bell,” Claire says, as I head over to let Shawn in.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he says, leaning in to kiss me.

  “Hello, handsome. How was the surgery?”

  “Long and exhausting. How did Ian do?”

  I make it a habit never to call or text when I know he is in surgery. He mentioned that he hates to get out of a long procedure only to find a phone full of new obligations, and I try to be sensitive to that, even though I want to reach out a million times a day. “He made it through.”

  “That is so terrific, good for him. And congrats to you!”

  “Yeah, we’ll talk more about that later.”

  My mom and Claire come into the room to greet him, fluttering around him like a pair of excitable butterflies, taking his coat, asking about his day, handing him a drink. He handles it like a champ.

  “Something smells amazing in here, and I’m hungry as a bear!”

  “Come, come, dinner is ready!” my mom says, ushering us all into the dining room.

  “You don’t have to ask me twice,” Shawn says, offering Claire his arm as my mom and I head into the kitchen to bring out the dishes.

  “Claire is right about one thing, kiddo. You will figure it out. And whatever you decide, we’ll support you,” she says, spooning the rich sauce over the chicken. “I think you should talk to Shawn about it. See how he feels, what he worries about. If you are a couple, then that takes precedence. It is possible to have friendships that don’t involve spouses—Lord knows your father hated my girlfriend Allison, which was why I always spent time with her on my own and didn’t foist her or her annoying husband on him. You can keep them both in your life if you choose and still be protective of him if he doesn’t want to interact with her. But he is a good and smart man, and I believe he will help you figure out how to manage the whole thing if you let him in completely.”

  “I think so too.” And I do. For all my nonconfrontational nature, as awkward as the conversation is likely to be, I also know that I want his advice, and to hear what he needs for everything to be okay.

  “Now let’s feed that poor man before he falls over.”

  My mom might not be a fancy cook, but I know I get my impulse to love people with food from her, and I’m so grateful for that gift.

  “Yeah, let’s do that.” And we pick up the platters and head for the dining room.

  • • •

  Your mom is a good cook,” Shawn says as we get back to my house after walking Simca around the block, bundled up against the cold, which intensified after I got to Mom’s house.

  “Yeah. You got all her serious specialties tonight, you know.”

  “The chicken Marbella. My mom used to make it all the time back in the eighties. It was total nostalgia.”

  “Everyone used to make it all the time in the eighties! It was exotic and fancy and fed a crowd.”

  “It was a lovely meal. Even if Claire did molest me.”

  I laugh. When we went to leave, he leaned in for a kiss and she turned her cheek the wrong way and ended up planting one right on his lips. “She was two Manhattans in.”

  “It was funny.” Claire had blushed like a teenager and got all flustered. “I really enjoy them both.”

  “Well, at this point I’m pretty sure that they like you better than they like me, so that is good. They want us all to have dinner again next week with Glenn, but if that is a little too much family time, we can just say you have work.”

  “Not at all. Don’t forget, I lose my family all winter; it’s nice to have some time with yours. And I’m really looking forward to meeting Glenn.”

  I tell him about Shelby’s request for me to chaperone Ian. “She knows that a month is a long time, and she offered to fly you out for weekends, but I want to know what you think.”

  “First of all, I’m not a part of this decision. If it is something you want to do, then you should absolutely do it. Of course if you do, I will come visit, and while Shelby’s offer is very generous, I can fly myself to New York. Not that I want to be apart from you for a month, but it isn’t forever, and we are grown-ups, we’ll manage just fine. What does your gut say?”

  I adore him. “I go back and forth. On the one hand, it’s an exciting idea—there are a ton of things I could do and see and eat in New York. I’ve never really spent any significant time there, but I know a lot of chefs here who can hook me up with chefs there, so that would be amazing.”

  “But?”

  “But . . . leaving you, leaving Simca . . . the Farbers and Lawrence?”

  “Can I say something you might not want to hear?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay, first off, I will be fine. And I’ll take Simca, so she and I can commiserate about our desperate loneliness without you, and when I come visit she will get time with your mom, who will spoil her rotten. I know there is a little part of you that thinks if you leave for a month the Farbers and Lawrence will somehow see that they can manage well without you, but I think that your being gone will just show them how much they love having you in their lives. I know it will for me. Absence does make the heart grow fonder, my love.”

  “Okay, that makes me feel better. But there is something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ian. We’re talking about me essentially playing surrogate mom, twenty-four/seven, for a little boy. I’ve never spent more than a few contiguous hours with any kid.”

  “Wait, you’ve been on vacations with them. That is twenty-four/seven.”

  “Yeah, but their parents were there. I was basically in charge of food! I wasn’t in charge of kissing boo-boos or shutting down tantrums or delivering bedtime stories. What if he has a rough time being away? What if he gets cut or burnt on set or gets sick—kids get sick! What if he throws up? I can’t handle the throwing up, Shawn, you know that . . .”

  “Breathe, sweet girl,
breathe. Look, you are strong and smart and kind and that kid loves you and trusts you. He will feel safe and you will be a rock star. And if something goes wrong, your natural instincts will kick in. What is the absolute worst thing that can happen? He’ll throw up, and you’ll sympathetically throw up, and the two of you will have a little vomit party, and then it will be one of those epic hilarious stories that the family will tell for years to come. It’s New York. You aren’t going to a third-world country. If something serious happens, one of his parents will jump on a plane and be there in a matter of hours.”

  “Vomit party?”

  He smiles at me.

  “You don’t have to be a mother to be maternal. You just have to love him. Everything else will work itself out.”

  “I guess.”

  “I know. You are a natural nurturer, Eloise. You take care of people. You’d be a great mom, even a temporary surrogate one.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.” Then he grins wickedly at me. “After all, Lawrence is counting on our café au lait babies for him to give terrible names!” Lawrence does continue to tease with both of us on the child front, and Shawn and I have embraced it as one of our inside jokes.

  I can’t help but laugh. “Oh, really? How many of these babies are we talking about?”

  “Five!” He pauses. “Or maybe even just one?”

  I look into his face, and see that while we are joking, a part of him isn’t really joking.

  “Maybe one. To start,” I say, not even believing the words coming out of my mouth.

  “Maybe one, then. To start.” He leans forward and kisses me deeply.

  “I suppose then I should say yes and practice a little on Ian, huh?”

  “Better to screw up with someone else’s kid, is what I’m thinking.”

  I swat his arm. “You’d really want to take care of Simca?”

  “I love that pup. If it will get you to do something that is good for you, I will happily take care of Simca, I will go over and make Lawrence’s lunches, I’ll fight off advances from your horny aunt, and I’ll come visit you every weekend so that you remember who loves you and you don’t fall prey to some famous celebrity chef’s evil seduction.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” He reaches for me. “Let’s go upstairs and I’ll show you how much.”

  “Not going to argue with that.”

  He takes my hand and we head up the stairs. Based on the efforts of the next few hours, he loves me very much indeed. I’m feeling so much better about everything, but then, just before I drift into sleep, one tiny little thing crosses my mind.

  What do I do about him being at the birthday party?

  Twenty

  I’m just finishing up loading Lawrence’s fridge when he breezes in with the boys. Luckily the new batch of peanut butter dog biscuits are cooled enough to treat them.

  “Hello, Philippe! Hello, Liagre! Did you have a good walk?” I say, handing each of them a biscuit. They are both so different about treats. Philippe is a lot like Simca, takes it daintily out of your hand and goes somewhere quiet to eat it. Liagre, on the other hand, is like a whirling dervish. He snatches it up, devours it on the spot, and then spins and jumps and begs for more.

  “Liagre! Stop the begging, it is unseemly,” Lawrence says, kissing my cheek.

  “How was the meeting yesterday?” I ask. Lawrence was meeting with a client who fired him midjob a couple of years ago and hasn’t spoken to him since.

  “Fine. Somewhat confusing, to be honest.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, you know, after the unpleasantness, we haven’t spoken. So I thought perhaps she wanted to talk it through, maybe give me her perspective. But she sort of acted like nothing had really gone on, and just wanted to catch up.”

  “So, you are just supposed to, what? Forgive and forget? Pretend it didn’t happen?”

  “I guess.”

  “Would you even want that?”

  “Not under this set of circumstances. If she had apologized, explained, even told me what she perceived that I had done to her to make her turn on me, and given me a chance to address it, then of course, it is always possible to move forward. But she didn’t and I’m too old to play make-believe. So I wished her well, but won’t be reconnecting with her again.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “More relieved than I would like to admit.”

  “Why?”

  “Honestly? Because as much as I was so sure that this meeting was about her apologizing to me, I was afraid it was going to be her telling me all the things I did or said that validated the way she treated me, and frankly, I’m judgmental enough about myself, I wasn’t really up for hearing someone else tell me my flaws, because I might have agreed with them.”

  “Lawrence, you are one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous, most lovely people I have ever known.”

  “Thank you, my dear. I’m also catty, snarky, a bit superior at times, occasionally intolerant of other people’s opinions if they don’t jibe with mine. Yes, I’m charming company at dinner, and Lord knows I’ll make your home gorgeous. But that doesn’t mean I’m always a choirboy. No one wants to believe that someone else might see the parts of themselves they hate the most. The parts they’re ashamed of. No one wants to listen to someone else lay out the litany of their faults, because then the blame lands squarely on your own shoulders and what does one do with that?”

  I reach over and squeeze his hand. “One just remembers that the people who know him best and longest know that every human has flaws, but that his are far and away small and unimportant and that his amazing wonderful qualities outweigh them ten times over.”

  He squeezes back. “Thank you, darling girl.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  “And what do you have on your agenda the rest of the day?”

  “I’m meeting Lynne for a puppy playdate, and then going to Teresa’s to help her make a French dinner for her family.”

  “No Shawn tonight?”

  “He’s having boys’ night out. One of his former teammates is in town, so there are a bunch of guys doing the chest-thumping, steak-dinner thing. If it doesn’t go too late, he’s coming over after.”

  “I love the way you glow when you talk about him.”

  “Me too. I don’t know that either of us will ever be able to thank you enough.”

  “Well, all I did was put you in a room together, you did the rest. But I will take credit for the impulse.”

  “Good. After all, it makes up for all your other nasty traits.”

  “Evil Amazon. Get out of here and have your day.”

  I kiss him on the cheek. “See you next week.”

  On the drive over to meet Lynne, I think about what Lawrence said about not wanting to hear about your faults from other people. Because the more I’m getting out in the world, doing new things, meeting new people, the more I’m ashamed of how long I’ve been hiding from my own life. I look at Teresa and Gio and their crazy, sprawling family, at my mom and Claire and their girlfriends and volunteering and theater subscriptions, Marcy and her amazing wide circle of friends, with all their late-night adventures, and think that all of those things might have been mine. The years alone with no lover, no arms around me, no kisses, no hands on my skin. And what stopped me? Exactly what Lawrence said. Because deep down, I always sort of believed that I didn’t bring much to the table.

  Even back in high school, Lynne was the leader, Teresa was the social coordinator, and I went along for the ride and felt lucky to have them. I kept my circle equally small in college, and as soon as I went to France, I ghosted on them too. When I think back on my relationship with Bernard, I wonder if I really loved him as much as I thought I did, or if I just loved that he didn’t seem to see the many flaws in me that I saw. I n
ever stopped to wonder if he didn’t see them because he was such a narcissist that he never saw much of anything past himself. And I let him break me so completely; it was a validation of all the worst thoughts I had about myself.

  I think about what Mrs. O’Connor said to me when I came back to school after my surgery, with the full knowledge that my athletic career was over.

  “You know what is amazing about women like us, Miss Eloise? We have so much magic in us, we contain multitudes. Did you ever know I was a dancer?”

  “No, what kind of dance?”

  “Ballet. And I was good, too. Thought a lot about trying to do it professionally.”

  “What happened?”

  “I kept growing. Up and up and taller and taller and my shoulders and hips filled out, and my bosom decided to make an appearance and I stopped having the kind of body that you need to have in ballet.”

  “That is so unfair.”

  “True. But you can’t ask some five-foot-nine ballet boy to hoist all of this fabulousness over his head like a feather. The audience would bust out laughing,” she said, waving her arm over the length of her body.

  I laughed. “I suppose not.”

  She reached out and took my chin in her hand. “You are so much more than one thing. You have so much more to give and be than just what you were. When I realized I couldn’t be a dancer, I found out I could teach dance, and I did that to put myself through college. And I loved teaching so much that I thought maybe I could teach other things, and it turned out that one of my other passions, reading, could be something I could share with students. What is your other passion, the thing you like most to do?”