How to Change a Life

by Stacey Ballis

  “Baby steps, but yes, that was Shawn 2.0 in action. That is who I am now, but while I still believe that the way Linda—Lynne—behaved at the end of our marriage was hateful, I cannot be my new improved self if I don’t own that some of it was deserved. I genuinely loved her, but apparently not enough to let her really know the real me, not until I felt sure of her, of us. And the risk with that is that when you do reveal who you are, it can blow everything up, which is what happened with us. I should have been man enough to be myself from the beginning, and I wasn’t, so a lot of it is on me.”

  “You can’t take the blame for the whole thing.”

  “I don’t. Just the parts of it that are mine to carry. But I know that it was wrong on both ends, and she does have a right to not want to be around me, to want to protect you, because she doesn’t know who I am now, only who I was then. And who I was then, well, she would have been within her rights to warn you off. So I’m going to bite my tongue, swallow the nasty things I want to say, and put my energy into supporting you in whatever you decide to do.”

  “Wow. Now I know it’s true, I’m definitely much less of a grown-up than you are!”

  “I don’t know about that. You seem to be all woman to me.” He pulls me into a kiss. “Look, whenever the two of you figure this out, know this. If, this one time, it is easier or better for me to bow out of the party, for your sake, not hers, I won’t fight you on that. I won’t be happy, but I will manage. You and I will be celebrating on the day, and this one time, I will let that be enough. That is a one-time deal. I might be handling my anger right now and being as mature as I can be, but if you do decide to keep her in your life, it has to be with the caveat that she is accepting of you and me. One of the things I love most about you is that you do not bring drama. I am forty-four years old, and I do not have time or inclination to deal with that shit in my life. You feel me?”

  “I do. Trust me, I don’t want drama either.”

  “Good. We are understood. Now, what do you say we go to bed and skip pool circuit tomorrow and just sleep in a little bit and I’ll make us omelets in the morning.”

  “That is, without a doubt, the best thing anyone has said to me all day.”

  Twenty-one

  You did a great job today, Ian. Your sauce work is getting really terrific.”

  “Thanks, Eloise. And thanks for coming with me to New York. I’m so excited!” I told Shelby and Brad that I would chaperone Ian to New York, and they are going to come in for the weekends. They decided to trade off alternate weeks to have some one-on-one fun quality time with him, which will give Shawn and me the weekends to play. I know I’ll be a lot more comfortable with it being just the two of us. It’s one thing for us to talk semijokingly about our accidental family sitcom; it’s another for us to act it out in real life.

  “We’ll have a great time, kiddo. Now I’m going to leave you to clean up, Chef.”

  “Are you seeing Shawn? He’s the coolest!”

  Last week Ian made good on his promise of dinner for us and the family, a repeat of his winning dinner from the audition, to rave reviews all around. Shawn was his amazing self, engaging with the kids in a totally natural way, talking to Robbie about sports, and Darcy about music, and Ian about food, and Geneva . . . he never had to talk to Geneva about anything, since that kid doesn’t stop talking herself. But by the end of the night, she was sitting in his lap, and he and Brad were making a date to go to a Bulls game, and Shelby was dragging me into the kitchen, on the pretense of making coffee, to gush about how fantastic he is.

  “He liked you too, bud.”

  “Will he really come over and teach me some of his family recipes?” Shawn said he would do a soul food master class if Ian wanted to have some stuff up his sleeve for the competition.

  “Of course he will. He already asked me to look at your weekends to see if there is a good one for you guys to play.” Shawn is in surgery weekdays, but unless someone famous has an emergency, his weekends are pretty much his own.

  “Awesome! Tell him I said hi!”

  “Will do. See you tomorrow.”

  I head out and try to settle my stomach. Because tonight isn’t just dinner with Shawn. It’s dinner with Shawn and his parents, who got back to town earlier this week. He’s given me the brief: His mom, Cheryl, grew up in North Carolina; his dad, Darren, in Chicago. They met at Northwestern, got married right out of college, and moved to Bronzeville. Cheryl was a curator of photography at the Art Institute, Darren was the president of a small independent publishing house, and they are now both happily retired and split their time between a condo in the Gold Coast and their place in North Carolina.

  We’re meeting them at Bavette’s for dinner. Sort of a get-to-know-you before Easter next week at his aunt’s house with the whole family. Shawn said Easter will be fun, but something of a madhouse, and he wanted us to have some quiet time to really get to know each other first. It’s been interesting—things between us are really good, but also different since our big talk and his confession about his actions during his marriage to Lynne. Slowly, he has been opening up more and more to me about those days, and I’ve been doing the same about Bernard. We seem almost to be in a competition to show off our flaws to each other. Under different circumstances, I might see it as daring each other to flee, but there is something freeing about being completely honest, about just being. I get that he isn’t communicative at all during work hours, so I don’t reach out during the day unless absolutely necessary. He gets how close I am to Mom and Claire, and lets me know when he is up for family time and when he isn’t, and I don’t take it personally when he opts out. He’s admitted that he really just prefers to sleep at his place on work nights, and I don’t take it personally when he kisses me good night and leaves. Our weekends are spent together, and I don’t worry that the weeknight separations are about me. He let me show him the way I like the dishwasher loaded, and doesn’t get annoyed when I move stuff around after he does it. And I try to keep my navigation advice to a minimum when we are going places, because Lord knows that man can get prickly if I imply he isn’t taking the best route somewhere. We are figuring each other out, in very real ways, and how to best be together, and it is new and a little scary, but mostly good.

  Besides, if last night didn’t make either of us run away, nothing will. I made cassoulet, chock-full of beans and sausages and duck confit and veggies, and by nine o’clock, we were both so insanely gassy that we gave up on our polite habit of disappearing to the bathroom and just let it fly. The noise and horrific smells coming from both of us made us cry with laughter and made Simca, with her delicate sensibilities, leave the room, which made us laugh harder.

  I guess the moral of the story is you don’t know what love is until you are stewing in your mutual funk, and laughing about it instead of being disgusted.

  I take Simca for a quick walk and then jump in the shower. I’m working on my makeup when my phone rings.

  “What time is dinner?” Marcy asks.

  “Shawn is picking me up at seven. Dinner is at seven thirty.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Okay, I think. He’s given me all the relevant prep info, and said that he’s been talking about me for a long time and they’re really excited to meet me.”

  “That is great! You sound pretty calm.”

  “Yeah, it’s good.”

  “Do they know about the Lynne connection?”

  “He told them just the basics, that she is my old high school friend and we didn’t know about the connection until we ran into each other. They thought it was a crazy coincidence, but he said they weren’t fazed and he certainly didn’t add any other details.”

  “How are things on that front?”

  “Teresa invited me over for brunch on Saturday and said she has a good plan and that all will be well, so I’m just lying low till I hear what she is suggesting.
”

  “You know how I feel.”

  “You’ve made it abundantly clear.”

  “But if you decide you do want to repair that relationship, go forth with my blessing and I’ll be a good girl.”

  “And?”

  “And if she hurts you again I’m gonna turn her into mince pies.”

  “That’s my Marcy.” Ever since Claire suggested that Marcy might be feeling a little abandoned or replaced, I’ve been making a concerted effort to reach out more, to spend some quality one-on-one time with her, to show her that she is still super important to me. She seems a bit softer, so the charm offensive might be working.

  “Go meet the parents, and have a great time. I’ll be up late, let me know how it goes!”

  “Will do.”

  I finish getting ready, keeping it simple: black pants, gray sweater, minimal makeup. Nice, but not like I’m trying too hard. I hear the door open downstairs and Shawn and Simca greeting each other. “Lucy, I’m hoooome!” he yells up the stairs in his best Desi Arnaz imitation.

  I head down the stairs to where my handsome boyfriend is waiting for me.

  “You look gorgeous, as usual,” he says, after the kiss.

  “Thank you. You clean up pretty good yourself, Doc.”

  “You ready for this?”

  “Ready as I’m going to be.”

  “They’re gonna love you.”

  “I’ll settle for like and approve of.”

  “Nah, I aim high. Go big or go home.”

  I think about this for a moment. “Yeah, fuck it, they’re gonna love me.”

  • • •

  Oh, Lord, this is the best chocolate cream pie I have ever tasted,” Cheryl says. “There is not going to be enough yoga in the world to bounce back from this meal.”

  “You think that is good, wait till you taste Eloise’s chocolate cream pie. Makes this look like Sara Lee,” Shawn says.

  “That is a pretty major claim, my boy. What do you say, Eloise, do you stand behind your chocolate cream pie?” Darren says with a wink.

  “I’ll bring one to Easter and you can judge for yourselves,” I say, surprised at my own sassiness. The night has been amazing. Shawn suddenly makes perfect sense to me; he is the absolute blend of his folks. His dad is clearly an old-school gentleman, who treats his wife with equal parts respect, admiration, and deference, and looks at her like he cannot believe his great good fortune. His mom is intuitive, kind, genuine, and super quick-witted and funny. They are easy and loving together, and remind me of my mom and dad in all the best ways. They both ask me a lot of questions about myself without ever making me feel like I’m being interrogated or judged, and they pepper the evening with family stories and fun anecdotes about Shawn growing up, just the way Claire and my mom did when they met him.

  “You’d better hide it from Uncle Foster if you want to get a taste,” Shawn says.

  “Oh, that is a good point,” Cheryl says. “I think maybe you two should come to the apartment first and drop off the pie. We can go to Jeannie’s house together and then come back for pie and coffee. Or bourbon, depending on how horribly annoying the day is.”

  “Now, that is not fair, Cheryl. Jeannie does a lovely job,” Darren says with a grin. Jeannie is his older sister and has inherited the role of matriarch since their mom passed.

  “Oh, Jeannie makes a helluva ham, and I don’t know what she does to those deviled eggs, but they are sublime.”

  “Sounds amazing,” I say.

  “Yeah, right up until Foster gets hammered and starts pinching everyone’s butts, and her wannabe fake gangsta sons with their pants practically around their ankles start playing all that bitch ho bitch ho music, and then Liza will start making those faces . . .”

  Apparently Liza is cousin Stevie’s wife, a former debutante from Atlanta who tends to be something of a snob.

  “Liza isn’t so bad,” Shawn says, barely containing a grin.

  “Pfft.” Cheryl turns to me. “That woman walks around like she has a potato chip between her butt cheeks that she’s trying not to break.”

  I snort-laugh, and then clap my hand over my mouth in mortification. They all crack up, and Shawn puts his arm around me and kisses my temple.

  “The ladies are going to powder their noses,” Cheryl says, standing up. It seems more like a summoning than an offer, so I stand too and follow her to the bathroom.

  “This might take a moment, Eloise, these Spanx are the devil’s invention, but I just cannot bring myself to buy the ones with the split in them,” she says, heading into the first stall.

  “I know what you mean,” I say, heading into the stall next to her. “The only thing I hate more than Spanx . . .”

  “Is how I look without them!” She finishes my sentence, and we both laugh.

  I’m reapplying my lip gloss when she comes out of the stall. Washing her hands, she looks at me in the mirror. “I like you very much, Eloise.”

  “Oh, Cheryl, thank you. I like you too.”

  “I mean, I like you for my son, but I knew that the moment I saw how happy you make him. I know Linda . . . um, Lynne is your friend, and that is going to take some getting used to, not gonna lie. But she never made him glow like he does these days, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  “I don’t.”

  “What I’m saying is that I like you. You are good people, Eloise, I’m good at spotting that. If I met you at some other function, for some other reason, I would want for us to know each other. Is that too much to say?”

  I can feel my heart swell. “No, that isn’t too much at all. I feel the same.” And I do. If tonight had been some charity event or one of my new social activities, I would totally want to be this woman’s friend.

  “Good. It’s been made clear to me that sometimes in an effort to be polite, I might not be as transparent as I think I am, and I know that at this stage of our lives, there is enough to annoy us without having to spend a moment worrying about whether we have made the connections we hoped we would.”

  This feels like perhaps Shawn has been sharing some of his truths with her as well, most likely including my nervousness at meeting her, and that feels really good. “Thank you for that. You’re right, there is plenty to navigate around, and open communication makes things so much easier!”

  “Well, then, we will make it our ongoing habit. Shall we go see what those rascals are up to out there?”

  “Yes. And, Cheryl? Thank you for Shawn. He is a rare and extraordinary man.”

  “Yes, he is. Thank you for seeing that and making him a happy man. Happy is harder than extraordinary.” And she takes my hand and smiles, and we head back to the table.

  • • •

  Oh, sweetie, I’m so happy for you. What a wonderful way to start off with them,” Teresa says, handing me a coffee.

  “It was amazing. They were just so warm and welcoming, they made me feel totally comfortable.”

  “As well they should!”

  “So, I’m ready for the lecture. Let’s get it over with, lay it on me.”

  “No lecture. Just some truth.”

  “Bring it.” I’ve been readying myself for this all week. Teresa has some big plan to get Lynne and me back together. But I’ve been practicing having a spine these days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that while I don’t want to dismiss the idea of Lynne and I staying friends out of hand, I am strong enough to let it go if she can’t be supportive of my life and my love. Not just tolerant; actively supportive. Not fake and digging at me, but acknowledging the person I have become.

  “Good. Think back to high school. What were the things you liked most about Lynne?”

  I think about this for a minute, remembering the Lynne I knew back then. “She was fierce. She was fearless. She was a natural leader. She was funny, when she wanted to be. She’d be the first
person to tell you privately that your outfit was horrible, but if some bitch in the hallway made a comment about it, she’d take her out with one of her quick, cutting remarks. She always had your back.”

  “True enough! What else?”

  “She was the first person who showed up at my house after my surgery to decorate my cast.”

  “I was in church. But the rhinestones were my idea!”

  “I know.”

  “Anything else?”

  I think back. “It always felt like she was real with us. Like she was herself with us. She was always Miss Perfect with everyone else, but remember some of our slumber parties? When she would sing and dance along to all the Madonna videos? It was like when we were together she could let her hair down and be silly and not worry about how it might look.”

  “I remember that too.”

  “T, I just don’t know that she still has that girl in her. I think the other one has taken over completely.”

  “And if she has?”

  “Then I don’t know that it’s worth it to try. Maybe if we didn’t have the Shawn thing hanging over our heads, but this is a serious thing. We really love each other and unless there is some shoe I can’t see that is going to drop, this might be it, I mean really it. What do we do with that?”

  “What if she agreed to let the Shawn thing go?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t. She said she’d be good about it before, and look what happened! It would have been easier if she’d just say that it’s him or her, which is clearly what she thinks deep down. Then it could just be over.”

  “What if she meant it this time?”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “I did.”

  “What did she say?”

  The doorbell rings.

  “Teresa! You didn’t.”

  She shrugs. “We’re getting down to business.” She gets up to answer the door. I hear them greet each other, and Lynne say that yes, she’d love coffee, and then she walks into the kitchen and sees me. But instead of the daggers I’m expecting, the lower half of her face crumples and she comes over and throws her arms around me.