Starting from Square Two

by Caren Lissner

  “I want to write some,” Hallie said. “You said I could write some.”

  Gert walked over to her window and pulled down the shade.

  “The two of us can argue with each other!” Erika said, cracking up. “We’ll both say that we’re flight attendants who gave oral sex to Ben on his business trip to Texas, and that he was the best customer we’ve ever had.”

  “That’s mean,” Gert said, wondering why she was trying to give Erika the benefit of the doubt. “What if you were married to him and living your life, and some girl kept writing this stuff to you?”

  Hallie and Erika got silent.

  “Gertie,” Hallie said.

  “Gert,” Erika said, “if I had married him and was as happy as this girl seems to be, I would not need so much freaking attention that I’d write a Web site about myself every day. She needs to appreciate what she has instead of rubbing our noses in her syrupy slop.”

  Hallie and Erika switched off writing messages, and they laughed hysterically. At the end, the exchange said:

  THIS SITE IS STUPID AND P.S. LEARN TO SPELL. BEN IS A LITTLE “TO” SMART FOR YOU.—Baltimora

  Hey, leave them alone. The two of them are happy. Ben told me so when we did it in the bathroom on Continental flight 221 to Houston.—XSGIRRRL

  WAS THAT TO “BUSH” INTERCONTINENTAL AIR PORT? GET IT—BaLT.

  We’re lucky Ben has so many business trips. He showed me this site to tell me how annoying his wife is. Don’t get me mad, honey, or hack hack hack!—XSGIRRRL

  “They could file a harassment complaint on you,” Gert said.

  “It’s a public forum,” Erika said. “There’s no law against calling someone annoying on their Web site. Besides, the worst that can happen is that Challa feels as bad today as I do every day.”

  Gert suddenly understood. Erika wanted to jar Challa a little, make her less smug. Deep inside, Gert couldn’t help but know what Challa’s life was like. When she’d had Marc she never thought about being alone, about how hard it could be. Now Gert saw women walking with their husbands or complaining about their boyfriends, and she wanted to shake them and say, “Do you realize what you have?”

  “I’m going to go back to using the Internet cafés to send these next time, anyway,” Erika said. “They’re less traceable.”

  Gert was still pretty concerned about what Erika might do next.

  Chapter

  4

  I am definitely too old for this, Gert thought.

  I am too old to have get-togethers with friends who sit around and make “boy lists” like something out of a Judy Blume book, and rate every guy we ever dated on a scale of one to ten. I’m too old to wake up every Sunday morning and look out my window at all the couples getting into their cars to drive to the suburbs to visit their in-laws while I’m going to stay home in my pajamas reading the newspaper.

  “Hey, I know what we can do,” Hallie said on her couch, flipping through Cosmo. “Let’s take the Purity Test.”

  “You guys gave me the Purity Test last week,” Erika said. “I got an F.”

  Gert was on the far end of the couch, looking at the photos in Entertainment Weekly. Hallie’s wicker basket of magazines was always a good distraction.

  Hallie laughed. “Let’s play truth-or-dare, then,” she said.

  “As if there’s something you haven’t done,” Erika said, stretching out on the rug.

  “Speak for yourself,” Hallie said. “I guess you want to go first.”

  “Maybe I want to do a dare instead,” Erika said, pulling a low-fat Pop-Tart off the table.

  “Well, we’ll just play ‘truth,’” Hallie said.

  “You always pulled this in high school,” Erika sighed. “Okay. Give me a ‘truth.’”

  “How many naked male members have you seen in your life?” Hallie said. “Not counting relatives.”

  Gert couldn’t help but think of her own answer. It was a pretty low number. But she’d never really minded….

  “Come on,” Hallie said. “How many Johnsons have you seen au naturel?”

  Erika said, “Less than…ten. No, wait. Less than eleven.”

  “Gert?”

  “It’s Erika’s turn,” Gert said. “We don’t all have to go.”

  “Everyone has to answer in ‘truth,’” Hallie said.

  “According to rules, which Hallie just made up,” Erika said wryly, polishing off half of the Pop-Tart.

  Gert thought about adding on a few but decided to go with honesty. “Less than…three.”

  “You guys are hedging,” Hallie said, exasperated. “How are we going to learn each other’s secrets if we can’t be honest?”

  “Well, you answer it,” Erika said. She shot Gert a smile. It felt nice to be liked by her.

  “I’ve seen nine and a half,” Hallie said simply.

  “Nine and a half?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “No follow-up questions allowed,” Hallie said. “I answered mine. We have to move on now. Rules are rules.”

  Heading home on the subway, Gert heard cars honking and an ambulance in the distance.

  She thought of some “truth” questions she’d really like to ask Hallie and Erika.

  Did you resent me while I was married? Are you worried because there’s a possibility with Todd? And about Todd: Am I supposed to feel okay when I see him this weekend? How have you dealt with being alone? How can you be happy if you’re not with someone you love? Hanging out, eating your favorite foods and trading “truths”—is this what passes for happiness when you’re single? If neither of you ever fell in love again, would you find a way to compensate with other hobbies and activities—grow a new limb?

  Gert had thought about asking them directly. But they seemed to only want to play games and joke around. Everything was a joke to them. She didn’t want it to always be this way. Maybe if she got Hallie alone again they could really talk. It wouldn’t happen with Erika around.

  When Gert picked up her mail, she wasn’t surprised to see mostly junk mail. Her personal mail had slowed to a trickle since the advent of e-mail. She still got magazines, since she hadn’t had the heart to cancel Marc’s two-year subscriptions. But today, there was something in a fancy beige envelope. It was partially hidden inside the curled Macy’s circular.

  Gert pulled it out. It was addressed to “Ms. Gert Healy.”

  She stood in the foyer, on the ridged black mat, and tore it open. She first had to step aside to let Mr. Schroeder and his schnauzer get by. The two of them looked alike.

  Mr. and Mrs. Donald Barnett

  Request the honor of your presence

  At the marriage of their daughter

  Jennifer Ann Barnett

  To Michael Howell Healy

  And then a date.

  Marc’s youngest brother, Michael, was getting married.

  Gert felt stunned. How could this happen so fast? How could she be so far out of the loop to not know of the engagement of Marc’s youngest brother?

  Michael was Gert’s favorite out of the brothers. For some reason, Gert and Michael had had a special bond. It probably was because he was sweet and shy, not driven like the others. Michael was confused about what he wanted to do with his life, back in school. He thought he might major in communications some day, like Gert did, so they’d talked about that. Michael also was inexperienced with women, so when he’d finally begun having girlfriends in college and bringing them to family gatherings, Gert had taken extra care to make sure they felt welcome. There had been a time when she, too, had been the new girlfriend at family dinners. She brought them into conversations, asked them about themselves, winked at them in a show of female-outsider solidarity. Michael always seemed to appreciate it.

  Gert wondered if Michael was still considered her brother-in-law. Did your husband’s death instantly mean you were no longer officially related to his family? What were the rules on that?

  This was silly. Of course Michael
was her brother-in-law. But if she and Marc had gotten divorced, he wouldn’t be anymore. So maybe not.

  She didn’t want to think about it. The dark clouds kept coming. Marc’s absence was like a nightmare that repeated every day.

  She stood in the vestibule and stared at the invitation, her eyes following the dark swirls of black ink. The wedding was only a month away. She’d certainly go. She was happy for Michael. But when she went to his wedding, whom would they seat her with? Marc’s brothers and their wives? Michael’s friends? A table of Random Single People? She’d seen tables like that at weddings in the past, but hadn’t paid them much mind.

  Gert sat on the living room couch and went into one of her dazes for a while. She left the rest of the mail unopened on the little table. She was lost in thought about Michael’s wedding. Everyone would be dressed up, happy. If she were there with Marc, and the accident had never happened, she would be, too. She never would have spent a moment thinking about the possibility that in a second, it could all be taken away.

  Would she feel uncomfortable at Michael’s wedding? Should she go there and ask the Healys why they hadn’t invited her for the holidays last year? Try to reopen a relationship that was slowly sealing itself off? A wedding should be a happy occasion, not a venue for confrontation. If only Marc were here, the two of them would both be so happy right now, looking forward to this chance to see Michael get married and remember their own wedding in Boston. Their wedding had been a great convergence of all the things and people they loved.

  She thought of calling someone. The support group had told her that she had to open up and trust people. Hallie had been so good at working through problems once. She remembered in college asking Hallie if she should keep dating the Ultimate Frisbee guy, who was nice but whom she didn’t feel attracted to. Hallie had told her something she remembered to this day: Trust your feelings, not just your brain. Gert hadn’t had enough experience with men at that point to think she should turn anyone down, as long as they were nice enough.

  Hallie had been there for other problems, too—failed tests, awkward alliances. But of course, after a point, Gert could go to Marc first, or Nancy on the phone. Hallie’s eventual underlying notes of bitterness began to make Gert ambivalent about telling Hallie the whole story. Gert tempered any good news she had when she told Hallie. She knew Hallie couldn’t match it; she didn’t want her friend to be jealous.

  But Hallie hadn’t given up. She’d always made a point to stay in touch with Gert somehow. Gert needed to make an effort, too, she decided.

  Gert reached over to the end table and picked up the phone. She dialed Hallie, but there was no answer. Hallie was probably out with Erika, Gert figured.

  She tiredly picked up the rest of her mail. There was a card from a magazine telling her she should renew quickly, even though the subscription didn’t run out for ten months. She was tired of being lied to by subscription departments. Although in the early nineties, Marc had gotten a renewal card for his favorite magazine, Spy, and it had said, “The end is near.” He’d renewed, and two months later, the magazine had folded. Apparently Marc hadn’t taken the message literally enough. Gert had told Marc to call and get his money back, but Marc said that it was only fourteen dollars, and for all the laughs Spy had given him over the years, they could keep it.

  Next in the mail was a DSL offer. Then there was yet another postcard from a gym advertising a discount for new members. Maybe they should offer free DSL, Gert thought. If those two industries joined forces, thousands of trees could be saved.

  Lastly she got to a picturesque postcard from a cruise line.

  It was the cruise she and Marc had taken four years ago. Going on a cruise was something they’d talked about since graduation. So finally, he’d given her one as an anniversary present. It was the best vacation they’d both had. It was like a fantasy. There were schedules each day of silly activities, boundless food to gorge themselves on, a rec room, and private time to talk, play cards, or just watch the sun set from the deck. They could stay in their room all day or go out and socialize. One night, on the deck at twilight, he’d told her how much he loved her. He’d brought with him a card he’d sent her not long after they’d started dating, which he’d just found in their closet. In it, he’d written that he’d always been skeptical of the idea of spending the rest of his life with one person until he met her. He told her what he loved about her—that she was emotional yet sensible, sensitive at times, witty at others.

  Gert told him what she loved about him, too. In fact, she often had. She’d never suffered from the regret some women in her support group had—feeling that they hadn’t told their husbands enough that they’d cared about them—because she always had. There were other things for her to feel guilty about, but not that.

  Gert’s memory of the cruise smashed headlong into the wicked blip on her radar that was reality. She was in the present, trying to figure out how she would get through Michael’s wedding. She couldn’t imagine going on another cruise like that, ever. How did people vacation alone, anyway?

  The phone rang, making Gert jump because she was right next to it. She put down the mail.

  “Hi,” Hallie said. It sounded like she was walking.

  “Hi,” Gert said. “Where are you?”

  “On the way home. I was getting a haircut. Why’d you call my home number and not my cell?”

  “I didn’t want to interrupt,” Gert said.

  “Yeah, you would have interrupted a lot,” Hallie said. “I was actually having sex with the guy with the half penis.”

  “What was that about, anyway?”

  “Oh, nothing, I made it up to get over on Erika. She’s always one-upping me—” a honking taxi drowned some of her out “—I confessed it this morning. You know what? I think she was jealous.”

  Gert shook her head. She wondered why they were always so competitive and jealous.

  “So what’s wrong?” Hallie said. “Are you nervous about seeing Todd this weekend?”

  Gert felt a little better that Hallie was concerned. She got into a more comfortable position on the couch. Across the room was a photo of Marc sitting on his dormroom bed in his wire rims, looking natty and handsome. “I got a wedding invitation from Marc’s youngest brother.”

  “Wow,” Hallie said. “And you feel like they’re all moving on without you.”

  Gert bit her lip. That wasn’t even the main problem. She didn’t know why she thought she could talk about this.

  “Gert?” Hallie asked.

  She didn’t want to cry. She hadn’t cried in front of Hallie since college.

  She should have thought about it more before she picked up the phone.

  “Gert?” Hallie said. “Are you okay?”

  Maybe she should cry, break the tacit tension between them. But instead, Gert swallowed, tried to stabilize her voice. “Yes,” Gert said.

  “You don’t have to talk,” Hallie said. “Catch your breath.”

  Gert felt a little better.

  “Here. I have a Magic Eight-Ball on my key chain,” Hallie said. “I’ll tell you what the Eight-Ball says. Ready?” She paused. “The Magic Eight-Ball says, ‘Take your time. It’s okay.’”

  Gert laughed, despite herself. “The Eight-Ball doesn’t have that on it,” she said. She knew she could talk without crying now. Maybe she just hadn’t tried enough with Hallie. “I just feel like,” Gert said, “I’m not sure, technically, if Marc’s relatives are my in-laws anymore. Two years ago, they were my family. Now, all of a sudden, they’re not.”

  “But they must feel like they’re your family,” Hallie said. “They invited you to the wedding.”

  “Michael invited me. I’m not sure how the rest of them feel.”

  “Wow,” Hallie said.

  “Losing Marc was bad enough, but there are all those extra things that go with it,” Gert said. “And he’s not here to help me through them.”

  “I guess I don’t even think of some of these
things you must be going through,” Hallie said.

  “Most people don’t,” Gert said.

  “I know,” Hallie said.

  “You could always ask,” Gert said.

  “I’m afraid of making you feel worse.”

  Gert knew that this was what everyone feared. But it was more hurtful to not take the risk.

  “Not everything has to be funny all the time,” Gert said. “Sometimes it’s okay to be sad, or serious, if it’s the right thing.”

  “I know,” Hallie said. “I don’t mean to always make jokes.”

  “We used to talk in college,” Gert said. “A lot.”

  “We had time in college,” Hallie said, her voice partially drowned out by a passing truck.

  “I know,” Gert said.

  “What happened?” Hallie asked.

  “We both realized we were becoming adults and needed to find someone to spend the rest of our lives with,” Gert said.

  “That becomes the priority, doesn’t it?” Hallie said. “It’s your number-one job as soon as you graduate. Once you’ve found someone, everything else falls into place. But until we do, it has to be top priority.”

  Neither of them said anything for a minute.

  “So are you going?” Hallie asked.

  “Where?”

  “To Michael’s wedding.”

  Hallie was going to talk about this. Gert was glad. “I think so,” she said. “Maybe it won’t be so bad. It’s a happy occasion, right?”

  “Right,” Hallie said. “They’ll all be thrilled to see you. I’m sure they will. Hey, I have to get on the subway now. Let’s talk about this more when I see you. You’re still going with us to the reading tomorrow night, right?”

  Hallie and Erika were going to a reading by a guy they’d gone to high school with, although they’d hardly talked to him back then. He had just self-published his book and placed his own ads for it in Harper’s. Gert thought it was sad that someone thought he had so much to say and couldn’t find a publisher. But Roddy Brown had gotten lucky. His self-arranged readings in Manhattan were starting to draw crowds.