Starting from Square Two

by Caren Lissner

  Todd looked at her for a second, then leaned toward her and hugged her.

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry tonight,” she said, closing her eyes.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to act any other way.”

  That night, lying in bed, Gert decided that one of the hardest things about losing someone was trying to explain just how much that person meant. How could you possibly summarize everything in a person’s life? Who could possibly understand the little things, or have the patience to hear them?

  But Todd had listened.

  She had been wondering before whether you could have room for more than one person in your heart. She still wasn’t sure.

  And Todd still seemed a little uneasy, regardless of what he said. Whether he’d hang in there for the long run, she didn’t know. They hadn’t set a date for when he’d see her next. Everything was still in flux.

  But she thought that someone who really cared about her would want to know as much as possible about the other person. If she could share her love, then that might open up some room.

  Chapter

  9

  Tuesday would be Marc’s birthday.

  Gert planned to do what she’d done the previous year. Early in the morning, she’d take Greyhound up to Boston and catch a cab to where he was buried. It was a five-hour bus ride, and she’d get in around eleven.

  She hoped she could meet up with Marc’s parents there. She would call them beforehand to arrange it.

  As she looked up Greyhound schedules on Marc’s computer, she thought about Todd, about the dinner they’d had at her house. Todd was so different from Marc. He was earnest rather than driven. He was sweet rather than cocky. He was easy to have feelings for. But was that bad?

  But Todd could be intense, too. His love for his job, and the way he talked about the beauty of the scenery he passed, killed her.

  Maybe there was nothing wrong with having a quieter kind of love, she thought. It was different than the intense kind. Not worse. Just different.

  Craig Evans was behind the worst things Marc had done in college.

  Craig was the reason that he and Marc had decorated the door of their dormroom with street signs from outside. When they’d gotten a letter from the housing dean telling them to knock it off, they’d hung it on the wall inside their room, along with the rest of the street signs.

  Craig was the reason that Marc had helped form a college cover band called Crusty Oatmeal Spoon.

  Craig was the reason that Marc mailed faux admissions office letters to everyone on their freshman floor saying that their records had been lost and they would have to retake the SATs.

  These things didn’t end when Marc met Gert—they only calmed down a little.

  Craig liked Gert a lot. Marc had dated one girl before Gert, and Craig had said that Gert was a big improvement.

  When Gert approached the crepe place in the East Village, which was cleverly named The Crepe Place, Craig was sitting in the window and broke into a wide smile when he spotted her. He was in town for an economics conference. Gert saw that he still looked about eighteen years old—no facial hair, just ruddy cheeks. His mop of blond hair always reminded her of a teenage Ricky Schroeder more than the all-grown-up Rick Schroeder. Marc had actually gotten people to call Craig “The Ricker” in college.

  When Gert entered the restaurant, Craig had already made his way to the door. “Hey,” he said, hugging her tightly. She felt a sharp stab of sadness, thinking Marc should be there, too.

  “How are you?” Gert asked as they made their way past a few square tables, each painted a different color. “Congratulations again!”

  Craig had met his fiancée while teaching. The girl had been a senior in his class, but they hadn’t started dating until after the semester ended—a fact that Craig was always quick to point out.

  “There’s so much I want to ask you,” Gert said, draping her coat over the back of her chair.

  “Me first,” Craig said. But before he could start, a waitress appeared and took their beverage orders. Craig said, “So how’s Henry, and how are your friends….”

  “My brother’s fine, friends are fine….”

  “And your parents?” Craig asked.

  Gert smiled. “They’re fine. They’ve given up on convincing me to move back to L.A.”

  Craig moved his straw around his water glass. “Not going to give up on New York just yet?”

  “Well, everyone says not to make major changes the first year after a death,” Gert said. “It’s a year and a half now, but it’s still too soon, and I’m trying to stick it out. I don’t want to move home and sit in my parents’ house dwelling on my misery.”

  “Yeah,” Craig said. “You can stay in New York…”

  “…and sit here and dwell on my misery,” Gert finished, and they both laughed. “I’m just not ready to leave just yet.”

  “You’re brave,” Craig said.

  Gert shook her head. “People always say that,” she said. “And it feels like they must be talking about some other person, because I don’t feel brave. I just go on.”

  Craig looked surprised. The waitress brought them their orange juice. It looked pulpy. Gert watched the bits of orange settle to the bottom.

  “Have you talked to Marc’s parents?” Craig asked.

  Gert took a sip and shook her head. “They don’t talk to me.”

  “What?” Craig seemed surprised. “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “I haven’t seen them since last year. It’s almost as if I’m barely related to them now.”

  “But they’re your relatives.”

  “They might not be. With Marc gone, they have no official connection to me.”

  “Wow,” Craig said. “I never even thought of that.” He didn’t seem to know what to say.

  “No one does,” Gert said. “It’s not something that should ever happen. They didn’t even call me on Christmas. I sent them a card.” She stared into her juice. “I think sooner or later we’re just going to be like people who were never related in the first place.”

  Craig looked surprised. The waitress returned for their orders. Gert asked for a “Nutella delight,” which was described on the menu as a “Thick crepe filled with fruit and chopped peanuts, drizzled with chocolate/hazelnut topping.” It sounded like something that should be in a museum.

  “I’m going to try to see them next week, though,” Gert said. “I’m going to visit Marc’s grave.”

  “For his birthday,” Craig said, remembering.

  “Yes.”

  Craig smiled. “Do you remember the time that he turned twenty-one and we all took him skydiving?”

  “You guys went,” Gert said. “I didn’t want him to go.”

  Craig shrugged. “You have to feel your oats, or get them out of your system, or whatever.”

  Gert watched the shadow of the ceiling fan spinning on the table. “So,” she said, “the Ricker’s finally getting married.”

  “Oh, don’t call me that,” Craig said.

  “Ricker,” Gert said. “Riiickyyyy Schrooooeder.”

  “You’re doing Marc’s dirty work.”

  “He’d want it that way,” Gert needled.

  Craig said, “You know, at the beginning of this past semester, I was telling one of my classes about how Marc had gotten everyone at school to call me Ricky Schroeder, and one girl said, ‘Who’s Ricky Schroeder?’”

  “Oh, no,” Gert said. “How could she not know? He was on NYPD Blue.”

  “I guess she didn’t watch,” Craig said. “And she’s too young for the other stuff.”

  Gert shook her head. “We’re getting old.”

  “I know. That’s been dawning on me lately.”

  “Me, too,” she said. “When Marc was alive, I never thought about it. But now, I think about it all the time. I think when you go through change at the same rate as someone else, you don’t notice it as much. Now I’m getting older, but socially, I’m back at the same level as twe
nty-one-year-olds who just got out of college and are starting to date in the real world. And I’m twenty-nine.”

  “I can’t even imagine how hard that must be,” Craig said. “You didn’t just lose Marc. You lost all your plans for the future.”

  Gert nodded. “My whole way of thinking,” she said. “I just assumed our future would proceed logically. I never thought about anything stopping it.”

  “Who does?”

  “My support group was talking about that the other day.”

  “Do you still go every week?”

  “Yes,” Gert said. “It helps.”

  The waitress delivered their crepes. They looked like droopy beached whales. Gert began carving.

  “Have you made friends in the group?” Craig asked.

  “Yes and no,” Gert said. “I like them all, but I haven’t made enough of an effort to get to know them outside of the group. There was this girl my age, Chase, who I got along great with. But all of a sudden she stopped coming.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. Some people just aren’t ready to mourn in a group.”

  Gert pushed the pieces of crepe around her plate to soak up the chocolate. It seemed foolhardy to squander such a rich river.

  “So,” Gert asked, “do you like Lana’s family?”

  “I do,” Craig said. “She’s an only child, so there’s a lot of pressure on me to be good to her. Luckily her parents don’t know about my sordid past.”

  “Grand Theft Street Sign, the fake letters from the dean…”

  “Exactly,” Craig said. “I think you’re the only girl who knows about that. But I’ve told Lana about some of the stuff Marc and I used to get into. And I think Adam told her the rest. Oh, did I tell you, Adam’s engaged?”

  “Little Adam?” Gert said. “Little, little Adam? He was so shy during college.”

  “He had such a crush on you,” Craig said, looking at her.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Come on,” Craig said. “You must have known. He was the worst of all of us. A lot of us were jealous of Marc, but Adam had such a thing for you. He tried to hide it, but he always acted funny when you were in the room. You didn’t notice?”

  Gert said, “You’re exaggerating.” She looked at her plate.

  “Maybe you really didn’t notice.”

  Gert shrugged.

  “You must realize when guys like you,” Craig said. “It’s hard for us not to.”

  She felt funny. She kept her eyes on the plate.

  “I’ll bet a lot of guys ask you out now.”

  “I don’t know that many guys,” Gert said.

  “But you go out sometimes, right?”

  “Well,” Gert said, “Hallie and Erika dragged me to a few bars….” She didn’t feel ready to tell Craig the whole truth. “There was one guy I started talking to.” She moved around a piece of crepe. “I couldn’t care about anyone the way I loved Marc, and I think about Marc all the time, but I did have dinner with this guy. And I actually told him about Marc the other night.”

  “Wow,” Craig said. “You’re dating someone.”

  “Not dating,” Gert said. “Just getting to know someone.”

  “I knew you would find someone…” Craig said.

  Gert didn’t say anything.

  “Did Hallie and Erika meet anyone when they dragged you out?” Craig asked.

  “No,” Gert said. “Hallie and Erika look for specific things, and they beat themselves up when they can’t find them. They get really frustrated.”

  “It takes a long time to get where you want to be,” Craig said. “You probably didn’t know this, either, but guys like Adam and me spent most of college complaining that all the girls on campus were stuck up. Of course, that’s what we thought of anyone who didn’t respond to our inept, lame pickup attempts.”

  Gert laughed.

  “It only takes one person to change your perspective,” Craig said. “I’m so happy now. I wish Marc could have met Lana. He’d have really liked her.”

  “I’m sure he would have.”

  “She’s pretty, kind and down-to-earth. Like you.”

  Gert felt embarrassed again.

  “He would have been my best man,” Craig said.

  “I know,” Gert said.

  Craig was quiet, looking out the window. “The other day,” he said, “I thought about this bet Marc and I made in college.”

  “Which one?”

  “This was the one about celebrities,” Craig said. “Junior year, we were looking at this Web site about which celebrities were dead and alive. Each of us picked ten celebrities we thought were going to die soon. We decided that any time one of his celebrities died, I would give him ten dollars, and if someone from my list died, he’d give me ten bucks. After college, when someone from either of our lists died, we sent each other the money through the mail. But a few weeks ago, someone on Marc’s list died, and I thought for a second how I owe Marc the money, but he’s not there to get it. And more of the celebrities are going to go in the future, five years from now, ten, fifteen…and every time, I’ll think of how they’re outliving Marc. I never thought he’d be the one…”

  He didn’t finish. He was staring into space. Gert heard traffic passing.

  Finally Craig said, “So, what’s this guy’s name?”

  “Which guy?”

  “The one you’re not dating.”

  Gert smiled. “Todd.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you think it’s wrong that I’ve been seeing him?” Gert asked.

  “So you admit you’re seeing him.”

  “Just getting to know him.”

  Craig shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said. “Marc would want you to be happy.”

  “Don’t people say that to make themselves feel better, though?” Gert asked. “We were talking about this in my group. If guys didn’t want their wives to date someone else while they were alive, why would they want them to do it after they died?”

  “Because,” Craig said, “they love you. Marc knows who you are. Let me ask you a question: have you put his things away?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think about him all the time? Do you remember every date you went on?”

  Gert said. “God, yes.”

  “Do you remember all the crazy stuff that happened in college?”

  Gert laughed. “How could I forget?”

  “Do you want to forget?”

  “No. Never.”

  “So he’s there,” Craig said. “You’re holding on to his memories.”

  Gert looked at a fleet of cabs passing out the window. “It was so nice out when I went outside this morning,” she said, “and I was thinking that this was one of those Saturdays that Marc would have woken up and wanted to drive to the steakhouse. And he’s not here to enjoy it.”

  Craig grinned. “He would drive three hours to get to that stupid steakhouse!”

  “I know.”

  Craig looked out the window. “I miss him, too.”

  On the subway back to Queens, Gert leaned against the seat. She felt tired but she also felt unburdened. She had talked to Craig for another hour after the meal. She had felt so light after that. Like she had expressed feelings she couldn’t to anyone else.

  Why didn’t she feel half this good after talking to Hallie and Erika? Not even half as good? It wasn’t just because Craig knew Marc; Hallie had known Marc, too.

  She could say it had to do with their bitterness and jealousy. But Gert had to admit there was more to it.

  It had to do with her, too.

  Gert had always made more of an effort to talk to guys. She had always felt more inspired or motivated by them. They cut through the bull. They had better senses of humor. They didn’t get offended by little things. They had similar tastes to hers.

  And maybe, Gert thought to herself, it was easier to enjoy someone’s company when they potentially could be attracted to you.

&
nbsp; During college, Gert didn’t have that many female friends. She often preferred to hang out with Marc’s friends. She liked being the only girl in a group of guys. It was interesting that way, challenging. Girls were boring.

  She’d been lying to Craig when she’d said she didn’t realize some of Marc’s friends had been attracted to her. She had known. She always could tell, although she never said anything to Marc. It wasn’t that she wanted them to want her, but she did feel a little bit more of a charge hanging out with men. She could be herself with them.

  She didn’t pass judgment. She was the type to let boys be boys.

  But then, wasn’t it that attitude that had led to Marc’s death?

  That day that Marc wanted to skydive when he had turned twenty-one, Gert hadn’t wanted him to go. She didn’t understand it at all. If he loved her so much, she said, why would he take that kind of risk?