“When does the loser’s plane leave?” Charlotte whispered, trying to smile.
“Tomorrow morning,” Fiona said, clapping her hands together. “I’ll drive you to the airport. And you’re not a loser.”
Charlotte took a sip of her water. Then she said, “You know what? I’m not sure this is my thing.”
“Sorry. You can’t turn it down.” Fiona’s eyes flashed. “We have spent a fortune. Haven’t we, Leopold?”
“And not a small fortune. A big one. Huge.”
“Like forty-five thousand dollars huge.”
How Charlotte wished she didn’t know that.
“Sorry,” Fiona said, flicking her eyes toward her. “That was kind of tacky. It’s just. I’m not going to let you not go.” She continued, “Not only do you get admission to all of the events, but we have purchased the VIP Platinum Diamond Ultimate Premiere package, which means you get to sit right up next to Donny. Front row.”
Charlotte blinked.
“You don’t even follow him, do you? Donny Masterson?” Fiona tossed her hands in the air and looked toward Leopold, then back to Charlotte. “I was afraid of that. Have you read any of his books?”
Charlotte crossed her arms. “Sure. I mean I think everyone has read that one…what is it called…?”
“He has so many mega hits. I think he is the number one author of all time. Any author. Any book.” Leopold said.
“Wouldn’t that be The Holy Bible?” Gracie asked then. She was looking steadily at Charlotte, her hands pressed together and against her lips.
“I mean except for the bible,” Leopold said.
“He’s so popular because he has found perfect peacefulness,” Fiona added. “He says there is literally nothing you can say that would upset him. And his new wife says it’s true.”
“There hasn’t been a disagreement in his family in more than eleven years,” Leopold said.
“It’s because he has found his chi.” Fiona pumped her head up and down.
“He found his cheese? What kind of cheese?” asked Maxwell, who had been quiet all day, thanks to the new Gameboy his mother had presented him with that morning.
Fiona leaned toward Charlotte. “I don’t think you quite understand what you are holding in your hands. I mean, I would love to go to something like this. It’s on my bucket list, actually.”
“So, did you buy a seat for yourself?” Charlotte asked.
“Leopold and I just thought you should go on your own. We know how you like your alone time. You are always telling us we should respect and honor that, and this is our way of doing that.”
Now they wanted to respect and honor her alone time. She wished that they could have done that by treating her to an hour alone at the bookstore, where she most definitely would not be seeking out Donny Masterson titles.
Still, she had to admit that going alone would be a lot less embarrassing than sharing the experience with someone. Hell, she thought, she could hide out in her room and never attend a thing.
“A weekend to just be by yourself, without me meddling.” Fiona laughed. “Besides, I want to stay and take care of the girls.”
“Maybe you should go instead of me. I mean, since it’s on your bucket list.”
“No, no. Charlotte you are not getting out of this. Think about Caleb. Think about how much he wants you to stay just as you are. I’m sure he’d love it if you didn’t go. But you need to show him that you are better than that. That you are better than him.” She paused to blow out an elaborate sigh, then she went on. “I can just imagine what he would be saying…” She twisted her mouth and made her voice deep and gravelly, “This isn’t Charlotte’s thing.”
“We need to leave Caleb out of this,” Charlotte said.
“But he doesn’t want you to change. He wants you to stay just the way you are. Sitting in your little kitchen. Being at his beck and call.”
Charlotte straightened. “Fiona, we don’t talk about Caleb like that in front of the kids.”
“Okay…just, will you go? It’s so, so important to me that you go.”
Gracie leaned over and looked at her mother.
“How long do I have to be gone?”
“Three days. It’s just three days. I promise you’ll come back a new woman.” Fiona’s voice was sing-songy. “It will be so good for you.”
And that’s when Charlotte went down deep inside herself. It was as though she had activated an autopilot device, which allowed her to go through the motions, to do what people asked her to do, to meet their expectations; allowing her to greet the world with a smile, to say thank you and you’re welcome and whatever else anyone wanted her to say.
The following day, she let Leopold drive her to the airport. She even let him kiss her goodbye, right on the lips. Then she got out of his car and she smiled and waved at him and then she boarded an airplane.
A short while later, she found herself at a convention center in a shrieking, pulsing mob while men in silver tank tops over-enunciated motivational phrases into their headsets: “Are you getting pumped?” and “Are you ready to rock your life?”
Someone thrust a bag at her, filled with a laminated place card and a nametag, plus a travel mug, a keychain, and a series of motivational stickers, all printed in silver, evidently because she was in the VIP Platinum Diamond Ultimate Premiere Inner Circle. Then a succession of complicated acronyms, each defining a simple concept, flashed upon a Jumbotron screen.
What city was she in? She had forgotten. She realized suddenly that this was the first time she had been out of town without her kids, and she hadn’t even been outside the convention hall. Inside here, there was exuberance and enthusiasm and redness and noise and rapture. After a few hours, Charlotte decided to go upstairs to lie down. Just for a moment.
When she woke and returned, she was not sure whether it was day or night and she was met immediately by a skinny woman named Georgie, also with a silver nametag. Georgie linked arms with Charlotte. “Donny is teaching us to radiate our energy. Like a force push. And I need a partner. Do me, and then I’ll do you.”
Georgie positioned Charlotte back about four feet. “Okay. Now. Feel this.” She closed her eyes and her face grew red. “What am I beaming at you right now?” She blinked her eyes open. “Am I beaming happy feelings? Or sad feelings?”
“Um… Happy?”
“Yes! Ha ha! It works!” Georgie said and then she fanned her hands and began twirling, twirling in a circle. “Do you want me to do you?” she asked, stopping abruptly.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I missed learning the technique. But it’s okay.”
“Where were you?”
“I was taking a nap.”
“You were sleeping? During a Donny Masterson Master Class?”
“I guess so.”
“Honey.” And she closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side.
Charlotte sat with Georgie through Donny’s lessons on instilling bravery and on exuding a bolder form of confidence.
“It’s your job to overdo it!” Donny shouted, and the crowd cheered. “Overdo anything and everything.” More cheers. “Be overly energetic! Be overly cheerful. Be overly confident. Because—beautiful people—there is no such thing as too much of these qualities.” And then there was some more hopping and dancing and strobe lights. “Say it after me,” he shouted, “I OVERDO EVERYTHING.” And the crowd did.
And then Donny said a series of other things, and then it was over, and Charlotte flew home, and Leopold and Fiona, together, picked her up at the airport. She let Leopold kiss her again. This time he stuck his tongue inside her mouth and put his hand on her breast. “We can’t wait to hear all about it!” he exclaimed.
“What was Donny like?” Fiona gushed, “Is he as beautiful in person as he is on the brochure?”
She didn’t answer, so Leopold said, “I have had a crush on that man for a decade. I mean, I do not generally swing that way, but everyone wants to take
him to bed, don’t they?”
“Right?” Fiona said, looking at Charlotte and giggling.
“I don’t.” Charlotte finally said, mostly to herself.
“And there she goes.” Fiona shook her head. “He was making a joke, Charlotte. Why do you insist on taking everything so seriously? He didn’t literally mean he wants to have sex with him. It just means that everyone loves him.”
“Speak for yourself, toots.” Leopold said, and he and Fiona laughed again.
***
The children had made another bed sheet banner, with glitter and glue. “Welcome home, Aunt Charlotte,” it said, but, this time, Hannah and Gracie were each holding an end.
“Mom,” Gracie said, once Charlotte had put down her suitcase, “we need to talk.”
“Sure, sweetie.” Charlotte took a deep breath and studied her daughter. Ah, Gracie, one of the only two people in this world she could always count on. Thank God for Gracie.
Gracie cleared her throat and leveled her eyes at her mother. “We need you to talk to Dad. You said you would and you haven’t. We need to know if and when we’re going to go back to Missouri.” She sighed. “We need to know if we are going to be living with Dad or with you.”
“What? Did he say that? Does he want that?”
“He just mentioned that he was worried that if we stay out here, he would never see us. And he said he’d fight for us…to live with him. But he also said he hoped it wouldn’t come to that…” Gracie said.
Hannah joined in. “But we have to know. We have to know what to tell him.”
“Okay. Yes. Absolutely. Of course. I’ll go talk with him.”
“This isn’t just about you, you know,” Gracie was saying. “We’re all suffering here. And if you don’t love Dad anymore, it doesn’t mean we don’t.”
***
Without remembering getting into her car or driving or turning or parking, Charlotte found herself in front of the college and walking toward the building that housed Caleb’s office.
And then, there he was, walking directly toward her. Special Ed. A man she could just start over with. A man she could be someone new with. A man who could make her breath catch again, her heart race again. A man who would make her feel free; powerful and sweeping and important.
“There you are!” he said, both arms outstretched. “Where have you been?”
She chuckled and dipped her head. “On the ultimate journey of self-improvement and personal growth.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Learn anything good?”
“That I’m lonely and afraid.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to go out?” she said. She would talk to Caleb later. After. She wondered if Caleb could see them standing there, out his office window. “Like instead of coffee, maybe, to dinner. And then maybe I could come back to your place for awhile.”
Ed looked at her then, and he smiled. And he looked away. And then he looked at the tree by the parking lot, for a long while. And then he took a deep breath. He reached for her hand and she gave it to him, and he held it for a moment.
And then he looked her straight in the eyes. She could see herself in there, just as she was, only standing a little taller, a little straighter, and it struck her how, when certain people looked at you, it was possible to see exactly what you looked like to the rest of the world. For a moment, she inhabited her space as seen, as witnessed, by another.
“Charlotte.” His voice was very quiet and his hand was soft and warm. “I would love nothing more than to take you home with me. Right now.” An energy rose in her. A feeling of wiping the slate clean. “And, if I’m being honest, I will tell you that I’ve fantasized about it. Imagined how it would be. To take you in my arms, to slowly undress you, to make the sweetest love to you. And then to hold you.”
She closed her eyes and swayed for a moment. Her legs tingled and felt like they might give way.
He looked back up to her eyes now. “But you are not mine to have.”
“Ed, you have to understand. Caleb has moved on. And so have I.”
Ed shook his head. “He is the father to your daughters. And he still loves you.”
“No. It’s over.”
“I don’t think you believe that, Charlotte. I really don’t.”
“Why? Did he talk to you?”
“No, I’ve never had a conversation with him. It’s just…you have built something for so many years. You have reached the point where you can finally enjoy one another…You have reached the point at which a perfect date is sitting at home and eating off one another’s plates and making fun of people on TV. You have reached the point at which you can read one another..in which you know, instantly, what the other person needs, at any given time. Do you know how many single people would kill for that?” He laughed. “Hell, I would kill for that. But you can’t rush something like that. It takes loads of time. And now that it’s here, you can’t throw it all away over a misunderstanding.”
“It was more than a misunderstanding. And I thought you were all about change. What happened to ‘everyone can make a different choice anytime they like?’”
“They can. You always can. But I think your best life is staring down at you from the third floor of that building over there.”
Charlotte shook her head. “No. I am different now.”
“Are you sure? Would you rather be here, living with Fiona, than at your house, living with your husband? And your children? I mean, you’ve met some serious weirdoes.”
She laughed at this. It felt good to laugh, and she felt a release deep in her belly. “That much is true. But Caleb wasn’t faithful.”
“I thought you decided that maybe he was.”
“That’s before he took Rachael away with him. You know, our drawing professor. They’ve been doing it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. She went with him, on his book promotion thingee.”
“Charlotte, Rachael has been in Tennessee. Her mother lives alone and fell down the stairs and she’s been helping her get back on her feet.”
“Oh.” Wha? “How do you know that?”
“She just got back. She told us in class, which you missed to go and find yourself.” He squeezed her hands. “Charlotte. You’ve got to give this man a break. You are pretty quick to assume, and it’s going to ruin your marriage.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but he began speaking first.
“He’s still in love with you. Deeply.”
She shook her head.
Ed opened his messenger bag now and held out an advanced reading copy of Caleb’s new book. “It’s in black and white,” he said. “I saw this, in the library, and I cracked it open, and I saw you in there, before I even started reading it. And, well, it’s something you need to see.”
He had dog-eared the page. The dedication. “To Charlotte, for, without you, there is no Caleb.”
And then the Acknowledgements page, printed on paper so white it made her eyes lose focus for a moment.
“I’d like to finally thank my wife. For thirteen years, my Charlotte has dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s. She has raised our two daughters into glorious young people. She has been my rock, my guiding star, and my soft place to fall, with no thought of herself.
“I believe in true love, so I also believe in a true partnership. For thirteen years, this miraculous woman has pulled me up, and now I will do the same for her. My next book might be far in the future, for this new season of life marks my wife’s time to do what she needs to do. And I will support her always, no matter where this journey takes her. For we are a team, a body, a unit. And I will never, ever let her go.”
When she looked up from the page, Ed said, “There is no way I’m getting in the way of that.”
Charlotte shook her head. “Maybe these are just the words of a scrambling husband, who has been caught cheating.”
“Or maybe they are just simply true.” He closed hi
s messenger bag and latched it. “And maybe you should be taking someone else for coffee and a walk by the river.”
He squeezed her hands then and turned, the hem of his corduroys dragging on the sidewalk as he moved away from her.
***
Caleb stood by the window, staring out at the aspens, leafy and green, and the patterns they made on the hillside. The new book tour was about to begin, so he was packing his office. He had come; he had tried. He had failed. The book was out, with the new Acknowledgements page. He had put a copy in Charlotte’s hands himself, and, still, she wouldn’t return his calls.
He would give up his career for his wife. He had said as much in the front matter of his book. But she must not care. Or else she didn’t read his work anymore. Either way, it proved she had moved on.
There she was. Crossing the courtyard below. His breath caught. What had she done to her hair? But her warmth and that smile. Her quiet charm, her translucent skin. She was talking to someone now. That man from her class. They embraced. Now he held her hands. She was looking into his eyes. Now he handed her something. Christ. Caleb’s heart pounded. He brought his hand up to pound on the glass. That was his wife. His Jellybean.
A knock came at his office door. Curt and rapping.
“What?”
It was Rachael. She shoved her way in and threw her hip to the side. Then she moved toward him, where he was standing at the window, watching his wife and another man.
He glanced at her, then returned his attention to the scene below. “What can I do for you?”
She sighed and made a pouty face. “I hear that you are leaving us.”
Caleb’s heart was thrumming in his head. Ah, okay. The man was walking away from Charlotte. Okay. Calm down, Caleb.
Rachael moved closer. Close enough now that he could smell the spearmint on her breath.
“Yeah,” Caleb said, turning his attention toward her finally and folding his arms. “My book launch has been moved up, so, I guess there’s really no choice. But thanks for letting me come and be part of your community for a while.” He dipped his chin, a gesture he hoped would be interpreted as a dismissal.
“Well,” she continued, “since you’ll be leaving me, I figured we had better talk.”
Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju (Romantic Comedy) Page 21