Regrets Only

by Erin Duffy

  “I can’t have this debate anymore. We can just agree to disagree that Chicago pizza and New York pizza both have a place in this world, and I like to enjoy New York pizza when the better kind isn’t available.”

  Fred laughed. He dabbed his chin with a napkin and laughed at my joke and there was nothing better than having your date laugh at your joke when until then you’d been worried he thought you belonged in a straitjacket. “Okay. We agree to disagree.”

  “Good. So that’s settled.”

  “Do you think we should agree to go on another date? I think this one went much better than the first one. Maybe we should stick to more casual venues for a while. That restaurant is very good, but it’s formal and maybe it was just too stressful, all things considered. From this point on I think we should keep things fun and stress-free. What do you think of that?”

  “I think that sounds like an awesome idea. Do you think we can do it?”

  “I like our odds,” Fred said. We finished our pizza and threw our paper plates in the garbage can by the front door.

  “Shall we start with a walk?” I asked, because that seemed to fit our newly established criteria. “It’s a beautiful day today. How would you feel about walking over to the park at the other end of town?”

  “Sure,” Fred said. “I’d like to hear more about your life in Chicago. Do you miss it?”

  “Oh, Fred,” I said as we stepped outside into the afternoon sunshine and ambled toward the other end of town. “That question becomes harder to answer by the minute.”

  Chapter 14

  “HOW COME YOU never told me about this place?” Antonia asked as I pulled my Volvo into a parking spot toward the end of The Organic Farmer’s crowded lot. Antonia opened the back door and unclipped Bo from his car seat. I’d ordered him a new outfit from Polo online, little khaki shorts and a short-sleeve golf shirt with navy blue stripes and an orange pony on the pocket. He looked like a little leprechaun, all chubby and rosy and adorable, and I had to keep myself from squeezing him to death every time I picked him up.

  “Because the organic milk here costs about eight dollars and I find the whole place pretentious and annoying. I don’t care if the cows only listened to Chopin while they were being milked. It doesn’t justify the price tag.”

  “Then try not to run out of milk again,” Antonia offered.

  “Touché.” I removed a cart from the rack out front and Antonia grabbed a basket, and I handed Bo a teething biscuit from my purse as I placed him in the seat, because I didn’t want him to have an episode in the store and force me to buy him a ten-dollar teething cookie just to keep him quiet.

  “So are you guys dating? If I ask you if you’re dating someone, would you say yes?” Antonia asked, which made me feel like a teenager in a good way.

  “I don’t know! How many dates do you have to go on before you can consider yourself dating someone?”

  “I have no idea. Probably more than two.”

  “Then ask me again after date three. Maybe I’ll have an answer.”

  “Okay. I’m glad you had a nice lunch,” Antonia said. “Now, if we are going to have a proper Fourth of July barbecue we’ll need hamburgers.”

  “We’ll also need a barbecue, and I don’t think you can get one of those here,” I added.

  “You don’t have a barbecue?”

  “No. I don’t grill.”

  “Well, then we will have Fourth of July pasta salad.”

  “Right. Because nothing says American independence like fusilli.”

  “Then you should’ve bought a barbecue!” Antonia chimed.

  “Fair. Hey, can I ask you something?” I asked as we pushed a cart down the produce aisle that was filled with produce I’d never heard of before. Bo dropped his cookie on the floor, and it broke in half, causing him to whimper and whine until I pulled a second one from my purse and handed it to him.

  “Okay,” Antonia answered. She picked up a giant bunch of basil and dropped it in a plastic bag.

  “You’re a total foodie, right?”

  “All Italians are foodies.”

  “When I was little, my mother would sit me in her shopping cart, and we would go grocery shopping, right? No big deal, just a little slice of Americana in the Midwest. Good times.”

  “Right,” she said.

  “We would buy your basics: apples, pears, maybe peaches or cherries in summer, and sweet potatoes in winter, and that was about it. Now, I look around the produce aisle and have no idea what half of the stuff is, or why we’re supposed to be eating it. What happened to the apples, and the pears, and the lettuce? When did kumquats, and fiddlehead ferns, and kabocha squash replace them? What the hell is a kabocha squash? I pay attention to what I eat, but isn’t this whole craze becoming just a little overdone? I mean, can you even buy apples here?”

  “I’m sure you can, but they won’t be local since it’s not apple season. They probably bring them in from Washington.”

  “Are kumquats local? Because I can buy them.”

  “I have absolutely no idea, but I’m going to guess no,” she said. She picked up a mango, smelled it, and returned it to the pile. “This mango probably wasn’t grown in Connecticut either.”

  “That’s the point. Furthermore, let me ask you this: Why is it cool all of a sudden to eat vegetables that aren’t the color they’re supposed to be?” When you didn’t leave the house for a while, when you didn’t have human contact, when you stepped back from the monotony of day-to-day living, you started to notice very strange things.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Look at this,” I said. I picked up a pack of albino asparagus, thin, and pale, and sad-looking. “White asparagus. What’s wrong with the green asparagus? Isn’t it supposed to be green? Aren’t we all supposed to be eating more things that are green? So why is this white now?” I gestured to an entire section of cauliflower in various colors: yellow, and purple, and green. “That cauliflower is supposed to be white, but white is the only color not represented here. Most of this cauliflower is green. Which makes no sense. The carrots are purple, the eggplants are white, but in the world I grew up in, eggplants should be purple and carrots should be orange. Which begs the next question: What color are the oranges these days?”

  “Orange,” Antonia answered.

  “Well, thank God there are still some things in life on which I can rely,” I said. I dropped two oranges in my cart, just because they were still orange, and I wanted to be supportive of their authenticity.

  “Have you been watching Seinfeld reruns in bed at night?”

  “I’m just saying I think it’s silly people are falling all over themselves to pay these prices for vegetables just because they’re not their normal color. It’s a trend in stupidity. You heard it here first.”

  “Noted. Kale is still green, if that makes you feel better.”

  “Don’t even get me started on kale. Kale is just a snobby woman’s spinach.”

  “Okay, then. While you continue to wage a little private war with the produce section, I’m going to go check out the sushi bar. I’ll pick us up some lunch.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. Antonia grabbed her green plastic basket off the floor, and turned the corner toward the sushi bar, while I headed due north toward the organic, whole grain, flax seed–infused bread, and the juice bar, because the bottled water was right behind it.

  I froze as I passed the papayas because Dee Dee and Stephanie were standing right in front of me, and I was afraid to move. They’d just come from a yoga class (obviously), and I knew that because they were all wearing Lululemon yoga pants and tank tops (obviously), and they were waiting on line at the juice bar for freshly pressed green juice (obviously that, too).

  I saw another of Dee Dee’s friends, drinking her juice and pushing her cart through the bulk nut section while talking into a headset on her phone. I didn’t think she saw me, so I was able to turn my cart in a none-too-graceful three-point turn, and head
down the brown rice, quinoa, and gluten-free pasta aisle, but before I got to the end, Stella passed me heading toward the free-range rotisserie chickens. Shit. This was not good, because now they were flanking me and essentially boxing me in where I stood.

  I assumed Antonia was still somewhere in the section of the store dedicated to the South Pacific, and I had no idea which way to go to try and find her, while also not running into one of Dee Dee’s minions. Stephanie, last I saw her, was heading toward the chia seeds, flax seeds, and hemp seeds, which were directly in front of me. I thought it was better to just stay still and play defense, and wait for one of them to make the first move toward the nut milks so that I could make a run for the exit. I didn’t want to see Dee Dee. I didn’t have anything to say to her, and I didn’t want her to remind me that I acted like a crazy person the last time she saw me, and I thought it was just better if we kept in our corners and avoided all future interactions entirely. Three minutes passed and I was still immobile in the aisle. How long could one person possibly shop for chia seeds? Were there really that many different kinds? I was trapped. Any minute one of them was going to turn her cart down this aisle, and I was going to be cornered. It was like Ms. Pac-Man with shopping carts, and Dee Dee and her friends were the little ghosts that wanted to chase me, and catch me, and devour me in the aisle that contained brown rice syrup and agave.

  I quickly crossed the main aisle and headed back toward the produce section near a display of heirloom tomatoes. I quickly realized that the tomatoes didn’t provide the air cover I required, and so I moved over to the next display, a giant wall of organic avocados from Mexico. There was nowhere to go. Odds were slim that I could make it to the registers or the parking lot without running into one of them, and I couldn’t hide by the avocados forever because it was only a matter of time before one of them came over here looking for the purple carrots, which were located right behind me. I glanced at Bo in his preppy little outfit, absorbing all the colors and shapes and sounds of the grocery store. I bent over to kiss his head, and in that split-second, he lunged over the side of the cart and grabbed an avocado from the middle of the pile, causing the produce Jenga stack to come crumbling down around us. “Oh, no, Bo! No, don’t touch those!” I called as I grabbed his hand, but it was too late. No less than ten bumpy black ovals went rolling in opposite directions. I dropped to my knees and reached for the three that were about to cross into the center aisle when I heard a voice behind me.

  “Claire?” Dee Dee asked. “What are you doing down there?”

  I looked up and saw Dee Dee and Stella standing behind me. “Nothing,” I said casually, as if people crawled around on the floor here every day. “Bo knocked over a few avocados. I’m just picking them up.”

  “I’m glad I ran into you,” she said quietly, which was funny as I was thinking the exact opposite of that.

  “I can’t say the same.”

  “I know what you think about me.” She was being aggressive, too aggressive for my taste, and it caught me off guard. I was prepared for a horribly awkward encounter, I was not at all prepared for a confrontation. Stella glanced at me sympathetically, but she didn’t so much as say “hello.” She just stood there awkwardly, holding on to her cart, which contained a rotisserie chicken, a bottle of coconut water, and, I imagined, her spine.

  “I doubt that. Otherwise you wouldn’t be talking to me right now.”

  “I’m going over to the frozen section,” Stella said as she turned and hurried away. I wished they’d all just stay in the frozen section. I was never going over there, because I tried to avoid waffles now at all costs, and I would’ve been able to make it to the parking lot without any of them seeing me if they’d just steer clear of the produce, but that apparently was too much to ask.

  “Hi there, Bo. How are you today?” she asked sweetly, except it was the most horrific sound I’d ever heard in my life.

  “Don’t say his name. Don’t you dare say his name,” I hissed. I squeezed my eyes closed. I could handle her. I could handle them, but the sound of her saying my little boy’s name made me murderous. I tensed every muscle in my body at once, willing myself to stay silent, and still, knowing that if I gave in to my impulse to smash her head into the avocados, I’d eventually come to regret it, though probably not for many, many years. My legs burned as I squeezed my calves, my thighs, my glutes, my hamstrings, and my toes, all at the same time. Stomach acid churned, and fizzed, and burned the bottom of my throat, my ears turned hot with rage, and my vision became blurry and clouded by tears.

  “I’m not a bad person. I didn’t just swoop in and break up your marriage for kicks,” Dee Dee said.

  “Except you did.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Dee Dee responded, which really was astounding, all things considered.

  “Are you really doing this right now? Here?” I asked. This was exactly what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to bear witness to Dee Dee’s confession, or listen to the ramblings of a crazy, beach-waved lunatic.

  “We’re in love. I’ve always been in love with him. He was the one who got away. When we reconnected we both realized that we were meant to be together. I’m not just some girl who sleeps with random married men. Owen and I are kindred spirits. It’s not something that either of us could deny. We’re star-crossed.”

  I didn’t know what to do, or what to say, or how to react, because I was having a hard time understanding how she could be so crazy that she’d stop and try to convince me that she wasn’t a bad person, and that it wasn’t her fault that she broke up my marriage because the universe gave her the thumbs-up to do it. Apparently, my marriage was just a brief intermission in Owen and Dee Dee’s enduring love story. This was new news.

  “He didn’t get away. He got married. To me. He had a child, with me. He had a life, with me. You can tell yourself whatever you want, but don’t think for one minute that I don’t see you for exactly what you are. But anyway, I don’t care, Dee Dee. I really don’t care because I’m over it. Tomorrow is Independence Day and that’s exactly what I’ll be celebrating—my independence. I don’t care what you do or what you say anymore. In fact, I never really did,” I lied, but it sounded so perfect that I couldn’t resist adding it in.

  “I’m sorry for what happened to you. But I thought you should know that we’re in love. It’s not a fling. He was always supposed to be with me. I’m sorry you had to get hurt for that to happen.”

  Before I could speak, Antonia appeared at my side. “Oh my God. You’re Dee Dee,” she said. “Why are you talking to her, Claire?”

  “She was just telling me about how Owen was the one who got away and that they’re meant to be together,” I said. “Romeo and Juliet in Darien, Connecticut. Who knew?”

  “Did you seriously just say that? To his wife?”

  “This conversation is between Claire and me,” Dee Dee said, which wasn’t really true because I wanted no part of it to begin with.

  “Well, Claire’s marriage was between her and Owen, but that didn’t keep you from getting involved in that, did it?”

  Score one: Antonia.

  “This has been hard on me, too, you know. You’re not the only one who’s dealing with a difficult situation,” Dee Dee reminded me, because things had apparently been so very, very hard on her.

  I couldn’t stand to do this for one more second. “Look, Dee Dee, I don’t care what you have to say to me. I don’t want to hear it. If you want to know what I think of you, I’ll tell you: I think you’re devious, I think you’re trampy, and I think you’re demented if you thought that talking to me in this grocery store was going to do anything to change my mind about either of those two things.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Dee Dee said. “It’s not true. Know that.”

  “I don’t think she’s all there in the head, Claire,” Antonia said, and I agreed. I was starting to contemplate the possibility of shoving her face into the sustainable lobster tank in aisle five. I felt very strongly tha
t I would never, ever come to regret that.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “We need to prepare for our non-barbecue.”

  “That’s your cue to get out of our way,” Antonia added. Dee Dee turned and walked in the other direction, while Bo continued to lunge at the hundreds of avocados now located just out of reach. Dee Dee held her head high as she left, but I knew that Antonia had intimidated her, at least a little bit. And that made me happy.

  “Do you believe that?” I asked, as we quickly beelined for the registers. “Oh my God, I didn’t want to talk to her, Antonia. I never wanted to talk to her again. That’s exactly why I don’t like to leave the house. See? This is what I’m talking about. All I wanted to do was buy a few groceries. Was this type of ambush really necessary?”

  “I can’t believe that happened. Why wouldn’t she just walk away?” Antonia asked, almost as incredulous as I was. “Why didn’t she hide somewhere and wait for you to leave? What kind of mistress seeks out a discussion with the ex-wife?” All of Antonia’s questions were valid, but I didn’t have answers for any of them.

  “Let’s just go home,” I said. I ran for the register, throwing my items on the conveyor belt from two feet away so that the clerk could ring up my items promptly, and then I could promptly get the hell out of there. He bagged my seven items, placing them in a brown bag made of recycled paper (because, of course it was), and then told me that I owed him forty-one dollars (because, of course that, too).

  I hurried through the parking lot toward my car, which was parked way too far away. Antonia chased after me carrying Bo and a bag of groceries but I kept moving. “Claire, wait,” she called, but I was moving forward, and only forward, and I wasn’t stopping for anyone.

  I continued to move with my grocery bag in my hand and my eyes dead ahead. “I don’t know what the problem is. I don’t know what’s going on here at all, but I am pretty sure I’ve fallen through a wormhole, and we’re living in a bizarre universe where my husband leaves me and I’m the one somehow in the wrong. I can’t take this, Antonia. I can’t. I’ve tried to hold it together, even though I know that there are some days that you have to drag me out of bed, and that I never do the laundry, and that I ran out of milk this morning. I’m not proud of any of that, but I am trying. I really am.” I started to sob, and then immediately hated myself for crying for the millionth time, because it was the millionth time, and it was really starting to get old. “And then days like today happen, and all I want to do is go home, and give up, and admit defeat because I will never belong here and that’s probably a good thing. Dee Dee just told me that she and Owen are in love and are meant to be together and I guess that’s supposed to make everything better, huh? What’s next? What the hell is going to go wrong next?”