by Claire Cook
I put the rest of the kits in a box on one of the closet shelves Craig had abandoned. My latest idea was that if I filled up all the space he’d left, I could make him disappear for good. I’d called the plumber, too, and now that the toilet was fixed, I couldn’t imagine needing my ex-husband for anything ever again.
It was somehow Thursday night already. I couldn’t believe Sean Ryan hadn’t called me back yet. I mean, after all, sharing his table in Atlanta had been his idea. Even that almost kiss was his idea in the first place, if I remembered correctly. And I’d called him not once, but twice, so in the age-old game of telephone tag, he was clearly, indisputably It.
All week long I’d been sure Sean Ryan was going to call me any second. I even made up excuses for why he hadn’t called yet. Emergency excuses, like sick relatives. Entrepreneurial excuses, like antioxidant issues at the microbrewery. Even psychological excuses, like he was afraid of falling for me.
I not only made up several excuses under each category, but I’d also played our entire telephone conversation in my head. I’d accepted his apology and forgiven him completely. We’d made our plans for the college fair and the wedding. And still not a word from him. I hated that.
I started packing my suitcase for Andrew’s wedding. I’d bought a great dress this week, while I was waiting for the phone to ring. It was a silk crepe halter with a deep V-neck, a ruched bodice, and a soft fluid knee-length skirt. The vibrant blue worked well with my dark hair, pale skin, and green eyes, and it also saved me from having to buy a new outfit for Cannoli. It matched the bridesmaid dress she’d been wearing when I’d met her perfectly.
Cannoli watched me put her cornflower blue taffeta bubble dress in the suitcase. “Don’t get any ideas,” I said. “You’re definitely not going to the ceremony, and I’m not even sure I’ll be able to sneak you into the reception.”
She jumped up on the bed and put her front paws on the edge of the suitcase. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” I said. “Of course, you’re coming with me. You just might have to spend a few hours hanging out in the hotel room by yourself, that’s all.”
After I packed a weekend’s worth of clothes for both of us, plus dog food and toys, I pulled the box of kits back down from the closet. I decided I’d fill the rest of the available suitcase space with as many kits as I could fit. As long as I was buzzing them to college kids, I figured I might as well hand some out around the hotel during the downtime before and after the wedding.
I wasn’t sure whether I should mix the foundation and write a list of product suggestions for people, or if I should just give them a coupon to get them to my Web site. In the end I decided it would be more impressive to give them an actual kit. My family still didn’t know about the kits, which might complicate things, but I could be discreet when I concentrated. And, I mean, why shouldn’t I do some test marketing in Atlanta, too?
I fed Cannoli at home, but I wanted to wait and pick up a salad at Marshbury Marketplace for me. I’d eat it on the beach while I let her run around. Even though it was still August, you could really feel fall in the air the last few days. I knew it would get hot again, but it was still a reminder that summer didn’t last forever. Plus, I wanted Cannoli to be good and tired before she had her first plane ride tomorrow. At least the first plane ride that I knew of.
I wondered what had happened when the Silly Siren father went to the Marshbury Animal Shelter. Maybe I’d get lucky and it would turn out he just picked out another dog and hoped his daughter wouldn’t notice. Since he hadn’t come back to the salon again, it might mean the crisis was over, and we could all live happily ever after now.
Or possibly the fact that the Silly Siren bride hadn’t shown up at the salon with him meant she wasn’t all that interested in getting her former dog back, that she’d just asked her father to stop by and look for her if he happened to be in the neighborhood. Maybe the Silly Siren father hadn’t even bothered going to the shelter.
It was starting to get dark already, so Cannoli and I had the beach pretty much to ourselves. She ran right down to the edge of the water and started rolling around on her back in a pile of seaweed and who knew what else. I decided to just let her go, since I was planning to give her a bath later anyway.
I flipped off the top of my salad and took out my plastic fork, which made me think of Sean Ryan again. Last time I’d been to this beach, we’d been eating fish and chips together.
I popped a cucumber slice into my mouth. Then I practiced chewing and being self-sufficient at the same time.
I STILL HAD SEAN RYAN’S BUSINESS card in my wallet, and I took it out before I started up my car. His address wasn’t exactly on our way home, but it wasn’t really out of the way either. Plus, it was a nice night, and I liked to drive. And it was dark, so it wasn’t like he’d see me if he happened to be looking out the window at the same time we were driving by.
“Oh, this is so high school,” I said to Cannoli. “But I’m afraid we’re going to do it anyway.”
Cannoli stood up on her hind legs on the passenger’s seat, but she was still too short to see out the window. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I promise I’ll get you some pillows. Or even a phone book. My grandmother on my mother’s side used to have to sit on three of them just to see over the steering wheel. Did I ever tell you that? I guess we all got our height from our father’s side of the family.”
Cannoli looked over with interest. We pulled out of the beach parking lot and took a right. I flipped off the blinker when it didn’t turn off on its own.
“I know,” I said. “I’ll be Thelma and you can be Louise. No, wait. You can be Thelma and I’ll be Louise, because I’m more the strong, independent type. Okay, so, here we are, taking off for some girlfriend time, a simple weekend free of men….”
Sean Ryan’s house was in North Marshbury, and the beach roads we were taking to get there twisted and turned all over the place to hug the coastline, which added to the sense of adventure, in my opinion. I pulled over to the side of the road so we could put the top down. I just wished I had a scarf in the glove compartment to make me look more like Susan Sarandon in the movie. And too bad I didn’t have a little matching doggy scarf for Cannoli. I mean, how cute would that be.
“We’re just going to have to pretend we have scarves,” I said out loud. “It’s too late to go shopping, and we’ve got a busy day tomorrow.” Cannoli didn’t seem to have any problem with this. I lifted my shoulder bag from the floor to the seat, so she had something to stand on.
We found Sean Ryan’s house right away, even in the dark, because it had a mailbox out by the road with big numbers on it. I’d been admiring this house for years. A little old man used to live there. Maybe he’d died or maybe he couldn’t afford to keep it anymore. The house was white with black shutters and oozing with charm, originally part of a summer estate built back at the turn of the last century, probably a former maid’s quarters. There was no way a maid could afford to buy it now. It sat up on a knoll and looked out over the cliffs to the open ocean. Sean Ryan must be one hell of an entrepreneur. Either that or a drug dealer.
His Prius wasn’t in his driveway, but it could easily be in the detached garage. The outside light wasn’t shining either, but I could see interior light peeking around the edges of the closed blinds in the downstairs windows.
I drove to the end of the street and made a U-turn. We cruised by again, more slowly this time. The interior lights were definitely on, which meant he was home. All my carefully thought-out excuses withered away. It certainly didn’t look like he was in the middle of an antioxidant crisis. I leaned out in the direction of his house to see if I could hear his television blaring, but I couldn’t hear a thing.
I turned down a side street, then pulled over to the side of the road, next to a wooded area between two houses. I put the car into park. Maybe I’d invent a new shade of lipstick called Thelma & Louise someday, but for now I had to settle for rummaging through my makeup kit until I found a tube of Chanel C
razed. It was a rich, dark shade, almost a pure brown, so it was practically camouflage.
My phone rang, and I jumped.
“Hello,” I said, once I finally found my phone in my bag, which was under Cannoli.
“Hey,” Craig’s voice said in a whisper.
“Why are you whispering?” I asked.
“I can only talk for a minute. Listen, I’m probably not going to be able to talk to you at the wedding.”
“What?”
“I mean, we’ve planned this for a long time, and she has her heart set on going. But, it’s really not working out between us. I’m going to move into my Boston condo at the end of the month. The tenant’s lease is up then. So.”
Cannoli jumped over onto my lap. I ran my hand along what was left of her fur. “Does Sophia know?” I asked.
Craig sighed. “Not yet. I don’t want to ruin the weekend for her. But I wanted you to know. I’ve been thinking a lot about the other night.”
“Craig?”
“Yeah?”
I probably shouldn’t have dropped the f-bomb on my former husband quite so loudly in a residential area with my top down, but I did. Then I hung up on him and left him alone to revel in his own jerkdom.
I put the car into drive. “Men,” I said out loud. “They totally, totally suck. Who even needs them. Come on, Thelma, let’s go. Just remember, sometimes you gotta kick butt and take names.”
There was just enough light in the car for me to see Cannoli tilt her head and give me a quizzical look.
“I’m not really sure what that means either,” I said. “But I like the way it sounds.”
We drove faster on the way home. I was feeling a little bit footloose and fancy free. I wasn’t quite ready to fly off the side of a cliff or anything, but I was definitely ready to shrug off the old and move on to something better.
I grabbed my kitchen phone before I could lose my nerve. Sean Ryan’s machine picked up. Not only wasn’t he calling me back, but he was probably sitting there screening his calls. Maybe he wasn’t right up there on the jerkometer with Craig, but he was still a jerk. And so what if he lived in a nice house. I could make my own money. I could buy my own house. Maybe not that house, but so what.
“This is Bella,” I said after the beep. “Listen, I’m just calling to tell you not to call me, okay? I mean, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I really hadn’t made any with you yet, so I think it’s inexcusable for you to be this rude to me. And you should never have left me hanging like that about Atlanta and the left side of the table, not to mention my nephew’s wedding. That’s really bad form, especially for an entrepreneur, because you, of all people, should know better than to burn bridges, and let me tell you, this bridge is—”
A loud beep went off in my ear.
I looked at the phone. Then I called Sean Ryan’s number again. “Anyway,” I said, after I waited out his message and another beep, “in summation, I just want to say that we had our one moment in time, when the chemistry was there and our stars were aligned, and, well, you blew it. Okay, my ex-husband showed up and then I should have introduced you, so maybe those were factors, but you’re the one who didn’t call, which could have been a second moment, or even an extension of the first moment….”
I heard another beep. I hated to end on a critical note, so I called one more time. “Sorry to take up so much space on your voice mail,” I said. “But I just wanted to genuinely wish you a nice life. And, listen, when you get your hair cut the next time, make sure you go to a reputable stylist, especially since you can obviously afford one, and that whoever it is knows how to give a good razor cut. And, not to hurt your feelings, but you really were well on your way to a unibrow, so you’ve got to be careful about that.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, that’s it,” I said. “Good-bye, Sean Ryan.”
After that, I slept like a log.
23
CANNOLI AND I DECIDED TO DRIVE TO LOGAN AIRPORT and park there, since I wasn’t sure whether either the Harbor Express water shuttle or the Logan Express shuttle bus were dog friendly. Hindsight twenty-twenty, I should have planned to carpool with one or more members of my family. I mean, after all, we were in the midst of a global warming crisis, and together we could have spared the environment some fossil fuel emissions.
Fortunately, it was midday, so the traffic on Route 3 wasn’t too much of a nightmare. The airport tunnel hadn’t dropped a roof tile and killed anyone lately, so I was pretty comfortable driving through it, though I did have a slight tendency to duck as I drove, I noticed.
We managed to find a space in Central Parking, so at least we didn’t have to take a bus from one of the satellite lots. I pulled my suitcase out of the backseat of my bug, along with Cannoli’s new travel case, a spiffy animal print pet backpack on wheels. When I first saw it, I thought maybe the dog was supposed to wear the backpack, but it turned out the person wore the backpack with the dog in it. It had a pull-up handle and wheels, just like my suitcase, so you could also roll it along on the ground. It had mesh vents in the front and on the sides to let in lots of air. I unzipped the top and popped Cannoli inside, then attached the safety harness to her jeweled collar.
She looked up at me in horror. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t zip up the mesh part until we absolutely have to.”
I locked my car and made a note about where we were parked on my parking ticket, since I knew I’d never remember we were on the Swan Boats floor unless I wrote it down. Sunday night I’d be thinking, okay, now, was it the Boston Marathon floor or the Hatch Shell floor? Oh, no, maybe it was the Swan Boats floor. I mean, who thought up these names? There was a time and a place for creativity, and it sure wasn’t the Logan Airport parking garage, if you asked me.
I extended the handles on my rolling suitcase and pet carrier, got them positioned evenly behind me, then hooked my shoulder bag over my head and under one arm, like a beauty pageant sash, so it wouldn’t fall off. I reached back with both hands and started pulling. We moved along at a brisk, comfortable pace. The rolling suitcase was one of the best inventions ever, maybe right up there with the ionic hair dryer. I sure would like to have been the entrepreneur who thought up one of those two.
I heard a choking sound behind me. When I looked back, Cannoli was hanging from the backpack harness with her hind legs circling frantically in the air. She looked like she was riding a bike just above ground level.
“Cannoli,” I yelled. I unhooked her and made sure she was breathing on her own. When I tried to get her back in the backpack, she whimpered. I talked to her soothingly yet firmly, then tried again. This time she started howling like I was hurting her.
People turned and stared as they walked by. “What are you looking at?” I said to one couple. I suddenly felt true remorse for every time I’d stared at a parent with a toddler throwing a tantrum. I made a vow to be a better aunt to Tulia’s kids if I ever made it out of this parking garage. I pleaded with Cannoli one more time.
Finally, I just picked her up and put her in my shoulder bag. She poked her head out and calmed down right away.
I reached back and started pulling my suitcase and the empty backpack. “Don’t think this means you won,” I said.
I zipped Cannoli into the backpack just long enough to pay for her and check my suitcase, then as soon as we were out of sight, I took her out again. Fortunately, anything alive has to be carried through the walk-through metal detector, so that part was easy. One of the security women was a dog lover and even held her while I put my shoes back on. The world would be a better place if everyone just helped one another out when they needed it, in my opinion.
PRACTICALLY THE FIRST PERSON I saw when we got to the gate was my mother. She was dressed for traveling in pink sneakers and a bright turquoise sweat suit, and she was wearing one of her trademark red lipsticks, Cha Cha Cha by Estee Lauder.
I was happy to notice a subtle change in her hair color. Maybe she’d finally started using the Gray Chic
by L’Oreal I’d suggested to her at least three years ago. My mother was one of those women who wear their gray hair like a badge of accomplishment. I say, okay, make your point, but at least get the yellow out with a shampoo like Artec White Violet, and brighten it up with a translucent finish like L’Oreal’s Sheer Crystal.
We sandwiched my shoulder bag between us as we gave each other a kiss.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I should have called you to see what flight you were on. We could have driven in together.”
My mother glanced briefly over her shoulder. She turned back to me and shrugged. “We’re all busy,” she said.
I knew which buttons to push with my mother. “It’s just that I’ve been trying to embrace my aloneness,” I said. Cannoli popped her head out of my shoulder bag.
“I see,” my mother said.
“I don’t want to be one of those single women who put their lives on hold waiting to meet a man. Rather than learning to stretch and grow on my own.”
My mother smiled. In the crowd behind her I caught a glimpse of a familiar shiny head. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Don’t look now, but I think Dad’s on the same flight.”
“Ciao, Bella,” my father said a minute later. He reached an arm around my mother and handed her one of the two ice cream cones he was holding. They were both vanilla soft serve with chocolate sprinkles, which everyone around Boston called jimmies for some reason.
“Sweets for the sweet,” my father said.
It almost sounded like my mother giggled, but the terminal was so noisy that it was probably just my ears playing tricks. “Yum,” I said, looking at the cone my father was still holding. “That looks good.”
My father kept his eyes on my mother. “About three gates down on the left,” he said.
“Why, Lawrence Michael Shaughnessy,” my mother said. “You remembered the jimmies.”
“Why, Mary Margaret O’Neill,” my father said. “It’s not quite the gelato we had in Tuscany. Though I’d bet my favorite Dean Martin album we can find some of that once we get to Atlanta.”