Allyn laughed. Now that she knew Kit better, she could appreciate Bea’s reluctance. “Any word on that other franchise? I notice they’ve cleaned it up and gotten rid of the girl who sat in there and watched TV all the time.”
“I think the owner must have realized he could make money on it if he just hired a better manager. He pulled it off the market.”
Allyn started the car while Bea locked the back door of the shop, and she found herself surprisingly nervous as she backed out. It was the same feeling she’d had the night before when she called to invite Bea to dinner. It was weird to feel that way over someone who’d made it clear she wanted only friendship. “Have you been to this place before?”
“No, but I went online and saw the prices. That’s why I decided to dress up a little. Not the dress though. I’m saving that for a special occasion.”
“The dress?”
“Correct,” Bea said. “One is enough, but it’s a killer. Maybe I’ll let you see it sometime. You look great too, by the way.”
“Thank you.” She’d bought something special for tonight, a dark print dress that hugged her figure and a chocolate brown slim-fit blazer. “I wanted to go somewhere different, somewhere Melody and I hadn’t been. I found this article online about how to get over a divorce. It says not to just sit around and wait for your feelings to change. You have to change your actions and start doing new things. I thought I’d done that already since I moved and sold the house, but that’s not enough. What I’ve really been doing all this time was pulling myself into a shell, making my world smaller and smaller. That’s totally the wrong way to handle it.”
“I don’t think there’s a right way or a wrong way to get over something like what you went through, Allyn. People have to process things their own way.”
“I know, but I’ve been stuck. This article said you have to take charge. Make things happen.” She went on to describe her weekend task of boxing up all the mementos and storing them at the top of her closet. She was proud of herself for reaching these conclusions, and admittedly looking for Bea’s approval.
When they reached the restaurant, an upscale bar and grill in Ballard that featured Italian cuisine, she turned her car over to a valet.
“Dutch treat, right?” Bea asked as they scanned the menu.
“Sure.” She would have gladly paid since this was her invitation. It was better, however, to set a precedent for how friends should handle the check.
After they ordered, the waiter lit a small candle at their table and Allyn noticed for the first time that Bea was wearing a tinge of lip gloss. While that struck her as somewhat out of character, she couldn’t help but be pleased that Bea too had made an extra effort to look nice for their night out.
“You know,” Bea said, tipping her head and squinting pensively, “I was thinking about what you said in the car about taking charge instead of sitting around and waiting for things to happen on their own. It sounds good on paper but you still have to wait for the time to be right. If someone had told you five months ago to box up all your memories and get on with your life, you couldn’t have done it because you weren’t ready. It took all this time for you to be willing to listen to that kind of advice.”
Allyn’s defenses kicked in at the idea that Bea wasn’t giving her proper credit. “You think it’s just a coincidence I happened to stumble across that article at the exact moment I became ready to let go of the past?”
“No, but maybe you found it because you were subconsciously looking for it. You know, ready to notice it. What do you think happened to make you feel like that?”
She had to admit, at least to herself, that she’d gone searching for online tips on getting over a painful divorce, something she hadn’t considered at all until recently. “Well, for starters, I’ve had a very busy week…thanks to you. I know I wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs when we went to the festival, but afterward I was glad I went. It was way better than staying at home with the curtains drawn and wishing I had my old life back. And playing ball the other night and going to JoJo’s…oh, and the movie. All that was fun. And look at me now. I actually called you up and asked you to dinner. It’s like every little step makes the next one easier.”
“Everything gets better with practice. That goes for liking yourself too.” Bea smiled and raised her wineglass for a toast. “You need to be your own best friend first.”
“Exactly. I started thinking if Melody actually did come back, what she’d find was a zombie who was in a bad mood all the time. I need to fix that. I want to be somebody she’ll want to be with.”
Bea’s smile faded and she clasped her hands as she leaned across the table. “It doesn’t always have to be about Melody, you know. In fact, if pleasing her is your main objective, then maybe you’re not quite ready to move on.”
“I never said I was doing it just for her.” She sighed and folded her arms, fully aware she was pouting but unable to stop. “You make it sound like everything I’ve done is fake.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. What you did with all the pictures and stuff, that’s a big deal. And it’s great—absolutely fantastic, in fact—that you’re getting out of the house again. It just still sounds to me like it’s all part of a master plan to get Melody back, and that makes me worry you’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t work out the way you want it to. And then you’ll beat yourself up later.”
A tense silence ensued as the waiter delivered salads and refilled their water glasses. Neither made a move to begin eating, and for a moment Allyn felt the whole evening had been a terrible idea. She didn’t need unsolicited advice about Melody, least of all from someone who had no clue what it was like to want someone so badly she couldn’t go on without her.
“You know what, Allyn? Backspace, erase. Forget everything I just said. It doesn’t even matter why you’re doing anything. What’s important is that it feels right to you.” She held out her hand and flicked her fingers. “Give me your hand a minute.”
Allyn was surprised but nonetheless complied.
“Something tells me you and I are going to be really good friends. I’m going to start acting like one right now by telling you I support whatever you think is best for you. If you think I’m being hard on you or insensitive about what you’re going through, call me on it. All of us need a friend who’s going to be on our side no matter what, and I want to be that friend for you.”
Those were the kindest words Allyn had heard in a very long time, and she caught herself in time to blink back tears. “Wow, I…thank you.”
Bea gave her hand a final squeeze and grinned. “You’re welcome. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. That’s how you get it.”
*
As she waited for the clerk to count out her change, Bea stole a look at Allyn through the window of the gelato shop, where she was waiting outside. The streetlights didn’t do justice to the color of her eyes, but the candle on their table had, and all through dinner Bea had resisted the urge to say so. Compliments could be misinterpreted. Flirting, Kit would call it.
Cone in hand, she joined Allyn outside, taking notice of her platform shoes. “You sure you feel like walking in those? We can sit.”
“I’m fine. I’ve been wearing shoes like this since college. Melody’s six-one and she’s always been self-conscious about it. Whenever we went out, she wanted me to look taller too.”
“You’re a better person than I am. I wouldn’t wear shoes like that for anyone.”
“I bet you would if you really loved someone and knew it would make her feel better.”
“Eh…” She laughed and shook her head. “You give me too much credit. I’m not breaking my ankles for anybody, thank you.”
“You’d let your partner suffer emotional ridicule instead.” From her intonation, it was only a playful accusation.
“Not at all. I’m a romantic at heart, but I’d take a different approach, like reminding her over and over that I thought she was perfect, and I�
�d tell her it was always my dream to marry someone tall.”
Allyn twisted her mouth in apparent disbelief but then nodded slowly. “Pretty slick…except it makes me wonder. If you’re such a romantic, how come you’re single?”
Now that they’d agreed to be friends, Bea knew she needed to tell Allyn about Wendy, and the sooner the better. Her biggest fear—and the reason she rarely shared details of her former life with anyone—was that Allyn would criticize her decision to leave. As far as Bea was concerned, only someone who’d been in her situation had a right to judge.
“I haven’t always been single. I was married once too. Legally, just like you.”
She took several more steps along the sidewalk before realizing Allyn had stopped.
“Are you serious?”
“Yup. Eight years ago last month, and I’ve been divorced for the last three.” She walked back to where Allyn was standing and guided her to sit on a knee-high brick wall that kept pedestrians from trampling a shrubbery garden. “It’s a complicated story and I don’t tell it to many people. You sure you want to hear it?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, here goes. Wendy and I met when I accidentally tried to cut my hand off with a broken lightbulb. She sewed me up at the walk-in clinic, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“She’s a doctor?”
“An ER doctor, originally from Canada. She went to school at the UW and was trying to get her green card. We lived together for about a year and a half, but then after Canada passed their same-sex marriage law, we just decided to run up to Vancouver and get married. I know that probably doesn’t sound romantic but it was. We always liked doing things on the spur of the moment. Plus it made her parents’ heads explode and that was a bonus.”
Allyn was giving her the strangest look.
“They’re Chinese. Very traditional. Suffice it to say they had other plans for their only daughter.” She finished her gelato and stood so she could pace…nervous energy building up to her big reveal. “Wendy was always so funny about her parents. I accused her more than once of marrying me just to get under their skin, and she never denied it. I didn’t care though. We were in love, and I thought we’d be together forever.”
“But obviously you weren’t.”
“No, but we should have been,” Bea said wistfully. “We were out hiking with a bunch of friends on Mt. Rainier, and Wendy…she had so much more energy than the rest of us. We were all gasping for breath but she wanted to go just a little higher so we waited for her. I never should have let her go up there by herself, but nobody could stop her when she set her mind to something. After about twenty minutes, she hadn’t come back so Kit went looking for her. She’d fallen.”
“Oh, my gosh!”
“Broke her neck. I waited with her until they could get a helicopter up there. Longest hour of my life. She could hardly breathe, and we were all freaking out because she kept saying she couldn’t feel her arms and legs. They flew her right into surgery.”
“And what happened? Please tell me she’s all right.”
“She survived, but she’s completely paralyzed from the neck down. They did a surgery about three months after the accident hoping to get back some movement in her arms, but it made things worse. Now she can’t even breathe without a ventilator.”
Allyn’s brow furrowed and she kept shaking her head. “That’s so sad. Where is she?”
“Back in Vancouver with her parents. We Skype all the time—she’s got a computer with voice commands. And I go up to see her at least once a month. Yesterday in fact. She divorced me because I couldn’t take care of her.” It always sounded so harsh when she put it that way, since Wendy’s true motives were rooted in love and compassion. “Not really, but sometimes I think about it that way when I feel like beating myself up. She divorced me so I wouldn’t have to take care of her. She knew how hard it would be, how expensive. She also knew I’d be loyal to her until the day one of us died. Said she felt like she was stealing my life.”
“I had no idea. All this time I’ve been going on about Melody leaving me like it was the worst thing in the world, and you’ve been through so much more. And poor Wendy. You must have thought…God, I’ve been such an ass.”
“No!” Bea returned to sit on the wall and put her arm around Allyn’s shoulder. “I haven’t thought anything like that. You have every right to hurt the way you do. At least what Wendy did wasn’t deliberate. Besides, this isn’t a competition. It’s not like there’s a shortage of misery and we have to fight over it.”
“Was that…a joke?”
“Sure, why not?” She pulled Allyn to her feet. “Come on. I need a little joy after all that. Let’s go see Dexter.”
*
Bea pointed through the windshield at the picture window in her living room. “See, what did I tell you? He watches for me every night.”
“What’s he going to think when I walk in?”
“He’ll go crazy but I’ll keep him from jumping on you. Wouldn’t want him to mess up your pretty dress.”
The moment she’d pulled to the curb on the quiet residential street, Allyn experienced a severe case of house envy. From the outside, Bea’s pale yellow bungalow looked like the ideal hideaway—small and simple with privacy hedges on both sides. The front porch light cast a beam into the yard to brighten their path.
“You and Wendy lived here?”
“No, we had an apartment near the medical center because she was on call a lot. I snagged this from the bank a couple of years ago because it was close to my shop.”
Allyn heard Dexter scratching at the door, but then it sounded as though he was running around inside the house.
“Brace yourself,” Bea said. “He’s losing it.”
Indeed, the spectacle of him tearing through the house in a circle was hilarious, and she couldn’t resist getting in on the action by clapping and yelling to encourage him even more.
When Bea finally turned him out into the backyard, Allyn got her first good look at the house. A center wall with a fireplace separated the cozy living room from the kitchen and dining area on the right, and a narrow hallway on the left led to what appeared to be two bedrooms and a bath.
“Why do you have so many balloons in here?”
“So Dexter won’t get on the furniture. He’s terrified of them.” Bea corralled all but one and tucked them in a closet by the entry. “I always keep one out so I can pop it if he forgets. Works like a charm.”
“Poor baby. I bet he has nightmares.”
“Don’t ‘poor baby’ that guy. He’s spoiled rotten.” She gestured toward the couch. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No thanks. I can’t stay long. I have an interview with a client in San Antonio at seven o’clock in the morning. I just wanted to see my little buddy.”
Bea let Dexter back inside and he went straight to where Allyn sat and put his head on her knees. “There’s no such thing as dog loyalty when someone new comes around. Other than Kit and Marta, you’re the only other friend who’s ever been here.”
“I don’t get that. I watched you at the softball game. You get along with everybody. You ought to have lots of friends.”
“I used to. After what happened to Wendy, I’m not as…I guess the word’s free-wheeling when it comes to friends. I still like people but I keep most of them at arm’s length.” She sank into a plush armchair perpendicular to the couch and propped her feet on the end of the coffee table. “I went to a cookout once for somebody’s birthday and overheard a bunch of people I thought were my friends talking about us. One of them said she’d never leave her girlfriend if something like that happened. In sickness and in health…yada yada. In the first place, I didn’t think it was any of her fucking business. In the second place, I was already feeling guilty enough, thank you. It wasn’t even my decision. It was what Wendy wanted. If it had been up to me, I’d have moved in with her and her parents in Vancouver. She needed somebody with her all the time
—that should have been me. But those people who were supposed to be my friends and didn’t know shit were passing judgment on me anyway. Nobody knows what they’re going to do until it happens to them. People ought to keep their fucking opinions to themselves.”
It was by far the most emotion Bea had ever shown, and it made Allyn even more ashamed that she’d bemoaned her own situation. “I’m not going to pass judgment on you. Well, maybe I am, but my judgment is I believe you did what was best for Wendy, and not only that—she did what was best for you. In my book, love doesn’t get any stronger than that.”
“I appreciate you saying that. I told you it was a complicated story. Your story is too. The way you hurt…it reminded me a lot of myself.”
“Oh, please don’t even say that. What Melody did was so trivial compared to what you’ve been through.”
“She turned your whole life upside down. That’s not what I’d call trivial.”
“No, but at least I know I’m going to be okay eventually.”
Hearing those words come out of her mouth was startling. Even more startling was her realization—for the first time—they actually might be true.
Chapter Ten
Allyn swiveled from side to side in her executive chair as she studied the résumé displayed on her oversized monitor. Everything in her office was calibrated to her ergonomic specifications. That mattered a lot to someone who spent up to ten hours a day at her desk.
“This all looks good, Katie,” she told the woman on the phone, “except I think you need to adjust your salary demands.”
“Come on, Allyn. I’ve got twelve years’ experience, half of that with the Big Four. I deserve to be compensated.” Katie’s husband was taking a new job in Chicago and she needed to relocate.
“I couldn’t agree more. The men I place at your level are asking at least ten thousand more and so should you. We might not get it, but we definitely won’t get it if we don’t ask.”
She finalized the résumé and promised to put it in front of half a dozen HR directors within a week. A security programmer with Katie’s accounting firm expertise would be snatched up in no time.
Life After Love Page 8