Hope in a Jar

by Beth Harbison

  In short, maybe they were just wrong for each other and there wasn’t much more to it than that.

  Why should she feel remorse for losing something she hadn’t actually really wanted?

  So what did she want?

  Now that was the question. She wanted to be happy, and she wasn’t. She wished she’d stayed thin and pretty, like she used to be, but she hadn’t. She wanted to go back in time and wow everyone at the reunion, the way Olivia had, but she couldn’t.

  And she wanted to tell Noah that Vickie was a nasty piece of work who hadn’t changed since high school, but she wouldn’t.

  Hell, if he’d tried to tell her the same about Kevin, she wouldn’t have believed him, either. Or, to be more realistic, if he’d tried to tell her that Kevin was sleeping with Charlotte while Allie was out working, she would have said he was crazy.

  Even though, as it turned out, he would have been right.

  No one could have made her believe it beforehand.

  So this was like one of those bad time-travel movies, where you just know what’s going to happen, it’s predestined, but there’s no way to stop the stupid guy from running (or driving or skate-boarding or surfing) straight into his misfortune.

  Clouds moved across the moon again and Allie heard a few fat raindrops hit the wooden roof of the gazebo.

  She didn’t mind. A long time ago she’d heard that spring rains brought negative ions with them, and that negative ions were capable of improving moods.

  She could use that right now.

  She took a long, cleansing breath and studied the intricate architecture of the cathedral reaching into the sky. The base lights illuminated the structure, casting shadows, lighting carved angels, making menacing the expressions of the gargoyles on the first roof tier. It was so beautiful it made something inside of her ache. Even while she sat here, feeling unafraid, she also felt painfully alone.

  The idea of “soul mates” was something that Allie had rejected for a long time. Sure, once she and Olivia thought they were soul mates, but they were kids then, and spent so much time together that it wasn’t surprising when they finished each other’s sentences. But they weren’t—they were friends.

  Then again, she and Noah could finish each other’s sentences, too. Would she have said they were soul mates?

  She thought about it. Really thought about it. Because the first answer that came to her—fast and sure—was yes. They’d known each other forever, they could trust each other completely, and they had that same kind of shorthand she and Olivia had had once—the kind of understanding that didn’t require explanation all the time.

  Now Vickie was going to ruin all of that.

  It wasn’t as if Allie had been unaware someone would come along someday. And it wasn’t as if she had been unaware that that someone wouldn’t be her—the cliché of friendships being ruined by sex was so common that just about every sitcom had used it by this point.

  It was just that, even though she’d known it in the back of her mind, she’d never fully believed there would be someone in her relationship with Noah other than her and Noah.

  It was stupid, really. She’d banked on him being a serial dater forever, and no one—not even Warren Beatty—kept that up.

  That it was Vickie Freedman—of all people—who entered the picture was just the icing on the cake. Anyone else and Allie would have been sad for herself, but the fact that it was Vickie made her worry about Noah in addition to feeling sorry for herself.

  And there was no way she could save him.

  But there was nothing she could do about it. One thing she had learned in her thirty-eight years was that no one ever believed anyone else about the person they were sleeping with. That was something that always needed to be found out for oneself.

  And sitting here, or at home, or anywhere, moaning about how unfair it was and how stupid Noah was wasn’t going to change things for Allie or Noah one iota.

  If things went as they should, Noah would realize Vickie was a bitch before too long, and the world would spin right on its axis again.

  Until then . . . she needed to move on.

  The fact that she didn’t have a fulfilling job to throw herself into just made it worse.

  And the fact that she was completely jealous of Olivia for coming to the reunion all gorgeous and youthful-looking, and polished and, on top of all that, having Allie’s own dream job was also just a symptom of how bad things were in her own life.

  So, instead of putting so much energy into being jealous of, and overprotective of, others, she needed to restructure her life. Or at least the way she thought about her life.

  She needed a life makeover. She needed to get control of the things that had troubled her for so long and she needed to turn them around.

  It would start tomorrow.

  Had there been a car rental office open nearby, Olivia would have rented something—anything—and gotten out of town that night. A pickup truck, a bike, a camel—anything.

  As it was, she stopped at the business center of the Wardman Park and tried in vain to find a late flight out, but the last one had left ten minutes before she got there.

  It was silly to be so desperate, she knew that. She was, after all, in one of the most beautiful hotels in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

  And she’d been to almost all of them at this point.

  But it was hard to argue logic with emotions. It didn’t matter how great the hotel was, or how innocuous the reunion had been (once all was said and done), or even how far in the past her unpleasant memories were of a place a good ten miles from here.

  In a way, it all felt like it was right here, right now.

  It was hot. Her room was stuffy. She turned on the air conditioner but ended up with a blast of cold air pounding against her. No matter how she shifted in bed, the air felt like it went right to her bones.

  So finally she turned the whole system off and opened the windows. That was one advantage of staying in an older hotel—the windows still opened.

  She turned out the light and returned to her bed, breathing in the gentle breeze that lifted the curtains as it passed. It carried the mingled scents of rain, boxwoods, and exhaust, and reminded her that she once loved this town and never more than when the weather started to get warm and two hundred years’ worth of landscaping came to life again.

  The clock said it was ten minutes until midnight. She was wide-awake.

  This promised to be a very, very long night.

  Ten

  You’ll be glowing tonight.

  —ad for Sun-In

  Despite a lifetime that suggested this was exactly what would happen, Olivia was, nevertheless, surprised to return to her apartment Sunday morning to find that her mother had had an overnight gentleman caller.

  “Olivia, this is Bob,” her mother said, scooping pancakes onto Olivia’s Fiesta ware plates.

  “Rob,” he corrected, keeping his eyes on Olivia. He was short and compact, with a ruddy face and eyes like those of a small, twitchy animal. “And I have to say, I would have known you anywhere.” He wagged a stubby finger. “I know where you get your looks, young lady.”

  Olivia was speechless for a moment, then looked from Rob to her mother and said, “Thank you.” To her mother, it was, “Mom, could I have a word with you in the other room?”

  “Uh-oh, am I in trouble?” Caroline trilled.

  “Now, Mom.” She pushed through the swinging kitchen door and paced in the living room until her mother joined her.

  “That was very rude,” Caroline rasped in a stage whisper. “You’re going to make our guest feel unwelcome!”

  “Our guest? Are you kidding? He’s your guest. In my apartment. Where did you meet this guy anyway?”

  “Olivia! He’ll hear you!”

  “I don’t give a damn.” Olivia was exasperated. “Just tell me you didn’t marry him yet.”

  Caroline’s jaw dropped. “Olivia Rose Pelham, you take that back this instan
t.”

  She wouldn’t. “Who is he, Mom?”

  “He’s a nice man.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s my cousin.”

  It took Olivia a moment. Of all the comebacks her mother could have conjured, this was one of the better ones. “He’s your what?”

  “Cousin. I think.” Caroline looked off into space, tapping her fingertips against her face as she spoke. “He was married to Aunt Cassandra’s niece, who was my cousin-in-law, so”—she looked at Olivia—“well, technically perhaps he’s my cousin-in-law once removed. I’m not sure. What are your cousin-in-law’s spouses?”

  “Strangers,” Olivia said. “But they’re usually not strangers sleeping in my apartment.”

  “Yes, I can see how that was surprising, but he was at Aunt Cassandra’s yesterday, dropping off her groceries, which was so sweet, then he offered to give me a ride back into the city so I didn’t have to rely on public transportation.”

  “Then he stayed overnight.” Olivia felt weary. “So where’s his wife?”

  “They’re divorced.”

  “Mom!”

  “What?”

  “So this guy isn’t your cousin-in-whatever or anything like it anymore. He’s just some guy, sitting in my kitchen, drinking my coffee, who used to be married to some distant relative at some point who-knows-when. He could have been a psychopath!” She lowered her voice. “Jesus, Mom, he still could be. Why is he here?”

  “Well, if you must know, it’s because he had a friend he thought I should meet. Someone who lives here, up in the East Side somewhere.”

  Olivia sat down and dropped her head into her hands. How many times in her life would her mother behave like a fool in the name of finding romance? When would it stop? Seventy? Eighty? A hundred? Would it stop at death, even? “And did you meet this mystery man?”

  “As it happened, he was out of town.”

  “And Rob—”

  “Bob.”

  “—is staying here until his friend gets back?”

  “Of course not, don’t be silly. He lives right across the river, in Harrison.”

  It was hard to be patient with this, it really was. Olivia could have come home to some horrendous bloody scene in her apartment and never known exactly what had happened. If this guy was normal—and the jury was still way out on that—it was just lucky.

  But why would a normal sixtysomething man have driven her mother here and stayed over instead of driving home when it was just twenty minutes away? Even if he really did want to introduce her to his friend, which in itself was really weird, why stick around after it’s become evident that the friend is out of town?

  Whatever the answer, Olivia didn’t trust her mother to handle it from here. “I’m getting rid of him,” she said, moving toward the kitchen door.

  “Wait! What about his friend?”

  “At this point, I’m just glad his friend isn’t here, too.” She pushed through the door back to the kitchen, nearly clipping Rob in the face as she did so. He must have been listening.

  She didn’t care.

  “Rob, I appreciate your bringing my mom home last night, I really do, but I’m afraid we’re going to be very busy today, packing up, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “Packing up?” Rob asked, shooting a puzzled look at Caroline.

  In her peripheral vision, Olivia saw her mother shrug.

  “Lease is up next week,” Olivia said. “Fortunately the place came furnished, but Mother and I are going to have our hands full still packing clothes and books and so on. So”—she tried to look rueful—“if you don’t mind . . . ? Unless you want to help move boxes.”

  “No, no!” Rob sprang back, his small, wiry body like a coil. “I need to get home myself. Leanne is waiting.”

  “Leanne?” Caroline asked.

  “My wife.”

  “I thought you were divorced,” Olivia said, flashing A Look in her mother’s direction.

  “Audrey and I are divorced. Leanne and I have been married for two years.”

  What was with her family? For all of them life was just one big game of Marital Chairs.

  “Audrey,” her mother said to her, triumphant. “You remember cousin Audrey.”

  Olivia shook her head. “No.”

  “She went by the name Mary Pat when you knew her,” Rob clarified.

  “You remember cousin Mary Pat, don’t you?” Olivia said pointedly to her mother.

  “She’s not your cousin, strictly speaking,” Rob began. “But she’s an old friend of the family. Close enough to be a relative. Almost.”

  Caroline finally looked like she got it. “Thank you again for the ride home, Bob, but as my daughter said, we really do need to get packing.”

  “Would you like to have dinner sometime?” He switched his gaze to Olivia. “Either of you?”

  Olivia rolled her eyes and left the room. Behind her, she heard her mother declining but adding, “Do keep in touch. Let me write down my e-mail address for you . . .”

  “You could have been killed.”

  “He’s family. I hardly think he’d kill me.”

  “Family? You don’t even know who he was married to.”

  “Of course I do, it was Mary Ruth.”

  “Pat, Mom, it was Mary Pat, and she’s not the one Dad was related to. You weren’t related to any of them, and don’t think for a moment he wasn’t aware of that.”

  “Now, Olivia—”

  “And anyway, you don’t know who she is any more than you know who Mary Ruth or Audrey or Peewee Picklepooch is.”

  “There is no Peewee—”

  “Bringing a strange man here was dangerous, both for you and for me. And, for God’s sake, for my stuff. My jewelry, my clothes, my electronics. He could have robbed me blind!”

  “Not with me here!”

  “Mom.” Olivia tried to be patient, but she felt anything but. “It’s been a hell of a long time since I had a roommate, but even then we both knew better than to bring a stranger into our apartment. That’s something you need to learn now, not just for me but for you, too. In fact, more for you than for me, because you won’t be living here forever and you need to learn to take care of yourself.”

  Caroline looked wounded. “Are you kicking me out?”

  Damn it. How did this get to Olivia still, after all these years? “No, Mom, I’m not kicking you out.” What would it take? “I’m saying you need to be a lot more careful, no matter what. Regardless of where you are.”

  Her mother gave a nod. “I see. And while I still think you’re wrong to be that paranoid about family members, I will respect your wishes while I am staying in your home.”

  Good old Caroline. She wasn’t going to admit to being wrong. Even when it was patently obvious and she was changing her own behavior to reflect it, it still had to be presented as a choice of consideration for others, not as the necessity it was.

  For Olivia, stuck in her role as Dutiful Daughter, it was easier to let it pass than to try to get her mother to concede the point.

  They both knew who was right.

  But only one of them would admit it.

  “So no more strange men here,” Olivia clarified. Her mother had a way of slipping things in under vague technicalities.

  “Not overnight, no.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Caroline gave a little bell of a laugh. “I do plan to date, of course.”

  “But you said your whole point in coming here was to stop looking for romance and start accepting yourself for who you are. Alone.”

  “Well . . . yes. I’m working on that right now. And feeling better, as a matter of fact.” Olivia straightened righteously. “But I’m still in my prime, you know. I’m hardly an old horse that needs to be put out to pasture.”

  Whether or not she was still in her prime, as far as dating was concerned . . . well, Olivia didn’t want to have that argument. She didn’t want to be the meanie who called attention to everything
Caroline undoubtedly already knew about the market for mature men.

  Specifically the fact that mature men with any means and looks at all were probably more likely to go for Olivia or perhaps even someone younger.

  Now that was a depressing thought. Somewhere along the way Olivia and her mother had both gone over the hill.

  “No men here at all,” Olivia corrected.

  “You’re not saying I’m too old for love, surely?” Caroline asked, her voice trembling slightly.

  God, it was tempting. There was so much Olivia wanted to say and now would be the perfect moment, in a way, to lay it all on her mother. The truth, with no varnishing.

  But the truth was too harsh.

  “No, Mom,” Olivia lied at last. “I’m not saying that at all. I just want you to be careful. It’s a jungle out there. You may have heard. You need to have a few basic rules down before you do anything else.”

  “Basic rules of dating?” Caroline repeated, as if she couldn’t believe Olivia would presume to know more about it than she did.

  Olivia didn’t. “Of safety, Mom. Safety. First, dial star and then six and seven before you call a blind date so he can’t trace the call back and find out where you live. Second, don’t have him pick you up or drop you off here because that will probably give him an idea of where you live.”

  “Oh.” Caroline looked relieved. “Those are good suggestions. And I’m glad we’re not really moving. This is a lovely apartment you have, truly.”

  Olivia nodded. “That was just to throw old Rob off the track.”

  “Bob.”

  “No, Rob. His name was Rob.”

  Caroline shook her head. “No, dear, his name is Bob. As in short for Robert.”

  “Rob is short for Robert, too.”

  “But it’s not his name.”

  Olivia threw her hands in the air. “Third,” she said pointedly, “get his name right off the bat. It will help us when we’re filing the police report . . .”

  Eleven

  More where you need it,