Impossible Things

by Alexandra McBrayer

  Tears were trickling down Isabella’s face again. and her sophisticated grandmother, whom she had never seen less than immaculate, wiped them away and then wiped her hand on her yellow, linen skirt.

  Her English-accented voice was thick with tears as she continued, “I managed to hold back until he yelled at you. He asked you what was in the bag that you were carrying and you went up to him, smiling such a sweet smile, and showed him the pretty pink shoes that you had just picked out for yourself. He scoffed at them. He picked one up and told your mother to take them back because you didn’t need them. You started crying and asking him why and he told you that he couldn’t afford them. I spoke up and said they were a gift from me, and he said that he didn’t want charity. He would take care of his own family.”

  Lucy had forgotten that, had forgotten those shoes until Isabella mentioned them, and now Lucy remembered not just the shoes but also the look on her father’s face as he held one delicate, pink, sparkly shoe in his hand. They were the first shoes that she had ever picked out for herself, and she had been in absolute love with them. “I remember those shoes.”

  Her grandmother nodded. “He started screaming at me. Told me to get out and never come back. He said that the two of you belonged to him, and if I ever tried to contact either one of you again then he would move you far away, and change your names so that I would never find you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Isabella got up quickly, and went over to kneel in front of Lucy. “Oh my dear, don’t apologize for him. Don’t ever, ever, apologize for anyone but yourself.”

  Isabella reached up, hugged her, and Lucy buried her nose in her neck. As they held each other they cried for all the lost years, and for all the pain and hurt. When Lucy was done crying she pulled back, and looked into Isabella’s blue eyes, that were the same color as her own, and said, “Isabella I love Sam and he loves me. He’s not like my dad, I promise you. He makes me feel safe.”

  Isabella looked at her in silence for a minute, and then pulled Lucy’s hand up to her mouth to kiss the back of it. Her words when they came were a whisper, “Lucy, do you want to be safe, or do you want to be happy?”

  Chapter Five

  After that she saw her grandmother and Rodrigo a few times a week. They met for lunch, and they took her out to dinner, and shows, which Lucy enjoyed. The rest of her time she spent walking London on her own, and trying to learn the city and to see as much as possible. It was a busy city, full of life and color, and she enjoyed finding new places to explore.

  One day, four months after they moved to London, she came home to find Sam there. It was a rare event, and Lucy smiled, and kissed him as he picked her up and swung her about. “What’s the happy occasion?” she asked.

  He stopped swinging her, and kissed her again before putting her down. He reached into his pocket, and before she realized what he was doing, he was kneeling on the floor in front of her.

  He grabbed her hand, and lifted it, and that was when she saw the box in his other hand. Her eyes were wide with shock as she stared down at him.

  “Lucy I love you. Would you be my wife?”

  His brown eyes were earnest, full of tenderness and warmth as he stared up at her. Her heart turned over in her chest, not in excitement but in fear, and she felt her pulse began to race. But despite that she nodded, and said, “Of course I will.”

  He laughed, and stood, grabbing her about the waist and lifting her off her feet. He pulled her up against him and kissed her hard. She kissed him back as he carried her into the bedroom and as they made love he told her over and over again how much he loved her.

  Later she was lying in his arms, almost asleep, when he sat up and said, “The ring! I forgot the ring.”

  He was up and out of the bed in a flash and she laughed at his naked butt as he ran out of the room to get the ring. When he came back he jumped on the bed and pulled her to a seated position. Grabbing her hand he lifted it and slowly placed the ring on her finger, and she took a deep breath and looked down at it.

  It was pretty.

  A tiny solitaire set on a slim gold band no more than two millimeters thick. She looked up to see his hopeful face and she smiled at him. “Thank you.”

  She put off telling her grandmother about her engagement for two weeks. Before her visits she took the ring off and put it in the change compartment of her wallet, but when Sam began to talk about setting a date she knew she had no choice but to tell Isabella.

  It went better than planned. Her grandmother was out when she went over and Rodrigo ushered her into the drawing room. He offered her tea and when she refused he asked what was wrong, so she told him. His face was unreadable and that encouraged her. “Rodrigo you understand don’t you?”

  He sat down on the sofa and stared down at his clasped hands. “Yes, I think so. You say you love him and he seems like a good man.”

  “Yes. Yes he is. I know that’s not enough for her…”

  He shook his head. “She just wants you to be happy. But we each have to choose our own path in life.”

  “But I love him! Why won’t she see that?”

  His eyebrow rose and he sat back and crossed one elegant ankle over his knee. “She does see that. She just wants you to be sure. She just wants you to have the kind of love and passion that she had with your grandfather.”

  Lucy sat down and leaned towards him. “But Rodrigo that’s not always possible. Everyone can’t have that kind of love, and some people don’t want it. My mom didn’t want that kind of love.”

  His dark eyes were steady on her face as he asked, “And you Lucy? You are sure that you don’t want that kind of love?”

  She wasn’t sure why, but she told him the truth. “I used to.”

  She stopped and tried to think of a way to make him understand. “When I was younger I wanted that kind of love. I wanted that kind of life. Until I was seven I heard tales of love and passion, of far off places and…handsome men with names like Raul and François and…Rodrigo.”

  At that he smiled before asking, “What made you stop wanting?”

  She turned her hands palm up and lifted them towards the heavens. “Life happened. That kind of life isn’t possible for everyone, so I grew up and I put away my childish fantasies. I faced reality.”

  She had no idea what he might have said to that because at that moment her grandmother came in and with her she brought cold air, the smell of the outdoors and a passion and vitality that was all her own.

  They exchanged pleasantries and her grandmother talked about plans that she and Rodrigo had been making to travel to the carnival in Rio in a few months time. Isabella was excited to show Rodrigo one of her favorite cities and she regaled him and Lucy with stories of the first time that she had visited Rio many years before.

  It was a fun afternoon and as the sun began to set and darkness gathered in the corners of the room Lucy knew that it was now or never. She took a deep breath, gathered her nerve and blurted it out. “Sam asked me to marry him and I said yes!”

  Her grandmother looked at her and then slowly nodded.

  “Congratulations,” she said and Lucy felt weak with relief. That was it? That was all she was going to say? It was so anti-climatic that Lucy almost said something, but refrained, thinking it best not to start something.

  Her grandmother invited her to stay for dinner but she declined. After all the worry and anxiety of the past two weeks she felt exhausted. She was planning on taking the Tube home but they insisted on having their driver take her and she gave in.

  She didn’t want to admit it even to herself but as she sat in the soft leather seat in the back of the limo she enjoyed it. Watching London rush by, feeling safe in the cocooned world of the car was a nice change of pace from the crowded underground.

  At the apartment she found herself feeling homesick so she made herself a can of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich before crawling in bed. Right before she fell asleep she heard the sound of thunder in the distance a
nd as the rain began to fall she closed her eyes and began to drift off, telling herself that Sam was the right man for her, and that a life of comfort, security and love was the life that she wanted.

  Chapter Six

  A month later, on a cold and windy November day, she came out of a fitting for her wedding dress and got lost on her way back to the underground. After twenty minutes of aimless wandering she finally noticed that the windows of the stores around her were decorated for Christmas. She had been so busy the past few weeks planning her wedding that she had completely forgotten about the upcoming holiday.

  Between the wedding planning and the endless phone calls from Sam’s mother she spent the little bit of free time that she had trying to find a new job. She had been let go a few weeks before because of budget cuts and she hated the fact that Sam was now paying for everything except the wedding. Her parents were paying for that but it was Sam’s mother who was running the show. She was obsessed with every tiny detail and Lucy was sick of it. She had wanted a small, simple wedding, but Sam’s mother had pressured him, and Lucy gave in to shut them up. It was easier to give in then to argue.

  Her grandmother refused to discuss any of the wedding details, saying that it was Lucy’s big day, and that she should do what she wanted.

  Since then, every time that Lucy went to see them, Rodrigo offered her money, something that Lucy had told him to stop doing, but he had smiled that devilish smile of his and said, “I’m your grandfather now. Of course I offer you money for your wedding.”

  It was impossible to be aggravated with him because of that smile and because of the fact that she loved him. In the space of four months she had grown to love him. Despite the fact that he was only a few years older than she was, she really did find herself looking up to him. He was a man of the world, educated and easy to talk to, kind and caring and it was apparent in every word and deed that he loved her grandmother.

  She had told her mother about Rodrigo a few weeks after their move and her mom had been silent a moment before saying, “Another one,” with a huge sigh.

  Lucy had tried to explain that Rodrigo seemed different but it was obvious that her mom didn’t want to hear it. Like most people, her mom couldn’t get past the age difference.

  Lucy was stopped in front of a dress store, thinking about her grandmother and love, when she got the sudden sensation that she was being watched. She turned and looked around her. The street was crowded with people bustling by with their Christmas shopping and none of them seemed to be paying any attention to her so she dismissed the feeling and kept walking, pausing every now and then to look in a shop window.

  She began to see more and more jewels in the windows and glancing around she realized that high-end jewelry stores, the likes of which she had only read about in magazines and seen on TV, surrounded her.

  It was the most dangerous place in the world for her to be and she knew it. The very things that she desired, that she fought against wanting, surrounded her.

  The windows were full of shiny, sparkly, beautiful things that most people rarely thought about, but that represented to Lucy something more than simple jewelry.

  The things in the windows weren’t meant for someone like her, and as she stared at their beauty, she felt weighed down with the impossibility of a life that she couldn’t have.

  A pain of longing squeezed her heart and she lifted her hand to her chest as if to rub it.

  She knew that she should run away and try to forget what she had seen, but she couldn’t do it. Instead she drifted from window to window; each display of jewels more beautiful than the last, and soon she forgot that she was lost. Forgot everything, as the beauty of the jewels captivated her.

  In the past the sight of such beauty would have filled her with a desire so strong that she would do anything to satisfy it. But the longing that she felt that day wasn’t about the jewels; it was about what they represented.

  As she stopped and looked in each window another part of who she had been began to peel away, as if she was a flower losing her petals.

  For the first time in a long while she began to think about her life, what it had been, and what it was becoming.

  She knew that many would laugh if she told them about her addiction. They would think it funny, but to Lucy it wasn’t a joke at all. Some people were addicted to drugs, some to alcohol and some to food. For Lucy it was jewels. Real jewels. The cheap, fake things that could be easily bought didn’t satisfy her no matter how much she wished that they could.

  It was as she was approaching the end of the street and the last few windows that she saw it. It was a huge diamond ring and she was instantly filled with the desire that had been missing only moments before.

  She wished so badly in that moment that she could channel her addiction into something else. She wanted to be able to run to a restaurant and shove food into her mouth, or to a bar and drink until the hole inside her was filled. But she couldn’t.

  Sadness and longing when they go unresolved, force themselves out.

  One way or another.

  That street, that shop, that window in front of her, was the worst place in the world for her, and she needed to run but she couldn’t. She could only stare at the ring and the way that it sparkled from the lights above, and ache with longing.

  It was her grandmother’s fault. Her dad was right about that.

  Her grandmother was the one that started Lucy’s love affair with all things shiny. When Lucy was little Isabella would come and visit them from France, where she lived at the time, and she was the most glamorous thing that Lucy had ever seen.

  Late at night when her parents were sleeping Lucy would sneak into the guest room and watch as Isabella performed her nightly beauty rituals. As she took off her make-up and let down her long, dark hair to brush it, Lucy would sit in the middle of her bed, wrapped in Isabella’s fur coat, while her grandmother told her stories about the parties she went to, the men she met, and about the jewels that she had bought and received.

  The jewels!

  Oh how Lucy loved them.

  Her grandmother would sit her red leather jewelry box, the one that traveled everywhere with her, on the bed next to Lucy and unlock it. The last time Lucy had seen that box she had been seven but she still remembered the feeling in her chest when she beheld the beauty that was inside it.

  Even in the poor lighting of the guest room the jewels had sparkled and shined like nothing that Lucy had seen in her short life.

  She sank her small hands deep into the diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds and pull them out piece by piece as her grandmother told its story. According to Isabella, jewels, like women, each have their own history and their own lives. The jewels that Isabella owned and that Lucy held in her small hands had existed long before either of them and would survive long after they were gone.

  Lying on the bed, wrapped in Isabella’s mink and draped with her jewels Lucy dreamed of a day when she would be beautiful like her grandmother, when she would travel the world experiencing adventures and meeting exciting men, and of course when she would have her very own case of jewels.

  That was the life that she had longed for since she was small, not the handsome husband and house with a white picket fence and two kids, like the other girls that she knew dreamed of. Lucy wanted Paris, and Rome, champagne, and fast cars and like she had told Rodrigo weeks before, exciting men with foreign accents and names like Raul and Jean-Luc. She wanted adventure, excitement, and diamonds.

  She was twenty-seven and that day had never come, and now it never would.

  She was a normal girl who lived a normal life, in a normal world.

  She hadn’t dated exciting foreign men at all; she’d dated Sam, the first boy she met at college, and the only man that she had ever slept with. The only jewelry he had ever given her was the engagement ring on her finger.

  Looking down at her ring she couldn’t help but feel sad as she compared it to the ring in the window. She loved her
ring because she loved Sam, but its tiny diamond seemed to be mocking her.

  On her finger was her reality.

  In front of her was the dream that she would never have.

  She should have walked away. Should have turned and asked for directions to the underground. But she didn’t. Instead she pressed her face up against the window and stared in at the ring, a ring that had suddenly begun to represent for her the life that she would never have, the places that she would never see and the men that she would never love.

  There, in the middle of one of London’s most famous streets, she was doing what her dad had been pressing her to do her entire life. She was facing reality and growing up.

  Sam was the only man that had ever loved her, the only man who had tried to pierce the icy shell that she had constructed between herself and the world. She was a lucky girl. He was handsome and kind and though it wasn’t the exciting, passionate love that she had once dreamed of, it was everything that she should want. It was real.

  The last piece of who she had been fell from her heart and she felt vulnerable and terribly alone as she stood there. An icy wind blasted her and it seemed as if it would pick her up and carry her away. She wished it would.

  She gave one last glance at the ring and put her hand up to the window to say goodbye to it. The window was warm from the light inside and she opened her palm and pressed it to the glass as if to capture the image of the ring for eternity.

  “Let it go,” she whispered to herself. “Let it go.”

  She turned away from the window and as she did her eyes met those of a man crossing the street. His face was intense, and his eyes were so concerned that she felt it even from a distance. They frowned at each other as he came closer and she forgot about the ring, forgot about Sam, forgot about everything.