What Doesn't Kill You

by Virginia DeBerry

  That’s when Ron told me there was a core group of young car freaks who hung out at the shop. He encouraged them, gave them pointers—his way of letting them know they could learn to do more with cars than just drive. “They’ll do anything I ask to get an up-close look at a short-block Aluminator or a twin-cam supercharger.” Clearly the blank look on my face let him know I wasn’t fluent in auto lingo. So I poured coffee and he translated—short answer, they make the cars go faster. He also told me that when I was ready, all I had to do was name the stores and he’d get his crew on it.

  I was planning to ask if he wanted cream or sugar, but instead I blurted out what was on my mind. “Why are you always so nice to me?” As soon as the question was out of my mouth, I knew I wanted to hear his answer—and I didn’t. The man took the coffee cups out of my hands—I had gotten out the good ones to go with the good coffee—and set them on the counter. It looked like he didn’t have to go far for the answer and I was gonna get it, ready or not.

  So he puts both hands on my shoulders and turns me around so I was facing him head-on. He was quiet, looked at me long enough to make me even more nervous than I already was. I felt pretty much like I did back in that parking lot after we did the sushi samba, and that’s exactly where he took me.

  He said he liked me and thought he had explained that before. He didn’t know why, “’cause you really give me a hard time, woman.” But he wasn’t looking for a logical explanation. “Why do I like red? Because I do. Period. Which is OK with me.” Then I had to lean against the counter because I could tell he wasn’t finished, and if I was going to keep listening and standing, I needed some help. I could feel the heat from the coffee-maker on my back—at least I think that’s where it was coming from. Ron hadn’t let go of my shoulders. Then he said, “Where I come from, you do nice things for people you like. It shows them you care.”

  So I’m trying my best to breathe, keep my knees from knocking and desperately trying to find something to say that doesn’t sound idiotic. Except he tells me he’s not done yet—that last time he tried to tell me how he felt, I interrupted him with my announcement about Gerald. Well, he didn’t know it was Gerald, but you know what I mean. So Ron says he knows I’m not seeing anybody now—and I got another whiff of my daughter. Then he says, “Let’s get the age thing off the table.” His hobby wasn’t hunting cougars and I wasn’t part of some leftover adolescent fantasy about his high school history teacher. He said that he wasn’t serious about anyone either. Mind you, he did not say he had been sitting home watching the Discovery Channel and pining for me, which is good, because I would know the man was lying or weird.

  OK. So there was nothing I could identify as really wrong—you know, like him, me, a wife and a fiancée. After all, I did know his people—at least some of them. And, he had asked my daughter if he could take me out. It was like he was reading my mind, because he said, “This isn’t some kind of ‘sneak n’ meet motel’ ‘Me and Mrs. Jones’ jones. I really want to get to know you. Out in the open.” But then I couldn’t get Billy Paul out of my head—I must have been eleven or twelve when that song came out, and even though I didn’t exactly know what it meant, I kinda liked the sound of “a thing goin’ on.” Couldn’t wait to have one too. And there it was right in front of me—live and in person. A thing I could have. The man was smart, fun, kind, good looking, very nicely self-employed, and he was standing in my kitchen saying all the right things—after he’d done all the right things. It wasn’t like he looked or acted like some young diddy bop with no clue what it meant to be a man. He wasn’t an old fogy, set in his ways with one foot in the Social Security office either. And let’s not forget, he wasn’t anybody else’s thing. And I really liked him. So what was my problem?

  That’s about the time Ron started telling me he knew he was interested when he met me at the wedding rehearsal. Guess I wasn’t acting as motherly as I thought. He said I was attractive, confident, funny and gracious. Me? He added headstrong—was that a nice way to say stubborn? He wouldn’t be wrong. And I’m trying to listen to the man, but I was struck by a moment of personal clarity. Had my lousy and limited male history left me silently singing my very own “he done me wrong” song? Ex gave me the first verse. Gerald got credit for the second. And the chorus, “It’ll never happen again,” was my refrain. Was it time for a new tune? And if it was, could I carry it?

  So while it’s dawning on me, however slowly, that the only thing standing in my way is me, Ron is steady talking. He could see right away that I liked myself, and he found that incredibly appealing. And that he got all that before our first date. The first, first date. The one I don’t want to remember—post wedding. He was gentleman enough to call it a date instead of what it was. He was sorry it was such an embarrassing night for me, and that it would never have happened if he’d had any inkling I was too wasted to be a consenting adult. He laughed and said that made me a dangerous woman.

  Then the mood shifted—it was subtle, but I could feel it. The smiling Ron had been replaced by a serious one I’d never seen before. He finally let his hands slip from my shoulders—slid them down my arms, squeezed my hands and let me go. I was glad I still had the counter for support, because all of a sudden things didn’t feel so good anymore. His hands were gone and so was the heat. I reached for my cup of cold, unsugared, unmilked coffee because I had to look somewhere other than at him for a minute. I needed to remember my name and where I was, but before I could collect myself, he said, “I won’t bother you with this again, Tee.” Then he said that every time we’d gotten close to starting something, I’d put up roadblocks and detour signs. So this was it. Either we were going to take a ride and see where we ended up, or we weren’t. Oh, he said he’d still take good care of my car and help me get the flyers out because he believed in what I wanted to do. That it would be terrific to see me when our paths crossed at Amber and J.J.’s. But that this part, the personal pursuit, wasn’t a door he was going to knock on anymore. “Believe it or not, I have found women who actually like me.” He tried not to grin, but he couldn’t help it, and right then, in that instant, I realized I had already been missing his smile—and his hands. That I didn’t have to do without them, and that I had to tell him…something.

  So I said, “I really, really like you, Ron.” Not very original—rather junior high, in fact, but I was out of practice and my heart was pounding so loud I didn’t even hear myself. So I said it again. Because it was true.

  He said, “You coulda fooled me!”

  We both kinda grinned behind that and I opened my arms—welcome. For real. And when I said, “Let’s see where it goes,” I really meant it. I told him I didn’t expect him, or me, to make promises we couldn’t keep. All we had to do was explore what might be possible. And, for the record, I told him I was coffee-drinking sober.

  The next morning, before Ron left, he asked me if I’d ever explored the possibility of hang gliding. I hit him with a pillow and said I was consenting, not crazy. But who knows? It already felt like I had dived off a cliff and I was hoping for a soft landing. Yes, I said the next morning, and yes, I know you want details. And unlike the first time, I’ve got ’em, because I remember every single solitary moment of that night—and morning. When I woke up, I knew exactly where I was, who I was with, and what had happened. In fact, I had to make myself stop replaying—and reliving—bits of that night over and over again, so I could get some work done. But if you think about it, I’ve shared an awful lot of my personal business—embarrassing stuff that folks just don’t talk about, like money. And being the other woman when I knew better. But there are some things even I am not giving up—and this is one of them. OK, I will tell you this: remember the morning after the last first time, when Ron told me it had been great? Well, that’s like calling the Pacific Ocean big. It’s technically accurate, but let me tell you it doesn’t begin to paint the picture.

  17

  Sometimes life handles itself.

  Email is still not
my favorite method of communication. I prefer the telephone—I mean a real telephone, the one in your house, attached to the wall—even if it’s cordless. But I have finally accepted the need for a phone that travels with me. It doesn’t have to sing me a song, show me clips from my favorite TV shows, allow me to decode a message from a distant planet or get the scores from the game last night. My cell is a tool I have in case of urgency—it’s always been for me to call other people, not the other way around. “Do you have another number where you can be reached?” No. Because I’m generally not happy when my purse rings. So I wasn’t thrilled when I realized that if I was going to be in business, or at least look like I was, I had to have another email address and a second phone number. I suppose I could have used the ones I had, but since I was taking the shotgun approach to advertise To a Tee—five thousand flyers and the Ron Squad—I was keenly aware that passing out my personal contact information in parking lots was not the best idea, because after a bit more prodding and soul searching, Ron wasn’t the only plunge I’d decided to take.

  He suggested I get one of those prepay-as-you-go phones initially. I could change the plan but keep the number when the business took off. When the business took off. He never let me say if. He was right there with Julie in the “Oh Happy Day, the Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” club for Positive Thinkers, which I guess is exactly what I needed since it’s what the universe sent me. But I was still a novice.

  And as for Ron, it was still early—we hadn’t pledged our un-dying devotion, moved in together or gotten matching tattoos. Come to think of it, I never asked if J.J. has the Chinese luck symbol tattooed anywhere. On second thought, I don’t want to know. But Ron is so different from Gerald—I mean, other than the fact that they’re both men, there isn’t anything else they have in common—well, OK, except me. There are lots of things I like about this relationship—first, that it is one. I don’t think twice about calling Ron at home, seeing him on a Saturday or a Tuesday or any other day that fits our schedules. I like meeting his friends and having a robe and a toothbrush at his house and not having to drive two hours to go out to dinner so no one we know will see us. I like that when we talk about the future, I say we and so does he. I like that he not only makes me feel connected to him, but he helps me feel connected to myself. And then there’s the sex that I’m still not going to tell you about—let’s just say that it’s never been better. Maybe there is something to that younger-man-older-woman thing. I think, and I may be going out on a limb here, but I think that Ron and I are the way it’s supposed to be. I don’t mean in a carving-your-initials-in-a-heart-on-a-tree or writing-a-sappy-song-about-it kind of way. But the way it is when it works. Best of all, we are having fun. I did not go hang gliding, but I watched him—with my heart in my throat. What? You think it’s part of the natural order of things for a human being to be towed behind an airplane? Well, he was literally on cloud nine. And I made lots of cookies. We were taking it week by week, which is as far ahead as I cared to look.

  And if Julie was a cheerleader about my business, Ron was a cattle prod. On Memorial Day we went to a cookout at Amber and J.J.’s—the first official fire-up-the-barbie in the new house. There was lots of joking about the frozen-turkey fiasco, and I think Amber was as happy to see us together as J.J. was to light the fire. Right before we sat down to eat, Ron presented me with a provisional NAPO card so I could say that I was a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers on my promotional material. The man is seriously on the ball.

  After the blitz—or the first wave, as Ron called it—I was an email-checking fool, and I’d look at my cell phone every six minutes to make sure I hadn’t missed a call. By week three I hadn’t received so much as a wrong number or Viagra spam, and I was ready to pronounce the whole episode a colossal flop. Ron was ready to launch the second wave.

  We went back and forth a few times. Ron said, “You have to give people a chance to find you.” “What’s the point? It was a dumb idea,” was my take on the situation. But he kept at it, and I remembered that I usually gave people and situations at least two strikes. I couldn’t cut back to just one on myself.

  So the second wave launched right before the Fourth of July. And I waited, and worried, and was pretty much ready to give up. Then Julie stopped by after work one day with a bottle of wine. We were sitting on the patio—she’d had a particularly gnarly day at work and needed to vent—and you know me. I always need to vent. Honestly, though, it was refreshing to hear Mary Poppins complain. I was beginning to think the girl didn’t have it in her. I kept hearing this buzzing from inside—it sounded kinda far away, but I went inside to check, poked my head out in the hall to see if maybe it was coming from a neighbor’s apartment. Then Julie said it was a cell phone. I had given the business line a different ringtone, but I hadn’t heard it since I’d picked it, so how was I supposed to remember what it sounded like?

  I scrambled to find my purse, all the while figuring it was a wrong number or a prank call from some kid who found the flyer. So for the first time, in my best professional voice I answered, “To a—”

  She started talking before I got to the “Tee.” Her name was Elena, and three weeks ago she had come out of the office-supply warehouse—“You know, the one in the plaza with the phone place and the TJ Mega store. I’d been there too, but I didn’t find anything good that day.” Elena didn’t stop for a breath. She had snatched my flyer off her windshield, balled it up without looking and tossed it in the backseat with her packages because it was starting to rain and she was in a hurry. “No knock on your flyer. Great color, nice paper, really professional. You have to tell me who designed it. I’m going to need to do some kind of brochure-like thing. Did they give you a good price?” Elena talks a lot. Don’t say it. But her comment about the flyer made me feel good.

  Anyway, she said she was a lawyer, and for more than a year she’d been contemplating leaving the firm she was with—“because it’s run by imbeciles in pinstripes”—and going out on her own. In the beginning she planned to work out of a home office to save on overhead, “but I’d look at all the crap in my spare bedroom, turn off the light and run the other way. That is so not like me. But now I’ve got to get out of here. I’m on the verge of desperation. How soon can you get here? Please tell me tomorrow.” Clearly the trusting type. She gave me her address, which was only ten minutes away, and we made an appointment for the next evening.

  Julie was ecstatic. I was terrified. When I called Ron that night, I was in a tizzy about how I was going to get the job and keep my job—the one I actually got paid for. He said, “One step at a time.” Told me to just go on the appointment, and he made me promise to call him just before I went in and as soon as we were finished, because you never know about people. I hadn’t actually focused on the going into strangers’ houses part before. Instead of getting my back up about how well I could take care of myself, because I was, after all, born and raised in Brooklyn, I was actually touched by his concern. See, I was mellowing.

  The next day I was jumpy as a cat on the Garden State Parkway when I headed up Elena’s walkway, but she yanked the door open before I reached the stairs. “I had a bet you’d show up and look normal. My boyfriend said only lunatics call people from flyers on windshields. Nice outfit. Where’d you get it?” is how she greeted me. Whatever I imagined she’d look like, she didn’t. I think of female attorneys wearing suits and stylish pumps, not cutoffs and barefoot, but there she was, ponytail pulled up on top of her head, looking like Who let Daisy Mae off the farm?

  Elena talked the whole time she ushered me through her house, which was lovely—at least the living room, dining room and kitchen, which I later found out were the rooms she rarely used. Then we came to the scene of the mess. Think landfill—laundry baskets full of LP’s, wrapping paper and promotional coffee mugs, a doctor’s scale, a cello, a dress form, diving tanks, a Nirvana poster, a piñata dangling from the ceiling fan. Now imagine that this stuff looms precariously
over your head, like one hearty sneeze would cause an avalanche. And there was no actual space in the room where your foot would touch the floor if you tried to step in. I couldn’t even tell if she had hardwood or carpeting. You get the picture. But she had just shown me her basement, which was almost empty. Guess she saw the question on my face, because she said, “I can toss stuff in here and shut the door behind me.” Uh-huh.

  The good news? The room was a pit, and she definitely needed my services. I also saw nothing to suggest the hidden freak show Ron was worried about. Turns out Elena, counselor-at-law, was a whack-a-doodle but definitely not dangerous.

  After the guided tour, we sat on her deck to confer. She lit a cigarette and offered me a beer—I chose the diet iced tea. Her law degree was from Rutgers. She had made junior partner in a corporate firm where she had started as an associate right after graduation. “Bores me senseless.” She flicked ashes toward the rose bush. I could tell she didn’t take well to boredom. Elena said she was thirty-five—“time to pony up or shut the hell up and play checkers.” Well, we were both embarking on a new phase in our careers, but I’m not convinced I’d have reached that point without the grenade that had gone off in my employment sector.

  Elena wanted to have all her ducks in a row, including a few clients she had just started feeling out about the hypothetical possibility of her leaving the firm and opening her own shop. And she needed her new office ready to rock before she left the nest. I came into the picture because she had been at the car wash, cleaning the month’s worth of coffee cups, granola-bar wrappers, soda bottles, newspapers and other debris out of her car where she said she almost lived because her commute was so long—you know I could relate. “It gets kinda piggy in there.” I sensed a trend. Anyway, the flyer fell to her feet, she saw the bright pink paper and couldn’t remember what it was, so she opened it up but almost couldn’t read the number because it had gotten wet and the ink had run. Then she said it. “Destiny. Definitely destiny.”