by Jim Cangany
"Just promise me. I'll explain everything tonight."
The call had left me even more frustrated, so I trudged back to the condo, kicking every pebble I saw off the trail. I wondered if G might know something since she'd just visited. I didn't want to add another person to this witch's brew of turmoil though, so instead, I paid a visit to my Fluid Druid therapist and spent the afternoon touring the counties north of Indy on two wheels.
As was always the case, the ride calmed my haywire nerves and cleared my muddled head, so by the time Miranda rang the doorbell, I was reasonably calm and collected. We munched on the pizza I'd ordered while we got caught up. After her second piece she went to the couch and patted the spot next to her.
It was time.
I joined her, dragonflies buzzing around in my gut. My hand went to my knee to keep my foot steady on the floor.
"E.J., I want to start off by letting you know that I haven't spoken to Annie, so everything I tell you is my opinion only. As you like to say, I don't have any inside information."
We both chuckled, which brought the tension down a notch or two.
"I know Annie means a great deal to you. And I know you've been through your own version of hell these past few months. I can't imagine how difficult it's been."
With a nod, I looked at my friend. "You know what's been the worst? Watching her get sick, lose her hair, lose all that weight, and not being able to doing a damn thing about it. Do you have any idea how helpless that feels?"
The corners of Miranda's lips quivered just a fraction and she nodded.
Mom.
"Yeah, I guess you do."
She patted me on the arm. "I'm not here to talk about your mom. I'm here to talk about your fiancé. What you just said bears greatly on the situation, though."
"How so?"
"You said you felt helpless watching Annie get sick, lose her hair, lose weight. After all that, how do you think she feels?"
I recalled the conversation we'd had on the patio. "She said she was scared."
"Scared, yes. You need to realize she's feeling more vulnerable than you can possibly imagine right now. Whether we're willing to admit it or not, we all base some of our self-worth on our appearance. And in the span of just a few months, bam, out of the blue, Annie's gone from a glamorous, self-assured rock star to a woman who barely recognizes herself when she looks in the mirror."
"Okay, I get that."
"That's only part of it though. As hard as the chemotherapy has been, its effects will eventually go away. The hair will return and the weight will come back. What's she's facing next is permanent, though. When she undergoes that double mastectomy, she's going to lose a part of her that can never come back. A part that plays a role in who she is as a woman.
"Even if she hasn't said a word to you about it, I can assure you that losing her breasts has Annie absolutely terrified."
"Which is why I want to delay the wedding." I got up and stomped into the kitchen. "I'll freely admit, I have no idea how hard this is for her. But I want her to get better. And because of that, I want her to be able to focus on her health without worrying about things like invitations and the decorations and catering."
I pulled a beer out of the fridge and popped the top. "Once she's recovered from all this, then we pick up where we left off. It's not like I was thinking years, I was only thinking a couple of months."
Miranda smiled, the indulgent smile of one who has great patience. "I understand. I think it's a testament to your commitment to Annie that you want to do what you see as the right thing. What you need to understand though, is that from Annie's perspective, delaying the wedding, even for a single day, is not the right decision."
"How the hell can that be?"
Miranda joined me in the kitchen. "It's like this. You're approaching this from a very concrete—dare I say male—perspective. You think the logical thing to do is remove as many distractions from Annie's life as possible so she can focus on getting better. If I recall, your mother called it compartmentalization."
I nodded.
"From Annie's perspective, this is not a matter of logic. Right now she feels like she's damaged goods. She's using the wedding as a goal to help get her through this. It's her podium ceremony. In her mind, she can tolerate all this pain and all this suffering because she knows on Saturday, October Thirteenth, her cancer will be behind her and she'll be walking down the aisle in that gorgeous dress to marry the man she loves.
"By even suggesting you delay the wedding, she thinks you're rejecting her."
"But I'm not." It was taking all my willpower to keep from shouting.
"I know that, and logically she probably knows that, too. But we're not talking logic here. We're talking emotion.
"On an emotional level, she hears you say let's delay the wedding and she thinks that's your first step in looking for a way out. After you've postponed the wedding once, how hard will it be to postpone it again, indefinitely? She's afraid you'll look at her and think, 'This is way more than I bargained for. Instead of getting the whole package, I'm only getting part of a woman.'"
I slammed the beer on the counter. Foam bubbled out the top. "That's bullshit. I would never think that about her. I love who she is, on the inside. Hell, back when we were in the park in Malibu when I asked her to give us a chance, that's what I said. It's her heart and her mind, the stuff on the inside, that matters."
Miranda took a deep breath. "I know this is hard, E.J., and I believe you. I'm just telling you this is how I'd bet Annie's feeling right now. I'm not saying it's right, or fair, to you. I'm just saying it is what it is."
"So what the hell am I supposed to do now?"
"You need to think about her behavior and be understanding. Let me ask you this. Has she ever talked about any big break-ups in the past or any times some guy dumped her that was really traumatic?"
I racked my brain, trying to find something along that line that Annie would have mentioned. There was nothing. I shook my head.
"Well, what about being rejected? Was there ever a movie role she wanted that she didn't get, or—"
"When her stage play got shut down. She talked about not being able to handle the all the rejection from the reviews and bad ticket sales."
"And what did she do when that happened?"
"She told me that she'd holed up in her New York condo for a few days. When it got too much for her, she panicked, her words not mine, and headed for L.A."
Miranda put her hands in her pockets. "She went home."
"Just like today."
Damn.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. A major stress headache was steamrolling its way into my brain.
"So what do I do now?"
"Talk to her. She may be hurting right now, but you're still the person she trusts more than anyone. And she loves you. So do what she loves best about you and speak from your heart."
"How will I know what to say?"
Miranda chuckled and put her arm around me. "Let me offer you a piece of womanly advice. Start with three words women love to hear from their men. We love these words because we so rarely hear them."
"I love you?"
"Nope." She flashed a wide grin. "I'd suggest 'I am sorry.'"
Sixteen
After Miranda and I said our goodbyes, I dropped into my man chair. With the remote in hand, I surfed for a while, but the greens and reds and blues on the screen barely registered. They couldn't compete with this latest crisis.
How had an innocent, well-meaning suggestion managed to wreak so much havoc? I traded the remote for my phone and stared at the screen. To call or not to call. My finger had almost reached the send button when something held me back. I tossed the phone on the couch and growled.
No, calling her tonight would be a bad idea. First, I didn't even know if she was home yet. Second, I wasn't sure if she even wanted to speak to me. Third, even if she was willing to speak to me, I wasn't sure I wouldn't end up getting mad at her becau
se, despite Miranda's advice, it still seemed like Annie was overreacting.
In the end, I grabbed another beer and polished off the left-over pizza feeling sorry for myself. I'd tried to do everything right. When she'd needed to vent, I'd listened. When she'd wanted a task taken care of, I'd done whatever she'd asked. Yet here I was.
In limbo.
Before heading to bed, I checked my calendar. My headache ratcheted up another notch when I saw the appointment to volunteer at the Bike Co-op in the morning. It was going to be so much fun telling Gloria about all this.
When I got to the Co-op, I spent some time visiting with Aidan to see how things were going for Velo Messenger & Delivery, the bicycle messenger service I'd founded that was housed in the Co-op. While the Company was legally mine, in practice it was Aidan's. Since I'd handed the reins over to him a little over a year ago, I'd kept my nose out of it.
It felt good to hang out for a while and chat about business. Aidan was a sharp guy and as I left his office to check in with Gloria, VMD's future looked bright.
I don't know if Miranda had spoken with G or not, but she gave me a pretty wide berth after I checked in with her. Other than asking how it was going with my brake pad inspection when she dropped off a large sized iced tea, she left me alone. The look on her face when she gave me the drink spoke volumes, though.
It was mid-afternoon by the time I'd sorted the brake pads into three groups—use, clean and pitch. After throwing away the last group and showing one of the teen volunteers how to scrub the middle group, I gathered up my tools to leave.
"You going without saying goodbye?"
I stopped and turned around. Gloria was leaning against a wall, arms crossed, and tapping her left foot. "I have a few boxes in the truck. Will you haul them in for me?"
When we got to the truck, nothing was there. I leaned on the side of the truck bed and raised my eyebrows at G.
"It was just a little white lie. I'll do my penance tonight. You want to talk about it?"
With a sigh, I walked to the back of the truck and lowered the gate. I sat and swung my legs back and forth while I put my thoughts in order.
Gloria sat beside me and put her sunglasses on. She remained silent.
"I'm assuming you know Annie left yesterday." She nodded. "Then I'll assume you also know what Miranda and I discussed last night."
"No."
I looked at her. "What do you mean, no? If you didn't talk to Miranda, then how do you know?"
She shook her head and turned her gaze toward me. "Annie paid me a little visit before she left. The poor girl was a complete wreck, carrying on and on about how you didn't love her anymore since she had cancer."
"I never—"
"Let me finish, please. We had a long chat, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't get her to change her plans and stay. That young lady can be pretty bull-headed when she wants." Gloria chuckled, but given the circumstances, I failed to see the humor.
"Why don't you give me your version of events."
"Okay." I slipped off the tailgate and recounted what had happened. I did my best to keep it objective and not get angry. When there was no more to be told, I shrugged and put my hands in my pockets.
"Uh huh, I had a feeling there was more to the story than you getting cold feet all of a sudden. Here's what I know. Despite her running off like this, she loves you more than you can imagine. When I was over at your place to visit, practically all she did was go on and on about you."
My cheeks got warm. I kicked a few pebbles across the parking lot. "If that's the case, then why'd she get so mad? She knows how I feel about her. It was just a suggestion, for God's sake."
"In the interest of full disclosure, I am now switching from what I know to what I think. You were there for her at the lowest point in her career. This is a different low point for her. If she thinks you're rejecting her, that's going to be a tough blow, so she chose to retreat to someplace safe to regroup. The next move is up to you."
"Then I'll just go see her. Talk to her face to face. If she doesn't want to postpone the wedding, that's fine." I started pacing back and forth. "I can head out in the next day or so. Would you mind looking after the place while I'm gone, since I don't know how long—"
"Hold on young man. Let's not go off half-cocked. There's something else in play we need to discuss."
"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this?"
Gloria went around to the driver's door of the truck. "Come on. I need to run an errand and you can help me."
With my head down to hide a grumble, I climbed in. Despite the fact that I'd ridden Gloria's truck dozens, if not hundreds, of times, I couldn't get comfortable. My constant fidgeting finally caught her attention. She arched an eyebrow at me when we were stopped at a traffic light.
"Sorry G. I need to make this right. I need to go out there, like now, and apologize or whatever. I can't just let her go, not like this."
Without warning, Gloria cut into a parking lot, practically sending me shoulder-first into the passenger door. We came to a stop and she shut the engine off.
"You can let her go like this, and you must. Because that is your problem. You can't let go."
"Oh come on. What, did Annie put you up to this? She accused me of the very same thing a few months ago."
"And she was right."
I huffed and reached for the door handle. "I don't need this right now, G."
"Yes you do, young man. If you want a future with that girl, you need to listen to what I have to say and take it to heart."
"Seriously? Aren't we being a little over-dramatic here?"
With a wave, Gloria ignored my jab. "You've never forgiven yourself for being out of town when your father died. Don't try to deny it. In my line of work, I know these things. That's why you stayed home with your mother."
Heat was beginning to simmer in my gut at Gloria's assertions. "I stayed home with Mom to help take care of her. I was trying to do the right thing."
"And nobody else in the world could have done what you did. My Lord, E.J., Audrey and I discussed this very topic on more than one occasion. Yes, you were trying to do the right thing, but part of it was because you couldn't live with the guilt of not being there for Francis when you think you should have. Your mother knew it."
"Then why didn't she say anything?"
Gloria ran her finger along the curve of the steering wheel. "Because she felt you needed to work through those issues yourself. She knew you wouldn't listen to her, thanks to that Irish stubbornness."
Despite my anger and frustration with Gloria's words, I couldn't help but chuckle a little. "Mom always said that's why I was a good bike rider. I was so darn stubborn, I wouldn't quit. Even times I probably should have."
"You needed to learn to forgive yourself. She firmly believed that you needed to come to accept that you were blameless in your father's death on your own timetable. You still do."
I frowned. "Fine, whatever. But what's that got to do with Annie?"
"She's a strong, independent woman and because of that, you need to let her have her independence. Not for good. But before you see her again, somehow you need to let your father, and your mother and Evan go, once and for all. I'm certain once you make your peace with them, you'll be ready to ask her to come back."
"So what the hell—sorry, heck— am I supposed to do to make this peace?"
Gloria patted my shoulder. "I wish I could tell you, but that's something you have to figure out on your own."
"Great. And how long is this supposed to take?"
Gloria restarted the engine. "As long as you need."
We drove back to the Co-op in silence. Gloria was graciously letting me get my head around what she'd just dumped on me. When we pulled into her parking spot, she looked at me. And waited.
"I'll try G. I have no idea how I'm going to do this, but I promise I'll try." When she nodded, I went on. "Anything else you can tell me?"
"The poor girl can't be e
xpected to face that surgery on her own. She needs you." Gloria got out of the truck and walked toward the Co-op's entrance. When the front door closed behind her, the eerie similarity between the scene that had just played out before me and the scene I'd dreamt when I'd been in Las Vegas with Annie sent shivers down my spine.
Seventeen
On my ride home from the Co-op, I tried to sort through all the advice I'd been given over the last day or so. Maybe I should call Paul and Dave and let them add their two cents worth. Nah, why give them the chance to add to the What's Wrong with E.J. McCarty campaign.
I was almost home when a burst of inspiration, or maybe desperation, hit me. Annie loved the Art Center grounds. She'd told me once that between the flowers, the view of the river and the outdoor artwork, it had become one of her favorite places in the world. She'd go there when she wanted to be alone. Sometimes she wrote, sometimes she took a book. On the occasions she went empty-handed, I figured it was to just think.
One time she joked that the grounds were the closest thing she'd found to her hot tub at the Villa for meditating.
With no real plan in mind, I coasted up to the Art Center building and leaned my bike against the stone wall. A few cars were spaced around the parking lot, but other than that, the place exuded serenity. I strolled along the footpath for a while, stopping to admire each piece of artwork. The bronze piece with the giant head always creeped me out, but I loved the curly silver sculpture with the built-in seat.
Eventually, I made my way to the deck that overlooked the river. Annie and I had sat here side-by-side not so long ago. Had it really only been a few months? God, at times it felt like her chemo treatments had taken years.
I leaned on the rail and stared at the river. The water moved like it had all the time in the world, which I guess was probably true. There was no rush, no boiling rapids, just an easy, gliding pace onward, ever onward.
A tree branch floated by, bobbing ever so slightly in the current. It sure managed to let go. I chuckled at the thought as the river curved and the branch disappeared from my sight.
Could it be that easy for me? Just snap my fingers like the branch likely snapped off from its tree, and let go of the past, once and for all?