“No, I hadn’t,” Vivi replied, looking sufficiently surprised. “I forgot that’s this week! Have you gotten yours yet?”
Savannah shook her head. “No, that was actually why I came over this way this morning. I need to pick something out before I go shopping for the ingredients for the hand pies the ladies’ committee asked me to make for the shower. Wanna go with me?” she asked, looking hopeful.
“I’d love to. I’ll get my present while we’re at it.” Vivi practically shot up out of her seat. “Come with us, Dellie?” she asked, suddenly remembering that I was there.
I looked at the women in front of me, both watching me expectantly. “Um…” My brain shot through a million different reasons to say no, one of which involved the risk I would run on losing my highly covetable table space. Another reference to the fact that, technically, this was office time; and to be a proper workaholic, I was required to remain chained to the computer until the proverbial whistle blew at the end of the workday.
With pee breaks scattered at necessary intervals throughout, of course.
“Um,” I said again, wanting to say yes, but still feeling unjustified in doing so.
“Come on, Dellie. Come with us,” Savannah urged. “It’ll be fun. Vivi and I have to pick up a bridal shower gift for a friend of ours who’s getting married,” she explained.
“I appreciate the invitation,” I stammered, completely caught off guard by their desire to include me. “But I really should stay here and work.” I realized, even in the limited way that I knew these ladies, that chances ran high they were unlikely to let me off the hook so easily—but still, it was worth a shot.
Savannah’s hand fluttered through the air dismissively. “Oh, pooh. You can work later.” She stopped, raising an eyebrow. “Can’t you? What is it that you do, anyway, Dellie?”
“I’m a freelance writer,” I replied, hoping I wouldn’t get the look I sometimes got from people who obviously didn’t consider writing to be “a real job.”
“Really?” Savannah squealed. “Vivi, she’s a writer!”
Vivi nodded. “I heard. So what do you write?”
“Mostly magazine pieces.”
“Ooh, I bet that’s fun!” Savannah exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “I’ve always wished I could write.”
“It’s fun, but it can definitely be stressful sometimes. And it’s not the most lucrative career…but it makes me happy. I finally feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.”
Both women nodded. “That’s huge. I think it counts more than the paycheck,” Savannah said sagely. “So were you scared at all when you started doing it?”
“Terrified, if I’m going to be honest. But I felt like not doing it would be a mistake I would regret for the rest of my life, you know?”
More nods.
“It’s not easy having to rely on your own resources like that,” Vivi said. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wake up in the morning and wonder if I’m going to make it, if Azalea’s is going to make enough to pay all our bills on time, if I’m being a fool to think I can keep it all going.” She shook her head, looking lost in thought. “Mama was so much better at this than I am.”
The admission of even a shred of self-doubt surprised me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Vivi was surprised at it herself. She was such a tough woman that I could only imagine she didn’t often allow herself to be so vulnerable with people, especially relative strangers like me.
“That’s not true, Vivi,” Savannah protested. “You’ve kept Azalea’s going through some really rough patches, and you’ve made it better, I think. Not to slight your mama in any way, of course, but you’re better at this than you give yourself credit for.” Savannah reached out and squeezed Vivi’s shoulder lightly, trying to offer physical affirmation of her reassuring words.
“Well,” Vivi said, back in tough mode. “Thanks for that, Savannah. Now, what do you ladies say to blowing this joint and doing some shopping?”
I watched Vivi carefully, still trying to figure her out. If I hadn’t witnessed her momentary lapse of confidence for myself, I never would have guessed that, only seconds ago, she had shown so much vulnerability. It seemed so uncharacteristic—at least, from what I had observed so far from her. But I certainly didn’t know everything about her, just as she didn’t know everything about me. Quite the contrary, actually, since I had been able to keep her on a conversational track that was geared more toward her own past than mine.
And what a past hers was. Things could be so much more complicated than anyone ever realized, I marveled. I darted a look at Savannah. What was her story? What kind of history was wrapped up in that bright little bundle of energy?
“I don’t know…” I mumbled, still feeling torn about whether to stay here or take Vivi and Savannah up on the unexpected invitation. They really did seem as though they wanted me to go along with them, and I really did want to get to know these two better. But I also really did need to work.
Vivi clapped her hands together commandingly. “Come on, girl. Get your gear packed up and go with us. All of this will keep and still be here when we’re done,” she said decisively, rising from her chair.
“I know. It’ll still be here—that’s why I really shouldn’t go,” I mumbled, my rear still firmly planted in place on my seat. Another email popped into my Inbox, seeming to confirm the legitimacy of my unease about leaving my post for awhile. I’d already been off-line for a couple of days, so I was feeling guilty and behind the curve—not that I’d been lazy or remiss, if I was perfectly honest with myself. But still. The little workaholic maniac in my head was screaming with indignation that I was even considering this for a second.
“Maybe you can get an article idea out of this… ‘Shopping Dos and Don’ts for the Modern Bridal Party,’” Savannah suggested helpfully, doing her best to make my butt budge from the chair.
I had to smile at that one.
“Umm, are you talking lingerie?” I asked, wondering what fresh bits of advice she might provide as she plundered the panties and pillaged through push-ups. I didn’t really think that would be a pitch any of my editors would go for. Sure, one of the magazines I freelanced for was a bridal magazine, but it was only a quarterly rag, and we’d just closed out the last issue. Which, consequently, meant that new assignments with them would be a long time in coming.
She shrugged with a half-smile, half-grimace. “As part of it, yes. But with suggestions of other things to buy the bride-to-be, as well,” she replied. “I think it would be a really useful topic.” She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things that I got at my bridal shower. I would have liked to die, right there on the spot. You would think, this being the South and all, that people would have a little more consideration for what they’re bringing—especially when they know your mama is going to be there to see every last little stitch that you unwrap.”
“And by little, she means little,” Vivi chortled.
My mouth popped open in surprise as I digested the words. “Your shower?” I asked, my glance shooting down to her left hand. Nope, no ring. I hadn’t been imagining things.
Savannah nodded, her smile slipping as she caught my eye, which had lingered just a second too long on her naked finger. “I was married. Not for very long, but it was one of the happiest times of my life—even though there were some really, really hard days in there. We loved each other so much—” Savannah’s voice trailed off wistfully.
“What happened?” I asked quietly, hoping I wasn’t being too intrusive.
The smile on her lips was bittersweet, her blue eyes sparkling with the sheen of unshed tears. She blinked quickly, clearing them.
“He died,” she said at last, her voice over-bright in her attempt to sound as though maybe, just maybe, she had gotten past it.
I peered at her, feeling my brow furrow. I wasn’t buying what she was selling. Even though I’d just met her, I could already tell that Savann
ah was hardly someone who would have gotten over something like that so easily. Still, I wasn’t sure how much I could press her for information, so I kept silent, hoping she would continue without further prompting.
“He was my high school sweetheart, and we always knew we wanted to get married—but our parents wanted us to wait until we were through college and had stable jobs.” She swallowed, staring blankly into the distance. “We got through all of it—even when we had to go to schools in different cities and then got jobs that kept us apart, we stuck it out. It took seven years, but we did it. And then we had the sweetest, prettiest wedding you can imagine.” Savannah paused again; and I could hear myself swallow, my throat tightened by a sense of dread for what was coming next in the story.
Vivi was still as a statue and just as silent as one while we waited for Savannah to continue. All the other noise in the cafe around us seemed to have faded into the background, making our silence thick and heavy. I could hear my own breathing, and I wondered if it sounded as loud to Vivi and Savannah or if I was just imagining it.
“They didn’t find Caleb’s cancer until it was too late—they didn’t even give him hope for recovery. It was just too late and too aggressive.” Savannah’s voice grew softer. “He was gone in four months,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “But those four months were everything. We should have had the rest of our lives together—and I guess, in our way, we did—but it should have been longer. It should have been decades, and we should have had the chance to grow old and gray together.” Her voice was so soft I could hardly hear the words. “But we made those months count—we made them our lifetime, because they were all we had.”
There were tears streaming down my cheeks by now, though I hadn’t even been aware of them starting. It was so sad and so sweet, so great a reminder that every minute of every day really did matter and that they shouldn’t be wasted. There were no insignificant moments, so quickly could life come to its end.
“We made a list of everything we wanted to do together and then did them all—even went to Buckingham Palace to see if we could make the guards break that death stare and to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. We spent way too much time just staring at one another, just listening to each other talk. I couldn’t get enough of his voice or his heartbeat. I would lie there for hours with my head on his chest, listening to his heart and to his breath—all the sounds of life. In a strange way, it was a gift, knowing how little time we would have together, because it made us appreciate and pay attention—something that I think a lot of couples lose when they think they’ll really have forever.”
I knew I was breaking the spell, but I heard myself ask the question anyway. “How long has he been gone?”
“Four years, eight months, fifteen days,” Savannah replied, her eyes brought back to focus. “Only and already, all at once. Funny how that happens,” she murmured.
Vivi and I both nodded. It truly was a strange phenomenon how the passage of time could work that way, slow and fast all at the same time. An instant and an eternity.
“They were so good together,” Vivi said, breaking her own silence at last. She’d held it a surprising length of time, I realized. Something told me that Vivi, much like Annabelle, was hardly known for holding her tongue. Obviously, this was something that really hit a nerve with her. And with me. I couldn’t help but think of the list I’d been making for myself, struck by how different our goals were in making them.
Theirs had been made in an effort to make memories, so that death would not seem such a bitter loss.
Mine had been an attempt to reclaim a life I’d lost, to bring myself back from the dead.
“Caleb and Savannah gave us all hope that people really could still fall in love, that it wasn’t unrealistic to believe that it was out there,” Vivi said, bursting my wayward thought bubbles. “And you know, for me to say that…” she shook her head “…that’s definitely something.”
I nodded. I could only imagine.
“Hey, now,” Savannah said, her voice more steady. “Let’s stop being so heavy. We can’t go being Debbie Downers—they might throw us out of the store for bringing the mood down,” she scolded. “No pity parties in the panties or sobbing by the swizzle sticks.” Once again, I saw her gaze narrow at me. “You’re coming with us, Dellie, so pack it up,” she directed, fluttering a hand in the direction of my computer and various assortment of gadgets. “Humor the wise widows and come with us.”
It could have turned into the perfect time to begin my own story. But I couldn’t. Somehow, I still didn’t feel ready—even though Vivi and Savannah had both been so candid with me. It didn’t feel right for my dysfunctional nightmare of a marriage to follow so quickly on the heels of Savannah’s sad but beautiful love story. And there was still a part of me that was ashamed at having been so greatly deceived, so easily taken in. So naive. I had married a bad guy, who did bad things, and things had ended in a bad way.
Instead of taking the opening, I just blinked, looking from one woman to the other, my brain now blank of any real excuse not to go with them.
“Okay,” I sighed, resigned to my fate.
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic, Dellie!” Vivi laughed. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Give yourself a break from work and live a little.”
“True,” I agreed, closing out all my documents and shutting down my laptop.
Get out of your own way, Dellie. Find your sparkle again and set yourself free, my brain whispered.
Live a little.
If they only knew.
Chapter Fifteen
“So is my place still intact?”
I knew the question was totally unnecessary—that, in all likelihood, Bette had probably scrubbed and shined and reorganized every last inch of my apartment, but I couldn’t resist.
“I miss you, too,” she replied archly.
I could hear the wry grin in her voice, though, so I knew my attempt at humor hadn’t been lost on her. Not that I would have expected anything less. It took a lot to ruffle Bette’s feathers; things seemed to roll off her like water off a duck’s back—one of the qualities I often wished I possessed; but it seemed that no matter how many lessons she gave, I was a student doomed to failure.
“Awww. Aren’t you sweet. Really, though, what fresh hell have you subjected my apartment to?” I probed, not giving an inch.
“Fresh being the operative word,” Bette snorted. “Dellie, you are aware that you actually have to run the disposal when you put food in there, right?”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Yes…” I said slowly, trying to recall the last time I’d put anything down the drain in the kitchen sink, but I was drawing a complete blank. Which would probably be because, in all the time that I’d lived there, I hadn’t run the disposal. I hadn’t shoved anything down the drain that needed grinding…which made Bette’s assessment of the strange odor emanating from the kitchen all the more perplexing.
“Then why didn’t you run it, for heaven’s sake? By the time I got here, your kitchen smelled like a cat had crawled into your drainpipe and died. I can’t even imagine what it really was. Thankfully, it only took five lemons to get the smell to go away.”
“Huh?” seemed to be the only brilliant response that formed in my befuddled brain.
“You grind up lemon peel in the disposal to get rid of smells in there. Everybody knows that. Honestly, Dellie, you’d think you were raised by wolves,” she tsked.
“I admit to being a hopeless housekeeper, but not to being raised by wolves. You know as well as I do that Mama always kept an immaculate house—and she still does. She could teach Martha Stewart a thing or two.”
“Which begs the question—”
“I know, I know,” I said, cutting her lecture short. “I just seem to let it slide. I don’t really have a good excuse. Time gets away from me while I’m working; and when I come back to the apartment, I look around and just…” I trailed off, feeling deflated.
“You just don’t. Plain a
nd simple as that, Dellie. Hopefully this trip will be good for you, and you’ll come back wanting to do,” Bette said firmly.
“Do what?” I asked, perplexed.
“Anything. Everything. You used to do so many things that you don’t do anymore, Dellie,” Bette barreled on. “Even before you got married, you stopped doing them. You were disappearing, little by little. I think that’s why it was so easy for—”
“And I thought you didn’t pull any punches when you’re face-to-face,” I interrupted, feeling my cheeks flush with the heat of shame and hurt. And maybe a little bit of anger. “Put a little time and distance in there, and you really let it rip.” I felt the hot sting of tears in my eyes and tried to blink them away.
“It’s not something I haven’t said before, Dellie. We’ve all said it—maybe you just weren’t ready to hear it.”
“And I am now?” I prompted.
“Maybe you are. Maybe you’ve finally gotten tired of the way things are enough that you’re really ready to hear what we’ve all been saying,” Bette said more gently.
“I’ve heard it, Bette. All of it. And it’s not that I’m not listening or that I don’t think you’re right. I miss me just as much as you do—more, actually. But I don’t even know where to begin. It feels almost impossible—like raising someone from the dead,” I said, hoping I was explaining myself well enough. “And you and I both know I’m not Jesus, so resurrection isn’t really in my skill set.”
“Maybe not. But the Dellie I’ve always known isn’t dead, you know. She’s just been hiding. She’s been afraid to come out to play, and she’s let herself forget that she ever knew how. But she’s in there, if you just show her that it’s going to be okay. You know that, right, Dellie? It’s going to be okay. Let yourself believe that.”
I knew everything Bette was saying was true. I’d known it for a long time—in my head, at least. But knowing with your head and knowing with your heart are two very different things.
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