“It’s all right, Billy,” Odette said, in her slow southern voice. “You’ve been distracted all night. Tell me why you’re asking about my mother.” Odette was a heavyset, black woman with long braided hair. Sitting back, she drew her braids over her shoulder, the beads on the end clicking soothingly.
“You told me your mother was a voodoo priestess, isn’t that what you said?”
“I can’t possibly imagine why you’re asking me this, but yes, my mother is well known around New Orleans. Not that most people believe in that stuff, especially not up North.”
“I believe in it.”
“Since when?” Odette adjusted the collar of her chef’s whites and smiled patiently, as if she didn’t quite believe me.
“Since…well, since the last month. Since something happened to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I changed overnight. My whole life did. And I think it was because of this therapist I went to. Or maybe because of this frog she gave me.” I stopped. How to put this into words? I didn’t want her to think I was crazy, like Dr. Hy did.
“You want to explain what you’re talking about?” Odette sounded concerned, but interested.
“Well…” I drifted off.
“Billy, I can handle anything. Hit me.”
And so I plowed on. I told her the whole story of Blinda and the frog and how I’d gotten everything I wished for overnight. I explained how all those things I wanted had brought about their own set of issues, which I hadn’t handled very well.
Odette nodded continuously. She muttered, “Uh-huh,” and “Okay,” and I kept talking. I told her about firing Alexa and how I wanted desperately for things to work with Chris but how he was killing me with food and conversation and constant sex. I told her how I missed my mom, how I even missed the obsessing and wondering I used to do about my absentee father. I told her about Evan flirting with me but left out the part about actually kissing him. It was the one part of my story I hadn’t been able to tell anyone so far. I was too ashamed.
“So I want to erase it,” I said, getting to the end of my story. “I don’t want people to love me or desire me because of some wish I made. I want to just go back to the day this all began so I can get my life right.”
“You want to get your life right?” Odette repeated.
“Yes, exactly,” I said, my voice getting a little louder, faster. “I’m realizing that I had been pretty passive about things. I knew Chris and I had problems, but I didn’t do much to remedy that. I wanted the vice presidency, but I didn’t do everything I could to make that happen. But I have a hunch that if I get rid of this frog, and all that went on this last month, I can start again and do it properly, you see? I thought I wanted my life to be easy-or at least easier-but what I realized was that I want to be responsible for what I achieve.”
“So it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. And all that New Age crap?”
I laughed. “Yes.”
“Okay, well you still haven’t told me what you want from my mother.” Odette shifted her weight, crossing her arms.
“Do you believe what I’m saying?”
Odette smiled kindly. “Of course. I’ve seen much stranger things than this.”
“Like what?” I asked, incredulous.
She shook her head. “Tell me why you asked about my mother.”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe she could help reverse this…this spell or whatever it is.”
“So that you can go back to the beginning and start over?”
“Do you think she can help me?”
Odette shook her head. “Sweetie, you don’t need voodoo.”
“But I do!” My voice was getting even louder. “I’m desperate. I need to do something.”
“So do it,” Odette said. “You don’t need voodoo for that.”
“I do if I want to go back to how things were.”
“No, no, Billy, don’t you get it?”
“What? What’s to get? I have to reverse all this. I think my best shot is just to get rid of the frog and get rid of what happened and then I can do something-”
“Billy,” Odette said, standing. She moved around the desk and put a hand on my shoulder. “Listen to me. You don’t need to go back. You just need to begin today. Start doing something. Now.”
I walked through Odette’s crowded restaurant in a daze. A long-haired guy sitting at the bar waved to me. I squinted and realized it was someone I’d known at Northwestern. Normally, I would have sat down and spent the next hour catching up. But now, I barely managed to raise my arm in a wave, before I kept moving, in a trance, through the restaurant and out into the mild night air.
The restaurant was on West Chicago, over two miles from my condo, but I didn’t want a cab whisking me home yet. I put one leaden foot in front of another and walked east, thinking that Odette was right. Exactly, one hundred percent right. She hadn’t said much, but her words about taking action now had made such sense. I’d thought that by getting rid of the frog, I had a chance to go back to the way things had been before. But I hadn’t stopped to think what that would mean. Chris would return to his usual incommunicative ways, Evan would still pat me on the back like a football player, I’d still be slaving in my cubicle (but happily creating), Alexa would still have her job (and still be annoying the hell out of me), my mom would still be miserably locking herself in her house in Barrington, and I’d still be pining for my father. No, I didn’t want that old life back. But I did want to take control of my life.
Before all this happened, I’d had all sorts of control, only I didn’t know it or I didn’t use it. I could have talked to Chris more about the obvious rip through our marriage, and I could have insisted that we get therapy, together. I could have told my mom she needed to back off a little; I could have encouraged her more to take a tennis class or join a book club. And at work, I could have done more than bitch about not being promoted.
I could have done all sorts of things-I saw that now-but I hadn’t. And then the frog had given me what I wanted. Only getting what you want isn’t perfect. It doesn’t mean automatic happiness. Those things I’d desired had brought along their own host of concerns and troubles. Plus, they weren’t as satisfying when I’d had nothing to do with attaining them.
Now it was time to start fresh. Yet where to start?
I thought about calling my mom from my cell phone, to bring her back into a world where we shared our lives, even though we lived apart. I glanced at my watch as I passed under the El tracks at Franklin. Already 10:00. She would either be asleep or out socializing with her new, fabulous friends.
Evan. I definitely needed to set things right there. We worked together. I couldn’t put that off forever. And speaking of work, I needed to start over there, as well.
When I reached Dearborn, I took a left and walked the softly lit street, past old brick townhouses, the small green plot that was Bughouse Square, and the stately, stone Newberry Library. I was almost home. Which brought me to the most important thing I had to do. The most important thing in my world. Chris.
“Hey, is that my girl?” Chris said as I walked in the condo. He was on the computer in jeans and a black T-shirt.
“It’s me,” I said, weakly.
He stood and enveloped me in a hug, one I didn’t deserve. I held him tight, wondering if this might be the last embrace for a while. If I told him about Evan, he would pull away, rightly so, but I still wasn’t sure if I should tell him. We had to get to the base of our original problems-Chris being all attentive and loving for the past few weeks couldn’t erase that. Yet I wanted to tell him about Evan. I wanted to get that horrible secret out in the open. But wouldn’t it just hurt him? And wasn’t that unnecessary if I knew I’d never do it again? Or was I kidding myself and making excuses?
“How was Odette?” Chris said, releasing me. “I was going to make you dinner, but I figured she’d feed you.”
“She did. She’s fine.” My was voice flat.
Chris peered at me. “Something wrong?”
“Can we go in the living room?”
Chris led me there, and I pulled him onto the couch.
“Oh, I see,” Chris said, with a little growl.
“No, Chris, it’s not that.”
“Well, let’s make it that.” He began to kiss my neck.
“Chris, please.” I pulled away.
“Okay, hon.” He stroked my arm.
There was a second of silence, and I seized it. “Why did you get so distant after the wedding?”
“What?” Chris looked perplexed.
“It might have even been during the planning of the wedding. You became very distant, and really it’s stuck around the whole time we’ve been married. We haven’t been happy. Not since we were dating.”
Chris blinked rapidly. “Haven’t we been happy the last couple of weeks?”
“Yes, of course, but that’s-”
“That’s what?” He looked hurt, his eyebrows drawn together.
Did I say, that was only because of the frog? No. It didn’t matter what had caused the change in Chris, because I was putting things right, starting now.
“Chris, I know things have been…better recently, but that doesn’t change how we were practically strangers for years. We’ve got to figure out why that happened.”
He shrugged. “What does it matter? Why do we need to revisit that time if we’re fine now?”
“Because how do we know we won’t slide back into that pattern?”
“We won’t.”
“You can’t say that. You don’t know. And I do want to know about the past. I want to figure out why we drifted apart. We can’t just pretend everything was fine.”
“I’m not pretending, I just don’t think we need to rehash old news.”
“But it’s not rehashing, if we’ve never talked about it!”
I’d raised my voice, but Chris barely blinked. “Just leave it, Billy,” he said, his voice low and sweet. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, but-”
“It’s fine. We’re fine.”
“We’re not.”
“Of course we are, sweetie.” He scooted toward me on the couch, his arms out as if to hug me again. He was never going to stop being so kind, so loving, so intent to let the past lie, and with the secret in my chest too large to bear, I could never go forward as Odette had said. Maybe it was selfish, maybe it was the right thing to do. All I knew was that I couldn’t keep such a thing from my husband and just move forward.
“Chris, stop,” I said. “I have to tell you something.” I grabbed both of his hands in mine. As I looked down at them, one tear fell and splashed on his skin. “I am so, so sorry, but…” I trailed off for a second, wondering how to explain. Just say it, I decided, just get it out. “Chris, I was with someone else.”
We were frozen there, like two actors at the end of a play before the curtain fell-Chris’s body in midlean, his hands still in mine. His mouth was open, his eyes unblinking. The only sound in the room was the womp, womp, womp of the pulse in my ears.
He stood, looking down at me the way someone looks at a bug who has crawled into their house. “Get out.”
“What? You can’t-”
“I can’t what? I can’t kick you out for sleeping with someone else?”
“Whoa, Chris.” I stood and grabbed his arm. “I kissed him. That was it. I should have said that right away, I’m sorry. I did not sleep with anyone else.”
He yanked his arm back, but didn’t move away. His face was confused. He looked like a little boy, suddenly hurt by the world.
“Oh, God, don’t look like that,” I said. “Please. I had to tell you. I couldn’t go on not telling you, but it was just a kiss.”
“Who?” Chris backed away from me. He leaned heavily against the wall as if that were the only thing keeping him from sliding to the floor in a heap.
I stayed where I was, mortified by the question. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t, Billy. You know what I mean. Who was it?”
In all my thoughts about confessing what I’d done, I had somehow never considered having to tell him it was Evan. Evan, who Chris truly liked. Evan, whom I suspected was sometimes envied by Chris for his freewheeling lifestyle and bevy of women. How to tell him I’d joined the damned bevy?
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, hearing the cliché words, which I must have picked up from watching Days of Our Lives.
“Give me a fucking break,” Chris said, spitting out his words. He rarely swore.
I took a breath. I let it out. I stepped cautiously closer to my husband. “Evan.”
Chris laughed-a raw, choking kind of laugh. “I don’t believe you! I know this guy. You couldn’t pick someone I didn’t know? You couldn’t at least give me the fucking courtesy?”
“Chris, I’m so sorry.”
“Jesus, I knew you had a thing for him.”
“I don’t have a thing for him.”
Chris gave me an incredulous look that made me want to shrink into the earth. My guilt reached monstrous proportions. Because he was right. I’d had “a thing” for Evan for years. Not only that, but I’d wanted Evan to do something about it. I wanted to play with fire, sure in the knowledge that I’d always be able to blow out the flame. I’d been wrong. I wasn’t strong enough. Or maybe I simply hadn’t been protective enough of my marriage.
“I don’t have a thing for him,” I said. “Not anymore.” I took a step closer, but Chris shooed me away with a harsh, fast motion of his arm.
“Don’t,” he said with finality. He looked around as if seeing our living room for the first time. “You know…you know what? I could have cheated on you or kissed someone else a million times.”
I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to make me feel better or worse. “Okay.”
“When you were planning the wedding, and you cared more about the goddamned place settings than you did about us-you don’t think I could have done something then? Or after, when you were more concerned about your job than me?”
“Of course you could have. I’m sure. But wait. What do you mean, I didn’t care about us? And when have I ever been more concerned with my job?” Despite the guilt, the fear, the sheer horribleness of the situation, I saw a glimmer of hope. This was why I had told him-so that we could finally face what had been wrong with us. We couldn’t move on, we couldn’t be truly happy, if we couldn’t do that.
“Forget it,” Chris said, his head sagging in his hands. “Forget it.” His last words were muffled, and somehow that muted volume had let the dust in the room settle. I saw then that there was no quick fix. I had done something that had taken maybe forty seconds, but would take so much longer to repair the damage. That is, if the damage, combined with what had already been lying in wait, could be repaired at all.
Chris raised his head. “Billy, I’m not trying to punish you or anything, but could you please leave?”
“I’m not leaving! I’m not leaving you.” What was happening? I was supposed to start over, start clean. “We have to talk about things,” I said, plaintively. “I want to explain about Evan. It was-”
“Don’t!” Chris said. His voice was harsh and ragged. “Don’t make me listen to it! I won’t.”
“Seriously, it was just kissing. It wasn’t anything-”
“Jesus, Billy, don’t you get it? It’s not just what you did, it’s the fact that you did it at all. I never, ever thought you’d do something like this.” He gave me a look that made me see him as if he were eight years old and someone had picked him last for softball. “How can I trust you not to do it again or not to do something worse? How can I trust you at all?”
“Oh, honey, I would never do anything like this again. It just happened so fast. We were just at this party, and we started kissing, and-”
“For Christ’s sake, stop it!” His words thundered throughout the condo, echoing off the gleaming granite of the countertops, the sparkling m
arble in the bathroom, the polished wood floors. “I believe you, Billy, but don’t make me hear about it!”
“Okay, okay.”
“Will you leave me alone? Please,” he said, his voice lower. “I need some time.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.” Another cliché, and somehow I knew he wouldn’t agree.
His eyes were more tired and raw than I’d ever seen them. His lids were heavy, as if they might snap shut at any moment. But his jaw was a sharp line. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t even look at you right now.” He stared past me, over my shoulder. “I’ll just go somewhere.”
I started to cry then at the sight of Chris, my husband, with his jaw set straight, his eyes filling with tears. When those eyes flicked to mine, they told me that he hated me a little.
“No, I’ll go,” I said. I couldn’t make Chris do the leaving.
I went into the bedroom. Immediately, my eyes landed on the frog. It was perched atop two paperbacks, and it looked more smug than ever. I felt a churn of anger in my stomach and though, You nasty little shit. It’s all your fault.
But I knew that wasn’t true. I’d gotten what I wanted, and then I’d made my choices. This was, decidedly, my responsibility.
I dragged my eyes away from the frog and stood helplessly. I couldn’t figure out what to pack, what bag I should pack in. I had to work the rest of the week, so that meant work clothes, but what did any of that matter? And where was I supposed to go? Tess lived in Wilmette with her kids. She didn’t even have a guest room. For a second, I thought of Evan in his big lakefront condo, but then I hated myself all the more for even momentarily considering it. Alexa flickered in my mind, but we weren’t that kind of friends, and there certainly was no room in her apartment. A hotel? It seemed too spare, too lonely, too…awful.
The Night I got Lucky Page 14