Sarah arrived alone. Meredith had half expected Victor in tow. Sarah marched into the house without knocking. Meredith tried to flatten her unruly hair. “What’s up?” she asked, as if Sarah had some sort of news.
“Victor and I are getting married.”
Meredith just stared.
“And I want you to be my maid of honor.” She looked brilliant. Her hair was streaming down her shoulders like spun gold. Her skin was amazingly clear. Her eyes looked especially green. She seemed to be looking past Meredith to the life that was sprawling out in front of her. So many feelings crowded into Meredith at once: shock, disbelief, pleasure and sadness, that Meredith couldn’t form a coherent sentence. With effort, she harnessed her feelings and started to speak.
“Victor is awesome. I’m so happy for you both.”
Sarah laughed, in a light, carefree way. “Isn’t it wonderful? Look at my ring.” She wore a band of gold that looked like it was custom-designed. A medium-sized diamond sat the in center.
“It’s beautiful,” Meredith said. “God, Sarah. You’re really getting married?”
“Yes! I really am!”
“What happened to keeping your options open?”
“Did I say that?” Sarah asked in mock disbelief. “It is important. But you’ve also got to know when to stop and say, ‘If I could wake up next to this man every day for the next sixty years...’” she shrugged and looked away, “‘...life would be sweet.’”
Meredith felt tears come to her eyes, as they often did when a memory of Ben appeared, unbidden and unexpected. She hugged Sarah to hide her face. “I’m very, very happy for you. I think Victor is the greatest.”
“I know. He is, isn’t he?”
“Have you set a date yet?”
“The first Saturday in August.”
“Of next year?”
“In two months, silly.”
“Two months! But your dress! The reception hall! How will you get it all done in time?”
Sarah shouldered her bag and stood to go. “All it requires is a little creativity. But you’re right. It’s going to be busy. That’s why I can’t stay. I’m meeting with the caterers in 20 minutes.” She winked and was out the door. In the silence Sarah left behind, Mendra appeared as if she’d been hiding from Meredith's friend.
Meredith laid her head down on a sunny patch on her sofa and closed her eyes. She was going to sleep her day away again, she could feel it. She summoned the vision of her paintings up, to see if it would be enough to inspire her to stand. It wasn’t. She thought of how she needed to clean the kitchen. Just get up and replace the empty roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. Or go write the word ‘yogurt’ on the grocery list. Then you can come back here and lay down. Her body refused to cooperate. Fine, she thought, feeling like a stressed mother who’s been pushed past her limits. Sleep, then. You’re wasting your life away, but if that’s what you want, then do it. She slept.
So far, at work, she’d managed to imply to Peter that Ben was still in her life without actually lying. She’d say things like, “We’ll see,” when Peter asked if she had plans with Ben that night. He could call her, she reasoned.
“Will Ben get a job in Albuquerque?”
Shrug. “The job market is tough.”
“Can you guys manage a long distance relationship? You’re not thinking of leaving us, are you?”
“Not at all. In fact, I think long distance relationships can be a great growing experience.” She didn’t feel one ounce of guilt for lying. Peter was prying into her personal life, so he deserved to be lied to.
As Ben's graduation day came nearer, she worked harder, as if a frenetic lifestyle could shield her from the onslaught of regret that was threatening to eat her up. Two days before the big day, she wrapped up a stethoscope, beaded by a Native American ENT nurse. She'd ordered the gift three months ago, before the break-up. The beads were tiny. The nurse had woven them right onto the stethoscope. Meredith wiped her fingerprints off the exposed metal and arranged it in a box with tissue paper. She taped the box for mailing, and paused to consider how to address it. She didn’t want Ben to have any clear proof that the present was from her. He’d made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her and she wanted to respect this, sort of. His family would probably be down from Oregon. He wouldn’t want to get melancholy or upset thinking of her. But she also couldn’t let the day pass without some sort of acknowledgment, even if it was done in secret. She had no access to a typewriter. She finally took the packet and drove to Kira's house.
Kira was watching a movie. She had on sweats and a t-shirt. She was eating what looked like a bag of white cheddar popcorn for dinner.
“It’s only 6:30. What, did your office burn down?” Kira wasn’t handling Meredith's new work hours very gracefully.
“I need you to address this for me. The post office at the airport closes at seven.” She’d written Ben's name and address on an index card. Kira wrote the address on the box in the same nonchalant way she would have given Meredith a cup of borrowed sugar.
“Come back, if you want,” she told her at the door. “I’ve got chips too. And another movie. And good beer.”
“I will,” Meredith told her. She drove to the airport and waited in line. There was a man ahead of her. He was mailing a large box to Palo Alto. She imagined Ben's hands, in two days, holding her box. She wished she could be the box, just to see him again, in disguise. Discreetly, so the postal worker wouldn’t notice, she kissed her fingertips and touched them to a place on the paper that Ben would need to touch to open.
She returned to Kira's house after her errand. They filled up on junk food and beer, watching a movie. “This isn’t a very well balanced diet,” Meredith said as she swigged her beer.
“Hold on,” Kira said, going into the kitchen. She returned with a jar of multivitamins. Laughing, they each took a pill.
“I feel much better now,” Meredith told her, even though part of her was worrying that Ben might have decided to call her and was getting her answering machine.
When the movie was over, and Meredith was straightening up, Kira asked, “So, was that a dead rabbit in that box or what?” Meredith was moved by Kira's loyalty.
“Just a graduation present. Sent anonymously. Saturday’s the big day.”
“Ahhh. Did he get a job in town?”
A black pain gripped Meredith's heart, but she bore it up and managed a shrug. “No idea.” Despite the swamp her heart was sunk in, her mind was clicking ahead. She knew Kira could find out where Ben was going. A look at Kira told her that Kira was thinking the same thing. She didn’t ask. She wasn’t sure if this was cowardliness or the belief that Ben would certainly contact her before moving away. “Thanks for the food. And the writing sample,” she added.
Kira took the empty bottles from her. “Any time. It’s going to get better,” she added as Meredith reached the door. “You’re going to be able to see the future, without him, and feel okay about it. Feel good, even.”
Meredith knew that her heart didn’t want that to happen. “There are five stages of grieving. What are they? Denial, anger, bargaining? What else?”
Kira shook her head. “I don’t know.”
She cleared her throat. “I’m in denial right now. Totally. I still think he’s coming back to me.”
“And maybe he will,” Kira offered. Meredith could have kissed her for saying that. She stepped outside and paused on the porch to let her eyes adjust to the darkness.
Sarah's manner in planning her wedding was so sangfroid that Meredith started to resent her. The ceremony would be in Corrales, on the expansive back porch of a bed and breakfast that looked out at the Sandias.
“Sunset is best, I think,” Sarah told her Saturday, when Meredith came over to address invitations. Sarah was organizing all aspects of the wedding on index cards that she kept in a tiny binder that fit in her purse. “The judge will start the ceremony as the mountains turn pink. Or should I come out as they turn pink?”
/>
“You want people looking at you, not the mountains.”
“Good point. So the service begins as they turn pink. The whole thing will only last fifteen minutes. Most of that will be taken up by our vows. Which we’ve written ourselves.” She flipped to the Table Decorations card. Meredith wondered if the vows were in her binder too. “Of course,” Sarah spoke as if Meredith had just said something, “disposable cameras will be on the tables. But what else?”
“How big is this place?”
“Oh, it’s just huge. Wait till you see. It was made for wedding receptions.”
“Really?”
“It’s grand. Now what favors should go on the tables?”
“Matchboxes?”
Sarah wrinkled her nose. “You aren’t even trying to be creative.”
Meredith brainstormed things that combined Victor and Sarah. “What about a newly designed cell phone cover with the infiniti yoga symbol and your names and the date?”
Sarah brightened. “I think I like that. A little bit of both of us.”
Sarah’s phone rang. It was the dress shop. “Yes.” Sarah flipped quickly to her Dress card. “No. No, I need it by Friday.” She listened. “Because I’m getting married on Friday.” Her voice was surprisingly calm. She hung up after a few more minutes and rolled her eyes. “They’ve known the wedding date since the first day I walked into their shop. Yet they call every three days and forget! How hard can it be to sew up a wedding dress?”
Meredith thought it could be very hard.
“Now, about your bridesmaid dress. It’s really your call. You know what you like...”
Meredith saw her cue and jumped in. “You have a much better fashion sense than I do. Why don’t you decide and I’ll try not to slouch while I’m wearing it.”
Sarah smiled with satisfaction.
“Unless you’ve got too much else to do,” Meredith added.
“Absolutely not. I’ll just write it down on an index card and then I know it’ll get done. I’ll shop alone the first time and bring you along when I’ve got the choices narrowed down.”
Meredith smiled. “Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there.” She wrote out some more invitations. Sarah made notes on cards. “So who’s coming to this wedding?”
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got the list right in front of you.”
“But who all are they?”
“Oh, the usual suspects. Family, friends, and co-workers.”
“Where do Victor’s parents live? Are they coming?”
“Just his mom. She’s in Colorado. His dad died when he was little.” Her smile got a little hard. “My aunt’s going to come. Her husband, Jay, who I love, is going to walk me down the aisle.”
Meredith nodded. Sarah's mom had killed herself with a shotgun in the bathroom when Sarah was eight. Her dad had been slowly drinking himself to death for twenty-two years. He wasn’t always appropriate at social gatherings. “That’ll be really nice,” Meredith told her. “I wonder if part of the connection between you two is that you’ve both lost a parent?”
Sarah gathered up her loose index cards and pried open her miniature binder. “Nope. That had nothing to do with it.” She inserted the cards and closed the binder with a snap.
But Meredith wondered about the coincidence as she drove around town, running errands later that afternoon. She’d always thought that attraction was based on physicality. Not beauty, but an unconscious reaction. Like some group of physical features ingrained in people’s minds. She thought of Ben. His face wasn’t the handsomest, and yet something clicked in Meredith's mind the moment she saw him. She was drawn to him without even knowing him. She thought the pull had always been there, imprinted inside her. Like the Tori Amos song, where she sang about finding someone else’s writing on her wall. She thought that chances were she had several people’s writing inside her. It made sense that there was more than one person you could love. That idea was painful, like a mostly healed sore that only hurt when you pushed it. She focused her attention on her errand, grocery shopping. Looking ahead to future men wasn’t something she was ready for yet. If ever.
The owner of the bar was young, but his receding hairline and paunch gave him the appearance of being middle-aged. He eyed her speculatively as he dried his hands on a dirty dish towel. “Come on back to my office.”
Meredith considered that he might attack her in his office, but she followed him anyway, holding the slides of her of paintings protectively in front of her. She’d paid a professional photographer to shoot the slides. As she handed him the clear plastic sheet loaded like catacombs with miniature images, she felt her pride swell. Her paintings looked wonderful.
The bar owner, whose name she’d already forgotten, had a little scope for viewing slides. “I don’t know much about art,” he explained as he inadvertently held the scope upside-down, “but I like to look.”
Pride made way for abject fear as Meredith waited for his reaction to her work.
“Women.” He looked up at her. “You paint a lot of women.”
She started to feel defensive, even though he hadn’t said anything critical. “Yes,” she said, mentally adding, I thought that was obvious.
He nodded. “I like the colors. Nice and bright.”
Meredith’s heart softened toward...was it Stan? Or Rick?
“How big are these?”
“The largest is three by four feet. The smallest is one foot by one foot.”
“Just as long as there are enough to fill the space. When pieces are too small, the wall downstairs sort of eats them up.” He put on a pair of reading glasses, which surprised Meredith, and pulled out a date book.
“How’s December? Actually, our September person just canceled. How about then?”
“That far away?” Meredith was acutely disappointed.
He didn’t even bother to answer her question. “The work’s up for a month. You can come in on the morning of the first. The August artist will have his stuff out by nine. You can start hanging at nine. If something happens and you can’t hang that month, we need time to get another artist in. Call the bar and ask for me, John.”
Meredith walked away elated. Her first impulse was to page Ben with her news. If he’s even in Albuquerque any more, she thought. It was two weeks after graduation. He either hadn’t moved or hadn’t called to tell her he was leaving. Meredith knew she could ask Kira where he was, but asking felt like giving up on him.
She ended up not telling anyone about her art show. Instead she went into the office to see if she could clear some of her work off her desk before Monday. She parked a half mile away and walked in, telling herself that it was for the exercise. There were no cars in the parking lot. She locked herself into her office. Just for safety’s sake, but she knew it was because she didn’t want Peter to find her. Didn’t want be alone with him or look at his face and pretend to not be disgusted by him.
After an afternoon of work, she called Kira and told her the news.
“Your own show! You’re a regular Picasso. Let’s celebrate. Where should we go?”
They decided on a small bar that had a good selection of food and a great selection of beer.
Kira was already inside at a table. “Hail to the conquering artist. First drink’s on me.” Meredith ordered a Guinness. Kira got an IPA. She was light and celebratory for their first drink. When the waitress came back with seconds, she got a serious look on her face.
“What?” Meredith asked.
“I’m debating whether to tell you something.”
“Well, and now you have no choice, do you?”
“It’s about Ben...”
“Stop.” Meredith held up her hand. “Give me a minute.” They sat in silence as Meredith tried to gather her thoughts. She was feeling foolish so she finally nodded her head. “Okay, I’m ready. Lay it on me.” As Kira opened her mouth to speak, Meredith added, “He’s married, right? Engaged?”
Kira smiled slightly as she shook he
r head, but not a big enough smile for Meredith to think she had good news. “Not married. Not engaged. Working in Santa Fe.”
“Oh.” So he’d left. Without telling her.
“We talked about you.”
Meredith felt her face grow hot. “You saw him?”
“Yes. Shall I tell you about it? Or drop it?”
Meredith looked at her beer. The foam was sliding slowly down the inside of the glass. With her eyes on the foam, she said, “Tell.”
“He loves you. That’s the first thing he told me.”
Meredith noted dully that this revelation ignited no hope. It was just the sort of stupid thing Ben would say, and maybe even feel, without acting on.
“He loves you, but he’s realized a hard truth.” She heard Kira take a deep breath. “The hard truth is that you aren’t in love with him. You want to be. You like him. But you don’t love him. He said it was a bitter pill that he’d finally swallowed, and that it hurt going down, but that he knows he’s got to hunker down and get through this, because you’ll both be glad later on that it ended now. Before things got more complicated.”
What if beer foam was like the wine legs that people used to judge quality? Meredith could imagine people holding up pint glasses to study the consistency of the dripping foam, the way wine connoisseurs look at the dripping legs on wine glasses. She decided not to think about Ben's comments at the moment. She’d worry about them tomorrow. She cocked her head, searching for a way to change the subject. “What’s that Cowboy Junkies song?”
Kira shrugged.
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