When It Rains: The Umbrella Collection

by Prudence Hayes

  5

  The Rose Garden

  I can hardly breathe! I have to calm down. If I keep breathing this heavy there will be no air left. Where am I with all this dirt around me? Am I buried alive? What is happening? Oh my God. I can’t breathe! I can’t swallow! What is that beeping?

  I awoke and flung myself half off my bed making the pillow that laid on top of my face fly across the room. I took notice of the that was wrapped around my neck. No wonder I couldn’t breathe, I thought to myself as I untangled that one and the ones tying my legs together. My heart was pounding and I was trying to catch my breath when I heard a beep indicating that my phone had a voicemail. I must have had a restless night’s sleep.

  “Get up you worthless piece of shit. You should have just died like you were about to in your dreams,” the voice called out.

  I got up to check my phone that was in a pair of jeans that I threw off last night, forgetting to take it out, I noticed that I had several text messages from Skylar and shockingly, Lauren, along with a few new voicemails. I decided to check them first.

  The first one was from Skylar, “Hey, it’s me. Give me a call as soon as you get this.” I erased that message and went to the next one, “Hey, it’s me again. Just trying to get a hold of you because I have to tell you something.” As I pulled the phone away from my ear to erase that one I wondered what was so important.

  I moved on to the next one. This time it was Lauren, “I can explain. Please call me back. Bye.” And another, “I’m so sorry. Please let me explain.”

  The final one was from Skylar again, “Me, again. I’m coming over.” I looked at the time of that call and it was five minutes ago, so I called her back.

  “I’m right down the street. I’m going to stop by,” she said as she answered on the first ring.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll be there in a second,” and she hung up. I was swimming in bewilderment, wondering what it was that she needed to talk to me about and what Lauren needs to explain and apologize for.

  Before I responded to Lauren, I decided to talk to Skylar first. I had a funny feeling they were related somehow and I headed downstairs to get a cup of coffee as I waited for her to show up. I had my mug in my hand when she let herself into the front door and yelled for me.

  “I’m in the kitchen,” I replied.

  She walked in and she had a look to her face that only suggested that she was pissed off about something. Her lips were smushed together making them barely visible. She threw her keys down on the counter by the phone and jumped up to sit on the counter, “Listen, we need to talk.”

  “Obviously. I’m assuming that it has something to do with Lauren.”

  “Yeah, and you can add Adam to the list.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, slowly pulling the coffee mug from my lips and placed it down on the counter.

  “So, there are reasons why we can’t get a hold of Lauren and you can’t get a hold of Adam.”

  “Spit it out!” I said and she cowardly looked in my direction; it looked like she was struggling to put what she had to say into words. “Seriously, spit it out.” I reassuringly told her.

  “Scott and I went to Rose Garden to eat last night,” she began.

  I made a grimace with my face and questioned, “Rose Garden!? Why? That’s almost two hours away.”

  “It’s a romantic spot! Plus, Scott’s parents gave us a girt card.”

  “Oh yeah, gift card and romance go hand in hand. I’m swooning as we speak.”

  “Come on. I’m trying to tell you something here.”

  “Sorry, continue,” I stated as I hopped up on the opposing counter and held my cup to my mouth.

  She began to tell me that while they were eating, Scott looked over her shoulder and spotted something that shouldn’t have been happening. Lauren and Adam were making out at another table.

  I was shocked and I dropped my coffee mug making it explode into a million baby blue colored pieces that contrasted with the dark wood floors when they landed. My hands instantly reached for my face, covering every inch of it with my hands and I slide down the cabinet onto the floor. Skylar simultaneously jumped down and huddled next to me with her arm around my back. I sat sobbing, crying that Adam lied to me again, that he wanted her and not me, that Lauren would do that to me, to throw our friendship away.

  The voice decided that it was time to speak up, “What a bitch. You don’t have the guts to call her out on it.” My hands made their way over to my ears to cover them, trying to not hear the voice that I can’t get away from. With tears streaming down and loud whimpers exuding from my throat I rocked back and forth bringing Skylar along for the ride.

  “Why would she do that?” I moaned.

  “I don’t know why,” Skylar answered. I knew she wouldn’t have known because she wouldn’t have done it. She wouldn’t have even thought about it. There is an unspoken line in friendships that shouldn’t be crossed and Lauren just leaped across it. At that moment there was a clap of thunder that sparked a surge of fear to speed through my body making it unbearable.

  “It's raining, it's pouring, Nora is mourning,” the voice sang causing my rocking to get more intense along with my sobbing. I curled into the fetal position on the floor with my head resting on Skylar’s leg, ignoring the fact that I was laying on top of small pieces of a now non-existent coffee mug.

  As I lay there, I began to think that the voice was right. I was mourning; not only my parents still, but now a friendship. Lauren is gone now and so is Adam.

  I kept my position for awhile as I frighteningly listened to the rain come down outside. The voice was repeatedly singing that song and urging me to call them to scream at them. He mentally gave me a script of things to say to them, but I tried to ignore it. It lasted for about a half hour, and then I sprung up and grabbed my phone.

  “What are you doing?” Skylar asked.

  “Calling them.”

  I found Lauren’s number in the missed call log and called her. The voice and my voice were fighting to see which one would do the talking. After a few rings, she finally picked up.

  “Nor, have you talked to Skylar?”

  “Yes, I talked to Skylar you fucking whore!” I guess the voice won that one.

  “I’m sorry. It just happened.”

  “Just happened? How does that work, huh? His penis just happened to fall into your vagina. That’s pretty convenient. Not much work for you to do”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Did you think about me at all? Our friendship? Anything?” I shouted with anger oozing out of my pores.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that. It will make you feel better, you whore. Don’t call me. Don’t come over. We are done. Totally finished. Let me talk to him.”

  “What?”

  “Let me talk to him,” I said through clenched teeth, “I know how you work. I know that you lie and manipulate, turning yourself into exactly what a guy wants and saying exactly want he wants to hear so he falls for you. I know you have him there at your beck and call. Put him on the phone.”

  I heard the fumbling of the phone and a deeper voice speak, “Hello.”

  “You fucking prick. If you didn’t want to be with me you should have said something and not dragged me through the dirt.”

  “I wanted to.”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up and go fuck someone else. I hope your penis falls off because of something you catch. You know what?” I continued, “You two go be together, two sluts living happily ever after,” and I threw my phone across the kitchen.

  I sat there on the ground next to Skylar with my head leaning against the bottom cabinet. There was laughter exuding from the voice and I shook my head in disbelief.

  “Well, then. When are you going to regret that?”

  “Already do,” it was the truth, regret was filling me up inside. Did I mean what I said? Yes, a part of me did, but I probab
ly wouldn’t ever have said any of those words if not for the combination of the voice and the way they hurt me, “So, what happened after you confronted them?”

  Skylar sat back and explained that she had spun around in her chair and got up to go over. She noticed Scott was already a few steps ahead of her. When they reached the table, Lauren’s lips were so enamored by Adam’s that it took them a few moments for them to realize that people were standing above them, hunched over the table trying to get their attention. When Lauren finally looked up, she was shocked to say the least. She pulled away from Adam and slid across the booth acting like that’s where she had been the whole time. While Skylar yelled at Lauren, Scott took care of Adam, making it very clear that they shouldn’t be doing what they were doing and if they felt that way for each other than they should have the guts to tell me. Skylar said Adam just shrugged his shoulders and was angry that Scott was in his face. Lauren started crying, mainly because she was caught. She and Scott paid their bill and left immediately. As they were getting into her car Adam came running out trying to fight Scott as Lauren was begging Skylar not to tell me anything. At one point, Lauren tried to bribe her with tickets to a concert. Ridiculous. Scott isn’t the fighting type, so they promptly got in the car and left.

  “Ha, I’m going to have to thank Scott. By the way, thank you for telling me and saying something to her,” I said as I wiped away teardrops from my cheeks

  “Of course. Now, we should really get to work in cleaning this mess up.”

  “My life or the ceramic pieces shattered everywhere?”

  “Let’s start with the ceramic pieces,” she stated as she patted my leg. I began to pick up the bigger pieces and she went to grab the broom from the closet and began to sweep them all into a pile.

  Pops walked into the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks and his eyes examined the floor from one side of the room to the other. With each piece of mug he saw, his mouth gaped more and more. His face grew a rosy color and then as quick as it came, it left. “I see you guys have been busy,” he stated and then tiptoed through the mess on his way to the refrigerator to retrieve his pitcher of OJ.

  “Yeah, sorry Pops. It just slipped out of my hands. By the way, you look put together; I’m guessing you have a date,” I said through my sniffles.

  “Uh huh,” he replied unconvinced by my excuse about the mug, “Yeah, I am going to dinner with Molly.”

  “Ugh, again?”

  “Yes, we are leaving now though. Going to spend the day walking around some old town and eating at the “Rose Garden” I think it’s called. I don’t know, but what I do know is that it’s a long drive.”

  Skylar and I locked eyes and fought back the laughs that were trying to force themselves out. What were the odds?

  After we finished cleaning up my mess and I picked up my phone that thankfully still worked, Skylar and I sat up in my room talking about the nonsense that we typically did, trying not to bring up the obvious. All the while, the silenced phone that sat in front of Skylar constantly lit up and each time it did, it revealed the name Lauren.

  “I have to get going to work at the gallery, but Scott and I are going to the movies later. If you want to come.”

  Skylar and I, both work at the Emerson Art Gallery. We paint furniture, canvases, and anything else we can get our hands on. On the weekends they sell our stuff and we get a cut of the profit. We both have been working there since Junior High and have loved it ever since.

  “Probably not. I’m going to just sulk in my room for a bit. But, maybe, if I’m done in time.”

  “Okay, if you need anything, just call. Don’t think too much about Lauren and Adam. They aren’t worth it,” she said as we walked out the room and down the steps. Before I left the room though, I reached into my closet and got out an umbrella with a zebra pattern for Skylar to use. Even though, it looked like it has stopped raining, she took it without hesitation, knowing that I wouldn’t let her leave without it.

  “I’ll try. I think I’m still kind of in shock.”

  I shut the door after she left and called for Pops, hearing no answer I preceded up the stairs and into his bathroom. I looked at my options. There was plenty to choose from because he and Mike have the same kinds of problems. I decided upon a sleeping pill, not just one, I took five, and carried them back to my room. I swallowed one and even though the sunshine was shining its bright afternoon rays into my window, I shut my shutters, put on my pajamas and curled into bed after I placed the remaining pills in my bedside table drawer.

  “You lost a friend, a boyfriend, and your mind! How bad do you suck at life?!” the voice asked rhetorically.

  I leaned over to my drawer, reached in to grab two more pills and gulped them down my dry throat. I buried myself in my covers as the tears began and I silently whimpered myself to sleep.

  6

  Is That Him?

  I slept the rest of the day and throughout the night with the help of the two pills that were left in my drawer and waiting for me to take. I was sprawled out on my bed; still groggy from the pills. What woke me was the bight ray of sun that made its way through the branches of the tree, through the window pane and a crack of the shudder that I didn’t close all the way. My phone was going off throughout the night and each time I looked at it it was Lauren and occasionally Adam. I eventually had to turn it off. I turned it back on as I flipped to my back waiting to see what I had waiting. There were 11 new voicemails and 23 text messages for them both. I didn’t read or listen to any of them for the pure fact I was still angry. Plus, I didn’t understand why they were calling, they made their choice and it’s the end of it.

  I got up out of bed and headed downstairs to the kitchen to look for something to eat, but as I looked closer there wasn’t anything around that looked appetizing to me. I looked into the cookie jar that was a miniature cow where I hid my favorite lollipops and reached in, but it was empty. Once I realized that I couldn’t have them that was exactly what I began to crave. There is only one place I can get them, Marty’s Mart. It’s a little convenience store that is owned by Pops’ friend, Martin Jones. It took me years of coercing and begging Mr. Jones to finally add them to his merchandise order. I can happily announce that they now stock the shelves with them. They are these super sugary lollipops that I used to get as a kid at Dr. Ferry’s office after my checkup and I’ve loved them ever since.

  I took a quick glance out my window to see if there were any rain clouds in the sky. I saw that the sun was shining bright and no clouds were present. I thought to myself that a nice walk to Marty’s might do me some good. I jumped in the shower, threw on some clothes, and blow dried my hair. I opened my door to walk out and heard Pops in his room and asked if he needed anything from Marty’s.

  “Nah, tell Marty I said hi, though,” he replied.

  When I walked out of the house I realized that it was a beautiful day out and opted to boycott my car for a nice walk. With thought of Lauren and Adam still running amok, I used that time to try and clear my head.

  The only unfortunate part of my journey was that I had to walk past Mr. Garrison’s house. I avoid him as much as possible because all he does is recount what happened that night with my parents as if he isn’t speaking to their daughter. He will get specific and graphic at times. I believe he does this so he can watch my reaction, then go and tell everyone in the neighborhood about it. He is the town’s gossiper, always in the know and spreading it around. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him, so as I approached his sidewalk my stride quickened.

  His house looked like it was out of a TV show; everything neat and clean. The lawn and hedges were perfectly manicured, there was a tire swing hanging from a tree. It was nice to look at, but it was all too perfect; like a facade. “Leave it to Beaver” shit always bugs me and leaves me wondering what is going on behind closed doors.

  I was just about past his house before I heard, “Hey Nora! How are you?” and Mr. Garrison, who was outside washing his BMW, came w
alking down his driveway towards me.

  While my eyes rolled to the back of my head I said, “I’m really good. Hope all is well with you,” as I waved in his direction but never making eye contact with him. I thought it was pretty obvious that I was trying to end the conversation since I didn’t ask a question nor did my feet halt its movement. It wasn’t obvious enough, since the next thing I know I heard rapid footsteps coming up behind me and I felt him grab my elbow to stop me.

  “Hey, slow done, missy. I haven’t seen you in a long time. How is everything? Are you good? How’s the family?”

  “They are all fine, along with me. I’m sorry. I am kind of in a rush to get somewhere,” I lied to get out of there. I was in no rush at all.

  I started walking and he started to also right beside me. I stopped once more just so he would and stood there with my hands in my pockets, rocking back and forth excitingly waiting until I could walk away freely.

  “Oh come on, you can give your Uncle Jack a minute or two, can’t you?”

  He was not my Uncle is any way, shape or form. Before, he never acknowledged me and referred to me only as ‘the kid’. “Does that kid have to come?” “The kid is in my way.”

  “Sorry, I really have to go.”

  “I just want to make sure you are okay. The anniversary of your parents dying is coming up. You think about them a lot?”

  “What do you think asshole? Do you think that that day is erased from my memory? I think of them all the fucking time. You want to tell everyone the inside scoop and say how I am still falling apart over it. Well, here’s a scoop, GO FUCK YOURSELF!” is what the voice told me to say to him. However, I fought the urge to repeat it and I replied instead, with tears welling up in my eyes, “Yes, yes I do. I’m gonna go.”

  At this point, I saw Miranda was making her way down the driveway to where we were standing. “Hello, Nora,” she said yelled with her sweet tone when she was half way here.