by Stella James
“Well, maybe you could take George with you and just pretend you’re friends. He could offer moral support and at least you’d have someone to enjoy the sights with,” I suggest.
George has been Kyle’s boyfriend for the last two years. He’s a social worker and the sweetest guy on the planet. He comes from a large Mexican family and he’s also very openly gay. I know it’s put a strain on their relationship at times that Kyle hides his sexuality.
“The last time I dragged George to a family function was last Christmas in Aspen. My mother tried to set us both up the entire time we were there. You should have seen his face while my mother was handing him Post-it notes with phone numbers of family friends that have single daughters. He told me he refuses to pretend we aren’t a couple and he won’t come to any more family events unless I come out. He just doesn’t get it; his family is so laid back.”
“So take Poppy with you,” Bell suggests with a shrug. “She can be your girlfriend. That’ll keep your family off your back about being single.”
“What?”
“Yes!”
“No way,” I deny. “I can’t just up and leave! And as if your family would buy us as a couple; I’m way too old for you.”
“They totally would,” he scoffs. “And you’re not too old. Please do this for me, Poppy. I can’t go alone,” he pleads.
“I’m a terrible liar; they would see right through me,” I reason.
“That is true. You are terrible at lying,” Bell agrees.
“See? You should take Bell. That’s far more believable,” I argue.
“No way,” Bell says. “You’re the one who needs a facelift on their life. Besides, I’ve got gigs lined up for the next two weeks.”
“You’d hardly even have to speak,” Kyle says. “The Edwards family is like a group of cyborgs. You could just sit and smile, occasionally show me a little P.D.A. to make it believable, and that’s it.”
I can’t believe it, but I feel myself beginning to waver.
“I’ll pay for your trip,” he says. “I’ll fly you first class.”
“She’ll do it!” Bell says.
“What? No, I need to think about this.”
“What’s to think about, Pop? You said it yourself, you’re in a slump,” she says. “You need something; this could be good for you.”
I look at the two sets of puppy dog eyes staring back at me. “I will think about it. Okay?”
“Yes!” they say collectively before high fiving.
“Just let me know as soon as you can,” Kyle says. “We’d be leaving next Sunday.”
“Great,” I mumble.
*
After I drop Bell off at her apartment, I decide to take the long way home. Driving always helps me clear my head. I turn on café classics, feeling the need for something moody. Ani DeFranco wafts through the speakers as my mind rewinds all the way back to the day I like to refer to as “the day I realized Todd is a lying piece of shit.”
I hang up my phone after reminding Bell for the ten thousandth time that she needs to pick up her bridesmaid dress from the seamstress as I walk into the lobby of the building where Todd’s firm is located. I go through security and make my way to the elevator, I’m so excited I can hardly contain myself. After weeks of back and forth, I finally got a confirmation today from the manager of the jazz band that Todd wanted for the reception.
As I take the elevator up to share the news with my fiancé in person, I realize that we are officially in crunch mode. Two months doesn’t seem like that long when I think of all the things I still need to accomplish before the wedding. Final fitting for my gorgeous wedding dress, seating charts, guest favours, bachelorette party. Just thinking about everything exhausts me. But it will all be worth it, because in two months I’m going to be married to Todd and we can start our life together.
The elevator chimes, removing me from my mental to-do list. I step out and turn down the long corridor until I reach the reception area.
“Hey Jana,” I say, smiling at the main receptionist. “I’ve got some good news to share with Todd, is he in?”
“He should be,” she says. “If not, Tanya can track him down for you.”
“Perfect, thanks!”
I head down the hallway, towards Todd’s corner office. I see Tanya’s desk is empty, she probably just went to the bathroom. I knock on Todd’s door and poke my head in. Empty.
“Hey Poppy, are you looking for Todd?” Mark, one of the new interns asks.
“Yeah, is he in a meeting?”
“I saw him in the copy room ten minutes ago, he’s probably still there if you don’t catch him on his way back.”
I know my way through the office, having been here for numerous functions and holiday parties. I’m surprised to find the door to the copy room closed, since it’s usually propped open. I reach for the handle and pull the door open. And that’s when I see it. My entire world shatters around me as I watch my fiancé jack hammer his assistant Tanya, whose naked ass is resting on top of the big white copy machine.
Bile climbs up my throat as unshed tears burn my eyes. I want to look away but I can’t. I want to cry, but the tears won’t fall. A pathetic noise makes its way up my throat and that’s when he looks over at me. His face red from exertion. Shock flashes across his features. Features that I once thought were handsome but in this moment make me sick to my stomach. He stops jack hammering Tanya but it takes her a good couple of long seconds to realize why. She looks over at me and doesn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. And that’s when I have what I can only describe as an out-of-body experience. I begin to pick up random items from the shelf beside me. Scotch tape dispensers, cubes of Post-its, anything I can get my hands on. I violently hurl the items one by one. I can vaguely hear Todd yelling at me to stop amid Tanya’s shrieks of horror. I don’t stop until Todd’s head snaps back and blood begins to pour from his nose.
“What the fuck, Poppy?! You’ve lost your damn mind!” he shouts.
I wordlessly turn on my heel and leave. I shut the door behind me and manage to keep my expression neutral until I make it back to my Jeep, where I fall apart.
Later that night, Todd came by my apartment with his brother. For protection, I assume. I sat silently on the sofa while he gathered the few belongings that he kept at my place. When he reached for the boxed DVD set of Lost sitting on the television stand, I growled at him like a wild dog claiming a bone. Fuck you, asshole. If anyone is going to finish binge watching the last two seasons, it’s me. He sighed and turned to face me, his eyes dark and his nose swollen beneath a white bandage.
“How long?” I ask him.
“A while.”
“Why? Why did you propose? Was any of this fucking real, or was it just in my head?”
“Look, I’m just not ready to be tied down,” he says.
“But why did you ask me? At least give me that.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he says.
There’s no apology, no assurance that I’m not to blame. There’s no Band-Aid to make this better. Todd doesn’t want to marry me. Maybe he never really wanted me at all.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment before I rip your dick off.”
Not my finest moment, but in my defense, I was in shock. The days that followed were a blur of cancellations and trying to reclaim deposits. When I think back on it now, I realize that had I been paying closer attention to my relationship and less attention to wedding details, I would have noticed the distance between us. I would have noticed that despite being engaged, we still weren’t living together. And I would have noticed that it had been months since we’d last had sex. I was wrapped up in a fantasy with a man who didn’t give a shit. Maybe he loved me at some point; maybe he didn’t.
And that was it. The beginning of the end, I suppose. The day I fell flat on my face and couldn’t remember how to pick myself back up.
Chapter Four
Everybody has an Asshole, Poppy
My parents met at a pub in Boston. According to both of them, they fell madly in love the minute they began talking. My mom, originally from England, had just graduated from university and was travelling with friends. She still maintains that the minute my dad made her laugh, she knew she was never going home. They married three months later, moved to Chicago and had Tully less than a year later.
Our childhood was a constant state of disarray and improvisation on both my parents’ part. But we had love and laughter and never ending support in whatever we were interested in. I was eight when my mom caught on to my obsession with cleaning and organizing. She took me to the nearest Target one Saturday, just the two of us, and set me free to fill the shopping cart with whatever I thought might be useful. It’s one of my favourite memories.
Hearing the sound of Jefferson Airplane, I head straight to the back of the house, following the mismatched concrete garden stones that my mom formed into a path along the side of the house. I round the corner just in time to get shot in the face with a splattering of watermelon guts.
“Poppy! Darling, I’m so sorry,” my mom says, removing her safety goggles and turning down the radio. “I didn’t hear you, love. Are you all right?”
She grabs a rag and begins to wipe my face. “I’m fine, Mom, really.”
“Oh shit,” she says. “You’re going to be all sticky. Come in the house and wash up.”
I follow my mom through the patio doors and into the kitchen, noticing, as I walk by, the large white tarp pinned up on the side of the house.
“What exactly are you doing?”
“Research,” she says. “I’m curious as to how much force one must use to split open a human skull.”
“That explains the hammer,” I reply. “New book?”
“Yes, and it’s quite gruesome. But never mind that,” she says. “How are you, darling?”
I wipe the remaining watermelon sludge from my face and feel unexpectedly emotional. I swallow past the lump in my throat and force back a wave of annoying tears.
“I’m so lost,” I say quietly. “How did I let this happen, Mom? How did I become one of those tragic women who just falls apart? I was happy before I met Todd. Why can’t I be happy after?”
“Oh pet,” she says, pulling me in for a tight hug. “You’ll find your way again. This has been a rough patch. You’re allowed to have those, you know? You don’t always have to be perfect; life is messy and you’re allowed to be messy too. You’ve got to stop being so hard on yourself.”
She holds my face in her hands and forces me to look at her. “I know,” I sigh. “I just, I thought things would be so different.”
“Do you want to go beat the shit out of a watermelon? It feels quite nice actually,” she smiles.
“Maybe later.”
“Your father’s in his office. He’d love to see you, dear,” she says, giving me one last squeeze. “He’s been networking all morning.”
“Networking?”
She shrugs her shoulders and waves off my question, like she doesn’t have any kind of explanation. “You know your father,” she says. “If you need me, I’ll be out back.”
I leave my purse on the counter and head down the shag carpet hallway leading to my dad’s office. Yes, my parents still have shag carpet. My dad tried to rip it out once and my mom threatened to divorce him. She thinks it’s going to make a comeback.
I smile as I wonder what my dad has gotten himself into now. He’s always been passionate about literature and he was a brilliant professor, but he’s also just a tad gullible. He’s also a bit of a dreamer and he’s been a little restless since he retired. Two months ago he watched a tutorial on YouTube and learned how to arm knit. He made enough scarves to supply a small town with neck warmth. He ended up donating them to a local shelter. He gets a bit obsessive.
The door is open and I see my dad sitting at his desk, his phone cradled against his ear. I also notice several boxes stacked against the opposite wall with Vita-Corp stamped in big black letters along the sides. My dad waves me in and gestures for me to take a seat.
“Mitchell, I am telling you, these aren’t just regular vitamins,” he says. “It’s been three weeks since I started taking them and I’ve got more energy, I’m more alert and my sex drive has bee- “
I immediately cover my ears like a child who pretends that her parents are both virgins and that my sisters and I were hatched in a patch of autumn vegetables.
I wait until I see him hang up the phone before I uncover my ears. “Hi, Dad. Whatcha doing?”
“Give me two seconds here, honey, and I’ll be right with you,” he says, pecking at his keyboard. “There. That’s another sale for team Kramer.”
“Team Kramer?”
“Poppy, I’ve found my retirement calling,” he explains, reaching into the drawer beside him and pulling out a massive green bottle. He hands it to me and then takes a sip from the clear water bottle full of green slop sitting on his desk.
“You’re selling vitamins now?”
“Not just any vitamins. Vita-Corp,” he beams. “It’s one of the fastest growing home-based businesses to date. Check this out, honey.” He stands and lifts his shirt, revealing a large plastic bandage pulled across his stomach.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a wrap,” he says. “I’m going to lose inches by the end of the day and all I’ve done is sit here.”
He goes on to explain to me that as leader of Team Kramer, he recruits people by selling them products, then those people recruit more people and so on.
“Dad, are you sure this isn’t a pyramid scheme? Because it sounds like a pyramid scheme.”
“It’s not a pyramid scheme,” he insists. “Where’s your faith, Poppy Thursday?”
Despite logic, I find it impossible to burst my dad’s bubble. He’ll tire of this eventually and then perhaps move on to something a little less aggressive.
“You’re right, Dad. I’m sorry,” I sigh, leaning down and pecking a quick kiss on his cheek. “It sounds like a wonderful opportunity.”
“Are you doing okay, honey?”
“I will be. I’ll let you get back to it. I’m babysitting for Tully and Dan tonight and I promised the kids I’d pick up pizza.”
He holds my hand for a minute and gives it a squeeze. “You’re one of my favourite people, Poppy,” he says.
“Ditto, Dad.”
*
“Wear the red one. It makes you look like a naughty librarian,” I say to Tully as she continues to rummage through her closet.
My niece and nephews are currently downstairs, stuffing their faces with pepperoni deep dish. Tully and Dan are going out for their bi-weekly date tonight and I’m on babysitting duty. First, I fill their little faces with pizza and root beer and then we camp out in the living room and watch movies. It’s our special time and I like to use it to remind them how cool I am. Just in case I don’t ever have kids of my own, I need someone to look out for dear Aunt Poppy. When I’m old and decrepit, I want to end up in one of the fancy nursing homes.
“Are you sure? I feel like my tits look lopsided,” she says, pulling the three-quarter sleeve dress over her head.
“Your tits are lopsided,” I say.
“Pfft, just wait until you have kids,” she scoffs.
“Maybe I never will,” I say simply, rolling over on the bed and looking up at the ceiling.
“Oh shut up! There’s still plenty of time for you to meet someone fantastic,” she encourages.
“I stopped by Mo
m and Dad’s on my way over,” I say, changing the subject.
“Oh yeah? Did Dad try to sell you a box full of wraps?”
“No,” I grin. “But he showed me the one he was wearing.”
“Do you think we should be worried?”
“Nah, he’s having fun. I say we let him.”
She smooths down her dress and sits on the edge of the bed to strap on her black heels. “Okay,” she sighs. “You have ten minutes to spill it and then I’m ditching you with the midgets.”
I tell her about Kyle’s offer and my growing desire to no longer be a useless sack of shit living in the shadows of society.
“I think you should go,” she says. “Help Kyle out and get the hell out of here. Relax, have fun, get drunk, whatever you need to do.”
“And what happens when I get back?”
“You start the next chapter of your life,” she says. “But in the meantime, why not take a detour?”
“You know how I feel about detours.”
“Yes, Poppy, I know that you love having a plan and a checklist,” she says. “But you had those things with Todd and it didn’t work out, so why not try something new? Have a little fun, try different experiences and just see what happens.”
“I hate that I’ve let it go this far,” I confess. “I’m embarrassed.”
“Hey, quit being so hard on yourself,” she says, nudging me over and lying down beside me. “Everybody has an asshole, Poppy.”
“What does that have to do with any of this?” I ask with a laugh.
“It means that you’re human,” she says. “Forget about Todd, and forget about the things you did or didn’t do. Start fresh, and give yourself the chance to be happy again without beating yourself up over the past. Pick up your pieces and start moving forward. Otherwise life is just going to move on without you.”
“This took an unexpectedly profound turn,” I say.
“You know what I mean,” she says.