“The voice of reason,” he says, and reaches for my hand. “Wise and mostly unwelcome by those about to make bad decisions.”
I hold his hand and we sit on the stoop. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Still recently divorced. Still don’t really know what I’m doing.”
“Hmm,” he says and exhales deeply. “Yeah, I’m coming off a difficult breakup of sorts myself. I have no idea what I’m doing either.”
I twist the ring on my finger that, despite the paperwork that’s been signed, filed, and finished, I still wear. I know this is impulsive and most likely a bad idea. Yet, I feel like I’m walking backwards, trying to undo something that I really don’t want to forget.
“I know what it’s like to be caught in between what you know and how you feel,” Oliver says. “Let me get you a coat and I’ll walk you to your car.”
I wrinkle my brow.
“You’re shivering,” he says. “These spring nights can get chilly.”
“I don’t think that’s why I’m shivering,” I say, finding it easy to be honest with him.
I look him in the eye, and he kisses me softly on the lips. The wind blows and I wonder if that poor French couple will forgive me the intrusion on their peaceful day. It’s just a light breeze after all, nothing to disrupt them too much. Although it’s disrupting me something powerfully.
Oliver leads me up the steps into his house. The interior is clean and sparse. The small living room holds a couch, an old rocker, and a small television. The most dominating thing about the room is a wall of music—songbooks, at least three guitars that I can see, CDs, a stereo system, and an old piano.
“Does anyone still listen to actual CDs anymore?” I ask, running my hand along the line of plastic cases.
“Believe it or not, that’s pretty high tech in this house,” Oliver says.
“Do you live here alone?” I ask as he closes several large books that were open across each other on the coffee table and tosses them onto the floor beside the couch.
He disappears down the hall and returns with a gray, hooded sweatshirt.
“I do now,” he whispers, handing me the hoodie, which I pull over my head and down across my body.
I don’t ask for details even though I find myself wanting them. He doesn’t offer any more information. This young man’s house is far from where I thought I’d be tonight. There’s a place in my gut that yells at me for putting Dad aside like this, for pushing Cassie and Jack from my mind. But the option is either this or sleeping in my childhood bed quilted in by the heavy-handed stitching of the way things end up.
“I’ll walk you back to your car,” he says, and reaches out to adjust the hoodie so it fits properly across my shoulders as best it can.
“Thank you for staying a while,” he says after the short and silent walk to my car.
You’re welcome seems a strange thing to say so I offer something else even stranger, “Will you kiss me one more time?” I feel foolish now that I’ve said it out loud.
He looks at me with such focus and concern that I think he’s going to say no. He steps closer to me and touches my cheek.
“Nina,” he says and pulls me to him in a tight embrace. “I’m glad I found you tonight.”
I give in to the hard clinch of muscled arms holding me tight to this semi-stranger who may be the only piece of the world that makes any sense to me right now. I let go of everything that holds me in. Forty years of everything that means anything collects in the palm of my hands, the shallow of my throat, the escape of my breath.
“Me too,” I whisper into his hair.
He steps back from the embrace, but his hands are still around my waist. I place my hand on his chest, and he twitches and pulls back just a bit.
“I understand,” I say.
“It’s not you, Nina,” he says. “And, yes, I would like to kiss you again.”
Suddenly I feel tears behind my eyes and I couldn’t stop them even if I tried, so I don’t.
Before I have time to say anything, he presses his lips to my cheeks, my eyes, the tip of my nose. I can’t do much but hold on as it all slips out, uncontrolled and unexpected. There is nothing that can be done, but to give way to it.
I have this memory of lying on the ground underneath the dogwood tree in my childhood backyard. I’m seven. Bluish-purple petals float down over me from way above. The sunlight is so sharp I can’t see where it’s all coming from. I hold my hands up to catch the tiny pieces of blue, satin snow. I turn my head and see Dad’s long legs; he’s holding a hydrangea bloom like a dandelion puff, wisping it through his hands to let loose the little petals over me.
Oliver kisses my cheek one last time, sighs, and pulls back from me.
“Nina,” he says, “I’m sorry. This isn’t right. I shouldn’t have done this. This isn’t what you need now.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t know where my mind is right now. I’m just out of sorts.”
“Of course you are,” he says.
Oliver takes hold of my hand, and the simplicity of the gesture makes me cry again. I rest my head on his shoulder, and we stand quietly in the glow from the streetlamp until I have collected myself.
“I’m ok,” I finally say and pull away, searching for my keys and righting myself to leave.
“Take care of yourself,” he says.
“I’ll try,” I say.
Oliver opens the door for me and I get in. He pats the roof once I’ve closed the door and started the engine. He waves, and as I’m pulling away, my guilt taps on the window. I roll it down a smidge and let him in. He buckles up next to me, and we ride back to Mom’s house.
I go upstairs but can’t seem to go into my old room where I hope Lola will still be sleeping soundly. I go into the bathroom instead. I don’t turn on the light. I just stand there in the dark and breathe. I take a towel off the rack and push open the shower curtain. I make a pillow of the towel and curl up in the tub and fall asleep.
6
“Nina.”
Someone is calling my name through a thick fog. I hear it again and force my eyes open. Lola is standing over me, and I’m not sure where I am.
“What are you doing in there?” she asks.
“What?” I say, and when I try to move, I find that every inch of my body is sore.
“Why are you sleeping in the bathtub?”
I look up, confused. I’m in Mom’s bathroom. The walls are papered with that loud and slightly nauseating big-fat flower motif that makes it feel like you’ve got your head stuck in a kaleidoscope. It’s not helping the headache I developed from sleeping with my neck bent against the side of the tub.
“I woke up and you were gone,” she says. “I thought maybe you went home. Maybe to Jack’s? I was thinking maybe Cassie called and you went to get her.”
“Is Cassie here?” I say, alarmed.
I flounder around, trying to get out of the tub. Lola lends a hand and helps me out.
“Did she call?” I ask.
Lola puts her hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eye. “Oh, my,” she says. “You’re a wreck. And no, Cassie didn’t call, and no, she’s not here. Thank goodness. What’s the matter with you?”
I sigh and wiggle out from under her touch.
“Have you been in there all night?” she asks, standing behind me so that I can see her over my own shoulder in the bathroom mirror.
“No,” I say, wiping my face like I can wipe off the night before. “I went out. I went to the bookstore. I woke up in the bathtub.”
“That makes no sense at all.” She chuckles.
“I’m a terrible person.” I move past her to sit on the rim of the bathtub. “I’m a horrible daughter and a hussy no less.”
Lola laughs at the ridiculous word. “Well, that seems a bit much. So you went to Jack’s—”
&n
bsp; I shake my head.
“You didn’t see Jack?”
I shake my head again.
“Oh,” she says.
She kneels in front of me and pulls my hands away from where I’ve covered my face. It feels like we could be teenagers again, talking about Robbie Highsmith and the incident under the football bleachers.
“Nina,” she says.
My name alone is a call for me to answer her.
“Remember I told you I kissed some guy in the parking lot of the nursing home when I went to get Dad’s things?” I say.
She puts her hands over her mouth in a classic movie moment and sits cross-legged on the plush, mauve bathroom rug.
“Wait a minute,” she says, squinching her face. “You went to the nursing home last night? That’s really weird, Nina.”
“No.” I wave off her comment. “I ran into him at the Book Exchange downtown.”
“You did it in the bookstore?” she asks, seeming shocked but also impressed.
“No!” I shout. “Of course not.”
I put my hands back over my face. She pries them away again and raises her eyebrows for me to continue.
“Nothing like that, but we were talking and flirting on the couch like a couple of teenagers,” I say.
“He’s a lot closer to that age than you are,” she says and nudges my toes with hers.
I sigh a very guilty sigh.
“Did anyone see you?” she asks, and I can’t tell what she wants the answer to be.
“I’m pretty sure I heard a few tsk-tsks,” I say, mortified.
“Awesome,” she says. “You need to take off your Nina costume every once in a while.”
I’m not the girl who makes out with strangers. I’m not the girl who does things on a whim. I’m the grown woman who has an IRA and a 401K, a teenage child who barely speaks to me, a failed marriage, and a broken heart because life is unfair. I’m the woman who hasn’t been wanted by a man in a long time, not even her own husband, because she was too weighed down in form and purpose and failure to accept pleasure and happiness.
“So how was it?” Lola asks, oblivious to my inner anguish. “Was he a good kisser?”
“That sounds childish,” I say and wrinkle my nose.
“Still,” Lola says, excited. She moves to sit on the edge of the tub beside me. “I bet it was amazing and you felt ten years younger. No, wait, twenty years younger. Oh my, how old is this guy? I’m not going to have to bail you out of jail when his mother finds out, am I?”
I punch her arm, and we laugh.
“Shut up, Lola,” I say, trying to sound serious. “I feel awful. What could have come over me to hook up with a total stranger on the night of Dad’s funeral?”
“He’s not a total stranger,” Lola says. “He brought you an orange juice that time you spilled your coffee while you were ranting and raving about that nurse who wouldn’t listen when Dad first took that bad turn.”
“That was him?” I ask. “I forgot about that. How did you remember it?”
“I’m not a sieve,” she says. “And there was only one guy working in that department anyway. It has to be him. I can’t believe you made out with the orange juice hottie.”
“I’m glad I’m making your day.” I pretend to scowl at her.
“You always do,” she says and holds my hand. “Look, people handle grief the way they handle it.”
“I know you’re right,” I say, “but it’s just not me.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
I nod. Lola works her magic over me, telling me not to hate the part of me that has found a way to bear this for a moment.
“Don’t torture yourself over this,” she says. “There are worse things that you could have done. I’m just joking, you know. I know you aren’t the type to go home with some random guy.”
“He wasn’t that random,” I say, finding a smile. “And yes, he was a very good kisser.”
I see my guilt hovering by the toilet. I stand up and try to leave the bathroom but Lola stands up with me and holds out her arms to me. I sink into them.
“It’s ok,” she says.
“I know how Jack feels now,” I mumble into her hair.
“That’s just the guilt talking,” she says.
I look over to the toilet, but my guilt isn’t there. I pull my face out of Lola’s hair and find him standing right next to me.
“So,” Lola says, pulling back, unable to contain herself. “Is he going to ask you to the prom?”
I want to be mad at her, but it’s suddenly really funny, and when I laugh, my guilt turns into a thin mist, barely seen.
“Will Dad approve?” she asks, and we stop laughing.
“Of course not,” I say. “Dad never liked any of our boyfriends. He was right about every one of them.”
“Oh, no,” she says. “What do you think he would have said about Chris?”
“He would have ribbed you mercilessly,” I say, smoothing down her morning hair. “Then he would have told you to cut the guy some slack.”
“You think he would have liked him,” she says.
“Not that he would have told you,” I say. “But yes. Chris is good to you. And Dad would have approved.”
“Do you think you’re going to see this guy again?” she asks. “The Orange Juice Hottie?”
I shrug. I’m not really sure what last night was. It didn’t feel like a one-night stand—opportunistic and shallow and over before it gets started. This felt like a beginning—not the physical parts, but something deeper.
Lola touches the sleeve of my black dress. “You better change,” she says and winks. She runs her hands over my hair, dark, but not as deep and radiant as her own. She tries to sort me out so that I’m presentable. “You’re so cliché right now. Last night’s dress, hair a mess. This just won’t do in our movie, it’s way too predictable.”
“So what happens next?” I say.
“You change clothes and come to breakfast,” she says, hoisting herself up on the counter, thinking. She’s telling our story this time. “Mom is none the wiser. You think about Orange Juice Hottie all day. You find out his phone number, call him but hang up when he answers. Then you wander around his block until you accidently bump into him when he’s checking his mail.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t think I’m going to let you write my movie anymore.”
“Too cliché?” she asks. “Too ‘stalker in the bushes’?”
“Too desperate and sad,” I answer and hope that she’s not right.
“Anyway,” she says and opens the bathroom door. “You’ve got to see what Mom’s been setting up on the dining room table. Clean up and get down there.”
Lola leaves me in the bathroom, and I run a shower. I can still feel Oliver’s touch, and I’m afraid that the water will wash him away. I was crazy. Impulsive. Totally out of character. But Lola’s right—maybe that’s a good thing. My character is too sad right now, and I want to be someone else.
This is the part of the movie where the lead shucks off some past heartache and flies to Italy where she will start a new life and find a new man and attempt to be a better version of who she once was, only to find out, of course, that she is who she always was. But now she’s just overseas and doesn’t understand what anyone is saying. But it’s not all bad. Her new man is gorgeous, and she has all the free olives she could ever want.
I towel off and comb through my hair. In the mirror, I see my guilt floating just over my shoulder. For just a second, I see Cassie and Jack in the thick, foggy middle of the guilt. They’re talking to each other, and then they notice me and turn away.
Downstairs I see what Lola is talking about. Mom has lost her mind.
“Mom?” I ask, approaching her like she’s wearing a vest full of dynamite. “What are you doing?”
<
br /> “I’m keeping myself busy, Nina,” she says, walking around the dining room table, touching a book here and a paper craft there.
“With every hobby known to man?” I ask.
“These are all the things I wanted to try out while your father was at Elm Village,” Mom says, admiring the array. “I bought all the supplies. I just never got around to doing them.”
The table is “set” with each place setting like a display ad for a different hobby or subject of interest. Lola’s childhood place is a “How to Knit Sock Puppets” project, complete with manual, socks, buttons, and yarn. Ray’s seat is laid out with tarot cards and a Magic 8-Ball. My place holds a paint-by-numbers set and Starting Fresh: A Widow’s Guide to Second Chances, while Mom’s place at the table is covered in colored tissue paper and sports one pre-made giant tissue paper flower. Dad’s is Mummies for All Occasions: How to Make Your Own Halloween Masks.
“I’m hoping something will spark my fancy,” Mom says and picks up the paper flower to smell it. “Do you think Cassie would want to do one of these with me?”
“Mom,” I say. “It’s barely daybreak. When did you set this up?”
“Isn’t it great?” Lola says, picking up one of Dad’s brown dress socks. “Mom, let’s do the puppets first.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Mom answers my question. “I didn’t want to wake you kids up. Did I?”
Lola and I exchange a quick glance and smile.
Ray comes up from the basement den, rubbing his eyes. I get a flash of Ray as a child, back when he used to meet us in the kitchen for breakfast. Back when there was breakfast. Before Mom was forever at Lola’s side and we were left to fend for ourselves. There were also the mornings when Dad made French toast or crepes or something fantastic and elaborate to hold our attention so that we wouldn’t ask for mom and he wouldn’t have to explain that Mommy was in the bathroom and not feeling well. We knew fancy breakfast meant Mom was hungover.
“Do you miss Mom?” I had asked Ray once after the accident—after Mom flipped a switch.
“She can’t help it,” Ray had said. “She’s in a lose-lose situation.”
The Lemonade Year Page 9