Hip to Be Square

by Hope Lyda

  I sit back in the couch and give him the evil eye. I can barely get past the car comparison to our love life, but if he uses my age in a line of reasoning about life being short or the ol’ biological clock argument, he will have to reckon with my diabolical side.

  He glances at my look but doesn’t waver. “I’m a few years older. Don’t we both know by now that what-if’s make life harder, not better? I just want to move forward…with you.”

  This is the first thing that makes sense to me. Hasn’t my entire past year been about moving forward and into the life I am supposed to have? And today, walking toward the finish line and seeing Beau waiting for me was a moment I will treasure forever. But in this moment of intimate conversation with plastic utensils, all I can offer is a smile and a quick nod.

  Elmo curls up in my lap and purrs as if there is not a life-changing choice on the table. I pet him in order to avoid looking into Beau’s eyes. “I want to be someone who can move forward too.” I do. So I say it to the first person to really get me in a long time.

  I gaze into Beau’s brown eyes.

  “Mari, this is new for me too.” He looks away just for a moment, as if to gather courage. “But I want to give it a real try. This distance thing…it is too easy to make it all about convenience or a future possibility rather than a now reality. You know?”

  “I know. I just need time to think about all this.” I have to be honest. My emotions are very raw from the news of Tess’ passing. The force of my sadness causes me to stab my plastic fork into my mound of noodles. A loud snap follows.

  A quick look of disappointment passes over Beau’s face, but soon it is replaced by a look of understanding. “It’s been a hard week. Take your time. We’ll find our way, Mari. We will.” He hands me his fork.

  This is exactly what I need. An offering. A gesture. And some time to ponder this question: When one faces the fork in the road too early in a relationship, is there any hope that a single girl will reach her intended destination?

  Rubbed the Wrong Way

  She’s late,” I complain to Sophie and Halo, whom I have chosen to assist me with Wendy Skies’ intricately planned spa day.

  “It is always this way. Watch. She’ll arrive harried and blame the weather, traffic, or her horoscope for the delay.” Sophie nibbles on a pear and does a quick imitation of a harried look much to our amusement.

  “Do that again,” I say.

  “You know this is a test, don’t you?” Sophie inquires.

  “Lionel said he wouldn’t usually give someone an established client prior to the end of the probation period. I must have already passed his test.” I shrug and check my watch again. Wendy is like those irritating girls in high school who got out of gym class by feigning cramps when it was really vanity’s allergic reaction to the dismal gray gym shorts.

  Sophie reaches into a cloth backpack and pulls out her latest attempt at knitting. “No, this is Lionel’s test. He does this to everyone. But don’t worry. We are here to make sure it all goes smoothly. Meanwhile, can you fix my scarf, Chanel?”

  The knot in my stomach is as twisted as Sophie’s random rows of stitches. Of all people, why Wendy Skies? I sense this is not just a test of my professional skills but of my spiritual disciplines.

  “I choke on tests,” I say quietly. My hands repair Sophie’s project while my nerves unravel.

  “Showtime.” Halo nudges me and we all stand upright like soldiers. In unison, we flutter forward to form the welcome “v” like the one that greeted me more than half a year ago. Now I am the one who stands at the vortex and makes the initial greeting with a warm smile and the offer of all-out luxury.

  Wendy does not acknowledge my greeting, nor does she make eye contact with me. She is speaking to an imagined crowd of people beyond us. “Can you believe that today of all days my driver decides to fall and break his leg? Unbelievable. The service took half an hour to replace him.”

  “I hope he recovers quickly,” I say in response.

  “Well, it’d be too late to be helpful.” She tosses her gloves at me and accepts a water spritzer with lime and a thin, red straw. Who wears gloves in Tucson? I envision her in the LuLu’s uniform of Angelica’s prophetic vision and cannot help but laugh.

  “You think his injury is funny?” Now she looks into my eyes and pretends to have a heart. But I know that if she had a heart, she would recognize me as someone who had helped care for her father. But there is no look of recognition in her fake blue eyes, only superiority and entitlement.

  “Not at all. I just hope he has family to care for him during his recovery.” I am not off to a good start. Sophie steps in between us and presents Wendy with the schedule I created to make her day perfect.

  Like a queen before her charges, she claps her hand to initiate the start of her service for the day. Halo and Sophie both respond appropriately, reaching for Wendy’s jacket and lifting her feet one at a time to replace her Manolos with blue slippers. I stand a bit in awe of Wendy’s manner. She is an anchor in a secondary market, for pete’s sake. Where does such undeserved self-importance come from?

  “Shall we?” I motion for Wendy and her new entourage to follow me across the bubbling brook and to the “primping for exposure” side of the facilities. As if on cue an older woman with a green facial mask approaches us and makes a beeline for Wendy. I quickly check the notes on file to see if Wendy prefers us to deter or welcome fans and cannot help but roll my eyes when I read, “Wendy appreciates recognition but will not shake hands with other patrons unless she first approves. Air kisses and nods are okay if Wendy makes the gesture first. Autographs are up to the celebrity’s discretion. Our guest requests a distance of three feet be maintained between her and her fans.”

  My timing is perfect as I step up to the raccoon woman and wrap an arm around her shoulders to guide her to a spot on the carpet approximately three feet away from our star guest. Wendy cleverly places her hands behind her back away from shake range and compliments the woman on her choice of facials. The exchange is brief and kind, and the woman seems pleased.

  “Chanel, is it?” Wendy flips her hair in my direction.

  “Yes.”

  “Nice maneuver there.” I receive her nod of approval with relief. At least maybe now my job won’t be in jeopardy. From this point on the day goes smoothly. She continues to keep her hands to herself, and I keep my opinionated, internal commentary to myself.

  After lunch Lionel comes by to see how I’m treating his guest of honor. “I’ve seen your catered experience for Wendy. Very nice. Scheduling her pedicure in the pergola was a very creative touch. How did you come up with that?”

  “I read the notes in her file, and they said she likes the scent of roses. So I had the gardener relocate a potted vine from the meditation garden to the pergola.”

  “Excellent. That is what I mean by ‘experience designer.’ You are really understanding the vision I have, Chanel.”

  Getting a compliment under an assumed name doesn’t feel very genuine, but I smile with gratitude and suppress the urge to say my real name out loud ten times.

  Once again Lionel is off and moving down the main wing, straightening furniture and artwork as he makes his way to his office.

  “Chanel…do you read?” Sophie’s voice crackles through my headset.

  “Yes.” I scan the schedule and see that we are down to the final element for the day, a mud bath followed by a full-body massage. In the margin I have written that Wendy only likes a gentle surface massage because of her exceptionally tender skin. “I’ll take her to the massage with Michael.” A former piano player, Michael’s our lightest touch masseur.

  “Well, we have a bit of a problem in the mud spa. Could you come and take over? She refuses to listen to any of us.”

  “What is the problem?”

  “Other than Miss Priss? Oh, you’ll see.”

  I peer down the hall to make sure Lionel is still secured in his office and then run toward the mud spa as fast
as possible without causing alarm among the self-meditated.

  By the time I make it across the property, I am breathless and sweaty. Halo and Sophie greet me outside a private room, where I can hear Wendy spewing complaints with some very colorful words.

  “What happened?”

  Halo starts in at a pace I can barely keep up with. “Wendy had her mud bath and then we asked her to sit in the sauna to keep the mud moist, you know…the usual. Well, Ms. Skies sneaks out for a cigarette break…”

  “After Silk warned her not to go outside…” Sophie interrupts.

  Halo’s rant continues. “Well, three cigarettes later, on the veranda, in the sun…”

  “Oh, no.” I close my eyes in denial.

  “Oh, yes. She looks like a giant overbaked chocolate cookie,” Halo describes.

  Sophie laughs. “Who are you kidding? She looks like a dried cowpie.”

  “Can’t we just hose her down the way we normally would? It will just take longer.”

  “Tried that. She says it hurts. The spray pelts her, and it isn’t penetrating the clay.”

  I cannot ignore the shrill yells coming from behind the closed door any longer. “I’ll find a solution. Thanks, you two.” I step forward with a false, but necessary, air of confidence.

  As the door swings open, the cow dung image is indeed the more accurate description of our local celebrity. Wendy’s petite frame is folded over from the weight of several inches of dried mud on her skin. I want to point out to her that some cultures actually make bricks out of this very formula, but I know she is not interested in a National Geographic moment. Silk is standing in a corner, frozen with fear. The hose is still in her hands, but only a drizzle flows from the nozzle.

  “I’m here to resolve this, Wendy. Silk, you can go now. Thank you for following typical procedures. Unfortunately, our guest followed an atypical process and caused this difficulty.” I refuse to let Wendy blame Silk or Halo or Sophie or me for her mistake.

  Once Silk scurries out of the room, Wendy starts to cry. I hear sniffles, and then I see her shoulders shake beneath her crustation. I cannot help myself. I take pity. “We’ll figure out a way, Wendy.” A few heartbeats later I realize I have repeated Beau’s comforting phrase.

  “I just…I just…I wanted to relax, you know? Work has been stressful, and this weekend I walked this superhard trail all for a good cause. It was…” She goes silent while considering whether the person who just had to light up three cigarettes during her mud bath should confess to being the emcee of the breast cancer fund-raiser.

  Kindly, I confess for her. “The Tucson Trot, for breast cancer. Yes, I know. I saw you nearing the finish line. At record pace, I might add.”

  Her startling blue eyes search my face for signs of betrayal.

  “Don’t worry, Wendy. I won’t tell anyone. About the smoking or the golf cart.”

  “Oh!” She tries to flip her hair with indignation but just ends up clunking her torso against the wall.

  With a hose the size of a WaterPik and a small scrubber brush with soft bristles, I begin to move my hand in circular motion across her back. She whimpers now and then but does not complain. The slow process allows for a lot of time to meditate about life, so I decide to use this in a positive way. “You know, I wouldn’t do this for just anyone.”

  “Are you a fan?” She seems shocked, as she should be, to suggest this.

  “Yes. But not of Wendy Skies. I’m a fan of Walter Simmons. Perhaps you remember him?”

  The mud maven turns to look at me. Most of her face is visible by now and so is her surprised expression.

  “I work at Golden Horizons…used to. And Walter is one of my favorite folks. He…” My throat is tight with emotion. “He loves you, Wendy. And misses you. Do you know that he watches your show every day and won’t leave for lunch until you do that special sign-off. He thinks it is just for him…”

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry,” I wipe her skin with a warm towel.

  “It is for him. The sign-off.” Wendy takes the towel from me and wraps it around her quite clean but red shoulders as if a sudden gust of cold wind had come into the room. “My childhood…it wasn’t so great. Dad tried, but Mom was depressed and verbally abusive. As a kid I remember vowing to grow up as soon as possible and when I did,” she wipes a tear from her eyes, “I would not look back, you know?”

  “Yes, I know.” Humbled again.

  “So I climbed my way to the top…at least my version of the top, and pretty much stayed away from Mom. I wanted this new life to completely override the past. Unfortunately, that meant I didn’t see Dad, either. When Mom passed away, I placed Dad in the best facility…which you know,” Wendy gives me a quick smile. “But by then…by now…I felt so guilty about all the years he was alone with her and her illness. I really abandoned him.”

  Is this sympathy stirring in my gut? And understanding? Here I think I will shower Miss Skies with guilt and blame, and she’s been doing that to herself. What she needs is exactly what Walter needs.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Wendy. Your dad doesn’t feel the same way. He just misses you terribly.”

  “Thanks. It’s Ingrid, actually.” She smiles at me shyly and extends a polished hand to me.

  “It’s Mari, actually.” I laugh.

  “Mari, you are good at this.”

  “Really? You aren’t mad about the mud-bath-turned-terror?”

  “No. This was my fault. But what I meant was…you are good at this.” She motions the connection between us. “Why’d you leave Golden Horizons? I’ll bet my dad and the others loved you.”

  My response could get back to Lionel, but so what. We’re being honest with one another. “I’m really starting to wonder that very thing. I thought this was the good life and that was the life to leave behind. But now, I don’t know.”

  “I understand exactly.”

  And right there, in the craziest of circumstances, we come clean with each other. And though it hurt to break through our mutually hardened exteriors, we walk out of that room purified and a bit closer to truth.

  Something in Common

  I have never admitted to my friends that I lied to an old lady at church just to save face for being single. I’d be too ashamed at letting down single women everywhere. We can fib about our weight, our shoe size, and our television viewing preferences…but never about our singleness.

  So on this Sunday, even without their advice or better judgment to fall back on, I know instinctively that I need to lie again.

  But only to correct the first lie. Today I will be straightforward during the time of greeting and tell Rose Waverly that I, Mari “Chanel” Hamilton, am now a widow. My husband’s last photographic mission was, sadly, his last.

  This puts me back in the honest position of being, once again, single.

  For a moment I am unable to spot Rose. She has placed herself at the very far east end of the pew. There is still a large space about her, so I manage to make it there in time to prepare for my lie that will free me from past indiscretions.

  “Please greet one another with the peace of the Lord.”

  On this far end of the seating arrangements, there are not many fellow worshipers to greet, so Rose and I face each other immediately.

  “Hello…dear. I guess it’s just us over here. I wanted to be able to get out if I didn’t feel well. I haven’t been doing so good lately.”

  Rose’s eyes seem to wander about me rather than focus on my face. I’m second-guessing my plan. But I have to make it right.

  “How is your husband?”

  Okay, now we are back on schedule. “I wanted to tell you that…” I face this woman who, from the side reminds me a bit of Tess. Maybe because of this or because of my honesty exfoliation with Ingrid, I know what I need to say. “Rose, I lied before. I don’t have a husband. I’m single. I always have been. I always…well, actually…” I realize that I do have a new story to tell my pew-sharer. “I am seeing a v
ery nice guy. His name is Beau. He’s really quite kind and amazingly he puts up with my very strange behavior. Speaking of which, I’m sorry about making up the photographer husband. I just got tired of saying I’m alone.” I stop to take a breath.

  Rose reaches out to my hand and holds it for the briefest moment. “I’m getting tired of being alone too, my dear.”

  Bordering on Crazy

  In my dream I answer the phone late at night, my mind foggy with sleep. I expect to hear someone I know on the other end, but a man is yelling at me in Spanish. I can only guess at the meaning of a few words, but the tone of a stern and likely stout person is unmistakable. He is saying that I am in trouble. I hang up, slightly aware that perhaps the oddballs with flowers have found a way to hack into my dreams.

  By the time the phone rings again, I have removed the pillow from over my head and slouched in a fetal position toward the nightstand. My close proximity turns the average ring tone into a shrill siren. I do not mistake this round for a dream. I push the night mask up with the back of my left hand, which is tingling with sleep, and grab the receiver.

  “Hello?” I look at my alarm clock and see that it is 1:30 in the morning on a weeknight. I want to make sure my caller is aware of this fact, but he is focused on his message.

  “Señora Hamilton? Don’t hang up. We need to talk. We have Kate…no, excuse me, Señora, we have Señorita Caitlin.”

  I lean up on my elbow. My heart pounds and the web between my thumb and finger pulses with the force of adrenaline. Have I read anything about hostage situations lately?

  “Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her,” I say while my mind is praying a big ol’ SOS prayer. Please, let her be okay. I’ll do anything. Anything. With a voice that does not even sound familiar I speak with conviction. “I’ll call everyone I know to gather ransom money. I’ll get a nondescript vehicle and refuse to have police follow me to the drop-off. I’ll take my night mask and go in to the hideout blindfolded so that I cannot recount the location to anyone, not even if I wanted to. I’ll…”