Does everybody have a god of second chances, and will I know mine if he comes?
—Jenny
I don’t think I should have let Roberta, back from San Francisco and full of sass and vinegar, talk me into giving a dinner party just because she thought it would do me good. Now Max is standing in Gloria’s front door with a bouquet of wilting daisies.
What would do me good is to slam the door in poor Max’s face and run as fast as I can. Get out of this blue dress that shows off my newly tanned legs and act like a woman with no place to go and no idea of what she’s going to do next. A woman who needs to sit down and make a few plans.
“Come in, Max,” is what I say, and he marches in like a man who has a few plans of his own that might involve delivering more than flowers.
Did I also say that before I saw him I was thinking about that, too? A lot. A woman deprived will get all sorts of crazy ideas in her head, including whether the rest of Max is as wilted as his daisies.
Why doesn’t Rick know this? And why is he sitting out there in Mooreville without so much as picking up the phone to ask if I’m okay? I haven’t heard from him since Angie got home. A whole week ago.
“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Wine?”
Max says, “Wine,” so I race off to the kitchen, grateful to have something to do. He’s sitting on one end of the sofa looking hopeful, and I don’t think I can deal with his expectations.
Instead I deliver the wine, then deliberately sit in a chair across the room.
“How are you, Max?”
“Fine. And you?”
“Great.”
“That’s nice.”
“How was the drive over?”
“Good.”
“Great.”
Oh lord. I swig wine as if it’s an artesian well and I’ve just emerged from the parched desert. Max crosses his right leg over his left, twists his mustache, then switches legs, left over right.
I dangle my shoe from the end of my foot and slug back wine, hoping for quick oblivion.
What’s keeping Roberta and Hubert? Clearly Max and I aren’t going to be an item. We can’t even carry on a conversation. Things seemed different when we were in the Magic Castle, more hopeful, more exciting, more…I don’t know…everything. Maybe that’s the only place you can find magic, but I don’t think so. I hope not.
When the doorbell rings, I hurry to the front door feeling rescued. Roberta will do all the talking, and I’ll be off the hook. I can sit quietly and wait for the evening to end.
Putting on my biggest smile, I swing the door open saying, “At last!”
There stands my over-the-moon gorgeous husband. Still wearing his ring, thank goodness.
And smiling right back at me.
“How did you know I was coming? I wanted to surprise you.”
“You did.”
And, boy, do I have a surprise for him. My smile wobbles.
“But you’re all dressed up.” Rick peers behind me, then marches right in and spots Max, who would have been invisible if he’d just kept his seat. But no, he had to jump up like some besotted fool before I could think how to explain him.
“I see,” Rick says.
What he sees is my poor hapless would-be suitor wearing a foolish grin and keeping a choke grip on the already beleaguered daisies. What I see is a big mess. The frozen tundra would be cozier than this room with this threesome.
Rick is sizing up Max with a look that forbodes annihilation. Which could include me.
“Here.” I hurry over and pry the flowers out of Max’s sweaty grip. “Let me put these in water.”
It’s called quitting the field of battle. Or cowardice. Whichever way you want to look at it.
I dawdle over finding the vase, let the water overrun the rim three times, then finally plop the poor gasping daisies in. I imagine them breathing a sigh of relief, saying to each other Thank goodness, we thought we were going to have to call 9ll.
Maybe that’s what I ought to do. Call right before the bloodletting so the stretcher is already handy.
“Jenny?”
Rick’s in the doorway, and I jump as though I’ve been shot. Or am guilty. Which I am. Although I can’t quit figure out why.
“Yes?” I try for perky and fail.
“If you think I’m leaving just because your lover is sitting there, you’re mistaken.”
“He’s not my lover.”
Rick just looks at the flowers and walks out of the kitchen. I wish I’d never put them in water. I wish I’d dumped them in the garbage can and that I’d been in the midst of the crime—killing poor innocent daisies—when Rick walked in.
I wish I’d thrown them into the sink, grabbed my husband and laid a great big smooch on him that would have made him forget the many small wounds we’ve inflicted on each other. I wish I could have made him forget everything except the relief of being back with me.
Oh, I excel at hindsight.
Of course, what would I have done if he’d forgiven the past? Gone back to being the same tired woman in the same stultifying routine?
The doorbell pings again—oh, thank God!— and I run to the door and cast myself on Roberta’s mercy.
“Rick’s here and he and Max are already in a pissing contest.”
“Good. Bring on the wine.” She breezes past, leaving poor Hubert to trail along in her wake. “So there you are,” she yells at my husband. “Jenny’s long-absent hunk.”
She tugs Rick to the sofa where she plops down beside him and puts her hand on his knee. I don’t see the rest because I’ve seen Rick’s face, and that’s enough. He looks exactly the way he does when Godzilla gets on his last nerve and he’s getting ready to tell her to butt out of his business. Only not in those nice words.
Hiding once more in the kitchen, I dither over the wineglasses, the carafe, the tray. Even the placement of the pink mandevilla I brought into the house earlier and forgot to carry into the living room.
Then I remember that I chucked everything that was familiar and secure and climbed into a Ferrari bound for Hollywood. And if all that was for nothing, I might as well have stayed home.
I should just climb in the garbage can, pull the daisies in behind me and tack an epitaph to the lid: Here lies Jenny, who never learned how to be a goddess but who made compounding mistakes into an art.
This could be my last chance to change my epitaph.
The woman who walks back into the den is not the same woman who scuttled out of it. Swishing my skirts, I priss right back in there and pass the wine with a steady hand and a firm smile, even though Rick’s sizing me up.
You know how the back of your neck tingles when somebody you love is staring at you? How the hairs on your arms stand on end and you get goosebumps all over? Well, that’s me, right this very minute.
And I think it’s a good sign. It gives me courage to pull my chair close to Rick, put my hand on his knee and smile at him.
“I’m glad you came,” I tell him, then I add, “honey,” for good measure.
The rest of the evening is pleasant enough, with all of us making small talk, and Max even doing a few magic tricks, though nothing that involves me. Instead he pulls his scarves from Roberta’s ears, his coins from Hubert’s, his cards from his own seemingly bare hands.
I believe the reason we carry on like civilized adults is that one little word. Honey. Said as if I mean it.
Which I do.
After all the guests have gone, Rick and I go into the kitchen to clean up the last of the dishes. This is a familiar routine for us, one we do in comfortable silence. When the dishwasher is loaded, I untie Gloria’s apron and move within touching distance of Rick.
“Did you bring your clothes?”
“They’re in the car. But I booked a motel. Just in case.”
“You don’t need it.” I wait for him to say something, anything, but he’s the Sphinx and I’m a basket case. “Gloria has plenty of rooms.”
The separate-bed issue drives us back to our corners, mine by the sink, Rick’s by the table.
“Jenny? I’m sorry about overreacting earlier.”
“I understand. I did the same thing about the pink note.”
“Can we put it behind us?”
“I don’t know, Rick. Can we?”
“I’d like to think so.”
He still hasn’t touched me. I’m standing here with my arms wrapped around myself, hoping he will. And hoping he won’t. Not yet, at least. I want to get some things straightened out first.
If he so much as puts a hand on my cheek, I’m a goner. Rick’s like a food allergy. You know your feet are going to swell and your arms will itch even before you take the first bite, but you take it anyway because the dish is so delicious you can’t resist. That’s me with Rick. Only the symptoms are different.
“What are we going to do?” I ask him.
“I’d like you to come home with me. I was hoping you would.”
“It can’t be the same. I can’t go back to Mooreville and just start making pies.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were tired of making pies?”
“It’s more than that. I just got tired of everything.”
Rick gets a bit ruffled at that, but I’ll have to give him credit, he’s trying hard not to show it, not to fall back into that old pattern where we always ended up in the same bed with our backs to each other, making sure our legs didn’t touch.
“Look, Rick. I’m not blaming you.”
“Does there have to be blame here, Jenny? I’ve had a few weeks to think about this.”
Meaning, while he was home alone and I was in Hollywood flirting with a magician. But then, that’s the kind of thinking that got me here in the first place.
“So have I, Rick. What I meant to say is, there are no good guys and bad guys in this relationship. We just sort of drifted away from each other and got lost in our separate routines.” I pour myself a glass of water. Hand him one. “I guess most couples do.”
“I guess.”
He glances at the clock. It’s the witching hour, when Cinderella loses her glass slipper and the coach turns into a pumpkin and deep conversations can turn productive or nasty, depending on how long you talk and who’s the most persuasive and whose mood takes a nosedive.
“It’s getting late.”
Rick is always the one to point out the obvious. But he’s also the one to see the hidden traps, the gopher holes just under the surface when I didn’t even know we had gophers. So when he says, “We can talk about this in the morning,” I simply say, “Okay.”
He gets his clothes out of the rental car, then I show him the room down the hall.
“This was Angie’s. She loved it.” I’m bustling around, pointing out clean towels and the robe hanging on the bathroom door, turning down the sheets, keeping busy, trying to hide my flushed face and my disappointment.
I know. I know. I’m silly. Reason tells me we’re doing the sensible thing, but my heart is a stubborn old fool. It wants violins and moonlight, mad embraces, sweaty bodies. Declarations.
Oh lord, most of all it wants I love you.
“The room’s fine.” He slips off his tie, tosses it on the bed.
“Well, goodnight, Rick.”
“Goodnight, Jenny.”
Later, lying in bed I think about his tie. Red with navy stripes. I gave it to him last Christmas. “For special occasions,” I told him because he hardly ever wears a tie. He hardly ever has a need. Weddings. Funerals. An occasional banquet where they honor the volunteer fireman of the year. He never even wears his tie on Sundays. We’re casual in our little country church.
And yet…he wore it for me. I was his special occasion.
“Jenny?”
I didn’t hear him come in, can barely see him in this ultra-dark room where the draperies are so thick and well-fitted hardly a sliver of moonlight seeps through. But I can smell him, the heady combination of sun and fresh air with just a touch of Old Spice.
I love that about Rick. That’s he’s not a Bulgari man. That in spite of his looks he has no conceits, no bloated ego.
I don’t say anything, just pull back the covers and feel my husband slide in beside me. Without a word, we turn to each other, and I could swear to you the years fall away and we’re once again the teenagers who fell in love and dreamed of living the rest of our lives together in the same beloved place where we grew up.
Afterward, when we hold each other close, I have that same dream. I hope Rick does, too.
Before I fall asleep, I promise myself we’ll talk about it tomorrow. We’ll talk about everything tomorrow.