by Shannon Hale
“She called again yesterday. She wanted to apologize. She said she understood that I would be angry, and if I threw out her clothing, that I would be justified, but please be kind to the necklace on her dresser with the golden flower pendant. It had been her grandmother’s.” He paused for so long Becky wondered if he’d forgotten he’d been talking.
“The flower pendant?” she asked, prodding him.
“I ate it.”
She gulped. He almost smiled.
“I put it in her closet. I’m not to the anger stage. Yet. I am still stupefied. She said she’d like me to meet him. Alfredo. Isn’t that a kind of a sauce? She wants us to have dinner. She wants to bring him, Alfredo, to New York. The man, not the sauce. She’d like for the three of us to have dinner in New York—Celeste and I, and Alfredo. The Speedo-wearing drip of an Italian musician. Having dinner. She said she thinks we’d get along. Me and Alfredo. Alfredo and I.”
That was when Becky nestled in beside him following her instinct to comfort. She put her arm around his shoulders, drew his head onto her shoulder, rubbed his arm, kissed his forehead, as she would have cuddled Sam after a fall off his bike. At least, she thought that’s what she was doing. Looking back, she wondered if her motherly touch had felt very different to the heartsick Felix.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.
He held her hand. And they sat like that for a bit, snuggled in next to each other, holding hands. His warmth began to mingle with hers until she no longer felt chilly in that unheated apartment. She could smell the soap he’d used—it reminded her of hotel soap. She wondered if that was what he was using, soap picked up at hotels, and that thought made her sad. She was mentally planning a shopping list of things she’d get for him during her stay when something happened.
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. Then he kissed it again. He closed his eyes, he turned her hand over, and his lips lingered on her palm, kissing slowly. She stared at him, a shock of cold running through her. He was running her fingers across his lips. His lips parted. His breath was warm and hinted that he was just beginning, and she imagined him kissing her fingers again, sucking her fingertips, moving to her wrist, her neck . . .
She gently pulled her hand away and set it on her lap, leaning slightly away from him. His eyes were still closed, but his brow furrowed.
“The music stopped,” she said casually. “I’ll put on something else.”
She gave his shoulder a friendly, casual rub as she stood and went to the CD shelf, looking for something upbeat and unromantic. She thought Smash Mouth should do the trick. Then she went to the kitchen, calling back to see if he wanted something to drink.
“I’m good,” he answered, his voice raspy.
Out of sight, she leaned against the fridge, pressing her hand to her pounding heart, and tried to breathe slowly. Her hand still tingled.
What had just happened? What did it mean? What should she do now?
Smash Mouth sang out some advice. None of it was relevant.
The best thing was to pretend it hadn’t happened. He’d been drinking, she thought. She wasn’t a good judge of how drunk a person was or how clearly they could think and remember things. So she decided to believe that he hadn’t been really aware, that he would forget about it soon, that it was harmless and meaningless. He was sad, he was achingly lonely, he’d reached out to her for affection and hadn’t realized that he’d crossed a line. Their friendship would remain unscathed.
“Good,” she whispered to herself. “Fine. Good. No problem. Everything’s okay.”
She poured herself some water, and when she came back, Felix was filling another glass of whiskey. He glanced up and smiled. It was a passionless smile, a pleasant smile, a Hey-there-glad-to-see-ya! smile. She let out a relieved breath.
“So I was considering,” he said, staring at his drink, swishing the liquor around in the glass just enough that it would graze the glass rim without splashing out—a practiced gesture. “What do you say we go out for dinner?”
“Yeah? Would that be good for you? Absolutely. Let’s blow this depressing park-view high-rise luxury apartment, get out there and paint the town a reddish-orange.”
“Persimmon?”
“I’d imagined more of a burnt sienna.”
They went into separate bedrooms to get changed. Happily she’d packed a prettyish summer dress, with big yellow flowers, short sleeves, the hem just below her knees. It’d been warm spring weather in Utah, but New York was breezier and her dress not quite right. So she stuck a white cardigan over it. She tried not to look at herself too closely in the mirror as she put on makeup. She’d been on the red-eye after all, hadn’t showered that day, and wasn’t feeling particularly ravishing. But it didn’t matter, because she was with Felix, her best friend. It just didn’t matter.
They both came back to the sitting room at the same time, and when she saw him, she nearly gasped. He looked devastating.
“New rags?” she asked.
“Going-about-town garb.” His modern-art hairdo was now a naughty-boy kind of messy. He was in one of those black suits that had something different about it, something her untrained eye couldn’t specifically define but that let her know this was not an off-the-rack number. His shirt was blue, open two buttons from the top, no undershirt, no tie.
“All that ensemble needs is a liver pendant on a manly leather cord,” she said.
He smiled. Things might be turning around. They took a cab to an Indian restaurant in midtown and had an uneventful dinner despite two autograph seekers. Felix dismissed them without insult.
On the cab ride home, Felix gave the driver a different address.
“It’s a little club I’ve wanted to see,” Felix explained. “We can go hear some music, sit in the semidark, you can nurse a Shirley Temple. Doesn’t that sound brilliant?”
No, not really, she thought. Her limbs were already feeling waterlogged with sleepiness. But Becky didn’t argue. He needed distraction, she reasoned.
There was a line of beautiful people waiting around the block. They all looked younger than twenty-five. And the women were dressed as if it were high noon in July. Felix paid the cab driver and got out.
“You don’t want to wait in a line, do you?” she asked.
Felix laughed at her. She’d heard that laugh out of him before, directed at people he thought were stupid. He’d never laughed at her that way. She took a step back.
Felix was shaking the muscled doorman’s hand and whispering something in his ear. He opened the door. Felix motioned to Becky and disappeared. Becky nearly didn’t follow until he reached back and took her arm.
The lights were dim and bright at once, the music scorching. Becky tried to recall the time in her life when this atmosphere had been heart-pounding exciting. When noise had made her feel more alive, not tired and old.
“This will be good for you?” she half-yelled to Felix.
He smiled his knowing smile.
The hostess gave him a round booth near the stage, where a band made up of various electric instruments, brass horns, and tribal drums were insisting a song. Drinks magically appeared before them. Becky’s looked suspicious, pale yellow and heavier than juice, so she didn’t touch it.
Felix was staring at the band, his thumb keeping time on his glass. Honestly, she didn’t know how he found any rhythm. When had she gotten so old that contemporary music became a foreign language? And how did Felix manage to slip into a younger culture so easily?
“You’re amazing,” she said. “You fit in anywhere.”
He nodded, but she realized it was in response to the beat, not to her.
So they sat quietly inside that can of clamor, Felix’s eyes scanning the band, the room, the women who would pass by. She’d never seen Felix look over women like that, at their bodies without shame. It made her frown. But he was having a hard time, she reasoned. He had cause. She waved down their waitress and asked for a mineral water, then stared into
it, counting bubbles.
He turned to her for the first time since they’d come in. “Do you want to dance?”
“Dance?”
True, there were some people sliding and bumping in a mysterious fashion on the dance floor, but their movements were as puzzling to Becky as the melody of the song. She was relieved none of her kids were there to see her, awkward and old in her flowered sundress, or any coolness she’d gained from being in the movie would be flattened.
“Truthfully, I’m bushed, but if you want—”
“Excuse me.” A perky blonde no more than twenty stopped at their table. She leaned over so Felix could hear her, and the neck of her dress gaped, opening a tunnel view to her navel. “Are you that actor?”
“Felix Callahan,” said her redheaded friend. “He’s Felix Callahan.”
“Have a seat.” He stepped out of the booth, gesturing the blonde one in. He had on his suave smile. “I want one of you on each side, if you don’t mind. I’m feeling a bit chilly.”
They didn’t mind at all. They sat on each side. The blonde bumped into Becky, forcing her to slide to the end of the booth.
At first Becky smiled politely and tried to contribute to the conversation. Before long she was back to counting bubbles.
“Do you dance?” the redhead asked. “Let’s see if you can shake the British right out of you.”
Becky played with her straw and watched Felix shake out his Britishness, never spilling the drink he balanced in one hand. The girls slid up against him.
He needs this, she told herself. This is his way to relax, to forget. He needs to have fun, let go, feel attractive again.
She did a good job of convincing herself for an hour or two. But it kept getting later. The waitress gave her hot glares when she wouldn’t order any more drinks. One o’clock in the morning and still the club seemed to have no intention of closing. Becky pulled her heels onto the bench, held her knees to her chest, and rested her head. The glaring lights and glaring waitress were hurting her eyes.
I’m ugly here, she found herself thinking more and more the later it got. I feel so ugly, so soul ugly, so fat-pants-and-dirty-hair ugly, so washed-out, wilted-mushroom, discarded-wrapper ugly.
She wanted Mike. She wanted to be home, Sam snuggled up on her lap, Mike bringing her a doughnut, Fiona playing a hymn on the piano. Bedtime at ten P.M. Flannel pajamas. Her down pillow wafting fabric softener. Home. For a pair of ruby slippers to click together. For a hot-air balloon headed west. For even a cell phone. She really needed to invest in a cell phone.
She put her head on the table and closed her eyes. Despite the music, there were moments when she dipped briefly into sleep. It was like dozing with a dog standing on the bed, barking an inch from her face.
Three A.M. and Felix was sitting at the bar with an entourage of young ladies. He had another drink. He was smiling at a blonde, his hand on her knee.
What about Celeste? Becky couldn’t help thinking. How could Felix and Celeste be over? This is wrong, wrong, wrong!
She hated seeing him there with other women, his eyes spilling over their draping tops, his hands finding reasons to touch their shoulders, their waists, their hips. It was a Felix she’d never seen before. Her stomach sickened, and she felt crazy desperate to have her friend back. If he turned just a sliver, he would make eye contact with Becky. She stared, willing him to look at her, wishing it. Praying.
He didn’t look.
Exhaustion and alienation were making her feel wobbly and confused. She didn’t have a key to Felix’s apartment and didn’t remember the address anyway. Her address book was back at his place with her luggage. She trolled through her wallet, counting twenty-two dollars in cash.
There was a line of taxis waiting outside the club. She leaned into the window of the first one.
“Would twenty-two dollars be enough to get me to a hotel near JFK?”
”The driver rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “I can take credit cards, lady. You have a credit card?”
She got in. “A chain hotel, if you please. Something clean and safe but not too much money, okay?”
The driver rolled his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “And here I took you for the Ritz-Carlton type.”
He peeled out. Becky looked through the back window just in case. Felix didn’t emerge.
Forty-five minutes later, Becky was sitting on a droopy-flowers bedspread at a Howard Johnson. The room was cold. She didn’t have any pajamas or change of clothes or toothbrush. She stared at the mottled wallpaper, not moving for some time. Then she started to cry.
Kicking off her shoes, she crawled under the sheets and called home.
“Hello?” a sleepy Mike asked.
“Hi honey.”
“Bec, you’re crying. Oh baby, what happened?”
“Nothing. I just—I miss you. I love you. I don’t want to be away from you anymore.”
“Come home, honey.”
“I will. Tomorrow. I’m sorry about the money I spent on this trip. I know I’ve put a real dent in our plans to take the kids to Oregon this summer. I was impetuous. It was wrong.”
“You were helping a friend. You were being Becky. You did just what you had to do.”
“Okay” was all she could say because she’d started crying again.
“What happened? Did Felix do something?”
“Not really. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ll tell you tomorrow—I don’t want to cry anymore to night.”
“I think I had news for you . . .” Mike said, as if he wanted to distract her. “Oh yeah, Sam lost a tooth. He tugged and tugged at it all day, he was so set to get that sucker under his pillow by bedtime. I’ve never seen him more determined.”
Becky laughed quietly. It was happy news. Sam had just begun losing baby teeth while Hyrum famously lost his first at age five. Sam didn’t like feeling like a baby. He’d potty-trained himself at two and a half after Hyrum had said, “Baby Sammy poops his baby pants.” He’d taken off his diaper, emptied all the new diapers in his room into the kitchen trash, and never worn one again.
“What did the tooth fairy bring him?”
“A Susan B. Anthony dollar.”
“Oh, he’ll be so happy. He thinks she’s a good-hearted witch who grants wishes.”
“I thought we could take him to the dollar store, let him spend it.”
“I’ll fly home in the morning. Do you think you could get off work early, pick me up at the airport?”
“You bet. You’re due a foot massage, by the way.”
She sighed. “I love you, Mike. I’ll call you in the morning with the flight details and the Felix details. None of it really matters. I’m just happy that I’ll see you soon.”
“Me too. I love you.”
“Good night.” She hung up the phone without lingering, because she knew the hotel was going to charge her brutally for the call.
Now she could curl up. Now she could shut her eyes and find some comfort in the pillow. Mike’s voice stayed with her as she fell asleep.
In which Becky stews, boils, and bakes
While she was in the air, Felix called Mike.
“He asked if I knew where you were,” Mike reported as he drove Becky home from the airport. “I said you were flying home. He said he was glad you were okay. That he’d send your things back. That he was sorry he hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye.”
“ ‘Had n’t had a chance’ . . .” she muttered under her breath. “What else?”
“That was all.” Mike paused. She could tell that he was considering whether or not to tell her the rest. “I heard a woman’s voice in the background and he said he had to go. He said, ‘See you round.’ ”
“ ‘See you round.’ ”
“Yep.”
“You wanted to tell him off , didn’t you?” she asked.
“Of course I did! He abandoned you. He was acting like a complete putz.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
“But his voice was kind of pathetic,” said Mike. “I guess he’s not himself right now.”
“No, he’s not.” She gave Mike a weak smile. “I need a bath.”
“You really do. I can smell you.”
“Hey! I’ve had a rough couple of days!”
“You still smell.”
For several days, Becky was good about the whole situation. Poor Felix, she said to herself. He’d never have done that to me if he’d been in his right mind. This is incredibly stressful for him. He feels so lonely.
Then her overnight bag arrived on the doorstep—a week later. She’d figured it was lost or something, but no, Felix had actually sent it third class. And she found herself thinking, He makes several million dollars each picture, and he couldn’t overnight it?
He didn’t call. And he didn’t call.
A woman’s voice in the background, she thought.
Perhaps he’d gone home with the blonde. Or the redhead. (Or both?) So, he had escaped into a stranger’s embrace. He’d been lonely, devastated, he needed that comfort. She had no right to expect him to live by the same morals she believed in.
But the thought of it began to irritate her, like an itch at the back of her eyeballs.
At first she didn’t say a word about her internal rumblings to Mike. She was going to be good; she was going to let it roll off her. And she managed to stick to that oath of silence for two whole weeks, while the idea of those voluptuous girls fermented inside her, until she broke down and declared, “You should’ve seen them, Mike. What are girls like that doing in a club? Don’t they have better things to do? Shouldn’t they be in college at that age and home studying?”
Mike shrugged. “We used to go dancing in college.”
That wasn’t the response she’d been hoping for. So she brought it up again later from a slightly different angle.
“He’s forty-four years old, Mike. Why would young girls go after a man that old? Don’t they have friends their own age? There’s something wrong with a twenty-year-old who can’t find dates her own age. Maybe something certifiably wrong.”
