The Life You've Imagined

by Kristina Riggle

  I step forward into Beck’s embrace, and it’s not as tight as it would’ve been in our huggy-kissy teenage days, but it’s comfortable all the same. “Good to see you in something other than digital form,” I tell him.

  He sets me at arm’s length and smiles big enough that I can see his front teeth aren’t crooked anymore; he must have fixed them with all that Becker money. His hair is higher up his scalp but still all in sandy curls that never stay combed right. My hand wants to reach up and brush that one curl back in place. His face crinkles up more when he smiles.

  I’m sure I look different to him, too.

  “Yeah, e-mails aren’t quite the same as living color,” he says. “You look wonderful.”

  “Well, thank you, I –”

  “Will.” A tiny brunette has appeared seemingly from nowhere. “Maddie’s tired. We ought to be getting home.”

  Beck clears his throat. “Sam, this is my old friend Anna Geneva. Anna, this is my wife, Samantha.”

  “How do you do?” I say. I start to extend my hand, but Samantha has already nodded and turned away from me, so I take my outstretched hand up and fiddle with a curl, as if I’d intended to do that all along.

  “Will, we need to go. She’s falling asleep on Aunt Tabi.”

  “I thought I might stay a while, do some catching up.”

  “She likes to have you read her a story.”

  “If she’s that tired, she won’t even notice I’m not there.”

  “She hates breaks in her routine.” Samantha has folded her arms and gone all taut. The elder Beckers and I now pretend to be invisible and deaf, looking at the grass, the lake, anywhere but at the young couple or each other’s eyes.

  After a long moment, Beck says, “I guess I’d better go. Catch you later, Mom and Dad. Anna?”

  I come back to life again, looking at him directly and avoiding Samantha’s face.

  He says, “It was good to see you. Maybe I’ll . . . Anyway. Bye.”

  Samantha leads the way across the grass and Beck follows with his hands in his pockets.

  Mrs. Becker twirls her wedding ring, watching them go.

  “So,” I say brightly. “How nice about Amy and Paul.”

  “Yes,” William Becker Sr. says. “We’re pleased to welcome her into the family. Too bad we couldn’t have had you, too.” He leans in to take my elbow and peck me on the cheek, and then he’s off across the lawn, his own wife in tow.

  I glimpse Cami striding toward me across the grass, waving one long arm and balancing a huge plate of food on the other, but I turn my gaze back to the retreating form of Mr. Becker. Too bad we couldn’t have had you, too? What an odd thing to say to your married son’s old high school love.

  Chapter 8

  Maeve

  Without Anna here, the store rings with silence. Even the customers talk less when there’s only me here. Funny, she’s only been home a week and already I’m used to her presence again. And now that Cami comes in, too, picking up her old job as if she’d only taken a few days off, the Nee Nance Store is feeling more like home than it has in years.

  Just as I’m about to lose it.

  When Randy finally finishes scratching off his instant ticket—leaving the discarded cardboard and silver scrapings all over the counter, the dust of his irrational hope—I am truly alone in the store.

  I finally get to read Robert’s letter. I promised Anna I wouldn’t respond; I never said I wouldn’t read it.

  Oh Maeve, my dearest Maeve Callahan, I’ve missed you and couldn’t wait for you to write again. I just had to tell you something exciting. You know Charley? I mentioned him in the last letter? Turns out he’s got some property up north in Michigan! We worked out a deal, and get this, sweetness—at last I’m going to build you that house. Can you believe it? The one I always promised you?

  We’re going to be coming up in August to check things out up there, and I hope you’ll agree to meet me then. I know I have a lot to say, a lot to make up for, and we’ll talk about it, I promise.

  I’m a new man, finally deserving of you.

  Write me back at the Tennessee address, I’ll be there a couple more weeks.

  With great love from your wayword and repenance Robert.

  I smile sadly at his mangled grammar and fold the letter back up, carefully slipping it back into the envelope

  He’ll build me a house at last, he says. I tip my head back on that old office chair and remember all the times he used to talk about it. He even used to sketch it, back when we lived in the bottom floor of that dodgy rental, when Anna was still drooling and gumming her pacifier.

  I can hear him now.

  “Baby,” he would say, “look at this. Would you like a picket fence?”

  I’d just gotten back into the kitchen from placing a drowsy Anna in her crib, having tiptoed down the short hallway for fear of waking her.

  I smiled at his drawing. “Why would we need a picket fence in the woods?” I kissed the top of his head, which smelled like tobacco.

  “Because picket fences are things husbands are supposed to build for wives.”

  He started sketching in the little picket points.

  I heard a soft knock on the door. “Must be Veronica. She’s coming to show off her engagement ring,” I told him, squeezing his shoulder. “Why don’t you just build me a nice gazebo? Put a hot tub in it and I’m yours forever.”

  “You better be mine forever, Maeve Callahan.”

  Veronica plunged into the house, left hand out first, almost like she was punching me. I chuckled and admired her ring and told her to keep her voice down so she didn’t wake Anna. We girls had white zinfandel and Robert cracked another beer and we sat in the kitchen, listening to her extol the virtues of her fiancé, Grant. His dad ran a huge boat dealership and repair service that he would take over someday, and his family had not only a cottage in Spring Lake and a house in Haven to be near the business but a loft in Grand Rapids, too . . .

  After a while, our smiles froze on our faces. Veronica seemed to forget we were even there, and by the time she left, I was giddy with suffocated giggles because every time she’d turned her head, Robert had pulled a face or kicked me under the table.

  When we locked the door behind her, Robert said, “What’s up with that broad?”

  “Oh, stop. She’s happy to be engaged, is all.”

  “She’s happier about that rock, I think. I’m surprised she remembers the guy’s name.” Robert circled my waist from behind me, squeezing lightly, resting his chin on my shoulder.

  “She’s not that bad.” We’d been friends since middle school, back when we were both new kids in school and neither of us had any money. Why shouldn’t she be a little extra giddy because she wouldn’t have to scrimp?

  I couldn’t say that to Robert, though. He’d take it personally and probably pop open another beer or three and be all fuzzy in the morning.

  Robert brushed my neck with his lips and murmured, “Would you love me more if you had a big diamond?”

  I turned in the circle of his arms to face him. “Oh, honey, you know size doesn’t matter.”

  Robert looked blank for a flash before he got the joke. Then he laughed and silenced his own laugh by kissing me hard on the mouth right there, the porch light splashing onto us through the small windows in the front door. I fumbled for the off switch and we fell into darkness.

  “I’ll teach you to joke with me when I’m horny,” he whispered, and scooped me up caveman style. We fumbled down the hall like that, taking care not to bang into walls or giggle too loudly, lest we wake the baby.

  The clanging phone makes me jump half out of my skin.

  “Nee Nance Store,” I mumble. “Yes, we’re open until ten tonight. Yep, bye.”

  The Nee Nance was supposed to be temporary. Just something to tide us over until we saved up enough to buy some property. What savings, to live and work in the same place! The landlord cut us such a sweet deal on the rent we couldn’t refuse. We named
it Nee Nance Store after Anna’s baby-talk attempt to say “convenience store.” She learned to walk cruising the shelves in the candy aisle.

  If I’d had any idea that the scrubby grass in the front yard of that old crummy rental house would be the last chance I had at a real lawn, I would have put my foot down about moving here to begin with.

  I finger the edges of Robert’s letter. Maybe it wasn’t my last chance after all.

  I slip the letter back in my pocket when the jingle bells on the front door ring. It’s Sally. Today she’s changed wigs, wearing a bright red eighties-era Reba McEntire number.

  “Hey, doll,” she croaks. “What’s shaking?”

  A headache has begun to grind away behind my eyes, but I only now notice it, with Sally’s arrival. I fish under the counter for my bottle of Excedrin.

  “Nothing, Sal. Need some smokes?”

  “Nope, just loaded up at the grocery store. Just feeling like some company.”

  Business seems slow for a bright Saturday, when people ought to be coming in for their chips and drinks and ice cream treats. So I don’t argue when Sally pulls out some cards and starts shuffling.

  She deals seven cards each for gin rummy and I keep track of our scores on the tail end of a nearly-used-up receipt tape roll. We break for the occasional customer, and then we get a rush of sorts, five people in the store at once, stocking for a party apparently, as they’ve got me fetching liquor bottles by the armful.

  I hope they’re not driving after this party of theirs.

  When I turn back to her, Sally is staring so hard at her cards, she might be trying to set them on fire with her eyes.

  “Your turn, Sal. Sorry that took so long. Can’t stand in the way of a good Saturday drunk.”

  She doesn’t respond and continues staring.

  “Sal? You okay?”

  “Huh,” she replies, still staring. “It’s the damnedest thing. I kind of forgot what I’m doing.”

  “We’re playing cards, goofy. Did you forget what cards you were trying to collect? You’ve been picking up every three, and lots of diamonds, too.”

  Sally drops the cards right out of her hands, spilling them like drinks off a tray. She pats herself and the counter, frantically. “Where are my keys? I just remembered, I’ve gotta go, sister dear. Gotta . . . I’ve gotta go. Catch you on the flip side.”

  She snatches her keys and is around the counter with surprising quickness.

  “Sally? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, doll,” she calls out with a wave and a jaunty wink through the hairs of her outrageous wig. “Just heading home, is all. See ya.”

  I bend down to pick up the cards, and that’s when I see that she had plenty of good cards in her hand. In fact, she had enough to lay them all down and crow “Gin!” which normally Sally loves to do, cackling like a maniac as if nothing were ever so fine.

  I straighten up to peer out the door and watch her elderly gray Chevette cough and belch its way past the store and up Shoreline Drive.

  Her trailer is in the other direction.

  Chapter 9

  Amy

  “I’m walking on sunshine!” sings Katrina and the Waves from my clock radio. I slap the radio until it stops, and I think I’ve knocked it to the floor, which is just as well.

  “Paul, honey? I need some water.”

  I’ve never licked mildewed bathroom tiles, but it’s the best description I can think of for the taste in my mouth.

  He doesn’t respond, and with great reluctance I open my eyes into the stinging sunshine of my bedroom. The warm weight on my bed is Frodo, my chocolate Lab. The dog stirs lightly, then slurps at my nose. I put my hand over my eyes and try to remember the drive home. About the last thing I can clearly recall is Paul setting me in the car, and then . . .

  Oh, crap. I should offer to get his car detailed.

  I roll back away from the dog and his Alpo breath—normally I crate him at night; he must think this is quite a luxury, sleeping up here—and that’s when I see the glass of water with a bendy straw, and a note.

  Had to stop into the office this morning. Here’s some water and Motrin. Feel better and take it easy.

  I sip the water, but it’s gotten warm overnight so it’s not refreshing and my stomach curdles anyway.

  I fumble for my thermometer in my nightstand, but I can’t find it. Not that my temperature would be reliable anyway. If you don’t get enough sleep—or for that matter, if you drink—it throws off the reading, according to that pamphlet from my OB/GYN.

  That means this whole month’s worth of charting my basal body temperature to figure out my most fertile time is all a complete waste.

  I curl back under the covers and review my decisions of yesterday, starting with letting those silly girls talk me into chardonnay instead of Perrier. Now look at me! And heaven knows what I ate yesterday. The calories, the carbs from the wine. I think I even had cake with buttercream frosting.

  It’s enough to make me sick, only I already am.

  It’s a silver lining if I’m too sick to eat all day. That will begin to make up for some of the ground I lost.

  Frodo hops off the bed and starts pacing and whining. Paul should be here to let the damn dog out, knowing what a mess I’m in.

  Paul whined to me last week, Why don’t we just live together? Then we don’t have to debate about which place to spend the night, and you can save money on rent.

  There’s no way he could understand my answer, so I just didn’t bother explaining that a wedding doesn’t count unless it’s a couple truly starting out together in life. If a couple is already living together, it’s just a big party and a shakedown for presents.

  Sometimes I think I’m the last traditional girl on the planet. At least we have sex. It’s not like I’m Victorian about it. Oh, sex. Paul didn’t get his sex after the party, either. Well, he’ll live.

  Frodo is pawing at the slider now. If I don’t get up, there will be a mess.

  In the bathroom, I splash water on my face and yank my hair into a ponytail. My face is mottled and bloated and I have to pause to dry-heave into the sink.

  On my mirror I’d taped a piece of paper with the saying, written in glitter pen, Every thin day is a good day! And on the other side, like a cheerful bookend, is that old magazine clipping, Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.

  I need to tape up another one: Ignore people who tell you to “live a little.”

  People like me can’t afford that luxury.

  In retrospect, it was optimistic of me to put on my running shoes.

  On a typical morning, I like to imagine stomping down my old self with every stride. Take THAT and THAT and THAT, thunder-thighs!

  At the moment, though, I’m under a tree with my head between my knees, watching the blades of grass swim in my vision, Frodo’s leash around my wrist.

  At least he went to the bathroom, so when I manage to crawl back to the apartment it will buy me some hours of recuperation.

  Meanwhile, I can feel the fat cells making themselves at home.

  I’ll get up even earlier tomorrow, before work. Run twice as far, and after work, too.

  Frodo lunges, and the movement knocks me off balance, the leash slipping off my wrist. I stand up too fast and my vision fuzzes up for a moment, and when I collect myself, I see him tearing off down the road.

  I force myself to plod after him, but he’s far too fast; even on a good day I can’t catch him. “Frodo!” I shriek, but by now he doesn’t even hear me, much less care. “Frodo!”

  I speed up the pace, though my head pounds, holding my stomach with one hand. “Frodo . . .” I lose sight of him near the goose pond. We’re getting close to the entrance to the apartment complex and the main road where people drive too fast.

  I collapse to my knees and dry-heave again, waiting to collect enough energy so I can get up and go find my dog, trying to remember the information on his dog tags, what happens if the
animal control people find him before I do, what if . . .

  “Miss?”

  I jerk my head up. A large, sweaty, egg-shaped man is lumbering toward me with two dogs, and . . .

  “Frodo! You found him!”

  Frodo jumps on me and slobbers on my already wet face.

  “Yeah, he stopped to make friends with my dog, dragging his leash. I figured he belonged to somebody here so I started walking him back through, figuring I’d find his owner soon enough. Soon as he saw you he started pulling for all he’s worth.”

  I finally get Frodo to settle down enough so that I can take the leash.

  “My name is Ed,” he says. “This here is Lucky.”

  Some kind of small terrier with a loop-de-loop tail is panting at his side.

  “I know I’m lucky you found him,” I say, shuddering now with relief.

  “Are you all right?” Ed asks. “You don’t look so good.”

  I’m sure I don’t, at that. “I’m not feeling so well. I shouldn’t have tried to walk him right now.”

  “Want me to walk him for you? I’ll bring him back when I’m done. Just give me your apartment number.”

  “Well, that’s nice, but he’s already done his business. I’ll just head back now.”

  “How about I walk with you? You seem a little shaky on your feet, and if he sees another bird or something, he’ll knock you right flat.”

  I just want to get home and back in bed and pretend none of this happened, but the quickest way with least drama will be to let this Ed walk my dog home, so Frodo doesn’t yank me into traffic or something.

  “Okay, thanks. That’s nice of you.”

  I respond to Ed’s questions with the barest of answers. I’m Amy, I tell him, graduated from Haven High, class of ’90; yes, I was in National Honor Society and the band. Ed was in the band, too, though he was a freshman when I was a senior. I don’t remember him at all, and I can usually remember the other fat kids in school. Not that we were all friends in some kind of obese fraternity. I just recognized the familiar bubble of empty space surrounding them at lunch and in the halls.