The Shower

by Kay Bigelow

  “What if she doesn’t, Sobo? I can’t lose her.”

  “If you do lose her, accept your part in the breakup and learn from it. When was the last time you picked up a paintbrush?”

  “Before all this happened, and then again last night but I didn’t really create anything.”

  “Go home, Alex. Put your pain on canvas. You look like shit. From the looks of you, you haven’t slept more than a few hours in days. Get some sleep. Paint. Let both your heart and body begin to heal.”

  April poured the coffee she’d made for Alex into a sippy cup and put four cinnamon rolls into a paper bag. She rolled the top of the bag down and handed it to Alex.

  Alex smiled. The sippy cup was hers from when she was a toddler. “Where did you find my sippy cup?”

  “In the back of the cupboard. I couldn’t bear throwing it away,” April said with a wistful smile.

  “Sobo, I’d be lost without you.”

  “Go home, Alex.”

  “Showing me some tough love again?” Alex asked. When Natalia had died, her grandmother had done much the same thing for her a few months after the funeral. It had worked then.

  April pointed toward the door.

  “All right, all right, I’m going. Have dinner with me later this week?”

  “Of course. Now scoot. I’ve got things to do.”

  Alex did as she was told. When she got home, she changed clothes. She took her sippy cup and a cinnamon roll into her studio and put a new canvas on the easel. She stood staring at the blank canvas, waiting for inspiration to hit her. She finished a roll and the coffee. On her way back from the kitchen, she picked up her sketchbook. She thumbed through several pages looking for a sketch she remembered making. “This is it,” she murmured to the empty room. She taped the sketch to the top of the easel and began copying it onto the canvas.

  Her phone notified her it was two o’clock. Where has the time gone? She took a couple of steps away from the easel and looked at the new painting critically. So far it was good, but not her best by a long shot.

  Alex took the small canvas off the easel and put a larger one in its place. She quickly sketched the picture she wanted to paint. This one was of Lauren as she stood staring at the stained glass window in the library when Alex had first seen her. Alex worked on the painting until her hand began cramping so badly she couldn’t hold the brush any longer. When she stepped away from it, she’d recreated the window. There was strong light outside the window so its reflection lay on the wood floor of the library. There was a kaleidoscope of colors spread across the canvas. She’d have to return to the library to ensure she’d not forgotten any of the venues shown in the window where townspeople were reading their library books. The figure standing in the foreground was staring up at the window as the colors advanced on her. At this point the figure was amorphous, but Alex would flesh her out once the window was completed. Alex liked it.

  When she thought to look around, it was dark. Damn! What time is it? She glanced at the clock over the lintel of the door leading to her bedroom. It was only seven thirty. She was so hungry her stomach was growling.

  When she entered the restaurant, Evita came to her and hugged her tightly. “How are you doing, sweet girl?” Evita asked using the same endearment she’d used when Alex had been a kid with a skinned knee or an eighth-grader with a broken heart.

  “I’m doing better, thanks to April.”

  “She’s a wonder, isn’t she? Are you hungry?”

  “Starved. Will you join me for dinner?”

  “I will. I’m hungry and the dinner crowd is thinning. Come to the kitchen,” Evita said.

  After they finished dinner at the table reserved for the boss and the chef in a corner of the kitchen, they sat looking at one another with smiles.

  “That was wonderful and just what I needed. Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Are you and April back together?”

  “I think so. She seems reluctant, but says she’s not.”

  “Give her some time to adjust to having you back in her life. She’s been loving you from afar for a very long time, Evita.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t play coy with me,” Alex said. “You had to know that.”

  “I didn’t know know it. I thought, and hoped, that maybe she might be loving me still.”

  “Why didn’t you act before now?”

  “I was a coward. I didn’t know whether she’d reject me again.”

  “I’m glad you both took a chance on love a second time.”

  “That’s exactly what we did. When did you get to be astute? And what are you doing about Lauren?”

  “I’m listening to April. I’m waiting for Lauren to come to me.”

  “Really? That’s what April told you?”

  “Yeah. She said Lauren’s confused and angry, but she loves me and she’ll come to me when she figures it all out.”

  Evita smiled broadly at Alex. “She’s right. Lauren does love you, Alex. No matter what she’s telling you now. Don’t give up on her.”

  As Alex drove home, she knew both April and Evita were right. She could sense Lauren loved her still. That’s what made her words so hard to accept. She’d wait for a little while. She wanted a life with Lauren, and she didn’t want to be without her like Evita and April had been for so long without their strongest love in their lives.

  ****

  Lauren decided she needed a nap, but before she lay down, she went in search of her Best Buy clock again because the one from Walgreens was already losing time. She remembered setting it on one of the stairs leading to the upstairs. I would think I would have picked it up and brought it in here—unless I got distracted and put it somewhere else. Good theory, but where? She searched her bedroom but couldn’t find the clock. That meant it could be in one of the other two bedrooms. She went to the first guest room. Nothing there. She went to the room Lindsey was using. Sure enough, the clock was sitting, still boxed, on the dresser. She moved it into her bedroom and crawled into bed.

  When she awoke, Lauren lay in bed feeling like she’d been run over by several of those oversized trucks she’d seen running into each other on the television. Her eyes felt swollen, she couldn’t breathe through her nose, she’d already used the last Kleenex in the box, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to get out of bed. What did she need to get out of bed for? I’m retired. Being retired doesn’t mean I can become a sloth and a slob.

  She glanced at her new clock only to find it was still in its box. She wondered what time it was. A quick glance out the window was no help. It was raining cats and dogs, with the dark sky making it look like the middle of night. Great. Even Mother Nature is telling me it’s not worth getting out of bed. I bet she’s been crying all night, too.

  “Oh, fuck. I forgot Lindsey had a ticket on the five o’clock train back to the City,” she said to the empty room.

  Good Lord, do stop being such a drama queen. If the time is so damned important to you, get out of bed and find your phone. Blow your nose. Then, take a shower, wash your hair, put some clothes on, get some coffee. Next, call your best friend and apologize profusely for not seeing her off at the train station. Jesus! You are a terrible friend to make her take a cab to the station. Maybe Jane came and got her. Then order the Amazon Echo and Dots. Then take your dog out for a walk. She deserves a better mom than you.

  The fact that Serena needed to go outside made Lauren get her sorry ass out of bed and downstairs. Serena was asleep on the couch. Max must have heard her because he began mewing piteously as if he were dying of starvation. That woke Serena up and she gave her a look that confirmed her suspicion that she was the worst dog mom ever.

  When Serena came back inside, she was soaked to the skin. Lauren took a towel from the downstairs bathroom and dried her off. She fed both animals, fixed a cup of coffee, and took it upstairs to the master bedroom. It took longer to find her phone than she thought it would. She sat down on the bed and called Lindsey.
Her call went to voice mail and, though she hated admitting it, she was relieved. Lauren apologized for not taking her to the station to catch her train back to the City. She told her she’d make it up to her when she came back to visit.

  Lauren avoided looking in the mirror as she stripped for a shower. She knew one glance would send her racing back to bed so she could pull the covers over her head and wallow in a depression-driven pity party. The hot water coursing over her body made her feel somewhat better. It helped unstuff her nose enough so she could breathe through it without having her mouth gaping open.

  After toweling herself dry, she gathered the strength to look in the mirror. Lordy. It’s not as bad as I thought it was, but I am still not a pretty sight. She towel-dried her hair, finger-combed it, and called it done. She found a pair of charcoal-gray sweat pants, a long-sleeved lavender T-shirt from some long-forgotten Pride Festival, and a light blue sweatshirt. She also found the last pair of clean socks stuffed into the back of her empty sock drawer. It was time to do laundry.

  She took her coffee mug and the laundry basket downstairs. She put a load of laundry in the washer, made herself another cup of coffee, and headed for her office. She got on Amazon and ordered the Echo, Dots, and the three books already in her cart.

  I’m done for the day. Well, except for taking Serena for a walk. She glanced out the window. It was still raining and didn’t look like it was going to clear up anytime soon. She opened a weather app and was told that the rain would clear the area around noon, but another storm would hit late in the afternoon. Just what I and every other depressed person in New York needs: days on end of rain.

  She looked at the time on her computer and saw it was nine o’clock in the morning. What the hell am I going to do for the rest of the day? The rest of my life? When did I become so melodramatic? It was easy to do. If I didn’t feel sorry for myself, who would? Geez, could I be any more pitiful?

  Lauren stared out into the backyard. She couldn’t see much because of the rain, but she didn’t need to see anything. She knew she needed to decide if Lindsey had been right. Lauren thought she’d essentially told her to get over herself and get Alex back into her life. Do I want to, though? Past experience has taught me once trust is lost, it is all but impossible to regain. Do you really not trust Alex, or is it that you don’t want to trust Alex and her not telling you about her patron is just an excuse to be able to say you’ve lost all trust in her? How the hell do I know? Wait! Why would I not want to trust Alex? You’re full of crap.

  As it turned out, the storm did not move out at noon. They got maybe a half hour of sun before the next storm arrived. Lauren kept telling herself the rain was needed for the fall flowers. By late in the afternoon, she was telling herself the damned rain was going to drown the fall flowers. Serena was disappointed they weren’t going for a walk. She was one of those half-full kinds of canines—if it’s raining in the backyard then it had to be sunny in the front yard. Lauren took Serena out front to prove to her that her theory was flawed, but the Lab wasn’t having any of Lauren’s downer theories. When they got back inside, Serena ran to the back door absolutely sure the sun was shining in the backyard because it was raining in the front. She decided that she didn’t want to run between the back door and the front just to see how long it took Serena to figure out if it was raining in one yard, it was raining in both.

  Lauren knew she needed to do something. She needed to get out of the house. She found her fall rain jacket, put on her LL Bean boots, got an old fleece blanket out of the linen closet, put a clean towel in her backpack, and headed for the front door. Serena couldn’t believe her luck. When Lauren opened the front door, the dog raced for the car and stood wagging her tail madly as she waited for Lauren to get to her. Lauren threw the blanket she kept in the car over the back seat to save the upholstery from muddy paw prints. They were only gone for forty minutes, but it did them both a world of good.

  Lauren spent the rest of the day in front of the television zoning out. She discovered Netflix, and wished she hadn’t. Without any effort on her part, one day became exactly like the one before, and soon several days had passed. She told herself she was catching up on popular culture by watching Netflix. The highlight of her week was discovering Orange is the New Black. She was hooked from the opening scene. Aside from that show, she couldn’t remember most of the programs she’d watched.

  A week later, far too early for a Monday morning, Lauren heard someone pounding on her front door. No way was she going to get up to answer the door. She opened one eye to discover the television was already on and thinking how convenient it was that the television turned on by itself. Then she looked around and, yes, she’d slept on the couch again. Try as she might, she could not figure out how many nights she’d fallen asleep in front of the television. She suspected it was probably at least a week.

  The pounding on the door started up again. She turned the television off and yelled, “I’m coming, dammit.” She yanked the door open with the intention of tearing whoever was standing on her porch pounding on the door a new one. However, she was not going to have the satisfaction of tearing anyone a new asshole. Not only was there one person on her porch, there were four: all women, and all her sisters.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Shevaun, her oldest sister, said pleasantly as she pushed past Lauren. “You look like shit.”

  “Yeah, what she said,” her second-oldest sister Ciara said as she walked past Lauren into the house.

  “What they said,” Ashley, her third-oldest sister, said as she entered her house.

  “Ditto.” Delaney, the youngest of the American O’Brien clan, sauntered into the house behind her sisters.

  “What are you guys doing here?” Lauren asked as she returned to her couch.

  “Intervention,” Shevaun said.

  “I don’t need an intervention.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ashley asked. “When’s the last time you took a shower?”

  Before she could answer, Delaney asked from the kitchen, “Or did the dishes?”

  “Come with me,” Ciara said as she grabbed Lauren’s hand and jerked her off the couch.

  “Ow, that hurt.”

  “Good. Grab a couple of bags,” she said.

  “Why? Are you guys staying here?”

  “Where else would we stay?”

  Ciara all but dragged Lauren up the stairs. They deposited the bags in the two guest rooms. In the bathroom, she told Lauren to strip. When she did, Ciara carried the pajamas into the bedroom using only the tips of her fingers. Lauren watched as she deposited them into the already overflowing laundry hamper.

  “When’s the last time you did your laundry?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you got any clean clothes?”

  “Of course,” Lauren said, although she wasn’t absolutely sure she did.

  “Get in the shower, and stay there for a while.”

  As much as Lauren hated being bossed around by her older sisters, she did as she was told. She even offended herself.

  “I found some clean clothes, thank goodness,” Ciara said, returning to the bathroom. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Ciara and Lauren had been close all their lives. Ciara was the sibling nearest in age to her, so they had more in common than Lauren did with the other three.

  “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Who is Alex?”

  “How do you know about Alex?” Lauren asked, pretty sure she hadn’t mentioned her to her sisters.

  “A little bird told me. I’m guessing she’s responsible for this pity party you’ve had going on for, what? Three weeks?”

  Lauren decided her best defense was silence. Curiosity got the better of her, though. “Who called you? Lindsey?”

  “No. I think it was a lot more convoluted than that. We got orders from Mom and Dad to show up here and do an intervention.”

  “Who called them?”

  “They didn’t say. And, before you go do
wn that road, it isn’t important. Who is Alex?”

  Damn, it’s harder to change the subject with Ciara than it is with the others.

  “She’s a woman I know.”

  “Know as in the biblical sense?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “We’re no longer together.”

  “A woman did this to you?”

  “Not just any woman, Ciara.”

  “And you let her go?”

  “I didn’t just ‘let her go,’ I kicked her out of my life.”

  “Good Lord, why? I’ve never known you to be stupid.”

  “Can I get out of the shower now? My skin is pruning, and I’m running out of hot water.”

  “Yes, come out.”

  As she stepped out of the shower, Ciara handed her a clean towel.

  “What’s her full name?”

  “Alexandra Aoki.”

  “Eurasian.”

  “Amasian.”

  “Rumor has it she’s movie-star beautiful.”

  “In a healthier way.”

  “What else? I hear she’s a painter with a patron,” Ciara said.

  “Who have you been talking to?”

  “The parents.”

  “Who did they talk to?” Lauren asked again.

  “That I don’t know. Is she a painter with a patron?”

  “Yes.”

  “I take it the patron is the root of all this drama and angst?”

  “Yes.”

  “You need to get over yourself.”

  “What! Why?”

  “Every artist, be she a painter, author, sculptor, or whatever form her creativity demands from her, deserves a patron. Most dream of having a patron. Why would Alex be any different?”

  “She slept with her.” Lauren was wailing.

  “So what, Lauren?”

  She felt her eyebrows shoot to her hairline. “So what? So what?”

  “Yeah, so what? Does the woman love you? Alex, not the patron.”