ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME

by McQuestion, Rosary

  “Thank you,” I said sweetly, and hung up the phone. I clenched my hands into fists to keep them from shaking. I couldn’t believe Gavin actually took her with him! I couldn’t believe I had trusted him! I couldn’t believe I’d been so gullible! It was just one more thing to add to the dossier on Gavin Donnelly--the man who showed me I could love again, but in the process, broke my heart.

  * * * *

  Nicholas sat cross-legged on the kitchen chair, and polished off half of a large wedge of sausage and pepperoni pizza in big bites. Grease glistened on his lips and chin. His blue nylon Spider-Man backpack hung over the back of his chair. The bright yellow plastic casing of an electronic handheld game Gavin had surprised him with, had peeked out from the zippered side pocket.

  “You have homework tonight?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, as Buster stood on his hind legs with one paw on Nicholas’s lap, the other swatting to reach the wedge of pizza Nicholas held. “Not much. Mom, where’s Gavin?”

  “He’s out of town on a business trip.” Still hadn’t decided what I was going to tell my son come Friday when I’d officially break up with Gavin.

  Nicholas took three big gulps of soda, then picked a piece of sausage off his wedge of pizza and put it under Buster’s nose to sniff. “Mom, Gavin told me he was going to set up a bunch of games we could play at my birthday party so everyone could win a prize. Like birthday party bingo, but we would use M&Ms instead of those plastic things, and a treasure hunt with clues to find Spider-Man’s buried treasure box. He said we’d fill it with candy and prizes. Oh, and Web Walk, too, for my Spider-Man theme. Do you think we can play Fear Factor?” he asked. He placed the piece of sausage Buster had turned his nose up at, on a napkin, and wolfed down two more bites of pizza.

  “Gavin told you he was going to help with your birthday party?”

  Nicholas nodded with eyes wide with excitement. He chewed quickly and swallowed hard. “Yeah, we talked about it on the ride to the pet store. The day we looked at the gerbils and rabbits.”

  Annoyed at Gavin’s cavalier actions, I got up from the table and walked over to the kitchen desk. “Look what I have,” I said as I pulled two packs of birthday party invitations from my purse and waved them in the air. I was hoping the invitations would derail Nicholas’s thoughts about Gavin.

  “Wow, those are cool!” Nicholas licked his fingers, took the pack from my hand, and ogled the red and blue Spider-Man illustration on the front.

  “After you get your homework done, we’ll make out the invitations and tomorrow you can pass them out to your friends at school.” Tears pricked the back of my eyes, as I examined the excitement on my son’s face. He’d felt closer to Gavin than any man he’d ever known and he counted on him to be at his birthday party three weeks from that day. Anger flared inside me, while thinking about Gavin and that his actions were going to break my son’s heart. For the life of me, I just couldn’t understand why our relationship fell apart.

  * * * *

  The cicada were especially noisy that evening with their on and off chirping, as if they just couldn’t settle down and feel content. I sat up in bed and ruminated over my decision of not wrapping things up nice and tidy before Gavin had left on his business trip. The whole mess could have been over. At best, I would have gotten closure instead of the resentment that kept building inside me.

  A heavy wave of nausea hit me. I looked at the empty can of nuts beside me on the night table. Mr. Peanut, with his uppity British monocle smirked back at me. You weren’t supposed to eat the entire container of cashews he seemed to sneer. I imagined a Mrs. Peanut taking the cane from the aristocratic little pansy and beating the peanut butter out of him. Okay, I’m a nutcase. Ha!

  As I lurched from bed, cashew pieces fell from my nightgown to the floor stabbing the bottom of my feet. I stomped off to the closet and like an anxious ferret, I darted around collecting remnants of Gavin, his underwear and socks, and yanked a couple of shirts and two pairs of pants off their hangers, then slipped into my high-tops and scurried downstairs to the living room.

  With Gavin’s clothing flung over my shoulder, I plucked his Scrabble game from the coffee table, cut through the kitchen, barreled down the hall, through the mudroom and into the garage. I flipped the switch on the light and looked around.

  “Let me see...where’d he put them?” I tapped a finger to my chin and searched for the water skis and rollerblades Gavin left in my garage. Ah, there they are. They were hanging on the wall right above the huge box that sat on the concrete floor that held Gavin’s artificial Christmas tree. He had asked me to store it for him since he had no room in that ongoing construction zone he called his house.

  I pushed the large, lighted button on the wall that activated the garage door and flipped the switch to turn on the backyard floodlight. As the garage door lifted, I wheeled Nicholas’s Red Flyer wagon out from the corner of the garage and dumped Gavin’s clothes, underwear, and Scrabble game into it. I tried to load the box with the artificial Christmas tree into the wagon, but it was too big and bulky, so I lifted one side up, got my hands firmly under the box, and dragged it out of the garage and all the way across the backyard. Reaching the arbor, I set the box down on the grass to open the gate on the white picket fence, and flipped the box end over end and let it fall onto the sandy beach.

  Breathless, I stormed back across the yard and into the garage. As I yanked the rollerblades down, the J hook flew off the wall and pinged as it bounced off the hubcap of my Chevy Blazer. After dumping the rollerblades into the wagon, I tugged the skis from the wall. They accidentally knocked into a wooden shelf, flipping it off its brackets. Clay pots, gardening tools, and tin buckets crashed to the concrete floor.

  “Dammit!” I threw the skis into the wagon, grabbed a box of matches and a can of lighter fluid, and chucked them in with the rest of the stuff. The wagon shimmied, as I pulled it across the bumpy backyard with skis and rollerblades rattling.

  Sallie’s back porch light went on. I dropped down on all fours; a twig jabbed at my knee as I scrambled away from the wagon and hid under the lilac bushes to get out from under the floodlight. Damn shelf!

  Sallie pushed aside the café curtain and peered out the kitchen window. As soon as she disappeared, I shot to my feet, grabbed the handle of the wagon, and bolted across the backyard running toward the beach like a soldier on a reconnaissance mission. As soon as I hit the sand, the front wagon wheels sunk.

  Tugging on the handle, the wagon wouldn’t budge. I gathered everything into my arms the skis, rollerblades, clothing, underwear, matches, lighter fluid, and Scrabble game. My eyes bubbled over as I tried to gulp back tears, while dumping all of Gavin’s items on top of the box that held his artificial Christmas tree.

  My chest pounded as I pumped the can of lighter fluid, three, six, twenty times in long streams arching over the pile. I stood back, struck a match, and tossed it onto the heap. A low flame traveled swiftly across the top of the clothing, igniting the skis and fanning out to cascade over the sides of the box like a waterfall.

  As the box containing the dry fake tree exploded into tall whooshing flames twisting skyward, I’d found myself on my knees in the sand, tightly grasping one of Gavin’s dress shirts, while tears stained my cheeks. After six years of failed relationships, I thought Gavin was the one, my soul mate and I couldn’t comprehend how it had all crumbled. As I sat back on my legs, I buried my face in the sleeve of Gavin’s shirt, and took in the faint scent of his cologne. You’re stronger than this McCory. I let the shirt fall away from my face and tossed it into the fire.

  Orange flames licked at the pile of Gavin’s possessions and burned bright against the black of night. Tiny fiery pieces of fabric floated up like dancing fireflies around a campfire. By morning, it’d be a heap of ashes, singed rollerblade wheels, and twisted, blackened metal pieces from an artificial Christmas tree. Sad remnants of a relationship lost.

  Dammit Gavin, why didn’t you love me?

 
“Hello?” a voice called out in the dark.

  Startled, I sucked in a breath and brushed the tears from my face. Looking over my shoulder and squinting into the beam of a flashlight, I reached for the sky when I saw a police officer standing in the path of the floodlight. A small paunch folded over his holster belt and pushed past the light jacket he wore.

  “Is this your house?” he asked.

  “Yes--yes it is!” I said stalwartly. I lowered my hands and casually rose to my feet, while brushing the sand from my knees.

  “Ma‘am, step over here please.”

  Pushing the gate open, I walked into the backyard and stood in front of him. I kept my arms down at my sides then nervously brought them together, interlocking my fingers. The officer looked at the flames shooting up from the pile on the beach.

  “Did you start that fire?”

  “Ah, yes, just thought I’d clean out my garage and get rid of a few things. Make a bonfire, grab a bag of marshmallows. I haven’t been sleeping well lately and--”

  “Are you aware that it’s against county ordinance to burn rubbish on the beach? Or burn anything for that matter at this time of night?”

  “Sorry officer--I--I had no idea.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to put that fire out. But first I need to see some identification, like a driver’s license.”

  Great, he’s going to phone in a background check on me and find out Laura and I got ourselves arrested for car theft.

  “Hello,” chirped a high-pitched voice in the darkness.

  The officer looked surprised, as Sallie sauntered into full view under the floodlight and stood beside him. Her Jayne Mansfield look of a sheer baby doll nightgown and pink satin slippers, definitely trumped my Beverly Hillbilly’s getup of a granny nightgown and red high-top sneakers.

  “Oh my God,” Sallie said, gushing and cooing, as she hugged herself from the chill in the air. “Kevin, is that you?”

  “Sallie? Sallie Johansson? Is that you?”

  “It is!” she said with a giggle, while swaying from side to side, as she locked her fingers behind her back.

  The police officer puffed out his chest. “What has it been, ten years?”

  “Hmm, I think we’re approaching our fifteen year high school reunion,” she said.

  “Well,” he said, as he lifted his chin to leer at her. “You don’t look a day over eighteen.”

  Hell-lo-o-o. I’m the one who’s supposed to be getting the attention here.

  Sallie shifted her weight to one leg and girlishly twisted a lock of long golden hair around her finger. “Oh Kevin, you are so sweet. Do you have time to come in the house and catch up?”

  Officer Kevin looked at me. His brow furrowed, as he brought his hand up and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Oh, I can vouch for her,” Sallie piped up. “I’m the one who made the call thinking someone was burglarizing the neighborhood,” she said, while gazing at the mess I’d made in the garage; broken clay pots, gardening tools, and buckets strewn about the floor.

  Officer Kevin glanced at the fire, then at me, then back at the fire then at Sallie whose shapely silhouette showed through her sheer nightie. “Ma’am, you able to get a garden hose out to that fire?”

  “Sure, no problem. I’ll put it out right away.”

  He gave me a quick nod. “Okay.”

  Officer Kevin slipped off his jacket and draped it over Sallie’s shoulders. “Thank you,” she cooed and seductively slipped her arm through his to pull him along. “I had no idea this was your beat…”

  Her voice trailed off as she and Kevin the cop disappeared into the darkness. Never before had I appreciated having “man bait” living next door. I spun in the direction of the fire and felt solace burning inside me. As flames did a gentle tango across the top of the burning heap, I felt as if I was on a pyromaniac high and viewed the fire as happy restful flames--flames of contentment.

  Back in the house standing in a steamy shower washing the smoky smell from my body, I let my worries trickle down the drain with the suds. Three days without much sleep, my only thought was to lay my head on my pillow and quickly go off to dreamland. Although physically beat, that evening, my spirit felt rejuvenated.

  Turning off the water to the shower and sliding the glass door open, I pulled a towel from the bar, and wrapped it around my body. Clouds of steam roiled through the bathroom, blocking sight of everything like a whiteout in a snowstorm.

  Opening the bathroom window to let out the steam, a wave of chilly September night air rushed in, bringing with it the lingering charred odor of items I’d burned on the beach. The cicadas had quieted, giving way to the gentle lapping of waves and the rhythmic croaking of bullfrogs.

  Turning away from the window, I pulled a towel from the bar next to the tub to dry my hair and glanced up at the mirror above the sink. My heart practically leapt from my chest, as the words LOVE YOU ALWAYS written on the mirror evaporated into the September air.

  Thirty-one

  Standing in the yellow-walled break room in front of the vending machine with arms folded across my chest, I studied my reflection. It showed a fairly attractive woman dressed in a corporate gray herringbone jacket, matching knee length pencil skirt, lavender knit top with a wide gray belt cinching my waist and gray buttery leather four-inch high heels on my feet.

  I certainly look sane, I thought, while trying to decide if I should get the chili cheese chips or Nutter Butters. Did the words on the bathroom mirror confirm that Matt was neither here nor there, wherever there is? Or should I just settle on the Raisinettes?

  After watching those poignant words fade from the mirror, I dashed down the stairs still dressed in a towel and flung open the French doors to the study. As I sat in the dark with “Love Spirit” opened on my desk, I had hoped to see the pages magically flip to another passage to give me some kind of clue as to what was happening.

  It was then that the dawning of wisdom was like a hard wakeup slap to the face. Feeling sad and hurt, while stumbling through life was the whole purpose of living--to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them was the reward. It seemed odd, but I felt that Gavin’s betrayal actually molded the more secure person I’d become. And Matt’s role was to be my guiding force. I could only speculate at whether he’d continue to appear throughout my life.

  I fed a dollar fifty into the vending machine and punched A2 to get a bag of chips. While walking out of the room and wrestling with the bag to open it, I heard angry sounding muffled voices. Placing one stiletto-clad foot into the hallway, Oreos sailed past me like tiny Frisbees.

  “This is bullshit, no wonder you’re still a lard ass,” said Mrs. Fendworth through clenched teeth. Standing to the right of the doorway, she rose on her toes and flung a handful of cookies at Fendworth. Looking to my left, Fendworth was bobbing around the hallway like a heavyweight prizefighter in a ring, the cookies hitting the white walls leaving tiny brown pockmarks. It’s what he deserved for marrying someone young enough to still be in the temper tantrum stage.

  With her fiery red hair pulled up into her signature I Dream of Jeanie ponytail and pink designer workout attire of poured on tights and matching top, I assumed she must have just finished her daily seven a.m. workout. My morning workout consisted of lying in bed flexing my bladder muscles to see how long I could hold it before having to jump out of bed.

  Trying to avoid the ruckus, I was about to step back into the break room, when Mrs. Fendworth sashayed her tiny size two hips in my direction, her face was in an angry lock and load position. As our eyes made contact, her eyebrows shot up, her expression changing to a smile, as if she were trying to retain her irritation. “Hey Cory, how’s it going?”

  “Um, great!” I said and stepped back, clearing a path for her to pass.

  As she passed Fendworth, she stopped to shoot him a look over her shoulder as if to say, We’ll continue this later.

  Waiting the appropriate twenty seconds for the dust to settle, I made my way back
to my office. Unfortunately, that meant walking past Fendworth. Heading in his direction, I tried to act blasé as Oreos crunched under my feet. Fendworth cleared his throat and adjusted his tie, his bushy Groucho Marx unibrow was stuck in an agitated deep V.

  “Aubrey, I was just headed to your office to give you this,” he said, as he handed me a file folder. “You’ll need to review this case for a meeting I’ve set up for tomorrow.”

  “Sure, not a problem.”

  He quickly retreated down the hall in the opposite direction of his wife. Maybe there was something to that astrology hocus-pocus of planets not aligned and relationships not working out, because between Laura, Fendworth, and me, the planets seemed to have collided and blown-up.

  * * * *

  With Nicholas in bed, I padded downstairs to the kitchen. Snapping my briefcase open, I pulled out the file folder Fendworth had given me that morning. The phone rang. Looking at the caller ID, I saw that it was Gavin’s cell number and waited for the answering machine to pick up the call.

  “Aubrey? I know you’re there. Please pick up.”

  I leaned against the wall while clutching the file folder to my chest. Just because I’d accepted the fact that our relationship not working out was just one of life’s challenges, it still didn’t make my heart hurt any less.

  “Okay, so I bought the excuse from Ashley that you were sick, and Laura had told me some odd story about you and PMS, but I’m done listening to excuses. It’s obvious you’re avoiding me. It seems something’s happened in our relationship that I don’t know about.”

  It was more like something had happened in our relationship that you didn’t think I’d find out about. I stomped over to the freezer, tossed the frozen turkey aside, and grabbed my pack of cigarettes.

  “Aubrey, I just can’t believe you’re acting like this. Can’t we talk? Can you at least pick up the phone? Hey, if for some reason you don’t want to see me anymore, the least you could do is tell me.” He sounded annoyed.