by Malena Lott
My car had reached tenth in line when I began noticing the stares. Moms who rarely waved to me took notice. Da Vinci was like a neon sign blinking Ramona Got Her Groove Back. What must they think? I waved back, both embarrassed and a little proud to be seen with someone who looked like him. I had replaced my New York Times crossword puzzle with da Vinci and I wasn't the trading-up kind of girl.
It was a welcome change from the pitying stares I, the poor, young widow, was used to getting-the awkward conversation and the polite invitations to dinner parties I would never attend without Joel by my side. Even worse had been the transition from the hushed conversation about me behind my back to the swelling tide of the world trying to hook me up. As in the Jessica Simpson-type of hook-up.
You see, the world is divided into two types of people: Grievers and Normals. Grievers want desperately to be Normal again, but the journey back seems impossible, and Normals don't understand why Grievers can't “move on” and “get over it.” After all, death is just a part of life, right? Life goes on. As if.
For those who have never grieved, grief has an expiration date, and mine was imminent. They falsely assumed that time healed, and I didn't have the heart to tell them that I didn't want to grieve forever, but it was more accurate to expect more than two measly years. Grievers don't want Normals to know that if Normals lost their spouses they would likely never recover. Not fully, anyway. We can't be treated like an alcoholic or drug addict, but the wanting is there all the same. Unlike an alcoholic who could give in to temptation, our yearning can never be met. Even crazier is the idea that a lost love can be replaced with a new love, as if all love were equal. It wasn't that I didn't want to love again, either. It just seemed as plausible as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz granting me a wish in her tinny voice. But then if you had told me yesterday that I would have a gorgeous guy in my passenger seat, I would have denied that possibility, too.
The school bell rang, sending children pouring out of the school in a mob of multi-colored energy. I scanned the crowd, my eyes settling on a tall woman wearing a red suit-a suit I would not only not fit into but would look ridiculous in because one had to carry herself a certain way to pull off a cardinal-colored suit like that, and this woman, a dark-haired beauty, had what it took. When she spun around, my heart paused again for the second time that day. Monica. My cheeks flushed. I wanted to look away- Just look away, Ramona, I told myself-but she was like an accident at the side of the road and I falsely believed that if I stared long enough, I would understand what had happened.
My mom-in-law Judith had told me Monica's daughter was attending Lone Star Elementary now-a cute kindergartner by the looks of it, but I hadn't thought I would run into her. It's a big school, and I don't recreate with the PTA. I hadn't seen her since Joel's funeral when I'd wanted nothing more than to run up to her and shake her and demand answers. Wouldn't the world have thought I'd gone insane? Yet if they knew what I knew, or what I thought I knew, they wouldn't blame me a bit. But then I didn't know much, which is a part of the reason I couldn't take my eyes off of her until the rustle of my boys demanded my attention.
Bradley's mouth hung upon when he saw Leonardo in the front seat.
“Are you a football player?” he asked, his blonde hair falling in front of his blue eyes. “Mom, is he my new private coach?”
“Right,” I said, looking at my son in the rear view. “As if we can afford a private coach. Boys, this is Leonardo da Vinci, from Italy.”
His little brother William, my dark-haired, dark-eyed version of Joel, viewed me skeptically through his wire-framed glasses. “Is this some kind of living history lesson?”
I had been known to drag my boys to cultural events now and then to encourage them to learn about the world outside of our Austin bubble. There, that had to account for adventure, hadn't it? We'd gone to museums and dance recitals and traveling exhibits. We tried new restaurants-Greek, Japanese, Thai. I was determined not to have my boys grow up on Chicken McNuggets and hamburgers alone, though the empty bag stuffed with trash proved even I couldn't resist the addictive junk.
“Can we go to Mickey Dee's before practice?” Bradley asked.
“McDonalds!” da Vinci said, recognizing the global franchise. I'd read that the golden arches were more recognized than Jesus Christ or the President of the United States. A large fries and chocolate shake wouldn't hurt. I hadn't had one in what, 24 hours?
My car perpetually smelled of French fries, the perfume of greasy Heaven. How could I blame them? I checked my watch again. “Fine. But when you're done with practice, we're going to sit down and have a real meal together. Something Italian, perhaps.”
William nodded his head enthusiastically. “Does this mean we get to learn to speak Italian, Mom?”
Bradley groaned. He had enough problems mastering the English language.
I glanced over at da Vinci, again messing with the controls on my stereo, something I had always slapped Joel's hand for. I had to admit it was nice having someone fiddle with my knobs again.
“ Sì, è certo, ” I winked at William. “Yes, it does.”
Chapter 2
I COULDN'T MOVE THE peanut butter. It wasn't just any peanut butter, but the kind my husband had eaten nearly every day of his life. His mother had said once he got a taste of it, everything else lost its flavor. His father, not knowing at the time that peanut butter was bad for babies, had put a scoop on his finger and given it to his then eight-month-old son. Joel had bitten down so hard on his father's finger with his only tooth that he'd drawn blood.
I'd made the mistake of trying to switch things up over the years, like the time we were in a money crunch and I bought a lower-priced brand (I only eat Peter Pan, he'd said to me as if I'd betrayed him), and the time I bought the peanut butter/jelly swirl to save time (How could you? he'd asked, only half-joking), so I learned never to veer from the sacred Peter Pan smooth (never crunchy, honey) peanut butter.
Joel's ritual was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread for lunch, peanut-butter honey on toast snacks at 3 p.m. while sitting at his architectural drawing board in the studio, and peanut butter vanilla smoothies every Saturday afternoon after his basketball game at the neighborhood park. The jar was nearly empty, the last remnants used to surprise Joel with the smoothie he never got to drink. And yet.
The cupboard would be empty without the peanut butter. The pantry, stocked full to feed two growing boys, would no doubt feel bare without it. The cruel twist of fate was that our boys preferred turkey sandwiches, something for which Joel blamed my DNA contributions.
“I can't believe it's been two years,” Anh said as we cleaned out the cupboard, as if I weren't keenly aware of every day without him. She knew sympathy stares were off-limits. I needed to not feel like a widow on exhibit around someone, and for me that person was Anh Ly, aptly named for “intellectual brightness” and “lion,” my best friend even when I was the last person on earth anyone would want to be friends with. “It's okay to get rid of the peanut butter.”
I felt the familiar squeeze in my chest that told me it would not be okay, that throwing away the peanut butter would be throwing away his memory. It's the small things that become giant calling cards of grief after someone you love dies. For me, it was peanut butter and a hundred everyday items and the larger ones, too: the hand-me-down sofa and our marital bed, which we'd named Lumpy with good reason. I shook my head vigorously and bit my bottom lip. I took the jar from her hand and curled it into me protectively. The thing is, when I lost Joel, my life lost its flavor, too.
I wondered if Monica had made Joel peanut butter smoothies when they had been together. She didn't seem like the nurturing type, though I have no proof to base this on other than that she hurt my husband; Judith believed the red Monica so bravely wore stood for she-devil, end of story. I wished Judith were more of a gossip, like my mother, because she was mum when it came to Monica. “Swore never to speak that woman's name again,” she said rig
ht after she told me that I could be running into her at the school. Why even mention her at all unless there was something I should know? Whatever had happened between them, time hadn't healed. Judith, for so much as preaching how God forgiveth, apparently could not forgive Monica for the transgressions against her only begotten son.
Seeing Monica that day in the parking lot made me realize I couldn't move on until I knew the truth about what happened with Monica and Joel before he died. I wanted to tell Anh this, too, because she was famously good at helping me wade through the muck of emotions that pulled me down like quicksand.
“Fine, we'll leave the peanut butter,” Anh said, moving on to the stale chips (trash) and canned food (charity). “But we know it's about more than peanut butter, Ramona. I want you to start considering having a little fun again.”
“It's only been two years,” I told her, switching the emphasis to make it apparent I thought this was a very short time to be without your soul mate, even though every day had dragged on as if it had been years since I'd last seen him, last touched him. I'd been dreading the cooler days, the green draining from the leaves and falling to the ground like nature's countdown to the anniversary of his death.
“This is not a ‘moving on’ speech. This is one best friend to another throwing out the idea of a little fun. Not a lot of fun, just a little something to stir your spirit,” Anh spoke with authority, and it wasn't just because she was the CEO of a big accounting firm or because she was voted the Vietnamese Business Woman of the Year. Not a local award or even a national award, mind you, but an international award. This much I knew: I was absolutely no fun, though people tell me I used to be.
Fun. If some believe grief has an expiration date, does fun have a start date after losing a soul mate? Or does it just creep up on you when you least expect it? I knew my double-PhD girlfriend was not referring to frivolous fun, like a carnival ride or even a spa retreat.
She meant what da Vinci had: la vita allegra. Of course I wanted it, but my joy jar was as empty as the peanut butter. She understood how hard it was to step out in to the world of the living where I believed Normals take everything for granted: their relationships, their health, their marriages. Most people did not find joy in the mundane, and they had their families intact. So how could I? I'd gone to bed hoping for an answer, but I'd woken up in the same empty-bed feeling, the thud of loneliness that rose as ritually as the sun.
“At least you've got your class. Anyone interesting this semester?” she said, throwing a bag of old flour in the dumpster.
This would be a great time to tell her that I had done something insanely spur-of-the-moment, acting on impulse, letting fate be my guide-all those things Joel had been known for. He was the spontaneous one who pulled me along for the ride-since then I was as useless as a deserted red Radio Flyer with no one to take me away.
“Well, there is this one guy,” I started.
Anh held a loaf of moldy bread in her hands. I wish I could've blamed that on one of William's self-made science projects, but it was my own negligence. When Joel was around, the bread had never lasted long enough to grow mold. “A guy-guy? Not just-there-is-this-man-from-Timbuktu guy, but a guy-with-dating-potential guy?”
Dating belonged with fun-two words that could not be found in my personal dictionary. Most people had been patient with me, broaching the subject of “getting back out there” casually as if I didn't feel it like a sledgehammer. But when she said the word “dating,” it didn't feel like a blow. It sounded like a normal word, like “broccoli” or “sidewalk” or “orange.” Perhaps it was because she said it after she'd asked if there was anyone interesting and my brain had conjured the image of da Vinci and though he was very much foreign, the idea of him in a romantic sense was not foreign to me. But I hadn't thought of da Vinci as dating material for me -for the hot, under-thirty set, sure-but not for me, the over-thirty, widowy-type. “Hold up. I just said interesting. All of twenty-five, gorgeous, full of life, and happens to be named Leonardo da Vinci.”
Anh slapped my arm. “ Hoan hô! Hoan hô!,” she cheered, laughing. “Maybe that's just the spice you need in your life. Someone carefree and void of sticky emotional baggage. Take advantage now before he meets too many people.”
“What are you saying?” I said defensively. “That he would only be interested in me until something better comes along?”
Anh gave me the once-over, from my hair in the '80s scrunchie to the worn-down Birkenstocks on my feet. What lay between wasn't any better: an oversized hooded UT sweatshirt of Joel's and black sweatpants (faded to gray) with holes in the knees. Anh may not wear makeup tested on animals and use only organic hairspray and eschew leather, but she was stylish and put together. Anh, who was the first person I'd known to ever wear Birks, didn't even wear them anymore. “Well…”
“Just come out and say what you're thinking. I can see the motor turning.”
“Fine,” she said, putting one hand on her slender hip and the other hand on my shoulder. “Let's just say you and your bread have something in common.”
“I'm moldy?” I asked.
“No, Ramona. Stale. And the thing is, I know that you know this. You're just refusing to do anything about it, because that would mean you have to wake up and breathe again and shed that coat of protection you've been wearing. You don't want men to find you attractive anymore because lo and behold, if they do, you'll have to do something about it. Like kiss them, or have sex, or have a man-woman relationship again. And I'm not saying that you should do that-definitely not until you're ready and only you know when that is. And the only person women should try to look good for is themselves, and you don't even want to do that. That's all I'm saying. With love, from Anh.”
I rolled my eyes, something I often did when the other person was right and I, the linguist, couldn't find the words for a decent refute. “I've been making an effort. I started wearing mascara again a month ago. Have you not noticed?”
She leaned in and studied my lashes. “Well, I'll be damned. Good for you. The blush and lip gloss must be jealous, though.” She swept her arm around me and planted a kiss on my forehead. Unlike my mother and sister, Anh was fairly lenient about my image, or lack thereof.
Most Normals agree Grievers should get some slack in the grooming department. I had taken that platitude for granted. I often wondered if Joel peered down from Heaven, wishing I would have some fun again. He was the type of husband who gave me compliments when I looked my worst, bed-head and morning breath included, so it wasn't about what was outside. What bothered me most was that my outside so clearly reflected my inside.
I placed the peanut butter back on its perch. So many Grievers put on the makeup like a mask and I had refused to do it. I would not dress the part of a Normal until I felt it. For the first six months, I couldn't believe he was gone, waiting for him to walk through the door at 5:30 p.m. sharp or step out of the shower or to catch a glimpse of him through the front window, watering the flowers. I searched everywhere for him during those six months, as if imagining him still living would make it so.
What I missed most of all was his presence, his sense of being, and even after two years, I wasn't content in an empty house. But after a year, I no longer had to remind myself to breathe, and though the pain still came in like a tide to shore, the tsunami had lost some of its strength.
When I would tell Anh that my mother dropped hints like little bombs about nice men she'd met, Anh would shrug it off with a laugh and say, “Tell her to send one Grandma's way.” Thanks to a one-night-stand in college, her son had produced a daughter, though the union had not produced two willing parents. So Anh ended up with her granddaughter Vi, though she denied she was raising her (which she was). Anh was one of those people who could remove the pricks of pain with a quick jerk and make it all better.
I shuddered. “I've watched those dating reality shows, and I have two words for you: Hell, no. I'm happy alone and that's why a makeover is a moot point,” I said,
as if it were justification for my slobwear. The happy part was a lie, and everyone knew it. I hadn't been content in my misery, but it hung around me like thick coat I couldn't shed. I wasn't so naïve as to believe the phony smiles I put on for school or the grocery store were fooling anyone. But what man in his right mind wanted to date a grieving woman with two boys, anyway? I was about as attractive as a bug zapper on a summer's night.
Anh smoothed her jet-black hair and reapplied her red lipstick. I wished I could wear red lipstick, but much like the red suit, you have to have the red inside of you to wear it on the outside, and the one time I tried it in my twenties, I looked like a bad imitation of Anna Nicole Smith.
“What the hell do I know?” she said. “Never listen to a woman who's been divorced thrice, yet still throws herself to the sharks as if she doesn't have a brain in her head.”
“I'm not listening to you, but thanks for the permission. Besides, I'm going to be much too busy for dating. I've decided to finish my doctorate.”
“Look at you! Dusting off the old dissertation. It's about time. You know the world has a shortage of good word doctors.”
“You're just jealous because when we go out you won't get to be the only doctor anymore.”
“Right. I believe my doctorates in metaphysics and accounting have been a nice repellent to my love life.”
“All the more reason I should get mine, stat.”
“You'll be Professor Dr. Griffen before we know it. And I can say I knew you when you were just a geek with the New York Times crossword.”
“Some things will never change.”
“Like I've said,” Anh continued. “When you're ready, you can get your chakras in alignment again. Especially chakra two.” She pointed to my nether region.
I knew enough from listening to her chakra talk over the years that chakra two controlled sexuality. “That chakra's bulb blew out two years ago. How can I possibly have sex with another man and not have it feel like cheating?”
