Better Than None

by Olivia Jake

  I nodded, understanding that all too well. “At least there’s one good thing that’s come out of it, right?” We both smiled. “But you don’t strike me as someone who ever sweat the small stuff.”

  She furrowed her brows.

  “I know it’s silly for me to say, I don’t really know you well, but I don’t know… especially here in LA a lot of women are so focused on everything superficial. And you can just tell when someone’s not.” I shrugged.

  “You mean like most of our yoga class?” she teased and we both chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve never been like that, but still, having gone through cancer I learned what was truly important. It definitely gave me a lot of time to think and reflect, that’s for sure.”

  We kept chatting and before long, more than an hour had passed and I realized I needed to get to Barb’s. “Sherri, this was so nice!”

  “It was, wasn’t it?! Who knew something like chemo could bring people together?” Her words hit me hard and I just smiled and nodded. Who knew, indeed. “Will you be here next week?” she asked enthusiastically, and the minute she asked, I knew my answer.

  “I will now!”

  “Oh, great! Please give my love to your mom. And I know that everyone says this, but you know that I mean it. If there is anything, anything at all I can do, please let me know. Honest.”

  “I know you mean it, truly. Thanks, Sherri.” We hugged each other tightly and said our goodbyes.

  As I drove to Barb’s, I tried to focus on the good, not that there was much, but I’d made a friend, and that was more than I typically did. So I’d take that and put it in the plus column.

  ****

  That yoga class and coffee were the highlight of my week, which wasn’t a difficult feat given everything. So by the following weekend, I was actually looking forward to something. I was late getting to class and ended up in the back. Once again, it was good to focus on the poses and my breathing. As the sweaty bodies filtered out, I hung back waiting to see if Sherri was there. When I saw her she broke into a grin and held out her arms for a hug.

  “I’m soaking wet!” I warned.

  “You think a little sweat would bother me? Plus, I need a hug, so come here, you!” We hugged tightly and once again, she linked her arm in mine as we walked out. This little bit of tenderness and unrestrained affection warmed me, though she seemed more subdued than the previous week.

  As we walked to the same coffee house it was clear that something was bothering her. “Sherri, are you ok?”

  She rolled her eyes and gave me a half smile. “Men trouble.” She admitted with a shrug.

  “You’re dating?” I hoped I didn’t sound as surprised as I was. She’d just finished chemo and beat breast cancer. I couldn’t imagine being ready for dating after that. Well, really at all.

  “Long story, but no, I got back together with my ex. Oh! There’s a table!” she pointed to where a couple had just left. “You grab it, I’ll get the coffees.” She already started towards the counter so I nabbed the spot before anyone else could.

  When she got back we made small talk at first.

  “So is this your regular yoga class?”

  “Nah, I actually hadn’t been to a class in ages. I just felt like I needed to do something to get me out of my head.” Much as I wanted to talk with someone about Brad, I still felt like our relationship had to be kept a secret out of respect for his career.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. Not that it’s really working for me.”

  “Me neither.” I admitted.

  “Do you ever feel like even though you know you shouldn’t do something, you go ahead and do it because you think this time it’ll be different?”

  I laughed and nodded. “I know that feeling all too well… I don’t mean to pry, but is this about your ex?”

  “You’re not prying. I brought it up. And yeah. We should have stayed broken up.” She took a long sip. “He doesn’t want me back, I just think he just wants to soothe his conscience. I think it’s part of his hero complex that he has to save everyone, or whoever he can. He wants to believe he can fix everything. But some things, once they’re broken, they can’t be put back together, know what I mean?” She asked rhetorically, took a sip of her coffee and then said sadly, “but we’re not who we used to be together. We grew apart a long time ago… I don’t even know why I asked him back.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck started tingling. This was sounding way too familiar. “Then why did you?”

  “I don’t know. I knew why I left. And I didn’t want him staying with me out of pity, because he would have because I had cancer. I know he would have. So I had to be the one to leave.” Sherri paused. She didn’t seem upset or depressed. She seemed the worst kind of emotion: indifferent.

  “And now he’s miserable with me. He won’t say it, but it’s obvious.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “It must be me, not that I blame him after what I did...” she trailed off and I started feeling queasy. “Some of our friends who have known us almost as long as we’d been together, they had said he was starting to seem like his old self lately. Like the darkness that seemed to consume him had lifted. It was one of the reasons I wanted him back. I thought that maybe the man I’d fallen in love with was back.”

  I tried to fish in my subtlest way, hoping that the sinking feeling I was getting was off target, way off. “Maybe he was just happy that your cancer was responding to treatment?”

  “No, it was something else. Or someone else. Our friends were convinced he was seeing someone. They said he was happy, and I hadn’t seen him happy in years. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he were seeing someone. He had every right. We were broken up, a signature away from a divorce. And after what I’d done, hell, I’d feel less guilty if he had hooked up with someone else.”

  At that moment I thought I might be sick. What an idiot I had been. Up until then, I had no reason to put together who Brad’s wife was. He never mentioned her by name, and I never pushed. I tried to respect his boundaries. But from the first moment when I saw her in chemo, now it was all starting to become crystal clear. The way he squeezed her shoulder and the way she scowled at him. The way she would ignore him during treatment. And then his reaction to the wig that looked just like her old hair. I had no way of knowing. How could I have? And even if I did, would it have changed anything? Maybe. I liked Sherri. And the thought of being the other woman turned my stomach.

  “Are you ok, Steph?”

  “Sorry, I think the coffee and the yoga just aren’t mixing well. Sorry, Sherri, but I think I should go.”

  “No apologies! Are you ok to drive?” She asked with such concern, it made me feel even worse. I nodded and smiled. “Ok, feel better! See you in next week’s class?” I nodded again and then rushed out of there as fast as I could.

  Having grown up with a mother who cheated for most of her married life, I abhorred the idea of affairs. It was one more way in which I saw weakness in my mother. I didn’t expect her to love the man my father became. I understood that couldn’t be forced, whether or not there was a marriage certificate. It was that she didn’t have the courage to leave him that infuriated me. She was always so afraid to be alone, to be on her own “without a man” as she put it, that she stayed with him for years for fear of the alternative.

  I didn’t know Sherri well enough to judge her. I’d seen how cold and mean Brad could be. What I had experienced with him must have been the opposite of what she did. He started so cold with me and gradually warmed up. To go in reverse, especially knowing just how warm and loving he could be, if that was the baseline, I could understand wondering, hoping that perhaps eventually he’d turn back into the man she must have fallen in love with.

  CHAPTER 18

  Thanksgiving had come and gone. Barb was too weak and uncomfortable to do anything so we just stayed home together. I hadn’t put much thought into Christmas. It had never been a big deal in our house. We were Jewish by culture but I wasn’t raised with any religion so
when I was little, I’d open presents on Christmas day. As I got older and after my folks split, it was typically me and Barb having a nice dinner together. Oftentimes, we’d travel over the holidays so I never really had the sense of family and tradition that most other people did.

  It was the second week in December and I had avoided the yoga class. Sherri texted me a few times and I blamed being too busy taking care of my mom as to why I couldn’t get together with her. I was feeling like more and more of a heel, but I couldn’t imagine facing her, much less hearing about her relationship with Brad.

  I’d retreated back to being practically anti-social at work and almost didn’t even open the evite when I saw the subject “Put the OMG in More Egg Nog!” I thought it was spam. But when I realized it was the invitation to our company holiday party, I knew I couldn’t ignore it. It popped up in my inbox while I was meeting with Tom.

  “Tom, was that your headline on the holiday invite?” I knew the answer before I asked, but Tom always seemed to need a pat on the back, and I tried to give it even when his work was sub par, like now.

  He blushed and looked at the floor like usual. “Yeah, um, too corny?”

  “No! Not at all! It made me open it!”

  “Really?”

  I nodded and smiled and he seemed to relax a bit, though for Tom, there was always a fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead and under his nose. Poor guy wore an undershirt even on the hottest days because of the amount he sweat.

  “So, are you gonna go?” He asked a little too eagerly.

  Other than that first poker party at Marty’s, I had avoided almost every other social function, though most were unofficial get-togethers like drinks after work. No one really questioned my excuse of needing to care for my mom. In fact, the invitations pretty much stopped coming, not that I blamed anyone. I never said yes, so they stopped asking.

  But this wasn’t co-workers going out for drinks. This came from Marty and it would have been poor form and disrespectful not to show. I knew I’d have to go. And with everything else going on, the fear of being able to handle myself at a function like this wasn’t nearly as threatening as it was before my mom got sick. Funny how a little perspective could change things.

  “Yeah, definitely! You?” I tried to feign enthusiasm.

  “Totally! The holiday parties can get a little crazy. Everyone goes. You’ll see!” He was so excited I felt like I knew what he looked like on Christmas morning as a little boy, and couldn’t help but smile and laugh a little.

  The night of the party fell on Barb’s last chemo appointment before her PET scan where we’d find out if all that she’d been going through had been worth it. It was almost a month since Brad broke up with me and even though I still missed him and thought about him whenever my mind was idle, I was trying to move on as best I could, especially given the realization of who his wife was.

  As Barb started nodding off, I thought I was safe from seeing Brad. I assumed if he saw her asleep, he wouldn’t come by. Once again, I was wrong.

  “Stephanie.”

  It was the first time he spoke to me in a month. If my body were a separate being, I would have slapped it for the way it responded to his voice. I tried to convince myself it was simply Pavlovian or something as I looked up to encounter a typical Brad stare.

  “Can I see you in my office?” He asked, no hint of mirth.

  I made sure my mom was sleeping before I responded, but I still kept my voice quiet. “You really think I’m going to fall for that?”

  He clenched his jaw and bristled. “It’s not what you think. It’s not that. I promise you.”

  I rolled my eyes and bit my lip, not sure who I was more mad at, him or me, as I got up in a huff and started following him down the hallway. When we got inside, I kept my distance and he smirked.

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “You haven’t given me any reason to.”

  He took a breath and paced a few steps. “I’m sorry for what I said about Marty.”

  I laughed once. “It’s taken you a month to apologize?”

  “I realized I was only seeing it through my own experience. And I was jealous. And hurt.”

  “You were hurt? You broke up with me!”

  “For what it’s worth, I didn’t want to.”

  I smiled tightly and shook my head. “What, did Sherri have a gun to your head?” He stopped in his tracks. Before he could speak, I continued. “Yeah, imagine what a complete ass I felt like when I put two and two together. Oh, wait, that’s right, you don’t give a shit. My bad.” I turned and started towards the door.

  “Wait,” was all he said, but it was enough to stop me. “I wanted to give you this.” He held out a blue Tiffany’s box. I stared at it, but refused to reach for it. “Take it, please. Open it.”

  Begrudgingly, I did. It had been a month of no contact. A month of mental torture, and now he was giving me something from Tiffany’s? I decided not to mind-fuck myself any more than necessary as I pulled one end of the small white satin ribbon and lifted the lid. Inside a tiny blue cloth pouch was an engraved heart locket necklace. One side read Mom, the other Barb. “So you can carry a picture of her with you close to your heart. Always.”

  I didn’t know who this man was. Whether he was fucking with my head or genuinely cared but was too screwed up to make things right. I didn’t thank him. I couldn’t speak. I wanted to believe what he said, that he didn’t want to break up with me, but what did that make me? It didn’t matter. I took the little blue box and once again left his office close to tears.

  ****

  I knew I shouldn’t have, but I had a drink before the company party as I was getting dressed in my new little black dress, new because nothing I owned fit anymore. I’d had such a screwed up body image growing up that I still believed one couldn’t ever be too thin, though looking at my reflection, my cheeks were hollow and my chest bones were a little too pronounced, even to me, giving me one more thing to be anxious about. Which prompted me to pour myself my second drink before leaving. It was also probably what compelled me to wear the damn locket out of some misplaced sense of I’m not even sure what. Love? Between seeing Brad earlier that day, receiving his gift and then the thought of having to be social, I felt like I deserved those cocktails, so by the time I got to the party I was slightly numbed. At least I had the wherewithal to take a taxi there.

  Marty had rented out a small French restaurant. The twinkly Christmas lights outside made it feel warm and welcoming, and when I walked in, the decorations of more white lights, deep red tablecloths, a roaring fire and holiday music made the entire scene perfect. Typical Marty. Naturally, with him on my mind, he was the first person I saw when I walked in.

  “Marty! Merry Christmas!” I said a little too enthusiastically as I hugged him.

  “Merry Christmas, Steph.” He said with reservation. His brows pulled together, “You drive here?” I didn’t want Marty’s avuncular side. I didn’t know what I wanted, but being judged wasn’t on the list. I just shook my head.

  “Taxi.”

  He immediately relaxed.

  “Where’s the bar?” I asked, which made him stiffen again.

  “You wanna eat something first?”

  I tried to laugh it off, “Awww, come on Marty, now where’s the fun in that?” With that, I walked away. I didn’t need a lecture and I didn’t want to piss off my boss any more than I already might have, so I strode confidently to the bar and proceeded to drink way more than I should have. It was the first time in years that I’d done that, but I didn’t care. After so much shit I just wanted to be numb and feel nothing. I wanted to forget. That’s what I had with Brad. We helped each other forget. And now I wanted to try to forget him too.

  Throughout the night I could feel Marty’s watchful eyes on me. I didn’t get out of control, but I was laughing and talking more with my coworkers than I ever had. I danced with Tom which, as drunk as I was, I had a feeling was the highlight of his evening. We even
dirty danced a little. I figured, what the hell, give the poor guy a thrill.

  By the end of the night, I’m not sure how many vodkas I’d had, but I was wasted. I was slurring my words, badly. But most everyone else was also pretty far gone, and I just couldn’t care. As the crowd thinned out, Marty came over. I hadn’t talked with him at all, but saw him watching me whenever I looked over to him.

  “Can I give you a ride home?”

  I giggled at nothing and grinned at him. “Sure!”

  He clenched his jaw, making me regret accepting for a second, but it was late and I didn’t want to deal with calling a cab. After we said goodbye to everyone else, I followed him out to his car.

  “You know what, Marty. You’re the best boss, ever. And I’m not just saying that ‘cause I’m drunk. You are.” I hiccupped. “You really are.”

  “Thanks, Steph.” He seemed unconvinced.

  “No, really! Plus, you’ve got that dimple. Oh my God, do you know how cute that dimple is? Seriously!” Something about that made me giggle for minutes. Each time I tried to stop, I’d start up again.

  The rest of the ride was a blur, and I mostly heard ringing in my ears. When we finally got to my house, Marty walked me to the door, which I thought meant he was going to kiss me. I licked my lips and leaned in. Instead of leaning towards me, he held up his hand and leaned back. “Whoa, Steph.”

  Being rebuffed wasn’t bad enough. In my heels, I stumbled and almost fell into him, but grabbed the doorjamb just in time. My face was tingling from all the alcohol, but it didn’t prevent me from feeling the warmth in my cheeks. I was so embarrassed.

  “I thought you liked me.” I slurred.

  “I do like you. But I’m your boss.”

  “So if you weren’t my boss you’d kiss me?”

  Marty clenched his jaw, “Stephanie, you’re drunk.” He sounded so disgusted with me. I was batting a thousand.

  “I just can’t win, can I? I came to your party, your damn holiday party to be who you wanted me to be! I talked with people! You’re always on me about sharing and not keeping everything in, so I talked and laughed with my coworkers! I thought you’d be happy!”