Page 27
Author: Kristan Higgins
Jimmy’s wake took place here, too. It was, of course, surreally awful…part of me kept saying, This is not really happening. He’ll show up any minute. So many of our wedding guests were there that it was almost confusing. Everyone had been so happy just a few months earlier. Could it really be possible that Jimmy was actually gone? Forever? It was like one of those dreams that start out happy, but bit by bit, you realize you’re lost and someone’s chasing you with a big knife, and there’s nowhere to hide.
Speaking of wedding guests, Debbie Keating, my best friend from childhood, stands at the casket, chatting with Rose. She was one of my bridesmaids, but when Jimmy died, Debbie dropped me. She didn’t come to his wake or funeral. She didn’t send a card. Instead, her mother informed me, right there as I stood next to my husband’s casket, shaking and stunned, that Debbie was taking Jimmy’s death really hard and was very sad. I never heard from Debbie again. When she got married two years later, I wasn’t invited.
It happens more than you’d like to know. People don’t know what to say, so they say nothing, ignore you, pretend not to see you, and, when trapped, do what Debbie’s doing now—smiling in my general direction to pretend that we’re still friends, only to shift her eyes away just before we actually make eye contact.
Someone sits next to me. It’s Grinelda, smelling of uncooked meat. “Hi, Grinelda,” I say. “How are you?”
“I’m not bad, kid. Yourself?”
“I’m okay. ” I sneak a peek at her outfit—pink tulle ballerina skirt over purple corduroys, topped with a red velvet shirt and black down vest. “So, did you foresee Boggy’s death, Grinelda?” I can’t help asking.
“Welp, I’ll tell you. Sometimes wires get a little crossed. I might’ve seen it. Or not. Plus,” she adds, lowering her voice and remembering to sound like a gypsy, “all is not for me to know. ”
“And what is for you to know, exactly?” I murmur.
She sighs rustily. “Whatever those who have passed want to tell me. ” She cuts her hooded eyes my way. “Did you check the toast?”
“Yup. Checked the toast. Haven’t burned a single piece since you gave me the message. ”
“Good, I guess. Now, I need a smoke,” she says, then bursts into a long bout of phlegmy coughing. I pat her back, trying not to cringe as she hacks and wheezes. Finally she grunts, then struggles to get out of the chair. I stand up and give her a hand.
“Take care, Grinelda,” I say.
“You, too, Lucy. ” She shuffles off to Reverend Covers and hands him a purple business card.
“I’m sorry your aunt died, Wucy,” comes a voice from the region of my hip.
My heart swells with love. “Oh, hey there, Nicky,” I say, picking him up for a smooch. “Thanks, sweetheart. Did you come with your daddy?”
“No. I came with Mommy. ” He drapes a companionable arm around my neck, and I kiss him again. His cheek is velvet, and I see that he has a new freckle just below his ear. “Wucy,” he says, toying with my necklace, “will Aunt Boggy see Uncle Jimmy in heaven?”
The question hits me like a punch in the stomach. I sink down slowly, shifting Nick so he sits on my lap. “I don’t know, honey,” I whisper. “Maybe. I don’t see why not. ”
“Maybe he can make her dinner. Daddy says he was a good cook. ”
The image of my husband in the kitchen is so strong I can almost smell the tomato sauce—Jimmy, dirty blond curls secured under the red bandana, his big hands dexterously chopping parsley, the sizzle of chicken in hot olive oil.
“He sure was a good cook,” I murmur, noting my nephew’s expectant eyes. “He would’ve cooked all your favorites, I bet. ”
“That’s what Daddy says. Can I have a candy?” Nicky asks, wriggling off my lap. “There’s candy here. A big bowl of candy by the door. ”
“Ask your mom,” I say.
“Bye!” Nicky dashes up to Parker, who absently strokes his dark hair as she talks to Ellen Ripling. The little boy clings to her leg, clearly trying not to interrupt. His eyes are just like Ethan’s, brown and mischievous, always a hint of a smile waiting there.
Except I haven’t seen Ethan smile lately. Even now, he looks a bit tired as he waits in the receiving line to offer his condolences to my relatives. Rose’s face lights up when she sees him, and he grins as he always does around the Black Widows, leaning in to kiss her cheek. He takes both her hands in his and says something that makes her smile. Such a way with the older women, that Ethan. Something moves in my chest as I remember the way he kissed my forehead the other night.
He moves on to Iris, whispers something into her ear…something naughty from the look of it, since she makes that delightedly outraged face and reaches up to smack the side of his head. Then he reaches my mom, who tucks her arm through his as she talks with her best friend, Carol. Ethan looks so…decent. He nods to Carol without interrupting my mom, looking like what he is, really. A good son. Too bad he lacks that easy grace with his own parents.
I look down, imagining Jimmy here, doing much what his brother is doing. Charming my mother, sweet-talking my relatives, then coming over to sit next to me for a kiss. He’d hold my hand, murmur a few words, then get up to herd our children—we were planning on four—when they got rowdy. If anyone implied that crumbs from my scones had killed Boggy, Jimmy would put that silly notion to rest in a heartbeat. His presence would cushion me from the shallow Debbie Keatings and the dopey Cousin Stevies of the world.
It’s the widow’s burden and blessing, too. For the rest of my life, I’ll picture Jimmy everywhere. He did love me so. And God knows I loved him, too.
“Hi, Lucy. ”
I look up at Ethan, and for a heartbeat, it’s almost as if he’s the one I’ve been missing all these years. “Hi,” I whisper through the fog of emotion that’s enveloped me.
“I hear those were some killer scones,” he whispers, then dissolves into silent laughter, sinking into the chair next to me and covering his face with his hand.
The tenderness in my heart drops with a thud. It’s the last straw. Hard to imagine I was just wanting to sort things out with him, to make him smile again. Without a word, I stand up and move past him.
“Lucy, I’m sorry,” he says, catching my hand. “Don’t be mad. ”
I pull free. I am just not in the mood. Emotions churn in my heart, good, bad, ugly, and I need a little space.
In the back of the room is Stevie, acting out Boggy’s last moments from the look of it, his hands on his throat, tongue extended as Father Adhyatman watches in horrified fascination. There were no crumbs involved, I mentally tell the priest, then weave my way past them. Veering down the hall toward the bathroom, my throat is tight, my eyes sting.
Then, out of the bathroom comes Debbie who was once my friend. She gives me that vacuous smile she’s perfected, shifts her eyes to the left of my head and tries to slither past.
“Hello, Debbie,” I say, blocking her way. My voice may be a little too loud.
“Oh! Um…Lucy!” she says as if she hadn’t recognized me. Her eyes dart away, a deer caught in the headlights. No. A possum in the headlights. She always had a sneaky little face. “Hi! How have you been?”
“Well, funny you should ask, Debbie. My husband died five years ago. I know you were quite sad. But guess what? So was I. It would’ve been nice if you called me even once. Since you were supposedly my friend and all. ”
She stares at me, her face twitching in surprise. Her mouth opens wordlessly, but whatever she may or may not have to say, I don’t want to hear it. Instead I step aside to let her scuttle past. My breath comes hard and fast, and I look around for a hiding place, knowing I’m irritatingly close to tears.
The coat room. Great. No one’s in there. I step in and close the door behind me, take a deep breath and cross my arms over my chest. Three large racks of coats surround me, the empty metal hangers clanging s
oftly in the wind current caused by my arrival.
“Lucy? You in there?” It’s Ethan. Of course.
I don’t answer. The coat room door doesn’t have a lock. Ethan comes in and shuts the door quietly behind him.
“First you make out with Charley Spirito, then you tell off Debbie Keating,” he muses. “Busy night. ”
“Please don’t,” I whisper.
He nods and looks at the floor. “I’m sorry,” he says. “The scones comment was in poor taste. Forgive me?”
I nod, my throat too tight to speak.
“Come on back out, then. Your mom is looking for you. ”
“Ethan,” I attempt, my voice cracking. My mouth wobbles and I clamp my lips together.
“Hey,” Ethan says, his eyebrows rising in surprise. He steps closer, erasing the small space between us, and takes my upper arms, his hands warm and strong. “What’s going on, sweetheart?”
Tears slop out of my eyes, and I find that my face is suddenly pressed against Ethan’s shoulder, my arms around his lean waist, and I’m crying. Rather hard. “I was so proud, Ethan,” I choke. “To be the first face she saw after all this time. That maybe something I said, or those damn scones…maybe I triggered something. She was talking and smiling and everything, and it was like the old days, you know? The Black Widows were so happy, and it was like a party and everyone was so amazed, and then…it’s so stupid, but why does everyone have to die?” I hiccup on another sob.
“Honey, she was a hundred and four,” Ethan says against my hair. His arms are around me, and one hand is rubbing between my shoulder blades, where there are knots the size of acorns. He feels so good. Smells so good. “She just…wound down. That’s all. And you had this incredible day with her, this one last day where she was back to her old self. ” His voice is gentle. “You should be happy, sweetheart. That was a gift. You got to talk to her one last time. I can’t tell you what I’d give—”
His words stop abruptly. It doesn’t matter. I know what he was about to say.
I pull back a little to look at him, and his eyes, those smiley eyes, are so sad.
In all my times with Ethan, I have never seen him cry, not at Jimmy’s funeral, not in the horrible days immediately thereafter, not ever. I wonder now what warehouse of emotion he’s got bottled up in his heart.
Ethan pulls back, too. Very gently, he runs his thumbs under my eyes, wiping away my tears. “Don’t cry, honey. I can’t take it,” he whispers.
And then I kiss him. His lovely, full mouth is so warm, so familiar. For about three entire heartbeats, he doesn’t move a millimeter. Then he kisses me back, just a little, his lips barely moving, and I slide my fingers through his hair and pull him a little closer, and oh, God, I’ve missed him. Missed this.
His arms tighten around me, and the hangers rattle again as we knock against them, and now his lips are on my neck, the gentle scrape of his beard contrasting with the warm silkiness of his mouth. My knees soften in an almost painful rush. Then his mouth finds mine again, and the kiss is not so gentle this time…desperate, hungry, hot and forbidden and utterly welcome. His tongue brushes mine, and molten heat leaps through my veins. My hands move to his chest, and his skin is hot, practically burning me through the cotton, and I can feel the hard thudding of his heart. Without thinking, I tug his shirt and slip my hands underneath.
“Lucy,” he mutters against my mouth. “Honey, wait. ” But I just kiss him again and slide my hands against the smooth skin of his back, his ribs, and pull him closer, wanting him against me. He shifts so we’re closer, his mouth hot and hard. Waiting is forgotten.
Suddenly the door opens, and I release Ethan so fast that I stagger into the hangers once more. He catches my arm, and we turn to see who’s there.
The Next Best Thing Page 27
