“I was just going to trim them a little,” Jane said, wiping her eyes. “Then the left side looked shorter than the right, so I trimmed the left side. But then the right side was shorter so I tried to—”
“Even them up again?” I ventured.
“Then again,” she moaned. “And again. It was like a seesaw. Oh, Lord, I’m a nightmare. Look at me!”
I mentally reviewed the tips May had given me, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t covered a haircut by Edward Scissor-hands.
“I never should’ve done this,” Jane said, her lower lip trembling. “The guy’s going to take one look at me and run away screaming.”
I had to take control, fast. “Come on,” I said, grabbing her hand and dragging her into the kitchen. “The first thing we need is a glass of wine.”
“Is there some kind of trick for fixing hair with wine?” Jane asked eagerly, sloshing some Chardonnay into a plastic cup with a cartoon character on the side, the kind they give out to kids at restaurants.
“No,” I said. “Take a big gulp. No, that was a sip. I want you to take a gulp. Feel better?”
“A little,” Jane said.
“Now about those bangs,” I said. “Let me take a closer look.”
I peered at them and ran my fingers through them, murmuring like a doctor: “Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.”
“Don’t move a muscle,” I said. I hurried out to the car, opened the trunk, and grabbed the makeup kit I’d been keeping hidden near the spare tire. I made Jane sit down in the living room, where the light was good, and I opened my case.
“Close your eyes,” I instructed, and I swept her bangs back and to the side, anchoring them into place with a big squirt of my grapefruit-scented hair spray.
“That’s better already,” I said, tapping my lower lip with my index finger. “But we need something else.”
I looked around the living room but didn’t see anything I could use.
“Can I check your closet?” I asked.
“Please,” Jane said. “Maybe you can find me something to wear while you’re there. I just put on some pants and discovered a muddy little handprint on the butt. What was I thinking? I’m not ready for dating yet. I’m a disaster.”
I left her babbling there and dashed upstairs. I whipped through Jane’s closet, finally settling on a dress with a loose, silky sash. The dress was hopelessly out of date, but I had plans for the sash. I liberated it from the belt loops and raced back downstairs.
“Let me tie back your hair,” I said, wrapping the sash around her head, close to the hairline so it covered up her bangs. “Let the ends trail over your shoulders like this, so it looks like a long scarf. You look like a chic Frenchwoman. Perfect!”
Jane stood up and checked a mirror.
“It looks good!” she said. “Can you come over and do this every morning for the next month?”
With her mangled bangs swept off her face, Jane still looked young and fresh-faced, but somehow she seemed elegant, too.
When the doorbell rang five minutes later, Jane was ready. She was wearing a black skirt and a simple plum-colored sweater that we’d rolled with Scotch tape to get off the guinea pig hair, and a dash of my lipstick.
Jane looked at me and grinned. “It’s him!”
“I know,” I whispered.
“I’m really nervous,” Jane said.
“It’ll be okay,” I promised. “Just breathe.”
She inhaled deeply. “I feel a little better now.”
“Open the door,” I mouthed to her. What was it with this family?
“Oh, right,” she said.
She pulled open the door, and standing there was the podiatrist I’d picked for her. He was in his mid-forties, never married, and he was on the shy side. But his smile was kind, and so were his blue eyes.
“I’m Toby,” he said, clearing his throat.
“I’m Jane,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Do you want to come in?”
“Sure,” Toby said, stepping into the living room. He was extremely tall, and his shirtsleeves weren’t long enough to cover his wrists, but he was holding a bouquet of daffodils. I felt like a fairy godmother, watching the two of them smile nervously at each other.
“I’m Lindsey,” I told him. “Nice to meet you in person.”
“And these,” Jane said as Katie and Chris raced into the room, “are my twins.”
Toby looked down at them. “Hi.”
“You’re big,” Katie informed him somberly.
“I know,” Toby said agreeably.
“Why are your feet so big?” asked Chris.
“Because my arms are so long,” Toby said. “Want to see a trick?”
Both kids nodded, so he pushed up his sleeves and took off one of his shoes. He sat down on the floor and bent over, so his right forearm was on the floor against his right foot.
“See how they’re the same size? Every grown-up is built the same way. Their feet and their lower arms are the same length,” Toby said.
“Really?” Jane asked. “That’s amazing.”
I liked the way Toby explained things simply to her kids, without talking down to them.
“Oh,” Toby said. “These are for you.” He put on his shoe, but not before I noticed he had a little hole in the heel of his brown sock. He stood up and handed the daffodils to Jane.
“Thank you,” she said, her smile growing wider. “I’ll just put these in some water.”
She hurried off to the kitchen as Toby stood there, rocking back and forth on his heels. He was definitely nervous now that he wasn’t imparting an anatomy lesson to the kids; I could feel anxiety coming off him in waves.
I stood on my tiptoes and whispered into his ear, “I think she likes you.”
He looked taken aback for a second, then hopeful. “Really?”
“Definitely,” I whispered, smiling up at him and trying to will him some confidence. “You’re going to have a great time tonight. She’s a lucky woman.”
“You look, um, really nice,” he said when Jane came back into the room.
Go, Toby, I cheered him silently.
There was a brief bit of confusion at the door, as Jane went to open it at the same moment as Toby tried to hold it open for her and Katie let out a wail upon realizing her mom was leaving, but Jane managed to sort everything out with a quick whispered bribe of ice cream.
“Have fun,” I called after them, closing the door with satisfaction; then I turned to the twins.
“Ice cream,” Katie demanded, her hands on her tiny hips. Something about the way she was standing reminded me of Alex as a kid.
“Find me!” Chris ordered, racing upstairs.
I sensed I wasn’t going to get a moment to bask in my matchmaking success. “Here’s the plan,” I told Katie. “I’ll find your brother, then I’ll get you some ice cream.”
“Ice cream first,” she said, canny as a New York City lawyer at the settlement table.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had ice cream together?” I asked her in the fake-bright tone I’ve noticed parents using when they’re trying to convince their kids to do something the kids are hell-bent on not doing. I remembered too late that the fake-bright tone only seems to piss kids off more.
“Ice cream!” Katie hollered. I promptly caved (tough love, that’s my philosophy) and gave her a scoop, then went upstairs to find her brother.
“He’s not in the bathtub!” I said merrily. “Not in the closet! Not under the bed!”
Where the hell was that kid? Ten minutes later I was panicked. I’d lost a kid. This was definitely a fireable offense, worse even than throwing down a colleague on a conference room table.
Just then my cell phone rang: Jacob.
“Hey, you,” I said, trying to sound relaxed and in control.
“I’m heading out on my date now,” he said.
“That’s great,” I said, huffing as I ran back downstairs. “Hang on a second.”
I pressed the phone to my side
to muffle my voice.
“Chris? If you come out I’ll give you a surprise!” I yelled.
I raised the phone to my ear again. “Jacob?”
“I’m still here,” he said. “I’m about to go into the restaurant. I just . . . I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Are you nervous?” I asked as I threw aside the sofa cushions and peeked under the dining room table again.
“A little,” Jacob said. “And . . . well, I like talking to you.”
I pushed the button to mute my phone, bellowed, “Chris!” and unmuted it.
“I like talking to you, too,” I said.
“Is this a bad time?” Jacob asked. “You sound kind of busy.”
“No!” I said, wiping my sweaty brow with the back of my hand. “Everything’s great.”
“Anyway, I had a huge favor to ask,” he said. “I need some new clothes, if I’m going to be dating again. Will you go shopping with me? I hate shopping, and I always end up grabbing a black sweater to appease the salespeople and get out of the store. I probably have nine of them, and none of them fit right.”
Where the hell was that kid?
“Sure,” I said as I yanked open the stove and peered inside. “I can definitely help you break your black sweater addiction. It’s a specialty of mine.”
“Thanks,” Jacob said.
“And have fun with Jimena tonight,” I said before I hung up, feeling a little twinge of . . . could it be envy? I imagined sitting across from Jacob in a cozy little booth, maybe leaning in to taste his drink while holding his eyes with my own.
“More ice cream?” Katie asked, appearing at my side.
Oh, God. Chris!
Suddenly I had visions of Chris being trapped in an old refrigerator—not that there was an old refrigerator around, but it was the sort of thing my father warned us about incessantly when we were growing up. (He also warned us about standing fans and seemed to take a perverse pleasure in showing us how the rotating blades could snap pencils in two. “That’s what’ll happen to your fingers if you put them in there,” he’d say to us, solemnly holding up a stump of a pencil, and he’d leave it on the dining room table as an ominous warning. We were terrified of the fan for about a week, then Alex decided to see what else it could snap. She made it through a ruler, a wooden mixing spoon, and a chicken bone before breaking it on the handle of Dad’s tennis racket. Which wasn’t a great loss, since he’d given up on the game after whacking himself in the eye while learning to serve.)
There weren’t any standing fans around Jane’s house, were there? Or sharp-edged tables that could take out an eye, flammable clothing, open bottles of Drāno, or men in raincoats? (Dad had a lot of safety concerns.)
“I’ll give you the best surprise in the world,” I promised desperately as I raced upstairs again. “Just come out!”
A second later the cabinet door underneath the bathroom sink opened, and a tiny rumpled head poked out. How had he managed to squeeze in there? He was like a miniature Chinese contortionist.
“I want your trophy,” Chris said. “That’s my surprise.”
“What trophy?” I asked, sinking onto the edge of the bathtub in exhaustion.
“For being the best kid finder,” he said. “You said you got it from the mayor.”
A crash came from downstairs, and I shot upright again. “Katie!”
I ran down the stairs and found her in the middle of the kitchen, her bowl in pieces on the tile floor beside her. A chocolate puddle was forming on the floor, and she look like she’d grown a brown beard.
“My ice cream broke,” she said helpfully. “More.”
An hour later I’d stuffed both kids with ice cream, soaked them in the tub, and cleaned up the tsunami of water they’d splashed on the bathroom floor. I tucked them into bed and darted around the room, collecting the various stuffed animals they demanded. I fetched cups of water, took them to the bathroom again, rearranged their stuffed animals twice, answered several unsettling questions (“Do boogers have vitamins?” “Why is your bottom bigger than Mommy’s?”), and picked out bedtime stories. But first we underwent fierce negotiations:
Katie: “Three books!”
Me: “Just one!”
Chris: “Three!”
Me: “Oh, hell.”
Katie: “Oh, hell.”
Me: “No, no, I said, ‘Oh, bells!’ ”
Katie and Chris: Suspicious looks.
Before I’d gotten to the end of the second book, all three of us were asleep. That’s how Jane found me a few hours later when she came home from her date—curled up on an animal-print rug in a kinder version of nature in which tigers and zebras frolicked together joyfully.
“They weren’t any trouble, were they?” she asked.
“None at all,” I lied brightly, rubbing my eyes and staggering downstairs. “How was the date?”
“Fun,” Jane said. “He was a little shy at first, but he opened up after a while. We’ve got a lot in common. We were both born in Delaware. Isn’t that interesting?”
I could tell she liked him; it wasn’t that interesting.
“So do you want me to set you up with more guys, or do you want to see how this one plays out?” I asked.
Jane thought for a minute.
“I don’t really have time to juggle a lot of dates,” she said.
“I understand,” I said.
“And I can’t be going out all the time,” she said, frowning.
“Definitely,” I agreed.
“It wouldn’t be fair to the twins if I were gone every night,” she said.
“True,” I said.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Maybe we should see what happens with Toby,” I said. “If it doesn’t work out, we can go to Plan B.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” Jane said doubtfully.
She tried to give me some money for babysitting, but I batted it away.
“At least let me treat you to dinner or something,” Jane said.
“Tell you what,” I said. “If things work out with you and Toby, I get invited to the wedding.”
Jane smiled shyly. “Deal.”
We headed downstairs, and she collapsed onto the sofa. I glanced at my watch and idly wondered if Jacob was home from his date, too.
“My feet are killing me,” she said, wincing as she took off her shoes and rubbed her toes against the carpet. “This is the first time I’ve worn heels in a year. Do you want a glass of wine?”
“No, I’d better go, but don’t get up,” I said. “I’ll let myself out.”
I gave her a hug good-bye and walked toward the door. As I gathered my purse and cell phone, I paused for a moment to listen to the unexpected sound I could hear coming from the living room. Then a smile spread across my face as I realized what it was.
Jane was humming.
Twenty
MAY AND I WERE spending a peaceful morning on the phones, checking in with clients and updating files. At around eleven or so, I poured myself a cup of tea and snuck one of May’s chocolate-chip-and-toffee cookies. (The scrambled eggs I’d had for breakfast had been on the skimpy side. And so had both of my pieces of toast.) I’d just settled down to consider possibilities for my new clients when the phone rang. I was the closest so I grabbed it.
“Blind Dates,” I said. I kicked off my shoes and wiggled my newly pedicured toes. I’d had them painted bright red last night when May had forced me to leave early. Aside from the fact that I was so ticklish I’d almost kicked the pedicurist in the face (good reflexes, that one; she’d reared back like a young pony), the experience had been fabulous.
“Is May there?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“May I tell her who’s calling?” I asked.
“Who is this?” the guy said angrily. “Is this her secretary? You got to be kidding me. She has a secretary now?”
May saw the expression on my face and reached for the phone.
“This is May,” she said
. “Oh, it’s you.”
Her face fell as the guy launched into a diatribe. I couldn’t make out his words, but I could hear him shouting.
“I’m asking you to please not call me again,” May said. “We’ve signed all the divorce papers. There’s nothing more to discuss.”
Ah, the charming ex-husband. Should I leave the room and give May privacy? I sat there in an agony of indecision, pretending to be absorbed in reading a file, while he raged awhile longer. May’s voice stayed calm, but her fingers grew white as she clenched the phone.
“I think it’s best if we communicate through our lawyers from now on,” she said at one point. Finally she rolled her eyes and hung up.
“Told you he was a prince,” May said. She tried for a smile, but she couldn’t pull it off.
“Sorry,” I said. “That must’ve been a tough conversation.”
May nodded and turned back to her papers. Clearly she didn’t want to talk about it. I tried to get back to work, too, but my concentration was shot. The peaceful vibe we’d been enjoying was shattered. After a bit, I stood up, gathered our teacups, and washed them out in the sink. I looked at the clock and saw it was almost noon.
“Why don’t I run out and get us some sandwiches?” I suggested. “I’ll bring you back anything you want.”
“You know what I want?” May said, putting down the paper she was reading and rubbing her eyes. “I want to get out of the house for a little while and take my mind off what just happened. I’ve read this page five times in a row, and I still don’t have any idea what it says.”
“Then let’s go,” I said, grabbing my purse. We climbed into May’s yellow VW Bug, and she started up the engine. I reached to turn on the radio so she wouldn’t feel pressured to talk. But my hand stopped in midair when she began to speak.
“Do you know I used to be a completely different person?” May said. She half-smiled, the kind of smile that has no joy in it, and reached into her wallet.
“I keep this here so I won’t ever forget what I used to be like.”
She reached into her purse and handed me a photograph that was worn around the edges from being handled so often. The woman in the picture was rail-thin and wore a knee-length, pleated skirt and a tight smile. Her lipstick was Barbie pink, and her straight blond hair was pulled back by a flowered headband, so tightly it gave me a headache just looking at it.
The Opposite of Me Page 22
