Just Breathe

by Susan Wiggs

  As the girl walked away, Sarah called after her. “Hey, see you around.”

  Sixteen

  Sarah hesitated at the entryway of the Fairfax Grange Hall, a public facility used for meetings and the occasional special event. I can’t do this, she thought. I don’t belong here.

  “Excuse me.” A small, energetic woman brushed past her, the scent of shampoo wafting from her just-washed hair. At one end of the light-filled room, there was a stage hung with dusty-looking drapes. At the other end, Sarah could see a few people—mostly women—in folding chairs arranged in a semicircle or gathered around the coffee urn at a table. These were people of all ages, shapes and sizes. Even so, she couldn’t imagine they had anything in common.

  “Can I get by?” somebody asked from behind her.

  She stepped aside for a man on crutches, his leg encased in a full-length air cast.

  “Let me get the door,” Sarah said, holding it wide.

  “Thanks.” The man hobbled in. He was Latino, compact and fit with a face that bore the lines of years in the sun. He passed by Sarah and turned to her. “Well? Are you coming?”

  Sarah panicked. Now someone had noticed her. Now she was trapped. Her mouth was dry. “Do I have to?” she blurted out.

  “No.” He headed for the chairs, then pivoted on one crutch and turned back. “You can always go home and stare at the four walls instead, but who wants to do that?”

  She caught the glint of humor in his eyes. “There go my plans for the evening.”

  She picked a chair near the door. “In case I need to make a fast getaway,” she told the guy in the cast, pulling up an extra chair for him to rest his leg on.

  “It gets easier.”

  “This isn’t so hard,” she said, even though she’d been seated less than a minute. “I think I’ll just observe tonight, though. I’m not really into holding hands and praying.”

  “Wrong meeting,” he said. “We don’t do that here.”

  Sarah slumped in relief.

  “We do the group hug instead.”

  She blanched.

  He laughed aloud, drawing attention to them. “Kidding.”

  There were perhaps a dozen people present, and to Sarah’s dismay, one of the women said, “We have a new face tonight.”

  Sarah felt pinned by their gazes. A frog on the dissecting tray. She managed to lift her hand in a feeble wave.

  “Let’s go around and introduce ourselves. I’m Imogene. My divorce was finalized a year ago.”

  Sarah couldn’t keep track of all the names, but the common bond was clear now. Each person in the room was at some stage of divorce. That was the whole purpose of the group—to offer support for people facing divorce. Simply coming here was huge for Sarah, an acknowledgment that what was happening to her was difficult and she was having trouble dealing with it. When her turn came around, she wanted to bolt. I’m not divorced, she’d say. I don’t belong here.

  “I’m Sarah,” she heard herself say. “I, ah, came here from Chicago.”

  To her intense relief, no one seemed to expect more. The topic switched after a few murmurs of welcome. “I’m Gloria, and I’d like to talk about authenticity,” a woman said. “Today at work, my partner brought up something I’ve been thinking about. Just being a good person doesn’t necessarily entitle you to a good life. It used to make me angry as hell, thinking about how hard I worked at being a good wife. It was completely frustrating because no matter how great everything looked on the outside, I was miserable on the inside. That didn’t change until I understood that I have to surrender to who I am.” She smiled, and her eyes softened. “Ruby and I will be celebrating our six-month anniversary together pretty soon. I wish I could tell you that we’re living happily ever after, but that would be a lie. She’s got a thirteen-year-old daughter who’s having trouble accepting this. So we’re living happily a day at a time.”

  Sarah decided this was definitely not the support group for her. How could she have anything in common with Gloria?

  No matter how great things looked on the outside, I was miserable on the inside.

  So, okay, Sarah thought. There’s that.

  Feeling less resistant, she leaned back and listened to forty-five minutes of talk. To her surprise and discomfiture, many of the things people said resonated through her. So many marriages went bad because someone was pretending. She wondered why. Why did people pretend? Why had she?

  She’d come here thinking she’d never be able to relate to these people. Yet just like these strangers, she’d experienced the feelings of shock, frustration and isolation, of shame and disappointment and rage. She was all too familiar with the sense that things were slipping away, and with the denial that kicked in, enabling her to pretend things were fine—for a while, at least.

  “Anyone else?” a woman asked, looking around the room.

  Sarah’s heart sped up. This was a group of strangers. She had no business sharing personal matters with them.

  People were looking at watches. Chairs were scraping.

  Good, she thought. Saved by the bell. She had never been socially gregarious. As a student, she never liked raising her hand in class or contributing to a discussion. When she was Jack’s wife, she’d always been content to follow him to social functions and watch from the sidelines.

  Her palms were sweating. Best to slip away and forget about this.

  And then, just as people were starting to rise from their seats, someone said, “I’m scared to find out who I am without my husband.”

  The room fell silent. The words seemed to echo off the old, battered walls of the building.

  Oh, crap, thought Sarah. That was me.

  Her face heated uncomfortably and she fumbled for an explanation. “Um, I’m not sure why I blurted that out.” She paused and looked around the room, expecting to see impatience or boredom. They were all staring at her. She attempted a self-deprecating grin. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”

  The guy next to her—Luis—patted her arm. “My friend, if you come to this group long enough, you’ve heard everything before. That doesn’t matter. For you, this is all brand-new. That’s what matters.”

  Part of her, the Chicago part, wanted to jump up and yell, “How can this matter to you people? You don’t even know me. How can you care?” Yet deep down, she was grateful to be heard. Finally. She took a deep breath and laced her fingers together in her lap. “I married right out of college. I never really made a life for myself. I went from a shared dorm room to Jack’s house. Back when it was all working, it felt fine. Then as time went on, it didn’t. It felt like I was living a borrowed life. Something not my own, something I’d need to give back to its owner after a while.”

  Instead of feeling nervous or silly, Sarah relaxed. These people weren’t here to judge her. They were here to listen. “He had already settled down before he met me. So the house we lived in was his. We called it ours but it was always his.

  “Do you know, several times after we were first married, I drove right past that house when coming home? I didn’t even recognize it as mine. How can you not know what your own house looks like?” She wondered how she’d stayed blind to so much for so long.

  “When you work at home, like I did, you generally create a space that reflects who you are, right? Well, not me. My home office was a little study with built-in shelves and a drafting table. Jack kept his fly-tying equipment in there, and his gear was always parked right in front of the window, blotting out the light. And it never occurred to me that this was a problem.” She glanced at her watch. “Anyway, a lot of other things happened. Things that may not shock you all but they sure as hell took me by surprise. I’m glad I came here tonight. Thanks for making me feel welcome.” She stopped, pulled in a deep breath, feeling cleansed. No, scoured raw. Which felt better t
han dragging herself around, half-alive, day after day.

  They put their chairs away and cleaned up the coffee service. “I hope you’ll come back,” Gloria said.

  “I wish I didn’t need to,” Sarah told her.

  “Everyone needs friends.”

  “You’re right, but it’s not like they come knocking at the door.”

  “True. You have to take steps yourself. This—coming to a meeting—is one of them.”

  Sarah found a tea towel and dried the lid of the coffee urn. “Here’s what scares me. I feel as though I’ve reached the end of my life, like there’s nothing left for me to do.”

  “Don’t think of it that way.” Gloria wiped down the counters and sink. “Think of it as having a really long adolescence. And now you’re finally ready to grow up.”

  Sarah felt drawn to Gloria’s straightforward manner. “That’s one way of looking at it. So how long have you been divorced?”

  “Just a year. After a decade of trying to talk myself into being happy, I got divorced, fell apart and fell in love, all in the space of a few months. People say you shouldn’t start a new relationship so soon after the marriage ends, but hell. Who cares what people say?”

  Sarah put on her jacket as they walked out together.

  “Come back next week,” Gloria said.

  Sarah hesitated, then felt like smacking herself. “I still have this habit of thinking of him. Someone extends an invitation, and I automatically think of Jack’s schedule. Or I’ll go to the grocery store and buy things he likes, without even thinking about it. I don’t even know what kind of crackers I prefer. I always bought Ritz because those were Jack’s favorites.”

  “I hope you took them right back to the store.”

  “Better than that. I went down to the beach and fed everything to the seagulls.”

  Seventeen

  Aurora was tired of being an A student, but she didn’t quite know how to go about changing her reputation. Her English teacher had assigned War of the Worlds, and she wanted to turn up her nose at it, but in all honesty, she couldn’t. It was a great book, way better than the movie. Yet if she admitted this aloud, she’d be as uncool as a member of the chess club. Bummer. She liked chess, too.

  Glenmuir was the end of the line for the school bus. At the intersection of Drake and Shoreline, the brakes hissed and it shuddered to a halt. Aurora looked up from War of the Worlds as Mandy Jacobson and her sidekicks moved forward to exit the bus, chattering and laughing all the way.

  Aurora waited expectantly, hoping as she did each day that the girls would notice her, maybe invite her to come along for whatever it was they did every day. They always seemed to be having a hilarious time, even just walking down the street.

  But today, like all days, they breezed past, leaving the scent of bubble gum and Juicy Couture body splash in their wake, ignoring Aurora as though she was a knapsack somebody had left behind.

  You’d think she would learn, give up and move on after all this time. Yet their lives looked like such fun. It was hard not to want to be one of them. On the bus, they put on makeup and did each other’s hair. Some days, they acknowledged Aurora, but only if they needed to copy her prealgebra or Spanish homework, because they knew she’d have hers done, and correct. And even though it made her heart pound and her palms sweat in terror of getting caught, Aurora obliged. She had no choice. If she refused, these girls would have nothing to do with her.

  She got up slowly and slid her arm through one strap of her backpack.

  “See you tomorrow, hon,” said the bus driver.

  Aurora thanked her and offered a half wave as the door clanked shut.

  Mandy and her friends were gathered at the window of Vernon’s Variety Store. Since Mr. Vernon had caught them shoplifting makeup last summer, they weren’t allowed in the shop, something they seemed to find funny, rather than shameful.

  “How about an ice cream?” someone asked.

  Aurora was so startled, she nearly tripped over her own feet. “Huh?”

  Seated at a stainless-steel round table outside the Magic Bean, Sarah Moon was watching her. “I was just wondering if I could buy you an ice cream.”

  Aurora’s cheeks heated. It was embarrassing to be seen following Mandy, Carson and Deb around like a lost puppy.

  “Unless you’ve got plans with your friends?” Sarah asked this tentatively, and Aurora had the impression she understood the way things were.

  Aurora decided to enlighten her. “They don’t really want to hang out with me.” She instantly wished she hadn’t been so bluntly honest. She braced herself for Sarah’s reaction.

  Most adults would say, Nonsense, of course you have friends. Not Sarah, though. She didn’t even act surprised.

  “Why aren’t you friends?” she asked.

  Aurora shrugged.

  “Let me guess. The ones you want to be friends with ignore you. And the ones who want to be your friends are too geeky to live.”

  “Pretty much,” Aurora admitted, wondering how Sarah knew.

  “I hate when that happens.”

  Aurora concealed a sigh of relief. Thank God she didn’t say anything like, I’ll be your friend. Way too many adults said stuff like that. She especially heard that kind of talk from women her dad dated. The tactic always backfired. It made Aurora feel as used as she did when Mandy copied her homework.

  “Watch your step,” Sarah said. “Franny has a knack for getting underfoot.”

  Aurora looked at the dog on the leash, lying under the table. She hesitated, remembering that the mutt had growled at her.

  “How is the training coming?” she asked.

  “Amazingly well, especially since I’ve never had a dog before.”

  “What made you decide to get one now?”

  “I didn’t exactly decide,” Sarah explained. “I just sort of... ended up with her.”

  Aurora was extremely familiar with the concept but she didn’t say so. She started to feel uncomfortable, remembering the lie she’d told Sarah Moon last time they met. She and her dad were moving to Vegas to be with her mom. Yeah, right.

  “I call her Franny,” Sarah explained, “after a character in a book.”

  “Franny and Zooey,” Aurora said, relieved that Sarah didn’t ask about her Vegas plans.

  “You know that book?”

  “Sure. I’ve read Nine Stories and Catcher in the Rye, too.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  Aurora shrugged again. Reading any book ever written—that was simple. Making friends with Mandy Jacobson and her gang—that was impossible.

  “Would you like to have a seat?”

  Aurora hesitated, just for a moment. Her dad was on duty until tonight, so she had to go to her grandparents’. She was about to politely decline when a boy came out of the coffee shop. It was Zane Parker, the heartthrob of Glenmuir. In a Magic Bean T-shirt and baseball cap, a black apron slung low around his hips, he greeted her with a smile. Aurora instantly sat down next to Sarah.

  “Hey,” he said. “Can I get you something?”

  “Yes, please.” She panicked, having no idea what she wanted. She couldn’t remember her own name. “A Coke, please.” As he headed back into the shop, she recalled that she didn’t really like Coke.

  “And how about an ice cream?” Sarah offered.

  “No, thank you.”

  Sarah stuck her spoon into the stainless-steel cup. “Normally, I don’t even like ice cream but lately it’s all I think about. I started trying weird flavors, too, like mocha and pistachio together. And then sometimes, I think...Roquefort.... Why not?”

  “Roquefort ice cream?” Aurora asked.

  “Sometimes I’m weird that way.”

  Zane showed up in time to see Aurora’s face contort int
o a look of exaggerated disgust. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  I want to die, Aurora thought. Right this minute. “Yes,” she managed to say, ironing out the wrinkles in her face.

  He set the Coke in front of her and then left so quickly she barely had time to thank him. Dangit. She should have ordered something that would require him to stick around. Bananas flambé, prepared tableside.

  “He’s cute,” Sarah said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you friends with him?”

  “As if. Zane’s in ninth grade and I’m in seventh. I’m sort of friends with his brother, Ethan, who’s in my grade.” Ethan was neither cute nor cool, but he was just a heartbeat away from Zane.

  Aurora sighed. “How do you get a boy to notice you?”

  Sarah smiled and licked the back of her spoon. “You quit caring whether or not he does.”

  Aurora slipped the straw into the bottle. “All right. From now on, I don’t care.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Speak of the devil.” She pointed at a skinny kid in baggy jeans and black T-shirt, surfing toward them on a two-wheeled in-line skateboard. “That’s Ethan.” He was a skater who dressed in black, wore glasses and liked school way too much. Still, there was something about him, something serious and mature, that appealed to her. She hoped he’d still be that way when she hit sixteen and her dad let her date. In the meantime, Zane was at the center of all her dreams.

  Ethan jumped off at the curb, popped the board up and caught it one-handed. “Hey,” he said to Aurora.

  “Hey.”

  Zane came out. “Did you get the stuff for tonight?”

  Ethan opened the small paper sack he was holding to reveal a can of kerosene. “Bonfire at the beach tonight,” he said to Aurora. “Are you coming?”

  She could feel Zane behind her, motioning for his brother to shut up.

  “Nah,” she said, then deliberately turned away. She felt kind of bad for him, but it would be worse to show up where she wasn’t wanted.