Loves Me, Loves Me Not

by Libby Malin

  “You use several florists?”

  “You can’t always get good service at some. Better to spread the business around.”

  I blush, remembering my mix-up with the order to Tess Wintergarten.

  “That reminds me,” I say. “You never did tell me what you had to do to make it up to Tess Wintergarten. And why’d you have to make up for sending her flowers, anyway? Usually you have to make it up when you don’t send flowers.”

  Picking up a stone, he throws it into the field. “I had to go antique shopping with her. But that was on Saturday. On Friday night, I had to change my plans and take her dancing.”

  “What? You were originally planning on taking Diana Malvani dancing?”

  He stays silent, which is my answer.

  Now I’m getting mad. Mad at myself. Just because Henry has taken an interest in me lately doesn’t mean he’s left his ways behind. When will he take Diana dancing again? When he gets tired of me?

  “Your car is leaking something,” he says after a while.

  “Huh?” I stand, staring over at the old Pontiac as if it has just betrayed me.

  “I noticed it when I drove up. There’s a trail of something from the road down to the house.” He points over at the car as I walk toward it. Following me, he sniffs the air.

  “Gasoline,” he says.

  “You know something about cars?”

  He laughs. “I know nothing about cars except I like to drive them. Wrong Latino type, conchita.”

  Conchita, schmonchita. Henry’s beginning to annoy me with this phony Spanish routine. I smell the gasoline, too, and lean over to peer under the body of the car. Oddly, no signs announcing the problem and its potential cost greet my eyes. In fact, I don’t even see the leak. But the smell is definitely stronger. “I thought it was just my muffler,” I say.

  “You shouldn’t drive it if it’s leaking gasoline.”

  “Right, I shouldn’t.”

  So I’m starting my week with no job, no house, and now no car.

  The essay Gina suggested I write is suddenly crammed with stark necessities. Forget whimsical touches like figuring out what I want out of life. Now my needs are desperate and simple.

  In a strange way, this makes me feel better. I’ll be too busy now to worry about what to do with the rest of my life.

  Nobody can blame me if I don’t get on that right away.

  chapter 8

  Mushroom: Suspicion

  Because Rick was a good-looking man, he was a prime target for hungry, good-looking women. Despite the fact that I never saw evidence of infidelity, I was sometimes unsettled by the attention his model-perfect looks would garner when we went out together. He knew it bothered me and he was sympathetic, telling me I was “cute enough” to make men’s heads turn. Cute enough? That hardly mollified me. And when his firm hired a gorgeous lawyer fresh out of Yale, all blond hair and blue eyes and slim figure, I began to morph into a green-eyed monster, irritated and grumpy when he worked late, hypersensitive to the slightest slight. One night, I was near tears by the time he came home close to eleven, envisioning he’d begun a torrid affair on the conference room table. Not knowing he’d be working late, I’d slaved over a special steak dinner. With exotic mushrooms and expensive herbs, it was a brilliant, but lonely, success. He brought home a peace offering—ironically, a dozen yellow roses! Sure, I knew they were really a gift a grateful client had given him, but they dried my tears, especially when he told me that the new blond lawyer was unhappy and jumping ship to another firm.

  Before Henry leaves for the night, he asks me again about the banquet, but now I have a reason to refuse.

  “I’m sorry. I checked my schedule and I promised some friends I’d get together with them.” This is a half lie. I am getting together with Wendy and her friends on Friday, not on Thursday, and I hadn’t even made that plan when he asked me the first time.

  Henry accepts my excuse with no comment. He kind of shrugs, kisses me and tells me he’ll call me.

  As I throw away the empty Chinese cartons I reflect on the fact that we only made love once during this visit, instead of the marathon number of times on the two previous occasions we’d gotten together. At first, I interpret this as a good sign. It indicates that there’s more to our relationship than sex, right? But then, as I lean against a porch post admiring my rhododendron, I realize there is danger in this fact. Perhaps he is already tiring of me and is ready to move on to another blossom, another Di, another Tess, another Amy.

  It shouldn’t matter. I don’t want involvement, right? I want a dating relationship. I want to play the field. Now I want my inner voices to speak, to give me direction. I want clear maps, not cloudy views.

  Where is that damn list? I want an in-ground pool, a new home, a new job and now a new car! That’s what I want.

  Remembering the car, I inspect it again, hoping that it fixed itself.

  It hasn’t. If anything, the smell is even stronger.

  “Good thing I’m taking off this week,” I tell Trixie, who brushes against my bare ankles.

  I pack some more that evening, mostly my clothes in two huge suitcases. I really need to spruce up my wardrobe, but I can’t afford to go clothes-shopping now that my money spigot is about to be turned off.

  Maybe Gina and Henry are right. Maybe I need to start thinking about a career choice again.

  Even though I’m only in my twenties, I feel too old to be taking tests and writing essays. I settle in front of the television with Sunday’s classifieds on my lap and a red felt pen in my hand.

  I’ll read every single one and circle those that appeal to me, even the ones for which I’m completely unqualified. Perhaps this little exercise will prime the pump and get the juices flowing.

  I am halfway through the C’s—and yes, I circled “chemist” after deciding maybe I need to think about returning to school—when I get caught up in a cooking show. Chicken with grapes and feta cheese. Maybe I should write the recipe down and try it on Henry one night. As the ingredients scroll by, I frantically scribble them in the margin of the newspaper.

  When I’m finished, I rip off that edge, taking with it a large chunk of the D’s and E’s. There are a lot of good jobs in the E’s, too, I notice as I copy the recipe onto a note card in the kitchen a few moments later. Editor, executive director, education paraprofessional.

  Because I rose so early, my eyelids are heavy by the time the show is over. I’ve only made it halfway through the alphabet, but this leaves me feeling satisfied and happy. Something to look forward to tomorrow—finishing my job hunt.

  After neatly folding the paper and leaving it on the kitchen table, I close up shop, coax Trixie in for the night and clean up for bed. When I finally put my head on the pillow, I smell Tommy Hilfiger, Henry’s scent.

  I sleep better than I have in years.

  And I awake, early and grumpy in the morning.

  Pete has wasted no time. Now that I’ve agreed to sign on the dotted line and get out early, he must have given the new property owners a thumbs-up to getting started with construction. Instead of waiting until next week as Pete had originally suggested they would, bulldozers are rumbling and coughing onto my estate at first light.

  Grabbing a terry robe and tying it around my waist I run to the door. Trixie leaps out and dives away from the huge machines.

  A helmeted man stares down at me.

  “Did you know you have a gasoline leak in your car?” he hollers.

  “Yeah. Thanks!” I scream up to him. After that good-morning greeting, I tramp back inside and make myself a cup of java. There isn’t much in my house for breakfast since I haven’t had a chance to shop, and since I’m leaving by the end of the week I didn’t want to stock up.

  How am I going to stock up, anyway? Can’t drive the Pontiac.

  A panic attack starts to take shape, curling up through my toes and into my fingertips, buzzing into my chest and giving my heart a little jolt. No Place to Live flashes the ne
on sign in my brain. No place to live! No place to live! Homeless!

  With perspiring hands I see myself pushing a shopping cart full of rags and old soda cans through downtown Baltimore. It’s come to this—my trip out of the fast lane has landed me in the gutter. What the hell was I thinking? Who can save me?

  I reach for the phone and call Gina. It won’t be so bad, I rationalize. Just for a few days or a week or a month. Then I’ll find something—an apartment, a condo, a forest ranger’s shack.

  Gina’s perky voice greets me after two rings.

  “You’re up early,” she says after the hello’s are out of the way.

  “Well, that’s why I’m calling you,” I say, and proceed to tell her about the bulldozers that dropped in for morning coffee. “So I was wondering if I could camp out with you guys after all. Just for a little while. A week or so, maybe.” Please make it just a week, Lord. Let me win the lottery.

  “Honey, that would be grand,” she announces, but there’s a certain lack of enthusiasm in her voice. Wasn’t she just trying to convince me to move in with her a few days ago? Was that all a show—an offer I was meant to refuse? I chalk up her reaction to the early hour. Her sisterly instincts haven’t kicked in yet.

  “Fred’s going to be out of town at the end of the week. Some conference in Colorado. So this is perfect timing!” she says, this time with suitable excitement. Ah, so that’s it—Fred and me in the same house for extended stay. Does not compute.

  “Great!” I return. “We can rent some movies.” Better to think of it as a sleepover than temporary shelter. It seems so much more fun that way.

  “Oh, yeah,” I mention casually before getting off the phone, “I think I’ll need to get a new car.”

  “You can borrow mine while you’re here!” Now that the sleepover mentality is affecting us both she is vivacious. She starts planning. She tells me that she will fill the tank and give me Fred’s keys. She asks me what I want for dinner when I come. She asks me if the room I stayed in was comfortable. She gives me her schedule for the next few days that includes a hair appointment and a club meeting and a get-together with some friends. Then she tells me not to worry, I won’t be an imposition at all. I get the impression she’s thinking out loud—convincing herself how neatly I’ll fit into her world. By the time I get off the phone I’m tired. It’s as if I just lived through her schedule with her. All those appointments and meetings do wear a girl out.

  I spend my morning packing up my few fragile belongings, and cleaning. I find a rhythm that keeps me moving forward without thinking too much and it feels good to be occupied with meaningful tasks. I call the movers again and ask them if they can come earlier, and the only time they have open is tomorrow, Thursday morning, so that lights the fire under me even stronger.

  Although I don’t have much and I am having the movers pack it all up for storage, I find other things I have to do. Disconnect the phone and electricity, change my post office address, cancel my insurance on the car, find a job.

  It is midafternoon before I can sit down and tackle that last task. And even then it takes me a good half hour before I’m really able to focus.

  First, I can’t find a pen. All right, so I have a ballpoint right there on the kitchen table. But it’s some cheapo thing with a clicker top and some business name on the side. Note to business owners: ballpoint pens are not good promo items unless you can afford expensive versions with huge lettering. Anyway, this one puts out a weak blue trail. Surely I would miss some good ads if I circled them with this puny thing.

  So I ransack my purse, my kitchen “junk drawer,” my dresser top, and finally the sofa cushions, where I find yesterday’s red Sharpie. I will feel very productive circling ads with its elegant crimson flair.

  Speaking of ads, I then have to go on a treasure hunt for the newspaper. In my rush to clean up, I must have put it out with other recyclables. After pawing through a stack of old papers, I finally locate the right strata—this week’s editions—and pull it out with maestro-like assurance.

  And then I remember I’d ripped out a section in order to write the recipe on it. Another search, this one fruitless. That scrap of paper must have been swept into the trash can when I was scouring the kitchen.

  No matter. There are plenty of ads left, right? But the thought of those lost ads nags at me and I have trouble concentrating. I remember some good ones on that scrap, ones that matched my skills. I’ll have to get a new newspaper. Meantime, I can look through the ads in this one. But wait, if I do that and then buy a new one, I’ll have two papers, both the same, but with different ads circled. It could get confusing. Better to give up the hunt until I get the new paper.

  Before I reach this conclusion, though, I do manage to make my way through the S’s, and the Sunday section’s a sea of red ovals. The ink bleeding through the thin paper to the underside makes it look as if I’ve found many more prospective jobs than I really have. And half of those jobs are in the “chemist” category, if you know what I mean.

  Even though the job-hunt part of my day only occupies about two hours, it tires me out the most. I have an early dinner of leftovers and try not to wonder if Henry will call. I do try to remember what it was like to be in the early part of a relationship where the will-he-call-me-tonight question lurks in the corner of your mind.

  Uh-oh. This unleashes the dueling voices, one carping about how I shouldn’t even be thinking “relationship” while the other shouts her disdain. I’m tired. Too tired for debates. So I turn on the TV and watch reruns of the Donna Reed Show, feeling all cozy as I start to live in that world where doctors actually made house calls and a wife wore pearls to breakfast.

  Henry doesn’t call, but I’ve managed to convince myself that I don’t care if he does. And I feel better by the time I go to bed. Tomorrow, I’ll greet the movers and trundle off to my sister’s for an open-ended sleepover, then I’ll move on with my life.

  Right?

  It’s 5:30 a.m. and I’m dressed in my Tweetie Bird nightshirt rummaging around one of the trash bags to reclaim all my prewedding memorabilia.

  I tell myself I might need the stuff. Not for my sake, mind you. No, no, it’s for Wendy. Wendy will get married some day (once she’s free of Sam, of course) and I don’t want to be sitting around with her as she plans the wedding, slapping myself on the forehead wishing I’d kept the catalogs, the tip sheets, the lists. My God, the lists alone are worth their weight in gold.

  So in the cool hush of dawn, I manage to drag all that stuff from oblivion and place it back into a box where it will rest safely rotting for another thousand years. Great junk for an archaeologist to discover some day. Yes, saving it is a public service, no matter which way you view it. Either Wendy will profit from it, or some anonymous sleuth in a British field hat and Bermuda shorts will uncover it as a relic of the Wedding Planning Epoch.

  “Come over here, chap,” I hear him saying to an identically dressed colleague with a fusty-smelling pipe in his mouth. “Have you ever seen anything as organized as this, old boy? Why, it’s a veritable treasure trove. Whoever saved this material was most assuredly a public-spirited citizen, I’d say, a true patriot of the first class, a demmed good sport, what ho, jolly good, cheerio and all that.”

  All right, so maybe they won’t talk like that in the future, but in the predawn hours my fantasies all read like old B movies. I can’t think straight, let alone fantasize imaginatively.

  The point is—and this is really important—I’m not saving the stuff for myself. It’s for Posterity. Or Wendy. Or maybe even for Gina’s as-yet-to-be-conceived daughter. I just know I can’t give it up and throw it all away. It seems cruel that anyone would expect me to do that. Who is that “anyone,” anyway? And why are they doing this to me?

  I don’t go back to sleep after rescuing my wedding things from the cliff of nothingness. I change and drink coffee and putter and worry. Will the movers arrive on time, and if they do will they get everything safely in the truck?
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  Eventually, they do arrive and I offer them coffee and make awkward small talk and the move begins.

  I hate watching furniture being moved. I’m always afraid that the movers are going to drop something on their toes and blame me. I think they’re blaming me for how heavy the furniture is, as if I’ve loaded it up with lead weights just to make their job harder. So I’m cringing a lot, which makes my head start to ache a little. Dammit.

  Complicating the movers’ task is the bulldozer parked right at my front door. Thursday must be some national earth-moving holiday, because the bulldozer operator and his pals haven’t arrived. This means the moving van can only park at the end of the dirt road instead of next to the house, causing the movers to walk everything a good ten yards before they get to the ramp of their truck.

  They’re so happy at the end of this job that I imagine they’ll be taking really good care of my things.

  Gina is coming at noon to pick me and Trixie up. By the time she arrives I’m sitting, frazzled and hot, on the porch trying to hold on to the cat, who wants nothing more than to scamper away. She senses something is up.

  At exactly 11:59, Gina pulls up in her silver Volvo. Pushing her sunglasses onto her head, she gets out and grins.

  “Nice dress,” she quips. I’m wearing the same sundress I wore the other night when Henry, who still hasn’t called (But am I paying attention? Hell no!) was here. Then she looks at the cat and her smile fades. “Oh, I forgot you had a cat.”

  “Is that a problem?” I ask, picking up one suitcase while Gina gets the other.

  “Fred doesn’t like cats.” She clicks open her trunk and we scoot the luggage in. “And don’t you have a pet carrying case or something?”

  “I think I accidentally let the movers take it.”

  “I was hoping we could stop at the mall on the way home,” she says, eyeing Trixie.

  “We can take Trix to your place, grab some lunch, and then go shopping,” I suggest.

  Flipping her sunglasses back on her face, she slides behind the wheel. “Okay. Fred’s not going to be home until Tuesday anyway.”