Friday Mornings at Nine

by Marilyn Brant

  “I’m calling for Tamara,” the man said. “I was hoping to catch you in person, but I didn’t have luck in reaching you directly. My apologies for telling you this via message. I’m Al Jeffries, a good friend of your Aunt Eliza. I’m sorry to say, your aunt has been rushed to the St. Augustine’s Medical Center in Montpelier. She had a stroke and is in critical condition. I just—”

  Tamara dropped the gas bill and the drugstore circular back onto the coffee table and struggled to listen to the rest of Al’s message. Pretty much all she could grasp after that was that the man would keep her posted and, if she had any questions, she could feel free to give him a call.

  She immediately hit Callback.

  “Hello, Al? It’s Tamara. I’m so sorry I missed your call,” she said when he answered his phone, but that was all she could manage before the tears overcame her. Not soft, gentle droplets. These were sobs. Sobs loud enough to drag Jon out of his office to peek at her. To actually walk down the hall to see what the big problem was.

  “Tamara, dear. I’m glad you reached me,” the older gentleman told her.

  She sniffled. “Is she okay? Or at least kind of stable now?”

  There was a telling silence. “No.” He cleared his throat. “No, we lost her a half hour ago. But there wasn’t a thing either you or I could’ve done to stop it. She slipped into a coma right after the stroke, and the medics weren’t able to revive her. Even had you known, there wouldn’t have been anything you could’ve said or done—here or there—to turn back the clock.” He gulped some air. “She was a stubborn one, that aunt of yours. Always said when she was ready to go, no one would stop her….”

  Tamara could hear the affection mingling with sadness in his voice, both so powerful she could feel them through the line. “I can’t believe it, Al,” she whispered, and, for a few moments, that was all she could say. The immensity of the loss engulfed her. Then, “I wasn’t—I wasn’t ready for her to go.”

  “Me, either.”

  After that, they just stayed on the line for a while, saying nothing, really. Clinging to their phone connection as if it were their last link to Eliza herself.

  Before Tamara hung up, she told Al she’d fly out to Vermont right away to handle the funeral arrangements. He said he’d be more than willing to help. Then he added, “I’m sorry we’re meeting for the first time under these circumstances, my dear, but I’m glad we’ll have a chance to get acquainted finally. Your aunt loved you immeasurably. Her phone conversations with you brightened her days. Some people—” His voice broke as he said this. “Some people only remember their elderly family members when they die. You were there for her in life.”

  When she clicked off, Jon was standing behind her, not even pretending not to have overheard. “Sorry to hear the news,” he said, his voice gruff but, for once, devoid of his usual tone of accusation. “I know how much you loved her.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered. She gazed at him and, for a brief, rare moment, she felt a glimmer of the closeness they’d once shared. But the moment passed, so she ambled to the bedroom to begin packing. Alone. Jon had commitments, of course, but was it too much to offer to help? To even give her a consolation hug? Apparently so.

  After booking an online flight out east, she e-mailed Jennifer, whom she knew would be checking messages. No Indigo Moon for me tomorrow, she typed, explaining quickly about her aunt’s death and the funeral. Please pass along the news to Bridget for me. Have fun, though, and I’ll see you both soon.

  But she didn’t know if she would. For the first time in three and a half years she was relieved to have a good excuse not to go out for Friday coffee. Appreciative of the upcoming days away, regardless of the reason. Grieving yet somehow grateful.

  9

  Bridget & Jennifer

  Friday, September 17

  Jennifer arrived three minutes early and slipped through the front doors of the Indigo Moon Café, not surprised to be the first one there. She’d received Tamara’s message, of course, and would relay the news to Bridget upon her arrival, but she more than suspected her dark-haired friend would be late. Which suited Jennifer just fine this morning.

  She’d come prepared for calm—and quick—pleasantry, and she’d dressed accordingly. She’d fixed in her mind a set departure time, and the greater the number of minutes that passed before she had to enact her charade of normalcy in front of Bridget, the less time she’d have to spend onstage overall.

  She unbuttoned her light, beige overcoat, designed for both appropriate warmth (the fall mornings could be chilly) and anonymity. The latter she accomplished by eschewing all marks of distinction, such as colorful silk scarves or identifying broaches. There would be no golden oak leaves or bright red apples pinned to one of Jennifer’s coat collars, thank you.

  Of course, David would laugh at her if she wore anything with an apple—decorative or not. “Turned into a Mac person now, have you? Christ, what’s the world coming to?” So, the fewer items she wore worthy of comment, the less she’d be forced to reveal.

  Jennifer let the hostess lead her to the usual corner table. She made herself as comfortable as possible on the squishy vinyl, picking at her short fingernails with the edge of the laminated menu and contemplating prospective opening lines for when she and David met next week. It’s been a long time. Or, Hey, nice to see you. You haven’t changed a bit. Or, Before you take even one step closer, tell me why you left me. Well, maybe not that last one.

  At precisely 9:09, Bridget burst through the front doors, spotted her and made a beeline for their table.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she panted, removing a maroon Windbreaker with a faded red, white and blue “Obama Mama” button on it and tossing the jacket on the seat beside her. The thin jersey Bridget wore beneath was an eye-popping swirl of teal and lavender, the visual equivalent of smelling salts on Jennifer’s psyche.

  “That’s okay,” Jennifer murmured as she tried to blink away the color cacophony. Didn’t work.

  “The kids were driving me insane this morning. ‘Where’d you put my granola bar?’ and ‘Are my new jeans washed yet?’ and ‘Can I go over to Leo’s or Kara’s or somebody’s house after school?’” Bridget mimicked, plopping herself onto the vinyl cushion next to Jennifer. “Evan almost didn’t make it to the bus because the two older ones kept—” She stopped midsentence and glanced around, the dark hair swinging behind her like a superhero’s cape. “Hey, where’s Tamara? Is she running late, too?”

  Jennifer told her about the funeral.

  “Oh, that’s just awful!” Bridget exclaimed. She covered her mouth with her palm and glanced down, but she didn’t know if she did it quickly enough to mask her relief. It wasn’t that she wanted Tamara’s aunt to die—no! It was just that she’d kind of needed a break from Tamara. Jennifer, while quiet and often so hard to read, was at least an easier companion.

  After the two women had discussed with sufficient solemnity the sadness of their friend’s loss, they took concurrent deep breaths and ventured down a less grim path of conversational exchange. The result—the morning’s relative cold snap—coincided with the arrival of their waitress, her pen poised for order-taking.

  Bridget had been being careful again about her calories. She’d made an effort to “dress for success” more often these days (she could hear her mother pithily quoting those words to her some twenty years ago), and she’d noticed her wardrobe choices expanded exponentially when she was down eight or ten pounds. So, she waved off the tempting muffin options and focused on her skim-vanilla latte, which she intended to redress with dashes of cinnamon and lace with sprinkles of cocoa powder.

  “And for you, a small mocha-soy latte made with a squirt of coconut syrup and a hint of nutmeg, right?” the waitress asked Jennifer.

  If pressed, Jennifer would’ve said it was the air of smug triumph in the waitress’s voice that pushed her to finally choose a different beverage option, but that wouldn’t have been the whole truth. In just six days she would s
ee David again. The unnatural jitteriness caused by anticipating this disquieting event made her certain she must forgo all forms of caffeine—coffee and otherwise, today and all week—and opt instead for a soothing decaf chai.

  Bridget looked stunned by her choice, the waitress duly chastised for presumption, but Jennifer would have shouted to the world at large, “Don’t be so sure you know me!” had she believed more than a tiny handful of individuals would’ve cared.

  Bridget continued to stare ominously at her for several seconds after the waitress disappeared. “So, um, what’s been going on in your life? Any…news?”

  Having no interest whatsoever in self-disclosure, Jennifer began to mumble something about getting a few new Web design clients in the past week, but Bridget interrupted her. “No, I meant from David.” She paused, tearing a series of millimeter-sized rips in the side of a Splenda packet. “What are you, um, hoping will happen with him? What do you want by seeing him again?”

  Jennifer squeezed her eyes shut until she could see the David of her youth in her mental viewfinder. He wouldn’t look like that guy anymore, she reminded herself, but it had never been his physicality that had drawn her in anyway. It was that essence of him. It was that quality of a potent understanding between them. A connection.

  She opened her eyes and glanced at her friend, fighting to rein in the truth but finding herself being candid anyway. “I’m hoping—I think—that in seeing him again I’ll know more. I’m counting on…a feeling, I guess. Of rightness or wrongness. And I—I don’t usually rely on feelings, but in his case…” The sheer honesty of her own statement was enough to glue Jennifer to the vinyl and paralyze her tongue, but Bridget didn’t look nearly as surprised by her disclosure as she had by her order of a new beverage.

  “I rely on feelings a lot,” Bridget said with ease. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making decisions based on logic, but sometimes it’s just better to give yourself over to intuition. Know what I mean?”

  Jennifer did not know, but she nodded anyway.

  Bridget continued. “I can feel in my bones that I made the best choice for me way back when in marrying Graham, but things between us are different now. I wonder whether the people we are today would’ve chosen to be together if we’d met this year instead of all those years ago. And, how bad is it, really, to want to sort of step back from a relationship that isn’t working so I can be a part of one that might?”

  Jennifer nodded again. She could discern the importance of Bridget’s struggle. Indeed, in many ways, she shared it. For herself she wanted closure. To know her rebound guy was the right guy after all. Or, at least, that the original guy wasn’t the right guy, and she’d made the correct decision in moving on (or trying to) all those years ago. However, this notion of being able to “feel in her bones” that one choice had been the best—at any time—was beyond her grasp.

  Bridget, meanwhile, marveled at her understanding of Jennifer’s problem, though mere issues of certainty weren’t at the forefront of her mind. Her battles differed in that, despite the shakiness of her faith, she still believed she had God as her judge, not only herself. It was the intrinsic rightness or wrongness—of the act, not just the feeling—that concerned her. The sin or the not-sin. Dr. Luke was Catholic, too. If the situation didn’t involve him directly, she’d have asked him his opinion. Was infatuation just one of God’s tests or a sign of something else? Was marriage, after a decade or more, something that must simply be endured for most couples? Or, was it part of God’s divine plan that she must fully become the woman she longed to be no matter what the consequence?

  Somehow Bridget didn’t think her childhood priest, Father Patrick, for all his gentle kindness, would sanction the latter.

  Jennifer mumbled some platitude about how she was sure “Graham would meet her halfway,” and asked if she had “talked to him at all about her feelings.”

  Bridget’s cynicism shield rose. She knew when she was being fed a pat response. Jennifer may have been momentarily open with her, but Bridget was aware of her friend pulling back again.

  So, she murmured that, yeah, her husband was a good guy and, perhaps, she could try to work up the courage to discuss this with him, carefully. They both laughed lightly at that and returned to superficial chitchat: a pregnant PTO friend, gossip about a school-board member who was leaving, whether Kip and Leah Wiener would host their annual Hallowiener Party at their McMansion next month and, if so, how they could get out of going. The usual.

  All the while, Bridget couldn’t help but think of what a kind but closeted soul Jennifer was. So reserved. So different from Tamara. It was funny, the closest Bridget ever came to Tamara’s abrasive manner was with Jennifer. She always wanted to shake her up. Get some emotion flowing in her. It almost didn’t matter if it was positive or negative. Bridget just wanted the other woman to feel something.

  Of course, she might get a reaction if she told Jennifer about Dr. Luke and her upcoming lunch date with him. She waffled on it. What if Jennifer judged her as harshly as Tamara did? What if Dr. Luke cancelled out? Then it would look like she’d made up the invitation.

  Before she could talk herself into sharing, Jennifer announced, “I’m going to have to leave for yoga in ten minutes.” She pointed toward her light gray sweatshirt with the petite pink Downward Dog pose encircled inside the Glendale Grove Yoga logo on her left shoulder. Only then did Bridget notice the black yoga pants she also wore and the easy-to-slip-off white sneakers.

  “Oh, no problem,” Bridget said, hurrying to finish her latte but wondering why someone who was already so quiet, so calm and frequently so expressionless had to go anywhere to “get centered.”

  As they paid the bill and collected their few belongings, Jennifer brought up Tamara again. “It must be so sad for her. She was really close to her aunt.” Bridget acknowledged this, but didn’t say anything when Jennifer added, “I’m sure she wishes she were here having coffee with us instead. I wonder what she’s doing right now.”

  Tamara, however, one thousand miles away in a tiny northeastern section of Vermont, was not wishing she were drinking coffee, wondering whether her friends were talking about her or remotely curious about what they (or her husband, for that matter) were doing in her absence. She was standing next to the man who’d loved her dearest relative and choosing a coffin.

  “I don’t know which one to get,” she whispered to Al, unable to see the models at all clearly because of the watery blurriness in her eyes.

  As she reached out to touch the ivory fabric lining the inside of the mahogany one, she felt Al’s hand cover hers and squeeze.

  “This one looks fine,” he whispered back. “Your aunt would’ve said, ‘Life’s too short for such unpleasantness, especially when the results are irrelevant.’”

  Tamara nodded. “That sounds like her. She would’ve been right. As usual.”

  And when they buried her aunt in that very coffin on Sunday afternoon, Tamara fought—and lost—against a torrent of silent, angry tears. How could Aunt Eliza leave her? Who would give her the levity in her day, the strength to face the frequent annoyances, the unconditional love she knew she could count on, if only from one source?

  Tamara’s mother had driven up from Massachusetts for the funeral, arriving only a few hours before the service. She stood—not beside her daughter, of course, but across the grave from Tamara—head bowed, staring coldly and with dry, resigned eyes at the mahogany box as it was lowered into the ground.

  Tamara’s mom and Aunt Eliza…sisters…had never been close, which Tamara had always thought was a shame. Now she realized it was far more than that. It was a loose end that could never be tied. A lingering dance of unrest that would never cease its motion.

  Tamara felt her anger abate as she tossed her obligatory handful of moist New England earth onto the shiny coffin.

  Goodbye, Auntie. I’ll miss you. I’ll always love you. I’ll do at least one truly wild thing every season in your honor. One j
oyful, crazy, risky, loving thing. I promise….

  As she stepped back, she knew one truth was truer than ever: that, while she’d deeply miss her aunt, she didn’t have so much as one tiny regret about their relationship. Tamara glanced at her mother again, knowing this feeling was not universally shared. Tamara’s loss wracked her body with aches, but the pain was pure. It was a single, powerful strand, but it was untainted by missed opportunities, closed hearts or any hint of relief.

  She also knew, more than the legacy of financial riches Aunt Eliza had willed to her, that the knowledge of life’s fleeting nature was her most precious inheritance. The bestowal of wisdom. The parade of happy memories. The joy of real conversation. Gifts her aunt had given her freely and, now that Tamara knew of their power, she’d no longer be able to ignore them again.

  10

  Jennifer

  Thursday, September 23

  The MapQuest directions informed Jennifer that it would take precisely ninety-two minutes to reach the C-IL-U campus from Glendale Grove—her first time returning since graduation. The MapQuest directions did not take into account, however, her shaking hands, her three dire rest stops or her bizarrely inconsistent driving speed, which had her racing sixteen miles per hour above the speed limit, then crawling at thirteen miles per hour below it, depending on the nature of her thoughts.

  She’d tried to block out those thoughts—first with talk radio and then with music. She’d switched from the talk station to the music after ten minutes because they were discussing some sports thing that bored her so much she’d tuned it out and begun daydreaming about David.