Dress Rehearsal

by Jennifer O'Connell

  Not yet? So he was planning to tell her, which meant he wasn’t planning a grand seduction where he made crazy love to me on a blanket in the public garden.

  “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  “I have something I want to show you.” I took Neil’s letter out of my pocket and unfolded the crumpled paper. “I found this the other day.”

  Neil took the page and read.

  “Remember when you used to turn Oliver around when we were in bed,” I asked him, hoping to subtly jog his memory.

  Neil’s eyes scanned the page and then he let out a laugh before folding the letter back into its envelope. “That bear always creeped me out.”

  Oliver wasn’t creepy. “In a bad way?”

  “Um, yeah. That’s what creeped out means, Lauren.” Neil shook his head. “So where is good old Oliver these days?”

  “My bedroom.”

  “No way? I thought he’d be reduced to a ball of lint by now.”

  So there’d be no reminiscing about Oliver. Time to change tactics.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it? After all these years you walk into the boutique and it’s like it was meant to be.” I reached out to take the envelope and instead let my hand fall on Neil’s arm.

  Neil reacted like my touch was about as welcome as a scorpion’s stinger. “What are you talking about?”

  “You and me.”

  Neil stood up and backed away from me. “Maybe coming here was a bad idea.”

  “Why? Because then we’d both have to admit what we should have known eight years ago – that we made a mistake when you moved to DC?”

  “We didn’t do anything when I moved. You stayed in Boston,” he pointed out. “What the hell is going on here? I thought you wanted to talk about the cake.”

  “I do.” Right words. Wrong context.

  I stood up and moved closer to Neil, who at this point was practically drawing a line in the dirt hoping I wouldn’t cross it. No such luck.

  “I made a mistake,” I admitted.

  “What is this, a joke? I’m getting married! Why are you saying this now?”

  “Because it’s true. Because seeing you again made me think that maybe we should give it another try.”

  “You’re confusing the hell out of me, Lauren. You’re the one who didn’t want to move to DC. You’re the one who barely blinked when I left after three years. Why the sudden revelation?”

  I swallowed hard and stepped closer to him. “Because you picked the same cake I wanted for my own wedding.”

  “So did Julie,” he reminded me. “I think you’re reading more into this than there is, Lauren.”

  I reached for Neil’s elbow and pulled him back down onto the bench with me. I kept a firm grip on his knee so he couldn’t get up. “But we have to be,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

  “Why?”

  Because if I was wrong then I’d broken up Steve and Paige for no reason at all. Because if I was wrong then everything was left up to chance.

  “Because if there’s no way to tell whether two people are meant to be together then it’s just a crap shoot.”

  “Of course it’s a crap shoot, Lauren. Nobody offers relationship insurance, the premium would be too high.”

  “But I really can predict if a couple will work out or not by the cake they pick. I’ve done it a million times, and I did it with you.”

  “Funny how you couldn’t tell eight years ago.”

  “So my timing was off.”

  “I don’t think it was your timing, Lauren. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

  I did know. I was taking a more out there.

  “Look, why don’t we just forget this ever happened.” Neil patted my knee, but his touch was more reticent than reassuring.

  I looked away from Neil and instead watched the mothers and children and couples waiting their turn to step onto a swan boat. They lined up in pairs, the ticket collector playing a modern day Noah as he handed over their stubs and helped them step down. Even though I managed to start a business and take care of myself, when Neil moved away I never returned to ride the boats because I still thought there were some things you saved until you could share them with someone else. It was almost as if having someone else there meant it was more real, more meaningful. But all I’d done was miss out on opportunities to create moments with my own meaning.

  My hands went to my face and I covered my eyes, wishing I could rub away the events that had just transpired. Instead all I managed to do was lose a few eyelashes.

  Neil just sat there watching me, keeping a safe distance between us. I let out a laugh, even though there was nothing funny about making a complete idiot of myself in front of a guy who probably already thought I had a few screws loose. It wasn’t Neil I wanted. It was the person I was when we’d been together. Or, more accurately, the person I was when I watched him drive away.

  “Do me a favor, don’t tell Julie about this, okay? I feel foolish enough.”

  Neil’s shoulders relaxed and it was as if we’d made it safely to the other side. “Are you kidding me? I couldn’t tell Julie. She’d kill me if she thought I’d blown our chance to have you make our cake. I mean, I could care less about the cake, but Julie’s got her heart set on it. You’ll still make it, right?”

  I almost told Neil that I wasn’t the one who made the cakes, but I didn’t want to ruin the illusion. And maybe I would make his cake, at least then somebody would get to have the raspberry filled almond cake I’d been saving for myself.

  “Sure, I’ll still make your cake,” I told Neil, even though he could care less.

  Neil stood up but instead of hightailing it away from me, as any person would have in the same situation, he waited before leaving. “You know, I thought you were the one – at the time.”

  In the silence that followed Neil’s declaration, I wanted to say the same back to him. But it wouldn’t be true. Back when Neil left I didn’t see it as an ending, I saw it as a sweet beginning. I did love Neil, but if I’d followed him to DC it would have been more out of fear than anything else. And even though it would have been a neat and tidy ending to our story to have him meet me by the swan boats and declare his never ending devotion, it wouldn’t be the right ending.

  I looked up at him and noticed the receding hairline and few strands of gray that were already paving the way for others to follow. Neil was still familiar but he was a different person. And so was I. After eight years, the fact that he selected the right cake with the right filling and icing, didn’t change the fact that we still didn’t belong together. No matter what the cake said, no matter how much I wanted to be able to predict my future, to stack the odds in my favor, the fact that life was more like a surprise party than a carefully planned wedding reception was becoming all too clear.

  “Then why didn’t you write me when you got down there? Why didn’t I ever get a drunken call from some bar in Georgetown?”

  “Is that what you were waiting for?” Neil asked.

  “Not really.” I shook my head. “But it might have been nice.”

  “Then what were you waiting for?”

  I hesitated, keeping the answer to myself. Nothing and everything.

  “Tell Julie that the cake will be exactly what she’s always dreamed of on her wedding day,” I told him.

  Neil waved goodbye and I watched him walk away until he went through the wrought iron gateway leading to the street. Number one on my list had nothing to do with finding someone else, and everything to do with with finding me.

  Once I lost sight of Neil I didn’t waste any more time. I made my way down to the boat house and stood in line at the ticket stand.

  “How many?” the ticket agent asked.

  “Just one.” I handed my money over and eagerly received a single red ticket. I was about to begin one hell of a ride.

  Chapter 29

  When I arrived home, I walked straight to the living room window to let in some fresh air. It took
me a few tries to shimmy the window’s edge away from the paint-caked sill, but once it cracked free the air rushed in and called my apartment to attention, rousing anything that wasn’t heavy enough to resist the unexpected breeze. After leaving Neil and taking my first swan boat ride in years, I wasn’t afraid to make a stir, and the first place I was going to start was at home. It was time to pack away my winter clothes and retrieve my summer things from the storage room.

  I spent the next hour in my closet removing shirts and pants from hangers and refolding my sweaters neatly like the sales people at Gap. While I worked, Oliver sat on my dresser watching the mountain of knitted wool grow until I had a stacked pile that was ready to go downstairs. As a last thought I took Oliver and placed him on top of the mound, like a proud explorer who’d just conquered Mount Everest. The only thing missing was a flag in his paw. He looked triumphant and tired. It was time to retire Oliver to the storage room, too.

  I threw some sweaters into a shopping bag and was on my way out the door to get my Rubbermaid containers from the storage room, when the phone rang.

  On the other end of the receiver Robin seemed to be gulping for air.

  “Robin, what’s wrong?” I asked, but she couldn’t get any words out.

  “Robin, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

  “He’s engaged.” Robin’s voice was shaking.

  “Who?”

  “Mark. He’s getting married.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  Paige was pulling into a parking space in front of Robin’s building when my taxi drove up.

  “How’d she sound?” Paige asked, pushing the button on the small black rectangle hanging from her key chain. The automatic locks ducked into their holes and the car beeped.

  “Horrible.”

  Paige dropped her keys in her jacket pocket and threw her shoulders back. “I’m glad you called me. This isn’t going to be pretty.”

  Paige and I waved to Robin’s doorman and walked straight to the elevator. As the doors slid closed, he returned our friendly gesture with a soldier’s salute, as if he sensed we were about to enter a combat zone and attempt to bring our compatriot out alive.

  As the elevator carried us in silence to the sixth floor, I noticed that Paige was wearing the charm bracelet from Steve, a single sterling silver heart charm dangling off her thin wrist. It looked like Mark wasn’t the only one who was moving on.

  Robin answered the door but didn’t even bother saying hello to us. Instead she just turned back toward the living room, where a box of Kleenex sat on the coffee table amidst a heaping mound of soggy, balled up tissues.

  Paige and I followed Robin, dropping our coats onto the bench lining the entryway as we passed.

  We’d all been here before under similar circumstances. When Robin had called me after Mark left, Paige and I raced over to console her, just as we’d done tonight. But even though Mark’s declaration that he wanted a divorce had produced tears and the same pile of tissues, I could already tell that this was different. The night Mark left Robin’s tears were quickly replaced by a seething anger so primal Robin had paced around the apartment like a caged animal. After the shock dissipated, Robin wasn’t sad – she was pissed.

  This time Robin wasn’t furiously moving around the room calling Mark names, or punctuating every sentence with mother fucking prick. Instead, she sat in silence as the tears slid down her cheeks and landed like raindrops on the Boston Globe in her lap.

  I waited for Paige to start the ball rolling, to offer some words of consolation that would get Robin talking.

  “Can I see?” Paige asked softly, pointing to the newspaper.

  Robin handed the wilted Globe to Paige. We stood together reading the engagement announcement:

  Mark Manning (of Boston,) son of Howard and Elizabeth Manning of Marblehead to Kate Farridy (of Boston,) daughter of Frank and Doris of Hingham.

  It was such a simple sentence – it didn’t proclaim their undying love or include a tasteful black and white photograph of the happy couple sharing an intimate moment. But with just three little lines, the Boston Globe had broadcast the announcement’s meaning loud and clear: Mark was leaving Robin behind.

  “I can’t believe it’s over.” Robin slowly shook her head in disbelief and stared at the dwindling box of tissues. “I feel like I’m suffocating.”

  Paige folded the paper and placed it on the floor, announcement side down, before taking a seat next to Robin. “It was over two years ago, Robin,” Paige reminded her in a voice that was low and patient and filled with meaning without explanation, like a parent explaining to a child why the helium balloon she let go drifted away into the sky without delving into the complexities of gravity and the infinite space of the universe.

  “It’s like we never happened. He’ll have a new wife, she’ll take his last name, she’ll have the children and the husband and the house with Mark – all the things I thought would be mine.”

  Robin let out small, lingering moans as she started to rock herself, her eyes closed.

  As Robin’s sobs grew louder, her tears flowed and she buried her head in her hands. It was all emptying out of her for the first time, all the pain she’d set aside in favor of anger. For the first time, Robin was mourning the death of her marriage, the end of a game she’d managed to keep alive by herself even though Mark had walked off the court a long time ago. Two years of the emotional iceberg Robin had let build-up melted and flooded the room, and all I could do was hope Robin didn’t go along with it.

  There was nothing we could say, no piece of advice or assurance that would make Robin feel better. So, instead, Paige and I sat on either side of her, our arms over Robin’s shoulders and our heads bowed against her own, and we were just there with her so she wasn’t alone.

  We sat huddled together until the room grew dark, our eyes adjusting to the dimming interior of Robin’s apartment.

  “I just wish I knew what I did wrong,” Robin said into her hands, her voice grainy from crying. “I just wish I knew why he couldn’t love me. What’s wrong with me?”

  I reached for Robin’s face and turned it toward me. Even in the dark I could see her swollen lids and the exhausted eyes they were cradling. “What was wrong with you was that you fell in love. That’s not a fatal flaw, Robin. That’s life.”

  Paige stood up and reached for the light switch. “Okay, I think we need to feed you and get you dried out. All this crying is making you moldy.”

  Robin smiled weakly. “I am a little hungry.”

  Paige went into the kitchen to order a pizza, and when she returned she handed Robin the blue gel eye mask she’d taken out of the freezer.

  “Here, put this on.”

  Robin tipped her head back against the cushion and let Paige lay the chilled mask against her lids.

  Robin sat like that while Paige and I straightened up the apartment, clearing away the tissues and making the rumpled bed that Robin once shared with Mark. When the pizza arrived Paige opened a bottle of red wine and brought three glasses out to the living room. Robin’s tears were gone, but her face was still damp and the skin around her eyes inflated, as if straining from the pressure of the sheer volume of tears underneath.

  We didn’t talk about Mark while we ate, and instead I told them about the photo shoot and Pietro’s ridiculous attempts to coax the cakes to cooperate, as if they were swimsuit models – You’re beautiful! Luscious! Look at you, all white and creamy! You’re sweet, you’re moist, you’re perfect!

  Paige laughed when I imitated Pietro’s affirmations, and Robin even seemed vaguely amused. But when the conversation died, Robin cleared her throat and took a deep breath.

  “Mark is getting married,” she said, listening to herself say the words out loud. “He’s getting married.”

  “I always thought you’d be the one to leave him,” I admitted, as if that would make her feel any better.

  Robin nodded. “Me, too.”

  Robin had never said
those words aloud before, and I could tell that as the admission escaped from her lips she realized it was true. Even though she loved him, there was a part of her that also knew that maybe she and Mark wouldn’t make it, that she wasn’t prepared for the sacrifices she’d be required to make.

  “We were never really together, were we? We shared the mortgage and the laundry, but when it came right down to it, we weren’t sharing a life.” Robin was shredding a paper napkin as she talked, the white fibers dropping onto her lap like snowflakes. “I thought if we got married that would change. I was thinking big picture, starting at the top instead of working on all the little things that add up to a marriage.”

  “The trickle down theory of happiness?” Paige asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Nice theory, but it doesn’t work in practice.”

  “You know, we never even had an engagement announcement. We thought it was just a dumb formality. I guess he changed his mind – about a lot of things.” Robin looked at Paige. “Before I saw Mark’s girlfriend at your office I kept wondering if she was prettier than me or smarter than me. I thought she had to be better than me in some way because Mark wanted to be with her and he didn’t want to be with me. But she was just normal, not some extraordinary super model with a PhD from MIT. And when I saw that announcement you know what I realized? She wanted an announcement. She was ready to share her life with Mark and let the whole world know. So what it comes down to is that she was ready to be married, and I was ready to get married.”

  “I know that hating Mark gave you something to do, some way to keep him around. But maybe it’s time to move on,” I suggested, only realizing how trite I sounded once the words were out of my mouth.