How to Change a Life

by Stacey Ballis

  “You’re the best.”

  I pull the trays of rolls out of the oven and set them on racks to cool on the island. Shelby laughs when she sees them.

  “They are really their own people, my kids.”

  “Yep. Certainly are.”

  “Okay, well, you’ve done enough for a holiday, I’m officially kicking you out. Go home. Be with your family.”

  “Thanks, Shelby. You guys have a terrific weekend, and I’ll see you on Monday.”

  “You too, El. And just know, we are very thankful for you.” Her generosity of spirit is always deeply touching and makes me smile. She reaches up to hug me, and I hug her back.

  “I’m thankful for you guys too,” I whisper into her hair.

  • • •

  Stop, I can’t . . .” Aunt Claire says, pushing her plate toward me for another sliver of pie.

  “Claire, you cannot bitch about this tomorrow,” my mom says, reaching for a divinity cookie, one of Claire’s specialties, a light meringue cookie filled with mini chocolate chips and walnut pieces.

  “I don’t bitch,” Claire says, dolloping a generous spoonful of vanilla whipped cream on her second helping of pie.

  My mom rolls her eyes and starts whining in a mockery of Claire’s low voice. “Oh, Hollis, I’m just so bloated, and you cannot imagine what the scale said this morning . . .”

  Claire puts a huge piece of pie in her mouth and then opens it to show my mom.

  “Girls, do I have to separate you?” I say, their antics getting more ridiculous than usual after indulging in Lynne’s glorious old Riesling all night, not to mention the predinner Boulevardier cocktails, and now a lovely Madeira with the desserts. They’re both hummingly buzzy.

  “Bless their hearts,” Lynne says, waving off my offer of the cookie plate. She’s eaten small, rational portions of everything, praised all the deliciousness, and deftly skipped any second helpings. It seems so controlled, and, to be honest, I feel bad for her, that she can’t just let go, let herself overindulge, embrace abundance.

  I, on the other hand, have had seconds of everything, and thirds of stuffing. It’s been lovely, if a bit quiet. Lynne and my mom got caught up, chatting about the old days, while Claire helped me in the kitchen, and we’ve talked politics and television, and all of the surface, small-talk things that one covers in casual conversation.

  I keep checking my watch, which sometimes seems to have gone backward since last I looked, and sometimes seems to have leapt forward in a shocking manner. I know I’m preoccupied. I’m supposed to text Shawn when I’m gearing up to head home—he’s requested that he be able to join Simca and me for our evening walk. They met last weekend when he dropped me off, and when I say that it was an instantaneous love match, I’m not exaggerating. He picked her up and she licked his entire head like he was a naughty puppy, and he spoke to her in some gibberish language and she yipped happily in reply.

  “I always wanted a dog, but my ex patently refused, and they don’t allow them in my building unless they are under twenty-five pounds,” he said wistfully.

  “I can’t exactly picture you with a little purse dog,” I said, imagining him with some Yorkie or Chihuahua.

  “Well, I never would have thought about a smaller dog—I always wanted a mastiff or a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog or something manly. But this sweet girl could make me change my mind, yes, she could!” He snuggled into Simca’s neck. “She smells like graham crackers!”

  “She’s a taut and trim twenty-four pounds, right under the wire,” I said, and then stopped when I realized it might sound like I was moving my dog, and by proxy myself, into his condo.

  “Well, then, she can come visit me anytime, can’t you?”

  We took her for a walk around the neighborhood, and she trotted proudly at his side and he even insisted on doing blue bag duty, which alone would be enough to fall for him.

  “So, Lynne, you’re happy to be back in Chicago?” Aunt Claire asks, sticking a finger in the whipped cream bowl.

  “Well, I’m very happy with the job change. I realized in L.A., there was just too much dealing with the hot new thing. They are all magpies, anything new and shiny can distract them, so I had to spend almost more time coddling existing clients so that they felt appropriately attended to than I spent actually doing my job. They all want to think that you are personally handling every piece of their business, when actually your time would be better served handing off most of it to underlings. It was fine when I was younger, but I wanted to work with grown-ups, and stop being everyone’s dancing monkey. Plus, the firm I was with had a daughter coming up through the ranks, the heiress apparent, so I knew there was a limit to how far I could go there. Here I can focus on landing the big clients, and they all seem to understand that there is a team approach to execution, so I can be more of a manager and less of a worker bee.” I wish there were slightly less imperiousness in her voice.

  “I can’t imagine you being a worker bee,” my mom says. “You were always much more of a leader, as I recall.” She isn’t wrong there. If Lynne joined a club, they made her president almost immediately. When she joined cheerleading, they made her captain. As a sophomore. She was class president for all four years of college, something that hadn’t been done since the university’s inception.

  “Yeah, it’s not really my nature.” Lynne laughs. “I miss the L.A. weather, as you can imagine, and the social scene was easier for me there, but I finally decided that if I was going to be a focused career woman, and the career had more potential here, then it was okay to come back.”

  “Well, it would probably be good to have some balance. All work and no play, and all that jazz.” Claire pauses. “We were sorry to hear about your divorce; that must have been tough.”

  Lynne makes a face. “Mr. So-Very-Wrong? It was fine. Not a big deal really. Sort of a momentary complication.” She pauses in a way that makes me think it was much more than that. She shrugs. “We had a good thing for a minute, but ultimately I think sometimes when you are dating someone they only show you the person they think you most want and need, and then once you are locked in, they relax into being who they really are, and sometimes that just doesn’t fly. Mine was a classic case of good on paper, bad in practice. I don’t know if we were really aligned on the big stuff in the beginning or if he was just pretending to be aligned because he knew it was what I wanted. But everyone ends up being themselves in the end. And if you tell them you need them to be the person they promised you in the beginning and they don’t want to be that guy, you have to just move them along.”

  My mom and Claire both look a little taken aback. There is a coldness in Lynne’s tone that doesn’t belie hurt or a broken heart or betrayal. She is essentially talking about her marriage like it was a car she leased that didn’t have the gas mileage they claimed in the commercials.

  “How long were you together?” Mom asks.

  Lynne thinks. “Two years, married for one and a half.”

  “Well, at least it sounds like it was somewhat amicable,” Claire says.

  “It never got ugly, not in the ways it could have been. We had a prenup; he owned the house; we hadn’t really done much in terms of joint investments or anything. He wanted to go to counseling, but I knew we were done, so I kept it simple, moved out while he was out of town for a conference, and got the paperwork all organized. He wasn’t happy, but he didn’t fight it.”

  This gives me shivers. She just moved out while he was out of town? He wanted to go to counseling to try to save the marriage and she didn’t want to bother? I love my friend Lynne, but at the moment, I’m finding it hard to like her very much. And I can’t stop myself from asking.

  “Why wouldn’t you want to try counseling? I mean, you must have really loved him—you married him. It seems like if things got off track maybe something could have been fixed.”

  “Now, Eloise, ho
w long have you known me? How good a problem solver am I? When I tell you that it wasn’t fixable, trust me, it wasn’t fixable. We didn’t want the same things out of life, we didn’t have the same priorities, and I had been clear about mine from the beginning, so when his changed, he really couldn’t expect that I should change mine just because he did, could he?”

  “I suppose not,” I say. “I guess, not if they were fundamental.”

  “Trust me, girlfriend, they could not have been more fundamental.”

  My mom and Claire get up and start clearing dishes. “You girls sit,” Mom says. “Eloise has worked enough for one day. We have cleanup covered. Lynne, would you like coffee or tea or something?”

  “Tea, but only if you are making for yourself,” Lynne says.

  “Absolutely. How about you, muffin?”

  “Sure, Mom, thanks. Yell if you guys want help.”

  “Will do. Lynne, will you take leftovers?”

  “Thank you, but no,” Lynne says, patting her flat stomach. “I don’t dare.” Which isn’t surprising; she barely dared during the meal.

  Lynne and I get up from the table and go into the living room to sit on the couch.

  “I assume they don’t know about the bet,” Lynne says.

  “It hasn’t come up.” Because I haven’t brought it up. It would be the central focus of every conversation; they’d both be trying to help and support and encourage and advise, which is so lovely and sweet, but I’m just not up for it. It’s all plenty at the moment, and I don’t need a cheering section, at least not yet.

  “Well, I’m proud of you,” Lynne says in a serious tone. “Really, El, super proud. I know the dating thing is hard for you, and the whole social thing was never your jam, but you’ve embraced it all, and I think that shows some serious backbone.”

  “Thank you.” I’m sort of startled by the intensity of her statement. “I figure go big or go home, right?”

  “Right, but look, I mean, I know we had a lot of years go by, but I was always in your corner, you know? I feel bad that you went through a bunch of crap and handled it alone. Made me have to think about my own stuff, you know, my baggage. I know I’m not the warmest, the fuzziest, but when I heard that you came back from Europe, that your dad died, that you were here and suffering and struggling and you didn’t reach out, that was a wake-up for me in a way, you know? Like, it is one thing to be tough, to be independent, to be confident, but it is something else to not be the person someone reaches out to when they are in the shit.”

  I feel bad. She thinks that it was some flaw in her that made me not reach out, like maybe I didn’t think she would be good support for me, and now I feel bad for having been thinking ill of her earlier. “Look, Lynne, I didn’t reach out to anyone. You might not be the cushiest place to land, but Teresa couldn’t be more of a nurturer, and I didn’t call her either. I felt shitty that I had let so much time go by, and it seemed even shittier to come back and reach out because I needed something. What could I say? Hi! It’s been over a decade since I bothered to be in touch, but I’ve moved home from Europe, my asshole boyfriend dumped me, and my dad is dying, so maybe you could be focused on being nice to me! I didn’t have the energy to even think about finding something for myself. My sole focus was on my dad and my mom and Claire, who had barely gotten her head above water from losing her husband and now was losing her brother, and then finding a job and trying the whole time to get over Bernard. Trite as it is, it wasn’t you, it was me.”

  She nods and looks me in the face. “Well, never again, okay? We have each other’s back. I do not have time or energy to train up a bunch of new bitches to put up with my sorry ass.”

  I shake my head and laugh. “Deal. You met with the matchmaker yet?”

  “I interviewed two that I didn’t love, but at least one of them signed on as a client, so it wasn’t all bad. I’ve got another meeting this week.”

  Only Lynne would go to interview a possible matchmaker and land a new client. She’s a wonder. “That’s cool. Was it really so simple, your divorce?”

  “Is it ever?” Lynne sighs. “I dunno. I thought marriage was a box I would check appropriately when the right guy came along, and he seemed like the right guy. When it turned out I was wrong, that we were wrong, I needed to uncheck the box. Which is both simple and complicated. Simple in action, complicated in emotion. I don’t think of it as a failure, per se, but it does feel like, I don’t know, a black mark. It’s on my permanent record. It doesn’t embarrass me, but it does bother me a bit.”

  I reach over and squeeze her hand, understanding what she means. My mom comes in with two mugs of tea for us. We sip the hot, sweet beverages and shift talk to Teresa, who requested that we adjust her bet list to accommodate her injury, realizing that until she was more mobile, a lot of her items would fall by the wayside. We said she could take her financial class online; have a reduction on the number of things she had to do in the spicing-up-her-marriage and finding-a-part-time-job departments; and meanwhile focus on researching the non-Italian foods she wants to learn to cook and do volunteer stuff that can be done at home. Apparently next week she is stuffing envelopes for her neighborhood association fund-raiser, and she’s signed herself up at Antony’s school to manage the phone tree for the whole seventh grade. By the time our tea is finished, my mom and Claire come out with a huge bag of leftovers for me and a small one for Lynne.

  “We just put in white meat turkey and cranberry sauce and Brussels sprouts and some of the sweet potatoes, and a couple of rolls. None of the really unhealthy stuff.” Aunt Claire winks at Lynne. “You have to have leftovers from Thanksgiving, otherwise it’s un-American.”

  “You get the works,” my mom says, handing me a bag that weighs roughly forty pounds.

  There are kisses and hugs all around, and a promise to come back to visit from Lynne. I kiss her good-bye, then claim the need to pee before leaving, and sneak off to the bathroom to text Shawn.

  Just gearing up to leave my mom’s house, should be home in about 10 minutes.

  By the time I’m washing my hands my phone pings.

  On my way! See you in 20.

  Suddenly the butterflies, which had been somewhat distracted by good food and good wine and conversation, are back with a vengeance. I look in the mirror. I think about what Lynne would say if she knew what I was about to do. I can hear her voice in my head.

  “You’ve got this. You are a badass. He is a nice man. He is a good person. He is goddamned fine as hell. Go get him and change the color of his sky.”

  And she’s right, of course.

  Lynne always is, just ask her.

  So let’s do this.

  • • •

  Good girl,” Shawn says to Simca, unhooking her leash. We’ve had a great long walk, exploring the neighborhood and talking about Thanksgiving and family and memories and food. The evening is actually beautiful, crisp but not horribly cold and with minimal wind.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I ask, pulling off my coat and hanging it on the rack by the door.

  “Sure, what are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking maybe calvados. It’s good for settling the stomach.”

  “Sounds good. I’m just going to wash my hands.” He heads for the powder room, and I go to the kitchen to grab the bottle and some glasses. I pour us each a couple of fingers with a single ice cube and get back to the living room just as he is settling into the couch, with his new girlfriend Simca at his side. I hand him the glass and sit on his other side. We clink and I sip the strong liquid, making a smooth, fiery hole in my full belly. It never ceases to amaze me how this stuff can cut through a huge meal.

  Shawn pulls out his phone and shows me his photos of the buffet at his aunt’s house, and I’m instantly jealous. It looks like magic. Turkey and a huge glazed ham. Mashed potatoes and potato salad, candied yams. Two kinds of stuffin
g, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, and a huge pot of greens. Something called green salad, which appears to feature lime Jell-O, and a bowl of ambrosia. A huge basket of biscuits, apparently his aunt Elsie’s specialty, and another basket of his mom’s rolls. The dessert table has four different pies on it—pecan, sweet potato, apple, and banana cream—as well as a towering coconut cake, a chocolate cake, and a huge platter of cookies.

  “I’m so jealous. That looks amazing,” I say when he finishes scrolling through the pictures and pointing out his family members with little funny stories about each.

  “I dunno, there is something about a quiet dinner without a million people that sounds kind of nice.”

  I laugh. “That’s the same thing my boss said this morning. I guess we always want the opposite of what we have.”

  “I don’t want anything other than what I have right here,” he says, leaning in for a kiss. I feel the electric shocks all the way to my toes.

  We kiss for what seems like an hour before I can’t stand it anymore. I pull away. “Did you want to come upstairs?”

  He looks me in my eyes and nods. “Yes, Eloise, I would like that very much.”

  • • •

  I open the fridge and start grabbing tubs. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, the bag of turkey.

  “I’m gonna need sweet potatoes too,” Shawn says, snuggling up behind me and kissing my neck.

  “Well, naturally,” I say, reaching for the tub of sweet potatoes.

  We stand at the island, me in my robe, Shawn in his boxer briefs, and eat as if we’ve been starved for weeks. Feeding each other turkey with our fingers, chunks of cold stuffing dunked in cranberry sauce. I microwave the two kinds of potatoes while Shawn opens the bag of rolls, making us little sandwiches with a smear of gravy on the bread. When we have feasted on leftovers, Shawn reaches for me and kisses me hard—he tastes of sage and cranberries—and he pulls me back upstairs, where, fortified by our midnight snack, we show each other how very thankful two people can be.