Last month, I caught Matt gazing wistfully at Josh’s college graduation picture as if he were trying to conjure a resemblance. So I crept around the house trying to hide the evidence, and pushed all of Josh’s photos into the shadows behind Natalie’s, or into drawers.
“Mom, should I be developing a complex, or something?” Josh inquired, surprising me as I placed his photo face down on the desk in Matt’s home office.
“I’m j-just d-dusting,” I stuttered.
“But Mom, you don’t dust.”
“True,” I said, improvising, “but you know Natalie is going through a stage. She doesn’t think she’s beautiful enough and you’re the star of everything. I thought we’d put her front and center for a change.”
“I think Natalie is really pretty,” Josh said. “Maybe it would help if I told her.”
“Maybe it would,” I agreed, falling in love with my son all over again as I righted the frame and put it back where it belonged, beside Natalie’s.
I looked at my daughter’s picture. Natalie was so obviously Matt’s she could have been stamped from his mold. She had his black, crinkly hair, sheep hair, chronic bad hair, which would cause her fits for the rest of her life. But it suited her. To compensate, she had the most remarkable green eyes, Matt’s eyes — how could I have forgotten one of the features that had drawn me to Matt in the first place? — a peaches-and-cream complexion, a beautiful, almost arresting face, and a sassy spirit to match. But no amount of ironing would straighten that hair to her satisfaction. We always want what we don’t have.
Even if Manny had suspected anything about Josh’s paternity, we never could have discussed it. Because his witchy wife would never allow me to get within an inch of him or she’d pounce, a mother tiger protecting her cub. Nita Weinstein Gellar had been territorial ever since she’d set her sights on my boyfriend in college and finally snagged him.
“Julie, are you still there?” Mackie asks, as I refocus my attention on the road. “Are you still determined to meet Manny Gellar in Palm Coast?”
“Yes,” I answer, in a voice that leaves no room for argument. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to do it at The Home Depot. We’re just going to meet there, and if things go well and we feel like it, we’ll have lunch at one of the seafood shacks on Flagler Beach. Then we’ll see what develops. At first, we’ll just talk.”
“You’re not going to take him to your condo, are you?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I could take him to that new La Quinta Inn & Suites.”
“I always wondered, what does La Quinta mean in English, anyway?” Mackie asks.
“My Spanish is pretty rusty, but roughly translated I think it means, ‘Next to Denny’s.’ ”
“You have decided,” Mackie accuses. “I know you. You’ve already hatched a plan, and you’re going to do it in the bedroom you share with Matt. He bought you that beach condo because that was your dream. Living on the water means nothing to him. He burns to a crisp the minute he steps out in the sun.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I counter. “You’re beginning to sound like my mother. You’re starting to guilt me out. That’s not something I’m planning. If we decide to…do it...well, then, there’s always the guest room. It has a new queen bed.”
“Cheating in the guest bedroom instead of the master bedroom is still cheating,” Mackie points out. “You have your head in the sand if you don’t think so. Can’t you see Manny is hitting on you when you’re the most vulnerable? I’m just trying to save you from yourself.”
“I can’t help myself with Manny. You know our history.”
“And you know you’re making a big mistake, don’t you?” Mackie warns.
“What I know and what I feel are two different things. I don’t want to deal with any negativity.”
“Well, that’s going to be difficult, because there’s nothing positive about what you’re planning to do,” Mackie scolds. “I can already tell you just what is going to happen. He’s going to leave you broken and bleeding by the side of the road, again. I’m just trying to save you the trauma of the crash.”
I don’t answer.
“You’re going to get screwed,” Mackie says simply.
“If I’m lucky.”
“Your mother is right. You do have a smart mouth.”
“No,” I correct her, “that’s what she says about you. This is me, Julie, remember. I don’t talk back and I don’t talk up.”
“I’m just saying, you can still turn back.”
“It’s too late. I’m almost at the toll gate,” I say, blowing out a breath as I pull my toll card from my purse. “I can’t talk now. I need to concentrate. I’ll call you later and tell you how it went. You’re the only one who knows I’m doing this, so if there is a hurricane and I die in Palm Coast and they discover my body with Manny’s...you need to come up with a plausible explanation for Matt and my mother.”
“You might have thought of that before you went down this road.”
“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I think Manny is my road not taken, you know, like in the Frost poem. How many people get a second chance like that?”
“I think you’re missing the point of the poem,” Mackie explains. “When you married Matt you took the road less traveled by. Everybody’s been down Manny’s road. I’m just trying to protect you.”
“I’m losing the signal,” I say, trying to create some fancy pseudo-static before hanging up.
How will I feel when I pull into the parking lot of The Home Depot and spot Manny’s car? I know he is driving a blue BMW with the vanity plate The Big Man because he told me the day he bought the car, online, which is where we’ve been conducting our off-again-on-again “secret cyber romance” for the past year. He has been shamelessly flirting with me, relentlessly pursuing me, until I finally caved.
Manny can run hot and cold. I honestly think he might be bipolar, or at least schizophrenic. One day he’s all over me and the next I’ll say “hi” and he’ll say, “Forty people are trying to shoot the breeze with me, and I don’t have time for all of you.” Maybe he has multiple personality disorder.
Then I will either block him or remove him from my contact list so I won’t be tempted to talk to him the moment his name appears. A few days later, he’ll do the dance again and sweet-talk me when he knows I am the most susceptible. And I’ll be sucked right back into his sexy aura with another cyberspace come-on.
The truth is I am thrilled every time I receive one of his messages.
“Does DoubleMac know about us?” he types.
“I don’t have any secrets from Mackie,” I write back.
“But you do have secrets from Matt.”
“Yes, well...that can’t be helped. I assume you haven’t told Nita about us?”
Big mistake to use the Us word. There isn’t even an Us. Us implies that we have some kind of committed relationship, which we don’t.
I hate being the jealous girlfriend. And I’m not even a girlfriend. I don’t know how to categorize our relationship. I only know I can’t resist Manny when he practically begs me to meet him halfway between Miami and Atlanta in Palm Coast. He says he needs to talk to me. Needs! How can I refuse someone in need?
When Manny reentered my life, his timing was perfect. Restless, at loose ends, and looking for a change, I am ready for him in every way. Our renewed Internet relationship is risky. We’re playing with fire, and we both know better.
I wish I hadn’t driven to Palm Coast. In all honesty, I know that isn’t entirely true. Manny and I are inevitable. If we hadn’t agreed to meet again, I would have wondered about it for the rest of my life. I also know I have to break this latent addiction I have to him or it is going to be the end of me. But my emotions just keep building until they turn my psyche into a feeding frenzy of feelings.
I wonder what it will be like when I first see Manny Gellar again. How will I react? Will all the old feelings come bounding back? Will our love be so overwhel
ming and new again that we will be forced to find fulfillment in the most convenient place around, the women’s restroom at The Home Depot or the guest bedroom at my beach condo?
My Aspen Green S-type Jaguar hugs the road and prowls through the bog of traffic clogging Interstate 95 as I slip off Exit 289, onto Palm Coast Parkway, pull into The Home Depot parking lot, and prepare to meet my first love. Suddenly, I can feel my nerve endings. My stomach is doing flip-flops. My heart is stuttering. It’s just lunch with an old friend, I rationalize, again. What harm can come of that?
As I pull up in the Jag and see Manny leaning on the side of his car, hands folded confidently across his chest, that insolent smile and those dimples I remember so well lurking at the corners of his wide mouth, I know before I stop breathing that everything will be all right and that I am home again.
But I’m not ready to face him, not just yet. If I touch him or he touches me, I know my gut reaction will betray my feelings. So I back away and start to pull out of the parking lot. I don’t see the aging hippy with the greasy ponytail on the motorbike behind me until it’s almost too late and if he hadn’t swerved, he would have been roadkill.
“Where did you get your license, lady, the Stevie Wonder School of Driving?” the biker yells. He is right. I can’t even back down my own driveway. I was born without the backing gene. But apparently I am great at backing away from my marriage. I do my best to look apologetic. But the truth is I am in shock. In fact, Shock and Awe has nothing on the way I am feeling right now.
“Julie, where are you going?” Manny shouts, as I roll down my driver’s side window.
“I—I have to unload the car, open up the condo, rest. I’ve been on the road for seven hours.”
“Okay, I’ll go with you, help you, whatever.”
“No, you can’t. Go into The Home Depot and look around.”
“Are you kidding? The place is packed. Everyone is buying emergency supplies for the hurricane. I don’t need anything at The Home Depot. I don’t need anything...” he says softly, “but you.”
Shit. “Well, there’s a Bob Evans restaurant down the street. Go eat some sausages. I’ll be right back.” Maybe.
“I didn’t come here to eat,” he says as his dark brown eyes measure mine.
“Well, then what did you come here for?” I roll my eyes. “Stupid question. You don’t have to answer that.”
Did I mention I am the world’s biggest coward? I know I’m just postponing the inevitable. But I have to get my breath and my equilibrium back. Get my emotions in check before we talk. I am still having trouble compartmentalizing and reconciling my feelings for Matt with my feelings for Manny. They are somehow all tied up together in the past and the present. I am literally freaking out.
“Your car must be dirty after the long drive,” I comment. “There’s a Psychic Reader & Car Wash around the corner.” I know how much Manny fusses over his car. Maybe he could use a spiritual reading. I know I could. But my palms are so sweaty they would produce a false reading or a true one. Either scenario would bite.
“I don’t need my palms read,” Manny sighs patiently. “I already know what’s in the cards for us.”
“I’ll be back,” I call, doing my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.
“Julie!” he calls after me. And that’s when my cell phone starts buzzing. Manny was calling me, and I was determined not to pick up.
Somehow I manage to back out of the parking lot without hitting anyone, ease away from the line of cars leaving the island via the emergency route, cross the toll gate, and accelerate over the bridge, the bridge leading me away from Manny, temporarily, and toward my condo. What should I do? Normally, I’d say, “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” Trouble is, I’m already on that bridge. I know Manny will wait for me. He’s waited for twenty-five years.
But haven’t I waited long enough? I still believe that dreams can come true if you wait long enough. And even if everything goes like a dream, it will mess up my life. And if nothing happens and the whole romantic rendezvous is a bust, it will mess me up, too. Maybe I’ll be better off just wondering what it would have been like to be with Manny again instead of kidding myself that he is my destiny that has to be fulfilled.
Chapter Five:
Crossing the Bridge
Palm Coast, Florida
The condo is calling me like Mecca as my car accelerates along Palm Coast Parkway, a canopied road lined with sable palms, pines, hackberry trees, and majestic, moss-draped oaks swaying wildly at cross purposes in the ocean breeze. Translation—the outer bands of the hurricane are just beginning to gust. I long for the first sight of the Intracoastal Waterway on either side of the bridge and a glimpse of the elegant entrance to the Hammock Palms community.
Peace washes over me the minute I see the pale yellow Mediterranean-style stucco building outlined against the glorious cloudless blue sky and the restless ocean. Not exactly Category Five hurricane conditions. But it is always that way on the beach side of the condo. Thunder and lightning could illuminate the sky on the golf course side of the building and the pool and the ocean side would be sunny and mirror calm.
I pull into my space in the underground parking lot and walk across the garage to the cart storage space. All the pool furniture has been stacked up in the parking garage in preparation for the storm. After loading the cart with all my baggage, I push it slowly toward the lobby, where I check the mail, then take the elevator to the fifth floor.
I can drive to Publix and shop later. Manny has driven five hours to get here, and my cell phone won’t stop vibrating, but he’ll have to wait a while longer. I need to put everything away and in its place. I have the list in my hand, Matt’s list of instructions for opening and closing the condo.
Can’t go anywhere without The List. And when I get settled I’ll have to call Matt so he can ask me himself if I have turned on the water heater in the outdoor utility closet (“On” is in the up position) and plugged in the phone that he leaves disassembled in the bathroom drawer in the master bathroom so the workers don’t make long distance calls. Trust But Verify has always been Matt’s motto. Thankfully, the condo opening list is short. The condo closing list is daunting.
1. Shut off all fans and lights.
2. Unplug phone (both cords) and place in bathroom drawer in master bathroom.
3. Shut off water heater in outdoor utility closet. (“Off” is in down position)
4. Empty ice bucket in laundry room sink. Rinse off, shut off icemaker. (Switch is in freezer on right side inside wall of freezer.)
5. Throw out all the trash.
6. Make sure no toilet is running.
7. Shut off washing machine water supply. The shut-off valve is directly behind the washing machine. Push lever towards the wall. (Away from you towards wall!)
8. Take in all chairs on patio deck. Place in storage locker.
But Matt will be there to handle the condo closing list, thank God, whenever he can get away from work. It’s just too much responsibility in my fragile frame of mind.
I look in the living room at my new palm tree lamp with its turquoise base, slim alternating white-and-brown stem, blue-green metal leaves sticking out (Matt says someone could cut themselves on those leaves), and the impossibly funky lampshade imprinted with palm trees. I don’t need a decorator to tell me it doesn’t match the décor. Matt hates my lamp with a passion. But it is mine and I love it. It is the most random purchase I’ve ever made. It is perfect for my new life. Good Night, Moon; Hello, Palm Tree Lamp. Appropriate, since my mind is now a bowl full of mush.
I look out the windows at the magnificent view of the beach. It never disappoints. Living here is like being on a ship, without the swaying. Everywhere you look, from every window, all you see and hear is ocean.
I put everything away, call Matt, so I can safely lock him out of my mind for the next few days, dash into my monstrous walk-in closet, and change into the bathing suit I keep hanging there. I think
I have time for a quick trip to the beach, just to get reacquainted. To get my bearings and get my feet wet. I guess it must be something like being baptized.
I grab my set of keys. Key to lock the condo, key to get out of the condo building. Key to get into the pool and cabana area. Three fountains splash playfully into the pool, sending out ripples in opposite directions. Steam swirls out of the hot tub. Beyond the pool are thick, tightly woven stands of palmetto scrub. I cross the wooden walkover bridge that arches the dunes at the ocean’s edge.
The ocean has restorative powers that are so good for my spirit. I am lulled by the feel of the fresh air and the salty tang on my teeth. I can sink deep into the sand and lose myself. Or find myself. Because when I look at the ocean, I feel the old me. On the surface I am calm and happy and satisfied to go on the way I’ve been, smooth as glass, always trying to put the best face on things. But underneath, I’m boiling and frustrated and restless, and my thoughts are angry and traitorous. Matt thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t know the real me. Not the part I keep to myself. If he really saw me, he wouldn’t like what he sees. And he wouldn’t love me the way he does, if he still does. And sometimes I don’t even like what I see when I look deep into myself. One day, soon, my worlds are going to collide and the me inside is going to overpower the what-I-want-the-world-to-see me, and then the earth will shift and chaos will reign.
I’ve seen the ocean in almost every season, every time of day—in summer storms, on winter walks, spinning its magic in the spring. At night, lying back on my lounge chair, looking up at the planetarium show from a front-row seat on my balcony, I can’t see the ocean but I can hear it, feel it. On my last visit to Palm Coast, I was treated to a shower of shooting stars that streaked across the sky, lighting up the darkness, as two white gulls, like holy doves, flew gracefully by.
Today, the sunlight shimmers over an emerald green sea, sparkling like the glittering diamonds at Stones. Sometimes the sea is blue, sometimes it’s green, depending on the time of day or the weather. Other times, it is a combination of the two. It is beautiful even when it is khaki-colored under an overcast sky, heavily-laden with gray clouds against patchy blue ones, bubbling and simmering like a hearty pot of my mother’s homemade split pea soup. And it is particularly beautiful during a lightning storm, frightening and spectacular as a display of fireworks lighting up the evening sky.
Stones Page 5
