Plan C

by Lois Cahall

  “Fancy a reconciliation, Kitty?” says Clive.

  “Straightaway,” says Kitty, imitating Clive. The two of them gaze at each other for a heartfelt moment. Then Jacques grabs Clive’s arm. “Tell me, Clive… does Kitty always do what you say?”

  “Not a once,” says Clive. “But that’s what I love about her.”

  *

  We have a lot of lovers in life, but only one true love. And with everything seemingly straightened out, I’m suddenly and acutely aware of the cold air making its way under my red dress and chilling my spine. It hasn’t quite reached my heart, which still beams with holiday colors – red for joy, and green for envy. I’m such a sucker for men who go after the girl. I love that Clive came after his girl. I love that their emotional dynamic excludes begging or proving of points. I love that when life offered Kitty a second chance, she took it. I love that Clive forgave her quickly and is kissing her slow. I love that she’s ignoring the buzzing Blackberry vibrating in the pocket of her velvet blazer. I love that Clive is oozing with loyalty, chivalry, honesty.

  It’s all so British - so “Pride and Prejudice” - with a bit of Austin Powers International Man of Mystery sprinkled in. Clive is such a guy’s guy - a real man. Gosh, I bet he even played rugby in college.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” says Kitty to everyone gathered. “It’s cold out here. We’ll discuss everything in the morning.”

  Okay, maybe it’s more like ‘Sense and Sensibility.’ But why does Kitty get to be that other Dashwood sister and I get stuck as the lonely maiden?

  “Yes, back upstairs,” says Jacques. “We’re wasting a fine bottle of Margaux, and the clock is about to strike midnight.”

  “The new year can’t be worst than this one,” says Kitty, molding herself into Clive’s side, and then pulling her father into her other arm.

  “And Libby’s very clean pie is probably finished baking,” says Jacques.

  The group heads for the staircase, but I let them go, falling back with General Patton who circles around me. I can feel my eyes watering up and suddenly I’m that little girl again…the one whose mother said in the big department store, “Go wait for me by the elevator,” and I took the escalator, not knowing the difference, and then she was nowhere to be found, and I was abandoned. Well, until she called the manager.

  “You coming, Lib?” asks Kitty. “It’s a minute before midnight.”

  “You go ahead. I’ll be right up,” I say, knowing full-well, I won’t.

  I watch them mount the steps, Screamin’ J Pepper’s red fringed, suede pants rounding the corner. Even General Patton has run up after them, leaving me here all by my lonesome.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  It’s official. Twelve midnight. It’s a new year. And I miss Ben. The only resolution that can cheer me right now is the one to go home tomorrow, even if it’s by default. Not exactly the same as having a man get in a pepper-grinder battle over you and beg you to come home, but I’m not certain that Ben is the begging type anyway. Let alone the pepper-grinder swinger that Clive is.

  I have to suck it up and be a big girl about this. Our dynamic has often been about me chasing after him. But so what? What does it matter after a certain age who goes after whom? Who has time for games? I’ve lived so many romantic scenarios in my life. I’ve had decades’ worth of boyfriends, marriages, and love affairs. But being completely and utterly alone as I am now, is not how I imagined it would wind up. I don’t want my show to end like this. I want my Plan C.

  The warm light from Jacques’s window draws me toward the muffled sound of their conversation. There’s comfort in watching the smoke plume from the chimney, and I can even hear the pop of the champagne cork as Jacques merrily refills their flutes. It’s as if I were on the outside of one of those shaken snow globes, wishing I could be with the happy figurines inside. French music drifts from the kitchen window, and, though I don’t recognize the tune, the ache I feel for Ben is apparent in every song. As a matter of fact, if I were a full time smoker, I would think of him every time the match hits a cigarette.

  The music merges with the sounds of New Year’s reverberating all over Paris. Fireworks go off above the nearby Seine, lighting up the darkness. I raise my hand into the night air to make a fake toast: “Happy New Year Libby Beal Crockett!” Taking a Marcel Marceau sip, I think to myself it could be worse. At least I’m alive. Not like my mother, who dropped dead of a heart attack and never had time for regrets, let alone new years.

  Rubbing my cold hands together, I peek down at the veins on the back of them, and I see her. Even my hands have taken on her memory. My friend Jackie once told me that what you miss most about your mom most is the sight and touch of her hands. But then one day, long after she’s gone, and when you least expect it, you’ll look down and there she’ll be. Her hands have become yours. And you’re old.

  Now I lose it. I sob uncontrollably. There’s no escaping time. There’s no going back to our youth. I’m aging, though I never saw my mother grow old. I never saw her live out her dreams of travel and romance.

  Maybe all those dreams aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. I was living mine now, and it turns out Paris hasn’t been all that. Our dreams bring us right back to the basics – back to love - and how we’ll risk everything in the name of it.

  Kitty and Helmut, Kitty and Clive, Bebe and Henry, and me and Ben. It all goes back to love.

  The pillow on my bed might say, “I’d Rather Be In Paris” but the truth is, I’d rather be in love. At home.

  But even if I never have Ben again, I have no regrets. I will always remember how special a man he’s been. He gave me the ten best years of my life.

  I wipe my nose with a Kleenex and then close my watering eyes tightly. Why do women work themselves into a purposeful and desperate loneliness?

  I want Ben to be here in Paris. I want to visit Granada again, with him, in Spain, and then Panama and Belize and, of course, London. How I adore London. Maybe we could go with Kitty and Clive now that the British pound has dropped to the equivalent of the Mexican peso.

  When I open my eyes I imagine seeing Ben right in front of me, but rarely in life is fate ever so kind. Instead I see a shadow moving inside of Jacques’s restaurant and fear creeps up my breastbone. A rodent? Can’t be. Whatever it is has just tripped over a case of empty wine bottles.

  I glance up at the party going on behind the open window above me, and then tip-toe to the light switch on the wall. Like Clive before me, I can’t find the damned thing. But it’s too late. The shadow has descended on the courtyard on the stoop.

  It’s a man. Smiling at me with his hands in his pockets.

  It’s Ben.

  It’s real. He had said those words to me once – “it’s real” – when I asked him if what we had was really true, really real. The thought of it melts me. My mouth forms a smile, and I’m falling back in love all over again. I want to leap into his arms, but I refrain.

  “Hello there,” he says.

  “Hi,” is all I can muster. Afraid of letting the euphoria overtake me, yet longing to let it happen… to make up with him, flow into him and let him flow into me until we meet somewhere in the middle moaning breathless sighs of relief.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you since about nine,” he says. “All of our old haunts.”

  “Oh?” I’m completely stunned that he’s come after me. It’s as if he’s the Ghost of Christmas Past turned into the Ghost of Christmas Present. What do I mean “Ghost?” He is a Christmas present. No pretense, no nonsense, no pepper grinders and certainly no fairy tale. Just pure romance.

  “I phoned Bebe the day after Christmas,” says Ben. “Said she’d be here New Year’s and she gave me the address. I always liked that Bebe.”

  “Oh?” is all I can still mutter. I’m still processing the possibility that this isn’t a joke, but I’m anxious to hear what he has to say first.

  “You forgot your allergy pills,” says Ben stepping toward me.
“I didn’t know if they have Claritin in Paris.”

  Well that’s a lame excuse, but doable. At least he’s trying. I smile, taking the tablets, from him, my hand trembling. “Thank you.”

  “And the cat…” says Ben. “I didn’t know the date of his vet appointment.”

  This is all just filler dialog, but I go along with it.

  “And he misses you,” says Ben. “The cat.”

  “The cat misses me?” I say. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes,” says Ben. “He told Daddy.”

  “Daddy my ass!” I say. “In people years that cat is old enough to be your grandfather.”

  We both laugh and my nerves calm down. Our eyes lock, mine tearing up again because I suppose that’s what girls do. I know I should be happy, but I’m still ambivalent. Match that up with trepidation, and it’s a real killer.

  Ben reaches for my hand, running his fingers inside my palm. Now he’s choking up, too. It’s as if Ben’s just captured my Queen in some chess game and I’ve prepared myself to lose the match.

  “I can’t go through life knowing you’re out there but I can’t have you.” he says, looking down at our hands. “You belong with me, Libby. I love you.”

  “I know,” I whimper, pissed at myself for caving-in but so relieved that he’s here. It’s not just the words “I love you,” it’s knowing we share a love that most people search a lifetime for. It’s a meeting of the hearts, of the bodies and the minds. Somehow all those meetings got cancelled like a flight in the grind of everyday life.

  “I just want another chance,” says Ben, searching my eyes.

  “Ben, I love you, but you’ve had five years of chances, and I’ve had five years of waiting for you to take them.” Suddenly I’m being practical. Practical and scared.

  “I know,” he whispers.

  “I want you to know that I haven’t done anything bad,” I say, realizing I’ve already said the wrong thing, so now I have to go with it. “You trust me, right?”

  “Yes,” he says, “Of course I trust you.”

  “Why? How do you know I didn’t have a sex fling in Paris?”

  “You don’t trust someone because of logic, you trust them because of feelings. Okay?”

  “Okay, yes.” It was clear that Ben wasn’t interested in what I may have done with another man or not. I loved that about him. Always so secure in himself.

  “In life,” says Ben, “we either have something or want something. It’s not often we get to have what we want.”

  “Are you saying with me you have both?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” I like that he’s lassoed the conversation and turned it back into romantic again. “It’s a new year, Libby. Let’s begin a new life,” says Ben, “I want you to come home.”

  It’s not a question it’s a statement. He’s not asking me to come home, he’s telling me. Yet he mentions nothing of the fact that I’ve spent twenty-four years raising daughters, and now I want the freedom to travel and see the world. Is he so sure of himself that he thinks we can automatically find a happy medium between his situation and mine, just like that?

  “Well, I can’t just come home,” I say, calling my own bluff and not letting on that I was coming back tomorrow anyway. “I’m sorry, Ben, but I can’t. I love you, I’ll miss you, but I’ve got to go.” And with that, I turn around toward the staircase.

  “What if I told you Jean-Christophe kicked and screamed all the way to the orphanage where I made him donate the old toys he never plays with anymore?”

  “You did that?” I say, spinning around on the first step.

  “And if I told you he’ll never say ‘I’m calling the police’ on you?”

  “I wouldn’t believe that,” I say, moving back closer to him on the courtyard landing.

  “What if I told you he’ll respect your possessions and will never again use our appliances to torture domesticated animals?”

  “I definitely wouldn’t believe that.”

  Ben chuckles. “Okay, but we’ll try.”

  “And if we try and it doesn’t work?” I ask.

  “In the corner with the egg timer for a time-out or whatever you want. And if I told you that you’re absolutely right, that….”

  ‘Wait, can you say that again?” I say.

  “Say what?”

  “The part about me being absolutely right…”

  “You’re absolutely right…” “Has a nice ring to it,” I say.

  “And if I told you there’s no reason Rosemary can’t do the occasional drive to drop-off the kids…”

  “So that you don’t have to leave work early – the very work that allow her to sit sunbathing on the back deck…”

  “Well, maybe her sunbathing days are over. You won’t believe what she’s doing now…”

  I don’t want to imagine, but I fasten my seat belt. Here comes the crash.

  “She’s going to be a midwife,” says Ben.

  “Is this a joke?” I say, relieved.

  “No,” he laughs.

  “So she’s gone from rebirthing to just plain birthing?”

  And then we’re both laughing.

  “I really missed you,” I blurt out.

  “And I can’t believe how nice you’re being considering all the bullshit I put you through,” says Ben, pulling me, in and kissing my forehead.

  “You’ve spent ten years loving me heart and soul. I can’t overlook that, either.”

  “The passion is still there. After all this time.” “I know,” I say.

  “I’ve missed you, honey.” But as he pulls me in for a kiss, we hear somebody scream at us from the window upstairs. It’s Kitty. “Will you two get up here? Clive is down to his knickers and he’s playing air guitar with my father!”

  “We’ll be right up,” I holler to Kitty.

  “Oh, hello, Ben. Happy New Year,” says Kitty, and then she disappears from the ledge. I glance at Ben and I’m truly elated. The way I’m feeling right now, we’re that wedding couple out of a Chagall painting, and I could easily float up to that second story without using the stairs.

  “Do you think you can stop worrying about the things you can’t do anything about?” says Ben. “Do you think love can be our heaven on earth?”

  Oh God, this was it. This was really it. Now or never. My “Sliding Doors” moment. Two doors and two different roads… I can tell Ben no right now on the spot and move forward to a new beginning in Paris as An American Food Blogger, or I can go home and continue my life with him. Or maybe both?

  I can feel the pendulum swinging between my aspirations to be a free Bohemian or to go back to civilization. But a warmth creeps up my stomach and into my heart and I suddenly see everything differently from the way that I saw it before. Ben was a truly decent guy. And standing here right now, I know I can be both completely free without having to go anywhere.

  Life should be about new beginnings. Even if we long for a present that’s reminiscent of our pasts, we have to recognize that the past no longer exists. We can only move forward. Tell God you have a plan and God laughs. The real Plan C might be accepting life as it comes, with no plan at all.

  I look at Ben. “Listen, the twins are way out of control…”

  “I know that,” he says.

  “But it’s somehow different now. I feel sorry for them – especially after meeting their father.”

  “Bebe told me. Is Jean-Francois really that short?”

  “Shorter.”

  “I’ve been using the word ‘no’ more often,” says Ben. “A word I should never have used with you.”

  “They’ll be fine,” I say. “They’re just grieving over losing their stuff. But I’ve been grieving over you. You’re my stuff.”

  That’s when Ben takes my face firmly into his hands and kisses me, as though it were the only thing to be done. And when our lips touch, it’s as though he’s owned me all along. The kiss spills out of me and onto his lips - complex and full – and then he sto
ps and we hold the moment, our breath baited, our lips parted and our eyes closed.

  Until Kitty kills it by screaming out the window. “Libby, get up here! It’s Yvette calling from the states.”

  “Yvette?” I pull away from Ben. “Tell her the shelter can wait…”

  “There’s been an accident!” yells Kitty.

  My first thought, my gut instinct, is that Kitty’s exaggerating as usual and the accident is probably something ridiculous like Yvette knocking over a tray of chocolate cupcakes at her reading group. But it’s the next words out of Kitty’s mouth that put me on full alert.

  “Libby, it’s Bebe. It’s bad…”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  The next few hours were a complete blur… Kitty and I moving about in a daze, shooting to the airport, flying “stand-by” to Gstaad, then navigating the rental car without a GPS to the Swiss hospital where Bebe lay in intensive care. But even before that, it had been an ordeal. Clive and Ben had run around the block trying to hail us a taxi, but it was hopeless. They were forever competing with the crowds of New Years’ revelers along the Seine.

  It was actually Kitty’s father, Screamin’ J Pepper, who managed to land us a last minute limo – his. He drove. Fortunately Jacques knew the shortcut to the airport. Clive decided to stay behind in France, making the obligatory phone calls to America, while Ben escorted Kitty and me on the flight. As we buckled our seatbelts for takeoff, I grabbed hold of their hands on either side of my center seat and said, “What a hell of a way to start the new year.”

  *

  The emergency room was relatively calm except for the inevitable handful of party goers with alcohol poisoning. After what seemed like hours, the nurse at the main desk located Bebe’s room: she’d been moved several times and was now lying in critical condition. Ben spoke to the nurse to get the specifics while Kitty dashed to Bebe’s side.

  But it was me who stayed back in the hallway when I saw Tamara sitting alone on a waiting room bench, her skinny, little, legs swinging underneath it. She was eating a piece of Gruyere cheese that the Swiss nurse had given her, and she leapt up at the sight of me, running down the hallway at full speed to my extended arms. “Auntie Heylib,” she said, choking on her words. “I so happy - see you. Tamara - scared.”