When I'm Not Myself

by Deborah J. Wolf

  Paige breathed in, then out. Deep, calming breaths that sent shivers down her spine and instantly made her feel better. Her water had broken, just before eleven when she’d gotten up to pee for the nine hundredth time of the day, and that had sent Dennis into a flurry of activity, most of it meaningless and repetitive. He had loaded the suitcase into the car and then came running back into the house searching the bedroom until Paige had asked him what he was doing.

  “I’m looking for the suitcase, Paige. Where did you put it?”

  She stared at him, exasperated already. “You just put it in the car,” she said, gritting her teeth.

  “Oh.”

  He’d driven too fast to the hospital, setting off an argument between them about getting the baby killed even before it had a chance to live. And at the hospital he’d turned into a raving lunatic, demanding a private room for his wife as soon as they walked in.

  His attitude was nothing like his usual calm, sweet demeanor. And the crass way he was ordering those around him didn’t suit him. It wasn’t until Paige had been checked into the room he’d insisted they give her, and hooked up to the fetal monitor, that he calmed down. Now Paige was just glad to be rid of him for a few minutes. Just glad to see the girls.

  “You’re home,” Paige said, reaching at once for Cara and Melanie’s hands. “You made it.”

  “Thank God, yes,” Mel answered her and sidled up to the bed, pulling her body up on the high mattress. “Four days in that godforsaken country inn with bad sheets and towels like sandpaper. It was heinous.”

  “It was good that we went,” Cara said, filling in the quiet space that had settled on the room, no one knowing what the right questions were to ask, what the right answers were to offer. “In the end, it was the right thing to do.”

  They let it go then, fading away from them like a distant memory.

  Mel had been back to work for two days, making up for lost time, shooting two a day. She had called her mother once, a sense of duty falling on her like a heavy cloak, and when she hung up the phone from that conversation she knew it would be a long time before she and Bea spoke again. There was nothing further for them now, nothing left that Mel felt she needed to tell her or that she somehow needed to hear from her. Mel had been resolved to the fact that those words would never be muttered aloud.

  David had greeted Cara on Monday morning with hot chai tea, an armful of work and a soft smile. “Cara, I’m so glad you’re back,” he said to her quietly. “I’ve missed you.”

  She was checking the e-mails that had piled up while she was away. She looked up at him from her computer. “Me, too,” she answered. And what passed between them was a quiet understanding that Cara would fill him in later on the details of her trip.

  Cara had packed away the knowledge she had, the secrets she now kept, like an old quilt that had served its purpose but was too worn to be of use anymore. She had decided that there was no point in telling Melanie or Leah about Dermott and Mirabelle’s affair, the reason Bea had left and never returned. Some things just deserved not to be cut open and dissected. Some things just deserved to be left alone.

  Paige delivered her daughter in record time. By seven in the morning they were laughing, holding baby Ella and trying to figure out who she looked more like. She had Dennis’s fair skin and blue eyes, translucent and icy and not likely to change the way most newborns’ eyes did. But she had Paige’s dimpled chin, her long fingers, her sweet, pinched mouth.

  Paige was exhausted, soaked in perspiration and worn from the quick delivery. The delivery room nurse showed her how to breast-feed Ella, positioning her just so. Ella cried and fought for a minute, then latched on like a champ.

  Cara and Leah convinced Dennis to go for breakfast and followed him toward the door. “You coming, Mel?” Leah asked, looking back at Melanie still poised on the side of the bed watching Paige and her new daughter intently.

  “I’ll be down in a few minutes. Go on ahead,” Mel urged.

  Ella had fallen asleep while nursing. When they were gone, Paige sat running her index finger over the top of the baby’s head. Ella had fine peach fuzz, guaranteed to fall out but likely to grow back in soft, reddish blonde curls like her father had.

  “She looks just like her father,” Melanie stated, saying it out loud for the first time.

  “Yes.”

  Melanie lifted Ella from Paige and placed her in the makeshift cradle, the plastic rolling crate that had been positioned next to Paige’s hospital bed. The baby yawned wide, her mouth forming a perfect round circle O, and then settled into the hospital blankets she was wrapped in.

  “What was it like, Mel, when you had Isabella? You were all by yourself then.” Paige reached for Mel’s hand and held it tightly. She didn’t often have the chance to be alone with Mel, certainly not at a time when emotions were running so high.

  “Nothing like this, Paige, not at all. It was so long ago. God, it feels like a lifetime ago.”

  Mel watched Ella sleep, the rise and fall of her tiny chest, the way her hands had wrestled free from the tightly wrapped blanket to find her mouth. She sucked on two fingers—her pointer and middle finger—and cooed contentedly.

  “Are you glad you went, to see your mom and to say good-bye to Dermott?” Paige asked.

  Mel shrugged her shoulders and shook her head resolutely. “I don’t know. I didn’t have much of a choice, really. At least that’s how it felt. I guess I could have let it all go. And maybe I should have. But it didn’t feel right to do that. It felt like I needed to be there, for Isabella and for me.”

  Paige nodded her head, understanding.

  When Cara and Leah made their way back into the room, they came with cups of steaming coffee and extralarge frosted cinnamon buns, the icing melting.

  “Please tell me you didn’t actually eat one of those things,” Melanie said to Cara, pointedly. “There’s like nine million calories in that thing. And more trans fat than your body could ever absorb.”

  Cara smiled. “You didn’t think I got rid of my favorite pair of jeans, did you? Just because you made me buy that loincloth of denim that barely covers my crack.”

  Mel eyed her suspiciously. “Not the pleats, Cara. Please tell me you’ve gotten rid of those godforsaken pleated pants. They are so not you.”

  Cara smiled devilishly, knowing how to get to Mel. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll get rid of the jeans on one condition.”

  “Anything.”

  Cara nodded toward Paige and Dennis. “See our friends here? You’re on dinner. A casserole, Melanie. One with cooked carrots and stewed potatoes, or pasta and hamburger. Something full of nutrients that will fill their bellies and keep them alive for a few days.” It wasn’t in Mel and Cara knew it. She wouldn’t take the bet on principle alone.

  Mel blanched and swallowed hard, shaking her head. “Fine,” she answered and dove into the cinnamon bun, licking her fingertips.

  27

  David suggested they take in a ball game. “There is nothing better than a ball game, Cara. It’s just what you need. And, my God, we never get weather like this in San Francisco. A ball game it is.”

  Cara had been to plenty of baseball games; Little League had been a rite of passage for Will and Luke for as long as Cara could remember. But she hadn’t been to a real ball game—peanuts and beer and a seventh-inning stretch—in a long, long time. And David was right; the weather in the city couldn’t be beat. She was suddenly overcome with a sense of spring fever, feeling young and free. She did something she had never done before; she called Jack and fibbed. “A last-minute meeting,” she told him, “a career-making opportunity.” He whined that Barbie was too far pregnant, too moody, but she held him off, waiting out his tantrum with silence on the other end of the phone. He just had to pick up the kids and get their homework done; she’d done it for him plenty of times.

  David had season tickets. Not just any season tickets; three rows
up from the field, first base side. The crowd around them swelled and welcomed them like the sea swallowing its prey.

  “We’ve been in these seats for a while,” he explained. “Ever since they built the new park.”

  It was Wednesday and they weren’t the only “South of Market” executives who’d cut out early to enjoy the afternoon. Still, Cara felt overdressed in a peach linen blouse and black slacks. David held her beer while she settled into the hard folding chair and when he handed it to her she drank the top quarter of it without stopping.

  “What else can I get you, Cara?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” she answered him, pulling on her sunglasses and rolling up the sleeves to her blouse. It was near seventy and clear, almost unheard of in early May in San Francisco. And Cara meant what she said; there was absolutely nothing else she could think of that she needed at that very moment.

  The Giants batted through their order twice in four innings but couldn’t score until Ray Durham knocked one dead centerfield for a three-run homer, sending Cara and everyone around them cheering, whooping it up, on their feet. Cara threw her arms in the air and David lifted her at the waist until she practically came right out of her four-inch heels.

  “Woo-hoo!” they shouted, “Yeah!” and toasted each other with what was left of their beers.

  In the end, the home team lost, coughing one up to the Mets when they couldn’t convert the runner on second in the bottom of the ninth. A collective sigh was heard through the park, right on the heels of the sharp strike called by the umpire. Cara watched as the crowd heaved disappointment, then gathered their belongings and headed outside, flooding the busy city streets with defeat.

  David took her hand and led her up, then down, the stairs until they exited onto Third Street and Willie Mays Plaza. He looped his arm over her shoulder in a friendly, brotherly way and pulled her close, kissing her on the cheek. “You win some, you lose some,” he whispered in her ear.

  “That’s very adult of you.” She smiled.

  “Oh, Cara, you can’t win them all,” he quipped.

  “Nice. How many more of those you got?”

  “A million.”

  “I figured.”

  The sun hung high in the afternoon sky, still warming the city. They walked together, falling into step, their fingers intertwined. Cara didn’t want to leave; she loved the way the city smelled, the way it moved around her, carrying them along.

  “We’re having dinner, yes?”

  “God, I hope so. I’m starved.”

  “Cara?” He stopped her on the street, jerking her around so she faced him. “How in the world can you be hungry? Where did the Say Hey! Willie Mays sausage and garlic fries go?”

  “God, David, that was hours ago.”

  They made their way north a few blocks to COCO500, where David wormed his way into a table in the back of the restaurant and ordered them each a Mojito.

  “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a baseball fan, Cara. You did okay out there,” he added, commenting on her steel-trap knowledge of the right plays. “I’ve been to plenty of games with women who talked my ear off during full count of a tied game.”

  “And?”

  “And, I wanted to kill them. God, it was so annoying. A complete deal breaker.”

  “I’ll bet,” Cara said, pausing to sip her drink. “And just who are these so-called women?”

  David rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that I’ve forgotten,” he answered her and leaned in, resting his elbows on the small table that separated them.

  “Uh-huh,” Cara teased. “I’m sure that you have not.”

  “Honestly, Cara, do you think I’d rather be sitting at this table with some twentysomething with no innate knowledge of what a ninth inning pop fly can mean to a major league pitcher who is staring his first no-hitter in the face? Or do you think I’d rather be sitting here with you?”

  “Admit it; you’re just happy I’m back.”

  “I’m absolutely thrilled that you’re back. I’ve lost my touch with Stewart; you’ve stolen his logic. He won’t listen to anyone’s reasoning but yours.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m just right?”

  “God, no. Never.”

  Cara propped her chin in the palm of her hand, satisfied. She loved to banter with David, the easygoing, quick wit that kept each of them on their toes. She loved the way he volleyed one-liners back and forth with her, engaging her all the while.

  David cupped his hand around the back of her head and pulled her face close to him. “And even if you were—right, that is—do you think I’d let you get away with it?”

  He kissed her then, his lips lingering very close to hers afterward. She took in a deep, sharp breath, startled by the way he surprised her.

  “You haven’t told me about your trip yet, Cara,” he said to her when she sat back, taking him in.

  Cara stretched her arms over her head and yawned. Her once-crisp linen blouse was wrinkled beyond recognition. She sipped the last of her Mojito before she answered him. “Oh, it was quite an adventure, my God . . . so much to cover.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Cara. Let’s hear it.” He closed the menu and flagged down the waitress, ordering a smattering of small plates: marinated olives, goat cheese, oysters on the half shell. He looked at her for approval and she nodded her head. “We’ll start there,” he said to the waitress, dismissing her as quickly as he’d called her over.

  “Well,” she started, leaning back in her chair, getting comfortable. “I think it was good that we went. I wasn’t so sure, certainly, when we were there, but all things considered, it was good for Mel to put a few things to bed, finally and completely. She hadn’t seen her mother in thirty years.”

  David’s eyes grew large over the top of his glass. “What? You’ve got to be kidding. Why not?”

  “Oh, David, there’s too much to tell. I’d have to start at the beginning and that was obviously so long ago that much of it isn’t relevant anymore, not really, anyway.”

  “I’d say it’s probably very relevant, Cara. It was Melanie’s life.”

  “Yes.” She paused. “Yes, you’re right. It was very relevant. It had everything to do with who she’s become.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “And how about you and Mel? Things had been distant for a while now. Were you able to put some of that behind you and heal a bit?”

  Cara thought about how she should answer that. She hadn’t told David everything that had passed between her and Mel; even though she’d held her opinions core to who she was, somehow she felt foolish admitting them to him, as if he might find her naive or childish.

  “We were, yes. I think I finally realized that Mel and I could be the very best of friends, certainly the very oldest of friends, and still have our differences. Different opinions, different lives, really. It’s funny, but we practically grew up right next to each other, you know. And yet we were worlds apart. We still are today.”

  Their food arrived along with another round of Mojitos, and then truffle-mushroom pizza that David had spied on the menu and ordered on the fly.

  “Mmmm,” Cara moaned, diving into the warm goat cheese. “Really, really good.”

  “Cara?” David asked and waited until she looked at him.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Think you’ll ever get married again?” he asked her, leaving her midbite and more than a little surprised.

  She stopped chewing and stared at him. It was just like him; a question to throw her off her game. She finished the cheese and drank some water, squirming in her chair, shifting from one side to the other. She avoided his eyes and couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to ask her. She hadn’t considered it herself, not since Jack left, not wanting to tempt fate.

  “God, David, where do these questions come from?”

  “Don’t know. Why?”

  “Because that has to be the last question I would have thought you would have asked me.”

  “Wh
y?”

  “Um, well, I guess because I hadn’t even considered it myself, not yet, anyway. And I can’t imagine what about me getting married again would be so entertaining to you.”

  “I’m just curious. Hypothetically speaking, of course. Would you ever get married again? It’s a simple question, really. I would think you’d have a pretty good idea about it, actually, having done it once. I would think someone like you, with four children and a house in the burbs would be a prime candidate.”

  She couldn’t help but feel a bit self-conscious. It was the first time he’d pointed out what she had so readily always known was the biggest difference in their life paths. She was forty-three-years old with four kids and a significant mortgage. He could kiss her good-bye on a street corner and pack his bags overnight for an extended assignment in Paris. There was nothing to keep him here; he was anchored by little, if anything.

  “I think I should be insulted,” she told him, wearing her life’s choices like a badge of shame.

  “Why?”

  “You make it sound rather fatalistic, as if it’s my only option.”

  He laughed openly, warmly. “No, Cara. You make it sound as if it’s your only option. I was only curious.”

  “Oh.”

  “And contrary to popular belief, I don’t think of marriage as fatalistic. Not even close.”

  “Okay, smart-ass, your turn. Would you get married? Ever?”

  “That’s not the open question on the table. The question on the table is would you ever get married? Again.”

  “Okay, fine. Here you go. I have no idea, actually. I haven’t thought about it, not once since Jack left. My divorce will be final next week and I still can’t get my head around the fact that it’s actually over. Not in the, “Oh, Jack, I really want you back; I can’t believe you ever left me” way, but in the “Hmmm, you really aren’t married anymore” way.

  “I get that.”

  “You do?”