The Night the Lights Went Out

by Karen White

  “Can’t you just put an extra chair at the table? Then we can pretend that my date had to cancel last minute because of some emergency.”

  “Surely you have a male friend you could bring,” Heather said, her eyes narrowed in concentration, as if going through a Rolodex of possibilities in her mind. She looked up suddenly, her eyes now wide with excitement. “Or, as a last resort, do you have a brother?”

  The champagne in Merilee’s mouth turned suddenly sour. “I did,” she said slowly. “But he died when he was a boy.”

  Heather grabbed her hand and squeezed, and Merilee found herself squeezing back. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the look of compassion in Heather’s eyes, but Merilee found herself drawn to her, and maybe even hopeful that this could be her first real female friendship in her new life.

  Heather drew back, her head tilted to the side the way some people study artwork. “Just to throw it out there, but what about Wade Kimball? And let me tell you, that man knows how to fill out a tuxedo.”

  Merilee drained her champagne glass, more to give herself a chance to come up with a response and less because of her need for more alcohol. She placed her hand over the rim when Heather picked up the bottle to pour more. “Wade?” She shook her head, thinking of a thousand reasons why not and then grabbing at the most obvious. “Wouldn’t that be awkward for you? And Dan? You once had a . . . relationship with Wade, from what I understand. We’d be at the same table.”

  Heather flicked her wrist in the same way she’d done at La Perla when dismissing a particular bra as being too lacy. “We’re all mature adults, and Daniel and I have a very secure marriage—neither one of us will have a problem, and I know Wade won’t. Our relationship was forever ago—when we were practically children. I once thought Wade was the man for me—way back when. Before I realized that who you think you want and need in your twenties isn’t always the same man you want and need in your thirties and forties.”

  Merilee wanted to tell her that, yes, it could be. That she’d once imagined being with Michael in the nursing home, where they’d park their wheelchairs next to each other and talk about their grandchildren.

  “That may be,” Merilee said instead. “But I don’t really know Wade. And I certainly don’t want to give him the wrong impression by inviting him. It would be like going on a date when I have absolutely no intention of dating. Not for a long while, anyway.”

  “Ah,” Heather said, tapping her nails against her glass. “You’re imagining you’re still in love with your husband.”

  The way she eagerly nodded in agreement reminded Merilee of why she didn’t drink very often. It was humiliating the way she became such an emotionally open book whenever alcohol was involved. “If he asked me to come back tomorrow, I have this terrible feeling that I’d say yes.”

  “The same man who left you for your daughter’s teacher and then knocked her up?” In response to Merilee’s surprise, Heather added, “I read that blog, too, so I know. And I think what they did to you is despicable. He didn’t deserve you and you should be glad to be rid of him.”

  Merilee reached for a tissue from a box in the center console and wiped her eyes. “I know. But I still can’t imagine going out with another man. Not for a while. Besides, what would my children think?”

  Heather raised an eyebrow. “Well then, it’s settled. You have to invite Wade. I think he’s the distraction you need right now. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I’m sure the children like him and won’t have any objection, and Michael will get the comeuppance he deserves when he hears about it or—better yet—sees photos from the gala on Facebook. You really need a page, by the way. It’s the best way for Michael to see what you’ve been up to without him. I could even set it up for you if you’d like. Just let me know what password you’d like to use, and then all you’ll have to do is post beautiful photos of you having fun at the gala with Wade. And anything else you’d like to post.” Heather sent her a wicked smile that would have made Merilee blush if she’d been sober.

  As sick as the entire idea was, it did have a certain appeal. Merilee removed her hand from the top of the glass and allowed Heather to refill it. After taking a healthy sip, she said, “All right. I’ll invite Wade. It’s just one evening, right? And if you and Dan are okay with it, then I say let’s do it.”

  They raised their glasses again and clinked them together before Merilee sank back into the seat of the car and let the glow of the champagne and the day wash over her, allowing herself to ignore the niggling thoughts of how Heather knew she didn’t have a Facebook page and how she was going to ask a guy for a date after being out of practice for more than a decade.

  Sixteen

  THE PLAYING FIELDS BLOG

  Observations of Suburban Life from Sweet Apple, Georgia

  Written by: Your Neighbor

  Installment #6: Biker Chicks and Football

  Long before there’s a snap in the air, we here in the South are regaled with SEC football in all its glory. You will be considered unpatriotic if you don’t have your school flags flapping from your car windows or at least an affiliation bumper sticker or license plate to show your allegiance.

  To our newcomers from outside the Southeast, learn to live with it. SEC football is as much a part of us as sweet tea and grits. In September, start planning your tailgate party menus, because that’s the only way you can expect any kind of social life on a Saturday for the entire season. Or at least have the biggest TV screen in the neighborhood. The good thing about football is that you don’t have to understand the game to enjoy a good tailgate party.

  And don’t dismiss family loyalties. I know of a couple where the husband went to Alabama and the wife went to Auburn, and they had to seek marriage counseling after every season. Their daughter started at Alabama and then finished up at Auburn because she couldn’t take the stress of choosing one over the other. Now, that’s loyalty.

  Another thing I’ve been noticing, now that the weather has gone from one hundred percent humidity to only ninety, and the temperature is now safely down from the heatstroke-inducing nineties, is that the bikers are out in force. Not motorcyclists—we don’t have many of those in our little Sweet Apple suburb. I’m talking about the foot-pedaling, Lycra-wearing (whether they can pull it off or not), sweat-covered bike people who love to travel in packs and exercise their right to use the roadways for their recreational use.

  Now, I’m all about being healthy and making good lifestyle choices. Obviously, a lot of my neighbors are, too, judging by the number of Pilates, yoga, and fitness studios that have spread like kudzu within our city limits in the past few years. But I can’t help but wonder if these bike people might also have death wishes. In a town where many of our roads are narrow, winding, hilly, and with no shoulders, it does give you something to ponder when you’re coming around a bend going forty-five and nearly run into a herd of them, their little fanny packs shifting from side to side as the riders pump their muscled calves to make it to the top of the hill and, presumably, make their hearts stronger. I wonder if they have any idea how close they just came to making their heartbeats permanently stop.

  Luckily, we have a lot of roads with bike paths, and even the Greenway, which goes on for miles, through several counties, with no motor vehicle access. It’s made for those of you who like to exercise outdoors either on foot or on a bike that probably costs more than your monthly mortgage. I’m not judging. Perhaps we motorists should hand out flyers with a map of these locations every time we pass a biker. We could be saving a life.

  Speaking of all this exercise brings me to another, slightly related note. Have you ever noticed how gaining weight or losing weight directly impacts a person’s personality? Like how when a person gets down to the point where they don’t take up two seats at the movie theater they become more outgoing, more free with their opinions, more likely to ask for a raise or ask someone out fo
r a date. It’s like their real personality has been hiding under all those fat cells, waiting to have its day. And all it takes is one day for a person to simply look in the mirror and decide they’ve had enough. Sometimes, earth’s little earthquakes—like a divorce—do that, too, but it’s only fair that something so awful can have a good side effect, right?

  And that’s a good thing—most of the time. We should all be given the opportunity to be our real selves, regardless of how much we weigh. And sometimes having a stronger, leaner body is just the push we need to break out of our shells. Unless your real self is the spawn of Satan and you’ve been waiting years to wreak havoc on those who overlooked you in your chubbier days. That just means you’re a hateful person, thin or fat.

  And that brings us to our Southern expression of the day: “You can’t tell the size of the turnips by lookin’ at their tops.” I know a married soccer mom and mother of two who is involved in every corner of her community and school. She is All That. But what she allows the rest of us to see is just the top of her, sticking out of the ground. The rest of her she keeps hidden, so nobody really sees the all of her. And from what I know, the all of her is not a pretty sight. It’s like judging a book by the cover—you’ve got to open it up and see what’s written on the inside before you form your opinion.

  • • •

  SUGAR

  Sugar looked up from the television with annoyance at the knock on the door. Pushing herself to a stand, she waited for her body to register that she was upright before heading to the front door to open it.

  “Good morning, Miss Sugar. We brought you groceries.” Colin smiled as he thrust out two Kroger bags.

  Sugar looked behind him to see a similarly burdened Merilee.

  “It’s a teacher workday, so no school for the kids. Lily had cheerleading practice and I took the day off to run some errands, and since your car still isn’t back, I figured you’d need a few necessities.”

  Sugar raised an eyebrow, pretty confident that her idea of necessities was nothing like Merilee’s. “Thank you,” she said. “But I’m watching the weatherman on HLN. I never miss a weekday morning.” She was hoping they’d understand and just drop off the bags and leave so she wouldn’t miss any more than she had to.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you had cable,” Merilee said, stepping forward so that Sugar had no choice but to open the door further and let them in. She paused to stare at the screen. “Are you watching the weatherman or the weather? Bob Van Dillen is pretty cute.”

  Sugar closed her mouth in what she hoped was a look of disapproval. “I meant the weather, of course.” Which was a complete lie. The weatherman was the main reason she got up every morning. He was easy on the eyes. He also looked like Tom.

  “Why don’t you come in?” she said as Merilee and Colin passed her on the way to the kitchen.

  Merilee was already unpacking the grocery bags on the counter when Sugar entered the kitchen. There was her half gallon of whole milk—the Kroger brand because it was cheapest—the jar of Duke’s mayonnaise, a jar of Maxwell House instant coffee, and a bag of sugar.

  “I forgot to ask you what you needed before I left for the store, and for some reason I don’t have your number programmed on my phone yet, so I had to guess. I remembered seeing these things in your kitchen before, and I know you’ve used a lot of sugar in the cookies and brownies you’ve brought over to us, so consider this me returning a favor.” Merilee spoke quickly, avoiding Sugar’s eyes, her hands busying themselves as she stowed the emptied bags inside another bag. As if she was afraid she’d be rebuked.

  Sugar felt ashamed, embarrassed that she’d become so unapproachable. She attempted to redeem herself. “Why don’t you sit down and let me finish that? I’ve got some freshly made sweet tea in the icebox if you’d like to see what sweet tea should really taste like.” She couldn’t help it. There were just some things that old age granted that she was bound and determined to take full advantage of. Like removing any filters before she spoke the truth.

  “Too late,” Merilee said with a smile as she stowed the last of the bags. “But I’d love some tea. Although it will be tough to beat my grandfather’s.” She said it like a challenge.

  Sugar poured two glasses and placed them on the table, then turned around to ask Colin if he’d like some, but the boy had disappeared and Merilee seemed unconcerned.

  Merilee picked up her glass. “Wade fixed the cellar doors at the cottage, then took me down to examine the cellar, and we found what looks like a locked army trunk. The markings have all been scratched out, and it was covered in blankets. Chances are it was just being used as a table in case the cellar had to be used in an emergency.” Merilee took a sip of her tea, smiling in appreciation and oblivious to the rush of blood in Sugar’s ears or the very real threat that Sugar was about to have a heart attack. “Not bad,” she said, swirling the ice in her glass. “Almost as good as my grandfather’s.”

  Sugar could barely hear because the buzzing in her ears was so loud.

  Merilee continued, like a bee prepared to sting, unaware of the damage about to be done to both parties. “Do you have any idea who it belonged to or what might be inside?”

  Sugar took her time sitting down, then sipped her tea. “Wade already called me, and I told him I have no idea what it is or why it’s there.” She stood again so suddenly she thought she might faint. “Where’s Colin?”

  “He’s probably looking for more bird books on your bookshelves. I didn’t think you’d mind . . .”

  But Sugar was already walking as fast as she could out of the kitchen, turning right at the front door toward her father’s old study. Her heart fluttered in her chest when she noticed the door partly ajar. Had she left it open? She usually closed it, but sometimes, especially lately, she found herself forgetting small things like that. “Colin?” she called, facing the door.

  “He’s in here,” Merilee called from behind her.

  With one hand pressing against her chest, Sugar closed the door, making certain it was latched, before she turned around and walked into the front parlor. She ignored Merilee’s expression of concern, her gaze settling on Colin, who was sitting on the floor in front of her mother’s cedar chest, which had once held Astrid’s wedding trousseau. The top was still shut, owing most likely to the crystal lamp and ceramic dog figurine on the top. But one of the two drawers had been pulled open, and Colin was occupied with examining an old jam jar, the lid still intact and showing a smattering of punched holes.

  “Colin!” Merilee called out, her son either too engrossed to hear or purposefully ignoring her. “I’m so sorry,” Merilee said to Sugar, attempting to remove the jar from Colin’s hands. “He’s generally pretty curious, but I thought I’d taught him better than to invade someone’s privacy—”

  “Jimmy used to catch tadpoles in that jar,” Sugar said, cutting her off. “I’d forgotten that was in there.” She stepped forward to look inside the opened drawer, half-afraid of what else she might see. What memories might nudge sleeping ghosts.

  Colin relinquished his hold on the jar. “Apologize to Miss Sugar for invading her privacy,” Merilee prompted.

  “I’m sorry for invading your privacy,” Colin parroted, his tone making it clear that he had no idea why what he’d done was wrong. He was like Jimmy that way. There were no sins against curiosity, and the world was full of things to explore.

  Sugar took the jar from Merilee and handed it back to Colin. “You can have it. I bet there are still tadpoles in the lake—just make sure you have an adult with you if you decide to catch any.” Not that she and Jimmy had ever required adult supervision. But that had been in the days before bike helmets and seat belts. According to popular belief, it was a surprise anybody had survived childhood back then.

  “Did this come from the drawer, too?” Merilee asked her son, bending forward to retrieve something from the floor next to Colin.
>
  It took a moment for Sugar to recognize the printed map in the painted wood frame. “Yes,” she said. “It was a wedding gift,” she added, remembering. “From my daddy. He made the frame himself. It shows the land and the cottage you live in now.”

  “You should hang it in the cottage,” Merilee suggested. “I think there’s a perfect space for it in the bedroom hallway, on the short wall between the two bedrooms.”

  Sugar wanted to be angry. Her privacy had been invaded, after all. And she was missing the weather report on the television given by that handsome weatherman. But Colin was looking up at her with Jimmy’s eyes, and Merilee was saying the exact same words that Sugar had said to Tom long ago. It seemed there really was no way of escaping the past, no matter how far down you tried to bury it. It was there, invading the present when you least wanted it to. “It used to hang there. I took it down.”

  Sugar pursed her lips to show Merilee that she didn’t want to discuss it any more, but as Sugar was discovering, Merilee wasn’t necessarily the quiet and unassuming young divorcée she’d first appeared to be. There was something deeper there. Like another person entirely, hiding inside. Sugar just wasn’t sure if she’d been pushed there or had been deliberately hidden.

  Completely unaware of Sugar’s interest in closing the subject, Merilee tapped on the glass, then turned it to face Sugar. “What’s this spot here without trees?” she asked, pointing to the edge of the map, which had been cut off to fit into the frame. “It almost looks like a clearing, but there’s not enough to tell.”

  Sugar took the frame and pretended to study it as if she’d never seen it before. As if she had no idea there was a clearing in the woods. She was trying to come up with an answer when Colin gave a yelp of surprise and turned around, holding Jimmy’s field glasses up like a prize. “Look what I found!”