Ex and the Single Girl

by Lani Diane Rich

  I could see his head turn in my direction out of the corner of my eye, but I continued to stare into my glass.

  “Don’t be angry with her.”

  My head shot up. “What? How can I not be angry?”

  “I’m not saying you don’t have a right to be angry,” he said. “As my daddy used to say, just because you have a right to be angry doesn’t mean you should be.”

  “How can you say that? Aren’t you mad?”

  He shook his head. “I used to be. But, truth is, maybe she was right. Maybe we would have just drove each other crazy in the long run. And I knew where you were. I could have come and beat down the door until she let me see you. You’re gonna be mad at one of us, you’re gonna have to be mad at both. And you already said you’re not mad with me, so...”

  “I don’t know how you’re not furious,” I said. “I’m furious. I’m so angry right now I could spit.”

  “Well, I’ve known the whole story a lot longer than you.”

  I took a sip of water and sat back in the chair. Jack sat back in his chair as well, and we both looked at the sky. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and thoughtful.

  “There’s no other person on the planet as true to her own self as your mama is,” he said. “There’s a cost that comes with loving someone like that. They march to the beat of their own drum, and a person can make himself crazy trying to figure out that rhythm.” I didn’t say anything. He sighed. “I guess what I’m saying is that your mama is who your mama is, and once you accept that, you’ll love her so much your heart’s gonna be fit to burst.”

  I looked at him, watched him staring at the sky with a faraway smile on his face.

  “Do you still love her?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to voice the thought out loud, but I was in no state to be coy.

  Jack raised his eyebrows at me. “My heart burst over Mags a long time ago.”

  That was enough of an answer for me. I looked back out at the sky, clear and deep blue and glittering with stars.

  “I know she’s talked to you about visiting in September.” I waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, I nudged. “Are you going to see her? Like she asked?”

  He paused for a while before speaking. “I don’t know. I assumed it must have been about you. That’s why I put her off until September, to give me some time to track you down.”

  I shook my head. “She says it has nothing to do with me.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t concern you, I’m not sure it’d be right. I’ve got Marianne to think of now. Seeing Mags again ..He looked down at his hands, then back up at me. “Well, I’m just not sure it’d be right.”

  I nodded. “What does Marianne have to say about it?”

  He gave a small laugh. “Oh, she’s been buggin’ me to go. She thinks it might help me gain closure.” He took a drink and laughed again. “That’s an Oprah word, isn’t it?”

  I laughed. “Sounds like Marianne is a good woman.”

  “She is. She’s excited about getting to know you. She wanted me to invite you here for Thanksgiving, matter of fact.”

  I smiled. “Really?”

  “She makes the best homemade cranberry sauce you ever tasted,” he said, winking at me.

  “I’d like that,” I said. I put my glass down and stood up. Jack did the same. I looked out toward the street, where I could see the moonlight reflecting off the Hyundai’s hood.

  “I have a friend waiting for me.”

  Jack looked out to the car, then back at me. “Oh, sure. Well.” He looked at me and smiled. “You need anything, you call me, you hear?”

  “Sure,” I said, smiling.

  “No, no, don’t you ‘sure’ me, young lady.” He reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I mean it. I got a lot of time to make up for. I don’t care what it is. I started me up a lumberyard in town does pretty well. You ever need a job...”

  I laughed. “I’m an English Ph.D. candidate. I’ll definitely be needing a job.”

  He smiled. “No kidding? Ph.D., huh?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know if it’s what I want to do anymore.” He grinned. “You finish that Ph.D., and if you ever want a job at the lumberyard, we’ll talk.”

  I grinned back. I doubted I’d be moving to Tuscaloosa, but he’d offered. And that mattered.

  “Well, then,” he said, motioning his head toward the car. “Your friend is waiting. It was good to see you. Don’t be a stranger.”

  “I won't.

  “Okay, then,” he said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “You go on with your friend now.”

  “Say good-bye to Marianne for me,” I said.

  He smiled. “I will.”

  I took a step toward him and he pulled me into a hug. “Don’t you be too hard on your mama, now,” he said. “She’s just a human person like the rest of us, and we all get things wrong every now and again.”

  I held on to him for a bit longer, waiting for the hug to fill in all the little empty pockets I felt in my heart. He got a lot of them.

  But not all.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Are you sure we’re not going to get in trouble?” I asked as Peter put his hands on my waist and boosted me up. The chain-link fence looked eerily bluish in the moonlight and glittered as I stuck my foot in and grabbed hold.

  “No,” he said. “Now, hurl yourself over the top. And don’t drop the beer.”

  I adjusted the backpack over my shoulders and tossed myself down on the other side of the fence, landing in a cloud of dust at the bottom. Peter hopped down beside me.

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” I said.

  Peter laughed and wiped his hands on his jeans. “You asked to do something stupid and fun. That comes with a little risk.” I looked behind me at the swing sets and slides. “Right. Besides, it’s a public school. My taxes pay for this, right?”

  “Well, technically, your father’s taxes paid for this one, but good enough.” Peter took my backpack and slung it over his shoulder, where it collided with the pack he was carrying. His arm slid around my waist and guided me toward a grassy sloping hill under cover of trees. He put both packs on the ground and began unloading. He laid a large blanket, borrowed from the hotel, over the slope and set out a six-pack of beer, opening a bottle for each of us. We clinked the necks and drank.

  “I also got something else for you,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.

  “Yay!” I said, and grabbed the pack from him and started slamming it against my palm. “I know you don’t approve, but thank you. I really need these tonight.”

  We sat and I lit up and inhaled deep. I stared at the squat, one-story brick school. Peter stared at me.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “Trying not to think,” I lied. “Counting bricks in that wall there.”

  I pointed. He looked.

  “How many are there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, taking a drink from my beer. “I lost count at twelve. So, tell me you’re not really going to manage the Page, Peter.”

  “I’m not really going to manage the Page,” he said with a wry smile.

  “I mean it,” I said. “It would be all wrong. You’re a wonderful writer. You should be writing.”

  He lifted his beer at me. “But I’m no Alistair Barnes, am I?” I let out a huge breath. “Why are you obsessing over him? What does he have to do with any of this, anyway?”

  He looked at me. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, falling back on the blanket and wincing as my spine connected with a large stone. “I can’t deal with this right now.”

  “You’re right,” Peter said. “I’m sorry.”

  We were quiet for a while. I tried to count the leaves on the tree over my head.

  I lost count at twelve.

  “What did you mean when you wrote Eloise?” I said finally. “Why couldn’t she walk in a northerly direction?”


  Peter gave a tiny laugh. “Oh, man. I haven’t thought about that in a while.”

  I pushed myself up on my elbows and watched him. “She was based on me, wasn’t she?”

  Peter looked at me over his shoulder, then turned back to face the school. “She’s an amalgam of many women I’ve—”

  “But mostly me, right?”

  Peter was silent.

  “I know you’ve told me before,” I said, “but I want you to really tell me. What did it mean?”

  Peter sighed. “Do you really want to have this discussion right now?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I really do.”

  “All right.” He shifted around to face me. “It means that you would gladly walk south for the circumference of the earth rather than turn north and walk two steps.”

  I sat up. “That’s not true. And I still don’t understand what that means.”

  Peter laughed. “It means you’re stubborn. It means you see things a certain way and you refuse to see anything else.”

  “You think I’m stubborn?”

  Peter laughed again. “Am I the first person to tell you this?” I took a drink from my beer, thinking about what Jack had said. “Do you think there are things in Mags I don’t see?”

  “To be fair, if she was my mother, I don’t know if I’d see them either.”

  “What do you see?”

  Peter took a deep breath and was quiet for a moment. “She has an interesting walk.”

  “An interesting walk?”

  “So do you,” he said, “but not in exactly the same way. She walks like someone who’s paying attention to every step, you know? It’s like she doesn’t want to miss anything.”

  “And how do I walk?”

  “Like someone with a destination in mind.”

  I huffed. “As long as it’s south.”

  He ran his hand over his hair. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

  “Not until you write your next book,” I said. His smile faded. I hugged my knees to my chest. “I hate the idea of you giving up your writing because you think it’s what I want.”

  “I hate the idea of you and Alistair Barnes,” he said.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but a light flashed in my eyes.

  “Hey!” a voice called out. “Damn kids!”

  In a flash, Peter was up. I tried to clean up the cigarette butts—this was a kids’playground—but Peter grabbed my arm.

  “No time!” he said, hurrying me to the fence.

  “But...all this stuff-—”

  “No time!” He pulled me with him, practically hurling me over the fence as the flash of light bounced wildly over the playground to the rhythm of pounding feet. I landed on the asphalt in the parking lot and ran for the car.

  “You got the keys?” Peter hollered from behind me.

  “Yes!” I said.

  “Stop right there...you damn...kids,” we heard the security guard yelling. He was slowing, out of breath, and by the time Peter hopped in the car and we tore out of there, he’d stopped running and settled for flipping us off from inside the fence. “Well, you wanted fun and stupid,” Peter said, laughing. “And I got it,” I said. My heart was racing and I was smiling and it felt good to smile. I grabbed Peter’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you.”

  He pulled my hand up to his lips and kissed it.

  “Anytime, sweetheart. Anytime.”

  We stopped at a red light and made eye contact for a long moment. For that moment, I could visualize myself married to him. Forever.

  The light turned green and I drove on to the hotel, where we fell asleep in separate double beds.

  We left the hotel early the next morning to drive the three and a half hours back so Peter could be in time to help Vera at the Page. Peter drove while I napped in the passenger seat. When he pulled up in front of the Page, he woke me with a soft kiss on the forehead.

  I smiled. “Here already?”

  He grinned. “Here already.”

  I stretched and reached in the backseat for my duffel bag. “Thanks, Peter. For driving, for going with me. I appreciate it.” Peter kept his eyes on mine. “No problem.”

  I smiled, leaned my head against the headrest, and said what I was thinking. “Peter, if it wasn’t for me, would you want to be here?”

  He inhaled deeply. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if it wasn’t for me, would you want to manage a small bookstore in northwest Georgia for the rest of your life?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. But it doesn’t matter, because I am here for you.” He turned toward me, picked up my hand, and kissed my palm. “And I’ll stay here until you tell me to leave.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I don’t understand. Why do you want to throw away your life on me?”

  He released my hand. “I don’t think of it as throwing my life away.”

  I looked down at my hands and said nothing. After a moment, Peter sighed.

  “I wish I knew what you wanted, Portia.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said quietly. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then got out of the car and headed up to my apartment. I turned on the light and sat down on the couch, squinting at the clock on the VCR.

  8:02.

  I rested my head back on the couch. Thoughts bumped into each other as they wandered through my tired mind. Jack and the letters I’d never gotten. Mags and her never-miss-a- thing walk. Peter offering me forever. Ian offering me nothing. Vera still loving Bridge, after all this time. Bridge still loving Vera. Bev and her anger.

  I heard the door bells jingle below, signaling that Peter was inside the store. I grabbed my car keys and headed out, taking the Mazda out the back of the alley so that Peter wouldn’t see me driving past through the windows at the Page. I wanted to remain undetected, at least for a little while.

  I’d pulled onto our street just in time to see Mags getting into the Jeep. Big and red and loud, it was easy to follow. I tried to keep a few cars back, but I didn’t worry too much about Mags catching me. I didn’t care much. I just wanted to know where she was going.

  About fifteen minutes later, we arrived at an elementary school in Ringgold. Mags pulled into the lot, parked, and headed through the front door. I waited, watched her walk.

  Peter was right about her walk.

  Five minutes later, I walked in the same door. The halls were empty To my left was a glass fishbowl office with a counter and a woman behind it. I pushed through the door and an older woman with a head of the brightest bottle-red hair I’d ever seen smiled up at me.

  “Are you Cecilia’s mom?” she asked. I looked over her shoulder at a pathetic-looking little girl with red eyes almost as bright as the receptionist’s hair.

  “No,” I said, smiling at the little girl and then down at Big Red. “What’s the matter with her?”

  Big Red shook her head compassionately. “Pinkeye, poor thing. Forgot her eyedrops.”

  “Oh.” I smiled again at Cecilia, who stopped kicking her legs in and out under the chair long enough to smile back.

  “Can I help you with something else, then?” Big Red asked, smiling brightly.

  “Yeah. I’m looking for Mags Fallon.”

  “Oh, Mags!” Big Red laughed. “Isn’t she a wonder?”

  “Yes, she is. Might I speak with her?”

  Big Red walked over to a schedule tacked on the wall that read “Little Bears Summer Day Camp—August.” Her finger trailed through the calendar and landed on today.

  “She should be out on the playground doing the imagination workshop with the seven-to-nines,” she said. “Do you have a child in the class?”

  “No,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m her daughter, Portia.”

  Big Red laughed and pushed my hand away, going for a hug. “Oh, I should have known. You look just like her.” She released me and pointed out the office and down a hallway. “Follow that hall to the end, and it’ll open out to the playground. Yo
u’ll find her in the back with twenty or so children just adoring her to pieces.”

  I thanked Big Red, waved to poor Cecilia, and headed out to the playground. I spotted Mags immediately. She stood in front of the kids, circling around in an exaggerated stomp. The children were laughing and doing the same. I walked around the edge of the playground until I got to the swing sets, which were off to the side a bit where Mags didn’t notice me, but close enough for me to hear what she was saying.

  “Now, imagine,” she said, her voice sweeping in broad, sweet strokes, a voice made to talk to children, “that you are a big, ugly bear. I mean, you are the ugliest bear that ever did walk the planet.”

  The kids giggled. I smiled.

  “I mean it. Make your ugly face.”

  The kids all contorted their faces into horrendous expressions. Tongues lolling out of mouths, hands pulling down cheeks until the under eyelids showed.

  “Oh, that’s good,” she said, walking among the children, checking out their faces. “Oh, Sarah, for such a pretty girl you sure can be one ugly bear.”

  She patted a little blond girl on the shoulder and resumed her place in front of the children.

  “Now,” she said, “you are all terrifyingly ugly bears, and I’m so proud of you. But—now quiet—I need to tell you something.”

  All the children quieted down and moved closer to Mags. Their faces, while some were still contorted, were wrapped up in her every word.

  “You are an ugly bear, but imagine now that you love one thing.” She held up an index finger. “Just one thing. It could be a flower. It could be your mama. It could be the person standing next to you. I want y’all to close your eyes and think about the one thing you love more than anything else.”

  Mags closed her eyes, then peeked out and pointed at Sarah.

  “I said close ’em. I wasn’t kidding.” Sarah giggled and closed her eyes. When Mags seemed assured all the kids had their eyes closed, she closed hers again.

  I did the same.

  “Now,” Mags said, “keep that picture of that one thing you love more than anything else in your mind, and open your eyes.”

  I opened my eyes. Mags was looking right at me. She smiled and turned her attention back to the kids.