by Alyse Zaftig
Amelia
When Jimmy came in again, I resisted the urge to brush the snow off of him and greet him with a kiss as I would have only a few hours ago. Instead, I walked downstairs, my arms crossed, ready for a fight.
"Hey." He smiled at me.
I only glared.
"Did something happen? Are you okay?"
"We haven't used protection."
He blinked. "Oh. Yeah. We haven't."
"Do you have any condoms?"
He looked at me like I was completely off my rocker. "I hadn't had sex before you. No. I don't have condoms."
I gritted my teeth. "Then we can't have sex anymore."
He blinked. "What brought this on? Don't you have birth control or anything?"
"I forgot my pills." I hugged myself. "I forgot to take my pill, and I might be pregnant."
"You make it sound like a bad thing. If you're pregnant, we'll get married. Would that be so bad? Am I such an ogre?" He ran a hand through his hair.
I shook my head. "Of course you're not. I'm not staying here, though."
He knelt on one knee. "I don't have a ring, and the roads won't let me go to Madison to buy you the one that you deserve. You can help me pick it out. Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"
I shook my head. "No."
A polar vortex passed over his face. "What, I'm good enough to fuck but not good enough to marry? Am I not good enough for you? Is that it?"
I looked at my feet.
"That is it, isn't it? I gave you my virginity, but you don't want more from me. I told you, I'm not the kind of guy who sleeps with anybody lightly. You were my first."
Tears pricked my eyes. I didn't mean to hurt anybody. I was just here for fun, and now it had turned into so much more. I didn’t want to be his wife.
"Please take me into Madison."
"The roads are piled high with snow. We're only supposed to drive in an emergency."
I felt like it was a pretty damn big emergency right now. I said nothing at all. The silence hung uneasily in the air.
With a last look at me, Jimmy left me in the house. All alone. On my own.
I wrapped myself in a blanket near the fireplace, and I cried a little bit. The day had started out so well, and now everything was ruined. Why did I have to forget my pill? My gynecologist had offered me a NuvaRing, because I wasn't the best at taking my pill at a regular time, but I thought that it was gross to put my fingers up there. But if I had, I would not be facing the prospect of getting pregnant by a Wisconsin farm-boy.
Why did he have to propose? It wasn't what I was looking for. Sure, my dad would be over the freaking moon if I had accepted the offer. Monumentally great sex was something, but it was not the foundation of a good marriage, a marriage that would last a lifetime. Out here in the wilderness, where there was no cellphone reception and no Internet and no air conditioning, I could not survive. I might as well be in another country, not the comfortable one in which I had grown up. This area was too foreign for me. Sure, I liked Jimmy a lot. Was I in love with him? Yeah, a little. Was it enough to steal me away from the life that I already had? No. No chance.
I packed up my clothes. I had not taken a lot out of my suitcase. I just needed to take down my dresses and shirts from the hangers in the closet. I went thumping down the stairs with my three suitcases. It was easier to bring them down than pull them up. I put away all my art supplies.
I did not want to cry. It would ruin my makeup.
I waited for Jimmy to come through the door. I was done here. I knew that he would be back at some point. I stared at the front door like a cat stares at a mouse hole. Waiting.
When it eventually opened, he did not take off his coat.
"If you want to go to Madison, let's go."
Hotel
Amelia
His truck was outside, and he had snow tires on it. I heaved all three of my suitcases into the truck bed and hoped that the snow wouldn't completely ruin everything that I had inside. They weren't waterproof.
I climbed up into the cab of the truck, and the lines of Jimmy's face were grim, as if someone had died. The engine roared to life, and we spent a very awkward, long time driving into Madison through a surprisingly little amount of snow. The snowplows must have come through recently. I could see pink salt on the road, so the salt trucks had been through here, too. I held my hands tightly in my lap, and I stared out the window.
We pulled up outside of a hotel on Watts Road, and he pulled all my suitcases out of the truck. He carried them in his arms when it would have been impossible for me to pull all three of them in. When we got into the hotel, he put them on one of those carts, the kind that you always see being used in Broadway musicals.
"I booked you a room. You can stay here until the snow is gone, and the jet is ready to take you home."
He wouldn't look at me. He just stared at my hair. I felt a tear threaten, but I didn't want to ruin my makeup. Don't cry, Mel.
I extended my hand. "Thank you. I really appreciated spending time with you."
He looked at me. I took a step back from the rage burning in his eyes. "Thank you for coming," he said, but his tone said something else.
He left me there in the lobby. I went to the desk, and I got a key card for my suite. The receptionist offered to send somebody to help me, but I pulled the suitcases into my room by myself.
I lay back and tried not to think of how filthy the bedspread could be. This whole trip had been a complete mistake. I should not have come. I could have decided to get a job while I was still in DC, and then I wouldn't have gone through this. The high of falling in love. The low of having him propose to me and send a rock sailing through the fragile new relationship, shattering it like untempered glass. I took out my makeup remover, and I plugged in my Clarisonic charger. My Clarisonic was charged enough in a minute or two. It buzzed as I cleared my whole face of makeup. I let myself cry now, cry for what I had lost, and what I had not chosen. This was the opportunity cost of going home and living my own life. I knew that I needed to move out of my father's house. I had been living there since I was born, and it was high time for me to get my own place. With my own house, I would have more privacy. Less meddling. I had a trust fund that Dad had threatened to take away, but I also had enough stashed away to keep me afloat for a few months on my own. I knew that truly, with my back to the wall, I would figure out a way to make it work. It was the middle of the school year, but surely they needed substitutes or assistants year round.
I called Captain Harris from Madison. My phone finally had a signal, and I was glad to be back in civilization.
"Hello?"
"We need to bring up the timeline. Can you bring the jet a little earlier?"
“How much earlier?”
“Today.”
"Let me look at the weather forecast." There was silence. "I can get you tomorrow morning. I'm afraid that there's still a winter weather advisory right now, and I'd probably get frozen to the runway."
"That's fine." I was quiet. "I'll see you at 8 AM tomorrow, then."
"I'll be there."
I pulled up my laptop, and I connected to the hotel's complimentary Wi-Fi. I tooled around on Facebook, seeing everything I missed. I saw the blurry, dark shots of my friends at bars. I saw them eating brunch, stealing bacon from each other's plates. I ached for the time that I had missed with them, the fun that I had not shared.
I sent out my resume to the local school district, both the public and private one. Private paid less, but it had fewer children and maybe a better quality of life. I didn't know what Dad would do with my trust fund, since I was definitely not letting him see his grandchildren before he died, but I would find a way.
I put away my laptop, closed my curtains, and stared at my ceiling. I thought that it had been a mistake, but really it had revealed to me who I was at my core. I didn't know if I would call myself spoiled, but I had gotten used to modern amenities that didn't exist everywhere. I could not live in
a godforsaken cold state.
Going Home
Amelia
When the jet came to pick me up the next morning, I was over my little pity party.
"Hello, Captain Harris."
"Hello, Miss Amelia. Enjoy your stay here in the heartland?"
I put a little smile on. "Yes, of course." He knew that something was pushing me back home early, and it wasn't deep enjoyment of my vacation. But he didn't call me out on it, and I wasn't going to say anything. Captain Harris wasn’t one for a lot of conversation.
I buckled in. I watched as Madison fell away under us. The flight home was quiet. I had nobody to talk to. It was just me, alone. I thought that I had made the right decision, but all of the regret twisting in my lower gut made me wonder…Had I really done the right thing?
Captain Harris landed at Ronald Reagan, and I didn't have to take my own suitcases. He helped me get them out of the aircraft, and I got into my own limo to go to my own house.
I called a real estate agent, and I had her find me an apartment to rent that was already available. It was nearby. I called a moving company, and they promised me express service. A truck would be there that night. I doubled their normal fee for them to work during non-business hours. I packed up my room when I got home. After a few minutes of hunting. I found a bunch of collapsible boxes in a closet downstairs. I did not enlist the housekeeper's help. I just packed everything up on my own.
I got a phone call around mid-afternoon from one of the schools where I had applied to work. After a quick phone interview, they promised to check my references. I would start next week, working part-time at first with the option of moving to a full-time position at one point.
When Dad got home from work, he saw me sitting in a huge pile of white boxes near the entrance as well as some of my furniture.
"What's going on, Meli? Are you donating a bunch of stuff to GoodWill or something?"
"No, Daddy." I took a deep breath. "I'm going to move out."
His jaw dropped. "What?"
"I'm a grown woman, Dad. You knew that you would lose your little girl eventually. You wanted me to get married. It's not like I would have stayed with you after that."
He rubbed his chin. "I didn't think of that."
I shook my head. "It's time for me to get out of the nest. I am old enough to be on my own."
"I might not fund it, you know, if you're an independent woman."
My expression did not even flicker. "Daddy, I have my own savings. I am going to get a job at a school teaching Spanish or something. I do have a degree. I don't really use it, but it’s high time for me to try something new.”
"You don't have to do this. You can live with me."
"Daddy, it's time for me to move out and be on my own. You know that Mommy would not have wanted me to stay forever. I have to become my own person, you know. I can't stay a little girl forever."
He cleared his throat and tried to blink the tears out of his eyes. I hugged him. "Oh, Daddy. I promise to come home for Sunday lunch, okay? We'll go to church together, just like we always have. It's time for me to find my own way and live in my own apartment. I need to be my own person.“
"Come home whenever you want, baby girl." He was choked up. "I can't believe you're leaving me."
I kissed my dad on the cheek. I heard a horn honking outside.
New Apartment
Amelia
It was the movers. I opened the door, and the three of us moved all the boxes out. We set up a rotation so that three of us got what we needed, loaded it onto a rolling cart, and got it into the moving van. Dad locked himself up in his office. I knew he had bourbon in there, because I used to sneak it for my friends when we were in high school. The housekeeper always kept it topped up and full. It looked like he would be depleting his supply right about now.
My moving van followed me to my new apartment. I had to type the address into my GPS in order to find it. It wasn't big, and it wasn't much. I had left behind my father's spacious, airy house for this little brown brick building. It looked like it was built during the 1950s, all straight lines, nothing like my own house.
The movers helped me move in the boxes.
"This sure is different, miss. Are you sure you don't want to turn around? There would be no charge. We could just forget that you tried to move out."
I spotted a spider spinning a web in a corner and sighed. I was afraid of spiders, but I guess that I had to deal. ”No. I'm fine here. Thank you two so much for helping me out." I tipped them $100, paid the invoice with a check, and sent them on their way.
I had only brought the things that I could handle or carry. That meant that I didn't have a bed. I had a sleeping bag back from when I was in Girl Scouts. I knew that it was a one-size-fits all deal. When I unrolled it, it was musty after years of not being used. I tried to get some of the dust out of it. It was the best that I had for now. I could go shopping for a bed soon, but for tonight this was what I had.
I rolled myself up in my sleeping bag. I missed Jimmy. I missed his big body next to mine. I wished that he and I worked out, that our relationship could have lasted. He could move here.
I thought of the way that he kept farmer's hours, and I thought of the old, lived-in home. I thought about his mother living in Chicago. No. Jimmy would not move here for me, even for love. I would not move to Wisconsin for him, even for love.
I felt like my heart was squished inside of a construction vise. I left part of me in that house in Wisconsin in Jimmy's hands. I wished that I had not had to shut him down, but what other choice did I have? I couldn't live without the things that I needed.
I cried softly, my tears streaming down my cheeks and into my ears, and I eventually fell asleep.
I Dream of Jimmy
Amelia
When I woke up, I felt much better. I stretched a little bit. I was stiff from sleeping on the wooden floor. I was glad that I was in an apartment, because the floor was heated by the people downstairs. I saw my thermostat, but I did not know how to use it. That would wait for later today. I went to my shower with my box in hand, and I took a long shower. After standing under the warm spray, I felt better. Clean. Fresh. Renewed. I could do this.
I popped and looked at my bank account. Daddy hadn't cut me off. I was still good to go.
I went shopping, but this time it wasn't for couture clothes. I put together the things that I needed for a household. Instead of buying a big bed that needed to be put together, I bought a queen-sized bed made out of foam. I had a little bed stand that didn't require a box spring. That would be much more comfortable than the decayed relic of a sleeping bag that I had used last night. I knew that I could turn my tiny apartment into a little home. I transferred half of my trust fund account into my personal account. Yeah, there might be some ramifications, but the money there could keep me afloat without a job for at least a year. The job money would be a side bonus.
I bought a bunch of groceries to go home. I didn't really know how to cook. When I went home and looked up cooking classes in my area, it was all for people who wanted to learn how to cook Cordon Bleu kind of dishes. Instead, I ordered Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything off of Amazon in the Kindle format. I knew enough to cook my own pasta, and I poured some microwaved spaghetti sauce on top of it. There. I had cooked for myself.
I texted my dad goodnight, and I fell asleep.
I dreamed about Jimmy and the day that we played with snow. I was cold in the dream, but I was happy. We lay down in the snow together, making snow angels. He kissed me, as he had in real life, but this time he didn't stop. We got our lower halves naked, and I didn't mind the cold press of the snow around my body when his hot body was on top of mine. The snow melted to cold water around us as we made passionate love with him on top and still encased in our snow clothes.
I woke up with my arm wrapped around myself, as if I had been hugged in my sleep. I let some tears fall, and then I made myself stop. There was no use in beating myself up over what
might have been. If I wanted to be a grown woman, I could sure act like one.
I made a plan to go out with my friend Amanda that night. Maybe a little fun was in order.
Partying
Amelia
TWO MONTHS LATER
Like every night of the last two months, I got dressed in one of my scandalous dresses, the kind that I would wear a trench coat over if I were still living at home. It was very expensive. My seamstress had told me that it was so expensive because getting the fabric to hold together when there was so little of it was more challenging than putting together a sturdy dress that had lots of cloth.
I went out with my friend Amanda, the wildest one of us. Miraculously, despite the booze and late nights, she was a glowingly gorgeous girl who attracted boys like a flower attracted bees. Our friends called her Bacon, because boys acted as if she smelled like bacon.
We went out, but somehow the dim, smoky club and the fruity drinks and the crowded seats didn't feel the same as before. I looked around at all of these people. They could have been from another planet. I had been one of them not too long ago.
Wisconsin had changed me, more than I had realized. Instead of enjoying the partying and the money thrown around everywhere, I was mildly disgusted by my own friends. They lived her, spending their parents' money, living it up, getting home after dawn. I wasn't that girl anymore.
I kissed Amanda on the cheek, and I told that I didn't feel good. She told me to text her when I got home, and I nodded. Amanda was a sweetheart, even if I didn't think that I would be coming back to her in these kinds of clubs.
I drove home and parked, and I texted Amanda. I hadn't drunk enough to be very inebriated, really. Just enough to have a whiff of alcohol about me. I rummaged around in my purse for my key.
