Olivia

by Donna Sturgeon

  She got in her car and headed towards Kitty’s, but when she got there she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she stopped crying.

  Not until she forgave herself.

  George had done for her what no one else had ever done. He had made her feel wanted and needed and alive and beautiful. He had taught her who she was, how to be loved, and how to love in return. You don’t throw that away for something that might be there and might not. But even as she thought it, she knew it was a lie. There was something there with Clete, something big, and something completely different than anything she had ever had before. Something so different she didn’t know how to describe it.

  She had always assumed that, in the end, she would be the one with the broken heart. If she had ever imagined that it was even a possibility it could be George who was left behind, she never would have made the deal they made. She would have left them as friends. It was her fault they had gone so far. It was her neediness and her constant pushing that had put them in the situation they were in. He had been content to love her as he had been—from afar, as her dearest, closest friend. She was the one who had demanded more. She couldn’t hurt him by changing her mind. Not after everything he had done for her. Not when he still needed her. Plain and simple, she couldn’t do it.

  She drove circles around Juliette, both the Northside and the South, and finally decided Clete would understand. She was sure of it. He wasn’t so far in that he couldn’t back out unharmed. And maybe, if life worked out, George would find someone he loved enough to set Olivia free before the feelings between Olivia and Clete faded completely away. They could try it again then.

  She wouldn’t ask him to wait, just to consider her if they happened to meet again, sometime in the future. It was how it had to be. She loved George with all of her heart and soul, and if he needed her by his side for the rest of her life, then that was exactly where she intended stay.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Did you hear Stephie and her husband got divorced?” Izzie asked as she applied hot wax to her upper lip.

  “No!” Olivia gasped. She was back in Izzie’s bathroom, but not in the tub. It wasn’t the same since Izzie had pulled the no-slip duckies off. Olivia’s track pants slid around too much. She’d hit her head on the tub edge more than once, and it hurt, so she was sitting on the bath mat on the floor instead.

  “I guess she wasn’t the only one sleeping around, but she didn’t like the idea of him dipping his stick into other girls’ Fun Dip and threw him out,” Izzie said.

  “Hypocrite.”

  “No kidding,” Izzie agreed.

  “So is she going to get together with Sam?” Olivia asked.

  “Sam doesn’t want her.”

  “But he’s in love with her.”

  “He says he can’t trust her and doesn’t want to get his heart broken again.”

  “Then what’s he going to do?”

  “The same thing we all do—keep looking until he finds his perfect match.” Izzie applied the paper strip to the wax and pressed firmly. Olivia closed her eyes as Izzie pulled and ripped out her peach fuzz. “Yowsa!”

  Olivia winced. “You must hate yourself.”

  “You’re just lucky you don’t have facial hair.” Izzie leaned into the mirror and checked her handiwork. “I swear if I didn’t do this I’d be walking around with a Fu Manchu.”

  “I’d still love you… Hey, Iz?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you really believe there’s only one perfect match for everybody? I mean, what if there’s more than one? What if everyone has like six or seven people out there who are perfect for them in almost every single way and whatever decisions they make in life determine which person they end up with?” Olivia asked.

  “Uh…”

  “And what if… somehow… a person ends up with two of those almost-perfect matches in their life at exactly the same time? How would that person decide which one was their more perfect match and the one they were truly supposed to end up with?”

  Izzie met Olivia’s eyes in the mirror. “Go with George, Liv. He’s your perfect match. He always has been, and he always will be. You two were made for each other.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I like Clete. He’s a nice guy and kinda cute, but he’s not for you. He’s supposed to be with a real estate agent or a bank teller or something like that. He needs a stuffy woman in heels and a French twist. You guys are still getting to know each other so he seems interesting now, but believe me, Sweetie, he’s probably not. Not a year from now anyways, after you know everything that makes him tick and he crabs at you for leaving water rings on his coffee table,” Izzie said.

  Olivia opened her mouth to object but closed it right away. He had already crabbed about that. Izzie was right, but still…

  “George is…”

  “What?” Izzie asked when Olivia failed to finish her sentence.

  Gay. “Perfect. In every single way.”

  “Well… there you go, then. Stay with George.” Izzie shrugged then changed the subject. “You want to go to Tomas tonight?”

  “Sure.” She didn’t care where they ate. She wasn’t hungry. She was heartsick.

  The buzzer went off and Izzie picked up the stick.

  “What are you doing?” Olivia hopped off the floor to stop her. “It’s bad luck to look—”

  “I’m pregnant,” Izzie whispered in disbelief.

  “What?” Olivia gasped.

  “I’m pregnant, Liv.” Izzie’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m pregnant!”

  “Oh my god!” Olivia squeezed her best friend tight then immediately let go. “Oh crap, did I hurt the baby?”

  “No.” Izzie laughed and squealed and squeezed Olivia. They jumped around the bathroom and laughed and cried and then went shopping for baby stuff and later pigged out on Mexican food, and all was right and happy in Izzie’s world.

  * * *

  The next day at the radio station, Olivia played only love songs. Kelly raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t say anything. George commented on her music selections and asked if she was ok, and she assured him she was. But she wasn’t.

  It had been a week since she had kissed Clete, and she had done nothing but think about him ever since. Her mind was made up, but her heart was still completely confused. George loved her. She loved George. She was pretty sure Clete loved her, and she knew without a doubt that she had fallen in love with him. But she didn’t know if it mattered. Or if it was right. Or if it would work. Or if George would forgive her. And if she hurt George…

  As she pondered her life, she continued to play love songs over the radio. She played one for George and one for Clete and one for herself, then one for a lady named Belinda who was in love with her chiropractor. After a week straight of love songs from eleven to seven, Kelly did more than raise her eyebrow, she raised her voice, and told Olivia to knock it off. So Olivia went back to a blend of rock and rap and pop and dance hits with a little country to mix it up, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her heart wanted to mourn.

  Late at night, long after George had fallen asleep, Olivia would sit on the balcony and sip her Dr. Pepper and smoke her Marlboro. She was trying to quit smoking, but she allowed herself a few a day. She saved them for star-gazing and thinking. She didn’t know anything except she loved both Clete and George, and it hurt even to consider living without either of them. She knew it was selfish to indulge in mourning over a lost love when she already possessed the heart of the most amazing man in the world, but knowing that didn’t stop her tears.

  She hadn’t talked to Clete since the kiss, but she wanted to. She wanted to argue with him and be a pain in his ass and watch him get cranky at her. It was stupid, but she loved to piss him off. She wanted to spend her life pissing him off just so she could watch him get so flustered he became speechless and could only stare at her in bewildered amazement. She wanted to amaze him every day. She wanted to dazzle him and keep him on his toe
s and push him right to the edge of insanity, and then reel him back in with a kiss or a caress.

  She wanted to listen to him talk in circles until she was so confused she didn’t know her own name anymore. She wanted to watch him put his uniform on every morning and take it off every night. She wanted to know if he really did spit polish his shoes like she suspected he did. She wanted to know if he was a sock, sock, shoe, shoe person like her, or if he preferred to do it sock, shoe, sock, shoe.

  She wanted to see him naked, and watch his face the first time she took her clothes off for him. And then she wanted to look into his eyes as she took him intimately in her hand. She wanted to know if he would go bald or grey first. She wanted to watch him walk Allie down the aisle. She wanted to shrink and get wrinkly with him.

  Clete was a mystery she wanted to unravel, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Her heart was already claimed by the one she was supposed to be with, and if she let that go she was worried in six months or a year she would be right back outside, sitting under the stars at night, thinking about him instead of Clete.

  George was her destiny. They were perfect for each other in every way but one. And that one thing was so little, but yet so monumental at the same time. It didn’t matter today that he was gay, and it might never matter to her, but someday, one day, what if it did matter to George? Would he be willing to leave her? Or would he stay out of a sense of honor or duty or commitment, and deny himself something he needed to be complete? Would she even know if he did find that someone but let him slip away? Had he possibly done it already, to keep from hurting her? He always put her before himself. Would he be willing to put himself first if he was blessed with the opportunity to do so? She didn’t think he would, and that scared her.

  Every night, she smoked and she sipped and she watched the stars move across the sky. She thought in circles and down long, windy roads with no end, and she went to bed every night more confused than she had been when she woke up each morning. And every day she put on a smile and greeted George with a kiss and wished she could go back and undo the one kiss that had started all this mess—that kiss so long ago in the middle of the road with a man who had never belonged in her heart in the first place, the kiss that had set off such a mess of events she didn’t know how to stop the dominoes from falling.

  As May came to an end, so did school. Allie took off to spend two weeks vacationing with her mother and stepfather in Colorado. Every day while she was away, Allie called Olivia at the radio station to dedicate a song to Clete. She picked the typical little girl favorite songs, the ones that were her personal favorites, the ones Clete probably didn’t like, but Olivia knew Clete was listening and missing his daughter horribly. She didn’t have to see it to know it. She could feel it. After every one of Allie’s dedications, she played one of her own, one she thought might make the loneliness easier for him. She hoped he listened to those as well, and took comfort in them.

  Every few nights, Olivia went and sat with Eugene while he sat and waited for Carla to come home from work. Sitting in silence next to Eugene was a lot less lonely than sitting at Kitty’s with a roomful of people around her. George was busy and didn’t have time to talk, much less dance, and he hadn’t wanted to dance much lately anyway. Not on the dance floor, or to the rhythm of the night. Kenny was always good for a dance or a song or a chat, but it wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted something more than idle conversation, and she wanted it from someone specific. But she couldn’t have it.

  On the nights she went to Carla’s, she would sit on the porch and look at Eugene and wonder if that was why he sat alone and waited. Was he less lonely alone than he was surrounded by people because the one person he wanted surrounding him was never in the crowd? Was sitting and waiting a habit formed from years and years of waiting for Camille to get her shit together and come back to him? Did he miss hearing her talk? Had he loved her? Did he still?

  The questions became an obsession, and one night she couldn’t take it any longer. Just as she was opening her mouth to ask, Eugene suddenly said, “Carla’s husband died.”

  “What?” Olivia asked in surprise, mostly because she had completely forgotten that Carla even had a husband. As far as she knew, Carla had forgotten as well. The rest of her surprise came from the fact that she had been sitting there next to Eugene for a good hour before he thought it was worth mentioning. Come on, Eugene! “When did he die?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Is Carla ok?” Olivia asked.

  Eugene lit another cigarette. “I don’t know.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “No.”

  “Eugene,” Olivia cried out in frustration. “You have to ask her these things! You can’t live in her house and eat her food and be all up in her business and then act like you don’t care about her! She’s not me. She won’t know you care about her unless you show it!”

  “Oh.” His face tipped up to the sky and he fell into silence again. Olivia sighed and rolled her eyes. He was hopeless. No wonder she couldn’t figure out her emotions. Look at her role model.

  They sat there for almost another hour, without talking, before Eugene asked, “Could you ask her?”

  “Sure.”

  “She’s inside.”

  Olivia jumped out of her chair. “Oh, for crying out loud!”

  She found Carla in her bedroom, lying on her bed on top of the covers, surrounded by piles of old black and white, and faded-color photographs, with her back to the door. Her shoulders shook, and she was making a funny, squeaking noise, whispering into the phone. At first Olivia thought she was crying, but as she stepped into the room she realized the woman was laughing.

  “Knock, knock,” Olivia said in a quiet voice.

  Carla looked over her shoulder and waved Olivia into the room. “I’ve got to let you go, Gigi. Liv’s here… I’ll call you in the morning… I love you, too. Bye now.”

  She hung up the phone and sat up straighter. As she shifted, a few pictures slipped from the bed and fell to the floor. Olivia bent to retrieve them, but Carla told her not to bother and patted the bed next to her. “Sit, girl. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

  Olivia perched on the edge of the bed and looked around. Carla’s bedroom looked like what Olivia imagined a parents’ bedroom should look like—pink chenille spread, ruffled throw pillows, a half-dead but tenacious spider plant in a wicker basket in the corner, faded and discolored pictures of family members in their glory days in slightly dusty, slightly crooked frames nailed in a haphazard pattern on every wall, and the faint, lingering scent of White Shoulders perfume mixed with nicotine in the air. As she slid up the bed to lean against the headboard, she decided right then and there that she never wanted to leave again.

  “I’m so sorry about your husband,” Olivia said.

  “Ah,” Carla said with a dismissive wave. “He’s been dead to me for over twenty years. I feel bad that he died for real, but it was kind of like hearing an old neighbor died. All the bad memories you might have of them get erased and you only remember the good ones from here on out, but other than that nothing else in your life changes.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come inside sooner. I thought you were at work until just now. Eugene didn’t come right out with the news.”

  A soft smile graced Carla’s face. “Your dad’s funny like that.”

  The way Carla said it, like they were all family, made Olivia smile. She looked down at the pictures on the bed. “Who are these people?”

  Carla picked up the top picture and handed it to Olivia. “This is my baby sister, Gigi.”

  The little girl in the picture could have been a little boy with her pageboy haircut and overalls. The photo was black and white but she could tell Gigi was covered head to toe in dirt. She frowned the quintessential, little kid frown at the person taking the picture, and Olivia couldn’t help but smile.

  “She’s who I was on the phone with. We’re going to fly out to Oregon in the morning for the fune
ral. She’s something else. Full of the devil, that one.”

  Olivia looked through the pictures and picked up one of a little girl who couldn’t be more opposite of Gigi. Dressed in frills and ribbons and bows, with her hair in pigtails, the little girl in the picture was spotlessly-clean and had a beautiful smile and Carla’s eyes. “Is this you?”

  “Naw, that’s Willamina. We don’t talk about her.” Carla pulled the picture out of Olivia’s hand and tossed it onto the floor. She picked another picture up out of the pile. “This is me.”

  There was no mistaking Carla. She looked exactly the same back then as she did today, just a hundred years younger. If Gigi looked full of the devil, then Carla was totally possessed. She was also dirty, dressed in an old dress with a sweater and thick tights and black shoes that came to her ankles. She smirked at the camera and had her arm around a little Gigi who was a head shorter than Carla and dressed in overalls again. They stood on a dirt driveway with an ancient Chevy parked behind them. Olivia had a crazy desire to climb into the photo and walk around the yard and play with the girls.

  “You were cute.” Olivia smiled and took the next picture that Carla handed her.

  “This is my dad and my Uncle Waylon. Look at those turkeys puffing their chests out for the camera.” Carla laughed and held up another picture. “And this here is my Granny Mirabelle showin’ off her brand-new warsher machine. She was the first in a country-mile to get one. My Auntie Dot quit talking to her for a whole year because of it…”

  Carla went through the pictures one by one, until Olivia was officially introduced to every single member of Carla’s family. There were a lot of them. Each of her parents had a handful of brothers and sisters so there were hundreds of cousins mixed in amongst Carla’s five brothers and sisters. How she managed to keep them all straight was a mystery to Olivia. She didn’t have any experience with big families. The only one she had to keep track of was Eugene, and if he wandered off he always came home.