Searching For Meredith Love

by Julie Christensen

  “Feliz Navidad!” she called to Meredith, then added “Merry Christmas,” apparently to translate for her gringa neighbor. Meredith returned her greeting with a wave.

  “Is your family here?” Mrs. Gonzales called across the yard.

  “They’re in New York.”

  Mrs. Gonzales left the group and walked over to Meredith, who wished she’d put on deodorant before her run.

  “No family? On Christmas?” She was aghast.

  “Well, flying is expensive.”

  “Yes. I know.” She paused and made a decision. “You will spend your Christmas with my family,” she announced.

  “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Gonzales but I...”

  “No one should be alone on the anniversary of the birth of our Lord,” Mrs. Gonzales interrupted.

  “Thank you. That’s so kind. I’d really like that. But someone in my office has already invited me over. A friend from my office,” she added.

  “Of course. As long as you’ve got someplace to go.” Mrs. Gonzales smiled at Meredith, then her face turned suddenly stern. “Create a family wherever you go,” she advised.

  Meredith was getting a chill from standing still, covered in sweat. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

  “Of course.” She turned to go. “Come over for a glass of champagne, if you’d like, and meet everyone.”

  “Thank you. I’ll try to do that.”

  Meredith showered, changed, and left early for Kira’s so that she wouldn’t have to go next door for champagne. She meandered through the city, driving down side streets to look at holiday decorations. Kira and Jeremy had invited a small group of friends over. They lived in a rambling adobe near Old Town. From the street, the house looked like a brown cinderblock. The front door was on the north side of the house, behind a gate that faced the road. Meredith walked through the gate into the yard. To her right, goldfish swam in a giant wooden barrel. The front door had a wreath made of pinecones and gourds. Behind the door Meredith heard the constant hum of people talking. Instead of a doorbell, Kira had a cowbell hanging next to the door. Meredith paused in front of the door. She was dressed in a long, black skirt and red blouse. She held a loaf of cranberry bread and a bottle of wine in a decorative bag. She was nervous about walking into the crowd. Before she could reach up to clang the cowbell, the front door opened and Kira ushered her in. “Squeaky gate,” she announced. “Our doorbell.”

  The living room had a crooked tree loaded with tinsel and a group of men watching the game on TV. They didn’t even look up as Kira led Meredith around the kiva fireplace to the kitchen. The kitchen was spectacular. Mexican tiles lined the walls. Saltillo tiles paced out the floor. In the center of the room was a worn-looking cutting board. Three women were sitting around a thick, wooden table, stirring and chopping. They were drinking wine.

  Two of the women, Delphina and Jamie, were friends from the florist shop where Kira worked part-time. Delphina was the owner, Jamie the full-time clerk. Kira was the accountant. Jamie was a younger version of Delphina. Both were short, buxom women with carefully applied make-up and tall, teased hair. Meredith was glad she’d worn a skirt. The third woman was the angular, bookish type. She wore her hair long and straight. Thin, gold wire-rim glasses accentuated prominent cheekbones and she emitted an overall aura of gentleness. Her handshake, however, was firm. “Hi, Meredith. I’m Lindsay. It’s really nice to meet you.”

  Kira uncorked the wine Meredith had brought. “If we wait for dinner, the boys will guzzle it down without even noticing it’s not beer.” Everyone held out their glasses for refills. “To friends.” Kira said, raising her glass.

  “So, you’re a computer programmer. Fascinating.” Lindsay was tearing up a head of cabbage. “What an interesting career choice.”

  “And so marketable,” Delphina added. “I wish you’d talk to my son. He’s majoring in history.” She spat the word out of her mouth with disgust. “They shouldn’t even let that be a major at the undergraduate level. All he’ll be qualified to do is work at McDonald’s.”

  “You and Kira are both wise,” Jamie remarked. “Marketable degrees and now great jobs at the University.”

  “Oh, yes,” Kira laughed. “Nirvana University.”

  “Laugh all you want,” Jamie snapped. “I know a lot of people who would give their eyeteeth to work there. The benefits are unbeatable.”

  “The grass is always greener,” Kira said.

  “It does have its perks,” Meredith offered. Everyone stopped to listen so she continued. “But it’s easy to fall into that state where you hate your job but are scared to give up the benefits.” She took a sip of wine, marveling at the attention they were giving her. “There are a lot of burned-out people working there.”

  After dinner, Delphina left to visit an elderly aunt. The men retreated back to another game. Jamie was complaining about her mother, who thought she should go to beauty school.

  “Nothing I do is ever right in her eyes, even though the rest of the world thinks I’m great.”

  “You are great,” Lindsay confirmed. In the living room, the men let out a simultaneous, muffled groan.

  “All mothers are like that,” Kira told her. They were sitting around the cleared kitchen table, with their wine glasses. They were all slightly drunk, but coffee was brewing.

  “How does your mother feel about computer programming?” Delphina turned her gaze to Meredith.

  “She’s never commented on it.”

  “Are you serious?” Meredith nodded. “I guess Kira’s right then. Mothers just can’t be pleased.”

  Lindsay cocked her head to one side. “Mothers have a lot of fear wrapped up in their children’s choices. If they make poor ones, society blames the mother. The mother blames the mother.” She smiled. “Whenever I messed up as a kid, which was often, my mother would act like the world was coming to an end. Even now, there are things I did that still make me feel ashamed on a base level. But when I examine them with my rational, adult mind...” she smiled self-consciously, “...they’re no big deal.”

  “Like what?” Meredith asked curiously. A loud cheer came from the other room.

  “Oh, let’s see. I was expelled from school, once. In the fourth grade. For stealing. I took Andy Bell’s pencil box.” Lindsay looked at the women. “Could any action be less innocuous? I was just a kid. My mother acted like I was dealing drugs to the other schoolchildren. She still thinks I have delinquent tendencies.” Lindsay sighed. “What else. Oh, here’s a really bad one. I was fooling around with matches, once. I was about 7.” She lowered her voice. “I set the brand new, wall-to-wall carpeting on fire.” The women gasped. Lindsay brushed off their response with a wave of the hand. “It wasn’t that bad. I stomped it out right away. But it left a burned spot in the carpet.” She took a sip of her wine. “I’m not saying it wasn’t a bad thing, but my parents acted like I was going to go to prison. They put an armchair over the spot. Then, for the next eleven years, while I was still at home, every time they wanted to rearrange their furniture, they’d have to leave that chair in place. Sometimes, when I was alone in the room, it looked like the armchair was pulsing: you-were-bad-you-were-bad.” She shook her head. “I still feel ashamed, talking about it, y’know? For years I imagined that great, big, ruined spot in my parents’ carpet. Then a few years ago I was alone at my parents’ house and I actually worked up the courage to move the chair away and look at the spot.” The table was speechless, waiting for her to continue. “Well, it was about the size of a quarter.”

  Jamie started to speak, slightly slurring her words. “When I was seventeen, I got pregnant and my mother took me to have an abortion. It was the single, most horrible thing that’s ever happened to me. My mother told everyone that I had my appendix out. The doctor said I could go back to school right away, but because of my mom’s lie, I had to stay in bed for four weeks and pretend to be sick. My classmates came to visit me and my teachers sent cards. I wouldn’t show anyone my scar.” She paused reflectivel
y at this statement. “I got to a point where I really believed that the reason I wouldn’t wear bikinis was because I didn’t like my scar. When I moved out of the house, I had a roommate who didn’t know me from high school. I wouldn’t wear a bikini around her either, and I’ll never forget the day I explained why to her and she said, “What scar?” That was when I remembered that I wouldn’t wear a bikini because I was hiding the fact that I didn’t have a scar. I told her my secret, and do you want to know something? She had had an abortion once, too. And she knew several other girls who had had abortions.” Jamie looked up at them. “Do you know how many women have had abortions? Lots. I never knew, because I was too afraid to talk about it.” She sniffed. “I thought I was the only one in the state. I thought I was going straight to Hell.”

  Kira sighed. “It’s easy to make things worse in your head than they really are.”

  “Saying it out loud takes away its power,” Lindsay added.

  “When I left New York,” Meredith told them, “I left on my wedding day.”

  Kira raised her eyebrow. “You stopped the wedding?” Her eyes widened. “At the altar?”

  “No.” Meredith was relieved to answer in the negative. Kira’s question told her that it could have been worse. “I snuck out of the church an hour before the ceremony.” She paused. The floor didn’t collapse under her. Kira, Jamie, and Lindsay weren’t throwing things at her. She took a deep breath. It was such a relief to get that part out that she decided to keep going. “I got into our car, our suitcases were already in the trunk, and I drove to the airport.”

  “You took his clothes with you?”

  Meredith looked over at Kira. “Well, I didn’t fly the car to New Mexico. I left it in airport parking. His suitcase was in the trunk. He had another set of keys.”

  “Did you tell anyone where you were going?”

  Meredith swallowed. “No.”

  “Who’d you leave a note for?”

  Meredith was silent a moment. “No one.”

  “But you called from the airport?” Kira was clarifying. Meredith started to feel slightly nauseated. But she wanted to shrink it down if she could. She wanted to see if it was smaller to these people than it was in her head.

  “I called my parents. In Dallas, when I was changing flights. I called and left a message that I was all right but not coming back.” They were all looking at her expectantly, waiting for the second half of the answer. She felt like a cat with a struggling mouse half-way down her throat. She forced the rest of it out of her. “I never called anyone else.” The eyes widened, she thought, but everyone at the table refrained from comment.

  “And you flew to New Mexico?” Lindsay asked her. “What made you pick us?”

  Meredith shrugged. “It was the next flight. And it seemed very remote and far away. I just wanted to go away and never be seen again. It seemed like I could do that in the desert.”

  Kira was watching her with furrowed eyebrows. “Didn’t your bridesmaids see you go?”

  Meredith shook her head. “There were only two. They had already put on my makeup and I’d started to cry. I had mascara smeared all over my face. They left to find cold cream, and that’s when I left.”

  Jamie’s eyes widened. “You were in makeup. Were you in your wedding gown, too?” she asked.

  Meredith nodded.

  “You flew to New Mexico in your wedding dress?” Kira asked.

  “I pulled over at a 7-eleven and changed on my way to the airport. I shoved my dress and shoes into the bathroom trash receptacle.”

  The women were speechless. Jamie was the first to recover. “Was it a white dress, Hon?” Meredith nodded.

  Kira stood and got the pot of coffee. She pulled some primary-colored mugs out of her cupboard. A steaming blue mug of coffee was set down in front of Meredith.

  “I called my parents again a few days later. They basically said, “Don’t bother to call us again until you get a grip and come back and marry Eric.” The actual name of the unfortunate left everyone staring at the table.

  “Have you never gone back?” Lindsay asked gently.

  “No.”

  “Do you still speak to your parents?” Lindsay continued.

  Meredith wrapped her fingers around the warm mug. “Sort of. We try to talk. It doesn’t always work very well.”

  Lindsay nodded. “I can imagine it would be hard, after your parents violated your trust.”

  Meredith was taken aback. “Isn’t it more like I violated their trust?”

  “Oh, no!” Everyone at the table answered at once. “You are their child,” Jamie said. “They should want what’s best for you. Maybe they wished you had called off the wedding six months earlier, or not said “yes” when Eric asked, but ultimately, they should support you in whatever you need to do to be happy.” The rest of the table nodded.

  “Have you ever talked to Eric?” Lindsay asked.

  Meredith moved her glance down to the table and shook her head. “No. I’m a pathetic coward. I’d like to say I tried, but I didn’t even do that.”

  Kira shrugged. “Well, maybe that could have been handled better, but what you did takes guts.” She shook her head. “Girl, you’ve got balls.”

  Meredith shook her head. “I leave a guy I dated for years, on his wedding day and I never even call to tell him why. Some balls.”

  “Did he call you?” Kira asked.

  Meredith shook her head.

  “How much did that dress cost?” Jamie wanted to know.

  “$1200.”

  “Good God!” Kira said.

  “It’s probably just as well that you never called.” Lindsay consoled. “I mean, you basically said it all when you left, didn’t you?”

  “Did she ever!” Kira added. “Damn. I wish I had that kind of nerve.”

  Driving home from Kira’s, Eric’s face kept popping into Meredith’s head. For four years, her cowardice in not contacting him had eaten away at her insides. She couldn’t even let herself think about what he’d felt when they discovered she was gone, whether he’d worried when they couldn’t find her in the church. When she’d first arrived in New Mexico, dressed in shorts bought for her honeymoon, carrying $600 in traveler’s checks in her wallet, she’d suffered some sort of attack of agoraphobia. For almost a week she’d sat in her hotel room, unable to move, barely able to call room service once a day for food. There was no way she could have called Eric, and after she had pulled herself out of her depression, the memory of it frightened her so much that she dreaded any action that might bring it on again. She didn’t think she could cope with that conversation. The truth was, she reflected, that she couldn’t cope period. Eric’s face popped up again and this time it turned into Kevin and all of a sudden Meredith remembered Kevin. Smelling of fabric softener, standing in her office reciting everything he knew about stegosauruses.

  “Does that computer have Mario Brothers?” Kevin was easily distracted.

  “Just solitaire.” And to Kevin’s questioning look, “It’s a game with cards.”

  “Oh. Boring. You should have Mario.”

  “Then it wouldn’t be work, would it?”

  Kevin had agreed and offered her a lollipop from his back pocket. He had two, lemon and cherry and she was to choose her favorite.

  “What’s your favorite, Kevin?”

  Kevin’s mouth had opened, then snapped shut. He paused, as if waiting until the flow of words behind his mouth had crested, then spoke. “If I tell you,” he’d said carefully, “then you won’t pick the one you want.”

  She had picked lemon and Kevin had told her, “Good. My favorite is cherry.” After they’d put their respective lollipops into their mouths, he’d confessed. “Actually, lemon is my favorite, but I wanted you to have your favorite.” He had smiled a wide, toothy grin. “And you did. You had your favorite.”

  Meredith pulled over to the side of the road. Her hands were wet and she wiped her palms on her skirt. She looked at her watch. It was early stil
l, 8:30 p.m. She turned the car around and headed toward the hospital.

  The trauma section was green. A group of nine or ten people, apparently a family, was gathered in the hallway, talking to a surgeon still in scrubs with a shower bag on her head.

  Meredith wandered purposefully through the halls until she saw a medical student who’d rotated through the Family Practice a few months earlier, when she was still a secretary. He personally walked her to Kevin’s room, telling her on the way that it didn’t look good. “Be prepared. He’s had a lot of fluids. He’ll be hard to recognize.”

  At the door, Meredith paused to brace herself, but there was no anxiety. She stepped inside. Doug and Marcia were there, as was an older woman, probably Marcia’s mother. Kevin lay on the bed, unrecognizable, just as the medical student had said.

  “Hi,” Meredith said to Kevin’s family. “I’m sorry to intrude.”

  “Meredith,” Doug was rising from his chair. “Come in, please. You’re not intruding at all.” He gestured for Meredith to take his empty chair. She slipped into the room and sat down. Kevin was unrecognizable. His face was puffed up so large that Meredith couldn’t even see his eyelashes. He was hooked up to a variety of machines that churned and whizzed behind him. At first, Meredith wasn’t sure what to look at. She settled for his hands, which were puffy but less distorted than his face. It was hard to picture the boy who’d stood in her office with lollipops, the boy who’d flown through a stop sign on his bicycle. Meredith looked around. There were Christmas decorations on the walls and around Kevin’s bed. The forced cheer just made the hospital room seem grimmer. She put her hand over Kevin’s and squeezed gently, afraid of hurting him.

  Meredith looked at Marcia. Her face was thin, the features of her skull prominent. There were dark shadows under her eyes and her eyes...her eyes looked empty.

  “How are you holding up?” Meredith asked her over Kevin’s body.

  “Just taking each minute as it comes,” she said quietly. Her hands were clasped together so tightly that her knuckles were white.