[2013] Note to Self- Change the Locks

by Heather Balog

  “That’s it. Right there,” I moaned, ignoring the stupid little voice.

  “I know. I know all your spots,” Austin replied as he continued to make my skin prickle. I tilted my head back in ecstasy. He lowered himself to the floor, taking me with him. His hands slid up my shirt and he pulled it over my head. Feeling very turned on by his aggressiveness, I immediately started to un-zipper my jeans.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me get that for you.” Austin tossed my shirt behind him. It landed in a potted plant. A dead potted plant. I keep forgetting to get rid of that, I started to think. I really should write it on a post-it.

  What the hell are you doing? Don’t think about potted plants! Think about your sexy boyfriend, excuse me, sexy fiancé! Have sex! Have hot, passionate, we’re getting married sex!

  I kicked off my boots as Austin peeled my jeans from my body. His hands were warm on my goose bumped skin. Oh, this is good. Really good.

  What if Austin turns out like Simon? I find myself thinking.

  Stop it! Austin isn’t Simon! This time, I mused as Austin pulled me on top of him, I’m going to get it right. Austin and I are for keeps. This is not like last time.

  Simon and I got engaged only a little more than a year after we got together. We were very drunk, very young, and very stupid.

  For my twenty-third birthday, Nora and Simon hatched a plan to drag me to the East Coast version of Sin City. Atlantic City. I had never been to Atlantic City and Simon was appalled by this fact.

  “You’ve never been to Atlantic City? I’m from across the pond and even I’ve been to bloody Atlantic City!” Simon was massaging my feet outside my parents’ pool. Nora was sunbathing face down in the skimpiest bikini imaginable at the other end of the deck. She glistened in the sun because she had slathered cocoa butter all over herself. She would severely regret that decision about four hours later when she was screaming in agony from the second degree sunburn she ended up with.

  “Simon, you’ve lived in New Jersey since you were twelve,” I pointed out as I reached into the cooler for a beer. I futilely twisted the cap with my bare hand. “Ouch.” The metal had cut into my palm.

  “Still, you’re more of a Jersey native than I am. How is it that you’ve never gone?” Simon took my beer, opened it for me using his shirt, and then dipped his hand into the cooler to pull out one for himself.

  “Thank you,” I acknowledged Simon’s thoughtfulness before explaining, “I have only been legal for a few years. I just haven’t gotten around to going.”

  “You could have gone to Maggie T.’s bachelorette party last year!” Nora called out as she flipped herself over to expose the front of her body, also slathered with cocoa butter. (She couldn’t shave for two weeks, her legs got so burnt.)

  “I barely knew Maggie T.! In fact, I don’t even know what the T stood for!”

  “Who cares? I still had fun.” Nora sat up slightly and peered down the rims of her rhinestone sunglasses at me. “You only have beer?”

  I sighed heavily. “I guess I could go make margaritas, but my mother hates when I use her mix.”

  Nora crossed her heart. “I swear I’ll go right out to the store and replace it.”

  “Fine. But you get to tell her it was your idea to drink all her margaritas. God help us if she wants a margarita when she gets back from the grocery store.”

  I hauled myself out of my warm and toasty deck chair and headed toward the sliding glass door. My mother was a very sweet and generous woman, however, the only thing she hated was if anyone drank her margaritas. I learned this the hard way after I downed a pitcher she made last summer. I thought her head was going to pop off. She actually hit me with her wooden spoon, a punishment that I hadn’t endured since I was a teenager. Who knew my plump little mom could put away a whole pitcher all by herself? And she would flip out like a lunatic if anyone touched said pitcher?

  “Please! Your mom’s a pussy cat compared to my old lady! When I drank her whiskey, she burnt me with her cigarettes!” I laughed at Nora’s reference to her whiskey swigging mother, but the pathetic part was, she probably wasn’t exaggerating.

  I swung the door open and stepped inside the cool air conditioned house in order to prepare a pitcher for Nora. When I emerged ten minutes later with glasses and the pitcher in hand, Simon and Nora had sheepish grins on their face. I glanced back and forth from one to the other.

  “Oh no. What?”

  Simon and Nora were both notorious for dragging me on capers and adventures. They both felt I needed to “live a little”. It was a nightmarish hell whenever they both got an idea in their heads at the same time. Yet, neither one of them ever thought it was judicious for me to get into little scrapes on my own. They always chastised me for not being careful enough. I could never win with those hypocrites.

  “So, we have a surprise for your birthday,” Nora announced as I handed her a glass and proceeded to pour her a drink.

  “Fantastic,” I answered, voice dripping with sarcasm. “What is it this time? Tandem skydiving?”

  “Oh! That’s a great idea!” Nora replied.

  “Focus, Nora!” Simon interjected.

  “Right, right.” She gave me a wide, toothy smile. She was very proud of the dental work she just had done. Her mother couldn’t afford to get her the braces she needed as a kid, so she had always been self- conscious of her smile. When she started making her own money, she immediately had clear braces put on to fix her crooked teeth. “We’re going to Atlantic City!”

  I wrinkled up my nose. “I really don’t think I want to go there.”

  “Nonsense,” Simon told me. “We’ll have a grand old time.”

  “But what if I don’t want to have a grand old time? What if I just want to sit by the pool and drink margaritas and beer? It’s my birthday! Why don’t I get to pick what I want to do on my birthday?” I think I was whining at this point.

  “Because you don’t know what you really want. And it’s our job to tell you what you want.” Nora took a sip of the margarita and promptly spit it on the grass. “This is really awful, Elizabeth! Who the taught you how to make a margarita? Where’s the salt?”

  And so, the next week, I was hustled off to Atlantic City where I ended up drunk as a skunk on the beach at midnight. Nora and my friends Gina and Holly were back in their hotel room doing shots off some bouncer’s abs. Thank God we had separate rooms.

  I ran out of the bar, kicked off my sandals, and dashed onto the cool sand. Simon chased after me, laughing. “Come on, Lizzie. I think you’re a tad bit pissed.” He pulled gently on my arm.

  “No, I’m not,” I giggled as I fell on the sand, pulling him down after me. “I think I’m drunk,” I whispered in his ear.

  “I think you are, too, love,” Simon concurred. “Come on, let’s get you to our room before you get sick on the beach.”

  “No!” I crossed my arms in front of me. “I want to stay here. It’s my birthday.”

  I vaguely remember Simon shrugged and plopped down next to me on the sand. “Anything you want, love.”

  I turned to him and gazed at his face bathed in moonlight. I remember thinking, I love this man. I want to be with him for the rest of my life.

  “Simon?” I whispered quietly.

  He looked alarmed as he asked, “What’s the matter? You need to vomit?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “What then?” He told me later that he was afraid I had peed myself. Or worse.

  “I love you.”

  “I know, Lizzie. I love you, also.”

  I shook my head. “No, I really love you.”

  This is where the conversation became seriously hazy and Simon filled in the gaps for me later on. Apparently, I told him I loved him so much that I wanted us to get married. Subsequently, Simon agreed, got down on his knee and proposed. The next day, he took me ring shopping—I was completely hung over. Nauseous, with my head pounding, I picked out the first ring that caught my eye and we waltzed into my pare
nts’ house later that night to announce our engagement. This was something I would probably live to regret forever.

  First off, I hated the ring. It was not what I would have picked out in a million years if I had done the research. When I mentioned this soon after, he got all upset and told me he was only doing what I asked him to do and he wanted to please me.

  Secondly, my father was a stickler for tradition and did not take too lightly to the fact that Simon and I had gotten engaged without his “permission”. It gave him an opportunity to rant about how barbaric the English were. He had never really been fond of Simon, but this really stuck in his craw.

  Neither of my parents were thrilled about the union, which now made it even more imperative for me to marry Simon. I had never been a rebellious teenager, but ever since I started hanging out with Nora, I constantly had to fight the urge to piss my parents off. By the stories she told, I could tell Nora made pissing her mother off a work of art.

  “Are you sure about this, Elizabeth?” My mother was fretfully wringing a dishtowel as we dried dishes together the next night.

  “What’s the matter? You don’t like Simon?” I had snapped at her.

  She shook her head. “No, I do.” My mother actually did like Simon. She was quite charmed by him and she tittered like a school girl at his jokes that weren’t even that funny. Maybe that was another reason my father wasn’t a fan.

  “Well, what then?” I slammed the dishes in the cabinet.

  “I just think it might be best that you wait a little. You’ve only known him for a few months…”

  “Over a year,” I corrected.

  “Still, it’s not a very long time to know if this is going to be someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.”

  “Didn’t you and Dad get married after a year?” Mom turned bright red. I was pulling out all the stops and my mother knew it.

  “Elizabeth, that was different and you know it.” My mother was pregnant with my brother Pete when she and Dad got married at the tender age of eighteen. In the back of my mind, I considered, maybe she regretted it and that’s the real reason she’s trying to talk me out of it.

  “I’m just saying, I am five years older than you were, I’m not pregnant, and I actually love Simon. And he loves me.” My mother’s usually smiling face fell. I might as well stabbed her through the heart. But I didn’t care because I was trying to be as mean as possible for some unknown reason. “Where am I going to find another man like that? Why would I throw that away?”

  “Oh, Elizabeth, darling girl. You could have any man you wanted—”

  I cut her off again. “So you don’t like Simon then.”

  My mother sighed and reached for my arm. “I do like Simon. And I think he is good for you. But I really think that it would be sensible if you two dated a little longer. See where your career is going before you commit to something as permanent as a marriage.” My mother had also wanted to be a teacher, but her shotgun wedding and three kids over the course of five years put a damper on those plans.

  “I am twenty-three freaking years old, Mother. I am not thirteen anymore.” I slammed another dish in the cabinet, breaking this one.

  “Glad to see that you’re acting like it,” was my mother’s final response as she reached into the closet to retrieve the broom. As she cleaned up the mess I had made, I stormed out of the room to go sulk in my bedroom.

  Now that I knew they didn’t really approve of me marrying Simon, I needed it to happen as fast as possible, so that I didn’t lose my nerve and chicken out. With Nora’s help, I arranged a garden wedding in my aunt’s backyard at the beginning of October. Of course, Nora was my maid of honor, and Gina and Holly were my bridesmaids. Simon’s brother Jake and my brothers were his groomsmen. His brother Robert had been off in Africa or some other remote part of the world. My parents smiled weakly for pictures, but I knew they weren’t thrilled with the quickie wedding. It was the first time I really think I truly disappointed both of them. And it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

  The moonlight was streaming into the room by the time Austin and I were exhausted from our epic love making session. Covered with a blanket, I relaxed in the crook of his arm as he snored gently. I gazed at his rugged and sun worn face. He was so different from Simon.

  Alert! Alert! Get Simon off of your mind! Enjoy this priceless time with your fiancé. A guy that’s perfect for you comes around once in a lifetime. I nestled closer to Austin as I resisted thinking, maybe that perfect guy has already been here.

  Seven

  The soles of my feet were burning as I dashed over the pavement, but I couldn’t stop now. Glancing at my cell phone, I could see that I only had a few minutes to get to my third and final interview of the day. Damn it, I would have had plenty of time if it weren’t for that last interview going so long. People are so rude sometimes.

  The last editor-in-chief I interviewed with, Ms. Fowler got a phone call from her boyfriend and spent twenty minutes of my interview lazily twirling the phone cord around her finger and giggling like a middle school student. And she didn’t even apologize for taking up my time. Those twenty minutes now represented the difference between me being on time for my next interview and being late. I doubted Ms. Fowler was even interested in hiring me considering she forgot my name by the time she got off the phone with her boyfriend. She called me Elsie. What almost twenty-eight year old woman was named after a cow? Unless, she was calling me fat.

  I shook the thought from my mind as I trudged ahead, weaving through the throngs of tourists on the city street.

  I was also guessing that I could pretty much count the first interview of the day as a bust, since that particular editor seemed more entranced by the fern on his desk than my credentials. He stared at the plant the entire time I attempted to dazzle him with my resume. So, needless to say, I needed this last interview to go well. I had reached the end of my rope with kissing ass in order to get nowhere. Despite my resolve to focus on writing, I secretly wanted to land an actual “real” job. I needed money. Not only was I getting married, I had just gotten a flyer from my favorite shoe store and I dying to check out the summer styles.

  I reached the office building on 5th Ave. in record time. As I pushed through the turnstile, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and gasped audibly. Dear Lord, I look like was mauled by a flock of seagulls. I attempted to smooth down my hair while I dashed to the bank of elevators and I heard, “Hey you! Where do you think you’re going?”

  I spun on my heel and knocked over the recycling can next to the elevators. Sitting at a desk was a security guard, wearing a badge and a scowl. And next to him was the most stunning specimen of a man I have ever seen in my life (other than my fiancé, of course). He was also wearing a badge, but instead of scowl, he had a broad grin on his face. My mouth dropped as I recognized him.

  “Jim?” I asked as I nearly tripped over my own two feet. “Jim O’Malley?”

  The security guard stood up and nodded, with his muscular arms crossed over his expansive chest. “In the flesh. Little Elizabeth Parisi.” He shook his head and chuckled. “My, my, you’ve grown up.”

  And so have you, I thought to myself. Jim was the boy next door when I was growing up. Two years older than I was, he usually hung around with my meathead brothers, Pete and Sonny. Even though he was always a dorky kind of guy with flaming red hair, I spent half of my adolescence pining after him. He was cute, smart and athletic. Kind of the total package. And he was always very nice to me, unlike my brothers and the rest of their jock friends who spent their adolescence playing jokes on me.

  I scanned his left hand for a ring. Oh good! There was none. He obviously wasn’t married. Then I reminded myself, Easy killer. You’re an engaged woman now, remember?

  He held his arms out to me and I willingly fell into them. He squeezed me tightly as he asked, “What brings you to my big bad office building in the metropolis?”

  Man, I could feel his chest muscles rippling t
hrough his shirt. And that smell! Is that coconut? Oh my, I feel weak in the knees.

  “Ugh, job interview. On the thirty-sixth floor,” I grumbled as reluctantly detached myself from his embrace.

  Puzzled, Jim asked. “At The Kraft Konnection? As a writer? Are you looking for a new job? I thought you had a good job. Your brother said—”

  “Yeah, I know. I don’t often talk to those knuckle heads. I’m out of work right now,” I shrugged with indifference, like that fact wasn’t driving me insane.

  “Oh, how long have you been unemployed?” Jim asked with interest.

  I winced. “Well it’s been a little more than a year.”

  Jim grimaced, “You haven’t talked to Sonny or Pete in a year?”

  I shook my head. “No, I have. Still have Sunday brunch every week. I just haven’t told them that I’m unemployed.” Oh yeah, did I mention that I haven’t told anyone in my family that I’m no longer working? It was one of those things that had never really made it to the hot topic list at brunch. Or any holiday for that matter. It was easier not to bring it up after all. My mother was so distraught over my father’s death, I never actually had the heart to tell her.

  As rotten luck would have it, my father’s untimely demise coincided with the loss of my job. It actually happened two days after I was canned. Sitting on the floor of my apartment, I was staring down the bottom of a Jack Daniel’s bottle. I was never a hard liquor drinker, but this was left over from Simon days and damn it, I was hurting. It took me two entire days to finish it and now, at four o’clock on a Friday afternoon, I was drunk of my arse on the floor of the bedroom I used to share with my husband. I could hear my cell phone ring amongst the pile of clothes on my bed and I ignored it.