by Willow Aster
“Coen … don’t be weird.”
“You don’t be weird, Maby. I’m not … I don’t want to…” He leans his head against the back of his seat and closes his eyes. “Please don’t … disappear on me again after the weekend we’ve just had together. We … just … please don’t.” He looks at me and the intensity in his eyes guts me. “Figure out who you want, Maby. If you want Saul, tell me now. If you want me, I’m right here.”
I turn around before I lose it, but then mumble over my shoulder. “What about Jess?” I get louder when he doesn’t say anything. “There’s something going on there. I can feel it.”
He gets out and slams the door. “Don’t turn it around on me. If you wanna know something about Jess, just ask and I’ll be straight up with you.”
“Okay. What’s going on with Jess? Why was she so smug when she looked at me?”
His cheeks flush and I can’t tell if he’s mad or embarrassed.
“I’ve slept with Jess since she and I broke up,” he says quietly. “She knows I’ve liked you for a long time, but we’ve still had sex a few times … not recently, but…”
“Great. That’s really great, Coen.” I shift my bag and walk toward the door to my building. “When was it?”
He gulps. “It was before you and I … I haven’t slept with her since the night I first kissed you. But … we nearly did once since then.”
“When?”
“The last weekend I asked you to come home with me and you said no.” He walks over and holds onto my arm.
“Let me go.”
He lets go. “Please don’t pick a fight with me, Maby. I didn’t sleep with her that weekend. I promise you I didn’t. I felt hopeful about you—even after you said you were seeing Saul too. I told her I was going to pursue you and I meant it. I don’t like Jess. I only want to be with you.”
“Thanks for a great weekend, Coen. I loved meeting your family.” I go inside and run up the stairs as fast as I can. The tears are blinding me, but I make it to my apartment without stumbling.
He buzzes, but I don’t pick up.
The text from Saul says:
Saul: It’s Monday and I do want to talk soon. Sorry I left mad the other night. I just want to say this … I might not have fought for you like I should have, but I’m the one who has always been there. And when this phase with coffee guy is over, I still will be. Call me.
After a steaming shower, I crawl into bed and cry. Fortunately, I’m exhausted, so it doesn’t last very long. It was time for a breakdown anyway, is the last thing I think before I crash. This was inevitable.
I WAKE UP from a nightmare. I sit up and peel the gown off of my sweaty chest. I can’t remember what the dream was even about, but I know I won’t be going back to sleep anytime soon.
I get up and rinse my face with cold water. The look on Coen’s face rolls over me and I stagger across the room, stopping only long enough to catch my balance. I pace the living room, kitchen, bedrooms. Steps. Numbers. Pinch, pinch, pinch my skin. Repeat. When the clock says 2:22, I let myself stop pacing. I take another shower and then decide to go through a box I’ve been avoiding. I may as well yank off the mental Band-Aid while I’m already a mess.
My mom had put all our pictures in a box and kept them in chronological order. I haven’t looked at them since she died and I shake when I pull the first picture out. The picture wobbles in my hand until it comes into focus. It’s my mom, hugely pregnant. Her hair is long and wild and she looks beautiful. I flip through the ones of me and get to another one of her, holding me. I’m two years old, looking at the camera and my mom is looking at me.
It reminds me of how our life was together. I did my thing and she watched in adoration. She propelled me forward from the sidelines, loving me. I didn’t realize how much I relied on her simply holding me and thinking that everything I did was special. It actually made all the difference in the world to have that kind of love. I kept it together for her, because of her, thanks to her … and now that she’s gone, I know I’m not going to get better or any more sane.
The past weekend is the closest I’ve ever felt to having that, besides with my mother. Coen and his family accepted me without question, and without even having the benefit of time and a history together. I will always be grateful to them for showing me that kind of unconditional acceptance, but they already have the right prospective in the wings—Jess—just waiting to swoop in and show Coen all he’s been missing.
MY PHONE IS glaringly silent over the next few days. It’s brutal. I check it every few minutes to see if Coen has called or if I have a text, but nothing.
I tell myself it’s for the best, and that it was going to end up like this anyway, but it’s still excruciating. Now that I know exactly what I’m missing, I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.
I don’t usually allow myself to think about the time I spent in the hospital, but it’s been going over and over my mind since I got back from Coen’s house. If I told him, maybe he’d understand better why he should move on. I know what I’m capable of.
During my appointment with Dr. Still, I tell her I need to up the dosage of both medications and she tells me to just continue to exercise when I’m feeling an overwhelming urge to do a compulsion. I tell her I’ve run at least 12 miles over the last 3 days and she pauses momentarily, but then congratulates me on finally getting physically fit.
I fight the urge to do my standard—the double bird—but sit on my hands. I still manage to get the two fingers up, but at least I’m the only one who knows.
My apartment has never been cleaner and I’ve made three photo albums with all the pictures in the photo box. I’ve gotten a few more vendors to come with me and still haven’t returned Anna’s calls. I know I’m going to have to come up with a solid course of action for work soon, but so far I still don’t know exactly what to do.
“Please call him,” Paschal moans.
We’re at a bar by the salon on Friday night. I keep reliving minute by minute what Coen and I were doing this time last week.
“He’s probably in the barn screwing Jess right now.” I lay my head on the bar. I may or may not already be thoroughly trashed.
“Can we call it his apartment? I just don’t like how dirty ‘barn’ sounds.” Paschal pushes my hair back and looks in my eyes. “Come on. Call him. Now. Please.” He hands me my cell phone.
“I missed a text!” I sit up.
“From him?”
“Ew. No. Dalton.” I go off on a tangent of fuck, making the older couple next to me glare.
Paschal starts laughing. “Let me see it. Is there a picture?”
I hand him my phone and he reads it out loud.
Dalton: Dreamed about you last night. You will always be hot to me, no matter how bitchy you are.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” I slur.
Paschal is a little bit trashed too and starts laughing harder.
“I’ll be right back,” he says.
“Hey, leave my phone here.”
He holds it up. “I’ll be careful with it, promise.”
My eyes narrow. “What…”
He does the slow glide to the bathroom—the walk where you try really hard not to look drunk.
When he comes back, his face is red and he’s laughing so hard he can barely breathe.
“What is so funny? Did he say something else?”
Paschal gives me wide eyes and shrugs. “I might have sent him a little something. Or a huge something…”
My mouth drops. “You didn’t!”
He nods and I grab the phone.
“Well, the evidence is gone now,” he says, like I’m slow, “but maybe it will take care of Mini Legs for a little while.”
“You’re brilliant!” I hug him.
“Yes, I am. Now call Coen!” He taps my phone and nudges it closer to me.
“I can’t interrupt the afterglow,” I say, my voice hitching at the end. My eyes go blurry at the thought of Jess’s long
legs wrapped around Coen’s back.
“He is not having sex with her.”
“You didn’t see her. She’s beautiful. I bet you anything he is. Right now.”
“No. He’s not.”
I raise my head to shoot daggers at Paschal and he’s grinning like an idiot at someone behind me. I turn around and Coen is walking toward us.
“What did you do?” I hit Paschal in the shoulder.
“You can thank me later,” he whispers. And then he hops off the bar stool and disappears.
Creep.
I give what I hope is a cool look to Coen.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
“So you wanted to talk?” He clears his throat and signals to the bartender.
“What?”
“You’re ready to talk?” He sounds agitated.
“Uh … I … okay.”
“You texted and I came running.”
There’s a bitter tone in his voice that I haven’t heard before and I don’t like it. At all.
“Oh. I … okay.”
We sit there for a few minutes. The bartender brings him a beer and gives me another vodka tonic.
“Is that all you’re gonna say? Okay?”
“You’re mad.” I state the obvious.
He nods; his eyebrows shooting up.
My skin goes fiery. “Why? Why are you mad?”
He takes a long swig of his drink and stands up. “This probably wasn’t a good idea. I should have known you were drunk to have texted me. Let’s talk when you’re sober.”
I stand up. “No, let’s talk now. Why are you mad?”
He gets in my face. “I’m mad that I keep pouring my heart out to you and you keep stomping on it. I’m mad that I had the best weekend of my life and I thought you were feeling it right along with me and then you throw it all away. I’m mad that…”
I hold up my hand. “Okay. Okay! You’re mad. Fine.”
He shakes his head and laughs. “What do you want from me, Maby? Spell it out for me because I sure as hell can’t read you.”
I pick up my purse and stand on my tiptoes to reach his ear. “I want you to go to Jess, be happy, live a nice, normal life. I can’t give you that. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
I’m halfway to the door when he grabs my arm.
“If I wanted nice and normal I would have already done that by now, but here I am, wanting you.”
“If that’s supposed to give me warm fuzzies, it’s not working.” I shake his arm off, look into his miserable brown eyes and before I can be sucked in, I walk out.
He doesn’t follow me.
JUSTIN CALLS THE next week to tell me they have a few more questions regarding my business loan. I go and spend a few hours and walk out of there with a loan. I call Linda, the real estate agent we used when we found Whatnot Alley and ask her if she has any other shop possibilities.
“I do have one. It’s not far from where you are now and quite a bit larger. I thought you were opening another location, though. Did that fall through?”
“No, I’m looking for myself, not Anna.”
“Oh. Oh, I see.”
“Can I see the space soon?”
“You can see it today at 5 if you’d like. They’re anxious to get it filled.”
We agree to meet and I’m a bundle of nerves in the meantime. I can’t even eat. I need to run, but I don’t want to have to take another shower.
The space needs some work but has a lot of potential. It’s really too much room for me, but I still talk over the numbers with Linda. I stay up late doing my crude version of a blueprint, imagining the way it would look. I keep remembering things I loved about Janie’s shop and jot down a few notes to look into different lighting options. The chandeliers really added to her store. I fall asleep with a pile of notes on my chest.
I SHOW UP at Whatnot Alley the next morning, ready to confront Anna. Saul is just leaving when I reach the door.
“Maby! What are you doing here?”
“Here to see Anna,” I tell him.
“Does she know you’re coming?”
“Nope.”
He nods. “You look tired. You okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
He nods again. “I miss you, Maby. Did you get my last text? I asked you to call me.”
“Yeah. Sorry. I’ve been … I haven’t known what to say.”
“When did we get like this? What happened to us?”
He doesn’t seem to expect an answer. We both shift our feet and I finally speak up.
“I’m sorry I bailed on you, Saul. You’ve been a good friend to me and I just … I guess I’m trying to figure everything out. I did get upset with you for taking Anna’s side, but I get it. You need the work too.”
“I wasn’t taking her side, really.”
“Yeah, you kinda were. But anyway, the rest … the us part. You know I’m a mess. Doesn’t seem to be changing…”
He sticks his hands in his pockets and is about to say something when the door opens.
“I thought that was you,” Anna says. “What are you doing here, Mabel?”
“Came to talk to you.”
“Oh.”
She’s caught off guard and I get a sudden heavy dose of guilt. Not just about Anna but about Saul too. I look at him and wish I’d prepared him. He’ll never forgive me.
NO ONE IS in the shop. I’m momentarily sad by this fact until I remind myself that I don’t care anymore. I can’t afford to care about Anna or this shop anymore.
I push down any and all feelings and remind myself of how rotten she was to me for so long. It helps.
She goes behind the counter and seems to regain some of her footing back there. I put my elbow on the counter and stare at her for a long moment before speaking. She shuffles from foot to foot.
I’m making her nervous.
Good.
Something comes back to me while I’m standing there. A memory—a conversation with my mom.
“Do you remember talking to my mom about me?” I ask her.
She frowns and shakes her head. “What?”
“You told her in great detail what a mess I was. She asked me then if I was sure we were really friends. I defended you to her.”
She widens her eyes and motions with her hand for me to get on with it.
“I wish I’d listened to her.”
I open my folder and hand her a piece of paper with a list of vendors on it.
“What’s this?” Her brows move into a huge V and stay there.
“It’s a list of the vendors who are coming with me.”
“Coming with you?” she sneers.
“Yes. You are going to be losing vendors once the new merchandise comes out. I know they’ve let you know they don’t want to work with you, so this isn’t news to you. I don’t know if you realize how that will affect this shop—I’m sure you know it will mean no Soho shop, but … it also means this one will be bare come time for the Fall merchandise. Now, here’s what I’m proposing. You get your act together with Whatnot Alley, learn the business, etc., and I can either take over the shop in Soho or I will be opening one twice the size three blocks over from you.”
The expression on her face is fierce, but as she sets down the list, I see her hand tremble.
I smile and keep talking. “If I were you, I’d sign both stores over to me. We both know that I’ve done the work here and you’ve financed it, which isn’t nothing, but … you don’t have the experience. I’m in the position to finance it now and I do have the experience. You’re about to have a baby. It’s a win-win for us both.”
She scowls at me and puts a hand on her hips. Her baby bump juts out proudly.
“I’m not signing anything over to you.”
“Okay. But think about it for a moment. This doesn’t just affect me, Anna. It affects you, Joey, the baby, Saul, Peggy…”
“I’m not giving you my businesses, Mabel. I’ve always known you were missin
g a screw somewhere and this just proves it if you think you can…”
I hold up my hand and crinkle up my nose, laughing. “Now is not the time for digs, Anna. You don’t like me—fine. I really don’t like you either.” I take a deep breath. It feels so good to say that. “I don’t know why we were ever friends. Oh wait—we weren’t really. But, I’m giving you one more chance to make a good business decision. Let me take over the Soho store and you still have a chance to make something of this one.”
“No. I won’t be blackmailed. I will do whatever I have to do to make both stores work for me.”
I bite my lip and nod. “Okay. Fair enough. I’m done playing nice.”
She scoffs. “This was playing nice?”
“You fired me, Anna. I’m still not quite sure why you did it the way you did. No warning, no asking me to improve, no chance to fix anything. Just pure drama, I guess. For you to treat me that way, after all I’ve done for you—you deserve to lose everything. Don’t come crawling back later. You’ve made your decision.”
I close my folder and walk out of the store. The sun is hot on my skin and I lift my face up to feel it.
“You look happier than I expected.”
Saul is leaning against the building and stands up straight when I open my eyes to look at him.
“Saul, I have to tell you something and you’re not going to like it.”
He groans. “Why was I afraid of this?”
I SWEETEN THE burn with Saul by asking him to help get my store ready for opening. If Anna does what she says, she’ll try to still open the shop in Soho, which means Saul should still get paid. He agrees to it and isn’t too angry with me. I think he’s in shock that I’m doing all this. He says he’ll make sure Anna pays before everything goes to shit. I won’t be able to pay him much, but at least he won’t be out of work.
After I’ve gotten home and had a mini-breakdown, I call Linda and tell her I’m ready to move forward. The next morning I sign papers and by the afternoon, I’m standing in an empty shop, looking at the potential.
