So Not Single

by Wendy Markham

  What kind of advice is that?

  Uh-oh.

  I realize, looking at her face, that it’s advice that stems from experience.

  “So you…you didn’t love Pop when you married him?” I ask, stunned.

  “I loved him. Sure I loved him. But he didn’t make my heart crazy, the way I expected. He was crazy about me, though.” She shakes her head. “Thought I was the best thing that ever could have happened to him. I could do no wrong.”

  “You still can’t.”

  She smiles and taps me in the chest. “Now you see.”

  I don’t, actually.

  But I let her think she’s given me food for thought.

  The rest of my visit flies by. We spend Sunday at church, then having a spaghetti dinner at my grandparent’s house at high noon, even though it’s ninety-five degrees out and so humid that everyone’s face is moist and flushed and everyone’s hair is plastered to their head. It’s not a pretty sight. The good thing is, it’s too hot to eat. Meaning, I’m able to stick to my diet, which I had expected to be a challenge this weekend.

  Sunday night we go to see Joey and Sara’s new house, then we go to my Aunt Mary’s for coffee and homemade pizzelle. All of us. The whole family. I never noticed before that in Brookside, everyone travels in packs.

  I don’t have a minute to myself until I’m on the bus headed back to the city on Monday afternoon. It’s a humid, gray day—the crappiest Independence day weather I can remember in years. That should make it easier to spend the entire day on a crowded bus, but somehow, it doesn’t.

  I didn’t realize, until I was onboard, that this is a local. It’s going to take a full twelve hours to get back to Manhattan, with stops in every godforsaken rundown industrial town across the state.

  Utica, Rome…they all look the same. Nothing to see, no reason to get off the bus for the five minutes we’re stopped—unless it’s to smoke. Which I do, until I realize I’d better conserve the few cigarettes I have left.

  When we have an extended stop in Albany, I realize that I’m less than an hour away from Will. If I switched buses in this terminal, I would be in North Mannfield before this bus had even covered half the distance between here and the city.

  But I can’t do that.

  I can’t just show up on Will’s doorstep—does the cast house have a doorstep?—and demand to see him.

  So I smoke my third-to-last cigarette and my second-to-last cigarette and I get back on the bus when the driver announces that it’s leaving.

  Somewhere around Poughkeepsie, I finish reading Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, which I’ve been working on for two weeks and which was surprisingly entertaining. I move on to Moby Dick, the only other reading material I have with me. When I bought it back in New York, I promised myself that if I can get through this one, I can read the new Danielle Steel just to give my brain a rest.

  I’m grateful when, after only a few pages, it becomes too dark for reading and the light over my seat doesn’t work. I put the book aside and am perfectly content to stare out the window.

  There aren’t as many lowlifes on the bus now that we’re almost to the city. There are lots of college students, and old ladies, and single mothers with young kids.

  Traffic grows heavier as we head down through Jersey.

  By the time we’ve reached the George Washington Bridge, we’re in a full-fledged traffic jam. We inch onto the bridge. Inch by inch.

  I’m starting to feel trapped.

  The bus is getting hot.

  The driver announces that there’s a problem with the A.C. and he’s had to turn it down a notch so we don’t stall out on the bridge.

  Sweat is trickling down my head.

  The old man next to me is snoring.

  The little kid in back of me is rhythmically kicking my seat.

  The college kids in the back are playing rap music with a grinding beat.

  My heart is starting to pound.

  If only I could smoke.

  But there’s no smoking allowed.

  I need a distraction, so I try to think about something else.

  Will.

  But when I think about Will, I realize that he’s probably having a fabulous Fourth of July. He’s probably under the stars, on a beach by the lake, with all his new friends.

  The bus is creeping across the outer lane of the bridge.

  There’s an explosion.

  I shriek.

  The old man wakes up sputtering.

  The kid behind me is screeching.

  “It’s just fireworks!” his mother keeps saying.

  I look out the window, and she’s right.

  There are fireworks over the city.

  But I find myself wincing at every boom, wondering if it’s my imagination or if the bridge is shaking every time there’s a brilliant flash in the sky.

  For a split second, I thought the first explosion was a bomb. Now that I know it’s just fireworks, I find myself wondering what would happen if there really was a bomb. With New York City a prime terrorist target, it isn’t far-fetched that some evil mind has considered blowing up the George Washington Bridge on the Fourth of July.

  The bus is right up against the railing, and we’re not going anywhere.

  If a bomb went off at this very moment, we would pitch over the railing into the Hudson River.

  We would drown.

  We would die.

  I’m sweating profusely, but it’s a cold, clammy sweat, and I’m having a hard time swallowing. It gets worse when I think about it—the mechanics of swallowing, I mean.

  Oh my God.

  My throat is closing and I can’t breathe and I’m trapped.

  And I’m going to die.

  I’m careful not to look out the window.

  If I look out the window and see the railing and the river, I’m going to lose it.

  The bus moves forward another fraction of an inch.

  I feel like it’s teetering on the edge of the bridge.

  I glance at the other passengers to see if anyone else realizes how precarious our predicament really is, but everyone seems to be unfazed.

  Then again, I probably look unfazed, too.

  It’s not as though I’ve hurtled myself into the aisle in a Nino-style frenzy.

  Yet.

  We move forward.

  Inch by inch.

  Hour by hour.

  The fireworks finale erupts overhead in a dazzling commotion of flashing lights and smoke and sound.

  I clasp my hands in my lap so tightly that my index fingernail on one hand draws blood from the palm of the other hand.

  Finally, mercifully, we’re off the bridge.

  As the bus makes its way through the clogged west side traffic, I find myself calming down gradually.

  By the time we make it to the Port Authority, my heart rate is almost back to normal.

  I had planned to take the subway back home, but the thought of being trapped underground is terrifying right now.

  I need air.

  I need a cigarette.

  I step out of the dingy but climate-controlled bus terminal into a putrid steambath of Manhattan night. My hands are shaking as I fish my last cigarette out of the pack and put it into my mouth.

  I light it and take a deep drag.

  I feel better now.

  The streets are jammed. I buy another pack of cigarettes at a newsstand on the street, then shoulder my way through the crowd, lugging my heavy bag.

  I’m trying to figure out what the hell happened back there on the bus, and I can’t come up with an answer. It was as though every ounce of logic flew right out of my head.

  I try to flag a cab, but it’s impossible to find one.

  No way am I going to get on a city bus or the subway now.

  There’s nothing for me to do but keep walking, zigzagging my way across the city, down a block or two and over a block or two, toward my East Village neighborhood. I’m on Twenty-ninth and Park when a couple steps out of a
cab on the corner, and I flag the driver.

  Five minutes and five bucks later, I’m home.

  The message light is blinking on my machine. I press the play button, wondering if it’s Will calling.

  But it isn’t.

  It’s Buckley.

  “Hi, Tracey. Since you haven’t called me, I thought I’d call you. Joseph gave me Raphael’s number, and he gave me yours. I hope you don’t mind. I’m done with that freelance job in your building, which is why we haven’t run into each other lately. I was just thinking we should get together for drinks or something. Platonically.”

  Well, of course platonically, I think, wanting myself to be irritated, but unable to muster much reaction. What else would he expect?

  “Call me,” is all that’s left on Buckley’s message.

  And his is the only one I’ve got.

  No call from Will.

  Well, it’s not like the Fourth of July is one of those occasions where you call to give someone holiday greetings. I mean, it’s not like Christmas or New Year’s or Mother’s Day or Valentine’s day. But still.

  He could have called.

  I mean…

  Buckley called.

  And I’m thinking that maybe I should call him back. Why wouldn’t I? He’s a nice guy, and it would be fun to get together with him.

  Especially now that Kate is so busy with Billy in the Hamptons—they’ve been an item ever since the weekend I was out there. Which is presumably why she hasn’t invited me back again.

  Meanwhile, Raphael is hot and heavy with some Czechoslovakian ballet dancer he met in a leather bar in Jersey City. Brenda’s wrapped up in wedding plans, and Latisha’s in a foul mood over the Yankees’ latest losing streak, and Yvonne’s showing Thor around town every free moment.

  Where does that leave me?

  Fresh from a weekend in Brookside and obsessed with the notion that terrorists are going to blow up a bridge with me on it.

  Impulsively, I take out my Palm Pilot and look up Buckley’s number. I dial it before I can stop myself. As it rings, I think that I should hang up, and then I think that he’s probably not home, and if he isn’t, I won’t leave a message because once I give this some thought I’ll realize that it probably wasn’t such a good idea to—

  “Hello?”

  “Buckley?”

  “Tracey!”

  He sounds psyched.

  Now I’m psyched. It’s nice to be so welcome, even just over the phone.

  “Hey, you called back. I seriously doubted that you would.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? You, uh, said to.”

  He does a surprisingly dead-on imitation of my mother, whom, of course, he’s never met: “If I told you to jump off a bridge, would you do that, too?”

  He has no idea of the relevance of that particular comment, and I’m not about to tell him, so I force a laugh, too.

  Then he asks me about my holiday weekend, and tells me about his—he went home to Long Island for a family barbecue and spent today at Jones Beach. Apparently it was a gorgeous, sunny day here in the eastern part of the state.

  “Lucky you, spending the day on the beach while I was on the bus,” I say.

  “Nah, the beach was loaded with freaks,” he says.

  “Freaks? As in circus?”

  “As in you never saw such a mass gathering of complete and utter losers.” He launches into a hilarious description of fellow beach-goers, doing accents and dialogue. He’s got me laughing so hard, I’m straining my newly developing abs.

  “I haven’t laughed this hard since the first Austin Powers. You should be writing stand-up comedy, Buckley, not cover copy and corporate brochures,” I tell him when I finally catch my breath.

  “Oh yeah? Don’t say that until you’ve read my corporate brochures. You’ll laugh your ass off.”

  I laugh again.

  “So you want to have drinks with me sometime, or what?” he asks out of the blue.

  Before I can respond, he adds, once again, “Platonically.”

  “Damn! And here I wanted to date you, Buckley.”

  “I am a hottie,” he says. “But you, my little minx, have a hottie of your own.”

  “I know.” I heave an exaggerated sigh. “I’ll try to keep my hands off.”

  “Aren’t we saucy!”

  We make plans to meet for cold, slushy rum drinks at a restaurant in his neighborhood on Wednesday night after work. He suggests the time and place, and I’m glad that it’s nowhere I’ve ever been with Will.

  And it’s great that I don’t feel the least bit threatened anymore by the fact that he kissed me. The ice has been broken between us.

  Or maybe it was just my ice, because the thing about Buckley, I’m starting to see, is that he’s always totally relaxed and casual. I don’t think it’s an act, either. Nothing seems to bother him.

  Anyway, things are looking up now.

  Especially when I step on the scale before changing into my pajamas, and see that I’ve lost four more pounds since I last checked.

  I’m actually doing it. Everything I said I would do: losing weight. Reading classics. Saving money.

  I even organized my apartment one night last week and threw away two big garbage bags full of packrat debris.

  I stand in front of the mirror, still dressed in the rumpled black linen shorts and short-sleeved black T-shirt I wore on the bus trip.

  I study the new me.

  Not bad.

  It’s funny how much difference that extra almost-twenty pounds makes. But when you consider that it’s like carrying four five-pound bags of flour in your hips, butt, thighs and gut, it’s almost shocking that it doesn’t make a more drastic difference. Don’t get me wrong—I like the new me.

  She’s noticeably slimmer than the old me.

  But still recognizable.

  I sigh, realizing that no matter how far I’ve come, I still have my work cut out for me.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  On Wednesday night, I’m on my way to the elevators to meet Buckley after work when Jake stops me. He’s been in meetings with the client all day, and we’ve barely seen each other. I hope he doesn’t want me to stick around, because I called Buckley five minutes ago and told him I was on my way to meet him.

  “Can I talk to you about something, Tracey?” Jake asks.

  “Sure.” I wait for him to elaborate, wondering what’s up.

  “Okay, come on back to my office.” He starts walking.

  I follow him, taken aback. Why can’t he talk to me right here?

  I notice that he doesn’t make conversation when I catch up with him on the way back to his office. It doesn’t help that I can’t think of anything to say. I wonder if I’m in some kind of trouble, but I can’t think of anything I possibly could have done wrong.

  Then I realize that since whatever he wants to discuss is obviously discreet, it might be about the product names I gave him a while back.

  He never did get back to me about the list.

  Maybe he ran them by the client. Maybe they’ve chosen one of my ideas.

  “Close the door,” Jake says, walking into his office and sitting behind his desk. “Sit down.”

  I close the door. Sit.

  “So you remember the day a few weeks ago when you got those chocolates for my mother for her birthday?”

  My heart sinks. I guess this isn’t about naming the deodorant.

  “Yeah…”

  “Remember how I had you package the gift and bring it down to the mailroom later that afternoon?”

  “Yeah…”

  “I just found out she never got it.”

  “She never got it?”

  “No. And she’s pissed because she thinks I forgot her birthday.”

  I just look at him, unsure what he wants me to say. “But that’s…I mean, I don’t know how she could have never gotten it.”

  “I don’t know, either. A hundred dollars’ worth of Belgian chocolate seems to have mysteriously disap
peared.”

  Is he accusing me of stealing it?

  I can’t tell.

  But if he is…

  “I’m not saying you took it, Tracey….”

  He isn’t?

  “But I’m wondering if maybe you forgot to bring it to the mailroom.”

  I think back to that day. I definitely remember going to the mailroom with his chocolate. Myron was down there, and he took the package from me. He pretended he was about to drop it, catching it right before it hit the floor. He always likes to give me a hard time, teasing me because I work for Jake.

  The thing is, nobody in the mailroom likes Jake. Probably because he treats everyone in the mailroom like they’re invisible. Or maybe because I’ve overheard him telling racist jokes—and chances are, they have, too.

  It occurs to me now, as I think back to that day, that Myron might have noticed that the last name on the package label was the same as Jake’s.

  Meaning, Myron might have figured out that Jake was using the company mailroom to send personal mail to his family.

  That wouldn’t go over big with Myron. I mean, he makes a fraction of Jake’s salary, and I happen to know he pays child support to his ex-girlfriend, too.

  But I’m not about to tell Jake that Myron might have sabotaged his package of chocolates. For one thing, I have no proof. For another, I can’t really blame the guy…even if I’m the one who’s getting blamed in his place.

  “I remember taking it to the mailroom,” I tell Jake, because he’s waiting for a reply.

  “Did you hand it to someone there, or did you just leave it?”

  “I handed it to someone.”

  Here comes the inevitable. “Who was it?”

  “I have no idea,” I lie. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Then how can you be sure you brought it down? Can the package be lost on your desk or in your cubicle?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Can you check?”

  “Sure.” I shrug, and look at my watch. “First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll—”

  “Check now,” Jake says curtly, then adds, in a gentler tone, “Okay?”

  What can I say?

  “Okay.”

  I spend the next fifteen minutes going through the piles of stuff in my cube, looking through my desk and even my file cabinet. I do it because I have no choice. Jake keeps poking his head in, asking, “Find anything yet?”