Authors: Sharisse Coulter
He nodded. She
grabbed it from him and popped it in the DVD player. They settled onto the
couch, sitting just a little closer than was absolutely necessary. Or maybe
that was her imagination.
The opening
credits rolled over a montage of
skiers
hucking
themselves off impossibly steep cliffs, tumbling
down the mountain in a series of painful-looking crashes. An
adrenaline-inducing rock song played over the top, one she didn’t recognize.
“Who is
this?” She asked.
“Me.”
“No. The
song.”
“Me,” he
said.
“It’s good.”
She paid closer attention to the hip-hop kicks layered with electric guitars
with just the right amount of distortion: enough to avoid being douche-rock,
but not so much to make it indecipherable noise. He smiled at the
back-handed
compliment, happy she liked it.
She watched intently,
listening to skiers talk about waiting for snow and chasing the weather around
the world on an endless search for the perfect run. She chanced a glance or two
at Zach, looking away when he caught her.
She was struck by their passion. It was inspiring,
how much fun they had, making the best of every situation, whether or not
conditions cooperated. She envied their ability to enjoy life when things
didn’t go their way.
Not a skier
herself, and not having spent much time watching extreme sports films, she was
awed by how far these athletes were willing to go. They jumped out of
helicopters, hiked up mountains with heavy gear, waited out storms, built
jumps, and still managed to find new and interesting angles to capture their
gravity-defying feats. By the end, she’d forgotten her earlier skepticism and
said, without hesitation, “Amazing.”
“You think?”
he smiled, and she could have sworn he blushed beneath his stubble.
“Definitely,”
she said, nudging his shoulder with hers.
He turned to
her, smiling, and leaned into her shoulder so that their upper arms were
pressed flush against each other. She felt the warmth of his skin, and his
forearm hairs tickled her skin where she’d rolled up her sleeves when she made
coffee. Her pulse quickened and she felt nervous, not sure whether she wanted
something to happen or dreaded it.
“Can I ask
you something?” he asked, his face inches from hers.
“Of course,”
she breathed.
“Did you get
the postcard I sent you? That summer you went to Europe?”
The
handwriting! She knew it was familiar. But … that postcard was from Alex. It
was his way of saying he wasn’t over her. If she’d been wrong about that, then
Airika
had been telling the truth. As deluded as she was,
she’d thought Alex and Jenna were broken up and she took her shot. They were
together. The only reason he chose Jenna was that she got pregnant.
Her righteous indignation returned and as the
what-ifs pummeled her, she suddenly wondered why Zach wrote to her.
“That was
you?” she asked. He nodded. “Why?”
“I liked you.” He said it as though it were the
simplest thing in the world. And she supposed it was. She looked up at him, his
eyes wide, earnest. She didn’t know what to say. She gazed at him and felt the
earlier excitement flood her bloodstream, igniting latent feelings she didn’t
know she’d suppressed. He leaned in, resting his forehead on hers, their noses
touching. Her chest heaved, unable to normalize her breathing. She closed her
eyes, savoring the feeling. She’d married her first boyfriend but she felt a pang
of nostalgia for a life she could have led.
What would her life have been like if she’d chosen
Zach?
You could find out now
, a voice said.
She looked up into his brown
eyes, and saw her desire reflected in them. Before she could stop herself, she
kissed him—a soft kiss, with a closed mouth, lingering just longer than
could be considered European.
She pulled away and the electric atmosphere
changed again. Her body tingled with desire and excitement, her nerve endings
over-sensitized. He stayed where he was, his interest evident, but he didn’t
make another move. Then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit her.
“Did you know? About Alex and
Airika
?”
“Yes.”
Instantly she pulled away from him. Her mind
reeled.
He knew! He knew and he didn’t
tell me!
Everyone claimed to care about her, to worry about her feelings,
but not one of them thought she had a right to know what was going on. “Argh!”
A primeval scream escaped her lungs and she grabbed her hair with both hands.
Zach’s phone rang. He glanced at her and then at
it, and seemed to decide she needed a minute. He answered it, excusing himself
outside. As soon as the door closed, she started mentally listing all the ways
she’d been wronged. All the ways they’d betrayed her.
All the
things that hadn’t gone right.
So what?
An annoying little voice in her head interrupted.
Excuse me?
She replied (surely, talking
to herself wasn’t a huge worry at this point).
What part did you play in it not working out?
This voice was really
starting to piss her off.
It had a point, though. She could have asked more
questions. She could have asked Alex what made him change his mind, what he’d
done all summer. She could have confronted
Airika
when she’d acted weird or bitchy when she talked about Alex. And she could have
told Alex she wanted to work. She could have done a lot of things.
But what had she done instead? She got mad and ran
off. Her train of thought drifted as she saw the time she’d been spending with
Zach through Alex’s eyes. He wouldn’t have liked it. She hated the idea of him
having the level of desire she’d just been feeling for someone else.
Oh God
,
I’m married!
She’d had no trouble hanging on to the anger she
felt for Alex and
Airika
, but in mere weeks, she’d
been able to behave as if she was a single twenty something just enjoying
herself and spending time with an old crush. She ran a mental inventory of all
the breakfasts and talks and heart to hearts she’d had with Zach that, if Alex
had been able to see them, would have been unacceptable.
Zach came
back inside, lurking in the entryway. Jenna stood up, ready to apologize.
Something in his demeanor stopped her.
“Everything
okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. But
you need to talk to Alex
,
” he said, not
looking at her.
“Why? Was
that
him
? What did he say?”
“No. It was
Airika
. She said he’s a mess and he needs to talk to you.
He’s your husband, Jenna. You should call him.” He looked up at her, his jaw
clenched. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He was acting like nothing
had happened between them.
She felt
sufficiently shamed by her revelation, but the fact that
Airika
was telling her to call
her
husband
ignited a fury that surpassed embarrassment. And why was Zach passing along her
messages?
“No offense,
but it’s none of your business whether or not I talk to my husband.”
“You’re
right. It’s not. But I’m trying to be your friend. And as your friend, I think
I
should go and
you
should talk to Alex.” He snatched his jacket from the couch,
fists clenched at his sides. He took a deep breath and looked up at her. “We
all made our choices, Jenna. There are always consequences.” He looked like he
was going to say something more, but decided against it. He turned and walked
out, leaving her alone and reeling, more confused than ever.
Chapter
35
Jenna wanted to talk to someone
—
someone she could vent to who would hear
her out, and offer sound unbiased advice. She ran through a mental friend
checklist.
There was Stephanie Schroeder, but they stopped
being friends in fourth grade when Stephanie moved to another school district.
Jenna wanted to keep in touch, but
Airika
convinced
her Stephanie would have been too busy with all her new friends. At the time,
Jenna was devastated. Now, she felt
Airika’s
knife
twist a little deeper in her back.
There was Maggie Day, the other girl
that got
knocked up in high school.
They’d had Lamaze together and took a
class to prep them for motherhood. It was one of those classes meant to prepare
you for the world of parenting and the difficulties you were about to face. It
was mostly
Reverse Birth Control: a
ll
fear inducing and wouldn’t-it-have-been-smarter-to-just-use-a-condom talks.
Genius.
At the time,
Maggie and Jenna laughed at the ridiculous stories and compared notes as to why
their lives would never be as pathetic as the guest speakers’ were.
After
Maggie’s baby daddy left her to take care of the other girl he’d gotten
pregnant a few months before the birth, they’d drifted apart. It got awkward to
hang out because Jenna felt guilty about how great things turned out for her.
She thought of how difficult it must have been for Maggie all those years ago.
A pang of guilt ripped through her. She made a mental note to try to find
Maggie and catch up with her again. Maybe all these years later it would be
fun.
As Jenna continued
to run through her mental friend list she realized the rest belonged to one of
two categories:
Airika’s
friends or Alex’s friends.
She couldn’t think of anyone after high school that was just
her
friend. She’d taken for granted that
she had a best friend and a husband. She hadn’t needed to go looking for
friends.
Suddenly, a
name popped into her head. It surprised her, but Noelle was the closest thing
to a real friend she had right now and maybe the only one able to give some
much-needed perspective. And, though their last conversation was odd, she knew
Noelle wouldn’t sugarcoat her opinion.
Chapter
36
Most
mornings Noelle took her coffee out on the deck. She’d worked hard to achieve
autonomy in the world—a word she ranked higher than equality—and
she chose to enjoy it. She preferred knowing she could take care of herself.
She’d fought a tough battle to learn that lesson, and she respected it.
After 32
years with George they still lived next door to one another, rather than
together. They chose not to marry and enjoyed a closeness of proximity, both
geographic and emotional. They called on each other often without enduring the
banality of picking out furniture or decorating to satisfy both their tastes,
which really, was code for hating it equally.
They could
say “good morning” and enjoy their ritual of reading the paper—hers the
Herald Tribune, a habit picked up in Europe, his The New York
Times—without the hassle of morning breath.
They read
through the local paper once a week, which was all they could handle of small
town gossip masquerading as news, discussed their plans for the day and met up
for lunch, whenever possible. On weekends however, he was out early. He was
what the locals called a “weekend warrior” working a couple days a week as a
volunteer ski patrol at the local mountain. His job description primarily
consisted of skiing all day, occasionally handing out Band-Aids and ice
compresses.
Noelle, on
the other hand, had no intention of retiring. She still booked shoots in
Europe, taking half a dozen trips a year. She traveled for location work to see
places at just the right time of year: Alaska in mid-April to shoot the
Northern Lights, November in
Koh
Chang to shoot the
synchronized mating of the fireflies, December in Puerto Rico to shoot the
bioluminescent show of greens and blues in the aquamarine waters. If she’d been
born a generation before, she’d have been an adventuress, relegated to
spinsterhood. In the here and now, she was happy, and more than happy, she was
content.
So she sat,
contented, sipping her morning coffee at a leisurely hour, as was her Sunday
habit, George, already up at the mountain, patrolling. She skimmed through a
recent fashion magazine and looked up when she saw Jenna walking up her
driveway.
“Up here!”
Noelle called, leaning over the railing to wave at Jenna, who was ringing the
doorbell. “Come on up.” By the time Jenna made it up the stairs, Noelle already
had a fresh mug of coffee sitting in the place across from her at the little
table. There was still snow on the ground, but the dry air and sunshine made it
feel warmer than just above freezing. The gas heater in the corner helped too.
“Thanks,”
Jenna said, sitting down, not taking her coat off. Her core temperature still
belonged to the warmth of Southern California.
“Sorry to
barge in on you like this. I should have called first.”
“Not at all.
Biscuit?” Noelle held up an American biscuit halved, yellow butter melting down
the sides. Jenna shook her head.
Noelle
shrugged and took a bite.