She's Out of Control (28 page)

“I served dinner to people who had nowhere else to go!” she yells.

“You served them fish instead of teaching them how to cast their line!”

I continue to pick up the dishes, and Kay sinks back down into the sofa, staring blankly into space.

“You're just bitter because Seth left you.”

“I left Seth. And, if you want anything to change in your life, you'll leave them.”

I flip the DVD back on, right to the infamous “head” scene that is such a true classic, and head to the kitchen. I start to run the warm water and find myself mesmerized by the translucent bubbles. It isn't long before I hear Kay laughing at the scene in the movie, and it's contagious and I laugh too. It's comical, thinking I have the power to change anything. But I'm going to try anyway.

Rhett comes in and sits at my feet while I do the dishes amid the plastic sheeting of the kitchen, and I sigh deeply. Maybe a woman and her dog are the key to longevity. “I wonder, how many extra years will I get out of you, Rhett?”

27

A
shley, I'm back. Did you miss me?” Seth smoothes his head and tips Ashley's chin up.

“No,” she says reliving
The Thorn Birds
beach scene. “No more!”

“I didn't know what we had. I didn't know how much I loved you.”

Ashley shakes her head frantically. “I loved you once, but not any longer. It's over. You chose India. I choose Rhett.”

“You're sure it's not Kevin that you choose?”

Ashley gasps. “How did you know about Kevin?”

“Arin told me all about Kevin. My going to India was her elaborate plan to keep us apart, but we can't be apart, Ashley. We were meant to be. Our lives are forever woven together like an intricately made Indian carpet.”

Perhaps more like a handmade toupee. However finely woven, a toupee still sits on the head like a bad baseball cap. Kevin doesn't answer his page, so I head to the hospital in my own car, and leave Rhett and Kay laughing over one of my favorite cult classics. Kay's not talking to me, but that's to be expected. I figure I deserve some credit for not destroying the entire clipboard, but her expression doesn't seem to imply gratitude as I leave the house. Hopefully
Axe Murderer
will have her in a better mood when I return.

The hospital parking lot is nearly empty, a virtual ghost town on the holiday, and I park my car right toward the front. I can see Kevin's car in the doctor's lot nearby so I know I've done well.

I flick my cell phone off, as I'm warned to do at the entrance, and head to Brea's room. Again, I can hear her laughing. As I come in, she's chowing down some turkey that her mother, who is scowling at me from a chair beside the bed, must have brought from home. Miles is beside Brea, gumming his fist.

“Ashley! Just what the day needed. Cute Juicy sweats! You got some kind of hair going on, though.” Brea puts her plate in her lap and claps her hands. Seeing the turkey reminds me that I've witnessed a lot of good food today, but I haven't touched a bite of it. My stomach growls. “Are you hungry, Ash?”

“It's okay. I'm going out to eat after this.”

Mrs. Browning folds her arms across her chest. “You're not eating at your mother's house?”

“She's full up at the inn. Kevin's parents are there.”

“What on earth?” Brea eyes widen. She's ready for the story.

“Who's Kevin?” Mrs. Browning shakes her head. “You go through men faster than a badly run coal mine.”

“Mother!” Brea chastises. “Ashley dated Seth forever. She does not go through men. They just don't stick around.”

This is helping.

“Kevin's parents came to town,” I explain. “They're having dinner at my folks'.Kevin is here working, and then we're going to grab a bite. We worked at the shelter this morning.”

“It's time you both cooked for your own families.” Mrs. Browning is picking at baby Miles, smoothing his hair and wiping his face until I want to slap her hand away.
Leave that baby alone!

“Brea, is your cousin Roy still single?” Brea's cousin is trying to be an actor. As in, he's been in L.A. waiting tables for nearly a decade, but because he's part of the elite Browning clan, Brea's mom would rather see him bus the counter for an eternity than my marry into the family.

“He is still single!” Brea says with too much enthusiasm.

“I'm leaving,” Mrs. Browning says. “Brea, I'll come take care of Miles on Monday when John goes back to work.”

“I'm coming home tomorrow, Ash. Me and my little friend here.” Brea grabs the IV rack.

“Well that's great! At least home has cable.”

“And Tivo. John's been recording for me for the last week. Every reality show known to man is there waiting for me.”

“You girls would be better off to get your head into the Bible.”

“How utterly true, Mother. Thanks for the tip of the day. Get it, Ashley? Like on
Queer Eye
?”

“You two speak an entirely different language.” Mrs. Browning reaches down and kisses Brea's forehead. “Take care of yourself. And don't fool around too long. You need your rest.”

Once Mrs. Browning disappears, I go straight for Miles. “Can I have him now?”

“I personally thought you showed great restraint while my mother was here. Did you want to strangle her while she was doing that spit-and-polish thing on his face?”

“I'm that obvious, huh?”

“How's your puppy?”

“Huge. He's not part terrier after all. I bought this darling bag for him in Taiwan, but you can have it now. I thought I could carry him around in it, but he going to be so gigantic it won't even hold his future chew toys.”

“Cool! Ashley castoffs. Much better than my TJ Maxx finds. So you don't tell your best friend when there's a new man in your life? Or an old one as the case may be? Kevin came here looking for you, so I knew to expect you.”

“I told him I'd page him, but he didn't return my call. Story of my life.”

“He didn't think you'd last long with Kay. Said she looked hot enough to spit fire.”

“You should have seen her after I burned the clipboard contents.”

“You did not!”

“Long story. I have washed more dishes today between the shelter and my house than I've ever done in my whole lifetime. Even that time we whipped cream all over the open cabinets at your mother's house and she made us clean up. Look,” I say, holding out my hands. “I even have dishpan hands and not a manicurist open on the entire peninsula. Tragic. Utterly tragic.”

Just then Kevin walks into the room and his smile just completely charms me. “Ashley, you are a sight for sore eyes.” And I must say, his voice is like heaven. I can't believe how his smooth baritone instantly relaxes me. Kevin is like aromatherapy, only for the ears. What's that called, audiotherapy?

Brea has a huge grin on her face, saying, yeah, she approves. That alone makes me want to forget that Seth ever existed.

“I'm starving! Quick! Let's turn off our cell phones.”

Kevin rubs his stomach while he looks at Brea's turkey dinner. “No emergencies during dinner. I prayed. Let's go eat, I'm starving too. But no turkey. I don't want to see another lump of stuffing as long as I live.”

“No turkey,” I agree. “I should have changed before I came. It never dawned on me after I finished all those dishes. I felt so sudsy and clean.”

“You did dishes again?”

“See?” I say, holding up my hands, looking for sympathy. He takes my palm and gently kisses it.
What's it like to breathe again?

He shakes his head. “No more dishpan hands for you! Come here.” He takes me to a long hallway, populated only by the rare sighting of a nurse. We duck into a room, and Kevin pulls out a tube of Nivea. He pours a bit out into my palm and starts to rub it in while occasionally planting a kiss on my wrist. It's entirely too intimate for my comfort, and I yank my hand away while continuing to rub the moisturizer.

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

He grabs my hand, and we walk toward the exit when I see the lithe little nurse with the Bible, Kendra, I think her name was. She has no Bible this time, and Kendra stops in front of us.

“Going to dinner?” Kendra asks.

“I'm not on call today. Do you remember Ashley?” Kevin asks.

Kendra only nods, still apparently not willing to address my presence. I suppose this is what it's like dating a human Adonis. And it doesn't feel fun. At least with Seth, you knew the women weren't exactly gathering around to garner his attention. Maybe that's not exactly true, Arin had her own attention-getting tricks. I never will understand women who go after other women's men. I mean; if you “win,” don't you have to live with the fear that someone younger and perkier is coming along?

“Kendra, right?” I say, and thrust my freshly moisturized hand forward.

“Have fun at dinner,” Kendra says without taking my hand and walks down the hallway away from us.

“If there's something I'm getting in the middle of, because with where I've been lately, I'm not really interested in—”

“You're not in the middle of anything. Kendra wants a doctor for a husband. Every hospital has lots of women like that. I'm just the freshest cut of beef at the moment.”

I laugh out loud. “Freshest cut of beef?”

“Filet mignon,” he says with a wink. “Not that hamburger you're used to.”

“Where do men get their egos? Can I buy one?”

“An ego for a lawyer? Now, there's a novel idea.”

I cross my arms. “Are you giving me lawyer grief?”

“I could comment that you found the hospital by chasing an ambulance here, but I won't.”

“You're terrible. I mean, really terrible. Don't quit your day job because, as a stand-up comedian, you haven't got a chance.”

“Oh really? You, who watches
So I Married an Axe Murderer
over and over again, are going to tell me about humor?”

“Who told you that?”

“Kay. I called there looking for you.”

“Don't be picking on my movie, or we're going to have to call it quits. I can't trust anyone that doesn't know at least two lines from that movie.”

“I can quote from both the Harriet poem, and the ‘orange on a toothpick cranium' scene.”

I fall into Kevin's arms. “Then you have distinct possibilities.”

His arms close around me and his eyes meet mine. It's never good to feel this strongly.
This
lacks control, and I don't ever want to lack control. But as Kevin bends down to kiss me, I can't feel my feet and so I know to fight it is futile.

He's too good to be true
, I tell myself.
Too good to be true. Think dogs. Think longevity.
But I'm lost in his kiss, and I don't care about the
facts
. Which makes me start to giggle, and Kevin pulls away. “Remember that scene where his mother says the Weekly World News is full of facts? These are facts,” I say in my best Scottish accent.

“You know they'll be hauling you away one of these days? And that my family has never heard of Mike Myers?”

I'm still giggling. “So which will you choose, Kevin? Mensa? The country club? Or the sophomoric humor and never-ending statistical facts of Ashley Wilkes Stockingdale?”

“You drive a hard bargain, and I'll let Mensa go, but I think I might run a check on that SAT score of yours.”

“SATs are just memorization,” I say through my laughter. “I have a memory as long as this hallway.” I point to my temple. “It's full of legal cases, patents, several thousand quotes from
People
magazine, and George Michael songs.”

“Now that is a combination I cannot refuse.”

He kisses me again, and I have to admit, my appetite has long since gone away. On the other hand, if I don't get to a restaurant soon, I'm in danger of playing with fire.

“You can refuse. Seth refused. I think it was my lack of initiative to learn
Matrix
lines.” There I go again, bringing up the ex's name. I lack tact.

“Seth is history. I knew he would be the minute I laid eyes on you singing that hymn.”

I'm hearing Ariel's aria from the
Little Mermaid
in my head, wondering if my voice has that much power. Do you think?

“Back to earth, Kevin. Your head is like Sputnik.”

Kevin throws back his head in laughter. “And you love me anyway.”

I draw in a deep breath. Kevin presses his lips to mine once again. I pull away and look down the hallway. “We have a really bad habit of kissing in inappropriate spots. Did you ever notice that?”

“Must you narrate everything?”

“I narrate when I'm nervous.”

“I thought you shopped when you were nervous.”

“I shop and I talk.”

“Then let's feed you since the mall is closed.” Kevin takes my hand and leads me to his car. I keep my lower lip between my teeth for fear I might narrate myself right out of dinner.

28

T
he restaurant is dark, and live classical piano music makes me feel like I'm in a very expensive elevator. It smells like a mixture of wine and several designer perfumes vying for attention—not the most appetizing scent, I must say. We are the only people under the age of sixty, and I'm the only woman not dripping in carats of diamonds as if a QVC cubic zirconia event was taking place.
So this is what the other half does on Thanksgiving, when their cooks are home cooking for their own families, and the well-appointed kitchens become just more quality furniture.

I look at Kevin, and he doesn't just go straight to the maître d' like I expect a confident surgeon to do. He stands back, as if waiting for me to take control. Well, I'm not shy. I step forward when I notice he's halted on purpose.