The Next Best Thing (7 page)

Parker and I don’t talk much on the way home. My last Yes turned out to be a firefighter, and though he was attractive, charming and polite, there was no way in hell I was going to marry a man who rushed into burning buildings with a rinky-dink little air pack strapped to his back. Parker took his card, though, and they have a date next week.

“You did good tonight, kid,” Parker says when we reach my place.

“And you did amazingly,” I say. “How many dates do you have for next week?”

“Just three,” she answers.

“Are you really looking for someone, or are you just keeping me company?” I ask.

“Oh, I guess I’d like to find someone. Theoretically. It’s different, though, having a kid. I already belong to someone, you know? It’s just that he’s four years old.”

I smile. “You’re so lucky, Parker.”

She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I know. Now get out of my car, you.”

“Thanks for driving,” I say. “And thanks for taking me. Sorry you wasted your money.”

“It’s nothing,” she answers. “Talk to you tomorrow. And hey, Luce…” She turns to look at me, and as always, I’m struck by just how gorgeous she is.

“Yes?”

“Jimmy would be proud of you.”

There’s a sudden lump in my throat. “Thanks,” I say, my voice uneven. “Kiss Nicky for me.”

“Will do.”

In the elevator, rather than pressing 4, I hit 5. Ethan’s floor. Maybe he wants a little company. Maybe—I wince, feeling like a person on a diet standing in front of the freezer, knowing she’s about to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s—maybe Ethan wouldn’t mind a friendly little tumble. One that means nothing…just a little nooky, a quick shag. Or a longer shag, maybe.

I knock at his door. If he’s home, he’s awake…it’s only ten, and Ethan never goes to bed before 1:00 a.m. Or he didn’t use to, anyway. Whatever the case, there’s no answer. Feeling more deflated than I should, I go back down to my apartment, where Fat Mikey winds himself around my ankles in his traditional attempt to cause my death by tripping me. I pick him up, remind him that he loves me and I live to serve him, and kiss his large head.

Though I know I shouldn’t, I find myself sitting in front of the TV, watching my wedding video once again, Fat Mikey’s comforting bulk at my side. After attempting to find a date tonight, I just need to see Jimmy’s face, see him in motion. Our time together was so brief—so many memories that might’ve been were taken from me the night he died. We have no first anniversary, no birth of our children.

I hit Mute and watch the video in silence, undistracted by the sounds of the music, the laughter, other people talking. Instead I just drink in the sight of Jimmy, frozen in time at age twenty-seven, crazy in love with me.

T
HE FIRST TIME
E
THAN AND
I
SLEPT
together was, um, well…it was memorable.

What brings a woman to sleep with her brother-in-law, after all? I’m going to have to go with honesty here. Sheer horniness.

See, it had been three and a half years. That’s forty-two months of being alone. Things were better, they were. The darkest days were over, when I’d wake up and realize something was wrong but didn’t know what…the desperate, terrifying realization that I’d
never
see Jimmy again, ever…somehow I’d gotten through that yawning, awful black time. Sure, I still had a few bad moments here and there. But I was trying.

Growing up around widows, I’d seen my mother and aunts embrace widowhood as a defining trait. Before all else, they were Widows, and God help me, I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to stay myself, the happy, optimistic person Jimmy had loved…not someone who waved the flag of widowhood wherever she went. Granted, I often felt that the best part of me died with Jimmy, but I tried to radiate the idea that yes, it was awful, but I’d be really okay someday. To try to keep positive, I did a little yoga, taught my pastry class, since baking soothed me even though I couldn’t choke down the results, and listened to Bob
Marley a lot. A line from “No Woman, No Cry” would run through my head whenever I felt that backward pull toward blackness.
Everything’s gonna be all right. Everything’s gonna be all right. Everything’s gonna be all right. Everything’s gonna be all right.
I was managing. Everything
would
be all right, I was determined it would.

And then came my twenty-eighth birthday. And everything was not all right.

Because on that day, suddenly, I was older than my husband ever would be.

As my birthday dawned, I could feel myself sinking into the black hole that had been so hard to crawl out of. I was twenty-eight. Jimmy would never be. I was twenty-eight, widowed, childless, chubbier, paler. My life had been so wonderful with Jimmy and now—I couldn’t avoid the fact today—my life sucked. I was baking bread instead of desserts. I wasn’t featured on the cover of
Bon Appetit
or a guest judge on
Top Chef
. I was nobody in the world of pastry chefs, no one’s wife, no one’s mother, and none of that was likely to change anytime soon. While I was surviving, I was no fun. You get the idea.

When the Black Widows came into the bakery that morning, I told them I was leaving early. I’d never taken a day off from Bunny’s, as the last thing I wanted was too much time on my hands. Iris peered anxiously in my mouth, looking for signs of “the Lou Gehrig’s.” Rose offered me one of her “pep pills,” which I declined (not sure if they were Tic Tacs, cold medicine or Prozac). My own mother said nothing, probably knowing just why I wanted to hide.

The aunts clucked around me like worried hens. After much discussion, they accepted my assurance that the chances of me having ALS were probably not as high as
feared. I told them I was fine…maybe I just needed a makeover, was just feeling blue. My mother gave me a rare hug, said we’d celebrate my birthday tomorrow, and Iris offered me her lipstick (Coral Glow, which she’d been wearing for fifty years and which bore more resemblance to a nuclear spill than anything that God made). I put a little on—it couldn’t hurt, right?—and walked home.

My mood grew heavier as I skirted the park. In there was Jimmy’s grave, incontrovertible evidence that he was not alive. When he first died, I went through all that magical thinking that widows do, coming up with possible scenarios to prove Jimmy’s death was a mistake. That he
had
stopped, for example, at a motel. But someone had stolen his car, and it was that poor thief who died, not Jimmy. (The fact that I’d seen Jimmy’s body at the funeral home was something I’d have been happy to overlook, should he come walking through the doors.) Or that Jimmy worked for the CIA and his death was staged, and any day I’d be getting a call from Zimbabwe or Moscow. Or if I just was brave and strong enough, that Jimmy would come back and tell me I’d done a great job and that he’d be alive again, sorry for the inconvenience, and I could just relax and go back to that sweet, happy life we’d once had.

Now, I forced myself to look in the general direction of my husband’s grave, and a little more magical thinking occurred. “Are you really going to let me be older than you?” I asked, aloud. “Jimmy? You sure about this?”

The challenge went unanswered. With a lump in my throat, I continued on my way.

When I got home, my apartment was still dark, as I hadn’t pulled up the shades. I decided to keep them down, too glum for sun. Then I tripped over Fat Mikey in the gloom, earning an outraged hiss. I heaved a sigh: 10:00 a.m.
on the day when I’d officially be older than my poor dead husband.
Please, God, let this next year be better,
I prayed.
Let me have a little fun.
I hadn’t had much fun since Jimmy died, as God well knew.

Yes. I straightened up. The next year—and all the years thereafter—
should
be fun. Wicked fun, in fact. Jimmy wasn’t coming back, the selfish jerk. (That would be the anger part of grief—it reared its ugly head every once in a while.) I’d have fun, dang it all. I deserved a little fun, didn’t I? “I deserve some fun, Fat Mikey, don’t you think?” I asked my cat. He twitched his tail in agreement, then yawned.

“You’re right,” I said. “No one deserves fun more than a tragic widow. You are one brilliant cat.”

Thus resolved, I opened my fridge, revealing coffee milk, the Rhode Island state drink, sour cream, lemons and a jar of pickles. My freezer contained six pints of Ben & Jerry’s, a bag of peas and a bottle of Absolut vodka. “Perfect,” I declared to my cat. Vodka and coffee milk…an Ocean State version of a White Russian, which, if analyzed, seemed almost to be a healthy breakfast…a little dairy, a little coffee, a little vodka. The drink went down so smoothly that I made myself another. Delicious. I took a few slugs, then poured a teaspoon of coffee milk into Fat Mikey’s dish (no vodka…didn’t want charges filed against me for getting a cat drunk), and he lapped it up. “Only alcoholics drink alone,” I told him, stroking his silky fur. He turned and gently bit my hand, then continued drinking.

Time to do a little inventory. I would greet my new age armed with a perky attitude, sure I would. Slightly dizzy, I decided to take a good hard look at myself, see what needed to change so I could have more fun. Tripping once more over the large mass of fur and fat that was my pet, I
went into my bedroom, stripped naked and stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of my door.

Gah!

My eyes looked bigger, courtesy of the bluish circles underneath them, which I’d acquired the night the state trooper had come to my door. The skin on my face was white, and a little flaky, especially around my chin. Oh, man! When was the last time I’d exfoliated? Bush’s first term? And my hair! I’d had it cut here and there over the past few years, of course, but when was the last time? I couldn’t remember. Just because it was in a ponytail at work didn’t mean it had to be so flat and lifeless…I chugged the rest of my White Russian, needing a little liquid courage, then continued my self-perusal.

And what was this? Cellulite? I didn’t have cellulite! Well, ten pounds ago, I hadn’t had cellulite…How had this happened? And oh, crap, look at those legs. Had shaving been outlawed? Now, granted, I didn’t go around wearing skirts or shorts, not when I was dealing with four hundred degree ovens, but there was no excuse for
this.
I needed to go to the beach and get a little sun, too, because my skin was so white that I could’ve modeled for med students studying the circulatory system. Bluish veins ran under my white skin like mold through a wheel of blue cheese. Those legs hadn’t seen the sun for years. Years! How had that happened?

On to the feet…ew. Hey, if Howard Hughes didn’t need to cut his toenails, apparently neither did I. And my God, those heels! So rough and dry! Gah!

In a sudden frenzy, I pulled on Jimmy’s old robe, yanked open my bathroom cupboard and rummaged in the back. Scissors, terrific. Oh, great, a pumice stone. Forgot all about that thing. Hadn’t used it since I was a newlywed.
Here was some crusty old mud mask guaranteed to minimize my pores and give me “the radiant glow of the Swiss.” I’d never been to Switzerland, but they couldn’t look worse than I did.

The last thing I unearthed was an unopened bottle of spray-on sunless tanner. I checked the expiration date: 08/2004. Well. It probably wouldn’t work, but it was worth a shot. I had to do something. I couldn’t hit twenty-eight looking like something left in the basement for the past decade or so. Besides, what said fun more than a tan? Nothing.

“This calls for another drink, Fat Mikey,” I said. “And yes, you can have some more. But no vodka for you, my feline friend.” White Russians were fun. Girls who drank them…ditto. Fat Mikey watched me, his eyes slits of appreciation, I thought.

Yes. Things in the mirror were better when I studied myself a long while later, though that might’ve been because my eyes were having trouble focusing. I’d only intended to cut my bangs, but I’d done such a good job that I kept going. I looked cute in a ragged, Japanese animé kind of way, the bangs shorter on one side, falling in little points. Adorable. Elfin, really. My face was shiny clean, though I couldn’t seem to get the dried mud off one ear. Even so, it was an improvement.

The tanner hadn’t worked—I was still fish-belly white—but that was okay. At least my heels had a little color now, pink instead of gray…oops, one seemed to be bleeding a little, maybe got a little too energetic with that pumice stone. And the cherry-red nail polish I’d applied was kind of gummy, being that it was quite elderly, so my toes (and fingernails) were maybe a little smeary, but still and all, better. My legs bled in a few places, since my razor was a little dull, but I was smooth, at least. Much better.

Still wrapped in Jimmy’s bathrobe, I meandered into the living room and flopped on the couch. Fat Mikey jumped up and kneaded my stomach—hopefully, he’d break up some of the cellulite—and then curled next to me. I felt better. I’d greet this new age o’mine smoother and cuter than I’d left it. All good. “Don’t I look nice?” I asked my cat. He purred in agreement. “That was fun. We’re going to have some fun, Fat Mikey. Look out, world, here comes the fun.”

Within seconds, I was asleep.

I was awakened by a knock on the door. The apartment, which had been dim to begin with, was now fully dark, and I stumbled to the door, hands outstretched, till I hit the light switch. Flipping it on, I squinted in the abrupt brightness, then peered through the peephole. Ethan. That’s right, it was Friday, so Ethan was home. “Hi,” I said, rubbing an eye as I opened the door.

“Hey, Luce, happy birth—” He broke off suddenly. “Jesus, what happened?”

“Nothing,” I frowned. “Why?” His face was slack with horror. “Ethan. What is it?”

“Did you…do something? To your…”

“What?”

His eyes traveled up and down my form. “Lucy…” He started to say something, then stopped. “Oh, Lucy.” He covered his mouth with one hand.

“What?” I asked again.

“Uh…you…um…” He started laughing. Wheezing, really.

That was it. I fled to the bathroom, took a look in the mirror. And screamed.

My face was bright red, imprinted on the left side from the corduroy pillow on the couch. My right eye still had some grayish-green dried mud on the lid, which was
preventing me from opening it all the way, sort of a stroke victim look going on there…Apparently, the aging mud mask had caused a rash, because my cheeks were red and bumpy. And my hair! Oh, Lord, my hair! Never cut your own hair while intoxicated…sure,
now
I remembered that particular rule. Seems so obvious, doesn’t it? Yet I’d done it, and it looked as if I’d run face-first into a lawn mower, my bangs choppy and irregular, the hair on the left side significantly shorter than the hair on the right.

Then I saw my arms. And my legs.

“No!” I wailed.

Brown and orange streaks covered my formerly white, white skin, except for the patches where the spray tanner had missed. I looked filthy, as if I’d been picking crops in the dust bowl. “No!” I moaned, slamming on the hot water and shoving a facecloth under the stream. I scrubbed the streaks violently, but no. Nothing changed, except my skin grew pinker under the fake tan.

That was it. I burst into tears. Pathetic, that’s what I was. A pathetic, drunken, smeary widow with orange skin, insane asylum hair and a rash. Insult to injury. Not only had God taken my Jimmy…He’d let me go on a White Russian bender while armed with scissors and tan-from-a-can! It was enough to make me an atheist.

“Come on, Lucy, it’s not that bad,” Ethan said from the other side of the bathroom door, his voice carefully controlled. “Seems like you just got a little…” He went silent, and I knew too well that he was laughing.

“Don’t,” I said, yanking open the door. Ethan was bent over, wheezing. I smacked him in the shoulder. “Look at me! This is ridiculous! This is what I get for trying to be fun!”

“Oh, I don’t know. This is pretty fun,” he managed to say.

How could he laugh? “You’re so mean, Ethan,” I sniffled.

“It’s just…you…your legs…and your hair…” He staggered back against the wall, rattling a picture, laughing so hard tears brightened his eyes.

“It’s not funny,” I wailed. “I’m older than Jimmy now, Ethan. I’m a widow, and I’m all alone and look at me! I should never have had those White Russians.”

“You think?” he asked, wiping his eyes.

I smacked him again, tears flooding my eyes, then turned away, hiccupping on a coffee-flavored sob. “I hate you.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he said. “Come on, now, honey, don’t cry.” He took my hand and led me to the living room, pulling me down next to him on the couch, where we’d logged so many hours together, watching movies or playing Extreme Racing USA. Fat Mikey jumped up, then, apparently horrified at how I looked, jumped back down and stalked into the kitchen, tail puffy with fear. Ethan patted my shoulder. “I’ll take you into Providence tomorrow for a good haircut. And the tan stuff will fade. Just, um, try a little Brillo. Maybe some Clorox.” That set him off again.