A Little Bit of Everything Lost (2 page)

Marnie’s heart shot up double-time and she grabbed the railing to sit on the stairs in the foyer. She took a deep breath, and reminded herself to at least sound cool.

“Hi.”

“So, I told you I would call.”

“Yeah, you remembered the number.”
He remembered the number!

“There’s no way I would have forgotten.”

She paused, looked out the front window at the huge oak tree in the yard, the one she used to climb when she was little. She tried to think of something witty to say. She went blank.

“So, how drunk were you last night?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Just wondering if you do that a lot.”

“Do what?” Marnie asked.

“You know. Kiss strange boys.”

“I didn’t think you were
that
strange.”

Joe laughed. She had broken the ice. It would be fine.

“You feeling okay today?” he asked. “Were you hungover?”

“No. I didn’t drink that much. I had to drive, remember?”

Of course, she knew he remembered. He had walked them outside, the air had been still, and for once, free from the mosquitoes that plagued them during the thick humid summers in Illinois. The night was cool, a gift from a recent thunderstorm. Collette had been swaying, and Joe helped Marnie get her into the passenger’s seat. They walked to the driver’s side and he opened the door for Marnie, but before she got in, he pulled her to him. She could feel the heat of his body, and she moved closer to him. His lips brushed her neck, and he whisper-groaned, “You smell so good.” Then, they were kissing again, their bodies pressed against one another, while Collette slumped in the car, her head flung forward over her lap, mumbling something about bed spins, and then she laughed, and said, “How can I be bed-spinnin’ if I’m not even in bed?”

“I should get her home,” Marnie pulled away.

“You’re a good friend.” He closed the door after Marnie got into the car, and leaned into the open window. She could smell his cologne and wanted to ask him what kind it was, because she felt like she might like to bathe in it. But asking about his cologne seemed too personal. Even after all they had done on the bed earlier. Even after all the kissing, she didn’t want to ask what kind of cologne he was wearing.

“Drive safe.” He reached into the car, grabbed the seat belt, lazily grazed his fingers along the line from her should
ers to waist and buckled Marnie’s belt. Joe kissed her on the lips once more, soft and slowly, his lips full and with purpose, his hand tilting her chin toward him. It took everything she had to turn on the car and drive away. If Collette hadn’t been in the front seat about to puke, she would have… Well, it had been a good thing Marnie had to be responsible for someone other than herself last night.

Back on the phone, he asked, “I didn’t wait three days like a guy’s supposed to wait to call.”

“That’s good.”

“It is?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” Marnie replied.

“Then I guess it would be okay to say I want to see you again? Or is that too forward?”

She laughed. But said nothing. She didn’t want him to think she was easy, but maybe she had been. Too easy. Marnie decided she didn’t care.

“Well?” Joe asked, when she didn’t answer.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, it’s too forward?” Joe asked again.

“No.” Marnie said.

“No, it’s too forward, or no, you don’t want to see me again?”

“No, it’s not too forward,” Marnie said, “and yeah, it would be okay to see you again.”

“When?” he asked.

“When do you want to see me?”

“Is tonight too soon?” he asked.

“No, tonight would be okay. My parents are away. I’m having a party. Come.”

**

Her parents were away for the summer, at their lake house in Michigan. While Marnie had grown up spending summers at the lake, water-skiing and tanning, this summer she needed money, so she was working at The Bean. She also wanted to take a photography course at the community college so she could take an advanced course in the fall. Since her dad was a professor and would be busy writing his class schedule, and her mom would be reading and sewing, Marnie didn’t feel like she would be missed at the lake. After some pleading, her parents had agreed to let her stay home on her own. And what better way to make use of the empty house but to throw a kegger?

After the party, long after the keg went dry, and after everybody had gone home, Joe and Marnie were still awake, the blue afterglow from MTV casting shadows on their faces. They were on the floor this time, in her bedroom surrounded by blankets and pillows. And even though she wore silky blue panties instead of yellow cotton Hanes, she made him stop again. Going all the way would have been like giving him his walking papers. Marnie was smarter than that.

Their lips were chapped, they had explored practically every part of one another; she had inhaled him so deeply she felt she could be sucked into his skin. He wore
Obsession
– she had asked, he had told her. She wanted to eat the smell up, to taste it on every part of his body. It was so heady, strong, so perfect of a smell; it matched him. She knew, at that moment, no matter where things led, that scent would always remind her of him and their experiences. And the thought both frightened and excited her.

Joe threaded his fingers through her hair gently, then tugged at the ends a little, but she liked that. She liked making him think he could maybe get further, that she could be swayed, even though she knew she wouldn’t give in that night.

Breathe.
That was the name of the band on MTV. And she tried to remember to do that. To breathe. Because that night, it was so very hard to do.

She wanted to open up his brain and pluck the words from his head, hear the thoughts he was having about her. She felt Joe was different. This would be something extraordinary. Even at nineteen, she could sense this. And she wanted to know everything about him, already.

She wanted to dig into his mind, excavate it, rotate the soil inside and bring up fresh dirt. She wanted to seed new experiences, till new memories created just between the two of them.

Chapter Six
October 2004

“Mommy! Daddy’s on the phone!” Trey called from his spot on the floor as he watched Jeremy play Tony Hawk’s Skateboard Fantasia on Xbox.

Marnie grabbed a kitchen towel and dried her hands. She had finally gotten to the dishes from dinner and her back ached. She took the phone from Trey just as he was yelling that it was his turn to play. Marnie cringed. This was one of those times she wondered how they would have managed another child, and then the guilt crept in and she was overcome with grief.

But seriously, all Jeremy and Trey did was fight, especially when Stuart was traveling. And they punched each other. And made Marnie crazy. She imagined a girl would have been easier. And then there was another layer of that guilt and grief that took her back to June. She buried it back down and focused on Stuart. Went into the flat-line autopilot mode she managed so well.

“Hi.”

“Hey babe, just checking in. How’s your day been?”

“Typical. The boys are arguing, they still don’t know what they want to be for Halloween, I’m behind on a couple of photo edits I have to do, the raccoons ripped through the garbage cans you forgot to put out before you left, and I’m working on a mega migraine right now, counting down to bedtime.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry, Stuart. Not your fault. How was your flight?”

“The first leg was delayed, so we had a lot of angry passengers, but we made up some time with the tailwinds.”

Stuart was a commercial pilot; had been a pilot before they met. While that had attracted Marnie to him, that wasn’t what first drew her to her husband. It had been the softness in his eyes, there was something in him that showed her he was a caring man. She knew, right away somehow, that he would care for her. And that he would be an amazing father.

But the fact that he was a pilot, working in a glamorous field, well, that was definitely exciting. Free travel anytime they wanted. And they did travel. A lot. In the beginning they took vacations all of the time – to the Orient, to faraway beaches, to visit family across the country. On a whim, for quick weekend getaways, they’d go to the airport and wait stand-by and go somewhere. Just because they could.

Now though, Stuart just traveled a lot. Every Monday morning he was out the door, taking people places. Businessmen to conferences. Grievers to funerals. Vacationers to beaches. Annoying families to Disney. Gamblers and drunks to Vegas. But every Thursday by noon he was back home. He had what other pilots envied – the perfect schedule – a really easy work week. He’d be home Thursdays and they’d have the weekends together, which usually were crammed with soccer games and birthday parties, play dates, yard work, photo shoots for Marnie, house work and laundry. There was rarely an opportunity for anything else – maybe in the summer some pool time, the occasional neighborhood barbecue, or a quick overnighter to her parent’s Michigan lake house, but not much else. Although this past summer, they hadn’t even had the luxury of anything that resembled normal.

Yet even before what had happened in June, Marnie had felt a crack, a tiny tremor in her life, in their family, in her and Stuart’s relationship. Too much of what was supposed to be there went missing. She didn’t know when it was lost, or what exactly
had
been lost, but the busyness of regular life seemed to heave its way into whatever it was that it used to be, and now there was no room for anything else. Hardly any room to breathe most days. She feared an earthquake had hit and she was living in the aftershock of it. She didn’t know how to quiet the shaking, that maybe the eruption had been too much, and didn’t know how to stop the harmful aftershocks, didn’t know how to calm the quake, wasn’t sure if it wasn’t better to just let it happen and take cover for when it did.

And she knew it wasn’t Stuart’s fault. He was a good husband, a wonderful father. Yet she also knew it wasn’t her fault either – not all of it.

He couldn’t be blamed for what happened with Joe fifteen years ago. He wasn’t to blame for the earthquake of the past summer. And he certainly couldn’t be blamed for Marnie and her complex feelings. Who’s to blame when love and life get complicated? Were they living too close to the fault line and had the earthquakes of their lives already done the damage?

Chapter Seven
July 1988

“For next week, I’d like you to bring in photos representing motion, and we’ll discuss what that means to you and how to capture motion in photographs.” Marnie’s photography professor lifted his glasses from his face and began wiping them clean. “Thank you, you may go now.”

Marnie was packing up her camera when she felt eyes on her, and she looked up, surprised to see Joe at the door to her class.

“Mr. Pelcer? How many photos do you want for next week?” one of the students asked.

“A sampling of ten to fifteen would be an accurate grouping of about four different motion ideas.”

As the students moved about the classroom to leave, one guy Marnie knew vaguely, Rob, stopped by her desk. “Hey, some of us are going out for pizza, do you want to come?”

“Thanks Rob, but I think someone has other plans for me,” and she nodded her head in Joe’s direction.

“Your boyfriend?” Rob asked.

“Guess you could kinda say so. Sort of.”

“Lucky guy.”

Marnie laughed. “Have fun tonight. Maybe I’ll catch up with you guys next week though?”

“Sure thing. See you next week.”

“’Kay, bye.”

Marnie grabbed her camera bag and slung it over her shoulder, then reached down for her notebook. The room had cleared and Joe made his way to Marnie.

“Hey, you.”

“Hi, how’d you find my classroom?”

“A little detective work.”

“I’d say so, we’re all the way in the back of campus.”

“You not happy that I’m here?”

“No, it’s not that,” Marnie said. “I’m just surprised, that
’s all. I had no idea you were coming. I’m totally happy to see you.”

“Good. By the way, I saw that guy hitting on you,” Joe
teased.

“Rob? He wasn’t hitting on me. Everyone’s going for pizza and he invited me along. But I said no.”

“You said no?”

“I said no.”

“How come?”

“Because you’re here, and I want to be with you.”

Joe took the camera bag from Marnie and then placed his arm around her waist, leading her out the door to the now darkened hallway. “So, you have to go shoot some things in motion, huh?”

“Yep, some things in motion,” Marnie repeated.

“Come on, I’ve got a great idea, if you’re up for starting your assignment now?”