The Life List (The List Trilogy) (21 page)

But freedom’s gonna come with a hefty price…I’ll be called a failure, a cheater, and the bad guy.
The big three I never wanted to be
. The big three that scare me so much that I’ve considered living an unfulfilling Francesca-like life instead of confronting. But dammit, I don’t want to die feeling obligated, unfulfilled, and heartbroken like she did! Those three things kick the big three’s ass! And so there you have it; the big three are my price for freedom. And the sooner I get over what everyone else thinks of the cost, the better. Only I know my life’s true worth.

At tonight’s therapy session I learned that I don’t want the evening to end with jalapeño poppers and garlic cheese fries. I want it to end with Kurt realizing we’re a hopeless cause. I want him to throw his hands in the air and suggest we go our separate ways because he can’t possibly love me the way I need to be loved. I want him to make this easy for me. But that’ll never happen because no matter how fractured we are, Kurt will
never
divorce me. You see, when he starts something, he finishes it. No matter if he’s lost for days without water on a remote hiking trail or starving because a bear ate his food two days into a five day expedition, the dude never asks for help and he NEVER gives up. Regardless of how exhausting and completely idiotic his actions might seem, he’s committed to the bitter end of whatever it is he starts…unless, of course, there’s adultery involved. But let’s see if I can end this marriage without being exposed as the devil incarnate. I’m gonna look bad enough already.

Yep, tonight’s therapy session taught me one thing. Ending this marriage will be my responsibility, and staying in it will be my sacrifice. I still don’t know which is more daunting.

Good Times

April, 1998

Tonight’s my eleven year high school reunion. Why an eleven-year reunion and not a ten-year reunion like most normal classes have? Easy, everyone from my graduating class is a fucking moron, especially the dude we left in charge to plan this kind of stuff. Oh…he
tried
to have the reunion on time; he set the date for June 16, 1997, exactly ten years to the date of our high school graduation day.

I was at work when I opened the invitation. It was printed in black and white on a piece of crappy printer paper, and it was inviting the class of ‘87 to “get crazy” at the Stargaze arcade located in the heart of Freakmont.
An arcade
? What the fuck kind of fun are we gonna have there, and what kind of cute outfit would fit in at a place like that? It’s not like cleavage and high heels would work! But most importantly, I want patron tequila, not pacman! I promptly called our so-called reunion coordinator and told him he was a douche and that if he didn’t immediately send out a notice cancelling the reunion and notifying the class that I would be taking over to plan a more respectable affair, I’d show up to that arcade and make his life hell. He did as he was told. It felt like high school all over again! Good times.

It took a year to finalize all of the details and give our class the glamorous reunion it deserved. Aside from my wedding, it was the most fun I’d ever had planning an event… and I kept it completely hidden from Kurt. Not because I didn’t want him to attend the event with me!  Are you kidding, that was the thing I was looking forward to the very most! I couldn’t wait to show up with him
and
my huge wedding ring and then brag about our new house in Danville. High school Ken and Barbie were definitely gonna show up in full force!

The reason I didn’t tell Kurt I was planning the reunion was because he would’ve just criticized my involvement. He’d go on and on about all the time the planning was taking away from him and my job, all the ways I’d probably lose money on the event, and he’d ridicule my need to always be the center of attention. Okay, so he probably would’ve been right to ridicule me about that last one, but as far as everything else goes, there was no time lost at work to pull off the reunion, and all of the planning I did at home was done long after he went to bed. And Kurt was
way
off on the money thing. I price- gauged the hell out of everyone and actually profited on the event. I considered it money owed to me after the great economics test fiasco of 1987.

I got the harebrained idea to plan my high school reunion a year ago, back when I
thought
Kurt and I were happy. There’s NO WAY I would’ve propelled myself to the front and center of all of the faces of my past if I thought for one minute I’d have to show up without him. But it’s a year later and a lot has happened…Leo has happened. I take the freedom revelations I had from my last therapy session very seriously, and if I ask Kurt to attend my class reunion with me, he won’t think we’re a hopeless cause. This reunion has to be my first attempt at facing my fear of failure- just one of the big three roadblocks to my freedom, and I have to go alone.

Courtney, Nicole, Kelly and I are getting ready in one of the rooms at the hotel where the reunion is, and their husbands, all ex-football buddies of Kurt’s, are pounding beers in the room next to us. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that none of them are very happy with me. I hear Craig say something about, “It won’t be the same without him,” and Kyle chimes in with “Even though he wasn’t in our class, he’s the one everyone wants to see.”  Then fucking Guss raises his beer bottle and says, “Here’s to Kurt.” Assholes.

“Just ignore them, Chrissy, they don’t know what they’re saying, they’re drunk.”

I take a sip of my wine while I glare at Nicole. She knows full well those guys know exactly what they’re saying. Then I walk into the bathroom and close the door. I look down at my hand for a really long time before I slip my Banana Republic ring off of my finger. For weeks, I’ve been wearing it lieu of my wedding ring. It’s been easy to use my weight loss as an excuse for the substitute, but the truth is not many people noticed. Not even Kurt. I carefully place the ring on the counter and then take my wedding ring out of my purse. I stare at it, too, for a really long time before I slip it into place. Then I ask myself, which ring gets me closer to my freedom goal? Knowing the answer, I take my wedding ring off. But, which one will spare me total embarrassment? Good Lord, what are those Freakmontians gonna say when I walk in there without my ring
and
without Kurt!? I can’t do this fear-facing bullshit! Why is this happening to me? Why now!?

“Chrissy, you ready to go?”

“Be right out.”

Staring at my jewelry for a minute longer, and feeling the pressure to hurry up and pick a piece, I gently place the rings on a towel and close my eyes. I wrap them up, shake them, and then unfold the towel. Without opening my eyes I tell myself the first one I touch is the one I wear.

“Shit.”

Other than Kyle’s burp, it’s silent on the elevator ride down to the ballroom. I can tell that half of the gang is nervous for me and the other half is bitter that their evening won’t be half as much fun as it would be if Kurt were here. I tightly wrap my right hand over my left hand to touch
and
conceal my ring. I’m looking straight ahead at the shiny metal elevator doors and the reflection I see of all of us in our fancy clothes makes me think back to my senior prom. My heart and mind were a mess way back then, too, but for entirely different reasons than they are right now.

*****

May, 1987

“Omigod, you guys! I’m gonna wear peach!”

“Like you’re gonna look hella good in that color, Chrissy! You’re totally gonna dye your shoes to match, right?”

“Fer sure, Nicole! Like, I’m not an animal, I know how to merchandise myself!”

The fashion events leading up to my senior prom were supremely fabulous. Courtney, Nicole, Kelly and I color-coordinated our prom dresses so that we wouldn’t color clash in any group photos. We knew we’d be splattered all over the year book, and no stone was left unturned to make sure every shot would be
Seventeen
magazine-worthy. Everything down to our rhinestone earrings and dyed-to-match bow ties for our boyfriends were ready to go weeks before the prom. I
wish
the same degree of fabulosity could be said about my relationship events leading up to the big event. Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure if Kurt was going with me. He had graduated a year earlier and felt like one prom was enough in his lifetime. He was having trouble choosing between the most important event to date in my life and the college softball world series. Yep, that’s my competition.

Ever since I met him a year ago, I haven’t felt like I stood at the top of his fun list. Unless, of course, if I agreed to go along with whatever activity he planned for himself, then I made the cut. But I feel like my prom should be different, it should be something that he’s able to separate his feelings about and go along with because it’s important to me. Isn’t that what all normal guys do? I mean, other than the four gay guys in our class, what guy
really
wants to put on a tux, pay for a limo, and attend a prom!? Exactly… none! But they do it anyway for the special girl in their life who they hope to bang in the back of that limo at the end of the night. Why can’t Kurt be that sweet? I want to ask him but I learned that he doesn’t like to be pestered about things he doesn’t care about. He wouldn’t get angry at me, he’d just flat out refuse to go to my prom out of contempt for being questioned and then I’d really be screwed. My only hope is that Craig, Guss, and Kyle convince him to go or the college softball world series is a close out. But since I haven’t told my girlfriends about Kurt’s potential no-show, because it’s shameful, I can forget about their boyfriends helping me out. Time to start watching college softball so I can track the fate of my future.

And
…my future doesn’t look so bright. The softball series is tied 3-3, with the tie breaking game set for, of course, tonight…prom night. Staring at myself in my bedroom mirror, covered in peach from head to toe, I curse myself!
Oh, why couldn’t I have befriended one of those four gay guys
!?

“What time does the limo show up?”

Looking at the hello kitty clock on my nightstand, I let out a heavy sigh and tell Courtney, “In about five minutes.”

“Why so sad, Chrissy? I mean, you look mega cute.”

And I do. My strapless form-fitted floor-length peach taffeta creation turned out way better than I expected. My shoes and purse are dyed to match to perfection, and I could NOT have asked for a better hair day. Total redemption from junior prom! All that being said…it makes perfect sense that Kurt won’t show up and I won’t be able to rub my splendor in everyone’s face. This sucks.

Just as I’m about to confess my horrible secret to the girls my mom bursts into my room, cigarette dangling from her lower lip, and pissed that she had to walk away from Phil Donahue to tell us, “Limo’s here girls. Don’t be too late tonight. Doors lock at 1am. You come home any later and you sleep on the porch. Capish?”

In unison we let out a patronizing, “
Caaaaaaapiiiiish
”

On the way down the long hallway, which feels more like a walk to death row, I’m wondering how I’m gonna pay for my portion of the limo.

“You guys, stop. I can’t go! I feel totally moted!”

Peering out the front door, Nicole belts out, “Like no way! I’m the one that’s moted!”

“What are you talking about?”

“The corsage that Kurt’s holding…it’s the one I wanted, but Kyle’s such a fucking cheapskate he wouldn’t pop for it! I’m so hating you right now, Chrissy Anderson.”

Almost knocking down the hundred and twenty-five pounds of taffeta that exists between the three of my friends, I whiz out the front door and run into the arms of my knight and shining armor.

“You’re here!”

“I was always gonna come, babe.”

“Then why couldn’t you just tell me that, why put me through all of this torture?”

“I dunno, I guess I just don’t like it when you put so much emphasis into trying to impress other people. I wanted you to focus on something else.”

A lesson
? Kurt used my prom to teach me a lesson?! Shouldn’t I react according to how fucked up that is? He put me through hell for the last four weeks! He sucked whatever morsel of pre-prom fun I’ve dreamed of experiencing for the last four years of high school! He made me think I wasn’t special! I have to react accordingly! But…he looks so handsome. Everything about us is so perfect right now. I can’t be the one to spoil this night for everyone…mostly myself. And after all, he may have a point. He just wants me to be a better person. What’s not to love about that?

“I guess you’re right.”

After a sweet kiss on my lips and a look that tells me he’s always right, he yells out, “Limo’s on me guys! Now let’s party!”

*****

Another obnoxious burp from Kyle knocks me back into my present dilemma. The one where I either stake out the nearest emergency exit and make a run for it before the idiots from the class of 1987 notice I’m solo or face them head-on and admit my marriage failure. Like the snake I am, I slither my way to the back of the elevator to give myself more time to make a choice. My heart is about to pop out of my skin. What was I thinking by choosing my high school class reunion as my coming out alone party? Sure I was full of all kinds of freedom conviction when I left Dr. Maria’s office last time, but that was like a whole entire week ago! More than enough time to turn back into the fear-infested Francesca that I am.

Think, think, think, think, think. I know! I’ll make up a story about Kurt arriving later and then I’ll call him and beg him to show up. Nah, he’s most likely off on some kind of hiking or biking excursion. Maybe I can tell everyone he had to go out of town on business! Shit, that won’t work. It’ll only be a matter of minutes before his drunk meathead football buddies throw me under the bus. Who am I kidding, at least half of my graduating class showed up at this thing to see Kurt Gibbons. They’re gonna demand answers. It’ll be a mere matter of minutes before I’m laughed at and people start asking me for refunds…again. I’m so screwed. The elevator makes its crash landing and the doors open a lot faster than I want them to. Fuck me.