IT WAS JUST A simple phone call. Nothing more, nothing less. Thousands of people made them every day. I flipped open my cell phone, punched in a few digits, and promptly hung up. For the third time.
It was just that so much was riding on this. If Alex and Gary were having problems, and if those problems were even remotely connected to Bradley . . . well, then I’d feel like a complete fool if I made this call.
Rationally, I knew Alex could be stressed about her wedding. Or something could be happening at her job. There could be a hundred explanations for why she’d been drawing closer to our family lately, and for why Gary hadn’t been in the picture much. But every time I remembered Alex and Bradley together—the photographs he’d taken when they thought they were alone; the way he’d looked at her when she talked about his mother—terror galloped through me.
But Alex was
engaged
, I reminded myself. Maybe she and Bradley had had a few nice conversations and a shared bottle of wine at a Thai restaurant. So they were becoming friends. I could learn to handle that.
Jump
, Matt had said.
If I were going to screw up my life, why stop at halfway? Why not go down in a giant, screaming fireball? After all, I’d always been an overachiever. I picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hey,” I said when he answered. It was our old high school greeting; we’d never needed to identify ourselves on the phone. I hoped Bradley would still recognize my voice; if not, there was always the innovation of caller ID to soothe my ego.
“I was just going to call you,” he said, and the tight knot of worry in my stomach loosened.
“So I’ve got a plan,” I said, glad he couldn’t see the goofy smile spreading across my face.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Nope,” I said. “But I’ll pick you up next Saturday at six.”
“Saturday?” He paused and the knot tightened again. The pause seemed to stretch forever.
“Just checking my schedule,” he said. “I’m working that night. Is next Sunday okay?”
“Perfect,” I said.
“Sure you can’t give me a hint?” Bradley said.
“Mmm,” I said. “Bring an appetite. I’ll take care of everything else.”
I hung up the phone and leaned back against my car’s seat. I shut my eyes and pumped my fist into the air. I’d finally done it.
After a moment, I stepped out of the car and walked up the front steps to Jane’s house. I’d driven here before making the call because I hadn’t wanted to risk making it from home. With my luck, Dad would pick up the other phone and punch in numbers and start bellowing his Chinese food order at me while Mom stood in the hallway, pressing her ear to a glass she was holding against my bedroom door.
I didn’t want my family to know anything about next Sunday
night. It was just for Bradley and me. It was finally time for me to find out where I stood with him.
I rang Jane’s bell at seven o’clock on the nose; I was right on time.
“Katie, can you get the door?” I heard Jane call.
Katie said something I couldn’t make out.
“No, it’s okay if Mommy asks you to,” Jane said. “You’re not allowed to open it unless I say so, though.”
Katie’s high little voice asked another question.
“Yes, I’m asking you to open it,” Jane said. “It’s not a stranger. It’s Lindsey.”
Another squeaky question.
“I know it’s Lindsey because I can see her out the window! Can you just— You know what, never mind. Mommy will get the door.”
A second later the door was flung open, and Jane stood there in a bathrobe and red high-heeled shoes. “Don’t say a word,” she warned me, then burst into tears.
“They’re not that bad,” I told her, opening the screen door and letting myself in.
“They’re awful,” Jane said through a half sob, half laugh. “What was I thinking?”
I peered at her bangs. If you could call them bangs; they were so short they were more like a mini-Mohawk.
“I was just going to trim them a little,” Jane said, wiping her eyes. “Then the left side looked shorter than the right, so I trimmed the left side. But then the right side was shorter so I tried to—”
“Even them up again?” I ventured.
“Then again,” she moaned. “And again. It was like a seesaw. Oh, Lord, I’m a nightmare. Look at me!”
I mentally reviewed the tips May had given me, but I was
pretty sure she hadn’t covered a haircut by Edward Scissor-hands.
“I never should’ve done this,” Jane said, her lower lip trembling. “The guy’s going to take one look at me and run away screaming.”
I had to take control, fast. “Come on,” I said, grabbing her hand and dragging her into the kitchen. “The first thing we need is a glass of wine.”
“Is there some kind of trick for fixing hair with wine?” Jane asked eagerly, sloshing some Chardonnay into a plastic cup with a cartoon character on the side, the kind they give out to kids at restaurants.
“No,” I said. “Take a big gulp. No, that was a sip. I want you to take a gulp. Feel better?”
“A little,” Jane said.
“Now about those bangs,” I said. “Let me take a closer look.”
I peered at them and ran my fingers through them, murmuring like a doctor: “Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.”
“Don’t move a muscle,” I said. I hurried out to the car, opened the trunk, and grabbed the makeup kit I’d been keeping hidden near the spare tire. I made Jane sit down in the living room, where the light was good, and I opened my case.
“Close your eyes,” I instructed, and I swept her bangs back and to the side, anchoring them into place with a big squirt of my grapefruit-scented hair spray.
“That’s better already,” I said, tapping my lower lip with my index finger. “But we need something else.”
I looked around the living room but didn’t see anything I could use.
“Can I check your closet?” I asked.
“Please,” Jane said. “Maybe you can find me something to
wear while you’re there. I just put on some pants and discovered a muddy little handprint on the butt. What was I thinking? I’m not ready for dating yet. I’m a disaster.”
I left her babbling there and dashed upstairs. I whipped through Jane’s closet, finally settling on a dress with a loose, silky sash. The dress was hopelessly out of date, but I had plans for the sash. I liberated it from the belt loops and raced back downstairs.
“Let me tie back your hair,” I said, wrapping the sash around her head, close to the hairline so it covered up her bangs. “Let the ends trail over your shoulders like this, so it looks like a long scarf. You look like a chic Frenchwoman. Perfect!”
Jane stood up and checked a mirror.
“It looks good!” she said. “Can you come over and do this every morning for the next month?”
With her mangled bangs swept off her face, Jane still looked young and fresh-faced, but somehow she seemed elegant, too.
When the doorbell rang five minutes later, Jane was ready. She was wearing a black skirt and a simple plum-colored sweater that we’d rolled with Scotch tape to get off the guinea pig hair, and a dash of my lipstick.
Jane looked at me and grinned. “It’s him!”
“I know,” I whispered.
“I’m really nervous,” Jane said.
“It’ll be okay,” I promised. “Just breathe.”
She inhaled deeply. “I feel a little better now.”
“Open the door,”
I mouthed to her. What was it with this family?
“Oh, right,” she said.
She pulled open the door, and standing there was the podiatrist I’d picked for her. He was in his mid-forties, never married, and he was on the shy side. But his smile was kind, and so were his blue eyes.
“I’m Toby,” he said, clearing his throat.
“I’m Jane,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Do you want to come in?”
“Sure,” Toby said, stepping into the living room. He was extremely tall, and his shirtsleeves weren’t long enough to cover his wrists, but he was holding a bouquet of daffodils. I felt like a fairy godmother, watching the two of them smile nervously at each other.
“I’m Lindsey,” I told him. “Nice to meet you in person.”
“And these,” Jane said as Katie and Chris raced into the room, “are my twins.”
Toby looked down at them. “Hi.”
“You’re big,” Katie informed him somberly.
“I know,” Toby said agreeably.
“Why are your feet so big?” asked Chris.
“Because my arms are so long,” Toby said. “Want to see a trick?”
Both kids nodded, so he pushed up his sleeves and took off one of his shoes. He sat down on the floor and bent over, so his right forearm was on the floor against his right foot.
“See how they’re the same size? Every grown-up is built the same way. Their feet and their lower arms are the same length,” Toby said.
“Really?” Jane asked. “That’s amazing.”
I liked the way Toby explained things simply to her kids, without talking down to them.
“Oh,” Toby said. “These are for you.” He put on his shoe, but not before I noticed he had a little hole in the heel of his brown sock. He stood up and handed the daffodils to Jane.
“Thank you,” she said, her smile growing wider. “I’ll just put these in some water.”
She hurried off to the kitchen as Toby stood there, rocking back and forth on his heels. He was definitely nervous now that
he wasn’t imparting an anatomy lesson to the kids; I could feel anxiety coming off him in waves.
I stood on my tiptoes and whispered into his ear, “I think she likes you.”
He looked taken aback for a second, then hopeful. “Really?”
“Definitely,” I whispered, smiling up at him and trying to will him some confidence. “You’re going to have a great time tonight. She’s a lucky woman.”
“You look, um, really nice,” he said when Jane came back into the room.
Go, Toby,
I cheered him silently.
There was a brief bit of confusion at the door, as Jane went to open it at the same moment as Toby tried to hold it open for her and Katie let out a wail upon realizing her mom was leaving, but Jane managed to sort everything out with a quick whispered bribe of ice cream.
“Have fun,” I called after them, closing the door with satisfaction; then I turned to the twins.
“Ice cream,” Katie demanded, her hands on her tiny hips. Something about the way she was standing reminded me of Alex as a kid.
“Find me!” Chris ordered, racing upstairs.
I sensed I wasn’t going to get a moment to bask in my matchmaking success. “Here’s the plan,” I told Katie. “I’ll find your brother, then I’ll get you some ice cream.”
“Ice cream first,” she said, canny as a New York City lawyer at the settlement table.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had ice cream together?” I asked her in the fake-bright tone I’ve noticed parents using when they’re trying to convince their kids to do something the kids are hell-bent on not doing. I remembered too late that the fake-bright tone only seems to piss kids off more.
“Ice cream!” Katie hollered. I promptly caved (tough love,
that’s my philosophy) and gave her a scoop, then went upstairs to find her brother.
“He’s not in the bathtub!” I said merrily. “Not in the closet! Not under the bed!”
Where the hell was that kid? Ten minutes later I was panicked. I’d lost a kid. This was definitely a fireable offense, worse even than throwing down a colleague on a conference room table.
Just then my cell phone rang:
Jacob
.
“Hey, you,” I said, trying to sound relaxed and in control.
“I’m heading out on my date now,” he said.
“That’s great,” I said, huffing as I ran back downstairs. “Hang on a second.”
I pressed the phone to my side to muffle my voice.
“Chris? If you come out I’ll give you a surprise!” I yelled.
I raised the phone to my ear again. “Jacob?”
“I’m still here,” he said. “I’m about to go into the restaurant. I just . . . I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Are you nervous?” I asked as I threw aside the sofa cushions and peeked under the dining room table again.
“A little,” Jacob said. “And . . . well, I like talking to you.”
I pushed the button to mute my phone, bellowed, “Chris!” and unmuted it.
“I like talking to you, too,” I said.
“Is this a bad time?” Jacob asked. “You sound kind of busy.”
“No!” I said, wiping my sweaty brow with the back of my hand. “Everything’s great.”
“Anyway, I had a huge favor to ask,” he said. “I need some new clothes, if I’m going to be dating again. Will you go shopping with me? I hate shopping, and I always end up grabbing a black sweater to appease the salespeople and get out of the store. I probably have nine of them, and none of them fit right.”
Where the hell was that kid?
“Sure,” I said as I yanked open the stove and peered inside. “I can definitely help you break your black sweater addiction. It’s a specialty of mine.”