The Opposite of Me (33 page)

“Thanks,” Jacob said.

“And have fun with Jimena tonight,” I said before I hung up, feeling a little twinge of . . . could it be envy? I imagined sitting across from Jacob in a cozy little booth, maybe leaning in to taste his drink while holding his eyes with my own.

“More ice cream?” Katie asked, appearing at my side.

Oh, God.
Chris!

Suddenly I had visions of Chris being trapped in an old refrigerator—not that there was an old refrigerator around, but it was the sort of thing my father warned us about incessantly when we were growing up. (He also warned us about standing fans and seemed to take a perverse pleasure in showing us how the rotating blades could snap pencils in two. “That’s what’ll happen to your fingers if you put them in there,” he’d say to us, solemnly holding up a stump of a pencil, and he’d leave it on the dining room table as an ominous warning. We were terrified of the fan for about a week, then Alex decided to see what else it could snap. She made it through a ruler, a wooden mixing spoon, and a chicken bone before breaking it on the handle of Dad’s tennis racket. Which wasn’t a great loss, since he’d given up on the game after whacking himself in the eye while learning to serve.)

There weren’t any standing fans around Jane’s house, were there? Or sharp-edged tables that could take out an eye, flammable clothing, open bottles of Drāno, or men in raincoats? (Dad had a lot of safety concerns.)

“I’ll give you the best surprise in the world,” I promised desperately as I raced upstairs again. “Just come out!”

A second later the cabinet door underneath the bathroom sink opened, and a tiny rumpled head poked out. How had he
managed to squeeze in there? He was like a miniature Chinese contortionist.

“I want your trophy,” Chris said. “That’s my surprise.”

“What trophy?” I asked, sinking onto the edge of the bathtub in exhaustion.

“For being the best kid finder,” he said. “You said you got it from the mayor.”

A crash came from downstairs, and I shot upright again. “Katie!”

I ran down the stairs and found her in the middle of the kitchen, her bowl in pieces on the tile floor beside her. A chocolate puddle was forming on the floor, and she look like she’d grown a brown beard.

“My ice cream broke,” she said helpfully. “More.”

An hour later I’d stuffed both kids with ice cream, soaked them in the tub, and cleaned up the tsunami of water they’d splashed on the bathroom floor. I tucked them into bed and darted around the room, collecting the various stuffed animals they demanded. I fetched cups of water, took them to the bathroom again, rearranged their stuffed animals twice, answered several unsettling questions (“Do boogers have vitamins?” “Why is your bottom bigger than Mommy’s?”), and picked out bedtime stories. But first we underwent fierce negotiations:

Katie: “Three books!”

Me: “Just one!”

Chris: “Three!”

Me: “Oh, hell.”

Katie: “Oh, hell.”

Me: “No, no, I said, ‘Oh, bells!’ ”

Katie and Chris: Suspicious looks.

Before I’d gotten to the end of the second book, all three of us were asleep. That’s how Jane found me a few hours later when she came home from her date—curled up on an animal-print
rug in a kinder version of nature in which tigers and zebras frolicked together joyfully.

“They weren’t any trouble, were they?” she asked.

“None at all,” I lied brightly, rubbing my eyes and staggering downstairs. “How was the date?”

“Fun,” Jane said. “He was a little shy at first, but he opened up after a while. We’ve got a lot in common. We were both born in Delaware. Isn’t that interesting?”

I could tell she liked him; it wasn’t
that
interesting.

“So do you want me to set you up with more guys, or do you want to see how this one plays out?” I asked.

Jane thought for a minute.

“I don’t really have time to juggle a lot of dates,” she said.

“I understand,” I said.

“And I can’t be going out all the time,” she said, frowning.

“Definitely,” I agreed.

“It wouldn’t be fair to the twins if I were gone every night,” she said.

“True,” I said.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“Maybe we should see what happens with Toby,” I said. “If it doesn’t work out, we can go to Plan B.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Jane said doubtfully.

She tried to give me some money for babysitting, but I batted it away.

“At least let me treat you to dinner or something,” Jane said.

“Tell you what,” I said. “If things work out with you and Toby, I get invited to the wedding.”

Jane smiled shyly. “Deal.”

We headed downstairs, and she collapsed onto the sofa. I glanced at my watch and idly wondered if Jacob was home from his date, too.

“My feet are killing me,” she said, wincing as she took off her
shoes and rubbed her toes against the carpet. “This is the first time I’ve worn heels in a year. Do you want a glass of wine?”

“No, I’d better go, but don’t get up,” I said. “I’ll let myself out.”

I gave her a hug good-bye and walked toward the door. As I gathered my purse and cell phone, I paused for a moment to listen to the unexpected sound I could hear coming from the living room. Then a smile spread across my face as I realized what it was.

Jane was humming.

Twenty
 

 

MAY AND I WERE spending a peaceful morning on the phones, checking in with clients and updating files. At around eleven or so, I poured myself a cup of tea and snuck one of May’s chocolate-chip-and-toffee cookies. (The scrambled eggs I’d had for breakfast had been on the skimpy side. And so had both of my pieces of toast.) I’d just settled down to consider possibilities for my new clients when the phone rang. I was the closest so I grabbed it.

“Blind Dates,” I said. I kicked off my shoes and wiggled my newly pedicured toes. I’d had them painted bright red last night when May had forced me to leave early. Aside from the fact that I was so ticklish I’d almost kicked the pedicurist in the face (good reflexes, that one; she’d reared back like a young pony), the experience had been fabulous.

“Is May there?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“May I tell her who’s calling?” I asked.

“Who is this?” the guy said angrily. “Is this her secretary? You got to be kidding me. She has a secretary now?”

May saw the expression on my face and reached for the phone.

“This is May,” she said. “Oh, it’s you.”

Her face fell as the guy launched into a diatribe. I couldn’t make out his words, but I could hear him shouting.

“I’m asking you to please not call me again,” May said. “We’ve signed all the divorce papers. There’s nothing more to discuss.”

Ah, the charming ex-husband. Should I leave the room and give May privacy? I sat there in an agony of indecision, pretending to be absorbed in reading a file, while he raged awhile longer. May’s voice stayed calm, but her fingers grew white as she clenched the phone.

“I think it’s best if we communicate through our lawyers from now on,” she said at one point. Finally she rolled her eyes and hung up.

“Told you he was a prince,” May said. She tried for a smile, but she couldn’t pull it off.

“Sorry,” I said. “That must’ve been a tough conversation.”

May nodded and turned back to her papers. Clearly she didn’t want to talk about it. I tried to get back to work, too, but my concentration was shot. The peaceful vibe we’d been enjoying was shattered. After a bit, I stood up, gathered our teacups, and washed them out in the sink. I looked at the clock and saw it was almost noon.

“Why don’t I run out and get us some sandwiches?” I suggested. “I’ll bring you back anything you want.”

“You know what I want?” May said, putting down the paper she was reading and rubbing her eyes. “I want to get out of the house for a little while and take my mind off what just happened. I’ve read this page five times in a row, and I still don’t have any idea what it says.”

“Then let’s go,” I said, grabbing my purse. We climbed into May’s yellow VW Bug, and she started up the engine. I reached to turn on the radio so she wouldn’t feel pressured to talk. But my hand stopped in midair when she began to speak.

“Do you know I used to be a completely different person?” May said. She half-smiled, the kind of smile that has no joy in it, and reached into her wallet.

“I keep this here so I won’t ever forget what I used to be like.”

She reached into her purse and handed me a photograph that was worn around the edges from being handled so often. The woman in the picture was rail-thin and wore a knee-length, pleated skirt and a tight smile. Her lipstick was Barbie pink, and her straight blond hair was pulled back by a flowered headband, so tightly it gave me a headache just looking at it.

“That’s you?” I asked incredulously, looking at May’s unruly curls, her Birkenstock sandals, her unpolished fingernails.

“My husband was a state senator,” May said, smiling wryly, as she started up the car and headed down the street. “And I was the perfect society wife. I was secretary of the Junior League. I gave teas like you wouldn’t believe. I can still make a killer watercress sandwich with the crusts cut off at ninety-degree angles. I’ve got a black belt in flower arranging.”

I took another look at the photo. The eyes were the same, but that was the only resemblance. I knew May was telling the truth, but it seemed impossible to believe.

“I thought I had everything I wanted,” May said. “But then, I never thought about what other options were available to me. I never had time to think about what else might be out there; I was too busy starching my husband’s shirts.”

I sensed May had kept this bottled up for a long time, and she needed to get it out of her system. I stayed quiet and kept my eyes fixed on her.

“I’d probably still be living that way, except that my husband lost one of his reelections,” she said. “That’s when he went from being arrogant to being truly mean. The more he drank, the more it became my fault that he’d lost the election. I didn’t
smile up at him enough during debates, or I hadn’t dressed in patriotic colors. And he said it was my fault we hadn’t been able to have kids—if he’d had a baby to hold up for photo ops, voters would’ve liked him more. Can you believe that?” Her voice changed; grew rougher. “He turned my infertility, the most painful thing in my life, into a political flaw.”

May paused for a moment, lost in the sad memories.

I reached over and put my hand on hers and squeezed. “That must have been so awful,” I said softly.

“I knew I had to leave, then and there, or my life would be over,” she said. “And it did end, in a way. In the best possible way. My old existence was over. And now it’s seven years later, and we’ve only just finished hashing out the divorce agreement. Can you believe it? He thought a divorce would be a political liability, so he fought it as long as he could.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like the words were inadequate.

“Me too,” May said. “Sorry I wasted twelve years on that guy.”

Then she laughed, but there wasn’t any bitterness in it.

“Most of the time I don’t let it bother me,” she said. “It took me years of therapy to not let it bother me. But when he calls, I get flashbacks to that time—that sad waste of a life—and I can’t help but feel down.”