The Sunday List of Dreams (18 page)

That was it, then. A short plan. A map with a clear path back home, to her real home, where she could get on with the business of moving forward on her predetermined journey towards the new job, the condo, and maybe the painting class—sedate #24—when she recovered from New York, New Orleans, and every other frigging new thing that had invaded her life since she’d had the bright idea to clean out the garage. Connie decides that she needs to pause more often and write on her slips, so that she can reach down and run her hand across her pocket every time she gets an offer that seems too good to refuse. She decides she needs to stay grounded to the list, to its numbers, to all those years of writing and planning and moving forward to this time, this time of the Sunday list.

Then there is just time for a hasty and gracious whiff of sweet roses as Connie buries her face directly inside the middle of the bouquet and puts her hands around the vase, transporting herself back to the bayou where the scent of the rich, damp land makes her wonder what it might have been like to make love to Burt, the commissioner, in his world of luscious and totally intoxicating sensuality. The mere idea that #14—the “Maybe Sex” number—could actually become a reality makes her think about it.

She closes her eyes and wonders for a few delicious moments. Closes them and drifts to the edge of the water where Michael has pulled the boat over near a nest of ferns. Keeps her eyes closed and her nose on the roses as he takes her hand and she turns without waiting to kiss him, to take charge just a little bit, to let him know that it is not all about him. Connie’s mind goes red with passion then as Michael takes her down a path with no markings, no worn footmarks, nothing to guide him but his own feelings. When they turn past the stand of cypress trees they are in a forest of ferns and he grabs her there, right there, and gently pushes her down under a tree that he whispers will now stand guard over them while he makes love to her.

Connie sits down and does not take her hands off of the flowers while she falls into her imagined tryst. Michael kisses her neck and runs his fingers up the back of her head and then she pushes him over, straddling him around his waist and she starts to unbutton his shirt while he moves his hands across her back, down the sides of her rear end, and back onto her shoulders. Connie spreads open his shirt and slides her hands across his chest, breathing hard, as her fingers move to his belt buckle and she holds her breath.

And then the damn phone rings.

“Shit!” she shouts out loud, fairly breathless and just a bit pissed off.

It is Kinsey, also begging her to come in at 1:30. Not sooner or later but right about then. Could these two be any more suspicious? I’m coming, Connie tells him. God, she thinks, I was just about to have sex, which is so far down on the list it seems to have disappeared. The list. The list she is ignoring by going into Diva’s.

Connie takes a breath, turns to look out the window, and clears her head of the rose residue, the icebergs, her sinful falling away from the list, and then her cell phone rings.

“What the hell?”

It is Sabrina. Daughter number two. The perfect wife and mother almost catching her own mother having make-believe sex as she smells roses before she heads off to sell sexual devices to whoever wants them. Connie shakes her head, touches her own hand in her Nurse Nixon way to steady herself, and tries to sound calm.

“Hi, baby,” Connie says without the slightest hint of panic in her voice. “How is everyone?”

But Sabrina wants to know about Connie.

The conversation races at first. New Orleans. New York City. The store. Questions about her response to Jessica’s job, Sabrina’s acceptance of it as a business decision, and a surprising discussion about female sexuality. Connie bites a hole in her tongue, and then wonders why she does it, as Sabrina launches on about kids and a neighborhood meeting, and then the real reason for the phone call.

“Mom, do you think you’ll be home by next weekend?”

“I should be home tomorrow, as soon as I get online and get a seat on an airplane headed west.”

“Well, we were wondering if you could baby-sit for a couple of days. Maybe just for the weekend, like Friday through Sunday. What do you think?”

Think? Connie thinks she wants to rip Burt’s pants off his sweet solid ass and then ride him until the swamp sunset cascades like a waterfall across her face. Think? Connie thinks she should never have left New Orleans and she sure as hell thinks she probably, most likely, sort of made the right decision by leaving Cyprus, Indiana. Connie thinks, in the seconds it takes her mind to check back to where she can have a normal conversation, that she’d love to be drinking champagne or some really great dry white wine out of a golden slipper in Commissioner Michael Dennis’s bedroom.

But that’s not what she tells her daughter.

“Sure. I can babysit for you.”

“Oh, thank God,” Sabrina says. “I asked Macy but she’s sick as a dog these early days of her pregnancy and it’s just easier for me to get the kids to your house, unless you want to watch them at our house….” Sabrina says, a sort of question.

Connie is not sure she can even remember where she lives. Does she own a house? What is her last name? How many grandchildren does she have? Will she drive to Chicago or have the children driven to wherever in the hell she lives? Is this woman really her daughter? And the roses…where did they come from?

“Yes,” Connie says, four times in a row. “Yes, and yes, and yes again.” They say good-bye and hang up.

And then, before she can get up to use the bathroom, turn in a circle, or rearrange her thoughts, the cell phone rings yet again.

Shit. Damn it. What the hell?

“
WHAT
?” she yells into the phone without waiting for an answer. “
WHAT THE HELL IS IT NOW
?”

It’s O’Brien. O’Brien laughing at the rich sound of her friend, the irritating bob of the words, the way Nurse Nixon does not even try to be friendly.

“Jesus, baby, has New York got your underwear all balled up or what?”

“My underwear is wet,” Connie says, fast. “I’m horny as a teenager, kissed a stranger, the kids want me to come down to the sex toy store, my daughter has become my friend, sort of, Sabrina wants me to baby-sit, and I suddenly cannot remember my last name or how I even came to be in this city in the first place.”

O’Brien drops the phone, laughing. Nurse Nixon hears the phone hit something and then crackle, and then she hears what sounds like her best friend in the world coughing.

“Honey,” O’Brien wheezes when she retrieves the phone, “have you come undone?”

“No. But I
want
to really, really bad.”

And Connie tells O’Brien everything. The kiss, the date, the dinner, the roses, even details of her make-believe lovemaking session that had been interrupted by the damn phone call from daughter number two.

“Why in the hell would you come home?” O’Brien asks, seriously.

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it, you jackass. Look where you are, what you have just done, who you have met and kissed. Listen to me…
are you totally crazy?
Are you that far off the list?”

Maybe,
Connie tells herself,
maybe I am crazy or I would not be here.
Maybe I should just call back home and have someone blow up the rest of the junk in the garage. Maybe I need to lie down for a week. Maybe I should not lie down because something sinful might happen. Maybe I suddenly have no idea about anything. Maybe I need to sit down and look at the list again.

“Are you there?” O’Brien asks. “Baby, I’m worried.”

“Worried,” Connie says. “Think of how I feel. Think about this wild, roller-coaster turn of events in my life and the last conversation we had when the house was talking and the discovery of my daughter becoming the queen of the sex toy world. Think about Burt Reynolds putting his tongue down my throat and me wanting to rip his pants off and these kids from the store calling me with mysterious questions and demands and my God, O’Brien, I don’t even
look
the same.”

“So what?” O’Brien tells her. “You big crybaby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“So smell the flowers, then take a big, deep breath.”

Connie takes a breath. She takes a breath while O’Brien briefs her on the past weekend which included two checks on her house, one call from the real estate agent, a frozen pizza, two emergency admissions to the psych unit—both women—a son who called to tell her by the way he was going to Egypt for Christmas, and a huge sale on chicken cutlets at Connie’s favorite grocery store.

“See what you’re missing, baby? See what you’d be racing home to?”

“Shit.”

“Yes, shit covers it nicely.”

And that’s what Connie thinks about after she hangs up and fishes for airline flights anyway, puts one of them on hold until midnight, takes a shower with the bathroom door wide open, leaves a thank-you message on Burt’s answering machine and then takes a right turn outside of her daughter’s apartment building so she can pick up more coffee on the way to meet the kids at Diva’s, where she knows she will definitely run into more shit.

Halfway to Diva’s it finally hits her: this is the first time she has left the apartment, made a move, taken a turn in many days without first writing down a number from her beloved list and putting it in her pocket.

She stops. Takes a breath. Remembers bold-sounding #37 from her list. The number of change. The number of options. The number, so it seems, that would lead her towards all things made of chance.
“Make certain the list changes. Give yourself that option. Keep some. Throw some away.”

Spring in New York rises from every crack and corner and seems to leap from the amazingly blue sky. The air is warm, light, fresh, and Connie realizes, standing still in the midst of a place that never stands still, that she is no longer afraid of getting lost, of bumping into a criminal, of losing her wallet, or of meeting someone who might want to whisk her away to a side street café for a lingering lunch, a proposition of chance, a moment to just…pause.

Connie looks behind her. She hesitates only a second before looking at her watch and then she bravely moves forward and, as she walks, she makes believe she is tossing all the numbers on her list into the air so that they can blend together into something that would make #37 very, very happy.

C
onnie misses Jessica by less than two minutes, which makes Meredith and Kinsey almost wet their pants.

“Holy crap,” Kinsey whines to Meredith when Jessica lingers to restack a display. “If they run into each other, we are
dead
. Jessica will kill us, fire us,
and
I’ll have to go and
beg
to get my last job back.”

“Maybe she’d be fine with it,” Meredith replies. “They just got back from New Orleans and they’re still speaking to each other and no one is dead yet.”

“Think about it,” Kinsey hisses, as Jessica answers a customer call. “Would you want to be selling dildos with your mommy?”

“Honey, my mommy
bought
me my first dildo.”

“You don’t count. You skew the study I’m doing. You are not normal.”

“Well,” Meredith shoots back, as Jessica pauses at the door and frowns at both of them, like she’s sure the store’s going to burn down if she does leave it, “I happen to think I am normal and everyone else who does not embrace their sexuality and who did not have a generous and open mother like mine is not normal.”

Ten minutes later, when Jessica has finally left and Connie breezes in with her coffee and muffins, she catches the kids still arguing. She sets down her treats and orders them to stop it or she will send each of them to their rooms.

“Where’s Jessica?” she asks.

“A meeting.”

“You knew this,” Connie tells Meredith.

“Yes.”

“You wanted me to come when she wasn’t here? Why? Are you going to quit? Steal toys? Tell me a secret, as if there are any secrets left.”

Connie looks at Meredith and Kinsey standing silently and not answering her questions and she can only imagine what must have gone on before she arrived. Some magical conspiracy by a couple of 20-something New Yorkers who would probably get lost in Indiana if they didn’t go crazy 30 minutes after landing there. Meredith, who always looks as if she left the house in a hurry—long earrings in one ear, short in the other, just like her wild hair which also seems short on one side and long on the other—but a woman who struts and saunters as if the world is waiting for her arrival. And Mr. Potential Movie Star, Kinsey Barnes, who is so in touch with his feminine self Connie would like a peek under his very tight zipper. Kids. Powerful, wonderful kids who could probably teach her a thing or two about not only sex toys but about their world as well. They are lovely and wild and kind and, sweet Jesus, she thinks suddenly, they could be #26.

“Can we have coffee first?” Kinsey asks her. “And maybe, Meredith, maybe you should just talk to Connie while I handle the customers for a bit.”

Connie is suddenly reminded of a discussion that was almost exactly like this. A conversation that took place years ago, when middle daughter Macy came home, quietly asked for a private meeting in her bedroom, and then wanted to know if Connie would take her to the clinic or Planned Parenthood or someplace so she could get birth control.

Connie had tried to act cool. Connie had tried to act as if a conversation with her 18-year-old daughter concerning the staggering news that the latter was ready to have sexual intercourse, sex,
SEX
, was an everyday and totally acceptable occurrence.

“I’m ready, Mom, and Ryan and I discussed this, and we decided to just be up front about it and so I’m asking you for help,” Macy said, moving her fingers back and forth so fast Connie wondered if her daughter was about to levitate.

A deep breath filled Connie’s lungs before she spoke and, when she did, it was very slowly, lest she fall off the edge of Macy’s bed, vomit, or call 911.

“This is a wise decision,” Connie told her daughter. “Are you sure you’re ready, honey? This is a pretty big step.”

Macy said yes and now, standing in front of the sex toy checkout counter, Connie wondered about all the lesbians and gay men who felt as if they had to parade their sexuality in front of parents and relatives and neighbors and ex-lovers. Why? she suddenly wonders as she trails thoughts of Macy’s sexual awakening behind her.

“Meredith, why do people have to come out?” Connie asks. “You know, I don’t recall sitting my parents down when I decided to have sex to let them know I was a heterosexual.”

Meredith chokes on her coffee and a small stream of the black liquid runs down her chin—which Connie immediately leans over to brush off with her fingertips.

“Where the hell did that come from, Connie?” Meredith sputters.

“Thin air, I suppose, and thinking about the time my daughter asked me to get her some birth control,” Connie shares. “I feel like you’re about to tell me some secret just like she did then and it got me wondering.”

“Actually, it pisses me off because I feel the same way,” Meredith tells her. “I don’t know why we have to come out. Maybe some people feel as if they owe it to their friends and family, so everyone will stop trying to set them up with straight people.”

Maybe that’s it, they both agree as Meredith takes Connie into the back room and suggests she ask Jessica for a job.

A job.

And now it’s Connie’s turn to spit out coffee and she wants to know if Meredith has been smoking crack with Kinsey on the job.

“Just listen,” Meredith urges. “Do you use sex toys?”

“No, but I have to admit I’ve been feeling terribly sexual since I landed in New York and stumbled in here.”

“Most of our clients are women and many of them are your age and, well, we think you’d be a terrific addition to the staff and we sure as hell need the help,” Meredith rushes on. “And you were really fabulous the other day in here, and I could give you, like, a quick in-service and we could just see what happens.”

Connie is laughing so hard inside of her loopy mind that she can barely sit up straight. Work at a sex toy store? With her daughter? Counsel women about sex? Stand up there and hold dildos and vibrators and whatever in the hell else is in all those boxes and sell them?

“Meredith, listen, I haven’t even had sex in many years—”

“Which makes you perfect for the job.”

“I have a job.”

“Not for several months.”

“I have a life back there—”

“Connie, life is everywhere. So you just try this and see what happens.”

“Does Jessica know about this? You can’t hire me. What the hell are you thinking?”

“Of course I can’t hire you but I’m asking you to think about it. Jessica needs help.”

Connie runs her right hand through her hair, or what is left of her hair, and sets down her coffee cup. She looks over Meredith’s shoulder and stares into something that she’s pretty sure is a harness—a seemingly impossible tangle of leather and silver. She has no idea how to put it on, what to do with it or why in God’s name anyone would ever wear one. She turns and sees cardboard boxes with names on them like The Sage, Seducer, The Fox, and Twirling Heaven, and she gets a twitch under her left eye that cascades down her face, rolls into her lip, and lands right in the center of her stomach.

Meredith is silent. She is watching Connie think and she’s sipping her coffee, already envisioning Connie Franklin Nixon in a black leather vest with her new hair, some nice red leather boots, and a glass of white wine, explaining, during a private party, how to use a variety of vibrators for a group of women who have recently thrown away their bridge cards.

She’s also thinking about how much she likes Jessica’s mother. Connie’s not a bit like her mother. But Connie seems to be able to handle everything from a fast trip to New Orleans to the discovery of her daughter’s blossoming business as if she was born for a trauma-induced life. Maybe it’s the nursing, Meredith thinks, but maybe it’s just Connie. Cool Connie.

“Look, Meredith,” Connie finally says. “I have things to do and a list to follow and Jessica is never in a million years going to go for this.”

“Well, Connie, Jessica might not have a choice,” she whispers, leaning over to kiss Connie just below her left twitching eye. “She’s totally forgotten that she was supposed to hire someone to go to this huge women’s festival with me in 10 days and now that the new toys are coming in and the launch party is on the horizon, she needs you badly.”

“What are you talking about?” Connie asks, bewildered.

“Too much work and not enough help. Jessica’s totally on overload.”

“I’m a nurse, for God’s sake, not a salesperson!”

“Oh, I know, and you are the perfect age, and you are attractive, and just say you will think about it, give me a little time to talk to Jessica, and let me start you on my little Sex Toys 101 class right this second.”

Connie closes her eyes and tries to remember what her backyard looks like. She sees a small stack of firewood, a broken door leading into the garage, a pile of junk leaning against the neighbor’s fence that has been there since the day they bought the house and that’s all she can remember. Everything else is hazy around the edges. She can barely remember the color of the fading siding that has needed paint for five years.

She looks at the tops of her hands, which are now resting on her legs, looks up at Meredith and she wonders what Meredith sees when she looks at her.

“I would have been cleaning out the rest of the garage today,” Connie mutters.

“This could be much more fun.”

Connie doesn’t say anything but she knows #37 should be in her pocket and she moves her hand there and runs it over the very top, just below her waistband, slipping one finger inside so she can feel where the slip of paper should be, just for reassurance. She wonders what it might be like to say no, to ignore #37 and all the numbers that are before it so she can…What? Start over? Go backwards? Follow some line of descent that is only a ledge of safeness she has built inside of her own mind? Then she shakes her head up and down and not sideways. She shakes her head up and down and then into a little twist that only she knows could, with a bit of a stretch, look like the number 37. She squeezes her eyes shut and she thinks she should keep them shut and when she opens them up Meredith is sitting in front of her with a tiny, long blue thing that looks like a funky cigarette lighter.

“This is a waterproof vibrator.”

Connie puts it in her hand, feels it vibrate through her skin, into her thumb muscles, through the bones in her 58-year-old fingers, and she wonders if O’Brien has remembered to shut off the porch light, grab the newspapers, and call the damn realtor. She’s a very practical woman, sitting in a sex toy store in Manhattan that her recently unestranged daughter owns, with a blue vibrator purring in the palm of her hand.

“Oh, Connie, you’re blushing,” Meredith almost shouts. “They are going to love seeing you blush just like they do.”

“Well, I hope to hell I am blushing,” Connie says, turning one shade pinker. “Last week I would have tried to plug this into my dashboard.”

“We’ve got one of those, you know—”

“Of course you do,” Connie says, shaking her head and smiling. “I know right where it is. Right down the first aisle. I think I told someone last week it was a fish locator.”

Meredith laughs so hard she bumps into Connie and they both drop to the floor at the same moment to pick up the cute blue waterproof vibrator and Connie would have given away everything she owned just that second for a photo of Meredith and herself crawling on the floor of Diva’s, trying to catch a swift-moving vibrator while the rest of the world drove through traffic, turned on the oven for dinner, worked overtime or cried into a beer at the corner bar.

“This doesn’t mean I’m staying,” Connie says just as she snatches the vibrator. “I might not stay. Do you hear me?”

“Right,” Meredith says, mocking her.

Right, my ass,
Connie thinks as she laughs herself back into the chair and holds out her hand for the next sex toy, which happens to come in her new favorite color—beet red.