34 Seconds (16 page)

***

I stood outside in the cooler fall air thinking of our trip, and all that happened up there, all the music we made, found, and enjoyed together. All the plans we’d made to be together, to be one another’s forever. Chills ran through my body as I looked at the paints I still needed to clean on the patio furniture. Bella wasn’t as tidy as I had thought. Rubbing my arms in the chilly air, I remembered a sight from the trip, Will and I on a skinny river beach with his guitar propped up against a rock. Behind us were stone mountains. My painting. Without thinking about it, knowing about or even understanding it, I had begun to recreate a scene Will and I had made so many years ago. And then he called me and mentioned that exact time in our lives. I sat down on the patio, pulled my knees to my chest and cried. What was going on with my life? What was going on with Will? Why would I start such a painting in the first place?

After about ten minutes of crying to myself, I started to sing one of his old songs to myself.

Oh, you gotta wonder

Where it all started

And you gotta wonder

Where it began

Why won’t I

Let you in

Why am I building walls

For my sanity

I am

Building walls

Oh and sometimes

I wonder

Oh should I be angry

And should I

Question

If you

Hate me

Should I

Be angry

Or should I

Build up walls?

And I gotta wonder

Where you came from

And I gotta wonder

Why you are

Building walls

Will you ever

Let me in?

Are you

Building walls?

Or for your sanity

Are you

Building walls?

And sometimes

I wonder

Oh should I

Be angry?

And should I

Question

If you

Hate me

Should I

Be angry

Or should I

Build up walls?

Should I be angry?

It was a simple song, but it held so much meaning to both Will and me. He wrote it on the fly one night, sitting on the beach at his grandfather’s house after we had an argument. It had been just a short little tune about how we both fought each other the same way, while blocking the other out. Will told me I built walls around me to protect myself. I listened to that for years, and I could see when I did it with Chris in our marriage. The same way I put things in little boxes in my mind, I put myself in a little box where I was protected from pain. I was certain I started my wall building defense when Will first broke up with me, and I thought I would die. From then on out, I knew how to protect myself from pain, from him, from feeling. It was the first time numbness became an emotion for me.

Shaking the chill from my arms, I stood up and walked inside to see my beautiful girls sleeping and a young princess walking through a dark tower on the TV. I was determined to not take my heart and mind back to a place I never wished to revisit. I wasn’t going to build walls. I wasn’t going to be angry. I wasn’t even going to try to understand why Will called that day, a random Tuesday, or why he started talking about a past we no longer lived in. I curled up on the floor with Emily and Bella, turned the volume down on the TV and closed my eyes.

***

The North Star Bar was on a corner just outside of the little New England town. As soon as we walked in, Will, whispered in my ear.

“One of these things is not like the others. Your hint is, I’m it.”

There were women everywhere. On second glance around the room, we did see a few men, but they all looked like they were employees.

“Well, we knew it was, what’d you call it? A ‘lesbian town?’ But this place is packed. There must be something going on. Oh, look. A merch table,” I said as I walked toward a table with CDs laid out and T-shirt displays.

“Oh, I see,” Will said. “Well, this could be cool. I should have brought my guitar, maybe they’d let me up there, too,” he nudged my shoulder. “We’ll take two CDs. Do you want a T-Shirt, Nikki Jay?” Will asked after handing the vendor a twenty.

“Will, we don’t even know who she is. No, I don’t want a T-Shirt.”

“Baby, I don’t care who she is. She brought out a huge crowd, and she’s up there. Well, she’s not up there…she might even be behind this table, I don’t know. But she’s got a gig, and I’m all for supporting anyone who will come out to a bar and play. Sure, you don’t want a T-Shirt?”

He nudged me again, almost pushing me aside. “Medium or Large? What you do think?” Will was pointing to me as he was talking to blonde woman behind the table.

“They run big, I think medium would be fine,” the woman told Will as she looked me over.

Will put the shirt on top of my head and smiled, “Hey, if she’s turns out to be the next big thing, you can say you saw her when she was just playing bars.”

“I’m not thinking along the lines of the next big thing,” I said looking at her bright face plastered on the T-shirt. “But I was never really a fan of those big popular artists anyway. That’s a face I could like. And she’s playing a Gibson. Oh yeah, much better than a pop star.” I laughed and pulled him to a table close to the stage.

We ordered some bar food for dinner. Three appetizers and sodas to drink. After about twenty minutes the woman came on stage, with three guitars. She carried them all herself. No stage hands, just her. I was in awe again. I looked over at Will. He was smiling. I could tell he wanted to be up there with her, but he just watched from afar as she set up her three guitars, each on its own stand, then walk backstage again to get her mic stand and microphone. She was definitely grass roots. She handled all of her equipment, set up, and still managed to get up there in front of everyone who watched her set up and sing and pull music out of those guitars.

After she set up, we watched her tune each guitar with a battery operated tuner sitting on her knee. Will got antsy. This was where we were comfortable, watching a singer song writer in action, not just coming out of speakers on a stereo. I knew Will had been looking into bars hosting open mic nights, but Deltaville didn’t offer anything of the sort. He’d have had to drive forty minutes to Yorktown at the least, but probably longer into Hampton or Williamsburg even to get decent gigs. I had tried to encourage him to do just that, but I sensed he didn’t want to leave town much unless it was on his boat.

I rubbed his arm and said, “You can do this, you know. You’re that good. I’d even come and set up for you. I could make it look like you have a crew and are too cool to have to set up the stage on your own.” I smiled. He did his Will laugh grunt, “huh he he.”

“One day, Princess. One day. For now, I just want to listen to what this chick has to say and then take you back to the hotel room.” Will lifted my chin with his finger, “Don’t you worry about me, Nikki Jay. I have the best audience any man could ask for.” He kissed me gently while still holding my chin and then moved his hand to my knee and squeezed as he turned his head back to the stage.

***

“Bella. Bella, no, it’s mine! Bell-Aaa! Mine. Doan NOT touch!” Doan. My daughter said ‘doan.’ I stifled a giggle through my sleepy haze.

I lifted my head. The DVD had moved onto special features, the making of
Sleeping Beauty,
and Emily was yelling at Bella, who was holding her soft blankie with a trembling lip.

“Mommy, she was taking my Aurora doll. The one with the magic jewel that lights up,” Emily said to me while smoothing the doll’s hair.

“Umm, okay, girls,” I mumbled while getting to my knees and standing up with a feeling of loss and exhaustion overtaking me. “Emily, do you have the doll now?”

“Yes, but Mommy, she can’t have her. She’s mine.”

“I doll. I doll, Mommy, I doll,” Bella said pointing to Emily’s doll.

“Come on, little one, let’s go find you a doll. Don’t you have Snow White somewhere?” I asked Bella, leading her up the stairs to her bedroom where I was sure to find many dolls thrown to the floor.

“Relly, Mommy, Relly. I’m a Relly,” Bella said running into her room and picking up a blonde doll wearing a blue dress.

“Cinderella is a fun doll, Bella. She’s a princess, too. Do you want to play in your room with Cinderella, or would you like to take her downstairs? She can meet Emily and Princess Aurora.”

“Ohhh, she wants to meet Emmie. If Emmie be nice.”

Holding hands, we walked back down the stairs to meet Emily and Aurora.

Chapter Nine

Will didn’t call the next week or the week after. I started to worry about him and sent him a text just after Thanksgiving.

I hope your Thanksgiving was a great one. Funny stuff around here with my mother in law, of course and cooking with two little ones, but we had a good time. I’m thankful you’re still in my life. Love ya.

I didn’t get a response for another week. It was short and to the point. I looked at it for a long time picking apart words not there, wondering how I should feel.

Tgiving was good. Love you too, NikiJay

I knew it was just a text, but even my name was spelled wrong.

December and January came and went with no calls from Will and few texts. When he did text me, the text messages were short and to the point.

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year

Thinking of you

Hope U R ok

Sing a song for me

Kiss the girls

Finally the first week of February, I called him. Rebecca answered.

“Hello?” Rebecca said with a hurried voice.

“Rebecca?” I asked.

“Yeah, who’s this?” She asked.

“Uh, it’s Nikki Ford, Rebecca. Is Will around?”

“Oh, Honey, I’m sorry if I sounded short. This phone’s been ringing off the hook lately. No, hon, he’s not here today,” her voice trailed off. “I mean he’s not here right now. But I can tell him you called for him.”

“Okay. Yeah, could you do that? Please?” My voice was soft and slow. I knew something was wrong. Or not right. Something was off.

“Will do, honey. You take care now, ya hear?” Rebecca hung up the phone.

Chris took all of us to a fondue restaurant for Valentine’s Day. The dinner was amazing. Having our young girls so close to two extremely hot melting pots was quite stressful for me. Chris didn’t seem to notice. He spoke of work, talked to the girls about things they didn’t know anything about, and ate like a king. I fished out meats from the pots the girls had put them in and left to overcook, tested meats they’d dipped but hadn’t let cook yet, didn’t get to eat much, and essentially was exhausted by the time dessert came around. For dessert, I asked for spoons and just spooned chocolate onto the girls’ plates so they could dip their bananas, strawberries, marshmallows, and graham crackers on their own plates. It meant their cute red dresses had drips of chocolate running down them before we left the restaurant, but it also meant I could enjoy dessert without worrying about them touching the pot or heating element under the pot. With the cheese and bread appetizer and meat entrée, I think they’d enjoyed enough dipping to allow themselves to enjoy dessert from their own plates.

Will kept popping up in the back of my mind. It had been two weeks since I’d called, and he hadn’t called me back. Our relationship had never been over text or email. We’d always talked over the phone. Our relationship dated back to a time before cell phones and Internet, and we’d never moved it to a texting format. But the last few times I’d heard from him were all text messages, and they were all short texts. I was starting to wonder if Rebecca had a problem with me. Or with our friendship. Maybe he was texting me to hide our relationship from his new wife. Maybe she hadn’t told him I had called. I decided to call his cell phone next time and not the house phone.

It took me another two weeks to get up the nerve to call him. I felt so ignored. I hadn’t heard his voice since November. Even after we broke up the final time, we’d still spoken quite a bit. I didn’t think I had ever gone this long without talking to him. It had been almost four months since we’d spoken to each other.

The girls were napping. Emily had said she didn’t want a nap, but after telling her I had a headache and needed to nap myself, she agreed to go to her room and play quietly. Before going into my bedroom to call Will, I checked on them both. Bella was sleeping soundly with her soft blankie snuggled next to her. Emily was sprawled on her bedroom floor with her Aurora doll in one hand and her Goon Goon bunny in the other hand. She had played quietly. And then, she’d fallen asleep.

I sat on my bed with the phone in my hand. I rubbed my thumb across the LCD screen on the phone over and over. I was nervous. Not just nervous. I felt like I was going to throw up. Like I was doing something wrong. Maybe he’d made it clear to me he didn’t want to talk to me anymore. Maybe we weren’t friends anymore. Maybe I’d pushed him away when he called that day and started talking about the trip up to Massachusetts months ago. My mind wandered to the painting I’d started before he called. I had never finished it. Emily never finished her castle for Aurora either. They were all sitting in the garage still, where they’d spent the winter.

Looking at the phone again, I decided not to call him. He’d pushed me away. As busy as I had been over the years, getting married, having babies, moving to Colorado, and living my life, he’d always been the one to call me. I didn’t know if it was his decision to stop calling me or if the decision making belonged to his new wife, but clearly he’d made a decision either way. He hadn’t picked up his phone to call me. At least he hadn’t dialed. Why should I? Instead of calling, I sat on my bed and cried. I’d finally lost a good friend, someone I had loved. Someone I had kept in my world as my world evolved and revolved around different people, my husband, my children. But he’d pushed me right out of his world. Six months into a marriage, and he had no space in his life for old friends. I looked at the clock. Chris would be home in about four hours. I had plenty of time to cry, feel sorry for myself, pull myself together, and get the girls and me dressed before he came home.