Bigger (The Nicky Beets series) (14 page)

“All right,” Laurie smiled, then stood up. “Well, you know you’re welcome
to stay here as long as you’d like, but I’ve got to get the hellion off to
daycare and then I’m heading to the high school.”

“Thanks for letting me crash here,” I answered. “I’m gonna head home
right now. I need a shower and my pajamas in the worst way.”

“All right, babe,” Laurie kissed my cheek. “I’ll call you later.”

I pulled into my driveway slowly, unconsciously holding my breath and
then letting it out as I saw Chuck’s truck was still not there. Had I really
expected it to be?

I achingly made my way out of my car and into the house – a
hangover combined with last night’s punishing yoga session equaled pain with
every movement. I closed the front door quietly behind me and stood still for a
moment in the quiet darkness of the entryway, breathing. I walked to the
kitchen. The note was still on the kitchen table. The sight of it made my
stomach twist in a knot. I turned away from it and opened the refrigerator. I
grabbed two large containers of low calorie sports drink and took them with me
to the bathroom, where I chugged them while a hot shower beat into my skull and
skin. I propped myself up against the tile walls and let the water mix with my
tears as both ran down my cheeks.

Eventually I turned off the water, dried off, wrapped my hair in a towel,
and found my warmest pajamas in a dresser drawer. Putting them on, I realized
they were much too large. All the better to lounge the weekend away in, I
thought to myself.

I climbed into my side of our bed and pulled the covers over my head,
falling asleep almost immediately. Some hours later, I awoke. My phone was
ringing in the other room. I looked at my bedside clock. It was four in the
afternoon. I’d slept the entire day, and now the winter light was waning into
evening. Strangely, I still felt exhausted.

I pushed the bed covers off myself and trudged to the bathroom to pee.
Then I trudged back to the kitchen, spied the note again – “Uggghhhh,” I
groaned to myself – and pulled my phone out of my purse. Two missed
calls: Laurie and my mother.

“Ugggghhh” I groaned again. There was no way I could face my mother right
now. I put the phone back in my purse.

I hadn’t eaten all day. I trudged to the refrigerator for a look. It was
all healthy stuff, barring Chuck’s collection of beer.
What, he didn’t want to take his beer with him?
I wondered
bitterly.

There were a number of plastic containers I’d prepped with chopped-up
veggies and chicken for salads, so I resignedly grabbed one of those, topped it
with a low-cal dressing, and chewed it slowly while sitting on the couch and
staring at the blackened TV screen. I didn’t want to watch TV. Didn’t want to talk
to anyone. Didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to sleep more. Yes, perhaps I
was just exhausted. I would finish my salad and go back to bed.

So I did.

I repeated this pattern all weekend, trudging from my bed to the kitchen
and back to bed again. My phone rang a couple more times before the battery
died. I didn’t bother checking to see who’d called. I thought I heard the
doorbell ring a couple of times, but couldn’t be sure and definitely didn’t
care, anyway.

Sunday night I set my alarm for the next morning. I’d be heading into
work on Monday. Best to get the show back on the road. There is really only so
much wallowing in self-pity a person can do before she gets sick of herself.

“Nicky Beets,” I answered the phone at my desk weakly.

“Nicole? Where have you been?” my mother shrilled. I winced. Everything
seemed louder and brighter to me today. Even my skin hurt.

“Hey, Mom,” I said. “Sorry, I’ve just been super-busy.”

There was a long pause.

“Mom?”

“I’m still here,” she said. “I’m just wondering if you’re going to tell
me the truth or if I have to force it out of you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, I haven’t been able to reach you for a week, so I was worried. I
called Charles.”

Oh, shit.

“I wish you hadn’t,” I told her. “We’re having some issues.”

“I’ll say,” my mother retorted. “He told me you two have broken up! I
can’t believe you didn’t call to tell me. Can you imagine how embarrassed I
was, having to hear it from
him
?”

Chuck had told my mother we’d broken up, but had failed to relay the same
message to me. I felt a sudden urge to vomit.

“Nicole?!”

“Yes, yes I’m here,” I said. “I just …”

What could I say to her? That I didn’t even know for certain that we had
broken up? How lame. And, frankly, the less my mother knew about my personal
life, the better. She’d never been exactly helpful on that front.

“You just were feeling sorry for yourself?” she took a shot at finishing
my sentence.

“No!” I told her. How to appease this woman, from whose loins I had
inexplicably sprung? “I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”

She absorbed this for a moment.

“Well, I
am
disappointed,”
Mother decided. “A man like that doesn’t come along every day, and I’ve been
telling you for years you guys should just get married. If you were married,
this wouldn’t even be an issue.”

“How so?” I humored her.

“Married couples stick with each other, through thick and thin,” she
said. “They don’t just have an argument and call it quits. Once you make a
commitment to someone like that, it means more than just shacking up for fun.”

“Kind of like you and Dad,” I returned the volley.

“That was different, and you know it,” she answered.

“Actually, I don’t,” I said. “But frankly, it’s ancient history at this
point and doesn’t matter, just like me and Chuck. Anyway, was there a reason
you were trying to reach me?”

I heard her sigh disappointedly.

“Well, you would know this if you called me occasionally, but I am having
surgery,” she answered.

“Again?” I asked, suddenly alarmed. “What for?”

“I’m having a corn removed,” she answered indignantly.

I paused for a moment, unsure if I’d heard her correctly.

“A
corn
? Like on your foot?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“That’s not technically surgery, is it?” I asked.

“Look, I realize you couldn’t care less about my health, but for your information
my podiatrist considers this a
surgery
,
after which I will need to rest carefully,” said Mom. “And I am going to need
your help.”

Alarm bells started sounding in my head.

“What about Jim?” I asked.

“He’s going to be in Japan for two weeks, and I’m afraid this surgery
just cannot wait. The doctor says I have a bone spur that needs to be removed,”
she said. “I need you to take me to the hospital, and back home, and then I’m
afraid I’ll need your help getting around for a while after that.”

“Um,” I answered. I was holding the phone against my ear with my shoulder
and rapidly searching the Internet for information about corn removal surgery.
“How long is a while?”

“Well, I’m just not sure,” she replied. “It could be a week. Anyway, what
does it matter? You can just stay in the guest room.”

Sweet baby Jesus,
no
, I thought to myself, closing my
eyes and leaning my forehead against my palm. I wasn’t sure I had the fortitude
to deal with Lenore right that moment, but unfortunately I didn’t appear to have
much of a choice.

“All right,” I answered feebly.

I scribbled down the information for Mom’s upcoming surgery and quietly
hung up the phone, shaking my head.

“Was that The Beast?” Roxanne asked. She’d walked in about halfway
through my phone conversation. Rox and I had always jokingly called my mother
“The Beast” as a play on our last name – Beets – and the fact that
she had a tendency to treat me, well, beastly.

“It was,” I sighed.

Rox peered over the cubicle wall at me with a quizzical look. “Are you
feeling all right? You look like death.”

I’d seen my pallor and the dark circles under my eyes, despite the
three-day weekend spent in bed, and knew I wasn’t going to win any beauty
contests that day.

“Yeah,” I said. “Long weekend.”

“Mmmhmmm.” Rox wasn’t buying it, and gave me her best furrow-browed “out
with it,” expression.

“Chuck and I broke up,” I admitted.

“What the hell??” Roxanne looked dismayed.

I couldn’t look at her or I’d start crying, so I started stacking and
re-stacking piles of papers on my desk.

“He took his stuff and left a note,” I told her. “We’d been in a fight
and I guess …”

“Oh, my God,” Rox said. “I just can’t believe this. I can’t believe he
would just leave.”

 
Roxanne had known Chuck as
long as I had, and considered him a friend.

“Have you talked to him since?” she asked.

“No. But apparently my mother spoke with him and he told her we’d broken
up.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she said. “Maybe I should call him.”

“No!” I said. “Don’t call him. I mean, he’s in the wrong here and I’m not
going to beg him to come back so he can keep being a selfish prick. I just
don’t think calling him would do any good.”

Roxanne looked doubtful but reluctantly agreed.

The week dragged by. I didn’t hear anything from Chuck and kept myself
busy with yoga and extra time at the track, which I circled, alternately
walking and jogging, until my hips felt like they were going to pop out of
their sockets. I was none too eager to get back to my dark, empty home.

For the first time that I could remember, I had no appetite. I felt like
I was carrying a rock around in my stomach all day long, and would return home
at night to stare at the refrigerator with indecision. I thought I should
probably try to eat nutritious food, which wouldn’t be an issue if the thought
of eating didn’t make me a little nauseated. One night, I ate an apple for
dinner and went straight to bed.

My blog readers had started emailing me out of concern after only one
evening of me not posting. I’d been so diligent about posting every day that
when I suddenly stopped, they assumed there was some kind of emergency. I found
myself unable to muster enough of an appetite to make blog-worthy meals,
besides which I simply didn’t care about my blog at the moment. I decided to
take a leave of absence of sorts and sat down to let my readers know.

Absence

Forgive me. I know it’s out of
character for me to miss posts. Be assured I have my reasons.

For starters, I haven’t eaten
anything worth telling you about. I find myself staring into my refrigerator,
trying to summon the energy and desire to put ingredients together and then put
them in my mouth, chew, and swallow. But honestly, for the first time in my
life, I don’t feel like eating.

The reason for this is that Chuck
and I seem to have broken up. I say “seem to have” because the man took his
possessions and left our home. He did leave a note. It contained five entire
words.

Part of me is so humiliated by this
entire situation. I wondered if I would tell you about it, but then I
fatalistically decided public humiliation is a rite of passage for bloggers who
tell strangers about their private lives. If I didn’t tell you, this post would
just be cryptic and irritating. And I would feel like I was lying to you. I’ve
never done that, and I don’t want to start now.

I’ll be gone for a little while,
until my world stops spinning and I can gain a foothold again. Please be
patient with me.

Only moments after I published the short post, comments began flooding
in. They mostly ranged from shock to fury, and all pitied me. I decided to
ignore the blog for a while; the pity just made me feel even more pathetic.

I’d managed to secure time off work the following week to take care of my
mom, so that Monday morning I drove my rattling compact car into the tony
community she and Jim occupied. I’d brought an overnight bag and was prepared
to be at her beck and call twenty-four hours a day for the next seven days.

I rang the doorbell – my mother had asked me to always ring the
doorbell when I was visiting rather than use my spare key, even if she was
expecting me. I think she worried about me walking in on her and Jim doing God
knows what. I was more than happy to oblige her.

She flung the oversized, heavy front door open in typical breathless
fashion, with the distracted look she often affects. In my opinion, it’s to
make others think she’s busier than she usually is. Who knew why she was trying
to fool me, or why she even cared what I thought.

Seeing me, my mom gasped dramatically, a shocked look on her face. “
Nicole
!”

I was puzzled for a moment and glanced at my watch to see if I had shown
up on the wrong date.

“Um. Yes? Am I late? Early?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d lost so much weight?” She was looking me up
and down in disbelief. She stepped onto the porch and took my hands, holding
them out at my sides so she could better take me in. “What in the world have
you been doing?”

I was taken aback. I’d been at her home three weeks prior for Christmas,
but then again, she’d ignored the hell out of me the entire day, so perhaps she
hadn’t really gotten a good look at me. Also, this morning I was wearing jeans
and a sweater that actually fit me, rather than my oversized and dated
Christmas outfit, which was large enough for my body at its peak weight.

Still, no one else I knew had had this kind of reaction to my weight
loss, because I saw most of the people I knew fairly regularly. My cheeks
flushed – I was a little pleased that she’d noticed.