Do Overs

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Published in the United States of America
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

To my patient family and friends who have encouraged me every day to pursue my dreams.

WRITING AS CERI HEBERT

SWEET FOREVER

WHERE ONE ROAD LEADS

WRITING AS CERIAN HEBERT

FINALLY HOME

THAT KIND OF MAGIC

NO GOING BACK

SWEET AND WILD

THE BETTER MAN~
Coming May 2013

Do Overs

When I was a kid I would’ve called it “do overs,” but as an adult, I had no clue what to label it. A rip in the fabric of time?

Too
Twilight Zone
for me. I was too straight-laced for that kind of silliness. One evening I teetered on the brink of forty-five, middle aged and determined not to think about it.

I guess my life had been successful, depending on what one would gauge
success on. Growing up, I swore I would never,
ever
sit at a desk eight hours a day. I wanted to be outside in the fresh air, creating beautiful landscapes, and digging my fingers in the soft earth to transform a disorganized plot of land into my own work of art.

Best laid plans and all that.

As Director of Human Resources at Piper Clemmons International, I not only had a desk, I resided in a corner office with a view, and a floor full of underlings who reported to me. An eight-hour day often turned into twelve.

But I made more money than I believed possible, lived in a fabulous penthouse with Bob, my equally, if not more, successful husband, everything I wanted at my fingertips.

Yeah, the epitome of a perfect life, complete with a perfect car, perfect clothes, and a perfect vacation home in the Hamptons.

But none of it thrilled me. I should have loved my life, but contentment avoided me as much as success dogged me. Why it was so elusive, I didn’t know.

Then my life totally jumped tracks.

When the headaches started, I put them down to stress. Too much work and not enough play made Lila a frazzled girl.

Next, the dizzy spells hit me a few times a day. Nuisances, mild enough to disregard. Like most work-a-holics, I was great at ignoring those day-to-day maladies that were intent on pulling me down.

The pressure in my chest, however, put me on notice. The office
couldn’t
do without me, so a heart attack was not an option. The thought made my head ache more.

Of course it couldn’t be as simple as heart problems.
I went to bed in my spacious penthouse, not mentioning my worries to Bob, but planned a visit to my doctor for the next morning.

Bob’s white noise machine put me to sleep. The sound of girly laughter and chatter dragged me out.

“Turn the TV down, Bob.” I curled up in a fetal position and pulled my blanket up so just my nose poked out. I refused to open my eyes, not ready to face the day.

“Bob? Bob Weidner?”

That voice didn’t belong in my room.

Why would the television say my husband’s name? I opened one eye just a crack. My heart did a drum roll.

I opened both my eyes a little more.

Very realistic dream. My heart continued a heavy beat. Interesting. From headaches and dizzy spells to hallucinations. I sucked in my breath to steady my unraveling nerves. This, I wasn’t ready for.

Someone shuffled past my bed.

Bob getting ready for work.

Please let it be Bob getting ready for work.
I fisted my hands against the blanket, pulling it up
to my chin, as if a lifeline to reality.

“Can you start the coffee?” I mumbled against my pillow and bit my bottom lip, waiting for the reply. Waiting for my husband’s voice.

“Start it yourself.” The voice, far too feminine, far too exasperated to be Bob’s continued. “What’s going on with you and Bob? Please tell me you’re not sleeping with him.”

My breath choked in my throat. I couldn’t have been out of bed quicker if someone lit a ton of dynamite under my mattress. My feet hit a cold wooden floor, not the thick, luxurious carpet they were accustomed to.

Wrong.

I hadn’t lived in a place with a bare floor in twenty years. The cramped room was wrong. The tiny, disheveled bed more wrong. Even the smell struck me as all wrong.

A heavy veil of perfume hung in the air. Nothing like that existed in the penthouse, which, except for the sachets in my drawers and the linen closet, was void of any kind of scent.

“What is your problem?” The person who was
not
Bob asked, and her brows rose.

My problem? Where in the world did I start? I swallowed quickly and tried to speak, but my throat went unbearably dry. I croaked like a frog.

I stared into the startled face of Sarah LoCaste, one of the girls I had shared an apartment with twenty some odd years ago.

I exchanged emails with
my today’s
Sarah less than a week ago. She’d sent me pictures of her new baby. Her
fourth
child.

This yesterday’s
Sarah, gaping at me from the edge of the too-small-too-messy-bed, was at
least seven years away from giving birth to her first child. In fact, I would hazard a guess that she wasn’t even due to meet “Mr. Right” for about another four years, give or take.

“I…uh…” I swallowed again, forcing some kind of moisture onto my tongue. My hands were slick with sweat as I flexed and squeezed them into tight fists. Sarah’s brows rose higher and she tilted her head to the side as if encouraging me to say something she’d understand.

“Bathroom.” I mumbled and barreled out of the bedroom she and I shared—correction—she and I
used
to share.

I hit my fist against the closed bathroom door a little harder than what would be considered polite.

“Hurry up.” I grabbed the door handle and rattled it, hoping my desperation would carry through the thick wood.

I raised my fist again, but before I could land another knock, the door opened. Roommate number two, Misty Calhoun, walked out, glaring at me from underneath sopping bangs.

“There are other people who live here too, Lila.”

Oh yeah, I’d forgotten that Misty and I really didn’t get along too well. She was a little sexpot diva and I’d been more the mild mannered artistic type. Our personalities crashed, to put it lightly.

I didn’t have the time or the inclination to mend fences. Instead, I pushed past her and shut the door. A thick fog clung to the mirror, so I grabbed a towel and swiped it over the surface several times until I could see my reflection.

“Good Lord, have mercy.”

A thousand more drums joined the pounding my heart had been beating. With all the craziness of the last five minutes, this topped them all. Okay, so not exactly in a bad way, but sheer astonishment sent my head reeling. My vision hazed and the room went topsy-turvy. I grabbed onto the edge of the sink to keep myself on my feet.

Gone were the bags under my eyes, along with those crows-feet I preferred to call laugh lines. My gaze traveled down the length of my face. I poked a finger at my jaw line.

Smooth and firm.

A week ago, I considered a little face-lift and liposuction.

I guess I didn’t have to worry about flabby jowls for a while. I stared back at my twenty-something-year-old face.

My sweaty palms slipped off the sink as another wave of lightheadedness swept over me. I couldn’t fight it. The room tilted the other way, sending me a few drunken steps backward. I would’ve hit the floor, but I grabbed the edge of the tub and used it as a perch. Leaning over, I put my head between my knees and inhaled.

Wasn't that what you were supposed to do if you were about to faint?

This absurdity was too real to be a dream. Too surreal to be possible. The beads of water on the tub were chilly and slick against my fingers. I wriggled my bare toes in the soft, plush bathroom rug, damp from Misty’s shower. The rug Sarah and I had bought, along with the matching shower curtain and wastebasket, when we first moved in to our apartment.

I dared myself to look around, knowing what I’d see. My bathroom. Not in Manhattan, but on Spring Street in Portland, Maine. Crowded with girl stuff, like the stained glass flower dangling from fishing line in the window. My heart stampeded in my chest and I put my hand up to it, as if that would slow it down.

What the hell’s going on?
How can a person go to bed at the age of forty-four and wake up as a
twenty-three year old?

“Okay, Lila, it’s my turn,” a voice drifted through the door, followed by a short rap.

I pushed myself to my feet and without looking back at the mirror, opened the door and let roommate number three, Katie Weller, past me. I wandered back to my room, my fingers trailing along the wall, testing its solidity. They seemed as real as any other wall I’d touched.

In my—
our
—room, Sarah made her bed. She gave me a peculiar look. “You look like hell.” Her mild tone didn’t fit into this funhouse insanity going on. “Maybe you should call in sick.”

I collapsed on my bed, a twin bed I had owned for years, but gave up when Bob and I married. I’d forgotten about this bed. I used to love its worn comfort, the lumpy and sagging mattress, and the scarred maple headboard with carved roses I painted when I was fourteen.

“Yeah, good idea.” I stared at the ceiling. Someone, before we moved in, put peel and stick glowing stars up there. Orion hovered above my bed.

God, I’d forgotten
.

But the stars weren’t my biggest concern. Where did I work? I wracked my brain for several seconds. Oh, yes, Casco Bay Charter Boat Tours. Assistant office manager. An inauspicious beginning to my career. My first official step away from my determination never to work in an office.

It took me a moment to climb back out of bed; afraid I’d get dizzy again and end up on the floor this time. I glanced down. The little tank top and cotton shorts barely covered any flesh at all. Not that I was a prude or anything, but I had a desperate need to find a robe or tee shirt.

“Oh my God.” I put my hands over my breasts. They were so firm and perky. And my belly, I didn’t have one. Well, I did. I’d never been skinny like Misty or Katie who were like sticks with boobs, but at age forty-four my body began its middle age spread and the girls had been steadily migrating south. I didn’t have much time for the gym. Bob and I always talked about getting a dog so we’d have to get out for regular exercise. But we were too busy to ever go about it.

Bob
. What about
Bob
? Was he waking up to an empty bed? Was my middle-aged self still
there, doing what it always did, day in, day out? Or was I in some kind of coma? Did my today’s life cease to exist?

My head pounded as I fought to piece it all together.

What day was it?

Bob and I sort of dated just after I turned twenty-three, though our relationship then couldn’t be described as hot and heavy. I loved Bob…
love
Bob, that is, very much. But he wasn’t much of a “catch.” Though steady and kind, he didn’t have much in the way of pizzazz. More than once in our life together I told myself that I had settled, despite the comfortable life we shared. The depressing admission always filled me with a heavy guilt that was hard to shake off.