Following My Toes (19 page)

“Hello?”

“Hi, is Faith there?” It was a guy, but it was neither Peter nor Ethan.

“This is Faith.” I said it in a professional tone. Maybe Ethan’s aunt had a male secretary, you never know.

“Hey Faith, it’s Max.”

Max! Great. I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “Oh hi, Max, how are you?”

“I’m doing good. How are you? Are you feeling better?”

He was obviously referring to our evening together, when I had mercilessly cried on his shoulder for way too long. I wanted to forget about that. “I’m great! Couldn’t be better.”

“Well, that’s good to hear. Have you talked to Carolyn?”

“Yeah, we talked.”

“Oh, that’s good. Because I wanted to tell you that David men-tioned something, I hear she broke it off with him. I thought that might make you feel better, in case you didn’t know.”

“Oh.” What a sweet gesture. “Thanks Max, I appreciate your calling to tell me.”

“Well, that’s not the only reason I called. I had a good time the other night…” He had? Was he crazy? “…and I was wondering if you’d like to get together again some time.”

I couldn’t tell if my skin was hurting out of sympathy for every other part of my body that was in pain, or if it was a warning signal I ought to have been paying attention to. Ah well, he was a nice guy, and he was still interested even after what I had put him through on our first date. I couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, now could I?

“Sure Max. That would be great.”

We made arrangements to go out in a couple of days. I had just gotten off the phone and was hobbling towards the bathroom when somebody buzzed to be let in. I assumed it was Margaret, who had probably gone for a walk without a key. But a couple of seconds later there was a knock on the door, and I opened it to find a teary eyed Carolyn staring back at me.

“Charles and I broke up,” she said. Then she collapsed into my arms, crying, but not for long. She looked up, and examined the vomit-enhanced collar of my blouse. In the bewildered voice of a child, she asked, “Um Faith, why are you wearing this?”

* * *

I explained everything to Carolyn: the engagement, my hangover, my bruised tailbone, Glenn and Ethan, and the possibility I was being stalked. She was very sympathetic, but she (understandably) insisted that I take a shower before we commenced to commiserating. We went over and over the sad details of both of our lives, trying to figure out how things had gone so wrong. We came up with no answers, but we did manage to ingest a hell of a lot of calories.

Carolyn and I sat on my couch, eating the remainder of the ice cream, and every thing else we could find in the freezer, all of which was Missy’s. (I promised myself I would replace it later.) I have always been blessed with a strong stomach, so even though I was sick the night before, it did not prevent me from eating out of misery. Plus, I had to do it for Carolyn. I couldn’t let her pig out on her own, now could I? I contemplated the last of the pizza rolls. Did I need them? Seeing as how I had puked up everything that I had eaten the night before, yeah, I did. As I stuffed one into my mouth, Carolyn asked me for what had become the millionth time, “Do you think that I did the right thing by telling him?”

I chewed, trying to figure out how I could answer her question so this time she would accept my answer. “Carolyn, you did what you had to do. You wouldn’t have been able to live with yourself, not telling him. How could you build a lasting relationship, feeling that way?”

“I know, but he was so hurt. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I told him; it’s been burned permanently onto my brain. I wish I could go back and erase it all, all of it. Why didn’t I listen to you? You should have made me listen to you, Faith.”

“Carolyn, I don’t even listen to my own advice most of the time. How was I supposed to get you to?”

Carolyn sawed off another piece of the frozen Sara Lee pound cake, which had to be stale. She took a small bite, and with a pained effort, chewed and swallowed. “I tried calling him at his mother’s house. She wouldn’t even let me talk to him, wouldn’t even say she would tell him that I called. Instead she told me to stay away from the apartment tomorrow afternoon so he can come get the rest of his stuff.”

“Are you going to stay away?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I would to say to him, even if I could get him to listen. Maybe I should give him some space.”

“Well, what do you want? I mean, if he was willing to forgive and forget, would you go back to the way you were, and give up your idea of moving from
Minneapolis
?”

Carolyn pushed the last of the pound cake away from her, and sat back on the couch. She leaned over and gently stroked Missy’s favorite cat, Jinny, who rolled over on her back in a request to have her belly rubbed. Carolyn petted her, seeming to focus all of her mental energy on that task, as if she was in deep concentration. “I can’t answer that, I just don’t know. All I can say is I wish this hadn’t happened. I wish I wasn’t such an idiot.”

Without thinking, I quoted what Lacey said so many years ago. “Love isn’t perfect, and neither are the people we love.”

“Did you get that from a fortune cookie?”

“Carolyn!”

“Sorry.”

“It happens to be true, no matter how trite it may sound. Maybe you should forgive yourself first, before you try and figure out what you want or what you’re going to try and do.”

She looked up at me with such a sad expression I felt like crying myself. “That’s easier said than done, Faith. Besides, that’s hardly apt advice, coming from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you forgiven Peter and Lacey? If you’re so accepting of love’s imperfections, then why can’t you forgive them?”

“Well, like you said before, my situation is different.”

Carolyn reached again for the pound cake she had pushed away. As she attempted to sever another piece from the frozen chunk, she said, “The situations are actually very much the same. I only said they weren’t to make myself feel better. Peter and Lacey betrayed you, I betrayed Charles. How much more basic can you get?”

I didn’t know what to say. I considered finishing off the last of the strawberry cheesecake which was sitting on the far left corner of the coffee table, but that would mean getting up. I was too comfort-able on my donut pillow to make it worth the effort. “I’ll tell you what,” Carolyn said, “I’ll forgive myself about Charles if you forgive Peter and Lacey.”

“That hardly seems like a fair deal, Carolyn.”

“Yeah, I know, and I’m the one who it’s unfair to. It’s a whole lot easier to forgive others than it is to forgive yourself.”

I was not convinced. After the anger I experienced last night forgiveness was the last thing on my mind. But Carolyn was never one to give up easily.

“Faith,” she said, as she leaned towards me, “Wouldn’t you feel so much better about life if you could let go, just be happy for them? Think about how good forgiveness would feel.”

“Well sure, if it was that easy. But it’s not.”

“But don’t you see, that’s exactly my point. I know it’s not easy, which is why you need to find a way to forgive them, for the both of us. Because if you do, then it will show me that it’s possible. Like if you can do it, so could Charles, and so could I.”

“I don’t know. All of a sudden I have the happiness of fi ve people resting on my shoulders. Besides, it’s not like they ever asked me to forgive them, they barely even apologized for hurting me.”

Carolyn reached out and stroked my hair, which was still drying from the shower I had taken while she defrosted the food. “Faith, I know things haven’t been easy for you lately. But I’m asking this of you mainly for your own good. Maybe they don’t deserve to be forgiven, but you deserve to be able to move on, and forgiveness is the first step. Say you’ll try, for me. Please.”

How could I say no? She was the one true friend I had left. “Okay, I’ll try. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll try.”

Chapter 14

Later that evening, alone in my bedroom, I made a list. If I was serious about forgiving Peter and Lacey, then I would have to be methodical about it. My lists are more like lesson plans, actually, because that’s how I think. It read like this:

Goal:
Forgive Peter and Lacey

Procedures:

1.
    
Focus on remembering the good times/how knowing them has benefi ted my life.

2.
    
Remember they are human, with fl aws/weaknesses.

3.
    
Find new people to love, or redirect more love to people already in my life.

4.
    
Love myself more (?) (I wasn’t honestly sure about that one, but I left it in because I thought that it sounded good.)

Assessment:

1.
    
I will be able to function in relationships like an adult rather than as a self-absorbed lunatic.

2.
    
I won’t think about them all the time.

3.
    
I’ll be able to trust someone enough to fall in love with him.

4.
    
I will be able to be friends with Peter and Lacey, and be a part of their lives.

I was also unsure about that last one. Did I still want to be friends with them? I never saw the benefit of being friends with an ex, but I suppose I could see the value of staying friends with Lacey, my oldest friend since childhood. And if I were going to be friends with her, I would have to at least tolerate her husband.

I put the list away. It was enough of a first step to have written it. Besides, I had to be at work the next morning, and my stomach lurched every time I thought about seeing Glenn and Ethan. Maybe I should quit. I had only taken the job because I thought it would make me feel better about myself. It certainly wasn’t doing that.

The next morning I was still unsure about what I wanted. I hated to give up so easily, but if Glenn was truly set on making my life miserable, perhaps this battle was not worth fighting. I was still sore from my fall two days before, so I sort of hobbled up to the shop, but when I went to unlock the door, I discovered it was already open. I went in and found myself face to face with Sally, who was taking chairs down from the tops of tables.

I didn’t know what to expect, so it was with some trepidation that I approached her. “Oh hi, Sally, I didn’t know you were going to be in this morning.”

She turned, and the look on her face was one of sympathy and concern. “I heard about what happened. I thought maybe you could use some help today. How are you feeling?”

“Not bad,” I lied. Actually, while still painful, my tailbone did feel better that day than it had the day before.

“Faith, I feel terrible about what happened.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I heard Glenn’s side of the story, and then yesterday Bill came in and asked how you were. He told me what actually happened. Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t want you to be in a position where you had to take sides against your daughter.”

Sally sighed. “Well, that’s sweet of you, but it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve been in that position. Glenn has always been a little high strung. She’s had a tough life. Her father left us when she was twelve. She took it personally, I still don’t think she’s over it.”

I went over behind the counter to prepare the coffee, listening to Sally at the same time. She continued on. “And in school she had a rough time as well. Her teachers always underestimated her, when in reality she was way ahead of the material they were giving her. They called her a troublemaker, but I think she was bored.”

In my teaching career I have heard parents make excuses for their children over and over, and Sally sounded no different. In my mind it came down to one thing, either you were willing to draw the line with your child, or you weren’t. Obviously Sally wasn’t, and I wondered if that had been Glenn’s problem all along.

“But I’m not trying to make excuses for her. I don’t care what her situation is, she has no right to treat you like that. I told her if she is going to come in here, then she’ll have to be civil, and without that Ethan. It’s his fault, he does this to her. I don’t trust him. So I put my foot down. He’s not welcome here anymore.”

While I did not agree with the logic of banning Ethan from the shop for something Glenn had done, I wasn’t about to argue, especially not after the message I had left the other night. With any luck, Glenn would find a new place to have coffee, one where she could bring her boyfriend.

And it appeared my wish may have been granted. The morning sailed by, with no problems whatsoever. Bill stopped in at his usual time. “How are you feeling? Is your butt still sore?” I told him it was, but the donut pillow was helping immensely. Then I gave him a free hot chocolate and rice crispy treat.