Me vs. Me (4 page)

I pull myself together, shoulders down, big smile, and rejoin the party.

The group is already in the process of piling potato salad and tuna wraps onto their orange paper plates.

“There you are,” says Cam, wrapping his arm around me. “Hungry?”

“Definitely.” I love Alice's tuna wraps. She's a nag, yes, but a nag who can cook. She is constantly copying recipes for me. As if I could cook. Not.

“So dear, what are you thinking, a May wedding?” asks Alice as she refills the (yes, orange) potato-salad bowl. “I know how much Arizona girls love a May wedding. Perfect weather to get married outdoors.”

Blair got married on May fourth. Alice got married on May thirteenth.

“I'm not really sure yet, Alice.” Um, we've been engaged for less than ten hours? Can I have some time to breathe, please?

“I told Cammy that he should have proposed months ago,” she continues. “So we'd have more time to plan, but did he listen to me? Does he ever? No. Now we only have six months to pull it all together.”

“Mom, six months will be plenty,” Cam says.

Hello? Have we picked May? Did that decision happen while I was in the bathroom?

Alice shakes her head from side to side. “Gabrielle, I tried getting in touch with your mom to invite her today. But she didn't return my call. Is she out of town?”

My mother? Here? Thank God she's out of town. I don't know what she'd make of this quasi-Brady bunch, but it wouldn't be pretty.

“She's doing some work in Tampa,” I say.

I catch a look between Alice and Blair. They've never said anything outright, but I get the feeling that they don't approve of my mother's hectic career, her men, her marriages. “Ah, I see,” Alice says. “Well, when she gets back, I'd like the three of us to get together for tea. We should put our heads together and start planning. When will she be back home? Perhaps we can have a girls' night this week?”

Is she kidding me? My mother? Here? What if she throws one of the brass statues? Even without my father as a target, she's always throwing something at somebody. I'm not sure how's she going to react to Alice. I can't quite picture her hand-making fortune cookies. Throwing the cookies, possibly.

“She's very busy,” I say. “It's hard for her to get away.” Which is true. My mother is not in the best place in her life right now. She's an entrepreneur and is always investing in the next “big” thing. Unfortunately, she loves start-ups, even though they don't always love her back. Last year, she lost a mint and had to sell her Scottsdale house and move to a small condo in Phoenix. Right now she has her eye on some business opportunity in Tampa. Which is why she didn't freak out when I told her I was moving to New York. She thinks we both have had enough of the dry heat.

Alice rubs her hands together. “I bet she can't wait to dig her hands into the planning!”

“Um…I haven't told her yet.”

Up shoot Alice's penciled-in eyebrows.

When would I have found time to tell her? This kind of news takes more than the two seconds I had to myself while I was in the bathroom.

Alice fidgets with her hair. “Talk to her soon, please. We need to get cracking. I've already spoken to the church and told them to hold May sixth.”

Dread sets in. My mom and I declared ourselves agnostics, but we still fast every Yom Kippur. Just in case. I'm not religious, but I absolutely can't get married in a church. And what about those wafers? Do they come in kosher? Do people actually eat wafers, or is that just in the movies? Are they carb-free? My mom is always on a diet. Oh God, my mom is going to throw the wafer.

Cam sees the panic on my face and quickly adds, “Mom, we haven't decided on St. George's. I told you that.”

“Calm down, Cammy. You don't have to make a decision this second. But it is a family tradition, and it would make me very happy.”

For someone not of the tribe, she sure has the Jewish guilt thing down pat. She could put my mom to shame.

“And May six is the perfect weekend,” she declares. “Not that I'm pressuring, I don't want to pressure, but Aunt Zoey and Uncle Dean bought tickets in from Salt Lake for the whole family.”

But no pressure.

Cam looks exasperated. “Why would she already buy her ticket?”

Alice shrugs and stares at her plate. “American Airlines was having a sale.”

I don't believe this. The relatives bought their plane tickets before I even knew we were getting married. Is this normal? This is not normal. I know my own family history makes it difficult for me to understand normalcy, but I'm pretty sure this isn't it. I should tell her to back off. Step back, missy.

The words are at the tip of my tongue, but they don't come out.

“Anyway,” Alice says, “let's talk about colors for the wedding. I think orange would be beautiful—”

“Let me just get something to drink,” I say backing away. Vodka, perhaps. In one of Alice's orange-tinted tumblers.

 

“You know I'm not converting, right?”

“You don't have to convert to get married at St. George's,” Cam says. We're lying in his king-size bed, wrapped in his sheets.

“I don't even know if I want a big wedding. I always pictured myself getting hitched somewhere cool. Like barefoot on a beach in Fiji. Or at a campsite in Kenya. Or a mountain in Nepal.”

“My family can't afford to go to Nepal.”

Bingo. “Who says our families have to come? I've always wanted to elope. So romantic.”

“Watching me get married will be a huge joy for them. I can't take that away. This is the moment they've been looking forward to their whole lives.”

They could probably use a hobby. I lean up on my elbow and place my hand firmly on a patch of blond fuzzy chest hair. “Is this about them or us?”

“You know what I mean. I'm sure your family would be devastated if they weren't there. Don't you want your dad to walk you down the aisle?”

“Only if my mother is at the other end of the aisle at the time—and the aisle is five miles long.”

He squeezes my hand. “What did your parents say? Were they excited?”

Oops. I knew there was something I'd forgotten to do. “I'll call them tomorrow.”

His eyes cloud over. “How could you not want to talk to them? Don't you think that's odd?”

“We've been busy,” I say and pull him closer. I squeeze my feet between his knees to warm them up.

“Phone them first thing in the morning. What if they hear from someone else?”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah? Like who? The
National Enquirer
?
ET
?”

“Your feet are so dry,” he says, wriggling. “Why don't you use lotion? It's right by the bed.”

“Because I don't feel like it.” Nag, nag, nag. I pull my legs away. “Would you stop telling me what to do?”

“I didn't realize you were a fan of dry feet.” He nuzzles his chin into my neck. “I'm sorry,” he says, and sounds like he means it. “And we can invite whomever you want to the wedding. And dress them in whatever color you want. It's about us, not my mom. Now give me a Gabby smile.”

I smile. How can I stay mad at him? “Sounds good to me.” I kiss his forehead and rub my scaly heel against his calf.

He runs his fingers through my hair. “But it would mean a lot to my family if it was at St. George's.”

You've got to be kidding. “We'll see.” I'll deal with it tomorrow.

“Love you.”

“You, too.”

I close my eyes, squeezing the annoyance out like the last drop of toothpaste. I do love him. But is my whole life going to be about bowing to his mother's wishes? Did I make the wrong choice? I toss and turn, and finally drift off to sleep.

 

I'm awakened by blaring music, swirls of green hot light and another intense headache. Ow! What is wrong with me? I seriously have to see a doctor. My brain feels like it's imploding.

“Turn off the alarm,” I mumble to Cam, wiping drool from my lips. Lovely. Head hurts. Needles in eyes.

The music is shrieking,
“Let's do the time warp again!”

“Cam! Turn it off! It's Sunday!” He'd better not be going into work today. I'll kill him.

“Well, I was walking down the street just having a think, when a snake of a guy gave me an evil wink—”

I groan and open my eyes. Strange. My headache is gone.

As is my fiancé. The spot next to me is empty. “Cam?” I wonder aloud. Where is he?

“He shook me up, took me by surprise—”

Why are Cam's sheets pink? Am I…Is this…

I'm back in my own bed.

Splitsville

T
he alarm clock, my Hello Kitty alarm clock, says 6:30 a.m.

I stifle a scream.

I officially need to be institutionalized. What is wrong with me? I stare up at my ceiling in despair. Maybe there's someone I can call? 1-800-CRAZY? I kick off my covers and peruse my bedroom. How did I end up back here when I went to sleep at Cam's? I creak open my door and tiptoe around the apartment. The lights are off and Lila's door is shut. My two red packed suitcases are in the center of the room, mocking me.

When did I come home? How much vodka did I have at Alice's?

The apartment looks just as it did in my dream last night. After I told Cam I was moving to New York.

Am I dreaming now? As I search the apartment for some sort of sign, my gaze lands on my left hand. My now diamond-less hand.

What happened to my ring? Why am I back home? Was yesterday a dream? Did I never go to Alice's? Am I moving to New York?

I need to speak to someone. I need to speak to Cam. I race over to the living-room phone and dial his number. It rings once.

“Hi, you've reached Cam. I can't come to the phone…”

Why isn't he answering? He's supposed to be my fiancé. A fiancé should answer even if he's sleeping. I try to squash my rising hysteria. Something is wrong with my brain. I'm delirious. Maybe I have a brain tumor? I hang up and dial my mother's hotel number. And then I remember that it's 6:30 a.m. and hang up before she answers. And then I remember that she's in Florida and it's therefore 8:30. Or is it 9:30? I never remember. I call again.

“The hotel has caller ID,” she says. “It's not nice to prank call your mother.”

“Hi, Mom?” I sit on the couch and try to keep the rising hysteria out of my voice.

“Oh, God, Gabby, you're not going to believe the day I'm having.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

“Well, me first,” she says. “I was woken up at four this morning by the fire alarm. I had to put on my bathrobe, and wait in the lobby. Naturally it was a false alarm, and a big waste of my time and energy. Anyway, you just caught me. I was on my way to work.”

“I think something is weird with me.”

“Are you throwing up? You're not pregnant, are you?”

I lie across the couch. “Does being pregnant make you stupid?”

“A little. Are your breasts swollen?”

I examine my braless cleavage. “Not so much.”

“Morning sickness?”

“I don't think I'm pregnant. It's just that…Okay, I know this is going to sound weird. But I went to sleep last night at Cam's and I woke up in my own bed.”

Silence. “Have you been smoking anything?”

“Mom, no.”

“Booze?”

“A little. But not enough to make me go crazy.”

“Moving is stressful, Gabby.”

“And to top it off, Cam proposed last night—”

“He proposed? Now? What a male thing to do. He waits until you quit your job, and
then
decides to propose? What is wrong with him? With all of them? Your father always tried to control me like that. You're too young to get married anyway. You can't get married at twenty-four—”

“Mom—”

“So what did you do?”

“I'm not sure. I thought I said no. But then I went to sleep, and when I woke up I realized I
hadn't
said no. But now I'm home again. And not engaged. Is this making any sense?”

“No. You had a weird dream. You're flying to New York today. Stress is normal. Healthy, even. Or maybe you ate something funny.”

“Maybe the potato salad was off.” But if I hadn't gone to Alice's, there would be no potato salad. Was going to Alice's a dream? “Maybe I came home last night, after I left Cam's.”

Suddenly, Lila's door bursts open. “Gabby, it's six-thirty in the morning here. Some of us don't have to be up for another thirty minutes.” She's wearing her long red silk nightgown and her matching fuzzy red slippers. Her blond hair is already tied into a neat ponytail.

“Mom, I have to go. I'll call you later.” I hang up and turn to Lila. “Am I engaged?”

She narrows her eyes. “Are you kidding?”

I wish. “No. I'm serious.”

“You do remember what happened yesterday, don't you?”

I remember two yesterdays. “I do, but I'm confused.”

“You turned Cam down. You're leaving for New York. We said goodbye last night.”

I nod, slowly. Back to single Gabby. Alice's must have been a dream. A vivid dream. More like a nightmare. I fell asleep worrying about whether or not I'd done the right thing, and I dreamed about what would happen if I had said yes. And the answer: a disaster of a brunch and a church wedding I don't want.

She studies my face. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I don't think so.”

“Let me get you an aspirin.”

“Okay. And then I need to get to the airport.”

 

I watch a movie on the plane. I'm trying not to think about my crack-up, or my new job.

Am I ready for the big time? With my mental condition, I might not even be suited for the small time.

I wonder what Heather will be like. Lila and I always did everything together. Maybe I'll get lucky and have another roommate turned best friend. Maybe I'll get even luckier and Heather will have the same shoe size as me. Lila has adorably small feet—her slippers barely fit onto my big toe.

I land in New York, wait twenty minutes for my oversize luggage, another twenty for a taxi line (freezing my butt off—damn it's cold in this part of the country), have a terrifying journey into the city (both from the speed and jerkiness of the drive, and from the overwhelmingness of it all) and arrive in front of the apartment thirty minutes later. Holy shit. I'm here. I'm in New York. I'm here!

“Here you are,” the cabbie says. “Thirty-fourth and Third.” I do my best not to get run over as I struggle to pull my bags out of the trunk.

“Hi,” I say to the doorman, I take a deep breath to steady my racing heart rate. “I'm Gabby Wolf. You're supposed to have keys for me?”

He looks behind his desk. “Nope. Nothing for you.”

Terrific. “Um. Has anyone left anything at all for apartment 15D?”

He takes another look. “Nope. But I think Heather's in.”

“She is?” Thank God.

He picks up his phone and dials. “Heather? You have a visitor. Your name?” he asks me.

“Gabrielle.”

“It's Gabrielle,” he says, nods and hangs up. “You can go up.”

Why did she make such a big deal about leaving me the keys if she was going to be home? Hello, drama queen.

I roll my bags into the elevator and then off at the fifteenth floor. The carpet is a mousy yellow. It looks like a grandparents' apartment and smells like chicken soup. Whatever. I'm in New York!

I look both ways and then head to the right. A door opens and a woman is standing in the entranceway. She's shorter than I expected, about five-two. Her bright turquoise shirt-dress shows off an hourglass figure. Wide hips, and a tiny waist held in by a tight belt. Funky outfit. Her hair is light brown, curly and down to her waist. Her eyes are small and just a bit too close together.

She looks me over. “You're taller than I expected.”

“Sorry?” Nice to meet you, too.

“I guess you should come in.” She moves over to let me inside. She doesn't offer to help with my bags.

On the other side of the door is a plain white living room featuring a boring beige, felty, scrawny couch, a red rug, a bookshelf filled with what looks like “How to get him to notice you” self-help books, framed posters of purple flowers and a tiny TV. The first thing I need to buy is a new TV for my room. Lila was never home, so I was allowed to monopolize the one she'd bought for our living room. But I'm not sure if Steak-Knife Heather would appreciate my constant news surfing.

“This is the common space,” she says and then leads me to a room off the hallway. “Your bedroom.”

The room is white and grungy. Tape remnants are stuck to the wall and dust bunnies litter the scraped wooden floor. A large blind-less window looks over Third Avenue. I guess I should have brought that sheet.

Honk!

Honk, honk, honk! Holy shit I'm really in New York!

It gets quiet here at night, right?

Heather heaves the window open. The honking gets louder. “You'll need to air out the room,” she says. “Leigh was a pig.”

I wheel my luggage into the center of the empty space. “Wait a sec. Where's my new bed?”

Heather shrugs. “It never arrived.”

You've got to be kidding. “What am I supposed to sleep on?”

“What do you want me to do? Call a mattress company.”

Crap. My phone. “I forgot to pack my phone.”

“Where's the rest of your furniture? Where are you going to put your clothes?”

“At the moment, I'm more concerned with where I'm going to put me.” The couch did not look all that comfortable.

“It'll probably come tomorrow. Are you hungry? What are you doing for dinner?”

“I don't know. I didn't think that far ahead.”

“Do you eat Italian?”

“Sure.” Who doesn't? “But I'd like to unpack first, if that's okay,” I say, glancing dubiously at the miniscule closet.

“Obviously. I need to make us a reservation, anyway.”

At least I remembered my Hello Kitty alarm clock. I set the current time and the alarm for tomorrow. Then I pull my work clothes out of my bag and shake them out. I have no idea what I'm going to wear tomorrow for my first day, but whatever it is, it must not be wrinkled. I open the closet to find it…stark free of hangers. Wonderful. “Can I borrow some hangers?”

“I don't have too many extras.”

Come on. “One? Two? I'll buy my own tomorrow.”

She sighs and retreats into her bright orange room (which looks bigger than mine from this angle), and returns a few minutes later with three metal hangers, the kind you get at the dry cleaners. “I'll need these back ASAP.”

I guess we won't be sharing shoes just yet.

 

“So what's your story?” she asks over our Caesar salads. We're at a table by the window looking onto Lexington. Every time the door opens, a burst of cold air blows through my clothes.

“Which one?”

“Men-wise.”

This is one story I don't feel like rehashing. “Had a boyfriend. Now I don't.”

Her eyes gleam. “So you're single.”

Single. I haven't been single in years. The word feels foreign in my head, like another language. “I suppose so.”

“Good. I could desperately use a new single friend. All my girls have sold their souls. It's the worst. Their men are their goddamn appendages. Tell me, why can't a wife have dinner with her friends one night a week? Will her husband starve?”

“I don't know.” Cam was actually pretty good about letting me have my own space. Although who knows if that would have changed if we lived together.

“Well, I do. Women let men control their lives. They don't know how to create
boundaries.
” She draws a square in the air with her index finger. “They don't know how to keep their own individuality. At least we'll have each other. At least you didn't bail. You wouldn't believe the freaks I met trying to sublet this place. I wish I could keep the whole apartment on my own, but I'd be broke by Christmas. Leigh moving out totally screwed me, you know. What a bitch.”

If Leigh was a bitch, what does that make Heather? Our server arrives with our raviolis, and I shove a forkful into my mouth in case I'm suddenly tempted to answer my question out loud.

 

After dinner, I'm in my bedroom, staring at the apartments across the street, my sheets covering my makeshift bed (aka the couch cushions). It's already eleven, but I doubt I'll be able to doze off anytime soon.

First of all, it's only nine my time. Second, I'm terrified of closing my eyes. I've been in denial all day, but I can't ignore that every time I go to sleep, I seem to end up in an alternate reality. And since that isn't possible, I must just be having weird dreams, right?

Maybe tonight I'll dream about something normal, like failing a test in high school.

What if I wake up back in Arizona?

No. No, no, no. Must think positively. It won't happen again! I will wake up in New York! I will…I will…I will…

My eyelids feel heavy. Yes, that's what's going to happen. I will wake up in New York. I
will
wake up back in New York. I will…

 

Blinding pain. Light.

“This week in sports…”

There's a fire in my head! I blink twice and open my eyes. Shit.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Cam says. He's sitting up in bed, shirtless, watching TV. “You must be zonked. It's already ten.”

I try not to cry. I am going mad. What is wrong with me? Why can't I tell the difference between dreaming and real life? Why is my brain playing tricks on me? I pull the covers back over my head.

“What's wrong?”

“Nightmare,” I say.

“About what?”

About what, indeed. “A fire.” My brain is on fire.

“No fires here,” he promises.

I stay hidden until Cam eventually leaves to make us breakfast. “Omelet?” he asks from the kitchen. “Cheese and onion?”

“'Kay,” I answer. I am not coming out. I am temporarily crazy, so I will remain here until it passes. Like the flu.

My stomach starts to growl as the scent of onion and bacon wafts under the sheets. Yum. I doubt Heather is making me anything this good in my real life.

“Since you won't come out for the chow, the chow is coming to you,” Cam says, placing a tray on my lap. Breakfast in bed. How sweet is that? “Eat, future wife,” he says. “You need your strength.”