Recipes for Disaster (15 page)

Okay, here it comes. “Yes. In fact, Catherine’s maiden name is Connelly. She’s—”

“Not your old pal, CeeCee Connelly,” Aunt Phyllis exclaims.

“Yep, the one and the same,” Jack says.

Aunt Phyllis lets that sink in. “Well, what do you know? So I guess you two will be as thick as thieves again, now that she’s here.” 

I toss my pizza onto my plate. “Trust me—we were never ‘thick as thieves.’”

She’s laughing so hard, she almost chokes on her pizza. “I’ll say you were! I remember the time I caught you trying to climb out of your window in the middle of the night, because CeeCee was tossing pebbles at it. And then there was that incident when she wrote a note to your teacher as if it came from your mother, so that you could get out of class and play hooky. Boy, your father was hot under the collar when he found out about that one—”

“Aunt Phyllis, please, you’re exaggerating!” My warning comes much too late. The girls are staring at me, as if I’m some sort of exotic creature they’ve never seen before.

Yes, I was young once. Yes, I did things that were sometimes silly, and other times stupid. 

And yes, I made mistakes I’ll always live to regret.

And so will you.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to forgive yourself for them. 

As for those who led you down the path of temptation, they have their own memories to deal with, their own hells to answer for.

The thought of me doing all the things I've warned her against has Mary collapsing in a fit of giggles. Laughter, especially at the expense of others, is a slippery slope. Wendy also caves in, as does Aunt Phyllis. Not to be left out, Trisha giggles, too, as if it’s the funniest joke she’s ever heard. 

Jeff shouts from the great room for all of us to “KEEP IT DOWN, ALREADY!” Since his own election, he’s been hooked on 
PBS Newshour
’s primary coverage.

Shields and Brooks have much to talk about. With the candidates’ campaigns sinking under the weight of their past deeds, one can only guess who’ll be last man—or woman—standing.

My bet is on CeeCee. 

For all the wrong reasons.

Finally, Mary gets her giggles under control. “Mom, since you’re hanging with your old friend, do you mind if I interview her for the school newspaper? We’re each supposed to choose a candidate and write a biography, but a one-on-one interview will give me an instant A.”

Wendy shoves her. “Oh, I am so jealous! You’ll be interviewing Catherine Martin!” 

“Wait—Mom knows Congresswoman Martin?” All of a sudden, we have Jeff’s attention. “Mom, can I interview her, too? Please? Miss Bliss would flip out if I got the chance—”

“I asked first,” Mary growls at him. “Right, Mom? If anyone is going to interview her, it’s me—”

“No one is interviewing anyone—least of all, Catherine Martin!” I’m loud enough—and angry enough—that they all get the message.

Everyone shuts up.

Everyone is confused.

Jack, especially, who turns to Aunt Phyllis and says, “We’re going to take the dogs out for a walk.”

Then he grabs my hand, and pulls me out the door after him.

He doesn’t realize that I need more than a bit of fresh air.

I need to forget the past.

“Want to tell me what happened between you and CeeCee?” 

Jack is hanging upside down by his knees on the playground jungle gym. From that position, he pulls himself up, doing a series of crunches that are impressive, and explain why he’s the only man in the neighborhood with six-pack abs worth sighing over.

Okay, now that Dominic lives here, too, Jack has a little competition, which at least gives me one reason to be glad he's moved to town.

Where do I start? I wonder. 

As if reading my mind, he says, “From the beginning.”

With that, it spills out of me: all the memories, all the angst, all the grief and regrets. 

All the shame of trying to be normal under extraordinary circumstances.

“I didn’t know my mother was dying,” I start. “All I knew was that CeeCee Connelly, the older girl who lived behind us, liked me enough to hang with me.”

He nods slowly. “How old were you at the time?” 

“I was eleven, almost twelve. I’d just started sixth grade. CeeCee was fourteen.”

“So you were in middle school, and she was in high school.”

“Yes, at the time, she was a freshman in high school. I thought it odd at first. I mean, all that time we’d lived so close, but she’d ignored me. You remember how it is when you’re a teenager. The last thing you want to do is hang with kids who are younger. Anyway, she started coming around—you know, to hang out, to talk. Friendly as can be. Of course, I was flattered. CeeCee was just as she is now: the queen bee. Truly, between middle school and high school, she blossomed into this gorgeous young woman, and all the boys fell over themselves to find out who she was—especially Bobby.”

“You mean, Robert Martin.”

“Yes. He was sixteen—a junior. And I’m sure he got razzed for falling so hard for a freshman, but he didn’t care. He knew she had something special. We all knew it.”  I try hard to swallow the lump in my throat. “I guess that should have been the tip-off that the last thing CeeCee Connelly would do is hang with a skinny, pimply sixth-grader.”

“So, why did she?”

I bite my lip. “It was my mother’s idea, although neither my dad nor I knew it at the time. Mother had already gotten her cancer diagnosis from her doctor. She knew she’d be ‘napping’ a lot, what with the drugs she’d be taking, and with the disease eating away at her. She wanted someone to watch over me—and to distract me. CeeCee was someone she knew I’d look up to. So, she paid CeeCee to come over in the afternoons, to watch me while Mother ‘ran her errands.’” I wipe away a tear. “You see, she didn’t want a caretaker for herself, she wanted one for me. All the time I thought she was shopping or at her bridge club, she was getting chemo, or being poked and prodded by her doctors. Sometimes she’d just nap in her bedroom.”

He hikes himself off the monkey bars and eases himself onto the slide. “Was CeeCee mean to you?”

“No … Well, not at first. We did our homework together. She showed me how to wear my clothes—you know, roll my skirt at the waist, and unbutton the top two buttons of my blouse, so that I didn’t look like such a little dork. She taught me how to put on make-up. Once, she even cut my hair. I was like—I imagined I was her little sister.” I shrug. “Eventually she’d open up to me about her other friends. Unlike the other girls her age, I wasn’t jealous of her. I idolized her! She could see that. I guess it’s easy to talk to someone who is in awe of you, and who will cross-her-heart-and-hope-to-die before revealing any secret you tell her.”

“When did things change between you?”

“When Bobby started hanging around.” When I close my eyes, I see his face as it was then. “He was gaga over her. She loved it. Of course, he was just as handsome as Evan is now. But he was smart, too. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s been so successful with all of his Internet start-ups. He was voted Most Likely to Succeed for a reason.” I pause. “Soon, he knew her routine, and made a point to walk by my house. CeeCee made sure we were always on the front porch. She’d ignore him, but he always found a way to invite himself up. I’d sit in awe as she flirted with him. Once, she sent me inside to pour lemonade. I was walking out with it when I saw them, through the window: kissing. I was too embarrassed to interrupt them, so I waited until they came up for air. By then, my arms were aching, from holding the tray.”

Jack chuckles in the hope that I will, too. 

But I can’t, because my heart is beating too hard in my chest. “I was fascinated. I felt I was watching my future, my destiny, through them—and that they let me in on it because they thought I was cool, too. I had no idea that CeeCee was paid to hang out with me, or that it gave her the added convenience of seeing Bobby without her own mother knowing about it.” I sigh. “Soon I was fantasizing that it was me in Bobby’s arms—that he was making out with me, not her.”

“When did she catch on?”

“She caught me writing his name with mine, inside of a heart. When she saw how embarrassed I was, she laughed, and said she thought it was adorable. But I was mortified—even more so when she told Bobby about it, in front of me.”

“Did he laugh, too?”

“Oddly, no. Whereas other boys would have probably said something cruel about it, I think he knew I was embarrassed and he said, ‘I’ll keep it in mind. She’s going to be a knock-out when she grows up.’”

“He was right.”

Jack’s declaration lifts a smile from me. “I appreciate you saying so—and I certainly was flattered he thought so, too. But CeeCee wasn’t too happy about it. She huffed off. A couple of days later they made up—in fact, they made out in my bedroom. But things were never the same between CeeCee and me.”

“What about between you and Bobby?”

Can he see me blushing in the dark? “One night—I found out later that my father knew my mother’s prognosis by then, and my parents stayed overnight at the hospital, for tests—CeeCee was to spend the night with me. She used it as an excuse for a party. She invited over two girlfriends, and of course Bobby came over with two other boys. They played games. You know, Spin the Bottle, that sort of thing. One of the boys suggested that I play, too. I didn’t want to, but CeeCee insisted on it. ‘You’re going to do it sooner or later, so you might as well do it with people who aren’t dorky middle-schoolers,’ was how she put it.”

“That was cruel of her to say.” 

“Oh, it gets better, believe me.” I take a deep breath. “The game is called ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven.’”

“I know it. Boy plus girl plus a room with a bed, behind a locked door.” He shakes his head.

“Exactly.” I shudder. “We used my bedroom. Each girl would pull the name of a boy out of a hat. I went last. The sounds behind my bedroom door freaked me out, but because I wanted to impress CeeCee, I kept my cool. But then … then it was my turn. I don’t remember the boy’s name now. All I remember is that he was big and bulky and made all kinds of dirty remarks to the other girls. When he heard his name, he snickered and high-fived the other boy. Then he jerked me by my arm toward my bedroom. I didn’t like the look in his eye and I began to panic, but he wouldn’t let me go. He held me around my waist and practically threw me onto my little twin bed. I fought hard, and the tears were falling so fast that I couldn’t see what was happening. Maybe that was a good thing, because I could feel his hand slip under my tee-shirt. At the same time, he was grinning like a mad jack-o-lantern … And then …”

Jack squeezes my hand. “What happened?”

“He wasn’t there anymore. Bobby had pulled him off and was pummeling the guy, and CeeCee was screaming at him. When he stopped, the other boy was bleeding all over. He scrambled out of there, and so did the other kids, even CeeCee.”

“You spent the night, alone?”

“No. Bobby stayed there—on the couch. But when he was trying to make me stop crying, he held me. And … he kissed me.” 

The thought weighs heavy on my lids, pushing them down. But in the darkness behind my eyes, the memory plays before me, as if I’m watching an old movie:

Bobby is holding me, shushing me—

Kissing me.

On the cheek. 

Until I turn toward him, so that his lips are on mine.

But just for a second—

One very sweet moment.

Maybe longer.

When he pulls away, he is breathing heavy, and I am, too. Then he says, “I’m with CeeCee.”

“But why?” I ask. What I mean to add is, 
when you can be with me
.

“Because she is who I love. She is my everything. She is the queen of the universe.”

His universe. A place in which I don’t exist, and never have.

That’s my cue—to scramble away, to pretend it never happened.

But I don’t. If anyone is going to walk away, it will be him.

He gets up and goes to the couch.

“Donna, he didn’t—” Jack’s voice brings me back to the here and now.

“You mean … No! Quite the opposite, Jack, believe me. It was all very innocent. Even back then, he was very much in love with CeeCee.” I sigh. “But because he didn’t walk out with her, she thought the worst, too. Soon, the rumors were flying. I was a bad girl. I was no longer a virgin. At the same time, my parents broke the news to me that my mother didn’t have long to live. I became her caretaker. Thank goodness, it gave me the excuse I needed to take a leave of absence from school. Until Aunt Phyllis came over from the East Coast to live with us, I left my mother’s side only twice a week—for a grocery run, and to meet with my teacher after school, to get my homework and turn in the assignments from the previous week.” I shrug. “One day, as I was walking home, Bobby was waiting for me. He said he needed to talk to me. I knew it was CeeCee who had started the rumors, so of course I had nothing to say to him. But he insisted. He wanted to apologize. He said he, too, knew she was the source of the gossip, but that if anyone asked, he always denied anything happened. I wanted to believe him. And I asked him to kiss me, one last time.”