The After Wife (29 page)

He stood there, his eyes registering panic. “Jimmy … Did you say Courtney … Eubanks?” he asked.

I put my hand on his shoulder. I could tell he was in shock.

“It’s time for you to go home, Jimmy,” I said. “You need to face up to the past. You can’t run anymore.”

He looked at me, suddenly small and vulnerable. “Who are you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

As I looked at him, I thought about his question.

“I’m a hyphenate. I’m a mom, a widow,” I said, “and … a medium. Take care.”

I grabbed my bag and walked out.

19

Growing Pains

After John died, I had put my sex drive in the drawer with all those business cards I can’t seem to throw out. Like, someday I’ll need a cab ride in Phoenix with Mazur. Or a haircut in Brooklyn by a woman I met on a plane five years ago.

I remember liking men, vaguely, like the Italian waiter at Toscana who treated me like a queen in the days when I had an expense account. Someday we will look back at expense accounts as we do dinosaurs. We’ll stroll through museums, like the Credit Card Museum, where we’ll visit rainbow-colored cards with unlimited balances. At the What We Used to Care About Wing (adjacent to the What Were We Thinking? Wing), we’ll don headphones and listen to Anna Wintour describing “seasons,” when socialites would buy designer clothes that would be deigned obsolete months later. And we’ll sit there, on those hard benches in the middle of the “Never Wear White After Labor Day” room and laugh our food-stamps-and-unemployment-just-ran-out asses off.

I’m digressing. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of sex. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that I miss it. I’m uncomfortable that my friends are fucking like rabbits on Viagra and Red Bull.

Enter, Jay
. In the last week, Hidalgo had been kicked out by his long-suffering wife, had moved in with Jay, and had tearfully accepted Jay’s proposal. His vision had come true.

“The date’s set. June 20th,” Jay announced, using his manic bridal energy to slice peppers on my chopping block. He’d brought over enough groceries to feed the Westside (which doesn’t require much, granted) and set about making a mess of my kitchen, jostling my vague plans for Poquito Mas takeout.

“That’s when my parents got married,” he continued.

Ellie and Brandon had headed over to Douglas Park to hit the monkey bars before dinnertime. I knew my only job was to listen and be supportive, but I had already failed.
You’ve heard of a Bridezilla? How about a Gay Groomosaurus?

“How romantic is that?” I asked. “Your parents haven’t spoken to each other in thirty years.”

“The ceremony will be on the Vineyard,” he said, sliding the peppers into a pan before drizzling olive oil on them.

“Why the Vineyard?” I said.

“There’s a delightful bed-and-breakfast.”

“You don’t eat breakfast.”

“You’ve got to help me with the rehearsal dinner choreography,” Jay said.

“
Choreography?
Jay, you make fun of people like you.”

“Why can’t you just be happy for me?” Jay turned, waving a kitchen knife.

“Because you’re making a huge mistake?”

“You used to be nicer,” Jay said, “when John was alive.”

“Death is a downer. Try walking in my shoes sometime.”

“First of all, I’d never walk in Uggs, hello. Second, you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” I said, feeling sorry for myself. Someone knocked at the front door, then let themselves in. “Hello?” I called out.

“Hey, peeps,” Chloe said, sauntering into the kitchen, then opening my candy drawer. “I’m starving. Chocolate, come to Mommy.” Chloe grabbed the two-pound See’s box. See’s is a staple in my house.
Take my TV, take my car, take my grandmother’s earrings—but do NOT take my See’s
.

Chloe tore through the box and shoved a chocolate into her mouth.

“My last Bordeaux? You know that’s not organic,” I said.

“Oh my God,” she said. “That’s so fucking good.”

“Why are you swearing?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“I had a heart attack last night,” Chloe said, her mouth full. Yet she was smiling.

“What?” I said. “Are you kidding? I mean, are you okay?”

“Billy’s on his way to Camp Pendleton. He left me alone.”

“Camp Pendleton?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

“He joined the Marines?” Jay asked. “He’s going to be all brave and few?”

“Yesterday, Billy went to the recruitment center on Wilshire,” Chloe said, as she disemboweled my See’s box. “You know him—he talked his way in. Billy can talk his way into anything.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” I said. “A forty-year-old man joining the Marines.”

“Yeah. So I’m alone with the kids—I’ve never been alone,” Chloe said. “I can’t do it. I’m in constant fear that someone’s going to knock on my door and ask me to balance a checkbook. Anyway, something amazing happened.”

“Get to the good part,” Jay said. “We’re planning a wedding on a time crunch.”

“It was dinnertime,” she began, way too slowly. “I was just taking my tempeh casserole out of the oven. My heart started racing. You know I don’t do caffeine. Ever. Long story short, I fainted.”

“My God, Chloe. Why didn’t you call me?” I asked.

“Tyler, my big boy,” Chloe said. “He’s really sweet. He’s like, almost grown up …”

“Sweet Jesus,” Jay said. “Can we scroll down to the bottom?”

“He’s kind of small for his age, no?” Chloe asked, concerned.

“You feed him twigs and berries,” I said. “Has he ever had a glass of milk?”

“Milk causes diarrhea and mood swings,” Chloe said. “Do you have any? It’d go perfectly with the chocolate.”

“Can we skip to the punch line?” Jay pleaded.

Chloe opened the refrigerator. “Tyler called the paramedics while I lay passed out on the cold red Spanish tile.”

“Now you’re Steinbeck?” Jay said.

“When I awoke—” Chloe paused to chug milk right from the carton. She put it down and burped. “—there was a beautiful angel bent over me.”

“An angel?” I asked. I had yet to see a real angel, only dead people with issues.

“His name was Cody,” Chloe said.

“Angels have biblical names—there’s no Book of Cody,” Jay said.

“He held me in his arms and kissed me,” Chloe said. “I mean, gave me mouth-to-mouth.”

Jay rested his chin on his hands. He read homo-romos—homosexual romances—in his spare time. He had a library full of titles like
Land of the Forbidden Men
.

“I’m in love,” Chloe said. “I haven’t felt this way … I don’t remember if I ever felt this way.”

“Does Cody know?” I asked, hearing the front door open again.

“Is someone talking about Cody the Paramedic?” Aimee asked as she walked in. “He’s famous in these parts. Or should I say,
infamous
. NoMo moms love him.”

“Him, I’ve never met,” Jay said. “How is this possible?”

“Cody feels the same way I do,” Chloe continued, unperturbed by Jay’s and Aimee’s commentary. “I could tell by the way he checked my pupils, and took my blood pressure. And when he asked me what day it was, he was so gentle. Do you have Ben and Jerry’s?” She opened the freezer.

“Wait. What am I missing about the Santa Monica paramedics?” I asked.

“They’re aggressively gorgeous,” Aimee said. “There’s a lot of pressure to look pretty when you’re trying to recover from an audition-induced panic attack.”

“Hannah, they recruit them,” Jay said. “Surfers, skateboarders, beach volleyball players. Not that I’ve done my research, not that I’ve called nine-one-one when I overcooked my broccoli rabe.”

“I need to see Cody again,” Chloe said. “Is that so wrong? I am still a married woman.”

“Well, that’s true,” I said, my tone deliberately even, “but you are separated from a middle-aged ex-banker on his way to Marine boot camp.”

“That sounds crazy,” Chloe said, “when you put it like that.”

“Call him,” Aimee said. “Call Cody. Why not? What do you have to lose?”

“Why, thank you, Aimee,” Chloe said. “Okay. I’ll put meat loaf in the oven at seven—I’ve decided to start eating meat again—I’ll check my hair, get dizzy around 7:45, Tyler calls the paramedics. By the time the meat loaf is done, Cody is giving me mouth-to-mouth.”

“It’s not like a radio station,” Jay said. “You can’t request your favorite paramedic.”

“Honestly, Chloe,” I said. “Who cares which one you get? They sound like they’re all the same.”

“Wait a minute. What if it’s true love?” Aimee said, looking at us. “Love is the only thing that really matters, right?”

“Hi, my name’s Hannah,” I said, holding out my hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Stop kidding around,” Aimee said, before glancing at her phone. “Ooh, I’ve got to run. We’ll continue this conversation another time.”

We stared as Aimee waved and glided out of the kitchen.

Jay waited until we heard the door slam. “We have to call someone right away,” he said. “How about that MoonGlow place on Wilshire?”

“The psychiatric facility in Santa Monica backed by a reclusive billionaire?” asked Chloe.

“What about straight-up, no-frills?” I said. “UCLA Psych Ward might be perfect.”

“God, Aimee seemed so … sweet,” Chloe said. “She’s really not well, is she?”

“Maybe she’s overdoing the self-love again,” Jay said. “Remember when she landed at the emergency room on 15th? I love that place—it’s like a Williams-Sonoma. She put her shoulder out.”

I thought about the look on Aimee’s face: She’d been bitten by the love bug. Hopefully the love bug that doesn’t carry Hep C.
Damn it, I was jealous
.

I wondered if Tom thought about me at all. I missed our friendship, or relationship, or … coffeeship. Whatever ship it was, I wanted to be sailing on it.

Ellie, Uncle Jay, and I strolled the Promenade on a bright Saturday afternoon, killing time before heading over to the latest Pixar movie. Ellie walked between us, holding our hands, skipping and jumping and pretty much guaranteeing a shoulder injury. Third Street was filled with teenagers on the prowl, German tourists, homeless men with cardboard signs stating varying and creative infirmities and needs. At Ellie’s insistence, we stopped to watch a family of sinewy adolescent boys performing frightening gymnastic feats. We slipped through the necklace of people surrounding them, Ellie pulling us through to the front.

We watched for a few minutes, and Ellie pointed at the pile of dollar bills peeking out of an open box placed in front of the boys. Jay slipped a five into her hands, and she held it high as she walked over, and dropped it in the box. One of the boys, shirtless and sinuous, made a big show of Ellie’s generosity.

I was thinking about that box of money. And all the boxes up and down the Third Street Promenade—the guitar cases, shoeboxes, cartons—all filled with dollar bills.

“I want that cash,” I said to Jay. “What could I sell on the Promenade?”

“Grains of rice with someone’s name on them?” Jay suggested. “Because there’s not enough of that in the world.”

“I have to find a job, Jay,” I said. “When the going’s tough …”

“It’s time for the tough to get cash,” Jay said. “I’d heard that from an auntie who lived through the Great Depression.”

“And all we get is Douple-Dip Recession,” I said, “which sounds like dessert.”

“The ‘Super-Fucked Recession’ rolls right off the tongue,” Jay
said, out of Ellie’s hearing range. He grabbed my hand. He’d gotten a new tattoo of a pair of lips on his forearm. “Come on, movie’s about to start—little purple aliens will help you forget your troubles.”

The next morning, I drove my car down Montana and spotted a sign in the window at Caffe Luxxe (slightly concealed by the beautiful people and their shimmery auras):
NOW HIRING BARISTI

I could baristi
, I thought. I pulled over, nose-checked myself in the rearview mirror, then went inside, where I spotted Mr. Scary Redhead, the tatted guy behind the counter.

“Hi,” I said, quavering before his freckles and piercings. “Who do I talk to about the baristi job?”

“You mean barista,” Evil Redheaded Monster said. “Baristi is plural.”
Are all redheads evil?
Think about it. Hitler was a redhead. Stalin. Dahmer. John Wayne Gacy. Yes, they were all redheads. Don’t argue with me right now.

“You mean like octopi?” I asked.

“Talk to Melissa,” he said, nodding in the direction of an average-looking girl, but for the giant nose hoop piercing the space between her nostrils, like a bull.
A nose hoop. For when a nose ring isn’t enough
.

I walked over to where Melissa was seated. “I was told by—”
Evil Redhead
—“the man behind the counter … I’m looking for a barista job.”

“Good timing,” she said. “We’re in a lull right now. Have a seat.”

I looked around as I sat. Usually, the place was packed, with a line that stretched from Ed O’Neill to a Desperate Housewife. Whenever I stood in that morning lineup, I was the only person I didn’t recognize.

I played a game with myself. If I were able to get through the interview without staring at Melissa’s nose hoop, I would later give myself a Drumstick as a reward.