The Trouble with Lexie (12 page)

A picture of Lexie's mother popped up in her feed, posted by one of the waitresses from Heidi Pies. Lexie clicked in further and discovered that her mother had been thrown a surprise birthday party last Saturday night. Lexie had called her mother and sang her the birthday song first thing that morning, so she'd heard nothing of the party.

“The girls at Heidi Pies threw my mom a party.” This made Lexie happier than she would have guessed.

“Cool.” Peter stared intently at the TV. He was jiggling his leg, getting nervous for the Red Sox.

Lexie clicked on a picture of her mother holding a glass of champagne. Someone must have brought the bottle in. They didn't sell champagne or hard liquor at Heidi Pies. There was beer and wine, usually ordered by people who were having a potpie or the meat loaf, something savory. Mitzy didn't look trashed in the photo, although she certainly wasn't sober. She looked like someone who
could
have been a good mother.

Lexie continued to click through the party photos. Everyone
loved Mitzy at Heidi Pies—Lexie knew this from experience, and she could see it in the photos, too. The waitresses, line chefs, cashiers, and the hostess were all laughing, arms thrown around one another. In one photo, there was a cigarette burning in Mitzy's hand, ready to ignite the curly, frosted hair hanging on the shoulders of the person she was embracing. There was a picture of the birthday cake; the icing showed a white-aproned waitress with a pie held up in one hand. And then there was the photo of a smiling Mitzy holding up from her chest, like a medal, the necklace Lexie had sent her. It was a gold circle made of her initials in cursive. Viewed abstractly it looked like lace—a monocle-sized doily. Lexie had seen the girls at school wearing necklaces like this so she figured it was the latest trend. When she'd gone online to buy one for her mother, she found that the pure gold ones ranged from $250 to around $500. She'd bought a gold-plated one that was $99, shipping included. At the time she'd considered it a smart move, considering her and Peter's finances. But as Lexie looked at the picture, at her mother's face, which appeared undeniably proud, she felt ashamed for having cheaped out. Yes, she and Mitzy never spoke about anything meaningful. They saw each other once a year at Christmas when Lexie flew out to California and spent a week visiting. Lexie stayed at the Simmses' house on these visits as Mitzy was in a one-bedroom apartment that was usually shared with a boyfriend. But in spite of Mitzy's unmothering, in spite of their lack of common ground, she was the person who had brought Lexie into the world. And by the look on her face in the necklace photo, she was proud of her creation.

“I'm an awful person,” Lexie said.

Peter looked over at Lexie and rubbed her knee. “Huh?”

“Look.” Lexie turned the computer and showed Peter the picture.

“That the necklace you got her?”

“Yeah. And look how happy she is about it. I should have splurged for the solid gold one.”

“You're feeling guilty about
that
?”

“Yeah. She is my mom.”

“She didn't send you a birthday present.”

“She's a waitress!”

“Last I checked, career waitresses make about the same as school counselors.”

“Ha!” Lexie snorted, then she stopped and thought for a second. “You think so?”

“Probably. With tips and everything.”

“No. No way she's making what I'm making.”

“You're getting a little competitive, aren't you?” Peter squeezed Lexie's knee as he refocused on the game.

“Listen, I truly hope she makes more than me. That would make me happy. But I don't believe it.” Besides, Lexie thought, it didn't matter if Mitzy never sent her a thing for her birthday. What mattered was that Lexie did the right thing. “When I was girl—” Lexie bounced her leg on Peter to get his attention. He turned his head. “When I was a girl, my parents never threw me a birthday party.”

“You've told me that before.”

“Did I tell you that we'd go to Heidi Pies on my birthday?”

“Hmmm, maybe. Tell me again.”

“We'd go Heidi Pies and I got to order whatever I wanted. And the waitresses would bring me, like, five desserts, each one
with a candle in it. I thought that was great when I was little. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and that I was the luckiest birthday girl in the world. I actually bragged about it at school.”

“That's sweet.”

“But don't you think it's kind of cruel that I didn't get a party?”

“No. Not if you thought the five desserts at Heidi Pies was the coolest thing ever. Perception is reality. And your perception was that it was great.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right.” What was her perception, her reality, of Peter since Dot had pointed out their essential difference? Or, more pressingly, since she'd committed the error with Daniel? It had changed, that was for sure—she no longer saw Peter as the single love of her life. And the love that she did have for him—however great or small—had lessened when compared to the passion she'd had for Daniel Waite. But slowly, in a barely noticeable way, Lexie felt herself shifting back to her fiancé. Her body pulsed toward him, expanding, loving him more, even, now that she'd been so horrible and he had blindly, blithely, sailed past it. Each day she didn't text with Daniel, Lexie felt a little less lust for him. It was almost like a fantasy she'd had—something too intense and perfect to be part of reality.

“I love you.” Lexie rubbed her foot on Peter's leg.

“Love you, too, babe.” Peter trapped the foot and held it in two hands, the way you might hold a guinea pig. He kept his eyes sharp on the game.

L
EXIE WOKE UP FROM A DREAM IN WHICH DANIEL WAITE WAS A
penguin peeing on her. She laughed, relieved it hadn't been a sex dream.

She got up and peed. Peter was in the shower. Lexie didn't flush—no point in scalding Peter. She peeled off the T-shirt and the yoga pants she had slept in and walked into the shower. Normally she liked to shower alone: too much dripping mascara for a couple's shower to be sexy. And who wanted to scrub out every nook and crack in her body when there was a witness to the digging? Also, Lexie was certain she looked like a rat when her hair was wet. But she and Peter were getting married. If she looked like a rat, he better get used to it. This was the advantage of Peter: She could trust that he'd love her more than anyone even if she looked like a rat. Daniel Waite would probably run back to his wife if he caught a glimpse of Lexie with her hair plastered against her head.

“I've got a Skype meeting.” Peter stepped out as Lexie stepped in. “That guitarist who plays on all of Wainright's records . . .”
He turned on the sink and started a quick touch up shave while talking to her. Lexie couldn't hear what he was saying.

“Have fun, I love you!” Lexie shouted when he left the bathroom. She had never said
I love you
as much as she had lately.

Lexie didn't think of Daniel when she dressed for school. And she didn't think of him during the drive (she sang along with Taylor Swift on the radio). She also didn't think of him when she parked the car in the faculty lot. However, the moment Janet Irwin caught up with Lexie on one of the brick pathways that crossed the school, Lexie was remembering when Daniel flipped her from her back to her stomach in one swift, acrobatic maneuver.

“You're late for the meeting,” Janet said.

“What meeting? And if I'm late, you're late.” Lexie could almost feel the pressure of Daniel's hands clamped onto her hips.

“I was already there.” Janet spoke in a typewriter staccato. “I ran back to Don's office to get some papers he needed.”

It was sunny but chilly out. Though Lexie wore a coat, the students she saw didn't even carry sweaters. In general, students refused the cold until they were closing in on frostbite. Many kids said hello to Lexie as they passed. Only a couple said hello to Janet Irwin.

“Well, I didn't know there was a meeting.” In Lexie's mind, naked Daniel continued to perform acts that she assumed—perhaps wrongly, she was willing to admit—Janet Irwin didn't know were possible. Had anyone ever touched Janet's upright-Hoover-vacuum body? Had her skin ever pushed against someone else's with such a delirious intensity that she wished she could merge with the other person and be absorbed into his or her flesh? Doubtful.

“Didn't you get the email?”

“I haven't checked my email yet.” Unlike her personal email, which was on Lexie's phone, checking her Ruxton email was like taking out the trash. A necessary chore. There were so many other things Lexie would rather do with her hands.

“How long do you have to be at this school before you learn that you should check your email every morning and every night?”

Lexie walked faster. Dot-speed. It was childish but she actually hoped to lose Janet, to walk so fast that she would soon disappear behind the dining hall or the athletic center. Janet effortlessly hustled alongside her. Lexie shouldn't have expected less. The only personal detail Janet had ever divulged was that she had been a star field hockey player during her boarding school days at The Guilford Academy (Ruxton's sister school from before both schools went co-ed) through her years as an undergraduate at Smith College.

“I only check my work email at work. Like a lot of people on this campus.” Actually, most of the faculty and staff were so devoted to the school, they didn't even have a personal email account.

“You need to check your work email before you leave the house.”

Lexie was almost jogging. She started to turn down the path that led to her office. Janet reached out a fast, ropy arm and clasped Lexie's shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“My office.” Lexie was panting. Goddammit, why couldn't Janet be breathless, too? “I want to drop off my stuff, I'll be there in a minute.”

“Lexie, this is urgent. You didn't read the email, so you don't know, but it's urgent. Drop your stuff off after. Come on.” Janet clapped her hands together twice, quickly, as if Lexie were a dog.

Lexie wanted to kick Janet. Or bite her, like a dog might, on her calcified, scraggy ankle. “Okay, relax.” Lexie stepped ahead of Janet and rushed toward the faculty center. Janet, with her sinewy low-estrogen legs, had no problem keeping up.

Lexie entered the meeting room and looked at the stiff faces. The large black conference table was encircled with about thirty black Windsor chairs, each with the gold Ruxton seal on the back support. All the seats were taken except the one to the right of Don McClear. Janet Irwin dropped into that seat, as expected. Extra chairs were along the three walls facing the head of the table, and many people were standing. With a hundred faculty for the 385 students, meetings were usually held separately for each grade or department.

Amy sat at the back wall; her purse was on an empty chair beside her.

“What's going on?” Lexie picked up Amy's purse, put it under Amy's seat and sat. She shoved her own purse under her seat, and then she reached back down and retrieved her cell phone, a notepad, and a pen. Just then, the cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Daniel.

Frito Friday isn't the same with out you. Can we revisit this topic in person? 3 at Inn at the Lake? My body misses your body.

Lexie could feel blood rushing up and down, to each end of her trunk. She was flooded with desire. Almost sick with it. She held the phone in front of Amy so she could read it.

Amy took the phone, swiped her finger across the text and deleted it. Lexie winced. It felt violent.

“Ignore,” Amy said firmly.

“It's hard.” Lexie took back her phone.

“Stay tough. Don't think about him.”

Don McClear shuffled through and straightened the papers Janet had handed him. He looked up, waiting for the group to look at him. “Everyone here?”

Lexie held her phone low on her lap, under her notepad where Don couldn't see, and started playing Yahtzee. The game would surely stop her monkey mind from playing the tambourine and might even help her forget that Daniel had texted.

“Bill's sick and everyone else is accounted for,” Janet finally said.

“Dot's not here,” Amy said, and Janet gave her a scolding look as if to tell her that faculty attendance was none of her business.

“Well, Bless Janet's heart,” Lexie whispered in a Southern accent. She started a new game, canceling out the last one before the final roll. Even if she hit Yahtzee the score would come in only at 222.

“I'm sorry to say that Dot passed away last night,” Don said.

Lexie felt an instant emptiness as if a trapdoor had opened and everything inside her had plummeted to the ground. She gulped at bites of air, searching for something to fill the unfamiliar hollow before she floated off.

Amy took Lexie's hand, grounding her. Lexie noticed a shifting, jostling sound as the people around her readjusted their bodies. The news was being absorbed physically as well as mentally. Lexie released a choking cough before she began silently crying. Her chest heaved up and down as she stuttered for air. This simple and absolute grief was completely new to Lexie. When her grandparents died, she had been only baffled as she waited for a sadness that never came. But the screaming whoosh of Dot being yanked from
the living had jolted Lexie with a new sensation. It was utterly foreign, startling, a complete scraping out of her insides. She looked at Amy, whose eyes appeared magnified by tears. Yes, Amy was feeling it, too.

Don went on, his voice sounded like it was coming from inside a fish tank. “She was with her sister Ann and her nieces and nephews—it was Ann's birthday yesterday.” Don pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “Ann told me that Dot had done one of her signature tap dances—the opening sequence from
Forty-Second Street
. After the dance, she said she felt dizzy and so she lay down on Ann's bed and, well . . . they thought she was sleeping.” Don's voice cracked. He blew his nose once more. Then he returned the handkerchief to his pocket and gave a too-long speech about Dot's fifty-plus years of service to Ruxton, her humor, her
potty mouth
(Don's words specifically), her speedy way of walking, and the many generations of Ruxton students who had loved her.

Lexie tried to remember the email she had sent to Dot. Did she sign it
love
? Had Dot even read it? She certainly hoped she had; she wanted her to have had that small, half-joking thrill of knowing that she would be at the bride's table and Amy wouldn't. And the dress! Lexie shouldn't have let her spend all that money on the dress.

“Why did I let her buy that dress?” Lexie whispered in Amy's ear.

“What about the dress?” Amy whispered back.

Both Lexie and Amy's words were garbled with tears.

“Why didn't I tell her I wasn't going to get married after all?” What Lexie meant was, why didn't she tell her she wasn't getting
married simply so that Dot wouldn't buy an expensive dress. But after she said those words, they started to take on the more obvious meaning. Lexie thought back to her last couple conversations with Dot. Dot wasn't only pointing out the differences between Lexie and Peter. She was urging her not to get married.

“Lexie.” Amy turned Lexie's face toward her own so they were eye to eye, both of them shiny-cheeked. “You
are
getting married. Remember?”

“She spent way too much money.” Lexie could feel mascara pooling below her eyes but she didn't care.

“No, it's good she spent the money.” Amy used her thumb to wipe Lexie's face. “She had fun shopping with her sister.”

Lexie heard her name and looked across the room at Don. “Sorry?” she said, sniffing.

“Can you clear your calendar for the influx of students who might want to talk about the loss?” Don was abrupt. Annoyed maybe that Lexie and Amy were whispering in the back of the room.

“Yes. Not a problem.”

“Thank you. Now, we need to discuss housing,” Don said. “Dot resided in Rilke, as most of you probably already know, and we have a responsibility to make sure we have a faculty dorm parent there . . .”

Lexie's ears felt like they were filling with warm syrup. Her breathing bumped out like a rutted road. Snot and tears fell on the glass screen of her phone as she started a new game of Yahtzee.

“That's what you want to do at this moment in time?” Amy looked down at the game. Her skin was so thick and smooth that when she lifted her brow her forehead folded, rather than wrinkled, into layers that resembled poured cake batter.

“I'm playing for Dot.” Lexie finger-dragged down two 5s.

“What does that even mean?”

“I think Dot knew the marriage was wrong.” Lexie's fingers kept working the game.

“She bought the dress. She knew it was right.”

“No.” Lexie stared at the phone and moved her fingers faster than ever, leaving the decisions in the game to her subconscious. “She told me that if I married him, it'd be my
first
of more than one marriage. If I get over three hundred points—” Lexie stopped speaking as she zoned in on the game.

“If you get over three hundred points?” Amy asked, urgently.

“It means I should leave Peter and stay in Dot's apartment until I figure things out.” Lexie used her left thumb as well as her right—both sides paddling like little flippers.

“Listen, it's one thing to let Yahtzee decide if you're eating carbs or not—” Lexie had made many diet decisions based on the outcome of her games, “but you can't end an engagement on the very day that your good friend dies, because of some random rolls on your iPhone.” Amy's voice was edging out of a whisper. She almost sounded angry.

“Oh my god!” Lexie stopped playing and looked at Amy—she couldn't see clearly for the flow of tears. “I think Dot knew she was going to die. We are mammals after all, don't we all sense these things inside our bodies?”

“No, we don't.”

“But maybe Dot did. Maybe she knew she was going to die and she hurried it up a little so that I'd have a place to live. She created the space for me to leave Peter.” Lexie started playing again.

“So Dot died to give you an apartment, and Dot is jumping
into your phone and controlling your Yahtzee game to help you do what
she
thinks you should do?”

Lexie stopped rolling once more. She had 260 points. Only a full house remained and that was worth 25 points. “I can see myself from the outside and I recognize that I am totally and completely not in my right mind. But I can also feel myself from the inside and I know that I have to play this game in order to decide what to do.”

“Well, go ahead and roll. It's impossible for you to get over three hundred.” Amy tapped a nail on the screen of the phone.

“But if I roll a second Yahtzee, it's worth a hundred points and I'll have well over three hundred.” Goose bumps rushed up Lexie's flesh—it felt like a sheet had been yanked off her body.

Amy wiped her eyes. “So do it. Let's see what Dot and Our Father who art in Yahtzee say about your future.”

Lexie rolled. Three 3s and two 5s: a full house. She dragged the three 3s down to hold them, then rolled again to let go of the two 5s. She got another 3 and a 6. She held the 3, making it a total of four 3s, and released the 6 to roll again. The fifth 3 showed up.

“Yahtzee.” Lexie felt a shock of relief. An incredible lightness. A life sentence pardoned at the last minute. And then what felt like an ocean wave unfurled beneath Lexie's skin, and the empty space inside her was suddenly washed with another thrust of sadness. Lexie was audibly crying. She fully felt it all: the loss of Dot and the loss of Peter. But one was more painful than the other. She wanted Dot back.