What a Girl Wants (3 page)

Affording a vacation means taking the risk you’ll come back to the same money and stock options when you leave—and that isn’t likely. Choosing a Hawaiian beach over employment somehow feels irresponsible. And finding your next job in a down economy, fresh from the dot-com implosion, is not fun.

If I was a robot, I’d be better suited for life here. In many ways I used to be robotic, but something in me snapped. Maybe it’s my birthday, another year older and wiser and all that. All I know is that I’m suddenly aware of all the colors around me, the beautiful rolling hills and majestic oaks that surround me. It’s just like in
The
Wizard of Oz
, where everything comes to life, and I’m aware of my own blatant black-and-white coloring. The green in my bank account has sprung to life, taunting me with its chlorophyll while I wither and die.

We arrive at my car and both men are still looking at me like I’ve eaten a fish farm.

“Thanks for the ride. Enjoy the movie.” I clamber out of the backseat and open my Audi’s trunk. Granted, I do it to see if they’ll wait and make sure I’m safely into the car. They don’t, of course, and I just can’t help but see the humor in the situation. I’m laughing in the church parking lot, looking like the weirdo I have become.

My best, and now married, girlfriend, Brea also happens to be in the parking lot, and she’s shaking her head at me. There are just a few vehicles left in the lot, and her minivan is near my Audi.

Brea is smiling; her dark wavy hair and trendy glasses make her model caliber. Terminally enthusiastic, Brea is the type of person you don’t want to be sitting next to in a meeting because everything out of her mouth is encouraging. She makes us practical people feel like the death knell. But I love her. And so does every-one else. She’s impossible not to love.

“You’re laughing by yourself. Should I be worried?” Brea crosses her arms and lifts her perfectly-waxed brows.

“I’m weird. Since when did you not know this?” Tactfully, I switch gears. “Where’s Prince Charming?”

“John has a meeting with the elder board about the Easter program. Did you do lunch with the gang?” Brea used to be part of “the gang” until John whisked her off into marital bliss. I know there must be realism to marriage that I don’t see, but with Brea and Pastor’s Wife Kelly, it’s invisible. The two of them would be happy if they were each married to Attila the Hun. They’d tell him how powerful and sexy he was.

“Did they do anything special for your birthday?” Brea asks, pulling off her sunglasses and staring at me with earnest hope.

“No. No birthday celebrations. The gang went to Chili’s again. The waitress despises us, the Middle-earth battle will rage forever, and
The Matrix
is playing again tonight at Seth’s. Typical day.”

“Oh, you! Why didn’t you go to Seth’s house? It sounds like fun, and you know you like him. I’ve seen the way you look at him.” Brea slides her sunglasses into her thick hair like a casual headband. Her green eyes stare into mine. “Admit it.”

“Will you pass a note for me in homeroom?” I jump up and down, thoroughly enjoying my moment of humor.

“Oh, Ash, it’s okay if you like someone, you know. Since when did you become so cynical?”

After a long, quiet thought, the accusation brings the sting of tears to my eyes. “Cynical—that’s an ugly word. But it’s true. I don’t know what’s happening to me . . .” I pace back and forth in front of her, trying to work it out in my own head as well as explain it to her. Maybe she can help me see straight again, calm my topsy-turvy brain.

“I’m struggling, Brea, and I don’t know why. I have everything I thought I wanted . . . but my life seems so empty. I wish I knew what to do next. I guess all my goals have been met and they haven’t been replaced with anything new.”

She takes my hand in her overly-concerned way. I love Brea. “You don’t think a husband will change that, do you, Ash?”

I shake my head. “I know it won’t. But it’s not just the Husband Hunt that haunts me. On the outside, I look like Miss Success, don’t I?” I place the shape of an
L
on my forehead with my fingers. “I thought I’d change the world. And here I am eating at a chain restaurant every Sunday with people who don’t truly care if I come. Or if I’m another year older.”

“I think you’re just in a mood, Ashley. I’ve never known you to feel sorry for yourself. And the Reasons love you. Everyone loves you.”

“Why shouldn’t I feel sorry for myself ? I just spent my birth-day Dutch treat at Chili’s.” I’m thinking Brea got a diamond tennis bracelet for her last birthday. That somebody made her a cake from scratch. Does she not see the dichotomy here?

Brea doesn’t mean anything by it, of course. She doesn’t possess an evil bone in that size-four frame of hers. Brea’s whole face suddenly lights up. “I need to tell you something that will cheer you up,” she whispers.

Just by the way she says it, I know. “You’re pregnant!”

Her smile fades. “How’d you know?”

I laugh. “Something about your glow, I suppose. That and the new minivan you bought after your honeymoon. It’s not like you haven’t been waiting for this very moment since I met you.”

Brea smoothes her stomach. “Can you believe it’s finally happening though?”

“No!” I squeal appropriately, pulling her into an embrace. “I’m so happy for you, Brea.” I fight the nausea as I stare past her perfect hair and into the empty parking lot. Pastor’s Wife Kelly and my best friend. Two preggers announcements in one day is a bit much for me to take.
Lord, did you forget it’s my birthday? You said
you wouldn’t give me more than I can handle, but com’on!

I take a deep breath and compose an appropriate smile so I can let my best friend out of my death grip. Brea was created to be a mother. She has all those nesting instincts, like buying a minivan before children. Her constant mothering of me is testament to her abilities: taking me to church, rescuing me from a drunken high school party, and showing me that even though my parents didn’t seem to care, God did. I don’t know what I would have turned out to be without Brea and her young love of God. Perhaps a slightly high bus driver like my brother.

Brea’s children will look like Baby Gap models. She will never dress her kids like nerds, and unlike my own mother, she innately understands the disaster of wearing floods in junior high school or the wrong brand of jeans at all. Brea’s kids will be leaders, and Christ in them will be cool. That’s a pretty awesome legacy. It makes me wistful and misty-eyed just to think of it.

“When do we get to go shopping for her?” I ask.

“It might be a boy, you know.” Brea lifts her eyebrows.

“She wouldn’t dare be a boy. Auntie Ashley wants to buy her very cute things in pink.” I shove a fist to my hip.

“If he’s a boy, John won’t appreciate pink. Men are funny that way.”

I clap my hands, “We can buy her little Lilly Pulitzer sweaters! And Oilily mother/daughter dresses. I can hardly wait! Pop this kid out!” I rub her tummy.

Brea crosses her arms. “Don’t get me all excited. If I have a boy I want to be happy, not disappointed.”

I relent. “Okay, so we have to shop at Baby Gap if it’s a boy. Still cute! We can get those little chambray caps and maybe some sunglasses. Hey, what about little itsy-bitsy Old Navy jeans?” We both squeal.

Brea’s shoulders relax. “I can hardly wait, Ashley.” She rubs her tummy again.

“Me either.” And I can’t. I have heard of Brea’s dreams for twenty-five years. Her ultimate goal was always to be a mother, to put into practice all that homemaking she acted out when we played house. (I was always the husband. What does that tell you?)

Brea lives to be Mrs. John Wright. They’ve left the singles group and are now happily imbedded in the couples group, which will no doubt turn into the young families group. I wish I could go with her, if only because I’m sick of standing in the same place. Being single is sometimes like this great drawn circle. I have all the freedom I can imagine yet this inability to step outside that line, which amounts to no freedom at all. I want to see what it’s like where I fear to tread.

Brea hugs me again.

“What was that for?”

“I’m so proud of you, Ashley. I always knew you’d be someone really important. I’m praying my children won’t be ditsy like me, but smart like their Auntie Ashley.”

I shake my head. “You’ve always said that, Brea. But you’ve always been the intelligent one. The one who knew drunken foot-ball players didn’t want to be just my friend. The one who knew my brother wasn’t hiding botany plants for biology in my back-pack . . .”

“Maybe I should homeschool?” Brea laughs and tosses her dark brown curls. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her husband, John, catch a glimpse of the movement from the top of the church steps. He watches Brea as if he has a hummingbird in his possession, and he just can’t believe he caught her.

Brea knows everything she needs to know about making those around her happy. It’s something you can’t learn in school, but the world around you changes with such a gift.

I say good-bye, and jump into my little two-seater Audi.
Two
seats.
Without my briefcase, I’d only have need of one.

3

D
inner at my mom’s house is always quite the occasion. My brother shows up, only because it’s quite convenient, living there and all. The bus driving business doesn’t pay much in the Valley, unless you count easy access to new marijuana dealers. And I don’t count that. My brother Dave apparently did when he got the job.

Thankfully, random drugtesting is part of his career, and we all breathe a sigh of relief over that little law. Dave’s been allowed to live with my parents rentfree as long as he has viable employment. Never underestimate the motivation of sheer laziness.

Dave is like a “how-to” on lenient parenting. I honestly think my parents should take him back to the high school where he was “Mr. Jock” and show the current students what peaking at sixteen does for a person’s long-term career. You know, to give the band nerds some hope.

“Happy birthday, you old maid.” Dave slaps me on the back, laughing his little brother snicker. Except he’s twenty-eight. “How’s it feel to have another year of bus baithood ahead of you?”

“Grow up.” I put my hand over my mouth and pretend to yawn. “Oh, I forgot, you did grow up. It’s just not that obvious because you’re, like, living with your mama!”

“Ashley Wilkes Stockingdale, you be nice to your brother.” My mother comes out of the kitchen carrying what looks like a side of beef, ringed with potatoes. She’s wearing her homemade apron and reminding me that marital bliss is definitely not all I dream it will be. Mom kisses my cheek. “Happy birthday, dear.”

Dad is watching football in the family room, too immersed to bother saying hello or even acknowledge his firstborn’s birthday. My brother sits down in front of the pot roast and stretches his arms behind him. “I’m starving,” he says.

“You just wait, Dave. Your father will come in on commercial and pray for us.”

Prayer. That is just what this family needs. So we wait. My brother can hardly resist the temptation of razzing me, and he preys like a crouched lion until the opportunity presents itself. My mother walks into the kitchen to get the rest of my birthday feast—which will no doubt include strawberry angel food cake, my favorite since kindergarten.

“Hey, maybe this is the year you’ll find some sucker—I mean,
guy
—to marry you.”

I don’t say what I want to say. I give my Christianity credit for that. “Do you really think I need some man to rescue me?” I ball my fists under my chin. “I guess my brand new Audi TT convertible and my apartment in Palo Alto are really hard to deal with—my life is a trial, an utter trial! I guess you’re right, Dave, I do hope a man will rescue me soon.” I add a wistful sigh for effect. “But when is someone coming to rescue you?”

As ever, my mother comes out at the worst possible time. “Ashley, it’s not becoming to hurt your brother that way.” My mother has never caught Dave saying a word against anyone. “Ashley wouldn’t talk that way about another.”

Ashley is Ashley Wilkes of
Gone with the Wind
and my name-sake. Why my mother thought to name me after the mealy-mouthed male character, rather than Rhett or Scarlett, is a Big Question. But it does explain her undying devotion to Dave who possesses Ashley’s useless ways in spades. I suppose too much spark is dangerous in a person, and my mother, Mary Stockingdale, never could handle conflict. I should count my blessings I won’t be asked to marry one of my cousins. Wilkes always do, you know.

“Hey Mom, you know the rents are coming down lately.” I look at my brother, and the corner of my lip lifts ever so slightly. Dave’s eyes thin as if to make his dark threat known. “Dave might go ahead and look for his own place soon.”

“Now Ashley, you know your brother is in the service industry. He’s just never going to make the kind of money a patent attorney does because he helps people.” She pats my shoulder as she places Jell-O salad on the table. The service industry. Like cutting off a Mercedes for the sheer joy of it is service-oriented.

Dave gives a sardonic smile. “Some of us were out living life while others wasted all those beautiful summer days in a classroom.”

“Classroom?” I ask dryly. “You make law school sound like elementary school. But then that’s all you’ve known, right?”

“Hey. I went to the school of reality. I can explain
my
job.”

“David,” my mother says. “Your sister worked hard for her job. You should be proud of her.” I barely conceal my shock that she’s standing up for me. Her reproach makes Dave take pause, at least. “Hank!” My mother yells to my father. “Come pray so we can eat!”

“It’s in overtime! Start without me,” he shouts back. Praying is not exactly my dad’s specialty. I’m appreciative they put forth an effort when I’m over, but the last time my father graced a church with his presence was when he married my mother. His prayers are usually those rhyming numbers that sound like an Irish limerick.

My mother smiles awkwardly, wondering if she should try to pray, then obviously decides against it. “Well, let’s eat then.” She sits down. “So Ashley, tell us about your work. Have you written any new documents yet?”