What Doesn't Kill You (18 page)

Which is what I thought about in the middle of the night when I wasn't sleeping. Oh, I'd go to bed, drift off with the TV on and wake up in the middle of some freaky cop-squad autopsy drama and shut it off before they figured out where the arm came from. Ever notice how quiet it is at 2 a.m.? And how there are no distractions to keep your mind from feeding on itself? Chomp. Chomp. After a few nights of that, I decided I had to screw up my nerve and go car shopping.

Realistically, what I had to do was reduce my monthly nut, which at the moment was like a Brazil nut—big, ugly and hard to crack. I needed something more in the peanut area. I hadn't actually shopped for a car in years—I just picked out the color and the trim package, signed some papers and switched keys—still hadn't ditched that silver
T
key ring. The whole process was a shock. I started my research watching car commercials—more convenient middle-of-the-night viewing. Even found some with cash-back offers and zero-percent financing—sounded practical.

First off, Amber'd had toy cars the size of some of the little things I looked at—and they felt about as sturdy as a Forever Barbie convertible. Then the salesperson would ask what I was driving now. When I told them, I could see this, “Then why are you here?” look flash across their faces. They'd find out after we put together a deal, which was extra hard for me because I didn't want those little toys anyway. Then they'd go for that chat with their manager. Turns out that zero-percent stuff is reserved for their “highest qualified” customers. And I was no longer one of those. So they'd come back and get jiggy with the figures. No sale.

So I lowered my sights from new and began my tour of used-car lots. I quickly discovered the perfect balance between age and mileage was unattainable. How do you drive 87,000 miles in three years, by making round trips from Miami to Seattle? At first, three years old was my limit. I was not interested in anybody's worn-out wheels. Then I went to four years, then five. I really wanted something I could pay for with my IRA money—one less bill I had to worry about.

J.J. tried to get me to call Ron to go shopping with me, but I was embarrassed all by myself. I didn't need company, certainly not Ron's. Besides, this wasn't going to be my last car, just a tide-me-over until I got my situation right.

So I began what I called my classic-car period, because, really, ten years is not so old, right? I mean, I remembered when new cars looked like my not-hot wheels—it was a very popular model. There were tons of them still on the road, which I took as a good sign. And the sturdy battleship gray made it look dependable. And my car insurance was lower; not as much lower as I hoped, but lower. And it had a CD player. And it took regular gas. And I felt awful driving past
my
car, which I parked
in front of the house, and inching that one into the garage, where nobody could see it. Tricia arranged to have my sassy ride picked up on a flatbed because I couldn't bear to drive that last mile and leave it. I told her I'd made other arrangements. She said she was sorry. So was I.

I didn't go anywhere for a week, and when I finally had to leave the house for groceries I snuck out at night, parked way in the back of the lot, so in case I ran into anybody they wouldn't see me get in. But it was good for me, a move in the right direction, being a responsible grown-up, taking my medicine. Pick one, they're all annoying.

And I found another job, the old-fashioned way—I answered a newspaper ad. The job was pretty low-tech too. It was with a car-insurance broker, Neighborhood Auto Brokerage. If you measured by distance, offpeak, the office was an hour, each way, which had absolutely nothing to do with the prime-time drive jive I'd have to dance twice a day. My monthly income wouldn't come close to covering my monthly outgo, especially since I was going to spend almost as much on gas and tolls as I had been on my car lease, and benefits wouldn't kick in until I'd been there three months. But they were well established—a member of the Chamber of Commerce in good standing, sponsored a Little League team, had billboards along the highway. This time I checked. So even though it paid way less than Derma-Teq, it seemed pretty likely that I would get paid. NAB—not the best acronym—was a small, old-fashioned setup. Believe it or not, in addition to computers they still had typewriters and adding machines, and there wasn't a taupe half-wall cubicle anywhere—just one big open room. And the owner of the company was not some international man of mystery. Julius was there every day, in the trenches, with his old-country work
ethic and his short-sleeved shirts that never quite stayed tucked into his pants, like he had been for thirty-seven years.

My job was painfully dull. I followed up on claims. No expertise or reports required. And my coworkers were…nice. If you put all seven of them together you wouldn't come up with six ounces of pizzazz, or any parts of a dress-for-success wardrobe—this was strictly a dress-down crowd. So I got with the program as best I could. They made room for me, sort of. And I tried to be friendly, sort of. I wasn't kidding myself. It was a job, not a career move. I didn't expect to climb up the NAB ladder. From what I could see, everybody had their rung and was holding on for dear life.

But I needed a payday in the worst way, and since the fairy jobmother hadn't waved her magic wand and filled my email box with offers I couldn't refuse, choosy was no longer an option. So I gave Julius forty hours of phone calls and paperwork, and in exchange he gave me a check. I even tossed in a little office organization, gratis—the kind of thing I used to do for Olivia, mostly because it made things easier for me to get my job done. I still sent out résumés, hoping to find a slipper that fit a bit better. But I smiled and squeezed myself into the shoe I had. I chipped in for birthday cake, put five dollars that should have gone in my gas tank in the football pool, laughed at Julius's corny jokes. At seven every morning, I got in my considerably less than sassy carriage, trying to be grateful it hadn't turned into a pumpkin. But I did not buy a plant for my desk.

T
he kids spent their first wedding anniversary in London. Amber went for work. J.J. joined her later for a week of romance. They say the first year is the hardest and I hoped that was true because they made it through and I was proud of them.

I too had passed a milestone. I began the commemoration of my first post-Markson year with Julius plopping a pile of forms on my desk. They had been returned by one of our insurers because I forgot to add the time-date stamp. “You screw up,” is how he put it. And honestly, I didn't know if he meant I had or if he was calling me names, but the bottom line was that it didn't matter. What else is there to say? It meant I had to get out my phone log and retrace the chronology of every one of those accident reports. Makes for a spellbinding day.

I didn't usually break for lunch until one—it made the afternoon shorter—but by noon I was cross-eyed, so I stopped for my cuppa soup and the other half of my breakfast bagel.
Yep, the former Takeout Queen had become a brown bagger, because that's what she needed to do if she was going to eat. Not that I hadn't occasionally brought lunch from home in the old days—leftover lasagna or mac and cheese was yummy enough to have twice in a row. But truth was, at Markson, everybody came to me for the lunch 411 because I knew what was good where, how long it took for delivery, whose specials were worthy and, most important, which menus to circular file. So much for the good old days. Not that there's anything wrong with BYOL—Bring Your Own Lunch—'cause I found out there's really no such thing as a free one at Derma-Teq. And it's healthier for me too. OK. That's just a little too perky. I didn't even like lunch boxes when I was in third grade, so hauling homemade cuisine was a good habit that would take some getting used to. But by this episode of
Tee Tightens Her Belt,
our heroine was hyperaware that she could have two weeks' worth of instant ramen noodles for less than the cost of one Monte Cristo deluxe platter. Besides, I had vowed not to go back to my wild spending ways—job or no job.

See—I really was trying.

So one second I'm gnawing on my bagel and pretending to listen to one of my coworkers give me an hour-by-hour recap of her weekend. The next I'm crunching something hard and gritty, which I knew was not a pumpernickel. What is a pumpernickel?

A trip to the ladies' room confirmed it was a tooth or, more accurately, a chunk of dental filling. Oh joy. It was one that had been root canaled back when I could afford such luxurious indulgences, so at least it didn't hurt. Of course, the health insurance that hadn't kicked in yet wouldn't include dental anyway, so whatever it took to fix my miserable molar was on me.
What's one more hole when you're trying to extricate yourself from a crater? Let's see, a trip to the dentist, or electricity? Decisions, decisions.

By quitting time I wasn't even halfway through my do-over stack—gave me something to look forward to the next day. In my formerly employed life, if I made the mistake, I'd have stayed to correct it, but NAB wasn't the kind of place where you worked late to show your diligence and ambition. The hours were eight to five, lunch was not paid. Everybody, including Julius, was out the door by five fifteen, tops.

I stopped at the drugstore to pick up a temporary tooth-filling kit. I remembered seeing them advertised in the back of magazines and wondering what kind of idiot practiced do-it-yourself dentistry. Now I knew. I had no idea if it would do the job, but for $4.99 it was worth a try.

The stuff looked like ABC gum. You remember from second grade—Already Been Chewed. And it smelled like Silly Putty. The directions said to pinch off a piece slightly smaller than the cavity you're filling and roll it between your fingers. Using a hand mirror and the tip of my tongue as a guide and handy measuring tool, I determined the hole was about the size of the Grand Canyon, so I thought my piece was just right. It's not easy working in your own mouth. Your hands block the view. They also didn't tell me—or did I skip that part?—the
Insta
in InstaDent is no joke. Before I could get it in place, half of it was crumbly, like old plaster. The rest coated the wrong tooth like cement. It took twenty minutes and sixteen toothpicks to chip my first attempt from between my teeth. A half hour, two tries and an aching jaw later I had plugged the hole that started the whole adventure. The result was lumpy, but it would do until I could do better.
I was in the kitchen, on the final countdown to the all clear to eat and drink—my patchwork had to set. My glass of Chardonnay was ready and waiting when the doorbell rang. Mine was not the kind of neighborhood where folks popped in to borrow a cup of sugar or hang out over a pot of coffee, so I assumed my visitor was a soccer or band kid selling candy or magazine subscriptions to raise money for uniforms. I considered pretending I wasn't home, but with all the money I'd just saved on dental bills, even I could spare a dollar or two. Before I opened the door, I peeked out the window, because I was a woman who lived alone. It could just as easily have been Freddy Krueger. Now that I think about it, I don't think he rang doorbells.

And it wasn't Freddy—it was worse. Hands jammed in the pockets of his khaki pants, rocking back on his heels like he always did, stood Gerald, regular as you please, like he belonged there. I was stupefied. Not only that he had the gall to show up at my house, but the man was at the
front door
. For twelve years the lying sneak had parked his car of the week with its dealer plates in the driveway, come through the garage and knocked on the side door—three raps. “It's our signal.” What, so I wouldn't confuse him with my other boyfriend who might drop by on Thursday night? Gerald said he was being discreet, protecting my reputation. Like I was the one who had something to hide. But little ol' me was so flattered by his trifling chivalry that I forgot to remember he made a living telling people what they wanted to hear.

Now, I got hot and my heart started to pound like a war drum while I debated whether to open the door or ignore him. But as much as I wanted to make him wait and watch him skulk away, I was also dying to know what could possibly make
him think it was OK to show up at my house after almost six months, like he might be welcome.

Before I opened the door, I dabbed at the sweat on my forehead and upper lip and checked the mirror. Any self-respecting woman about to come face to face with the man who done her wrong would want to look her best. Besides, I needed to make sure there were no stray flecks of tooth goop still sticking to my chin. As luck would have it, I had been so intent on my dental duties that I hadn't changed out of my work clothes yet. And no matter how dressed down my colleagues were, I was not showing up at the office in jeans or a warmup suit. I had kicked off my shoes upstairs, but I had just done my toes a few nights before so my feet looked cute. It would have to do. When I opened the door, I looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.

But Gerald said it for me.

“You look great, Tee.” He started out grinning, like that was supposed to make me melt. But I stood in the doorway, with my arms folded across my chest, a lot like Tressy had greeted me. It was as chummy as I intended to get. So he tried a more serious expression, said he would have called, but he figured I'd hang up, which showed he hadn't completely taken leave of his senses. He was dressed more casually than he would have been on a work night. Then I noticed the name of his new employer embroidered on his polo shirt—definitely a step down in motor status, but who was I to judge?

I kept my voice real low when I spoke, so he'd have to lean in to hear me. It was also a way to keep myself from yelling my head off, which I had no intention of doing on my front steps. I told him I had half a mind to slam the door. He sort of laughed until he saw I wasn't laughing with him. Then he started rubbing his hands together, and I realized the ever con
fident and suave one was uncomfortable. Which was a state I'd never seen—and I liked it. A lot.

Gerald said something about it being a chilly night, but I wasn't giving him an inch—or a foot—across my threshold. So I ignored him and told him if he was looking for his stuff, he was way late—I'd thrown it out ages ago. I tried my best to sound cool and detached, even though Nervous and Mad were having a fight to the finish on my insides. I thought Excited to See Him might have shown up, but clearly it was defeated in the last round. He said that wasn't why he'd come. And then the fool said he wanted to apologize.

I snapped right back, told him to go right ahead. He looked stunned, like he thought
wanting
to apologize was the same as
doing
it, and wasn't that good enough? I just waited. Then he cleared his throat, hunched his shoulders and mumbled about being sorry, said I deserved better, that he should have told me. Guess he thought he hadn't stepped in it quite enough, so he had the nerve to add, “I miss you.” That was all I needed. Pissed Off got a stranglehold on Nervous. Gerald had jumped in the deep end, and instead of tossing him a life preserver, I was ready, willing and able to hold him under and watch him flail a while.

I cannot tell a lie. I had fantasized about seeing Gerald as a broken man—on the street penniless and homeless—maybe sharing a ratty old refrigerator box with Didier. My fantasy life is on the dramatic side. And I had only thought a million or so times about what I would say to him if I had the chance. Of course, nothing I actually said that night was part of my well-rehearsed dream speech. But those “what goes around” moments are only perfect in the movies. I was content to see him squirm.
I was stone-faced when I said I agreed with him—he was about as sorry a man as I ever hope to know, and I've known a few. I was really getting warmed up and he was rocking again. That's when I asked if he meant he should have told me he was getting divorced, actually divorced or getting married again. By then I needed to take a breath because I did not want to run out of steam before the end. That's when I wondered out loud whether missing me had anything to do with being dismissed by his fiancée, who, by the way, called to thank me. The look on his face made me smile for the first time since I opened the door.

Gerald tried to defend himself, said I wasn't being fair. Maybe I wasn't, but I hadn't gone looking for him or written some ranting letter hoping to have the last word and hurt his feelings like he hurt mine. I was done. Through. Remember, he rang
my
bell, so I felt justified in having my say.

Then I had a question for him. Did he think he could drop by, say “my bad” and I'd forgive him and pencil him in for Thursday nights again? Or that I'd invite him in for a roll in the hay because poor ol' lonely Tee must be needing a little somethin' somethin' by then?

I could tell he was gathering his words. After all, Gerald had spent the last twelve years giving me advice, telling me how things should be, what I needed to do. And I had let him. So that part was as much my fault as his.

He jammed his hands back in his pockets, stared down at my feet—I was wearing red polish, his favorite color—tough. He cleared his throat and said, “I…I was wondering, uh, about the money you borrowed.” What the—?

I honestly didn't know whether the loan was an afterthought or the real reason for the drive-by, but in that moment I com
pletely understood how perfectly normal people can lose it. “I don't know how the knife got in my hand, Your Honor. I just snapped.” But as much as I wanted to do him physical harm right then, I had presence of mind enough to know Gerald was not worth jail. He had taken up enough of my time. So I held on to the door to keep my hands from accidentally ending up around his throat, and I said, “Get out of my face. And don't you ever come back.”

He stared at me—eyes all squenched up like I was speaking Gaelic. I stared back, and it didn't take him more than a couple of heartbeats to do the translation. He shook his head like I had just blown my chance at supreme happiness and I didn't want to reconsider. Then he walked away. I don't know what got into me—yes, I do—but when he got close to the driveway I called after him, “Nice minivan,” and slammed the door so hard the bell rang.

That's when I realized I was trembling, which only upset me more. How dare he make me angry enough to shake? It was only then I remembered I didn't tell him I'd met Annie too. So he'd know all his secrets were out. I started to yank the door open, but I could feel tears threatening, and I would rather water my lawn naked at noon on a Saturday than let Gerald see me cry.

I wanted to explode. Scream. Throw things. I stood in my foyer a minute getting a hold of myself before I decided I needed assistance, which needed to be stronger than Chardonnay. So seeing red and propelled by a high-octane blend of outrage and indignation I marched toward the liquor cabinet in the family room—and slammed my bare foot full force into the wrought-iron magazine rack—perhaps more proof that God really don't like ugly.

First came the flash of white light. Then, before I felt the pain I heard what sounded like Velcro when you rip the pieces apart. Hint—nothing on your body should make that sound. Ever. My foot had gone one way, my baby toe went the other, and I was scared to look down because I wasn't sure if it was still attached or stuck in the rack. I can't say which I thought was worse, but the possibilities made me woozy.

How to adequately describe the pain? Imagine your foot being slammed in a car door over and over again, while someone holds a blow torch to it. I have yelled really loud for far less hurt. Part of me thought I
was
hollering. My mouth may have actually been open. But I was too stunned to make a sound, like there was somebody around to hear me anyway.

Breath came in short, shallow gasps. Instinctively I knew I had to get a grip, so I held on to the back of my lounge chair and forced myself to look down. I was horrified at the melonsized blood splotch—water not cantaloupe—that had already seeped into the fibers of my oatmeal-colored carpet. I kept telling myself that passing out was not an option, but I was so cold, which I was sure wasn't a good sign. I finally locked on my foot and could see my toe was still attached, not by much. Then I got light-headed again.