What Would Oprah Do (18 page)

“Thank you, and once again, I apologize. I’ll be by Monday.” I hung up the phone and was grateful to see Vivian standing in the door way. I hoped she had heard the conversation, so I wouldn’t have to repeat it.

“It’s not good.”
I said, before getting up and walking back out to the deck for another cigarette.

She followed me out there, and sat in her chair beside me. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”
I could hear the mother in her voice. She had said this many times before. When I started to tear up, she said, “It will all be fine in the end. If it’s not fine, it’s not the end.”

“It feels like my last chance though, my last chance at getting my life right. I know that sounds stupid, but it feels true. It took so long for me to get the hats right to begin with, and it turns out they weren’t right after all. I wonder if that’s why I couldn’t feel really excited about them. At first I tried and tried to bead them with the metal wire, and it wouldn’t bend right. When I found the clear plastic in your trunk, I thought I’d finally figured it out. And it worked so well, I thought it had been serendipitous.”

Vivian didn’t say anything. I figured she was thinking I sounded foolish, when she asked, “What are you talking about? What plastic in the trunk?”

“The trunk you had with the old clothes. That’s where I found the stuff to bead them on, when you were at your retreat.”
Vivian’s face was blank, like she had no idea what I was talking about. “You know, the trunk that had your old dresses and shoes in it? It looked like something you would use to string popcorn at Christmas.”

Her mouth fell into an O shape. “That’s what you used to make the necklaces?”
I suddenly felt that my brilliant idea had in actuality been remarkably stupid, even though I couldn’t see how or why. “That stuff has been in there for twenty years.”

“But, it’s plastic. Plastic lasts forever, at least that’s what they said on Earth
Day. It was on Oprah.”

Vivian lit a cigarette. “Honey, those were stitches, dissolvable stitches. You know
Walt worked up until when he died. I cleaned out his office. When I found those in his medical bag, I saved them because I thought they would work for holding a hem while I stitched with thread. They did. They worked better than pins. Oh, my word.”

I sat there, trying to comprehend it, but I couldn’t gather my thoughts cohesively. My mind was over powered by the feeling that I was a fraud. I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t make anything, wasn’t worth a damn. I’ve done some remarkably dumb things before, and had to wonder
, how could I be so stupid? This time there was no question. All I could think was I
am
so stupid.

Dear Oprah,

Today I would give anything to go to your house, crawl into a fluffy bed, and sleep until my life looks different.

Regards,

Cate

P.S. If there is any chance of that ever happening, it would be a good time to let me know.

Despite Vivian’s efforts to console me, I had to get out of there. If I didn’t, I would never leave and hide at her house forever. I was torn between utter defeat and the necessity of salvaging the mess that I had made of my life. The defeat was winning when I thought of the money I had to return.

As soon as I found myself sitting on my condo floor, fighting back tears, I decided to call Jill to meet for drinks. We went to the pub near her house. By the time Jill walked in the door, I had already finished a martini.

I told Jill what happened, how I didn’t have anything left. The money I had to repay could only come from my 401k. I would have to cash it out at the worst possible time, when it was worth a fraction of what I had put into it. This was the only way I could pay next month’s bills, buying myself about four weeks to come up with another plan.

“I’m sure the other boutiques will want their money back too, after I give it all back, then I have a month to figure something out. I swear if my body was up for it, if I didn’t have cellulite on my thighs, I would strip.”

Jill’s eyes widened. “Let’s not go to extremes…”

“I can’t go to that extreme if I want to, I’m too fat.”

“You only have to give the money back for the hats that are returned, right?”

“Yeah, but I already thought about that. They’ll all be returned sooner than later. It’s inevitable. I need to go ahead and make it right now.”

Jill picked at the corner of the label on her beer bottle, but it was glued on pretty well and wouldn’t budge. “I know at least fifteen of them won’t be returned.”

It wasn’t until I saw the guilty look on her face that I realized what she meant. She was the person who had bought my hats as gifts, my big surge in sales. I started to tell her that she shouldn’t have, that they were all crap and going to fall apart, but there was no point. She knew that as well as I did. My dear friend had found a way to invest in me despite my protests of independence. “You know, you have the ones I bought to work with, to fix and start over.”

That was the moment I knew that I didn’t want to start over. I had clung to an idea that didn’t fit me anymore than marketing or anything else I had done. I had been desperate and lost my faith that the right thing would present itself. Even if I could find a way to make a go of it, it would be at the wrong thing. I promised Jill that I would pay her back as soon as I could get on my feet, because after all, eventually you have to land on your feet. I think.

I lay in bed that night, wondering what the big joke was, and if it was me. I had counted on divine intervention to lead the way, and there had been none, only the pathetic attempts I had made to create something. I wondered how God sees us. I imagine it’s like watching ants. They go back and forth, always appearing to be focused on a mission. Then one kid with a stick comes along and ruins their whole world, life as they know it in the castles that they’ve built and whatever treasure they have deep below them. Then it occurs to me that maybe that’s exactly what it’s like, and we are indeed the ants. Except there is no kid, maybe God is actually the one with the stick. Right now my wobbling hope and a prayer is all I have, so I should probably spend my time trying to fortify it.

The next day I made the necessary phone calls to empty my 401k. There was sixteen hundred dollars left in it, after the taxes and fees were deducted. I called the other boutiques and made arrangements to pick up the remaining hats and return their money. I wanted to
wallow in self pity, and I would have if I had thought it wouldn’t make the situation worse. As it was, I had very little money, no plan, and a small amount of time to come up with one.

After I had done everything I could for the day, I went to Vivian’s. When I walked in I could smell fresh coffee and bacon. She was sitting at the table, about to eat her breakfast. “Hey, honey,” she greeted me. “I didn’t know if you’d make it over today or not. Go ahead and fix yourself a plate, we’ll have breakfast together.”
Buddy looked back and forth, his tail wagging, like he’d just found out we were having a party.

I couldn’t stomach food, but I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down. “Today is going to be fun!”
She announced. For a second I forgot about my problems and believed her. “The moonvines have gotten tall enough and strong enough that it’s time for you to untangle them and start guiding them up the deck. It’s just the kind of activity you need to relax and take your mind off things.”

I was grateful that Vivian has this way about her. She doesn’t make you talk about anything if you don’t want to, and doesn’t have it in her head that you should talk about every little thing anyway. Some people think the only way to deal with something is to talk it to death. I don’t know what I believe, but this is so much nicer.

When she finished her breakfast we sat outside while we finished our coffee. Buddy sat on my feet, like he had sat on Vivian’s the morning her friend died. I rubbed his head, thinking that for a dog that supposedly isn’t that smart, he’s got a keen heart that knows when someone needs extra attention. The weather was nice and warm, low eighties. I felt relaxed, even though there wasn’t a reason on earth for me to be comfortable. After sitting in silence while we drank our coffee, Vivian said, “Cate, you’ll figure it out.” She winked at me before adding; “Now why don’t you tend to those moonvines?”

Sure enough, they had gotten very tall. I had been carefully watering them every time I was here, seeing their progress. I guess it was all the spring sunshine we had had, but they seemed to have gotten significantly taller over the last week.
Part of it also being that as they get taller, they are able to get more sun.

I didn’t need Vivian to explain my task to me; I could see what she meant. Some of them had gotten wound up in each other. If they had been untangled sooner, the upward p
ull on them could have been too much. They had needed to dig their roots in. I was careful to unwrap them from each other, and give them each a different rung on the deck railing to hold onto instead. It was amazing to see how tall they were when they weren’t wrapped around each other. I went from moonvine to moonvine, not thinking about anything other than guiding their growth. I was half way around the deck before I realized that I was praying.

I had confessed everything, how I had said I was going to have faith, but had really tried to control everything along the way. I expressed contrition for the doubt I had the night before, with a qualifying
statement about how I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t creep back in when I was all alone. I asked for forgiveness, and realized that I was already forgiving myself. I forgave myself for not believing whole heartedly, for being scared, for being human. And unlike any feeling I’ve ever had in church, I knew it was ok. Peace like a river attendeth my soul.

It occurred to me that maybe I could stay and garden until I won the lottery, although I have only bought two tickets in my entire life. In my mind, a more likely scenario to hope for was that Oprah would adopt me after all. I felt like I didn’t have anything else to hope for, so maybe it would happen. And unlike all the times I dreamt of it before, this time, I was hoping for it. 

After a few hours, Vivian was done for the day. She asked if I wanted to come in for lunch, but I still wasn’t hungry. I stayed out there and pulled weeds. I pulled the little weeds that come up easily and the strong ones that fight back before letting go of the earth, collecting them in a bucket so they wouldn’t spread seeds from lying on the ground. I pulled and pulled until the sides of my fingers were raw from the tug of war. I would have pulled weeds until the sun set if Vivian hadn’t come to get me.

“Your phone has been ringing.”
It must have been obvious that the phone wasn’t a compelling incentive to get me to come inside because she added, “Besides, you can’t keep pulling weeds. You’re going to have blisters as it is.”

I had two voicemails, one from Christian, asking if I wanted to go out for sushi, the other from Lainey,
asking me to call her back when I got a minute. I really didn’t want to talk to anyone, so I texted Christian back saying I’d have to take a rain check. I thought it was odd that Lainey had called me. I hadn’t seen her since the night I had everybody over to Vivian’s. Then I remembered, her friend Rita, the boutique owner. This made her both the last person I wanted to talk to and the one person I had to call back.

I left Vivian’s and called her on the way home, wanting to get it over with. She answered on the first ring, dashing my hope of leaving her a message. “Hey, are you at home?”
She asked.

“No, I’m heading there now. I just left Vivian’s.”

“Ok,” she said, “I’ll meet you there in thirty.”

She hung up before I could say anything
. Here’s something I know for sure, even when you are no stranger to embarrassment, it doesn’t mean that you’re immune to it.

Within minutes after I got home, Lainey was at the door. I had already opened a bottle of wine to take the edge off of the inevitable confrontation. She walked in, and upon seeing my glass said, “Thank God for wine, pour me a glass too, will
ya?” This was already less painful than I imagined. “Please tell me you have cigarettes too.”

I grabbed a pack from the drawer and we headed to my balcony. “Lainey, I’m really sorry,” I started. “I hope this didn’t embarrass you or hurt your relationship with Rita in any way.”

Lainey exhaled and tilted her head to the side. “What are you talking about?”

Her face was expressionless except for her slightly raised eyebrows. I was both stunned and grateful that she didn’t know yet. Then I realized that I would have to be the one to tell her. I didn’t want to ruin her visit just yet, so I stalled for time. “Oh, I’ll tell you in a minute. What brings you over today?” I asked like this was the most natural thing in the world, like I’d just walked out onto Sesame Street.

“Cate, what’s going on? What do you mean by you hope you didn’t embarrass me?”

Since she wasn’t going to let me put off telling her, I didn’t have a choice. I started at the beginning, and told her everything. When I got to the part where Vivian told me that I had used dissolvable stitches, Lainey eyes widened, and then she laughed.

“I’m so sorry.” I said, more than a little confused. Lainey kept laughing, and tears started to run down her cheeks.

When her laughter subsided she said, “I’m so sorry that happened. I really am, and I’m sorry I laughed, but why are you apologizing to me?”

“Because you know Rita. You got my foot in the door. I’m afraid I made us both look bad.”

“You think Rita cares? I have known her for years. I promise you there is nothing to worry about with her. She has made plenty of snafus in her day.”

“Really?”
That didn’t seem possible to me. This woman was polished and put together. She didn’t have the mannequin quality like Alexis, but she was certainly nothing like me. I’m pretty confident that Rita can wear a white shirt without having traces of whatever she eats or drinks on the front of it by noon.

“Really.
Let me tell you something. A few years ago we were invited to this big fancy Christmas party in Asheville. Me and Rita were out on the balcony smoking, and…”

“She smokes?”

“Yes, ma’am.
She may only smoke when she drinks or be a closet smoker, but I’ve seen her light up plenty of times. Well anyway, Andie MacDowell was there.” Lainey must have seen the question in my face before I could interrupt to ask. “Yes, the actress, Ground Hog Day Andie MacDowell, who by the way is the prettiest woman I have ever met. They had space heaters on the balcony, but it was still cold, so everyone was all bundled up. Including Andie MacDowell, who had her back to us, talking to some people we didn’t know. Now Rita was pretty tipsy at this point, laughing and carrying on. She had been holding her cigarette like this.” Lainey folded one arm across her chest, and held the elbow of her other arm with the cigarette, which was sticking out like she was miming a little tea pot. “Apparently she had held it up against the back of Ms. MacDowell’s fur coat, at least that’s what we figured out when it caught fire!” Lainey started laughing again.

“Then what happened?”

“Of course Rita was mortified. I mean mor-ti-fied. But after Andie MacDowell got the coat off, she laughed about it, assuring Rita that it was just a coat. That was that. My point is, don’t worry about her. I’ve seen her at some of her finer moments.” I sat there, relieved, forgetting momentarily that the dilemma that was my life still remained. “You thought that’s why I was coming over here? Bless your heart.”

The question lingered in the air, why Lainey had come over. It was her turn to stall. She went inside and grabbed the wine. When she returned she filled our glasses and said, “I need your help. I have to figure out how to fix this thing with Michael. When I fix things wi
th Michael, when I make it right, I can mend things with Kay.”

I suddenly felt drained. “Oh Lainey,” I said, “I don’t think I can.”