Chapter 12 Lorna Now
Lorna was beginning to realize she didn’t have a lot of “casual” clothes.
Her clothing had somehow become her shield.
She was not the most fashionable woman—never had been—but she wouldn’t mind having a bit more flair.
Her confidence to do that had deserted her somewhere during the pandemic.
She didn’t have the body type for frilly dresses or the sophistication for slender capris.
Suits hid a multitude of physical flaws. So said the salesperson at Dillard’s.
At one point in her life, she’d worn a lot of dresses. Her favorite one, an egg-yolk yellow, had been ruined when Kristen vomited on her. Now she associated that style of dress with being too soft. To be successful in sales, according to her books, you had to project an air of authority.
But she wasn’t projecting anything while on leave and didn’t know how to dress for every day. It would have been super helpful if she could ask Kristen what to wear. There was a time Kristen had been very stylish. Even when she was disgusting.
Today, Lorna pulled her hair into a low, tight pony.
She chose a simple black skirt that came to her knees.
Stockings, of course—no one needed to see sun-damaged skin.
A lavender pullover sweater that Deb had once said made her blue eyes pop.
Sensible flats with arch support. No sense being distracted by aching feet shoved into heels.
She cut up the last of the brownies she and Bean had made and put them on a plastic tray decorated with dancing Christmas trees, a holdover from the last Christmas party she’d attended some six years ago at her coworker Sheldon’s house.
She hadn’t been invited back, and it was probably her own dumb fault—she’d decided to debate some drunk dude on whether marijuana ought to be legalized.
She tended toward firm opinions and, as Deb said, could be weirdly adamant about topics most people didn’t feel so strongly about.
“Opinions about legalizing marijuana are just part of the zeitgeist.”
Deb made a fair point. Lorna didn’t care about a lot of things in the zeitgeist—like sports or politics or road improvement projects. She knew people who could talk for days about any of those topics.
But she did care about drug use. She was adamantly against it.
She was arranging the few squares on the tray when she heard a knock on her door that roused Aggie from her nap. She wiped her hands and went to the door, opening it only a crack.
“Hi!” Mrs. Foster said cheerfully, peering through the crack.
“Umm... hi,” Lorna said, surprised.
“Liz. From upstairs?”
“Yes.” Did she really think Lorna didn’t know who she was?
Liz from upstairs tried to peer into Lorna’s apartment, so Lorna made the crack a tiny bit smaller, which somehow only made Aggie’s sniffing at the door louder.
“I was wondering if you’d had a chance to speak to Mr. Contreras?”
“Oh. Yes, I—” She realized her response was going to be too long to relay through a tiny crack in the door. “Actually... could I come up to you in a minute? I was just finishing up here.”
“Not a problem. 2B!” Mrs. Foster reminded her.
“Got it.” Lorna shut the door. Then she used the breathing techniques she’d learned at Bodhi to keep from hyperventilating. Those damn Precious Moments!
“Bring Aggie!” Mrs. Foster shouted from the other side of the door, startling her.
She was not bringing Aggie. She had enough trouble managing small talk, much less trying to corral her dog in the event Bean had misread the friend situation between Aggie and Garfield.
She gave Aggie a biscuit and scratched her head, made empty promises to be home soon, and then made her way upstairs with the brownies.
Mrs. Foster answered right away, swinging the door open onto a scene from Lorna’s childhood, but with all the wrong furniture. Lorna stood frozen for a moment, staring into the room that looked exactly like what she remembered—but also completely different.
Mrs. Foster was dressed in shorts and an old baggy T-shirt. Lorna, on the other hand, was dressed as though she might be headed to a funeral. The dumb orange cat was wrapping around Mrs. Foster’s legs.
“Thank you for coming!” She looked at the brownies. “Oh.”
“Bean made them,” Lorna said, pushing the tray into Mrs. Foster’s hands.
“Well, thank you! I’ve noticed you’re home a lot these days. Vacation?”
She hadn’t had a vacation in two years. “No, I’m taking some time off to... to work on myself,” Lorna said.
She expected a litany of follow-up questions, but Mrs. Foster said only, “That’s great! Everyone should.” She took a bite of a brownie. “Yummy! Come in!”
Lorna did. Reluctantly. And walked right into a bubble of childhood nostalgia.
Her eyes began to feel a little misty. For heaven’s sake, not now.
“I love what you’ve done with the place, Mrs. Foster,” she said, and turned her head slightly, dipping a knuckle under her lashes to catch a tear that felt like it might fall.
“Oh please, call me Liz,” Mrs. Foster said.
“Liz. Got it.” Lorna glanced toward the door that led into what had been her bedroom all those years ago. She could see the corner of a poster bed.
“And maybe I can call you Lorna? Do you go by Lorna?” Liz asked. “No need to be so formal here.”
“What?” Lorna looked away from her old bedroom.
Her skin began to itch. She shouldn’t be here.
She didn’t know how to be here. What am I doing?
This is Nana’s house. Why did she take down the wood blinds?
They were perfect for this room. We built our Barbie dream towns in here.
This was our playroom. But wait... didn’t Nana die in here?
Yes, this is the room where Nana died. Should I tell her?
She became aware that Liz was watching her, waiting for a response.
“Oh. Yes. Lorna. I’m Lorna.” She smiled.
And now her nerves were launching a full-on assault.
She felt like a beacon for disapproval—wrong clothes, wrong attitude, her mind wandering off.
She could feel a bead of perspiration on her nape.
Liz ate another brownie. “These are so good. I’m going to get a glass of water.” She put the brownies on a coffee table.
Lorna watched her walk into what had once been a front bedroom.
She and Kristen had carved their initials into the windowsill.
Nana had thrown a fit and had her handyman sand them out and repaint the sill.
Then Kristen had carved KL + CD in the same spot, because she had a crush on Casey Dell.
She claimed she could see his bedroom from that window.
She couldn’t—Casey Dell lived blocks away.
But then again, Kristen lied about everything.
Lorna had known it then, but she’d always wanted so desperately to believe Kristen.
There had been a piano in this room, although no one ever played it. Mom had made them take lessons, but neither of them had any love of the piano, and once the lessons had ended, the piano sat unused.
On the doorframe to Lorna’s old room, there had been pen markings to track the girls’ height. Red for Lorna, blue for Kristen. From the time she was twelve, Lorna was taller than Kristen. But the marks had been painted over.
“Would you like some water?” Liz called from the kitchen.
“Pardon?” Lorna asked, shaking off the memories. “Oh, no thanks.”
A moment later, Liz returned. She gestured to her couch. “Make yourself at home.”
She was at home. But she was standing in the middle of the room with her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
Something felt off. These rooms belonged to her and her happy memories.
And yet there was something not quite right about that.
Like the memories were flawed. She turned slightly and suddenly had a vision of her grandmother sitting in a chair near the window, her head lolling on her chest, passed out again from too much gin.
No no no no... this was the playroom.
They had played here. It had been filled with books and toys. Not drunk old women.
“Are you okay, Lorna?”
“What?” She had to stop acting like she was having an episode or whatever this was. “Oh, I’m fine. Just looking around.” She forced a smile.
Liz plopped down on the couch. “I do my best with decor. I’m not a natural. Feel free to let your hair down.”
Lorna carefully lowered herself to sit. When she did, she watched a run in her stocking begin its path down her leg.
“You were going to tell me about your conversation with the landlord,” Liz reminded her.
“Right.”
“Let me tell you, I’ve never had such a bad landlord,” Liz began. She had a long list and was determined to enumerate each item on it. The run in Lorna’s stocking took off every time she moved. Her perspiration reached a code-red level, and she wished she’d taken that offer of water.
Liz’s complaints were all legitimate, of course.
There were so many items on the list for repair: leaks, holes, nonworking appliances and lights.
But somehow Lorna went from adamantly agreeing that things needed to be done to explaining possible reasons Mr. Contreras hadn’t done them.
She pointed out that the house was expensive and costly repairs would result in costly rent. “It’s simple math.”
“Well, sure,” Liz said. “Big repairs are going to cost. But we should see some repairs before we start paying more in rent. Like, the more immediate problems. If we pay more rent before they are fixed, we run the risk they will never be fixed.”
Lorna couldn’t disagree.
“So what did he say when you called him?” Liz asked eagerly.
“Umm...” She surreptitiously wiped a bit of perspiration from her temple. “That he wants to sell the house. But if he can’t, he’s going up on rent because he’s hardly breaking even.”
Liz snorted. “Did he at least seem like he might be willing to work something out?”