Chapter 17 #2
I noted I wasn’t the only one glaring at Sandra with disbelief.
She glanced up from her knitting and was somewhat startled to see us all watching her, dumbfounded. Her eyes darted around the room. “What? What did I say?”
“You are a freak of nature, Sandra. Can’t you ever go out on a date with a guy without turning into his shrink?”
“This is why you’re such good friends with all your ex-boyfriends.” Marie singsonged the words, her eyebrows lifted high on her forehead.
“And what, pray tell, is wrong with being friends with your ex-boyfriends?” Sandra didn’t sound upset so much as perplexed.
“Nothing except it’s not just ex-boyfriends.
It’s every guy you’ve ever gone on a single date with.
How many have you collected? Like thirty?
” Ashley shook her head as though disgusted.
“You’ll never find a steady beast with a strong back, partner, if you keep shrinking and exploding good advice all over the place. ”
“I agree.” I mumbled behind my needles.
“You shut it!” Ashley turned slightly in her chair, her refined wrath now focused on me.
“You don’t get to talk. You have, quite possibly, the funniest and sexiest guy in the world wanting to give you multiple orgasms—and I don’t mean the cocktail—meanwhile, you’ve retired him to the friend pasture. Ugh! You disgust me.”
Sandra and I shared a glance and Marie cleared her throat.
“Ashley….” Fiona’s soothing entreaty sounded from beside me. “What is wrong, dear? Why so testy?”
Ashley closed her eyes, rolled her lips between her teeth, and breathed out through her nose. After a long moment, she spoke again. “I’m sorry, y’all.” She brought her fingertips to her forehead and pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s been a long week.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Kat’s quiet voice carried from the couch.
Ashley shook her head, but she answered regardless. “It’s my biological father.”
A collective sigh of understanding spread through the room, and she didn’t really need to say anything else.
Ashley referred to her dad as her biological father.
She had no other father, and the man was present for her childhood and still married to her mother, but Ashley despised him.
When she was fourteen she’d started calling him “my biological father” because it annoyed the “jeepers” out of her family.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Kat’s quiet voice was soothing.
“No. I honestly don’t. I’m just sorry I’m behaving like a jerk.” Ashley’s mumbled self-recrimination was barely audible.
Maybe partly out of curiosity but most likely to change the subject, Sandra lifted a finger in the air and addressed her question to Janie and me. “So, what music is playing? Is this some kind of eclectic, unrequited romance, love song-themed Pandora station?”
“No. I believe it’s a CD.” Janie glanced at me.
“Yeah, it’s a CD.” I confirmed her response without looking up from Angelica’s sweater. I would likely finish it tonight. Then, if I spent all my free time on the scarf, I would finish it before Nico returned next week.
“Where did it come from?” Sandra crooked her head to the side. “Is it yours, Janie?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s Elizabeth’s.”
“Elizabeth’s?” Marie asked; her disbelief was obvious. My propensity for exclusive boy-band albums was infamous.
“Actually…” I sighed, paused, half-contemplated making up some story, but then—feeling tired of playing pretend—decided to tell the truth. “It’s Nico’s. He made it.”
“What do you mean he made it? Did he make it for you?” Sandra sounded honestly mystified.
I nodded.
“Like a mix-tape?” Kat said.
I nodded.
“Nico Moretti made you a mix-tape of love songs?” Ashley repeated, as though to clarify.
I shook my head. “No…not of love songs…just good music.”
The room fell into a suspended hush. I glanced at my friends and found that I was the only one knitting; everyone else was staring at nothing in particular and listening to the sorrowful, regretful, passionate sounds of One Love by U2.
Kat caught my eye. She was frowning. “What other songs are on the CD?”
My heart fluttered a little and I shrugged. “They’re all good, like The Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl.” My dad used to play that song all the time.”
“Oh, my God….” Sandra stood and crossed to the stereo.
“What? What’s wrong?” I sat up in my chair.
Sandra pressed the Back button and started the CD over. She played only the first twenty or so seconds of each, and then skipped ahead to the next song when someone named the song and artist.
“Where Do I Begin,” Shirley Bassey; “Swing Life Away,” Rise Against; “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” Frank Sinatra; “My Best Friend’s Girl,” The Cars; “Mr. Brightside,” The Killers; “What Sarah Said,” Death Cab for Cutie; “The Scientist,” Coldplay; “Everlong,” Foo Fighters; “Wild Horses,” The Sundays; “One Love,” U2; “Criminal,” Fiona Apple; “Bleeding Love,” Leona Lewis; “Again,” Janet Jackson; “I Think That She Knows,” Justin Timberlake; “Let’s Get it On,” Marvin Gaye; “Let’s Stay Together,” Al Green; “Save the Last Dance for Me,” The Drifters.
Sandra stared at me as though she expected something, expected me to say something in specific. I turned my work, and—feeling compelled to speak—offered. “It was nice of him, to do…?”
“Nice of him…?” She gaped, her expression both horrified and incredulous. “Elizabeth, listen to this CD. I mean, really listen…to…it.”
I glanced around the room. Everyone was on the edge of her seat, except of course Janie, who looked just as confused as I felt. I was inexplicably embarrassed. “I have listened to it.”
“No. You haven’t.” Sandra exhaled loudly. “‘My Best Friend’s Girl’…‘Mr. Brightside’? Hello! This CD is the story of you and Nico. This CD is his way of telling you how he feels. Wake up and smell the obvious for Thor’s sake!”
“Oooh!” Janie, finally seeing what I was missing, met my gaze directly. “I get it! ‘Swing Life Away’ is like when you were kids, and ‘Mr. Brightside’ is—he’s jealous.”
“‘What Sarah Said’ by Death Cab for Cutie, that’s when Garrett died.” Fiona caught my gaze. “Love is watching someone dying.” She quoted the song.
I gawked at her. I’d been rendered speechless, and I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach. I couldn’t decide if they were right. Furthermore, if they were right, I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. The only thing I felt certain of was the sensation that I was drowning.
“The next three are about the summer he stayed with you after Garrett’s death.” Sandra nodded, picking up steam. “Then, ‘One Love’—that’s obvious. ‘Criminal’—that’s when you left him after....”
“Stop!” My heart was racing. “Just…just stop.” I gathered up my knitting, and crossed to the CD player. Without a word, I ended the music before Shirley Bassey could croon the words “where do I begin?” one more time.
I was hot with a surge of unidentified feelings. I took the CD out of the player and left my group of friends staring at my back as I hurried to my bedroom and shut the door behind me.
I didn’t turn on the light. Instead, I paced back and forth in the dark, wringing my hands.
Lyrics from the songs competed for my attention as they pounded through my brain.
My first reaction was anger, toward him. When I turned that over in my head a few times and realized it didn’t make sense, I then directed the anger inward. After a few laps around my room, the anger dissipated—unable to gain traction—and I felt bereft and unbearably alone.
I needed to talk to him. I needed to ask him about the CD.
I needed to call Nico.
A light tapping on my door yanked me from my contemplative kerfuffle. I turned just in time to see Fiona and Janie peek their heads into my room.
“Elizabeth? Are you…?” Janie squinted at me. “Are you ok?”
I walked to the door and opened it a bit, and motioned for them to come in. “Yes. I’m ok. I’m fine. I just—” I rubbed the space between my eyes with my index finger and thumb. “I’m just feeling somewhat ridiculous at the moment.”
Fiona walked over to me and engulfed me in a hug. Janie, without hesitating, followed suit, and we stood in my room, a hug tripod.
“Whatever you decide about Nico is your business.” Fiona’s soft voice helped melt some of the cold rigid anxiety in my bones.
“But, no matter what, no matter if you tell that sexy Italian dreamboat to hit the road and no matter if you quit your job to become a belly dancing figure skater, there are six women here who love you and support you in all things.” Fiona pulled back, snagging my gaze with her large, elfish eyes. “No matter what.”
The first and only person I called after the ladies left and I finished Angelica’s 10:00 pm study visit was my dad. I needed to hear his voice.
I knew he and Jeanette would be back from their two-week cruise by now. With all the media calls, I had not yet let him know about my change in phone number. We were long overdue for a chat.
He was so reasonable, so logical, so honest, so everything I’d always tried to be. If anyone could help me see reason, set my feet on the ground, and find a clear path, it was my dad.
The house phone rang three times before someone answered, and that someone was not my father.
“Um, hello?” A sleepy, female voice sounded from the other end.
I glanced at the clock on my nightstand; it was 11:00 pm I winced.
“Hi, Jeanette. I didn’t realize how late it is. I’ll call back tomorrow.”
“Oh! Elizabeth, honey, don’t apologize.” I heard rustling on the other end as she adjusted the phone. “Your dad is so worried. We haven’t heard from you.”
“I know. Things have been a little strange.”
“Let me go get him. He’ll be so happy to hear your voice.”
“Thanks, Jeanette.” I picked at a frayed hole in my jeans, breaking the white cotton threads that ran horizontal and twisting them between my fingers.
“Elizabeth? Are you ok?” My father’s steady voice soothed my nerves. I gathered a deep breath.
“Yes. I’m good. I’m fine. I just wanted to call you and give you my new cell number, and explain why I’ve been missing in action, see how the cruise was. But I can call back tomorrow.”
“No. It’s fine. I’m still up working on a grant proposal for the department. The cruise was really great…just a minute.” I detected soft voices then a door close, the distinct sound of my father sitting in the chair behind his desk. It always squeaked. “What was I saying?”
“The cruise.”
“Yes, yes, the cruise. Listen, Elizabeth, there is something I’ve been needing to talk to you about. I really wanted to do this in person, but with your schedule and mine, I think the phone is probably just fine.”
I frowned. He sounded suspiciously hesitant, somber even. This sounded serious. I braced myself. “Are you ok? Are you sick?”
“No, no—nothing like that. This is good news. At least, I think it’s good news—great news in fact.”
“Oh. Good.” His words only served to increase my disquiet. Great news?
“Well, you see, the thing is….” I heard him huff. It was the kind of huff that is accompanied by a smile—a huff-laugh. “I asked Jeannette to marry me, and she said yes.”
I opened my mouth with no intention of speaking. It was just open—wide open. To say I was shocked was a gross understatement. My mind was blown. I thought for a moment that I was dreaming.
“Elizabeth?”
This was the man who’d said that my mother was his soul mate: his one true love.
This was the man—throughout my entire childhood—who told me there was one right person for him, no one else, and that person had been my mother.
This was the man who regaled me with stories about them, how they met, how they fell in love, and how much they loved me.
But this couldn’t be the same man, because he was about to marry someone else.
“Elizabeth? Are you still there?”
“Yes! Yes, I’m here.” Inexplicably, my eyes stung. “God, dad, I’m so happy for you.” I looked at the ceiling, blinked away the moisture, and swallowed the sudden bitterness in my throat. “Congratulations.”
“You can see why I’ve been trying to call you. It happened while we were on the cruise and,” he huff-laughed again, “I just can’t believe she said yes.”