Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
LORELAI
The dinner rush at Pop’s is legendary, which is why Allie and I are meeting at five o’clock. It should pretty much just be us and whatever early bird seniors show up, which in Elk Lake could be a lot.
I changed into a pair of black pants and a fuzzy pink sweater before leaving the house. If I run into Luke, I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard, but I also want to make a nicer impression than I did the last two times he saw me today. The jeans and flannel were cute, but that nightgown sealed the deal that he’ll never look at me with romantic interest.
Walking into the diner, I’m hit by a combination of delicious aromas. Seriously, if they could bottle this smell, people everywhere would stand in line for a month to buy it. No one can resist the sultry scent of french fries and beer batter, with underlying notes of hot fudge and toasted nuts. I preemptively wipe the corner of my mouth in case any slobber has escaped.
The girl standing by the hostess station looks at me with great disinterest. “Only one?”
“No,” I tell her proudly. It’s not like I don’t ever eat by myself, but her tone suggests that’s what she thinks. “I’m meeting a friend.”
“Uh-huh.” She picks up two menus and tries to sit me at a small table near the kitchen door. While I want to be close to Luke, if he’s here, I’ll have a better chance of seeing him from a more distant vantage point.
Gesturing toward the empty dining room, I tell her, “I would prefer to sit by the window.”
She rolls her eyes and slows her speech like she’s speaking to a foreign person with little grasp of the English language. “Those. Are. For. Four. People.” Then she flashes the requisite number of fingers in case I didn’t understand.
I look at her name tag before letting my tone state my displeasure. “There’s no one in the restaurant, Chloe . I guarantee you that my friend and I will be gone before you need our table.” I’m not generally nasty to people, but this girl is a real piece of work.
Her eyes narrow petulantly as she turns and walks in the direction I indicated. Then she slams the menus down. “Make sure of it,” she says before walking back to the hostess stand.
I’ve got to wonder why Luke’s dad hired a girl like that. There must be a hundred more pleasant teens looking for a job. For instance, when I was Chloe’s age, I would have killed to have had a job at Pop’s.
Sitting down, I flip over the menu until I find the thing I’ve been craving—a sirloin burger with sautéed mushrooms, onions, and swiss cheese. Yum!
A server about my age appears. The smile on her face more than makes up for the snotty hostess. “Hey, hon, can I get you a drink to start?” she asks.
“Two lemon drops, please. Straight up.”
“You want that with sugar on the rim?”
“Absolutely.” As she walks away, I warn myself to only have one drink. I’m not a big indulger of hard alcohol and I want to keep my wits about me in case Luke shows up.
I spot Allie as soon as she walks through the front door and immediately gesture for her to join me. The hostess doesn’t even bother looking up from her cell phone. As my friend approaches, I notice that she has also changed clothes. “You look so cute!” I tell her while standing up and giving her a hug. She’s wearing a red dress with a fitted bodice and a flared skirt.
When she pulls back, she does a small pirouette and declares, “I like dressing up. It’s been a long time since I’ve worn any of my nicer clothes.”
As soon as she takes her coat off and sits down, our server arrives with our drinks. Lifting my glass to my friend, I announce, “To us!”
Allie lifts her glass in return. “To finding the lives we were meant to have.”
After we each take a small sip of our decadent cocktails, I decide this is the perfect entrée to what I want to talk to Allie about. “What life do you think you were meant to have?”
She seems caught off guard. Tipping her ear toward her shoulder like she’s in deep thought, she finally says, “I guess I don’t really know anymore.”
“Are you happy?” I ask.
“There have been moments when I thought I was, but they didn’t last.”
After taking a substantial swig, I tell her, “Allie, you’re skittish when it comes to talking about your ex-husband, so I haven’t asked a lot of questions. I think it’s time you tell me what happened.”
Her eyebrows raise slightly. “I don’t like talking about Brett.”
“I still want to know about him.” At this point, I start to worry she might stand up and walk out the door. In fact, for several moments she seems to be considering that very thing.
My friend finally picks up her drink and slams it back in one go before signaling the server for another. That’s when I know she’s planning on staying. She inhales deeply before announcing, “Brett and I met in business school. We both wanted the same things. ”
“Which were …” I prompt.
“We wanted a family and careers that would supply a significant income so that when our children arrived, I could take time off and stay home with them until they started school.”
“You both had good jobs, right? I mean, I know you worked at a publishing house. That had to pay decent money. What did Brett do?”
“He was a day trader specializing in crypto currency.”
“That sounds pretty profitable.”
She nods her head. “We did fine financially.”
“What was the problem then?”
The server arrives and delivers two more lemon drops. “Oh, I’m not …”
I’m about to tell her that I don’t want another but Allie interrupts. “You’re going to need it.” Then she turns her attention to the server and asks for the beer batter fish with extra tartar sauce and coleslaw.
“I’d like the mushroom burger,” I tell her. “With onion rings, please.”
After our server leaves, I turn my attention back to Allie. “Why am I going to need another drink?”
She takes a moment to unroll her silverware from the confines of its paper napkin before laying it down in a proper setting. “Three years ago, Brett and I agreed to start trying for a family. It didn’t go well.”
“You couldn’t get pregnant?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Getting pregnant wasn’t the problem. Keeping the baby was.”
Oh, dear. I’m not quite sure what to say about that. I decide to go with, “How many times were you pregnant?”
“Three.” Poor Allie!
“Do you know why you kept losing the pregnancies?”
“After the second, my doctor asked us to both get tested for any problems. I happily went in because I hoped they would find something we could fix. Brett did not. ”
“Because?”
“I thought it was because during that time we found out we were pregnant for the third time, and he thought there was no reason to. But then we miscarried again, and he told me he was sure he wasn’t the problem.”
“Because he’s also a medical doctor?” I can’t hide the disdain from my voice.
“More like because his precious ego couldn’t handle thinking he might be responsible.”
I finish my first drink with gusto, before starting my second. “So, what happened after the third time?”
“Brett declared that he wanted a family more than anything, and as much as he claimed to love me, he realized I wasn’t up to the task.” She practically growls the next part. “ Up to the task, like I was some kind of paid employee.”
My mouth hangs open like a mounted sea bass. I try to force myself to say something but really, what can I say? I ultimately go with, “He left you for that? What about adoption? What about fostering?”
“Brett would have never considered either of those things. He thought adoption made it look like there was something wrong with us. As far as fostering, there’s no way he would have ever willingly helped raise a child who he considered from ‘lesser’ stock.”
“Was he a Nazi?” I blurt this out a little louder than I’d planned to, but I’m seriously that horrified.
Allie smiles sadly. “He was just very particular.”
“So, he walked out on you and left you to mourn the loss of three pregnancies by yourself?”
“That about sums it up.”
As our food arrives, I take a minute to try to calm the red-hot anger pulsing through my veins. When the server leaves, I announce, “I’m not a violent person, but I’d be happy to donate if you want to hire a hit on him. Barring that, I know where to slip a knitting needle to take him off this planet. ”
Laughter erupts out of my friend, which is a wonderful sound, especially given the topic of our conversation. “You’re a good friend, Lorelai. But I think our parting ways was for the best. I don’t think Brett was the man for me. In fact, I’m pretty sure the universe was doing me a proper by getting rid of him.”
I take a bite of onion ring, and chew it thoughtfully before asking, “If that’s so, why are you always so sad? Like, seriously, Al, you’ve got no sparkle and that’s the thing you’ve always been known for.”
She smiles sorrowfully. “My doctor said that with every loss, my hormones went through the same shift as if I’d given birth. In addition, I’m mourning the loss of something I thought I really wanted to share with my husband.” As though defending herself, she adds, “It’s only been six months since my last miscarriage.”
Shock does not begin to describe my reaction to hearing this. “He left you right after you lost your last pregnancy? What a dirt bag!”
“Three weeks after. He said it was better for both of us to just move on.”
“Mother. Of. God. He was a monster!”
“Pretty much.”
“What did you do? I mean, I know you came back to Elk Lake but that was three months ago. Where were you in the interim?”
“The day Brett walked out the door, I packed up all his things and donated them to a homeless shelter. Then I changed the locks, my phone number, and I quit my job.”
“Amazing!” I marvel at her ability to think clearly enough to start sticking it to her loser ex.
“Then I took half the money out of our joint savings account, and I went to Europe.”
“Seriously?”
“I took a first class vacation the likes of which only royalty go on.” I take a giant bite of my burger and listen as she tells me, “I flew first class, I stayed in five-star hotels, and I ate solely at Michelin-starred restaurants. I spent half of our nest egg in eight weeks.”
“Allie, wow. I don’t know what to say.”
“I didn’t want any of the money we’d saved together because the life we were planning wasn’t going to happen. When I went back to Chicago, I found divorce papers that Brett had filed, so I signed them and moved out of our apartment. Luckily, we didn’t own it, so there was no delay in walking away.”
Morbid curiosity takes over. “Did you see him after that?”
She nods her head sharply. “I ran into him at our favorite restaurant. He was on a date.”
“He’d started dating already?” How did Allie never see what a dirtbag this guy was?
My friend swallows the bite of fish in her mouth. “Apparently, he didn’t wait until then. A woman from his office called me after he left and told me that I wasn’t losing much. She said that she and Brett had been having an affair. He left her, too.”
“She sounds like a piece of trash who got exactly what she deserved.” I have no sympathy for women who fool around with married men. None.
Allie shifts in her seat. “I wasn’t married to her. I was married to Brett. So, while I didn’t condone what she did, he was the one I was mad at.”
“I’m speechless.”
We eat silently for several minutes. As much as I love the taste of my food, I find that I’ve lost my appetite. Meanwhile, Allie finishes her fish and orders two more drinks. It’s a good thing I don’t work tomorrow. Not only am I going to have to take an Uber home, but I’m sure I’ll have a wicked headache in the morning.
When the server appears with our lemon drops, Allie orders a classic Pop’s hot fudge sundae with two spoons. Then she asks me, “What happened with your breakup?”
“I think we just got bored with each other. Michael was kind of dry to begin with and one day I just looked at him and realized I didn’t want a future with him. I wanted something else, I just didn’t know what.”
“Do you know now?”
I’m not sure I’ve ever put words to what I’m looking for, but suddenly I realize exactly what that is. “I want to feel an internal tornado when I’m with the man I love. I want him to surprise me and help me grow into a better person. I want passion.”
“And you didn’t have that with Michael?”
“Not really. We were only twenty-three when we started dating. He got a job offer in Madison when we were twenty-four. We probably should have broken up then, but I hoped things would get better.” I continue to explain, “Once we moved, he kind of went his way and I stalled. I didn’t have much of a social life outside of Michael’s work friends. I just wasn’t happy in any aspect of my life.”
“Do you like being back in Elk Lake?” she asks in such a way that confirms she’s not sold on this life.
“I love it,” I tell her. “So many people are always in such a hurry to leave home, and if that’s right for them, then good. But there are a lot of us who like living where we grew up. Don’t get me wrong,” I tell her. “I’m still not sure I’ll stay here forever, but for now I’m happy.”
At this point, it’s possible she orders us a fourth martini. Either that or the first three really start to kick in. Every muscle in my body relaxes and my eyesight starts to blur around the edges. The bottom line is, I’m feeling no pain.
My gaze strays to the window behind the counter that leads into the kitchen, and I catch a glimpse of Luke. My stomach does a little flip.
I don’t know him as an adult, but I figure there’s no time like the present. I can’t help but wonder if it’s possible that our futures might be intertwined after all.