Chapter 11
Mary yawned as she pulled into Darbi’s driveway. The excitement of the day and being on her feet under the blazing sun all afternoon had exhausted her. If she hadn’t been so hungry, she would have driven straight to her apartment to go to bed. Earlier in the day, she’d called Darbi to tell her that she’d been able to make sense of things at the station and figure out who everyone was. Darbi had insisted Mary come over for dinner to see what would happen with Jacqui. “I’m going crazy thinking she’s going to know something’s off. We need to get your first meeting over with so I stop worrying,” she’d said.
The scent of grilled meat hit Mary as soon as she stepped out of her car, and her stomach grumbled. Other than a spoonful or two of ice cream, she hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast.
Across the street, a shirtless thirty-something neighbor mowing his lawn waved at her as she walked to Darbi’s front door. She was so surprised by his friendliness that she froze midstep with her mouth gaping. In all the years middle-aged Mary had visited her cousin, the guy had never acknowledged her presence.
Darbi’s voice coming through the screen door pulled her from her thoughts. “Don’t be so surprised. You’re young and beautiful again. No longer invisible.”
Mary cringed because her cousin spoke the truth. Middle-aged women were invisible. Jenni had once told her the clothing store Chico’s, which targeted older women, intentionally sold clothes with bright colors and attention-getting patterns so that the women who wore them would be noticed. Mary wasn’t sure if the information was true or something Jenni had made up. Either way, though, she believed the sentiment.
“Just wave back,” Darbi said.
Wave? Mary wanted to give the guy the finger on behalf of all women older than thirty-five. Instead, she blew him a kiss, something she would never had had the chutzpah to do the first time she was in her twenties.
“Come get it while it’s hot!” Jacqui’s rich voice called out from somewhere inside the house.
Mary tried to step through the open door, but Darbi grabbed her arm while blocking her path. “Be careful when you’re talking to Jacqui,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t say boo about Dean or Kendra. She doesn’t remember your other life and has no idea who they are.” Darbi’s forehead creased. In this alternate world, she looked much older to Mary.
“I looked for Dean today at City Hall,” Mary said. “He loves the Scooper Bowl. Next year, I’m going to go with him. Maybe Kendra will be back by then too.”
Darbi’s grip on Mary’s forearm tightened, and her face blanched. “Don’t you under—”
A loud clanking sound came from across the street. Mary and Darbi both jumped. The neighbor had hit a rock with the lawn mower.
Jacqui emerged from the kitchen, walking up behind them. “What’s all the whispering out here?” She whacked Darbi in the butt with a dish towel.
Mary’s muscles tightened as she felt Jacqui’s appraising gaze on her. Does she notice I’m thirty years younger? She must. Mary reached for the finger on her left hand to spin her wedding ring, a nervous habit she’d had for decades, but of course the diamond band wasn’t there. She left her thumb there on the empty spot, realizing this day would have been even better if she’d been able to tell Dean and Kendra about it. She pushed the thought away and slid the microphone charm on her necklace back and forth.
Jacqui narrowed her eyes. “You two are up to no good. I can tell.” A hint of amusement tickled her voice.
“Not us,” Darbi said. She raced inside the house and disappeared down the hallway.
In her real life, Mary never ran out of things to talk about with Jacqui, but standing alone with her now, she didn’t open her mouth, fearing anything she said would give her secret away. She bolted for the dining room, with Jacqui on her heels. They sat in chairs on opposite sides of the table. Was Jacqui looking at her strangely? Yes, she most definitely was.
“I like that dress. Is it new?” Jacqui asked.
Was it new? Mary had no idea. She fiddled with her silverware. “I found it in the back of my closet.” That was true.
Jacqui laughed, and the familiar sound put Mary at ease.
Darbi joined them, reeking of patchouli.
“Pee-yoo.” Jacqui pinched her nose. “Why did you douse yourself with essential oil before dinner? Are you nervous the food won’t taste good?”
Darbi paused before answering. “That loud boom across the street startled me. My heart’s been pounding ever since.”
Jacqui raised an eyebrow. She handed Mary the salad bowl. Mary tried to meet Darbi’s eye to signal for her to calm down. Everything was fine.
“Your story on the Scooper Bowl was great. We just watched it,” Jacqui said. “Are you sure you’re going to have an appetite? I bet you ate a ton of ice cream today. I sure would have.”
“I didn’t know I would be covering the Scooper Bowl, so I didn’t have my pills with me.”
Darbi sat up straighter and thrust the plate of steak at Mary. “Have some.”
“What pills?” Jacqui asked.
Darbi jabbed at a piece of meat with her knife. “That right there is cooked medium well, the way you like it.” She dropped the beef strip on Mary’s plate.
“For my lactose intolerance.”
Darbi cleared her throat. “What do you want to drink?”
Jacqui’s eyebrows squished together. “Since when are you lactose intolerant?”
“Wine!” Darbi shouted. “Jacqui, will you pick out a bottle that goes with dinner from the rack in the dining room? A nice red.”
As Jacqui stood, her attention turned to Darbi. “You’re extremely jumpy tonight, hon, even with your calming spray.”
Darbi waited for Jacqui to leave, then hissed at Mary, “Fifty-four-year-old Mary was lactose intolerant, not twenty-four-year-old Mary.”
Mary had been in her early forties when her intolerance to dairy products began.
“It happens to many women as they age,” her doctor had explained. “There’s increasing evidence that shifting hormones during perimenopause and menopause are the cause.”
“Darn, I would have had a much better time at the Scooper Bowl if I’d remembered that,” she said. Thankfully, she’d be back in her other life long before Mary version 2 reached perimenopause. She didn’t want to go through that again.
Darbi was unusually quiet through dinner, and Mary was too scared of saying something wrong, so Jacqui carried the conversation, explaining the products in her store that customers liked most. At one point, she stopped speaking, eyeing Darbi and Mary. “You ladies are quiet tonight. Something going on that I don’t know about?”
Darbi and Mary made fleeting eye contact. “It’s exciting hearing you talk about the store,” Darbi said. To Mary, her cousin’s voice sounded forced, as if she was mimicking the normal way she spoke.
After they finished eating, while Darbi did the dishes, Jacqui and Mary settled in the living room to watch Jeopardy! Mary finally let herself relax. In her real life, she watched the game show with Jacqui whenever she ate dinner there. The one difference tonight was Dean’s absence. He usually sat in the recliner, trying to yell out the answers before Jacqui did. Mary glimpsed toward the chair and could almost see Dean sitting there wearing a golf shirt with a beer in his hand. She blinked hard to clear the water collecting in the corners of her eyes. She’d only been here for two days, and she missed him already.
Jacqui turned on the television. There were still a few minutes before the show was scheduled to start, and the news was ending. A dark-haired woman sat behind the anchor desk.
Mary leaned forward on the sofa.
“For all of us at CBS Evening News , I’m Nora O’Donnell. Thank you for watching.”
“Who’s Nora O’Donnell? Where’s Liz?” Mary asked.
“Who’s Liz?” Jacqui said.
The sound of a pot clanking against the sink came from the kitchen. Darbi raced into the living room. “Mary, could I get some help, please?”
Jacqui placed a hand on Mary’s leg. “She’s a guest. She doesn’t have to clean. Now, who is Liz?”
“I could really use some help,” Darbi insisted. She caught Mary’s attention and bobbed her head in the direction of the kitchen.
“I don’t mind.” Mary followed her cousin out of the room. “What’s going on? Why isn’t Liz on the news?”
Darbi held her index finger over her pursed lips and yanked on the faucet so that the sound of the streaming water filled the room. “Liz is not the anchor of CBS Evening News in this version of your life,” she whispered.
There in Darbi’s kitchen, Mary pictured the Hall of Fame wall at Channel 77 and figured out what was wrong with it. Liz’s photo was missing. Dang. How had she not realized that? The dinner she’d just eaten twisted and turned in her stomach. A sour taste filled her mouth. “Why not?” She braced herself for Darbi’s answer, almost regretting asking. Something horrible must have happened to Liz for her not to be the CBS anchor or pictured on the news station’s Hall of Fame wall, and Mary couldn’t help but wonder if her being here was the cause.
“Ladies, I don’t enjoy watching alone,” Jacqui called.
“Let’s not talk about this when Jacqui’s around.”
“Just tell me what happened to Liz.”
“I’ll explain later. In the meantime, remember what I told you. Bad things happen when you look up people from your other life.”
In the heat of the kitchen, Mary shivered. Was Darbi trying to warn her that she’d inadvertently changed the paths of the people she’d known? She bit down on her lip, determined to do a better job at work so she’d be offered a promotion and return to her real life sooner rather than later.