Chapter Five
Looking at the little piece of paper still in her hand, she listened as the clack of Erin’s heels on tile echoed in the distance. That conversation should have been entirely awkward and embarrassing, but it wasn’t. It was easy. Too easy.
Julia could still smell magnolia clinging to the air, but then it was gone. She took a deep breath and leaned on her desk, her face buried in her hands. If they were going to work with each other professionally, she’d have to limit that teasing banter. She’d have to get a hold of herself.
It’d be hard enough to focus around Erin knowing how her lips felt, let alone have to look at that smile. The thought of Erin’s lips curled Julia’s mouth into a smile from ear to ear just as Keegan walked back into the room with an updated meeting schedule flopping in her hands.
Stopping at the doorway, Keegan matched Julia’s upward grin. She closed the door behind her, casting a quick glance in both directions to ensure no one else was approaching, before taking the seat Erin was just in.
“Okay, Julia,” she sighed, plopping the papers on the desk in a heap, “what’s making you smile like that now?”
Julia joked, turning in her chair to face away from Keegan, pretending to file a few papers while she wiped the grin off her face, “obviously these budget reports.”
“How long have we known each other?”
Julia had to consider it for a moment–the years of their friendship mending into an unspeakable bond.
“I think,” she answered finally, “we’re probably coming up on almost 10 years.”
“Exactly. I know everything about you and I know that you don’t go smiling like that over nothing, especially not with being under a microscope of McSellen.”
Of course, she had a point. McSellen was the enemy right now. If anyone else were to look at her, they’d see a professional who always strived for perfection; a published author in many academic journals, a leader in her community, and a friend to all. She’s someone who takes care of each and every student in that school as if they’re her own. She’s the person to everyone, and Keegan knew she wouldn’t be this giddy on a day like today.
“Well?” Keegan’s voice broke through Julia’s thoughts with the force of a hammer.
“No judgment?”
“Listen first, laugh later.” As it should be.
“Do you remember when I said I stayed out too late?” Julia asked, her voice slow and cautious, avoiding eye contact as she glanced back at her planner.
“Yes.” Keegan drew out the word, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“It was one year yesterday.”
Suddenly, the room felt suffocatingly small. Any hint of teasing enjoyment vanished from Keegan’s brown eyes. She reached out and held Julia’s hand, which unconsciously clenched itself into a fist on the desk.
“I didn’t know.” She shook her head apologetically.
“It’s okay.” Julia gave a plastic smile, one not reaching her eyes. She had to focus to push back the tears. “I, um, I couldn’t go home. I tried and I just couldn’t do it. So, I got in my car and just drove. I stopped at The Tipsy Hatter to clear my head. A woman sat next to me and we talked for nearly an hour–not about anything of consequence. It was almost like we were just both content in the company.” Julia rushed through her words, fearing that if she didn’t blurt it all out at once, she might lose the courage to share any of it.
“I’m happy you had someone.” Keegan spoke quietly, squeezing Julia’s hand softly. “I wish you would’ve called me.”
“You had little Joey’s recital, and by the time I looked at the clock, I’m sure you were long asleep.” She gave a small smile; she felt so small. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“It is never a bother. I would drop everything for you.” There was a calming moment of silence between them. “So, is that conversation what has been keeping you smiling like a little schoolgirl?”
Julia nodded and then added, “There was a kiss… or two.”
“Kiss!” Keegan shouted too loud, slapping a hand across her face to shut herself up. “Julia Jenner,” she gasped.
“She kissed me!” Julia defended. “And then I kissed her,” she admitted, her hands covering her face in embarrassment. “Oh my God, Keegan. I haven’t had anyone look at me like that in…” She looked up and caught her eyes changing from astonishment to pity in an instant. She hated that look.
“Was there more than a kiss?” Keegan’s eyes sparkled with curiosity, wanting every little detail.
“Almost,” Julia blushed, “but no. I couldn’t. I already felt like a stupid teenager kissing a stranger in a bathroom, of all places!”
“But you know you could, right?”
They’ve had this conversation countless times before. Keegan, being the supportive best friend she was, tried relentlessly to help Julia move on, but she couldn’t bring herself to close that wound. It wasn’t that she was that stuck in the past; she was just hopelessly hopeful. She clung to that hope, that little glimmer of light, so tightly that it became a part of her.
“I couldn’t.”
“You could.”
“I can’t.”
“Mmm… But you can.”
“Keegan, you don’t–” Julia started to protest, but she was interrupted.
“You,” her voice grew stern, “deserve to be happy, Julia. You deserve happiness more than anyone else I know. You are allowed to immerse yourself in those moments of happiness and let them wash over you, because you deserve every bit of it, no matter how small.”
Julia teared at the words. How could she deserve happiness when she drove away the person she loved the most? How could she deserve love, to be loved? Did she not love Marin enough, or did she love her too much? How could anyone want to be around her when the one person who was supposed to be her forever couldn’t run fast enough? Most days, she couldn’t even bear to look in the mirror and face the person she had become, let alone imagine being with someone else.
“Be a teenager in a grungy bathroom,” Keegan begged. “No one cares.”
“That’s not even the worst part.” Her voice cracked as she wiped her tears with a tissue from her desk. “It was Erin.”
“Erin?”
“Calanis,” Julia sighed, the tissue still pressed against her eyes.
“The McSellen rep?”
“Yes.”
“At the bar?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit!”
“I know,” Julia groaned. Keegan’s jaw dropped, her eyes wide with pure amusement. She stood, unsure of what to do with her antsy legs.
“She’s hot!” Keegan emphasized the words with a mountainous bounce of her eyebrows. She closed her mouth and it turned to another one of her devilish grins. Her mind was always in the gutter, always full of feathers lightening the mood.
“She has to be half my age!”
“And that matters because?”
“Because I’m sure she’s young enough to be my child.”
“But she’s not a child.”
“Because it would be professionally irresponsible! A conflict of interests, amongst other things!”
“And?” Keegan smirked.
“I don’t even know why she sat down next to me in that bar last night, anyway.”
“Probably because you’re beautiful.”
“Oh, please,” Julia groaned.
“Maybe because you have kind eyes.” Keegan stared seriously before her voice grew softer. “Maybe because she noticed how when you don’t think anyone is looking, your smile fades.”
She didn’t finish her thought, but Julia knew what she was referring to. She fought day and night to hide it. She did everything in her power to make sure no one else knew she fell apart in the darkness, that some nights she still didn’t find the energy to pick herself off of the couch.
“So,” she continued, “talk to a stranger. Kiss a beautiful woman. Do whatever you need to do to feel like the old you.”
“I wish it was that easy.” Julia sighed, turning her chair slightly towards the window.
A single tear escaped from her eye, rolling down her pale cheek in an itchy river before dripping off her chin. She looked at the window, still no sun in sight. She squeezed her eyes closed, wishing for the feeling of dawn just waiting in the distance.
Was she afraid to let someone else in? Or was she afraid of what that would mean in the long run? Was she afraid that it would mean she was finally stepping forward, that there was nothing left behind to wait for? Or was she just afraid to be happy?
What the hell is happiness, anyway? She thought she and Marin were happy. She thought she finally landed at the point in her life where she belonged. But it was a mirage, a story she convinced herself of just to keep the shadows at bay. If she let anyone in like that again, it could all disappear right before her eyes. Once again, she’d have nothing but pictures on a quiet wall to remind her of what could have been.
“It is, Jules. For once,” her voice pleaded, “it can be that easy. For once, choose you.”
That weight of that last word hung in the air like a frozen raindrop, waiting to crash into a million breaths. Her. At some point, she would have to choose herself. At some point, she’d have to put her old life behind her and move on. She’d have to remove those pictures on the walls. She’d have to stop looking at every place Marin belonged and accept that it just wasn’t their time.
Time can be a graceful and giving thing, but it can also take everything away in an instant. They say it’s supposed to balance out in the end, that the bad doesn’t win, but why do we trust so much in something we can’t see to make all those choices for us? Sometimes it feels like a roll of the dice, where some are fortunate while others are left with nothing. Julia seemed to always be the latter–the person who gave everything and then some. Even the scale wasn’t there to pick her spent body off the floor.
“So, what are you suggesting? A fling with this beautiful young woman for what?” she paused, considering the timeline. “The few months she’s here for?”
“Honey, it’s called the rebound.”
“It sounds inappropriate,” Julia whispered, and they both laughed. “I don’t think I need a secret lover.”
“No one said you’d have to keep it a secret. There’s nothing wrong with having a platonic fling.”
“You’re killing me!” A faint chuckle escaped from Julia’s throat.
It wasn’t that it was a funny situation. It was that every emotion came rushing at her all at once and the only options were to cry or laugh, and so she laughed at the thought of her almost 40-year-old self having a fling until she had tears welling in her eyes. Keegan sat back down and watched her let it all out, watched as her chest rose and fell with deep amusement. After she wiped her eyes, Julia looked up at her concerned face.
“I love you.” Julia stood from her desk and wrapped her arms around her friend.
“I love you, too.” Keegan squeezed. “I just want the old you back. I know you miss her, too.”
She whispered the last part and Julia’s heart broke. Julia missed her too, but she didn’t know how to tell her best friend that the person she misses no longer exists.
“Erin and I are meeting later to clear the air.” Julia took her seat again, still wiping her eyes. “We’re going to discuss how we can put this behind us and focus on the school. That is why she’s here, after all. I can’t have a relationship with someone hired to do my job for me.”
“Mhm,” Keegan rolled her eyes. “When was the last time you got laid?”
Julia’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. They’ve joked about this topic over one too many classes of wine on a Saturday night, but Keegan had never asked it that seriously.
“Keegan!”
“I’m serious, Julia. Woman, you have to know how beautiful you are. When was the last time you got some?”
“We are not discussing this.”
“Come on! You’re funny, and smart, and the kindest person I’ve ever met. Damn!” Keegan smiled. “You’re the whole package!”
“Where’s your decency? We’re at work!”
“I am sure there would be women lining up along the road if they knew you were available. You should let someone remind you of that.”
“Yeah, in the Kleinton population of 972,” Julia rolled her eyes, “there’s a lot of lesbian bachelors roaming around.”
“If I swung that way, I would date you.” Keegan grinned.
“Gross!” Julia grimaced, barely able to hide the smile she fought.
“That’s not an answer, Julia.”
“I’m still married.”
“Sign the papers.” Keegan’s voice drastically turned somber, her eyes visibly hurting. It wasn’t a joke anymore. She was serious. “It’s been long enough. She isn’t coming back.”
“I know,” Julia whispered as her eyes fell to the planner below her. “I know.”
***
When Julia arrived home later that day, she dropped her belongings at the door and made her way straight to the bedroom. Her heels were still on, wet and muddy from the afternoon rainstorm. She picked up the crisp envelope that was sitting on the bedside table and slumped on the edge of her bed.
The adhesive seal wasn’t even broken. It’d been six months, and she hadn’t even had the nerve to open the envelope, regardless of how many times she studied the package. She tore it open now, ripping a jagged line through the return address. She pulled out the pages from their sleeve and carelessly tossed the envelope to the side. It fluttered to the floor as if caressed by stagnant air.
Marin’s name stared back at her from the plaintiff line. Julia didn’t bother reading the rest; her reasons didn’t matter anymore. What Marin wanted from the divorce didn’t matter. She could have it all for all she cared. When she left, it wasn’t just a walk out of their marriage; it was a piece of Julia that left her being entirely. Materialistic items no longer had meaning. They wouldn’t fill the hole inside her.
She flipped right to the last page with Marin’s signature scrolled across the bottom. Julia rubbed her finger over the letter M, picturing how Marin’s hand used to move when she would flourish that letter–her red hair tucked behind her ear as she leaned over to sign, the wrinkle she got on her forehead when she wrote anything by hand.
I’m not ready.
But did that matter? The choice was made for her, and it wasn’t until that very moment that she truly realized there wasn’t anything she could’ve done to change the circumstance. She felt stupid for sitting in that empty house thinking that a single envelope would bring her back.
Some say it’s better to love and lose that love than it is to never love at all. That’s horseshit. You don’t sit in the happy memories, thankful for the lessons that the bad taught you. You don’t just lose joint friends, family, or a house. You don’t just lose a couple of shared pieces of furniture. You don’t just throw away the ring on your left hand.
What they don’t tell you is that the life you currently live will be gone forever. That you become the sum of every high and low that you had together, and when the one leaves, you have nothing left to fill the space. That person doesn’t just live in the space next to you on the couch or your bed; they live within you. You lose seconds, minutes, days, years of moments that should be cherished in a locked vault in the precious bank of your mind but are now, instead, shadows lurking in the deep.
Watching someone you so desperately love fall out of love with you is worse than never loving at all. Knowing that even after a decade and a half of marriage, two decades of a shared life, there was something about you that was no longer enough–watching each day pass and a distance grow between the both of you–like she’s on a boat in the middle of the ocean floating away and you’re handcuffed to a dock on shore without the keys. Hopeless.
Marin didn’t want to be with her. No, better yet, Marin didn’t want her. At some point Julia would have to stop holding back because that knowledge sits on her forehead–a badge of dishonor. At some point she’ll be able to sleep without a pill lulling her to sleep. At some point she’ll come home and not think of how Marin used to kiss her in the kitchen, dance with her in the living room on rainy afternoons, or lay naked on the fluffy carpet after getting lost in each other’s embrace on a Sunday morning.
At some point everything would be okay again. It would never be the same–the pieces will never fit back together the same way–but it won’t be like it is now. What Julia could do was sign the papers, mail them to the stupid address in the corner, and take the first step. And that’s what she did.
Without giving it another thought, she scribbled her signature on the line and stuffed the papers back in the envelope. She didn’t even care if it looked like her own handwriting, didn’t care if her frustration seeped through every letter’s curve. She ran to the office desk off the entryway, not even stopping her momentum as she grabbed a stamp from the metal organizer. Papers fluttered to the floor–swept up in the whirlwind of her emotions–and scattered like carpet beneath her shaking legs.
With the stamp firmly pressed on the corner of the envelope, Julia dashed out of the front door, sprinting up the driveway and crossing the road in a blur. As small raindrops continued to plop on the ground beneath her, she tossed the package into the black mailbox. Without wasting a second, she forcefully lifted the red flag, directing it upward towards the cloudy sky. She stood there, catching her breath.
It’d taken her months to work up the courage to perform such a simple act–a task that consumed no more than a minute, yet felt like an eternity while holding her breath–but it was done now. The mailman would take the envelope in the morning, and everything would be fine.
She refused to allow herself the time to think, to allow the repercussions of what she just did to sink to the bottom of her shaking toes, and so she pulled out her phone as she braved the wind across the driveway. She walked back to the bedroom and scrolled down in her contacts to Erin, which she added before leaving work.
Julia - 5:28 p.m.
Hey, it’s Julia.
She didn’t expect a quick response, so she went to her closet to scope out her options. The idea of wearing her crumpled blue pantsuit was out of the question, especially since she’d stress-sweat in it most of the day.
This is such a bad idea.
As she swung open the closet door, she pushed down the excitement of having the chance to dress for someone else again. When was the last time she went out with someone other than Keegan? What was appropriate to wear to a no-date dinner with a woman she needed to keep things professional with? What outfit said she didn’t have a stick up her ass, but drew a line at the same time? What could possibly say hey, I find you absurdly funny and attractive, and I wish I actually took you home last night, but can we be civil colleagues? Sexy librarian? Fuck!
Erin - 5:29 p.m.
Hey, there! It was getting late. I thought you were standing me up.
Julia- 5:29 p.m.
I wouldn’t dream of it.
Well, the thought did cross Julia’s mind. She considered faking a stomach bug or headache. That usually worked for people, right? But then there was the fact that she’d see her on Monday, one way or another. Her anxiety-ridden ass had no choice other than to follow through with the plans already made.
Erin - 5:31 p.m.
We’re meeting at 3890 11th Street in Barnevelt. See you soon!
Julia quickly Googled the address and laughed when she saw the location. It turned out to be a charming mom-and-pop hamburger joint, just fifteen minutes closer than The Tipsy Hatter. She let out a sigh as she perched on the edge of her bed. It was out of the community lines. There would be no students, no parents, no co-workers lurking around. They could talk about everything that happened without fear of anyone overhearing.
It wasn’t anything fancy, which took a truckload of pressure off of her. There’d be no chance of touching in a burger joint. There’d be no stolen glances over full-bodied glasses of wine, no wishful brushes of skin. That’d make it easier. So much easier. She hoped.
Julia - 5:32 p.m.
Wow! No need to go all out.
Erin - 5:32 p.m.
Ha! It is a work meeting, remember.
Julia - 5:33 p.m.
Touche. See you soon.
Stepping out onto the front porch, Julia locked the door behind her. She turned to her car, the wind grasping her hair and obscuring her view momentarily. Clutching several papers in her hand–teacher schedules and school plans required for their meeting–she struggled to stuff them into her bag, fighting against the relentless wind that threatened to snatch them away into the night.
Raising her gaze while reaching for the car door, Julia noticed the red flag on the mailbox–its vivid hue, a neon sign beckoning her from a distance.
Don’t do it.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there staring at it, her breath growing shallower with each second. Her chest tightened as she dropped her hand, defeated.
Dammit.
With slow, measured steps, she approached the mailbox and lifted its lid. She stared at the envelope, exactly where she had left it. A part of her had hoped that it would vanish, out of her desperate grasp, like a letter sent to Hogwarts. But it wasn’t. It was there.
She pulled the envelope from the box, gently tucking the flag back to its rightful place.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow was another day.