Chapter 4 #2
“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. My point is, we want different things in life. You love a night in with your fictional stories. I love spending time with real people. It didn’t seem to matter in the past, but somehow it matters now.”
My stomach turns heavy. “Are you saying you don't want to be my friend anymore?”
“No! Of course not. It’s just, we’ve grown apart this past year. After talking to Caleb’s mom, I think it’s better if Krystal’s my maid of honor.”
The breath is knocked out of me as forcefully as if I’d received a gut punch. If Caleb's mom has met Krystal then she has a terrible opinion of me. Otherwise, why would his mom care?
“Krystal’s more outgoing and comfortable around people,” Mallory continues in a soothing voice.
“I want you in my wedding party, just not in the way we planned when we were twenty. You’ll be a bridesmaid with Mackenzie, Virginia, and Sandra.
With how overwhelmed you’ve been with work, this is a good thing. You’ll have a lot less responsibility.”
I close my eyes and work hard to keep my voice even. “I want the responsibility of being your maid of honor. My work stress is a temporary situation.”
“This is what I want,” she says softly. “It’s my wedding.”
She’s right. This is her decision, and I’m not going to whine about it. “I’m happy to be your bridesmaid.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
But I don’t understand. Would any of this be happening right now if Krystal hadn’t started working at her school a year ago?
“One last thing,” Mallory says.
I prepare myself for the worst.
“Caleb’s parents are throwing us an engagement party in a few weeks.
I hope you can come. Krystal’s taking on a lot of the planning, so just be glad you don’t have to worry about that.
I’ll be in and out of the apartment since I want to get moved out by the time my teacher meetings start next week.
If I don’t see you, I’ll leave the invitation on the table. We’re good, right?”
There’s only one answer to give. “We’re good.”
She ends the call, and I collect myself for a few minutes before going back into the kitchen.
"Well?" Naomi asks.
I’m sure my eyes are red, but she doesn’t draw attention to it.
"Our lease ends at the end of the month, and Mallory doesn't want to extend. I'm homeless.”
Naomi doesn't hesitate. “You can move in here. We have the in-law suite.”
I look at the door to the suite she’s talking about. It’s off the kitchen and has a living space, bedroom, and bathroom. It doesn’t have a kitchen, but living with Naomi, I don’t need one. She’s a phenomenal cook.
“You’ll seriously let me live here?” I collapse into a chair at the table.
“Of course,” Naomi says enthusiastically. “You’re our favorite person, right guys?”
I’m met with three niblings nodding their sweet little heads. As upset as I am at Mallory, I now feel calm about the two weeks I have to move. My sisters are the best. No matter what happens I always have them.
“Conrad won’t mind?”
Naomi shakes her head. “You’re here so often anyway, we could move you in while he’s at work, and he wouldn’t notice a difference.”
I love my parents, but I don't want to live with them, even temporarily. “Okay.”
“Yay!” Lola yells. “You can walk us to school!”
Her excitement makes me laugh even with a tight throat and burning eyes. “It won't be for long, I promise. I’ll figure something out.”
Naomi stands, grabs the tray with all her cookie bites from the counter, and plops them in front of me. She sits back down and eats one of her baked concoctions.
“Maybe it’s time for you to buy your own place,” she says. “You’ve been saving for a home for forever. I’m sure you have a great downpayment by now.”
I nibble on my own cookie but don’t answer. I can afford to buy a house, but I don’t want to. I always imagined when I bought a home it would be a joint purchase with my husband. It’s one of those things I’ve held off on, waiting until I get married.
Mallory’s words replay in my head. “Do something! Stop waiting for your life to start.” But buying a house is a big decision. One that scares me to undertake on my own.
“Maybe,” is all I say.
Naomi pops a cookie in her mouth. “Let’s play another round of Uno and then get dinner ready. I promised the kids a movie night, and I don’t want them staying up too late.”
Naomi and my niblings do an admirable job keeping me happy and distracted. But, then, they always do. There's a flicker of excitement in my chest, that I'll get to see them at bedtime every night for the foreseeable future. They’re the rainbow in what has become a stormy few months.
Over the next week, I don’t see Mallory more than a handful of times, and only in passing.
We talk, but she’s always in a rush. More of her things disappear each day.
By Friday when I get home from work, all of her stuff is gone.
It’s depressing, and not only because I struggle with change.
I’ve lost my best friend. My consolation is she’s still a good friend. Just a busy one.
I collapse on the couch and pull out my phone for a thirty minute Instagram scroll before another evening of packing.
Next week, Conrad’s coming with a few of his fireman friends to move all my boxes and furniture to his in-law suite.
Then my sisters are helping me clean the whole place from top to bottom.
Across the top of my screen a notification flashes with a Facebook friend request from Drew Yarrow.
In all that’s happened in the last week, I’ve barely spared him a thought, but this small thing lifts my heart. He remembers me. I accept, then go to his profile to check it out, expecting that to be it. But a second later he sends a private message.
DREW: I’ve asked Mallory for your number a few times, but she won’t give it to me without talking to you first. She keeps forgetting. Can I have it?
I send him my number and a short message asking how he’s doing. It’s hard to believe that karaoke was a week ago. My life looks completely different in only six short days. Even though I barely know Drew, he feels like a tie to my old life.
Instead of responding to me through Facebook, he sends a text.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: I hate texting. Are you busy now? Can I call you?
Nope, not busy, even if it is a Friday night. Just here stewing in my sadness.
STELLA: Sure.
My phone rings immediately.
“Hey, Drew.”
“Stella! Remember your promise to visit Blissful for Apple Jamboree? I told you I wouldn’t forget.”
I didn’t promise to go to Apple Jamboree, but now I need to go. He’s the only person outside of my family who wants to hang out with me.
“What are the dates?” I ask.
“It starts the second weekend of September, but goes through the end of October, so there are plenty of options.”
I change the call to speaker and pull up my calendar app. The second Sunday in September is my thirty-fifth birthday. The following Friday is my last day as library manager. The next day is the first Saturday of Apple Jamboree. It will be a great way to celebrate one and mourn the other.
“How about that first Saturday?” I ask.
“The first weekend is always the busiest,” Drew says, “But it’s also the night the Beatles Tribute Band is playing, and we’ll have fireworks. Good choice. Plan on coming for the whole day, because there is a lot to do.”
His enthusiasm makes me happy and cracks the depressed haze I’ve been functioning under. My smile feels foreign.
“I can’t wait to see Blissful in all its glory.” As I say it, I feel the truth of the words.
“We won’t disappoint. I’ll see you at the engagement party in two weeks, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“I heard Mallory moved out of your apartment. How’s that going?”
Since he went out after karaoke with Mallory and Krystal, he probably heard about the move before I did.
“It’s going. Mallory’s completely moved out, but I still have a lot of packing and cleaning to do before next Saturday.”
And hole patching and paint touch-ups. It’s overwhelming.
“Can I help? It’s a light week for my handyman services.”
My chest warms at his offer, even though I won’t accept. Mallory didn’t clean anything but her room, leaving me all the shared spaces.
“Thank you, but I’m good. My sisters are coming over to help.”
“If you change your mind, let me know.”
“Thanks, I will.” I won’t. “Tell me about your week?”
“You don’t have somewhere to be?”
I’m pathetic for not having plans on a Friday, but I’m also honest. “No. Just more packing. Do you?”
A slight pause. “Not tonight.”
He tells me about the handyman jobs he did this week and the quirky neighbors he talked to at the hardware store he manages. He builds a picture of a small town where everyone knows everyone. Sitting on my couch in my lonely apartment, invisible in the middle of a huge city, it sounds amazing.
When he asks about my week, I end up telling him about my temporary manager position and how much I dislike it.
I don’t usually complain about my life to a man I hardly know, but Drew is easy to talk to.
He offers suggestions, most of them revolving around my moving to Blissful, which makes me laugh.
He doesn’t mean it, but it’s nice to have him care.
“Bye, Stella. Remember, I’m only an hour away if you want help moving.”
“Good night, Drew.”
I end the call. The haze of sadness that’s clung to me breaks up and blows away. I want to feel like this always, but if I keep doing the same things I’ve always done, that won’t happen.
Mallory might not have been kind, but she was right.
I’ve been waiting for the perfect man to walk off the page of a book and into my life before I start living.
I’ve waited long enough. It’s time to cast that particular dream aside, and focus on how I can be happy alone.
To become the heroine of my story. I always hoped I’d live in a romance, but it’s time to accept my journey is women’s fiction.
I grab my planner and skip past the detailed to-do list of everything I need to accomplish in the apartment this week. When I reach a clean page, I write at the top, “Stella’s Freakin’ Awesome Life Plan.”
My first bullet point: a home.
It’s scary to make a huge purchase like this on my own, but it’s time.
My mind fills in all the things I’ve ever wanted: built in bookshelves. Granite counter tops in the kitchen. A yard for a garden. I want rooms filled with bright colors. And books. And a comfortable reading chair.
How fun will it be to unpack my boxes of books and travel souvenirs and place them on shelves in a permanent residence. No more apartment dwelling.
Letting go of my dream of a husband means I won’t have kids.
“I won’t ever meet my children,” I whisper.
It hurts deeply, but it’s a fact I have to accept.
Having my own kids is a yearning so deep it’s impossible to let go of completely.
I’ll have to learn to disregard it and invest more of my time into my niblings.
Forcibly ignoring my lack of children is not a freakin’ awesome goal, but I can’t keep holding on to a dream that won’t happen. It keeps me stuck.
Socially, I love monthly karaoke. I want to do something like that in my new home. It’ll be different without Mallory co-hosting, so something low-key. Like a bookclub. Or a board game night. Not as exciting, but still fun.
The last thing I add to my list is to find a job that reawakens my passion for librarianship.
I want to continue to surround myself with books, but it may be time to move to a different library in the system.
Or change the population I work with. Instead of kids, I could try teen programming, or even adult. Definitely no management positions.
My list consists of only four things, but it’s momentum. It’s letting go of a long held dream of a nuclear family. I’m accepting that I will live alone and age gracefully into the neighborhood spinster cat lady. And be happy about it, gosh darn it.
I want to carry forward on this wave of bravery and start looking for homes and investigating other libraries to work at, but first I have to get through this move. Which means packing up the rest of this apartment.
When I crawl into bed hours later, I don’t fall asleep.
Instead of tossing and turning, I grab my phone and look at Drew’s Facebook profile.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much to see. A few pictures he’s been tagged in over the years, but nothing more.
Even his profile picture looks ten years old.
With less than one hundred friends, it’s easy to find his sister, Lauren.
Unlike Drew, she looks exactly like she did as a child. I’d recognize her anywhere. Her profile picture is of her with her husband, a big red-headed guy, on their wedding day.
She must share her posts as visible to friends of friends, because there are a lot as I scroll. Tons of family photos with Drew, their mom, and a man who must be their step-dad. In every picture of Drew, there’s a sadness in his eyes that I didn’t see in person.
It’s two years into the past when I come across photos of Drew with a woman.
Quinn. Slim, tall, and blonde; in a word, gorgeous.
She’s confident in the way that Roe is, as if she knows she’s absolutely lovable.
Drew is happy with her, which makes me think the sadness in later pictures is because she’s not in them.
Another year and I get to their wedding. Drew was married!
The venue is beautiful. It’s a big open room, like a barn, with vaulted ceilings and exposed beams. Very much a country feel, tempered with white tulle and ribbon.
When I saw Drew at karaoke, he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and he didn’t mention her when I asked what he’d been up to for the past fifteen years. For whatever reason, his wife is gone, and has been for two years after only one year of marriage.
Poor Drew. If there is any feeling I can relate to right now, it’s losing someone you love. And a future you hoped to live.