Chapter 12 #2
Tonight would be better—although at the moment, I wasn’t very happy.
I went back inside and got one of Shane’s T-shirts because I was crying, just slightly, and he didn’t mind if I used them for tears or for wearing around, because he was generous like that.
I wanted to talk to him about the outcome of the meeting (crappy) but he was busy with his own job and then he’d be driving through Indianapolis traffic and airport chaos, too, which I didn’t like for him.
At least I would be the person behind the wheel once he got back here, a relief which I also didn’t relay.
He didn’t need to know how much I worried.
It was the same thing for his parents. When they had said goodbye to him at the end of their visit, they had both been very upset.
“Please watch over him,” his mom had whispered as she’d hugged me, her voice breaking, and I had nodded to let her know that I would.
I hadn’t gotten the chance to have a private discussion with them about his future, like I had wanted, but I thought that was for the best. We didn’t need to sneak behind his back as if he was a child or someone incapable of managing himself. He wasn’t either of those things.
But his parents still worried, and so did I.
I had a while before I needed to be at the airport and I didn’t have any shifts today, so I decided to use some of the money I’d lately earned to go shopping.
That was always frustrating and perplexing.
Clothes were annoying because they were made for women who were about three inches shorter than I was (it would have been five if I had actually stood at six feet, which I liked to claim).
They were also not made for someone quite as rounded as I was, a physical feature which persisted even with the increased exercise that I was engaged in.
My curves were just turning more muscular, which I supposed was an improvement.
I was never sure about what would look nice on me and there was no one that I could have called or texted for help with that issue.
My sister? No, because she wasn’t a friend and she didn’t know anything about clothes, either.
Shane was always complimentary so it was hard to trust his opinion, and he wasn’t a shopper himself.
I reviewed the list of people that I knew—Avonlea?
After all, she was living with my brother and if they went through with the wedding, she’d be an in-law.
But the two of us hadn’t parted on the best of terms when we’d had coffee.
Actually, her last words had been, “I think it’s best that Max gives you and your family a lot of distance.
” She had texted a few times since, but I didn’t put that down to friendship.
She was probably trying to gather information in order to protect her fiancé.
So, I went by myself. I wandered among racks for a while, but I wasn’t really focusing because I kept thinking about the family meeting I had organized, the one which had accomplished next to nothing.
I’d learned some information about my brother and to my shock, my sister had stood up for me—but then we’d ended up fighting and blaming each other loudly enough to bother my neighbor.
I had wanted to hammer down details and make plans because, as much as I told myself that I was done with them and the situation with the house and restaurant…
I wasn’t. I still thought about it and I tried to devise solutions.
That had been the point of the meeting today but, as always, we were too dysfunctional to fix anything.
I picked up a shirt and held it under my chin.
Was pink right for me? It looked nice on Morgan and we did have the same pale, cool coloring.
I thought about her again. I had been angry for a lot of years, believing that she was shirking her responsibilities and therefore forcing them on me, but she hadn’t wanted to be so unhappy and stuck.
And had I been angry or had I been worried?
It was easier to fume than to dissolve in anxiety.
“That’s not bad. I quite like it,” someone told me and I blinked.
“What the hell do you want?” I asked Corbin. “Why are you in the women’s department?”
“I was passing through after checking out men’s fragrances, and now I’m saying hello,” he answered. “Gum?” He offered a pack.
“No, I don’t want your drugged gum, and I don’t want to talk to you,” I informed him.
“Molly, I really am sorry. I’m sorry that I got involved with that video.”
“You mean, you’re sorry that you recorded and broadcast my answer to the question of how many people have seen my vagina?” They hadn’t said “vagina” but I wasn’t going to repeat their word in regard to my anatomy.
“I wasn’t the one asking those questions!” he protested. “I wasn’t doing the interview.”
I thought about that. The only face shown had been mine, flushed and bleary-eyed and with my mascara smeared. The questions had come from someone off-camera and now that I thought about it, I realized that the disembodied voice hadn’t sounded like Corbin at all. He spoke about an octave higher.
“Weren’t you ever forced to watch anti-bully videos in school? You could have been the upstander,” I told him. “I should have stopped it but you could have helped. So I’m stupid but you also suck.”
“I do. I’m sorry. Can I make it up to you?”
“Why do you want to? Why would you care about me?” I demanded. He looked almost tearful about the situation and that didn’t make any sense.
“I just do. Are you shopping for something specific? I’m pretty good at that,” he told me.
I looked at his outfit, considering. I had always thought that he dressed well. “I don’t want to spend very much,” I told him. “And I have no idea what would look good on me, or if something even exists.”
I also didn’t have forever to shop because I needed to get dressed and make improvements to my hair, so I left the mall after about an hour.
I left with two large bags, though, stuffed full of things that I had purchased and that had been Corbin-approved.
The guy really did have a great eye for clothes.
He’d insisted that I had to try everything on (a chore I had always avoided on the rare occasions that I’d been to a place with changing rooms).
Then he’d waited outside, not slouching dejectedly in a chair like the other men there, but interested and full of advice.
At home, I fixed myself up and then drove to the airport, where I waited in the parking lot outside of the baggage claim, right in the front so I could see all the passengers emerging.
As soon as I spotted Shane, I jumped from the car and ran over.
He smiled in the same way that I was grinning at him.
“Hi,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
“Yes, it’s really good to see you,” I answered. “It seems like we’ve been apart for a long time.”
“Since the day before yesterday. You ready?” He put his hand on my shoulder to direct us back to my car. “What is this nice thing you’re wearing?”
“It’s a dress,” I answered, in case he’d been unaware of the name of this category of garment. I didn’t have many dresses in my closet, hanging on the bar we’d installed there. “I went shopping today. With Corbin.”
“The little clown? How the heck did that happen?”
I explained how we had run into each other and then how he had wanted to help me. “He really did, too. He has a great fashion sense and he didn’t melt away from boredom, like the other boyfriends and husbands there.”
“The other ones,” Shane said.
“I don’t mean that I would consider him as my boyfriend, not today and not ever,” I quickly said. “I trusted him to tell me which was the best silhouette for my body type but not as someone I would ever want to date.”
“Ok.”
I glanced over at him because that one word had sounded odd to me, kind of like a question.
“I’m only explaining myself so you don’t get the idea that my judgement has gotten even worse since I went out with him the first time.
” Then I changed the subject. “How was your trip? Did you see any stars in the making?”
In fact, he thought that he had, a guy at a junior college who he believed was going to make it big.
“But you never know,” he cautioned. “A lot can happen. He could get sidetracked by off-field issues, get injured…” I saw him reach up like he was going to touch his eyes, but then he drew his hand away.
“Raw talent usually isn’t enough. The stars have to align, too. ”
Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of the stars. They had done nothing for me in my own life.
“What happened with your meeting this morning?” he asked me next. I answered that it had gone as productively as most of our family discussions, in which we resolved nothing and people ended up fighting.
“Only Morgan and I got mad,” I clarified as I explained the argument at the end. “Well, unfortunately, our next-door neighbor and possibly his cats did, too. My sister and I were yelling on the porch.”
He was quiet, nodding a little.
“I haven’t forgotten how things were before with her, when I was so worried and upset.
I haven’t forgiven her for acting that way but I also understand that I shouldn’t be pissed off because she was depressed.
I get that I’m wrong,” I told him. “I know you weren’t mad at your sister when she was having problems with her mental health. ”
“That’s not true,” he surprised me by responding. “I was very concerned about her and sad that she felt so down and hopeless. But I was also resentful. That wasn’t something I ever admitted to, not to her and not to my parents. I’ll just tell you,” he said. “You won’t judge.”
“No, I won’t.”