45. Forty-five
Forty-five
Mabel frowns as I drop onto her plastic-covered couch.
“You and the lumberjack get in some kind of fight?” she asks, scrunching her nose at me. Today she’s wearing tiger-striped leggings and a shirt so pink it attacks my retinas when I look at it.
After Veda’s letter, I cried until I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I dragged myself into bed but never slept again.
The short glance I gave myself in the mirror before leaving this morning was long enough for me to know I look like I’ve survived a trip through a wood chipper.
My eyes are swollen and bloodshot, hair in a ragged braid, and I’m still wearing Libby’s clothes, which include sweatpants.
This time, when I tell the story of what’s happened, I don’t cry. Voice sluggish, I tell how I knew Veda was dying and did nothing to stop it .
When I’m done, she’s quiet, but there’s a calculating look on her face.
“Well, it was bound to happen,” she says, matter-of-factly, pushing on the fluffy bottom of her wine-colored hair with her palm like she’s some kind of beauty pageant contestant.
I scoff. “What does that even mean?”
“Birdie!” she says, hands up in the air with an exasperated huff. “Years of us reading these books and you didn’t see this coming?”
“Sorry, no,” I say dryly. “I’ve been too focused on the fellatio you shove down my throat.”
She tsks me before continuing. “In all our stories there’s the big blowout—right after all the good stuff—and boom! ” Her voice raises with a loud clap of her hands, startling me. “A shitstorm! Hearts devastated!” She’s almost proud.
My eyes narrow at her. My life is falling apart and she’s breaking down the technicalities of storytelling. I’m too weak to argue.
“There’s a lesson to be learned in all this,” she says, pulling out a stupid notebook from her waistband, flipping through the pages.
“Yeah, life sucks,” I mutter.
She scoffs, clicking her pen. “Of course, that’s not the lesson! Haven’t you been paying attention?!” She’s stunned. Perplexed. Absolutely baffled that, after years of reading smut, all I noticed was the smut.
“Take Aaron,” she presses, bringing up the last character I want to be talking about right now. “They have a few passionate weeks in his cabin—away from the noise of the modern world while she tries to sort out her father’s will—but then Olivia is forced to choose between this life of solitude in the woods or going back to her career in the city. She’s torn, not knowing what to do, and he reads her turmoil as him not being good enough for her compared to the opportunities of the modern world. They both fight internal wars, leading to a lack of communication, and a breakup that we know is stupid, but they can’t see.”
This time, I scoff. “Mabel, I didn’t tell him his grandmother was dying, this isn’t a silly misunderstanding about city lights versus going to the bathroom in an outhouse for the rest of my life.”
“Semantics!” she cries, dismissing my argument.
I should have called in sick.
“Birdie, what have you learned?”
I sigh, looking at her ridiculous hair, bright lips, and gaudy jewelry. She’s not going to show me mercy; I see that in all her maniacal brightness.
“I love Bo,” I say with a sigh.
“What else? Love isn’t enough, or we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“He doesn’t love me.”
She tsks that away with her hand and gives me a look that says, Try again.
“I don’t know,” I snap, raising my voice, feeling my blood flow faster in my veins. “I learned that no matter how hard I try, people die and hearts break. I learned that life with someone is better than life with no one, yet somehow, hurts worse. I learned one more person in my life can make my world so much bigger but ultimately leave me feeling crushed and small. I learned that, after a lifetime of wishing I had a different life, it turns out a different life is just the same damn bullshit.”
Then I’m quiet, loud ringing in my ears, and she scowls—annoyed with my response—before standing up.
“What are you doing now?” I ask, not moving from my spot on the plastic couch.
“Birdie, you’ve got a long way to go as a main character. I’m having a gin and tonic.”
If I wasn’t half dead, I would have told her it was only nine in the morning.
When she’s back with a drink in hand, lipstick already on the rim, she sits next to me on the couch.
“What did you do after you left the convent?” I ask her, in an attempt to change the subject. “And I’m not talking about the men, I mean professionally. You must have worked.”
A smile splits her face, revealing a faint yet familiar smudge of red on her front tooth. “I thought you’d never ask, Birdie dear,” she says with a theatrical pause, taking a sip of her breakfast cocktail before adding, “I was a writer, of course.”
My chin pulls back, eyes wide. “A writer?!” I look around her living room, bookshelves lining two walls. “What did you write?”
She’s quiet, but not hesitating. From the knowing look on her face, Mabel is building the drama.
“Romance, of course.” Another smile, another sip.
“Romance,” I whisper, a missing piece of a puzzle slipping into place as I look around at the shelves again. It’s as if I’m seeing her, and her home, for the first time. The constant questions, writing in her notebook, analysis of everything around her…Mabel is a writer.
My head snaps back toward her. “Have we read anything you’ve written?”
Another smile, another sip, then an easy nod. “Every single one, dollface.”
I let this sink in. Mabel had Paul for however brief a time then spent her life writing love stories. Maybe even their love story. “So what happens now? After the shitstorm , I mean. How would you write this?”
“Ah!” she says, setting her drink down. “Well, let’s see now. We, the readers, know that you think you’ve learned a lesson—not that we agree with you of course.” She pauses, raising her eyebrows before continuing. “But we don’t know about Bo. This is a single point of view story. So, unfortunately, we wait. We have to see—will you both be able to learn your own lessons from this heaping pile of hot garbage and want to work it out, or are you destined to live separate lives, only knowing each other in this tiny blip of time?”
I groan. She laughs.
“Then what happens?” I ask.
“Then there’s a big gesture, letting you know that the lessons have been learned.”
“And if we don’t?”
She tsks me, scrunching her nose in disgust as she lifts her glass. “Then it’s not a romance story, it’s women’s fiction, and nobody wants to read that horseshit. ”
I laugh. I have no idea what women’s fiction is, but based on her definition, I don’t want that. But also…
“Maybe I’m not destined for a romance story, Mabel. Are there stories with happy endings without love?” I ask.
She balks. “For God’s sake, Birdie! I hope you never write a book with that kind of nonsense floating around your brain.”
When she shakes her head in disgust, I chuckle.
By the end of the day, even though nothing has changed and I’m still in a million pieces, somehow, I leave the slightest bit better.