Chapters 2 & 3
Margo
So stupid of me. Why did I call Ruby and try to back out? I was probably hoping she’d ask me what had happened. Hoping she’d be concerned enough. Fat chance. Not when she had her boss hat on. And not that I’d have told her. I wasn’t about to talk about my husband’s reveal, not on the phone anyway, and there was nothing I could do to make it magically go away if I cancelled on the girls and stayed home.
Girls. What a laugh. Nearly fifty, all of us. Well, Zan was actually turning fifty on Sunday when we were together, but look at her. Fitness queen of Maryland, if there was such a thing. Managing all those centers—the face of them, in fact.
What a life Zan had. Beautiful mansion on a lake, great job, handsome and successful husband who adored her. Even though he wasn’t home much. Hardly at all, it seemed. In thinking about recent developments, I decided it would be a cushy life to have a husband in absentia.
Actually, at this point I was so mad I wouldn’t have minded if my dearly beloved died. Okay, so not actually died, dead, because the boys would hate that. Ron always was—still is—a wonderful father, I had to admit, and a father by choice. We’d both been desperate to adopt those kids—Jon a toddler and Bobby just a baby—when we became their foster parents all those years ago. Took Jon a month to talk, he was so frightened. And then it was Ron who finally managed to get a smile. They are hardly kids any longer. Don’t they deserve to know the truth?
Not to hear Ron tell it. “Can’t we wait?” He asked.
“You can’t be serious. They’ll be home for Christmas. Bobby’s graduating, and Jon’s bringing his fiancée, to meet us. His from-a-good-Christian-home fiancée. Remember?”
“Let’s wait.” He repeated.
Wait for what? There’s no delete button for this mess. If only I could go back and not answer Ron’s phone. Just let it ring, dummy.
Vince, his name was. Came up that way on the caller I.D. Wanted to speak to Ron. Sure, just a minute, I said. Walked out to the pool area, handed the phone to the grill master. He was burning hamburgers.
“Thanks, Babe,” Ron said as he took the phone. “Hello?” Then that look. I’d never seen my husband look so terrified before. I thought he’d faint. I was ready to catch him. “I’ll have to call you back,” he said.
I couldn’t let it go, of course, and the rest was a nightmare of epic proportions. We must have talked well into the next morning. I screamed and cried. He apologized—he didn’t mean for it to happen. He never meant to hurt me—which made me madder. I asked for details, and then wished I hadn’t. At one point I threw up.
Thank God, I didn’t have to go in on Monday, the salon being closed. Ron did go to work, which gave me some hours to sleep as well as some time to think, for all the good that did. Too exhausted to answer more of my questions when he got home, even though I had some, Ron slept in the guest room on the fold-out sofa. “At least I came home,” he said, as he closed the door.
Genius that I am, I decided I wouldn’t go on the trip, I’d stay home, deal with this. That’s what I’d do. As if that would change anything.
On Tuesday I was preoccupied and couldn’t afford to be. If I messed up with one of my wealthy clients, she’d find another stylist in a South Beach minute and would badmouth me to the heavens and beyond. Besides, I needed my job because I was probably getting a divorce. How could I not?
But canceling the trip was the worst idea I’d ever had. Thank God Ruby didn’t take my feet-dragging seriously. When she said, ‘Fuck Ron,’ well, I wanted to invite her to give it a shot. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. I hope the girls—one of them at least—will help me figure it out. Olivia possibly. She’s always been our voice of reason.
Olivia
Mio Dios, Abuela would say. I was excited to be getting away with my friends. It had been so long. Those girlfriends were like sisters to me. I felt closer to them than to my own sister. And to think I nearly did not allow myself to go. Because of all that happened—so many things.
I was needed at work, as always, and it was I who had the hardest time finding a date the four of us could agree on. When the girls were free, I had a conflict. It was frustrating for poor Ruby, I am sure. At last, we all agreed on the weekend of December eighth—Zan’s birthday. I quickly made my flight reservations. It was done. Nothing would interfere.
Many years ago when I left Miami to work for Mr. Drakos in Chicago, I never dreamed the company would grow so large. My job as administrative assistant eventually became the director of human resources of Drakos Industries. Each year we grew, and each year more was demanded of me.
My assistant Matthew had reminded me that I had not taken a vacation last summer. He claimed to be concerned for my health. Like a mother hen, he was. Arranging for this time off, even though it was but two work days, made him smile. As he processed the paperwork, he said, “At least it’s a small step in the right direction.”
So there I was deciding what to pack when my little sister relapsed—again. Isabella had been doing so well, going to her N.A. meetings, and speaking often with her sponsor. Only days before, she and her children Matias and Mariella had Thanksgiving dinner with me, and I saw how happy she seemed. She even helped me in the kitchen, something she rarely did. I should have paid more attention to my nephew’s wary demeanor. He knew his mother so well.
Two days after that dinner, on the Saturday afternoon just one week before I was to leave, Matias called. He was calm as he told me what was happening, but I could hear the fear in his voice. I insisted he and his sister gather their belongings and come right away.
This was the first time since their great grandmother left us that they would be living here with me. When they were small, my abuela had been their caregiver. In our home, as they grew, they always had rooms of their own. She provided daycare and then after school care, and they stayed with us when Isabella was not capable of being a good parent. She raised them more than Isabella did. My role was minor then, but with Abuela gone, I would be on my own.
When they arrived, I saw that Mariella had been crying. She allowed me to hold her, while Matias appeared as a stone. As they unpacked their belongings upstairs, I overheard my nephew instructing his sister in an authoritarian manner. “I’m not a baby, Matias,” she said.
I fixed us some food, and we sat in grim silence at the kitchen table. My conflict was great at that time, and I thought about cancelling, but they begged me not to change my plans. “Aunt Olivia, we’re old enough to be on our own.” Matias assured me.
“It’s not like we have that much adult supervision, anyway,” Mariella said. I hated knowing this was probably true. But they could see my reluctance to leave them, so later Mariella phoned Mrs. Baumgarten, our neighbor, to ask if she was available to keep them company while I was gone.
Mariella handed me her phone so I could hear Mrs. B’s answer: “Olivia, my sons have long since married and moved away, I rarely see them anymore. Besides, your grandmother and I were good friends, and I’ve known those kids since they were little. It will be my pleasure to have young company for a few days. I’ll teach them mahjong.”
I was not convinced, but the next week they got up and went off to school every morning, and I could see that they had done this on their own many times. At work I told Matthew about it, and he was cavalier about their situation. “At sixteen and thirteen, they know the drill by now. I know we did. My older sister ran roughshod over us. Sadly, issues of absentee parents didn’t originate with your two, and it won’t end with them.”
“It makes me happy to have them there with me, and sad that they have to be. I think that makes me loco.”
“It makes you normal, boss. A little on the obsessive side, but we both knew that already.” Ruby would have called him cheeky.
With Mrs. B’s willingness to stay with them, I decided I would not deprive myself, nor would I disappoint my friends. I was determined to set all my worries aside, go on my trip, and enjoy myself.
People I had told about our lengthy friendship were amazed that I would remain close with my three school friends since our first year of high school. We were totally different in personality, but there was much love between us, and laughter. We always had many things to talk about, as well. Even if years passed, when we re-united it felt as if it was just yesterday.
It was Ruby who did not let us drift apart. All of our retreats had been organized by her. “I work with blokes all day every day,” she said. I believed she meant men, and this was why she claimed to need her women friends—“the ones who knew me when I was likable,” so she said. It had been five years since we were able to spend a long weekend with one another. That time we had met in New Orleans, and this time we were going to South Carolina. I was sure the home she picked would be lovely.
It was growing quite cold now in Chicago, and on the beach in South Carolina it would be warm enough to walk barefoot. It is something I missed—the Atlantic Ocean.
Zan’s flight from Maryland was scheduled to land shortly before mine in Charleston, so we arranged to drive to Kiawah island together. It was to take us around a half hour. Perhaps, in that time, I would ask her about that bad thing that happened to her some time ago, almost two years, I think. It was something I had not forgotten about.
She never answered me several times when I asked, except to make light of it and say it was not important. I could not imagine being robbed being of no consequence. Anyone would be alarmed by that, and I wondered if she had needed more help than she received—especially from her husband. He had not even bothered himself to come home from his travels when it happened.
Even though she told me that she had not been concerned, she had bought three dogs. That did not feel like the actions of a person who was not concerned.
Pat Ponders Life 