What Would Oprah Do (14 page)

“I wish I could tell you what you want to hear, that my guilt overcame me at Mass one Sunday and I came to my senses. The truth is that he lost interest in me
...” I light a cigarette and listen. “And I feel like shit. And I don’t even get to feel sorry for myself because I deserve this.”

I always thought that what she deserved was a man of her own. The whole time she was with him I wondered if she knew that, or if she was with him because she thought she deserved less. Now I wonder if she believes she deserves to feel like shit because she was involved with a married man, or if she always felt that way and that was why she dated one. Either way, I know why she goes to mass every week. Jill is looking for redemption.

Jill nods at my cigarettes on the table. “Give me one of those.”

Without giving it a thought I say, “No, they’re bad for you.”
Jill has never smoked anything in her entire life. If she’s going to start now, she will have to do what most of us did with our first cigarette, take it without permission.

Jill has basically looked the same since she was in high school, so I already know the answer before I ask. “So which came first, the breakup or the makeover?”

“It wasn’t exactly a breakup per se, but it’s clearly over.”

“How does that happen?”

“I just know. Between his marriage and my work schedule, we have to plan to see each other, designated times to talk on the phone…it’s a lot of effort. Lately he hasn’t called when he normally does. He says he’s been really busy at work, which is complete bullshit.”

The waitress comes by to see if we want another bottle of wine. We answer “yes” in unison.

“This whole time he has been pursuing me, always eager to find a time when he can arrange to see me. I haven’t seen him in a month. And the last time I saw him, he came late and left early.”

“That’s what makes you think he lost interest?” I ask. Not that I think she should stay with him regardless, but it doesn’t sound that clear cut to me.

“No, but he has, for sure. He didn’t make a plan to see me, so I asked him what his schedule looked like. He said this month is going to be really hectic. I know it’s over.”

“Here’s to moving on.” I hold up my glass to clink hers. “Why don’t we get drunk tonight? Maybe go out dancing or something? In case you forgot, that’s going out makeup you’re wearing.”

“Oh, this.
Yeah, I went shopping after my hair appointment, and the girl at the MAC counter did this.” That explained a lot. I had wondered how she had learned to apply makeup with the precision of a geisha overnight. “I can’t. Remember, I have that big meeting tomorrow?”

“Call in sick.”

“No, I should be there. After this bottle,
it’s bed time for me.” As if it was a sad and unfortunate thing, I wondered when Jill had become such a grownup.

Dear Oprah,

Things are off to slow start. So I am trying to be proactive, practice gratitude, and focus on the positive. I wonder if you would approve and call this part of my journey.

W
hen you called Dr. Phil to help you with the cattle mess in Texas, you must have felt the way I do now. You needed some oomph on your side. You knew who to call and had the money to hire the kind of support you needed. I am so glad you have had the support you have needed.

I am beginning to feel like I need
more solid support. I’ve started getting panicky with every bill that comes in the mail. I have given it a lot of thought, and I don’t know what you would do in my shoes. I think you would keep plugging away. So that’s what I’m going to do. Plug away and keep writing to you.

I’m grateful for what I have
and the people in my life. I really am. I would still like it if you and I could hang out sometime.

Regards,

Cate

P.S.
I know you’re not trying to hang out with me. I just thought I would throw it out there in case you are having one of your wand brandishing moments and decided to grant a wish.

The next morning I pull into Vivian’s driveway to find her putting her weekend bag into the front seat of her truck. I would have done this for her, but know better than to tell her that I wish she’d left this for me. She’s wearing loose black pants and a bright floral shirt. I’ve never seen her in anything but her gardening clothes, and I’d assumed that’s what she always wears. She smiles and waves so big you would think she was trying to flag me down.

I return the smile and wave.
“You look nice!”

She’s practically glowing. “Do you like my shoes?”
She kicks one of her feet at me. “They’re new!” She’s wearing black mary jane’s. I have a pair just like them, if you don’t count the 4 inch heel on mine.

“I love them!”

“Come on inside,” she says. “I need to show you where everything is so I can hit the road.”

“Sounds like you’re looking forward to it.”
I said, somewhat surprised. A weekend retreat with the Ladies Guild seemed to me like something Vivian would only do to appease Betty.

“I am. When I was younger I thought this stuff was so silly, the sort of things that women do when they don’t have real friends. I guess now that this is the only
girls’ weekend away I have, I’m not quite as fussy as I used to be.”

I want to tell her that I think it sounds like a lot of fun, but Vivian’s bullshit meter is stronger than I am daring, so I’m not going to test it.

She walks me back to the pantry, showing me the large bin that holds Buddy’s food.

“Just fill up his bowl whenever it gets low.” She opens her refrigerator. “Help yourself to anything.” She says, and points at a covered Corning Ware dish. “Since you won’t let me pay you, I figured the least I could do was make my favorite chicken casserole for you.”

She had offered to pay me to stay with Buddy, but I couldn’t take her money. As badly as I need money right now, my time is the only thing I have to give Vivian. I want to reciprocate her kindness, and this small favor is all I can afford. I don’t even feel right about calling it a favor, knowing how much I want to be here.

“You said your apartment is too small for entertaining, so I thought you may want to have your friends over here while I’m gone. There’s a wine rack in the bottom of the liquor cabinet. Make yourself at home.”

There’s an old trunk open in the living room, which looks like its contents have recently been rummaged through. It looks heavy, and I wonder where it was before and hope that she didn’t drag it out herself. She sees me looking at it.

“Those are just some old clothes and things I’ve saved. There’s going to be a fashion show at the retreat. I thought some of my old dresses would be fun, but they didn’t hold up very well.” She picks up one of the dresses, layers of mint green chiffon under a gold satin bodice. It’s beautiful, striking really, but the chiffon is starting to fall apart. I can see tears in the darting.

“It’s gorgeous. Do you want me see if I can get it mended?”
I ask.

“No, honey, unless you want it, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble. That dress had its heyday a long time ago. I’ve taken everything I want from that trunk, but I left it out to see if you wanted it. You said you don’t have a lot of room in your place, and I thought you could put the trunk at the end of your bed, maybe store your winter sweaters in it or something.”

“I would love it.”

“Great! When I get back, you can use the truck to take it home. Trash bags are under the sink. Unless you want something in it, you can just throw it all away. My flapper dress was still in mint condition, so I have all I needed.”
Vivian squats down and says good bye to Buddy, “Have fun!” she says to me with a wink, and she’s out the door.

Unlike the deafening silence of my home, the quiet of Vivian’s is soothing. I wish I could pack the peace into the trunk and take it home with me. Taking a cue from Buddy, who is laying on the floor beside the trunk, I sit down and pick through its contents. In addition to a few other dresses, worse for the lack of wear or time, there are rolls of fabric wrapped around cardboard. One roll is light blue chiffon, only different from the mint green fabric of the dress in color.

From where I’m sitting on the floor, I can see how the baseboards are ever so slightly uneven. Vivian’s words come back to me, “There’s something beautiful about the imperfections of an old house.”
I see the irregularities in the old hardwood and know exactly what she meant. Vivian told me to feel free to invite people over, and I would like to share this with friends, but don’t know who to call.

I feel like I’ve worn Jill out with my neediness, and Kay too. Even when I’m working hard to keep the conversation away from the chaos that has become my life, it’s still there. It sits between us like an elephant in the room because I have no good news to share, nothing to contribute.

Everyone has different levels of friends, the ones closest to you and then the people on the fringe who you know only bits and pieces of their business and vice versa. If you ever doubt who your fringe people are, lose your going out money and you will find out. These are the people who need an outing, who don’t care to see you enough to sit at each other’s houses and talk over a bottle of wine. They need entertainment, and you’re not enough.

My fringe friends quit calling after the blue cheese debacle. Worse than that, I realized that my old friend Emma has become a fringe friend. I texted her one night about getting together, and she replied that she was sick. The next day I noticed her Facebook status, Comments made it clear that not only had she not been sick, she had been bar hopping. When you don’t even merit concealing a lie on Facebook, you quickly feel like a loser. It’s the internet equivalent to high school, finding out that you weren’t invited to the big party.

The reminder of this is enough to send me into action, inviting Jill, Kay
, and Lainey over for a girls’ night. This is the perfect setting for a night spent sipping wine on the deck. Vivian has beautiful antique wine glasses, nothing resembling the plain stemless glasses at my house, which I thought were sophisticated when I bought them. These glasses have flowers etched into the base of the glass, and feel delicately thin on my lips.

By the time they get there, the smell of Vivian’s casserole in the oven has taken over the house. I have cut flowers from the garden, just enough to fill her equally delicate bud vases. It doesn’t take much to make the house feel enchanted.

While Kay and Jill look at the odds and ends of collections I’ve never noticed, Vivian’s pictures and spoons from places that she visited hanging on a rack on the kitchen wall, Lainey and I pour the wine. “Show me the garden.”
Lainey says.

We step out the glass doors to the back, Buddy following us. I’ve turned on the white twinkle lights that Vivian has around the railing of the deck. Lainey takes a deep breath, “This is incredible.”
With a stride longer than mine, she reaches the garden ahead of me, stopping to pick a sprig from one of the many rosemary plants that Vivian has in pots by the arched trellis at the entrance of the garden. Lainey bends it in her fingers, smelling it. “By your garden gate…” She says.

“I wish Vivian was here,” I say. “She could tell you what everything is.”

“You don’t have to know anything about this garden to appreciate it. This is a labor of love.”
I feel as proud as if it were my very own.

One chicken casserole and three bottles of wine later, we are all sitting on the
back deck. Vivian’s depression-era glass ashtray is on the table. Vivian took her lighter with her. I can imagine her at the retreat, sneaking a cigarette like a rebel teenager at a youth camp. Lainey says, “I love it here. Cate, I would hide out here too if I could, especially now that the divorce is getting ugly.” I’m exposed. I didn’t realize that anyone else was aware that I had been doing anything more than helping in the garden.

“What do you mean?”
Kay asked. “I thought you said Michael was being fair.”

“He was,” Lainey answers. “At least I thought he was, but then the divorce attorney told me I wasn’t seeing things clearly. He brought up what I lost by selling my house, and how much Michael makes, that he’s a public figure and wouldn’t want any embarrassment. I didn’t know how mad I was until then.
Now our marriage has been reduced to rumors of infidelity.”

I had never thought of a sports
caster as a public figure, but I guess in that world he is. “They’re saying that you cheated on him?” I ask.

“What rumor?”
Kay asks before she can answer me. This is so big; I can’t believe Lainey hasn’t told Kay before now.

“That he cheated on me. They said if it got into the papers it would speed things up.”

“But he didn’t cheat on you.” I said. “Why would he say that he did?”

Jill sips her wine, and then stares into her glass, as if she’s inspecting it for a gnat.

“He didn’t.” Kay says shaking her head as she stands and walks into the house.

Lainey lights a cigarette.
“But then how?” I ask.

“I did it.”
I look at Jill, then back at her, confused. “Cate, I started the rumor.”

We sit in silence, and it becomes clear that Kay isn’t come back anytime soon.

“I think I’m going to call it a night.” Jill says before going inside.

“I should be the one to go. I’ve ruined the evening.”
We both know that Lainey’s not going anywhere. Unlike Jill, the rest of us haven’t been slow sipping our wine.

We hear Jill’s car start in the driveway. Lainey says, “I knew it was wrong,” her voice flat. “I was so mad, I didn’t care.”

Kay’s absence is the only indication I have that what Lainey has done is truly bad. I don’t have any relative experience, other than my initial desire to inflict some sort of pain or humiliation on James. Now that he’s getting married to Whore-Bitch, the desire has resurfaced to the point that I can empathize.

“Can you take it back? Say it wasn’t true?”

“No.”
I can tell by how quickly she answers that she’s already looked for an out and found nothing. “I can’t afford to take it back.”

Kay comes back onto the deck, holding a short glass, with two fingers of something brown. “You said Vivian instructed us to help ourselves.”
She says to me, slightly lifting the glass.

Without looking at Lainey
Kay asks, “So you decided to strike first? Figured it would hurt less if you played dirty and beat him to the punch?”

Lainey
nods, and a tear makes its way down her face. “It doesn’t hurt less.” She says. “It’s worse. I’ve become what I was afraid he would be, shitty.”

“Well,” Kay says, “what did Dad used to say?”
She looks at me, but isn’t waiting for an answer. “No point in asking how you stepped in the shit you’re standing in. It stinks, so let’s just figure out how to get it off.”

Lainey exhales in gratitude. “It won’t come off. I can’t undo this. If I try to come clean and tell him what I’ve done, he’ll never forgive me. I’ve started this dirty fight and now I’m in it, whether I like it or not.”

I try to think of a way out, but we all know she’s right. Admitting that she started a smear campaign leaves her with nothing, less than she started with. I wonder if there’s enough value in doing the right thing to make it worth losing everything.

“Where are your fucking balls?” I ask, surprising myself most. “I’m out on the biggest limb I’ve eve been on, trying to find the right thing for me. So what? So what if you lose a bunch of stuff? At least if you end up with nothing, you’ll still have you.”

“I can’t. I just can’t.”

“Of course you can.”
Kay and I say in unison. Apparently Vivian has rubbed off on me more than I thought, enough that I’ve brought this one thing to Kay too.

“Think about it.”
Kay says, and I wonder if it’s possible that Lainey could do this. As easy as it seems, it’s a much bigger decision when you’re the one who could end up without a roof over your head.