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Loose Screws
I’d been really, really looking forward to that.
Venice, too.
“So,” Nicky says, all back-to-business. “You got an alibi for after when you last saw Munson?”
I think, a task that doesn’t usually strain me this much. “I was here, alone, most of that time. Packing and stuff.”
“Anybody see you coming in or going out?”
Again, I think. Again, I draw a blank. “I don’t think so. Sorry.”
Then the thought jumps up in my face and screams, What if Greg is dead?
I look at Nicky, feel my skin go clammy. My stomach rebels. I guess I turn green or something, because with one swift move, he grabs me and pushes me into my bathroom, where I puke out the champagne into the toilet. Which seems aptly symbolic, somehow. Afterward, Nicky hands me a cup of water to rinse my mouth, a damp cloth for my face.
I sip, mop, feel a single tear track down my cheek, undoubtedly dragging mascara behind it. Silently, Nicky steers me back out into the living room. I look at all the packed luggage and heave a great, sour-tasting sigh.
“Here,” he says behind me.
I turn, take the business card imprinted with the precinct address and phone number. “Be sure to let us know if he contacts you. Otherwise, well…just…stick around, okay?”
I languidly rustle to the door in his wake, sniffing occasionally, feeling pretty much like something freshly regurgitated myself. One slightly dented, recycled single woman, vomited back into the system to start over again. Once in the hall, Nicky turns, his heavy eyebrows knotted.
“What?” I say when the silence drags on too long.
“You gonna be okay? I mean, here by yourself?” he says, and I think, Aw…how sweet, only then he adds, “Maybe you should get your mother to come spend the night or something—”
I frown.
“—or not.”
The woman is legendary. Even after more than thirty years, my father’s family, according to Paula, still talks about my mother in hushed tones.
“My wife walked out on me three years ago,” he now says. “It sucks.”
Wife? What wife? Paula never said anything about a wife.
“Why?” I ask, because I really want to know.
Still not facing me, he shrugs, like it doesn’t matter anymore. Only his jaw is clenched. “She couldn’t deal with me bein’ a cop. Said it scared her too much. We split after less than six months.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
He nods, then says, “She’s okay, though. Got married again last year. To an accountant.” He finally turns back, for a couple seconds looking at me the way a man does when he wants to touch you but knows to do so would shorten his life expectancy. Then he says, very quietly, “I should’ve called you. After Paula’s wedding, I mean.”
Then he turns and walks down the hall. I watch him for a minute, until he gets on the elevator, after which I go back into my apartment and lean against the closed door, suddenly possessed with an inexplicable urge to sing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”
Two
“You shouldn’t trek up there by yourself,” Nedra says on the other end of the line, a scant week after my aborted nuptials. “I’m going with you.”
“Up there” is Scarsdale, where I’m about to go to pick up at least some of my clothes, as per Greg’s—who is very much alive, by the way; more on that in a minute—suggestion. Although Nedra and I have talked on the phone several times since Sunday, I haven’t yet seen her live and in person. A state of affairs that I intend to continue as long as I possibly can. Hey—I’m having enough trouble finding my own snatches of air to breathe; competing with my mother for them could be fatal. Still, for a moment, I am tempted to give in to the suggestion that I do not have the strength or enthusiasm requisite to argue. Especially since it’s my own dumb fault for telling her my plans.
Then my survival instinct saves the day with, “Over my dead body.”
This declaration, however, does not bother a woman whose idea of a hot date was being bodily dragged from the scene of a political protest. If anything, I can feel her cranking up to the challenge. I cut her off at the pass.
“This is something I have to do myself,” I say, thinking, Hmm…not bad. I pour myself a glass of orange juice, take my Pill even though I obviously don’t—and won’t—need birth control for the forseeable future. But the thought of dealing with heavy periods and cramps again, after ten years without, gives me the willies. After I swallow I say, “I’m all grown up now. Don’t need my mommy to hold my hand.”
“Did I say that? But how are you planning on lugging everything back on the train by yourself?”
So I hadn’t thought that part through. But there are times when self-preservation outweighs logic.
“I’ll manage.”
“You shouldn’t have to face That Woman alone.”
Why Nedra detests Phyllis Munson so much, I have no idea. Greg’s mother has always been gracious to mine, the few times they’ve met. But then, Phyllis is gracious to everybody. While my mother was burning bras and flags in the sixties, Greg’s mother was kissing up to pageant judges. She even made it to Atlantic City as Miss New York one year, I forget which. Something tells me she’s never gotten over not making the top ten. But my point is, I don’t think Phyllis knows how not to smile. Although you do have to wonder if all those years of just being so gosh-darn nice don’t take their toll.
In any case, things are liable to be just a bit on the tense side between Phyllis and me, since her son skipped out on our wedding and we’re both going to feel weird and not know what to say and all. Adding my mother to the mix would be like pouring hot sauce over Szechuan chicken. Besides, the last thing I need is for my mother to see how terrified I am of venturing out into the real world.
So I muster every scrap of conviction I can and say, “I’m going alone, and that’s that,” and my mother gives one of those long-suffering sighs that daughters the world over dread, then says, “Okay, fine, fine…” which of course means it isn’t fine, but she’ll deal with it. For a moment I savor the small, exquisitely precious victory. Only then she says, “You know, it’s not as if I’m going to embarrass you or anything.”
If I had the energy, I’d laugh.
“So,” she says, as if my not refuting her comment doesn’t matter, “when are you leaving?”
I hedge. “Elevenish.” My heart starts thundering in my chest. I open the freezer, find three Healthy Choice dinners, a half-filled ice cube tray, and one lone Häagen-Dazs bar. With nuts. “Maybe.” I rip off the paper, sighing at the sensation of creamy chocolate exploding in my mouth. Yes, I know it’s barely 9:00 a.m. So? “I’m not sure.” Which of course is a bold-faced lie, since if Phyllis is meeting me, obviously I can’t just mosey on up there whenever the mood strikes.
“Call me when you get back,” Nedra says, and I say “Sure,” although we both know I won’t.
I hang up and sigh, relieved to have my thoughts to myself again, hating having my thoughts to myself again. God, this is so creepy, this walking-a-tightrope-over-Niagara-Falls-in-a-dense-fog feeling. I keep thinking, if I just keep still, don’t rush things, the real Ginger will come back to play. The real Ginger will come back to life.
I’ve turned into an absolute slug. I’ve spent most of the past week on the sofa in my pj’s, scarfing down Chee
Munching away on the ice cream bar, I gaze at the wedding dress, still lolling in the middle of the floor like a wilted magnolia. I have no idea what to do with it. I can’t exactly throw it out, I certainly can’t see packing it away as a keepsake, or giving something with this much bad karma to someone else. So there it sits. With any luck the silk will eventually biodegrade, leaving behind a small, neat pile of satin-covered buttons I can just bury or something.
The tulle snags on my leg stubble as I shuffle through the dress on my way to the sofa. Guess I should shave.
Guess I should bathe.
I sink onto the sofa—my only concession to “cleaning” has been to push the bed back into the sofa sometime during the day—my mouth full of melting chocolate and ice cream. I am one miserable chick, lemme tell ya. What’s weird though, is that I actually felt better a few days ago than I do now. There was a period there—
Okay, wait. Let’s back up and I’ll fill you in.
The day after the wedding is a total loss. Whoever said champagne doesn’t give you a hangover lied. By the following day, however, I had recovered enough to face my kitchen, as well as my phone, which, when I finally got up the nerve to check, was up to twenty-five messages. A new world’s record. (I’d turned my cell ringer off, too. I figured the world could do without me for a couple days.) Gathering the tatters of my courage—and Ted’s fabulous lemon poppyseed bundt cake—I plopped my fanny up on my bar stool and pressed the play button.
The first thirteen messages, as I’d suspected, were all basically variations on the “Are you okay? Call me” theme from my mother. Then:
“Hey, Ginger, it’s Nick. Just checkin’ in, see if you heard anything. Let me know.”
“Nick.” Not “Nicky.” Got it. I also got something else, a genuine concern that wasn’t at all sexual in nature. No, really. He was family, after all, in a peripheral kind of way. And once sober, I realized my reaction to him had been due to nothing more than booze and shock. Besides, the last time I talked to Paula, she told me Nicky—Nick—had a new girlfriend, she’d met her once, she was okay but for God’s sake this was like the sixth one this year and God knew she thought the world of her brother-in-law, but when the hell was he planning on growing up, already?
Another three messages from my mother, then:
“Girl, pick up the damn phone!” Terrie. “Come on, come on…damn. I know you’re in there, probably cryin’ your eyes out, which is a shame ’cause the sorry skank ain’t worth it….”
One thing I’ll say for Terrie—there won’t be any “there are other fish in the sea” pep talks from that quarter, since as far as she’s concerned, the only thing that happens when you take fish out of the water is they start to stink.
“Okay, I guess this means you’re either sittin’ there not answering or you’ve turned off your ringer. I don’t suppose I blame you. But you just remember, if you hear this anytime in the next decade, that this is NOT your fault. Okay, baby—you give me a call when you return to the land of the living, we’ll go out and par-tay.”
Uh-huh. At that moment I’d been feeling a strong affinity with Mrs. Krupcek in 5-B who, legend has it, got stuck in the elevator for two hours one day back in the eighties when the building lost electricity and consequently peed all over herself. Nobody’s seen her leave the building since.
I haven’t called her back yet. Terrie, I mean, not Mrs. Krupcek. But Terrie will understand. I hope.
“Uh, yeah?” the next message started. “It’s Tony from Blockbuster?” At the time, I wondered which he wasn’t sure about, that his name was Tony or that he was from Blockbuster. “I’m just calling to let you know that Death in Venice is five days overdue? Okay, ’bye.”
First thought: Who the hell rented Death in Venice?
Second thought: There’s a video in here somewhere?
“Hi, honey, it’s Shelby. Are you there? Okay, I guess not. Anyway, Mark and I thought maybe you might like to come over for dinner one night this week? The kids have been asking about you. Well, okay. Love you. ’Bye.”
To answer your question, no, I didn’t accept her invitation. Although I did eventually call her back and thank her. But God knows the last thing I need right now is to spend an evening with Ozzie and Harriet Bernstein. Maybe next month. Or something.
I shoveled another bite of cake into my mouth, then:
“Hey, Ginge—”
The fork went flying as I grabbed for the phone at the sound of Greg’s voice, totally forgetting it was a message, stupid.
“…I heard via the grapevine that my father went off the deep end and called in the authorities, so I figured I’d better let everybody know I’m okay. I just couldn’t…” I heard him sigh. “Damn, there’s no easy way to do this…”
Now you have to remember that, up to this point, I had convinced myself the guy was either dead, kidnapped, or had an otherwise perfectly reasonable explanation for his vanishing act. When it was immediately obvious the first option was moot, and the second was highly doubtful—this was not someone who sounded as if a gun was being held to his head—that left me with Door Number Three. Which wasn’t looking promising, either.
“…I know you’re probably angry—okay, extremely angry.”
Yeah, okay, I’d been that a time or two in the past forty-eight hours.
“…and you have every right to be. What I did was unforgivable, and if I live to be a hundred, I’ll never completely understand why I bolted like that. No, no…that’s not entirely true. I guess I…um…panicked. About us, about getting married, about the way you’d set me up on some sort of pedestal—”
I choke on my cake.
“—and I realized I hadn’t taken the time I needed to think this through…”
By that point, my ire was beginning to perk quite nicely. I mean, hey—there was some reason why he couldn’t have arrived at this conclusion before I spent my entire life’s savings on food that nobody ever got to eat?
And what is this I set him up on some sort of pedestal crap?
“…I mean, I really didn’t see this coming, so I don’t want you to think this was all a game or anything like that. But…God, Ginge, I’m slime.”
No argument there.
“…my main regret is that I didn’t realize how I felt until I was getting ready to leave the house on Saturday. I guess I’d just gotten so caught up in…everything, I didn’t take five minutes to ask myself if I was really ready for this…”
The man is thirty-five frickin’ years old, for God’s sake. When did he think he would be ready?
“…I mean, the sex was great, wasn’t it?”
I looked over at my coffee table and sighed.
“…and who knew my parents would file a missing person’s report, for chrissake? I mean, I hope that didn’t cause you any more distress…”
Oh, no. Not at all.
“…and I hope maybe one day, we can be friends again, although I’ll completely understand if you hate my guts.”
You think?
“…anyway, I’ll settle up with Blockbuster sometime this week—”
Which answered that question. Still haven’t found that sucker, by the way.
“—if you wouldn’t mind dropping off the flick when you’re out? And I guess maybe we should arrange for you to get your things, whenever it’s convenient? Maybe you could call Mom. I mean, that would probably be easier, don’t you think?”
Hence the Scarsdale pilgrimage.
“Oh, and listen…” I heard what could pass for a heartfelt sigh. “I didn’t mean for you to get saddled with all the bills, I swear. Please, send them on to the office, okay? I promise I’ll take care of them. Well.” Throat clearing sounds. “I guess…well. ’Bye. And, Ginge?”
“What?” I snapped at the hapless machine.
“This has nothing to do with you, okay? I mean it. You’re really terrific. God, I’m sorry.”
You got that right.
After fast forwarding through the rest of the messages, all from my mother, I glanced down at the cake to discover I’d somehow eaten half of it. Not that this was really any big deal since—don’t hate me—I can eat anything I want and never gain weight (although I have a sneaking suspicion all those calories are lying around my body like a bunch of microscopic air mattresses set to inflate on my fortieth birthday). But it was all sitting at the base of my throat when I started to cry—a sobbing-so-hard-I-can’t-catch-my-breath jag that, combined with the cake residue in my mouth, made me choke so badly I thought my brain was going to explode.
Five minutes later, reduced to a limp, shuddering, sweating rag, I came to the disheartening conclusion that although eviceration with a dull knife would have been preferable to what I was feeling at that moment, I still loved the scumbag. Nearly a week later, I still feel that way. I mean, why else would I have put away a dozen bags of Chee
Well. Anyway. I sat, still shoveling in cake and letting my emotions buffet me when the phone rang, making me jump out of my skin because I’d pushed the ringer too high. Too stunned to remember I wasn’t supposed to be answering, I picked up.
“Hey, Ginger? It’s Nick.”
Bet you saw that coming, didn’t you?
I, however, didn’t. And I thought, oh, yeah, like this is really going to make me feel better. I rammed my hand through my hair, only my engagement ring got caught in a snarl, which made me wince, which launched me into another coughing fit.
Nick asked if I was okay, but of course I couldn’t reply because I was choking to death. “Hang on,” I croaked into the phone, then lurched toward the sink, gulped down a half glass of tepid water since I’d run out of bottled. Yech.
A minute later, I picked up the phone and got out, “Guess who I just heard from?”
“I know,” Nick said. “I just got word. Munson’s fine.”
He almost sounded disappointed.
Bet Nick wouldn’t just walk away like that, I thought, only to remember that’s exactly what he’d done.
My gaze drifted to my left hand and the engagement ring the size of Queens I’d worn proudly since Valentine’s Day. Two carats, emerald cut, platinum setting. Hell, for this puppy, I’d even let my nails grow out.
I haven’t decided what to do with that, either.
But back to the phone call.
“Yeah,” I said. “Great news, huh?”
“Damn,” Nick said softly. Like it wasn’t a swear word, somehow. “What happened?”
Much to my chagrin, tears again stung my eyes. “He left a message on my answering machine. My answering machine.”
“You’re kidding me? Man, that is so lame,” Nick said, and anger tried to suck me back in. And it would have felt good, I suppose, to have just gone with the flow for a minute. But then I reminded myself of the conscious choice I made as a child, not to let my emotions control me, to make decisions based on reason and logic, not on passion and impulse.
That I am not my mother.
And at that moment tranquility rippled through me. Or it might have been a breeze from the open kitchen window. But for just a few seconds there, I felt that everything was going to be okay, that maybe the storm had tipped my boat, but it was completely within my power to right it again.
I stretched, popping the knotted-up muscles at the base of my neck. “He was very apologetic, though.” My voice seemed eerily level, even to my own ears. “I mean, he’s not sticking me with the rest of the bills or anything.”
“Jesus.”
“What?”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Scaring you? Why?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be incoherent and breaking things right about now?”
I wasn’t sure whether to be dumbfounded or indignant. “That would be like me saying all men sit around every Sunday afternoon, watching sports and stuffing their faces with nachos and pork rinds.”
“Yeah. So?”
I huffed a little sigh. “Greg didn’t.”
“No, all he did was go AWOL on your wedding day.”
I frowned. Just a tiny one, though. “But he said—”
“I don’t give a shit what he said. Guy doesn’t even have the balls to tell you in person. He treated you like dirt, Ginger. Like I should’ve called you after…you know. Paula’s wedding. But I didn’t. And even though I was only twenty-one and still functioning on half a brain, that still makes me scum, which I can live with. But what that guy did to you…dammit! Why aren’t you more pissed?”
“Because anger is counterproductive—”
“That’s bull. And holding it in isn’t healthy.”
“Then you must not be paying attention in those anger management classes they make you take,” I said, feeling my face redden. What the hell was this guy trying to do to me?
“Managing it isn’t the same as stifling it.”
“Speaking of stifling it—”
“I bet you’re even still wearing his ring.”
“That’s none of your bus—”
“Take it off, Ginger. Now.”
That’s when, in the process of swiping my hand across the face, I scraped my nose with one of the prongs (something I’d managed to do at least once a day since I put the damn thing on, if you want to know the truth), which was just enough to send me over the edge. So I yanked off the ring and hurled it against the counter backsplash. The clatter was surprisingly loud. And satisfying.
“Is it off?” Nick said.
“I hope you’re alone,” I said, suppressing the urge to paw through my cookbooks before the roaches carted it off (yeah, we got ’em on the East Side, but they’ve got little Louis Vuitton gold initials all over them), “because do you have any idea how your end of the conversation sounds—”
“Is…it…off?”
“You know, you’ve got a real problem with patience—”
“Goddammit, Ginger—”
“Yes, Nick. The ring is off. Happy?”
“Delirious. Did you throw it?”
I shoved my hair out of my face. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I did—”
“Hard?”
With a weighty sigh, I hauled myself off the stool, leaned over to squint at the backsplash. Sure enough, there was a tiny scratch. Which I will swear was there when I moved in. Since I was in already in the neighborhood, I picked up the ring, then I sat back down with a grunt, twiddling the bauble between my thumb and index finger. “Hard enough.”
“Good,” Nick said, with a note of my-work-here-is-done accomplishment in his voice. “Anyway. Just wanted to touch base. Let you officially know you’re in the clear.”
“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”
Silence strained across the line.
“So. You take care, okay? And, Ginger?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t put the ring back on.”
After he hung up, I sat and listened to the dial tone for several seconds, my body humming like I’d just had insta-sex.
So now that you’ve been treated to Day 3 of How Ginger Spent Her Honeymoon, we can skip ahead to the equally fun-filled present, where I’m doing the catatonic number in front of the tube. Nick hasn’t called since. Not that there’s any reason he should.
And the ring is safely snoozing in its little Tiffany box, tucked underneath my undies.
And, as you may have guessed, the I’m-gonna-right-this-boat feeling passed. I might have ridden the crest for a moment or two, but then the wave took me under again. I hadn’t fully realized how much I’d loathed dating until I no longer had to. The gruesome prospect of having to start over is more than I can bear thinking about.
Credits roll on the screen in front of me, which means it’s later than I thought, which means I have to face the music, or in this case the shower, and fix myself up at least enough so I don’t frighten little children when I step outside. Last time I caught my reflection, I looked like an electrocuted poodle. And I really should take the cake plate back to Ted and Randall. Maybe I’ll look sad enough that they will take pity on me and fill it up again. I’m thinking maybe chocolate-chip-macadamia-oatmeal cookies. Or brownies would be good, too…
My phone rings again. I hesitate, then answer.
“Cara?”
