Double Trouble Read online

  “I remember everything. That’s why I want to help you. We’ll go together, Mom. It will be easier for you.”

  “You haven’t called me Mom in years.”

  “Maybe it’s time I started again.”

  Beverly traced a circle on the kitchen table, uncertain but encouraged. “But you can’t have time. With Marcia gone and the boys, you have so much to do…”

  James laughed, then glanced at me, though it was more than the sight of that dimple that made my heart skip. “I’m unemployed, Mom. It’s a matter of record that I’ve got nothing but time.”

  The barracuda had a heart. He kept it well hidden, but I was touched that he would do this for Beverly. We were having a certified Disney moment. Bring back Bambi’s mom, let’s have a song and a rainbow over the whole scene.

  Then James blew it.

  “Any chance you could help us out, Maralys?”

  I did my best Jack Frost. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The boys aren’t going to be going to any AA meetings with us.”

  Just a few words and I saw red. An endless stream of weekday nights camped out with the small adults stretched out before me and I snapped. How many years do people go to AA, anyhow? I didn’t know and I didn’t want to find out.

  How dare he expect me to take my sister’s place?

  How dare he expect me to leap in, as a convenient babysitter?

  I hauled out one of my business cards and snapped it on the table. I have them printed on thick stock just so they make a nice crisp sound in moments like this.

  “Maybe you don’t have one of my cards,” I said coldly. They both looked at me, Beverly with incomprehension, James with wariness. “Pick it up. What does it say?”

  “Maralys O’Reilly. Web-based Solutions,” he read without intonation.

  “Does it say Registered Charity?”

  “No.”

  “Does it say Babysitting Services? Daycare?” My voice rose with each question and I didn’t care. “Chauffeur? Incidental housekeeping services? Surrogate?”

  “Hmm,” said Beverly and looked at her son.

  James was getting red around the back of his neck. “Maralys, I just asked…”

  “I know what you asked. I heard what you asked! You asked what you’ve been asking ever since my sister left. Would I pretend to be her for the time being as it would be just so much easier for you. No! NO! How many times do I have to say it? These are not my kids. This is not my life!”

  “Look, I just asked…”

  “I’ve stepped in to help, but that’s enough! This is not going to become some cozy convenient little habit: “oh, we can just call Maralys. It’s not as if she has a life.”” I cast my hands skyward, something I’ve always wanted to do. “I will not be convenient! I will not be useful! I will not be needed, especially not by you.”

  “Especially?” James asked, catching the one word of importance in my tirade.

  You have to know that I covered my slip as best as I could. I stepped forward and shook my finger under his nose. My voice was lower now and shaking. “All these years, I’ve been persona non grata in this household. How’s that for some Latin, my friend? I’ve been insulted, by you, I’ve been disparaged, by you, I’ve been judged, by you, and I’ve been shunned, by you.”

  “Maralys, I’m sorry…”

  “How timely of an apology is that?” I snapped. It didn’t help that James looked genuinely contrite. He probably got that mail order - in his former job, he’d need a lot of it. “You apologize right when you need a regular sitter. Well, guess what, this isn’t going to follow your script.”

  “If you’d just give me a chance to explain…”

  “No, I won’t. I’ve done what I’ve done so far for the boys and for my dad, but that’s it. I made a resolution years ago that I wouldn’t be taken for granted ever again.” I shook my head. “If you think I’m going to back down on that for you, you’ve got another think coming.”

  I scooped up my keys and turned to leave.

  “Maralys!”

  “Sorry, this offer has expired. Look - best before last Tuesday. I’m fresh out of family obligation.”

  “How about listening for a change?” James shouted. “How about finding out the truth?”

  I glanced back, big mistake. He was really, really angry with me. I very nearly went back and listened, but the timing was too opportune for him.

  His mother was watching the exchange avidly and I felt myself begin to blush. Just what I needed.

  And I was really, really angry with him anyhow. “You don’t know what the truth is.” I said. “and you wouldn’t believe it if you heard it.”

  “Try me.” His eyes were bright with challenge as he began to walk toward me. He was goading me and we both knew it. The air crackled between us but I held my ground, waiting to him to get to me. He stared down at me and we were definitely thinking the same thing.

  “Don’t go,” he whispered with urgency.

  “I don’t play the rebounds,” I whispered back just as urgently, then I pivoted before I lost my nerve.

  “It’s not over, Maralys.”

  “It never started. There’s nothing here to be over.” I spun and glared at him through the storm door, tears unexpectedly blurring my vision. “All I’ve ever wanted is to be left alone. All I’ve ever expected of people is that they solve their own problems. All I’ve ever wanted was to live my own life and pursue my own dreams. Is that so much to ask? Is that so impossible for anyone to allow?”

  James shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his expression inscrutable. “No,” he said quietly. “It’s not.”

  I hadn’t expected him to agree, or least to do so as readily as that. I floundered for a moment for my footing, then came up fighting. “Good. Good! Then you can drive my father home. I’ll leave his car where I found it.”

  I marched back to the K, a splendid chariot if ever there was, feeling like an ass every step of the way.

  “Oh my,” said the chirpy realtor and I didn’t even look to see who she had in tow this time. “It looks as if I might be able to get you two a very good deal on this house. You know, you can often make a good deal in the instance of a d-i-v-o-r-c-e.”

  I squealed the tires, delighting in how many neighbors came to look and was back at my dad’s in half the time. I felt sick, but I really didn’t know whether it was because I had lost my temper, because I had said too much or because I had just done the wrong thing.

  I told myself that I didn’t care.

  Okay, it was a lie, but we’re going to live with that one. Get over it now. I’m going to.

  * * *

  I had my dream that night.

  Well, in the wee hours of the morning actually, since I didn’t crash until around four. Four A.M. that is.

  The dream always starts the same way. I’ve had it for years, over and over and over again, and I still can’t explain it. I’m in an airline terminal. It could be Logan or just about anywhere else. They all look so similar although there’s something not quite right about this one. It’s a dream thing.

  When it starts, I’m at the baggage claim where the conveyor or carousel or whatever brings the luggage from the plane. This one’s a conveyor and it’s not moving yet. There are no bags. There’s a crowd of people though, standing all around me, and it’s a crowd that keeps getting bigger.

  It also keeps getting more anxious. You can feel the tension in the air, the unspoken worry that the bags really aren’t here. Or that one particular bag - yours - is lost. Maybe gone to Shanghai instead.

  So, I’m standing there, staring at the opening that the bags first appear from, thinking that it’s like a dark little mouth to who knows where. I always think that at the beginning of the dream and I always think what a weird thing it is for me to think. I too am skeptical and a little tense about the arrival of my luggage.

  The conveyor starts and the crowd pushes forward, jostling for position. The bags start to appear an
d people snatch them off the belt, claiming them before they can disappear into the dark little mouth at the other end of the conveyor. Maybe they won’t come back. The anxiety changes flavor. Speed is key.

  I see a familiar bag and shove through the crowd, claiming it victoriously. It is, oddly enough, the impossibly pink suitcase in which my sister kept her Barbies when we were kids. (I did not have Barbies.) My name is on the tag, though, and no one seems to think it strange that a grown woman has checked a bag emblazoned ‘Barbie’ complete with little cartoons on the side.

  I carefully check the latch and am always struck by the oddity of this gesture. It’s a kid’s toy. The latch is a cheap flip latch that wouldn’t stop a goldfish but I’m always ridiculously relieved to find it still closed. It’s one of those round bags that would be a hatbox if there wasn’t a hinge on the lid and a loop handle at the opposite side.

  And pink, as I’ve mentioned. Pink!

  Meanwhile, people have been snagging bags and claiming carts and the area is beginning to bustle. I look up just in time to see my backpack from the Japanese adventure lolling on the conveyor. It’s black canvas and beaten up, wearing the mark of the miles it’s logged like a badge of honor.

  It’s also just about round because there’s so much junk in it, as well as heavy. I drag it off the conveyor, checking that its Boston Bruins crest and rising sun flag are both intact. It has a dusty footprint on it, a man’s boot print, presumably from some guy on the ramp. I try to brush it off, with no luck.

  Next is a big plastic tub with a snap lid - like an oversized Tupperware dish - that I got at Ikea and use to store files in my office. God only knows why it’s been checked onto a plane, but no one finds this remarkable either. It’s similarly full to bulging, but fortunately is equipped with wheels. I wrestle it off the conveyor myself, load the backpack on top of it and carry the Barbie case separately.

  And here’s the weird part. I don’t know whether this is all my stuff. I can’t remember. I don’t have the ticket with the luggage claim tags stapled into it, so there’s no way to be sure. I stand there, stupidly uncertain, waiting until the conveyor brings no new bags forth from its shadowy maw.

  This part of the dream worries me a great deal. I know that I toss and turn at this point. In fact, I often wake up even now, a conditioned response from Neil jabbing me in the ribs so many times when we shared a bed.

  This time, I slept through it. That’s happened once or twice before, but knowing what will happen doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

  I’m very anxious as I leave the luggage claim area, very anxious. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder, worried that I’ve forgotten something. Classic travellers’ paranoia - where’s my ticket passport wallet key - but multiplied a hundred times. I even look back through the glass, from the corridor outside the secured area.

  And that’s when I see it. It’s a Bonnie Cashin bag, the kind you wear under your coat like a secret pocket. It’s made of red leather and it’s mine, I know it’s mine, and there’s something making it bulge and it’s on the conveyor all by itself. A late arrival. It’s mine and I’m on the wrong side of the security barrier. The terminal is empty now. There’s no one else coming out of the claim area, no chance to sneak back in and get my bag.

  I can’t claim it.

  I press my face to the glass as it disappears into the other dark hole, filled with terror until it comes back around. I pound on the glass as it slides effortlessly past me, I shout and scream but there’s no one there to hear me. And the bag goes around and around, appearing and disappearing, a glorious prize out of my reach forever and beyond my control to retrieve.

  And on that night, that’s when I looked up and saw the sign over the conveyor that I never noticed before:

  Emotional Baggage Claim.

  Please ensure that any luggage you claim is your own.

  * * *

  I woke abruptly, my heart pounding, my eyes bugging out of my head. It was eleven in the morning and my sheets were knotted around me, wet with sweat.

  I fell back and closed my eyes, trying to stabilize my breathing even as I wondered what the hell it all meant.

  Me? Emotional baggage? I think not.

  Or at least I think it completely stowed under the seat in front of me. Surely I couldn’t be wrong.

  * * *

  Subject: all show no go

  Dear Aunt Mary -

  All my boyfriend wanted was sex, sex and more sex! I used to say to him “Is there something wrong with wanting to talk?”

  Yes, there is! Now I know. Suddenly, all he wants to do is talk. Yap yap yap and no action.

  :-/

  Do you think he’s getting the rest somewhere else?

  Worried

  –-

  Subject: re: all show no go

  Dear Worried:

  What is it with you people? Sex, sex and more sex - it’s all you ask me about. Talk about a fixation.

  As for you, there’s an old proverb, my dear - be careful what you ask for, as you might get it. You’ve just proven it right.

  Maybe he’s mucking around. Maybe your relationship has gone to a new level. Maybe you ought to be glad you got what you wanted.

  Aunt Mary

  ***

  Uncertain? Confused? Ask Aunt Mary!

  Your one stop shop for netiquette and advice:

  http://www.ask-aunt-mary.com

  Oh, yes, I didn’t miss the irony in that particular little post turning up at this particular moment.

  Thing was, it was quiet, vewy quiet, in my life and had been since I lost it in James’ kitchen three weeks before. Three weeks. That’s a long time. He’d mailed me the new contract - nice personal touch there - without so much as a scribble from his own pen. It was a thing of beauty - of a particularly nasty, legalistic kind beauty, but one designed to protect me. That was a nice thing.

  It might not have been all bad to have a pet shark.

  I spun slowly in my orthopedically correct chair and launched paper airplanes around the loft. Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the Coxwell’s is.

  You see, I’m not really used to people getting on without me. I had pretty much expected James to call again, begging me to reconsider. Not immediately, but in a couple of days.

  He hadn’t. By now, I’d figured out that he wasn’t going to.

  I am not used to men who can actually resolve anything by themselves. Not just my dad, either. There was what’s his name, Neil, the original cowboy and perennial six-year-old, the all time master of offloading responsibility. He wasn’t the first and he wasn’t the last, but he gave me a major lesson in fixing it myself. Anything and everything, that is.

  But enough about that.

  I had spent my entire life trying to defend my privacy and my independence, and done so without a whole lot of success. Now that I had utter solitude, I didn’t much care for the view.

  And yes, I wanted to know. Bring on the details and the gossip. Had Beverly gone to AA? Had James gone with her? I could easily imagine him virtually dragging her there - surprise sentimentality aside, he struck me as the kind of guy who would make you eat your broccoli because it was good for you. Had they moved? I found it daunting that I might not even know where the heck they lived.

  And not just because my sister might suddenly turn up and need redirection. It was starting to look unlikely that she was going to do that.

  In fact, I was a bit worried about her, too. She wasn’t exactly the queen of keeping in touch and we weren’t close, but three weeks is a long time. I have a very good imagination and, in the middle of the night, I came up with all kinds of dire fates for her. No one seemed to be sounding an alarm though, so maybe she had called in.

  I spun and chucked another airplane, trying desperately not to feel as if I’d been left out of the loop.

  What’s that? I’d asked for it, hadn’t I? Thanks for the reminder.

  Had James really taken Marcia’s shopping spree b
ack? I would have given a buck to see him in action, that’s for sure. I would have bet that he did do it - he seemed pretty motivated to get stuff done. Yeah, he’d had that gleam in his eye when I showed the price tag of those shoes. Marcia had succeeded in pissing him off, though a bit later than she’d hoped to do so.

  Which made me think of another gleam that had been in his eye, and that on more than one occasion. Ah yes, the one that made Captain V seem a pale shadow of his former studly glory. I knew I shouldn’t want any part of that.

  But then. But then…I felt as Eve might have felt if she’d taken a pass on the apple. Probably not a good idea, probably better to have walked away, but jeez, what would that sucker have tasted like? She’d never know.

  And who could stop after one bite? Wouldn’t she have wanted another?

  It bugged me.

  This did not mean, however, that I was going to call anyone up and confess as much. No way, cowboy. My sister and I have one thing in common - we believe that when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.

  Besides, there was a celebration coming up, and I needed something wow for Amnesty Day. I knew just where to get it too - my pal Meg runs the best vintage and used clothing store in Boston - which is saying something, and not just that I have a biased opinion. Not only would I find something unique and possibly outrageous, but it would be a bargoon-eroo. I might not find it on the first try, though, and should give Meg some warning as to what I was after.

  The prospect of social contact cheered me enormously, but then I’d been working too hard lately. Time for a break. I’d been good, I’d worked hard and I deserved a lunch out, at least.

  A latte that I hadn’t made myself.

  It was raining cats and dogs, but I skipped through the puddles, in a huge hurry to get to Meg’s.

  What? You’re suggesting that I might be lonely?