Greetings from the Flipside

  The only way to get around him is to squeeze past him, and that means we’ll brush against one another but I decide it’s worth it to get to the door. I slide on past. He puts a hand out to steady me. I laugh inappropriately, like he’s tickled my ribs or something. As you can tell, I’m not a smooth operator. This isn’t the kind of scene you’re going to see in a movie. Nobody has armpit sweat rings soaking through her shirt at this point in a love story. They’re gazing at each other, the romantic tension bursting from the screen. In my case, something’s bursting, but it has more to do with my pride exploding by an awkward exit. I fall against the door with a thud. Don’t even ask me what my ponytail looks like at this point. You know. I open the door with shaking hands.

  “Why are you so afraid?”

  “I’m not afraid. Just go.” I feel like crying. Maybe I am crying. I can’t quite tell. It’s sweat or tears. Not sure just yet.

  “Okay.” He walks past me and leaves. I close the door and clutch my heart. I slide to the floor. This can’t be happening. I can’t be having feelings for another man. When will I learn my lesson? I’ve tried to teach it to Mikaela but I can’t even learn it myself.

  Don’t fall in love. Don’t believe those mushy, idealistic cards that say the stupidest things.

  It’s too risky.

  Jake is too risky.

  13

  Jake let out a deep, almost grinding, breath as he leaned back into his chair, watching Hope. It was stupid, but he thought maybe she would move her hand a little or show some sign of life in there. But there was nothing, just the steady, shallow breathing he’d become accustomed to hearing. And watching.

  A sudden sadness swept through him. Before he even had a chance to try not to react to it, tears were streaming down his face. He couldn’t wipe them away fast enough and tried to laugh it off, but his emotions weren’t fooled. He shrugged, glancing up at her.

  “So, that’s what happened. She left me. Because I wasn’t funny enough. Men have been left for not making enough money, for working too hard, for flirting too much. But I think I’m probably the first guy who got left for not being funny.” It ached to even say it. He’d never said it, to a single person, ever. He cited irreconcilable differences, just like the divorce papers said, when anybody asked about it. “Ironic, huh? That’s the very thing I always liked about you. You were funny. And not funny in an attention-getting way, you know? Intelligently funny. Your jokes went over most people’s heads. But I got them.”

  It was a ridiculous scene, he knew, sitting there with his tuna fish, pouring out his heart to a woman in a coma about his sad tale of being left because he failed in the humor department. “Hope, I just think . . . I mean, forget about what happened with your wedding. I know it was painful. Believe me, I get that. I promise I do. But life is worth living, you know? And love is worth trying again. Take a risk. Maybe we can take it together.”

  He felt a strange urge to kiss her and he tried to dismiss it. First of all, there was the tuna. But second, who would kiss a woman in a coma? Only a man so pathetic he thought that might be his only chance to do it.

  Still, as he looked at her, it was a Sleeping Beauty sort of moment. Could he ever be her prince? It was an inexplicable pull and he stood, backing away from her, right against all the cards, knocking a few of them over. His hand was covering his mouth, like he was guarding it, or her . . . he didn’t know which. Someone needed to be guarded.

  The door to her room opened and Jake turned away for a moment, pretending to be setting up the cards. If it was Bette, she had a strange way of seeing straight through him and he didn’t want her to have to see this. If it was CiCi, he was going to have to make a quick exit—he was afraid there might be a demon or two she would want to pray off of him, and he wasn’t so sure he shouldn’t be prayed for at this point.

  He swallowed down any remnant of emotion and turned, trying to peg an expression somewhere between hysteria and depression. Whatever expression he landed on didn’t stay there long.

  A guy stood there at the end of her bed, glancing between Jake and Hope. His hands were in his pockets. He wore jeans that drug the ground, dusty flip-flops and a wrinkled shirt, but looked strangely put together. His hair was cut very modern . . . messy with purpose.

  It couldn’t be . . . ?

  “I’m Sam. Who are you?”

  “Jake.” It came out way stronger than he intended. There was something rising up in him, something like a . . . like a punch to this guy’s face! It all seemed surreal. This guy was actually here, after all this time? What was he doing, paying his respects?

  “And you are . . . ?”

  Jake felt his fingers twitching. It was like he was growing into some sort of greeting-card version of the Incredible Hulk, except this was no greeting-card moment.

  “I know who you are. You’re the guy who left her at the altar.”

  Sam’s face contorted briefly, like something just slapped him. Yeah, buddy. It’s called the truth.

  “So who are you?” Sam asked, after his face stopped rolling through a catalog of emotion.

  “I’m the guy who—”

  But his words were cut short by a shriek. And there was only one person in the world he knew who would shriek like that inside the Neuro Intensive Care ward of a hospital.

  “Sam!!!” Her face was so lit with excitement, it was like Sam had risen from the dead.

  Jake glanced at Hope. How could she sleep through all this? Come on, have my back here, Hope. But she didn’t move.

  “Sam, Sam, Sam! You’re here! I’ve been praying for this, praying for it, praying for it!”

  “I thought you were praying for her to wake up,” Jake said, as flatly as any sentence could be said.

  “Oh, yes, that too! Yes! But I thought it would be Sam who might be able to give her the hope she needs to return!”

  “Sam? He’s the very reason she’s in this predicament,” Jake said.

  Sam glared at him. “You think you know? Who are you? You don’t know anything. You have no idea.”

  Jake sucked air through his nostrils, trying to keep himself calm. “Look, we need to step outside. She doesn’t need to hear all this.”

  “She’s in a coma,” Sam said. “She’s dead to the world.”

  “Shut up!” Jake hissed the words. “Don’t say that!”

  “Look, dude, I don’t know who you think you are,” Sam said, stepping away from CiCi’s clutching embrace. “But you don’t belong here. This is a family matter.” He smiled briefly at CiCi, who missed the whole look because she was clutching her hands and praying to the ceiling.

  “You don’t—”

  “No. You don’t. You don’t need to be here. Hope is my fiancé.” He glanced over toward the bed. “Yeah. I made a mistake. I get that. But I’m here now and this room is just too crowded as is. You get what I’m saying?”

  CiCi’s eyes brimmed with tears. “It shows, Jake, that prayers are answered! Look, Sam has come back! Now, perhaps, Hope’s father will return as well! It’s a sign. I just know it is a sign.” CiCi rushed to Hope’s bedside, raising a small, black plastic toy in the air. What was that? He looked closer—a wedding cake topper of a bride and groom. “Hope! Hope! Guess who’s back!”

  Jake couldn’t take another second of this. He brushed past Sam and stormed out the door. Bette was behind the nurse’s desk. She stood, knocking her Styrofoam cup of coffee over. “Jake? Jake? What’s wrong?”

  But he couldn’t stop. He needed air. He needed to get as far away from this as possible. Why in the world would he ever let himself be this vulnerable? He knew better. He’d learned this lesson once before and he’d vowed to never put himself in this position again.

  Love was altogether too risky.

  It always would be.

  Greetings from My Life

  It’s one of those mornings you co
ast through . . . your thoughts are somewhere else entirely, and you’re doing weird things like putting your pants on backwards or pouring coffee in your cereal. I’ve ruined breakfast and fashion, but I’m out the door and there’s a spring in my step that I can’t deny. Jake has texted me, asked me to run a few errands before I come in, and I’m glad. I’m dreading seeing him, but only because I want to so badly. You’re tracking with me. I’m falling for this guy in the worst of ways. I’m terrified. But not terrified enough to stop thinking about him. It’s not sheer terror. I’d equate it to the kind of terror you feel when you’ve asked the nice lady in the elevator when her baby is due only to find out she’s not pregnant. My heart is skipping a lot of beats inside my chest as I think of his smile and his jokes and his declaration that we should talk about our kiss (his kiss, not mine)—but it’s more like a dance in my chest rather than a heart attack.

  I finally arrive at the office a little after eleven, smearing lip balm over my mouth. What kind of attraction I think this is going to cause I don’t know, but there’s something about lip balm that soothes me. If I could, I’d smear it all over my face. All over my soul.

  I round the corner, drop my bag into my chair, and turn to walk into Jake’s office when I see the most horrifying sight I can imagine. And listen, I watch a lot of crime shows, so when I say horrifying, I mean it. Obviously not in a murder-plot kind of way, but in the kind of way that stops your heart and you can only hope you’re having a heart attack because you don’t want to face what is to come.

  My mother.

  She is standing in Jake’s office holding what looks like a serving tray, but not really a nice one, more like something you’d see in a hospital. And she’s got small little cups of . . . is that soup? Are they eating soup? They don’t notice me at first and all I see is Jake laughing and slurping something from a spoon. My mom has that look on her face, that same look she had when she declared my honeymoon on the potato farm.

  I brace myself against my desk.

  “Mom?” I don’t even think the word came out the first time. It sounded more like the wheeze of an asthma attack. “Mom?” I say louder.

  They turn. Jake grins. My mom does too. “There she is! I’m so glad to see you! Oh, my baby girl!” I can only be thankful she’s holding a soup tray, otherwise her hands would be waving in the air in a shout to glory. “I was just getting acquainted here with Jake, your new friend—”

  “Boss.”

  “You didn’t tell me”—Jake sips the soup—“your mother is a soup maker.”

  I haven’t told him anything about my mother. My gosh, where would I start? Definitely not with soup.

  “And you didn’t tell me your friend here has no plans for Thanksgiving.”

  “It’s true,” he says, watching me through the steam of the soup.

  It’s as if I’m watching tennis the way my head is whipping from one side of the office to the other. Is this really happening? I mean . . . really?

  I stand there for a moment, and I try to level-head my way into a lucid thought. And I realize suddenly that Jake has taken a risk . . . another one . . . on my behalf. He wants to spend a holiday with me. And what risk have I taken for him? None. Because I’m trying to live a risk-free love life. And what kind of way is that to love?

  I walk in as cautiously as a deer on the open plains during hunting season. Mom holds out the tray. There is an envelope beside the little cups of soup. “There’s your birth certificate, just like you ordered. Soup?”

  “Mom,” I say, grinning so hard and stiff my jaw is protruding, “thank you, of course. Yes, so thankful you brought . . . but you could have overnighted it. I hate for you to go to all this trouble to hand-deliver . . . and soup . . . and all that.” The fact that I’m not speaking in complete sentences isn’t lost on me. It’s just that I’m trying for a lot of things here—a subtle message to Mom that she should leave, while also trying to appear grateful in front of Jake because he has no understanding of my mother yet and I don’t want to look like a jerk.

  “And miss a chance to see my only daughter’s new place of employment? And it’s a beautiful drive. Oh, so glorious! So divine! Jake, if you come on up for Thanksgiving, you can see. Up there in good ole Poughkeepsie.”

  I laugh a laugh filled with no joy. “Seriously,” I say, batting my hand, “I’m sure Jake’s got better—”

  “No, I don’t. I’ve been wanting to take a drive up there anyway.”

  My hand drops. This is just so . . . weird. I can’t have this, can I? Jake with me and my mom? On a holiday? What is going on?

  “She doesn’t serve tuna.” I say it. That’s all I’ve got. I can’t think of another good reason and obviously, there isn’t one, and now I’m looking desperate.

  “I can cook tuna.” Mom eyes me. “You’ve lost weight.”

  “He doesn’t cook it, he heats it in the—”

  “Maybe you will get to meet Hope’s father! In fact, why don’t we just agree in prayer right now—”

  “Mom, no!”

  Jake startles. It’s because I’m shouting at my mother. Anybody would be startled by this who doesn’t know my mother. She’s standing there holding soup. How can I yell at her?

  I dial it waaayyy back. “I mean, Mom, please . . . Jake doesn’t want to pray here in the office. Isn’t there a federal rule against displaying acts of begging God for things that won’t happen?”

  “Put down your soup, Jake. Come now, come now. Gather round.”

  Jake looks like this is the most normal thing ever. And my heart kind of softens because there doesn’t seem to be a judgmental bone in this guy’s body. I like him even more. I step forward and we clasp hands. My knees grow a little weak. His hands are nice and strong. My heart must be extremely healthy because it’s been through a lot in the last twelve hours, you know? If I were my heart I would’ve given up back at the soup tray discovery.

  “If we all stand in agreement, the Bible says if two or more agree . . .”

  I peek and see Jake looking at me. Mom’s the only one with her eyes closed. He smiles and winks at me, like he “gets” her and it’s okay, I can relax. He’s not going to judge me for it. The humiliation just washes off me like a mudslide.

  “You ladies over there, you need to pray, too, for this to work,” my mom says.

  I glance behind my shoulder. Pearl and Ruby, who are normally way more conspicuous about their eavesdropping, are standing in the doorway gawking. Once caught, they sheepishly join in our prayer circle, taking careful steps, I note, to make sure Jake and I are still holding hands.

  “Lord!”

  Everyone but me ducks because nobody ever expects someone’s first word in a prayer to sound like the shriek of a vulture.

  “Lord, please bring Hope’s father back to us in time for Thanksgiving. You said we can move mountains with faith like mustard. Lord, move the mountain that stands tall between us and—”

  “Amen!” I say.

  Ruby and Pearl stare, eyes wide. When old people get shocked you know it’s bad, because they’ve lived a long time and have seen a lot of things.

  “So lovely . . .” I’m smiling, nodding, trying to look as serene as possible after having shouted in the presence of old people. “Well, listen, we better get to the Social Security office so we can get this all cleared up.” I take Mom’s wrist, pull her through the circle, out the door.

  “Thanksgiving, my house,” she calls out to Jake.

  “Mom, he has plans. He was just being polite.”

  “I don’t,” Jake says from his office. Pearl and Ruby nod in agreement. “It’s true,” Pearl says. “We boycott Thanksgiving on account of how they seem to target turkeys for this holiday, which we find to be prejudiced.”

  “Why not eat peacock?” Ruby says.

  I glance at Jake. I’m not the only one who has weird relatives? He smile
s helplessly. I run into my desk smiling back at him.

  That’s going to bruise.

  I hurry and usher Mom to the elevator and outside as quickly as possible. I’m walking fast and realize my mom can’t catch up. It’s the first time I notice her age. She’s nearly being swept away by the sidewalk crowds. I hurry after her and try a slower pace, but I’m anxious to get to the Social Security office.

  “Have you heard from Sam?”

  I strike, and I mean it in the killer-lightning sort of way, a sideways glance at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Just wondering if you’ve heard from him. I’ve been praying.”

  I stop right there. People part and go around us. “Mom . . . why would you ask for that?”

  “Never lose hope, sweetie, never lose hope.”

  “The thing is, Mom, typically—and I realize that term doesn’t apply to us—but typically, when a girl gets dumped at the altar by a guy, it’s the mother who goes all psycho and wants to make him suffer and stuff. It has happened. I watched it on 48 Hours.”

  “Sam is just such a nice boy.”

  I keep walking, not bothering to keep her by my side. She keeps up anyway. I knew she wasn’t that old. “If Sam’s so nice, why invite Jake to Thanksgiving dinner?”

  “He’s very nice too!”

  Thankfully we arrive at the Social Security office. There is no line. It is so baffling. Inside, a few people mill about, but nothing that keeps us from getting to a window right away.

  Immediately I notice the bun, wound so tight that I can already peg the personality. This woman is a rule-follower. It sends a shiver down my spine, but I proceed forward. After all, I have my documentation. All of it. What could go wrong? Besides my mother, of course.

  “Mom,” I whisper as we sit down. “Just don’t talk, okay? I’ll do all the talking.” We slide into the seats. For the hundredth time, I explain my dilemma. “So as you can see, I’ve been trying to get this fixed forever. My employer has to hold my wages until I get the certificate proving I’m alive.” And then I notice it. It’s a bright yellow E taped to this woman’s computer monitor. It looks just like the letters I’ve found on my door.