Good Grief: A Novel

  “Let’s rest,” Drew says, making a U-turn toward a nearby bench.

  We sit side by side on the bench in silence. I feel as though we’re two kids who don’t know each other yet, waiting for the bus on the first day of school.

  19

  Drew Ellis is a laugher. He throws his head back and pounds the table with his fist until his face reddens and tears fill his eyes and you can’t help but feel that you’re the funniest person on earth when you’re telling him a story.

  Over dinner on our second date (which is really our first date, since our hospital get-together ended after a short ride home), I recount my corporate demise at Gorgatech. When I get to the “Gentlemen, start your hair dryers” part, I’m afraid I’m going to have to perform the Heimlich on Drew.

  “What a terrible job!” he gasps, drying his eyes.

  I never thought of it as a terrible job. I thought of myself as a terrible employee. For the first time, I see the humor in my public relations career.

  “Yeah!” I agree, laughing. Laughing for the first time about Lara and the patch. For immediate release: This job sucks!

  We eat at a restaurant downtown that features oddly vertical entrées, ingredients stacked high and topped with feathery sprigs of rosemary, making them look like ladies’ hats.

  Drew Ellis is a listener. He leans forward and makes direct eye contact, tilting his head as if to bring one ear closer. I hate to make comparisons to my husband, but I can’t help it. Ethan never listened this carefully. He was always distracted—a part of his brain working over chinks in software code. Sometimes several sentences into a conversation Ethan would yelp, “What? What?”—a tip that he obviously hadn’t been listening. This made me feel boring and sometimes, as I told a story, my voice would lower until I decided that what I had to say was dumb. “Oh, never mind,” I’d grumble.

  “I’m listening!” he’d insist.

  Drew Ellis is decisive. He glances at the menu for only a moment before choosing the filet. And he seems to have made up his mind right away that he likes me. Or is he this way with all of his dates? Fawning and laughing and complimenting. Either way, I’m not sure I’m up to this undivided attention, this pressure to break out of the sweatpants comfort zone and be clever all the time.

  Drew Ellis has lots of friends. We sit at a table overlooking the street, and when festival actors passing by the window spot him, they burst in to say hello, lavishing us with hellos and handshakes.

  Drew Ellis is generous. He leaves our waitress a big tip and waves people ahead of him in traffic as we pull away from the restaurant in his rattly old BMW.

  Drew Ellis is tidy. His car is immaculate on the inside, nothing but a fountain pen and a small box of Kleenex on the seat and a notebook for recording gas mileage. It’s not like riding in Ethan’s car, where you’d be ankle-deep in a heap of take-out trash and used coffee mugs.

  Drew Ellis smells sweet, like clothes that just came out of the dryer. As we say good night on my front porch, he gives me a once-on-the-mouth, respectful, I-know-you-recently-lost-your-husband-and-more-than-anything-you-just-need-companionship kiss. Despite its simplicity, it is the most complicated kiss of my life. My first post-Ethan, widow kiss. But it is also a relief, like peeing after a long car ride. Drew whispers, “Good night,” and heads down the front walk. I stand paralyzed on the porch, a warm boozy feeling pooling in my knees. I hate him for being such a terrible good-riddance list candidate.

  Drew Ellis keeps calling my house.

  “Hi, just wondering how you’re doing,” he says, his impeccable actor diction echoing through my answering machine. “Thought maybe you’d like to take a drive out to Jackson this weekend.”

  I can’t call Drew Ellis back. If I call him I might go out with him again and if I go out with him again I might fall in love with him and if I fall in love with him he might dump me or die.

  “‘Feelings, nothing more than feelings . . . ,’” he croons into the machine the next evening, hamming it up and then laughing at his own joke. “Listen,” he adds, his voice lowering with seriousness, “I completely understand if you’d rather not go out again. Just give me a call to let me know you’re okay.”

  Instead of calling Drew Ellis, I fill out a registration form for night classes in the culinary arts program at the local university. Because I don’t think I’m going to master this fondant thing on my own. Besides, I don’t need an actor boyfriend; I need a vocation, a new career. When I get to the dreaded question that stains every starting-your-life-over-again form—Person to contact in case of emergency—I write: George Clooney. I seal the application, stick it in the mailbox on the porch, then start a double batch of vanilla cake batter so I can practice frosting.

  Soon the whole house smells like a bakery. For hours I work on perfecting fondant, until the edges of the cakes are crisp and even and the sheen on top is as smooth as glass. When I run out of cake layers I ice a shoebox, then an old Styrofoam kickboard I find in the garage. Squeezing pink, blue, and yellow icing through the tubes over the fondant, I try roses, balloons, and cursive writing. I wish imaginary people happy birthday—Quentin and Zachary—so I can master more challenging letter combinations.

  Despite the sweet, buttery smell of the cakes, I have no desire to sample them. It seems the more I work with food, the less I feel like eating it. Maybe it’s simply that finding enjoyable work is as satisfying as curling up with a box of Mallomars.

  Exhausted, with fondant cemented under my fingernails, I fall asleep in my clothes on the sofa. I dream that Chef Alan takes all the entrées off the menu at Le Petit Bistro, replacing them with desserts. As he crosses out the veal Oscar and shrimp scampi, I notice that his tangle of a beard is made of spun sugar.

  Drew Ellis shows up at Le Petit Bistro to invite me to his house for dinner.

  “Sorry I haven’t called,” I tell him, hoping for once that Chef Alan will charge out of his office and interrupt. “I’ve been busy.”

  Drew nods with interest. “What have you been up to?”

  “Um . . .” Decorating shoeboxes with frosting? “Signing up for cooking school. . . .” My voice trails off. I’m not sure if I’m ready to tell anyone about my new career ambitions. It’s like telling people you’re quitting smoking or going on a diet. You feel silly later if things don’t work out.

  “Great.” He points to the strawberry rhubarb pies cooling on wire racks, ruby filling bubbling through golden brown lattice crust. “You’ve obviously got a natural talent.”

  Sometimes I’m wary of Drew’s knack for saying just the right thing. Before I know it, I’m agreeing to have dinner at his house on Monday night when we’re both off from work.

  “Great,” he says. “It’s a date.”

  There’s that word again.

  Drew Ellis can’t cook. There’s nothing in his refrigerator but a bag of potatoes that have grown eyes and tentacles, and the smell is so sour that I wonder what decaying matter he threw away just before my arrival. This isn’t in keeping with his tidy car!

  He’s set the coffee table in front of the fireplace in the living room with a bottle of Chardonnay, wineglasses, paper plates (one of which looks used), candles, and a little bouquet of double delight roses from his garden. He hands me a take-out menu from a Chinese restaurant and insists that I make all the choices.

  Drew Ellis keeps books in his dishwasher. Books! After we finish our kung pao and mu shu, I clear the coffee table and open the dishwasher to load the forks and knives. There, where the plates go, are plays by Tennessee Williams and George Bernard Shaw, lined up in alphabetical order, spines facing up.

  “Oh, my bookshelves are all so full!” Drew says, waving at the books. “I hand-wash.” He adds that he rarely eats at home, buying most of his meals at the diner off of I-5, where they serve “great” biscuits and gravy. I’m disappointed by this overall disregard for food.

  Despite his stinky refrigerator, Drew Ellis is a neat freak. As he fixes us coffee, I notice that all of
the handles on the mugs in his cupboard point in the same direction. On our way back to the living room, he’s compelled to straighten my shoes by the door. When I start the crossword puzzle in pen, he gasps and fetches a jar of freshly sharpened pencils.

  Don’t ask why I’m doing the crossword puzzle on a date. Suddenly I feel the need to keep occupied. The room’s too primed for romance. Logs crackling in the fire, jazz piano moaning on the stereo. I swear I can hear the wine breathing in our glasses. While I wouldn’t mind a little post-kung pao ravishing before the fire, I’m certainly not brave enough to facilitate it. As Drew adds a log, I sneak a peek at him from behind the newspaper. He’s handsome, but not impossibly handsome, as I’d first thought. Slightly beakish nose, brown hair thinning a bit at the crown of his head. His forehead is a little too high, his eyes set a little too deep. Only a little, but still. He looks up. I return to the puzzle, the pencil point snapping and flying across the room.

  Drew Ellis suffers from stage fright. Stage fright! Mr. Handsome-self-confident-voice-projected-across-the-room-like-a-javelin. As we split a Toblerone bar for dessert, he tells me about his job as an actor, describing intense preperformance jitters.

  “I’m fine once I get on stage,” he explains, “it’s the hour leading up to the show.”

  “What happens?” I’ve given up on the crossword. We sit cross-legged in front of the fire, our knees barely touching, an electric current running between them. I try to seem unfazed by Drew’s closeness.

  “Shaking, sweaty hands, racing pulse. All the symptoms of a heart attack, basically. A thirty-second, three-pound-weight-loss trip to the bathroom. You get the picture.”

  I’m about to tell Drew just how much I get the picture when I recall the magazine article I read last night: “Dating Dos and Don’ts.” Don’t share your insecurities! I even used a highlighter pen on the article, studying up on how to be single again the way you’d prep for a final.

  “What are you afraid of?” I ask him.

  “That I’ll forget my lines.”

  “Have you ever?”

  “No.” He sits up straighter, eyes widening. “But it’s more than that. That I’ll lose my job. That I’ll be a washed-up actor doing the dinner theater circuit in the Catskills, singing ‘Copacabana’ to a roomful of geriatrics.”

  “Wow. That’s a very specific fear.”

  “My shrink helped me put it into words.”

  “You go to a shrink?”

  “I’m from New York.”

  “Drew, I’ve read your reviews. There’s no way you’ll ever lose your job.”

  “Once I was in a musical in Manhattan that opened and closed the same night. By noon the next day I was filling out an application at Brew Burger.”

  “Right. And how many years ago was that?”

  He laughs. “Twenty.”

  “That’s all I’m saying.”

  He kisses me. Cool, sweet mango lips, warm tongue. Not my husband.

  He pulls away and we both stare into the fire.

  Finally I ask to use the bathroom.

  Drew trails behind me. He says he wants to explain his bathroom floor. He started remodeling months ago but couldn’t decide on tiles. Brushed limestone or plain linoleum?

  As I step onto the splintery plywood subfloor, exposed nails cutting through my socks. Drew pulls back the shower curtain to show me a case of tiles in the tub that he doesn’t like but hasn’t gotten around to exchanging.

  Good, Drew Ellis is a waffler, a procrastinator.

  “These look like bird poop.” He picks up a tile and frowns at the coin-size brown splotches in the pattern. “Why are you smiling?” he asks, looking up at me.

  Because you’ve got foibles. Now that I’ve got material for a good-riddance list, I may actually be able to date Drew Ellis.

  20

  “Wonderful, you’re dating,” Ruth says.

  It’s a hot Sunday afternoon in the first week of May. Ruth, Crystal, and I lounge on the porch at Colonel Cranson’s, watching cars jerk and roll through the car wash.

  “I guess you could call it that.” Suddenly I want to slide my wedding ring back on. A wedding ring is something you can hide behind. It hangs from a gold chain around my neck now, resting against my sternum. Whenever I’m reading, I can’t stop touching it, rubbing my thumb over the bumpy diamond, lifting the ring and holding it between my lips.

  I remember thinking with tremendous relief on the morning I got married that I’d never be single again. Never have to worry whether a steamy soiree warranted a blood test. Never have to hide in the bathroom at midnight on New Year’s Eve from the looming sweaty dateless guy at the party.

  The leaves on the trees are so green that they look painted on, and the air smells sweet, like soap and wax. Cool spray drifts across the street from the car wash, tickling our skin.

  “This should be a spa treatment,” Ruth says, holding up her arms and closing her eyes. She looks beautiful in her long yellow sundress, which matches her hair. I’m proud of her; she came over to announce that she’s not going to let her ex-husband, Mark, move back in.

  “Ask me about mica!” Crystal kicks the wicker table and our glasses of iced tea slosh over. A textbook lies open in her lap, a chunk of jagged black rock resting on the pages.

  “What do you like about Drew?” Ruth asks me.

  “He takes the grocery cart all the way back to the front of the store.” For some reason this is the first thing that comes to mind: Drew’s inherent conscientiousness.

  “What’s he look like?” Ruth asks.

  “Ask me about mica,” Crystal repeats. She squeezes the rock, its surface glittering in the sunlight. She’s dying to impress her teacher with her earth science presentation. He’s around her dad’s age, and I think she’s got a huge crush on him.

  “I’ll help you in a minute,” I tell her. “You’re interrupting.”

  “But this is our day.” Crystal glances sideways at Ruth. “Why does she have to be here?”

  “Feel free to address me directly anytime,” Ruth says coolly.

  Now I feel as though I’ve got two teenage daughters.

  The sleeves of Crystal’s football jersey hang in bell shapes over her wrists. She sucks some of the fabric into her mouth and chews.

  Ruth’s wicker chair creaks as she shifts her weight toward Crystal. “I’m sorry.” She peers up from under the brim of her straw hat. “Tell us about mica.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” I tell Ruth.

  “Mica is any group of chemically and physically related mineral silicates . . .” Crystal shifts her eyes downward, peering at an index card on the table that’s filled with her big loopy handwriting in blue ballpoint pen. “Um . . . common in igneous and metamorphic rocks, each containing, um . . .” She picks up the card and reads slowly, “Hydroxyl, alk . . . alkali, and aluminum silicate groups, characteristically splitting into flexible sheets used in insul, insul—shit!” She gives up, flipping the card like a Frisbee into the grass. “I’m so stupid!” She bangs her bare heel on the porch and slides down in her chair until her chin rests on her chest.

  “No, you’re not,” I tell her, retrieving the card.

  “Whatever. I picked mica because it’s, like, the prettiest, but I totally can’t say all that stuff.” She looks at the piece of inky rock accusingly.

  “What’s metamorphic rock?” Ruth asks, giggling. “Is that a genre of music?”

  I laugh, spurting out a little tea.

  “It’s not funny.” Crystal snaps her textbook shut.

  If Ethan were here, he’d have Crystal reciting eloquent paragraphs about mica in no time.

  Last night, I dreamed Ethan and I were baking French bread on the big pine kitchen table at Colonel Cranson’s. As he punched down the dough, there was color in his cheeks and his eyes were bright. Then I was awake, fumbling under the covers, expecting to feel his arm or leg or the river of his pulse running through his belly. I snapped on the light and recorded the dre
am in a notebook that Sandy said we should keep by our beds. I was relieved that Ethan wasn’t ill in the dream. No tubes or bandages. It seemed possible that I might never dream of Ethan sick again, as though the cancer had gone away, as though he’d finally gotten better.

  “Mr. Matthews is gonna think this sucks,” Crystal moans now. She picks at the mica’s brittle top layer, which flakes off like nail polish.

  “When’s your project due?” Ruth asks.

  The dryers in the car wash build to a high-pitched whir.

  “Wednesday,” Crystal says to me, ignoring Ruth.

  “Don’t worry,” I urge, trying to adopt Ethan’s optimism. “We’ll do some research and present it in layman’s terms that are easy to understand.” I pace across the porch, brainstorming mica.

  “What’s that mean?” Crystal says.

  “That means for people like you and me who aren’t so good at math and science.”

  “But you’re, like, good at everything,” Crystal says, annoyed.

  I stop pacing, floored by Crystal’s faith in me. She knows I can’t sew or do algebra. The peeling paint on the porch tickles my bare feet. “Oh, no,” I tell her. “Ruth’s good at everything.”

  “Yeah, right,” Ruth says, chewing her ice. In college, whenever she and I teamed up on something—a duet in choir or a doubles tennis match—she joked that we were like Lucy and Ethel. But I always thought we were like Lucy and Grace Kelly.

  “I don’t want to stand in front of the class and, like, talk in front of everyone.” Crystal tosses the mica in the grass and chews her fingernails.

  I pull her hand from her mouth.

  “Amber and Tiffanie did their projects together on sand,” she continues. “They, like, wore bathing suits and shorts, and they were such dorks. But Mr. Matthews laughed and gave them an A.”

  Crystal tosses her science book at the mica. It lands with a thud on the lawn. “I’m going to stay home sick next week,” she says. “Why can’t Mr. Matthews teach something easier? He’s totally nice.”