More Like Her Read online

  “Anyone . . . anyone hear anything?” Martin asks, looking around the room.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “No,” Jill says.

  “Nope,” Lisa says.

  “The EMT said that both Jamie and Emma died at the scene,” Grady says, taking another bite of the Slim Jim. Sam shifts his weight.

  “And do we know why this happened?” Martin asks.

  “The detective was asking me if I knew anything about domestic abuse,” I say.

  “Domestic abuse?” Lisa asks.

  “I know. I said I didn’t.”

  “Domestic abuse,” Lisa says again.

  “That would explain a lot,” I say.

  “The Harry Sprague thing,” Jill says, pointing at me.

  “I know,” I say, not wanting to talk about that angle right now, because I secretly think I got Emma killed.

  “Would have never known,” Jill says.

  “So, I say we plan an Out of the Hospital barbecue,” Martin says, clapping his hands together. Sam and Grady wince.

  “Oh, honey,” Jill says, lacing her arm through his.

  “I think . . . I think we might have something else to celebrate,” Lisa says, walking over to Grady. They look at each other. Grady smiles and smiles. Lisa smooths his muss of black hair out of his face and flips his hospital gown collar right-side up.

  “This morning I asked Lisa to marry me,” Grady says, his voice crackling and excited.

  “What?!” we all say in unison. Or maybe it’s just Jill. Jill claps her hands together and rushes Lisa, hugging her and congratulating her.

  “The key here is to ask whether or not she said yes,” Sam says, giving Grady a wink.

  “I said yes!” Lisa says.

  “Oh, sweetie, that’s just the best news . . . it’s . . . it’s lovely,” I say, hugging her again.

  “I just . . . something about yesterday, you know? Made shit real,” Grady says, as the romantic he is. We’re all nodding. Indeed. We quiet down. Watching the new couple. The new fiancés.

  “When I saw him go down—” Lisa’s voice catches and she can’t finish. Grady pulls her in close. Comforting her. Telling her it’s okay. I let my head drop to my chest and close my eyes. I hear Jill sniffling.

  “Come on, now,” Sam whispers to me. I look up at him. Calm yourself. Calm yourself.

  “Life’s too short, you know?” Grady says, finishing Lisa’s sentence as she tries to regain herself.

  “Do you guys know when . . . or where?” Jill blurts, getting down to business.

  “My folks are coming into town. I called ’em last night and they were worried. That’s kinda when I got the idea. I get out of here in ten days and I don’t want to waste any more time,” Grady says, gazing at Lisa. She just exhales and tries to smile. Tears.

  “Man oh man,” Lisa says, slamming her fist in frustration. “I can’t stop crying.” She rolls her eyes and pulls a tissue from the box on Grady’s bedside table.

  “Wait, so you’re saying you want to get married in like . . .” Jill trails off, getting her facts straight.

  “Right around Halloween,” Lisa says.

  “Something like that,” Grady says, looking at Lisa. She nods in agreement.

  “We could do it at our house!” Jill yelps, clapping her hands and giving the tiniest of leaps. Martin looks at her. Pointedly.

  “You could barbecue,” Sam adds.

  “Oh man, that’d be perfect, Earley. My daddy would love to do that,” Grady says, looking at his old friend. I look up at Sam. He’s finally smiling again.

  “A backyard barbecue is exactly . . . that’s exactly what I want,” Lisa says.

  “Are you telling me that I get to plan a backyard barbecue wedding?” Jill asks, her voice barely contained.

  “Well, it is my wedding, but—”

  “So you ARE telling me that I get to plan a backyard barbecue wedding!” Jill yells.

  “Yes, sweetie, I believe that’s what we’re telling you,” Lisa says, looking from Jill to Grady.

  Chapter 13

  The Girl Who Cried Epiphany

  I head back to my apartment later that night after picking up something at the grocery store for dinner. A little remembrance-night dinner of macaroni and cheese with little bits of bacon and three different kinds of cheeses. I also bought the makings for chocolate chip cookies. Comfort food much?

  I pull into my parking lot and wait for the gate to close behind me. The gate slowly creaks across the pavement and rolls its way across the threshold of the driveway. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. In the quiet of my car, I replay the conversations Emma and I had about her marriage and wonder . . . was it all a lie? If it was, that’s pathological.

  No. Maybe. Not pathological. Just sad. Tragic, really.

  The gate finally creaks closed behind me and I ease into my parking space. The only light that remains is my car’s automatic headlamps on the wall. The darkness surrounds me as they slowly dim. My heart races. All of a sudden I can’t get out of my car and into my apartment building fast enough. I’m positive something is nipping at my heels. I grab my purse and the grocery bags and run up the stairs and into my apartment. I fling open the front door and slam it behind me. I immediately feel ridiculous and happy no one was there to witness what just happened. What did just happen? There was nothing lurking in the darkness of my garage. Nothing was “after me.” What’s happening to me? I lean down and hold on to the arm of the sofa, trying to steady myself, catch my breath and get my heart rate down from around a billion beats a second. I take a deep breath, gather my bags and continue into the kitchen. Dinner. Think about dinner.

  THE DREAM GOES LIKE this: I’m searching this dusty campsite for the group. They’re leaving. They’re leaving and I’m about to get left behind. The rickety staircases and old dirt roads are confusing. My suitcase is heavy and I question why I brought it. Crack. Crack. It’s coming. It’s coming. Drag the suitcase faster. Run. Catch up. Get them. Crack. But they’re behind me. I’m not . . . I’m not running to something, I’m running from something. Crack. Crack. My hand is curled around the suitcase’s handle. Slippery. Sticky. Let go. I bring up my hands. Crack. Crack. Blood. Everywhere.

  “No!” I jolt awake.

  My bedroom. My bed. No Sam. I haven’t heard from him since last night. No explanation for what happened or why he left. I get it, though. After such a trauma, we just wanted to feel something good. Feel alive. Whatever newfound flirtation was developing between us took a tragic Icarus-like turn and now lies in pieces among its melted wax wings. We just didn’t know each other well enough to handle that level of intimacy that quickly. We flamed out.

  My apartment is quiet. Too quiet.

  Flamed out.

  So why do I feel abandoned? My hero finally found me in that too-high tower, rescued me from its cold walls, set me down among free men and bolted.

  Freedom, with all its possibilities, just feels cold and lonely. I want to go back to my tower. I need those walls. I need the protection.

  The walls were always my true plus-one.

  TEACHERS GATHER THEIR CLASSES and stream out of the auditorium the next morning after the acting headmistress, Pamela Jackson, finishes with the assembly. Jill and I stand in the back, arms crossed, a slightly glazed look in our eyes. Trying to explain to a school filled with kids what happened on Wednesday is like . . . well, trying to make sense of it myself. Pamela talked about bullying and solving problems with violence. She also talked about how this was something that happened but that it’s not going to happen again. She wanted to make sure the kids felt safe. Her voice was calm and soothing and . . . the more I traverse this minefield, the more I realize how wrong I was about people. Emma. Pamela. Even me.

  Everyone who wasn’t there on Wednesday is maintaining an odd, encircling—yet conspicuously detached—orbit around those of us who were. No one wants to ask what happened, so the rumors are swirling. A few teachers are talking about it, a few teachers are trading on
it, and then there’s us. Shared glances and knowing smiles. The teachers’ lounge is boarded up, remnants of police tape here and there. When we arrived this morning, Pamela Jackson redirected all of us to an annex just off the main school for our gathering and coffee needs. There were bagels, coffee and fresh flowers. She’d thought of everything. It still felt . . . cold. Very few gathered, even fewer ate. People did pour themselves coffee—I mean, let’s not get crazy. Jill mentions that Markham’s board of directors and Headmistress Jackson approached Martin about rebuilding the old teachers’ lounge along with the ongoing school expansion. He agreed to it right away. I remember I haven’t even told Jill that I got the promotion. It was probably the last piece of business Emma handled. Once on the balcony—makeshift, but it’ll do—Jill lasers in.

  “Spill,” she says, sipping her tea.

  “I’m tired,” I say.

  Jill is quiet. Fine.

  “He drove me home. We ordered pizza. We took a bath together then had sex. It was mind-blowing and I actually can’t talk about it without . . . then he left the next morning and I have yet to hear from him.” My voice is robotic and detached.

  Jill is quiet. Quiet. Her eyes are wild. This is worse than I thought.

  For the first time in her life Jill Fleming is speechless.

  “I knew I’d find you two up here.” Lisa. She looks exhausted. Lisa sits and takes a long inhale of her coffee. No cigarette.

  “How’s Grady?” I ask. Jill is still stunned. Lisa takes notice. She’s wary.

  “He’s doing better every day,” Lisa says.

  “I don’t understand one thing you just said!” Jill yells, her finger one inch from my face, her tea spilling out of her tasteful toile-patterned mug.

  “Did I miss something?” Lisa asks, a smirk cracking across her depleted face. Jill slams down her mug, mumbling to herself as she paces around the tiny balcony.

  “Go ahead, Frannie. Just say it again. Maybe I’ll get it this time!” Jill says, gesticulating wildly.

  “Sam drove me home after . . . well, after the . . . whatever. We ordered pizza. We took a bath together then had sex. It was mind-blowing and I actually can’t talk about it without . . . and then he left the next morning and I have yet to hear from him,” I say again. Wow. It hurts just as much the second time.

  “Bullshit!” Jill yells.

  “You okay?” Lisa asks, reaching across and taking my hand.

  “I’m as far from okay as a person can get, I think,” I say, my voice quiet. Jill flops down in the nearest chair. Lisa looks from her to me. We share the tiniest of smiles. Jill is gobsmacked.

  “Aren’t we all,” Lisa says.

  “Seriously,” I say.

  “How do you . . . How do you?!” Jill stammers.

  “It makes sense. You know it does. It’s the whole Icarus thing,” I say.

  “Frannie, I need you to speak normally. I can’t wade through all of your theories and ‘epiphanies’ and analogies that don’t make any sense. I don’t know how you’re using Icarus, sweetie. You turn mythologies into just single words and I need you to just . . . can you just speak normally? For once?” Jill asks, her voice imploring.

  “No! I can’t!” I snap. Tears. Rolling down my cheeks. I close my eyes and continue. “It helps, okay?! It helps to talk about things like Icarus so I don’t have to . . . so I can compartmentalize Sam leaving, making it into something that’s poetic instead of the saddest thing in the entire world. I’ve never . . . I’ve never been like that with someone, do you get that?! I didn’t know sex like that was possible. I really didn’t. And I hate that I’m making it sound like it was just the sex or whatever. It wasn’t. I didn’t know I could be like that! That a man could be like that! That I could be like that with anyone, much less a man! It was just . . . god, it was beyond anything . . . beyond anything I’d ever dreamed. And now he’s gone? How terrible am I?” I sob. Lisa squeezes my hand tighter.

  “You’re not terrible!” Jill says, kneeling down in front of me.

  “Well, he’s not terrible! You know he’s not! So, what made him leave?” I cry.

  Silence permeates the little balcony. We’re all thinking it. And I feel like a whiny teenager who doesn’t know how selfish she sounds.

  I continue. “I know. I can’t know what he’s going through right now.”

  “No,” Lisa and Jill say in unison.

  “I am so trifling,” I say, taking a tissue from Lisa.

  “You’re not trifling. Jesus, who would blame you for wanting to think about what happened with Sam instead of . . . I went so far as to get engaged,” Lisa says, laughing.

  “Yeah, can we talk about that for a minute?” Jill asks, shifting in her chair so she’s facing Lisa.

  “It was the easiest decision in the world. All of those years spent trying to become some other woman, when all I had to do was wait for the one man who was looking for me. And then to watch him . . . well, I was done wasting time,” Lisa says.

  “Clearly we’re going to have to set up a schedule. Wedding planning,” Jill says, patting Lisa’s knee.

  “Clearly,” Lisa says, giving me a quick wink.

  “We’d better get going,” I say, noticing the time. Pamela Jackson believed today should feel just as routine as the ones before the shooting. We’re on a half-day anyway, due to the Fiesta Fund-raiser, so we’d better get a move on.

  “Did you fudge-pack at all?” Jill asks as we open the door into the teachers’ lounge.

  “Yes, I did. I made real fudge, Jill. And no matter how easy that recipe is, I’m vowing right here and now that I’m never making it again,” I say.

  “Meet you back in the office. We’ll talk about about . . .” Jill raises and lowers her eyebrows. I nod. I know exactly what and who she’s talking about, sadly. Jill and Lisa head out as I pour another cup of much-needed coffee. The door pushes open. Ryan. I haven’t seen him since the shooting.

  “Hey,” I say as he ambles toward the coffee. He looks up.

  “Oh, hey . . . oh my god, Frannie,” he says, slamming his empty mug down on the counter and lunging into me with a hug. His black hair is combed and moderately kempt, and his Puma jacket is loosely zipped, exposing the collared shirt and tie just underneath.

  “I know . . . I know . . . ,” I say, hugging him back. So comfortable with soothing him. We break from the hug and tears are streaming down his face.

  We are quiet. There’s nothing to say.

  “How are your students taking all this?” I ask, pouring coffee into my mug and turning my back to Ryan and the shampoo I can smell from here.

  “As well as can be expected,” Ryan says, smoothing his tie.

  “Is this fancy outfit here for the fund-raiser later?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

  “Thought I’d dress up for the parents,” Ryan says.

  “Kiss-ass,” I say, pouring in cream and sugar.

  “What are you gonna do?” We’re happy to change the subject and never speak of Wednesday again.

  “Make fun of you to your face and then behind your back.”

  “Ha!”

  We’re quiet.

  Ryan continues. “It’s good seeing you.”

  “You see me all the time, weirdo.”

  “I mean . . . you know what I mean.”

  “No, I actually don’t.”

  “Talking to you. It’s good talking to you.”

  “Do you mean sober?”

  “Ah yes. A proud moment. You know I . . .” Ryan stops. His face pales. He looks away as he continues. “I talked to that guy for over an hour at that mixer. He . . . uh . . . he seemed like an okay dude.” Ryan walks over to the coffeemaker and pours himself a cup. I notice his hands are shaking. He sets down the mug with its now-spilling contents and balls his hands into fists. “They keep doing that. I can’t stop them from shaking.” He looks away. Embarrassed.

  “I imagine we’re all suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress. Have you talked to Pamela?
”

  “Yeah. We’re talking again next week,” Ryan says.

  “You should tell her about the shaking,” I say, briefly touching his hand.

  “Right.” Ryan is smiling. The light blue eyes, the pinkish lips curling into a smirk.

  “Well, godspeed, John Glenn,” I say, throwing the stir stick into the trash.

  “I broke up with Jessica,” Ryan says, not looking at me.

  “What?”

  “I broke up with Jessica.”

  “I have no response to that.”

  “You’re quoting Joe Versus the Volcano?”

  “Yes . . . and stating my feelings.”

  “By quoting Joe Versus the Volcano?”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “After what happened, I just . . . being with someone to . . . I just had to get out of there. I had to find you.”

  I am quiet. A flash of what it would be like to be with Ryan again as the Real Me. Is that . . . is that even an option? If Sam was some sort of catalyst, is this the destination? To try again with Ryan as the Real Me? Maybe not think so much and just let shit ride?

  “Why would you want to find me?” I ask loudly. Inappropriately loudly. Like I don’t understand volume or inside voices. Ryan steps just that much closer. The shampoo. The aftershave. The laundry detergent. It’s eau de Ryan. And it’s doing the same thing to me it always did.

  The door creaks open. I jump back. I can’t have the Coven of Front-Office Hags thinking anything is happening between Ryan and me. Wait . . . wait. What is happening between Ryan and me? He broke up with Jessica and I have no one—thought I had someone for a minute, but . . . What about Sam? Is it over? Are we done?

  “I have to go. I have to go,” I say, my hand on Ryan’s chest. Pushing him away. Or am I keeping myself away?

  “Frannie,” Ryan says, his voice breathy. His hands are no longer shaking. He holds them up for me to see. Steady. “See? I need you, Frannie,” he says.

  “Okay, good. Good talk,” I say. Nodding. Nodding. I can’t look at him as I race out of the teachers’ lounge. I hear Ryan calling after me but don’t turn around.

  After a hazy morning of filing, report writing and generally trying to keep busy, I head back up to our office to prepare for the Fiesta Fund-raiser. The saddest fund-raiser in the history of fund-raisers. I’ve spent the entire day avoiding the crime scene, searching for Sam, letting everybody know that I’m fine, putting on a brave face for the kids, pushing Ryan’s “offer” into a dark corner of my psyche, while the entire time I’m slowly unraveling. My hands won’t stop shaking either. I find myself on the brink of tears for no apparent reason. And I’m scared. All the time. I can’t close my eyes. Crack. Crack. I’m positive something is lurking in the shadows and I can’t stop mourning a woman I was just getting to know. I walk into our office, barely functioning. Jill is already bustling about.