Page 16 of As a Last Resort
That’s the thing about staying in the same place.They moved on.They got to go somewhere new—together.But I’m stuck here, in all the places where their ghosts still look at me from across the room.
5
SAMANTHA
With the Rock Island contract in the near-distant past, I decided to trade in my predictable Sunday of run, shower, and work at a nearby coffee shop to browse the weekend morning market near my apartment.
Ivy said I needed to live a little.Breaking my routine was the least I could do.
Baby steps.
And Jack was still ignoring me.No response to any of my apology texts afterthe texton Friday.I debated going to his apartment but didn’t want to look desperate.Maybe he just needed time to cool off.I did, in fact, forget his complete existence for a few hours.My feelings would probably be hurt too.
“Hello, sunshine!”Italian Marco called out as I walked by his flower stand.
I gave him my best smile.“Today feels like a flower day, Marco.”
He clasped his heart and looked toward the sky.“I have nothing as beautiful as you for sale, but I will try.”
I wondered if he grew out his mustache and dyed it black as part of his wholething, a direct contrast to the vibrant rainbow of colors splashed across his stand.
As I wandered through the ranunculus and garden roses, “Tainted Love” blasted from my phone.
I pushed ACCEPT.
“Hi, Mom.”My insides braced for what was to come.I never knew what version of my mother I’d be getting, especially at 9:00 a.m.—theI-just-woke-up-twelve-hours-soberversion or theI’m-still-awake-from-an-all-night-benderversion.
“Hey, sweet pea!How’s your Saturday?”
“It’s Sunday, Mom.”
“Do you remember Melissa Makecroft from elementary school?”
Aaaaand here we go.“No, doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Well, I ran into her mother at the grocery store yesterday and she just got divorced.Apparently, her husband ran off with his secretary after she had a miscarriage.Isn’t that awful?”
“Wow.Yeah, that is awful.”I was half listening.My weekly calls from my mother always included thorough updates about childhood acquaintances I didn’t care about.
“You used to run around with her when you were little.She’s the one who froze your underwear at your fourth-grade birthday party.Do you remember that?She was always a mean little thing.”
“Nope.Don’t remember her.”I picked up a bouquet of large white and light pink garden roses in full bloom.I loved the way the petals curled in on each other.
“Well, you remember Johnny, her brother.He’s still sleeping around with half the girls in town, spreading syphilis like it’s butter on a knife.That poor mother.She had a fifty-fifty shot at one of them turning out.”
“Sooooo,” I drew out, trying to change the subject without setting her off.“Have any fun plans for today?”
“Are you coming home for the Fourth?”
She was hitting all the fun subjects at once.
The famous Fourth of July block party on the island was when people from high school who never left poured into downtown,their kids running barefoot down the middle of the street holding a lit sparkler in one hand and a hot dog dripping ketchup on their Old Navy flag tank top in the other.
The last block party I came home for, I ran into Boston Smith, the star quarterback of our football team and my junior and senior year crush.He was the hottest guy in school, one of the nicest, and not surprisingly, not one of the smartest.There’s that saying,Not the brightest crayon in the box.I don’t even think his crayon made it into the box to be considered.We were partners for two years in chemistry, and I basically took every test for him.He turned and waved when he saw me, and gave me an enthusiastic “Hi, Sasha!”I was mortified.
A tall blonde turned around with a baby on her hip.Of course, it would be the one and only fearless leader of the Blondtourage, Crystalapparently-now-Smith because the mean girls always snag the hot guy in the end.She gave me a condescending smile.“Oh, her name’s not Sasha, babe.What is it again?Gosh, it’s been so long.”
And that wasn’t even the worst of the visit.
