Banana Split (10 page)

Sadie bit her lip, realizing she hadn’t talked to Gayle like she’d promised Pete she would. Right now seemed like such horrible timing, but she couldn’t justify putting it off. She took a breath as she brought the phone to her ear and sat down on the edge of her bed.

“Hi, Gayle,” Sadie said, remembering her goal to be brave every day. Since writing it down, she’d already had many opportunities to test her resolve. This was one more challenge she had to face.

“Sadie,” Gayle said, sounding a bit surprised that Sadie had answered. “How are you doing?”

Sadie considered the list of assurances she could use to explain herself and put Gayle at ease. However, there were more reasons not to do that than supporting justifications to keep pretending everything was okay. “Actually,” she said, feeling nervous and hating it, “things have been a little rough.”

“Really? What’s going on?”

Sadie took a breath and laid it all out there.

“Oh. Wow,” Gayle said when Sadie finally ran out of words. Sadie braced herself for the inevitable “Why didn’t you tell me?” comment, but instead, Gayle shored up her best friend status and said, “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“So am I,” Sadie said. She then told Gayle about the therapist and about Charlie coming over. “I’m feeling all . . . mixed up about everything. Pete’s trying to find the social worker. I feel so anxious and driven and scared. It’s confusing.” She left out that she also felt incredibly vulnerable.

“I struggled with anxiety after my divorce,” Gayle said, sounding embarrassed. “I look back now and can see there was some depression mixed in, but it was awful, not being able to trust your reactions to things, being afraid and not knowing why, not being able to see ahead or make sense of things that happened.”

Sadie’s throat thickened, and she nodded before realizing Gayle couldn’t see her. “I’ve never felt like this before,” she confided. “I’ve always been a strong person.”

“You’re still strong,” Gayle said. “Anxiety doesn’t make you less than what you are at your core, but it’s really hard to see
you
amid everything else that’s going on. And coming up with coping mechanisms to deal with it just compounds things.”

“Coping mechanisms?” Sadie repeated.

“Things that protect you from the anxiety,” Gayle clarified. “Like not going out as much to avoid things that seem scary, or drinking too much, or getting angry so no one can see you’re so scared—things like that.”

Sadie automatically listed the coping mechanisms she’d developed to avoid her own anxiety—not making friends, not being honest with the people who cared about her, and isolating herself. She hadn’t seen them as things she was doing to avoid scary situations that would trigger her anxiety, but with Gayle’s definition fresh in her ears, she could see them for what they were.

“I’m so sorry you’re facing it,” Gayle added after a pause.

“But you got better?” Sadie asked, needing hope.

“I did,” Gayle said. “For the most part. I still have moments, but I know how to deal with them now, and I know why they’re really there. And, believe it or not, I think I’m stronger because of that period of time; I learned how to confront hard things in new ways. I had a good therapist and some great friends.”

“I didn’t even know,” Sadie said, feeling bad she hadn’t been one of those great friends. She hadn’t even noticed.

“No one knew, other than my kids and my sister,” Gayle said. “But that doesn’t mean great friends didn’t help me all the same. You were always my cheerleader, even if you just thought I was devastated that Harold left me like he did. My friends helped me have somewhere to go, and they let me be angry, which I needed to be, and they let me see that there was still life to be lived.”

Sadie nearly asked why Gayle hadn’t told her about it—maybe she could have helped more—but she already knew the answer. It was the same reason why Sadie had kept things to herself: embarrassment, fear of rejection, not feeling capable of carrying the burden of knowledge for someone else who would then worry.

They talked until Gayle arrived at her office; she’d called Sadie while she drove back from lunch. “I’ll call you later, okay?” she said.

Sadie thanked her, and they ended the call. A few minutes later, her phone rang again. It was Gayle, and Sadie furrowed her brow, wondering what Gayle had forgotten to say.

“I thought you were at work,” Sadie said.

“I was, I mean, I am.” Gayle took a quick breath. “I’m just gonna throw this out there, and I already know what your automatic answer will be so just don’t say it right away, okay? Just think about it for a minute.”

Sadie braced herself. “O-kay.”

“I told you how Denny’s niece, Barb, has been training with me for a few weeks, right?” Denny was Dr. Lithgo to everyone else and the best optometrist in Garrison. Gayle had managed the front desk and optical center of his practice for almost sixteen years.

“Yes, that’s why you could take your vacation and visit me next week,” Sadie said. Barb was going to be running the new optical office in Sterling when it opened in May. Dr. Lithgo was bringing on a new doctor who would split time with him at both locations. Sadie’s heart stilled for a moment as she considered that maybe Gayle couldn’t come, that something had happened and Barb couldn’t cover for her after all.

“Right,” Gayle said. “The opening for the Sterling office has been delayed, again, which means she’s going to be in the office with me for an additional three weeks. We’ll be lucky to get it open by Memorial Day at the rate things are going.”

“I’m sorry,” Sadie said. When she’d talked to Gayle almost two weeks ago, the conversation had been full of complaints about Barb, who had just started her training. Gayle liked to rule her own roost and was irritated by the younger woman being underfoot within her domain.

“It’s okay,” Gayle said quickly. “The thing is, I have, like, two months of vacation stacked up and no reason to stay here now that Barb knows how to do everything. What if I came out there sooner? Stayed two weeks instead of one. I could use the break.”

Sadie blinked. “Uh . . .”

“I know your automatic reaction is to say no,” Gayle said in a rush. “That’s why I want you to think about the responsibility you’d be taking upon yourself to deny me the chance to come out there when I have coverage at the office and I am in such
desperate
need of a vacation. I mean we’ve already established that you’re dealing with a lot of pressure right now. Do you really feel capable of carrying the burden of denying me an extra couple of weeks in paradise along with everything else?”

“Are you using my anxiety issues to manipulate me into agreeing to have you come?” The banter felt good, though. Really good. Sadie knew she was safe with Gayle.

“I’m not sure I’d say it quite like that.”

“How would you say it, then, if I gave you a second chance?”

“Um.” Even though Gayle was thousands of miles away, Sadie knew she was biting her lip and twisting a lock of her red hair between her fingers. “Okay,” Gayle said, gearing up for a second attempt. “Please let me come,” she begged. “Did I tell you that Barb is a size four and every day talks about how she needs to lose weight? She doesn’t even look like a grown woman. If she needs to lose weight, what does she think when she looks at me?”

Gayle had never apologized for being a full-figured woman. It helped that her figure, full though it may be, was amazing. Still, skinny women who whined about their weight had always rubbed her the wrong way. “She’s making me crazy, Sadie. If that’s not enough to convince you I need a longer vacation, it’s been raining for three weeks out here. Sadie, spring is being held hostage, I swear, and I am going crazy. And did I mention that I found out George wears a toupee?”

“No,” Sadie breathed, a smile hovering around her lips.

“Yes!” Gayle said. “We were on the couch, watching a movie, and I started running my fingers through what I
thought
was his hair, and he tried to stop me. I thought he was being playful and . . .” She made a shuddering sound. “I managed to avoid him for a few days, but then he confronted me on my way to my car after work. I told him how I feel about fake hair, and he had the gall to call me shallow. Me! I have depth, Sadie, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to settle for a man lacking in self-confidence, oh no it does not! I think I had already taken great strides by dating a man named George in the first place, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere.”

Sadie put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

“
Please
let me come sooner,” Gayle said. “It will solve all my problems, and maybe help you out too.
Please.
If you need some time to think about it, that’s okay. I can call you after work or something.”

“Can you even change your tickets?” Sadie asked.

“I’m sure I can. One of my clients works part-time for Delta, and he helped me when my aunt Grace’s funeral was bumped back a few days to give her son time to come home from Iraq. Barb and I are stepping all over each another, and now that the Sterling office is being delayed, she’s going to be underfoot even longer. The office will be fine—better, even, without Barb and me racing to answer the phone at the same time. I just need you to tell me you want me to come sooner than we planned and to stay longer. I can take care of everything but that.”

Did Sadie want her to come? Her instant reaction was to feel bad at having Gayle go to such expense, time, and money to fix Sadie. Though veiled as a solution to all Gayle’s problems, Sadie knew this was really Gayle coming to the rescue. She wasn’t used to playing the damsel in distress role, but Gayle had told her not to go with the automatic answer. What, then, was Sadie’s second answer?

“Like I said,” Gayle continued when Sadie didn’t say anything. There were trace amounts of defeat in her tone. “You can take your time to think about it. I’m really not trying to put you on the spot or—”

“Yes,” Sadie cut in.

“Yes?” Gayle repeated, her tone rising. “Really?” she practically squeaked.

“Yes,” Sadie said with a laugh, though it quickly fizzled. “But, you have to know that I’m . . . different.”

“I know,” Gayle said in a motherly way. “And I understand.”

“And I’m looking into the life of the woman I found.” Saying it out loud was hard. Really hard.

“Ohhh,” Gayle said.

Sadie heard a warning of caution coming and hurried to cut Gayle off. “I know that, based on my history and what’s going on with me right now, it might not seem like the smartest thing to do, but I just . . . I have to make sure Charlie’s okay. I have to answer those questions about his mom.”

“No, I get it,” Gayle said, and her voice was calm, sweet and sincere.

Did she get it?
Sadie wondered.
Could she?

“I can be your wingman, okay? I’m not going to get in the way, I promise.”

“I can’t wait to see you,” Sadie said, feeling a smile pulling at her cheeks. “It’s so beautiful here. Thank you, Gayle.”

“Thank
you,
” Gayle said quickly. “You haven’t met Barb and you haven’t seen George’s toupee so you can’t adequately appreciate what you’re saving me from. I’ll let you know the details as I get them worked out, okay?”

Sadie said good-bye and hung up, her stomach churning with emotion. Guilt? Fear? Vulnerability? She didn’t know what it stemmed from, but it wasn’t any more uncomfortable than her usual discomfort. And then she smiled. Gayle was coming! Discomfort aside, she would have a friend here. Not just any friend—her best friend who understood, at least to an extent, what Sadie was dealing with. Maybe Gayle could help her connect back to the Sadie she’d been when she left Garrison. What would it be like to not be alone anymore? It had been so long that she wasn’t sure she knew how to feel about having companionship, but it did feel good, and good was . . . good.

Less than fifteen minutes later, she received a text message from Pete with the name and phone number of the social worker based in Lihue who had been assigned to Charlie’s case: Tate Olie. After the contact information, Pete had added a note:

I’ll call when I have some time. Good luck.

She’d need it. Things were coming together faster than she expected, and she feared that at some point it would all crash over her like a wave in the impact zone—lethal to many an unsuspecting surfer who was unfamiliar with what lurked beneath the waves. For now, though, she was still paddling out to sea, in hopes of finding that perfect wave that would bring her in unscathed.

Chapter 11