Once Upon Another Time (39 page)

Hearing his voice
made me feel weak, like I was about to cave and give in to fits of crying. 
Instead, I hung up the phone, opened my file drawer, and pulled out the
phonebook.  I flipped through the yellow pages, found the listing for hair
salons, and quickly ran an index finger down the column.  Angel Hair, Beehive,
Creative, DaDa’s, Erenias, Gemini’s, Giorgio’s--that was it, Giorgio’s, the
salon where Vanessa worked.  

I grabbed the
phone and punched in the numbers, hoping Vanessa wouldn’t pick up the phone,
and on the other hand, hoping she would.

“Giorgio’s,
Adrianna speaking, may I help you?”

“Yes, could you
tell me if there are any openings for Vanessa today?”

“No, I’m sorry
she’s not working today or tomorrow, and she’s booked on Friday and Saturday. 
She’ll be back on Thursday if you want to call back and talk to her about
possibly squeezing you in.”

“Thank you,” I
said sweetly, and hung up the phone.  I clenched my hands into fists to keep
them from shaking.  I couldn’t believe Gavin actually took her with him!  I couldn’t
believe I had trusted him!  I couldn’t believe I’d been so gullible!  It was
just one more thing to add to the dossier on Gavin Donnelly--the man who showed
me I could love again, but in the process, broke my heart.

* * * *

Nicholas sat
cross-legged on the kitchen chair, and polished off half of a large wedge of
sausage and pepperoni pizza in big bites.  Grease glistened on his lips and
chin.  His blue nylon Spider-Man backpack hung over the back of his chair.  The
bright yellow plastic casing of an electronic handheld game Gavin had surprised
him with, had peeked out from the zippered side pocket.

“You have homework
tonight?”

He shrugged his
shoulders, as Buster stood on his hind legs with one paw on Nicholas’s lap, the
other swatting to reach the wedge of pizza Nicholas held.  “Not much.  Mom,
where’s Gavin?” 

“He’s out of town
on a business trip.”  Still hadn’t decided what I was going to tell my son come
Friday when I’d officially break up with Gavin. 

Nicholas took
three big gulps of soda, then picked a piece of sausage off his wedge of pizza
and put it under Buster’s nose to sniff.  “Mom, Gavin told me he was going to
set up a bunch of games we could play at my birthday party so everyone could
win a prize.  Like birthday party bingo, but we would use M&Ms instead of
those plastic things, and a treasure hunt with clues to find Spider-Man’s
buried treasure box.  He said we’d fill it with candy and prizes.  Oh, and Web
Walk, too, for my Spider-Man theme.  Do you think we can play Fear Factor?” he
asked.  He placed the piece of sausage Buster had turned his nose up at, on a
napkin, and wolfed down two more bites of pizza.

“Gavin told you he
was going to help with your birthday party?”

Nicholas nodded
with eyes wide with excitement.  He chewed quickly and swallowed hard.  “Yeah,
we talked about it on the ride to the pet store.  The day we looked at the
gerbils and rabbits.”

Annoyed at Gavin’s
cavalier actions, I got up from the table and walked over to the kitchen desk. 
“Look what I have,” I said as I pulled two packs of birthday party invitations
from my purse and waved them in the air.  I was hoping the invitations would
derail Nicholas’s thoughts about Gavin.

“Wow, those are
cool!”  Nicholas licked his fingers, took the pack from my hand, and ogled the
red and blue Spider-Man illustration on the front.

“After you get
your homework done, we’ll make out the invitations and tomorrow you can pass
them out to your friends at school.”  Tears pricked the back of my eyes, as I
examined the excitement on my son’s face.  He’d felt closer to Gavin than any
man he’d ever known and he counted on him to be at his birthday party three
weeks from that day.  Anger flared inside me, while thinking about Gavin and
that his actions were going to break my son’s heart. For the life of me, I just
couldn’t understand why our relationship fell apart. 

* * * *

The cicada were
especially noisy that evening with their on and off chirping, as if they just
couldn’t settle down and feel content.  I sat up in bed and ruminated over my
decision of not wrapping things up nice and tidy before Gavin had left on his
business trip.  The whole mess could have been over.  At best, I would have gotten
closure instead of the resentment that kept building inside me. 

A heavy wave of
nausea hit me.  I looked at the empty can of nuts beside me on the night
table.  Mr. Peanut, with his uppity British monocle smirked back at me. 
You
weren’t supposed to eat the entire container of cashews
he seemed to
sneer.  I imagined a Mrs. Peanut taking the cane from the aristocratic little
pansy and beating the peanut butter out of him.
 Okay, I’m a nutcase.  Ha! 

As I lurched from
bed, cashew pieces fell from my nightgown to the floor stabbing the bottom of
my feet.  I stomped off to the closet and like an anxious ferret, I darted
around collecting remnants of Gavin, his underwear and socks, and yanked a
couple of shirts and two pairs of pants off their hangers, then slipped into my
high-tops and scurried downstairs to the living room.  

With Gavin’s
clothing flung over my shoulder, I plucked his Scrabble game from the coffee
table, cut through the kitchen, barreled down the hall, through the mudroom and
into the garage.  I flipped the switch on the light and looked around.

“Let me
see...where’d he put them?”  I tapped a finger to my chin and searched for the
water skis and rollerblades Gavin left in my garage. 
Ah, there they are
. 
They were hanging on the wall right above the huge box that sat on the concrete
floor that held Gavin’s artificial Christmas tree.  He had asked me to store it
for him since he had no room in that ongoing construction zone he called his
house.

I pushed the
large, lighted button on the wall that activated the garage door and flipped
the switch to turn on the backyard floodlight.  As the garage door lifted, I
wheeled Nicholas’s Red Flyer wagon out from the corner of the garage and dumped
Gavin’s clothes, underwear, and Scrabble game into it.  I tried to load the box
with the artificial Christmas tree into the wagon, but it was too big and
bulky, so I lifted one side up, got my hands firmly under the box, and dragged
it out of the garage and all the way across the backyard.  Reaching the arbor,
I set the box down on the grass to open the gate on the white picket fence, and
flipped the box end over end and let it fall onto the sandy beach. 

Breathless, I
stormed back across the yard and into the garage.  As I yanked the rollerblades
down, the J hook flew off the wall and pinged as it bounced off the hubcap of
my Chevy Blazer.  After dumping the rollerblades into the wagon, I tugged the
skis from the wall.  They accidentally knocked into a wooden shelf, flipping it
off its brackets.  Clay pots, gardening tools, and tin buckets crashed to the
concrete floor.

“Dammit!”  I threw
the skis into the wagon, grabbed a box of matches and a can of lighter fluid,
and chucked them in with the rest of the stuff.  The wagon shimmied, as I
pulled it across the bumpy backyard with skis and rollerblades rattling.

Sallie’s back
porch light went on.  I dropped down on all fours; a twig jabbed at my knee as
I scrambled away from the wagon and hid under the lilac bushes to get out from
under the floodlight.  
Damn shelf!

Sallie pushed
aside the café curtain and peered out the kitchen window.  As soon as she
disappeared, I shot to my feet, grabbed the handle of the wagon, and bolted
across the backyard running toward the beach like a soldier on a reconnaissance
mission.  As soon as I hit the sand, the front wagon wheels sunk.

Tugging on the
handle, the wagon wouldn’t budge.  I gathered everything into my arms the skis,
rollerblades, clothing, underwear, matches, lighter fluid, and Scrabble game. 
My eyes bubbled over as I tried to gulp back tears, while dumping all of
Gavin’s items on top of the box that held his artificial Christmas tree.

My chest pounded
as I pumped the can of lighter fluid, three, six, twenty times in long streams
arching over the pile.  I stood back, struck a match, and tossed it onto the
heap.  A low flame traveled swiftly across the top of the clothing, igniting
the skis and fanning out to cascade over the sides of the box like a
waterfall. 

As the box
containing the dry fake tree exploded into tall whooshing flames twisting
skyward, I’d found myself on my knees in the sand, tightly grasping one of
Gavin’s dress shirts, while tears stained my cheeks.  After six years of failed
relationships, I thought Gavin was the one, my soul mate and I couldn’t
comprehend how it had all crumbled.  As I sat back on my legs, I buried my face
in the sleeve of Gavin’s shirt, and took in the faint scent of his cologne. 
You’re
stronger than this McCory.
  I let the shirt fall away from my face and
tossed it into the fire. 

Orange flames licked
at the pile of Gavin’s possessions and burned bright against the black of
night.  Tiny fiery pieces of fabric floated up like dancing fireflies around a
campfire.  By morning, it’d be a heap of ashes, singed rollerblade wheels, and
twisted, blackened metal pieces from an artificial Christmas tree.  Sad
remnants of a relationship lost. 

Dammit Gavin,
why didn’t you love me?

“Hello?” a voice
called out in the dark.

 Startled, I
sucked in a breath and brushed the tears from my face.  Looking over my
shoulder and squinting into the beam of a flashlight, I reached for the sky
when I saw a police officer standing in the path of the floodlight.  A small
paunch folded over his holster belt and pushed past the light jacket he wore. 

“Is this your
house?” he asked. 

“Yes--yes it is!” 
I said stalwartly.  I lowered my hands and casually rose to my feet, while
brushing the sand from my knees. 

“Ma‘am, step over
here please.”

Pushing the gate
open, I walked into the backyard and stood in front of him.  I kept my arms
down at my sides then nervously brought them together, interlocking my
fingers.  The officer looked at the flames shooting up from the pile on the
beach. 

“Did you start
that fire?”

“Ah, yes, just
thought I’d clean out my garage and get rid of a few things.  Make a bonfire,
grab a bag of marshmallows.  I haven’t been sleeping well lately and--”

“Are you aware
that it’s against county ordinance to burn rubbish on the beach?  Or burn
anything for that matter at this time of night?”

“Sorry
officer--I--I had no idea.” 

“Well, you’re
going to have to put that fire out.  But first I need to see some
identification, like a driver’s license.”

Great, he’s
going to phone in a background check on me and find out Laura and I got ourselves
arrested for car theft.  

“Hello,” chirped a
high-pitched voice in the darkness. 

The officer looked
surprised, as Sallie sauntered into full view under the floodlight and stood
beside him.  Her Jayne Mansfield look of a sheer baby doll nightgown and pink
satin slippers, definitely trumped my Beverly Hillbilly’s getup of a granny
nightgown and red high-top sneakers.

“Oh my God,”
Sallie said, gushing and cooing, as she hugged herself from the chill in the
air.  “Kevin, is that you?”

“Sallie?  Sallie
Johansson?  Is that you?”

“It is!” she said
with a giggle, while swaying from side to side, as she locked her fingers
behind her back.

The police officer
puffed out his chest.  “What has it been, ten years?”

“Hmm, I think
we’re approaching our fifteen year high school reunion,” she said.

“Well,” he said,
as he lifted his chin to leer at her.  “You don’t look a day over eighteen.”

Hell-lo-o-o. 
I’m the one who’s supposed to be getting the attention here.
 

Sallie shifted her
weight to one leg and girlishly twisted a lock of long golden hair around her
finger.  “Oh Kevin, you are so sweet.  Do you have time to come in the house
and catch up?”

Officer Kevin
looked at me.  His brow furrowed, as he brought his hand up and rubbed the back
of his neck. 

“Oh, I can vouch
for her,” Sallie piped up.  “I’m the one who made the call thinking someone was
burglarizing
the neighborhood,” she said, while gazing at the mess I’d
made in the garage; broken clay pots, gardening tools, and buckets strewn about
the floor. 

Officer Kevin
glanced at the fire, then at me, then back at the fire then at Sallie whose
shapely silhouette showed through her sheer nightie.  “Ma’am, you able to get a
garden hose out to that fire?”

“Sure, no
problem.  I’ll put it out right away.”

He gave me a quick
nod.  “Okay.” 

Officer Kevin
slipped off his jacket and draped it over Sallie’s shoulders.  “Thank you,” she
cooed and seductively slipped her arm through his to pull him along.  “I had no
idea this was your beat…” 

Her voice trailed
off as she and Kevin the cop disappeared into the darkness.  Never before had I
appreciated having “man bait” living next door.  I spun in the direction of the
fire and felt solace burning inside me.  As flames did a gentle tango across the
top of the burning heap, I felt as if I was on a pyromaniac high and viewed the
fire as happy restful flames--flames of contentment. 

Back in the house
standing in a steamy shower washing the smoky smell from my body, I let my
worries trickle down the drain with the suds.  Three days without much sleep,
my only thought was to lay my head on my pillow and quickly go off to
dreamland.  Although physically beat, that evening, my spirit felt rejuvenated. 

Turning off the
water to the shower and sliding the glass door open, I pulled a towel from the
bar, and wrapped it around my body.  Clouds of steam roiled through the
bathroom, blocking sight of everything like a whiteout in a snowstorm.