The Breakup Doctor (31 page)

thirty-four

  

One week later on a Saturday night, I found myself standing exactly where I never thought I would be: in the lobby of the Neapolitan Theater, a bouquet of fresh purple irises in my arms, as I waited with Sasha and Stu—who were holding hands in a way that I hoped would eventually look less incongruous to me—for my mother to come out from backstage after her show.

Sasha's article about her had run this morning, timed to coincide with opening night, and I'd read it not knowing what to expect.

It was excellent—Sasha's writing always was. But she had done a particularly insightful job with my mom. It wasn't the sycophantic love-fest I'd half feared it might be, but a thoughtful, realistic portrait of a complex woman—practical and creative, an artist and a wife and mother. My mom had talked about our family a little—not much; she was private by nature, but with a gentle, proprietary pride. Even about my dad.

I looked over to where he stood by a pilaster, his plastic stem glass of wine forgotten on a table at his elbow and a spray of white lilies in his hand. They were her favorites.

I'd expected my father to look awkward in his suit, uncomfortable, fidgeting with the tie around his neck as though it were a too-tight leash. But he wore it like Cary Grant, the suit jacket filling out his chest and shoulders in a way that made him seem bigger, more solid. “Tall, slender men wear clothes better than anyone else,” my mom had always said, and looking at my dad in his dapper charcoal gray suit I had to agree. He was lit up with pride for her, no hint in his expression that he was anything other than thrilled to be there, supporting his wife.

My heart was pounding strangely. I hadn't laid eyes on my mother in almost two months—since the day she'd dropped the Mom Bomb and I'd stormed away from the house. I'd spoken to her only once—the day I cut my foot. When she'd walked out tonight for her first entrance I felt as if I were in a vacuum, not so much distant from my own body as apart from it, lost from almost her first line in the story unraveling on the stage. I expected to feel disoriented watching my mother perform, but it didn't feel like I was seeing her at all. The regal, brilliantly scheming, emotionally aching woman on the stage was someone else entirely—a stranger to me. My dad was right—she was a star up there.

When a door at the back of the lobby opened and my mother stepped out of it, I felt tears rush inexplicably to my eyes. Queen Eleanor was gone now, and it was her again—just my mom.

She looked out over the crowd of friends and family milling around talking to their own loved ones in the cast and crew or waiting for someone to come out from backstage. Her gaze landed on my dad, and they just looked at each other for a long moment that felt slowed-down. I saw the uncertainty in her eyes, the hesitation, and then I saw the instant she got what she was looking for. I didn't know what it was—reassurance, validation?—because I couldn't see his face, only her reaction. But I didn't need to see it. She'd looked for him first—looked
to
him—and whatever happened, I knew that in some way everything would be okay.

Dad hung back while Stu and Sasha and I met Mom halfway down the expanse of the lobby. Sasha plunged into a hug; when she pulled back she touched Stu on the elbow in a gentle, familiar way, and he stepped forward and gave Mom his usual one-armed hug and said something I couldn't hear from where I was standing, but it made my mother smile.

And then I was in front of her with my irises. “Mom,” I said, and I held them out. She took them and smelled them, even though she was the one who taught me irises had no scent and that was why they were always the perfect flower to bring to a hostess whose preferences and sensitivities you might not know.

“How did you like the show?” she asked me, her face half-hidden amid the purple-and-yellow blooms.

I told her the truth: “You were great, Mom. You are amazing.”

She lifted her head up and she was smiling at me with the Mom smile, her camera smile, the one that didn't let her gums show.

“Thank you, Brook Lyn.”

I stepped closer to her and wrapped my arms low around her waist, the way I had when I was a little girl, before I had outgrown her and started curling an arm around her shoulders instead.

As I felt her arms come around me, heard the crinkle of the plastic around the flowers brushing my back, smelled her Sung perfume, I hoped she'd heard everything I meant, and that I wasn't just talking about the play.

  

We had all ridden separately—Sasha and Stu because they were staying at a hotel down in Naples tonight and spending tomorrow at the beach, and my father because, to my surprise, my mother had asked him to come to the cast party with her, as her date.

I drove back home alone, and on the darkened, quiet late-night stretch of Tamiami Trail that led back to Fort Myers I thought about Kendall. About what had gone wrong between us, and how much of it was inevitable because of how raw we'd both been when we started the relationship, and how much I would never understand. I wondered how much of the way I handled our breakup might not have been about Kendall at all, but about the wounded places I'd sectioned off after Michael.

And then, as if evoking his name pried open the compartment I'd shoved him into and slammed shut so tightly, all the memories of our two years together flooded over me like storm surge crashing over a seawall. Finally, I let myself think about Michael. About the way his green eyes had crinkled up at the corners when he smiled. About his laugh—a loud bark of a thing that made me laugh, too, every time I heard it, even if I didn't know what was funny. About his unbottled enthusiasm about everything he ever took on, whether it was working on a new song or learning to ride a motorcycle...or me.

I remembered the day I met him—we were in adjacent stalls at a self-serve car wash on Gladiolus, and he popped his head around the concrete-block corner to ask—not if I could loan him some quarters, or had change for a bill—but whether I could trade him a dollar for a hundred pennies.

I had smiled as I gave him the dollar and waved off the coins. “Why do you have a hundred pennies?” I asked.

And he shrugged and said, “My dad's a coin collector. He's been trying to find a 1943 copper penny—only forty were ever struck—so I sometimes buy a few rolls just to help him look.”

I thought about how little kindnesses like that, those small thoughtful gestures, were so much a part of who he was: taking my car to a gas station every month to check the oil and the wiper fluid and the air in my tires; warming my side of the bed on nights when it got below sixty, because he knew I hated cold sheets; bringing me small gifts for no reason—my favorite candy bar, a CD from an artist I'd mentioned liking, a spray of gladiolus because he noticed them while he was standing in line at the grocery store and knew they were my favorites.

I was happy with Michael—happier than I had ever been in a relationship. But more than that, I was proud. I'd spent my whole adult life helping other people make smart choices, helping them learn not to be self-destructive, how to be rational, to hold high standards for themselves and stick to them. I had never let myself lose my head over a man; never let myself get too deep into a relationship once I realized someone wasn't worth it—never pulled a Sasha. I practiced what I preached to my patients and my friends, I stayed true to my beliefs, and I waited for a man who was everything I said a partner should be. When Michael and I got engaged, I felt like a walking banner for a life well lived, as if I were the perfect embodiment of everything I professed in my practice and among my friends and family, a shining example of how to do it
right
.

I loved Michael. I really did—it was hard not to, with his relish of everyday life, and his energy and sincerity, and his unalterable optimism. But for whatever reason, we hadn't worked out—he had gotten spooked, or changed his mind, or panicked, or who knew what. As with Kendall, I would probably never know all of the reasons it wasn't enough. Why I wasn't enough for him.

But his abrupt departure from my life left me with more than just a broken heart and a head full of confusion. It took away the thing I was most proud of—my judgment—and left me feeling no smarter than anyone else where relationships were concerned. I could see now how much that had hurt me, beyond the pain of losing him. I wasn't just rejected—I'd been invalidated.

Maybe Kendall had simply been a reaction to all of that. He was the exact opposite of Michael—buttoned-up, careful, traditional. Maybe, more than anything, he was an overcorrection.

I thought I'd loved Kendall too...but had I just been proving something to myself? Trying to undo what had happened with Michael, to show myself—and Sasha...and my mother—that I hadn't made a mistake. That I knew what I was doing. That I was still doing it right.

Maybe I'd been so busy judging Kendall as a broken person when I met him, someone to stay far away from where a relationship was concerned, I hadn't seen that
I
was broken too. Broken and not ready to pursue something new with anyone else.

The same way I had been the night I called poor Ben Garrett and used him to palliate my own wounded feelings after Kendall walked out on me.

My mind shifted to Ben. To the way he'd shown up for our date with an open smile on his face; how he drove me home because I wasn't in any shape to drive, and let me take over his car stereo, never complaining even when I was maniacally changing stations like a deejay with ADD; and the way he threw back his head and laughed when I'd turned his ICAN joke around on him.

I'd made every mistake in the book with him—asking him out at the last minute, using him to get back at Kendall, never returning his call after what was actually, for me, a really good date. And he was a good guy. Not perfect. Not the exact “right” type of man. But nice.

Nice was a start. For now, nice was enough.

But I'd never returned his call after our date, and that had been three weeks ago.

I flicked my eyes to the numbers glowing on the dashboard clock. Nearly eleven o'clock on a Saturday night.

Sasha's good advice played through my head as I took a deep breath—into my diaphragm—and let it slowly out. In. Out.
All
of Sasha's good advice played in my head—that I was only human, like everyone else. That mistakes were only stumbles, and you picked up and moved through them, and you did the best you could, and you hoped for the best, and if it didn't happen...you just reached for the people you loved, the ones you could count on, and then you tried again.

I picked up the phone and scrolled through my call history. When I found Ben's name I pressed it; the call connected, and the line rang. Rang. Rang again. Of course—it was Saturday night. What did I expect? Suddenly the ringing stopped and a voice I was surprised seemed so familiar said, “Brook...hi!”

One last breath, because with my suddenly racing heart, I needed it. And then:

“Hi, Ben. I hope it's not too late to call.” I meant it in every way possible.

He laughed—the open, warm laugh I remembered from our lone date more than a week ago, and said, “It's a little late. But not too late.”

An unexpected smile crawled over my face and I felt something loosen around my chest as I opened my mouth to talk, not sure whether something stupid was going to come out of it, but willing to take the chance.

About the Author

  

  

Phoebe Fox has been a contributor and regular columnist for a number of national, regional, and local publications; a movie, theater, and book reviewer; a screenwriter; and has even been known to help with homework revisions for nieces and nephews. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two excellent dogs.

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