Wynn in Doubt
Authors: Emily Hemmer
also by emily hemmer
The Break-Up Psychic
(Dangerously Dimpled, Book One)
Plus None
(Dangerously Dimpled, Book Two)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 by Emily Hemmer
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503948198
ISBN-10: 1503948196
Cover design by Kerri Resnick
This book is for Lena and the women of my family who inherited her legacy: Wilma, Billie Jean, Rebecca, Kim,
Jamie, Carrie, Kristen, Lauren, Emily, Corrie,
Kiley, Lilly, Brynn, Margaret, Catherine,
Hailey, and Collins.
And it’s for you. Go. Dream as big as you can.
Have the life you want.
contents
preface
My great-great-grandmother’s name was Lena Buchanan. In many ways she inspired the book you’re about to read. She was a wife, mother, sister, and daughter, and by all accounts she was a lovely, kind woman. On August 29, 1917, just past eight o’clock in the morning, Lena was shot and killed by her husband on the sidewalk in front of a department store. He then turned the gun on himself and ended his own life.
She was thirty years old.
My grandmother told me about Lena’s death when I was in my late twenties. She told me how her mother, aunt, and uncle were separated, each sent to live with a different relative after the tragedy of that day. A few years later I discovered the original newspaper article, which would, for me, hold great significance. What it said, and what it didn’t, set me down a path of self-discovery I remain on to this day.
Lena had filed for divorce from her husband in the weeks prior to her death. Can you imagine being a woman with three small children and filing for divorce in 1917? It would’ve meant public scrutiny, financial hardship, and a departure from the only life she’d known for more than a decade. How much courage must it have taken to stand, alone, against so much uncertainty?
I began imagining what Lena’s life could have held had she lived. Would she have gotten a job, stood on her own two feet? Would that have made her proud? Could she have been happy in a new town? Made new friends? Did she want to explore the world? Was there a chance she could’ve found love again? True love? Every time I looked at her picture, her story became bigger, fuller.
Although
Wynn In Doubt
is not about Lena, it is, at its heart, inspired by her life, which was cut too short. I wanted, in some way, to give her another ending. One that allowed her to be young and brave in a world that often makes it hard to be either. More than that, I wanted to honor her memory and the legacy of strong women she left behind.
Her daughter, my great-grandmother, was a fierce, intelligent woman. A force to be reckoned with. My grandmother was wild in her youth and headstrong all her life. My mother—articulate, bold, loyal, and kind—is my rock. And my sisters and I are, I hope, a mixture of them all. Now we have daughters to pass the story onto. Daughters who will grow up with the strength of five generations of amazing women standing behind them.
This is not Lena’s story. It’s Wynn’s story. She’s a young woman looking at her life and asking, is there more? How much of what I want for my life is possible?
I hope you enjoy reading this book. I hope it inspires you to not take life for granted but to go out and seek what makes you happy, no matter your age or situation. That’s what Lena wanted. Regardless of what happened that day, remember that she was brave enough to try and write her own ending. She knew a hundred years ago what many of us struggle with right now: that life is what we make of it, and our greatest responsibility is not to waste it.
—Emily
one
Those lips touched my lips once. They were warm and soft and made my stomach drop three feet to the ground, right next to my pink polka-dot espadrilles.
I draw an invisible heart around his face with my finger. Oliver Reeves. The best and most beautiful thing to ever come out of Downers Grove North High School. And that’s really saying something, because Denise Richards went to North. Her family moved away before she graduated, but there’s still a picture of her in the glass case at the front entrance.
I worked night and day to maintain my 4.0 GPA. I was president of the government club, editor of the school newspaper, and chairman of the Students Against Destructive Decisions council for four years. But I guess to get your picture in the glass case, you had to have a three-way with Neve Campbell. Oh well.
Champagne bubbles tickle my tongue as I flip through the yearbook, knowing every page where his face appears. Here he is at Homecoming, crown on his head adorably lopsided as he poses for a picture with his date. And where was I that night? I was sitting at home in my Hello Kitty pajamas, eating chocolate ice cream out of a tub with a Snickers bar and reading
Angel
fan fiction.
There’s Oliver in his soccer uniform. Knee-high socks clinging to muscular calves. Even in high school, the guy was tall and broad and walked with a certain swagger. A walk that said,
I know what I want to do with my life.
This made him unique among every other person at North, including the teachers. I followed him to every away game, watched every amazing play. My best friend back then, Lisa Menopolous, was disgusted with me. Not that I could blame her. I was pretty gag worthy.
Another drink, a big one. The dress I wore to my younger sister’s engagement party will have to serve as my nightgown this evening. I’m too depressed for pajamas. Tabby’s getting married. She’s getting married, and soon she’ll be living in a gorgeous new house with her gorgeous new husband and probably 2.5 gorgeous new children.
And I’ll remain in this one-room apartment with no career, no money, no boyfriend, no . . . life. Forever. Because that is the fate of a brunette born into a family of blondes.
Page 124. The Torture Picture. A black-and-white candid of Oliver covers almost every inch of the glossy paper. He stands, lips parted and eyes closed, on the stage in the school auditorium, a guitar hanging casually from one shoulder. That was the last night we ever spoke. The night he kissed me. The night my fate was sealed.
Because once I kissed Oliver Reeves, I never wanted to kiss anyone else.
Not that I’ve been a
nun
since graduating ten years ago. I’ve had a handful of well-meaning, boring boyfriends who each lasted somewhere between meeting the parents and cohabitation of toothbrushes. But none of their kisses were ever as exquisite as the one Oliver gave me in the gym parking lot. I can still feel the lightness in my chest. Like I could have floated right off the asphalt and into the night sky.
I used to think there was nothing worse than being in love with him at sixteen. I was constantly on edge, waiting for him to smile at me in the hallways or acknowledge my existence in physics class, always half-terrified he would. I was wrong. Because being in love with him at twenty-eight is much, much worse.
And I have Anthony Laurito to thank for it.
Rolling Stone
magazine lies open at the foot of my bed. I slide one bare leg from beneath the covers and grab the pages with my toes, pulling it toward me.
Oliver’s band, Multitude, is the focus of a few short paragraphs on the third-to-last page. It seems that after touring for the past seven years, selling out midsized venues, and opening for acts like Green Day and Blink-182, the band has called it quits. Thanks in part to a rather cantankerous relationship between Oliver and the band’s drummer, Anthony Laurito.
The article goes on to say that the lead singer has decided to take some time away from the spotlight and return to his hometown of Downers Grove, Illinois, for an undetermined hiatus.
I’ve spent ten years thinking of Oliver and his lips. When he left, just after graduation, I told myself the next time I saw him I’d be living a fabulous life. A life full of stories to tell. I’d be restoring priceless works of art at the Louvre or just returning from my second Everest expedition. I would be worthy of his attention. I would be different. I would be better.
But none of those dreams have come true. My life got stalled somehow. Like one of those watches that stops turning if you don’t wind it. But it’s not the time that’s stopped; it’s me.
I place the magazine on the pillow next to my head. Oliver’s handsome face stares back at me. He’s lived so much already, seen things I’ve only dreamed about. I actually went to one of his concerts once. It was my twenty-fourth birthday. I went alone and stood near the back. I couldn’t even see his face most of the time, but his voice reminded me of being young, and that made me sad. Because Oliver had a dream and he made it come true, and I couldn’t do the same with any of mine.
“Why does this have your name on it?” Franny, her golden bob in disarray, holds out a turquoise necklace.
Tabby and I look up from our positions on the floor. “I called it,” Tabby says.
“You
called
it? When?”
“When Grams went into the hospital.”
Franny narrows her eyes and places a hand on her hip. “Let me get this straight. While our ninety-three-year-old grandmother lay dying in a hospital bed, you came over to this house with a label maker to stake your claim on her costume jewelry?”
“She told me I could.” Tabby holds up a pair of matching turquoise earrings, obviously confused by Franny’s tone.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, she did.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, she d—”
“Girls,” our mother interrupts, stepping into the room. “My God, it’s like you two are in pigtails all over again. There’s plenty of jewelry laid out in the dining room, Franny. Take something from there.”
“But that’s not the point, Mom.” Franny gestures at Tabby, whose vacant expression is as lovely and pleasing as it was when our parents brought her home from the hospital twenty-six years ago. “She can’t just come over here and label things. We’re supposed to be splitting everything evenly.”
“Grams told me to take whatever I wanted. She said I inherited her good taste.” Tabby unfolds a mink stole from the box beside her and drapes it across her slender shoulders.
“Mom!” Franny complains.
“Stop it. Both of you. This is a somber occasion, remember? Our last week in your grandmother’s house? My family home.” Mom’s voice cracks as she picks up a silver picture frame from atop the dresser. Her smile is frail, as though it could come apart at any moment. “After next Sunday, it’ll belong to someone else.”
I rise and step over Tabby’s legs to wrap an arm around my mother’s waist and lean against her shoulder.
“She was beautiful, wasn’t she, Wynnie?” Tears slip across the smooth surface of her cheeks. She’s cried so much these last few weeks, I wonder if she’ll ever be able to stop.
I squeeze her. The photo is one of my favorites, my grandparents on their wedding day sixty-plus years ago. It’s black and white, but I can imagine the yellow of her hair, coiffed and curled into perfection, and the electric green of her eyes. Tabby resembles her most, except for the mouth. I got her mouth. Full, pink lips, perpetually pouty, frowning too often. But on that day, the day of the photograph, hers were bent into a radiant smile as she stared at the handsome young man, dapper in a black tuxedo, beside her.
“I miss her.” The words threaten to stick in my throat.
“I know you do. I do, too. But we got to have her for a long time.” She lowers her voice to a whisper against my ear. “She loved you so much. She was proud of you.”
I take a deep breath, trying to stop my chin from wobbling, and turn into Mom’s hug. She doesn’t know about the argument. It happened right before Grams had the stroke.
I’d been offered a teaching position at a small school in Guatemala. It’s run by a non-profit out of Chicago, and I’d thrown my name into their applicant lottery the year before. I never thought they’d call. It was just a whim, an old dream that came floating, unexpectedly, to the surface. Things like that don’t happen for me. Because I’m the rock. The one that’s always around. The one everyone depends on. Every day, something else for someone else. And I fucking hate it.
It’s a terrible thing to resent your own life.
So when they called and offered me the job, I said yes. Not out of any great desire to make the world a better place. I just needed a reason to leave. To become someone else.
I gathered my courage and blew the dust off my passport. I decided to tell Grams first. She’s always been . . . always
was
. . . my greatest ally. I knew she’d worry, but ultimately I thought she’d be happy for me.
I was wrong.
I told her I was leaving and she said it was selfish. That I should be ashamed. I didn’t understand where it was all coming from. I still don’t. Her anger felt old, and it made me flinch. She might not have understood my need to leave, to wander and explore, but she knew I wanted it. How much I’ve always wanted it. Maybe it was just the first time she actually believed I’d go.
I was hurt and confused by her reaction. I struck back, accusing her of living a purposeless life. One void of anything bigger than herself or what she wanted, what she knew to be right and wrong. I loved her with all my heart, but there were times when her expectations left me feeling suffocated.
She died a week later. The doctor thought she might recover at first, but she passed away in her sleep on a Sunday morning.
I held her hand and kissed her a thousand times, but I never told her I was sorry. I think in the back of my mind I worried that if I apologized, it would mean I’d finally given up, and I couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not even for her.
I did turn down the job, though. How could I leave my family right after her death? They needed me. Grams had needed me. Shame and regret over our last words have followed me like a shadow. My sisters can carry on, knowing they were good granddaughters and content with how things ended. Everything ends, after all. I guess the difference between the three of us is that I’m still waiting for something to begin.
Franny, oblivious to the somberness that’s settled over the room, asks, “What’re we doing with all these wigs? Throwing them out?” She picks up a beehive-styled wig from the bedside table.
My mother releases me. “I don’t know. Not throw them out. It’d be such a waste. They’re expensive, you know?”
“But who’d buy someone else’s used hair?” I ask, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
“Maybe we could donate them to the homeless,” Tabby offers.
Franny, wig in midair, looks down at our beautiful baby sister. “Why would the homeless want used wigs?”
“Maybe they could use them during winter? To keep their heads warm?”
Everyone looks at Tabby.
“You’re going to be someone’s
mother
one day,” Franny states, her eyes wide in disbelief.
Tabby, outraged and offended, pulls the stole off her shoulders. “Mom!”
“Alright, enough. You girls finish in here, and I’ll be in the kitchen with your father.” She replaces the photo on the dresser, then looks at each of us in turn. “No more fighting. Understand?”
Shamed for the moment, we hang our heads.
“I said, do you understand me?”
“Yes ma’am,” we say in unison, then wait until she’s out of earshot to throw things at one another.
“Okay, enough!” Franny dodges a pillow. “We need to stay focused. I’ve got to be out of here by five. Who wants to do the closet?”
Shouts of
“Not me!”
come nearly simultaneously. As usual, my voice is last. I could claim slow reflexes, but the truth is, putting what other people want before what I want, even unconsciously, has become habit. A therapist told me it was transference. That it’s easier for me to put other people first because there’s no risk involved. No chance of losing out on all those dreams I keep dreaming about. But his appointments coincided with my nephew’s Little League games, so I never learned how to reverse the cycle.
Franny hands me a cardboard box, and I settle into the dark, musty space of the small walk-in. All the clothes and shoes have been removed, donated to Goodwill in the week following Grams’s death. Mom couldn’t stand the thought of her clothes hanging in the closet, never to be worn again. But even with them gone, the familiar scent of Virginia Slims mixed with White Diamonds hangs in the air.
I miss her so much. The way she hugged me, like I was the most precious thing in the world. I miss her patting my hand while we watched TV together and kissing the crown of my head whenever she stood behind me. I should have told her I was sorry, that I wouldn’t leave. Why couldn’t I do that simple thing? I remove a pillow from a waist-high shelf and bury my face in it, inhaling her scent.
“Oh God, are you going to be able to handle this?” Franny’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.