Two Feet Off The Ground Read online

  I checked my cell again. Still nothing.

  I called her again. This time she answered in a breathless giggle.

  “Where are you two?” I asked.

  “We’re at the mall. Want to meet us for an ice cream break?”

  My smile spread naturally this time. One more night of faking it wouldn’t kill them. “I’ll be right there.”

  I shuffled down the aisle, shoving the wrapper in my pocket and tossing the box of tampons on a shelf in between a can of almonds and a box of granola bars. I passed a worker wearing a blue apron and a smiley face pinned to his chest. His name tag wilted to the side. I handed him a five dollar bill on my way past. “That’s for a candy bar I ate. Keep the change.”

  * *

  I remembered when the Providence Place Mall first opened. I was decked-out in a gorgeous, sequined cocktail dress I had dug up off the floor under a clearance rack at Macy’s. Aziza had wrapped my hair up into a messy crop at the base of my head, and doused me with a healthy squirt of Design Beautiful perfume before I headed out the door. The city’s top dignitaries and VIPs had attended. I had landed the shot to schmooze my way into a conversation with the head of the Department of Health, which totally made my life at that point because, after forgetting to pay my licensure fee, my cosmetology license had been voided. I could no longer practice as a licensed hairstylist legally, and the little bitch at the other end of the phone line at the Board of Health just snickered when I had started to cry. Well, thanks to an opportune conversation with Jacky Pullman, the daughter of the CEO of the construction company that built Providence’s new pride and joy, I had been able to meet the head honcho of the health department and resumed cutting hair the legal way.

  Now, almost a decade later, the mall teemed with back-to-school shoppers whose children probably were not even alive at the time of the mall’s grand opening. One mother tangled at least ten bags from her arms, mangling her wrists with their strings as she dashed towards the escalator towing a few scrawny kids behind her. Another kid mouthed off to his mother because she wouldn’t buy him the sneakers his friend Billy just bought. Thank God Owen wasn’t a brat.

  I cut through a line of people shuffling up the escalator towards the movie theater. Even from one floor below, the smell of buttery popcorn circled the air and compelled children and adults to raise their heads up and breathe it in deeply.

  People zigzagged through the crowded aisle, stealing a pace here and there by cutting off unsuspecting shoppers. Children attached to bungee leashes pulled their parents along, while others snuggled up to blankies in their strollers and stared up with bright eyes to the pretty lights above.

  By the time I finally rounded the corner to the ice cream shop, I had elbowed two people, stepped on a man’s toe, and cut off an elderly woman on a scooter. Why was everyone out to get me that day?

  I peeked inside for them and only saw a cook wearing a white folded cap leaning back from a blow of steam and a young waitress with a ponytail dangling half way down her back, wiping a table clean. The smell of brownies and waffle cones melted into a sweet aroma and masked the slight scent of greasy French fries.

  When I turned around, Owen jumped out in front of me and beamed. A ring of chocolate traced his mouth. “Hi, Mom!”

  Paula hugged me immediately.

  “We have matching shirts,” Owen said from behind us.

  My face squished up against Paula’s chest, I snuck a peek at their shirts, which were as breezy and southern Californian as one could get. “We bought you one, too,” she said, releasing me to take in the full view of their bright, colorful shirts. The belligerent patterns partied together, spilling all sorts of noise and chaos around them. She handed me the shirt.

  My head hurt. “Thanks.”

  “Look, Mom.” Owen stepped up and handed me some brochures. “We picked up some info on California! Coach said if you say yes, I can go parasailing with her!”

  I glanced down at the picture of a man flying through the air with an over-sized kite attached to his back. He would hate me in a few days.

  “We’ll see.” I patted his head. “How about we get that ice cream?”

  * *

  Later that night, with Owen shuffled safely off to Jake’s house for a night of movies, popcorn, and endless rounds of video baseball, I knocked on Paula’s front door and entered. I heard her clanking dishes in the kitchen. I passed four towering stacks of brown moving boxes each labeled in Paula’s neat print. Office, bedroom, basement, patio.

  I gulped.

  She scooted around the kitchen island as though on hockey skates, shuffling from one plate to the other, stopping to garnish, to sprinkle, to toss. She looked up at me with those almond eyes and smiled.

  “Hey, beautiful,” she said, now pouring olive oil over the salad without looking.

  Her kitchen smelled like a pizzeria. Garlic and mozzarella melded together. My stomach growled. “I thought we were just ordering delivery.”

  “I thought I’d surprise you with something more special.”

  She stuck a pot holder the shape of a chili pepper on her hand. When she opened the oven, the sweet and fruity smell of pineapple swept over me like a teasing summer breeze—its pleasantry short-lived, but nonetheless powerful and lingering. A cruel reminder of what was about to unravel.

  “I made California-style pizza. Oh, and I also made, just a sec…” She placed the steamy pizza on the stovetop and tore her mitt off. She ran over to the fridge and pulled out a coconut with two straws peeking out the top of it. “Home-made piña coladas!”

  “Oh, wow,” I said, stepping back, beating the nagging pulse at the back of my throat down so it wouldn’t hurl up and ruin the moment.

  She cupped the coconut and brought it to me. “Take a sip.”

  Circling my lips around the straw, I sucked up a mouthful of the milky sweetness. It trickled down my throat, coating it in a comforting layer of all that was perfect with Paula.

  The tips of her fingers traced my cheek. I latched onto the love welling in her eyes, knowing any second that love would be replaced with something bitter, regretful, angry.

  I nuzzled my cheek up to her hand, savoring the last few crumbs of love I’d surely ever feel again in my lifetime.

  One last time. I deserved one last time with the woman I loved.

  Pushing the coconut aside and clearing the spatula and bowls of salad from the counter, I leaned into her and kissed her. Hungry, impatient, blood pumping through my veins like a freight train late for a delivery, I pressed my lips against hers with force, afraid if I lightened up my touch, she would slip away out of my grip and go tumbling down the side of the mountain without me. Without me.

  One last chance to make love to her. To feel her breath against my face, my neck, my breasts.

  She lifted me on the counter, but I slid down and urged her body up instead. I needed to taste her and bottle her memory airtight in a private pocket in my mind so I’d never forget her aroma, the tangy, the sweet, the salty, the delicious combination of her.

  She obliged. She pulled down her jeans and lifted herself on the counter. I poured my love into her, caressing her, guiding her to that special place that only we could get to together.

  After she came, she laid back against the cold granite countertop, next to two salad bowls overflowing with lettuce and avocado and a crispy oven-baked pizza fattened with chunks of pineapple and mushrooms, exposed, vulnerable, completely clueless about the real cause for the tears streaming down her girlfriend’s face.

  * *

  The hours passed. The pizza long since devoured. The coconuts bone dry. We curled up side-by-side on the sofa and took naps. At least she did. I just laid there wondering at what point would be most appropriate to destroy our lives.

  The monologue I had prepared earlier that day traveled off somewhere else. I couldn’t even remember the first sentence, let alone the whole ten minute preamble I had rehearsed over and over again. I searched my mind for a way to b
reak into the relaxed smile on her sleeping face.

  Maybe in an hour? Another day? At the airport?

  I shifted to rise from the couch and she woke. Her eyes bloodshot, her face groggy, yet as peaceful and content as a vacationer far away from anything reminiscent of everyday life. “Hey, where are you going?”

  “To get a drink of water.” I lied. I didn’t want anything to wash away her taste from earlier.

  She stretched her eyes open. “Are you crying?”

  I felt my throat clamping shut.

  I needed air.

  I walked over to the picture window and cracked it a few inches. The fishnet air coming through was humid, not refreshing at all. Smelled just like the moldy dust of the vacuum bag after sucking up Deogie’s fur at the salon.

  I breathed it in anyway, struggling to get it past my throat and into my lungs. My lungs burned and only allowed a small amount to squeeze through. But enough to keep me alert, and unfortunately in the moment; in the moment I dreaded since that first day she told me about California.

  I could fool others into believing I had the power to face my fears. Not myself, though. Leading up to that point, every time she asked how my treatments were coming along, I laughed and pretended to be over it, figuring maybe I could be eventually. I should’ve known better.

  Now, riddled in guilt, I hurt just looking into her trusting eyes.

  She placed her steady hand on my shoulder. I turned to face her and drank in that last bit of understanding and concern.

  “What’s going on?” Paula asked, her voice sputtering out, as though she already knew.

  I just shook my head. The inside of my mouth dried up like a desert, all scratchy and parched, cracked into crevices that swallowed my essence whole. I scrunched my face up into a wince not sure how to begin.

  Nagging questions circled my head like an annoying bee.

  Maybe we could have a long-distance relationship?

  Two thousand eighty eight miles.

  Maybe I’d be alright once up in the air?

  Thirty thousand feet.

  What’s the worst that could happen?

  Turbulence. Death. Worse, burning alive.

  I wanted to go back to the Brown quad, to our first kiss, to watching her dance and sing to a crowded audience, to that first night on the beach under the moonlight.

  All my life I ran from fear. I let it wrap its nasty daggers around my throat and strangle me, dooming me to a lonely, pathetic life. I crouched in its shadows and turned my back on its evil pranks. I stood back and allowed it to steal from me. Steal my fun, my dreams, my chance at rising above the cowardice I’d always been chained to. My dignity. My son’s pride in me. And, now Paula’s faith in me to be who I’d pretended to be these past few months.

  She searched my eyes. “What’s bothering you?”

  I struggled to remember my speech. Even a word. Nothing. All I could do was blurt out, “I can’t do this. I can’t go to California with you.”

  And just like that, my world crumbled down around me. Not from a scream, or a harsh accusation, but from one single truth-induced, biting statement. “I can’t believe you’re just giving up,” she said, backing away.

  I stared into her disappointed eyes. Pity loomed. A much different look of pity than the one my parents drenched me in year after year whenever they’d travel on vacation in our van instead of a plane.

  Anger would’ve been easier. I wanted her to yell, lunge, curse, spit, anything but pity me.

  “I’m sorry I turned out to be such a disappointment for you,” I said, choking back the sadness that clogged my lungs.

  She closed in and cupped my face in her hands, touching her lips ever so slightly to mine. “You should be more worried about disappointing yourself.”

  Then, she walked away towards her hallway, turning back one more time. “I hope someday you can summon up the courage to do something really wild and crazy just to spite your fears. I think that’s the only way you’ll ever understand how great it is to be alive.”

  I kept my eyes glued to her as she left, drinking in what would most likely be the last sight of her, the most remarkable woman I’d ever met.

  I wished I could be that woman she thought I was.

  * *

  A few minutes after I pulled out of her driveway, I drove around the bend from her house and pulled off to an empty church parking lot. I angled my car against a grove of trees towards the back of the parish hall and jammed my car into park.

  Then, I sobbed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The time leading up to D-day stretched one agonizing hour after another. After a week and a half, Owen finally acknowledged my presence when he bumped into me in the hallway on his way to the shower that morning.

  I couldn’t blame him for hating me. He said I ruined his future. We merely coexisted. He huffed by me, slammed cabinet doors, locked himself in his room, and even skipped Tuesday night ice cream two times in a row, which was the most serious indicator to me that forgiveness was far off.

  Thankfully after I sidestepped out of his way, he stopped to say thank you, which as far as I was concerned, opened a real doorway to peace talks. He even managed a smile before walking out the door an hour later.

  “Owen’s finally coming around,” I told Aziza, who sat across from me in our favorite back row booth at Frank’s Diner.

  She studied my face. “You look like shit.”

  “I don’t care.” I buttered my biscuit, then tossed it back onto my eggs, disgusted with eating, drinking, breathing. It all required too much effort. Effort I just couldn’t face.

  “How are you really doing?” she asked.

  “She’s leaving tomorrow and I haven’t heard from her.” I stirred my black coffee. “How do you think I’m doing?”

  She curled her hand around mine. “I know it’s tough. But, I promise it’ll get easier.”

  I yanked my hand away. “I don’t need your pity.”

  “That’s it.” She paused to swallow a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “I’m going to cancel my day tomorrow. We’ll go shopping, have lunch, and I’ll even treat you to new shoes.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ve already made plans.”

  “Oh?” She creased her eyebrow. “Doing what?”

  “Getting my teeth cleaned.”

  She scoffed. “No way. We’re going shopping for shoes and getting you out of this funk. No arguing.”

  “I don’t care about a new pair of fucking shoes.” I slid against the slippery seat and climbed out of the booth. “I just need to be alone right now.”

  * *

  D-day arrived. I scanned the bins at Lee’s Beauty Supply for shampoos that would protect my new auburn color from spilling down the drain too soon. The night before, tired of feeling lonely and numb, I doused my blonde hair in bonfire red and prayed the change would lift my spirits like it used to in my hairdressing school days. After I rinsed and blow dried, a fiery blaze of tangled strands toiled together. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize myself. The red dye ran down my elbows and splotched across my shirt. The tears welled, and I dropped to the ground to clean the dye from the grout in my bathroom floor. Even the red blotches on my knees afterwards didn’t hurt me. Nothing did. I felt empty as a black hole, sucking everyone into my bottomless abyss of misery.

  I picked up a bottle of Color Save and checked it out with the young girl at the counter who chewed gum and didn’t bother to look up at me. When the clerk handed me the receipt and bag without as much as a thank you, I stormed out and yelled over my shoulder, “You’re welcome.” Then muttered, “bitch” as I hammered the pavement with my heeled boots.

  Was anyone happy anymore?

  * *

  “Just call her,” Aziza said ten minutes later when I called her from my car and whined.

  “She’s done with me. She hasn’t even tried to contact me since we broke up. I wish she would’ve just yelled at me. I hate this silent treatment.”

 
“Then be the one to end the silent treatment,” she said.

  “And say what? She’s leaving. I’m staying. What more is there to say?”

  “You’ll cave and call her eventually, so why not just get it over with?”

  Within five minutes of hanging up with Aziza, and a few hundred attempts to press send, I finally did. I drew a deep breath and braced myself.

  A beep pierced my ear, and then an automated message told me that Paula’s number had been disconnected. Someone honked from behind, another person swerved on the side of me and chucked the bird. I just stared at my phone. I pressed send again to make sure I called the right number.

  “Drive your freaking car, lady,” someone screamed at me.

  Sure enough, I had called the right number. The message repeated again and again. My chest burned when I drew in air. Brakes screeched behind me. More horns honked, and people screamed all around me. Suddenly my car jolted up over the sidewalk and collided with a set of wrought-iron table and chairs outside Sam’s Café. My face vaulted off the steering wheel.

  People ran out of the café and stared, their mouths gaped open so wide I could stuff a loaf of bread in their mouths, and they’d still have room to breathe. A man in an apron dashed over to my side. He smelled like donuts and French vanilla coffee. He offered me a napkin to wipe the blood trickling from my cheek. The gash pricked, like a dull razor blade against the back of my ankle.

  One woman flagged a waiter and asked him to fetch a blanket or tablecloth. “She might be in shock. We need to get her warm,” she said to the young guy with spiky hair and a stud perched on his upper lip. The color faded from his face and, when he turned to escape, he wretched his knee on the leg of a table sticking up in the air.

  I still clutched my cell phone in my right hand, staring down at it, willing Paula to pick up her disconnected phone.

  “Are you hurt?” the man asked.

  I wriggled my legs free and climbed out. “I’m fine.”

  Sirens blared in the distance, people whispered, a dog snuck in to get a sniff, wait-staff tossed broken hunks of metal off to the side, another person swept the glass from the sidewalk. My car still idled on the curb, the backend sunk into the street below.