A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [133]
“Well, you don’t look too fine.”
“No, but I will be.” Jean nodded and forced a smile as tears welled in her pale blue eyes. She said she’d been dreading this day for months and now had only a few more hours to go before it was over. A year ago today should have been her wedding day, but it hadn’t worked out that way.
“Oh, no,” Delores said, trying to hide her surprise. Jean was well into her sixties.
Jean explained that she had stayed single because of a lengthy relationship with someone who finally got a divorce, then died two days before they were to be married in Palm Beach. “We had everything ready. Tickets bought, bags packed, then suddenly it was almost as if he just disappeared into thin air. You know how I found out? I had to read it in the newspaper. His death notice. That’s how cruel his family was, how little regard they had for me. His son even asked me not to come to the wake and the funeral. ‘Out of respect to the family, ’ he said. What was I? I said. After almost twenty years, what was I?” Jean said. She stood by the door, staring out at the huge cast-iron urn spilling over with ivy and pink and white petunias. This morning she had showed Delores how to pinch them back for more blooms.
“That’s so sad,” Delores said.
“You know what he said? The son, when I asked him that? He said, ‘I’ll tell you what you were. You were a fool. That’s all you ever were.’”
“That’s terrible!” Delores cried with true indignation. “I mean, you loved him and he obviously loved you.”
“Now that I look back, I see that we were always very good friends. If we’d been two men or two women, it would have been so much easier. Really what we did was use each other. Because of me he could stay miserably married all that time, and because of him I didn’t have any risks. I didn’t have to have any other relationships. I could put all my time and energy into the business. Well!” Jean said, perky smile returning. She began to sort out the credit card receipts. “There you have it, my dirty little secret. Sooner or later, one of my ladies would have told you. They find it quite tragic. Especially the young ones. I can tell by the way they look at me. As if I have nothing. Nothing at all. When the truth is, I have everything I’ve ever wanted. The problem is, for a long time I wanted what I thought I was supposed to want.”
The goose bumps were still on Delores’s arms as she stood out on the sidewalk, fighting the urge to beat on the locked door and beg to be told more. More what? About her own life and what she should do about Albert, who was back—two nights in a row now at five forty-five for a drink and a snack, something light before he went home for dinner.
When she got home Albert was already there, laying out his martini ingredients. He was searching through the freezer while news blared from the TV. Frozen peas and frosted blocks of chicken and hamburger patties were stacked on the counter.
“Where’s the Grey Goose? I’ve looked all through here.”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know?” he asked with frantic churlishness. “There was at least half a bottle left.”
“Maybe someone drank it, I don’t know.” She opened the closet, put her purse up on the shelf, then stood there a moment. The apartment smelled of his feet. His rolled tie was on the coffee table. His worn shoes lay akimbo by the bathroom door where he’d kicked them off. The bathroom was always his first stop. The water was running in the toilet. She jiggled the