She’ll be there. The potential to run into her is unavoidable. I will do my best to ignore her and hope any interactions with her are quick and painless. People may talk about my lacking presence, but I don’t care. I’m in self-preservation mode.
“Come on.” He takes my hand and leads me away from the bar, from my beloved new friend,ClitVodka. I trail after him as he drags me to the bedroom, the room that used to belong to Earl but is now mine.
It’s dark inside, the blackout curtains drawn tight. Cliff lets go of my hand and marches over to the window, hitting a button so the shades pull back automatically, slowly and steadily revealing the sunshiny day. The cityscape laid out before us. The tall buildings, their windows glittering in the sun.
I throw up a hand, blocking my eyes and hissing. “Too bright.”
“God, you’re such a fucking vampire,” he says drolly as he heads for the walk-in closet. I kept all of Earl’s bedroom furniture, and the room still smells like him, which makes me think I need to get rid of it.
I need no reminders of my dead husband. I should probably sell this apartment, but where would I go? I don’t want to move in with my father. I can’t move in with my mother.
For now, this apartment will have to do.
The minute Earl was laid to rest, I hired someone to completely revamp the closet, donating all of his clothes to charity before I moved in my own extensive collection.
Oh, his children were pissed at me. I didn’t even give them a chance to go through everything, but they wouldn’t want it anyway. And what if they found something? A little clue tucked away in Earl’s trousers or jacket.
I couldn’t risk it.
Besides, his children just wanted to be angry with me, and I get why. I’m an easy target. The brand-new, much younger wife. Their mother is dead, and to them, I’m a pariah. Younger than all of them, which I’m sure disgusted them.
Whatever. The only thing they couldn’t get me on was going after Earl’s money. I paid them fair market value for the apartment. I let them fight over the money in his bank accounts, even though it was split evenly among the four of them, according to Earl’s will. He may have married me, but he didn’t add me to his will, so I had no real say in anything.
I didn’t mind. I still don’t.
“What are you doing?” I wander into the closet, my steps weaving. I slap my hand against the wall to brace myself. “Oh God, you’re picking out something for me to wear, aren’t you?”
“I have to, considering you’d rather show up in a dress that looks like something your granny would’ve worn in the fifties.” The look of contempt on Cliff’s face cannot be denied. “As if Christian Dior himself designed it in 1952.”
I glance down at the Dior dress I’m wearing before my gaze finds his. “How did you know?”
“I am a fashion expert, darling. How dare you doubt me.” He begins to flick through each garment hanging in my closet, dismissing them with a murmured insult.Too pink. Too exposed. Too much. Too little.
I say nothing, like I usually do. Instead, I rub at the front of my dress, along the placket of buttons that run down the center of the bodice. “My grandmother did so happen to wear this dress.”
“Knew it.” His voice is smug. “Was she as tiny as you?”
“Tinier. I don’t think rich women in the fifties even ate.” I tap at the belt around my waist.
“Too many barbiturates to take to keep you looking and feeling your best. God, I wish I would’ve lived during that time. I would’ve been a skinny queen who didn’t eat a damn thing, spending every night with Andy Warhol at the Factory.” The dreamy tone of Cliff’s voice makes me laugh.
“That’s more like the sixties,” I remind him.
“Whatever.” He pulls a hanger out, revealing a soft blue dress that’s one shouldered with the occasional ruffle here and there. “Oooh, where did you get this?”
“At a tiny shop in the Hamptons a lifetime ago.” I approach him, plucking the hanger from his fingers. “I bought it when Earl was still alive and we were out at his house for the summer, but I never got a chance to wear it.”
Cliff glanced down at the dress, his frown apparent. “Hmmm.”
“You don’t like it?” I question.
“It’s not that I don’t like it.” He puts the dress away and keeps looking before I can say anything in protest. “More that we need no memories of Earl tainting the day.”
If he only knew. I don’t actually mourn Earl, not really. More, I mourn the girl I was before him. Before I married a man I didn’t love and lost the only one I actually care about.
Life is full of stupid choices and then you die. Someone said that to me when I had that brief stint at the mental facility a while ago. The one where my mother thought it would completely change me and solve all of my problems. I tried to fix myself.
I did.