Charming Falls Apart Read online

  AFTER A SURPRISINGLY enjoyable morning, we settle down for a late lunch at the 3 Arts Club Café in the Restoration Hardware. After our salads are ordered and our sparkling water poured, my mother points to my ring and says, “So I’ll ask again. Have you talked to Neil?”

  There it is. Now that I’m trapped at a table and can’t go running off, she finally brings up the real purpose of today’s outing. I shake my head. “I haven’t spoken to him since he came over to get his stuff.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?” she asks.

  I don’t want to. It’s humiliating. But she’s my mother, and it’s better that she knows the real reasons before someone else tells her. Besides, once she knows the truth, she’ll finally be on my side.

  “Neil broke it off because he was having an affair with Stacey. He told me he loved her and not me.” Each word hurts to say aloud, but there it is.

  The look on my mother’s face is pure horror. “That slut!” she hisses. Hearing my perfectly coiffed mother with her tasteful bob, manicured nails, and pearls, say the word “slut” almost makes me choke and sputter out my water. Finally, for once her displeasure is directed at someone other than me. I might just order a glass of champagne to celebrate.

  She leans back in her chair tapping her nails on the table while she digests this information. Then shaking her head slowly, she says, “You know, I never liked that girl. She was your friend, so I never said anything, but I always thought she was opportunistic and untrustworthy.”

  “Yep.” Preaching to the choir, Mom. I look around for our server to order that champagne and continue, “I’m still in shock. But it takes two to tango, so I can’t blame it all on her.”

  “Well, now I know why Neil wouldn’t tell me what happened.”

  My stomach turns and I forget the champagne. “What do you mean? When did you see Neil?”

  “I called him.”

  “What?” I stare at her, hoping I misheard.

  “After you told me the news, but refused to talk to me, I called him to find out what was going on and see if I could apologize for you.”

  “Apologize for what exactly?”

  “For you, my dear. For any misunderstanding. But the poor boy was being just as secretive as you. He just kept saying he was sorry and that I should talk to you.”

  “Why in the world would you apologize to him? And apologize for me?” I can hear the blood rush to my head and feel an angry vein begin to throb in my brain. Neil took her call and not mine, and she called to apologize for me?

  “I just know how you can be sometimes.” She waves her hand airily. “But I see now that this is Stacey’s fault.”

  I take a deep breath and press my fingers to my temples trying to stop them from pounding. “Let’s be clear. This is all Neil’s fault. Neil cheated. Neil broke it off. Neil is the one to blame.”

  “You’re still wearing your ring though.” She points to my hand. “Perhaps this is a blip? A case of last-minute jitters? It happens with men. Though you’ll have to get a new maid of honor. What about Jordan? I like that girl. She’s a straight shooter. She’d probably shoot Neil if he did something stupid again.” My mother laughs at her own joke.

  The only reason she is still talking is because I’m speechless. Luckily, our server saves me from saying something I might regret by bringing us our salads and giving me a moment to collect my thoughts.

  My relationship with my mother has always been complicated, but right now a serious boundary has been crossed.

  I take a deep breath. “I’m not getting a new maid of honor because there isn’t going to be a wedding.”

  “Oh, darling. I know you’re hurt. It’s an outrageous thing that he did, but you’ve been together for so long. This is a stupid mistake that he’s probably sorry about, and you won’t know how he feels if you don’t talk to him.”

  “Mom,” I say sharply, not bothering to hide my exasperation. “I know how he’s feeling. He felt like calling it off. He said he didn’t love me. He hasn’t tried to contact me since. It’s over.”

  My mother leans forward. “Honey—”

  Holding up my hand to interrupt her, I retort, “I’m sorry, Mom, but your Big Day isn’t happening, and you’re just going to have to get over it.”

  Though I’m not hungry, I take a forkful of salad and stuff it into my mouth.

  Unfortunately, my words are not enough to stop my mother from prattling on about the wedding and Neil. But I refuse to engage her and ignore her suggestions for couples counseling or a quick weekend getaway to hash things out. There’s no talking sense into her, so I just remain quiet and nod (my standard operating procedure when dealing with her brand of crazy) for the duration of the meal. After lunch and outside the restaurant, I say goodbye on the sidewalk. “Thank you for taking me out today and for the bag, but I better get back to job hunting.”

  “Think about what I said about couples counseling. It can’t hurt. It’s not like it’s going to make anything worse at this point.”

  I don’t point out that the “worse” is that my mother wants me to marry someone who cheated on me and told me to my face that he doesn’t love me. Feeling betrayed by the two people who were supposed to love me unconditionally, all evidence is pointing to the fact that there is obviously something wrong with me.

  ON MY WALK home, I reflect on my relationship with my mother. There’s no saying “No” to Theresa James, which is why it wasn’t even worth it to argue about her suggestions for patching things up with Neil, who effectively took an Uzi to our relationship, obliterating it beyond repair. As an adult, I’ve learned it’s just better to nod along and then send my mother on her merry way.

  I’ve read enough pop psychology in women’s magazines to know that her needing to control a situation, or, in this case, my life, is her way of worrying about me. Now, why she is like this, I don’t know (and I don’t dare ask). But, frankly, her anxiety about my life mirrors my own right now. And, I must admit that my mother’s advice isn’t always bad and has sometimes served me well. In fact, the truth is that following my mother’s “rules” is what got me through high school and into adulthood pretty much unscathed.

  My mother is petite, but I was a tall kid taking after my father’s side of the family. And while five foot seven isn’t that tall as an adult, it felt that way growing up, as I shot past the boys in grade school until things eventually evened out my freshman and sophomore years in high school. But while I was always the tallest kid in my grade school classes and endured nicknames such as Big Bird, I was secretly proud to always be picked first in gym class. (As a child, I was more of a tomboy and was always running around outside or playing basketball with my brother and his friends.)

  When I was in eighth grade, my family moved into a bigger house and better suburb with a great public high school. Unfortunately, in my mind, the new school wasn’t going to be so great since none of my friends would be following me there. Also, what was called “bullying” at my old school was mild since we’d all known each other since preschool; but through the grapevine, I’d heard the horror stories of freshman hazing at my new high school and couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen to me there.

  When my mother took me shopping for new school clothes at the local shopping center, we walked past a group of teenage girls standing outside of The Limited. I noticed them giving me the collective stink eye, and one even rolled her eyes at my unfashionable cut-offs and T-shirt borrowed from my brother. I wish I could say at fourteen I had the self-confidence to shrug it off, but it worried me. The mean girl’s sneer probably indicated that there were going to be worse things in store for me than being called a lovable Sesame Street character.

  My mother took in the exchange without saying anything, and when we went into the next store that the girls had been coming out of, she went directly up to the saleswoman and said, “Whatever those girls were buying, pull it for us.” Right there and then I realized that my best bet was to
fit in with the right “uniform”—the right clothes, the right shoes, and the right look—and my mother knew this too. And, weirdly, ever since then shopping has been the one activity that bonds my mother and me.

  On my first day of high school, these efforts were rewarded. After first period, a girl approached me after class and said, “Oooh, I love your purse. I’m Megan.”

  Megan and I walked to our next class together. Thanks to my mother, the right “uniform” was all it took for me to be invited to the popular table in the cafeteria.

  From then on, I knew my mother had my best interests at heart; and though she still annoyed me, while other teenage girls were rebelling against their mothers, I was listening to mine. For example, fretting about my height, my mother forbade me from wearing heels to my high school dances. By that point, most of the boys had surpassed me, but even so, my mother’s concern about my standing out made me want to blend in more in whatever ways I could. If I look too closely, what I considered “dieting” in high school was probably closer to a mild eating disorder because god forbid I should grow anymore—up or out. Even today, my build is more athletic than willowy, and that’s with constant vigilance. During high school, rather than joining track, I was a cheerleader like my new friends and, at my mother’s urging, I was even a debutante. I know. But the way that some girls reveled in their uniqueness, I wanted to be invisible and not invite comment, and “fitting in” seemed to do just that. We didn’t have the terminology back then, but I’m sure “basic bitch” sums me up.

  Looking back, I cringe that I simply lacked the confidence to be myself. Have I even evolved since then? Or maybe “my-self” is a wishy-washy people pleaser who lacks personality, and this is the correct trajectory for my life. Because I’m now a thirty-five-year-old woman who has made her own choices, which have led me to my current circumstances—unemployed, dumped, and, ultimately, bad at life.

  Returning home from lunch, I head straight for my laptop with the intention of job hunting. While sitting on my sofa, I check the usual job website suspects, but there’s nothing new since I checked on Friday. The rest of the afternoon stretches out in front of me.

  The obvious thing to do would be to cancel my wedding contracts (even if only to send the message to my mother that it’s off), which was my original plan, but I was naively hoping to hear from Neil and further hoping he would help. But since he hasn’t responded to my email from Saturday, that hope is quickly dwindling; and I’m amazed at his ability to be both a coward and an asshole.

  I look around my living room and there’s no trace of him other than some random books intermingled with mine that didn’t make it into the garbage bags. I then walk into the bedroom and survey his side of the closet. Jordan did a great job of wiping him out, and there’s not a single item of his hanging in there. Since the condo has two bathrooms, I claimed the master and he used the other. I walk into “his” bathroom and nothing remains since I had dumped out everything that night with Jordan. I grab a bath towel that’s hanging on the rod and smell it to see if it still holds his scent, but it just smells like a towel. There’s a long blond hair on it that I pluck off, but once I’m holding it, I notice that it’s lighter and brighter than my own—instead, the strand is the same bright blond as Stacey’s. My fingers instantly release the hair onto the floor and my whole body starts shaking.

  Stacey had been in this bathroom. Stacey had used this towel. Does this mean that Stacey had been in our bed? I run to the bedroom as if I can catch them in the act and, once there, I frantically start examining every inch of the bed. I find nothing, but I continue to peel off the sheets, sickly hoping to find more evidence to incriminate Neil. When I don’t find anything, I slump down on the floor and start crying for what feels like the millionth time. Does it matter? He already said he loved Stacey. I already knew he cheated on me. He was a cad and he had left me. Did the details of his cheating really matter when we’re so clearly over?

  An overwhelming wave of nausea hits, and I make it to the bathroom just before literally losing my lunch. Resting on the cool tile, I’ve entered a new stage of grief. Suddenly I’ve gone from numb survival mode to realizing everything I’ve lost that I’ll never get back. Everything I worked hard for—my job, my relationship, my friends—poof! All gone. For the first time in my life, I’m lost. There are no rules to follow. I have no deadlines. I’m completely unencumbered. No more wedding planning, no more career, no more social life. I’ve always been a rule follower; rules led the way and I never had to think. Now, I have to think. I have to think about who I am without these things. The sad truth is, I don’t know. Who is Allison James? And what does she want in life? These questions hurt my brain and all I want to do is go to sleep.

  I wake up around six in the evening, still lying on the floor. After tearing apart the bed, I couldn’t bear to sleep in it thinking about Stacey being in it. Since it’s dinnertime for normal people on a normal schedule, the obvious move is to find some food. Despite my empty stomach, I’m not very hungry, but I order soup and spring rolls from my default Thai place. While waiting for my dinner, I check email and there’s one from Jordan asking how I am and if I want to grab a drink. With food on the way and my eyes puffy from crying, I email her back my thanks and ask for a rain check.

  As I force myself to eat my soup, not tasting it, I watch some Dallas Housewives show on Bravo, which makes me even more depressed (probably because most of these “housewives” look a lot like Stacey), and I click over to HGTV and a Love It or List It marathon. I can’t imagine the rest of my days being like this, and in this moment of weakness I call Neil. Getting his voicemail (surprise, surprise), I decide not to leave a message. Then, once again, I feel worse about not leaving a message because I don’t want him to think I just called to hear his voice. But I can’t call back and leave one now, even if it’s just, “We need to talk about canceling the wedding,” because then he’ll know that I’m simply covering up my earlier hang up. Besides, I’ve already emailed him saying that, and he hasn’t responded.

  Even so, I email him, again.

  Hi Neil – I just called but got your voicemail. I wanted to let you know that I plan to cancel all the wedding vendors tomorrow morning. Let me know if this is okay. Thanks, Allie.

  After I hit send, I curse myself. Of course it’s okay. Why am I asking his permission? And why am I thanking him? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me is that I’m still playing by the rules that everyone else has broken—Neil for cheating on me; Stacey for having an affair with my fiancé; Kate for not telling me something was up; my mother for calling Neil to apologize for me—and I’m miserable. It seems time to get a new playbook.

  I FELL ASLEEP in front of the television around eight, weirdly proud that I managed to stay up so “late.” When I wake up twelve hours later, I automatically check my email.

  Neil had emailed me late last night.

  Allie – Sounds good. Thank you.

  Neil

  The end.

  I get up from the sofa and walk to my bedroom, where I pull off my ring, place it back into its blue box, and shut it away in my dresser drawer. Chapter closed. No matter how much I loved my ring, it was the last sign of Neil in my sight, and I need it gone.

  Lost, ring-less, and with a fresh batch of tears threatening to appear, I quickly change into my running clothes before I have time to think. It’s a Tuesday, my running day, and so I lace up my shoes and head toward Lincoln Park. On my way to the park, my fury at Neil rises each time my foot hits the pavement. During the first mile, I can’t stop thinking how dare he just email that it’s okay for me to cancel the wedding vendors? No offer to help. No let’s talk or let me explain or any closure whatsoever. Just, “Thanks.” How can he be so callous to make me cancel my own wedding? Who is this person I thought I knew and loved? Who I thought loved me? How could I ever have cared about him? I run three extra miles that morning, my anger propelling me forward, along with my dread at returning home to make ph
one calls. But I prefer this Angry Allison to Heartbroken Allison. Neil was dead weight and I’m better off without him.

  After my run, I hit up The Cauldron on my way home. Though I should really dial back on shelling out money on my latte habit, I may be just as addicted to Eric’s kind smile as I am to my morning caffeine.

  “Good morning, Allison,” he says cheerfully as I approach the counter. “What can I get for you?”

  “Good morning!” I smile back, his cheerful countenance infectious. “A large almond milk latte, please.”

  “Just finish a workout?” he asks, as I hand over my credit card. My running clothes don’t allow for much pocket room, nor sweat resistance for cash.

  “Yes. A six-miler in the park.”

  “Good for you! Glad the scone powered you through,” he grins, obviously fishing for a compliment.

  “Oh, gosh! Yes. The scone. It was delicious! Thank you!”

  “In that case, take another! It’s raspberry oatmeal today.” He grabs a paper bag and reaches into the refrigerated case.

  “You’re like a drug dealer aren’t you? First you get your clients hooked with just a taste and then—”

  Interrupted by a tap on my shoulder, I turn around. “Excuse me,” says the man in line behind me, “but please flirt on your own time. Some of us need our coffee to get to work.”

  “Oh!” I start and feel my cheeks, which are already flushed from running, begin to burn from embarrassment. He’s wearing a crisp charcoal-colored suit and an equally expensive-looking watch that he pointedly checks, because unlike me, he is very busy and important.

  When Eric looks up from the display case, I notice his pupils dilate at my tomato face as he hands me the bag. “Thanks,” I say quickly, grabbing the bag and then hurrying to the other side of the counter to wait for my drink.