Time Flies: A Novel Read online

  “I knocked first,” he said, “but you didn’t answer.” The implication being that it was my fault he’d scared me.

  “For future reference,” I said sweetly, “when that happens, the appropriate thing to do is to go away. Oh, wait, actually the even more appropriate thing would be to call first.”

  Kurt walked over to the kitchen sink and turned it on. Then he opened the cabinet above it and took out a water glass.

  “You can’t do that anymore,” I said.

  He put the glass down on the counter. He walked across the kitchen and sat down on the same bar stool again. His bar stool. Former bar stool.

  We stared at each other. Neither of us looked away.

  “Melanie,” he said finally. “I’m thirsty. Can you please get me a glass of water?”

  I walked over to the sink and turned on the water. I chose a different glass, one I’d never really liked in the first place. I filled it with water.

  I walked slowly over to the man I’d lived with for decades.

  With a sharp flick of the wrist I must have seen in an old movie, I threw the water in his face. Then I dropped the glass on the cool, unforgiving tile floor.

  When I walked away, the crunch the shards of glass made under my welding boots was crisp and satisfying.

  By the time I got back out to the garage, I’d figured out the pose for my second box spring lady. Over her swirling skirt, she’d have one hand on her hip, elbow bent at a jaunty angle. With her other hand she’d be holding her parasol out in front of her. Like a shield. Or maybe more like a weapon.

  I’d chosen the steel spring for her skirt and I was reaching for my apron when Kurt pushed the door open from the mudroom to the garage. This was my entrance, my side of the garage, and in all the years we’d both lived here together he almost never came out this way.

  Once I’d taken up metal sculpture, it was as if Kurt and I had divided the garage right down the middle with an imaginary line. The side closer to the house was my studio. The side closer to the street belonged to Kurt and held his car, his golf clubs, the lawn mower, the non-metalworking tools. The boys’ bikes and sports equipment lined the far wall—neutral territory. Either Kurt opened the garage door with the remote control and entered and exited that way, or he walked across the patio behind the house and in through the back door.

  “I think you need to apologize,” Kurt said.

  “I think you need to apologize more,” I said.

  The watermark on the front of Kurt’s T-shirt looked like an ascot. Or maybe a man-necklace to match his man-bracelet. I flipped the leather apron over my head.

  “Is that our bed?” Kurt asked.

  I followed his gaze. A carved hardwood spindle was sticking out of one of the heavy-duty contractor bags.

  I shrugged.

  “Jesus, Melanie, do you remember how much that bed cost? If you didn’t want it, Crissy and I would have taken it.”

  I picked up a steel bar. Kurt took a small step back.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Listen,” he said. “Let me buy you out. You’ll be much happier in a town house.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’m sure my town house neighbors would welcome the sound of metal grinding with open arms.”

  Kurt’s steel-blue eyes scanned the garage. Even I had to admit my side looked a little bit like a junkyard.

  He shrugged. “So, you’ll rent some studio space.”

  I ignored him. “And those homeowners’ associations are really big on letting you try out your works-in-progress in your front yard.”

  “Maybe even buy one of those live/work units. You know, work space on the ground floor, living space up above it.”

  “Have you called the boys yet?” I asked, partly to change the subject, but also because I knew he hadn’t.

  Kurt gave his slow, long-suffering head shake, one of my least favorite moves in his repertoire. “That’s not what we’re discussing here. Listen, we have three choices. One, I buy you out, which I think makes the most sense all around. Two, you buy me out, though I think it’s way too much house for you. And three, we put the house up for sale, take our losses in this abysmal market.”

  When he reached up to check the wet spot on his T-shirt, I could almost pretend he was putting his hand over his heart. That he’d had a change of heart, even that he had a heart. That somehow, against all odds, there was a fourth choice: We could rewind past the last few years back to the days when we’d sit out on the deck with a glass of wine before dinner and watch the hummingbirds drink from the flowers. And we’d talk about our days.

  Because if we could go there again I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

  I made myself look at Kurt. There was nothing heartfelt in his eyes. The purse of his lips was cold and dismissive.

  “It’s time to move on,” he said. And then he walked over to the wall and pushed the button for the garage door opener. The heavy double door cranked open slowly and relentlessly.

  Without another word, Kurt walked through the opening.

  He kept walking, without looking back, leaving my box springs and me exposed for the whole wide world to see.

  CHAPTER 3

  The guest room mattress had seen better days. Or maybe it had always been this uncomfortable and now I knew why our guests never stayed very long. I tried one more toss and a couple of turns, and then I gave up and kicked off the covers.

  I tottered out to the kitchen on legs that didn’t wake up quite as quickly as they used to, like an aging Barbie whose arches had fallen into flex position. After I started a pot of coffee, I stood over the sink and ate a breakfast yogurt while I stared out the window at nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.

  I turned around to face the kitchen island, thinking maybe a change of scenery might do me some good.

  My laptop glittered up at me from the countertop like a beacon of hope.

  I picked it up and circled the island in the direction of my bar stool, at the far end of a matching row of four. They were chunky and traditional, oak throwbacks to the eighties stained a shade that suddenly flashed back to me: Burnt Passion.

  “Ha,” I said.

  “So funny I forgot to laugh,” I added as I slid onto my stool. Wait. They were all my bar stools now. I moved down the row and tried out the other three stools, one by one.

  I cut short the Goldilocks reenactment and went back to my own seat. I sipped some more coffee while my laptop came to life. Then I scrolled through my daily serving of email spam. An invitation to change my life by changing my Internet provider. A recipe for a refreshing summer gazpacho. A Groupon to save up to 53 percent on a helicopter tour.

  An email from B.J. sailed into view like a lifeboat.

  To: Melanie

  From: B.J.

  Subject: 5 Reasons To Go To Your High School Reunion

  1. You’ll laugh like crazy. Who laughs enough these days?

  2. You won’t have to wish you’d been there when you see all those pictures online.

  3. It will give you fresh perspective and make you realize you’ve come a long way, baby.

  4. You won’t have to lie about your age. Everyone there will be older than dirt, too.

  5. You’ll regret not going more than you could possibly regret going.

  To: B.J.

  From: Melanie

  Subject: 5 Reasons NOT To Go To Your High School Reunion

  1. I don’t want to.

  2. I really don’t want to.

  3. I really, really don’t want to.

  4. I really, really, really don’t want to.

  5. I don’t want to more than I could possibly want to, which is not at all.

  I pushed SEND and went back to scrolling through my email. An excellent opportunity to work at home. An old family friend I’d never heard of mugged in Wales while sightseeing writing to me with tears in his eyes. Substantial savings on a penis enlargement patch. I thought about forwarding that one to Kurt just to get a rise out of him, but managed to
restrain myself.

  I reached for my coffee cup. Midway to my lips, my hand froze.

  To: Melanie

  From: Finn Miller

  Subject: blast from the past

  Melanie,

  I found your email address on the Facebook page somebody made for our class. If you don’t remember me fake it okay because you only get to break my heart once.

  Now that we’ve got that settled. I’m writing to see if you’re going to the reunion. Holy shit time flies. How the hell did we get to be this old huh? The way I look at it we should go to this one. Because by the next time one or both of us could be senile. But even then I’ll still remember the way you used to look walking into math class. One hand holding your books and the other yanking down one of those teeny little mini skirts you always used to wear.

  To me you were the prettiest girl in the whole school. I bet you still are.

  Sorry to hear about your marriage. Mine bit the dust too.

  Fond memories from math class and beyond.

  Catch ya later,

  Finn

  Finn Miller. Finn Miller. I could almost picture him. At least I was pretty sure I could.

  I read his email again, then closed my eyes. All I managed to see was the Pythagorean theorem, two smaller squares with a bigger one balanced on top, sketched in white chalk on an old oak-framed blackboard. The area of the square built upon the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares upon the remaining sides popped into my head from a gazillion years ago. How bizarre that I could still remember this when lately I had to use the calculator on my phone to add on the tip at a restaurant.

  I concentrated. There was a boy at the blackboard. Tall and lean, his baggy flannel shirt making him look like a puppy that hadn’t quite grown into its skin. Long brown hair, faded bell-bottoms. One hand resting on the chalk tray, the other slowly writing out the algebraic version of the theorem, as a couple of the boys in the back row gave him the answer and coughed to disguise it at the same time.

  a2 + b2 = c2

  “Well done, Mr. Miller,” the teacher said. He paused. “And company.”

  The class burst out laughing and the boys in the back row let out a chorus of apelike grunts. I waited for Finn Miller to turn around so I could see his face.

  I scrunched my eyes tighter and conjured up a vague image, more good looking than not good looking, more early Beatles than Rolling Stones, kind of a retro Every Boy.

  I read the email again. Finn Miller had liked me, he’d really liked me. Imagine how devastated he’d be that I couldn’t exactly remember him. And, not that the bar was high, but it was hard to ignore the fact that his email was quite possibly the most exciting thing that had happened to me in a while. Maybe even in this millennium.

  Okay, so I’d fake it.

  To: Finn Miller

  From: Melanie

  Subject: Re: blast from the past

  Hi Finn,

  Of course I remember you! I remembered you right away, and I’m actually amazed that you remember me. Some days I don’t even remember myself.

  If I don’t make it to the reunion, let me know how it goes, okay?

  2 Good 2 B 4 Gotten,

  Melanie

  CHAPTER 4

  I pulled up MapQuest on my computer and typed in my address and the address of Art in the Park, the regional art show that had accepted one of my pieces. I’d emailed them a photo and entered it in the sculpture category months ago. They’d bumped it over to the mixed media category, but at least they’d taken it.

  It was a huge show, and with luck it would lead to a sale, and maybe even some commissioned pieces to grace the over-the-top gardens of wealthy Atlantans. I’d once made a ten-foot copper toddler that peed into a preexisting moat stocked with live white swans. You accessed the wannabe mansion by driving over a drawbridge wrapped with miles and miles of white lights, all completely visible from the main road. It looked like a year-round Christmas display, but it also made me remember my grandfather singing “Way Down Upon the Swanee River” to me when I was a child. Years later I realized the river was really the Suwannee, not Swanee, but I still pictured fluffy white swans paddling downstream whenever I thought of it.

  The piece that made it into Art in the Park was called Endless Loop, an abstract I’d made with rusty metal loops from two dilapidated whiskey barrel planters I’d salvaged at the dump. Circle welded to circle after circle after circle. I’d hidden a fountain pump in the center, attached an old rain showerhead I’d also found at the dump, and snaked a hose up to meet it. Properly installed with the pump turned on, you’d swear you were watching the patter of real rain on halos of rusty metal. And if the sun hit it just right, you could see a rainbow in the watery mist. I’d described all this in detail on my application. I hoped the powers-that-be hadn’t placed me under a tent and that I wouldn’t have to fight to be moved into the sunlight, near a water source.

  There was a small link for driving options on MapQuest that I’d never noticed before. I clicked on it and a series of choices popped up. Wow, you could actually check a box to avoid highways. And not only could you avoid highways, but there were also boxes to avoid country borders, tolls, seasonal roads, ferries, and timed restrictions, whatever they were. Was it possible to be afraid of seasonal roads?

  The strangest part about my driving issue was that not long after Kurt left, just to cheer myself up, I made a list of all the things I wouldn’t have to do anymore. Mostly petty aggravations like listening to him gargle for what seemed like centuries, lap his ice cream, scrape his teeth on his fork. And watching him yell at the television like a maniac, as if he had the power to influence the outcome of some football game. And trying to ignore the repulsive way he looked at the tissue after he blew his nose—every time—and left his dirty clothes on the floor beside the hamper and his disgusting toenail clippings wherever they landed. But at the very top of the list was this: I’ll never have to ride in the car with him again.

  From our first date, Kurt always had to be in the driver’s seat. He was a skilled, decisive driver, but he was also an angry one.

  “Right on red, you idiot,” he’d yell.

  “We have plenty of time,” I’d say. “The movie doesn’t start for another twenty minutes.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  It took me years to figure out what the point actually was, but eventually I realized that Kurt simply thought the rest of the world should see driving the way he did: It was a game of skill, and the first one who got there won.

  “Slow down,” I’d beg. “For me.”

  “Relax. I just have to get around this bozo playing with his radio.”

  “Stop playing with your radio, bozo,” Trevor would yell from the backseat.

  “Yeah, stop pwaying with you wadio, bozo,” Troy would parrot.

  “See what you’re teaching them,” I’d hiss.

  Kurt would look into the rearview mirror. “Boys, there are a lot of jackasses on the road. And no matter what your mother says, when you drive, you will not be one of them.”

  I’d bring it up after the boys were in bed. About presenting a united front and treating each other with respect in front of them. And that even if Kurt looked at things differently, he should want to drive in a way that would make me comfortable riding in the car with him.

  “Sometimes I’m really afraid,” I’d say.

  “Jesus, Mel. I mean, how many accidents have I been in since you’ve known me? I’m an excellent driver.”

  “That’s not the point. You can’t control the other drivers on the road. And you’re so full of rage I don’t want to be in the same car with you.”

  “That’s not rage. That’s how I drive.”

  Sometimes I’d just give up. I’d look for excuses to take separate cars or offer to drive the boys to their sports clinics on the other side of the city myself. I’d feel footloose and fancy-free as I drove off to a master sculpture class at SCAD, the Savann
ah College of Art and Design.

  Other times I’d keep pushing until I got Kurt to promise to take it easy the next time. But by the next time he’d have forgotten. It was the endless loop of a long-term marriage—the same fights playing over and over again, until one of you broke free.

  And when Kurt finally did, I thought, well, at least I’ll never have to ride in the car with him again.

  But in one of the biggest ironies of my life, that’s when my own driving problems began.

  Art in the Park wasn’t far from the hospital where Troy worked, so the plan was that he’d help me install Endless Loop at the show and then we’d have lunch. He had a great job in the apparently hot field of Health Internet Technology, and did something with databases that made him a lot of money. Beyond that, I hadn’t a clue what my younger son did for a living.

  The whole way here I hadn’t been able to shake a kind of low-grade worry that MapQuest might be wrong about being able to avoid highways. And even if it could avoid them, what if there were roads that looked liked highways and felt like highways but weren’t technically highways? But the directions had taken me first down Powers Ferry, and then I’d followed Northside Drive practically the whole way here. Now I felt relieved and empowered that I’d found a workaround. I mean, so what if it had taken me an extra half hour, mostly waiting at red lights, to get where I was going. At least I got here.

  Troy was already waiting just outside the entrance tent, wearing jeans and a deep teal short-sleeved buttondown shirt. He ran one hand through his hair and grinned when he saw me. I hurried over to him and we gave each other a big hug. Then I pulled back for a quick mom-check: no smell of smoke, no bloodshot eyes, healthy weight, good hygiene, clean clothes, recent haircut, direct eye contact.

  “It’s so good to see you, honey.”

  “Yeah, you too, but it’s only been a week.”

  We retraced my steps, and Troy opened the back door of the Element.