chapter nineteen

S unday afternoon was muggy, but the early evening was willow-tree cool. With Chris napping on the couch, I put on my running shoes, left the condo, and walked and walked and walked. I wasn’t sure what had drawn me outside. I had nowhere to be, no errands I needed to run.

As I crossed LaSalle Street, I figured it out. I couldn’t help but glance at the brick three-flat across the street. Blinda’s place. I’d walked by a number of times since she left on her trip, and her basement unit was always dark, the shades pulled tight. Now, the drapes were open and there was lamplight from within. I fought the urge to head straight to her door and pound on it. Instead, I hurried home. Chris was still asleep. I went into our bedroom and lifted the frog from my nightstand.

I looked at its little face, which I’d grown oddly fond of. I studied its legs that appeared ready to leap.

“Time to say goodbye,” I whispered.

I rushed back to LaSalle Street and crossed the road, hitting the buzzer for Blinda’s apartment.

“Hello?” came Blinda’s melodic voice through the intercom.

“Blinda, it’s Billy Rendall. Sorry to just stop by on a Sunday, but I saw your light was on and-”

The buzzer sounded. The door clicked open. I pushed it and moved to her inside door. And there she was, looking just like she always had. Her long blond hair was in need of a good brushing. She wore a flowing pink skirt in some kind of crinkly cotton material and a navy blue top with spaghetti straps.

“Billy,” she said kindly, waving a hand inside. “I’m so pleased to see you.” She made it sound as if she’d been calling me for weeks, instead of the other way around. “Sit, sit,” she said, gesturing to her woolly red and orange couch. The place looked the same, too-yellow candles flickering from the bamboo side tables, boxes of Kleenex at the ready.

“How was Africa?” I said to be polite. What I wanted to say was, Where have you been? How could you give me that frog and then disappear?

“Africa was surreal and sublime and heartbreaking,” she said. “It always is.”

“Good,” I said. “Well, I think that’s good, right?”

She smiled beatifically. “It was good. And you, Billy? How are you?”

“Huh. Well.” Where to begin? “About the frog.”

She took a seat across from me. “Yes, the frog.”

“Why did you give it to me?”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened first?” Her green-blue eyes widened and she leaned forward, as if waiting for my answer with great interest.

I thought about demanding that she tell me everything first, everything she knew about the frog and why I’d received it, but I was struck with the thought that none of it really mattered. The fact was she’d given it to me, it had changed me and eventually I’d dealt with that change.

So I started talking. I told Blinda how everything had been altered after that one night. I told her about the last month and what I’d done after I couldn’t get rid of the frog-how I’d gotten my life back to the way I wanted it at this moment.

“Sounds like you’ve got it under control,” Blinda said.

“For now.”

She laughed, nodding. “I’m glad you realize that. Life is always a balancing act. There’s no goal line.”

I reached for my purse and removed the frog at the bottom. “Is that what you were trying to teach me when you gave me this? Were you trying to show me that no matter what you want or what goals you have, there will always be something to deal with when you reach those goals? Were you trying to show me that no one’s life is ever perfect?”

“I’ve been told everyone learns their own message from the frog,” she said.

“What do you mean ‘everyone’?”

“Everyone who’s had him.”

“So other people have had this frog and been changed by it?”

She nodded. “That’s what I’ve been told. I was one of them.”

“Oh.” I stared at her, stumped. I wanted to ask, What happened to you? Tell me your story. But somehow I knew Blinda would only smile peacefully and ask me a question in return. “Well, look, I’ve got to give the frog back.”

She shook her head. “No, no. You have to give it to someone else.”

“What? Says who?”

“That’s just how it works.”

“I already tried to give it to a museum.”

Blinda cocked her head a little. “What happened?”

“It came back.”

“I’ve heard that would happen if you weren’t truly done with it. Now that you are, you have to pass it on to someone else. An individual who needs it.”

“But I can’t give this thing to someone else.” I glanced at the frog. His eyes bulged up at mine. His slash of a mouth seemed to deepen in a grin. “He brought me hell.”

Blinda gave me a patient smile. “Is that really true?”

I looked at the thing again. I rubbed the little bumps on his back, letting the last month swirl through my head. “It hasn’t been all bad. The things I wanted were legitimate. But after I got what I wanted, some things, like my job, weren’t how I imagined they would be. And others-” I frowned “-like having Evan flirt with me and my mom get her own life. Well, they just brought their own issues. Mostly, I wanted to feel like I had some part in the course my life was taking.”

“But you did in the end, didn’t you?” Blinda asked. “You’ve created the world you’ve got now.”

I nodded.

“So, now you’ve got to pass him on,” Blinda said. “That’s how it works.”

Three weeks later, Alexa and I met for coffee at a diner on Lincoln Avenue; in fact, we met regularly for coffee or tea now, discussing Alexa’s dream of opening her own firm, filling her in on the gossip from Harper Frankwell. I’d also been going to the suburbs one night a week to see Tess and the kids, but it was nice to have a girlfriend in the city.

At each of the get-togethers with Alexa, I carried the frog with me, looking for the right opportunity to carry out Blinda’s mandate. Whenever I saw one, though, I began fretting-Could I do it? Should I do it? It seemed reckless. Who knew what havoc the frog could wreak? And yet when I called Blinda, she asked me to look around and see what the frog had brought me. And what I saw was a life that fit and a husband to share it with. I wanted that for Alexa, too. Or whatever her version of happiness entailed.

“I’m just nervous,” Alexa said now. “It’s nearly impossible to get money to start a business, you know?”

I nodded.

“I was turned down again for a small business loan. And of course, I never heard from that Carlos Ortega guy I was hitting up for capital.” She shook her head sadly. Her hair was loose around her face. She wore white Capri jeans and a white blouse.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“I am, too.”

“It’ll come together.”

“So why is nothing happening? I’m getting scared.” Her eyes darted to mine, then back down. She seemed slightly embarrassed by her confession. She rushed on. “And it’s not just professionally. I mean, I’m tired of living with my family. I’m tired of dating these neighborhood boys my mother keeps setting me up with.”

“Alexa, you’re an awesome person, and let’s face it, you’re gorgeous. You’re going to find someone.”

She blew on her coffee. “Someone like your Chris, huh?”

“Exactly.” Chris and I had been working hard to be honest with each other, to make time for each other. We’d begun to carry the packages of our marriage more carefully again. It was sometimes uncomfortable and foreign, but it was imbued with the low light of optimism, bringing our home a whole new kind of feeling. “You’ll find a Chris for you,” I said to Alexa.

“I’m starting to doubt that.” She stared at the white mug of coffee in front of her, her eyes flat, her mouth downturned.

“Hey, look at me.”

She glanced up, her eyes still emotionless.

“I think you’re going to get everything you want,” I said. “And I mean everything. It just might not be an easy road. Can you handle that?”