“Just come out and say what you're thinking. I can see the motor turning.”
“Fine,” she said, putting one hand on her slender hip and the other hand on my shoulder. “Let's just say you and your bread have something in common.”
“I'm moldy?” I asked.
“No, Ramona. Stale. And the thing is, I know that you know this. You're just refusing to do anything about it, because that would mean you have to wake up and breathe again and shed that coat of protection you've been wearing. You don't want men to find you attractive anymore because lo and behold, if they do, you'll have to do something about it. Like kiss them, or have sex, or have a man-woman relationship again. And I'm not saying that you should do that-definitely not until you're ready and only you know when that is. And the only person women should try to look good for is themselves, and you don't even want to do that. That's all I'm saying. With love, from Anh.”
I rolled my eyes, something I often did when the other person was right and I, the linguist, couldn't find the words for a decent refute. “I've been making an effort. I started wearing mascara again a month ago. Have you not noticed?”
She leaned in and studied my lashes. “Well, I'll be damned. Good for you. The blush and lip gloss must be jealous, though.” She swept her arm around me and planted a kiss on my forehead. Unlike my mother and sister, Anh was fairly lenient about my image, or lack thereof.
Most Normals agree Grievers should get some slack in the grooming department. I had taken that platitude for granted. I often wondered if Joel peered down from Heaven, wishing I would have some fun again. He was the type of husband who gave me compliments when I looked my worst, bed-head and morning breath included, so it wasn't about what was outside. What bothered me most was that my outside so clearly reflected my inside.
I placed the peanut butter back on its perch. So many Grievers put on the makeup like a mask and I had refused to do it. I would not dress the part of a Normal until I felt it. For the first six months, I couldn't believe he was gone, waiting for him to walk through the door at 5:30 p.m. sharp or step out of the shower or to catch a glimpse of him through the front window, watering the flowers. I searched everywhere for him during those six months, as if imagining him still living would make it so.
What I missed most of all was his presence, his sense of being, and even after two years, I wasn't content in an empty house. But after a year, I no longer had to remind myself to breathe, and though the pain still came in like a tide to shore, the tsunami had lost some of its strength.
When I would tell Anh that my mother dropped hints like little bombs about nice men she'd met, Anh would shrug it off with a laugh and say, “Tell her to send one Grandma's way.” Thanks to a one-night-stand in college, her son had produced a daughter, though the union had not produced two willing parents. So Anh ended up with her granddaughter Vi, though she denied she was raising her (which she was). Anh was one of those people who could remove the pricks of pain with a quick jerk and make it all better.
I shuddered. “I've watched those dating reality shows, and I have two words for you: Hell, no. I'm happy alone and that's why a makeover is a moot point,” I said, as if it were justification for my slobwear. The happy part was a lie, and everyone knew it. I hadn't been content in my misery, but it hung around me like thick coat I couldn't shed. I wasn't so naïve as to believe the phony smiles I put on for school or the grocery store were fooling anyone. But what man in his right mind wanted to date a grieving woman with two boys, anyway? I was about as attractive as a bug zapper on a summer's night.
Anh smoothed her jet-black hair and reapplied her red lipstick. I wished I could wear red lipstick, but much like the red suit, you have to have the red inside of you to wear it on the outside, and the one time I tried it in my twenties, I looked like a bad imitation of Anna Nicole Smith.
“What the hell do I know?” she said. “Never listen to a woman who's been divorced thrice, yet still throws herself to the sharks as if she doesn't have a brain in her head.”
“I'm not listening to you, but thanks for the permission. Besides, I'm going to be much too busy for dating. I've decided to finish my doctorate.”
“Look at you! Dusting off the old dissertation. It's about time. You know the world has a shortage of good word doctors.”
“You're just jealous because when we go out you won't get to be the only doctor anymore.”
“Right. I believe my doctorates in metaphysics and accounting have been a nice repellent to my love life.”
“All the more reason I should get mine, stat.”
“You'll be Professor Dr. Griffen before we know it. And I can say I knew you when you were just a geek with the New York Times crossword.”
“Some things will never change.”
“Like I've said,” Anh continued. “When you're ready, you can get your chakras in alignment again. Especially chakra two.” She pointed to my nether region.
I knew enough from listening to her chakra talk over the years that chakra two controlled sexuality. “That chakra's bulb blew out two years ago. How can I possibly have sex with another man and not have it feel like cheating?”
“Have you at least been using Mr. Pleasure 2000?”
“I threw it away,” I told her. “Right after my mother nearly had a heart attack when she found it in my nightstand.”
Her insistence that connecting mind and body and getting my chakras in order would cure my heartbreak and improve my life was as annoying as my mother's insistence that joining her church would kill two birds with one stone-Jesus would heap blessings on my life and land me a nice Christian man, to boot. When that time comes, she would add. But the sheer fact she had to add that as a footnote told me that she believed I might shrivel into a lonely cat lady after the boys were grown if I didn't play nice with others.
“It's not about finding a man,” Anh said. “It's about living again. That's all we want for you, Ramona. It's the one thing me, your Jesus-freak mothers and your Energizer Bunny sister all have in common.” My mother and mother-in-law were both evangamoms at Life Church. Joel used to joke we were book-ended with the Lord. Judith was the first to embrace my mother Barbara when she “found the Lord” at the age of 45. It had been Judith's personal mission to bring all of us into the holy fold thereafter. I was in college, having spent the better part of my childhood bounced from church to church while my mother tried to find one that fit her like a designer suit. She found her fit at Life and a best friend in Judith, which is how Joel and I met.
Joel preferred to tell people we met at a chocolate-wrestling tournament where I was a contestant (and blue-ribbon winner). “One lick and I was hooked,” he would tell the shocked listener.
Truthfully, our moms set us up. Joel had just gone through a tremendous break-up, his wedding to the she-devil Monica called off, and besides some quality time with the Lord, Judith thought the best remedy was for him to “get back out there.” Sound familiar? As for the remedy for my broken heart After, she only recommended the Lord. “You'll never find anyone like my Joel,” Judith tells me on a weekly basis. And I wholeheartedly agree with her.
The doorbell rang. “Speak of the devil,” I said, knowing it would be my mother on her daily visit.
“You mean speak of the Lord,” Anh corrected me with a wink as she headed out the garage. “And find da Vinci. American women will be crawling all over him like horny ants at a hunk picnic.”
She was gone before I could tell her that finding da Vinci would not be a problem since he was all of ten yards away, and that he was not just a student, but a tenant. If anyone would confirm that I was off my rocker for moving him in, it was Anh. But I couldn't date a student, even if he was an adult, as if the idea weren't preposterous enough if he wasn't.