Oh God, I’d kissed Mickey!
I put my back to the bathroom door and slid down it until my behind was on the floor. I bent forward, resting forehead to my knees, my heart slamming in my chest, my breaths coming fast and uneven, my skin burning.
The dulcet tones of my doorbell sounded.
I didn’t move, didn’t even lift my head.
I didn’t know how late it was but it was summer and dark so I knew it was late.
This meant that could be nobody but Mickey. Mickey being a nice guy and trying to make me feel better after I’d embarrassed myself and him, putting us both in an untenable situation that had no escape.
I was forty-seven years old. I should be old enough, brave enough, to get up and go to the door. Talk to my neighbor. Open myself to him (slightly) the way he seemed perfectly okay with opening himself to me, and sharing that I’d lost my husband, my family, and I’d been alone for a long time. And that day I got lost in him and his family, I liked it, and I was half-asleep. I didn’t think.
I didn’t think.
But sitting on my bathroom floor, it didn’t matter that I should be old and brave enough to do it.
I didn’t move.
The doorbell sounded again and I heard my whimper whisper through the knotty wood paneled room of my rustic, elegant, fabulous bathroom.
And I didn’t move.
I stayed in that position, the mortification burning through me, as minutes passed, listening hard and not shifting an inch.
The doorbell didn’t ring again.
After what felt like hours, lifetimes, I crawled on hands and knees to the towel rack. I grabbed a pink towel that looked great in my master bath in La Jolla but did not fit at all in that rustic, elegant bathroom in Maine.
And right there, I curled on my side on the floor, pulled the towel over me, up to my neck, where I tucked it in and closed my eyes.
I knew in that moment I’d hit bottom.
I knew in that moment I could sink no lower.
But I feared with everything that was me, that being me, I’d find new ways to fuck everything up even worse.
I had a talent with that.
It was the only talent I had.
And I didn’t want it.
I just had no idea how to get rid of it.
It was the only part of me I knew was real.
So I lay on the floor in my bathroom, covered in a towel, and thought (maybe hysterically) that perhaps I didn’t need to find me.
And thus I fell asleep on the floor of my bathroom fearing that was the only me that there could be.
*
The next evening, I was sitting on my couch in the sunken living room, feet to the seat, arms around my calves, chin to my knees, eyes to the darkening sky over the sea that had been gray all day, and stormy (reflecting my mood), thinking, priority: since I’d sold mine (all four of them), I needed to get a new TV.
Immediately.
I had not had dinner (or lunch, or breakfast for that matter). And I didn’t have a glass of wine beside me (though I wanted one, I just had an empty stomach and Mickey’s ex made me worry I wasn’t consuming much anymore, but I was going through wine like crazy).
So I was sitting there alone, as always, in a way that felt like it would be forever, wondering where the day went.
The only thing I’d done was make plans to go out with Josie and Alyssa to begin Cliff Blue Project: Phase Two on Wednesday, Alyssa’s day off from her salon.
That’s all I’d done.
Except wallow in my misery.
The doorbell rang.
I stiffened, feeling every sinew tighten inside me, and closed my eyes.
Shit.
Mickey.
“You’re a big girl, Amelia, you’ve gotta grow the fuck up,” my mouth told me.
I was right.
I had to grow up, get up, and go to the door.
I thought moving to Maine was the first step to the new me.
It wasn’t.
Walking to the door to face Mickey was.
Shit.
As hard as it was, I uncurled, got off the couch, headed to the door and I did this swiftly. Not because I wanted to get to the door. Not because I was smart enough to go fast in order to get something unpleasant, harrowing and utterly mortifying over and done with as quickly as possible.
Because I didn’t want to leave Mickey waiting.
I allowed myself slight relief that I’d at least had a shower and changed clothes that day before I unlocked and opened the door.
I lifted my eyes and put every effort into not wincing when I caught his.
Then I said, “Hey.”
“Hey, Amy,” he replied gently.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry you had to come over here and I wasn’t big enough to go to you and apologize. I’m even sorrier I did what I did. I was half-asleep but that’s no excuse. You shouldn’t have anyone touching you who you don’t want touching you. I don’t know what came over me. But I do know, and want you to know, I’m really so very sorry.”
“It isn’t that, darlin’,” he said quietly. “You’re very…”
He trailed off but kept his eyes pinned to mine and I knew in that instant he did it so they wouldn’t wander. They wouldn’t become assessing.
But his next word and the hesitation said everything.
And it destroyed me.
“Attractive.”
I fought back another wince.
“It’s just that you don’t shit where you live,” he went on. “And, babe, you live right across the street and we both got kids.”
That was a lie. A kind one. But it was a total lie.
He didn’t want me, plain and simple.
I was just his…“attractive” neighbor.
I gave him that because he needed to give it to me and I needed to let him.
“You’re right,” I agreed.
“You’re a good woman, Amelia.”
God, that was completely lame.
But worse, I wasn’t even that.
“I…I’m…” I shook my head. “I can’t say how sorry I am. You’re a good neighbor. You’re a good guy. You’ve been so very kind to me. And you’ve got great kids. Can we,” I shrugged, hoping it was nonchalantly, “forget this even happened?”
That’s when the grin came but it killed that it wasn’t easy.
“Absolutely.”
I swallowed before I nodded and said, “Thanks, Mickey.” I drew in a breath and let it out finishing, “And again, I’m really sorry.”
“Nothin’ to apologize for. It didn’t happen.”
A good man. A kind man.
A man with great kids, all of whom I’d now go out of my way to see extremely rarely.
It was wave from the car or haul my behind into the house if I had the bad fortune to be out when they were out time.
“Right,” I said, injecting a firm thread in my voice. “I’d ask you in for a glass of wine but I don’t have glasses and I’m kinda in the middle of something.”
His grin got easier. “I’d say I appreciate the offer but I don’t drink wine and I also got shit to do.”
He was lying.
Then again, so was I.
It was over.
This should have caused me relief but instead, it dug deep then curled out long tentacles, the tips spreading acid through every part of me.
“Okay.” I started to close the door. “See you around, Mickey.”
“Hope so.”
That was a lie too.