I am not a bad person. I told my mom and sister I needed some air. Mom was ironing the folds on the full skirt of my wedding gown. The smell of bacon wafted through the cramped house as I walked downstairs into the kitchen, where Gwen and my brother-in-law were arguing. I sighed and pulled my coat off the back of the kitchen chair. When Gwen noticed me she stopped talking and set the spatula down. Snow fluttered to the ground outside the kitchen window. The trees and telephone wires were coated in white. Everyone said a winter wedding would be cheaper.
When I told them I was going out, Gwen asked me to go to the store to buy pantyhose. “The kind in the egg,” she said.
I unlatched the back door. Before I stepped into the snow, I heard Gwen call my name. When I turned she was behind me. Her sweatshirt was flecked with bacon grease.
“The hair people are coming at eleven,” Gwen said.
“It’s 7:30,” I said. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
*
I wasn’t planning on leaving. I drove to the store like I said I was going to. When I pulled into the parking lot I realized that I left my phone on the kitchen counter. I thought of Gary in his own house a few blocks away, surrounded by his family. I imagined him getting out of bed, swallowing Aspirin to quiet his hangover, dialing my number and waiting for me to answer, his wedding suit hanging quietly in the closet.
I bought three pairs of panty hose nestled in plastic eggs and a bag of Christmas chocolate from the bargain bin by the checkout counter. I sat in my car and ate the chocolate, which tasted like plastic. The milky brown grins of the Santas and snowmen irritated me, so I ate their heads first. I threw the wrappers on the floor. The parking lot was full of slush and early-morning shoppers. The storefronts were decorated for Christmas. Snow clouds filled the sky. The Salvation Army bell ringer arrived at his post. He stopped ringing his bell every time he yawned, which was frequent.
The night before, at the rehearsal dinner, I pulled Gary aside and told him I was still nervous. I didn’t tell him I thought about disappearing constantly.
“We should wait,” I whispered.
“Why now?” he said. He was more worried than angry, which annoyed me. He fingered the collar on his new shirt.
“I couldn’t stop throwing up this morning,” I said.
“You’ll be fine,” he said. He gulped his drink and I watched the condensation from the glass seep between his fingers and roll down his wrist, disappearing under his shirt cuff. His dark hair was askew and his tie was loose. His eyes were red.
“I don’t know.” I lifted the hem of my purple satin dress and held it up like I was walking down a flight of stairs. It felt right, to hold on to something. I had been drinking for hours. All I’d had to eat that day were handfuls of cheese cubes that were piled on appetizer trays in the banquet room. I was unsteady in my heels and seconds away from screaming.
“Stop.” He touched my chin with the tip of his thumb. “You’ll feel better when this is all over.”
“I don’t know.” It was all I could say.
When he kissed me before we parted in front of the restaurant his mouth felt cold on my cheek and his neck smelled like beer and sweat. I considered throwing myself to the sidewalk, imagined the sting of scrapped knees and hands, how dirty snow and black grit would get stuck in my skin. Instead I stood still and dumb, like I always do, still and dumb in front of the restaurant, under the awning, and I watched him walk away. I heard him shout, “It will be okay,” while his back was turned.
I ate the last Santa head and pulled out of the parking lot, onto the main road. I drove past my street. I drove out of my neighborhood. I drove onto the highway. I crossed the bridge and drove out of the city. Snow began to fall and I switched on my wipers.
Beyond the outer suburbs, the landscape along the highway began to change. Strip malls and shopping plazas and housing developments blurred into snow-covered fields and farmhouses. I drove in the passing lane and gritted my teeth. I rapped my fingers on the steering wheel. Cars passed me on the right, but I didn’t care. The road was slushy and the tires of the trucks that whizzed by pelted my windshield with thick coats of frozen, brown mush. The clock on my dashboard said 9:30.
The heater blasted my face, hands, and chest with warm air, but I did not move to turn it down. Sweat ran from my armpits and down my sides, dampening the waistband of my sweat pants. My cheeks and forehead were hot. My thoughts grew frantic.
“If I turn around, I can make it back in time to get my hair done. It would be fine.” I thought of Mom’s face and Gwen’s face when I walked in the door. My chest tightened. What could I say? There was an accident? I ran into someone I knew? A car behind me honked and passed me. I slowed down even more.
In my head, I composed my excuse. “I just needed to drive. Sorry I worried everyone. I’m fine. Just a short burst of nerves, that’s all!” Gwen would be irritated and Mom would be worried, but I would be forgiven. “Everyone is nervous on their wedding day,” I thought as I pressed on the gas. “I’ll just get off at this exit and turn around.”
But I passed every exit. And each time I did I thought, “I’ll just turn around at the next one. I just need to go a bit further.” I drove north. The snowflakes thickened and the sky darkened. There weren’t as many cars on the road.
When I finally got off the highway it was because I was hungry and almost out of gas. There wasn’t another exit for 40 miles. I would have kept driving if I could.
I pulled into a gas station, which was next to a diner. As I paid for my gas I asked the attendant about the diner next door. He simply said, “Good,” and walked away.
In the diner parking lot, I stretched and looked around. There was a field behind the diner. Pale severed corn stalks jutted out from the snow and the trees that lined the road were bare and black and stark. I clutched my keys. Panic bubbled up in my chest and I began to grind my teeth. I should go back, I thought, but the idea of eating calmed me.
Wind cut through my thin sweatpants. I shivered and fished my wallet out of my coat pocket. I had my credit card and my license. I locked my car door and walked across the parking lot. I absently touched the top of my head as I walked. I felt a wet, cold mass of snowflakes and then my own long hair, knotted and pulled up in a sloppy bun. I felt embarrassed by the way I looked, but then I saw a man and woman step out of their blue minivan dressed in matching red and green Christmas sweatshirts. Large glasses covered their white, slack faces. They lumbered into the restaurant wearing scowls. The husband held the door for the wife. She walked through without comment and I followed.
The restaurant was warm and it smelled like grease and pastries. The diner had rectangular windows and maroon carpeting. Faded photos of waterfalls and forests hung on the walls in cheap gold frames. Red and green garland accented the windows. One lonely pie, its meringue limp and burnt, sat in an otherwise empty display case. A large, wooden sculpture of a bear with a stern face stood guard next to the display case and a single man in a camouflage cap and denim shirt sat sipping coffee at the counter. I watched the couple walk to a booth and sit down, so I did the same.
The table was still streaked with water and disinfectant from its last cleaning. I took off my coat and when I looked up a waitress wearing a Santa hat and a t-shirt that said “Best Grandma in the World” was standing next to my table smiling, her pen poised over her note pad. I asked her if I could get the meatloaf, even though it wasn’t lunchtime yet. She said I could and I smiled.
“What are you up to today?” she said as she scribbled down the last of my order. I had already turned my face toward the window because I wanted to watch the snow. I pulled a paper napkin out of the sliver dispenser and spread it on my lap and thought carefully about what I was going to say. “I’m going to visit my mom.”
“Dressed like that?”
I looked up at her, too hungry and numb to be offended. I opened my mouth to offer an explanation, but she just laughed. “It’s okay,” the waitress said. Then she winked at me. As she walked away, I saw the yellow phone on the wall, behind the counter. Even from my seat, I could see that it was old and dirty from the hundreds of hands that had held it over the years. I had the impulse to get up, to ask if I could use the phone, to dial Mom’s number, but I stayed in my chair and waited for my food. I wondered what time it was. I scanned the walls for a clock, but I didn’t see one and I didn’t want to ask.
My meatloaf arrived floating in a pond of tomato sauce. I moved it aside and discovered mashed potatoes. The food was hot and tasteless, but it felt good gliding down my throat. It warmed my insides, and for a moment, I was just a person sitting in a diner, eating a plate of food. I chewed and watched the snow falling outside and the man and woman in Christmas sweaters eat in silence. The waitresses stood behind the counter. She talked to the man in the camouflage cap, who was still sipping coffee, about Christmas shopping. They laughed, and I slurped my sauce.
Gary and I went to a diner once, just like this one, and sat across from each other and ate eggs and hash browns covered in ketchup. I watched him eat and thought how much it disgusted me, but I couldn’t figure out why, because he ate like everyone else I knew. He was talking about work, about his boss, but all I saw was his mouth opening and closing and his tongue covered in chewed up potato and I wanted to vomit. I had to put my fork down and push on my chest so I did not puke all over my plate. He noticed and asked if I was okay. I wanted to say, “I do not love you,” but I couldn’t. Gary was a good man, and good men were hard to come by. I knew this. I had been with all the bad ones. So I just smiled and said I was okay.
That night I lay in bed and the words “I do not love you” seemed to float above my head, bobbing and teasing me. I whispered them in the dark and felt an enormous sense of relief, but then Gary rolled over and squeezed me in his sleep. There were many nights that I slept alone before Gary. Sometimes I would reach out into the dark and circle the empty space and pretend I was embracing a body. To go from wanting to having someone want me was a gift. I thought of this as the waitress placed the check, which was streaked with gravy, facedown on the table. She winked and wished me a Merry Christmas.
After I paid my bill I drifted into the flamingo pink bathroom and looked in the mirror. A candle burned on the counter. It flickered, and danced, and made the bathroom smell like roses. Mascara from the night before was smeared under my eyes and across my right cheek, so I wetted a paper towel and rubbed until my skin was clean and red. I zipped my coat up to my chin.
When I stepped outside the snow was coming down hard and fast. The enormous flakes filled the sky. The snow swirled around me and the cold froze my cheeks. Wind blew snowflakes into my eyes and I wiped them away. I stood like this in the parking lot for a long time wiping snow from my eyes and watching the cars pass on the highway above. The world was gray and white and I felt very small.
I thought of a class I took in college. We learned about stories and how they should be told. The professor said, “Every story has a turning point.” In class we had to write our own stories, but I didn’t do very well. My story was about a woman who wandered around a store looking at clothes. She didn’t try anything on and she didn’t buy anything. “What is she doing there?” my professor asked. I didn’t have an answer; I just knew she was scared.
I got into my car and turned the key in the ignition. “Silent Night” played on the radio. I pulled out of the parking lot and drove toward the highway.
______
Photo credit: Daniele Zanni / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA