Anywhere But Here, Chapters 43–45

This novel is an experiment in fiction + serial posting on Medium. I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo 2012.

It’s a draft. Leave me highlights and notes on what you like, and tell me when things don’t make sense.

Chapters 1–3 | Chapters 4–6 | Chapters 7–9 | Chapters 10–12 | Chapters 13–15| Chapters 16–18 | Chapters 19–21 | Chapters 22–24 | Chapters 25–27 | Chapters 28–30 | Chapters 31–33 | Chapters 34–36 | Chapters 37–39 | Chapters 40–42 | Chapters 43–45 | Chapters 46–48 | Chapters 49–50 | Chapters 51–53 | Chapters 54–57 | Chapters 58–60 | Chapters 61–63

Chapter 43: Sandra

The flat was empty when Sandra arrived after 6. Emily had called earlier, asking to eat dinner at Livie’s house. Sandra agreed, despite the maternal alarm bells clanging loudly that she didn’t know these people or where they lived. Livie’s mother sounded normal enough on the phone, and she didn’t want to say no to her daughter.

Plus a night solo without teen sullenness or attitude sounded delightful.

She wondered about Parker. She couldn’t call and ask when he was coming home, or what he was doing, as much as she felt like it. He was a grown man, thirty-six years old like her, and so what if he hadn’t been home in four days. It just seemed so unusual not to come home. Everybody in Folsom was married with kids. Some were divorced and remarried with their kids commingling under one roof. People in the suburbs didn’t just meet someone new and not come home. Or, Sandra wondered, maybe that’s what instigated those divorces. But people weren’t single in her old neighborhood.

Is that what she was now? Single? Should she go out to bars and look for someone to buy her a drink, take her home, and then what? She cringed, she knew what, and knew there was no way she was ready for that. She had a gossamer thread of hope that her marriage was not over. She couldn’t picture herself with anyone else except Drew.

The door flew open with a sudden burst of energy. “Parker?” Sandra called.

“Sannnn-Deeee! Come meet the gorgeous love of my life!” Parker sang from the hallway.

Sandra rose from the bar stool in the kitchen as Parker and an attractive man with dark hair sauntered into the kitchen.

“Sandra, this is Benjamin,” he turned to the man he was attached to, “My love, this is Sandra, fellow thespian from my high school days who is my roommate for a little while until she finds her feet, gets on her feet, gets new shoes for her feet, or whatever that saying is.”

The man next to Parker laughed politely, then extended his hand to Sandra.

“A pleasure to meet you! I’ve heard a lot about you,” Benjamin said.

Sandra wondered how much he could have heard in four days.

“We are here ever so briefly,” Parker said, “as I can no longer borrow Benjamin’s clothes, and then we are off!” he exclaimed, waving his arm with dramatic flourish.

“Really, where?” Sandra didn’t mean the words to be so abrupt.

“We’re heading up north to the wine country, to some delicious little B-and-B where we may come out for wine or food, eventually,” he winked dramatically at Benjamin.

“Wow,” Sandra was too surprised to form a full sentence. She ignored a sharp stab of jealousy.

“Help me pack, Benj, so we can skip to our rental car and be out of here!”

The pair left the kitchen, and Sandra heard whispers as the door shut abruptly. She wondered if she’d have to change the sheets before going to bed tonight, but they were overdue to be changed anyway. She thought about opening a bottle of wine, letting Pinot Noir dull the edge of the wound she felt. She and Drew had never been effusive, except in college. The acute longing she felt for her husband now, for his physical presence, for his unique musky male scent, was too much to bear.

Orbit scratched the back door, which Sandra opened to let her out. “That’s a good idea,” Sandra said to the cat. She smiled briefly, then picked up her keys, her coat, and walked out the front door, hearing muffled giggling as she walked past Parker’s room.

The twilight air was crisp, unlike Folsom which would have been warm and slightly thick, she realized, grateful for the coat she brought. She took the same route she walked every morning to go to the bus. She always rushed in the morning, worried about being late and yet always the first to arrive.

She was driven by an urge to be anywhere but there, in the flat. What would that have been like for Emily, she wondered, to have the walls so close and thin, if the infidelity Drew kept accusing her of had been true? If Emily had to listen to those bedroom sounds from one parent and one stranger. At least that wasn’t going to happen. What about Drew though? she thought as she walked, had he found someone to fill the other side of the bed? He might think that was his right. She hoped not, the thought of him with another woman made her nauseous and miserable.

Sandra continued up to Fillmore, looking left and right, trying to decide the direction. She had never wandered to the right, her bus was on the left. Tiny white lights spun skywards on tree trunks that lined the street, inviting her to saunter. Sandra saw bars and restaurants beckoning. Her appetite had disappeared, and she wasn’t ready to sit on a bar stool surrounded by strangers, talking to each other but not to her. She didn’t feel like getting the syrupy sympathy of a bartender, who might feel obliged to talk to her but really needed to keep up with the fast pace of a busy night.

So she continued south down Fillmore Street, stopping when the foot traffic grew sparse, and the storefronts became more run down. She sat on a bench in front of a café, watching as the flow of people moved, rhythmic and united. Nobody noticed her, thankfully.

For the first moment since she brought up the wretched idea that she wanted to move to San Francisco and to a new job she couldn’t explain, a glimmer of golden hope warmed her chest. She hadn’t been alone in a couple months, and watching the pedestrian activity in anonymity was bliss beyond words. It was everything she loved about San Francisco.

She waited another hour, until her cell phone read 8:15, anticipating Drew’s call that wouldn’t ring on her phone. She walked back to Parker’s house, entering to silence. His bedroom was empty.

She wasn’t hungry, and there was nobody else that needed feeding. She felt a tug to do something; to clean, to move, to keep herself busy, to power on her laptop and do work. To somehow take advantage of this small stretch of time. Orbit meowed and pawed outside the back door; she absently rose from the chair and let the cat inside. She again thought about opening a bottle of wine, surely Parker wouldn’t mind as he had so many.

She picked a two year old vintage thinking it would be inexpensive. The familiar tangy smell rose into her nose as she pulled out the cork. Just one glass, Sandra thought. She poured wine into a tumbler, which she preferred to long stemmed, unstable wine glasses and walked through the hallway into the sitting room. She passed the row of moving boxes, still in the hallway, anchors to her former life.

What did she do to fill her nights before, when Drew was away, when Emily was at a sleep over? I used to savor them, she remembered, I’d eat cheese and crackers and call that dinner. She smiled, thinking that could be worth the walk to the grocery store, they had a decent cheese selection. But she until her first paycheck, expensive cheese would have to wait.

She sat down on the antique sofa, feeling like she would break through if she sat on the wrong spot.

She turned on the TV, flipped through channels, then powered it off. The silence in her past bright, inviting house was a sharp contrast, she sipped her wine, as ghosts of thoughts haunted.

“What did I really do?” Sandra said aloud, startling Orbit who sat on her lap. “Sure, I went to the city for one night, lied about it, and got a job offer,” she paused, “Beyond that, all I had was a dream. Orbit, what is wrong with a dream?” A sudden flare of anger erupted, unfamiliar and burning. “Since when is a dream a betrayal?” Orbit mrowed with feline curiosity.

“What did I do?” She said aloud again. She looked around the sitting room, thought about the house she no longer owned, projected her future forward four short years to Emily’s college departure. Where would Sandra live? Surely not at Parker’s, maybe in a rented flat somewhere, with a ten year old cat, and not even a weekend husband. She had a job, that could even be a career, if she could manage to stay employed and figure out what a customer service manager did at a company with no customers.

If she found a new man, he would have different quirks and idiosyncrasies than Drew, and together they’d create a new set of problems to go with the new romance.

How much of Drew’s inability to hear, Sandra thought, originated from my unwillingness to stand up to him and be heard?

She looked down at her empty wine glass; one was enough, in this state of mind the bottle would be gone and a red wine hangover would be her aching reminder when she got ready for her Improv class tomorrow.

She drank a glass of water, then went to Parker’s room to lay down. The rumpled sheets dissuaded her, and instead she went to Emily’s room, clicking on the lights. She hadn’t spent any time in this room since her visit earlier in the year. Before everything. The dim, yellowish light from above did little to ease the shadows. Emily’s right, this is a dungeon, Sandra thought. It’s time to find our own place, one with more light.

Chapter 44: Emily

After departing the bus, Livie and Emily pedaled down a short hill and turned into a cul-de-sac. Livie stopped in front of an almost-suburb-normal two-story house painted pale gray. A metal gate in the front wall of the house next to the garage protected the entry. Emily was surprised the house wasn’t painted turquoise or purple, given her friend’s magenta hair.

“Welcome to our classic tunnel entry house, built a long time ago, but not as long as the place you live.”

“Tunnel entry?”

Livie pointed at the gate, “We enter through here, which goes through a tunnel and up stairs to the front door.”

“How do you know so much about houses?”

“My parents say it often enough that it stuck, plus my dad is an architect.” Livie opened the front gate, which closed with a solid metallic thunk. Short lush plants grew around the path, and a mischievous garden gnome smirked at Emily.

“His name is Sam,” Livie said, pointing to the gnome. “His job is to protect the house.”

“He’s cute, not threatening,” Emily commented.

“It’s his disguise. We are convinced he plays pranks to keep I’ll intentioned people away. You never know what tricks gnomes have under their pointy red Santa hats.”

They left the bicycles inside the gate and walked up the stairs. The living room was saturated with golden warm light. Emily wanted to move in and never leave.

“Let’s go downstairs.” Livie led the way down a short hallway to a flight of stairs. This room was also comfortable rather than stiff and formal like Parker’s sitting room. Lush sage green carpet covered the floor inviting Emily to lay down and take a nap. The backyard was visible through a pair of wood-framed glass doors leading outside. An average-sized flatscreen TV peeked through the doors of a wood cabinet.

Livie ignored the plush stuffed chairs and plopped down on the carpet. She turned on the TV, flipping through channels. “How do you feel about cartoons?”

“Fine.” Emily would watch sports if she could stay.

Livie picked a channel with classic cartoons. A skinny gray rabbit walking upright taunted a pig in a hunting cap. The cartoon finished and the next one started about a blue road runner avoiding death by a brown coyote, when they heard the garage door opening and Livie’s mom walked through the door.

“Hi girls!” Livie’s mom was about the same age as her mom, she figured.

“Ooohhh, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote! My favorite!”

“Hey Mom, this is my friend Emily, the borrower of your bicycle, Emily this is my mom Barbara.”

“Nice to meet you,” Emily said shyly, “thanks to letting me use your bike today.”

“Likewise, Emily, and you’re welcome!”

“What’s for dinner, Mom?”

“Hey! How about starting with ‘How was your day, Mom, can I help with the groceries?” Barbara teased.

Livie stood to help and Emily followed. “There are a couple more bags in the car.” They grabbed the rest of the bags and deposited them upstairs on the dining table.

“Now can I ask?” Livie teased.

“Only if you want to cook,” her mom smiled. “If you agree to cleanup, I’ll tell.”

Livie glanced at Emily, who nodded. “We agree to your terms,” Livie said.

“It’s mammal and pesticide night! Beef livers and pesticide grown iceberg lettuce.”

“Ewwww!”

Emily watched, amazed. She couldn’t remember when home was this lighthearted and fun. Jealousy nipped at her insides.

“I think we’re worrying Emily,” Barbara said. “The lettuce part is sort of true, but my daughter would strike if I brought home non-organic vegetables. What we are really having is roasted chicken with vegetables and potatoes. Only girls who live here full time get cow’s eyes, especially the vegetarian ones.”

“Mom, where did you find vegetarian cows’ eyes?”

“Funny!” Barbara said, with mock sarcasm. “Now get out of my kitchen, dinner will be ready in an hour.”

At dinner, the playful banter continued with Livie’s dad joining in. Emily watched, stunned silent, as the conversation ping-ponged as all three of them contributed. She was dumbstruck as Livie shared all of the details of their day. She never told her parents that much.

“You rode down Vermont Street?” Chris, Livie’s Dad asked, stunned.

“Um, maybe?” Livie looked sheepish.

“With a first time SF bike rider?”

Livie looked at the table, embarrassed, then looked back up with a big guilty grin. “She did great though! I told her she didn’t have to.”

“But seriously honey, I was 26 years old before I rode down Vermont! I’d been biking in the city for years!”

“You said you’d never done it before!”

“That was only to scare you from doing it. That plan worked well, I see,” Chris grinned, turning to Emily. “Tough ride for a novice, but I see you’re not in the hospital, so how did you like it?”

Emily wished she had a quick, witty response. “I was a little scared, I guess.” Livie’s dad was worried about her!

“Emily was impressed I knew how to avoid the hills, Dad, but I told her you taught me.”

“Those tandem days were great! We used to ride all over the city, didn’t we?”

Emily listened, missing something she’d never had. Dinner conversations were either scripted or absent, even before the move. Even conversations at her friends’ houses didn’t compare.

A couple hours later, Emily was curled up on the downstairs floor, a pillow tucked under her head and a warm quilt over her. She glanced at the clock. 8:30.

Then Barbara said from across the room, “Emily, do you want to stay the night? I can take you home if you want, but you look pretty comfortable.”

“If it’s okay?” Emily said, sitting up, “I need to call my Mom.”

Her mom was surprisingly agreeable, considering she’d never met Livie or her parents, and the grief her dad gave her last night. She asked to speak to Barbara.

“Oh, that’s no problem, I’m sure the girls will be up to something tomorrow. Three is fine, don’t worry if you’re late.”

Three? Emily wondered.

Barbara handed the phone back to Emily. “Hey Mom.”

“Emie, I forgot to tell you I have a class tomorrow. I’ll be home around three.”

“A class?” Her mom never did anything.

“It’s the improv thing for work,” her Mom sounded unusually calm. “Have a good night, Em, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye.” Emily stared at the phone blankly. Something seemed … wrong, but not wrong.

“Now who wants popcorn?” Barbara asked.

“Me! Me! Me!” Livie answered with enthusiasm.

“Three Livies then, any Emilys?”

“Yes, please.” She didn’t want to think about her mom.

Chapter 45: Sandra

Sandra Sweating, Sandra thought, standing in a circle with a dozen other adults. She was nervous and anxious as each student in the Improv class took a turn to say their name, a verb, and a motion.

She woke up early this morning, with too much time to obsess about driving or taking the bus, whether to move her car, and realizing she probably got another parking ticket. She hadn’t been in her car all week. Checking the bus map, seeing she’d only have to take one bus and a short walk to get to Fort Mason and she couldn’t afford parking. The bus ride was full of gorgeous mansions and a glimpse of the bay, dull in the late morning fog. She found the cluster of yellow buildings easily enough, which didn’t look much like a fort.

Now empty audience chairs mocked her for daring to be on a stage again after twenty years.

Sandra smoking, maybe? I don’t smoke but I could start. Maybe then I’d stay away from all the snacks in the office kitchen? Sandra shirking, as a testament for leaving my daughter with strangers today?

Nothing sounded right as she watched other students effortlessly take their turn: “Brad bouncing; Jane Jumping, Samantha Sunning,” too bad she didn’t think of that one, as the woman lifted her face to an imaginary sun, fanning herself slowly. The group stared at her and waited, “Sandra Slouching!” She said with enthusiasm she didn’t feel, and let her shoulders fall down, her back round, and her knees bend. Really? That was the best I could do? I used to perform in front of hundreds of people!

Sandra was the last in the circle, and was surprised when the instructor next to her said, “Again, now faster!” Each person said their name, verb, and action, more rapidly, the hesitation gone. By Sandra’s turn she was smiling as she shrugged, and with speed the notion of perfection was gone.

For the next round, each participant said their name and action first, followed by another person’s name and action, then it became that person’s turn. Sandra was again surprised when David Dancing looked right at her, smiling, then said “Sandra Shrugging,” followed by an exaggerated shrug. Sandra smiled back, self consciously. He’s cute, she thought, could men her age be called cute? He had a trim black goatee and gray pinstripes through black hair. But no matter, it was her turn, “Sandra Shrugging,” she said, the shrug becoming quick and hasty, then saying “Paula Painting!” followed by waving an imaginary paintbrush at a likewise imaginary easel.

“I invite you to bust yourself planning,” Bill Batting, their instructor said, “Planning is your enemy. I want your quick, first, gut reaction to a moment, not thought out and edited. I am sure all of you spend a lot of your days planning, but not today. For the next warm up exercise each person will sculpt an imaginary object out of clay, then pass it to the next person, who will show by their actions with the object that they know what it is.”

Sandra didn’t understand, but thankfully she wasn’t first. She was second, as the instructor directed the game to go counter-clockwise around the circle and she was standing to his right. She watched as Bill Batting sculpted an elaborate object out of imaginary clay, his hand running up a tube of some sort, a ball at the end. Not a bat, Sandra thought, I have no clue what that is. After a minute more of sculpting, Bill Batting handed the object to Sandra, who held it by the long neck or tube, turning it around in her hand, lifting it up to the light. A dark urge overtook her, and she shook the object furiously, then dropped it on the ground and stomped on it. The class erupted in stunned laughter. Bill Batting nodded at her, smiling, and gestured for her to build something new out of imaginary clay.

Sandra’s impulse was to create a clay cat she took a few minutes detailing the ears, the nose, the whiskers, and a long tail up towards the sky. She passed the cat gingerly to Jane Jumping on her right, who looked at it quizzically, grabbed it by the long tail, and swung it mightily over her head, releasing it with a final fling. Sandra chuckled; all of her plans flung unto the heavens, just like her life lately.

During the course of the workshop, Sandra played parts in imaginary scenes. She was a deep sea diver, with her partner David Dancing, who volunteered to be in the scene with her. They scoured the oceans looking for rare Viking hats made from extinct sea creatures.

In other scenes Sandra was part of the audience, as a three-headed expert, made up of Samantha Sunning, Bob Bouncing, and Kate Kiting answered questions word by word on world peace and how to build a house on quicksand.

Sandra didn’t notice when her incessant thoughts stopped, but when they took a break for lunch, she felt lighter. Some of today’s exercises she remembered from high school. She embraced the outrageous quickly, earning a curious raised eyebrow and a grin from the instructor.

She didn’t know the last time she had so much fun. Her self-consciousness dissolved, along with the feeling of getting everything in her life completely wrong.

At the end of class, David Dancing walked up to her, asking if she wanted to get coffee.

“Sure,” Sandra said without thinking, then her familiar doubts returned. Was this a date? What if he wants to go somewhere? Do I tell him about Emily, or about Drew? I should have said no. Sandra, a more calm part of her brain jumped in, it’s just coffee. Relax.

There was a cafe in the bookstore downstairs. He must know I’m married; I’m wearing my wedding ring, she thought, glancing down at her finger.

“What’s your pleasure, at this fine establishment?” David Dancing asked, standing in front of the coffee bar.

“Decaf vanilla latte, please?”

“Decaf? I didn’t take you for the decaf type.”

“After lunch, it’s decaf or I won’t sleep.”

“Fair enough,” he said, then ordered a double cappuccino for himself. They sat at a tiny round table, on barely cushioned chairs with black metal backs.

“So, Sandra Shrugging, how long have you been married?”

He noticed; good. Maybe good? Sandra pushed the thought of Drew away, Drew who had pushed her out of his life. What would this be like, she wondered, being single. Dating.

“Sandra? Are you planning your response, after all those lessons in not planning?”

“Maybe?” Sandra looked at her coffee, “Fifteen years.”

“Wow! I was married, but we only made it to five before the walls fell down and humpty-dumpty couldn’t be put back together again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it was a while ago, and I don’t think you were the cause of it.” David smiled, flashing brilliant white teeth through the goatee smile.

Sandra realized she was horrible at small talk, and would rather be given an improv scene to act out that sitting at a table with a stranger, or a not quite stranger, after they had gone imaginary deep sea diving together, even if they were a couple of merpeople in the scene.

“Now that question is out of the way, should we start with the normal trite conversational topics: work, area of SF we live in, how much DPT has made in parking tickets off you this year; or we could do something else.”

“Something else?”

“We could play a game, that we are strangers in a café in Paris, and it’s pouring rain outside, we both rush in to grab chairs at the only table left, and shrug,” David said, smiling, “which you have had much practice at today, and decide to share the table.”

“I’m game,” Sandra was amused and intrigued.

“Here’s the catch; do you speak French?”

“Not beyond ‘Bonjour.’”

“Excellent; neither do I; so we shall speak in French gibberish, where we speak nonsense words that sound like a French version of the Muppets’ Swedish Chef.”

“Oh! I remember this game!”

“Excellent!”

To be continued … Thanks for reading!