A Second Chance for Grace – One

Twelve days and approximately six hours into what I had been referring to as a “forced vacation”, two things had become abundantly clear.

One: I wasn’t on a forced vacation. I had actually, truly been fired. For real. No one was going to call begging me to return because the magazine couldn’t run without me as I’d incessantly fantasized about since I was unceremoniously escorted out of the building by my favorite security guard and abandoned on the sidewalk with a full banker’s box of office belongings.

That one still hurt.

Seriously hurt.

Anyway. Moving on to number two: which might be more pathetic than the image of me standing prideless outside of my work staring in disbelief at my own disheveled image in the windows while New York City hummed, flowed, and screamed behind me. (breathe) The realization that I have embarrassingly toes.

The first realization came as I literally watched the minutes click by on my cellphone until they reached, and then passed, the weekly publication deadline. That had been day ten.

Realization number two occurred at the twelfth day, six-hour mark. Along with it came the recognition that without the near constant dings of my phone, the never-ending influx of emails from clients and co-workers, the daily meetings, and the pressures of a publication deadline, I had morphed into an unrecognizable blob of self-loathing and apathy, armed with a remote, a blankie, all the snack foods I usually denied myself, and one hell of an existential crisis.

And apparently, the free time to stare at my feet, which had been peeking out from under said blankie, to determine at the ripe old age of forty-five that my toes were hideous. As if I’d never seen them before. As if I hadn’t put socks on nearly every day, lathered lotion on them in the winter, and even occasionally painted their toenails in college.

No, somehow the repulsiveness of my feet, the way my stumpy big toes made my middle toes look freakishly long, and the way they, to my dismay, resembled tiny sausages when you stared at them too long, had somehow gone completely unnoticed by me.

I wasn’t sure which one made me angrier: the abrupt end to my twenty-year career or having so little to care about in my life that whether or not my toes were ugly was actually concerning to me.

That thought reignited the anger that had been ebbing and flowing through me since my firing. Again, I was transported back to the moment I walked through the hallway, bank box of personal effects in my arms, with security guard Frank at my elbow. Not one colleague had acknowledged me as I was escorted by their cubicles and offices. Coworkers who I’d worked beside into the wee hours of the morning, ate lunch with, brainstormed ideas with, even laughed with on occasion, averted their eyes as I passed as if my fate was contagious.

Not even my escort, Frank, who I knew had two daughters, Maggie and Lisa, both attending NYU. Maggie had her sights set on being a doctor. Lisa, an actress, much to Frank’s chagrin. His wife, Judy, loved to bake and often sent her famous raspberry chocolate chip cookies with Frank to pass out to his favorite co-workers. I always received one. I wanted to tell him I would miss those cookies, but when my feet had hit the sidewalk and I had turned, he was already behind the closed doors.

For a beat, I had stood and watched his disappearing back then had trudged back to my apartment, where I would soon discover I had no life, no friends, and severely ugly toes.

Next to me, the phone vibrated against the glass top of the side table, jolting me from my thoughts. Slapping away empty chip bags, candy bar wrappers, and wadded up tissues, I snatched it up before the caller could hang up, desperate to hear another human’s voice, even if it was a telemarketer.

An excited squeak escaped my unused vocal cords when I saw Mark’s name, swiped, and answered with, “Did you know my middle toe is freakishly long? I have ugly toes.”

After a brief silence, Mark’s chuckle drifted through the speaker, and I teared up as I was reminded that I DID have friends. A best friend, even. He just lived in a different state. “Well. Okay, then,” he said. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“Seriously. My toes are ugly.” I swallowed back surprise tears.

“I’m sure your toes aren’t ugly.”

In the background, Lindsay yelled, “Who said her toes were ugly?” in the tone that would have ended in a fist fight in our twenties.

While Mark had been my best friend since high school, Lyndsay had come along in college and now wore the moniker of other best friend, a status that had been forged when she’d drunkenly grabbed my shoulders, stared into my eyes and point-blank asked if I had ever wanted or planned to have sex with her boyfriend.

My answer had been a very dramatic gagging sound and a “Don’t be gross,” with a shudder. She had stared at me for a beat, then grinned widely before pulling me into an embrace and announcing she was now my other best friend.

“I don’t think anyone told her that,” Mark answered. “Did they?”

“Nope. Figured it out on my own.” I wiggled my toes for effect.

“Exactly why are we talking about your toes again?” he asked.

“I may or may not have been fired.” The words hurt passing my lips for the first time and were met by silence on the other end of the line. I imagined this was what delivering disappointing news to a caring parent would have felt like, had I had a caring parent. I also realized that painful silence was the reason I hadn’t called him already.

Finally, he sighed. “What did you do?”

There was no point in being offended. Mark knew me too well. “In my defense, she deserved it,” I said.

“Deserved what?” I could hear the slight panicky uptick in octave.

“Don’t worry. I’m not in jail or anything.”

He sighed dramatically with relief. “What happened?”

“You remember the new editor-in-chief? The one who stole my job out from under me with absolutely no credentials?”

“You mean besides being the owner’s daughter?”

“Exactly.”

“And attending NYU?”

“And barely passing. And having zero experience. Whose side are you on, here?”

“I don’t know, yet. Continue.”

I blew out air in frustration. “Anyway, she’s a nightmare boss. Last person to arrive, first person to leave, that’s if she even comes in at all. Fails to answer calls or emails and then throws a massive hissy fit if something falls through the cracks. I did my best to keep my head down.”

“That last sentence is a lie,” he said.

Unperturbed, I continued, “Seriously, for once, I actually did. Just kept working and staying out of her way the best I could. Until she screamed at me in the middle of the office, in front of everybody because she failed to return a call to an advertiser after she’d been repeatedly told to call. One minute, I’m sitting at my desk, looking over the proof for the next issue, and the next her finger is in my face, and she’s screaming at me.”

Mark sucked his breath in. “How bad did you threaten her?”

“Just a little. I just told her she had five seconds to get her finger out of my face before I broke it off and shoved it down her throat, right before I beat her worthless ass.”

“And she said?”

“You’re fired.”

“And that was when?”

“Twelve days ago.”

“And I’m just now hearing about it?”

In the background, I heard Lyndsay ask, “What happened?”

Mark’s response was muffled as he turned away from the phone. “She got fired.”

“Why?”

“Threatened her boss.”

Without a pause, Lyndsay asked, “Did she deserve it?”

“Yes,” I yelled.

“She said yes,” Mark repeated.

“When did that happen?” Lyndsay asked, and I grimaced.

“Twelve days ago,” Mark said.

“And we are just hearing about it now?” Lyndsay snapped.

“That’s what I said,” Mark answered.

I tapped the speaker on my phone with my index finger, then loudly asked, “You two realize I’m still here, right?”

“We do,” Mark said. “Okay, we will revisit Grace-drama shortly, and we are also going to discuss why it took you twelve days, and WE had to call YOU to find out about this. But we called for a reason.”

Grateful for the distraction, I said, “Commence with the reason for the call.”

After a brief silence, they both yelled in unison. “We’re getting married!”

Ugly toes momentarily forgotten, I slammed the footrest of the recliner down and matched their energy with a “What?!” Then grimaced at the stench that released from under the blanket. I seriously needed to shower. Disregarding the thought, I asked, “When?”

I heard Lindsay tell Mark to give her the phone. There was shuffling, then Lindsay said, “I know this is short notice, but next weekend. And I want you to be my maid of honor. And now that you are an unemployed mooch, you have no excuse not to come now! Check your email. I booked you a flight for tomorrow morning. So, get your ass on a plane and come home.”

“No, you didn’t.” I put the phone on speaker and checked my email. Sure enough, I found a flight confirmation for nine a.m. the next morning. “Yes, you did. Are you crazy? That had to be expensive this short notice.”

“I had points.”

“Lyndsay, I can’t just pack up and leave in the morning for a week.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Out of habit, I almost said work. But that was no longer an issue. I didn’t have any pets to worry about, though spending twelve days alone had made me consider getting one. Not that I would. I’d probably forget to feed it or something. “I have to apply for jobs,” I finally said. More out of stubbornness than anything. I knew I would be on that plane in the morning. I also knew that Lyndsay knew I would be on that plane and was just playing along.

“Which you can do from here. But when’s the last time you had a vacation?”

“Well, technically, the last twelve days.”

“How many times have you showered in those twelve days?”

Again, my attention turned to the disgusting smell that had released from under the blanket. How long HAD it been since I last showered? Three days? A week? I had lost track. Lyndsay took my silence as an answer.

“That’s not a vacation. That’s depression.”

Defiantly, I huffed. “Since when are you a mental health professional?”

Ignoring me, Lyndsay said, “Grace, come home.”

Home. I hadn’t thought of Adelaide, Ohio as home for years and for good reason. I hated it. I hated the people. I hated the pretty scenery and the slow, small-town pace of things. I hated that while growing up, I was judged by my last name and not by my actual presence. Since the moment I had stepped outside of the town lines, I’d felt freedom from a sordid past that wasn’t my making.

In the past twenty-five years, I had only been back on special occasions for Mark and Lindsay’s boys, namely at their births and when I would get a guilt call from one of them, asking if Aunt Grace was going to come to their recital, big game, or school play.

Other than that, Adelaide, Ohio was barely a blip on my life radar. It most certainly was not home.

“So?” Lindsay asked impatiently.

“I’ll be there,” I said, pushing the negative thoughts from my brain.

Lindsay whooped, and I heard her yell, “Aunt Grace is coming!” The sound of three boys cheering warmed my heart.

“Here’s Mark back. Can’t wait! Love you!” Lindsay said with a kissing noise.

The background noise of a chaotic home faded and then disappeared with the sound of a door closing. We were alone now, just like all the years in high school, sitting on the bank of the creek or on a deserted playground, while I screamed, cried, and even sometimes laughed at the tragedy that was my life.

To everyone else, what my parents had or hadn’t done appeared to have no effect on me. The way people—both peers and adults—treated me was not my concern. But with Mark, I was safe to let it all out. Only he knew the truth, the real me. And only he knew when to lend a shoulder and when to crack a whip.

Had it not been for Mark, I have no doubt I would have quit high school and probably followed in my family’s footsteps of crime and drugs. Had it not been for Mark, who made me fill out an application for the same college he would be attending and forced me to go with him, I probably would not have even thought of furthering my education past high school. Had it not been for Mark, Lindsay, and the boys, I would be all alone in the world. They were my compass, my light at the end of the tunnel. My world outside of my own world.

“So? How are you really doing?” Mark asked, interrupting my depressing thought spiral.

“I don’t know. I screwed up this time, Mark. Bad,” I said, once again feeling the weight of my circumstances on my shoulders. “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Have you tried apologizing?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I do know I’m not going to do that. That bitch can rot, for all I care.”

“Grace!” He sounded offended, but I knew better.

“Sorry. But it’s true.”

“Then come here. Stay through the wedding. Take time to figure out what you want to do,” he said. “You never know. You might find small town life suits you now.”

“Yeah. Okay. No.”

“Fine. Come here anyway and get your bearings. We have plenty of room, and the boys would love to see you for more than 24 hours.”

“I’m coming. You know I wouldn’t miss you in a tux,” I said with a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, well. Her color is pink.” He laughed heartily, knowing I hated pink. Knowledge also possessed by Lindsay.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” I said with a groan. His answer was another laugh. “She’s going to make me wear a taffeta dress, isn’t she?”

“Nah. She’s not cruel.” He paused. “I don’t think, anyway.” He paused again, then moved on. “Keep me updated on your flight. I can pick you up.”

“No, I’ll rent a car.”

“We still have an extra car you can borrow.”

“You know there is no way I want to be responsible for that. I’ll rent one.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he said.

“I am well aware.”

“Okay. Fine. Have it your way. You going to be okay until you get here?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine.” Silence. “Mark. Thank you. As always.”

“Anytime, Walnut. Anytime.” I smiled at the use of my throwback nickname, given to me one day after he told me I had an outer shell as hard as a walnut.

The excitement of the news now dissipated, worry set in. Why the rushed wedding? Mark and Lyndsay had been together as a couple for over twenty years. They had a successful real estate business, a beautiful home, were in the process of raising three boys and all-in-all seemed like they were killing the couple thing. I started to ask when Mark said, “I’ve gotta go. It sounds like Henry copped an attitude with his mom again by the sounds coming out of the house. Teenagers are fun.”

I held back the question. I would be there soon enough and find out. “Okay. See you soon.”

“Yep. Night.” With that, my lifeline was severed. While, before the call, I had been content in my depressed wallowing, when I set the phone down a crushing wave of loneliness swept over me.

Tired and now borderline irritated, I stood up, scanned the apartment, and cringed. Delivery food boxes and pop bottles littered every flat surface. Wadded up tissues blanketed the hardwood floor in a semicircle around my chair, victims of my roller coaster emotional state.

In the kitchen, all of the cabinet doors stood open, and every cup and glass I owned lined the counters, their contents in varying stages of fermentation. On the stove was a pan containing charred hamburger, abandoned when I’d wandered back to the recliner and lost track of time while it was cooking. That was how many days ago?

Tension knotted in my shoulders as I continued to assess the damage. It wasn’t that I was a neat freak. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In truth, I was never home long enough to make a mess. The thought of cleaning up the remains of a two-week depression binge was overwhelming.

For a split-second, I considered just packing up, walking out the door and leaving the mess for another day. Then an image from the movie Joe’s Apartment flashed in my mind, and I shivered. No, I wasn’t leaving my apartment like that. I would clean. Then pack. And hopefully manage a few hours of sleep before I had to head to the airport.

I would look at this as an adventure. It had been a while since I had one, and I needed one. Maybe not a pink taffeta adventure, but I would just have to suck that one up if came to that. Because at this point, anything beat sitting in the recliner, alone, and staring at my ugly toes.