Page 10 of When People Leave
Charlie
C harlie drove the twenty minutes home from Phoenix airport to her condo in Scottsdale. When she pulled up in front of the terracotta stucco building with the red tile roof, no matter how bad her day had been, she was grateful she could own a home in such a beautiful building.
As she exited the car, the sweltering sun radiating off the pavement made it appear that steam was rising from the surface.
She let out a cough caused by the dust floating in the air.
Charlie could barely walk without slouching as she dragged herself to her front door.
The whole flight home she thought of nothing else but the tragic way her mother died.
She told herself not to take her mother’s suicide personally, but she couldn’t make sense of why her mother wouldn’t want to be part of her life anymore.
Charlie walked inside leaving her suitcase at the front door. She grabbed an afghan off the arm of the couch and curled up under it. She picked up the remote, hoping an episode of Family Feud would distract her.
Steve Harvey asked, “What’s something someone keeps in their car for emergencies?” One by one, the contestants came up with an answer. When the grandfather in the family answered, Charlie erupted off the couch.
“Did you seriously just say condoms?” she hollered at the TV so loudly she almost didn’t realize her phone was ringing.
She fumbled in her purse to find it, tossing out receipts, her sunglasses, and her wallet.
She cursed the purse for having so many pockets.
It seemed to ring louder, as if the phone was aware she couldn’t find it.
Then she turned her purse upside down and shook it and finally the phone fell out of a pocket on the side of the purse. A pocket she never knew was there.
“Hi, Rick,” she said a little curtly.
“Hey, are you home from LA yet?” he asked.
“I just got in.”
“Oh, good. Could you go to the market for me? I have my poker game tonight at Darryl’s place, and I won’t have time to get to the grocery store for days.”
“Sure… okay,” Charlie nodded.
“I desperately need milk.”
“Low fat or two percent?”
“Whichever. And I need a few more things.”
Charlie opened the notes app on her phone and began furiously typing as Rick read off a list.
“I got it,” Charlie said, typing some more.
“And can you make sure the cottage cheese is the one with the small curd?”
“Right, I know.”
“You are the best, thank you. You know I appreciate it.”
“I know you do. Talk to you later, bye, I love…” Charlie said before realizing Rick had already hung up. She dropped her phone back inside her purse, making sure it didn’t go into the mystery pocket.
Charlie met Rick during her senior year in college, and the fun had gone by the wayside during her second year of grad school. It was more important that she had a man who wouldn’t leave her, although lately, she wondered if that would be so bad.
Although Charlie thought she loved Rick, she was relieved she had avoided moving in with him when he’d asked her. He’d always bring it up in the least romantic way.
The first time was while they were eating Thai takeout on paper plates and watching the horror movie, ‘Friday the Thirteenth.’
“Why don’t we bite the bullet and move in together,” he had said. “We could save a lot of money.”
Charlie gave Rick all kinds of excuses for why she couldn’t do it.
The first time, she told him she needed quiet to study for her psychology boards.
After she passed those, she told him her lease wasn’t up, and she wasn’t allowed to have anyone else move in.
At the time, she’d been renting month to month, but he didn’t need to know that.
She didn’t want to live with him until he proposed, which still hadn’t happened.
Later that evening, Charlie unlocked the door to Rick’s apartment. She found the house in complete darkness, which reminded her of her childhood when her mother would run around turning off lights.
Carla would nag, “You girls are going to have to drop out of school and work in a coal mine to pay the electric bill.” At one point she told them she was going to call the police. Charlie was ten when a friend told her that “lights on” wasn’t a crime.
“This is the last time I say yes to doing this. I know I said that before, but this time, I mean it,” Charlie said loudly, making sure she heard herself.
Charlie put the groceries down. As she felt her way along the wall looking for the switch, she tripped over something and fell.
She crawled over to where she knew a lamp sat on a side table and turned it on.
She saw what had tried to kill her; Rick’s sweatshirt, jeans, and Nikes were clumped into a pile.
It looked as if he’d been sucked up into an alien spaceship where clothing was discouraged.
Was he naked when he ran out of here? The thought made Charlie snicker.
She headed to the kitchen, turning on every light she passed.
She opened the bags and put the milk, the cottage cheese, and the rest of the groceries she’d bought into his refrigerator.
Charlie stopped when she noticed the cream cheese, lettuce, blueberries, and an avocado she’d bought last time were moldy or turning brown.
“Are you kidding me?” she said, dropping the rotten food into the trash. Then she took a bite out of one of the apples she’d just bought him. “You don’t deserve to sit here and go bad,” she said to the apple.
She wiped down the shelves with a damp cloth. I wish I had a cleaning fairy who would come to my house. Oh, yeah, there is one. Me .
By the time Charlie was done, her T-shirt was stuck to her body and sweat clung to her skin.
Rick barely used the air conditioner, no matter how hot it was outside.
Charlie’s place was always a comfortable seventy-one degrees, which was probably one of the reasons Rick liked spending their time together at her place--that and she never let her food look like it was creating its own civilization.
She finished the apple and tossed the core in the trash. Then she gathered the Los Angeles Times pages that were spread out all over the kitchen table and placed them in a neat pile. She picked up all of the clothes on the floor and dropped them in the hamper in his bathroom.
“Since this will be the last time I clean for him, I might as well finish the job,” she said, then added, “Why am I talking to myself?”
As a reward for all her hard work, she laid down on his couch and opened a magazine. Before she knew it, she was asleep.
When she awoke there was a blanket over her, and the room was dark except for a red and white flashing light seeping through the blinds from the dry cleaners across the street.
Charlie rubbed her eyes to focus. The digital clock on the mantel read 11:00 p.m. She tiptoed into Rick’s room to find him tucked in bed, the comforter around him rising and falling rhythmically.
Charlie picked up the covers on her side of the bed, then thought, If I stay tonight, I’ll have to make breakfast in the morning and be late to the office . She left Rick a note and went home.
Charlie spent the next day seeing clients and contacting others she had on her schedule for the following week.
She let them know there had been a death in her family, and she would be gone for a short time.
She gave them a referral for another therapist in case they needed to talk to someone before she got back.
No matter how panicked a few of her clients seemed to be, she knew Rick would take her being gone again worse.
When Charlie got home late that afternoon, Rick was sitting on the couch waiting for her.
He jumped up and gave her a tight hug. “Why did you leave last night?” he asked, holding on to her a few seconds longer than usual.
Charlie recoiled as she took in the neediness that hung off him. “I had an early client,” she said.
“I missed you.”
“Well, we still have a few days together before I go back to my mom’s house.” She sucked in her breath, anticipating his response.
“Why are you going back?” he whined.
Charlie explained the plan that her sisters and she came up with to try to figure out her mom’s motives for ending her own life.
“Isn’t it obvious? Carla was depressed,” Rick said.
“But she wasn’t.” Charlie turned away; she’d cried enough to him on the phone over the past week.
Rick shook his head. “Does it matter at this point? She’s gone. Wouldn’t it be better for you and your sisters to accept it so you can grieve and move on?”
Despite her best efforts, Charlie began sobbing. “I can’t grieve until I know why she did it.” She wasn’t surprised that Rick didn’t understand. He wasn’t close to his parents; he only talked to them on birthdays and holidays.
Rick took her in his arms again. “Let it out. It’s okay, I’m here for you.” Charlie continued to cry into his chest, knowing she was probably staining his shirt with her mascara.
“So, you’ll stay home?” he asked.
Charlie pulled away and looked at him. “Seriously?”
“What?” he said. “Most women would love it if their boyfriend missed them that much.”
His attempt to make his clinginess a positive made her want to smack him. “I’ll only be gone for a week,” she said. He doesn’t need to know that I’m going to be away for however long it takes.
Realizing it was non-negotiable, Rick relented. “Okay, I can live without you for a week.” He kissed her forehead. “I hope you and your sisters find the answers you’re looking for.” He kissed her one more time and then headed to the kitchen. Charlie followed him.
“Thank you for restocking my fridge last night,” he said, taking out her milk and pouring himself a glass. “For the future, I’ve decided no more two percent milk, it’s either skim or nothing. I need to get rid of this jiggly belly.” He patted his six-pack abs beneath his shirt.
That evening, Rick took her out for dinner.
As they talked about their day at work and a movie they both wanted to see, Charlie looked at him over the fake rose in the middle of the white tablecloth.
She told herself that having him to talk to was better than being alone.
She reached across the table and took his hand in hers.
“I love you a lot,” he said, then lightly kissed her hand.
“I love you, too,” she said, and right then, she needed to believe it.
After dinner they went back to Charlie’s condo. Rick turned on CNN and played Angry Birds on his phone. Charlie headed to her bedroom.
She pulled out her largest suitcase and scanned her closet for what items she wanted to pack. She had a few more days to figure it out, but she’d rather pack than sit with Rick and listen to a bunch of correspondents contemplating why the world was falling apart when hers had already imploded.
Charlie took out several tops and pants in various colors. Even if she was in mourning, she didn’t want to wear black every day she was there. She wished she was one of those women who bought every item in one or two colors so all the pieces would work together and she could stop overpacking.
I wonder if we should be sitting shiva, even though we aren’t religious, she thought.
Carla hadn’t been a pious Jew, but she was a cultural one.
She raised the girls according to Jewish traditions, lighting candles on Hanukkah and having a Passover seder in the spring.
Charlie would also fast on Yom Kippur, although she would’ve had to admit that she mostly did it to jump-start a diet.
After packing enough and closing her suitcase, she suddenly remembered her favorite pink flowered dress. Don’t forget about me , she imagined it saying. Charlie took the dress off its hanger; I’ll need it if we go somewhere nice. She reopened her suitcase and neatly placed it inside.
But is it appropriate to go out when we’re grieving?
She pulled the dress out of the suitcase and held it in her arms. Her eyes darted around the room as if someone would give her a hard time for even considering going out.
However, the only person who had ever made Charlie feel bad about anything besides Charlie herself was Morgan.
Charlie remembered the time when they were kids, and she and Morgan made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Not only did Morgan yell at Charlie for not spreading the preserves correctly, but she also blamed her for not paying attention to Abby, who had grabbed the olive oil out of the cabinet and spilled it all over the floor. Morgan made Charlie clean up the mess.
Another time, Morgan took Charlie to a parking lot so she could practice driving.
When Charlie was working on parking, Morgan suddenly started screaming and flailing at a bee that had flown into the car.
Charlie, startled, crashed into a post. Morgan told Charlie that she would never be a good driver, and for years, Charlie believed her.
Charlie looked at the flowered dress in her hand, then let it slip and fall gently into the suitcase. It wants to come with me and doesn’t care what Morgan would say.