By Proxy(75)
Jenny wasn’t raised to be the sort of person to neglect her responsibilities merely because she was harboring personal heartache; she was at school an hour early every day to prepare her lessons and stayed an hour after school to straighten her desk and classroom.
She worked on the program for the annual concert and attended all of the rehearsals, helping the senior girls choose their carols, and helping the music teacher coach the freshman and sophomore choruses through their pieces, which included several solos and hand motions. She directed the janitor on how she wanted the risers arranged and brought in evergreens cut from a local area of woods to decorate the cafeteria, where they would hold the concert, festively.
She was at church every Wednesday evening to organize the little ones for the pageant. She wiped runny noses, sorted out doves and baby angels, wise men and shepherds. She spent nights at home sewing new costumes until her fingers bled, making halos from wire, white ribbon and silver feathers with a leaky, angry glue gun that singed her fingers. She crate-trained Casey with a dogged tenacity until the small puppy was allowed to wander around Jenny’s apartment for limited amounts of time without having an accident. She spent all day Sunday with her father at his small house outside of town, making elaborate Sunday suppers, straightening his kitchen cabinets and folding his laundry.
She had never been so busy before, but to her frustration, nothing filled that gaping hole of aching loneliness in her life. At night, she drew her knees to her chest in bed, remembering Sam’s smile, seeing his face, hearing his voice, replaying his words, yearning for his warmth, his arms, his hands, his breath, his soft lips, his teasing grin, their easy banter. She would cross her arms over her chest and hold herself, remembering his eyes holding hers across the conference table at the courthouse, burning through her to brand her heart until it wasn’t hers anymore. And finally she would weep until she succumbed, mercifully, to sleep.
***
That first week she didn’t see anyone socially, except for one very tearful cappuccino with Maggie one night as she was closing. Maggie must have noticed Jenny swiping at her eyes as Jenny and Casey made their way back from their evening walk, because she had unlocked the door of the café, stuck her head out and called to Jenny before she could enter the door to her apartment. “Jen! Coffee!”
While Casey scampered joyfully around the empty, dimly lit café, Jenny sat at the coffee bar miserably as Maggie made them two after-hour cappuccinos. Maggie leaned on the counter and listened as Jenny spilled her heart out.
“Maggie, this just hurts so much,” she finally sniffled, wiping her eyes with a napkin.
“But, he wants you, Jen. You refuse to go to Chicago, but you’re miserable here. Maybe you should just go. Make it clear it’s a visit only, and you’d never consider movin’ there. Maybe you’d even like it. Who knows?”
“It wouldn’t be any good.” Jenny had stirred her coffee, watching the cheerful white foam dissolve into the depths of the cup until it was all a murky, uniform brown. “You know when you see two people on a reality show? And they’re thrown together in some unlikely circumstance on a deserted island or something, right? And you watch them fall in love, but it’s not real. When real life starts up again and the show’s over, they try to force each other into their old lives, and it all crumbles. All of the magic is somehow lost.”
“You don’t know for sure that would happen, Jen.”
“I do, Maggie. I can’t live that life. Dressing up for parties, drinking, living in an apartment, in a city. What would I even do there? I’d be frightened of the city, the crime and the strangeness. It would kill the magic.”
“Isn’t it possible that it’s better than this?” Maggie had asked, palms open in supplication, gesturing to Jenny’s life, her sadness, her longing.
“I couldn’t bear to kill it,” she whispered. “I’d rather have the memories. They’ll fade. Eventually they’ll fade. I just have to keep moving until then.”
Maggie had smiled at her then, covering Jenny’s hands with her own, the lilt of her soft accent comforting in Jenny’s ears. “Then how about a girls’ weekend? You and me? Great Falls?”
For the first time since Sam had left, Jenny smiled, grateful for Maggie. She nodded. “Okay.”
“Next weekend. You and me.”
***
It turned out a girls’ weekend didn’t solve all of her problems, but at least it distanced her from them. Maggie was good company on the drive north, changing the music, pointing at scenery out the window and making Jenny tell her all about the towns they traveled through. She didn’t ask about Sam, and Jenny was relieved not to talk about him. She couldn’t escape the near-constant sense of loss she felt, but at least she didn’t have to talk about it, too, which inevitably brought on more embarrassing, painful tears.