The Next Best Thing. Kristan Higgins

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       CHAPTER SEVEN

      THE FIRST TIME ETHAN AND I SLEPT together was, um, well…it was memorable.

      What brings a woman to sleep with her brother—in—law, after all? I’m going to have to go with honesty here. Sheer horniness.

      See, it had been three and a half years. That’s forty—two months of being alone. Things were better, they were. The darkest days were over, when I’d wake up and realize something was wrong but didn’t know what…the desperate, terrifying realization that I’d never see Jimmy again, ever…somehow I’d gotten through that yawning, awful black time. Sure, I still had a few bad moments here and there. But I was trying.

      Growing up around widows, I’d seen my mother and aunts embrace widowhood as a defining trait. Before all else, they were Widows, and God help me, I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to stay myself, the happy, optimistic person Jimmy had loved…not someone who waved the flag of widowhood wherever she went. Granted, I often felt that the best part of me died with Jimmy, but I tried to radiate the idea that yes, it was awful, but I’d be really okay someday. To try to keep positive, I did a little yoga, taught my pastry class, since baking soothed me even though I couldn’t choke down the results, and listened to Bob Marley a lot. A line from “No Woman, No Cry” would run through my head whenever I felt that backward pull toward blackness. Everything’s gonna be all right. Everything’s gonna be all right. Everything’s gonna be all right. Everything’s gonna be all right. I was managing. Everything would be all right, I was determined it would.

      And then came my twenty—eighth birthday. And everything was not all right.

      Because on that day, suddenly, I was older than my husband ever would be.

      As my birthday dawned, I could feel myself sinking into the black hole that had been so hard to crawl out of. I was twenty—eight. Jimmy would never be. I was twenty—eight, widowed, childless, chubbier, paler. My life had been so wonderful with Jimmy and now—I couldn’t avoid the fact today—my life sucked. I was baking bread instead of desserts. I wasn’t featured on the cover of Bon Appetit or a guest judge on Top Chef. I was nobody in the world of pastry chefs, no one’s wife, no one’s mother, and none of that was likely to change anytime soon. While I was surviving, I was no fun. You get the idea.

      When the Black Widows came into the bakery that morning, I told them I was leaving early. I’d never taken a day off from Bunny’s, as the last thing I wanted was too much time on my hands. Iris peered anxiously in my mouth, looking for signs of “the Lou Gehrig’s.” Rose offered me one of her “pep pills,” which I declined (not sure if they were Tic Tacs, cold medicine or Prozac). My own mother said nothing, probably knowing just why I wanted to hide.

      The aunts clucked around me like worried hens. After much discussion, they accepted my assurance that the chances of me having ALS were probably not as high as feared. I told them I was fine…maybe I just needed a makeover, was just feeling blue. My mother gave me a rare hug, said we’d celebrate my birthday tomorrow, and Iris offered me her lipstick (Coral Glow, which she’d been wearing for fifty years and which bore more resemblance to a nuclear spill than anything that God made). I put a little on—it couldn’t hurt, right?—and walked home.

      My mood grew heavier as I skirted the park. In there was Jimmy’s grave, incontrovertible evidence that he was not alive. When he first died, I went through all that magical thinking that widows do, coming up with possible scenarios to prove Jimmy’s death was a mistake. That he had stopped, for example, at a motel. But someone had stolen his car, and it was that poor thief who died, not Jimmy. (The fact that I’d seen Jimmy’s body at the funeral home was something I’d have been happy to overlook, should he come walking through the doors.) Or that Jimmy worked for the CIA and his death was staged, and any day I’d be getting a call from Zimbabwe or Moscow. Or if I just was brave and strong enough, that Jimmy would come back and tell me I’d done a great job and that he’d be alive again, sorry for the inconvenience, and I could just relax and go back to that sweet, happy life we’d once had.

      Now, I forced myself to look in the general direction of my husband’s grave, and a little more magical thinking occurred. “Are you really going to let me be older than you?” I asked, aloud. “Jimmy? You sure about this?”

      The challenge went unanswered. With a lump in my throat, I continued on my way.

      When I got home, my apartment was still dark, as I hadn’t pulled up the shades. I decided to keep them down, too glum for sun. Then I tripped over Fat Mikey in the gloom, earning an outraged hiss. I heaved a sigh: 10:00 a.m. on the day when I’d officially be older than my poor dead husband. Please, God, let this next year be better, I prayed. Let me have a little fun. I hadn’t had much fun since Jimmy died, as God well knew.

      Yes. I straightened up. The next year—and all the years thereafter—should be fun. Wicked fun, in fact. Jimmy wasn’t coming back, the selfish jerk. (That would be the anger part of grief—it reared its ugly head every once in a while.) I’d have fun, dang it all. I deserved a little fun, didn’t I? “I deserve some fun, Fat Mikey, don’t you think?” I asked my cat. He twitched his tail in agreement, then yawned.

      “You’re right,” I said. “No one deserves fun more than a tragic widow. You are one brilliant cat.”

      Thus resolved, I opened my fridge, revealing coffee milk, the Rhode Island state drink, sour cream, lemons and a jar of pickles. My freezer contained six pints of Ben & Jerry’s, a bag of peas and a bottle of Absolut vodka. “Perfect,” I declared to my cat. Vodka and coffee milk…an Ocean State version of a White Russian, which, if analyzed, seemed almost to be a healthy breakfast…a little dairy, a little coffee, a little vodka. The drink went down so smoothly that I made myself another. Delicious. I took a few slugs, then poured a teaspoon of coffee milk into Fat Mikey’s dish (no vodka…didn’t want charges filed against me for getting a cat drunk), and he lapped it up. “Only alcoholics drink alone,” I told him, stroking his silky fur. He turned and gently bit my hand, then continued drinking.

      Time to do a little inventory. I would greet my new age armed with a perky attitude, sure I would. Slightly dizzy, I decided to take a good hard look at myself, see what needed to change so I could have more fun. Tripping once more over the large mass of fur and fat that was my pet, I went into my bedroom, stripped naked and stood in front of the full—length mirror on the back of my door.

      Gah!

      My eyes looked bigger, courtesy of the bluish circles underneath them, which I’d acquired the night the state trooper had come to my door. The skin on my face was white, and a little flaky, especially around my chin. Oh, man! When was the last time I’d exfoliated? Bush’s first term? And my hair! I’d had it cut here and there over the past few years, of course, but when was the last time? I couldn’t remember. Just because it was in a ponytail at work didn’t mean it had to be so flat and lifeless…I chugged the rest of my White Russian, needing a little liquid courage, then continued my self—perusal.

      And what was this? Cellulite? I didn’t have cellulite! Well, ten pounds ago, I hadn’t had cellulite. How had this happened? And oh, crap, look at those legs. Had shaving been outlawed? Now, granted, I didn’t go around wearing skirts or shorts, not when I was dealing with four hundred degree ovens, but there was no excuse for this. I needed to go to the beach and get a little sun, too, because my skin was so white that I could’ve modeled for med students studying the circulatory system. Bluish veins ran under my white skin like mold through a wheel of blue cheese. Those legs hadn’t seen the sun for years. Years! How had that happened?

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