After sending Ben down to the office building next to her home, Goldie climbed the stairs to check on Tom. Ben promised to talk to Sharon, who was filling in at the front desk, in case she hadn’t connected with Lucinda yet either. When Goldie saw Tom sleeping, she tried to quietly close the door again, but he awoke with the squeaking hinge he’d never gotten around to fixing. “Do you remember how we met?” he whispered.
Goldie threw her head back and said she was old, but not senile. She said she could undergo a lobotomy and not forget their early days. Tom grinned, and stood up, motioning for the bed. Goldie helped him in and Tom pulled back the covers, inviting her to join him. She climbed in beside him and settled into her spot on his right shoulder. “Prove it,” Tom said. “I want to hear you tell the story.”
“OK, mister,” Goldie said, snuggling in. “It’ll take a while, so I hope you’re comfortable.”
Goldie closed her eyes and felt the warmth of her husband’s body against her cheek. She couldn’t help but wonder how she’d ever sleep again once Tom wasn’t there next to her. He was dying, and she wasn’t nearly ready to let go. There were conversations to be had, memories to be made. She needed Tom to run the business and string the Christmas lights on the roof and get oil changes in the car. They’d never gotten around to cleaning out the garage or updating their wills.
The truth was, she had seen it coming, with the weight loss and hospital scans and scary words whispered by Morty and his colleagues. Still, she did what any wife would do: She hoped for a miracle. Now, she was angry. Angry with the doctors. Angry that Tom smoked for so many years before giving it up. Angry with herself for making bacon for Tom every morning for decades. She closed her eyes and traveled back in time forty-five years.
Gilda picked the diced onions out of her meatloaf and a kindly server named Alvin topped off her coffee. There were a pile of wadded-up napkins surrounding her lunch plate. “Ma’am?” Alvin said quietly. “Is there anyone I can call for you? Anything I can do?” Gilda wiped her nose, took a sip of her coffee and said, “No thanks. There’s nothing anyone can do at this point.”
The diner was nearly empty, and Gilda motioned for Alvin to sit down in the booth across from her. He looked over at Ernie behind the counter, who nodded his approval. Alvin sat down and started tidying the table, where Gilda had stacked sugar cubes into small towers, and wrote notes on napkins and eaten a bite or two of each of the four desserts she’d ordered over the past two hours. “Alvin,” Gilda said, pouring a glob of ketchup on her plate, “what would you do if you were me?”
“Ma’am?”
“Well, you see, all I want to do is to go home and climb in bed and sleep for weeks, or at least until I figure out a plan. The only problem is, I don’t have a home anymore.”
“What happened to your home, Miss?”
“Miss. Isn’t that a gas!”
Gilda pointed to her frilly white gown, which now had a large gravy stain in the shape of Texas under the neckline. She told Alvin she was glad the diner was dead because she knew otherwise, she’d be causing a scene. She said she’d happily change out of the itchy, over-the-top wedding dress if only she had some clothes. When Alvin pointed to the suitcase sitting on the floor next to her, Gilda opened it and pulled out a bathing suit, shorts, sundresses, and sandals. “Won’t do me much good in February in…” She looked around. “Where am I again?” Alvin said Duluth, and Gilda shook her head, not entirely sure what state Duluth was in, but too embarrassed to ask.
Gilda left Arthur at the altar. She felt terrible doing such a thing, but she couldn’t imagine marrying a man who pronounced the word length, lenth and insisted on creating “the perfect bite” every night at dinner. Meals that stretched into an hour because each time Arthur filled his fork, it had to have the perfect ratio of meat to starch to vegetable. Also, he brushed his teeth with peroxide and baking soda because he was too cheap to buy commercial toothpaste. If all that weren’t enough, Arthur’s last name was Goop. No matter how many times and ways Gilda tried getting her head around it, she just couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life as Gilda Goop.
When Gilda and Arthur went to his parents’ farm to share the engagement news, Arthur’s father, Whittaker, insisted they build a house on the family’s property and help run the farm. Sylvia silently nodded and handed Gilda a cup of tea. Arthur lit up at the idea, as if it were completely acceptable for him and Gilda to become farmers and stay in Iowa forever. Later, when Gilda asked Arthur about it, reminding him of their dream to move to California and start a dance studio near the beach, Arthur said, “But, Papa wants to build us a house, Gilda. Can you imagine never having a mortgage payment? Why, we’ll be living large!”
“How large can we live on a farm in Iowa?”
“I’m afraid I have to put my foot down on this one, Gilda. You’ll see. We’ll have a good life. You can still dance. Maybe Inez will let you become an instructor at the studio in town.”
Alvin listened intently, and when Gilda took a break to pick at her lime Jell-O, he cleared his throat and asked, “Why did you say yes to marrying a man you didn’t love, if you don’t mind me asking, ma’am?” Gilda quickly corrected him, saying she did love Arthur, or at least the idea of Arthur. She said he was good with money, wanted a house full of children, and always held the door for little old ladies. “He even said my parents could move in with us when they grew old if they needed help to getting around. In a lot of ways, Arthur is a real gem.”
“What made you leave him, and on your wedding day?”
“I peeked out and saw the guests sitting in the pews, waiting for the ceremony to begin. I saw my parents and cousins and my brother. My best friends, Annie and Carol, were standing in front of the church as bridesmaids. Everyone was there. Then I looked over to Arthur’s side of the aisle and saw his mother and father sitting in the front row. I got the strangest, clearest picture in my mind of Arthur and I turning into Sylvia and Whittaker. Running the farm, never leaving Iowa, eating lasagna every Sunday, having pre-ordained burial plots on the family property. I couldn’t do it. I knew I’d rather face whatever unknown is out there waiting for me than to become small…ordinary.”
When Alvin stood up and started clearing the table, Gilda sat up straight and nervously adjusted her veil. She asked Alvin if he was kicking her out. He said of course not, but that he had to get back to work. “Stay as long as you like, ma’am,” he said, smiling. He cleared all the dirty dishes and napkins from Gilda’s table and came back with a hot rag to wipe it down. A few minutes later, he brought her a cup of tea and a notepad and pencil. He told her she could use it to make a list or write a letter or whatever she might need to do to make a new plan for herself.
Alvin tended to a few tables of people who had shuffled into the diner for an early dinner, and Gilda wrote in large letters at the top of a page, “How to Start Over When You’re Broke and Alone.”