The Next Best Thing. Kristan Higgins
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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?
On to the feet…ew. Hey, if Howard Hughes didn’t need to cut his toenails, apparently neither did I. And my God, those heels! So rough and dry! Gah!
In a sudden frenzy, I pulled on Jimmy’s old robe, yanked open my bathroom cupboard and rummaged in the back. Scissors, terrific. Oh, great, a pumice stone. Forgot all about that thing. Hadn’t used it since I was a newlywed. Here was some crusty old mud mask guaranteed to minimize my pores and give me “the radiant glow of the Swiss.” I’d never been to Switzerland, but they couldn’t look worse than I did.
The last thing I unearthed was an unopened bottle of spray—on sunless tanner. I checked the expiration date: 08/2004. Well. It probably wouldn’t work, but it was worth a shot. I had to do something. I couldn’t hit twenty—eight looking like something left in the basement for the past decade or so. Besides, what said fun more than a tan? Nothing.
“This calls for another drink, Fat Mikey,” I said. “And yes, you can have some more. But no vodka for you, my feline friend.” White Russians were fun. Girls who drank them…ditto. Fat Mikey watched me, his eyes slits of appreciation, I thought.
Yes. Things in the mirror were better when I studied myself a long while later, though that might’ve been because my eyes were having trouble focusing. I’d only intended to cut my bangs, but I’d done such a good job that I kept going. I looked cute in a ragged, Japanese animé kind of way, the bangs shorter on one side, falling in little points. Adorable. Elfin, really. My face was shiny clean, though I couldn’t seem to get the dried mud off one ear. Even so, it was an improvement.
The tanner hadn’t worked—I was still fish—belly white—but that was okay. At least my heels had a little color now, pink instead of gray…oops, one seemed to be bleeding a little, maybe got a little too energetic with that pumice stone. And the cherry—red nail polish I’d applied was kind of gummy, being that it was quite elderly, so my toes (and fingernails) were maybe a little smeary, but still and all, better. My legs bled in a few places, since my razor was a little dull, but I was smooth, at least. Much better.
Still wrapped in Jimmy’s bathrobe, I meandered into the living room and flopped on the couch. Fat Mikey jumped up and kneaded my stomach—hopefully, he’d break up some of the cellulite—and then curled next to me. I felt better. I’d greet this new age o’ mine smoother and cuter than I’d left it. All good. “Don’t I look nice?” I asked my cat. He purred in agreement. “That was fun. We’re going to have some fun, Fat Mikey. Look out, world, here comes the fun.”
Within seconds, I was asleep.
I was awakened by a knock on the door. The apartment, which had been dim to begin with, was now fully dark, and I stumbled to the door, hands outstretched, till I hit the light switch. Flipping it on, I squinted in the abrupt brightness, then peered through the peephole. Ethan. That’s right, it was Friday, so Ethan was home. “Hi,” I said, rubbing an eye as I opened the door.
“Hey, Luce, happy birth—” He broke off suddenly. “Jesus, what happened?”
“Nothing,” I frowned. “Why?” His face was slack with horror. “Ethan. What is it?”
“Did you…do something? To your…”
“What?”
His eyes traveled up and down my form. “Lucy…” He started to say something, then stopped. “Oh, Lucy.” He covered his mouth with one hand.
“What?” I asked again.
“Uh…you…um…” He started laughing. Wheezing, really.
That was it. I fled to the bathroom, took a look in the mirror. And screamed.
My face was bright red, imprinted on the left side from the corduroy pillow on the couch. My right eye still had some grayish—green dried mud on the lid, which was preventing me from opening it all the way, sort of a stroke victim look going on there…Apparently, the aging mud mask had caused a rash, because my cheeks were red and bumpy. And my hair! Oh, Lord, my hair! Never cut your own hair while intoxicated…sure, now I remembered that particular rule. Seems so obvious, doesn’t it? Yet I’d done it, and it looked as if I’d run face—first into a lawn mower, my bangs choppy and irregular, the hair on the left side significantly shorter than the hair on the right.
Then I saw my arms. And my legs.
“No!” I wailed.
Brown and orange streaks covered my formerly white, white skin, except for the patches where the spray tanner had missed. I looked filthy, as if I’d been picking crops in the dust bowl. “No!” I moaned, slamming on the hot water and shoving a facecloth under the stream. I scrubbed the streaks violently, but no. Nothing changed, except my skin grew pinker under the fake tan.
That was it. I burst into tears. Pathetic, that’s what I was. A pathetic, drunken, smeary widow with orange skin, insane asylum hair and a rash. Insult to injury. Not only had God taken my Jimmy…He’d let me go on a White Russian bender while armed with scissors and tan—from—a-can! It was enough to make me an atheist.
“Come on, Lucy, it’s not that bad,” Ethan said from the other side of the bathroom door, his voice carefully controlled. “Seems like