"What about your hope chest?" There was a protest in Mardi's voice.
She even stomped her foot a little as Renee shook her head and sat the onesie back on top of the stack of baby clothes.
"What about it? I told you I'm not doing that anymore," Renee did her best firm voice, turned her back on her best friend and headed towards a card table holding an assortment of old and newer glasses.
Mardi came up behind her and in a loud whisper did her best mom voice, "Renee Michelle Nalan! I was talking to you!"
Renee laughed.
She picked up a piece of cobalt blue glass and held up to the sunlight before turning to say, "I'm not one of your kids, Mardi. And, it's okay. I'm just done."
It was the expression she used a lot these days. Done. It was done. She was done. Her despair and her longing and her hope. All done.
The married woman sighed, "You're not done, honey. You just think you are."
Renee rolled her eyes, "I am thirty-five years old, my friend. I think I know myself well enough by now to tell you what I think and how I feel. It's over."
She paused for a moment and added, for effect, "In fact, I should have a yard sale myself and get rid of those things."
Mardi just shook her head and walked to a rack of toddler clothes. She turned, met Renee's eyes and shook her head again as she asked the old lady, in whose backyard they stood, about the blue glass.
When they got back into the sunshine-yellow Volvo, Mardi started the engine and turned to her, "What about sex?"
Renee crossed out the just-visited sale from the list in the classifieds as she answered, "I can have sex. That doesn't mean I have to have a relationship...Hell, I don't even have to have a man. There are always toys and porn."
Mardi shook her head again and with more than a touch of sarcasm added, "Great, that sounds life-affirming and healthy. I wish you and your dildo all the happiness in the world."
Renee's hair was still dripping water down her back as she went into the bedroom to find her pajamas. She glanced at the alarm clock. Three o'clock in the afternoon, on a sunny Saturday.
'Yeah, but, it's humid outside. And, you don't need to spend any more money if you're going to build that deck. You might as well be comfortable.' Her mind told her, being well practiced in the reasons it was okay to put on pjs in the middle of the afternoon.
She walked by the old hope chest that had once held her grandmother's embroidered handkerchiefs, a porcelain-faced doll from her childhood and an assortment of photo albums. When she had inherited it, already emptied of those prize possessions by greedy family members, she sat it at the end of her bed and slowly began to fill it herself. Her grandmother stashed away memories inside the hardwood confines; Renee stashed dreams.
It began with a teddy bear. She saw it in a store window and couldn't walk by. When she got it home, she wasn't sure where a grown woman was supposed to put a stuffed animal. She was certain setting it on her bed would kill any romance that made it as far as her bedroom, so into the trunk it went.
It didn't take long before the cutest pink baby dress she'd ever seen lay next to the brown bear. Now it held an assortment of baby clothes, a couple of hardcover children's books, the picture of a wedding gown she'd secretly torn from a friend's bridal magazine, a few photo frames meant to hold the picture of one's true love and an assortment of other such items.
'Fairy tales,' Renee said to herself, 'Just fairy tales.'
She'd hidden the contents of the chest from almost everyone. Mardi knew, but Mardi was her oldest and closest girlfriend. She'd physically tackled two men who decided they had to know the secret treasure hidden inside the large box.
Michael was the only man she'd opened it for herself. Michael, or as she affectionately referred to him for months afterwards, The Ass. After fourteen months, three weeks and five days, just a little over a month after she shared her best-guarded secret, he'd instigated a fight, gathered his things and left for good. It was less than a month before she found out, through the ever-twining university grapevine, that he'd begun dating a stewardess named Becky just a few days after he turned away from her.
'Ass,' she decided he still deserved the title.
Renee heard the shouts as she searched for the remote.
"How do you disappear when I'm the only person who ever uses you?!" she said aloud.
She continued, "Good God, I'm talking to inanimate objects now. I've lived alone for too long."
A second round of shouts from outside caught her attention, "Come on back! Okay, stop!"
The rumble of an engine echoed into her house and took her to the front window. She pulled back the curtain just enough to see but not be seen.
"Jesus," she said, and her head fell back to stare at the ceiling for a moment as she let the curtain close.
Renee huffed her way to the couch. Another new neighbor across the street. It had been such a nice street when she bought the little house. In the city but quiet. People kept up their yards; cats could meander peacefully from house to house. The little old people would wave when she left for work in the morning. Then, the little old lady across the street got shipped off to Ohio to live with her daughter, and it all went to hell.
Renee learned quickly that there was nothing in the world worse for one's property value and peace of mind than a rental house across the street. First, there had been the people who had a well-patronized drive-thru drug service. She'd called the police only to see them in the front yard, slapping the guy on the back, laughing and leaving.
Next, there was the woman whose boyfriend liked to beat her up. Renee decided she must like it too since she kept bailing him out of jail and bringing him home. Her pity died quickly with that one.
There was a nice couple whose young son liked to pee on the bushes that lined the street. That only made Renee laugh, but they didn't pay their rent. They were gone in three months. And, now there was a man whose voice could carry clear across the street and into her bedroom to disrupt her quiet.
She curled up on the couch and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until she found a boy meets girl, loses girl then marries girl romances she'd seen twice. There was something comfortable about the familiarity of it, so she left it there. It was about three-quarters of the way through when the familiarity turned to tears. She cursed herself even as she cried, but self-pity won.
'He's not out there. You've already faced that. Why are you crying? Stop crying. No, really, stop crying!'
"Dammit," she cussed when she realized she'd used the last Kleenex.
She moped her way to the bathroom, retrieved a wad of tissue paper and blew her nose. She glanced in the mirror and decided she looked even worse than she felt. Her nose was red. Her eyes were swollen. And, her face seemed to have a certain dullness that never went away now. She vowed to moisturize every night, but she knew it was a promise she'd forget by bedtime.
She pulled her long hair up off her neck into a clip and headed to the kitchen for ice cream. Ben and Jerry were the only men she really wanted in her life now. She'd decided there were worse things in the world than being fat, like living without ice cream. But, before she could make it to the freezer, a loud bark startled her.
It sounded as if it were on her front porch. She walked quickly to the front door, turned the dead bolt and opened it just to enough to see out.
"Hey!" Renee yelled, as she threw open the door and ran outside, "You stop that! Stop that now!"
The black lab did stop, looked up at her and barked.
