Marianne by Elizabeth Hammer (best books to read in life TXT) 📕

focus. The way she’d ended the call with Patrick had been more than rude. He was all alone in Monterey with nothing to do, and yet she hadn’t even bothered to call him back. Marianne ran into the house for her phone. When she came out, she lit the dusty citronella candle on the table and flicked off the porch light. She started dialing but paused on the fourth number. He was probably fine, watching TV or something. He could even be asleep. She couldn’t justify waking him only to clear her own conscience. She snapped the phone shut.

Except it was only ten-thirty. He probably wasn’t asleep. What if he was sitting in his room wondering about her, wishing that she had called back, insecure about why she hadn’t? Marianne eased the phone open with her thumb and stared at the display until it went black.

Snap.

She couldn’t do it. She clasped her hands tightly together in her lap and tapped her pointy high heels on the ground. “What’s the big deal?” she said out loud. “Just call. You don’t have to say it.” Of course, she didn’t have to say it. Mouthing the words didn’t make her somehow obligated to say them louder. Frick. She wasn’t fricking obligated. Marianne pulled the cellophane off the pack of cloves and lit one on the candle. The smoke shot off the end in white ribbons, disappearing into nothing a second later. Was the smell disappearing into the atmosphere, gone forever, or was it lingering under the patio cover, seeping into the wood, sinking up the place? Marianne tapped her fist against her forehead. Interesting question, but not exactly the point right now. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

Marianne whipped her head up. Nothing was wrong with her. What was wrong was Patrick, Sally, Georgia, and everyone else heaping all sorts of peer-pressure all over her to do something she didn’t want to do. She was just reacting to them and all of their stupid comments. Back off. Just say no! Obviously, she wasn’t emotionally ready to take that step yet; it felt all wrong. Someday it would feel natural, and she’d do it then. When she was good and freaking ready. Why couldn’t she just do that? Why did no one have her back here? If kids were pushing her to do drugs, she’d have mad backup—parents, doctors, the law. But no. If she didn’t give in with this, she was doomed to be a schmuck. A leech. Why’d that stupid, mind-twister Sally have to put all this inside her head?

Marianne wiggled her cigarette, making jagged patterns with the smoke. “You’re hurting him,” she sneered in a copy-cat voice. What did Sally know anyway? Patrick was in love, for crying out loud. Patrick was freaking happy. “Yeah,” said Marianne to the smoke. “Like a happy freaking bunny jumping around in a happy freaking meadow. Unlike, you know—” she gestured with the cigarette toward her own forehead, “—me.” Fricking Sally and all her interfering. Fricking Patrick and all his loving outbursts. He should have kept his fat mouth shut.

Ouch. Okay, perhaps that was taking things a bit too far. He just loved her and it had spewed out of him because he was so stinking happy about it. Obviously, he didn’t say it to make her feel guilty; he never made her feel guilty about anything, not on purpose anyway. She could forgive a few happy transgressions on his part. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and neither had she. She was cool. And she didn’t have to say it. Marianne stared up at the corner of the patio cover, repeating that to herself over and over, watching an ill-constructed spider web jiggle in the wind. She ashed her cigarette in the planter and straightened her shoulders, mentally forcing her heartbeat to return to a normal, non-panicked rhythm. It’s cool. It’s cool. Logic said so, after all.

But my goodness! If everything was cool, then why was she still wigging out? She must have a complex. A sickness. Something happened to her in her childhood to make her so guilt-prone; she just couldn’t remember what it was. Had to be. She simply must have been abandoned or wounded or something. There had to be an explanation for all these random, imaginary feelings that she couldn’t get rid—Oh no.

Oh no… The truth exploded in her brain, brighter than the fireworks she’d just been watching.

She was a drama queen.

Marianne let her mouth hang open; felt the blush coming on. She was a wimp-out whiner who blew everything out of proportion. She was. How utterly humiliating. A personal low point.

But at least it meant that all her soul-crushing relationship problems were nonexistent. That was nice. Marianne let herself burn for one more second, then flipped open her cell phone, dialed, and hit send. She studied the spider web as she waited for Patrick to answer. The wind was picking up again, pulling loose another weakly attached string. “Oh, stop being so pitiful. Apparently, you have it worse than me. I get it.”

“What? Hello?”

“Oh, hey,” said Marianne. “Sorry, I was just telling off a spider web. It was mocking me.”

“I see.”

Marianne leaned her head back against the chair. “So, I’m feeling like crap. How about you?”

“Uh... about the same, actually.”

Huh? That was unexpected. “What’s wrong?”

“Eh. Nothing really,” he said. “Just moody, I guess.”

“Well, that’s a lie.” She waited a moment for him to explain, but he didn’t. “Do I have to beg?”

Patrick laughed a little. “No. I was just... well... how come you didn’t call me back till now?”

Sputter. Sputter. “I was busy. With the kids.”

“Okay,” he said. “Till eleven?”

Marianne sat up and gave the spider web a nasty look. The call wasn’t supposed to go this way. “I thought you’d be sleeping.” Uh-oh. Then what was her excuse for calling now? “But then I changed my mind. I realized that you wouldn’t care.”

“Well, I’m glad you changed your mind. Miss you.” His voice sounded normal again.

But she couldn’t