Chapter Three
Carly’s smile didn’t last long. In fact, it faded the minute she left her parent’s condo and headed downtown. Her thoughts immediately fixated on her loneliness as she walked down bustling Wentworth Avenue. She was single and thirty on a summer Friday night. Where was her exciting life? And why had things taken such an abruptly bad turn, which lead her right back to Della instead of leading her down a church aisle to become Mrs. Greg Warner? She should be planning a wedding right now, not scheduling pest control specialists and temporarily living with her parents.
Carly paused in front of “Harley’s Five-and-Ten Cent” store, where an old-fashioned dollhouse in the window caught her eye. As a little girl, she dreamed about living in a big house like this three-floored Victorian replica, complete with antique furniture, lace curtains and a wooden, ready-made family. But she just couldn’t seem to win both the house and the family. Why did complete fulfillment elude her? She once had Greg, but not the house. Now she had the house, but no chance in the near future of filling it with a loving family.
Carly peered into the tiny living room. Father Wood sat reading a newspaper on the couch and smoking a pipe. Mrs. Wood stood cheerfully in the kitchen, posed by the sink, a smile painted on her face, her hands thrown into the air as if taunting Carly. Look, Carly! No spider or plumbing problems in my home! Upstairs, Baby Wood slept peacefully in a decorated nursery while Dog Wood lay next to the crib. Carly bet Dog Wood never went crazy during thunderstorms.
She looked away from the window and sighed. Window browsing certainly wasn’t helping her feel better. Looking across the street, she spied Bubba’s Ice Cream Shoppe. Ah…a chocolate-chip-mint banana split with hot fudge sauce and whip cream beckoned. Carly knew the treat wouldn’t exactly solve any long-term problems, but it might help curb her desire to set the entire happy Wood family on fire.
She was halfway to dairy bliss when a red convertible sped around the corner and nearly hit her. Carly jumped back on the curb, and silently cursed the blond, woman driver. The convertible slowed at the end of the street, did a U-turn and pulled into a diagonal parking stall in front of her.
“Carly?” The suntanned driver with a long, golden ponytail waved frantically at her and motioned over to the car. “Carly! It’s me! Sunny!”
“Sunny” removed her sunglasses and stood halfway up. Her thin, spaghetti-strap, light-blue tank top and all that it held, confirmed for Carly that this was indeed the Sunny Willoughby she went to high school with.
“Come on, get in!” Sunny beckoned her over with a wave.
Carly looked up and down the street for other options. Running away was her best bet, but she was pretty sure Sunny and her convertible could catch her.
She walked tentatively towards her. “How’d you know it was me?”
“Cause you look mostly like you did in high school, except you changed your hairstyle and gained weight.”
Gee thanks. Carly self-consciously ran her hand through her reddish brown hair. “Well, my hair is a lot longer now, and highlighted and um, of course, I don’t run track anymore.” Which would explain the first ten pounds. The second ten are due to my late night rendezvous’ with my new lovers, Ben and Jerry, thank you very much.
“Also your mother told me I might find you here.” Sunny reached over and opened the passenger side door. “Get in, let’s go for a ride.”
Carly didn’t move. “You talked to my mom? But how? She’s playing Bingo at St. Agnes’s.”
“So was I.”
“You play Bingo?” Carly couldn’t have been more shocked if Sunny announced her candidacy for president. The Sunny she remembered from years past was more likely to be found in a strip club than a Bingo hall.
“Well, okay, I wasn’t actually playing Bingo. I really don’t understand the game. But my grandmother likes to play. I drive her there every Friday night before I go out. Norm Jackson, the caller, drives her home.”
“Oh.”
“So, like anyway, I saw your mom there and I told her how we reconnected on the phone the other day and she said you went for a walk.” Sunny spread her arms out wide and flashed a beauty pageant perfect smile. “So, here I am!”
“Here you are.” Carly forced a smile.
“So get in, Carly! Let’s go for a drink and get caught up!”
Carly looked longingly at the ice cream shop, then back at the ever-hopeful Sunny. She couldn’t be rude to her. After all, she somehow hung up on her the other day and never called back, not that Sunny seemed to care. Carly also felt bad about her encounter with Larry. She regretted how tired and witchy she’d been with him. Not a good start to making friends. But if at first you don’t succeed…
Carly slid into the passenger seat and closed the door. “Okay, Sunny. Where we headed?”
“To where the guys are, of course. The Second Wind!” Sunny’s tires screeched as she backed out of the tiny space and pulled away from the curb. She did a quick U-turn and headed the car back towards the lake. “So, tell me about this doctor guy you broke up with. Your mom says that’s why you’re back.”
Carly tried not to appear stunned. She hadn’t seen Sunny since high school, yet Sunny treated her like the old friend she never was.
She ignored the question about Greg Warner. “So Sunny, what have you been doing all these years?”
Sunny reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“I’m a beautician,” she said, and offered Carly the pack. “I was married for a while, but it didn’t work out.”
Carly waved away the cigarettes. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Sunny put a cigarette in her mouth, not lighting it. “Oh, I quit.”
“The marriage?”
“Oh, that too, but I meant smoking. I have to have one in my mouth when I drive. Old habits die hard. Anyhow, it was very hard to leave it behind.”
“Smoking?”
“No, the marriage. I thought he really loved me, you know?”
“Who’d you marry?” Carly asked, trying to keep up with Sunny’s frantic thought process.
“Hal Davenport. Do you remember him, Carly? He went out with Cheryl Hinderlosten for about two years before he dated me?”
Carly mentally rummaged through old yearbook photos. “Oh yes. Weren’t Cheryl and Hal Prom Queen and King?”
“Yep.” Sunny turned right onto River’s Edge, the paved road which brought them past Carly’s dirt road and to The Second Wind.
“When did they break up?” Carly asked. “I thought they were pretty serious.”
“They broke up when Hal met me.” Sunny didn’t even bat an eye as she related how she stole Hal from Cheryl. “We ended up getting married when we were twenty. I was so happy, you know? Like here, finally, was a man who didn’t just see me as some blond bimbo cheerleader.”
“Uh-huh.” Carly wasn’t sure how to respond.
“I started beauty school and he went to work at the factory after being kicked out of college. He liked drinking better than studying, I guess. He hated the factory though and pretty soon just stopped going.”
They zoomed past Carly’s road at a breakneck speed as Carly’s hair whipped across her eyes.
“Anyhow. His drinking got worse and worse and then, well, one night he hit me. Well, he hit me a lot of nights, but this time was really awful and so I left.”
Carly’s heart slammed to her stomach and it wasn’t from the way Sunny careened into the parking lot. She pulled the hair from her eyes and turned to Sunny. “He beat you? Oh, Sunny. I’m so sorry.”
Sunny flashed a brief smile as she turned off the engine and tossed the unsmoked Camel out of the car. “Oh don’t worry about it. It’s in the past. Sort of. He’s still in town and bugs me a lot. I’m getting a restraining order soon.” She removed her sunglasses and lifted her bangs off the right side of her forehead. “I think the bangs cover the scar pretty good, don’t you?”
Carly tried not to gasp. A three-inch, ragged-edged, pink line decorated Sunny’s forehead from hairline to temple.
Sunny replaced the bangs and checked her ruby lipstick in the rearview mirror. “Come on, my old, new girlfriend!” She raced from the car, and headed toward the bar.
Still reeling in shock from what she’d seen, Carly followed like a dutiful puppy.