The Last Time I Was Me. Cathy Lamb

Deidre?” The river kicked up a notch. Little baby waves splashed around my legs.

      Asking about Deidre took Charlie’s mind off our conversation. “She’s doing great.”

      Deidre is athletic-looking. She wears no makeup because she doesn’t need it and tells me that she makes their four kids play outside a lot because, “God made their skin dirt-proof so even if they roll in a puddle I know they’ll clean up good.” She does not allow video games. She hardly allows TV. She is super kind, well read and educated, and can talk about any topic under the sun. Beneath her cheer and good humor, she is a flaming liberal, a true and ardent believer in women’s rights.

      I am sure that everyone she comes in contact with loves her.

      And I cannot recall a time that I have ever been friendly to Deidre.

      In fact, I have been snappish and often rude and dismissive of her stay-at-home mom’s life, the fact that she doesn’t work-isn’t she bored? Does she feel bad about not developing herself to her full potential? How can she be fulfilled? Is she, like, screaming to get out of her narrow and dull domestic life?

      The truth of it is that I am crazily, greenly jealous of Deidre.

      She has everything I want.

      A husband. Many children. Lots of pets.

      I thought I was going to be Deidre. I wanted to be Deidre. That dream was obliterated.

      “She’s always wished that the two of you were closer.”

      “I know, but I’m too cranky.” And currently mentally unstable. And a drunk, and a raving lunatic who appears normal from the outside. But who wants to state the truth about one’s mental health aloud?

      “The kids would like to see you, too,” Charlie said, his voice so quiet. “You haven’t seen them in years. You’ve never even met the younger three.”

      “I know.” Their first child is right about the same age as my daughter, Ally Johnna, would have been. Her name is Jeanne Marie (named after me). Charlie and Deidre always send me pictures of my nieces and nephews and I have scrapbooked every single one of those pictures. I love those children even though I have very rarely seen them. I send fabulous presents at their birthdays and Christmas, after consulting with Charlie about what they want. It is too bad they have such an off-her-rocker aunt who can hardly stand to look at them in real life without feeling like a sword is sticking perpendicularly through her heart, but I do adore them from afar.

      “I’ll come see them, Charlie, I will.”

      “You will?”

      I almost cried at the hopeful note in Charlie’s voice.

      “When? How about this weekend?”

      “I can’t this weekend.”

      “Why not this weekend?”

      “I have plans.”

      “What plans?”

      “Fun plans. Thrilling plans.” Plans to watch this frog leap from one rock to another. I decided not to voice that.

      “Jeanne, I know it’s hard for you, but the kids need an aunt. Deidre has no siblings, they need you-”

      “I don’t want to talk about that, Charlie.” I snapped the words out like the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun, and regretted it. “I’m sorry. I will come and see the kids. I want to, I do.” I thought about it. Maybe I did. Maybe I could handle it.

      I closed my eyes, waited for that tight vise on my heart to loosen.

      “And you’ll call Bob Davis right away? He’ll set you up with an appointment with Jay. This’ll all go quick, you’ll be interviewed, offered the job, and we’ll get you moved to Portland. This is all settled. No problems.”

      “No problems.” But there were problems, pesky problems. I didn’t want to work, didn’t want to write, didn’t want to help some egotistical whack-jerk lying politician get reelected.

      Charlie reeled off a phone number twice, told me he loved me, I told him the same thing, and we said our good-byes and I love yous again. I watched the water swirl around my ankles. I love the colors in water. In very clean rivers, it looks clear, but the water is actually made up of different colors, clear colors, but colors all the same, and beneath the surface is a whole other life.

      I bent my knees and submerged myself completely in the river, except for my cell phone. I closed my eyes, life blocked out, the current gently pushing me this way and that. When I couldn’t hold my breath another second, I stood up again. Dripping wet, I got out and headed toward Rosvita’s, picking up the almost empty wine bottle I’d left on the grass.

      I thought about Charlie’s call. I didn’t want to work, but life is filled with all of these jolly, money-sucking surprises, isn’t it?

      For example, I didn’t know at that wet moment that I was going to buy a decrepit, sagging home in desperate and sad need of immediate and extensive repairs in the next weeks. That was a money-sucker.

      I did know that dealing with Slick Dick was going to be another herculean money-sucker.

      I went to Rosvita’s back porch, stripped naked, then climbed up the stairs to my room. There were no other guests, and Rosvita was out visiting a friend in Portland who was a bacteriologist.

      As soon as I was dry and dressed I headed to The Opera Man’s Café to get myself pancakes, as I did at least five times a week. Call it therapy. Call it coming to terms with my pancake past. I couldn’t get enough.

      For the first time in years I actually felt like I was making a few friends. The people in The Opera Man’s Café smiled at me when I brought my sorry self in, waved me over, talked to me in a normal tone about normal stuff as if I was a normal person. I often ate with them and their good cheer always warmed me as much as the coffee.

      Bring on the syrup.

      CHAPTER 7

      “He should die,” Rosvita declared several evenings later, as we drank cognac in front of her fire. “Dan Fakue, owner of the infested, teaming, steaming migrant camps, should die.” She thudded her mug of cognac down on a little wood table next to her. Rosvita believes that cognac should be drunk from a mug, no need to shortchange yourself.

      “There are so many germs doing their germy thing there. For sure there is Cryptosporidiosis. That is a disease caused by itty-bitty microscopic parasites, crawling and twisting in the intestines. The intestines. It can be spread through feces. Feces!”

      Yuck. What a vision.

      Rosvita counted off on her fingers all other diseases she thought one might acquire in a migrant camp. I settled deeper into my cushy red chair, put my feet up on a leather footrest, and had a nice long drinkie. We had flipped off all the lights so we could “rest our eyes.”

      “Plus, there are children living there, children.” She shoved both fists up in the air. She did not wear gloves in her own home because she believed not a single germ lived or flourished there. “And I know something very creepy and illegal is going on there, very creepy, but I can’t get the women to tell me anything. I speak a little Spanish, but not much.”

      I nodded. Rosvita was correct. She spoke a little Spanish, but not much. She had no idea, however, how absolutely awful her accent was with the little Spanish that she knew. I could barely understand her Spanish myself and I knew it backward and forward. I could see why a conversation with Rosvita would be a might challenging.

      “I can smell it,” she said.

      “You can smell something creepy or illegal? That’s not too surprising, Rosvita. It should be illegal to live in squalor. What’s the creepy part?” I tilted my cognac up to my lips again.

      “I don’t know,” she muttered, twining her fingers, her black hair shining in the firelight. She was wearing a kimono. Red and