Free Such a Pretty Face by Cathy Lamb

Loyalty? Do I feel sorry for her? Is it okay to dump a friend? If it is, how do you do that?
    My delight over the clothes was dimmed to almost nothing by the time I dropped Eileen off. Maybe she was right. Maybe the clothes were too clingy, too young, too too.
    By the time I arrived home I was so relieved to see my emerald green house with the burgundy door and white picket fence I almost cried.
    I put the bags in the back of my closet and pulled on my sweats and a T-shirt.
     
    That night I flipped through a stack of gardening books and magazines by my nightstand, then worked on the sketches for my garden before turning out my light when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I knew what to do with most of the garden, but I had a corner filled with weeds that was stumping me.
    As usual, as soon as I snuggled down, sighed, and told myself to go to sleep, I was wide awake.
    Insomnia is a plague. It tiptoes after you and then when it’s dark it snaps its jaws over your sleep and flings it around, teeth clamped down hard.
    I watched the clock.
    I started worrying about work, money, my medical debt, and what would I do if I lost my job, had no money, couldn’t pay my medical debt, and ended up living in a shed? Sheds are cold! What would I do if something happened to Polly, Lance, or Aunt Janet? What if I lost my mind and started collecting cats? What if I had another heart attack on my walk, lost control of my bowels, and Jake found me in a mess?
    I gave up after an hour. My hands shook as I turned on the light and studied my gardening magazines again. I drank milk. Finally, about two in the morning, I fell asleep. I woke up after I saw Sunshine riding a horse away from me. She was headed for the bridge. She turned her head, panicked, screamed my name, but I couldn’t catch her because my feet were stuck in red paint. I saw my grandparents’ faces across a field of corn. They were melting. All their features seeping to the ground, only their white hair left and their cowboy hats, then Sunshine melted, too, and I was alone. The horse kept galloping across the bridge, then jumped over it and turned into a black, frothing cloud.
    I sat straight up in bed, struggling to breathe.
    Sunshine wanted something, I knew that. I have tried not to think about her very much these last decades, or about my grandparents, because it hurts so much I think I’ll die of the pain of it, but in the last eighteen months, Sunshine keeps coming back, again and again, and I don’t understand what she’s trying to tell me. I wiped my face with trembling hands. The tears are coming more and more since I lost all this weight.
    I briefly toyed with the idea that I was losing my mind, that I would soon be wearing a floppy yellow hat, but I shut that thought down. I got up, went to the bathroom, and drank a glass of water. My eyes automatically went to the mirror, and I shuddered.
    She was there.

4
    Portland, Oregon
    “T hank you for your orders. It will be a pleasure to serve you and your guests this evening, Mr. Barrett,” the waiter said, deferential. He was suited up in black and white.
    “Thank you,” Lance said. “Thank you so much.”
    Lance is a grateful person. He says he is so grateful he lived through his childhood and so grateful that he doesn’t have to see Herbert every day that each day is a gift that must be enjoyed, “with love and friendship.”
    Lance also has very expensive tastes in dining and insists on treating me and Polly to dinner all the time. We were at the Portland Que, one of the fanciest restaurants in Portland, the type of restaurant where the food arrives on your plate as if it is art. Edible art.
    “You’re welcome, Mr. Barrett,” the waiter said. He nodded and smiled at me and Polly. We smiled back. The candles flickered over the white tablecloth and shiny silverware.
    Lance was a regular customer, so the owner, under no circumstances, was going to protest that Lance had brought two of his blow-up dolls