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It was then I began hyperventilating.
Lee’s arms came around me from behind and he rested his chin on my shoulder.
“Breathe deep,” he advised.
I did as I was told. In. Out. In. Out.
“Feel better now?” he asked.
“No,” I answered.
He walked over to my CD player and sorted through some CDs. Then I heard Stereophonics “Dakota.” It was a really good song. I was beginning to feel better.
I looked at Lee and took a deep breath. “Give me a minute, I can do this.”
He left me to it.
Half an hour later, I was losing it. I had freed another foot in the closet and there was a small pile of stuff that I should have thrown out years ago lying in the landing.
It wasn’t going to be enough.
“It’s not gonna be enough!” I shouted hysterically.
Lee walked back in.
“You could help, you know,” I told him, hand on hip.
He walked to the closet, slapped through a couple of hangers and brought out my butterfly-winged shirt liberally threaded with silver that I wore when I wanted to pretend I was Olivia Newton-John. It wasn’t my best look, but I’d seen some good times in it. It was a memory shirt.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned.
His eyes crinkled and he put it back, slapped through a couple more hangers and pulled out an embroidered camisole that had a big rip in it. It used to be gorgeous, but could never be repaired. It had also seen good times.
“Are you nuts? I went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in that!” I cried.
He put it back, walked out of the room and down the stairs. He came back with two open bottles of Fat Tire, gave me one and then walked out again. It wasn’t a lot of help, but it wasn’t a bad effort.
Forty-five minutes later, I’d scaled the mountain. There was a huge pile of my discarded clothes in the landing, along with some shoes, bags and other junk. Lee’s suitcases were unpacked, zipped up and out on the landing too. He had two and a half drawers all to himself and about a third of the closet.
I was face down on the bed, listening to Kelly Jones doing a fucking great job at singing Rod Stewart’s “Handbags and Gladrags,” which I thought was apropos.
I felt the bed depress with Lee’s weight and a hand at the small of my back.
“I ordered a pizza. I’m walking to Famous to get it. You wanna come?”
I shook my head and Lee left.
I finished the song, replayed “Have a Nice Day” then turned off the CD player. I stumbled in the TV room and threw myself onto the couch. A couple minutes later, Lee walked in with a pizza box with two opened Fat Tire bottles balanced on top.
“Please tell me that’s pepperoni mushroom,” I begged.
He smiled. “And black olives.”
Thank God.
We ate. We watched baseball. When we were done, Lee took the box and empties downstairs and came back with full bottles.
This wasn’t so bad.
