The Interruption of Everything Read online

  Marilyn Grimes is a wife, a mother, a sister, and a daughter. Today, she’s decided to make changes in her life, to do something different. Today, Marilyn Grimes has finally decided to be herself. First, she has to find out who that is.

  Praise for

  The Interruption of Everything

  “McMillan’s books offer vindication to her most ardent fans: black women juggling work, family, friends, and the lingering effects of racism. Those readers, who have cheered her earlier heroines as they found themselves, drop-kicked bad-news boyfriends, and tumbled into love, will exult in Marilyn’s nerve-racking journey to a new stage in her life.”

  —The Baltimore Sun

  “[McMillan’s] stories are about everyday lives and her characters are memorable…. Along the way, a reader picks up helpful hints on resourcefulness, fortitude in the face of difficulty, and a calm sense of faith.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “With humor and heart and humanity, McMillan speaks to women on the verge and, as usual, does it with wit and wisdom.”

  —The Hartford Courant

  “Poignant, yet humorous.”

  —Ebony

  “McMillan [has an] effervescent intelligence. Her sparkling repartee makes it easy to imagine her chuckling as she writes. Her portraits of people are equally evocative.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Smart, spunky, and endearing…[an] entertaining and pointed novel.”

  —The New Orleans Times-Picayune

  “The Interruption of Everything has bestseller written all over it…. I found it hard to put down.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “McMillan writes this book with the same fast-paced, often witty, conversational tone that endears her to black women, who see themselves or people they know in her characters.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “McMillan does what she does best…. With her trademark ability to write thought-provoking tales inspired by the lives and loves of contemporary African-American women, McMillan offers another novel sure to resonate with readers grappling with the questions Marilyn poses to herself.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Won’t disappoint fans who have come to expect the authentic voices [McMillan] crafts for her characters—and there are lots of them.”

  —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  Praise for the Other Novels

  of Terry McMillan

  Waiting to Exhale

  “Terry McMillan is perhaps the world’s finest chronicler of modern life among African-American men and women. Her characters’ voices are honest and true as though she’s wiretapped the deepest feeling of the heart.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Hilarious, irreverent…thoroughly entertaining.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Captures what life and love are all about today.”

  —USA Today

  “McMillan puts someone you know, something you’ve felt or heard, on each page…. The characters are so real that you’ll wonder if McMillan hasn’t somehow overheard a private conversation.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “[A] paean to the sisterhood of all women.”

  —Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Terry McMillan has created a well-written, truthful, and funny story of four African-American women—four ‘sistuhs’ who are trying to make it in this world we all live in—and the sometimes volatile world of Black female–Black male relationships.”

  —Spike Lee

  “Terry McMillan has such a wonderful ear for story and dialogue. She gives us four women with raw, honest emotions that breathe off the page.”

  —Amy Tan

  “McMillan is not only a gifted writer but a social critic as clear-eyed as Mark Twain or Zora Neale Hurston or Edith Wharton.”

  —Newsday

  A Day Late and a Dollar Short

  “By the last pages you’re weeping. You’re laughing. You’re hooked. It’s oh so good.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “[McMillan] has a true comic gift. Funny, finely crafted, profound…contemporary African-American naturalism at its best.”

  —The Village Voice

  Disappearing Acts

  “A love story ready to explode.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Beautiful and easy to get lost in…a stunning achievement.”

  —Cosmopolitan

  “If Ntozake Shange, Jane Austen, and Danielle Steel collaborated on a novel of manners, this…entertaining book might be the result.”

  —The New Yorker

  “With Disappearing Acts, McMillan firmly places herself in the same league as…Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and…Zora Neale Hurston.”

  —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  How Stella Got Her Groove Back

  “A cast of likable characters, funny lines, smart repartee, and a warm…ending. Irreverent, mischievous, diverting…will make you laugh out loud.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Terry McMillan is the only novelist I have ever read who makes me glad to be a woman.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “A down-and-dirty, romantic, and brave story told to you by this smart, good-hearted woman as if she were your best friend.”

  —Newsday

  ALSO BY TERRY MCMILLAN

  Mama

  Disappearing Acts

  Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary

  African-American Fiction (editor)

  Waiting to Exhale

  How Stella Got Her Groove Back

  A Day Late and a Dollar Short

  THE

  INTERRUPTION

  OF

  EVERYTHING

  Terry McMillan

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

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  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Viking edition.

  Copyright © Terry McMillan, 2005

  ISBN: 9781101419793

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This i
s a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  To

  LYNDA DRUMMER

  For your friendship and those life jackets

  and in loving memory of

  MS. WILLIE LEE WILLIAMS

  (1929–2003)

  You are dearly missed

  Acknowledgments

  Throughout this long and arduous process, there were many folks who helped me swim and float and sometimes tread water, even when it felt like I was drowning. I appreciate each and every one of you for your friendship, time, listening ear, generosity, faith, patience, and tolerance, but mostly for caring about me. I am especially grateful to God for reminding me what happens when you try to swim against the current and live from the outside in. I finally made it to this shore, at least, and it was worth the journey. I am fortunate to have the following human beings in my life: my editor, Carole DeSanti, for understanding how this process works—that it is not like turning on the oven to 450°, bake for a year until it rises and browns and then pop that baby out until it cools. I wish. Which is why all of the next-weeks turned into this-year. Thank you for caring about me more than a book; Molly Friedrich, my agent, I can pretty much say the same holds true for you as it does Carole (they’re probably in on this together). Your timing is pitch perfect because you know when to lighten up; Beena Kamlani, brilliant developmental editor for this and my last three books, who has a memory I covet, but also for being so picky picky picky and hallelujah for not sugarcoating it when something didn’t work. I was told to make this short so I’m going to cut to the chase, but please don’t feel slighted: Blanche Richardson (again and again), Cherysse Calhoun; Amy Tan, G. F. Grant, Molly Barton; Esther Jordan, Joan Diamond, Leila and Leroy Hannam, Pam Manool, Kristine Bell, Matt Shoupe, Samanda and Naomi Maloa, Valari Adams, Gilda Kihneman, Steve Sobel and Bonnie Ross, Elvira Chavez and staff; Dr. Calvin Lemon, Dr. Kulveen Sachdeva, John Burris, Esq., Deborah Sandler, Esq., Abigail Trillin; the Drummer Family; my sisters, Vicki, Crystal and Rosalyn; and last but not least, my one and only favorite Chocolate Chip, Solomon, for making me so very proud to be your mother and watching you turn into a fine young man, and for not being afraid to show me that you love me. Speak up! I can’t understand you when you mumble. Do I have three dollars for the toll? The ATM machine is empty again? Maybe I have some quarters around here. But just remember: this is a loan and I want my three dollars back after you graduate from college and get your first paycheck. And I’m writing it down!

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. All events and characters in this story are solely the product of the author’s imagination; any similarities between any characters and situations presented in this book to any individuals living or dead or actual places and situations are purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 1

  The only reason I’m sitting on a toilet seat in the handicapped stall of the ladies’ room is because I’m hiding. My break is just fifteen minutes long and I’m trying to decide with the help of a book on the subject of “the change” if Paulette was really on to something when she suggested I get a blood test to see if my hormone levels were diminishing. And if it turns out to be true, I might want to get them replenished with something besides the Good & Plenty I’ve been eating by the handful for the last seven or eight months and I don’t even like licorice. I’m also sitting here with an old issue of Bead & Button trying to figure out if I should’ve played it safe and used plastic instead of glass beads since I just had to make my very first jewelry attempt a gift, and because sometimes I do think that more is better, just had to add three strands more than the instructions called for and now I don’t know how to close up the ends. I’m not used to asking for help.

  Paulette claims I’ve been showing enough symptoms of a perimenopausal woman to warrant further examination, which initially irritated me. She merely closed her eyelids over those hazel contacts and sucked her tongue across those shiny white veneers and whipped over one shoulder all five hundred of those individual braids that are way too long for a forty-eight-year-old woman who is no Donna Summer and said, “I know what I’m talking about. You remind me of me four years ago.”

  Experiencing something once does not make you an expert on the subject.

  The rampage I went on last week about Leon may have added more fuel to the flames. Perhaps my reaction to my husband’s forgetting to set the empty water bottles out was a little strong, but it was totally symbolic of a lot of other things he neglects. Ten minutes into my rant, Paulette just said, “Girl, you need to hurry up and have that test so you can be restored back to full sanity. Assuming you once were! But seriously, you need to do something because your circuit breaker is not working. On a lighter note, don’t forget: Pity Party next Friday at Bunny’s. I can’t wait to hear your latest bullshit, if there’s anything left to tell. And as an FYI: Bunny’s taking another online course, girl. This time it’s psychology. So be prepared. She’s probably going to be Freud’s little sister. Just try to be nice, Marilyn.”

  “Nice” has been difficult for me lately. Paulette has also been kind enough to point out that all those who land in my path of wrath (as she calls my unconfirmed Pause Personality) deserve a break, especially Leon, and Arthurine, his nosey mother who has eyes in the back of her head and lives with us along with her handicapped dog to whom I have the luxury of being a private nurse. I wish I could take all of them on a one-way cruise out to sea and then sail back to shore alone. This does sound mean, but some days I can’t help it.

  I have to admit that I have experienced quite a few of the symptoms Paulette was sweet enough to bring to my attention. But I didn’t tell her. She loves being right and I hate being wrong. I snap the book shut. Should I break down and spend even more money on French wire and Bali silver cones to close up the ends of this damn necklace? Trying to achieve true beauty can be expensive. But Bead & Button seems to imply that using inferior (or cheap) materials will help deter that dreaded question: “Did you make that?”

  I’m making this damn thing for Bunny, my other best friend, for her thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth, but most likely her fortieth birthday. I’ve got close to a month before she turns the big hand on the clock. But even with my 20 percent discount, we’re still talking about explaining to The Husband Who Is Not at Sea why these sums are necessary when they appear on the Visa or Master-Card bill. And if I do mess up (or—
just say it, Marilyn—if you fuck it up), since one never knows one has even made a mistake until after one has made it: at what price, friendship?

  Not that Bunny would notice.

  Class is something she doesn’t respect, understand, or care about. “What can you do with it?” she’s asked Paulette and me over the years. Particularly when we’ve tried year after year to persuade her to trade in that Atlantic City–looking 1989 red Corvette she insists on driving; we dropped major hints that she might want to try going to a real furniture store to purchase real furniture one or two pieces at a time instead of decorating and designing her entire condo in a single trip to IKEA where they may as well have airbrushed the four showrooms directly into her crib; and we encouraged her to reconsider always having on display her recent purchase of a D cup. But Bunny has consistently ignored us. “It’s all good,” as one of my sons would say.

  Tonight I’ll be stretched out on her make-believe sofa with thirty minutes to pour out my suffering soul after we’ve eaten takeout at her little table for two and she and Paulette will say whatever it takes to lift my spirits to a level of clarity since I’ve obviously had difficulty doing it on my own.

  The ladies’ room door bangs. Shit! It’s them. The crazy women I’m hiding from, the ones who always want me to take part in their thrice-weekly reality show. I have been ordained Craft Staff Supervisor here at Heavenly Creations, and these two are not only the store’s very best customers, they also purportedly work here and provide live entertainment.

  Now Maureen shouts: “I’m just so outdone! I’m going crazy, Trudy! I mean really frigging crazy! I can’t believe he did this! To me! After fourteen years of what I thought was a good—no, great—marriage and out of the blue he just decides to tell me he’s found a new torch that’s been turning his low flame into a forest fire and that according to Dr. Phil he’s been in denial for five years about how bored he’s been with ‘us’ and the whole suburban lifestyle and he said he didn’t want to hurt me and the kids by coming clean but there was no getting around it and by the way her name is oh who cares what her name is!? Trudy, I feel like such a fool! I mean, what am I supposed to do without a husband and three kids all under the age of twelve?”