Truth or dare, p.17
Truth or Dare, page 17
Out the door, I lift with some serious oomph and hustle, coatless, breathing plumes along my path. My truck’s half full. It’s deep, which is good. I can probably get a few more bins in along with those suitcases and my laptop, which will go in the passenger seat. I’m starting to get excited. I cannot wait until Monday. I’m so out of here.
And it’s not until the latch snaps that my stomach starts arguing with me. I’m sure Ryan’s famished as well, and it certainly wouldn’t kill me to make a little something for the both of us to eat. Even though she’s not the biggest fan of my cooking.
There’s enough for breakfast burritos of sorts, which will make good use of what little food is left: a pepper, an onion, three tortillas, and five large eggs. And it’s sizzling in the pan when she stomps in, carrying with her a blast of winter air.
* * *
Ryan
This kitchen smells surprisingly edible when I step inside, boots dripping. I tug at my fingers, hanging my coat on the wall. Then I warm my hands on my thighs only to notice, those jeans aren’t supposed to be low-rise. But they dip seriously loose on those hips of hers. She’s lean and tall at the stove, shirt tucked in front only, a chunky leather belt strapped around her waist, hair half down her back.
Then I hear, “I’m making more than I need—if you want some.” My girlfriend’s civil, and my stomach’s more than delighted by her offer.
I thank her. “I’d love that,” I say as I gather a few napkins and set them on the island. The pan makes an obnoxious crash in the sink before she approaches with two plates in hand, setting one in front of me. She seats herself at a distance.
I’m too hungry to talk, so I let silence settle amid the sounds of utensils. I do this fork-cut thing. She unfolds the newspaper with a shake, refolds it in fourths, and then begins to read to herself. Between bites, I try to read over her shoulder.
It’s twelve forty. If this were any other Saturday, we’d both hit the grocery store and I’d make a few meals to get us through the workweek without hardcore cooking. But it’s not any other Saturday. I don’t know what we’ll do today, tonight. I can’t make plans, exclude her, unintentionally offend her. I also can’t include her, assume, and do the same. She’s not exactly communicative.
Once my plate’s half empty, I ask her myself but first break the silence with small talk. “Do we have enough food for the week?” She’s still reading. “I’m guessing I should’ve gone Thursday night. I didn’t expect we’d get this much.”
“There’s not much in there,” she tells me, glancing over the newspaper at the fridge. “This is about it.”
“Okay.” I admit, it feels nice that we can talk. Without yelling, that is. “I’ll head out and get a few things. Is there anything you’d like me to pick up?” And then I risk, “You are welcome to join me.”
“I have some things to take care of here and then my haircut. I should be fine. Thanks, though.” She seems to be striking a balance somewhere between courteous and irritated. But I do sense she’s ready to wrap this up. The thing is, I’m not.
“What time?” I ask.
“What?”
“What time’s your haircut?”
“Oh. Four thirty,” she says.
“All right. Well, I can have dinner ready when you get home…if you’d like.”
“Sure.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.” Her eyes are glued to the front-page story. Time passes, mutely, and I find I want to know more about this Chris. I have a couple more bites in front of me, a somewhat captive audience, and a conversation that was promised this morning which never actually transpired. So I dive in.
“I never did get that talk this morning that you promised.”
“What’s more to talk about,” she asks, setting the newspaper down.
I try not to read into her newfound attentiveness. Then my mind sidetracks me. Even I think it all sounds more like an excuse to prolong a less than authentic dialogue. Even I’m starting to get annoyed.
Then I mumble under my breath, “You don’t plan on vanishing while I’m at work, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“You two back together?”
“It’ll probably be sometime this week,” she says. I’m not oblivious to the fact that she’s avoiding my question. “I still need to pack. I need to rent a trailer, and they’re not open until Monday.” Then, as if reciting her to-do list, she says, “That’s when I’m calling. I have to load it all.”
“So this week,” I say as I take my last bite. They’re hard words to say. They’re even harder to feel.
“Yes, most likely.”
“I’m just curious about something,” I toss out, mentally backpedaling right after the words leave my lips because I’m not sure how to phrase it or if I even want a real answer. When she turns back to her plate, I lose that fleeting attention she’d given me earlier. “What’s her deal?”
I figure I’m transitioning into platonic, but I guess I’ve instead hit another nerve that I didn’t know she had because she stands up in a huff. “She listens. She knows me.” Her voice is raised, her arms crossed again in front of her.
“And your grandmother, apparently.”
“Reading a few letters behind my back hardly makes you an expert on my life.” She walks over to the sink and starts washing her plate. “In fact, you know very little about me after, what, a year now. Chris and I aren’t back together. She wrote me a letter, weeks ago by the way, for closure apparently. I haven’t even responded to her. Maybe I wasn’t going to. Or maybe I was.”
“So you and this kid dated in high school, right? She calls your mom because, what, she’s like family. How sweet. Your mom gives her your address—my address. She writes you. She thinks—even your mom thinks—this is totally okay going behind my back, your girlfriend. I saw enough of that letter. If you think it means nothing, you’re flat-out blind and you know it.”
“Fuck you,” she yells.
“No, fuck you. Really,” I say. “Because I would never do that to you.”
“No, you’d rather parade your exes in front of me so I can sit across the dinner table and make small talk with women you used to fuck. Like that’s so okay. You don’t even know the meaning of fucked-up.”
“I’m over them. At least my head’s in the right place. Some of us move on before they move in with someone new.”
I don’t even know if I’ve cornered her, but it feels to me like I have. She says nothing back and I’m satisfied with that, for whatever it’s worth. Then I think aloud, “I know. You thought you were over her.” The racket over at the sink comes to an abrupt halt once she puts the clean pan on the rack to dry. Joining her by the sink, I wave a white flag. “I didn’t ask to start an argument.” I twist the faucet on the sink to wash my plate, glaring at her.
“But why would you want to get back with someone who already screwed you over how many times?” I’m sincerely befuddled. She shakes her head. “This weekend, I was seriously looking forward to it, thinking maybe it’d bring us closer. The exact opposite happened.” I catch a tree being blown to bits outside. “Why are you treating me like this? Like complete shit. No matter how much space I give you. No matter what I give at all. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you have to keep it from me for—what?—weeks, as you say? So I could find out this way? What’d you think would happen?”
She’s staring outside blankly. She’s thinking about what I said. I can see it in her eyes, in her lips that part just enough to let air pass in and out. This is the scene where she confesses everything. That she said her good-byes, that she missed what they had. That it’s me she loves. This is the scene where I forgive her.
Instead she says rather calmly, “How many times do I have to say I’m sorry. You act like I planned this. Like I knew I’d hear from her, and then I had to let it sit and figure it out. And still I haven’t figured anything out. Why—how could I tell you? It’s why we can’t talk at all anymore. You’re suspicious—if I talk too much about someone, leave at a different time, who’ve I met? Imagine if I told you this. Imagine what you’d do. I knew you’d react this way. And quite honestly, I’m tired of defending myself. Being questioned all the time over nothing.” She pauses. “It’s ridiculous.”
She flirts accidentally, I’ve watched it. People misconstrue. It’s not jealousy, it’s life experience. It’s her naivety. Protective does not equate to jealousy.
She scrapes her nails together. “A woman hit on me last night at the bar. Did you know that much? I wasn’t even interested in her, but she got me a drink. The whole time, I kept thinking: Ryan’s going to flip the fuck out. I was so worried you’d make a scene. That you’d embarrass me. That you’d come in raging mad and unreasonable. So I ran into the bathroom and hid because she wouldn’t leave me be.”
Chapter Twelve: Jessie and Hadley
Jessie
I yank on the stuck dryer handle and reach in. It burns inside. Glaring back at me is a screen that wants another twenty-five cents for ten minutes. Visa, MasterCard, and American Express accepted. The air’s pungent with commercial detergents, fabric softeners, and lint. At my right, zippers tumble. The room’s dirty but cleaned. I tuck heated clothes into this canvas laundry bag and tug at its drawstrings. Then I haul it over my shoulder the few steps to my one bedroom on the first floor.
I pull a shade. It’s gloomy out. T-shirt after denim after hoodie, I shake and zip and stack and sort until piles of V-necks nearly topple. Sock wads go directly in the drawer. Jeans are hung in a closet that’s too crammed to jam even one more pair, but I get it in.
I fit in white earbuds and turn the dial. The scroll seems endless. Then I drag out the vacuum, starting in the kitchen.
I’m pretty into my Fuck The Man playlist when my phone vibrates at my hip, so I answer.
“I’m bored,” Hadley tells me.
“I bet you are. You have four days off.”
“I know.”
“Paint your nails,” I say. “Take a nap. Download a zombie podcast.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Not exactly.”
“I wasted the morning surfing the net, reading news, commenting on social media, and making pancakes,” she tells me.
“Real maple syrup?”
“Of course,” she says.
“Yum.”
“You?”
“Domestic stuff,” I say. “I’m hitting the gym in a bit.”
“Can I join you?”
I’m less than thrilled about this idea. So I don’t respond. Then I hear, “Or not. But I’d like to come by and abduct you.”
“This could be interesting. Do elaborate.”
“Are you dressed?”
“Do you want me to be?”
“Yes, smart-ass. Stay where you are.”
When I hang up, my cheeks literally ache from smiling.
* * *
Hadley
Is there any use trying to understand how I feel, let alone predict or plan or steer left or right or otherwise? When I think back, most everything I thought would happen, didn’t. And now this? In fact, almost all those plans—how I’d look, the money I’d make, how I’d spend my day, who I wanted to be—either didn’t happen or just slipped out from under me. It’s too unpredictable, life.
I lose Mom and everything around me and inside me crumbles. It was too unimaginable at the time. She’d been there, nudging me, loving me. It’s as if, now, I’m finding this new chapter. Maybe I’ve simply stepped into it by chance. I didn’t find anything. But she’s not here to see it.
This is a time I would call her and slant my story into that perfect serenade, and she would read between the lines. I can hear it now, quibbling about how reckless I am to not even consider whatever it is. But she encouraged me, nonetheless. It’s not a good feeling or bad, not having her. It’s just different, that’s all. It’s a big frightening blank but freeing at the same time. I’m ashamed to admit there’s an upside, but it’s true. There were things I wouldn’t do, wouldn’t say, just to please her.
I’m remembering this along my drive. I don’t even play the radio. It’s just the loud sound of solitude. That heat’s roaring, anyway, not drowning my mind, but still. I don’t want to. And I’m wondering why I’ve never thought this much about it before.
What I miss most of the time is not having that voice always telling me that I can do it. That I’ll make it through. The one who could convince me of anything and everything, who could talk sense into me when I made none. If it was okay with her, it just was. End of story. I’m not capable of finding that without her.
As I make my way to Eighth and up Maple, I can see the same buildings through my window. It’s all frosted now. New trees have been planted since, with old trunks taken down. Boards fixed and Benjamin Moore glossed over to give it all a brand-new shine. But it’s still all the same underneath. The roads are still narrow and snaky, which makes it impossible to see just ahead. They spend summers repaving but never take the time to add a few lines over the asphalt. So we make our own, me to the left and that Subaru heading straight. It’s as if we remember where they used to be.
I wonder if, when you lose someone, part of that person becomes you. I’d like to think that was the case. And as I pull into the lot, I remember something I must’ve filed away in my pile of disregards. All those things I never cared about, like that film and her old perfume. How old was I, dangle footed at a pew and then kneeling. This is where I’ll be, she said. I don’t even remember the context. Maybe I was afraid to lose her if I went off to find Dad or go to the bathroom. Just the way she turned to me, held my gaze a second or two longer, and told me that. This is where I’ll be, she said, when you need me.
Chapter Thirteen: Ella and Sam
Sam
I should be brewing coffee and heating up this place, but I’m pestering my wife instead. After I’ve whispered, “Good morning,” too many times, she’s finally objected, rolled on her side, and covered her ear. This means she’s had enough. Two of three pillows have met their demise on the floor just beside. I could give up, but instead I tuck my knees into the crook of hers.
“It’s Saturday,” I say. It’s not like I want to be alone. I don’t think that’s needy, pushy, selfish.
I hear a groan. “Another hour,” she asks and then, “just one more.”
My hand makes its way up her shirt, a faded jersey in white and gray reminiscent of high school locker rooms in the seventies. And she rolls to her back, ginger hair sprawling out like she went to bed with it wet. Nowhere near Vogue-ified.
“What time is it?”
“Nine forty-five,” I say.
“Just one more hour.”
But she resumes her back-to-me position, disappearing into fluff. I tug the comforter over her shoulder. Then I slide my feet off the bed, slipping cold toes into wool slippers. I glance back at her, sound asleep. I guess that’s just enough time to warm that dessert loaf and scramble some eggs.
After sneaking out the door, I shuffle downstairs and into the narrow hallway, mechanically switching this heater off, which says it’s sixty-four in here. I feel tired, heavy. But I need kindling—that and several sheets of newsprint and this pack of matches. I stoop at the stove as the heater empties itself one last time before a day of hibernation.
My mind’s a haze as I roll newsprint into cylinders. Knuckles curl. Roll and repeat. Obituaries become kindling. Real estate becomes kindling. The latest on the select board, the school board, the library board, the planning board, the zoning board. Nationwide protests.
Above this layer, I overlap sticks and top my masterpiece with the most substantial log of them all. Then a flick of the match and paper ignites into flames that crawl leisurely forming a trail of black singe that glows orange at its edge.
I shake open yesterday’s paper, flipping past the crossword puzzle and comic strips in hopes that Ms. Abigail Van Buren, which is now her daughter, might possibly offer some advice. But the only letter I find is Worried Wynne in North Carolina, who has just discovered inappropriate text messages from her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend.
A scenario that sounds like Ella in there, who stands true to the lesbian pact that we all must remain friends with our long string of not quite into yous. That’s never actually been my modus operandi. If you’ve slept with her and it’s over, in my book, you never speak to her, look at her, Facebook friend her, or think about her ever again.
In fact, my better half has kept in touch with most of her has-beens, even though most have been demoted to mere sidewalk nods.
Jessie, though, not so much. When the title ex was not yet registering, she was the embodiment of inappropriate to the tune of stopping by that shop a few times a week—and not for bagels and cream cheese. I’m pretty sure my then-fiancée half enjoyed the attention—to hook me (which it did) and to make me jealous (which it also did).
And just like Worried Wynne in North Carolina, I found those messages. That phone was rattling across the kitchen counter while she was indisposed one morning. They were glaring at me, provoking me. Innuendos. Inside jokes. Who did this has-been think she was? Her intentions were crystal clear right down to her winking emoticons.
I could’ve looked away or left the room. I could’ve placed that phone in the drawer, where it usually lived. I could’ve trusted her or, minimally, confessed. But I didn’t. And that was (undeniably) unforgivable.
Fast-forward a few months to a lovely day when my wife and I were still overnight bags and three-hour daily conversations.
A farmers’ market. Town center. Sunscreen-scented air. Relishing that vitamin D infused sunshine. Picture sunflowers and asparagus. And her index finger led me past those vegetable bins up and across the stretched tent to a slender (strong) androgyne in her midthirties perusing produce. That’s the first time I saw that winking emoticon in the flesh, and it shot a surge of possessive right up my spine. Her long-short haircut, the strands that tumbled down her forehead. She thought her tan made her hotter than the red habaneros she was eyeing. And she was right.
