eleven

  

I dropped Kendall off at his condo without another word after our fight, and stormed back to my own house. Furious at him, and needing to bleed off steam, I seized on a home improvement project: running my Dad’s electric sander over the pitted living room walls where Sasha and I had ripped up the wallpaper. Flying dust made my chest ache from coughing, and the fine particles lodged into my sinuses, so I finally tied a pair of panty hose over my face as a filter. I couldn’t find my safety goggles, so I wore an old snorkeling mask strapped over my head. It was not my best look.

My mind couldn’t let go of the thick stew of anger and resentment I’d held on to ever since Kendall and I had wordlessly reloaded the cooler onto Dad’s boat and I’d yanked up the anchor and thrown the boat into reverse.

How could he have planned to work today, the first day we’d spent together in weeks? How could he be so thoughtless?

Worse, why did he have to tell me right when I finally said I was ready to move in together? Didn’t he know what it had cost me to finally say yes to him? How hard it had been for me to trust again, and take another leap of faith? What a big step this was for me?

Shame heated my face. No, actually, he didn’t.

I’d never told Kendall about Michael.

I justified the omission: You didn’t talk about previous relationships when you were starting to date someone—that was Dating 101, as I’d tried to tell Sasha a hundred times. And then, by the time things were starting to get serious between us, we’d been together for a couple of months, with me practically living at his house already. At that point it felt like it was too late to bring up something so huge.

So how could Kendall have had any idea how sensitive I was in that area? I’d never let him see it.

And that meant that our fight was really my fault.

I shut off the sander and stepped off the ladder, nearly setting my flip-flop down on a tack strip I’d exposed when I’d ripped out the old carpet. Its rusty nails bristled like burnt-orange fangs. Slow down, I admonished myself. There was no need to let my recriminations make me careless.

I fired the sander back up and started the same mindless process of smoothing it in gentle circles over and over small areas at a time, wishing I could smooth my agitated thoughts so easily.

Was this how I’d driven Michael off too—by not letting him see any vulnerabilities? By hiding how I felt, being too reserved, too careful? Maybe he never felt like I loved him enough?

What a hateful irony.

Kendall was a saner kind of love...solid and secure. Even though we’d moved fast, I’d been sure to be careful, to keep my head about me. Maybe he had taken my caution as a lack of interest—maybe I’d hurt him by not answering him right away when he asked me to move in?

I was so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize I was pressing too hard on the sander until I saw I’d left messy circular gouges in the drywall. Dammit. I shut the machine off and set it on the bare concrete floor, then ran a hand over the wall to assess the damage.

It was damp.

What? I tore the snorkel mask off and pushed the panty hose down to rest on my neck as I poked at the wall.

My finger sank in as if it were made of softened butter.

I stood staring stupidly for a moment at the bizarre image of my finger embedded in my wall before I pulled it back out. Hunks of drywall crumbled around the hole it left like a malevolent black eye staring back at me.

I rested the flat of my hand against the wall and pushed. My arm disappeared into it as if I were a ghost.

I registered the wet-dough feel clumped on my fingers, and I knew before I fully yanked my hand out what the matter was.

A leak behind the wall, from the adjoining bathroom.

With a sickness in my stomach, I began pulling out chunks of soggy, crumbly wall until the hole was the size of a grapefruit...a cantaloupe...a watermelon...and then there was no fruit large enough to describe the gaping maw in my living room.

As I stared into the bowels of my house my vision literally went red, and rational thought vanished in an instant. Suddenly I was tearing at the walls, soggy drywall splatting everywhere.

And still it wasn’t enough—I needed to destroy something. I reached for the closest weapon at hand and my fingers wrapped around the handle on Dad’s sander, and before I could check the impulse, I swung back and smacked the heavy sander with all my strength into the wall.

Two things happened as I put the full force of my body behind the swing: The sander gave a disgusting wet-flesh thunk and then dropped from my hands to the concrete floor with some ominous rattling sounds. And my foot landed with all the weight of my body directly on the rusty exposed tack strip.

I let out a howl.

I grabbed my foot, hopping in place to keep my balance. Blood was dripping along the rubber of my flip-flop, but even after I tore it off I couldn’t see how deep the wound was. I took a few deep breaths, coming back to myself, and hobbled into the master bathroom, leaning against the counter so I could draw my leg up yogi-style. The flesh around the punctures was white and shocky-looking where I wiped away the slow-welling blood. Did I need stitches? A tetanus shot?

My mom would know. I realized with a jolt of surprise that she was the person I wanted to talk to most. Because I had a boo-boo. I limped toward where I had left my cell, but four numbers into calling home I jabbed the “off” button. Mom didn’t live at home anymore.

My foot continued seeping sinister dark, thick blood, so I hopped back toward my bathroom, still holding the phone, trying to keep from dripping all over the concrete slab. Then I looked down. What did it matter? I deliberately planted my foot, watching the dark stains it left on the bare gray cement.

I dialed again—this time Mom’s cell—and she picked up after two rings, her “hello” so deliberately impersonal I knew she had seen the caller ID.

I didn’t respond, abruptly feeling stupid.

“Brook Lyn?” my mother said.

“Yes?” I said, as though she were a telephone solicitor inquiring, “Is this the lady of the house?”

Another beat. “Brook Lyn, are you there? I can’t hear you. I have plenty of bars, so I think it’s your phone.”

I sat on the bathroom counter and pulled my injured foot up across the other leg, wishing I had never picked up the phone. But it was too late to simply hang up. “I was calling to...to make sure that Stu and I know how to reach you.”

“You can reach me on my cell phone, Brook Lyn. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” I said sarcastically. “I was worried about emergencies.” Like what if I get gangrene and my foot falls off and I need a blood transfusion and you’re the only donor match?

“It’s the Neapolitan Theatre. Your father has all of my contact information.”

“Fine. Just making sure.” My foot was throbbing, and I waited for my mother to fill the silence.

I heard a sigh. “All right, then. I’ll talk to you later—”

“Do you know if I need a tetanus shot?” I blurted.

“A tetanus... For what? Are you hurt?”

“I cut my foot. Punctured it, actually. I stepped on a carpet tack strip.”

“With nails?”

“Yes. Huge metal ones. Rusted.”

“You stepped on a strip of rusty metal nails? Of course you need a tetanus shot, Brook Lyn. Don’t be dense.”

As a palliative, “don’t be dense” wasn’t really what I was hoping for. But that looked like the best I was going to get.

“Do you need someone to help you?” my mom asked.

She’d walked out on Dad. On our family. There was nothing I’d need from her.

“No.”

Another sigh, and then my mom said, more gently, “Honey... I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

I didn’t know if she was talking about my foot or everything else, but either way I’d give her the same answer. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Thanks anyway.”

I hung up the phone, hobbled over to my purse, and then headed for the emergency room.