twenty-one

  

I woke up from a dream about Sasha. She was young, maybe twelve or thirteen, and sitting in an inner tube floating somewhere, while methodically applying colored Band-Aids over every exposed inch of skin until she looked like a human piñata. Then she was dancing on a stage, the bandages loosening and fluttering with every pirouette she made. Suddenly my mother was beside her doing a soft-shoe, the two of them falling into step as though they’d choreographed the dance, and my mother pulled off the bandages with each lunge and whirl and twist. I watched from the audience, wanting to get up, rush the stage, press the bandages back down and keep them from falling away, but my legs felt like sandbags and I couldn’t move.

I blinked up at the unfamiliar ceiling. It took me a minute to realize where I was—not nestled in Kendall’s plush Frette sheets. Not huddled in my own hand-me-down sheets on my secondhand mattress. But in the soft full-size bed in Sasha’s guest room.

Oh, yeah. Memory rushed back: the mold, Sasha’s date... My texts and crazy stalking and phone calls to Kendall. How mortifying.

I sat up and sandbags slammed into the inside of my skull. I groaned and rubbed my bleary eyes as the first streaks of sunlight purpled the sky outside the window. Out of habit I reached for my cell phone. Not even six a.m. What time did I get home last night?

Wait. For that matter...how did I get home?

I tried to swing my legs over the side of the bed, but something was wrong—they were trapped. I thrashed to get them to move, but they seemed tied together. Throwing the sheet back, I saw the problem—my jeans were bunched around my ankles. Lovely. Apparently I’d passed out mid-disrobing.

Was I drunk last night? I didn’t even remember drinking.

Something neon green was on my top half. I pulled the unfamiliar T-shirt away from me in front to try to read the writing on it upside down.

I Got Tanked at Fishy Bob’s.

Fishy Bob’s? Why—and when—had I been there, done that, and literally gotten the T-shirt? I let the shirt drop into place and stared unseeingly at the louvered closet doors in front of me as the slow pounding in my brain began to bring back memory with every throb.

I’d planned to track Kendall down, hadn’t I? To confront him? No...no, that was lunacy—I’d had the good sense to realize that, and I’d decided to...what?

The pounding grew into a full-fledged splitting headache.

Oh, yes. Have a drink. Somewhere out of downtown, where I knew I wouldn’t see Kendall. I remembered stopping somewhere—images flashed through my mind of a strip mall up Cleveland populated by seedy business like bail bonds and some kind of tattoo and piercing parlor that couldn’t possibly have passed any health inspections.

Like a snapshot I saw in my mind a partially burned-out sign that hung crooked at the other end of the strip mall: shy Bob’s. That hadn’t sounded so bad. I’d gone inside.

Memory filtered back in snippets: a few sad-looking booths lining the walls, concrete floor, torn vinyl bar stools, and a weathered bar front-and-center with what looked like a moonlighting Hell’s Angel behind it. I thought I’d started to turn back around to leave...until the big grizzly tending bar had called out something about “taking a load off, darlin’.”

I could hear his voice in my head as clearly as if he sitting on the bed beside me: rough and gravelly, but his tone so kind it made me want to hug him. So I sat, and when the bartender put a shot glass on the bar and held up a bottle, I nodded and did the shot without even thinking twice.

I remembered nearly choking on the sickly flowery taste of it—gin. But I got it down and kept it there. There was no telling how many times that routine played out. I was so hungry for appreciation that I would have set myself on fire if it meant I kept getting the nods and grins and benedictions the burly bartender offered.

I got talky, I remembered now. I told him about Kendall after drink three, or four, and at the man’s unexpected sympathy and compassion, I might have segued into telling him about Michael and our shattered engagement. And then...I struggled to recall what happened after that.

Nothing. Apparently at some point I’d blacked out.

Surely I hadn’t driven home in that state?

The sick feeling in my stomach was becoming as familiar to me as the wash of self-loathing that came with it. Post-breakup drinking was one thing...but drinking and driving was dangerous...irresponsible...reprehensible.

I stood up—a mistake, as my head swam and suddenly I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. No, thank goodness, I was—

God. Luckily I made it into the guest bath in time to not be the absolute worst house guest alive. Sasha had a hair-trigger gag reflex; if she saw a puddle of the remnants of my evening, it would have created a really unfortunate chain reaction.

Sasha. Oh, god—was she home when I’d stumbled in last night, so drunk I had no recollection of it? She’d be so pissed at me... We’d promised when we were teenagers that if one of us was ever too drunk to drive, we’d call the other one to take care of us—or get hold of someone who could.

Wait...had I called Sasha?

I splashed my face and rinsed out my mouth, then stumbled out of the bathroom and into her room. Sasha was tucked safely in bed, sound asleep. No indication of whether she’d had to come get me from some dive bar last night and pour me into the house.

Desperate for clues, I walked into the living room and flicked the curtain aside to look outside, the sun now bright enough to feel like nails being driven into my eyeballs. Sasha’s car was there—but so was mine.

Oh, god, I did drive home. I could see my keys on the table just inside Sasha’s front door, along with my purse and...a crumpled sheet of paper? I walked over and saw that it was a note on Fishy Bob’s letterhead—they had letterhead?—scrawled in Magic Marker: Bernice and me drove you home. Hair of the dog’ll fix you back up. Forget that asshole. It was signed, Stalker.

Stalker. The Hell’s Angel bartender.

And there was a P.S.: The blood probly ruined your shirt.

My heart froze. Blood? I could see the white fabric of my top shoved into one side of my purse and yanked it out, the stiff brown patch on one side in the back making my heartbeat resume with a thud. What had happened to me? I clapped my hand onto my shoulder and felt nothing, then did the same on the other one.

“Ow!” I nearly jumped out of my skin at the raw sting of it.

My heart dropped to my stomach as I raced back to Sasha’s guest bath and carefully peeled the garish T-shirt over my head. Sure enough, my right scapula was covered in a wide gauze bandage. Breath held, I peeled up the tape on one side and gently pulled, the gauze sticking to whatever wound I’d sustained.

It was glossy with some kind of ointment, and reddish brown with dried blood. I pulled out some tissues and gingerly wiped at one edge—the sting needled through me, but I kept at it. Under the blood, something dark was embedded into my skin. Crap—had I ridden bitch on Stalker’s bike and wiped out?

But the dark edges were too crisp for asphalt burn, and slowly a sinking feeling began in my belly. I kept dabbing, but I already knew what I was going to find.

I’d gotten a tattoo.

There on my shoulder were letters in bold, black ink. I prayed I was reading them wrong backward in the mirror, but I knew I wasn’t.

“No More Jackasses.”

Oh, no. No, no. Drinking and dialing was one thing—even stalking I could cope with. But there was no way I’d done something as ridiculous, as permanent, as tattooing myself with something so appalling. I’d thought I’d hit rock-bottom, but this was much, much worse.

And then, impossibly, it was even worse than that, I saw as I kept wiping. Below the letters was some kind of cartoon, and I leaned closer to the mirror to make it out.

It was a full-color drawing of a donkey with—oh, dear God—a very evident equine erection, a bright red circle over the whole thing with a line drawn through.

If I’d had anything left in my stomach, I’d have thrown up again.

  

Thank god Sasha was still sound asleep. I couldn’t let her see this. As crazy as she ever got after a breakup, as far as I knew she’d never permanently defaced her body. She’d have shown me if she had—shame wasn’t in her vocabulary.

Uselessly, I tried scrubbing at the thing with a washrag, praying that it was a temporary tattoo, or henna—but the first scrape of terry cloth against the raw skin felt like I was using the sander that had rubbed a hole into my moldy wall, and I had to bite my lips shut to hold back the scream that nearly resulted, for fear of waking Sasha.

It was real.

How the hell had I gotten a tattoo on my shoulder and had no recollection of it? Why had Stalker and the rest of my new BFFs let me do it? Or had they encouraged it? Guilt bit at my conscience at the thought—he’d had the kindness to drive me home when I was in no shape for it. But surely it was clear that I wasn’t the tattoo type? And I certainly hadn’t been in any state to make a decision about permanently inking donkey genitalia onto my body.

I found some antibiotic ointment in my purse, along with a receipt from the tattoo parlor—apparently I paid $250—and applied it over the thing, then carefully placed the bandage back over the evidence and taped it into place. Back in the guest room, I shoved the Fishy Bob’s shirt into a corner of Sasha’s closet and pulled one of my own T-shirts over my head. And not a second too soon—I could hear Sasha’s phone alarm chiming in the next room.

I stepped to her doorway and looked in—she was still sound asleep despite the incessant alarm. For the first time I actually hoped Sasha had gone home with her date last night. If she’d gotten in after I did, she wouldn’t ask any questions about my evening.

Watching her curled up, looking innocent and young with no makeup and her mouth slightly open, I remembered the day she wanted us to be blood sisters when we were in sixth grade—one of the many days she rode home on the bus with me after school. There were a lot of afternoons when she did that, that year her dad started to come home less and less often, he and her mom arguing all the time when he did.

Sasha had whipped out a safety pin the size of an ice pick and said, “You and me. Sisters. I want it to be real. Family.” We wound up spilling rubbing alcohol all over my bedroom and almost being caught by my mom, and in the end I’d chickened out.

I blinked, trying to clear my vision that had suddenly blurred around the edges.

Longing stabbed me for the innocence and ease of those days when we’d been kids together, our biggest concern whether the alcohol would bleach the carpet, and how much trouble we would be in if it did.

I tiptoed over to the other side of the bed and crawled in under the covers, lying on my non-freshly-tattooed shoulder with my head on the pillow facing Sasha, the way we’d fallen asleep together in my bed on all the nights she’d stayed over at my family’s house instead of her own.

Her eyes flickered and then blinked open, and a sleepy smile bloomed over her face when she saw me. “Are we thirteen again?” she asked.

I smiled back at her echo of my thoughts. “Yes. There’s been a time warp and it’s 1992.”

“This time don’t let me get a perm.”

We lay there in silence for a few minutes, listening to a persistent mourning dove making its cooing hoot. I wished with an aching in my throat that it was 1992. That we could go back to when we didn’t know how much everything in the world could hurt us. When we didn’t know we weren’t the fearless heroes we thought we were.

“Remember the day you wanted us to be blood sisters?” I whispered.

“The alcohol all over the carpet.”

“And my mom thinking we were drinking.” We giggled together for a moment.

“We should have done it,” I said quietly. “Become sisters.”

Sasha reached over and twined her fingers through mine. “We did.”

I wanted to tell her what I had done last night—what I had done over the last few days. I wanted her to laugh about it, to make me laugh about it, to lessen the sting of it with the soothing balm of normalcy. Oh, God, who hasn’t done that, Brookie?

But I knew the answer. I hadn’t. I wasn’t the one who jumped off the deep end after a relationship ended. I was supposed to be more mature than that. More evolved. I was the Breakup Doctor, for God’s sake.

But here I was, hungover and freshly tattooed, and too ashamed to tell the best friend I’d ever had anything about it.

I squeezed her fingers and we dropped back into silence, listening to the dove’s sad little call.

  

All I wanted to do was find out how to get a tattoo removed, and start the process immediately. But I had a Breakup Doctor appointment first thing that morning, and somehow I had to figure out how to advise someone else on their own broken relationship when I was proving to be such a complete failure at handling my own.

A man I assumed was my client sat alone at a table by the edge of the outside dock when I walked into Ship to Shore down on Hurricane Bay, and he stood when he saw me. I guessed him to be in his mid-fifties, about five-eleven, with sandy hair graying attractively at the temples. He wore cream linen slacks, a silky baby blue short-sleeved button-down, and an ascot in a fresh cool lime green. I’d pulled myself together as best I could after a much-needed shower that didn’t do anything to wash my self-loathing away, wearing tailored pants and a blouse, with a three-quarter-sleeve cardigan, despite the day’s warmth, to help hide my badge of shame.

“Duncan O’Neill?” I asked, extending a hand.

“In the flesh.”

“Brook Ogden.”

“Yes. The Breakup Doctor.”

I cringed at the title as we settled back down at the table and gave the waiter our orders. When the server left, Duncan leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers.

“I’m about to tell you all about my relationship woes, which are between me and my husband, Wagner, and I’m desperately hoping you’re the sort who’s as open-minded as you seem from your column.” He’d put emphasis on the word husband, watching me closely as he said it.

I nodded. “Love can be complicated no matter who you’re with. Ready when you are.”

His expression cleared. “Wonderful. I had a feeling from your column. You just sounded...fair.”

My juice came and I took a long sip, hoping it would revitalize my confidence.

Duncan waited until our waiter had finished warming his coffee and left. “Well. Wagner and I have been together for ten years,” he began. “Which is like dog years in a gay relationship—each one counts for seven hetero years. We were married in Canada in 2007, and have been inordinately happy far more often than not. There’s no one else I’d rather do things with, tell things to, or even argue with. He’s more than my lover—he’s my best friend, and I flatter myself that I’m his.”

I felt an ache in the back of my throat. It sounded...lovely. I nodded for him to go on.

Duncan paused and looked out over the bay, where a midsize Regal was just puttering in alongside the restaurant’s dock to tie off.

Then he gave a hard sigh and continued. “One of the things that makes us work so well, in my opinion, is that we have always had an understanding about extramarital relationships. Things...happen—but we both agree they must be strictly physical and are kept completely separate from our marriage.”

He stopped talking to take a sip of his coffee but his eyes never left my face, and one corner of his mouth lifted into a smile.

“You’re doing a lovely job of not reacting to that, dear, but I can feel your surprise from here.”

Actually, I was thinking who in the hell was I to judge anyone else’s choices?

Duncan put down his cup and leaned forward. “You’re a mental health professional—how often do the studies say men think about sex?”

“Every seven seconds, according to the Kinsey report,” I answered automatically.

Duncan nodded. “Well, that’s a bit overstated. But I can tell you—it’s pretty often. You get two men together, and it’s a safe bet that most of the time, one of us is thinking about having sex. Wagner and I are in love. Deeply. But we’re realistic, and we both know there’s no sense throwing away something as solid and rare as what we have over the occasional insurmountable impulse.”

A pelican lit on the wooden dock just underneath the patio where we sat, its scoopy beak bobbing up into the air as it swallowed whatever it had just plucked out of the water. I tried not to come to snap judgments about people in my practice, but I did pay attention to my instincts. I liked Duncan O’Neill. I wished I had his self-assurance.

“You two sound like you have a committed, healthy relationship,” I said honestly, “on terms you both agree upon.”

The cheerful, open expression abruptly left Duncan’s face, and the downcast look that replaced it seemed out of place. “Yes, well, I thought so too. Until recently.”

The waiter sidled back up to our table, delicately setting the plates in his hands down in front of us.

Steam was still rising off my omelet, along with a delicious, spicy scent, but I couldn’t have forced a bite down.

Duncan unfolded his napkin and set it down in his lap, staring down at it for a moment. Perhaps he was reflecting on my complete inadequacy to help him, or anyone else. “I feel like such a pathetic fool,” he muttered, so softly I almost missed it.

He felt like a fool? Before I thought about what I was doing, I reached under the table and gripped his thigh. Duncan looked up at me, startled. That made two of us. I retracted my hand. “You’re not a fool, Duncan. Or stupid. You’re just...trying to cope with your pain.”

He smiled, a small one. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and the constriction in my throat eased ever so slightly. When he picked up his fork and started to eat, so did I. Between bites Duncan started telling me the rest.

“Wagner drinks a bit. That’s not an issue,” he said, holding up a hand. “I drink a bit too—spirits can blunt life’s harsher edges, as long as you don’t use them as a crutch too often. But sometimes, well, he can...overdo it. As can we all,” he hastened to add. “But when Wagner does it...” He trailed off and then stopped, and I waited, not wanting to interrupt. “When Wagner does it, sometimes he turns...he turns...”

My stomach sank. Violent, was what I feared Duncan was about to say, and no one should tolerate that.

Duncan seemed to be choking on his words. “He turns straight!”

I blinked. “What?”

“He flirts—outrageously!—with women.” He looked so miserable and horrified that I wanted to get up and hug him.

“Is that part of your agreement?” I asked.

“Absolutely not!”

I clattered my fork down to my plate. “Then that is bullshit, my friend. Total unacceptable bullshit.” Even as the words were leaving my mouth, I was horrified at myself. Where was Wise Therapist?

“I know!”

“Does he do more than flirt?”

“I don’t know,” he said sadly. “We’ve always kept that part separate from each other, out of respect. So I can’t ask, can I, after we both agreed to those terms nearly a decade ago?”

“You most certainly can ask. In fact, you have an inalienable right to.” Wise Therapist had apparently ceded the floor to righteous Founding Father. My usual careful phrasing was nowhere to be found, my tongue tripping along without any input at all from my brain. “So let me get it straight: It’s not the idea that he’s screwing around that’s suddenly bothering you, right?”

“Of course not. A man has needs.”

“It’s that it might be with a woman sometimes?”

His face crumpled. “Yes! I just can’t handle it, and I’m afraid we’ve come up against a brick wall. I don’t see any alternative but to end it all.”

My heart leaped in alarm. “Oh, Duncan, suicide is never—”

He cut me off with a dismissive snort. “Of course not suicide, dear. Not my style. I meant us...our marriage.”

“Oh. Well, have you talked to Wagner about this?”

“No. One of the things that makes us work is that we don’t indulge in petty jealousies.”

“But this isn’t petty to you!” I sputtered.

“I can’t say anything,” he wailed. “What if he...what if he thinks I’m insecure? It’s so unattractive.”

“But that’s how you’re feeling, isn’t it?” His fingers curled around mine and I realized at some point I’d reached across the table to put my hand over his. Disconcerted, I gave an awkward squeeze before pulling my hand back. “You told me yourself Wagner’s your best friend. If you can’t tell your best friend when you’re worried about something, or hurt, or yes, even insecure, something’s a little off, isn’t it?” Guilt flared inside me as I spoke the words. Wasn’t that what I was doing with Sasha?

But this wasn’t about me. This was about Duncan.

“At least talk to him,” I said. “Tell him exactly how you feel—have an honest, straightforward discussion about it. You owe each other that much.”

He frowned, but nodded.

I pulled a small notebook from my purse. “Look, I’m going to make a list of some specific questions you might ask him—and some you might ask yourself—to start to know exactly what you’re dealing with.” What was I doing? My job was simply to lead the horses to water, not shove their faces into the river and make them drink.

But Duncan had brightened at my words. “Oh, that’s very helpful. It’s hard to think straight sometimes when I’m so upset about it.”

I looked up and gave him a real smile. “Of course it is. We’re not wired to think calmly during a crisis—we’re wired for fight or flight. Sitting and facing the tough stuff flies in the face of human nature.”

“You’re very kind, you know that? I expected your wisdom. But your warmth is a lovely bonus.”

I felt myself flush. I wasn’t at all acting like the kind of therapist I’d been trained to be. I’d cursed, initiated physical contact, and objectivity was out the window. I was acting like Duncan was a friend—like he was Sasha, rather than a professional client. And as for wisdom...clearly I was no expert on how to handle relationship issues. I didn’t know what to say, so I just tore the page I was writing on from the notebook and handed it over.

When we finished eating I paid the bill and we stood to leave. Duncan reached out a hand to shake mine. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised when I leaned forward instead and pulled him into a quick hug. Wise Therapist had now been taken over by a Care Bear.

“It’s going to be okay, Duncan,” I said when we broke apart, my hand still on his shoulder. “Whatever happens, you’re going to be fine.”

“I feel worlds better already,” Duncan said. “Thank you. I’ll start working on my homework right away, and I’ll be in touch soon to get together again.”

“Good. Don’t you back down—you deserve to know what’s going on.”

Duncan was looking at me with a warm, genuine smile. “It must be lovely to always know the right thing to do. That kind of certainty is such a gift.”

I pushed out a smile and said goodbye, hoping he couldn’t read in my face what a fraud I actually was.