CHAPTER NINETEEN
Thank God I don’t work Thursday. I worked every other day this week, and ever since Chadd sent me that photo of himself and Tommy Finch, it’s like he knows there are two Maya Hollands, and just where to insert the crowbar between them. Now that Grady is back, there’s no damned way I’ll respond to Chadd’s advances. But the animal part of me — especially given all this fresh stress, and absent the way I normally deal — doesn’t like the temptation.
I’m ashamed to say it, but my showerhead gets quite the workout these days. My Internet history could be cleaner. And through it all, I’m convinced Mackenzie is somehow going to catch on. Somewhere, somehow, I’m going to get caught or leave evidence. I’m going to forget to latch the bathroom door, and she’s going to come in, half sleepwalking. I’m going to leave my vibrator where she can see it; maybe she’ll go rummaging for crayons or something and find it. She’ll decide to use my computer and see where I’ve gone. She’ll pick up my Kindle because we talk about reading a lot, and she’ll see that lately I’ve preferred erotica to literature. And I’ll get questions if I’m lucky and she’s still innocent, or silence if I’m not, and she’s learned more from TV and her friends than I’d like to admit.
But it’s kept me honest. I’ve deleted all incoming texts without undue deliberation. There was even a time that Chadd came in to the Pit and I handed him to Jen. As happened that one fateful time, he must have taken my handoff as some sort of a hard-to-get maneuver — only this time, he seemed emboldened by the fact that he knows I’m not hard to get. He passed me twice while I was waiting on customers, informing me just-FYI that he was headed to the restroom. Once, he touched my ass as he passed, and I was disgusted with myself that it turned me on.
But I made it through the shift. Tommy and any threeway improprieties, thankfully, haven’t been mentioned. Maybe that photo was just them “saying hi.” I don’t want to know. Some people like knowing they have options, but not me, not now. I want my options closed. I want life proscribed for me. I want someone to tell me where to go and what to do, then force me into compliance.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I could say this is just how I’m wired, and that there’s a broken connection somewhere deep inside me, but it strikes me as an excuse whenever I try to believe that. It gives me a reason to slip because it’s just biology — or perhaps uncontrollable psychology — and the conscious me is helpless. I try and tell myself that I can be normal. I used to be normal, with Grady. Before he left and everything changed.
Thursday, I wake up and lie in bed for a few extra minutes, staring at the ceiling. As far as I can tell, Mackenzie is still asleep because with today being a faculty day without any school, and no available daycare, she has nothing on the docket that isn’t already in my plans. I don’t know what time it is and don’t want to look; I know only that the sun is out, and it’s time to get up.
I don’t have to work today. That’s good. I might get texts inviting me to things I shouldn’t do, but there’s no chance that hot, six-pack temptation will walk through the door and stand in front of me, undressing me with his eyes. As rough as things have been, I’ve felt like an addict working in a cocaine factory.
I wonder if I need help.
It’s one of a thousand things I don’t have time or money to address.
There are moments — and here, now, on my back, I experience one in relative safety — where I wonder why I resist. Why am I fighting who I am? Religion and shame made me feel sex was bad, so does it really make sense to fight it now?
This is different.
But there’s more to the question. Normally, I resist for Mackenzie or for some distorted sense of my own inherent value, but over the past few days, I’m afraid I’ve been resisting for another reason.
Maybe I’ve been resisting because I think there’s a possible future with Grady.
That would be a stupid thing to think. Now that Grady’s family is all but gone, there might be no one in the world who knows him better than me. I of all people know how he doesn’t like to feel cornered or obligated. He’s the free bird that won’t be caged. He’s strangely loyal, but he won’t be tethered no matter what. As kids, when we were in love, we always wanted to run away together. The only difference, really, is that he went without me.
I still can’t leave. Not the way things are now. It’s naive to think Grady will stay. It’s even naive to think he wants to be with me at all, or become a part of Mackenzie’s life. Believing differently is just me trying to ignore a leopard’s spots, and if I’m fool enough to think those dumb things, it’s my own fault when I’m bitten.
So why am I resisting Chadd for Grady’s sake? There’s nothing there. Given our history, I ironically don’t even think I’d want a one-nighter. I’d probably turn it down. If Grady and I have any physical contact, it’ll be because I’m dumb enough to believe there’s a future, and that he loves me and hasn’t ever stopped.
I won’t be an idiot. I won’t be a fool.
I won’t be an object. I won’t be a pawn.
I wake Mackenzie, more to have noise in the house than anything else. As little as this place is, even the sounds of Mac playing with her dolls echo into the home’s every corner. I don’t want to think about this park date, even as much as I thought I’d been looking forward to it.
I feel now like I did when I proposed it: that I’m simply insistent on slitting my own throat. I’ve already proved, day after day, that I want to sabotage myself, that I hate myself, that I feel worthless deep down.
This must be an attempt to force Grady into admitting that he made the right choice all those years ago. Why would I thrust him in with Mackenzie right away, if at all? Maybe to bring our conflict to the fore. To force Grady, who will have no alternative, to reject us all over again.
Because I must deserve it.
The thought is so depressing, I tear up while I’m making Mackenzie’s pancakes. It’s such a dead end, deep hole of a thought. There’s no way to escape my downward spiral if the deepest parts of me only want to drag me down faster. If I’m not on my side, there’s no hope.
But it’s the only option. Because if this isn’t about me trying to get hurt, then it can only be because I honestly believe there’s a future for me — for us — with Grady Dade. And how ridiculous is that to consider?
Mackenzie is sitting at our chipped kitchen table when she looks up at me with her big blue eyes and asks, “Where are we going today, Mommy?”
“What makes you think we’re going somewhere?”
“You made breakfast.”
“I always make you breakfast, Sweetheart.”
“I mean, you made breakfast. Pancakes, not just cereal.”
“Why does that mean we’re going out?”
“Are we going out?”
I give her a small smile, not sure if this is good or bad news. “Yes. We are.”
“Where?”
“Dalton Park?”
She actually claps. It breaks my heart.
“I knew it! You took a shower, and you’re wearing your nice sandals.”
I look down at my feet, in the cute little strappy things with fake gems. She’s so insightful, it’s spooky. There’s a terrifying handful of seconds wherein I’m sure I’ve been fooling myself, believing Mackenzie doesn’t know things she shouldn’t. I didn’t even realize I was gussying up for Grady and giving us a solid start to the day, so how can she not know the things I do, and try so hard to hide? Even when Mackenzie was smaller, the few times she saw me heading out on “dates” before I made sure to keep them away from her, she asked who they were, and I said they were friends. Even then, she seemed to see right through my bullshit.
“When are we going?”
“Noon.”
Her eyebrow goes up. Just like her dad.
“Exactly noon?”
“Well … ” Dammit. Of course that didn’t slip by her. I said it like we had an appointment, which isn’t usually the way we go to the park.
“Is someone else going, too? Ooh! Is it for Brownies?”
“No, Sweetie. It’s not for Brownies.” I stuff down a surge of guilt because I still haven’t responded. She’ll miss signup, I’m sure, and I’ll have to casually admit later that it never worked out.
“Who then?”
“How do you know it’s anyone?”
“Moooom,” she says, dragging the word out. Another strain of annoyed disbelief I suspect is in her genes, and not from my half of the equation.
“Okay. It’s a friend. An old friend of mine.”
“Does she have any kids my age?”
“No. And it’s not a girl. It’s a man. His name is Grady.”
“Oh.” Her features become a bit cloudy, and again that sense of being watched charges across my heart. When has she seen me meet men in the past? Is her “Oh” now born of resignation, as if she expects us to run behind a hedge while she feeds the ducks?
Of course not. She’s only nine. She’s not thinking that way. But still I feel the need to rush on and explain.
“He’s someone I went to school with, Baby. We kind of grew up together.”
“Sure.”
“We’ll have fun. Maybe we can get one of the paddleboats or something, if you’re allowed to have three people in them.”
But as soon as I make the suggestion, I wish I hadn’t. Because Mackenzie clearly loves the idea, and she’s never been strong or had legs long enough to co-paddle with me — and also because it’s clearly the kind of thing that families do together. Paddling together on the lake? Grady and I may as well send Mackenzie off to the prom.
“Can we really?”
Shit.
“Well, if you can have three people in them. Which I don’t know if you can.”
“You can! I’ve seen it. So we can get one, Mommy? We can ride a paddleboat with your friend?”
“Sure. Sure, Honey.”
“What else can we do? Can we get ice cream?”
“I guess.”
“Can we feed the ducks?”
“Um … maybe.”
I have to stop this. Soon, she’ll be asking if this unknown wonder-male can take her fishing, buy her a pretty dress, or join us at the family picnic. I have to keep repeating a mantra: This is only for today. I expect nothing because there won’t be anything.
I shouldn’t have included Mackenzie in our plans. And Grady, damn him, should have protested. He must not have felt comfortable telling me Mac wasn’t invited, considering, but I wish he had. Because this is setting all of us up — me, Mac, even Grady.
I shouldn’t have arranged this, I think, watching Mackenzie smile while she rushes to finish her pancakes.
It was a mistake. It was stupid.
It’s a gun to our heads, and we’re pretending it’s not even there.