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We’ve run out of words. We don’t know what to say anymore. Sorrow fills his eyes but I’m so bogged down with guilt and the energy it requires to cope with the daily grind of work, I can’t acknowledge it. Will’s a firecracker ready to explode and I’m a ghost—there, but not really. I didn’t even say goodbye when I left the house to go pick up Jamie.
Jamie always did have way more guy friends then girlfriends, so I’m not surprised she’s crashing with a guy even now that she’s married. There’s nothing strange about that for her. Overgrown foliage and potted plants line the pathway leading up to Tony’s house. When I hear the sound of loud barking come through the door, I panic because that big bark must belong to a pretty big dog. It’s a totally irrational fear of mine but knowing that it’s irrational doesn’t make me any less scared when I see a dark, wet nose peeking through the door as Jamie cracks it open.
“I’ll meet you at the car,” I say, retreating from the doorway where the dog seems to be chomping at the bit to get out.
“He won’t bite.” Jamie laughs.
I hate it when people say that. Telling me he won’t bite doesn’t make me any less afraid. That is yet another issue between Will and me. In addition to being an uptight bitch about everything else, I won’t even let him get a dog. In no uncertain words, I said, “Uh, uh. Not ever gonna happen.”
Getting a dog in an apartment that doesn’t even have a balcony isn’t practical, but try telling him that.
Jamie comes running out of the house, her slim legs encased in skinny jeans with strategically placed runs in the thighs, and wearing high wedges. Her long, straight black hair flies out behind her.
I can still remember the day we met in Mrs. White’s English class back in eighth grade. She was popular with the boys and everyone else, and we were so different, but we were fast friends. It turned out we were neighbors, and she was one of the fortunate few to have a car. It was an old beater but in high school, nobody cared as long as it ran.
It’s a perfectly warm day, and my mood lifts immensely as we head toward the mall. Jamie loves to shop. Where else would we go?
I drive downtown while Jamie immediately launches into a tirade about how much she hates South Carolina. It’s freezing in the winter and humid in the summer. She has to drive almost an hour just to get MAC make up. The malls out there suck. Everything shuts down by nine o’clock.
“What kind of place doesn’t even have happy hour? People out there don’t even know what I’m talking about when I ask them when it starts. It’s insane. The answer is never and it stinks.”
“Well, how do you like your job out there?”
“It’s the only thing I like about being out there.”
She’s working as the assistant program director at a convalescent home. She hasn’t even finished getting her Master’s Degree in Business yet, but even in a small podunk town, she managed to find a decent paying job in the field she’s studying in school. Job opportunities disappear when they see me coming, but they seem to drop right into her lap.
“And how is Kevin?”
“He works a lot. I don’t get to see him as much as I’d like, but things are good with us. We’re making it work, but let’s just say I’m really glad it’s a temporary assignment. I can’t wait to move back.”
I was a bit doubtful at first because Jamie has a tendency to fall hard and fast. She’s infatuated with the idea of happily ever after. The first time she got married, she’d only been dating the guy for one month. The marriage lasted six months. This time, she waited a mere four months. But two years later, she and Kevin are still going strong and it’s looking like he wasn’t just another passing fancy after all.
“So, how are you and Will doing? How’s work? How are you?”
I don’t know what to say.
“Let’s shop then go have lunch. I’ll tell you all the gory details later.”
“Ooohhhh they feel so good.” Jamie and I each tried on a pair of Uggs in Nordstrom’s. The shop-a-thon went on longer then we initially planned. We’ve been out so long that our feet hurt and the air has chilled. I distinctly remember thinking how ugly these shoes were when I was in eighth grade. The popular girls even wore them with skirts and I thought they looked dumb. But as I slide my tired foot inside that warm fuzzy boot, they seem like the brightest idea next to sliced bread.
I check out the price tag on the box, wondering if I really want to pay this much for a pair of clunky moon boots. Christmas will be here before I know it and we’re still paying off the mattress we bought when we upgraded to a queen-sized bed.
“Just get ‘em both! They’re cute. It’ll be fun wearing them together.”
It’s just that simple for her. As long as I’ve known her, she’s never worried too much about money—or anything else, for that matter. She floats through life getting everything she wants without having to try.
Jamie goes for the tall ones, but I decide on the less expensive, short, black pair. Marching determinedly to the cash register, I hand the sales lady the box and tell her I’ll be wearing them out of the store so there’s no turning back.
We shop well past lunchtime and now we’re starving, but at least our feet are comfy as we take the mall exit leading to Fourth Street so we can find a place to eat. The streets are buzzing with energy and people dressed up for a night on the town. The air is thick with electricity that I hope is catching. Jamie and I link arms and wander down the street until we spot a cute little restaurant we want to try.
“So, what’s going on?” Jamie says as soon as we’re inside, seated and have placed our orders. I suggested Italian because there is nothing better to drown my sorrows in then carbs and wine.
“Well... things with Will and I haven’t been going that well lately.”
“Just two weeks ago you said that everything with you and Will was, and I quote, great. Was that a lie?”
“Well...yeah. I guess it was,” I admit, nodding my head. “We had a big fight...well, two big ones actually. The second one being the worst one we’ve ever had. He sleeps on the couch. We’re like roommates except most roommates talk at least. We don’t even really do that.”
I go on to tell her about the petty arguments, forgotten anniversaries and how, even though I’m only twenty-four, I feel like a beaten down fifty-year-old who stays home all the time with my curmudgeon fiancé.
Her brow wrinkles with concern. “How long has this been going on?”
I cock my head to the side and cast my eyes sideways as if that will help me remember better. That’s a really good question.
“Hmmm...The last happy memory I have is our one-year engagement anniversary. He took time off from work and surprised me with a weekend getaway at the beach in Coronado.”
I think hard, trying to come up with something else more recent, but that’s it. Everything happened really fast. I got the job at Silver Insurance, so he transferred to a hotel down here where he works as a front desk reservationist and proposed just days after we moved in together. He took me out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and set it up so that when the waiter came back with dessert, it was my ring on the plate instead. Like the lead in a romantic comedy that leaves you in tears at the end, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Just like the movie, everyone around us started clapping.
Within a month, we planned a small wedding in Ohio. We’d already waited years for me to finish college, so we didn’t want to wait any longer. It was just going to be family at a small ceremony in his mom’s church, and dinner afterwards. It made me a little sad that I wasn’t going to have a “real” wedding, but we couldn’t afford it. I tried to convince myself I was okay with that, but we called it off a few weeks before the actual date. Well, I called it off, as he is always quick to remind me, but it felt rushed and thrown together. I was settling, and I didn’t want to regret it later.
“But, Alexis, wasn’t that, like, two years ago? Two years, and you’ve never said a word?”
In the beginning, being together was like water ripples in a lazy river. Everything was so natural and easy. But something shifted. Those ripples became aggressively angry waves, and we found ourselves in the middle of a tsunami, clinging to a broken tree branch. Thinking backwards, I scan my memory. What changed?
“Two years ago, he switched to day shift and got weekends off.”
“Wasn’t that a good thing?” Jamie asks, confused.
“Yes. It was. We got to spend more time together, but then it made school harder. That’s also about when he decided he wanted to move to Anderson.”
“Anderson, what? Is that a place?” Jamie asks.
“Yes, it’s a place. This tiny little town in Indiana. It snows a lot there. Like, knee deep snow and salted roads. I said he wasn’t trying hard enough, and he said I didn’t understand how difficult it was to juggle full time work and school because I didn’t have to do it that way.”
“What does that have to do with Anderson?”
“This small private college there offered him a partial scholarship. A partial scholarship. He was interested in their Computer Science program, but it didn’t make sense to take on student loans and upend our lives when he could just stick it out at the community college. If he can’t get through one semester without dropping a class, I don’t think anything would be different in Anderson. He misses small town life with its lower cost of living, slower pace, and four seasons, but dark cold winters would be really hard on me. I need the sun.”
“You couldn’t give it a chance? It can’t be worse than South Carolina,” Jamie replies, which only massages my guilt about refusing.
Will’s mother did a good job of that too. He never told her about all the classes he dropped. She had no way of knowing how much time he spent with his eyes glazed over and a game controller clenched in his hands. When he turned down the Anderson scholarship, I was to blame for keeping him from moving closer to her and preventing him from pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming a video game designer.
“What would I do there? Work at Walmart? I couldn’t move my whole life when I don’t trust him enough to believe he would follow through. We’re not married,” I say defending myself.
“And what about that wedding? Have you even talked about it?”
Four years dating and almost three years engaged. That’s a long time for anyone, let alone someone who is twenty-four, which means I live in dread of that inevitable question. When’s the wedding? They always ask. The private voice inside my head answers, Maybe never, or, Would you be interested in financing it? But my standard, cookie cutter response is always, We’re working on it, accompanied by an exaggerated smile to throw them off the scent. We just can’t decide on what kind of wedding we want, or, We’re were saving money, works just as well. Pretty soon, they stopped asking and just started saying, Oh well, you’re practically married, and we continued to fool the world into thinking that we have the perfect relationship. My eyes go glassy with unshed tears, but I blink them away.
“We don’t even talk about it anymore.” The wedding has become that elephant in the room nobody speaks of.
“Why are you still together?” Jamie asks curiously.
“I love him...and I’m too afraid to be without him,” I answer truthfully. The cracks in my soul are a lot bigger than the cracks in our relationship, and as dysfunctional as our relationship has become, he’s all I have.
“I’m fine. We’ll make it work. We have to,” I tell her and make a goofy face to show her I’m really okay.
Our waitress appears at our table with two hot steaming plates. “The fettuccine Alfredo for you, and the lasagna for you. Here’s some extra bread. Can I get anything else for you?”
The first glass of wine is just starting to make me a little tipsy and a lot blue, so I ask for another.
“Jamie, you don’t know how perfect your timing is. I really needed this.”
“That’s what I’m here for. I’m your best friend, and I can’t believe you’re just now telling me all of this. What gives?”
“You’ve had a lot going in your life too...and I guess I just hoped it would get better.”
I push my plate closer to meet her fork, which is already straining towards my lasagna, and make a mess trying to get her fettuccine into my hungry mouth. We order desert, even though we’re stuffed, and catch up on all the things we’ve missed in each other’s lives since she moved.
That night, my two glasses of wine at dinner turn into three. Invigorated by bustling downtown streets and a much needed separation from the jarring discord that has become my life, I drag Jamie into the next bar we pass. One shot of tequila turns into two, pushing my worries with Will into another dimension. In my altered state, boot cut jeans jammed into Ugg boots is actually a short red dress with black stilettos and I’m the hottest girl on the dance floor. I make eye contact with a cute guy sitting at the bar then saunter over and chat him up. After he buys me a cocktail, I move onto the next.
Jamie follows me around like a mother hen, making sure I don’t do anything too stupid. I bat my eyes at guy number three. But all of a sudden, this horrendous, head spinning, stomach-churning nausea hits me all at once like a ton of bricks. I take off to the bathroom, stumbling over my boots, making it just in time. Vomiting has an immediate sobering effect. I hide behind Jamie as we pass quietly through the crowded bar towards the exit sign.
Jamie drives my car to my house and spends the night. Quietly, so as not to wake Will, she locates spare blankets, and we sleep like bookends on opposite ends of the couch. As we sit the next morning in our miniature kitchen, chatting over coffee and laughing at what a falling down idiot drunk I was the night before, I feel lighter than I have in ages. All too soon, I’m driving Jamie back to Tony’s, clinging to her when we say good-bye.
By the time I emerge from a long cleansing shower wrapped in a towel, the air is clouded with steam. I use a towel to wipe off the mirror while I brush my teeth, expelling a whoosh of minty breath while observing my flushed face in the mirror.
I always did like my skin best right after a hot shower, all freshly scrubbed and shiny before the soot and grime of everyday life pressures clog it up and dull it out. My light brown eyes reflect the light of the overhead bulbs, giving them a sharp glint, and my round-tipped nose and chest are still red from the hot water. I practice smiling but it’s so forced my lips feel like unmolded putty. Will used to say my smile is ten times bigger than the biggest town in Ohio. That would be Columbus, where he grew up. His obsession with all things Ohio is so great that to be compared to it in any way is a high compliment, coming from him.
By the time Will is due home from work late Sunday afternoon, I’ve rehearsed what I want to say over and over in my head. I need to make him understand that we can start again. The TV is off and the blinds are drawn while I rest quietly on the couch, drinking a diet soda in near darkness. I check the time and nervously take another sip of soda. The carbonation burns my nose and eyes as the cool liquid bubbles down my throat. I finish chugging it and go back to the fridge, but this time I grab a light beer. My stomach is settled enough to handle it by now, and I need something a little stronger for this conversation. The loud, cracking sound of the tab slices through the silence in the room and I continue to wait and think.
Our relationship is like a garden that hasn’t been watered in a long time. It just needs a little bit of nurturing to bring it back to life. My chin dips, and my head falls forward. I wake with a start. Again, my chin dips towards my chest then all of a sudden, I’m clutching Will’s hand. My other hand grips a jumbo sized, silver water pail and I’m straining towards a sea of scorched roses tissue paper thin with neglect. Will’s smile radiates love and warmth, but I’m so intent on getting the can closer to the shriveled roses, I don’t smile back. The sliver of space between my watering can and the flowers gets smaller and smaller, but just when I think I’m close enough to tip the can, releasing the water towards my mark, I awake with a startle and instinctively clench my fingers around the half empty beer can in my hand to keep it from falling over. It’s an hour and a half later and Will still isn’t home.
He’s not picking up his cell phone. I wait another hour in rigid, mind racing silence then wander aimlessly about the living room just for something to do. I call him again and leave a message. “Will, just calling because... uh... because you aren’t home yet. I’m starting to worry. Please call me when you get this.”
It’s not like him to go anywhere after work on Sunday but if he’s not coming home, he usually lets me know. I didn’t think our relationship had yet deteriorated to the point of casual indifference regarding each other’s whereabouts.
That’s when I notice his shoes, or lack thereof. He never puts them in the closet where they belong and they’re normally strewn about and left in random places around our apartment. Heart pounding, I walk into our bedroom and lean against the door frame, eyes darting suspiciously, trying to figure out what that something is that doesn’t feel right. Swallowing hard, I slide open his side of the closet and gasp when I realize it’s empty. Every last stitch of clothing hanging there yesterday is gone.
Frantically, I throw open his drawers and each one is as empty as the one before it. In the bathroom, his shower gel is still perched in the windowsill, but there’s not even a trace of microscopic hairs that normally litter the sink like an army of ants, the ones I always complained about him not cleaning up. I notice a few other missing knick knacks and I can no longer feel my legs. All of the blood in my entire body seems to have rushed to my head, making me slightly dizzy. He’s not here, and neither is his stuff.
I sit down. I stand up. I open the front door and stick my head outside into the cool air, looking both ways as if searching will make him materialize out of thin air. I sit cross-legged on the coffee table, surveying the scene, imagining his trajectory as a crime scene investigator would. The minute I walked out the door to meet Jamie, he would have darted around the apartment, frantically collecting his things and hauling them out to his car. He only has a few gym bags and one suitcase, so, depending on how pre-meditated this was, it was probably still happening while I was at dinner, pouring my heart out to Jamie and strengthening my resolve to save our relationship.
After loading up his car, he would have moved it out of the parking space so we wouldn’t notice it was full of things that you don’t carry around in your car every day. That would explain the open parking space Jamie conveniently slid into when I expected to have to park blocks away. He would have crept past us on his way to work like a thief in the night while we slumbered on the couch, oblivious to his departure or his intentions.
My already round eyes widen to saucers when I notice the dining room chair. It’s just a chair now, no longer a de facto bookshelf bearing the load of a pile of magazines precariously close to tipping over.
I stand up, but the ground beneath me has gone away. Bile and despair rises coldly in the back of my throat, so I quickly sit down again and place my head between my knees. All is silent, except for the beat of my heart thrumming loudly in my ears. When it feels safe to lift my head, my eyes immediately zero in on that empty chair. I can’t take my eyes off it.
He finally got rid of those magazines. I wonder if he took them with him wherever he went or if he tossed them in the dumpster on his way out.
