by Abby Jimenez
I tipped my wineglass at him. “You suffer from One Day Syndrome.”
He wrinkled his brows. “What?”
“One Day Syndrome. You live your life like there’ll always be one day to do all the things you put off. One day you’ll take the trip. One day you’ll have the family. One day you’ll try the thing. You’re all work and not enough play. Money can’t make you happy unless you know what you want, Adrian. So what do you want?”
He shook his head at me like he’d never considered the question before. “I don’t know.”
“You should try to figure it out. You know, you’re really lucky. Most people don’t have the means to live differently, or to make drastic changes in their lifestyle, pack up and take six months off work and still be able to pay their bills. But you do.” I shrugged. “So do it.”
He looked amused. “Just do it? Just pack up and go.”
“Or stay. But make time for other things that aren’t work. Find balance. Find joy. You are the kind of man who can’t see the shapes in the clouds. And it’s not because you lack imagination. It’s because you’re too busy to look up.”
He blinked at me a moment. Something I couldn’t read moved across his face. Then he cleared his throat and pushed off the counter. “Well, Italy might be a stretch,” he said, reaching for the potatoes. “I don’t fly, remember?”
Grace started to fuss and I unclipped her from the swing and picked her up. “You’re really serious about that no-flying thing, huh?” I said, bouncing her.
He slid the contents of his frying pan into a waiting dish. “I get panic attacks.”
I frowned. “Well that sucks. Have you tried Xanax?”
He put the pan in the sink and ran water over it with a sizzle. “I’ve tried everything.”
“Therapy?”
He shook his head. “I get enough psychoanalysis from my mom. She thinks it’s because I’m not in control of the situation. I’d probably be fine if I was the one flying the plane.” He took the towel from his shoulder and dried his hands. “She says I have abandonment issues.” He looked amused. “My dad left us when I was young. She says this grew into a deep-seated need to always be in control.”
“Huh. Is your mom a psychologist?”
He chuckled. “No. Though she’s probably been to enough of them to know.”
“So how do your abandonment issues mess with your relationships?” I asked, putting Grace’s pacifier in her mouth.
He opened the oven and peeked in. “What do you mean?”
“Your childhood damage always messes with your relationships. I think it’s a rule.”
I knew this rule because I was completely bound by it. And in my case, it meant I didn’t have relationships.
I was taught early on that love was always needy. It was a responsibility. An obligation. Love bleeds you dry and takes advantage of you. Asks you for money, crashes your car, drops a baby on your doorstep.
It leaves you.
It dies.
I didn’t want to do that to anyone else. I didn’t want anyone to fall in love with me only for them to watch me waste away and then leave them behind. And anyway, I wasn’t worth all that. Not at this point. The payout was too small. I probably had too little time left.
He lowered the temperature on the oven. “Other than making it hard to get to Seattle to see her, I don’t think my issues had any bearing on Rachel.”
“So did you have any serious relationships before her?” I asked.
Adrian folded his kitchen towel into a perfect square and set it on the counter. “A few. I dated someone in college for a couple of years. Dated people on and off. My job makes it hard to make time. She was the first girlfriend I had in…three years?”
I pulled my face back. “Wow. She must have been pretty special.”
He blew a breath out, but he didn’t answer.
I felt my face go soft. “Are you okay? Finding out someone’s married is a really shitty way to break up.”
He nodded. “I’m okay. Or I will be. Eventually. Having someone to hang out with helps.”
I smiled and kissed the top of Grace’s head. “We should toast.” I picked up my wineglass and raised it. “To just friends.”
He gave me a crooked smile. “To just friends.”
We clinked our glasses.
CHAPTER 9
MAN TRAPPED IN GRUESOME AVALANCHE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT BURIED HIM!
ADRIAN
I woke up thinking about Vanessa.
It was incredible to me that I didn’t know her before this. That I didn’t realize someone so vibrant lived right next door. It seemed like the kind of thing that would have been self-evident. A warmth that I felt through the wall.
Last night she’d brought over a 2013 Far Niente cabernet. It was exquisite. We ate dinner and started watching The Office, but we ended up talking so much we paused it and never got back to it.
I’d done some digging around on her while she was dealing with her dad and his “stolen vehicle.” I searched “Vanessa Price” and clicked on the video with the most views. It was with some other YouTuber named Willow Shea and the video was the two of them eating ghost peppers. It was hilarious.
Then I’d checked her Wikipedia. It was brief. She was a staunch advocate for disability rights and had a charity committed to raising funds for the cure of ALS—and she was famous, a fact I’d gleaned from the amount of fan mail she had and the five million views on the ghost pepper video I’d watched.
I was hoping I’d see what her old job used to be, but the Wikipedia page was sparse.
She’d said she didn’t date because the women in her family die young.
Her mom had died in a car accident and her sister died of ALS. I’d done a quick Google search of it. It was a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Causes muscle atrophy and eventually leads to death. Raising money for ALS had spawned that Ice Bucket Challenge from a few years ago. Stephen Hawking had had a slowly advancing version of it.
It was very awful and very rare. Ninety-five percent of all cases were random, which meant it probably wasn’t hereditary for her. Her dad was alive and well and while her mother had died when Vanessa was young, it wasn’t ALS that killed her. Wikipedia didn’t list any other of her relatives that had had it. Shit luck that her sister developed it, but it didn’t sound like anything Vanessa had to worry about.
With two untimely deaths in the same family and a sister hell-bent on self-destruction, Vanessa probably thought she was living out some real-life Final Destination movie.
Of course, that was ridiculous and something I think she’d eventually get over. Something I hoped she’d get over. She was too incredible to be lonely forever.
And she’d been right. I’d underestimated the restorative nature of a new sink sponge.
I was standing in the kitchen making a cappuccino. It was barely 8:15. I had no plans today and was thinking of hitting the treadmill when my phone rang.
The house phone at Richard’s.
My good mood immediately evaporated.
When I’d called Mom yesterday to ask her how to clean up Grace after her diaper fiasco, she’d thought I was calling to tell her I was coming for Christmas. She was surprised that I was watching someone’s baby. She was less surprised that I was still sticking to my guns and refusing to be anywhere in Richard’s presence.
I picked up, thinking it was going to be another guilt-trip phone call from her.
It was worse. It was Grandma.
“Adrian?” she said, in her small, frail voice. “What time are you taking me to lunch today?”
I drew my brows down. “Grandma, I’m not coming to see you today.”
“But it’s Tuesday! You always take me to Perkins on Tuesday.”
It wasn’t Tuesday. It was Sunday. And I never took her to lunch. Dinner was our tradition.
She was confused again.
I rubbed my forehead tiredly. “Gra
ndma, you’re in Nebraska now, remember?”
She went quiet and I knew she was doing that thing she did when her mind got turned around, drawing down her thin eyebrows and searching the floor with her eyes.
It was more difficult to connect with her on the phone. She was less disoriented in person. I hadn’t really talked to her since the move. Every time I’d call, she’d lose her train of thought or forget who she was talking to and set the receiver down and wander off.
It made me that much angrier that Mom had moved her away from everything familiar, and my hatred for Richard went up a notch.
I heard someone in the background. “Who are you talking to?” Shuffling, and then Mom got on the phone. “Who is this?”
“Mom, it’s me,” I said wearily.
“Adrian? I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
“She called me.”
Now she went quiet on me too.
“She’s been asking about you,” she said after a moment.
I squeezed my temples.
“She doesn’t understand why you’re not here,” she said. “And I can’t explain it to her.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have moved her out of state,” I said, my tone more clipped than I’d intended.
“I have a life, Adrian. Even if you don’t want to be a part of it.”
Any truce we’d committed to on the phone yesterday when I called to ask how to wash Grace was officially over.
“I’m handing the phone back to Audrey so you can say goodbye,” she said curtly, obviously done with me.
There was more shuffling and then Grandma was back on the call. “Adrian?”
“Grandma, I love you. I have to go, okay?” My voice was getting thick.
“Okay. You stay out of trouble. I’ll see you soon. Bye bye.”
I hung up and squeezed my eyes shut, blowing out a long breath.
I was clearly in the throes of a custody battle and the only way I was getting visitation was if I agreed to make peace with Richard and go down there—which I would never do.
I felt instantly exhausted and like I was being punished for having principles.
I went back to making my coffee. The phone rang again and I looked down at it, half expecting it to be Grandma. This time it was Vanessa. I smiled at the screen and swiped the Answer Call button. “Hey—”
“Adrian, I need help. It’s an emergency.”
I set my coffee cup down and immediately started for the door. “What’s going on?”
“I need you to come with me to my dad’s.”
I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “Your dad’s?”
“Like, it’s not a call-the-police thing, but it’s definitely urgent, and I need someone strong to help me. My hand is too weak, no one’s home at Brent’s house, and I don’t know anyone else.”
“Okay. Let me get dressed,” I said, making a beeline for my room.
“Don’t wear anything you’ll be sad to douse in gasoline and set on fire later.”
Vanessa left Grace with Yoga Lady—whose real name was Dawn. I drove.
“What happened?” I asked, getting onto the freeway.
She was wringing her hands. “Some stuff fell over and he’s trapped.”
I jerked to look at her. “Trapped? As in under it?”
She nodded. “Yeah, but it’s just his legs. He was able to call me. He’s not in any immediate danger. I don’t think he’s hurt or anything. He just can’t get out by himself.”
I shook my head. “And you didn’t want to call 911? They would have gotten there faster.”
“I can’t call the police to that house. They’ll red tag it.”
I drew my eyebrows down. “Red tag it? What’s wrong with it?”
She let out a long breath. “Remember I told you about the muddy hill of shit yesterday? And you were all cavalier and wanted to be my friend anyway?”
I changed lanes. “Yes…”
“Well, this is the slide.”
Fifteen minutes later we pulled up to a two-story house in Eagan. Vanessa jumped out and ran up the walkway and went inside without waiting for me. When I came up behind her, I stopped dead in the doorway.
The smell hit me like a wall.
I came slowly into the entry breathing into my elbow. I’d never seen anything like it. Not in real life.
Floor-to-ceiling stacks as far as the eye could see. Shit literally everywhere. Every standing surface had a pile on it.
The love seat in the living room was completely covered with some sort of magazine/newspaper collection piled so high it blocked the light from the window. There was a broken blender on the credenza filled with bottle caps next to a rotting gourd with fruit flies buzzing around it. Bins everywhere, lining the walls with God knows what in them, the rim to a tire, a box filled with broken picture frames, one of those white wicker baskets used for flowers at weddings in the 1980s with a dented pink helium tank sitting in it—
There was a chaotic method to some of the madness. Certain things seemed to be grouped together. A stack of board games piled on a chair, a CD collection. But all around it was garbage and decaying food. Broken, useless trinkets and appliances.
Vanessa called me from somewhere deeper in the house and I picked my way over the clutter on the floor to a hallway that was so crowded with stuff I had to turn sideways to squeeze through it. Vanessa stood in a room at the end trying to lift a fallen armoire off a pile of clothes.
“I got it,” I said, heaving it up and leaning it against the wall. Only after I had it moved did I realize there was a man under it.
Vanessa was already digging her dad out from under shirts and pants. “Dad, you okay?” she asked, pulling him to his feet.
He brushed his sweater down, a sock still draped over his shoulder. “Fine, fine, pumpkin. I put some laundry on an open drawer and it must have been too top-heavy. Toppled it onto me. Had a nice little cushion for the fall though.”
Vanessa looked back at me, a tired expression on her face. “Thanks for helping.”
Her dad gave me a broad used-car-salesman smile. “We haven’t been formally introduced,” he said, extending a hand. “Gerald Price.”
I was feeling nauseous. My eyes were starting to water. “Adrian Copeland,” I managed, shaking it.
Gerald put his hands in his pockets and rocked jovially back on his heels. “So, Vanessa tells me you’re a lawyer.”
He smiled up at me like nothing was wrong. Like I hadn’t just lifted a dresser off him and we were running into each other in a Panera or something.
I couldn’t make small talk with him here, standing in this garbage pile. I was having a hard time breathing. Not just because of the smell, but because the room was so crowded with junk it was giving me anxiety. The floor under my feet was uneven. I was standing on blankets and balled-up socks and my head was too close to the ceiling. I felt claustrophobic.
“I’m sorry, excuse me. I need to step out.”
I left them standing there. I didn’t stop moving until I was outside again on the porch, gulping fresh air.
How the fuck had Vanessa grown up in this? I wouldn’t say my own childhood was without trauma, but this made me feel like calling my mom and thanking her.
Three minutes later I was still on the front porch when Vanessa came out and plopped down next to me on the weathered bench I’d retreated to by the screen door.
I shook my head. “Wow.”
She scoffed. “I prefer a four-letter word, but sure.”
I looked over at her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude back there. I just needed to get some air.”
She sighed. “It’s overwhelming, I know. Especially when you’re not used to it.”
“You’re used to this?”
“I’m used to a lot of shit.” She laughed a little mirthlessly. “I found a raccoon living in one of the closets one time. Once you realize you’re one open window and a hoarded bathroom away from living with trash pandas, the whole second half of you
r life begins.”
I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny.
She nudged my arm. “So, you still believe that whole ‘other families just do better PR’ thing?”
I snorted and shook my head at the yard. “Has he always been this way?”
She took a deep breath and blew it out in the cold air. “Pretty much. But this is honestly the worst it’s ever been,” she admitted. “It gets worse every time something big happens. Mom, Melanie. Annabel. I think it’s his way of dealing with it.”
She dug into the neck of her shirt and pulled out a yellow tube of Carmex.
I squinted at her. “Did you just pull that out of your bra?” I asked, watching her put it on.
“Yeah. Leggings don’t have pockets. Plus it gets cold and won’t squeeze from the tube unless I keep it somewhere warm. I call it my boob stick.” She smacked her lips. “Want some?” She held it out.
“No. I don’t like the way that stuff tastes.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda gross. But it makes your lips super soft.” She pressed her lips together again and put the tube back in her bra.
I dropped my eyes to her mouth for a flicker of a second. Her lips did look soft…
I looked away from her.
A car pulled into the driveway of the house across the street.
“Oh, so now he’s home,” she mumbled.
“Who?”
She rubbed her hands on her arms. “Brent. He lives there with his boyfriend, Joel.”
“How old’s your brother?”
“Twenty-one. Joel is too. They’re high school sweethearts. He’s been living over there since he was fifteen.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Your dad let him?”
She shrugged. “He was over there all the time anyway. It was just across the street. And Dad still made him come home for dinner every night and holidays. It was sort of a win-win. Brent got out of this house, and Dad got to put shit in his room.” She laughed dryly. “Joel’s family is nice. Brent’s in a good place over there. He’s got the most potential of all of us to end up somewhat unscathed by this fucked-up family,” she muttered.
We watched Brent get out of the passenger side. He stopped and looked at us for a second before waving. Then he went around to the trunk and grabbed some grocery bags and went into the house with another young man.