by Carr, Suzie
Later when I messaged with Eva about my short story success, I decided to take off the sweatpants and lounge on my couch in just my red undies. I munched on a bowl of my Chex mix and waited for her to respond to my question about whether or not she would prefer flying on an airplane or riding her motorcycle cross country.
“You’ve never been on the back of a motorcycle have you?”
I couldn’t imagine more of a thrill clinging to her, flushing my body up against hers. “Never.”
“I’ll be your first.”
I swallowed hard. A fire stoked deep inside. My chest ached. “I’d love that.”
We continued talking about silly things like how her cat, Jarvis, liked to smack her radio alarm clock each morning to wake her up and feed him and how I once walked around the Columbia Mall in boxer shorts and didn’t know it until I was halfway around the mall.
She asked about my life growing up as a budding writer, and whether I sat around and mulled over stories while playing with dolls and building tree houses. I embellished just a little and told her all about my wonderful, happy childhood growing up in a neighborhood teeming with friendly kids who invited me to their birthday parties and to go bike riding down Sycamore Street, a winding wooded road where the trees acted as canopies for miles.
She asked me many innocent questions and I enjoyed filling her curious mind with answers that shined of the good times that a normal, well-adjusted person would offer.
“Janie, will I ever get to see a real picture of you?”
My breath rolled around in my chest. “You must already have an image of me in place? You know, like a character in a book?”
“I do. I picture you all the time lately, when I’m sleeping, when I’m walking, when I’m showering.”
I bit my lower lip, riding a series of waves so strong they toppled me over. “What do I look like in your mind?”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“Go on,” I wrote.
“Come on, no fair. You get to see me.”
“I don’t have many pictures of myself.”
“Just snap a picture and send it. What are you afraid of?”
I stood up and backed away from the computer like it was a ticking time bomb. I planned out everything in my life according to logic and strategy. If I were walking through a park and someone tried to pull me into a bush, I would whack the creep with the bottom of my hand right upside his nose and knock him out. If I were driving and my brakes stopped working, I would put my car in neutral and sideswipe an object if necessary to prevent massive damage. I stored forty cans of kidney beans and another forty jars of peanut butter in my storage unit in case of emergency. I planned things out to the point of an extremist. Yet, I forgot to plan an answer for something this important? “I’ll get one to you.”
“I just want to see the beautiful girl I am talking with every day.”
My head swirled in delightful circles. No sangria in the world could rival this buzz. “You’re more beautiful.”
“I really want to kiss you.”
I floated. “Please do.”
“Mwah.”
“Mmm, I felt that one.” I traced my lips imagining hers.
“Was it yummy?” she asked.
Luscious, juicy, warm only touched the surface of adjectives to explain the potential yumminess. “You taste like sweet berries, babe.”
“I really like when you call me babe.”
My entire body quivered. I could only manage a wink.
“Please send me a picture. I’m waiting.”
“Okay. I’ll get one to you, soon. XO. I’ve got to run. Have a great rest of your day.”
I logged off, hung my head between my legs and breathed like I had just crossed the finish line of the New York City Marathon.
She could never know that the real CarefreeJanie was really the shy, geeky girl too afraid to admit her true identity. I couldn’t possibly send her a real picture of me.
I stood up on this buzz kill, placed my fists on each end of my hips and panicked. She’d take one look at my picture and recognize me, the girl who caught her wearing the wrong shoes, the girl she most likely saw run out of the quarterly meeting like the building was on fire, and the girl who could’ve just come clean and admitted she dropped the coffee all over the front of her boobies. I ruined my chance of ever being trustworthy, of being confident, of not looking like the dweeb I really was.
I whined out loud to my condo. I didn’t want this stress. I couldn’t afford stress to enter into this equation. I wanted clear, concise, to-the-point emotions here.
I needed a drink. Wine wouldn’t cut it. I needed to take out the big guns. I dashed to my kitchen, reached up to the top of my fridge and pulled out my unopened bottle of Absolute vodka I had bought for New Year’s Eve in anticipation of Larry and me drinking it up in front of the television. Instead some asshole lover who turned out to be a drug user stole him from me that night.
I poured myself some orange juice and Absolute and downed it in less than three gulps. I waited for the buzz to grip me. Slowly, lusty bubbles tickled my brain and relieved some of the panic. I drank another, this time adding just a smidgeon more vodka. Five minutes later, I perched in front of my laptop researching cameras.
Okay, so I didn’t play the move very strategically with Eva. Not a big deal. I could still survive this small little storm of stupidity by continuing to play along with her. It didn’t have to end here. I could get creative and string this along. Then, if one day I ever became brave enough to actually face her, I’d explain the whole messed up silly misunderstanding of not telling her about the fact that I was the girl who spilled coffee on her. I’d blame it on embarrassment.
She was a beautiful girl with a thoughtful soul. She’d surely understand my logic. Otherwise, why would I want to be with someone who didn’t get that? Right?
Not everyone carried confidence around like a designer pocketbook. Some of us had some scratches and missing zippers and had to hold to their broken belongings a little tighter and with more protection than others.
In between rapid inhales and even quicker exhales, I imagined the picture taking. Perhaps I could hide behind some props, and just reveal an overly dramatic made-up eye, complete with false eyelashes and wild, wacky, sparkly, blue eye shadow. I could dye my hair with a temporary rinse. Or maybe I could hang upside down and look fun. She’d never recognize me. I’d touchup the shit out of it.
First line of order. I’d have to buy a camera, one that could shoot miracle photos. Then, I’d probably need to invest in Photoshop because these pictures would for sure need some major overhaul.
I plopped down on my couch.
What did I just get myself into?
Chapter Nine
I didn’t covet a career in photography for a good reason. When I snapped a picture, I usually cut off heads, caught people in strange yawns, shot the corner of one of my fingers instead of a critical pose, or shook the camera so much while trying to be steady that the whole picture blurred out of focus and resembled a psychedelic poster straight out of the 1970s.
I went to Walmart and bought a Canon Easy Zoom. Easy zoom my ass. Even the on button screwed with my intellect. I read the instructions and fiddled with the darn thing for an hour before I could figure out how the self-timer worked. The thing had so many settings. I’d imagine if I needed to shoot the inside of a volcano or brave hurricane-force winds or shoot a picture during a blackout, I’d probably find a setting to accommodate me and my feeble photographical skillset. I just needed the freaking thing to snap a photo of me trying to look inconspicuous. Of course, the camera didn’t come packaged with that setting.
I bought a case for the camera, too, so if this picture-taking thing became a normality in my and Eva’s Twitter relationship, I’d have an easier way to store it and lug it around to different locations. She’d eventually tire of the one and only feasible backdrop in my condo, my bathroom with its deep, gold accent wall behind the toilet. So,
not only did I have to figure out a way to disguise three-quarters of my face, but I also needed to snap this photo in such a way that the girl wouldn’t think I was taking a pee at the same time the camera clicked.
The lighting worked wonders with its soft, golden splash. I cleared off the extra rolls of toilet paper I had stacked on the back of the toilet and replaced the jar of pebbles and candles from the glass shelf with something less bathroom-looking – an ivy plant, a small cactus plant, and a couple of my favorite books. I stepped back and examined my props. I straightened out The Forbidden Garden and shifted No Ordinary Moments with The Glass Castle so they stood from tallest to shortest.
The white porcelain shined too much. Two minutes later, I covered it with a baby blue afghan my grandmother had crocheted for me years ago when I finally offered my parents the break they needed and moved out on my own. I clicked a few random shots of the scene, played around with my settings like a pro and decided I’d go with the portrait setting because it didn’t highlight the dust trails on the gold wall. I would gladly turn a bathroom into a portrait studio, but wash my walls? No way.
Okay, onto myself. I pulled my hair back into an Orioles baseball cap, and lowered the lid so it sat right above my eyebrows. CarefreeJanie would be a sporty chick who liked going to see Orioles games at Camden Yards every time she could. She would play softball for a girls’ league and spend hours after the games at the bar drinking beer with her teammates, who by the way, would laugh at every one of her jokes. She would also drive a Jeep Wrangler and indulge on long weekend trips to the eastern shore where she’d take a couple of her friends along with her for some beach volleyball. They’d follow up their fun in the sun with a bonfire on the beach, acoustic guitar, and maybe just for shits and giggles, she could be into weed every once in a great while.
I could turn CarefreeJanie into anyone. Eva would never meet her. Never. This was just for fun. Eva would be the girl who introduced me to the joy of flirting. Then, one day, maybe I could venture into the real world and find me a real live Eva-type who might actually enjoy me for me and one with whom I hadn’t completely destroyed my integrity and character by lying and hiding. Girls like Eva didn’t hide. I never expected her to understand the inner hauntings of a girl who needed to. No reason for tears and faded love and all that anxiety just yet, especially when I only just planned to indulge and have fun.
Without prepping too much for the actual photo, I just snapped a couple of strange angles. Each shot grew worse. My face looked bigger. My fine lines popped out along the one eye I opted to showcase. My expression looked like something you’d find on a crazy woman who took one too many drugs in her prime. The pictures went from bad to worse until, just for goofs, I held the camera above my head, looked up and snapped. This angle elongated my body, creating a cute, slender frame. The best part, my eye looked bright blue and gigantic in relation to my baseball cap and slender shoulders. I could barely recognize myself.
So, fifteen minutes into my photography session, I called it a wrap. I downloaded it and to my horror, the pretty blue afghan had slipped off the toilet, and in plain sight, I was sitting on a toilet snapping photos of myself. Class act.
Other than that small fact, the picture was perfect.
The next day at work, desperate to claim this photo as CarefreeJanie and impress Eva with it, I did something completely out of character. I marched up to Sanjeev and asked him if I could have Photoshop installed on my laptop. “I really think Kate had some validity at our last meeting when she said my headlines weren’t exactly matching the visual. I’d really like to have Photoshop so I can set up a visual when refining these headlines.” He responded with a wink, a blush to his freshly shaven cheek, and an affirmative nod. “I’ll get the technical team to install it this morning.”
I thanked him like a polite employee, and when I walked away with an extra bounce in my step, being pretty darn proud of my assertive approach to problem solving, Katie once again mocked me with an extra sugary smile that had poison written all over it. Get too close to her men, and she turned into a territorial dog sniffing out the enemy all while shouldering a well-exercised southern bell charm.
She was not perfect. She had issues. Her husband didn’t want her. She scuttled around the world lost like a dog without a home. These facts empowered me like a little rudder hidden under a rowboat. I passed her by and lifted my mouth into the slightest smile. I, the better one, didn’t shove this knowledge in her face. She could toss clever lies and cunning sneers all she wanted. None of it bothered me anymore.
She responded with a superimposed twinkle in her eye.
Not more than thirty minutes later, Jeff from IT waltzed into my cubicle and installed Photoshop on my system. Katie and her fake eyelashes and sing-song smile neared my cubicle, stretching her lanky neck and slinking it back to normal whenever I’d look over and catch her snooping.
I waited all afternoon to launch my photo. And, when I did, I shrunk it down to only twenty-five percent so that if Katie happened to walk out of her three o’clock production meeting to get a cup of coffee, I could hide it quickly. I researched how to blend backgrounds to distort them and applied the technique. The fates of change and world wonders converged that afternoon and worked alongside me, carrying me along a nice peaceful trail where everything just slid into place for me. The result, a picture that would turn my head, too.
I was cute!
I called Larry. “I’m sending you a picture that I want to send to Eva. I want your honest opinion of it first.”
A few minutes later, he texted me. “You should have worn the red bra and undies.”
I exhaled. “She already thinks I’m sexy. I don’t want to overexcite her with too much and leave her hanging for eternity.”
“Noble gesture on your part. You’re going to make a great cyber lover.”
# #
Larry tended to whine, but he usually reserved all-out crying for situations like insect attacks and of course when his DVR recorded over Dr. Oz before he could watch it. Yes, Larry adored Dr. Oz, perhaps even more than Shaun T from the Insanity exercise videos. Anyway, Larry sat beside me bawling with his laundry bag crumbled at his feet. I fed him tissues faster than he could swipe tears. They fell from his eyes in giant drops; I’m talking total-and-complete breakdown at a monsoon level.
“Tim is married,” he managed to shovel out to me.
“Tim? Your great boyfriend Tim?”
He nodded, gulping back another round of tears. “I didn’t want to tell you. I’m lousy at everything. I didn’t want to be lousy at being this.”
“Being the other guy?” I couldn’t suppress the judgment. It flew out of me unrestrained the way air blew out of a compressor.
“I know. I’m a horrible man.”
“You’re not a horrible man.” I handed him another tissue not sure how to comfort him when I wanted to punch him. “So what happened? Why are you crying like someone stole your Lexus?”
“He had told me he was separated. So, I thought I could safely date him. But, it turns out he wasn’t. We met up at lunch, and I knew as soon as I saw his strained face that something dreadful was about to come out of his mouth.” He coughed and blew his nose. “He’s been married to his wife for fifteen years. They have three dogs, two cats and a finch. His wife’s mother lives with them and cooks all their meals, washes their clothes, and she’s even on their health insurance from his work.” He cried out in anguish, leaning back and covering his tear-stained face with his hands. “He’s afraid to leave her.”
I didn’t know what to do. So, I sat on the edge of my couch, drumming my fingers on my legs, willing my best friend to get a hold of himself so I wouldn’t have to do it for him. I was not qualified.
He sat up again. “He doesn’t love her, but I don’t believe him. How do you spend fifteen years with someone and not love her? Why would he do that?”
He stared at my empty eyes. I shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“He told
me he loves me, but he doesn’t want to hurt her or his mother-in-law. He asked if we could see each other quietly.”
To me this sounded logical and acceptable given that’s how I lived my life, hidden and coiled up in the corner where not even the light of day could break in and illuminate who I really was.
At least someone in this world loved him and committed to continue loving him. I’d forfeit an arm to have someone love the real me. Couldn’t he just be satisfied instead of greedy? “At least you have that.”
He scoffed and his tears suddenly dried up like the sun baked right through my ceiling. “No.” He waved his finger at me. “No, you’re not going to play this game. This crazy, foolish ‘poor me, look at me, I have no one who loves me’ game. You don’t get to do that. You know why?” He hung his jaw waiting on me.
I flung my hands up in the air and landed backwards on a huff. “Oh, here we go.”
“No. There’s no ‘here we go.’ You and I both know the reason you don’t have someone to love you is because you’re too stubborn to put yourself out there. Everyone is not out to get you.”
“You have no idea what it’s like to live in my head.” I stood up, rage spilling from every cell. I was an ugly person inside, and I wanted to keep the ugliness inside. I decided this, and I wouldn’t let him or anyone else judge me on it. I’d already judged myself enough. “Fuck you.” I tore off to my kitchen. “Fuck you and your married boyfriend, you insensitive ass.” I turned on the faucet and began scrubbing my breakfast dishes, choking back tears.
“Fuck me?” He stood up and commanded the space. The room vibrated with his frustration and echoed straight to me, straight to my sponge, straight to my heart where it strangled my selfish tantrum. He moved towards me, eyes wide open. “Fuck me? Why fuck me?” He stood two feet from me, hands on his hips, shock and hurt trailing in the fine lines around his eyes. The air whispered between us, begging us to stop this foolish nonsense and get back on the same team.