Broken and Beautiful

by Ryan, Kendall

  Several moments of silence pass, and I’m sure he’s trying to decide what to say. I’m not sure what I want him to say. He doesn’t reach for me, but his eyes are like heat on my skin.

  “How are you?” he finally says.

  I don’t think I can answer that question without tears, so I only nod.

  “I wanted to be there…”

  I’m not sure what he means, so I do look at him then. Up close, I see what I couldn’t see from the grave. I see the break in his eyes. I see the emptiness in his face. Even when I met him that day at the gym so long ago when he was struggling against an addiction threatening to overcome him, even then he had a spark of fight in his eyes. Now that spark is gone, and I’m the reason.

  Again I only nod. It’s time for me to go. I have to drive into town and catch my flight to Bayville. I linger a moment at his side, wishing for something, a touch, a sign that I’m not alone. A reason to believe we might survive this.

  I’m a breath away from the man I once believed I’d build a life with, and we couldn’t be farther apart. He doesn’t move, and with a fortifying inhale, I start walking again. I’m going back to the house then back to my old life.

  * * *

  Stuart

  I’m back on the couch in the cabin, my head is in my hands, and the fifth of Crown is empty at my feet. She left me. I went to the house thinking I’d take my uncle’s advice. I’d try to find the words I’ve been struggling with for a week. I would apologize. I’d tell her I’d do whatever she needed to make it right. If she wanted to try and get pregnant again, we could. I’d do anything to put the gold back in her beautiful eyes.

  Instead, I found our room empty. Her engagement ring was on the dresser and the closet was bare except for my things. Opening drawer after drawer, all I found were my jeans, my socks, my grey Henley…

  Her message was loud and clear. We were done.

  The memorial service gutted me. Watching her cry from afar was like standing in the hospital all over again, seeing her battered body for the first time. I wanted to hold her, but I couldn’t seem to move. I couldn’t take her away from the comfort of the people who had never hurt her, who had never put her in this place of pain and loss.

  When she came to me, the distance in her eyes twisted my insides. She stood as if trying to protect herself from me. She wouldn’t even speak to me. She only nodded.

  It all wound together into a pain worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. My physical injuries couldn’t compare to this. My withdrawals were closer, but still not like this. This pain is despair and hopelessness and knowing I’ll never find another reason to care as long as I live.

  A scuff across the wooden floor, and my uncle enters the cabin. “Didn’t think I’d find you back out here.”

  He walks to the small sofa where I’m sitting and leans over, retrieving the empty bottle at my feet and reading the label.

  “I remember a time when I thought I could find the answers in a bottle.”

  My mind is fuzzy and my insides are gaping wounds, but I manage a bitter laugh. “I’m not looking for answers.”

  I’m trying to find an escape. I’m trying to find anything that will dull the burning rubble that’s left of me.

  “Hmm,” my uncle grunts, dropping down beside me. “You’re looking for the same thing you thought those prescriptions would bring.”

  I bristle at the insinuation. “I was trying to stay in the game. Killing the pain was the only thing keeping me going.”

  That addiction was also killing me. I finally saw the light and left the desert. I came here to fight out the withdrawals, and here I found Mariska.

  “What happened after we left yesterday?”

  “She left.”

  “Did you talk to her?” He leans forward to catch my eye, but I’m not in the mood.

  “I tried. She didn’t want it.”

  “That doesn’t match what I’ve seen of her.”

  My head is hazy. I’m drunk, I’m hurting, and I’m angry. I don’t feel like hearing any more of his hippie shit. He wasn’t there to see how she looked at me, the emptiness in her eyes.

  “I’ve decided to stay,” I say, changing the subject. “Give me work. I want to work. The harder the better.”

  Pushing off the couch he nods. “Sleep it off and head back to the house tomorrow.” He’s at the door when he pauses and looks back. “Stuart?”

  Looking up with bleary eyes, I wait.

  “I’m not going to subsidize this. You have to get your shit together if you’re staying here.”

  Nodding, I lean down to rub my face. “I’m done here.”

  * * *

  Mariska

  I’m surprised to find everything is the same as I left it at my little apartment in Bayville. The front room is buried in a stack of books, and Ganesh, my favorite Indian elephant statue, holds a tray of even more books on his trunk. Silky pillows in jewel tones cover a gold velvet couch. A beaded lamp sits on an end table, and huge sitting pillows are arranged around the coffee table.

  Returning to this life I left behind feels comforting, familiar, but the specifics of how it worked before are fuzzy. Picking up my phone, I call the one person I know can help me find my way back.

  “Mariska?” My best friend Kenny’s voice reaches through the line like a warm hug, and the old patterns begin to filter into my memory.

  “Hey, I’m back at my place.” I try to sound upbeat, and I wonder if I succeed.

  “What do you mean you’re back?”

  “Um, Stuart and I are taking a break,” I lie. “I’ve moved back to my old apartment.”

  “Taking a break?” Her voice goes loud, and I decide to come clean.

  “More like we decided to end it.” I’m not sure if that’s true either. It implies a conversation occurred.

  “Oh my god, are you okay?” She’s breathless, and I can almost see my best friend’s ice blue eyes blinking wide.

  “Of course!” Even I hear the tremble in my voice this time. I clear it away. “It’s not like that. It’s cool. I don’t want to make a big deal about it.” Finally, I’ve arrived at the truth.

  She’s quiet a beat. “But it kind of is a big deal.”

  Closing my eyes: Inhale… exhale. “I was hoping I could get my old job back. What are the chances of that?”

  “At the Jungle Gym?” I can’t blame her for sounding skeptical.

  “I love that place! And I need a job that’s flexible for school.”

  The line is quiet. I know Kenny is trying to work this out. I’ve gone from engaged to the first man I ever loved to acting like our breaking up is no big deal and I want my old life back.

  I get it.

  Still, I’m not going to encourage any problem solving. My problem is solved. I don’t want to discuss it or dissect it. My insides are far too raw for a post-mortem.

  “I think Rook would be happy to give you your old job back,” she says slowly. “All our clients ask about you, and Pete complains daily nobody can make his cinnamon bun smoothie but you.”

  Pete. I haven’t thought about him in more than a year. A personal trainer at the gym, he’s carried a torch for me since the first day he was hired. He’s sweet, incredibly fit, very handsome, and completely unappealing to me. Still, we dated off and on for a year before Stuart came along and blew him out of the water.

  “Yeah,” I say, a little less enthusiasm in my voice. “Pete.”

  “Just for the record, I don’t believe a word of this shit,” she cuts through my melancholy reverie, “but I love you, and I’ll talk to Rook tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Ken.”

  We’re quiet, and I don’t really want to disconnect.

  “You okay?” she says softly.

  “I will be.”

  We end the call, and I put my phone on the table. My suitcase is in the doorway where I left it, and I retrieve it, rolling it to my bedroom. I stop at the small room I converted into an art studio. Lining the walls are figure
paintings of Stuart. We’d only just decided I’d move to Princeton before we left for Great Falls, and I hadn’t moved hardly any of my stuff to his plush, penthouse condo yet.

  Walking through the room is like visiting a museum of the most beautiful time in my life. Stuart was the first man I ever loved, the first man I ever slept with, and as such, I kind of became a little obsessed with sketching his body. It helped that he has an amazing physique, tall and lean, with lines that would make Michelangelo weep.

  I would sit on the floor wrapped in nothing but one of his button-up shirts, sketchpad on my knees frantically drawing and shading him. Stuart naked, facing me, reading a paper. Stuart from behind, naked on the bed. Stuart sitting up in bed, lines along his shoulders, across his abs. Stuart sitting on the balcony in only his jeans, the sun highlighting all the planes of his square jaw.

  Stopping in front of that one, I squat, my black sheath dress rising up my thighs. I reach out to trace my finger along his jawline, along his profile, his straight nose, full lips. Closing my eyes, I hiccup an inhale. In my dream, Jessica had his lips, his perfectly straight nose. Her hair hung in long, chestnut waves like mine, but her face was her daddy’s. She even had his eyes.

  I push against my knees and leave the room. I go to my suitcase and unzip the top, reaching for the envelope I’d hastily shoved inside. I take it out and without opening it, I put it on the stand in front of that portrait. The pain is winning this time.

  In my kitchen, the bottle of wine I picked up at the drugstore waits on the counter. It’s a screw top, very classy. I couldn’t give a shit. Tonight, Cupcake Chardonnay and I are going to get through this pain together, and tomorrow, I’ll gather up all my fragments and keep moving forward.

  Cutting

  Mariska

  A month has passed since I returned to the Jungle Gym. Just like before, I’m behind the juice bar making smoothies and gearing up for fall semester at OCC. Kenny still works here as a personal trainer along with Pete, and she’s out on the floor in her all-black trainer gear working with a young mother.

  It’s her favorite kind of client because she loves chatting about her little boy Lane and being a mom. Her ice blue eyes sparkle as they chat, and her long purple hair is pulled up in a high ponytail. I can’t bring myself to tell her what I’ve lost. I can’t talk about it yet.

  Kenny’s boyfriend Slayde had been our maintenance guy at the gym for a while, but now he’s a contract private investigator with Alexander-Knight LLC. It’s the same investigative firm Stuart founded with his commanding officer in the Marines, Derek Alexander. When Stuart went back to Saudi to work in private security, his younger brother Patrick took his place. That’s how Slayde became involved.

  Patrick is the father of Kenny’s little boy, but he was a surprise from the very brief time they were together. They share custody, but Patrick is now married to Elaine, and Kenny is with Slayde. It sounds more complicated than it is, but it works.

  “Hey,” my best friend hops up to the juice bar. Her athletic top reveals the lines down her toned torso. “Remember that Matcha tea smoothie you used to make for me?”

  “Barely,” I say, trying to think. I always prided myself on my therapeutic smoothie concoctions. I was always reading recipes and experimenting. “Matcha tea was really hot a few years ago, but it never took off.”

  “The health food industry overestimates how much Americans want to drink something that color.”

  “Seems like I remember you putting kale in everything back then.” I make a disgusted face. Kenny has never possessed my talent behind the juice bar.

  “It was for a client!” She shoves an escaped strand of purple hair behind her ear. “Veggi-Smooth really wanted to work with us.”

  “They were a smoothie shop.” I lower my gaze, giving her my most offended look. “I’m the smoothie girl here. You were competing with your best friend.”

  “I think we saw who won.”

  “That’s right, and don’t you forget it.” Sometimes I’m surprised at how healthy I sound. I’m lucky nobody sees me at night when I go home. “You want me to make you one?”

  “Do you remember how?”

  Pulling out my old notebook, I raise an eyebrow. “A true chef never throws away a recipe.”

  Flipping page after page, I try to locate my recipe for the dark-green tea concoction. I’m near the back when a sketch derails everything. I swallow hard as pain shoots through my chest. It’s the sketch I started of Stuart the day after he came here, the day after I met him for the very first time.

  I only used a Number 2 pencil, but I can still see the dominant shade of green in his hazel eyes. I worked on it over and over for months, even after I went to Great Falls to pursue him. Even after I left him there… He gazes soulfully from the pages of my notebook, reminding me of every time he looked at me with longing, desire, possession.

  “What’s wrong, babe?” My best friend hops up on the bar, and I slam the book shut.

  Blinking fast, I clear the heated mist from my eyes. “Nothing,” I try to laugh it off, but I sound like a sick pigeon. “I have to check my other notebook. I’m sure I’ll find it.”

  Kenny’s blue eyes narrow. “Whatever you say, liar.”

  “I will!” I insist. “Do you need it now?”

  “I guess not.” She’s still watching me as she slips off the bar. Kenny’s quiet, but she’s smart as a whip.

  “I’ll have one ready for you first thing in the morning.”

  “My three o’clock is here, but I’m watching you.” She points two fingers at her eyes and back at me as she goes into the gym. I hold my face steady while she watches, waiting for any crack in the wall.

  Finally, she turns away to the older lady wanting to increase her muscle mass, and in that moment, my shoulders fall. I slide my finger out of the book, turning it back to his beautiful face looking at me, and all the love I felt for him in all those days I spent drawing this image burn in my heart like a brand.

  Later that night, alone in my apartment, I quickly walk past the closed door of my small studio-room. I haven’t returned to the Musée d’Stuart since the first night I got back. Those sketches and paintings will have to remain shut up until I’m strong enough to go in there and face them, and pack them up.

  Instead, I lean over my bar staring at the small Turkish coffee pot, my ibrik, and I wish for my grandmother. Yaya believed in soul mates and true love. She taught me everything I know about dreams and auras and reading coffee grounds. She’s the reason I waited so long, until I found Stuart, to lose my virginity.

  Yaya wasn’t religious, but she was incredibly spiritual. She believed in the bond between a man and a woman formed through sexuality, and she told me many times it was the most important thing I would ever do. It was a union that would create new life.

  Picking up the phone, I call our favorite Thai place and order takeout Pad Thai. In the meantime, I wander back to my bedroom, to my closet where I keep the box of her final possessions. It’s been a long time since I sifted through this memorabilia, but it’s also been a long time since I needed to feel her close to me this much.

  The first item I lift out is her beaded shawl. She never wore it, but when I was a little girl, I would wrap it around my shoulders and pretend to be her. I would waltz through the house, speaking in an overly dramatic voice about the future and finding my purpose.

  Under that, I take out her favorite book, The House of the Spirits. Turning it over, I read the blurb. Apparently it’s one of the most important books of the last century, weaving magical realism, fate and love into an epic saga. I’ve only ever watched the movie. Opening the front flap, I scan the dedication, “To my mother, my grandmother, and all the other extraordinary women in this story.”

  Setting it aside, I think of my mother. She died before I ever knew her, and even though Yaya loved her dearly, we never talked about her. I dig deeper into the box, deeper than I ever have before. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I only fee
l the need to keep digging. I want answers, but I don’t know the question.

  After Yaya died, I was too sad to pack up her things. My great-aunt Beatriz assembled this box for me. In the beginning I didn’t want to dig deeper. Later, I guess I felt like I knew everything there was to know about her. Now, in view of my recent history, I understand everyone has so much history we don’t know. I suppose I’m curious about what my grandmother might have held onto, what she might have found important enough to preserve.

  The first thing I find is a sepia photograph of a handsome man in uniform. His thick black hair is styled away from his face, and he has dark brows and an imposing jaw. His black eyes twinkle with mischief. Turning the photograph over, I read Manfred Heron.

  “Oh my god,” I sigh, remembering how Stuart and I made fun of his name. “He’s so handsome!”

  Putting the image of my great grandfather aside, I keep digging. A manila folder is under a thick book that appears to be a journal. Lifting it out, I open the front cover and read the words Dr. Jim Endicott, Patient Notes—Mariska Renee Heron, Age 6. My brow lines just as the doorbell rings.

  I scan the page quickly. It appears to be some sort of medical record, but I’ve never seen it. The bell rings again, and I have to set it aside to get my dinner.

  The young guy out front wears a tan uniform-type shirt and jeans. His hair is shaggy and dark brown, and he appears to be about my age. “Pad Thai Number 3 heat with miso?”

  “That’s me,” I say, digging out my wallet.

  “You’re home alone on a Friday?” His brows disappear under his shaggy hair, and I think of high school and boys who never understood my preference for solitude.

  “I’m… doing research,” I say hastily, signing the receipt and handing it back to him. “Thanks!”

  Closing the door, I go to the kitchen and pop open the top of the paper container. I take a deep inhale of fish sauce, pork, and crisp steamed veggies, and my stomach rumbles. Setting it aside, I grab the flimsy white plastic spoon and dig into the miso. One spoonful, and the tangy bite of lemon fills my mouth. It’s chased by the savory zest of seaweed and fish, dashi. I eat it quickly, spoonful after spoonful, until it’s gone.