The Theory of Opposites

by Scotch, Allison Winn

  He lifts a bottle of Scotch from the bar, but struggles to open it, so just plunks it back down.

  “You told her to go.”

  “Well, taking a lover and ending a marriage are two different things!” he says. Then: “I am not sure you should be here. With the papers I have served.”

  “We should talk about those. I’m not sure the papers have much legal merit. Also, Dad, we’re family.” I am trying to be kind now, though I don’t know why. But he is so frail and so pathetic, and he is my father.

  “Well, how about the merit that I deserve?” he says. “Can you imagine what people are saying? That Richard Chandler’s own middle child is making a mockery of his life’s work? You don’t have a life’s work yet, William! You can’t know how it feels!” He wrestles with the Scotch bottle again and this time, comes out victorious. “Did I do something wrong with you, William? Did I not love you enough? Is this about that ridiculous skateboard that you always held against me?”

  I didn’t even realize he remembered the skateboard. I don’t say anything in response, and instead, focus on my breath, focus on not puking.

  “Well, William? What is it? Do you have no answer? What could possibly have gone so wrong in your terrible childhood with two parents who loved you, and two siblings who loved you, and the finest education and books and toys and everything else?”

  My tears come before anything else.

  Then quickly after that: “Why wasn’t I your life’s work?”

  Finally, posing the question that needs to be asked.

  He looks at me like he’s never considered this before, like of all his theories and philosophies and musings, this one somehow slipped through. Or maybe he just thinks I’m insane, to hold such expectations of a parent to his child.

  He sits now, slowly, as if sudden movements might literally stop his heart.

  “You think that I failed you. I’m not so thick-headed that I can’t see that you think I’ve failed you.”

  “You would say you didn’t?”

  “I would say that it doesn’t matter,” he says flatly. “But you already know that. What I would say. So what I don’t understand is this: if you are so intent on humiliating me…”

  “That is not my…”

  He flashes his hand — don’t — and I fall silent.

  “I will rephrase, because you are. You are humiliating me. If this is your path, then stop seeking my approval. You’re not going to get it. You will never have my blessing on this. In fact, just the opposite.”

  Now it’s my own heart that’s shattered. I understand the weight of his words, what they really mean to say, even if he — just like his daughter — isn’t so good at saying them. After so many years, I should be furious, not crushed, at how easily he caves, how quickly he abandons unconditional love. I consider my own parenting instincts and wonder how I can ever be sure that I won’t do the same. But rage doesn’t come at the realization of the extent of his selfishness. Only devastation. I stand there in my childhood home, and I’m gutted all the way through. Heartbroken. I read about it way back when, back at the Bodies exhibit. The human heart. There are so many ways to destroy it.

  After what feels like an eternity, I stutter: “So if I do the book…you and I…am I understanding correctly that writing this book will mean…”

  I cannot even manage the words. To have spent a lifetime in his shadow, only to be proven disposable when I’m finally trying to step into the sun.

  He eases back in his armchair and gazes, unblinking, at the ceiling for so long that I start to worry that he’s gone into cardiac arrest again. But then he says,“I don’t know what will become of you and me, William. You’re my daughter, and that’s blood. But this is something different. This is fate. And that’s not up to me.”

  —

  I linger in my father’s vestibule until I have no more tears to shed. Until I’ve thrown up all of my guts right there in the hallway. And then, I take one step away from him, then another, because it’s not like I have any other choice. If the map you’ve been given suddenly proves unreliable, you have to write you own. Even if you’re lost in the nothingness of dead space, even if you’re sure there’s not really a way out.

  Shawn is lurking in the lobby when the elevator delivers me to the bottom floor.

  “Hey,” I croak. “What are you doing here?”

  “Raina said you’d be here.”

  “Oh,” I say. Then: “Is everything okay?” Then, “I really need some fresh air.” I walk through the revolving door and out into the night without looking back to see if he’s following.

  He is there though, right by me.

  “I…well…I guess the thing is…”

  “What?” I snap, exhausted.

  “I don’t really know how to say this…”

  “Oh my God!” I bark. “Are you here to break up with me after already breaking up with me? Will it never end?”

  A woman strides by walking her poodle and meets my eyes, and then, as she passes, says over her shoulder: “Asshole. Don’t let him give you shit! Men are pricks!”

  Shawn watches her head down the street and round the corner, then turns back to me and says:

  “Anyhoo…”

  “Anyhoo?”

  He drops his chin. “Sorry. Nicky taught me that. I’m just nervous.”

  “Look,” I say. “I’m having a pretty terrible evening, so if you’re here to tell me that you’re, like, getting back together with Erica Stoppard because she’s, like, way more spontaneous than I am or, like, does triathlons on Sundays, then please, just….just do it. I can’t take another incoming disaster.”

  He tilts his head and furrows his brow, like he didn’t know I had that in me. Then he says: “Wow, I didn’t know you had that in you.”

  And I exhale because I guess it’s nice to know that I can still read my husband, even if he’s about to massacre me right outside my father’s Park Avenue apartment building.

  His face softens. “I broke up with Erica, for the record. She was too…I don’t know. Like, we always had to be doing something — golfing, happy hour, fricking bowling. Bowling happy hour. It was exhausting. Like, what’s wrong with a Saturday night on the couch watching Starz?”

  In my old life, a Saturday night on the couch watching Starz was my idea of heaven. Now, I wasn’t so sure. I’d caught a ball at Safeco Field. I’d leapt off the Brooklyn Bridge and felt a little bit like I could fly. But still, I purse my lips and say: “I guess nothing. Nothing is wrong with Starz on Saturday. Though I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you went looking for, isn’t it? All excitement and fireworks and jazz hands?”

  “I don’t really know what jazz hands are. But anyway. I actually came here to ask you out on a date.”

  “A date?”

  “Yes…the type of thing that two people go on when they like each other and maybe have a few drinks and if they mutually agree upon their attraction, they might hook up at the end of the night.”

  “Oh,” I say, forgetting all about my dad. I burp into the back of my hand. “Sorry. It’s my stomach.”

  He shrugs like he’s seen it before. Which, of course, he has.

  I mull it over. “Okay. I guess we can go on a date.”

  “I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm,” he says.

  “Well, Shawn. That’s life. Sometimes, you take what you can get.”

  He squints. “Is that, like, a quote from your dad’s book?”

  “No,” I say, already on my way. “But it might be one from mine.”

  31

  In yesterday’s text, Vanessa said to call, but it’s 94 degrees out now, and I might actually die of heat stroke if I don’t seek shelter after a four-mile run.

  “Are you kidding me? What’s with that?” She ges
tures to the taupe ribbon pinned to my tank top when I let myself in. “You’re doing that now too?”

  I situate myself in front of her air conditioner, my shirt billowing in the artificial breeze.

  “It’s a thing. About responsibility. Or conviction. Whatever,” I mutter. “Besides, Ollie’s helping me get in shape…you’re the one who told me to do it in the first place.”

  “I did. Because you’re going to need it.”

  “If it’s a marathon, I’m out.”

  “It’s not a marathon.” She opens a box of chocolate chip cookies and offers me one, which turns out to be more of a bribe. Or maybe a peace offering for what comes next. “The producers want you for Dare You!.”

  I emit sharp staccato laughter until I realize she’s not kidding.

  “No way.”

  “It’s part of the contract.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “You won’t do it.”

  And I think of a million reasons why this is true: death, public embarrassment, broken limbs, further humiliation (a reality show!) of my father.

  “I think my dad will cut me out if I do it,” I say quietly, shifting from the air conditioner to her couch.

  “Out of his will?”

  “Out of his life.”

  “Oh please.” Vanessa rolls her eyes.

  “Stop belittling me!”

  “Stop belittling yourself!” she snaps.

  “It’s fucking hard.” My tears mount without warning like they do nearly all the time now. “My life! It’s fucking hard! Why don’t you get that?”

  “You’re life’s not so hard,” she says simply before she exits to her bedroom. “But until you get that, it always will be.”

  —

  I let myself out of Vanessa’s and jog back to Raina’s apartment, though it’s foolish in the suffocating late-July air. But I need to indulge my urge to flee, to race as far away from whatever wreckage I have made, and on to whatever new wreckage awaits.

  Maybe that’s my master plan, I think, as I turn north up Fifth Avenue, my feet pounding, my thighs on fire, a cramp needling my belly. Maybe these tables of contents, these self-help books filled with ideas and advice and what-have-you can’t do anything to throw me off course. (Which would mean my dad was right.) Maybe I’m just a tornado moving from one disaster site to the next. Wreckage. My life’s plan is wreckage.

  I’m drenched all over again by the time I throw myself into Raina’s elevator. The fabric of my top sticks to my skin, my hair is matted with sweat, my cheeks are the color of a fire engine. Frankie, the doorman, just points at my taupe ribbon and says:

  “You tell your brother that the government can’t bring him down! Rise up!” He pumps his fist like Halle Berry did.

  “Rise up,” I say weakly and move both hands to my heart in prayer.

  Theo is sitting in the kitchen reading something on his iPad. I hesitate in the flicker of a moment and debate running the other way, making a getaway before he even realizes that I’m there, but instead, I exhale and steel my nerve. And then I say:

  “Do you plan to just randomly show up when I’m looking my worst? Though to be fair, I managed almost four miles. And it is 94 degrees out. So I’m sort of kicking ass.”

  He glances up and gives me a tight grin and says:

  “Hey. I didn’t think you’d be here. Sorry. I’ll go.” He stands abruptly.

  “You don’t have to go.”

  “I’m not here for you, in case you were worried. Raina’s on her way, Ollie’s in the shower. Gloria let me in.”

  I say: “It’s really not a problem.” (It seems to be some sort of problem!)

  He says: “I heard Shawn’s back in town. I mean, I figured because you didn’t answer my texts.”

  I say: “Oh.” Then: “He is.” Then: “I don’t know.”

  Theo’s phone vibrates in his pocket, and he snaps it to his ear and wanders into the living room, discussing deal points and strategy and angles and persuasiveness. I eavesdrop for a minute and hope that he’ll return, but then I hear Ollie’s voice somewhere else in the apartment and a door closes, and then it’s just me.

  I tilt my torso ninety degrees and rest my head on the cool granite counter and look at everything from a new perspective. Life looks different from down here. The lights force you into a squint, the angles are more jarring. This is what everything looks like as a kid, I suppose. But this is also a little bit how the world still looks to me. Some people never get over their childhood. I think of Nicky and say a quiet prayer that he’s not one of them. Why can’t I wish that very same thing for myself?

  I right myself and listen for Theo’s footsteps, in case he comes back to me, but there’s just Gloria’s voice filling the air, calling to the boys to get into the shower.

  It hurts more than I expected. Theo’s distance. His detachment. Though who can blame him? I haven’t exactly proven my devotion. I’ve doled it out in dribbles — the flirty evening in Seattle, the phone call and sex a few weeks back. If I really considered it, I’m not so different from my dad — giving love, taking it away, expecting it to be there when I’m ready. And Shawn isn’t any different from me: working through his own bullshit on my psychological dime.

  I never even accepted Theo’s friend request. I couldn’t even do that.

  But Theo’s not like me. We both know that. He’s always aimed high, and he’s never stooped low. He draws his lines firmly, and mine — with him, with Shawn, with my dad — are always blurry.

  I flatten my head back onto the cold counter, and it’s like a balm for my soul.

  Even Vanessa can’t dare me to do whatever comes next.

  —

  Text from: Willa Chandler-Golden

  To: Vanessa Pines

  Ok. I’m in. My eyes r open & I’m aiming high. I think I have the guts. Let’s fly. (I don’t mean that literally if u talk to the producers.)

  —

  Later, Nicky and I lay in bed together watching Iron Man 2 and eating popcorn. Ollie strolls in, falls at the foot of the bed and says,

  “Oh, I love this movie. I used to train Robbie. He’s very spiritual.” Then to me: “You look horrible. No offense.”

  “I never sleep. And I just agreed to go back to Seattle on Thursday.”

  “Seattle?” Nicky angles his head up at me. “Can I come?”

  “Probably not, buddy. Uncle Shawn will hang with you. Text him. He’s gonna plan some fun stuff.” I burp up some of my dinner and know that it’s my nerves.

  “Uncle Shawn works too much. And I like hanging with you. But whatever. I know I’m a drag to have along.”

  “You’re not a drag to have along! You’ve actually grown on me.”

  “Ha ha,” he says. “Well, my mom never takes me anywhere.”

  I pause the movie and sit up straighter.

  “Well, okay, this is sort of confidential but…I can’t take you because…I’m going on…drumroll please…Dare You!.” I can’t help it; I squeal. “I don’t think you’re eligible at twelve.”

  “Shut the front door!” Ollie jolts upright.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Nicky knocks over the popcorn bowl.

  “It’s my last dare of the book. They’ve been holding the spot as a ‘surprise.’” I make stupid air quotes though I immediately regret it. (They’re an epidemic.) “Also, another contestant got malaria and had to back out.”

  “Jesus!” Ollie says.

  “No, he didn’t get malaria on the show,” I reply, scooping up popcorn kernels from the sheets, dropping them back in the bowl. “Bad coincidence.”

  “You have to let me come,” Nicky begs. “Remember that episode, with the ten-year-old who had to choose between poisonous and non-poisonous berries?”

  “
Vaguely,” I say. Then it comes back to me. “Oh yeah, but he was a prodigy. He’d memorized every possible variation of berry in the world.”

  “Are you implying that I’m not a prodigy?”

  “In your own special way,” I laugh.

  “Pleeeeeease?” Nicky bows in front of me, his hands folded in prayer.

  “I’ll ask,” I concede. “And you’ll need to speak with your mom. You’ve forgotten I’m not actually responsible for you.”

  “Yessssssssss!!!!!”

  “Well, I’m shocked that you have this in you,” Ollie says to me. Then adds: “You know that Dad might kill you.”

  “What the hell,” I grin back and say in my very best imitation of my father: “Everyone dies sometime.”

  He laughs so hard he falls off the bed.

  —

  Nicky falls asleep under my duvet, so I let him be. Ollie dims the light and settles into his nightly reading: How the Gift of Daily Prayer Raised Me Up from The Ashes! (One Ex-NBA Star’s Story from Heroin to Heroism!), and I just watch Nicky breathe. I want to trace the freckles that run from one cheek to the other, tuck his wayward hair behind his ears, wrap my arms around him and tell him that it will never be as bad as it was for him once. But I know that I can’t promise this, that I can’t ward off disaster any more than his father could, any more than his own mom could, so instead, I just perch on my elbow and watch his chest rise and fall.

  It’s amazing what the human spirit can endure. And maybe that’s something on which my father and I can agree.

  Shit happens, he would say. Your husband might decide one June afternoon that he wants a break from his life with you, or you might ask your girlfriend to move across the country with you, and she might say no. Or your dad might go to work one day and four planes may fall from the sky and two buildings may come tumbling down, and he might never come home.

  Shit happens. Your wife leaves you for a woman. Your mentor sets you up as the fall guy when the Feds come calling. The question isn’t, did this all happen for a reason? Because maybe that doesn’t even matter. Maybe my dad is asking the wrong question, pinning his career on the wrong answers.