Everything Solid has a Shadow

by Michael Antman

  MariAngela—if indeed that was her that night inside my head—was right, and so too, perhaps, was Beatrice. There was something that I still hadn’t figured out.

  I drove Willa to the airport and stayed with her until security. Just before she stepped into the winding line, we hugged for a long time but kissed only very briefly—a “peck.” Infinite are the permutations of emotion between men and women, and no doubt the feelings between us were more complex than most, and utterly un-locatable, probably, on any linear scale between loathing and love. We were somewhere else entirely off the charts that mapped what most human beings felt and did with each other, and I doubted that Willa and I would have another chance ever again, or the energy, or the intelligence, to determine exactly where that was.

  But as I walked away, she shouted out, “Charlie, I’m starved. Can you run and get me something at the newsstand?” Shit, I thought, of course, those skimpy little breakfasts I’d served her were really rude of me. There was a small newsstand on the visitor’s side of the security line, so I walked over there—a good thirty feet from where Willa was now standing and inching her way forward to the backscatter machines and metal detectors—and I held up a bag of M&Ms (she shook her head no) and then a soft pretzel (an enthusiastic nod). Then I grabbed a big bag of Gummi strawberries (lovingly shaped like flat cartoon strawberries with little green “stems”) and waved it in the air for her to see and shouted, “For Elizabeth,” and Willa jumped up and down delightedly. After paying, I walked back to the security line and reached over a couple of winding lines of passengers to the spot where Willa and her carry-on had now advanced, and she gave me that slow smile of hers and said, “Bitty.”

  I said, “What?”

  “Not Elizabeth. It’s Bitty now. She’ll love these.”

  11

  By the time I drove home, it was barely lunchtime, and I had a whole day of nothingness ahead of me, so finally, for the first time since our steak house dinner, I called Diane.

  She picked up on the first ring. “Charlie! Dear, dear Charlie! You couldn’t have timed this call better!”

  “Diane, I am so sorry I haven’t been in touch. How are you doing?”

  “I’m wonderful, Charlie. I’m actually, literally, better than I’ve ever been.” And would this be because she’d found out about Frank and Alisa and forgiven him; or found out about Frank and Alisa and dumped him; or was living in blissful ignorance? I had no idea, but I decided to test the waters.

  “That’s really good. I’m pretty good, too. Did you know about me and Alisa?”

  “Yeah, Alisa called me. I’m sorry that it all happened, and I should have called you at the time, but I thought you might want to work some things out on your own. But I think it’s going to be a wonderful thing for both of you.”

  “You haven’t asked me why we broke up, which would suggest that Alisa told you everything you need to know.”

  “Charlie, would you like to meet for coffee?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “Our place?”

  “Yours and Frank’s? I suppose… How about a Starbucks or something?”

  “That works.”

  “Look, I know you want to talk about this over coffee, but since Alisa clearly told you everything, and you seem to be upbeat, but don’t want to talk about it on the phone, clearly the implications, or repercussions, or whatever, for you, are not entirely positive and not entirely negative.”

  “Charlie, you’ve turned into quite the detective since the last time we’ve talked! But you don’t have to tiptoe, Poirot! I know all about Frank and Alisa, and I knew about it a long time before you did, and don’t you dare get mad, because I was gonna tell you soon enough anyway. But at this point, Frank and I are doing pretty well. We’re working it out. And he’s not home today, so you can definitely come over.”

  I laughed. “I’ll stick with the Starbucks. The one on Clybourn by your house, okay?”

  Diane 2.0, as I came to think of her, was beautiful. She’d gotten her braces off, finally, and she’d added some subtle red highlights to her hair, which she’d grown out to shoulder length. She was wearing a beautiful pale green, raw-silk blouse, by far the nicest piece of clothing I’d ever seen her wear, and the top button was unbuttoned to show a bit of cleavage. She saw me as I came in and smiled, dazzlingly.

  “Charlie!” She bounded up from one of those cracked-leather Starbucks easy chairs that approximately one million other people have sat in and raced over to me and gave me a big, long hug—the kind that women sometimes do where they rock you from side to side and then pull back and look at you and then hug you some more. “I’m so, so happy to see you!”

  “Me, too,” I said. “You look fabulous.”

  “I know, I know! But wasn’t I horrible that night in the steak house? All that talk about death!”

  “I know, it didn’t seem like the Diane I knew.”

  “Charlie, I’m a whole new me! And I think it must’ve started around that night!”

  “Well, it wasn’t a very…”

  “What, auspicious start? I know, it totally wasn’t. I was such a downer, but it was something I had to get through, I guess, to get where I am now!”

  “I just thought you were in a gloomy mood.”

  “Well, I was, but I think it was because I knew I was losing Frank.”

  “I didn’t really pick up that you were angry with him that night, or even with Alisa, for that matter.”

  “Well, I wasn’t! Not at all! I just felt like everything was changing so fast that I couldn’t even hold on. But you know what? Corny alert, but I’ve really come to embrace change. I have! I got my braces off, did my hair….” She did a little feminine, flirtatious sweep with her hand, flipping her hair back and smiling.

  “Your hair looks fantastic. That kind of red color really suits you.”

  “I know! I know! And I had a good, long discussion with Frank.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, you know. Frank has a way of coming on strong. That’s what made me like totally jump into his arms the very first time I met him!”

  “And so some other women were jumping into his arms, too, you’re saying.”

  “Yeah, but you know the good thing? They all dump him, not the other way around. I mean, Alisa too, right? Isn’t that what she told you?”

  “She said she felt hypnotized by him.”

  “I know! Exactly! And then, at some point, the spell is broken. Same thing with me, but I’m sticking around, and you know why? Because I’m the only one who can handle him.”

  “And you’re the only one who will stick around.”

  “Well, don’t make it sound like I’m settling, Charlie! Or some martyr. I’m sticking around because I love him! All this,” she pointed to her hair and teeth and to her new blouse and the bit of lacy bra peeking out from underneath, “is for him.” She laughed. “I have a role to play too, you know.”

  “And you’re playing it to the hilt,” I said, casting an exaggerated, Groucho-like leer at her cleavage.

  She gave me a little slap on the cheek and laughed. “Oh, Charlie. So tell me, what happened after Alisa? She told me all about Hawaii, but that’s where the story ends.”

  “Let’s order first.”

  We got our drinks and sat down on a couch, and then I took a deep breath and started.

  “Well, here’s the story. I ran into a childhood friend in Hawaii, this girl named Willa, and I sort of took up with her. Well actually, she flew to Hawaii to seek me out.”

  “Wow, Charlie, romantic!”

  “Yeah, well, kind of. She’d Googled me and saw I was doing a gig there.”

  “Yes, Alisa told me all about that, trans-oceanic musical superstar! How did it go?”

  “The gig? Fine. Five shows,
some better than others. Anyway, I sort of took up with her, the old friend, like I said, but it was complicated, and now I think that’s over too, but not in any way you could define, exactly.”

  “Well, why? How complicated could it be?”

  “Her family did something terrible to me. And Willa, back then, well, she didn’t cooperate, exactly, but she acquiesced. I mean, to the extent that an eight-year-old can acquiesce.”

  “My dear, if you’re not old enough to know the word, you’re not old enough to do it.”

  “Hah, I suppose. That was kind of her defense. Mine, too, I guess, come to think of it. Anyway, in an odd way I loved her and I still love her, but that’s over. And then I didn’t even mention, but I lost my job, so I’ve been doing web design instead.”

  “Oh, Charlie! I’m so sorry! Did you at least go see Dr. Nemerov?”

  “Yeah, but Diane, you should’ve warned me!”

  “Oh, no! Did I steer you wrong? Are you telling me that you don’t like him?”

  “No, no, he’s really interesting. It’s just that his place stinks to high heaven.”

  “Yeah, I know! Doesn’t it? Frank claimed he hardly noticed, and that’s how full of shit he is. But he’s really good, I mean Dr. Nemerov, because he’s the first and only person I’ve ever met in my life who’s actually decided to live his life exactly the way he wants to and then goes out and actually does it, and if you don’t like a little cat shit, you can go soak yourself. So Charlie, if I might ask, how are you paying for the good doctor? Is the web design paying the bills?”

  “Yeah, I’m making decent bucks and picking up unemployment and I’m still doing some gigs at Berto’s.”

  “Oh, that reminds me, how is that girl at Berto’s doing?”

  “Oh, you mean Kathleen? I haven’t spoken to her.”

  “Kathleen? Is that her name?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Why? Do you think she has grounds for a suit?”

  “A suit? Against whom? Did Berto’s fire her?”

  “Yeah, that was in my e-mail, remember? I sent it to you a while ago.”

  “Your e-mail? I don’t remember getting an e-mail from you.”

  “Yeah, I mean I thought I sent it to the right address, didn’t I? She was fired because she was complaining about mealy worms in the kitchen. I’ve stopped eating there after my gigs.”

  “Well, it might have gotten caught in my spam filter. Sorry. But I thought just now you were going to say she was fired because of her illness.”

  “What illness?”

  “Charlie. This is the girl who came down with that horrible neurological disorder, right? Isn’t that who we’re talking about? Not mealy worms, the one from our dinner, who you had that dream about.”

  And indeed she had come back into my brain again just recently, to remind me that I didn’t yet fully understand. But somehow I had forgotten all about her now, while talking to Diane, and before, and before that, and every moment before that, since I had last seen her on the sidewalk outside of Berto’s and, in the setting sun, she had said “no” to me, and then in our last phone conversation shortly thereafter, when I had described the second dream to her and she had dismissed me yet again.

  I had completely forgotten her.

  At the airport, on the way to Seattle, when I’d had the odd, light-headed feeling that I’d forgotten something?

  It was her.

  “MariAngela,” I said. “Her name is MariAngela. Sorry, I don’t know what just happened. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “Well, I certainly haven’t forgotten her,” Diane said. “I had chills all that night thinking about that dream.”

  “To be honest, there were two more dreams.”

  “You mean the same kind where she came into your brain?”

  “Yeah. The first one was not long after our dinner and she came to me and asked me to wake up Alisa because she had something to say to her. That didn’t really make any sense to me. And then again just a few nights ago, when she said something like ‘You still haven’t figured it out.’ ”

  “Figured what out?”

  “I don’t know. Willa, or what her family’d done to me, or maybe something left over with Alisa, I guess.”

  “So let me review your story. You go to Hawaii for your big concerts and you break up with Alisa. Right? And then you meet another woman in Hawaii whose family apparently did something to you when you were a child that was bad enough that you still think about it to this day, and then you go and have a relationship with her and then you break up with her, too?”

  I laughed a bit. “That’s about right.”

  “And then you get fired.”

  “Actually, I got fired between breaking up with Alisa and Willa.”

  “Okay. Anyway. So then you keep on having these very disturbing dreams about yet another woman, MariAngela. Man, Charlie, that’s a lot of women.”

  I was glad I hadn’t mentioned Beatrice.

  “And,” she added, “your irritable bowel is acting up again.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She indicated the iced green tea I had ordered. “No coffee. I’ve got some detective skills too, you know! So Charlie, I know that in most or maybe all of these cases you were just a victim of circumstance or whatever, so I’m totally not blaming you or implying anything when I say this, but clearly you’re quite depressed or confused or whatever. Are you still seeing Dr. Nemerov?”

  “Yeah, I need to make another appointment.”

  “Do. He’s really helped me and Frank. His domineering issues, my need-to-be-domineered issues, stuff like that. And Charlie, MariAngela? That’s her name, right? Maybe you should, you know, call her or visit her, don’t you think?”

  “I promise I’ll see both of them, really.”

  She flipped her hair again, so that the red highlights shone in the winter sun streaming in through the windows. “See,” she said, “now we’ll both be fixed up!”

  Not a lot of Americans know this, but Buenos Aires is the world capital of old-fashioned Freudian analysis. They love their psychiatrists in Argentina, and I guess I must have inherited some of that predilection, because I didn’t hesitate to make a new appointment with Dr. Nemerov; indeed, I was intensely curious to learn what he might discover about me.

  The apartment smelled worse than the last time, although I would not have thought that possible. When I came in, Dr. Nemerov was sharing a can of pineapple chunks with an orange tabby. He’d give the cat a chunk, which the tabby would chew thoughtfully, and then he would pop one into his own mouth.

  “You want some?”

  “No thanks. I’ll pass.” He looked disappointed, so I added, “I guess I’m kind of tired of Hawaiian food.”

  “Murdered any chipmunks lately?”

  “No.”

  “Nor cats, I trust.”

  “No cats.”

  “You’ve probably seen the James Bond movies where Blofeld is always excessively polite and strokes a cat in his lap while adumbrating his plans to destroy the world. But I stroke kittens for entirely unironic reasons. So don’t let me hear any stories about you killing cats, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t. And does that mean you’re not planning to destroy the world?”

  “No, although I could if I wanted to.” He laughed. “So let’s pick up where we left off. How’s your friend?”

  “She’s doing as well as can be expected.”

  “Which means with ALS, poorly. And how are you doing? You look alarmingly thin.”

  “Not great. I feel completely turned inside out. And yeah, I’m not eating very well. I stopped eating at Berto’s, the club I perform at, because they had some mealy worms in the kitchen, and just in general I don’t feel much like eating anyway. I keep on think
ing about those mealy worms.”

  “And you’re not eating very well because you’re upset. And also because you’re not entirely sure what you’re upset about. Right? That would seem to be characteristic of you.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m not sure if I’m upset because my girlfriend broke up with me, or two of them actually, or because I lost my job, or because MariAngela keeps on appearing inside my head.”

  “My answer would be yes.”

  “To all of the above?”

  “To all of the above.” As if to mock my lack of appetite, he pulled out a long black-licorice whip and began chewing on it meditatively.

  “There’s more. I didn’t even talk about this in my first meeting, but I discovered recently that my parents, and one of my childhood friends who also was one of the girls I just broke up with, were lying to me for many years and making me believe I was responsible for the death of a baby girl when I was not responsible, and she wasn’t even actually dead. And the baby girl’s mother said some horrible things to me at the time that I guess I’ve never really come to terms with.”

  “Well, I suppose that could be a reason to be upset and not eat, too. Why didn’t you mention this at our first visit?”