“Crap.”
“Indeed.”
“What about just staying illegally? Good lord, people do it all the time. You’re not a criminal, just stay and if you get caught, you can just say you didn’t know your visa was up or something.”
“I can’t take that risk. If I got caught? It would be horrible for my dad. He has an impeccable reputation, and takes his good name very seriously. As much as I love it here and want Chicago to be my home, I would never stay and risk any sort of public humiliation for him. The tabloids in Britain are horrific and relentless; you’ve seen the lawsuits and scandals. The minute they get a whiff of anything, they’ll attack. And while you and I know what’s real, things over there are xenophobic enough these days; no one needs another guy in a turban on the cover of a paper doing something that can be blown up from illegal to insidious.”
“Never thought about it that way.”
“It’s just too complicated.”
“Can I ask? You keep saying how much you want Chicago to be your home, why is that? I mean, I know why I love it here, but I’m always interested in what it is about the city that gets under people’s skin.”
“I find it magical. The people have been wonderful. I’ve found a surprisingly rich Sikh cultural community that has welcomed me despite the fact that I am somewhat modern in how I practice my faith. I’ve built a wonderful circle of friends that I feel deeply close to. I actually love the extremes of the weather, and I don’t have to tell you that there is no better city in the world for food, or art, or theater. I love the sports teams, even as they break my heart. As someone who has fallen in love with architecture and buildings, it is so beautiful here. And considering how I want to make my living, I love that it can be done here in a way that is both affordable and manageable.”
It touches my heart to hear him express everything that I adore about my hometown. “I hear you. There is no other place in the world like it.”
“I’m trying to figure something out, I still have a little time before the student one runs out, provided Northwestern doesn’t send in the paperwork, so no need to panic yet, but I didn’t want it to be a surprise in case you wanted to try to find someone else.”
“No.”
“Well, I mean . . .”
“No. Stop talking. You aren’t leaving. I’m not doing this without you. I will figure it out, I’ll get you a work visa or something.” I cannot let this injustice happen. I will not let this wonderful man be ripped away from the city he loves, or the work we still have to do together.
The smile is both sweet and sheepish, perfect white teeth shining in his dark beard. “That is much appreciated. I’m very hopeful we will figure something out together.”
“Don’t you worry, I’ll fix it.”
I can’t fix it.”
“What do you mean?” Marie says. We’re having a quick lunch at Manny’s. I needed a massive matzo-ball fix, and Marie has a weird affinity for their chocolate pudding.
“I mean I can’t fix it. I don’t actually have a business, not an incorporated established business; I can’t get him a work visa. And I can’t afford the legal stuff involved in becoming an incorporated established business, and even if I could, I don’t have time to get it all squared away before his current visa runs out.”
It’s been a long week of exploring options and talking to friends of friends, and trying to figure out how to make good on my promise to Jag.
“He’ll understand,” Marie says soothingly.
“Of course he will. That isn’t the point. I can’t lose him.”
“You’ll find another helper.”
“You don’t get it. He isn’t a helper. He can do the electrical stuff I’m not fully comfortable with, the plumbing.”
“You do plumbing.”
“No, I do installation of plumbing fixtures. I take the existing pipes that come out of the wall or floor and attach things to them, toilets and tubs and sinks and faucets. But getting the pipes from the water supply line to the floor or wall? Not. Qualified. Not to mention the structural engineering stuff and the heavy lifting, and he has amazing ideas about design to boot. Seriously, Marie, I can’t lose him.”
“Can I say something without you getting mad?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think you want to fight so hard for Jag because you feel badly that you didn’t fight harder for Grant?”
“What does that mean?”
“I dunno. I mean you loved Grant, and you were together and great for a long time, and yes, he cheated, but he wanted to work on it, he wanted to go to therapy, to try, and you didn’t try at all, so I wonder if any part of this is about that?”
“Marie, he cheated on me. Twice. With a MAN. What exactly did you expect me to do? Buy a rainbow flag and ignore it?”
“You said you wouldn’t get mad.”
“That’s before I knew you were going to psychobabble analyze me and accuse me of some sort of weird projection just because I didn’t want to try to save my relationship with my gay ex-fiancé, and I do want to help a kind, talented man who is making my life possible stay in the country to do the work he wants to do.”
“Bi.”
“Excuse me?”
“Grant said he is bi. Not gay. And yes, if he were gay, I would say that marriage would be a bad idea, but he’s bi, and if he’s bi then he can equally be madly in love with you as he could with a boy. Besides, why is it so different for him to have to resist the temptation to cheat than it is for you?”
“I cannot BELIEVE we are even having this conversation.”
“Look, I’m not saying you should still be with Grant. I’m not. I get the hurt and betrayal, I do. But I know that people come back from infidelity if they love each other; it’s possible, I’ve done it.”
“John?”
“Once. Five years ago. He was at a tattoo convention in Vegas, got hammered, hooked up with an old flame from when he worked there. Came home and confessed, cried, we went to therapy, dealt with some of his commitment crap, got over it.”
“Why didn’t you say? Why would you go through all of that alone?”
“Because it was none of your business. And before you say it, I know that this is none of mine. But I do want you to recognize that Jag isn’t going to be deported to some horrible third-world country to work in a factory under some oppressive regime. He’ll have to go back to London to live with his ambassador father and get a fabulous high-paying job at an industrial design firm. Perhaps you not fighting for him would be something of a blessing, at least for him.”
I look at her. And then I start to laugh. “He’ll make so much more money.”
“Yep.”
“Marie, you know that Grant and I, that just couldn’t . . .”
“I know. I do. I just hate where you are, I loved Grant, I loved you together, and I hate all of this for you.”
“Thanks. I hate it too.”
“You heard from Emily at all?”
“Not since she popped by to tour the house, thank god.”
Marie is silent.
“Okay, fine, spit it out.”
“You should call her. See her again. I think it would be good for you.”
“And why, exactly, is that?”
“Take this the right way, and know that I love you.”
“No good conversation ever starts with that sentence.”
“You are running the risk of becoming a complete asshole.”
“Well, how could I take THAT wrong?”
“Hear me out. You aren’t accountable to ANYONE right now. You have no job, so no bosses or clients to answer to. You have no family. You’ve got the three of us, but you have no problem pushing us away or ignoring our advice when we give it. And that is IT. You just have you, and I know that you don’t mind, that you are a lone wolf and all
of that, and perfectly fine on your own, except you can fall into just being all id like an enormous four-year-old. Do only what you want when you want, and it isn’t healthy. If you aren’t careful you will get so set in your ways that it will be impossible to let anyone else in, to let their opinions matter. Maybe that is why I’m worried you didn’t fight for what you had with Grant. Because I liked seeing you happy with a partner in your life and I don’t want to see you never connected to someone like that again.”
“And what, pray tell, is so amazing about being connected to someone like that again? Why on earth would I be focused on that, of all things? Not everyone is cut out for that whole paired-up thing. I tried it; I gave it a good old shot and look what happened. I’ll tell you a secret; I don’t know that I ever WANT to have that again. Alone isn’t the same as lonely, Marie.”
“I never met anyone with a healthy relationship history who thinks so.”
“So let me get this straight, playing big sister to Emily is going to, what, exactly? Remind me to get out there and get a boyfriend?”
“Remind you to care about someone else besides yourself.”
“Maybe you need to be reminded to care more about yourself than about me. I’m not a fixer-upper, Marie. And I like myself just fine, even if you think I’m broken.”
Her eyes shine with unreleased tears. “I love you, honey, and I don’t think you’re broken, I just think you’ve maybe lost your way a bit.”
“Well, when I’m interested in your opinion about that, I’ll be sure to let you know.” I get up and grab my stuff and stomp out, leaving her there at the table, and I’m halfway home with a knot in my chest of equal parts hurt and anger before I realize that on top of having essentially the first real fight of my life with my best friend, I also stiffed her on the check for lunch.
14
I take advantage of the decent weather to walk to Lula instead of driving. It’s still cold, but the sun is out and the wind is pretty calm. I need to get out of the house, out from under the dark cloud I’ve been living with. Even after a long mea culpa phone call with Marie, I still feel shitty. I know she forgives me, but I also know that I’m going to quickly run out of Get Out of Jail Free cards with my girlfriends. I don’t know how to get across to them how uncomfortable this whole situation makes me. How much I feel like “less than” when I am with them. None of them are under the pressures that I am, not financially, not emotionally; they just don’t get it, and it makes me feel like they don’t get me. At all. Which scares the bejesus out of me, because Marie is right about one thing: They are pretty much all I have. If I lose them, I’m in even deeper shit than I am right now.
Which is the only possible reason that I even agreed to this lunch.
I get to Lula and am told that my party is already here, and the waitress leads me to the back room.
Emily gets up and comes to greet me, and I suffer the hug she clearly can’t help giving me. “I’m so glad you called, and I just love this place, it is the cutest!”
“Well, um, I figured you must be pretty close to leaving soon, so I thought we should get together one more time.” She had implied that she would be in town for a little while, so it seemed a safe bet to suck it up and take her to lunch. Do a good deed, make Marie and the girls happy, and get them off my back for a bit.
“I thought maybe I’d stay longer. You know, if you were up for that.”
Great. “Up for it in what way?”
“In the way of spending some time together. Hanging out. Getting to know each other.”
I take a breath. “Emily, I don’t know if I’m really—”
The waiter interrupts us, and I order coffee, and she orders hot chocolate, and I order a plate of the pastries for us to share.
“Just hear me out, okay? I know you don’t want me here, I totally get it, and it doesn’t even bother me that you don’t want me here. But I want to be here. Maybe the fact that once upon a time your mom was married to my dad and I called her Mom for a little while isn’t much of a bond. But it’s all I have. And I need it. I need family. I don’t really have any, just my dad. He is awesome, but not enough. I know you think I’m some annoying kid and a complete flake and you’re probably right. At least I own it. I’m not going to apologize for being me. And I’m not going to apologize for wanting to know you. When I was little, you were this combination mythological creature, imaginary friend, possible superhero. And you were imminent. Mom always talked about ‘having both her girls together,’ and I believed her and waited for it and believed that you and I would meet and be best friends and playmates and soul sisters and happy ever after.” Her blue eyes are steelier than I remember them being. “I want you to be real. You don’t have to love me, or think of me as a sister or whatever, but maybe you could just talk to me. Tell me who you are. Tell me why the mom I remember wasn’t the mom you had. Tell me why you find the idea of me so horrible. Help me make you a real person, and reconcile the fantasies of my childhood.”
“Why?”
“Because I need it.”
“Why do you need it so badly?”
“Because I just do.” This is beginning to sound fishy.
“Bullshit. Why do you need this? Sounds like you have plenty of girlfriends, every sorority girl I ever met talks about having just so many sisters; why do you need me to be another one?”
She blushes behind her blond bangs. “Because I lied.”
“About what?”
“About you.”
“To who?”
“Harvard.”
“You lied to Harvard about me.”
“Yeah.”
“In what way?”
“In the way of who you are and what you are to me.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
She looks me dead in the eye. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get into a graduate psychology program right out of undergrad? At an Ivy League school?”
“Nope.”
“It’s damn near impossible. And I’m a white girl with a privileged background from Miami. I’m a dime a dozen. I needed an edge. You were my edge.”
“In what way?”
“In my essay, in my interviews, I made you up. The stepsister who became like a real sister. The story of a blended and created family torn apart and then reunited. I told everyone that when your mom left she ripped me from your arms, and it took us years to find each other again, and then when we did, we bonded tighter than if we had been related by blood. When you want to do family therapy, having some strong family background reads really well. The girl whose dad was so fucked up by the death of his first love and the abandonment of his second that he never really stopped being the sad guy? That is boring as FUCK. I needed an edge, and I just gave voice to some of my youthful fantasies and it goddamned worked. It worked really freaking well. I got into HARVARD.”
My, my. “Well, that’s good, right?”
“It’s a lie.”
“Maybe you should see if you can switch to their creative writing program.”
“That’s not funny, this is all I ever wanted. But I did it totally wrong and I can’t get out from under it.”
“It’s just a grad school essay.”
“And the interviews. And the group entry sessions with the other students. And the orientation meetings with my future classmates.”
I start to laugh. “I’m like that football player’s dead girlfriend.”
“It’s not funny. I went too far. I made up too much. My acceptance, apparently, wasn’t unanimous, but was pushed through by a professor who wants to work with me, to mentor me. He thinks that my experiences will make for a wonderful dissertation.”
“So all this about needing family and connection is just bullshit. You fucked yourself at school and you need me to be real so that you don’t get caught.”
She looks dow
n at her mug of hot chocolate. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
I think about this. “You know what? That? Actually makes me like you more. Fuck it. What do you want to know?”
She looks up with a furrowed brow. “Really?”
I shrug. “Why the hell not? Sis.”
She grins. And we start over.
No way!” Emily says, taking a bite of the banana cream pie we decided to share. “He was in your shower with a GUY? That is so like right out of a movie or a book or something.”
“Yeah. A really stupid predictable one.” We’ve been at Lula for over three hours. I’ve officially shared pretty much my entire life with her, and to her credit, she’s a good listener when she’s eating. She’ll probably actually make a decent therapist, in spite of the whole false pretenses thing. She knows about my horrible childhood and Grand-mère and Joe. She knows about Grant, and my job, and the house, and everything I’m up against, and how my best girlfriends are all up my ass about living my life completely wrong. And I weirdly feel sort of better having unburdened a bit.
“Wow. That is rough. And your besties, they’re just not really supporting your choices at all?”
“They mean well. They want what’s best for me. They thought Grant was good for me, balanced me out.”
“Are they right?”
I think about that. “In a lot of ways. Marie isn’t completely wrong; I’m a solo artist in a lot of ways. I’ve never minded the alone thing. Grant forced me out of my comfort zones. He pushed me, he made me feel safe, he loved me, warts and all. It felt like he really got me. But he still called me out on my bullshit.”
“Do you miss him?”
“I do. The bastard. He was my best friend. My girls are awesome, but even they don’t know all of me. He knew all of me.”
Recipe for Disaster Page 17