Faking It

by Leah Marie Brown

  “You can go on ahead. I don’t mind riding alone.”

  He looks at me. “I won’t leave you.”

  He’s promising to remain by my side for the ride, not for eternity, but my heart still does one of those queer flips.

  “Merci beaucoup, Jean-Luc.”

  “Luc.”

  “What?”

  “My friends call me Luc.”

  “Are we friends?”

  He dips his chin and looks at me over the top of his sunglasses for several seconds before smiling.

  “I think we will be.”

  Chapter 14

  Self-Stimulation

  “What’s up with you and Jean-Luc?”

  “What do you mean?” My feigned innocence sounds false, even to me.

  “Come on, he rode with you all day.”

  Fanny and I are naked, face down on side-by-side massage beds at the spa at Couvent des Minimes, a posh five-star hotel outside Manosque. We’re getting sixty minutes of oily deep tissue work courtesy of the management. Une petite thank you for booking the Honeymoon Suite.

  “He only rode with me because my cable gear broke and he had to fix it.”

  Fanny mumbles something in French eliciting a soft giggle from her masseuse.

  “Whatever. Have you looked at him, Fanny?”

  “Oh, I’ve looked at him. Every woman in a fifty mile radius has looked at him.”

  “There you go. You see? He’s gorgeous and fit. I’m hardly his type.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Besides, I’m in love with Nathan.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am.” The masseuse presses her hand between my shoulder blades as I struggle to sit up. “I love Nathan.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Stop that.”

  “What?”

  “Stop saying I’m not in love with Nathan.”

  “Okay, but you’re not.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I’ve seen the way you look at Jean-Luc. You never looked at Nathan like that. Ever.”

  The masseuse digs her thumb into a tender spot between my shoulder blade and spine, eliciting a primal moan. The pleasure-pain is so great I can’t speak. I close my eyes and wonder about Fanny’s last statement. How am I looking at Jean-Luc?

  With desire.

  The traitorous words pop into my brain from nowhere. With desire? What in the hell? I hardly know Jean-Luc. Luc. I doubt I am looking at him with desire.

  Besides, I have looked at Nathan with desire. At least, I think I have. My thoughts pinged about like a pinball, moving rapidly from memory to memory. I remember loving Nathan and feeling content with him, but I am having a difficult time recalling passionate times.

  We were passionate. We were.

  Weren’t we?

  * * * *

  The next morning, I am looking cool-ish in my pink and black cycling gear. Thanks to Chantal’s determined efforts, my luggage was waiting for me when we checked into the resort. I secure the Velcro straps of my cycling shoes, feeling more confident than I’ve felt since arriving in France. While Fanny finishes showering, I turn on my iPhone.

  Before performing my e-mail/text/Facebook/Twitter check, I open my camera roll and scroll through my photographs from the last two years. Selfie. Food Porn. Purse I Covet. Selfie with Fanny. Food Porn of Mr. Foo’s Pork Dumplings. Creepy Pig Cookie Jar Inexplicably Found Sitting on a Counter in a Hotel Bathroom.

  Finally, I find what I am looking for: a selfie with Nathan. We are lying on the beach at Half Moon Bay. The camera is above us and our heads are together. Although I have looked at this snapshot a thousand times, it seems foreign now. I hardly recognize myself—a preppy cashmere sweater knotted around my neck, diamond solitaires twinkling on my earlobes. Worse, I barely recognize the man I thought I would marry. He’s staring into the camera, but his eyes lack warmth. His smile is slight, wooden.

  Passionless.

  Desperate now, I scroll through the rest of my photos, looking for a single snapshot that captured the romance, the passion that must have existed between Nathan and me. When I fail to find it, I click out of my camera roll and sit, staring at my head-to-toe pink reflection in the mirror. Nathan lusted after me, didn’t he? We were passionate…sometimes…occasionally. I think.

  Stop it! Stop doubting your love for Nathan. And stop doubting his love for you. He loves you. He does. And he will forgive you. He will.

  I open my e-mail box. Nothing from Nathan. The two dozen texts aren’t from him, either. The Texan, Travis “Big Balls” Trunnell, sent one though.

  Text from 210-522-2121:

  It’s Travis. Ur Mom gave me ur # (luv her, btw). I’m not sorry we ran into each other again, Vivia, but I am sorry ur hurting. IMS. I nvr wnt to hurt u. Cld we go to dinner when u get back, pls? CM.

  The Texan’s text is followed by one from my Mum.

  Text from Camilla Grant:

  Vivia, it’s your mum. Travis-something-or-other rang me up. We had a lovely chat. He said he went to college with you and asked for your number. I gave it to him. I think it was okay. At least, he didn’t sound like a serial killer. He was very polite. I like him.

  “Vivian! What are you doing?”

  “Shitake!” My iPhone falls onto the plush carpet with a muted thunk. “What the hell, Fanny? You’re going to give me a heart attack. A little warning, s’il vous plaît.”

  “You’re so busted.” Fanny picks up my iPhone and hands it back to me with a frown. “Did you hear from him?”

  I shake my head. I hear the lyrics from Buckcherry’s “Sorry” in my head and tears cloud my eyes.

  Fanny gives me a quick hug.

  “Not even a text?”

  “Nada.” I swipe the tears from my cheeks and try to paste on an ironically bright smile. “But I did get a text from Travis Trunnell.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “What did he say?”

  I hand Fanny my iPhone.

  Her eyes move back and forth as she reads the text. “He sounds sexy,” she says, beaming.

  “What? How did you get that from a text?”

  Fanny shrugs.

  “I just did.”

  I shove my slaughtered sweats into my suitcase and zip it shut. Fanny’s right, and it pisses me off. Travis is really sexy. He’s also the reason I am on a honeymoon without a husband.

  “What’s your deal, Vivian?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…your sexy nights with Travis Trunnell have been the watermark for all of your sexual encounters.”

  “Night.”

  “What?”

  “Sexy night. Singular.”

  “You’re not helping your case. You’ve described your night with Travis as the best sex of your life.”

  “Whatever.”

  “No. Not whatever. You have. So why are you afraid to give him a chance?”

  “I am not looking for a booty call, Fanny.”

  “Who said it has to be a booty call?”

  I chuckle ruefully. “You don’t know Travis. He’s a dog in heat looking for his next bone.”

  “I don’t know…he doesn’t sound like a dog in his text. He’s apologetic, concerned about your feelings, and man enough to admit he cares about you. No games or macho bullshit.” Fanny walks over to me and puts her hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. “I love you, Vivia, but you have a tendency to judge by appearance. You did it with Nathan, and now you’re doing it with Travis and Jean-Luc. Take off the rose-colored glasses, ma chérie, and look at the world as it is, not how you imagine it to be. You might actually be surprised.”

  My shoulders slump under the weight of her admonishment. Once again, it comes back to appearances. Why do I care so damned much about how things appear? Why do I have a pathological need to portray myself as more moral, more proper, than I actuall
y am? I don’t know the answer to that question, but won’t be able to look beyond the surface until I stop projecting a false image of myself. I won’t be able to see things as they really are until I get real.

  “Now”—Fanny pulls away and holds out her hand—“give me your phone so I can upload the ring photo we took in the spa pool yesterday.”

  “Seriously, Fanny? Why bother?”

  “Why bother?” Fanny snorts. “We bother for the bored, idle masses dependent on our scintillating daily ring updates.”

  It’s my turn to snort. “Masses?”

  Fanny looks up, eyes wide.

  “Oui, masses! Vivian, I know you’ve been obsessively checking your e-mails and texts.”

  I am about to object to the word obsessively when Fanny brushes my protest away.

  “Haven’t you checked your Instagram and Twitter accounts?”

  I shrug. I have checked my accounts, but only to see if Nathan sent me a message.

  “You have a thousand new followers on Twitter and twelve hundred on Instagram. In only three days!”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Fanny shakes her head.

  “Whatinthehell? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because most people know what it’s like to feel the powerlessness of heartbreak. Maybe they enjoy watching someone gain back her power.”

  “Power? I am without a job, man, and home. How am I gaining power?”

  “Last week, Nathan left you at the altar. This week, you are a single woman honeymooning in the south of France. If that’s not reclaiming your power, I don’t know what is. You could have stayed home and wallowed in tubs of Ben and Jerry’s, but instead you’re sipping wine and cycling to the French Riviera.”

  A smile lifts the corners of my mouth. “You make it sound pretty spectacular and badass.”

  “It is spectacularly badass!”

  I look at myself in the mirror, clad from head to toe in sleek pink and black riding gear. The Provençal sun has painted strawberry blond streaks throughout my red mane and left my cheeks tan-ish. The dark circles that ringed my eyes in the days following the loss of Nathan have faded. I don’t look like a despondent, near-suicide, jilted bride.

  “It is badass, isn’t it?”

  “You’re badass,” Fanny says, snapping her fingers and tilting her head. “Go girl!”

  * * * *

  Now that I have proper riding gear, I feel pretty badass. No borrowed shoes. No obscene skort. No more looking like a homeless cyclist stalking a tour group.

  I said I loved riding in Nathan’s sweats and my Raw T-shirt, but deep down it really bothered me not to look the part. Keeping it real is great and all, but clothes are like armor. A knight wouldn’t show up at a joust without his chainmail, would he? Like chainmail, we wear clothes to project strength, ability and status. Who wants to meet a group of strangers dressed like a charity project?

  After eating a quick breakfast, we head to the circular drive in front of the resort. The group has already assembled for the day’s ride. Jean-Luc is engaged in a conversation with the Rosenthals. He looks at me over the top of Mrs. Rosenthal’s gray head and smiles.

  I am replacing my water bottle when he walks up. His gaze moves from my face, down my pink-clad form in an irritating, leisurely fashion.

  He smirks.

  “What?”

  “Nice gear.”

  His smug grin is really annoying me. The salesman at Freewheel Cycle Shop promised me Castelli and Gore were two of the best brands in cycling clothing, so I fail to see what is so funny.

  “What’s wrong with my gear?”

  “Nothing, it’s just very…”

  I cross my arms and wait for Luc to finish.

  “Pink.”

  “So? What’s wrong with pink?”

  “Not a thing,” Luc laughs.

  “I like the color pink.”

  “Okay.” Luc holds up his hands as he backs away.

  I wrote an article once about the color pink. I interviewed Dr. Windfree Bennet, a psychiatrist and New Age Colour Therapist. Dr. Bennet theorized that women who prefer the color pink over other colors are sexually repressed and therefore hypersexual. He said pink does not appear on the color spectrum. It is actually made up of several other colors, including red, which arouses base sexual instincts, and orange, which stimulates internal sexual organs.

  Who knew I was stimulating my internal sexual organs just by looking at my shirt? All this time I thought I liked the color pink because of some desire to recapture my childhood, when in reality I am just some perv secretly stimulating my internal sexual organs.

  I sneak a peek at Luc bent over his bike and wonder if his sexual organs were stimulated when he looked at my pink ensemble. I sorta hope they were.

  Luc didn’t look at me with such smoldering desire when I was prancing around in my slaughtered sweats and old Raw T-shirt.

  Okay, maybe keeping it real is too lofty of a goal. Maybe a little artifice is necessary. Faking it isn’t that bad, is it?

  Chapter 15

  Keep Riding, Pilgrim

  Super cool pink cycling gear might stimulate organs, but you know what it doesn’t do? It doesn’t keep you from getting fatigued or crazy bad leg cramps. Super cool pink cycling gear doesn’t keep angry motorists from hurling curses at you as they drive by, and it doesn’t keep the rain from falling.

  We are six miles from Châteaudouble, the end of our exhausting forty mile ride, when my body literally fails. My legs are quivering, my back is crumpled, and I’m slumped over my handlebars.

  “I. Can’t. Go. On.” I am wheezing like an asthmatic donkey. “Must. Stop.”

  “Don’t stop, Vivian,” Fanny implores. “Look at the sky. The rain is coming. We only have a few more miles. You can do it.”

  “I. Can’t.” I slow to a stop and grab my chest.“Go on. I just need to rest for a little bit.”

  Never-Ever-Ever-Quit Fanny is going to be pissed, but I don’t care. I am dying. It’s been twenty miles of uphill, downhill, uphill slogs.

  “Go on!” I snap. “I’ll catch up when I can breathe.”

  Fanny narrows her gaze.“Go. I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. Please. Go.”

  I watch Fanny ride away with a sense of relief. My primal need to survive beat my earlier fears of being “dropped” into submission. Who cares about riding with the cool crowd if it means wheezing and aching? I would rather sit beneath a scrubby pine tree and watch the cool crowd pass me by than die trying to keep up.

  I don’t blame Fanny for being annoyed. I’ve been lagging behind all day. We missed the group at the halfway point and had to eat lunch by ourselves. She was patient for the first thirty miles, but I could feel her irritation growing the last four miles or so.

  A small abandoned stone farmhouse sits in a dirt field off the road and I head toward it, wheezing and aching with each step. A bolt of lightning cracks across the leaden sky. I hurry my pace. Cold pewter-colored raindrops plop onto the hard-packed Provençal dirt around my feet and slide down my exposed limbs. By the time I lean my bike beneath an overhang, I am soaked and shivering, and rain is dripping from the brim of my helmet.

  I step beneath a pergola attached to the front of the house and wrap my arms around myself. I should feel happy. I am taking a much-needed rest, protected from a brutal downpour on the porch of a charming ancient farmhouse somewhere deep in the heart of the southern France. I am alone.

  I listen to the rain drops.

  Alone. Alone. Alone.

  Wasn’t it Marilyn Monroe who said, “I restore myself when I am alone?” Or maybe she said, “It is better to be happy alone than unhappy with someone.”

  Anyway. I am not feeling restored or happy. I am simply feeling alone and miserable. A lonely, miserable loser who can’t even ride a bike thirty miles without wheezing and crying.

  Now that I�
��ve dipped my toe in the whirlpool of misery and self-loathing, why not plunge all the way in? I imagine myself a gray-haired spinster, dressed in a pink housecoat, crumbling bread crumbs on her windowsill as she mumbles to pigeons. I am alone, without husband, family, lover, retracing the errors of my youth, the tragically misguided decisions that delivered me to a life of solitude. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, I will look back on my past and realize one fateful wrong turn altered my course toward a path of wretchedness. If only I had finished that bike ride, maybe then I would have fallen in love, gotten married, been happy.

  The sound of someone approaching the farmhouse draws me from my self-pitying daydream. Luc is riding over the field, head down, eyes focused on me. I watch him pedal with determination, jaw clenched, muscles bulging, and I begin to cry.

  My weeping starts out like a scene in a Victorian melodrama. Tears stream down my cheeks while I sniffle softly. I am the lilting flower, bravely struggling to contain my anguish.

  By the time Luc gets off his bike and joins me on the porch my emotional schizophrenia is on full display. I am acting like a lunatic, half laughing and half crying. I am relieved to see Luc, but also embarrassed at my pathetic need for companionship.

  Luc unsnaps his helmet, yanks his sunglasses off his face, and stares at my tear streaked face.

  “What is it, Vivia? What’s wrong?”

  I can only hiccup.

  Luc pulls me into his arms, and I shiver at the heat of his body. The simple gift of his compassion unleashes a fresh torrent of tears.

  This hot Frenchman must think I am a freaking lunatic.

  Luc pulls back and looks into my face. “Are you hurt?”

  I shake my head.

  “Then what is it?”

  I lift my chin, looking up at his handsome face. Worry lines etch across his tanned forehead. His concern should comfort me, but has the opposite effect.

  “I’m a…loser!”

  “What?” He pulls me to him, wrapping his arms around my waist. His heart is thudding in my ear. “You are not a loser.”