by K Larsen
I am a politician’s wife who suffers from mental illness. But I can’t be candid about it or ever let it rear its ugly head in public. I must constantly be aware of the impression I’m making. I’m not allowed to do things on a whim or ever speak without thinking.
My disease is like a dark pit that sits deep inside of me. I’m not allowed to explore it, so I overcompensate on the outside. I don’t have episodes that look like anyone else’s, I rectify my ugly inside by obsessively, compulsively, creating beauty around me.
It’s been a long time since I’ve gone on a date. Even longer since I’ve been laid. The prospect of both has me nervous, as I walk through the door at four p.m.
“Luke, Bud, you here?” My voice sounds weak, even to me. I draw in a great breath and try to bolster myself.
“Hey, Dad,” Luke says from behind the fridge door. I walk to the island and set down my folders from the Vanderbilt project. Luke pops his head up and nods at me before continuing to rummage through the barren fridge.
“This old fart has a hot date tonight,” I say. Saying it out loud seems to take some of the pressure off. The family therapist was right. Rory made me promise to take Luke to family therapy for a year after she passed. She was always thinking ahead like that and knowing what we would need. Of course, it was a necessity, as we were both devastated and a mess. No matter how much preparation you have for losing a loved one, you still hurt the same when it happens. It was actually that advice, ‘speak it out loud,’ that led me to tell Luke about Bridget, my suicidal thoughts and her.
A few months after Luke’s depression started to subside, I’d sat him down and told him that I understood feeling hurt and lost and hopeless. From there, he asked what my experience was and I finally said it out loud. To him. It was a very pure moment for us. We cried together over Rory, he cried for his feelings and I cried for mine. Together. United. And it felt damn good. Of course, for the last year, at least once a month, he’s pushed for me to reach out and try and find this her until I finally caved and put that damned post up. I never would have done that, if not for Luke. I’m still undecided if having it out on the internet is a blessing or a curse.
“Shut up.” Luke removes himself from the refrigerator and bumps the door shut with his hip. His arms are loaded with various snacking items.
“Okay?”
“No, Dad, I mean really? With who?”
“Yes, really. With a woman named Emily. She’s the reporter doing the story for Custom Builder on THB.”
Luke’s eyes start to bulge out of his head. “That is . . . awesome! Where are you going? What are you going to wear? You aren’t going to take her out in that, are you?” His questions come in quick succession. They make my brain hurt.
“Slow down there. Take a breath, Bud.” Luke smiles and brushes some hair from his eyes. “I’m taking her to Poutine’s and I’m going to shower and change before I pick her up at six.”
“Poutine’s—yeah. That’s a good place,” he says.
“Since when do you have so much dating knowledge?” I ask.
“I don’t.” Luke shrugs and unwraps a string cheese. “Leave me a twenty for dinner, will ya?”
I can’t help but laugh at my son. He’s a good kid, with a good heart. “Yup. Order whatever you want.”
Luke rounds the island and throws his arms around my waist. “Try and have fun tonight, Dad. It’s just a date. It doesn’t have to lead to anything more.” I wrap my arms around him and squeeze tight. When his fingers start tapping on my back, I know he’s attempting to tap out, so I release him.
“No girls over while I’m out.”
“As if.”
“If you need me, call my cell.”
“Dad. Go get ready, you’re so old, it will take you a while to look good enough for this Emily.” Luke draws out her name. Emmaaaleee. He’s taunting me. I toss a twenty on the counter and check my email before getting in the shower.
Nothing from her.
Emily is standing at the entrance to the Inn in a black skirt and gold translucent blouse. I can just make out the shape of her breasts through it. I pull up and hop out of the truck. As I approach her, I start wondering about her. How she’s aged. What she would wear, if I was picking her up for a date. Did she marry that guy? Have children? Is she happy? I mentally slap myself. There is a pretty woman standing right in front of me. A real live warm blooded female and I’m off in lalaland.
I grin at Emily. “Hey there.” Hey there? God, I’m a jackass.
“Hey there, yourself, handsome,” she says and tucks some hair behind her ear. It’s slightly comical, considering she passed bashful earlier today.
I adjust my stance. “You look nice.”
“Thank you.”
“Ready to head out?” I ask. She nods. I escort her around the truck and open the door for her. It’s quite a step up to get in, even with the foot runner. With one foot up, her purse under one arm and the other hand holding the “oh-shit-handle,” she looks over her shoulder at me. Crap. I place my hands low on each hip and help push her up into the cab. When she’s seated and straightened herself out a bit, she says thanks and I close her door for her. She fills the drive to the restaurant with small talk about the Vanderbilts’ house and about the magazine and how she sees the article portraying Titan Home Builders. I don’t speak much, but then again, I don’t need to, as she’s doing all the talking.
“So tell me how you came to be the building world’s most eligible bachelor?” she asks before sipping her wine. I stare at her a beat before laughing boisterously. This chick is funny.
“Excuse me?”
“You are, you know,” she says. She’s serious. This is news to me, though. I live a quiet life and keep to myself. I rarely ever date, so it’s hard to imagine me as a playboy or eligible bachelor.
“I don’t know anything about that. I wasn’t aware the building community had a list going.”
She leans forward and rests her elbows on the table. Her chin is perfectly perched on her fists. “Oh, there’s a list and you are at the top of it, Titan.” Her smile is cunning.
“I wasn’t trying,” I chuckle. The dim lighting in the restaurant makes her red hair glow ever so slightly and her skin looks milky and smooth. I grab my glass and take a long slow drink of water. Our conversation isn’t riveting, but the longer I sit here and the longer she gives me that come hither stare—well, I’m only human.
“Maybe that’s why,” she says, “When you’re trying, it shows. Naturally, those who don’t give a damn are just that much more appealing.”
Our dinner is wrought with shameless come-ons from her and she’s pretty and willing and I know the facts right in front of me, but my brain is with a blond, blue-eyed stranger who only knows me as Ty. She couldn’t even happen upon me in a Google search because Ty wouldn’t ever come up with me.
When we’ve finished eating and I pay the bill, she takes my elbow as we exit. She’s flushed, warm and I think, ready to pounce. Our drive back to the Inn she’s staying at is tense with sexual vibrations. She adjusts the stereo volume and lets her hand linger in the middle between us. I reach down and cover her hand with mine. She flips hers over, palm up, I twine my fingers through hers. By the time we park, I’ve resolved to have slow and sweet, then hot and fast sex over and over until I can erase my need for her. That’s what all this restlessness has been. My own need to come. For a release. To have a warm body for a night. It’s not about her, it’s about me. And right now, I am determined to be all about Emily.
Emily stops me on the farmer’s porch of the Inn and pushes up onto her toes as her arms wrap around my waist. I lean down to her mouth. “Ready for dessert?” I whisper before our lips meet.
“Oh, my God, Mom, look at that yellow glass chandelier!”
Angie is smitten with anything girly. She’d paint every piece a pastel color, if I’d let her.
“What are you thinking? Bathroom or kitchen? Kind of small for an entryway.”
&
nbsp; “Hanging really low over a dark wood, oval dining table. Almost looks like candlewax how those glass beads lay on top of one another.”
Angelina has a great eye. I didn’t just hire her because she’s my kid. She’s got a natural talent and her enthusiasm is contagious. Like the one time upstate when we went to visit a dump. We had to lie to John about a charity lunch, because the man would fall into an early grave if he knew we were dump diving.
“I’ll buy you brand new things!” he exclaimed when I told him right after marriage that it was one of my favorite pastimes.
“That’s missing the whole point, John. Creativity can transform nothing into something, what’s discarded by one gains a new life through another.” He shook his head in disbelief and made me promise to stop doing it.
“It’s unsanitary. You could get hurt, even worse, arrested.”
The first time I took Angie to a dump, she was thirteen. She’d insisted on green rubber gloves and we buttoned her father’s discarded old flannels backwards over our clothes. It never occurred to me that it was dirty, I just thought of it as plentiful. Her find that day was shoebox full of black and white photos from the 1920’s. She lugged them home and together we pored over them and sorted them into piles that made sense to us. It was entirely her vision to build the book. She made up stories behind each photo and glued them down in a scrapbook. Some of the photos she traced and colored the images in with colored pencils. The end product was stunning—pretty high-art for a seventh grader.
We’ve made multiple trips back, always on the sly from John. He doesn’t get what we do and instead of trying to understand, he’s always busy trying to cover for us.
“Just try to stay out of garbage in the City or in Albany. Last thing I need is a front page photo of the two of you in dirty smocks, dumpster diving for broken furniture or whatever it is you do.”
We purchase the yellow glass chandelier for twenty-five dollars.
“I’ll throw in these wrought iron hooks, if you make it thirty. I think there’s six more of them there in the box.” The vendor is wearing a winter hat and what looks like two or three jackets. He’s got a space heater by his feet, running on a long orange extension cord.
“Deal,” Angie and I pipe up in unison and then giggle.
“Mom, are you still thinking about him?” Angie asks me, as we make our way back to the car.
“Honestly, yes, I have been. I don’t know what it is. I’d pushed it to the back of my mind so many years ago, but now, here it sits, right at the forefront. Almost like the memory is trying to tell me something.”
“Why don’t you try to find him? Maybe you need to know he’s okay, to get some kind of closure?”
“Well, Honey, it’s not like I’m hiding away. I’ve got a widely released show, I—”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t show your face!”
“Angie, what would your father think, he’d surely not approve.”
“Mom, if Dad ever listened to our show once in his lifetime, I’d go into shock. The man wishes we’d call it quits tomorrow, regardless of how much money it brings in. Dad prefers us quiet and hiding in the background.”
“But, your father and I are married,” I say unlocking the doors to the sedan.
“You don’t have to sleep with him. He’s probably married, too. Just find him and see what he’s up to,” she says casually and shrugs.
I feel like telling her she doesn’t understand, that the meeting was anything but casual. But maybe my daughter is right and I should listen to her advice. It doesn’t have to be the big deal that I’m making it out to be, a cup of coffee at a diner that transpired over twenty years ago.
“What would you have me do, Lovey? Write up the story and put it on our Facebook page?”
“No, Mom,” Angie says as she scrolls through her phone.
“What then?”
“Mom, we have a national broadcast, we’ll add it into the show.”
“But your father!”
“We could have a show about aliens landing on Earth and stealing all of our glue guns and running off with the button collection and Dad still wouldn’t notice. Believe me, Dad won’t find out. And if he does, who cares? Tell him somebody advised us to come up with something juicy for ratings.”
“You are far too talented with deceit and it scares me,” I tell my daughter, affectionately, as we pull into traffic on the BQE heading back to Manhattan. She is a smart little monkey and sometimes, still, I can’t believe she came out of me.
“Well, I had a good teacher.” Angie reaches into the bag of local apples we bought at the flea market and polishes one on the knee of her denims.
“I hope by that, you’re referring to your father,” I say, giving her a slight smile.
“Yeah, Mom, whatever,” she says and takes a bite of her apple.
We do show prep on Thursdays. Sometimes Angie shows up, some weeks I do it alone. Either way, I’m happy. I make a supply checklist, a bulleted outline for a loose script is all we ever use. Angie and I fill the rest in with our chatter and it seems to get more talked about than our actual show. Some people say Angie is bold and brash and I’m sort of conservative and old-fashioned; maybe it’s the contrast between us that makes people tune-in to the station. Or maybe it’s not that at all, it could be because Angie and I are so much alike, listeners like to gauge just how far the apple did fall. Today she is here and we are sipping Matcha Lattes and munching on water crackers with brie. Angie is in socks and sweats and a tunic and I’m in my usual jeans and Birkenstocks, wearing a painter’s smock. I’m painting the iron hooks we picked up a beautiful teal, we’ve got a planned episode titled, “Hooking Up,” that I’m sure will capture the attention of a wide audience.
“So, tomorrow are we going to bring it up on the show? I don’t see a bullet point on here that says: “missed connections, hot black guy who drinks black coffee or wet, emerald ball-gowns from when we were twenty.”
“Haha. Miss Comedienne. You are qualifying for nagging at this point. Besides, I don’t actually know if he was black. His skin was darker, could have been Indian or Middle Eastern or South American, for all I know.” I stick my teal hook in a clamp to dry and peel off the electrical tape where my fingers were holding it.
“He was black. Quit changing your story. Next you’re going to tell me that he’s actually my real dad.”
“Angie!” I say and my eyes shoot up to meet hers. She’s sitting in a swivel chair and lets my notes drop haphazardly to the wide crafting table. I take a sip of my latte and cradle the mug in my hands.
Dipping my brush in the paint, I dab at where the iron still shows through.
“I’m not nagging, I just know you won’t do it on your own.”
“It doesn’t seem proper. A woman in my position. It would get back to your father.”
“Screw him!”
“Angie!” I say, but I can’t help but feel lighthearted. My daughter defends me before I even get in trouble.
“Dad never should have hid your disease like it was something to be ashamed of. You are so high functioning, Mom. You could have been a great advocate, an amazing spokesperson for other people who are out there suffering.”
“My work with the Children’s Aid Society has been really important, in both my life and your father’s.”
“I’m not saying it hasn’t, Mom!” Angie grabs a furry, white throw pillow and hugs it to her chest. “All I’m saying is that what he did wasn’t fair. You deserve to be who you really are and I don’t know if Dad ever gave you a chance. We only get one life, Mom, I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.” Tears are coming fast and silent and I wipe them away, probably marking up my face with streaks of teal paint.
“I’ll say it, if you don’t. I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
Our show is unscripted and live and suddenly my daughter has me petrified of what she might say.
“Let me do this one thing for you, Mom, and if nothing happens, we�
�ll put it to rest. You can’t walk through your life with a heart full of unsolved mysteries. Don’t you think it’s important to thank the people who shape your life? Who made you into who you are? What if mystery man is walking around just as curious as you are?”
Lips. Gorgeous, pouty, cashmere lips. Her lips. Soft kisses pull me from blue eyes and blond hair. Kisses. They flutter across my abs and up, up, upward until lips meet lips. This is heaven. This is . . . this is real life.
“I fell asleep.” It’s a statement. “What time is it?” I ask.
“It’s only eleven,” Emily says.
“Wow, okay, I should probably get going. Luke will wonder where I am, if I show up any later than midnight.”
“Who’s Luke again?” she asks as she lays her full weight on top of me. I roll left and wrap the sheet around her as I go.
“My son.” Emily’s hair has that sensual, just fucked looked. It’s that look that can’t be replicated, no matter how hard women try and how many products they smear in their hair. Her skin glows and her eyes are hooded still. I give myself an inward pat on the back for a job well done. When both parties are sated, you’re allowed to congratulate yourself. I stand and stretch.
“No need to rush out, Ty,” Emily says looking a little deflated.
“I’m not rushing. I’m just being a decent parent,” I say, while pulling my boxers on. I lean over her and give her a quick kiss on the mouth. Plus, I’m out of condoms.
“Do I still get that trip on The Anchor tomorrow?”
“Of course. I don’t break promises.” I button my shirt up. “Why don’t you pack a lunch and we can do the interview on the boat. The leaves are gorgeous this time of year.” I pull my pants up, zip and button them.
“Okay,” she says.
“Emily,” I say pulling the comforter from the floor up and over her. “Thank you. I needed tonight.”
“Just tonight?” she pushes. I nod my head and she frowns but reaches up and hooks her arms around my neck. Just before her lips touch mine, I hope like hell that I will feel something; a connection; a spark, something. We kiss and it’s anti-climatic, for me, anyway. I smile and tuck her in, turn off the lights as I go and whisper goodnight as I shut the door.