I roll another joint.
The game designer says, “You’re sexy when you smoke.”
“Don’t say that,” I say. “Smoking is bad for you.”
“Heather,” he says. “I think you should do whatever gives you pleasure in your life right now.”
I think, you are the sweetest man I’ve ever met. Why can’t you be someone else entirely?
We kiss more. The game designer says, “Heather, I am so into you.”
Christ, to love and be loved, is that so hard? I try to make myself love him, I really do. In my mind, I build a casket. Sides of wood, a top to close it. In my mind, I lower Kieran gently into the ground. I think, I should explain. Tell the game designer I fell madly in love in Dublin and then let him decide if he wants to stay or go. But I don’t. I’m too selfish. I want to make love to this man so that the last man I’ve made love to will no longer be Kieran. I think somehow this will release me.
I turn off the lights when we get into bed. I don’t want to see who is actually there. When I first feel his body against mine, all I can think is, it’s not Kieran. The thick muscles, the short torso and limbs—this isn’t the body I’m looking for.
The game designer is aggressive about pulling my clothes off, tossing me further into the bed. And I submit, sink into the easy luxury of giving into someone else’s will—like sinking to the bottom of a dark lagoon, letting the seaweed and other dark matter of the water pull me down. I’d wondered after Dublin if some of this new passion belonged to me, to bestow on whom I chose. And I find it is. But when it’s done, when he lies shuddering and moaning beside me, I feel about as close to him as I would a passenger on the subway. I feel like I’ve always imagined men feel after sex. I wish he were gone so I could be alone. I look at the clock and wonder what time it is in Dublin.
This black lagoon I’d been floating around the bottom of, it starts to feel frighteningly murky. I want to cry, or scream. I want to find you, Kieran, through the drifting seaweed and creeping sea plants that wrap themselves around me. I want to swim up to the light and see you waiting for me up there where the sun is shining. I suddenly don’t like it, don’t like it at all, in this dark, watery place.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Things are as good as they possibly could be for Marie. Even the doctors can barely believe it. I’m on the phone all day passing along the good news. Seth and I talk for a long time. He tells me that Ben has told Marie what happened. I try not to imagine. When I get off, I cry for what seems like ages.
Friday, December 15, 2006
After leaving the house and refusing to come home again for the entire day because I think seeing Josh’s stuff for one more second in the apartment is going to give me a brain aneurysm, I call Mac and ask him to help me move some of it into the basement. He’s there two hours later, their new manny, Peter, in tow.
We all go down the stairs together. The air in the basement is filled with a fine dust, and there’s black mold crawling up the walls. A long fluorescent light hangs at an angle from the ceiling as if someone had tried to rip it out but failed.
If I were into Freud, I would say this basement is the subconscious of our marriage. It fills me with such shame. In boxes of disintegrating cardboard are stacks of professional-quality photographic equipment from when Josh decided he wanted to be a photographer. The music equipment from when he was going to be a DJ sits in a pool of water. There are all the boxes we never unpacked when we moved in seven years ago; all the boxes we packed to sell on eBay that never got listed. Broken furniture that we neither threw away nor fixed. Half-assembled IKEA desks and bookshelves.
Mac’s face is a grim line as he goes up and down the stairs bringing down bags of clothes, a surfboard, turntables. Peter’s eyes are wide.
When Mac has to go, I convince Peter to stay because the thought of being left alone in this apartment is too depressing to contemplate. Peter reminds me of a baby bear—he’s pudgy with big, flopping brown hair and a kind of shyness like he’d happily run away into the woods and hide in a tree if it were an option. He’s twenty-six, a student at NYU. I almost keel over in joy when he tells me he was in Ireland last summer. He knows the market where Seth and Cecilia and I strolled. “My friend helped the city start that market,” I say.
I say, “Do you by any chance know how to fix lightbulbs?” And he says, “Um, do you have a ladder?” And the next thing I know, he’s lumbering up and down my ladder, putting new lightbulbs in the fixtures of those ten-foot ceilings that I can’t reach even standing on the highest rung of a ladder, and which Josh would never replace for me. It was dark in the apartment since almost the day we moved in.
When Peter leaves, I lie on the floor looking up. There is light in my house.
Later
Eleanor gave birth to a baby boy. Zachary. I am a godmother. How can Ben’s son just have died, and now Eleanor’s son has just been born? It’s total confusion in my mind.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
My mother and her boyfriend, Richard, arrive. They’re here for the funeral tomorrow.
My mother sweeps me into her arms. “Oh, you are my best hugger!” she cries. And then she gets down on the floor with Sakura, who, much to my annoyance, has gone into downward dog and is grinning at her through little slanted eyes, his ears flat on his head, his curled tail wagging ferociously. When Josh and I were stranded at their house in Baltimore around September 11, Sakura became very fond of my mother.
“He remembers me!”
“He remembers the roast pork you used to give him.”
My mother looks fantastic. She has not lost her beauty, not even deep into her sixties. She wears no makeup and her hair is iron gray, but still she could pass for ten years younger. From a distance, twenty years younger. I don’t know how she does it, but I find it spectacularly annoying.
Richard on the other hand looks to have aged about twenty years since I’ve seen him last. He’s carrying thirty-odd FreshDirect bags and two large suitcases. Often I’ve wondered if my mother is intentionally trying to run him into an early grave.
“Let me get those for you, Richard,” I say.
“Oh, aren’t you a dear,” he says. “What a wonderful daughter. And such a wonderful person. How did we get so lucky? What if she had ended up a Republican?” And he staggers away down my hallway, heaving enormous breaths into his lungs.
“Mom, did you make Richard drive?”
“Richard loves to drive.”
I make them steamed broccoli and miso soup for lunch. “Oh, Heather, this is the most wonderful lunch I’ve ever had,” Richard says, which I find hard to believe considering it’s steamed broccoli and miso soup.
“Oh, damn it,” my mother says. “I left my air cleaner in the car. Richard, can you run and get it?”
“Of course, dear heart,” he says, though he looks like he can barely stand.
“Give me the keys to the car,” I say.
When I get back, staggering under the weight of this fifty-pound machine my mother carries with her everywhere, they’re both in my living room reading the New York Times. Yet it’s as if the newspaper exploded and now is taking over every available surface in my house. I wonder if they’ve brought several months’ worth of Times to catch up on.
“Just plug that in for me, will you?” my mother says.
I plug it in. The thing starts whirring.
“I packed up all your things and put them on the back porch,” my mother says. “That stuff is very dangerous.”
I go out to the back porch. Sitting out there is a plastic bag containing all my soaps, shampoo, conditioner, dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, perfumes, candles, and assorted hair products.
I sit down on my couch in the back of the house and get very stoned.
“Still smoking?” says Richard when I come back into the living room. “Thatta girl.” And he raises his fist in the air. Power to the people? Black power? And chomps away on his nicotine gum.
&n
bsp; “Honey, can you fetch me a cup of hot water?” my mother says.
I bring her a cup of hot water. I can’t remember when exactly herbal tea got added to the list of things she can’t consume or be around. She sloshes the water around in her mouth as if she were at the dentist’s office and puts her feet up on my coffee table.
I sit down at the dining room table and watch them for a while. In my mind, I say, oh, I’m okay. The separation has been a little rough. Thanks for the concern, though, guys. Really, it’s touching.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Today is the funeral. I didn’t go. Seth asked if I would stay with Alex instead. When I arrive, Cecilia is helping her mom into her coat. I get the feeling they don’t even see me. They barely register my presence. They head out the front door, eyes staring, zombielike. Has there ever been a day more terrible than today?
Friday, December 22, 2006
When I wake up there’s an email from Kieran. Full of apologies. “Sorry for being out of touch, chick. Getting ready to go to West Africa for the film I told you about. Will be delighted when all is sorted. How are things in the Big Smoke? Still holding that weekend precious in mind. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.”
Oh, thank you, God, I think. Thank you. And then, the Big Smoke? London is the Big Smoke. I live in the Big Apple. Does he not even know where I live? But never has the phrase beggars can’t be choosers seemed more apropos.
I send him a picture of myself from a couple of years ago with my hair pulled away from my face in a ponytail, kind of blown out, making my skin flawless and my eyes enormous and very blue. What a difference a few years make. I lie and say someone took it yesterday. And then the emails really start to fly. I’m gorgeous. My mouth is luscious. He remembers the first time he saw me with my hair pulled back like that. How beautiful I’d been on that dance floor. How low he’s been since I left. Much better, I think. Much better.
And then from his BlackBerry, “I will get over to New York in 2007, chick. That is a promise xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.”
It’s all going to be okay, I think. My fantasies of having him here are going to come true. I will make them come true. The Universe is not just a place that kills small children.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Washington, DC
In DC for baby Zack’s bris. As his godmother, I hand him to the rabbi for snipping. Even though the Steins make me feel like a piece of crumpled trash, they also make me feel like maybe I am part of a family.
Later
Had the worst phone call in the history of worst phone calls with Kieran. I tried to keep it light. I swear I did. What did I do wrong?
I show his last email to everyone. “Heather, I’ll always be there, girl. May the clouds lift and float away for both of us. Take care, beautiful girl. How I would love to lie down with you, our skin meshed together once again . . .”
It’s proof, right? Proof that he loves me.
Mac clears his throat. “Quite a poetic fellow,” he says.
Summer says, “I get it. Remember my vegan chef? I didn’t really know him either. It’s pheromones.”
Eleanor says, “Look, I understand that it’s very intense and everything, but you don’t really know this guy, do you?”
I think, I don’t care what any of them say. He’s coming to New York next year. I mean it. He’s coming to New York. He promised.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting in an empty Starbucks in Baltimore on York Road between two out-of-business storefronts and across from a failing movie theater, drinking a lukewarm decaffeinated cappuccino.
Have you ever read a more depressing sentence in your life?
I’m staying with Faith now.
Every year I do this. Come down to see my mother for Christmas and then spend the whole time hiding at my friends’ houses. Seth didn’t come down this year, because he’s up with the Greens. We’ve agreed between us to split these responsibilities.
Today was one of those glorious thank-God-for-global-warming days. High sixties. Warmest December 24 in recorded history. I sat outside with Faith and her husband, Derrick, and their two kids. Since I’ve seen him last, Derrick has covered himself with tattoos. At one point when Derrick was talking, I looked over at Faith and she was looking at him, her eyes narrowed to little slits. I thought, holy shit, she hates him as much as I hated Josh. I almost felt sorry for Derrick being on the receiving end of that look. Is it just inevitable that after a certain period of time you grow to hate your spouse?
I tried to make eye contact with Faith, but she wouldn’t look at me. I tried to think of something to say, but all I could think of was what she used to look like when she looked at Derrick. Her face use to light up with some internal glow when he walked into the room. She used to hang on his every word, quote him in conversations. It was like she’d aged one hundred years since then. This stern woman, rigid with contempt, didn’t seem to have anything to do with the pretty girl who used to be so crazy in love.
So this is it, I thought, looking at Faith not looking at me. This is what happened to us. This is the end of our story. And—scene! Right here in this lousy neighborhood in Baltimore. We had crappy childhoods and we chose crappy men and now we have crappy lives. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Grim Reaper had stepped into the living room, leaned his scythe up against the wall, and asked for a cup of tea.
I sat there not saying anything, while Faith sat there not saying anything back, and finally I got up and walked the three blocks to Starbucks, where you find me now.
I’m looking at the four pictures I have of Kieran on my computer. Nothing since yesterday’s phone call. I had him, but I lost him again. Driven him away by my inability to make light conversation.
My phone rings. It’s Josh.
I’m feeling so desperately alone that even talking to Josh seems preferable to sitting here in this deserted Starbucks scrolling through the same four pictures and listening to Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas” for the ninth time.
“Hey, I’m so glad to reach you!” he says. I think, he wants something.
He starts to tell me how great everything is for him. “Heath, I feel better than I have in like ten years,” he says.
He has a whole litany: He’s looking for a job. He’s lost thirty pounds. He’s stopped smoking pot. He’s reading a book about how to maintain friendships. He’s thinking about buying a bicycle. He’s eating vegetables.
And I don’t know, maybe if I were a better person, I’d be thinking, great, you’re happier now. You’re as better off without me as I am without you. Mazel tov. But I don’t. Instead I’m thinking, go fuck yourself. While living with me, you didn’t feel any need for self-improvement, or, say, getting a job, but now you’re going and doing all the things I spent the last ten years begging you to do? Great. Thanks. Fuck off.
Plus, I don’t even buy it. I’ve heard it so many times.
“Aha,” I say. “Aha.” I’m looking at my pictures of Kieran, thinking, you’re so handsome. You’re so trustworthy. I bet you’re such a great dad. Why didn’t you email me today?
Finally, after maybe twenty minutes, I say, “Look, I gotta run.”
“Right,” Josh says. “Listen, I forgot, there was one thing I want to ask you about.”
There’s about five minutes of hemming and hawing and throat clearing and then he blurts it out. “I’ve met someone.”
And action! There’s Ingmar Bergman and the Grim Reaper, cloak billowing, scythe freshly sharpened. Bergman asks for a shot of espresso. The Grim Reaper orders a latte. “White Christmas” comes on for the eleventh time. Kieran continues to stare at me from my computer screen and fails entirely to walk into Starbucks and save me like he’s supposed to.
Then Josh starts to blather about how he doesn’t know whether to pursue this relationship because, ah, um, cough, cough, he doesn’t know where he stands with me.
I’m thinking, wait, you’re calling me
on Christmas Eve to ask me for advice on your love life?
Then it hits me. Not the fact of the girlfriend but that I don’t care. I have no hot pin-prickles of pain, no sense of my heart breaking, just a confirmation that this enormous love, which ruled so much of my adult life, is dead. Oh, hello, Ingmar, thanks for coming. Mr. Reaper, just lay your scythe there. Make yourselves comfortable, please. Another latte?
Finally, through clenched teeth, I say, “Do you really think I’m the right person to be asking about this?”
Josh sounds so sad after I say that. I can just see his face sag. His voice takes on that brave-child quality of trying not to cry. Then all of a sudden it brightens, gets overly, inappropriately cheery, as if I won’t know it’s an act. As if I don’t know all the modulations of his voice and the instincts and tiny internal decisions that lead to those modulations as well as I know my own.
When I get off the phone, I think, how can it be that I live in a world so unfair and absurd that Josh, Josh, already has someone new while I, in all my glory, am going to be alone for the rest of my life?
Then it’s just emptiness. Like I’m a husk. I think, it doesn’t matter if I live or die. No one needs me. I have no children, no lovers, no friends whose lives would change if I dropped dead right here in Starbucks, cold decaf spilling onto the floor. I think, maybe I should just walk out onto York Road into traffic. I wonder, is there enough traffic out there that eventually some dumb Baltimorean would manage to hit me?
I think, I’m thirty-five and have no reason for being alive.
And then, when this moment comes, really, ought one kill oneself?
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Back in NY. I rushed back up to resume taking care of Alex, but now I’m sick. Sakura is curled up in a ball at the corner of the bed. He is the most perfect creature. I could never share my bed with some slobbering, hairy dog breathing on my face. Sakura is the only thing that makes being in this apartment bearable.
Reckless Years Page 13