True Love (and Other Lies)

by Whitney Gaskell

  “Oh, please, no,” I whispered, and then in a louder, icy voice, addressed the senior Gloops. “I need to get to my seat.”

  “We just settled in,” Mr. Gloop replied.

  “Yeah, go around the other way,” his horrible wife added.

  I stared at them, completely dumbfounded at their rudeness.

  “Would you rather sit next to your children, and give me the aisle seat?” I asked.

  “No!” Mrs. Gloop snorted. The Mother of the Year seemed to recognize her children for the demon offspring that they were.

  “We got aisle seats on purpose. If you wanted one, you should have reserved it,” Mr. Gloop enlightened me.

  I was overcome by a wave of rage that was grossly out of proportion to the situation. Had the security guard not confiscated my tweezers, I might have been tempted to use them to poke out the Gloops’ eyes.

  “Well, then, I have to get by you,” I said through gritted teeth, and barreled past them—no easy task considering their girth. As I shoved through, I accidentally stomped on Mrs. Gloop’s foot.

  “Ow!” she screamed, as though I’d stabbed a dagger through her shriveled little heart.

  “It’s your own fault,” I snapped back, as I collapsed into my crowded seat, knocking the Gloop girl’s elbow off our shared armrest for good measure. “I asked you to let me by, and you refused. You know, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little more decent, to have some basic manners, for Christ’s sake.”

  Mrs. Gloop ignored me, and instead turned to her husband, whining about her toe, and how she thought it might be broken, and that they could probably bring a lawsuit against me if it was.

  “It just can’t get any worse,” I said out loud, shaking my head.

  But it did.

  At some point when we were flying over Greenland, and despite the constant jostling of my obnoxious neighbors, I had miraculously fallen asleep, the Gloop girl suddenly dug a sharp elbow into my side.

  “Ouch! What the fuck?” I sputtered.

  “Nice mouth. She wants to talk to you,” the girl smirked, pointing toward an annoyed flight attendant hovering in the aisle.

  “What?” I asked irritably.

  “There have been several complaints about the lights,” the flight attendant hissed at me.

  “The lights?” I repeated, confused.

  “Your shirt is lighting up the whole cabin, and people are trying to sleep or watch the movie. It’s bothering everyone,” she said, pointing at my chest.

  I looked down. Sure enough, at some point the lights on my tacky reindeer sweatshirt had switched on, lighting the plane up like the Las Vegas Strip.

  “Is there some way you can turn that off?” the flight attendant snapped. Why is it that the flight attendants in coach are always so cantankerous, while their business and first-class counterparts all conduct themselves as though they were charm-school graduates?

  “I honestly don’t know,” I sighed, staring down at the barrage of light dancing against red polyester, wondering where on earth the off button would be located on such a garment, but truly not really giving a shit. At that point, I was beyond caring about any of it—the sweatshirt, the irate flight attendant, the entire hideous Gloop family sniggering at my predicament, the fact that there was some unknown sticky substance on my right hand that hadn’t been there when I drifted off. It was like I’d been sent to the ring of hell where treacherous friends are condemned to burn, and didn’t really see any point in getting too worked up about the details.

  And if I expected to feel better when I finally got home and walked into my apartment, I would have been sorely disappointed. Because all I felt when I got there was alone . . . actually, tired and alone (after my brief nap on the plane, the Gloop offspring spent the rest of the flight screaming at each other over who was going to play some loud, beeping handheld computer game—it amazed me that passengers complained about my light-up sweatshirt, but no one had a problem with their fight-to-the-death wrestling match—and further sleep was out of the question). After years of suffering through a string of roommates, I considered living alone to be the ultimate luxury, even in my cramped little apartment. On the rare occasions when I felt a little lonely, I had Max right next door, who was always up for a spur-of-the-moment dinner or video rental. But now I didn’t have the energy to pound on his door until he opened it, much less force him to talk through whatever it was that had happened between us before I left. What I wanted was ease and familiarity . . . in fact, I had an overwhelming and unexpected ache for family. Well, maybe not my family—the last time we’d all been together was when we were clearing what we wanted out of the house before my parents put it on the market as part of their divorce agreement—but a nice family, the kind that holds you to its bosom when times get rough, the kind you turn to in a crisis.

  What happened next is hard to explain. I don’t know if it was the exhaustion, or the stress, or some kind of a seismic hormonal shift, but without even thinking about it, I reached for the phone and dialed up the airline.

  “Hello, I’d like to book a one-way ticket to West Palm Beach, Florida,” I heard myself say into the phone, seemingly without any power to stop myself, all the while wondering if this was what it felt like to lose your mind.

  Chapter 20

  I have to admit, Florida was not the obvious place for my escape. Home to palm trees and tiki bars and topless car washes, it’s a rather soulless place that smothers natural beauty with landscaping, and blots out local culture with chain restaurants, golf courses, and theme parks. And since it’s home to legions of senior citizens, all of whom drive big white cars and wear Bermuda shorts with black knee-length socks, being there was hardly a vacation from my job.

  Plus, my mother lives in Florida. It’s not that I don’t love my mother—everyone loves their mother, after all—but we weren’t particularly close. We never had been, really. When I was growing up, we butted heads like territorial rams—the arguments progressed from what I would or wouldn’t wear (age nine), to what friends I could hang out with (age fifteen), to what kind of life I would lead (age twenty to the present). My mother assumed I would lead a very different life—she thought I’d marry and have kids and move to the suburbs. She’s never come out and said it, but I know I’m a disappointment to her.

  But I didn’t want to stay in the city, sitting in my apartment and staring at the phone, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Even if I could impose on college friends I hadn’t seen in years at the last minute—and during the week after Christmas—those weren’t places where I could just hide out, read through a stack of books, and refuse to talk about my life in any detail. And although my mother and I don’t have anything close to the perfect relationship, at least she had a strong sense of boundaries, and would more or less let me be . . . at least for a time. I doubted that she’d be able to keep herself from pointing out the deficiencies in my wardrobe, or casually suggesting that I make an appointment with a cellulite reduction specialist who for only two hundred dollars per half hour would be happy to wrap my body up in some sort of an aluminum sack. But she probably wouldn’t pry too much into why I was there, which was just the kind of solitude I needed.

  I flew into the West Palm Beach airport, which was just to the south of where my mother and stepfather lived, in a town called Stuart. There, they had a sprawling house in an exclusive seniors community, which boasted an eighteen-hole golf course, eight clay tennis courts, three pools, and a country club, and where ambulances made almost weekly appearances to cart one of the residents off to a local hospital.

  My mother met me at the airport, looking as stylish as usual. She was as slim and petite as ever, and her sleek bob was a handsome salt-and-pepper mix. Mom was outfitted in the standard-issue uniform of all affluent Floridian women—pink Lily Pulitzer capri pants, a white sleeveless cotton sweater that showed off her toned arms, and high-heeled tan leather sandals. I took a deep breath and waved at her, all along having second thoughts about my rash
decision to come here. I just knew that as I walked toward my mother she was cataloguing my faults.

  But then as I reached her, my mother pushed back her enormous, round, Jackie O. sunglasses, and I saw her eyes—so similar to my own, the single physical characteristic I had inherited from her—and I was suddenly struck by how much older she looked. Not elderly, but older than I remembered her being. I guess when I think of my mother, I always picture her as she looked in her mid-forties, the age she was when I was in the full bloom of awkward, acne-pocked adolescence, and she was lovely, willowy, and vital. Seeing her now with a fine web of wrinkles radiating from the corners of her mouth and eyes frightened me a little. I wanted to hug her, to hold her close, to somehow shield her from her own mortality.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, my voice a little shaky.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she said, and opened her arms. I stepped into them, and she hugged me, and to my great surprise, my eyes watered up. After everything that I’d been through, after all of the anger and rejection and conflict that had gone on over the past few days, it was such a relief to be with someone who loved me unconditionally.

  “It’s so good to see you,” I said, still clutching her, like a child who doesn’t want to be left behind on the first day of kindergarten.

  My mother pulled back and looked at me, her eyes appraising. “You look tired. Is something wrong?”

  Now, to the casual observer, this statement probably sounds harmless enough. But this was my mother, and I knew that it was loaded with meaning. “You look tired” was code for: your hair is too long, you’re not wearing enough blush, that color washes you out, you need to put on some self-tanner, or any of the million other comments that could be made on my lack of grooming. The truth was that I knew I didn’t look my best—I was sleep-deprived, overanxious, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bothered with something simple like a manicure. But still, knowing that my mother was evaluating me, and that I was—as usual—coming up short, ticked me off.

  “Nope, I’m fine,” I said, stepping out of her arms. “I checked my suitcase, though, so I need to go to the baggage claim.”

  My stepfather, Howard, was waiting by the curb with the car, successfully rebuffing the attempts of airport security to have him circle around until his passengers were actually standing on the sidewalk, ready to load their luggage. I was surprised that airport security let him stop his car at all; lately they seem to expect anyone dropping off or picking up travelers to merely slow down to a crawl while passengers fling themselves in and out of the moving car. Howard’s only a few years older than my mom (I think he just turned sixty-four, although I can never keep track), but his florid complexion—a result of overexposure to both sun and booze—made him look at least a decade older. Before retiring at the age of sixty, Howard had been a pharmaceutical salesman, the top in his field, and as a reward for his labors, he’d retired with a healthy bank account and a thick, ugly gold wristwatch which I never saw him without, and suspected he wore even in his sleep. He had a salesman’s slick and charming personality, and I found myself baring my teeth in a fake smile at his many jokes as we drove back to their golf-course home. My mother stayed strangely quiet on the trip, interrupting Howard’s stand-up shtick only to remind him which exit to take off the highway.

  It was a relief when we finally got to their house, which, much like my mother, was elegant and serene, and seemed a million miles away from all of the problems that I’d left behind. My mom’s dog, Sasha—a bichon frise whom I actually sort of liked, even if she did resemble a yappy cotton ball on legs—came twirling out, prancing and cavorting and snorting happily. She danced under my feet, and then rolled over, presenting her pink and brown mottled tummy to me for stroking.

  “Hi, Sasha,” I said, and bent over to rub her.

  “Don’t touch the dog!” Mom and Howard screamed in unison, but it was too late. Urine squirted up in an arc, landing on the floor next to Sasha. She got up to examine the yellow puddle, and looked vaguely irritated as she sniffed it suspiciously.

  “She’s a submissive pee-er,” my mother explained to me, before turning her attention to Sasha. “Mommy’s very angry at you, you bad, bad girl. In fact, I don’t even want to look at you. Go into the other room,” she said sharply, pointing toward the kitchen. Sasha slunk off, looking pathetic and forlorn.

  “When did she start peeing like that?” I asked.

  “About six months ago. Her therapist says that it’s caused by anxiety,” Mom said.

  “Her therapist?”

  “Yes, we’ve been taking her to see a behaviorist. He has her on antianxiety medication that seemed to be helping for a while, but then she started this peeing thing. Anyway, Sebastian—that’s her therapist, he’s fabulous—says that it’s just a matter of setting guidelines with Sasha,” Mom continued.

  Upon hearing her name, Sasha came prancing back into the room, apparently already tired of her solitary confinement. Eager to get back into my mother’s good graces, Sasha sat at Mom’s feet, head tilted charmingly to the side, one paw raised in a silent plea for forgiveness. My mother was not at all moved. She shook her head and said, “I’m still not speaking to you. Go back to the kitchen.”

  “Mom, that’s so mean! She doesn’t remember what she did wrong,” I protested, taking in Sasha’s sad brown watery eyes and twitching snout. “And she looks so sorry.”

  “Sorry isn’t good enough,” my mother replied. “Do you remember where the guest room is? Here, I’ll show you.”

  I looked back at Sasha, who had now slumped down on the ground, looking miserable, and was suddenly envious of the dog’s ready access to therapy and medication.

  For the next few days, I spent almost all of my time in my mom’s screened-in pool—which she and Howard never used—sometimes paddling around slowly like a sea turtle, and the rest of the time floating about on an inflatable chaise lounge reading through my mother’s collection of John D. McDonald paperbacks. McDonald’s stories of beach bum Travis McGee and the assortment of women he rescued, and how they’d putter around on his Fort Lauderdale houseboat drinking Boodles gin, eating steaks, and tanning themselves to a delectably unhealthy shade of bronze, was just the escape I needed. New Year’s Eve hardly registered with me. Mom and Howard invited me to a shindig at their country club, but I declined, and instead spent the night watching Titanic and eating cold Chinese food left over from the night before.

  I knew my mom was worried about me. I’d occasionally see her peering at me from behind the French doors that connected the pool to her sunroom, and once in a while she’d venture out and ask me if I’d like to go to the mall, or to see her hairstylist, or to play a round of golf (as if I’ve ever stepped on a putting green in my entire life), but each time I’d shake my head and apply another layer of SPF 30 to my still-pale arms. Since my behavior was atrociously unsocial, I tried to make up for it by doing the dishes and helping to prepare the simple summer fare that they existed on year-round, although normally Mom or Howard would wave me off, and tell me not to be silly, that I was on vacation and not there to help around the house. So I let myself be gently pushed away, and I’d retreat back to my room to watch old movies on cable or return to my floating chaise.

  I thought very little of Maddy and Jack and Max, and all of the messes that I left behind, which was odd for me, the chronic worrier. But it all seemed far away, almost like it had happened to someone else, and I wasn’t eager to ever return to it. In fact, the day I was supposed to report back to work came and went. I called Robert’s voice mail at night, long after I knew he’d left the office, and left him a cryptic message about a family emergency and needing some additional time off. I knew he wouldn’t believe me, and might even fire me for it, but I simply couldn’t muster up the energy to care.

  After I’d been there for a few days, my mother appeared at the side of the pool one morning, the portable phone in hand.

  “There’s a phone call for you,” she said.

  I
opened one eye and looked at her. “But no one knows I’m here,” I said.

  “It’s your sister. She wants to talk to you,” Mother said, holding out the phone. I paddled my float over to where she stood, and took it from her.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hi, it’s me,” Alice said.

  “What’s up? How’s everything going out there?” I asked.

  “Fine. I’m still at the same firm, still dating Luke, still trying to decide whether I should stay in California or not,” she said, which was pretty much the same thing she said every time I talked to her. My sister has worked in the same job, as a designer at a graphic design firm, lived in the same apartment, and dated the same man—who was apparently panting after her with an engagement ring in one hand—for over five years, but the commitment-phobe in her kept insisting that it was all just temporary, and that she could dump it and move back to the East Coast at any time.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “Mom called me. She’s worried about you, and wanted me to find out what’s going on.”

  I figured it was something like that. Unlike many sisters, Alice and I are not friends. There’s no animosity between us, but we just don’t figure all that prominently in each other’s life. When our parents were married, we stayed connected through them and saw each other at college breaks and the odd family vacation. But the dissolution of our parents’ marriage had meant the end to such get-togethers, and as a result Alice and I—never close as children—drifted even further apart. There were occasional phone calls, sporadic cards, the obligatory birthday or Christmas present, but nothing beyond that. We certainly didn’t have the kind of relationship where I could confide in her about everything that had happened to me over the past week.

  “Tell her I’m fine. I’m just . . . resting,” I said.

  “She said you haven’t left the house since you’ve been there, and that you look like you lost your best friend,” Alice said.