Together Apart: Change is Never Easy

by Maxxwell, Lexi

  He waited for Sam, but she still hadn’t returned.

  With no other props to aid his nonchalance, Zach plodded toward the bedroom. Walking the hallway was like trudging through a bowl of thick stew. He had to will himself to do it, unable to believe that just a minute before he’d felt on top of the world. But again, this wasn’t about him. He hadn’t bought flowers or chocolates for thanks and praise. He’d done it for her. And if he’d done it for her (which he had, right?), he needed to keep it about her.

  Zach made himself straighten up and breathe fully. This was hard. Being an artist meant turning inward by nature, that meant being selfish. He knew plenty of giving, generous artists (he liked to think he was one), but when you spent so much time in introspection, you couldn’t help but think of yourself and your emotions first. Worse — you’d know those emotions for what they were, having finely attuned yourself to hear and obey them. So, as Zach approached the bedroom, he felt almost heroic. Sam would never know how difficult it was to suppress his own feelings and come nearer to hers. Sometimes, he thought it’d be easier if he only watched TV, ate fast food, and never bothered with deeper thoughts.

  He found Sam in the bedroom, folding clothes that didn’t need folding, seeing as they were clean from her dresser. She pulled out each item, then shook, assessed, folded, and dropped it into a pile. There were three on the bed, each stacked with various items: shirts, shorts, pants, even underwear.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Sorting. For Goodwill.”

  “Now?” Zach forced his voice to remain neutral rather than petulant.

  “Has to be done sometime.” Sam said it almost dismissively, without looking at him. There was almost a note of blame in her voice, as if this were something she’d repeatedly asked him to do and was now doing out of sheer frustration.

  “But … I brought flowers.”

  “Did you put them in a vase?”

  “Yes.” Then, because he felt more was needed, he added, “The big one. They’re on the kitchen counter.”

  “Thanks.”

  He sat on the bed, but apparently sat too close to one of the piles because she shooed him down, irritated.

  “What’s up, Sam?”

  “Just trying to clear out some of our clutter.”

  “Now?”

  Sam looked up at him for the first time since he’d come home. Zach was shocked to realize she’d been crying. About something he’d done, or that she had realized, he felt suddenly sure.

  “Why not? What else do we have planned?”

  “Sam?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Yes it is. What is it?”

  “I’m just behind,” she said, resuming her sorting. “I can’t catch up. Too much laundry. Too many bills. Behind on some work stuff. OK?”

  “Well,” he said, “you don’t need to do this Goodwill thing right now, right? Why don’t you take a break? Maybe chill?”

  She turned to him again. “Do you want to do it?”

  “Well, not really. Maybe nobody needs to.”

  “You can do it, and I’ll ‘chill.’” She said it like it was an insulting proposition. “I’ll sit in the front room and drink tea. Maybe stare out the window, watch some birds.”

  Zach felt himself getting irritated. He’d done a great job so far, keeping his needs from whatever this was, but now she was being insulting. He was only trying to help, and was perfectly willing to do the Goodwill sorting, even, if it absolutely must be done RIGHT NOW after not being thought of since their arrival in town. But she seemed offended by the suggestion that she relax. It was for her own good. And he’d brought her flowers and chocolates, for Christ’s sake.

  “Jesus, Sam. Relax.”

  She slammed a shirt onto one of the piles and looked up, her pretty face scoured raw with anger. “Yep. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to ‘relax.’ You can sort.” She pointed to each of the piles, one at a time. “Keep. Donate. Throw away. And if you can run the ‘donates’ down when you’re done, that’d be peachy.”

  She turned. Zach reached out to stop her, taking her by the arm. Sam turned so fast that at first, inexplicably, feeling lost, he thought she might hit him. But she just stood there, waiting.

  Somewhat softer, seeming to rein herself in, she said, “What?”

  “I thought maybe we could both relax. I brought you something.”

  “I don’t want to have sex right now, Zach.”

  Zach blinked back surprise, feeling punched in the chest. It wasn’t about sex. Sex was awesome and sex would probably have followed naturally if things hadn’t gone so inexplicably bad, but in a sense sex would almost pollute his aims. He wanted a moment in time, from back when there were no worries or thoughts of the future, just blue sky and fantasy. He wanted a taste of their foolish youth in the present.

  “I wasn’t gunning for sex.”

  “What, then?”

  Now he didn’t want to tell her, even if there was a chance she hadn’t noticed the chocolates, which there was no question she had. This wasn’t a cherry cordials moment. He had to get them out of their apartment. He wanted to chase that box of chocolates away, tell it to leave now, for its own good.

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh. Now it’s nothing.”

  “Why not? Apparently there’s a ton of nothing in the air. Why are you acting like such a bitch, Sam? Oh, wait, I know why: nothing.”

  “What was that?” Her look was incredulous more than angry.

  This was all going so, so wrong. It was depressing how wrong it was going, without him having any idea why. It was as if his wife was replaced by a doppelgänger. This wasn’t the Sam he knew, and certainly not the woman he was supposed to spend the afternoon with in a pleasant haze.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. But if you’d just tell me what’s wr … ”

  “Goddammit, Zach!” she shouted.

  Sam walked out, leaving Zach on the bed to ponder what exactly had happened.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Three years ago

  Zach raised a bottle of Killian’s Red. Sam watched it rise, like a space-bound rocket. He flashed his giant smile and in a big, announcer-style voice boomed, “To Samantha Alexander, for her graduation magna cum laude from the University of Portland with a stunningly professional and eminently useful degree in journalism!”

  “With honors,” she added.

  “With honors! Do you hear me, you cunts?!”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “Those who might disrespect you,” he said. Only, that’s not who was looking over from the other bean bag chairs and ratty recliners in the beer-slash-coffee shop, wondering if they should make an issue of being called cunts by the man with the bottle of Red.

  “Well, keep it down,” said Sam.

  Zach didn’t keep it down. He stood instead, not at all drunk, but with an extra helping of “Zach.”

  “And to her unworthy husband, Zachary Alexander!” he continued. “Who graduated with a whole lot of so-what and nothing!”

  “Sit down, Zach,” Sam said, giggling.

  “Not until you toast me!”

  She raised her beer. Bottles clinked. Zach yelled something else to unnamed cunts that Sam didn’t catch, then sat.

  “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, then reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out something black — something she hadn’t seen him sneak into it. He placed the object on her head. It was her mortarboard. The tassel swung in her face. “But now it’s worse, graduate!”

  She swiped the mortarboard away. A group of girls at the other table tittered, watching them.

  “Where’s yours?”

  Back to his normal voice, Zach said, “I threw it to a dog in the park. It’s worthless.”

  “It’s not worthless. And your degree isn’t worthless, either.”

  “Sure it
is. What’s the opposite of ‘with honors?’”

  “‘Without honors.’”

  “More opposite than that. I graduated with an active fuck-you to honors. Honors eschew me. I need a scarlet H with a universal no sign on it to wear in shame.”

  “And yet,” said Sam, taking a sip, “your literary allusions and vocabulary remain intact.”

  “Verisimilitude! Erudite!”

  “Seriously, though. I’m telling you, the guy I know at the Memphis paper? His wife owns a graphic design company.”

  “Cunnilingus!”

  “Zach, for real.”

  He settled. “Oh, for real? Well, then I’d better put on my serious face.” He did, then grasped the beer bottle like the mug of a stein and took a hearty but dignified swig. His wedding ring chattered against the glass.

  “Yes, for real. Now we’ve graduated. We officially have to make it on our own now, like Laverne and Shirley.”

  “They bottled beer.”

  “Yes. And now we have to stop consuming it in such large quantities and turn our attention to the job market. I’m lined up, but it’s not too late to take the Memphis job.”

  Zach shook his head. “I’m not moving to Memphis. That sounds like torture.”

  “Why? Have you ever been there?”

  “No. But you’re supposed to handle things you’ve never experienced by pre-judging them based on hearsay and other people’s prejudices. That’s what my mother told me, anyway.”

  “Can you be serious for a second?”

  Zach dropped his facade, then set the beer on their table and looked at Sam. “I don’t want to go to Memphis. I don’t want to be a graphic designer. Not one in anyone’s employ, anyway. And I like Portland. You like Portland. Our roots are here.”

  “But my job offer there is … ”

  “Better pay, I know. We keep coming back to that. But life isn’t all about pay. It’s about enjoyment. You work there, you’ll spend all sorts of extra time working. I know you will. They wouldn’t even have to make you do it; you just would. Not because you enjoy it, but because you’ll feel like you have to. We’d have to learn the city, and we already love it here. And besides, it’s not even a job offer; it’s a possibility based on your friend. The offer you have in town is real. Not even an offer — it’s actually a job, waiting for you Monday if you’re ready.”

  Sam gestured to Zach with an exasperated “whatever.” She didn’t even necessarily want to move to Memphis; what bothered her was how unequivocally he turned it down. The job there would be better, just like the pay, and she would enjoy it more. Her writing ability, collegiate journalism experience, and academic record set her apart. She’d land the job the second she asked. It wasn’t a must, but Sam liked to keep her options open, and Zach kept slamming this one shut. She didn’t want to admit it, but as much as she told Zach she was fine either way, a small part of her suggested that staying put would be a conceit that sold herself short. On the flip side, it was equally true that leaving would probably be doing the same to Zach. To earn even the thinnest of shots in the art world, you had to have connections. Zach did — or rather, his connections had connections. He was terrible at marketing but an astounding creator, and lucky enough to have people in his circle who noticed his ability, cared enough to pass it on, and had influential people to pass it on to. But in Memphis, starting over? Well, the graphic design job might be necessary there because there would literally be nothing else.

  “You’re just set in your ways.”

  “On the contrary,” he said. “You’re the one who wants a jay-oh-bee. I’m the one who’s willing to see what happens.”

  “You mean making more art. And hoping.”

  “And freelancing,” he said, raising his beer as if in offering.

  Oh yes. The freelancing. Since getting married 18 months ago, they’d each become much more interested in each others’ careers. For Sam, this meant pointing out, ever so gently and supportively, that Zach should keep doing his art but might consider adding something to augment it in the meantime, until his real passions took off. She then pointed out that he had an arts degree and suggested a job in (drum roll please) graphic design, even here in Portland. But even the design community in an artistic city wasn’t good enough for Zach, so he’d countered by proposing freelancing: picking up an illustration job here or there as needed. And why not? The independent publishing movement was strong, and authors needed book covers drawn. He’d then elbow Sam as if hinting and add that he could illustrate her book covers. Because while Sam was arguing that book cover work would hardly provide enough of an income, Zach’s interest in Sam’s career meant trying to steer her away from secure jobs and over to what he jokingly called “the dark side.” In Sam’s ideal world, they’d both have steady jobs with reliable incomes. In Zach’s, they’d both spend their time attempting creative entrepreneurial ventures in unproven, unreliable fields. Sam saw them as a journalist and a professional illustrator. Zach saw them as an indie author and a freewheeling artist. Maybe homeless.

  “I think you’re looking at the job the wrong way,” she said, suddenly inspired. “Don’t think of it as a trap. Think of it as a life-support system.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, if we just kind of wing it — here or anywhere else — money will be short. Not to bring you down, but that’s how it is. Wouldn’t it be easier to create and network and build if you didn’t have to worry about making sales of your own stuff because your actual income was safe? That way you could create at your own pace because it’d be a sideline — you’d have that life-support system to keep you alive in the meantime. Do you get me?”

  “I suppose. But that’s not different from freelancing, really.”

  “Of course it is. You’re already scrambling with your art. If you add an income source, it can be one where you have to scramble — like looking for freelance jobs — or it could be one that shows up each week that you don’t have to worry about.”

  “And that takes all my time.”

  “That’s the tradeoff. But you can work in the evenings and on weekends. What else are you going to do?”

  “Um, I don’t know. Hang out with my wife, maybe?”

  Sam took his hand. “Baby, we have all the time in the world. It wouldn’t be forever.”

  Zach shook his head. She could read him; he knew she was right but didn’t like it. “I really don’t want to go into an office.”

  “These are creative people! I’m sure it’d be fun.”

  “Eight hours a day of fun.”

  Sam shrugged. “Welcome to being a grown-up.”

  Zach cocked his head as if to say, That’s not fair. And she supposed it wasn’t, because it was a statement that turned anything he might make into the yammering of an immature child. But truth was truth, and as much as Sam wanted her man to follow his passions, room and board was never free.

  “Okay, Sam, I’ll find a graphic design job,” Zach said with a strange, sinister look.

  “Ooo-kay … ”

  “But you’ve got to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “Publish Relegated.”

  “Zach … ” she whined.

  Now who wasn’t playing fair?

  Zach sat back, throwing his hands up. “Hey, that’s the deal. You want me to be a whore, you’ve got to agree to do this one little non-whorish thing yourself. That book is just sitting on your hard drive. And it’s so good. So publish it. Put it out into the world.”

  “No way. It’s not ready.”

  He laughed. “When is it going to be ready?”

  “It needs another edit. I’ll get around to it eventually. Promise.”

  It was such bullshit. Sam’s novel had been kicking around inside her head since high school. She’d written it the summer before college, then rewritten it early her freshman year. At the time, the novel seemed very important. She’d come to Portland from New Hampshire for college and knew no one, so Sam supposed writing w
as her way of whistling in the dark during those lonely months, trying to calm herself by slipping into her fantasy world. By the time her rewrite and subsequent polish were finished, Sam had settled in at UP — she was involved in club volleyball, had joined a gym, and met scads of cool girls, plus a few guys (including some cute ones who were good for single, disposable dates). She was immersed in her classes, gatherings, and clubs on Friday and Saturday nights. The novel, finished, had stayed where it was until her artist love interest found out about the book’s existence from her, then read it and gushed.

  “No, you won’t,” he said. “You know why?”

  “Why, Sigmund?”

  “Because you’re afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid. It’s just not ready.”

  Zach shook his head. On this topic, he wouldn’t be swayed. This was the area where he was unquestionably the teacher and she the student. “I entered my first art competition at age 12. Do you know how old I was when I drew my first drawing for an art competition?”

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “I was 7. But even at 7, I was a perfectionist about my work. You think I’m laid back? Not about what I create. If I had to erase something, a piece was ruined because you could still see the mark, and the eraser marred the paper. I had no concept of artistic interpretation, so I thought a drawing was only valid if it looked as much like the thing it was supposed to be as possible. I never let myself go and be free. So, I had impossible standards for a kid — hell, for an adult — and just drew and drew and drew. But finally I got something I liked. It was a drawing of Optimus Prime, from Transformers. And it was perfect, baby. At least to my eye then. Everyone marveled at it. My mom, my dad, even my sister … who as you know is the world’s snarkiest bitch.

  “The local police department was sponsoring an art contest, but here’s the thing: It was anonymous. You submitted your piece and they randomized it somehow, gave it a number and tied that number to something else somewhere, so in the end, the winning piece could be matched with the artist. I’m not sure why they did it that way — something having to do with bias, I guess; it was supervised by this really pretentious artsy cock who always made a big deal about art being what it was and nothing more, whatever that meant — but they did, and so I got an idea. Or actually, my mom got an idea. She said I should submit my drawing in the 8-10-year-old category instead of the 6-8. But that scared the shit out of me. As perfect as I thought that drawing was, I suddenly found all sorts of things about it that needed to change. A line was wrong. It needed more shading. But my mom wouldn’t let me touch it, gave me the same basic speech I’m giving you now. It didn’t help, and I got more scared. I told her I didn’t want to submit it. She tried to fight me, but I was a kid and I cried. Eventually, she just gave up.