Based Upon Availability

by Alix Strauss

  “Thanks,” you reply. “Your work is really…”

  “Disturbing?” he suggests, a hint of glee in his voice.

  “Unusual,” you correct. “They’re fascinatingly rich and raw.”

  “An accident you can’t look away from,” the rep interjects.

  You nod, listen to the sound of the room, of the passing cars outside, the way Gage breathes.

  “I’m a big fan of your father’s,” he says. “What’s he working on now?”

  The rep shoots him a look, as if to say, “You said you weren’t going to mention that.” But you are professional and answer the question kindly.

  “He’s in Paris, working on a retrospective of his early sculptures.”

  The two men nod.

  “Are there other pieces in your collection?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got eight more.”

  “It would be great if you would drop them off tomorrow, and perhaps leave them here over the weekend. I’d like a little time with them. See how much room the work might need.”

  “Of course,” the rep says, not waiting for his client’s response.

  Gage is smiling at you, his eyes like slits, his expression smug.

  “I’ll have them delivered later today,” the rep says. “Give me a call on Monday when you can.” He extends a hand, which you shake. The artist’s right hand appears within seconds, and you reach for that too, though the feel of his skin makes you queasy. You inconspicuously wipe your palm on your jeans as you walk them to the door.

  “Thanks again for coming,” you say, then lock the door as you watch them head toward the elevator.

  Hours later, in the privacy of your gallery, you lay your own photography over your newly buffed floor, while you ache to be related to someone. Think of the book Are You My Mother? as you peer into strangers’ faces. As a child you loved this story. Clutched it at night, hoping to find your real mother sitting beside you in the morning. You used to run up to people in the street to see if one was, indeed, your mother.

  When you look up at Gage’s mirror creation propped up against the wall, see yourself sitting on the floor. As much as you hate to showcase him, his work is exceptional.

  Crawl toward it.

  Your face is tired-looking, your body fat.

  Peel off your shirt and drop it next to you. Do the same with your bra, followed by your jeans. You have never been model thin. Nor have you ever wanted to be. But you are also single and if you had trouble meeting men when you were ten or twelve pounds lighter, think how much harder it will be now. Wonder if men still find you attractive. To gain some control and make yourself feel better, schedule an eyebrow waxing, a hair highlighting session and cut, a manicure, the works. On your new memo pad, compose a list of products you want to buy tomorrow at Sephora, the cosmetics emporium, a crack house for makeup junkies. You might not be able to lose the weight overnight, but you can sure as shit look good while doing it.

  Meet Olive for dinner at BLT Steak. You’re here first and feel small and childlike sitting alone in the mammoth leather booth. The restaurant is dark and loud. The bar is filled with men in stiff-collared shirts and ties that hang loosely around their necks. These are moneymaking men who work hard and play harder. The smell of butter and steak sauce is overwhelming. You spot Olive and wave. She looks magnificent. Radiant. Though you always thought her attractive, the weight loss has only made her more so. Her double chin is gone. In its place is an angularness you’ve never seen. Her skin is clear and blemish-free, color contacts make her eyes shine, her hair is silky, makeup flawless. You hated when people would whisper, “She’s got such an attractive face, if only she could lose the weight,” as if it weren’t enough that she had the pretty face. That she’s smart and funny, charming when she wants to be, clever and artistic. But now her pretty face is more beautiful, not to mention smaller. Less of her spills into your seat at the movie theater or on an airplane. You no longer need to sit in the banquette, she in the chair, because she couldn’t slide in and out like you could. Though you used to say you preferred this seat because of your bad back, you did it so she wouldn’t have to.

  “Okay, what’s wrong?” she asks, finally seated across from you. Her voice is eager. Concerned.

  Stare down at the menu, mumble, “Nothing. I’m fine.” Maybe you should go on antidepressants. Everyone else is.

  Her eyes and expression say she doesn’t believe you. “Trish, what is it?”

  Hear the history you share in her inflection. In the way she pronounces your name, the Tr accentuated, the ish drawn out just a hair, just enough to prove she knows you best. You want to tell her everything. Want to start from the beginning, explain how you spotted her first, eighteen years ago. You want to jump back and reclaim your late teens/early twenties. You want to blast Seal or U2 while you sit in a parking lot as Olive teaches you to drive in her candy-apple-red Toyota.

  Feel her slipping away, even at this moment. You are struggling, drowning in the desire to hold onto her, and to your friendship. Even to yourself. But you can’t say this because you don’t know how.

  Olive puts down her menu and extends her hand in your direction. Her brows furrow, and she leans forward. Look at her waiting palm. You know it’s soft and warm, like socks that have just emerged from a dryer. You want to reach toward her. Have her hold not just your hand, but all of you. Rest your head in her lap and have her stroke your hair while she insists things will be fine. You are about to meet her halfway when something sparkly catches your eye.

  Look from the diamond to her face.

  “We wanted to tell you together, but Ray had a meeting he couldn’t get out of.”

  Watch her eyes shift momentarily away from you, a habit she has when she’s lying.

  The ring is beautiful, like Olive, and even though it looks odd on her hand, it suits her.

  Last on your list of appointments today is a shrink. Your mother recommended him. She’d seen him a few years ago when she was stuck creatively and said he was a master at tapping into her subconscious.

  You sit in Dr. Marty Radkin’s office, the ubiquitous box of tissues to your left, the ubiquitous-looking man sitting in a just-as-ubiquitous brown leather chair four feet away from you as you sit in an exact replica. You want to tell him about your mother, about the real one you don’t know, about your best friend, about how fat you feel, about Ed. That you can’t let go of the fact he’s not here to love you anymore. That you absolutely hate every single moment of your life.

  Marty is handsome and alluring, and there’s something magnetic about him. His office smells of pipe and the room is filled with books and art and you wonder if he’s married. If the way he’s looking at you is normal for a shrink. Because to you, he seems to be flirting. And though you can’t explain it, something makes you smile. And you stop crying and study the man sitting across from you.

  He leans forward, reaches for your hand, which you let him hold. His is solid and warm. His eyes sympathetic. And in his voice, which is low and steady, he tells you everything will be fine. For a moment, you believe him, because you need to believe in something. And he feels like all you have right now.

  You and Olive are speeding up Madison Avenue, late for Carol’s—another close friend from college—baby shower. Olive’s perfume wafts over in your direction thanks to her open window, sending instant comfort, cocooning you in familiarity. You smile at her, drunk on memory, and pull on the sleeve of her jacket. You want to mumble softly, Dump Ray. Dump Ray. A subliminal mantra. A deep wish.

  “You’re still coming by after the party, right?” You ask her.

  Olive’s cell phone is open, her hand already dialing as she nods her head yes, then turns her attention to her call. “It’s me. No, we’re running late,” she tells Ray. She pauses, and you can hear his muffled voice coming through the phone. “I was thinking about going back to the gallery with her. I haven’t seen it yet…” Olive trails off as Ray talks over her. “Oh, what time? I didn’t know you alrea
dy bought them.”

  Roll your eyes, stare out the window.

  “Okay,” she adds. “Why don’t you pick me up from Carol’s at five p.m.”

  More silence on her end.

  “Love you too. Bye.” She snaps her cell closed. “He got us tickets to a concert. I didn’t know it was for tonight.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll see the gallery another time. We’ll have lunch, make a day of it.”

  “Sure.”

  You and Olive talked about opening this gallery together years ago. You devised business plans, created a list of artists you wanted to represent. You saw yourselves traveling to exhibits and art expos to find fresh faces, budding talent. You were going to swill expensive wine at cocktail receptions, meet with other gallery reps, go out every night until buzz was generated about the new hot duo who had an incredible eye for talent. But now it’s just you. Just you and your gallery.

  Arrive at Carol’s mother’s apartment. Though it’s lovely, classy, and spacious, it could be an array of people’s homes, and this could be any event: a wedding, a good-bye party, a bridal gala with lots of people and food and happiness—they all seem to bleed together. But this one is coed. Good-looking men in suits are mingling with other good-looking women in designer outfits. Everyone looks alike. You joyfully kiss old chums hello, shake hands with their significant others, comment on how well everyone looks, how excited you are to own a gallery when everyone else seems to have moved up the corporate ladder.

  You and Olive take the customary lap, searching for Carol, who you find by the dining table, plate in one hand, sparkling cider in the other. Her face brightens when she sees you. She hugs you first, awkwardly, because of her large belly, which lightly presses up against you. How can your friend have a child? You used to get drunk with her. Crashed fraternity parties. Crawled out of your second-floor freshmen dorm to buy pot and wait for the cookie guy at the front of the building. She can’t be someone’s mother. You can’t be thirty-five. When you look in the mirror, on a good day, you still see a twenty-three-year-old. An age when it was okay to be single. Okay to not have the best job in the world.

  Lunch is an odd mix of high-calorie food—meatloaf and lasagna—and girly, dainty salads—chicken and tuna. Pick at your food, move it around with your fork, look like you’re having a good time.

  When several desserts make a much-anticipated appearance, circle the table like a hungry hawk. The caterer has done a magnificent job of making you salivate. You have been disciplined for the past thirty days, depriving yourself of your favorite treats and sweets and still there’s been no real weight loss. Walk away only to return a moment or two later. Have you no willpower? Watch other people inhale the chocolate pecan pie, party-pink petits fours, the lemon mousse tart, the cheesecake brownies while taking pleasure as you sip coffee with skim milk. You are strong. You are better.

  Enter the kitchen and offer to help. This will give you something to do, keep your thoughts focused, your hands busy. Carol’s mother looks at you, comments how wonderful and odd it is to have her baby have a baby. See her glance at your hand, searching for something sparkly on your appropriate finger. Hate how empty your hand feels without the engagement ring. How empty you feel without Ed.

  Long for him now. For his body and the space he used to take up in your bed. For the softness of his sleep shirts. The way his hand fit in yours. When he got travel assignments from magazines to cover new hotels and resorts, and was allowed to bring a guest, he would hold your hand during takeoff, without your having to reach for his first. You have visited the Grand Canyon on donkey, parachuted over volcanoes in Hawaii, tasted wine in South Beach. He proposed to you in Charleston while you were taking a tour of historic homes of the nineteenth century.

  Every now and then you get a letter or magazine addressed to Ed, which you promptly rip into tiny pieces. On several occasions you’ve come across random checks, back money owed for articles that finally got published. You signed his name and cashed them. You sold your engagement ring on eBay to pay for Olive’s event at the Four Seasons and several months’ rent at the gallery. Realize you’ve not been on a plane since he left you seven months ago. Realize the date of your opening night party, which is in sixty days, is on the same day that you would have said “I do.”

  Wonder what he’s doing right now. You heard he was seeing someone. What could she offer him that you couldn’t? Decide you will diet and clean up your act, and prove to yourself this was not your fault. Ed is the one with the problems.

  Carol’s mother has been talking to you but you have no idea what she’s said. So you nod and smile and tell her how terrific her daughter looks. That she’s carrying well. The mother agrees, then carts a tray of clean coffee cups and a plate of fancy sweets out to the dining area. She’s left you alone with an open box of cookies that catch your eyes, leftovers from the tray that just went out to the table. Lean in to smell, only to smell. Smelling doesn’t count and doesn’t contain calories. Touch one, just to prove to yourself that it’s loaded with fat. There, see, it is. They even glisten in the light, and as you get closer, observe that the box has several grease stains on the cardboard.

  The next thing you know, one is in your mouth. It’s only a cookie and you are celebrating a happy occasion even if you, yourself, are not happy. Finish the cookie, walk away, and join the others. Look for Olive.

  As you refill your coffee cup, Carol asks if you’ve tried the pecan pie. She knows it’s one of your favorites.

  “We thought of you when we ordered this.” She cuts you a slice while holding an outstretched fork. Comply because a slice of pie is different than a piece of cookie and nuts are healthy and you feel it would be rude to turn her down.

  One cookie, one slice. Done. But somehow you are drawn back to the box of cookies in the kitchen where no one is because they are toasting Carol and you are missing it because you have a date with a box of pastries.

  The kitchen is warm and quiet. No one is here to ask what you’re doing with your life, if you’re dating anyone, give their opinion on Ed, or tell you how great Olive looks.

  Eat a cookie.

  Then another.

  And another.

  You barely taste them in your mouth, hardly enjoy the crunch or texture or sweetness. Feel the scraping as it descends in your throat, pieces of unchewed pastry forced hurriedly down your esophagus. And then there’s only one left in the box. You can’t leave it alone because you need to throw out the box, remove the evidence. You’ve eaten nine or ten of them, one for each pound you’re to lose and what’s one more when you’ve eaten enough for four people. Toss the box in the garbage, not on top, but underneath the other trash just like you’ve seen Olive do with Ben & Jerry’s, Pepperidge Farm, and Kathleen’s cookies.

  Hate yourself.

  Drink water.

  Wish you were dead.

  In twenty minutes a pain in your stomach starts. You’ve been betting it would and are not surprised when the dull ache begins. Ten minutes later it’s more like a throbbing, and though you’re standing in a pretty mocha-colored bathroom staring into Carol’s mom’s medicine cabinet, the box of chewable Pepto-Bismol in your hand, refuse to take them. This is your punishment.

  Remember how, as a child, you would shadow your mother’s friends. Follow them around their homes, hoping to melt into the furniture, into the very fabric of their lives. You used to go into their libraries to see if they kept your mother’s books on their shelves or their nightstands. You’d look on the walls for your father’s paintings or the corners for his statues, each purposely placed in their dens or studies. Decide to do that now.

  Proceed into the family room, which is “off-limits” to the party, and see if your mother’s books are here. You know they are, they’re always here. It’s just a matter of where. The room is still and smells of cedar. Eye the spines that stand upright, look for the signature green. Spot it and remove it from its place. Love, Loss, Lust, your mother’s first
book. Open to the dedication page: “To the mavericks, leaders, and forward thinkers: Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Erica Jong. Women who changed the world.”

  My Temporary Life is here, too. This one is dedicated to her parents, grandparents you barely got to know, who died two years apart when you were four and six. The third book in the trilogy, Sit with Me, is also part of Carol’s collection. “For my brilliant husband who creates more than art.” This was written while you were in high school. The famous book everyone raves about, Drowning in Ambiguity, the book you read in college, is dedicated to no one. Your mother was going through her “angry” stage, and supposedly didn’t want to acknowledge a soul. Read several pages. Like the photos you took, strain to find your mother in the thick, coarse paper. In the black ink look for a secret message to you that she would have sneaked in, a code that says, I love you no matter whose genes you have. No matter who you look like. You were chosen, not given up. No book has been written for you, yet. Hope the one she’s working on now will be yours. This would almost make up for her absence in your life.

  Your eyes are heavy and your stomach hurts. You are no longer drunk on sugar, instead you are crashing. Coming down hard from your cookie rush. Sit on the leather couch, unbutton your tight pants, lean back on a pillow, your mother’s book in your hand, a blanket draped over you, and close your eyes. Just for a minute.

  Wake unsure of the time. Fuck, how long have you been asleep? Fix yourself, return the books, fold the blanket, and rush back to the party.

  When you re-enter the living room, Carol is opening the last of the gifts, a hat made of brightly colored ribbon is perched on her head. See Olive on the couch laughing and flirting with one of Carol’s male cousins. Suddenly long to be stoned and tipsy, like the late nights you pulled in college, and rest your head on her shoulder. Realize it’s been an eternity since someone took care of you. Scraped you off the floor and held you while you sobbed uncontrollably like they do in the movies when the main character is having a cathartic breakdown, or breakthrough, like Good Will Hunting or The Prince of Tides.