The Unbreakables

by Lisa Barr

  “Something wrong?” She regains ground, takes a step toward me. I recognize her perfume. That same Fragonard scent I had smoothed on the other night while I was in the bathroom.

  I hesitate because I’m not sure how to articulate how I feel. I clear my throat, point toward the chairs around the kitchen table. I sit down and she sits next to me, her bare leg pressing against my jeans. I pull away just enough to allow a slim ray of air between us and not be rude.

  “You’re lovely,” I say because it’s true and I can’t ignore the other night’s acrobatics. “But I’m not gay, not bisexual, not pansexual. The truth is . . .” What is the truth? Does it even matter?

  She grins, reaches for the pack of cigarettes lying at the center of the table. “I know. Our lifestyle is a bit radical.”

  “It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the other night—I did. It’s just that suddenly you remind me of my nineteen-year-old daughter, whom I miss terribly. And my life is a bit of a hot mess. And all of this just feels . . .” Icky, which I don’t say.

  She lights a cigarette, offers me one, and I take it even though I don’t smoke. This is a smoking conversation. “Funny, you didn’t complain the other night,” she says. “What changed?”

  Me. I changed. I keep changing by the nanosecond. I don’t know Lea well enough to even tell her that. I think about all my ambitious rules, which I had created that first night—the Unbreakables list. They’re unrealistic. Not even doable. I mean do I really want to hear Carly Simon right now belt out “Anticipation”? Do I really want to be the best version of myself, climb the highest mountain, ride a horse into the sunset? Do I really want to dine alone and pretend I’m bold and daring? Do I really want to be sexually free and easy and be surprised by life? Those rules for the new, improved Me are like Facebook—an alternate reality to the life I want to lead but that doesn’t really exist. Perhaps, I have to slow it all down and digest. Maybe that’s the problem. I’m skipping steps, leapfrogging the pain, and I can’t. I have to go through the grieving process to get to the other side like everybody else. I’m not an emotional Olympian. I can’t outrun grief and hurdle betrayal and then walk off with the I Did It medals if I don’t do the time.

  “You look like you could use a drink. Maybe two.” Lea gets up and heads toward her pantry and pulls out a bottle of red. I follow her to help with the glasses.

  We sit back down at the kitchen table. She pours, I talk. “I probably should explain . . . I’ve been through a huge personal trauma. My husband cheated on me and it has destroyed me. I came here to figure it all out. And on Day One I met you and Jean-Paul. So you could say that the night we spent together was more than radical for me—it was mind-blowing. My emotions keep shifting, and I just can’t keep up.”

  Lea nods, absorbing it all, and then it hits me. Perhaps I’m having postpartum depression Part II. Separating from Gabe has been so similar to what I felt after having given birth to Ava. The only way to describe it is a perpetual fall, a rock-bottom sense of hopelessness.

  Lea smokes and listens patiently. I keep talking, rambling. “I really don’t want my marriage to end. I liked my life. Was there passion? Now and then. Comfort, yes.” I sip my wine and she says nothing, so I keep going. “The night that I found out my husband was cheating was on my birthday. And the crazy part is that earlier that same night he wanted to fool around, but I pushed him away. I stood in my closet mirror like a porn star in heels and panties and pushed his hands off me because we were going to be late for our dinner. In the old days, when everything was still new, time never trumped fucking, right? I think that’s what Gabe wanted—what he was clearly starving for—no boundaries, no one saying, ‘Get off my boobs, we will be late for our dinner party.’ We became an Old Married Couple and no matter what you do, you simply can’t Benjamin Button that.”

  I take another cigarette, light it up. Lea probably has no idea what I’m even saying. “The thing is, I didn’t see him anymore. Gabe was no longer a man to me. He became a habit, like brushing my teeth. I have to take responsibility for that. He betrayed me in the worst way possible, but infidelity is a two-way street.”

  When I’m done with my Hamletesque soliloquy, Lea folds her arms, tilts her head with knitted brows as though she is Dr. Freud psychoanalyzing me. Infidelity is just another day at the office for her and Jean-Paul. It’s their way of life, but not mine. Tears sting my eyes. “I didn’t see it coming,” I whisper. “That’s the part that really gets me. I thought I was so in control, when really I was totally blind to what was going on around me.”

  “Or perhaps you wanted to be.”

  “There’s that.” I raise my glass.

  “And now?” She leans in closer, our legs touch again. “What do you see?”

  “Just flashes of truth, pop-up memories, and it hurts like hell.” I search her lovely, caring face. Her skin is like porcelain and lineless. I would kill for that dewy uninjected skin; so would about forty other women I know. Had I been following my Unbreakables list, going to bed with Lea again would surely be the best diversion from all of this. I sigh deeply. No matter how much I want to, I can’t separate sex from my emotional state. “Look, I really did enjoy the other night, don’t get me wrong. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it, but I just can’t . . . I guess I’m old-fashioned at heart.”

  Lea arches a brow, accompanied by a wry smile. “Jean-Paul told me everything. Not so old-fashioned.”

  I blush. It’s true. I did things with him in my hotel room last night that I had never done before. But it was just after that phone call with Gabe. It was angry sex. Revenge sex. Against-the-wall only-in-the-movies sex. On-the-balcony sex. Three back-to-back orgasms in one night—my record sex. But Jean-Paul is not mine. He was borrowed. “Jean-Paul is yours. And thank you for sharing him. But that too is not going to happen again.” I decide this as I’m saying it.

  “I don’t own him.” She snaps at me in a way that I’m not sure if it’s angry or French. “He makes his own decisions.” She takes another long drag off her cigarette. I watch it burn halfway up.

  “Jean-Paul doesn’t have to be anybody else’s, you know,” I say carefully. “He can be just yours.”

  Lea rolls her eyes. “Boring.”

  “You know that’s not true. He is far from boring. And you—”

  Her eyes become fiery. I just struck a nerve. “Look, Sophie, I respect your decisions. But please don’t try and make mine.” She points the cigarette between my eyes, a bright orange bull’s-eye. “Commitment brings pain and monogamy is bullshit, a waste. Life is short and brutally unpredictable. I accept what is, not what should be.”

  She definitely has a point. Commitment is a lie, but for that precious time when it is real and good and romantic, nothing beats it. Even with everything that happened, I wouldn’t trade my marriage with Gabe, especially the early years, for anything.

  We are quiet for a while. Lea sips her wine. I eye her curiously. There is clearly something else lurking there beneath the surface. It’s strange how much she reminds me of Ava: that fiercely independent streak, the way she carries herself, headstrong, proud, and defiant.

  Her face changes color slightly, a rosy bridge across her milky complexion. “I lost my mother at a young age. It was devastating. It changed me. I was forced to grow up too quickly. I learned what really matters, what doesn’t. All this pain you have—it’s just not worth it. Trust me. Let it go before it strangles you.”

  I reach over and place my hand on top of hers. “I’m deeply sorry for your loss, and I really appreciate that you are listening to all of this. On a different level, I lost my father. He abandoned me and my mother when I was five. He started a whole new family and I wasn’t part of his world. I didn’t matter to him. But even worse, I lost my mother then too. She was there physically but not present at all. I could never get close to her, no matter how hard I tried. She never recovered from him leaving her for another woman. I don’t want to be like that, Lea—like her. Bitter and alone.
And that terrifies me the most—what if I’m never able to let go of this pain?”

  She studies me for an uncomfortable minute or two, then stands. “Can I show you something?”

  “Of course.”

  She takes my hand and leads me across the room. She unlocks a door that opens to a small room the size of my walk-in closet at home. She enters, but I stop at the threshold and peer inside, blown away by what I see. Hundreds of enlarged black-and-white photographs of women’s faces cover the walls from floor to ceiling—even the ceiling. Not models, but real women: young, old, fat, thin, wise-looking, interesting, beautiful, and ugly-beautiful. Each face is soulful and expressive, each radiates a unique quality. Whatever this is, it’s magnificent. I slowly enter the room and all my senses are roused simultaneously. The faces are so alive. It’s as if I can actually hear the depth of their laughter, the shrill of their cries, even tears of joy—so much emotion is popping out of each photograph. “Who are they?” I murmur as I make a panoramic sweep of the room.

  Lea’s eyes light up. “This was Jean-Paul’s gift to me a few years ago. These women are strangers and yet they are now part of me. He is so talented. I tell him that all the time. I come in here whenever I feel lost, when I need to center myself. I have those days just like you, when it all hurts, when I doubt everything, and I miss my mother. But in here, my sanctuary, I have so many women surrounding me, to mother me, sister me, friend me—so that I’m never really alone.” She whirls around. “He did this for me out of love. This—not who we sleep with—is our version of commitment. It’s about what we give to each other, not what we take away.”

  I gaze with appreciation at this French no-nonsense Tinker Bell. Turning slightly, I reach out and graze the walls lightly with my fingertips. One particular photo stands out. It is of an old Italian-looking grandmother with glistening jet-black hair. There are so many lifelines carved into her face that the topography of her wrinkled skin looks like a road map. “This is spectacular and should be displayed in a gallery, not holed up and hidden away.”

  Lea shakes her head, juts her bottom lip defiantly. “This is my gallery. And yes—it’s an exhibit like no other. But some art is not for others, you know. Some art is meant just for you.”

  I get it. “Can we skip that exhibit in Nice and just hang here for a while?”

  She nods, smiles, then goes back into the other room, and returns several minutes later, standing in the doorway with paintbrushes in her hand. “We will stay but on one condition. Since we’ve established that we are not going to bed together, you are going to paint with me.”

  Bossy. I laugh, but shake my head no. “I’m not a painter.”

  “All I’ve heard tonight is everything you’re not.”

  She gestures for me to join her back in the main room. She hands me a paintbrush. “You told me the other night that you haven’t sculpted for years. So I researched you and saw old photos of your work. You’re very talented. Do you want to know what I really think?”

  By the look in her eyes, probably not.

  “I think you are afraid not of your husband’s betrayal but of yourself. Reclaiming your own power. You are terrified to bring your talent to the surface again. You say your husband abandoned you”—she points her brush at me—“but I think you abandoned you long before that.” Her gaze is faraway, but her potent words linger. “My mother used to tell me when I doubted myself that no one wants to be with a shell. Be the pearl, Sophie, and you will find you again.”

  WE CHANGE OUT OF OUR CLOTHES INTO SWEATS AND OVERSIZED T-SHIRTS THAT probably belong to Jean-Paul, and it all feels a bit like a teenage sleepover. Lea blasts out a young French singer who is covering Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart.”

  “First you paint me and then I will paint you,” she says firmly. “We each get an hour.”

  I shrug and don’t even try to argue. “Fine, whatever.”

  Lea’s hair is loose now, freed from the tight ponytail and draping around her face like heavy theater curtains. I paint her as I feel her. Not as a person or a figure, but as bold, fiery colors. My version of her is all purple, orange, and red. I don’t think, I just paint broad mercurial brushstrokes, swirls and slashes and dashes of strong, provocative color. As novice of a painter as I am, I’m really enjoying this.

  And then it’s her turn. I sit on the bed, legs curled to my chest, and pose for her. “Close your eyes,” she calls out. “Don’t be so uptight. Let it all go.”

  After her painting hour is up, I expect that we would examine each other’s work. But once again, I am wrong. Once again, Lea surprises me. She doesn’t even glance at my canvas. Instead, she takes me by the hand and leads me back into the Women’s Room. I follow Lea blindly, having no idea what her plan is, but knowing better than to question her modus operandi. She was definitely a general or a prison warden in her last life.

  “Stay here. I’ll be back.” She lightly kisses my cheek, then quickly shuts the door behind her and locks it before I can respond.

  I stare at the locked door and I’m immediately claustrophobic. Why did she lock me in here? What was I thinking? Maybe Lea is crazy. Maybe I’m crazier to have trusted her. Maybe she really is pissed off that I had three orgasms with Jean-Paul and I’m not evening up the score with her. I start to panic and bang on the door. “Damn it, Lea—let me out! Open the door now!”

  “Relax,” she says calmly from the other side. “I’m not going anywhere. This is for you. Trust me, okay.”

  Trust her? I don’t know her. I mean I know her, but not really. I lean against the door and eye all the women staring back at me. Before they welcomed me and now they are judging me. The bright-eyed blonde with a large mole near her lip, the pursed-lipped middle-aged woman with a perm and crooked teeth, the sexy redhead with light green eyes and long lashes with a perfect rosebud mouth. The serious-looking Asian woman with spiked hair and Harry Potter glasses. The beaming black woman with a huge afro and sparkling eyes. And the old Italian mama’s unwavering gaze has seemingly hardened. So many women—so many expressions that they all begin to merge in a haunting way. Get a hold of yourself. And then the tears begin to fall once again. I’ve cried more in the past few weeks than I have in my entire life.

  I cry for me and for all of them. None of us gets by on a free ride. I cry for a marriage that I thought would last forever, but fell apart right under my nose. I cry for Ava and our soon to be broken family. I cry for my mother, the one I had and the imaginary one I always wanted. Finally, I cry for Samantha and Lauren—mourning the loss of my two best friends. Despite everything, I really miss them. My gaze lands hard on the photograph of the redhead—she reminds me so much of Lauren. Instantly, I stop crying and then I freeze.

  Was it more than just a one-night stand? Was Lauren in love with Gabe all along? And him with her? My head begins to spin. There was that Nashville trip when that one-night stand apparently happened. But there was more . . . that weird moment during our trip to Italy when our group was together at dinner and I caught them looking at each other across the table in a way that wasn’t brotherly and sisterly—the way I am with Eric and Matt, the way Samantha is with Gabe and Matt. I thought I had imagined it, because when I looked again, it passed as though it never happened. But it did. I felt it inside my body and said nothing. Why? Was I too afraid to hear the truth? And that biking trip in Michigan, two years before Nashville, when Lauren hurt her ankle and she leaned up against Gabe, while he held the ice pack against her leg and then lightly massaged her foot. Where was Matt? Why didn’t I question that?

  Pressing my face right up to the redhead’s photo, I stare into her green eyes accusingly, demanding answers. And there were more looks, right? Before that . . . way, way before that. Senior prom, the second-to-last slow dance, the teen band was singing “With or Without You.” I followed Gabe’s straying gaze to the other side of the room, to where Lauren was standing. Lauren, with her long cascading russet hair, leaning against the gym’s back wall, laughing with
Tommy Winslow, her date that night. Laughing with Tommy but actually staring back at Gabe—that same long, lingering look. Her full breasts were bobbing from that low-cut blue dress that we got together at Marshall Field’s—mine was a similar version but in red.

  I can barely breathe. Was it Lauren all along? Did they stop themselves from each other because of me? And because of Matt, Gabe’s best friend and her husband? Was Gabe my One, and Lauren his? Did Samantha know this? Did Matt see things, feel them too? The women surrounding me now become my jury. Their silent voices culminate into a Greek chorus collective verdict: It was Lauren all along. The Ashley Madison moms, Holly the nurse, the hot bartender, the personal trainer, and me, and most likely more—we were all merely substitutes. Gabe was too loyal in his disloyalty, too dedicated to us and to our group of friends to ever reveal the truth about Lauren to me, or perhaps even to himself.

  I cry harder. Our marriage failure was not about comfort or lack of passion, but really about him carrying a torch for Lauren and hiding it. I cry until the tears thin out into drips, leaving in their wake a void so deep that Lea with all her might and infinite wisdom cannot save me. The truth is not brutal—it’s decapitating. It severs any hope, any thoughts of reconciliation or forgiveness. Perhaps I was never Gabe’s first—I was his second, the consolation prize. No wonder he couldn’t be faithful. I wasn’t the one he was cheating on.

  Minutes pass, hours perhaps. Time is irrelevant. The door finally unlocks and opens, and there she stands, hands on slim bossy hips, eyeing me impishly, holding something flashy at her side. It’s not a brush this time but a long, shiny knife.

  My mouth drops. “What now? Are you going to kill me? Is that how this all works—cry and die?”