by Zach Wyner
This fact may have crystallized the difference between you—not necessarily that June was a fighter and you were a capitulator, but that when it came to your life, you took the long-view, perhaps thinking of life after June and preferring to imagine it without PTSD and a severely impaired credit rating. Whatever her faults, June was invested in life’s every moment with every fiber of her myopic heart, and it was this quality, more so than her skills in the sack or her physical beauty, that so hopelessly attracted you. You marveled at her emotions, at how raw and volatile they were. You couldn’t believe how she fought you; you couldn’t believe how she fought for you.
Answers tend to lie in the past, and June’s past was no riddle. Her father died under suspicious circumstances when she was a toddler. For months June carried around his black patent leather shoes that she could see her reflection in, holding them up for her mother and brother and asking when Daddy was coming home. Things went from bad to worse when June was five years old and the man who had been repeatedly questioned in connection with her dad’s untimely death moved in with her mother. Young June sought vengeance. She hid his car keys, flushed his cigarettes down the toilet, and feigned nightmares so her mother would be forced to sleep in her bed.
You’d met the stepfather just once, shortly after you and June moved in together. It was the lone occasion on which you visited June’s mother’s house. You spent an hour in the kitchen with June’s mom while the stepdad watched the Lakers in the living room. He kept his distance and you didn’t have the chance to form much of an impression, but you fundamentally distrusted any man who requested that his wife bring him a beer while she was with company; June’s stepfather pulled off a hat trick, achieving this feat three times in a single hour. Meanwhile, June’s mother kept at least one cigarette burning and her hand rarely left the neck of a bottle of chilled white wine. She leaned against the kitchen counter, lowered her designer frames to the bridge of her nose, and propped a hand on her waist, gold bangles sliding down her forearm to her wrist. She looked you up and down, pointed the ruby red fingernail of her index finger at your face. In a heavy Filipino accent, she said, “He’s is handsomer than the last one. And tall.” Then she appraised her daughter. She touched June’s delicate chin, pinched her attenuated arm. “She still my most beautiful child, but too skinny. You make sure she eat?”
“She’s picky, but when she has what she wants…”
“Always picky,” agreed her mom, still scrutinizing her daughter. “Always so much work.”
For the rest of the visit, she lavished you with booze and compliments and congratulated her daughter on having found a nice young man who was willing to put up with her moods. You swilled enough Chardonnay to mitigate the discomfort caused by her passive aggressive compliments and impair your ability to operate a motor vehicle. During the ride home, you rolled down the passenger window, hoping to the fresh air might encourage June to breathe deeply and shake it off, but by the time she turned the car onto your street, she’d gnashed her fingernails down to bloody nubs. She parked the car but made no move to unbuckle her seatbelt. So the two of you sat for a while in silence. There was nothing you could say that would make it better. All you could do was resolve to make use of the memory, summon it as a shortcut to the well of patience and forgiveness that living with her required. You didn’t know if she’d taken you there with the hope that things might be different, or if she had done it to shame you, to make you feel guilty for having a supportive and loving family. In the end, you decided that the answer was neither. June opened a window into her life so she could close it permanently, so you would stop asking questions, so that, bound to her by the knowledge of the wrecked home from which she had fled, you would help create a home she could rely on, one you would never leave.
And yet leave you did. Following the eviction threat and a weeklong maelstrom of invectives hurled like pointed stones and dishes shattered like fragile egos, your cohabitation was officially euthanized. You’d lived together for a year, neglecting friendships, emptying savings accounts, and casting ignominious shadows over your resumes in the form of unexplainable absences from the work force. That you each privately blamed yourselves was of little consequence. In the arena of break-ups, preservation of self-worth reigned supreme. Yours was a relationship that had left each participant well armed with examples of the other’s treachery; neither of you were willing to grant the other any measure of mercy. So, like a pair of howling dogs trying to smother a siren’s wail, you exchanged insults ceaselessly, just as you had once uttered oaths of everlasting love.
*
After the triple-date with Bill and Amare had gone Hiroshima, you called June and received a full update. She’d fled her abusive interim boyfriend, but she had not gone to a hostel in Hollywood, and she had not turned tricks on Santa Monica Boulevard. In the three-day interval between her first call to you and your return phone call, she had taken up with another man, an older man, an older Italian man by the name of Dean who once-upon-a-peptic-ulcer had spirited her away from your apartment under the auspices of lunch, only to deposit her, four hours later, with five thousand dollars worth of designer clothing and promises of a business trip to Milan where he would make her the toast of the fashion industry. At the time June had assured you that the older, wealthier, dapperer Dean was gay, but you hadn’t bought that story for a second. LA was chock full of straight men who kept weekly appointments with their aestheticians for eyebrow plucks and moisturizing tips. And five thousand dollars told a very simple story. You told her that you couldn’t prevent her from going to Milan, but that if she did, you wouldn’t be waiting around for her when she returned. She chewed your ass out, said you were pathetic and insecure, that you’d never supported her the way she deserved to be supported, but her performance moved you about as much as a human-interest story on disenfranchised sex offenders. If this supposed benefactor really wanted to help her modeling career, he didn’t need to take her to Milan to do it. Now it seemed that old Dean had finally gotten what he wanted—a tough pill to swallow.
With your prospects of new romance having just gone up in smoke, you sat in your car and listened to June say that she was happy to hear from you, that she would love to see you as soon as possible, but that, owing to Dean’s generosity, she might not need your help after all. If this was a ploy, it worked. You abandoned Bill and Amare to their booze quest and drove straight to Dean’s West Hollywood home.
The adobe-style house was located on a quiet, moonlit block just south of Sunset Boulevard. Set far back from the street, a stone pathway bisected a desert garden filled with a variety of scrubs and cacti. A lone, stumpy palm tree, that didn’t quite reach the roof of the house, stood like a sentry outside the red front door. You were halfway up the path, head down, hands stuffed into your pockets like it was the dead of winter and not still eighty sultry degrees outside, when a hush fell over the voices in your head and your hollow footsteps echoed in your ears like the final weary beats of a diseased heart. You stared at the red door; behind it June’s laugh surfaced like a gasp from some deep oceanic trench in your brain. You froze. How long would it take to drown your feelings for her? Your attachment seemed to have no memory of the cold, dark, desolate waters under which it had been interred.
The front door opened on the older, dapperer, wealthier would-be rescuer. “You must be Josh.” A glass of red wine cupped in his right hand, he extended his left hand in a flaccid greeting. “So nice to finally meet you. You have any trouble finding us?”
You dropped his hand and shuddered with orgasmic enmity, his use of the word us infusing you with the sanctimony of a guilty man, exonerated by some other, more egregious offender.
“No,” you said. “I grew up here.”
“Of course. Yes. June told me that you moved back home to be an actor. How’s that going?”
Your mouth went dry. “Should I come inside?” you croaked.
“Of course!�
� Dean stepped aside and swept his hand through the air. “Come inside! By all means!”
The furniture was a modern collection of chrome and leather. The room’s acute angles and polished surfaces conveyed the kind of taste that required an investment of time and money. June sat on an armless, moss-green leather sofa with a haughty upward tilt to it reminiscent of its owner’s posture. Encased in tight blue jeans, her legs folded under her like a switchblade; she smoked a cigarette demurely, her head turned to the side so that her long dark brown hair served as a veil, hiding the black eye that had driven her into this vulture’s nest.
You hovered in the middle of the room, hesitant to sit. June faced you, full lips curving slightly upward toward those high cheekbones, but her gaze fell short of meeting yours. The swelling around her eye had gone down, leaving behind a purplish-yellow semi-circle on her olive skin. It hurt you to look, to see the violence to which you’d abandoned her. She never would have ended up with that asshole if you had been the dependable man that you’d advertised yourself to be. It was true that she’d tried to provoke you, to hurt you, to reduce you to a state of perpetual jealousy and prove that you’d never taken her seriously as a partner, but she had never not loved you.
“Hey,” you said. “I thought you wanted to see me.”
June emitted a single sarcastic laugh. The same laugh that she used to aim like a dart at the spot in your chest where she estimated your self-doubt dwelled. But where that laugh had once possessed all the contempt needed to drive you to the brink, it now sounded hollow and helpless, as if she couldn’t muster the strength to pretend anymore, as if she was too tired to communicate anything other than abject fear.
“You want me to go?” you said, pointing at the door. “I’ve had a long night. If you want me to go, I will.”
Your host froze behind you and, in his held breath, you sensed a man on the cusp of exactly what he desired.
“No.” She extinguished her cigarette. “Stay.”
Dean cleared his throat. “Would you like anything to drink? There might be some beer in the fridge from my last dinner party if you’d like to have a beer.”
“I’ll have what you’re having.”
“This is a Napa Valley Pinot Noir. Two-tousand-one.”
“You know what?” you said. “Never mind. Beer is fine.”
Dean winked. “Outstanding.”
You sat on the couch beside her. “Jesus,” you said. “This thing is more comfortable than it looks.”
“He paid like four thousand dollars for it.”
You leaned forward, rested your forearms on your thighs and clasped your hands. “You can come home with me,” you said. “My apartment is literally bursting at the seams, but we’ll make room.”
Her head sagged. A tear fell from her face and thwacked the soft green leather. “You don’t want that,” she said.
You sat up and touched her shoulder. “Of course I do.”
“Then why’d it take you three days to call me back?”
You took a breath as if to speak and then closed your mouth. You’d had no good reason for waiting. You didn’t try to fabricate one either. If you lied now, not only would she know that you were lying, she’d know you were willing to lie in order to absolve yourself of guilt. You might just as well wear a sign.
Dean peeked his head back into the living room. “I’m afraid there’s no beer after all.”
“All good, man. I don’t need a drink.”
“Nonsense.” He disappeared back into the kitchen. “We might have some whiskey…”
June rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I’ll come with you if that’s really what you want.”
You put your arms around her. She folded like an umbrella, long and thin and slight. “Of course I do,” you whispered. “Of course I want you to come with me.”
Dean reemerged and winced. You smiled, savoring his expression, and decided that you were going to take things one step further, punish the man, demonstrate your power.
“I’ll wait in the car,” you said. You looked at Dean. “Take as long as you need.”
Dean cleared his throat. “What’s this then?” He faced June.
“Dean,” she said. “Thanks for being such a good friend.”
You spied her bulging duffel bag behind the couch and retrieved it while Dean stood by like that stumpy palm tree outside his house—ornamental, useless, and rat-infested. You extended your fist for a bump. “You the man, Dean-o. Good looking out.”
Dean nodded, blind to your offering. You smacked his back, hard. “Take care.” Without looking back, you hefted her bag and walked out the door. Orpheus didn’t have shit on you.
You sat in your car, studying your reflection in the side mirror, enjoying a victory smoke, while the distant traffic sang a mellifluous melody. The thrill of cruelty surged through your veins, as you pictured a hopeless Dean losing an argument to a man who wasn’t even there. After a few minutes, June emerged. She closed the red door behind her, scanned the street, spotted your car, and crossed the stone pathway with her chin down. She slid into the passenger seat weightlessly, a mosquito landing on still water. The two of you sat in the heavy silence of an all-too-familiar world, your heart thumping in your chest. Your keys dangled from the ignition but you made no move to start the engine.
“You’re sure you’ve got everything?”
She looked away, out the passenger window. “You think you’re making a mistake. You want to be a good guy but you’re scared I’m going to wreck your life.” She turned toward you, her eyes huge and sparkling and scared. “I can’t live with your resentment. I’d rather go back inside with that slimeball.”
“I thought you liked that guy.”
“He wanted me to sleep with him.” She picked her nails. “Can you believe that? I just got the crap beaten out of me and he expects me to fuck him in exchange for a place to crash.”
“Motherfucker,” you said through clenched teeth. “I could go back in there.”
She smiled, flattered by your anger. “I slept on the couch. He didn’t try anything.”
“There’s no couch space at my place,” you said. “If you come back with me, we’ll be sleeping in the same bed.”
“Well duh. That’s part of the appeal, right?”
Your groin tingled. She leaned over and threw her arms around your shoulders. Her warm breath was on your neck.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for asking for this, for putting you in this position, for being such a bitch when you walked into Dean’s. This is all just so embarrassing.”
“No,” you said. “It’s okay. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We’ve survived tougher spots. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
*
June moved in and Amare and Bill stayed. It was clear that they felt guilty, but they truly had no other options. That first week, days started slowly. June slept late; she always had when times were toughest. And even with a hard-luck story like the one she carried around, being broke and living out of a suitcase at her already overpopulated ex-boyfriend’s junior one-bedroom apartment—with a black eye courtesy of her most recent failed relationship—qualified as dire. While she slumbered into the early afternoon hours, you and the boys walked the Valley streets. You had never really explored your neighborhood on foot before, at least not without the intention of arriving at a particular nearby destination; but you didn’t have to be at The Homework Club until three in the afternoon and the boys didn’t have to be anywhere ever, so, rather than stay home and watch wall-to-wall 9/11 anniversary disaster porn, you took advantage of the weather and did some reconnaissance. One day you discovered a used bookstore that you’d thought had gone out of business but had just relocated. Another time you happened upon a little theater you’d never heard of that was running a production of Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach M
emoirs. You recognized a couple of the older actors’ faces on the playbill—talented people who were once regulars on hit sitcoms, refugees of an industry rotten with six-pack abs and every “ism” under the sun.
Returning home, you were liable to find June, writing in her journal at the kitchen table. Bill and Amare would bring offerings—mini chocolate donuts and flavored coffee with cream and half a dozen sugars—to which June would respond with a deluge of “thank yous” and European-style cheek kissing that turned your stomach. The boys were newly adopted family.
You’d leave for work around two o’clock, hoping that Adrienne, who’d gone AWOL for a few days, would return with some scathing observation about a teacher that she loathed or a question about Burroughs or some such iconoclastic hero of subversive American youth. You’d come to depend on your talks—the way you needed to work to earn her respect, the way she nodded in approval when you made a salient argument that she had not yet considered. In her stead, you had a healthy dose of Sophie. Your fear that she might avoid the Homework Club had not come to pass. Instead she continued to flirt, to push boundaries with poorly constructed innuendo and ludicrous winks that insinuated your partnership in some kind of conspiracy.
At the end of your workdays, Bill, Amare, and June greeted you with bleary eyes, body odor, and a burgeoning degree of certainty that they and their destinies had converged, that as long as the adult world did not pursue them, they were not going to waste any energy pursuing it. Then, one unassuming Wednesday, the monotony was broken.
The day began slowly enough, with muted farts (there was a lady among you now) and muttered condolences: “You’re up already too? Ugh.” When the cupboards and refrigerator turned up nothing, you and the boys decided to head to Jack’s Grill—the burger stand that had been satiating their voracious appetites for several weeks—for what Bill referred to as “brunch.” You were introduced to the owner, Abdal, an Armenian with a thick accent, an egregious comb-over, and furry forearms. Abdal expressed his shock at having not seen this purported bachelor who lived around the corner.