My blood runs cold. Hot. No.
He gets into his jalopy and turns on one of his own unknown songs and I let go of my knife. Love you too means that you said I love you. I turn on my car, I blast my Prince, but “When You Were Mine” can’t silence the shark inside my shark.
You love him. You do.
It’s a miserable drive home—A crate in a barrel, a barrel in a gun—and I shove Rachael into the glove compartment. This is worse than RIP Beck and RIP Benji. They didn’t have a child and twenty fucking years together. I have to be smart about this. Yeah, I want Phil gone. But the real problem is you, Mary Kay. In your own stunted adolescent, nurturing, self-destructive, misguided maternal, codependent way… you really do love your husband. I can run him off the road, but that would be dangerous. It might even make things worse. I need help—Hey Siri, how do you kill love?—but who am I kidding? She doesn’t know. No one knows. I have to figure it out myself, alone, while you’re in Phoenix carving turkeys and reinforcing your dysfunctional family bonds.
I drive to Taco Bell. I can have anything I want, but all I want is you, so I get one of everything.
Happy Early Fucking Thanksgiving to me.
10
It’s the most… horrible time… of the year—mid-fucking-December—and we’re in a rut. As it turns out, you’re not just beholden to your husband. You’re also responsible for your dad. You were only supposed to be in Phoenix for a week, but the day after Thanksgiving, your father fell down the stairs. The Mothball Howie Okin knows more about your father’s health than I do—we have to fix that—and Howie informed me that your dad has an osteochondral lesion, which is Howie-speak for a hole in his bone. Being the good daughter that you are, you put your rat and your Meerkat on a plane and you stayed with your dad to help him move into a new house and I don’t begrudge you for helping the old man. I’m not a what about me asshole, but your dad isn’t the only one in pain. I have a cardiochondral lesion, Mary Kay. You don’t call. You barely text. Time drags and time flies—November already turned into December—and I walk outside to get the paper and fecal-eyed Nancy is hammering a wreath onto her front door. She doesn’t wave and I don’t wave and WHEN THE FUCK ARE YOU COMING HOME, MARY KAY?
I have been so good. I didn’t kill Phil. I’ve “processed” my feelings about your secret life. I’ve given you “space.” And on the rare occasion that you do text me, I don’t harp on you about your return. I asked you exactly once and your response was infuriating. Soonish, I guess, I think.
Soonish (adj) FUCKING BULLSHIT, MARY KAY
But I’m just as bad at long-distance relationships. I look at the text I sent you last night.
Me: How ya doin’?
I couldn’t have done any worse and I know it. You are not ya and it’s a dorky, broad question, the kind of whining you don’t need right now and I pour Rice Chex into a bowl. I try to read the paper but I don’t want any more bad fucking news. I go to Love’s Instagram—I am acing Holiday Induced Self Destruction 101—and I watch my son whip his arm with another early “prezzie,” a plastic fucking sword and this is no good either so I get up. I put on your favorite black cashmere sweater and the sweater and I go outside and get into my ice-cold car. Nancy’s husband is in his car, too, warming up the Land Rover for his wife, per usual. I half-wave at him and he pretends he doesn’t see me—Happy Christmas to you too, asshole—and Nancy swans out of their house. She’s on the phone—Yes, Mom, but we need a fuller tree for our e-card photo—and I feel like the human equivalent of a fucking e-card, destined for an e–trash bin. Nancy gets into her nice warm car and she loves her husband and he loves her (maybe) and he’s a tool. She’s a tool. But they have each other and you won’t even tell me how you’re doin’.
I hit the road and lower the volume on “Holly Jolly Christmas” because you haven’t called me once since you’ve been gone. (So much for Friends.) I bet you call your rat husband and my phone buzzes—did you read my mind?—but no. You didn’t. It’s just Shortus. He wants to grab a beer again—CrossBores are not impervious to the holiday blues—and I won’t waste another night with him. He doesn’t know shit about you—he’s not your Friend either—and all he really wants to do is bitch about all the presents he has to buy for his girls in the shop.
Halfway to the library, I slow down—I am in no rush for my daily disappointment—and I check your Instagram—nothing—and I proceed to my happy place, which is, oddly enough, your husband’s fucking Twitter account. His tweets give me hope. Patience. They got me through the first week of your exodus because he spent his time with you whining about… being with you.
Hey @SeaTacAirport if I go postal it’s on you with the xmas tunes. Peace#
Thanksgiving is the opposite of rock n roll. Peace#
Hey Phoenix. Smoking is legal. Deal with it. Peace#
My sponsor chose the wrong day to lose his cell phone. InLaws# SendHelp#
The wife let me out of my cage. Check me out at @copperblusPHX if you want to hear some REAL music. I’ll sign your tits AND your T-shirts JK just the shirts, ladies. Whipped# Peace#
Phil is a sad sack and I have to stay positive, Mary Kay. You were probably happy about the hole in your dad’s bone because it meant that you got a break from Phil. He’s so transparent. Yeah, he boasted about his show, but the show must have been a total bust because he didn’t post a single picture with a single fan, let alone a woman with tits. Even better, your rat appeared in exactly zero of your staged family photos with the Meerkat… but that’s nothing new. The rat never appears in your photos, presumably because he has some rule about tarnishing his image, because he wants people to picture young Phil. (Say what you will about drugs, but the lifestyle agreed with him and I get why he’s been TBT1997# ever since he and the Meerkat got back from Phoenix. The man was at his best when he was high as fuck and skinny as a rail and he’s no George Clooney, Mary Kay. He doesn’t get better with age.)
Someone behind me beeps and I wave—sorry!—and “My Sweet Lord” comes on the radio as I pull into the parking lot and Hallefuckinglujah. You’re here. I wore your favorite sweater—yes!—and I want out of this car and into your orbit so badly that I trip on black ice. Breathe, Joe, breathe. I don’t want to die, not now, before we’ve christened the Red Bed—ho ho ho—so I take big, cautious steps and I enter the library and you are tan and your cheeks are fuller than they were a month ago and I like you like this. Nourished. Bronzed. Here.
I wave at you. Totally normal. “Welcome back!”
You raise a hand. Robot stiff. As if I never touched your Lemonhead. “Hi, Joe. Hope you had a good holiday. Dolly’s in History and we’re pretty backed up.”
That’s it? That’s all I get?
Yes. Yes, it is. You’re already hiding in your computer and I follow your orders and plod to History and I’m worried about you, Mary Kay. Did your rat catch you gazing longingly at the Bruce Springsteen lyrics I posted, the ones you liked at 2:14 A.M. Phoenix time? I know you can’t hug me but it’s me. It’s you. Don’t you want to know how I’m doin’?
The day is flying by and soonish, it’s time for lunch, but you eat alone in your office with Whitney and Eddie. I should be in there with you, catching up, reminding you of what it’s like to be with me, but I can’t push. I have to remember that you’ve had no privacy for several weeks. You were drowning in dirty dishes and Nomi’s anxiety about her college applications—her first pick is NYU, thanks, Instagram!—and then you were the dutiful daughter. This isn’t about me. Right now, you’re making up for lost solitude.
I take my lunch break in the garden because it’s cold but it’s not New York City cold and finally, here you are, rubbing your shoulders. No jacket.
“Aren’t you freezing?”
I swallow the beef in my mouth. “Nah,” I say. “Hey, how was your trip? How’s your dad?”
Now would be a good time for you to tell me about the other dad in your life but you don’t. “My dad’s much better, thank you, so that’s
a relief… And at least we had a nice Thanksgiving before he fell…” Your holiday was not nice, Mary Kay. You and the Meerkat looked like marionettes with guns behind your backs in your family photos. “Anyway,” you say, as if I’m just another Mothball. “How about you? Did you have a good holiday?”
The worst part about holidays is the way people talk about them when they’re over and you know what I did on Thanksgiving. You saw my pictures. You liked them. I follow you and you follow me and the rules of Genesis are like the rules of jinx. I am allowed to call you out. “Well, as you saw, it was mostly me and some books, which is to say it was perfect.”
You look down at your lap. “I told my dad about you.”
I put down my fork. You love me, more than you did a month ago. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah… I don’t think I ever spent that much time alone with him. I kept thinking that you two would really get along…”
You missed me and I smile. “I’m just glad he’s okay. I read about osteochondral lesions. They sound tough.”
I am such a good fucking guy! I don’t make it about me and you’re talking lesions and moving trucks and I’m here for all of it and then you touch your hair. You want to make it about me. “You really would like my dad, Joe. He’s old school, obsessive about his books, all of his Tom Clancys lined up in alphabetical order. He airs them out and wipes them down them once a week. All these years, I never knew that about him. I thought you’d get a kick out of it.”
I feel for you, Mary Kay. I thought I suffered. But you were forced to be inside of your marriage for a solid week. You played nurse. You dealt with a move and how did you get through it? You daydreamed about me. You stored up anecdotes for me and now you feed them to me and I’m happy that you didn’t tell me how you’re doin’ in a stupid text. Sometimes you love someone so much that you can’t bear a taste or a text because only this kind of moment will do. Shared air. Stillness on a love seat. Your silence is heavy with what you don’t say, that you want me to be with you the next time you fly away. I love that you love me. I love that you came out into the cold to see me and we do belong together, but not like this. Married. Buried.
I close the lid on my box of beef and broccoli. “Hey,” I say. “Do you mind if I cut out early?”
It’s fun to watch you fight the devastation in your body. “Big plans tonight?”
I remember Phil’s first tweet today: Xmas lights. Why? No. Aren’t we over this? IsItJanuaryYet# Peace#
“Well, I special-ordered Christmas lights last month…” It’s not a lie. It’s a pre-truth. “It’s kind of embarrassing but I love to string lights.”
I am the anti-Phil and I am your light. “That’s so great.”
“Lights are a more-is-more situation, you know?”
You squeeze your paper cup. I know it’s hard, being with the wrong person when the right person is right here.
I make a pit stop at Cooley Hardware to pick up lights and luck is on my side—No Seamus!—and I get home and there’s a box on my front porch. My serotonin surges and Jeff Bezos is a rich man because he knows how much we all just love to get a present, even if it’s a present we bought for ourselves.
I hang my lights—take that, Phil—and I go inside, down to my Whisper Room. I open my present to myself, but it’s really a present for you: Basic Text, 6th edition. Author: Narcotics Anonymous.
I’m reading Phil’s bible for the same reason that you dipped your toes in the Cedar Cove series after we first spoke on the phone. You wanted to know what I’m all about. You wanted to speak my language. I don’t need a fucking self-help book, Mary Kay, but I will do whatever it takes to help you to follow your fucking heart and end your dead marriage. It’s the giving season and tonight, I bequeath my time to you, to us.
* * *
I want to write to Dr. Nicky and tell him to read the Basic Text because it made me realize what we had in common way back when: addiction to toxic women.
I was up all night and my eyes are bloodshot and puffy—perfect—and I choose an old sweater. Lucky for me, your husband likes to tweet about his NA meetings so I’m here, in the parking lot of Grange Hall. I will meet your husband and pretend to be a fellow addict slash Sacriphil super fan boy. My plan is simple in theory—befriend him, needle him about his failure to produce another “Shark,” make him become the worst possible version of himself and undo everything he learned from his “bible.” When I’m in Phil’s head, when he’s in peak monster woulda-coulda-shoulda-been-and-still-could-if-not-for-the-damn-family mode, well, you’ll have no choice but to end your sham marriage. If I do a good job, you’ll watch Phil come to terms with the fact that he’s not a fucking husband and he’s not a fucking father.
He’s a fucking rock star, man.
And you’ll feel justified in leaving him. But if I fuck up…
I light another Marlboro Red and I’m pacing the way addicts do before they go to a first meeting. This is risky. You could find out what I’m up to, but you started this, Mary Kay. You didn’t tell me about him and the best Christmas gifts never come easy. If and when the three of us are in the same room, I’ll tell you the truth, that I went to a meeting for the same reason a lot of people who aren’t addicts go to these meetings: It was the holidays. I was lonely.
Right now, I have to focus on the mission, like a dad driving all over the city to find that stupid fucking Cabbage Patch Kid. I hear Sacriphil music in the distance and it’s him. He’s in his jalopy and he’s pulling into the parking lot, rocking out to his own song. I breathe. I can do this. Christmas is about miracles and transformation—Hi, I’m Jay and I’m addicted to heroin—and Phil gets out of his jalopy and I run through Jay’s story: I hurt my back in a car accident, got Oxy, got hooked on Oxy, tried heroin cuz it was cheaper and yesterday… well, I won’t tell my story today—this is one of those less is more situations—but a good actor prepares and the Basic Text has good advice for all of us: Find new playgrounds. Find new playthings.
Here comes my plaything now, still a little porky and sunburnt from his time in Phoenix. I freeze up like a starfucker and stare at him as I try not to stare at him. That’s Phil DiMarco! Look at him open the door! Stars: They’re just as fucked up as us! He disappears into the building and I cough all that crap out of my lungs and pat down my mothy sweater. This is it. I’m going in.
My new playground is smaller than I expected: There are two rich ladies—one likes Kahlúa, one likes Percocets—a couple of court-ordered resentful old rich people, and a trio of court-ordered teens. A friendly thirtysomething woman picks up a glazed donut. “Hey,” she says. “You ever go to this meeting before?”
“No,” I say. “You?”
She smirks. She wears two diamond engagement rings—Jesus—and she nods at your husband who is on the other side of the room, just as bombastic in person as he is on his infomercial. He points at his freshly shaven face, laughing at his own terrible joke. “Ya get it, man? I shaved the beard and now it’s growing on me!”
“Fair warning,” says the woman with two diamonds. “Some people in this group like to talk. A lot. But hey, at least it’s not boring.”
Soon we’re taking our seats and the rat is so close and the spirit of Christmas is alive in me—it is the most wonderful time of the year—and I introduce myself—my voice is shaky but that’s normal—and nobody pushes me to spill my guts.
Good.
Mrs. Kahlúa talks about how much she loves Kahlúa, how hard it is to go to holiday parties, and Princess Percocets gripes about her self-righteous daughter, and finally, your rat raises his hand. “Can I butt in?”
He rubs the back of his grimy head and takes a long, ten-months-pregnant kind of pause and I try not to picture you on top of him, grabbing his hair until he finally cuts into all that overblown, selfish silence he imposed on us. “So the wife finally got back from Thanksgiving. Felt like she was gone forever.” No shit, Shercock, but this is pretty exciting. I get to hear Phil’s side of the story, a side e
ven you don’t get to see. “But it’s like we’re right back to fighting the way we were in Phoenix. It was rough. Thing One was in a mood, man.” I know we can’t name names but seriously, Phil? Thing One. “Me and Thing Two… we couldn’t do right by her…” Thing Two is Nomi but Nomi is not a thing. “Thing One was all over Thing Two about some book she’s reading…” Oh come on, Phil, the book is Columbine. “And she was all over me about my cigs.” Cigs. “I’m not gonna say that cigarettes are good for you, but you know what else isn’t good for you? Being nagged.”
I start to clap and stop. Starstruck. Fan boy. Phil winks. Thanks, man.
“Thing One’s got daddy issues but lately it’s outta control…” I’ve made you think about things, Mary Kay. I’ve made you grow. “The whole damn week, she’s on me to participate in the family. I try to ‘participate,’ man, I do. A local bar invites me to play…”
Bullshit. He tweeted that bar and four other bars. He invited himself.
“I score us a table and they’re cool with my kid and Thing One flies off the handle. We don’t want to go to a bar! My dad can barely walk right now! Thing Two is seventeen! Man, I know I’m not supposed to say it…” Say it, Phil. Say it! “But Thing One… she botched the turkey, she can’t stay off Instagram and for someone who loves to read so much… well she ain’t reading lately…”
You love me too much to concentrate and soon, we’ll be on my sofa reading together.
“And Thing Two is seventeen going on twelve. She needs to grow up… All she does is ride her bike around on her own in la-la land…” Phil shakes his head. “We used to be a dynasty… I was her king. She was my queen. We were heroes…” Another pregnant pause and the woman with two rings bites her lip. She’s not alone. Your poor husband is a recurring joke, Mary Kay. “I didn’t cave,” he says. “But the thing is… yes, I fucking did cave, man. I didn’t get to play for a whole week.” Lie. “I know I’ve said it before…” Say it again. Please. “But man, is this it? Is this my life?” He shakes it off. “Never mind,” he says. “You’d have to be in my shoes to… Never mind.”
You Love Me Page 9