You Love Me

by Caroline Kepnes

  I don’t like the question and I might be getting a contact high. Paranoid. I steer us back to the safe water, after-school-special seas. “Nomi, your parents aren’t annoying. All parents are annoying. That’s biological design. Otherwise no one would ever want to leave the nest.”

  She takes off her glasses and wipes them with a napkin. “I can’t wait to get out of here. My parents… they act like everything since high school blows, like they’d get in a time machine if they could. It’s so sad. I mean life is all about what’s next, you know?”

  I wish you were more like your daughter, Mary Kay, but it can’t be me and Nomi talking shit about you, so I defend you and your low-grade nostalgic depressive fever. I remind Nomi that we grew up in a different time, before cell phones and Instagram. “Your mom’s not living in the past, people our age just miss the way things used to be.”

  She huffs. “Well excuuuuuse me.”

  “No, Nomi, I’m not saying we were better than you. I’m just saying we were better off.”

  “Totally disagree.”

  I want your fucking Meerkat to listen and I snap my fingers. “Think of a meerkat.”

  “Okay…”

  “A meerkat in the wild is just living her meerkat life. But a meerkat in a cage, well she needs people to feed her. She tries to do meerkat things but she doesn’t have the space. And let’s face it. She wants people to look at her because she learns that’s the only way she gets to eat.”

  Your Meerkat gives me a huh—she’s thinking about my metaphorical meerkat—but maybe not, because now she’s staring at me again. Alanis eyes. Piercing. “You want to know something sick?”

  No. This is one step too far and I steal your words—“I should probably get going…”—but she leans in like the little meerkat that she is. “My mom is so paranoid about my dad that she put cameras all over the house.” All my blood stops midflow. She knows. She knows. Do you know? “So yeah, I think she kind of likes capturing the moment.”

  I put my hand on The Listener and I will McCammon’s strength to funnel into my veins. I will not turn red. I will not cave in to paranoia. “Wow. How do you know?”

  She rocks back and forth in her chair. “Well I don’t know. It’s just a vibe.”

  Thank Christ, and I pick up her bong. “The rumors are true, Nomi. This really can make you paranoid. Once I got so high that I thought there was an earthquake in New York. I called 911.”

  She’s a Listener and she’s backtracking, doubting herself. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. And my mom is so bad at technology, she wouldn’t know how to work cameras.”

  We’re in the clear—I think—and I take a deep time-to-go breath but she pulls her knees to her chest and keeps talking. “You know my parents started going out in high school? Can you imagine?”

  I can’t leave, not when she goes there. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Everyone thinks it’s so romantic. They have this Nirvana ticket stub framed and she swears she remembers the night and I’m like do you even? Or do you just stare at that ticket stub so much that you think you remember it? She acts like her life is so good, like that’s how it works, like posting the ticket stub every year isn’t pathetic. She’s like ‘Do you have a crush on anyone at school?’ and it’s like ‘No, Mom. Boys my age are stupid. Do you think that means I’m gonna die alone?’ But then I’m like, whatever… I don’t like the guys and they don’t like me. I mean Dylan Klebold was like… bad…”

  “Yes.”

  “But it was kinda like mistaken identity…”

  No. And I hate drugs. I do. “Okay, Nomi, but—”

  “See if I had been that girl, that girl he was in love with, I mean I would have gone up to him and like… who knows? Eric would have bugged him to help with his psycho mission but Dylan woulda been like no… I’m good. I mean nobody had to die, you know? Like… that girl… she could have saved him.”

  That’s a fantasy of a child who thinks that love can cure anything, even mental illness, and I relate on some level. I tried to save Borderline Beck and my parents were like Nomi’s parents—minus the nostalgia—but there is nothing for me to say to fix the damage that Phil has done to this child. You’re complicit, Mary Kay. She’s a soulful kid, an artist without a medium, and for all your Nomi needs me you don’t seem to be getting into it with her and does she fucking know about my cameras?

  She yawns. “Sorry,” she says. “This is why I can’t smoke pot. I get stupid.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Nomi. Don’t ever be sorry for talking.”

  She squints, a Meerkat again, a child full of doubt, wonder. “Do you know my aunt Melanda?” she asks again.

  She committed suicide in my basement and I nod. “Not so well. I heard she moved.”

  “Well, do you know why?”

  Because she thought she’d never find true love and she realized she’s not Carly Simon. “I think it was something about a job.”

  The Meerkat fights a smile. “That’s what she said, but everyone at school says she was… you know… doing this freshman kid and the parents didn’t want to press charges so they were like, leave. This kid in my orgo class says he saw her sticking something in his butt on this trail where we went to release salmon eggs when we were little. I mean I believe it. And my mom’s not speaking to her and she was always in my face about stuff but now she’s like… silent. I bet it’s true.”

  “What does your mom say?”

  “She says I can’t believe everything I hear but I mean I’d go crazy if I was her age alone here too. No offense…”

  “None taken.”

  I tell the Meerkat I have to go and she says to wave goodbye to the cameras—chills—and I am offended, Mary Kay, but not in the way you might think. The Meerkat is high, pretending to be so cavalier about her aunt disappearing, but beneath that adolescent bravado, your daughter is in pain. RIP Melanda wasn’t perfect, but she was Nomi’s fucking aunt and she was a regular in your home. The Meerkat misses her aunt and she wants to believe the bullshit story about the freshman because it’s easier than thinking that one of the only people on this planet who cares about her just walked out of her life. That would be like if Mr. Mooney had shut down the bookstore on me and skipped town without a word and you just can’t fucking do that to a child. I would have gone nuts if I had lost the only mentor in my life and don’t you see, Mary Kay? Phil isn’t just bad for you. He’s bad for everyone. Because of him, Melanda is dead to you—not to mention dead in real life—and you have to cover for her. You have to encourage Nomi to believe an outright lie because you’re a good mother and you’ve wondered what’s worse: your daughter knowing that your husband fucked your best friend or your daughter thinking Melanda was a sexually deviant spinster child molester.

  I get it. You don’t want Nomi to despise her father and I know you can’t tell Nomi what Melanda did to you, what she did with Phil, but Nomi is in pain. You’re in pain. You women suffer while he tries out guitars, man, and enough is enough.

  It’s time for reality to take a bite out of Phil but then I hear the Meerkat in my mind—Wave goodbye to the cameras, Joe—and I hope reality doesn’t bite me first.

  27

  It’s 12:36 P.M. and I’m at Starbucks and it’s one of the stranger things about this island. You’d think people would look down on corporate coffee but it’s always packed in here and that knit cap fucker from the ferry is blocking the mobile order pickup spot with his stroller and what can I say? I’m in a mood. Oliver’s back—four tables away, as if all that trust we built is gone—and my favorite hate-watch TV show is getting canceled—thanks, Nomi—and people get grumpy when they lose their binge shows. I push the knit cap dullard’s empty stroller and he glares at me as if his unremarkable lesser Forty is in the fucking stroller.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Just trying to get my coffee.”

  He looks through me, Seattle freeze style, and I grab my latte and I really am trying, Mary Kay. I wait outside and sure enough, Oliver is
out the door.

  “You seem a little moody, my friend. Do I have to worry about you snapping?”

  “Oliver, no one likes to be stalked.”

  “I dunno about that,” he says. “Minka got two thousand more followers after this bikini shoot and when those pervs DM her about coming to get her… that shit makes her happy.”

  I laugh and fake a sneeze. “Oh right,” I say. “Seth MacFarlane follows her, doesn’t he?”

  I don’t know if Mr. Fucking Family Guy “follows” Minka, but it doesn’t matter. Seth MacFarlane has the career that Oliver wanted, so Oliver is backing away, muttering about emails that need sending when we all know he’s going to take a nice, deep, time-sucking dive into Minka’s verified followers.

  He waves at me. “Have fun with your cats, my friend. Stay safe.”

  He’s starting his car and opening Instagram—I knew it—and thank God for that because I do need my space. I’ve been trying to make things better for us but your daughter is a paranoid truancy case and I don’t have a choice, do I? I have to scale back my renovations on your home as if she issued a STOP WORK order via some state compliance agency. I studied the footage all night in the Whisper Room and Nomi never once looked directly at the cameras, so I do think we’re safe. I don’t think she actually knows about them. But Shel Silverstein’s Whatifs are upon me and they will not be ignored.

  Nomi’s at school and you and Phil are with Layla—sorry to miss out on our therapy, but my car needs to stay in the driveway in case Nurse Oliver pops. I slink out the back door of my house, into the woods. I make it to your house—thank you, woods, for the camouflage—and I walk into your house and I put my coffee on the counter. I go room to room and I remove every one of my high-def cameras and it’s not fair. Even with this kind of access, you shut me out. I didn’t know about your little talk with Nomi about Melanda because that must have happened in your car or at the library and now how am I supposed to keep up with you fucking DiMarcos?

  I’ve got all my cameras in a reusable tote bag and I leave the way I came in and I won’t be like Phil and allow myself to turn blue on you. I’ve always been good at lifting myself out of the muck. Okay, so the TV show is over but you know what? I was getting a little sick of watching the three of you anyway. Last night it was more of the same and I can remember it word for word as I walk on the trail by the sea.

  You swore you’d get almond milk, Emmy.

  You swore you’d assemble that dresser.

  Well I would if the Allen wrench was where you said it was.

  Are you calling me crazy?

  Am I that stupid? Hell, no, Miss Perfect. I know I can’t call a woman crazy.

  You know what, Phil? Maybe this hiatus is bad. Maybe you should go back to your damn show because your moods are out of control.

  Well, maybe I wouldn’t be in a mood if there was some coffee in this house.

  I bought coffee. I told you it’s in the freezer.

  Emmy, I’ve been in the freezer. There isn’t any coffee.

  Coffee. My coffee. I drop my tote bag and the cameras fall out and oh heck it’s up to my neck and I shove the fucking cameras into the fucking bag and I am backtracking, running faster than I did in New York, faster than I did in Little Compton and this isn’t happening but this is happening and it’s not as bad as the mug of piss. It’s worse. It’s a paper cup of coffee with my name on the label and it’s on your kitchen counter and this trail is fighting me every step of the way, roots and other joggers—get out of my fucking way—and this is why all you people drink your coffee out of travel mugs because my name is on that cup.

  My name.

  It’s a common name but there’s no Joe in your house and now I’m in your house and the cup of coffee is a mug of piss, the one that nearly ruined my life. I grab it—yes—but no because the front door just opened and it’s you. It’s him. I can’t open the slider and I slip into your guest bathroom and there’s no shower in here and there’s no window and I can’t turn on the light because what if there’s a fan?

  I close the bathroom door—was it open when you left the house?—and what if you have to pee and is this how it ends? Because we’re all slaves to caffeine?

  “Well,” you say to him, not to me, and you should be at work. “Should we do it?”

  Oh no. This is not a time for you to get Closer. Not while I’m so close. He mumbles and you open a drawer and you riffle with your hands and every sound is an engine in my head.

  “Okay,” you say. “So the contract. I promise to stop nagging you about stupid stuff.”

  “Stupid stuff,” he says. “Can we get a little definition here?”

  “Christ, Phil, don’t nitpick already. We have to start somewhere.”

  No you don’t, Mary Kay. You can leave.

  He sighs. “Well all right then. But what do we mean by ‘stupid stuff’?”

  You, rat. You are the stupid stuff and it’s hard being a statue, holding this mug of piss. Coffee. Coffee.

  “You know what it means, Phil. You were there. The dresser. House stuff.”

  He is silent and the silence is worse than the engines because what does the silence mean? Are you making eyes at each other? Are you noticing that the bathroom door is closed when it’s usually open?

  Your voice is flat. “Okay, just say it. What’s wrong? And don’t bullshit me about how it’s hard to be vulnerable. This only works if you are vulnerable.”

  I love you like crazy and look at me in here. The definition of vulnerable.

  “Well I dunno,” he says. “I was hoping that ‘stupid stuff’ was more about… Emmy, for fuck’s sake, you know I don’t wanna go to this movie night thing.”

  “And you know I do, Phil. You know I planned it.”

  “I know.”

  “And I have to go.”

  “Emmy…”

  “I don’t know, Phil. You used to like the way I am…” I like the way you are. “You used to say how you needed me because I plan things, because I care, because I’m someone who makes the world go round. And now… it’s like I repulse you.”

  “Em, the guys are only here one night.”

  “Right. Same way they were here last month. And the month before.”

  “But they’re playing.”

  “And tonight you’re busy. As a lot of married men are every once in a fucking while.”

  “See, I try to talk and you get nasty.”

  “You think this is nasty? You call this talking?”

  You throw your pen at the window and thank God you didn’t throw it at my door. You lay into him and you call him out on his bullshit—yes—and you remind him that you are there for him. You take care of him. “My whole life, I go to things alone. Open houses at school because you’re sleeping or birthday parties at night because of your show. And do I complain? No. And I want one night from you and this is how it is.”

  “Hey now, gimme a little credit. I’m on hiatus. Layla said it, Em. You wanted me to take a break from the show and what did I do? I took a break.”

  “Right. And that’s how you want to spend your hiatus. With the guys.”

  You’re crying now. You miss me so much and you can’t take it anymore. You’re trying so hard and he’s not trying at all, patting you on the back, literally, like you’re a dog. He’s walking now. He picks up the pen and he signs the little unnotarized contract. “I will go to the movie thing and I will do the dresser so you don’t have to keep asking me to do to the dresser.”

  You sigh, pleased. I think you touch him. “See,” you say. “We got this, we do.”

  No, you fucking don’t and he is not going to that movie night—contracts are like promises, made to be broken—and he grabs his coat so aggressively that he nearly takes down a chair. “Okay,” he says. “I gotta split. I gotta go to a meeting…” The manipulation, Mary Kay. What he really means is My addiction is all your fault, just like my life. And it’s bullshit. He’s the luckiest man on the fucking planet.

&nb
sp; You blow your nose—probably on a harsh napkin, no Kleenex on your table—and you tell him you’re sorry. “But, Phil, sometimes it’s like you don’t remember any of the good stuff. I mean come on. You know why I chose this movie…”

  He makes a noise and whistles and this is TMI. It’s obvious that a hundred years ago you went down on him in a theater and Alanis Morissette would be disgusted—I’m sorry but he’s just not a very attractive man—but I am a good guy. It’s ancient history and I forgive you. You were young and look at you trying so hard to spice up your bland marriage. You really are a fighter and it’s your right to try to save your marriage. I will allow it. I do allow it. Because in our relationship, we give each other space to breathe. Like now, you’re pushing Phil to leave so that he can go to the hardware store to get a wrench before his meeting as if you know I need him outta here. You have to get back to the library—you told them you needed to run errands and your marriage is an errand—and the front door opens and the front door closes and finally both of you are gone.

  I turn on the light and breathe and what a different kind of world it is with you, Mary Kay. In my old world, I left the mug of urine behind and it drove me to the brink, to Los Angeles. But in our world, I take the mug with me and the mug is made of paper. It will disintegrate. And Bainbridge is showing off today—gray skies turning blue—and I am safe and there is no urine in this cup. There never was. It’s just coffee, and I pour the coffee on the damp ground—always damp, permanently moist—and I recycle the cup and I like our world. I do. I like the squirrel that sits nearby and I like the woman in a North Face jacket and I like her happy black Lab and I am beaming. Smiling ear to ear and this is why people love horror stories: It’s not for the gore. It’s for the moment when the good guy escapes just like you wanted him to because it means that for once on this unjust, dying planet, the good guy wins.

  I feel inspired. I text your rat: Hey man, I got a buddy in town. HUGE FAN. We’re up at Dock Street and if THE Phil DiMarco showed up unannounced. Just sayin’…