And all that should’ve kept her from taking Bridge to her house, but none of it did. She never did things like this, and she was leaning into that chaotic energy, eager to see what was waiting for her on the other side. The wide mouth of the world was opening up! Something was happening, something beyond her control. She’d been given the keys to the lion’s cage, and she was inside, petting it. Staring into its pale amber eyes.
BRIDGE
(Driving through the rain. Her car is clean, the radio off. There is light traffic, and Tallie looks both ways even when she has the green light.)
“Let’s see…do you have any hobbies?” she asked him.
“This feels like small talk.”
“You’re right. Okay, big talk…after my divorce, I was so sad I didn’t know what to do. My world was smashed, and it felt like I was blurred out, too. Couldn’t see straight.”
“And now you feel better?”
“Most of the time, yes.”
(A fire engine’s siren screeches the quiet red. Tallie pulls over to let it pass. Her hand is flat on the stick shift. She double-checks the rearview mirror, leaning closer to the churning hurricane in her passenger seat.)
TALLIE
When Tallie’s house was built, the Fox Commons neighborhood was brand-new. A mixed-use community unlike anything else in Louisville. Most residents swapped their expensive cars for golf carts when they got home from work and used them to motor their children to the school playground or the walking trails at sunset, the fountain in the square, the amphitheater overlooking the fishing lake. There was a public pool, several tennis courts, two salons, and a building solely devoted to doctors’ offices—dermatologists, neurologists, allergists, pediatricians, internal medicine, plastic surgery. Residents had their choice of fine dining with plenty of outside seating, including Tallie’s favorite trattoria, Thai noodles, sushi, pizza, and an American bistro with the best burgers in town. There was also a pastel sweet shop where the gelato was made with local milk and an Irish pub lit up with enough lime-green bulbs to turn everyone into Elphaba from Wicked upon entering. Plans for two hotels—one leviathan, one boutique—had been drawn up. The grand-opening ribbon for six neat beige rows of condominiums had recently been cut with a pair of comically large scissors. Lionel was an investor, and he and his wife, Zora, had attended the ceremony, then stopped by Tallie’s for small-batch bourbon and homemade Kentucky jam cake afterward.
The steps leading to Tallie’s white-brick front porch were fringed with pumpkins—some orange, a few blued like skim milk. A fluffy wreath of orange-red-yellow-brown leaves hung on the wide yellow front door. On one wicker porch chair, there was a polka-dotted canvas pillow with the word HOCUS printed on it. On the other, POCUS. The welcome mat read HELLO in loopy black cursive on the stiff hay-colored brush.
“Um, I could make dinner. Are you hungry?” she asked him after they’d gotten inside.
Her house was immaculate because the night before, she’d dusted, swept the floors, beat the rugs outside. Was it her hormones? Perimenopause? She felt like nesting and had decided to bring Bridge home like he was one of her rescue cats.
Usually her two cats were skittish around new people, but they were curious about Bridge and sauntered around the living room with their tails up and hooked.
“The marmalade one is Jim, and the black one is Pam,” she said.
“Like from The Office.”
“Exactly.”
In their short amount of time together they’d already gotten in the habit of ping-ponging their questions and answers. She’d ask him a question, and he’d ignore it completely, only to answer three questions later, both of them remembering where they left off. He was easy to like. He’d put his backpack at his feet and taken his jacket off. Tallie took it from him, hung it on the hook in the laundry room so it could drip.
“I could help cook. I’ll eat,” he said, sitting on the couch.
“Great! Okay. That’s what we’ll do.” She went to her bedroom and returned with some dry clothes. “You can put these on,” she said, handing them to him. “And I’ll go to the bedroom and change, too. Then we’ll make dinner.”
Tallie closed and locked her bedroom door and put her ear against it, listening for him. Listening for what? Anything. She slid onto the floor and got the papers from her pockets. Opened the first one. He had standard man’s handwriting—small printing, almost cursive. She looked at the bottom to see if it was signed. No. But at the top, a name.
Christine.
My dear bright Christine, my love and life. My world went dark when you left. You are my whole heart. I am broken and empty without you. What else is left for me to do? I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I’m so sorry for everything. Please don’t be mad at me. I love you.
I love you
so
much
God.
Dammit.
Christine.
Tallie put her ear to the door to listen again. Nothing. She refolded the first letter, opened the other piece of paper. No name at the bottom. But at the top.
Brenna, my sunshine. It’s dark now.
Please don’t be mad at me.
I love you
so
much
I
The letter was unfinished. She pulled out her phone and googled Christine and Clementine, Kentucky, knowing it’d be impossible to find anything useful without any other information. She entered Brenna and Clementine, Kentucky, and nothing still. She tried both names together. A fruitless search. She took a peek at the Clementine Most Wanted list to scan for anyone resembling him. Nope. She widened her search to Louisville’s Most Wanted, Kentucky’s Most Wanted, America’s Most Wanted. Flicked through, squinting to recognize someone. Thankfully, she didn’t.
Tallie didn’t have a strong internet presence, just a rarely updated, mostly private Facebook page and nothing online linking her to her therapy practice. On the practice website, she was listed as Ms. T. L. Clark, as it always had been, before and after her divorce. She hadn’t taken Joel’s last name, content with her own. If Bridge tried to look her up, he wouldn’t find anything.
If he were her actual client, she would’ve been required to report his suicide attempt to someone else. If he were her actual client, she would be taking therapy notes. If their time together so far had been a scheduled appointment:
Client Name: No Last Name, “Bridge”
Age: 31
Bridge makes eye contact easily. Naturally quiet? He smiled once, maybe twice. Anxiety? Suicidal ideation. Depressive. The suicide attempt may have been his first, may have been impulsive. Bridge is funny and charming. He appears to be healthy, level-headed (despite the attempt), and thoughtful. His body language is relaxed, appetite normal.
Medication: antihistamines.
Bonus: the cats like him.
Barriers to Treatment: won’t give his name. Doesn’t seem to think his suicide attempt was a big deal. Also…hasn’t consented to treatment.
Family/Friends (?): Christine and/or Brenna?
Client’s Goals: ??
Tallie put both letters in her top drawer, underneath the black lace she hadn’t thought about wearing since Joel left. She took off her old clothes, put on new ones—a long-sleeved shirt with her alma mater’s growling mascot on the front, a pair of black leggings. She went to her bathroom, peed, smoothed her hair down, slipped clear lip gloss across her mouth, and checked the mirror. When she walked into the living room, Bridge was sitting in the same spot in the dry change of clothes she’d given him, like they’d magically appeared on his body. The cats purred in his lap.
“You’re up for cooking? Anything you don’t like to eat?” she asked. She was hungry; he was hungry, too. They were just two people who needed to eat. Everyone needed to eat. It was okay for them to eat together. Joel never really cooked and could be a picky eater, depending on his mood. She thought of the picture of him she saw on social media, the one of him grilling like a jac
kass.
“I like to cook, and I’m not picky,” Bridge said, tenderly lifting each cat and placing it on the couch next to him. Tallie bent to pick up the damp clothes folded neatly at his feet. “You don’t have to—”
“Not a word. I’m washing these for you,” she said, taking them. She went to her laundry room and started a load. “And even though we’re to break bread together soon, you still won’t tell me your name?” she asked when she was in front of him again. He was committed to the mystique. She was curious to see how long it would last.
“It’s Emmett,” he said. So easily, as if all she needed to do was ask kindly, one more time.
Client Name: No Last Name, Emmett.
“Okay, Emmett. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
EMMETT
Emmett could go to the bridge after dinner. He’d once wondered if the aching would ever stop and it hadn’t, so wasn’t the bridge his last hope? His only hope? Death and hope wrestled, tangled tight. Was there anything left but the bridge?
He’d peeked out when he was in the coffee-shop bathroom and seen Tallie going through his jacket, taking his letters. She was playing investigator and probably marathoned Law & Order: SVU with her cats in her lap. Probably worshipped Olivia Benson.
Tallie had given him a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, a sweater. Leftovers from her ex-husband. He went into his backpack, got out his medicine, and took it by filling his hand up with what water it could hold and throwing his head back. Pointless to take his medicine, but so what? Tallie had reminded him of it, and she was being so nice.
Before climbing over the railing, he’d counted the vehicles as he stood on the bridge.
(Seven vans. Five pickup trucks. Four delivery trucks. Fifteen cars. One motorcycle, one bike. One hooded person in the distance, walking away. The bridge lights are on, but one is flickering. One of the cars honks. Someone has graffitied a neon-yellow dick on the steel next to an ABORTION STOPS A BEATING HEART bumper sticker.)
And now it was time to make dinner. Dinner with Tallie. Tallulah Clark. A stranger. He’d never met anyone named Tallulah before and predicted she’d act differently from the other people he knew, which was true. She asked a lot of questions and smiled at him like he hadn’t just been standing on a bridge wanting to jump, wanting to quiet the noise, wanting it all to end somehow.
But the bridge would be there waiting for him, its arms outstretched. He didn’t need to make an appointment. He’d chosen today for a specific reason, but later would work, too, or tomorrow. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He wanted it to. He wanted everything to matter, but nothing did. Grief had swung open a door in his heart he hadn’t known was there, and it’d slammed closed behind him. He’d been on the other side for three years. Too long. Locked away, unable to escape, tackled and held down by the darkness that wouldn’t let him go. Jumping from the bridge meant a chance to soar before the free fall. As he climbed over the railing, he’d been cold, wet, and alone; Tallie had shown up warm. And it was Tallie who got an eggplant from the fridge and pulled a handful of campari tomatoes from a box on the counter.
(A green cruet of olive oil, a tall brown, pepper grinder, a white ceramic saltcellar labeled SEL in raised capital letters. Dark and light wooden spoons in a fat mason jar. A viney plant hanging from a hook in the ceiling. There is a small dent in the floor, front of the sink—a tiny divot a hallux can dip into.)
“Everyone likes pasta, right? It’s comforting,” she said.
“I do like pasta.”
“So you want to chop?”
“I’m a strange man in your kitchen, and you want me to take the knife?” he asked. He couldn’t not ask. What was happening?
“I’ve been reading your vibes ever since I stopped my car, and I can’t convince myself completely that you have violent energy. I’ve been trying to feel it, but I can’t. I tried to force myself to feel it, but I can’t. You seem like a kitten to me, honestly,” she said.
Christine had told him that before. Not the kitten part—he wasn’t sure how he felt about that—but she’d said he was a gentle spirit. And he’d assumed she was disappointed in him because of it. A dark macho signal he wasn’t giving off but should’ve. Like he was some sort of phenomenon the weather radar couldn’t pick up, leaving her flummoxed. Remarks like that felt like criticisms coming from women, but Tallie’s hippie comment about vibes intrigued him.
“Reading my vibes?” he asked.
She pointed to the knife, and he picked it up, began slicing the onion as she filled a big pot with water and salted it before going into the cabinet for a box of rigatoni.
“It’s a gift I have. People with violent energy give off this kind of dark green smoke. It tastes bitter. I can tell. And your jacket, your backpack…they’re dark green, but they don’t match your energy. Your energy is like…a lilac puff,” she said, standing like a flamingo, leaning against the counter in her kitchen.
“And this energy radar’s so strong…you feel comfortable giving a suicidal man a knife.”
“Apparently so.”
They were quiet, looking at each other. His eyes began burning from the onions. She got a tea light from the drawer, lit it for him, put it down.
(A wide drawer full of tea lights and pens, pencils, a spool of gold thread with a needle poking from the top of it, a roll of masking tape, a tape measure, a deck of cards, a neat stack of bright Post-its. Her countertops: pale bamboo. In the corner, up against the fog-colored backsplash: a small crystal bowl of change and a pair of yellow earrings, two closed safety pins.)
“It’s unscented. It’ll help your eyes. Technically, we were supposed to light it before you started chopping, but what the hell,” she said and laughed.
“It definitely sets a mood,” Emmett said. He glanced at the flame, kept chopping.
“I’ll count it as a win!”
“So…a lilac puff,” he said and nodded.
“No denying it,” she said.
“What color is your ex-husband’s energy?”
“Slut red.”
“Slut red,” he repeated.
He’d say he wanted to go for a walk after dinner to clear his head. He could go to the bridge, jump at night. Much less of a chance some person who could read energy colors would see him and try to stop him. His last meal: rigatoni alla Norma. He slid the onions to one side of the cutting board and rinsed the eggplant under the running sink water. Chopped.
“You’re good with the knife,” she said. “I’ve never chopped an onion that quickly and perfectly in my life.”
“Do you mind if I have a glass of wine?” he asked.
“Well…you probably shouldn’t, since you weren’t feeling so well earlier.”
“Thanks for the concern. I really do appreciate it. I think it’ll help relax me, honestly.”
“Have you ever had a problem with alcohol? I’m sorry, but I feel like I should ask.”
“I understand. And no, I haven’t. I promise.”
“Maybe we could have just a little,” she said, getting out a bottle of red.
“How long were you married?” he asked.
“Almost ten and a half years.”
“How long have you been divorced?”
“Almost a year,” she said.
Emmett thanked her as she poured two glasses and set his in front of him. She went over to the cabinet by the stove, pulled out a big pan, and turned the burner on next to the pasta water. He kept chopping as she added a glug of olive oil to the pan. He paused, drank some wine. He never drank wine anymore; it silked down his throat like a ribbon.
“Did you and your ex-husband live in this house together?” he asked.
“Yes. But it’s mine. I lived here alone before. He moved in when we got married…and then he moved out.”
“Simple enough,” he said.
“I should probably salt the eggplant to make sure it’s not bitter,” she said.
“We don’t need it. Rarely is an eggplant bitter enough to
need salting.”
“Settled. I’ll take your word for it.”
“Do you like living alone? You don’t get scared?” he asked as he finished chopping.
(A knife block by the stove. One wide white-curtained window in her kitchen, another on the door leading to the deck. The back light comes through. Large arch-top window in the living room, the streetlamp light comes through.)
The olive oil pan was hot, waiting. He went to it, used the knife to slip the eggplant cubes and onions into it. They bubbled. Sizzled.
“Okay, now tomatoes,” she said, holding out her hand for the knife. He turned the handle so it was facing her, handed it over slowly. “I have a gun. And a security system,” she added.
“And these two ferocious attack cats,” he said, looking down at them winding their way between his legs. He was careful not to move too much, didn’t want to spook them. He leaned against the counter drinking his wine.
When his eyes met Tallie’s, he was thinking he could still be dead by morning if he wanted. Could she tell?
It’d be easy.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Exactly,” she said. She began chopping the tomatoes as he tended the stove. He turned up the burner on the water, added a lot more sea salt, covered it with the lid.
“It’s good for a woman to have a gun,” he said. “Now I have to ask. Do you have violent energy? Can you read your own? I don’t know how it works.”
This Close to Okay Page 3