Nine
When I wake up the next morning, flashes of last night take over my brain. I see plaid boxer shorts. I see Little Carl coming out to say hello. I see hands reaching down to play. Please, make it stop.
Over breakfast, Carl does not behave any differently toward me, as if the entire incident never happened. His normalcy makes me wonder if I imagined the whole thing. Oddly, I find myself acting particularly deferential toward him. My behavior is like a defective survival instinct.
Around noon, during a break from depositions, I see Carisse rounding the corner, rushing, fists squeezed tightly into balls. For the first time in my life I am happy to see her. When she spots me, her features arrange themselves into a fake smile, her lips stretching straight along an invisible horizontal line. Her face, as usual, is doughy, as if she is a Claymation character and her creator forgot to shave off the extra bits. Her brown hair is parted in the middle, wispy and thin, and tied back in a low ponytail. The pink of her scalp shows through, and for just a second I can see how someone might find this endearing.
Before she gets the chance to say hello, I tell her that we have to share a hotel room, that there has been a mistake with the reservations. She looks at me quizzically, as if I am not quite making sense. Her eyebrows arch upward and meet in the middle, shading her eyes with the overhang. I imagine this may be helpful in the rain.
“You don’t expect me to share with Carl, do you?” I ask, staring at her and willing her to get the message. Even though it is Carisse, I consider begging for her mercy. I cannot bear a repeat of last night’s performance.
“Of course not,” Carisse says, in a tone that says she means precisely the opposite.
That night the three of us eat dinner at the Hog Pit Barbecue, which is one of those places where the inside is decorated to look like you’re dining outside. Fake palm trees lean against the walls, stars sticker the ceiling, hay covers the floor. We are surrounded by pure Americana: red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloths, messy children and sticky fingers, and the requisite HPB tie around the neck bibs. I chow down, enjoying the strained expressions on Carisse and Carl’s face when the waiter brings their coleslaw, the closest thing to salad in the place. I can almost see Carisse mentally calculating the fat grams in the mayonnaise.
They both recover surprisingly quickly, though, and after a couple of beers, we are all having a decent time. Amazingly, I push the images from last night out of my mind. Carl is on his best behavior again, telling stories about how the firm has changed over the past decade. I learn that the partnership is opening a Moscow office, and I refrain from suggesting that the two of them transfer there. The only awkward moment is when Carl steps away from the table for a moment and takes a call from his wife.
“So, you and Carl shared a room last night, then, right?” Carisse whispers, cocking just her right eyebrow so high on her forehead that it melds with her hair.
“The whole town was booked, and Carl’s secretary made a mistake. We didn’t share a bed, though.”
“Really, why not?” Her eyebrows are even again, but now her lips are pursed, as if she is putting on lipstick in a mirror. I think she likes to show off her face’s cartoonish flexibility.
“I wouldn’t share a bed with my boss.”
“Come on, he’s sort of cute. We’re friends. You can tell me.”
“I wouldn’t do that. Besides, he’s married,” I say. I don’t mention that we have never been, nor will we ever be, friends.
“So.”
“So? Are you kidding?”
“Come on, you really expect me to believe that you didn’t sleep with Carl last night?” Before I have a chance to answer, Carl comes back to the table, and Carisse quickly changes the subject.
“So, have you heard from your ex?” she asks.
“What ex?” Carl asks me with a false innocence. Of course, less than twenty-four hours earlier I had been talking incessantly about how much I love and am committed to my boyfriend.
“Oh, this guy broke up with Emily last month. It’s too bad, because he was a great catch.” She puts her hand on mine, to make it look like she is comforting me. It is a smart move on her part, because it keeps me from clocking her.
“Thanks, Carisse.” I suddenly feel sick from my industrious consumption of pulled pork. Carl catches my eyes and looks confused. Apparently my making up a fake boyfriend to avoid sleeping with him is beyond his power of imagination.
After we finish our meal, Carl suggests we hit the dive bar across the street from the Hampton Inn. He says he feels like getting “blotto.” Who uses that word? Although I am in a terrible mood and drinking will only make me feel worse, I hear myself agreeing to come along. I am not sure why I feel the need to please Carl, particularly in light of last night’s debacle. But I do. I still do. Like an abused wife who somehow believes that she deserved it.
I have not seriously considered whether I should report Carl to the firm. I’d have to go through the whole he-said–she-said thing, and it would not be handled discreetly—I know that much. Pretty soon people would be whispering, giving me weird looks in the hallways at work, and the place would become so uncomfortable I’d have to leave. I guess I could sue, but that would mean the end of my legal career. No one would risk hiring a “troublemaker.”
It seems a foregone conclusion that I will do nothing. I don’t have the fight in me.
But here’s what really pisses me off: I feel silly or worse, prudish for being upset about the whole thing. What’s the big deal, really? Yes, it was uncomfortable and unpleasant, but why get all worked up over it? Carl took no for an answer.
Still, my emotions bounce back and forth, echoing, growing; I feel childish for my outrage, then outraged for feeling childish.
The place is called Sunny’s Swimming Hole, and beers are only a buck. Buoys and life preservers hang on the soiled white walls, an attempt at artistic decoration, I suppose. I have always been a fan of the dive bar and am disappointed that this place is immediately ruined for me by my company. We ignore the mostly empty tables and take the three stools that line the bar. Carl in the middle between Carisse and me. The bartender throws down cocktail napkins that say Burger King on them, and Carl surprises me by ordering three tequila shots.
“No thanks,” I say.
“Come on, Haxby. Stop being such a spoilsport,” Carl says, pushing the already poured shot toward me. I wonder if he is punishing me for the Andrew lie. I don’t protest further, and we all down our shots at the count of three and squeeze our teeth into bitter lemon. I feel the burn down my throat, and my arms get tingly. In thirty seconds, I know my gut will be on fire.
We all take another shot, and the nausea sets in.
“What’s the matter, Haxby? Can’t hang with the big boys?” Carl says, and Carisse signals the waiter for a third round. I have had enough.
“I guess not, Carl,” I say, and step off my stool in surrender, a hand on the bar to steady my spinning head. “I’m exhausted. Going to head back to the hotel. Carisse, keys?” She looks at me triumphantly. Although I am not sure why everything is a competition with her, I am okay with the fact that yet again I have not won.
“Thanks for dinner, guys,” I say, and walk out of Sunny’s Swimming Hole, thrilled that the desire to vomit has passed. The sense of liberation is immediate; I don’t even blink as I pass Bob at the hotel counter on my way in, and feel pure pleasure when I see that Carisse’s room has two double beds. I throw on my new Arkansas gear and curl up under the covers.
But just as suddenly the exhilaration fades. The bathroom nightlight casts vicious shadows on the wall, and the chair in the corner has mutated into something sinister. I’m afraid and alone, and all I can think about is picking up the phone and calling Andrew. I need to share the gory details of this trip. To hear him comfort me, tell me it is all going to be all right. I dial his number, quickly, before my mind registers the consequences.
He picks up on the second ring.
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��Hello,” he says.
I panic. I don’t say anything, anything at all, because now that he is on the line, I am not sure if I have anything to say worth hearing. Surely he doesn’t care about my night spent cuddling the bathtub. My problems are no longer his job.
“Hello?” he says again. “Who is this? I can hear you breathing.”
I feel the weight of the phone in my hands, and it becomes too heavy to hold anymore. I hang up.
A minor relapse. A mistake.
I tell myself that I just wanted to hear his voice. I tell myself that I just wanted to hear him breathe.
I wake up to a throbbing in my temples, payback for the tequila shots. I notice that the bed next to me is still perfectly made up, a chocolate resting on the pillow. When I go downstairs for breakfast, Carl and Carisse are already there, sharing The Wall Street Journal.
“Good morning,” I say, as I join them at the table.
“Morning,” Carl says, and looks at his watch. “You’re late. You realize this is not a vacation.”
“It’s not even eight,” Carisse says, and swats him with the paper. “Leave her alone.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve been working for hours.” Carl glares at Carisse, unnerved by her playfulness, and then looks at me, a slow sweep up and down. “So, Emily, Carisse and I have been talking about the summary judgment motion. I hate to have to tell you this, but I’ve decided that you’re not ready to write the motion. I’m sorry.”
Carl does not look sorry, though, but rather quite pleased with himself. Like the cat who got the cream, or, more accurately, Carisse’s cream.
“Why not?” I ask, feeling the disappointment grow in my belly.
“Because I’m going to write it,” Carisse says, and puts the newspaper down. Her right hand now rests just next to Carl’s, so close that their pinkies are almost touching.
She shoots a look in my direction, and her face is so clear it is as if she says it out loud: All it took was a blow job. I didn’t even need to swallow.
Ten
Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I picture my funeral and write eulogies in my head. In the fantasy, I almost always die in some tragic but unavoidable way. A drunk driver mows me down. Or a brain aneurysm. I make sure I suffer little, but die with courage and dignity and clean underwear. I like to think more about the funeral rather than how I die. Who would come? Who would face their fears of public speaking and get their ass to the pulpit? Who would decide that they had better things to do than to show up at all? I wonder if people would cry, and if there is anyone in the world who would hold the tears back for fear of never stopping.
I picture afterward, at my dad’s house in Connecticut, where my friends all gather in my childhood bedroom. They feel very much like the kids at an adult event, despite the fact that they, too, are now grown-ups. Someone takes out a flask and passes it around. As they get warmed by the alcohol, they pass the time by flipping through my high-school yearbooks, which have spent the last ten years gathering dust. One of them would stop on a photograph of me at fourteen, with a perm and acne and flabby breast buds, and laugh as they held it up for the group.
This is what Emily would have wanted, someone would say, and gesture vaguely around the room.
At the service, my dad would give a brilliant speech, perhaps the best of his career, in which he would talk about his role as a father and the tragedy of the loss of so much potential so young. I picture him using the word “squandered,” though I am not sure why. I don’t think he would talk too much about me, other than maybe to list my accomplishments. I am sure Yale Law School would get mentioned more than once.
Bragging about your kid is somehow not vulgar when your kid is dead.
I bet Kate would read a poem, maybe that one from Four Weddings and a Funeral, and her delivery would be pitch-perfect—poignant, sad, and maybe grateful too, for having had the time we spent together. There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house. Jess, on the other hand, would turn the crowd around, make them laugh, and for just a minute let them forget about the literal dead body in the room. She would tell all the inappropriate stories from college, the kinds of stuff my father should never know: the compromising positions, the dabbling in personas, that one horrible E.R. visit. From heaven—though other than in my funeral fantasies I don’t really believe in a heaven—I will look down and be proud of Jess; she will be the one who captures who I am for the large audience.
Of course, there is a large audience.
Since Andrew and I broke up, I have not yet figured out how to fit him into the scenario. Before, I would picture him standing at the lectern, my body resting just behind him in a closed casket. He would wear his black suit, which makes him look taller and broader than he actually is, and start by saying something clichéd but touching, like Emily would have wanted us to laugh today and not to cry. She would have wanted us to celebrate her life and not mourn her death. And as tears slide down his face, Andrew would tell funny stories about our short time together, while the congregation would laugh sadly along with him; this time, though, it’s the laughter of remembering, not the laughter of letting go.
In the new fantasy, I haven’t moved past seeing him in the last pew. His face is grim but not devastated. He’s not even wearing black.
At my mother’s funeral, which I remember only in montage, I didn’t cry or speak. It wasn’t that kind of funeral. A man who had never met my mother stood up in the front of the packed church and said a few things about her. His words were vague and universally applicable, like a horoscope. My father and I sat quietly in the front row—the only time I can remember in which my father did not take advantage of an opportunity to speak—and I felt as if the entire place was staring at me, which they probably were. Who doesn’t like to take a peek at tragedy?
I remember making sure I sat with my back straight, so at the very least, people could say, on the ride home, Well, the daughter certainly has good posture. And though I was uncomfortable because my underwear kept riding up, I stayed perfectly still. Grandpa Jack had bought my panty hose and black suit at the mall the day before. There never seemed to be a right time to tell him before the funeral that they were a size too small.
My father moved differently that day too—robotic and stiff—and he kept going to the bathroom, an excuse we both used to avoid shaking all of those stupid hands. We were too tired to hear things like We are so sorry and She was a wonderful woman. Too early for consolation, too early for what was expected of us. Too early for the past tense.
At the funeral, it felt like the whole thing was happening to somebody else. The casket laid out in the front of the church did not hold my mother, because how could it? In my experience, mothers didn’t die. Especially if you lived in suburban Connecticut, in a world of manicured lawns and nails, an entire commuter-train ride away from real life. Especially if you were fourteen. In my world, the worst thing that could possibly happen was getting stood up at the prom.
It seems odd to me now, but I remember instead of focusing on the fact that I had just lost my mother, I spent that day worrying about how I looked to everyone else. I would have liked to have shed a few tears, not because I felt sad, what I was feeling was something much deeper and emptier than sad, but because tears seemed appropriate. Since I didn’t trust myself to stop—didn’t trust that once I let go I would not punch the man wearing a collar and spurting platitudes behind the pulpit—I kept my face dry and sat on my fists.
My father did the same. The one-size-fits-all funeral was wrong for her—he knew it, I knew it, the entire congregation knew it—but my father was powerless. We were both breathing underwater.
After the funeral, when we were back at the house, Grandpa Jack asked me for the suit, and I gave it to him, folded neatly in its original shopping bag. I changed into jeans and a T-shirt, like a normal kid, and thought about what it must have cost him to go to Macy’s to pick out my funeral outfit. I hope he pretended that I needed the suit for an honor-society event or my junior
-high-school graduation; I hope he did not have to say a single word out loud.
Later, when no one was looking, my grandfather, who had shed his own jacket and tie and had put his newsboy cap back on, led me out back behind the house, where he had already set up a large metal trash can. He took the suit out of its bag and threw it on top of all the garbage—on top of other people’s plastic forks and knives and paper plates, on top of their picked-at quiche. Grandpa Jack let me light the match, and we stood there for a while, far away from the hands, and the apologies, and the past tense. Together, we watched as the flames licked through the material, turning it to ash.
My mother died slowly and for a long time. But there was no relief for us at the end, as there sometimes is, I imagine. Good-bye still came too early by any measure. She spent a year getting treatment, a year in which she threw up quietly behind closed doors, and asked to be left alone, and smoked joints by herself in the backyard, behind the toolshed. That year, I learned to recognize the smell of hospitals, the rhythm of bad news. That year, I watched my father unravel and shrink, as if it were him, and not her, who was dying slowly. As if it were him, and not her, who was dying for a long time.
At our last Thanksgiving as a family, my dad made a toast to my mother’s health, since she was home then and it looked like things were going to get better. We clinked our glasses, and my dad even let me have some wine, which tasted both sour and sweet and made my eyes water. I hated it. My mother wore a silk scarf over her head, and I remember thinking that she looked more beautiful bald, her features unmarred by the nuance of hair. Just hazel eyes, no eyebrows, delicate, soft, and warm; young, too, their brightness rebelling against the disintegration of her body, against the new shadows on her face.
I think now, if I have to reduce my mother to snippets of memory, to a pile of adjectives, that’s who she was, that’s what I should hold on to—those eyes—defiant and alert, fighting like hell to hold on to us.
The Opposite of Love Page 8