“Yeah, you know, like the Internet commenters in my head,” she said.
“And they say mean things to you?”
“Oh, yeah,” Claire said. “It’s like the dark web all up in here.”
She pointed to her head.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what ‘dark web’ is,” he said.
“Be glad you don’t,” Claire said. “I’ve just heard about it; I’ve never actually been there. It’s like the wild, Wild West of the Internet. The worst of Internet behavior. Troll city.”
“And you’re that hard on yourself?”
“I just worry all the time, and give myself a hard time about stuff.”
“For instance?”
“Oh, you know, like when I throw away something I think about how hard that is on the environment, and how wasteful I am; or when I eat something that’s not locally grown or organic, or from animals that are badly treated, or food that might have been genetically modified in some way, or drink coffee that’s not fair trade.
“If I wear something made in a Third World country by kids that make a penny a week, or something, but then I wonder if I quit wearing those clothes, how will the Third World kids make any money?
“I know it’s wrong to appropriate someone else’s culture, or use another culture’s religious symbols as fashion or decor, but I honestly thought peasant blouses were okay. Turns out that’s Mexican culture and I’ve been appropriating it for years.
“I’m pro-union and for a livable minimum wage but then I think about my relatives’ small businesses and how they struggle to make a profit. Maybe only businesses that employ over a certain number of employees should have to comply, but then small business employees need health benefits, too, you know?
“Meanwhile, my makeup may have been tested on animals and I know the hair color I use is full of horrible chemicals that are ruining the environment and probably giving me brain cancer.
“Is the salmon on my salad farmed or wild-caught? Farmed may mean there were too many antibiotics used, which may lead to antibiotic resistance in people, but if it was wild-caught are we decimating the salmon population so that the bears starve?
“I absolutely believe that women should make the same wages as men for the same work, but proclaiming you’re a feminist seems to equate to hating men to some people, and I don’t hate men, unless they’re racist or homophobic or misogynists, and I know it’s not right to hate anyone, but I have trouble being compassionate toward jerks, so that’s not good.
“I worry I don’t keep up enough with what’s going on in the world, with the terrorism and the starvation and the genocides, but honestly it’s just so overwhelming I want to stick my head in the sand and read celebrity gossip instead. The TV and film industries are as corrupt and exploitive as any foreign government, so am I just perpetuating that by teaching young people how to succeed in it?
“I feel shallow for caring too much about my appearance but I’m horrified by every wrinkle or gray hair to the point I think this can’t be happening to me; I feel so much younger than I really am. I think about having some discreet plastic surgery and then I think about the kids with the cleft palates in Third World countries and I think my First World problems are so shallow and illegitimate.
“I hate all the prejudice and xenophobia I see in this country, and I know I suffer from white-privilege cluelessness, but I’m afraid I can’t see myself clearly enough to compensate for all the ways it leaks out.
“There’s Zika and Ebola, and everyone in this state seems to be dying from a heroin overdose because they can’t get their pain meds anymore. I listen to the side effects of these drugs advertised on TV, and they all include the possibility of death, like, you’ll no longer itch but your heart might blow up.
“I worry that Pip’s little girls aren’t getting enough vitamins because Pip doesn’t eat vegetables or drink orange juice, and have they had their vaccines? They’re from California so it could be Jessie doesn’t believe in them, so they might have just brought measles to Rose Hill, and infected all our little babies who haven’t had their vaccinations yet.
“I’m worried I screwed up by not having children, so there won’t be anyone to take care of me when I’m old, but that’s such a selfish reason to have children. I think I might like to adopt, but what if the kid hates me or I don’t like the kid? We’d be stuck with each other for years and that doesn’t seem fair to anyone. But I know there are so many kids who need parents and I hate to think of them feeling lonely and unloved when I have so much love to give.
“I worry about homeless people and abused animals and foster kids, and the little boy who was in the backseat of that car that crashed in Pendleton because his parents overdosed while driving. The little babies born addicted to crack and the vets who are injured or have PTSD, and rape culture, and, you know, sometimes Ed bores the hell out of me when he goes on and on about stuff, and I’m always trying not to yawn.”
Claire stopped, thinking about that last one, the one that just seemed to pour out along with everything else.
“Take a deep breath,” Ben said.
“What?” Claire said.
“You need to take a deep breath, or maybe four or five,” he said.
Claire took several deep breaths.
“Claire,” Ben said, “That’s quite a lot to worry about.”
“I know,” Claire said.
“And in all that, you never once mentioned your dad’s dementia.”
“I didn’t?”
“Consider this,” Ben said. “Maybe worrying about all that other stuff, having all that swirling around in your head all the time, is a way to distract you from worrying about what’s going on in your own little family, in your own little house, which right now, is very, very serious.”
Claire rolled her neck and groaned.
“It’s awful, isn’t it?”
“It just is,” Ben said. “You can assign the word ‘awful’ to it but that doesn’t help anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your father has a medical condition,” Ben said. “It’s very stressful for him, for you, and your mother. I think that perhaps when you assign the word ‘awful’ to it, it’s because you think it’s not fair, or that it’s unacceptable.”
“It doesn’t seem fair.”
“But it happens,” Ben said. “People get sick, they suffer and they die, but it’s not because of something your dad could have controlled if he’d just tried harder. Your father may have been genetically predisposed to have this, and even if he’d watched what he ate or never had a single negative thought, he would have still gotten sick.”
Claire was stunned by this assertion, and couldn’t speak for a few moments.
“You can control very few things in this world,” Ben said. “You can be kind, compassionate, think positive thoughts, eat all the right foods and exercise every day, and that may prolong your life, but everyone eventually dies, and whatever it is that kills you, you may have been born with.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s right,” Ben said. “You can only try things, based on expert advice and your own intuition, and hope for the best.”
“You don’t think I’m a bad person.”
“I know you’re not,” he said. “You care so much, about so much, that you’re overwhelmed, and that makes you feel helpless.”
“What can I do?”
“Well, first of all, you need to unplug from the world for a while, and for sure from the Internet. Designate someone you trust to let you know if there’s legitimately anything you need to know or do, and then let the outside world go. Be in it but not of it, at least for a while.”
“That seems so selfish.”
“You’re a caregiver now,” he said. “The most important thing you can be doing takes place in your family, in your house. Focus on that, and on taking care of yourself, and let everything else go. It’s just for a while. The world and all its problems w
ill still be here when this is all over.”
“Easier said than done.”
“But completely possible.”
“I have a new job,” Claire said. “I have my volunteering. I have a very demanding extended family. People depend on me.”
“I’m not saying it will be easy,” he said. “But to the extent that you let everything go but the most essential duties, meaning anything to do with your mom, your dad, and your well-being, you’ll be better equipped to handle whatever comes next.”
“Ugh,” Claire said. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Tell your extended family you’re just going to focus on your parents right now. They will understand. If they offer to help, let them. You’ve got to rally your support team around you and your parents and save your strength for what’s happening at your house.”
“It sounds like the right thing to do,” Claire said. “I’m just not sure I can do it.”
“Baby steps,” Ben said. “You’re a list maker, make a list of the top ten things that are really important, and let everything else go.”
“Please don’t say ‘let go and let God,’ ” she said.
“How about, let go and let everyone else,” he said. “At least until this crisis has passed.”
“We’ll see,” Claire said.
“And Claire, we need to talk about Ed sometime,” he said. “Not for a while, but sometime.”
“I know,” Claire said.
As Claire drove to meet her mother at the social worker’s office, she couldn’t focus on the chore ahead of them. She was emotionally exhausted from unloading on Ben, and she was so nervous about teaching her first class the next day she already had butterflies in her stomach.
What would the kids be like? Would they listen to her and be eager to learn what she had to teach or would they be glued to their cell phones, rolling their eyes, or worse, ignoring her?
When Claire arrived at the mental health clinic in Pendleton, her mother was already there, seated in the waiting area.
“How are you?” Claire asked as she hugged her.
“I’m afraid if I don’t keep myself together they might keep me here,” Delia said.
“Don’t worry,” Claire said. “I’ll break you out if they do.”
“On the other hand, a nice, quiet, padded room sounds really good to me right now.”
The social worker, named Joy, was kind and knowledgeable. She gave them a lot of informational handouts, and Claire struggled to take notes as she went over what they needed to do.
“Don’t worry,” Joy said as she noticed Claire flipping another page in her notebook. “I’ll give you a cheat sheet with the steps in order.”
“Thank goodness,” Claire said. “I’m completely confused.”
“Will we lose our home?” Delia asked. “We also own a business.”
“If you decide to apply for Medicaid, you’ll need to list your assets, and although your home and business are assets, they are excluded as long as you live in the home, and support yourself with the business. If you sell either, the proceeds will be considered claimable assets. You would have to spend down that money on his medical care before Medicaid would kick in.”
“That’s a relief,” Delia said. “I was afraid we’d lose our home.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” Joy said. “You and your daughter have been through a lot, and you still have a difficult road ahead. What’s your support team like?”
“We have a great family,” Claire said. “They’re bossy and opinionated but they love us.”
“That’s good,” Joy said. “So many times one person is stuck being the caregiver 24 hours a day, and it can destroy that person’s health if they don’t get any help.”
“Dr. Machalvie has recommended River View for Dad’s medical assessment,” Claire said. “My cousin Sean is an attorney; he’s helping us draw up the application to be appointed guardians.”
“Sounds like you’re in good hands,” Joy said. “If you have any questions, please call me. I’m always here to help.”
Claire spent all afternoon trying to decide what to wear on her first day of work. Her outfit needed to be one part armor (I’m above your college-age fashion reproach), one part comfortable (sometimes you had to almost stand on your head to apply facial prosthetics), and one part age-appropriate (she couldn’t afford a wardrobe malfunction and she certainly didn’t want to look like a case of forty-year-old try).
While surfing the Internet looking for fashion inspiration, she accidently landed on a page of gossip about her former boss. Normally, she would quickly click away, but the headline hooked her.
“Trouble in paradise for McSloany?” it read.
“McSloany” was the acronym assigned by the gossip media to movie star Sloan Merryweather and Claire’s ex-boyfriend, Carlyle McKinney.
Claire read it closely, using her internal gossip interpreter to read between the lines. It was a tabloid known for fawning over celebrities in return for access, and was often used by Sloan’s team to spin scandal to her benefit. That meant that whatever was said, the source “close to the actress” was most likely her publicist.
“The disappointing response to Queen of Scots, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival in late August, seems to have taken a toll on the relationship between film star, Sloan Merryweather, and her fiancé, actor Carlyle McKinney. Since news broke that the wide release has been pushed to February of next year, the award-winning actress and her former dialogue coach seem to have parted ways. They haven’t been photographed together since leaving the festival on separate planes. Sloan is reportedly in California at her Malibu beach estate, while McKinney’s whereabouts are unknown.
“I think she found they hadn’t as much in common as she first thought,” a source close to the actress confides. “He’s enthralled by the glitz and glamour of the red carpet and the attention provided by press junkets, while Sloan prefers a quieter, more homebody-style life. It seems like Carlyle’s eager to promote himself, and may have resented Sloan’s effortless global popularity.”
Claire laughed out loud and rolled her eyes.
“When contacted, Sloan Merryweather’s publicist would only say that the pair remain dear friends, and that Sloan never talks about her private life.”
“Except when it pays to,” Claire said.
The photo provided had been taken on the red carpet at the film festival. Sloan was wearing a stunning, golden, one-shoulder-strap dress made of liquid-looking fabric, by Ralph Lauren, her famous auburn curls pulled up, back, and then cascading down over her shoulders, where the cut of the dress in the back left her naked to the waist. Claire had recently seen photographs of the dress in the New York Fashion Week coverage, and knew Sloan would be pleased to be the first and only one to wear it on a red carpet.
Carlyle wore the requisite black tux, and Claire was disappointed to see his face had been so altered that she barely recognized him. They’d straightened his nose, capped his teeth, and surgically opened his eyes so wide she wondered how he could sleep. His forehead had that shiny, frozen Botox sheen. His shoes obviously (to Claire) contained lifts to make him taller than the diminutive Sloan in her six-inch heels.
Sloan was looking off in the distance, graceful, serene, and effortlessly elegant, while Carlyle grinned right into the camera lens. He looked every bit as fake and try-hard as the article had insinuated, and Claire had no doubt that was exactly why that particular shot had been chosen to accompany the article. The subtext was clearly that Sloan had realized he was using her to become more famous and broke it off.
Claire closed the browser and pondered this development. The contract Carlyle had signed to be in a relationship with Sloan didn’t terminate until after awards season early in the next year. If the film now had no chance for an award, did that mean she’d released him early? If so, where was he?
Claire and Carlyle had met on the Scottish set of the movie in question. He had charmed Claire with his quirky looks (b
roken nose, mischievous grin) and his quick wit. He had been the first lover with whom Claire had not had to fake it, not even once. He was thorough, was Carlyle, and those hands. Claire shivered at the memory. She had fallen like a rock through clear water, or so she thought. Finding him in bed with Sloan, then, had been like a long knife to the belly.
Months ago, Claire had blocked him on her phone, and she now fought down the momentary urge to unblock him in case he tried to reach her. For a few minutes she let herself indulge in a deep ‘what if’ and ‘what then’ scenario fantasy. Finally, she shook her head and struggled back through the wormhole from her previous life to the life she was living now.
Reality.
Rose Hill.
“I have Ed,” she told herself. “I have a job.”
To keep from slipping down into a reminiscing binge, she changed into workout clothes and went for a run. Only a few steps behind her, meanwhile, the ghost of Carlyle McKinney pursued.
Chapter Seven
On Monday, Claire arrived early for her class, and organized her papers on the dressing room counter nearest the door. Ed had told her not to stand with her back to the windows, or the students would be distracted by what was outside. Since these windows were high up on the wall near the ceiling of this basement room, she didn’t need to worry, but she heeded his advice anyway. It also felt comforting to Claire that if everything went horribly, terribly wrong, she could just pick up her things and leave, and not have to walk past any of the students in order to do so. And she was completely prepared to do so.
A middle-aged, slender woman with tired eyes but a friendly smile looked in from the doorway.
“I’m Patrice,” she said. “I’m the Dance Department secretary. I wanted to welcome you to our subterranean lair.”
Claire introduced herself and shook her hand.
“If you need anything, my office is down at the end of the hall,” Patrice said. “If you want to go for lunch, stop by after you’re done.”
Claire said she would do that and then students began to arrive.
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