by Cathy Lamb
“I wonder if I’ll be lonely my whole life,” he mused.
I wanted to tell him differently, but I wanted to be honest, too. “I don’t know, Lance. Sometimes, with me, and my loneliness, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have to get used to it. See it as someone who’s with me, who comes and goes.”
“You mean a lonely friend?”
“No, not a lonely friend, but…a person, a being, a thing.”
“So accept loneliness.”
“I don’t know how else to handle it. I work, I talk to people, I walk, I see you and Polly and Aunt Janet, but there are moments when I’m stark lonely. Other moments when I think my loneliness will eat me alive. And sometimes it’s vaguely there, hanging around, waiting to go away, maybe on a trip somewhere, and often I’m not lonely at all and feel happy to be alive. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, honey, it does.”
“So I try to get busy, I work in my garden, I read and make things, and move through it.”
“That’s about all we can do, sweetie, move through it, right?”
“Yep. Move through loneliness and isolation and hope you can outrun it for a while.”
He sniffled.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Polly,” I pleaded with her over the phone. “It isn’t.”
“It is. I’m a loser. I’m thirty-five years old and I have the same battle.” I could hear her “soft-crying.” Soft-crying, in my mind, means, “I can’t have the full cry I deserve because I’m at work.” And Polly was at work. She had an hour before she went on the air.
“Polly, we all have stuff we have to work on. Everybody. I read the other day that a majority of Americans have some sort of mental problem during their lifetimes.”
“You think I have a mental problem?”
“Polly, you know what you have. It’s catching up to you again. You need help. You need to push it back one more time.”
“I am pushing it back.”
I heard her talking to her heart. She whispered, “Calm down, my heart. It’s okay.”
“It’s pushing back harder; it’s winning. I can see it in your face.”
“What’s wrong with my face?”
I didn’t say, “You’re a slight shade of blue, your cheekbones are sticking way too far out, you’re pale.” I said, “You’re gorgeous, but it’s showing up again, and you know it.”
“I’m winning. I know how to handle this. I was at group the other night, even.”
“What did the people in the group say?”
Polly said something under her breath.
“What?”
She spoke again. I couldn’t understand her.
“What?”
“They said I need to…” She cried again, her breath gaspy. “They said I need to go in for treatment again. But they’re wrong. They’re a bunch of skinny people. One has pink hair, one has a tattoo of Groucho Marx, one has a doctorate, one’s a lawyer—they don’t know. They’re wrong. I know what to do. I’m stronger now, I’m better, I’m not a teenager….”
“Go to the clinic, Polly. Let me take you there—”
“No. I have to go, Stevie. I love you.”
The dial tone rang in my ear.
13
Portland, Oregon
It was date night with Jake, and I was petrified.
I called Zena.
“Help me,” I wheezed.
She was over in forty-five minutes. “I am going to take you in hand, girlfriend—here I go—and why didn’t you tell me you had a date?”
We went to a salon and she told the stylist, her friend Josi, how to cut my hair.
“You need to get rid of all this.” Zena held up the frizzy ends of my black curls. “And you need to shape this mess.” She pulled on my well-grown-out bangs. “And she needs lift back here so she doesn’t have a pelt for hair and resemble a black beaver.” She yanked up the middle of my hair.
I cowered while Zena and her stylist friend chatted, my hair flying to the floor. Honestly, I would not have been surprised if I had no hair left when they were done.
“Okay, now you can look. Unsqueeze your eyes, Stevie, there ya go. Be a Wonder Woman and glance at the mirror.”
I did. I unsqueezed my eyes.
Zena smiled. “There. Much better. You don’t resemble a toadstool at all anymore.”
Josi smiled. “I know you’ve heard this a million times, Stevie, but you have hellaciously awesome blue eyes. They’re amazing.”
I waved my hands in front of my eyes to dry the tears.
I loved my hair!
Zena came home with me and made me try on three different outfits with the clothes I’d bought from Phyllis at the store. She told me to wear the jeans that, in her words, would “make his dick rise, so I call them dick-riser jeans,” the red shirt with the crisscross bodice—“Your girls will leave him panting like a dog”—and earrings, a necklace, and bracelets with natural stones she was wearing that she took off and handed to me. “Phallic good luck symbols. Stevie, give me a minute.” She put her hands over her face. “Emotions get to me sometimes….” She shuddered in a few breaths. “You, friend, are hot.” She pulled my forehead to hers. “Don’t be scared, Stevie. You are going to make his balls bounce together, and that’s the highest compliment I can give you.”
By the time Jake was on my front doorstep, I was shaking, and trying not to think of him naked or his balls bouncing together or any rising that might possibly be going on in his pants, although I doubted it. Was that objectifying him? Was I as bad as men are about women?
But still. You should have seen his chest!
Jake had on a jacket and button-down shirt and he smelled like aftershave and mint and the woods in the morning.
“You’re beautiful, Stevie.”
Now he said this in all sincerity as he towered over me, so I got choked up and made a waving motion with my hand for him to come into my house. He stepped in, and my small house instantly became even smaller, because he’s so tall, and yet it also became instantly warmer, too, as if it were reaching out to hug him.
I saw my house through his eyes—all the colors, the funky furniture, the wine barrels that were now side tables, the church pew, the bookshelves full of pretty things I’d found used, my butcher block counter…
“It’s you, that’s for sure,” he said, turning to me. “It’s you. I like it. I like it a lot.”
He stared right at me when he said, “I like it,” and I knew I was melting on the inside, kidneys into bladder.
Could I do this? Could I go to dinner? Would I be able to articulate words like bird, or hello, or thank you or would I only stare and think lustful thoughts about this blondish-haired giant?
“I’m sure you’ve heard this from many people, Stevie, but your eyes are stunning.”
I did not say, “They’re my momma’s eyes,” but I thought it, and that put a damper on things a bit, but then I said, “Thank you, yours are, too,” which I couldn’t believe dropped out of my mouth, but he seemed pleased, so I showed him the house. He loved all my furniture and wanted to know where I got certain things and was very admiring that I had made others, for example, the blue table made from a barn door and a mirror frame I’d decorated with long tree branches.
I showed him the second bedroom, with Joseph’s wood carvings, and whisked by my bedroom, but he stepped on in.
“That’s the most incredible bed I’ve ever seen,” he said, awed. “Where did you get it?”
“I built it.”
“You built it? It’s…” He ran his hand over the wood. “It’s incredible. Original. I’ve never seen anything like it….”
I bit my lower lip, holding my smile to a minimum, though I was so flattered that the man with the possibly bouncing balls admired my bed.
Jake wanted to see my woodworking materials, but I steered him away from that, lickety quick. No need to share my obsessions yet.
He opened the door to his truck and I climbed in. He put
on, of all things, piano music. “My mother made me take piano lessons my whole life. All I wanted to do was play sports, which I did. She agreed to it, but said I had to take piano, too, so I would be a well-rounded person, so I did, and now I love hearing it.”
“Do you still play?” I’d like to play with him.
He grinned at me. “Sure do.”
“I’d like to hear you play sometime.” I’d like you to play with me.
We drove around the block twice, chatting, then stopped in front of his house. “This is the restaurant I’m taking you to.”
I froze. Oh, no. Had I given him the wrong impression? My stomach dropped. Did he think I was going to get in bed with him at his house? I was not going to do so, I was only fantasizing about it! He wasn’t even taking me to dinner? I had not read him right. I had not figured he was this type of man. How could I have thought he was different from other stupid men….
“Stevie, I know what you’re thinking.” Jake held up a hand. “Please, don’t. I’ve set up dinner in my backyard. I promise it’ll make you smile. I thought you would be more comfortable here at our first dinner than in a restaurant….”
I couldn’t move. Was he telling the truth? Was he sincere? He was right, probably. Going to a formal dinner, with Jake, in a formal restaurant, had darn near knocked me down with fear, but still. Our first date, at his house?
“Hang on.” He got out of the car, ran around to the backyard of his house, then came back with a bunch of daffodils, irises, and baby’s breath clutched in his hand. “Here, Stevie, these are for you. I wanted you to see them on the table when you came in. Please? Please come to dinner with me in my backyard.”
I loved daffodils and irises and baby’s breath. I saw earnestness in those green eyes, and I saw truth. “Okay. You’re welcome. Yes. No.”
He just grinned.
I have no idea why Crystal wanted to bring me to the Athertons to see Danny.
I told her that: “I don’t know why you need me to go.”
“I didn’t ask you to ask questions. You’re coming with me.” She waved at the people in the Chinese food stand as we drove by. “I need to see for myself what kind of shape this kid is in. The parents say that he’s all mentally messed up—well, let’s go and see. Kids can’t fake it for long, and I think these parents are exaggerating how bad it is and how much money they need for him. Millions of dollars for care? Give me a break. Can’t Mom help out?”
“The mother has been helping out.”
“Damn, Steve, whose side are you on?”
I wanted to say, “I’m on their side, you nitwit,” but I didn’t. I needed my job. “I’m giving you their side of it, Crystal, and they have good points.”
She blew her bangs out of her eyes. “I have no idea why you’re arguing with me.” She stopped at a light and took long moments to admire herself in the rearview mirror. She drove fast, aggressively, and gave two drivers the one-fingered salute and mouthed, “Fuck you.”
“I liked you better when you were fat.”
I felt as if I’d been slapped. It was the same thing Herbert had said. And Crystal had never known me when I was really fat.
“You didn’t cause conflict with me, or assert yourself. Now you lose some weight and you’re not blubbering and lumbering around everywhere, true, but you used to be quiet. You’d do your work, turn everything in on time, and you were—invisible. You were there when I needed you but not in my face when I didn’t.”
“I still do my work, and I do it well, Crystal,” I snapped. “I turn everything in on time and I was never invisible. You might not have seen me, but I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were. People don’t see fat people, okay, Steve? They’re there, but they’re not there. People admire thin people. Pretty people. Rich people. Powerful people. No one registers a fat person unless you’re sitting next to them on a plane and they’ve insisted you lift up the armrest so their fat can sit on your lap the entire trip. I’ve said no to that before. I don’t feel obligated to have someone’s fat on me. I paid for my whole seat and I should get a whole seat, but fat people…”
I wanted to kill her. At that moment, I really hated Crystal, and I try never to hate anyone. “Crystal, fat people have feelings like you. No, I take that back.” I gritted my teeth, told myself to rein in my anger, but it unleashed, flowing and fiery. “You don’t have any feelings, do you? You’re a cold, self-centered, working machine. You don’t value anyone unless they’re young and pretty and thin and stylish. That’s what you think is important. That person’s intellect, their interests, what they do for other people, how well read they are, if they have cool hobbies, who loves that person, honesty and integrity—none of that means anything to you, does it? And you probably wonder why no one likes you at the firm.”
She seemed confused. “What do you mean?”
I was baffled. “What do you mean?”
“When you said that no one likes me. What are you talking about?”
She didn’t know? She didn’t know how people constantly talked behind her back?
“Nothing, Crystal. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m angry about what you said, so I overreacted, said something mean, I’m sorry—”
“No, tell me.”
“They all like you.”
“You said they didn’t.” She pulled over onto a side street, ignored the blare of horns, flipped the other drivers off, again, and turned to me, eyes narrowed.
“Well…I’m…sure…no one l-l-likes me, either,” I stuttered.
“This isn’t about you, Steve, it’s about me. Everybody likes you. Why did you say that about me?”
We went back and forth for a minute, and then I said, truly incredulous, “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Know that you’re probably not the most popular person at Poitras and Associates.”
“I know that. Cherie is. Or that Roller-blading dwarf, Zena, or maybe you, Steve. But why don’t they like me?”
I hemmed and hawed and then I gave in, as I could tell Crystal was not going to move that car. “You can be a little…abrasive.”
She thought about that. “And?”
“Perhaps a little…brusque.”
“And?”
“Maybe you should say hello to people, or wish them a good day now and then. You know, smile…act as if you’re happy to see someone…say thank you, give a compliment…” I felt so guilty, so terrible about what I’d said. What had gotten into me? Why had I let her have it?
She stared straight ahead for a while, then her head tilted up. “I’m not at Poitras and Associates to be Miss Congeniality. I’m there to win cases. I couldn’t care less if the secretaries and support staff don’t like me. I’m an attorney. I don’t have to care about those people who are beneath me.”
I had almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Danny Atherton was fed through a g-tube through his stomach, on a hospital bed, in the middle of the Athertons’ dining room. Because Danny loved the University of Oregon Ducks, the bottom half of the dining room walls had been painted green and the top half yellow. Posters of Duck athletes were scattered across them.
Danny’s parents were standing protectively on either side of him, their attorneys standing guard next to them, with a nurse next to Dirk, as Crystal and I entered. There were three other young kids, dark hair, green eyes, who stood in the hallway.
If there was any doubt that this child needed round-the-clock supervision and help, it was blown to smithereens in that second. Although Danny had the most angelic smile I believe I have seen anywhere, his gaze was fuzzy, he was tiny under the blankets, and there was medical equipment, tubes, poles, and medicines everywhere. Danny could not speak, eat, or get himself to the bathroom.
Crystal froze two feet in.
Dealing with reality is not something Crystal specializes in. The harder, darker, scarier, sadder parts of life weren’t on her agenda. In her designer suit and
four-inch heels and hard expression she was acutely out of place. And she knew it. This was above her, beyond her. She did not have the depth to deal with this.
“Seen enough?” Mr. Atherton snapped. “Do you understand now that we really do have health issues here or do you still think we’re lying? Maybe we can show you a list of Danny’s medications. We can show you his schedule for taking those medications, when the physical therapist comes, the nurses, the caregivers. We can show you how we change and dress him and how we change his diapers or sometimes use a catheter. One of us sleeps in here on that chair”—he pointed to a lounge chair—“every night. Every single night. Danny can never be left alone.”
Crystal took a shaky breath. I stood frozen.
“Or maybe you two want to review his medical bills again,” Mr. Atherton said. “We can show you the papers we need to fill out to file bankruptcy. Hey, you two are smart. How about if you help us fill them out?”
I didn’t respond because here’s the thing: Mr. Atherton’s anger was justified. Not only at what had happened to their son, but at us. We were the law firm that was fighting them. Fighting this young boy who loved dragons, who went into surgery for a repairable heart problem and who ended up in this room, being fed by a tube with a bag for urine at his side.
“I’m sorry—” I started. Crystal was still frozen, staring. “I’m so terribly sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Mr. Atherton said. “We’re sorry, too. We’re sorry that our kid can’t play baseball and lacrosse anymore, can’t play the tuba or have friends over. He can’t even play checkers. He can’t camp, he can’t fish, he can’t read his dragon books, can’t play with his brothers, all because a bunch of high-paid doctors couldn’t make sure he had oxygen during his operation. And now they’re fighting us, trying to make us responsible for their mistake. You all want us to go away, don’t you?” He crossed his chest. “Well, we’re not going away.”
“Mr. Atherton,” Crystal said, voice weak, but still combative, that awful bitch, “you can’t prove that the lack of oxygen was what caused this. We’ve discussed this before—”