by Deanna Kizis
Collin nodded, and I noticed that, now that she had an audience, Chandra’s voice got a you-can-hear-her-in-the-cheap-seats boom to it. The PIBs were starting to stare. “That fuckin’ bitch treats her like fuckin’ dirt, and she’s so whipped she’s willing to put up with it!” Chandra hollered. “What are you so afraid of, Franklin? That he’s going to go out with some other ’ho instead of you?”
“Well, we technically haven’t broken up,” I said, “so I don’t think that’s exactly something to be worried about quite yet.”
“Yeah, well you’re technically not even together yet, either, so maybe that’s what you should be worried about.”
I looked to Collin for some assistance, but he just said, “You should listen to your homegirl.”
The rest of the evening Collin cock-blocked me. He kept Chandra—who technically was my friend date—locked into a conversation by doling out compliments and generally kissing her ass. In the car on the way home Chandra kept talking about how “amazing” Collin was.
“He’s fun,” I said, “but watch out for him.”
“Why?”
“He’s so networking-obsessed, he tries to get invited to the right funerals.”
“Girl, you are hi-larious!” Chandra whooped. Then, “Give me his number. I want to program it into my cell.”
Saturday morning I was awakened by Audrey, who saw no reason why she shouldn’t call me on her “Nokie” to discuss wedding drama while stuck in traffic.
“Aud,” I said in the middle of her napkin-ring monologue, “I’m actually really busy today.”
She said, “Doing what?”
I said I was working on a story for Filly but in fact I had nothing to do. When I’d gotten home from Collin’s barbecue the night before, there was a message from Ashton saying he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be able to go to the party with me after all. I couldn’t believe Ash was blowing me off. Anyway, he said we could maybe do something next weekend instead, which I figured would work because I was going to have to full-life Max for a little longer than I thought.
This was how I ended up staying home on date night watching a Touched by an Angel rerun while writing clever Christmas cards to my editors in hopes that this would make them want to renew my contract in the new year.
In other words, I persisted with my newer, fuller life.
The next morning, my insides felt like they were made of sharp rocks, so I decided to meet Nina at her Sunday rejuvenation yoga class. It was in a trendy studio in West Hollywood where they played Sarah McLachlan in the changing room and burned vanilla-scented incense.
“I keep forgetting to tell you I ran into Ashton last night,” Nina whispered, stretching into downward dog.
“You did?” I mentally reran the apologetic message I got from him on Friday—not feeling well, terribly sorry, thinks it could be the flu … “Wait”—I breathed into my hips—“where?”
“Some stupid party in Hancock Park I went to with the Producer. It was boring as lint.”
“And?” I tried to relax my shoulders.
“I told you, it was boring.”
“No, what happened with Ashton?”
We switched to lotus.
“What do you mean?” Nina closed her eyes.
“Did he seem sick at all?” I put my legs in a pretzel. “Did he look tired, or pale, in any way?”
“I don’t think so.”
I wondered if maybe Ashton had lied about being sick because he wasn’t over me—maybe seeing me was too painful to bear—so I asked Nina if he seemed sad, or depressed. If he’d asked about me perhaps …
“Not once,” she said. “He was out with friends, having a good time.”
“Thanks,” I hissed.
Nina breathed in deeply, then exhaled. “What do you want me to say? Maybe the night before last he was sitting at a bar alone and crying into his beer with grief, and I just didn’t run into him. All I know is that last night he seemed like he was having fun.”
I tried to stretch my fingers to the sun, weighing whether or not I wanted to tell Nina that Ashton had told me he was sick. I decided not, and said instead, “You’re not being very helpful.”
“Because you’re acting like a child.” Nina opened one eye at me. It had the beady look of the thoroughly exasperated. “You broke up with him, remember?”
I rolled my head one way, then the other. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, closing my eyes and straightening my spine, which was as tight as a rubber band stretched from L.A. to Vancouver.
“What’s bothering you?” she whispered.
I kept my eyes closed. “Shush, I’m balancing my chakras.”
I could feel Dr. Nina inspecting me, looking for soft spots. So I curled my lips up slightly at the ends, relaxed my furrowed brow, and tried to look rejuvenated. It was the most exhausting thing I did all weekend.
CHAPTER
11
One time, when I was sixteen or so, I had to go to school when I suspected a boyfriend was going to break up with me. He was so cool—owned a laminate machine, which meant he could make senior IDs for us so we could get off campus for lunch, and he was a really good skateboarder. But suddenly he was pulling away. And he kept saying, “What are you doing for lunch Thursday? Let’s have lunch Thursday”—as though we didn’t have lunch at Dan’s Super Subs around the corner from school practically every day of the week. I told my mom what I thought was going to happen on Black Thursday, and all she said was, “I wouldn’t wear mascara if I were you.”
This should explain why, instead of talking to the Mother, I drove over to Kiki’s, hoping my best friend would be home for a change. Lately she’d been falling into the Curtis vortex—I’d call and get the voicemail pretty much every time. I wasn’t mad or anything. But I have to say I couldn’t believe how much time they spent together. Days and days. In a row. Yet they never seemed to go anywhere, which was why I didn’t even know what Curtis looked like until he answered her door. Standing in the entryway, I was suddenly aware I had on a mismatched sweatshirt over my pajamas, my hair was in crooked pigtails, and I was clutching a pack of cigarettes in each hand. While Curtis gawked at me, I took a moment to give him the once-over. Kiki’s descriptions were pretty much on the money: He had brown hair, blue eyes, horn-rimmed glasses, and a kind of prep-school-meets-indie-rock vibe.
“You must be Ben,” Curtis said, stepping aside so I could enter. Inside, the lights were turned down low, and there were a few lit candles scattered around. From the looks of things, they’d been snuggling on the couch, watching Shakespeare in Love—what is it with couples and that movie?—and I suspect they were actually enjoying it. I felt bad interrupting, but in between my stammered apologies Curtis just smiled patiently while he put on his shoes and located his car keys. He didn’t complain once before he cleared out so Kiki could administer some much-needed heartbreak first aid, so I figured he was a pretty decent guy. He was cute. Quiet, but cute.
I hadn’t seen Max or spoken directly to Max in over two weeks. After that horrible weekend when I tried to full-life him in hopes that this would get his attention, he’d left me another message saying that the Japanese were staying an extra few days and he was “all booked up.”
I didn’t return the call.
This didn’t make him call again, though.
Where was he? What was going on? What did it mean? Every day I felt like I was being slowly squeezed to death. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t sleep.
I thought about calling him and just asking flat-out what the deal was, but somehow I knew it would be a mistake. It was like Max needed space, but the more I gave him, the more he needed. I kept going back to that night—the night we were watching Shakespeare in Love and he didn’t want to talk—and that hideous weekend in Palm Springs, which Kiki and I were now referring to as “The Debacle.” How do you talk to someone who never wants to talk?
“So what are you going to do?” Kiki asked, closing the door b
ehind Curtis with a wistful little breath.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I said, finding myself a place to sit in the middle of her cluttered floor, next to some old newspapers and half a bag of kitty litter. “I know that Max does a lot of business with the Japanese but I mean, Jesus, they have to have left by now, don’t you think?”
“Probably,” she agreed, blowing out the candles and turning on a light. She offered me a beer, which I accepted gratefully. “So now what?”
“Maybe I should just go over there and say if this is the way he wants to treat me, then I’m out. I don’t have to take this.”
“What about the Full Life?” she asked.
I looked at her like, You can’t be serious, and said, “His is fuller.”
Kiki gave a small nod. She cleared away the newspapers, the litter, some shoes, and a raincoat so she could join me on the carpet. Then she put an ashtray on the floor between us. We sat in silence for a minute, smoking and mulling over my options. It didn’t seem like I had very many.
“Maybe I should gather up all those great gifts he gave me, cart them over to his house, and dump them on his bed,” I said.
“That works for me.”
“Or maybe I should just show up and start screaming at him at the top of my lungs until the neighbors call the cops.”
“Totally reasonable. Maybe you could, like, I dunno, B”—Kiki started to imitate Max, lighting another cigarette and schlumping her shoulders forward in a slacker pose—“act like you’re really cute and sweet and harmless and then, like, take out a bowie knife and rip his heart out of his chest and eat it.”
“Hey. That was good. Or I could like, bring an Uzi submachine gun, K, and totally, like, ram it up his butt and fire it.”
“Or know what, B? You could, like, replace all the fucking half-and-half in his refrigerator with like, skim milk and watch him choke to death.”
“And you know what his last words will be?” I gasped.
We yelled together, “This isn’t cream, B!”
I rolled over on my back and tried to catch my breath. I had obviously been smoking too many cigarettes and it hurt deep in my chest, but I couldn’t stop laughing—the kind of hysterical, all-in-a-whoosh laughing that, I imagine, people do right before they jump off a bridge into an icy river.
“Hold on a sec.” Kiki went to answer her phone. It was Curtis. I could tell from the blissed-out look on her face. I looked at the clock—they had been separated for exactly seven minutes. “You have?” she said, holding up her finger. “You do?” She started laughing. “Later. No, later. I will. I promise. ’Bye.”
“I should go, I barged in on you guys.”
“You’re not going.” Kiki sat back down in front of me. “Come on, he’s just being cute.”
“So things are good.”
“Amazing. Seriously. The other day, he told me he wants to come home with me for Hanukkah to meet my parents.”
“That’s so great. Meanwhile I can’t even get Max to try my dry cleaner.”
Kiki snorted. “So seriously, what are you going to do?”
“I have no idea.” I lay down on the floor again, stared at the cracks in the ceiling that had been there since the last earthquake. “I don’t want to end it, but I can’t stand staying in it. Then again, if I do end it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand it being over.”
“You know I’ll be supportive of whatever you decide.”
“Oh, I know. Look, don’t worry about me.” I got up to leave. “I’m just going to go home and die alone so you two can get your fuck on.”
I raised my eyebrow at Kiki and made my way to the door. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” she said, just as her phone started to ring again.
I assured her I’d just needed a quick chat and I was going to be fine. As a good-bye, Kiki punched me in the shoulder. Then she gave me a hug.
“I’m a ’ho,” she said, giggling.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Me, too.”
THE FILLY WHEEL OF (IN)DECISION
Confused to the brink of insanity? Bashing your head in with that mercurial Magic Eight Ball? Does he love you? Love you not? Stop playing with toys! Stop murdering daisies! Use the Filly Wheel of (In)decision! Psychic energy was steeped into the paper by paranormal experts, and it has all the answers.—B.F.
I called Max at home every night for the rest of the week. We were going to have The Talk—the Are-We-or-Are-We-Not-Breaking-Up Talk—whether he wanted to or not. Putting it off at this point was just too painful. He never answered his phone, though, so I kept hanging up before his answering machine beeped. He was obviously avoiding me, and finally, with no other options, I called him during work hours on his cell. It felt like defeat.
“This is Max,” he said.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Hey,” he said. He sounded a million miles away.
“Look, I think we have to talk.” I was trying to break it to him gently.
“I know.” Oh, so he was ready for it …
“Today?” I asked, trying not to sound too desperate.
“I can’t do it today.”
“Tomorrow then.”
“Can’t do it tomorrow either.”
“When then.”
“Friday?”
“Max,” I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice, “that’s three days from now.”
“I can’t do it before then.”
“All right. Fine.”
“My house, six o’clock?”
“Okay.” I tried to think if there was something more I wanted to say, but then he said, “See you,” and hung up. I sat there, staring at the receiver. He didn’t sound happy to hear from me. At all. Did he actually expect me to just disappear? I wondered. Could that really be what he wants? But it didn’t seem possible. I mean, he’d never said anything about us being over. Was I just supposed to assume that we were?
I spent the next few days trying not to lose it completely. But I couldn’t pay attention to anything. I walked into walls. I stubbed my toe. I gave myself a bruise in the middle of my forehead when I distractedly opened my car door and slammed it into my own face. I cried—a lot. Curtis was away on a business trip, and so Kiki had time to discuss every conceivable outcome. We talked every day for so long my phone kept running out of batteries. She generously predicted that one of two things would happen. (A), Max and I would talk it out and everything would be fine. The less preferable, but more likely, (B), I’d break up with him and he’d be destroyed and would want me back by Christmas. The key, Kiki said, was not to be wishy-washy. I had to go over there and lay down the law. Tell him he couldn’t treat me so cavalierly anymore if he really wanted me in his life. It was my only chance to get through this feeling remotely good about myself. But even with Kiki’s cheerful reassurances that it would all work out in the end, the week dragged on forever, and I was overcome with the chill of impending doom. It was like that feeling you get just before you crash your car—you see it coming, you see it coming, you see it coming, and it’s taking so long you should be able to do something to stop it. But you can’t.
On Friday I didn’t put on mascara before I left for Max’s house. Melodramatic, sure, but I was in a melodramatic mood. I packed up the gifts, too. Into the trash bag went the Polaroid camera he’d given me to celebrate our one-month anniversary, along with the funny pictures I’d taken of us to document the occasion. In went the teddy bear hugging the red heart he’d tucked into bed with me one morning before he left for work—he’d probably bought it at Sav-On, but at the time I thought it was delightful. In went the Super Very Good sunglasses he’d presented to me for our trip to Palm Springs. In went the many CDs he’d burned for me, with covers from the albums carefully scanned, printed, and placed in the jewel boxes. And in went all the clothes. The bag was stuffed to bursting. After barely a five-minute conversation with Max in weeks, the presents hurt. They were like promises he didn’t keep.
I pulled up in fron
t of Max’s house and wiped my sweaty palms on the legs of my jeans before grabbing the garbage bag full of presents. I took a deep breath and tried to remind myself that I was there to play hardball. There will be no more of this, I thought. No more waiting. No more guessing. No more wondering what he was going to do, or if I was ever going to hear from him again. It wasn’t like I was putting all this pressure on him. It wasn’t like I didn’t have my own life. Whatever his problem was, he’d have to get over it because I simply wouldn’t be able to take the silent treatment from him anymore. It had become physically intolerable.
For the first time since our first date, I rang the doorbell. Max usually left the door open for me and I’d wander in and find him upstairs listening to music. But this time, that seemed too informal, so I rang the bell and some shaggy-haired guy answered. At first I thought I was at the wrong house. Then I realized he was one of the roommates. Of course, I thought. Now he’s home.
“Hey,” I said, trying to act casual even though my eyes were puffy and I was carrying a giant green Glad garbage bag.
“Can I help you?”
“Oh. I’m Ben. Um. Is Max here?”
“Uhhhh … I dunno.”
There was a three-foot bong and an open bag of Pirate’s Booty on the table behind him.
“Could I check?”
“Uhhhh … I guess so. It’s …”
“I know which way it is.”
I suddenly realized the roommate had no idea who “Ben” was. He had never even heard of me.
I walked past him and up the stairs to Max’s room. Inside, the curtains were drawn, even though it was still early. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Then I realized Max was lying on his bed, facing the wall.
“Hey,” I said, putting my bitter bag of stuff on the floor by the drum set. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t brought it. Seemed like I didn’t want to work things out. But I did. Desperately.
“Hey.” He didn’t turn over.
I took my old reliable stool in front of the drum set.