-Dr. Blake
Count. Reply.
Dr. Blake,
3.) Always 1,400. Yes.
-Calista
One. Two. Three. Send. Empty inbox. Shut laptop.
When I get back to the living room, Melanie is on the couch playing some word game on her phone. We decide to begin Disc 4.
Mandy comes back in after we finish about half of an episode. She carries a pitcher of margaritas and fills up Melanie’s glass and then her own.
“How’s Josh?” Melanie asks, sounding genuinely interested. Impressive. I try to catch her eye to silently thank her for her efforts, but she is still looking at Mandy.
Mandy plops down on the loveseat. She tells us how much she and Josh miss each other. As she divulges her plans to see him next weekend, I try to catch Melanie’s reaction. She, however, is already looking at me with a concerned glance.
Oh. Right. The being left alone thing. She knows I can spend entire nights when I am alone searching for hidden murderers around the house. I used to stay with her when Mandy went away, but recently I’ve been trying to suck it up on my own. No murderers have shown up as of yet so I must be doing something right.
I try to ignore Melanie’s anxious look and instead focus on Mandy’s babble of plans. Melanie eventually turns to Mandy as well. It appears that she is softening a bit to this whole relationship between Mandy and Josh. I know she thinks they are young to be so committed, but maybe she finally recognizes that she and Doug were also young when they got together.
Besides, it’s probably better to be nineteen and committed instead of twenty-four and alone. Somehow, Melanie seems to be following my thoughts yet again.
“So, Callie, how is class with Dr. Gabriel?” She sounds all sing-songy as she says his name. She knows I hate talking about him.
“He’s somehow managing to balance having me as an assistant and trying to impress me while simultaneously pretending that I don’t exist. I think he’s still pretty pissed about last year.”
I had Dr. Gabriel for my Journalistic Writing I class last fall. We ran into each other on campus in the spring, and he asked me out. After I said no, I, of course, was assigned his class for my TA position. That’s just the miserable way the world spins for me.
“You should have just said yes,” Mandy chimes in.
“Now there is a piece of journalism,” I reply with a smile. “Sex-crazed professor captures virgin extraordinaire.”
Melanie laughs. “You are probably the only one who has ever said no to him. All those literary grad students can’t resist living out the handsome, poetic professor falls for young, naïve student storyline.”
I smile, thinking of the girls I’ve seen walking with him on campus.
“You’re right. I’m pretty strong to settle for the Emily Dickinson-style ‘just me and my writing’ character.”
I do hope things get less awkward with Dr. Gabriel. I guess I should be glad that he actually asked for my commentary today in class, even though he seemed rather disinterested when I gave it. Eventually, he will have to give in and introduce me to the class, especially before I start teaching in November. He’ll probably wait until the last second. My discomfort in class seems to be my punishment for turning him down.
Oh well. At least the TA job is paying for my tuition. The awkwardness must be worth that. I think.
We watch another Friends episode and discuss Mom’s upcoming birthday. I’ll pick out the gift and wrap it, we’ll split the cost among the three of us and Jared, and we’ll all have dinner with Mom and Dad to celebrate. Pretty standard.
11:30 p.m. Mandy and Melanie both seem to be dozing off. I pull Melanie’s blanket over her and take Mandy’s glasses off of her face, setting them on the end table. I power off the television and DVD player and turn off the living room light.
Time for night preparations. But first, I head to my laptop.
One email, sent shortly after my last reply. Count. Click.
Calista,
3.) For how many years?
Aren’t you supposed to be at Girls’ Night?
-Dr. Blake
Count. Reply.
Dr. Blake,
For as long as I can remember.
Yes, it is Girls’ Night. There was a break in the action.
-Calista
Count. Send.
Laptop closed. Night preparations—GO!
IT’S AROUND 12:45 A.M. WHEN I finish cleaning Mandy’s room and begin painting my nails. As I wait for my nails to dry, I wonder if there will be any more questions tonight.
After three minutes of drying, it is time to open my laptop again.
He wrote.
Calista,
What would you eat if you had a day when calories didn’t count?
-Dr. Blake
That is his question? At almost 1:00 in the morning?
Fast count. Onetwothreeclick.
Dr. Blake,
Nachos covered in melted cheese.
Why do you keep replying tonight? I’m sure you are well aware that I can’t go to sleep until my inbox is empty.
-Calista
Onetwothreesend.
What the hell? It’s Friday night. Doesn’t he have something else he could be doing? Sleeping, perhaps?
I remember that little dark-haired boy in the picture on his bookshelf. He’ll probably be up and ready to watch cartoons or something in just a few short hours.
DING. Another email.
Count. Click.
Calista,
Yes. I am aware. Just testing to see how long it takes you to offer some unsolicited information about your condition.
Good Night,
Dr. Blake
This was a test? Damn it.
I can’t shake my irritation as I continue my routine, folding, dusting, and scrubbing. Did he even need answers to those follow-up questions or were they just stupid pawns in his little game? {And here is Avril Lavigne with “Complicated.”} Shower. Cleaned. Shaved. Dried. Lotioned. {Avril begins her thirty-third rendition of the song. This one goes out to Dr. Aiden Blake.}
Finally, I get to the point where I can turn the television on. Spicy meatloaf tonight—doesn’t sound very appetizing. Doesn’t matter. Sleep.
Chapter 6
saturday
APPARENTLY, DR. BLAKE CLOCKS IN on Saturdays too. There is an email waiting for me when I wake up. He sent it at 7:00 a.m. Maybe that dark-haired little boy did get him up to watch some cartoons. I briefly wonder if his wife or girlfriend, or whoever the mother of that boy is, gets irritated that he works on the weekends.
All right. List number three coming up, no doubt.
Count. Click.
Calista,
Here is your third list.
1.) Drugs/Alcohol
2.) Money
3.) Flowers
What time is confession today?
-Dr. Blake
Why? Does he want to come? I can’t see how knowing the time will lead to any help in my treatment. Ugh!
Reply.
Dr. Blake,
1.) Drugs/Alcohol
I have never touched any drugs (nor will I).
It astounds me that people using drugs have such a blind eye when it comes to germs. Of course, I’m terribly appalled that anyone would voluntarily stick a needle into his or her skin and repulsed by the fact that that very needle might have just been lodged underneath someone else’s skin. However, I also find it disgusting that people merely pass a joint around in a circle without reflecting on the germ-infested—
I stop and sit, picking at my nail polish. I’m probably giving him too much information.
I quickly delete everything but my first sentence.
1.) Drugs/Alcohol
I have never touched any drugs.
I have one margarita every Friday night.
2.) Money
What does he want to know? My current checking account balance? Maybe he is asking for my bank account number like that stranger in
Nigeria.
I smile at the thought. I won’t be giving that information to either of them, although I am giving this man all kinds of other information about myself that I don’t really tell anyone else…
Okay, money.
2.) Money
Some money saved to buy a house after grad school.
Trying to pay down undergraduate school loans.
Hmm…good enough.
3.) Flowers
Seriously? Flowers? I don’t know, Dr. Blake, what kind of flowers do you like to buy for that woman in the picture with your son? Does she like it when you ask your patients such date-like questions?
Calm down, Callie. One. Two. Three.
3.) Flowers
Yellow roses
Confession is at 4:00 p.m.
-Calista
Count. Send.
8:00 a.m. Time to get my morning routine moving. Melanie has already gone home to spend the morning with Abby. Mandy will be asleep in her room until around noon. That will give me plenty of time.
Thermostat: 70 degrees. Stove: off. Door: locked. (Thank you, Melanie. She hasn’t forgotten once since I gave her a spare key.) Blinds: opened. Alarm: off. (It was set for 8:30 this morning—just in case.) Teeth: brushed. Pictures: straightened. Living Room: cleaned. Floor: swept. Refrigerator: sorted. Dishes: washed. Kitchen Floor: scrubbed. Doorknobs: wiped. Laundry: started. Prayers: said. Bathroom: sanitized. Bathroom Floor: steam-mopped. Shower: taken. Body: cleaned, shaved, lotioned, and weighed. Hair: dried and styled. Clothes: on.
11:05 a.m. Mandy’s up early. She knocks on my bedroom door.
“Hey, Callie. I’m heading out. I have to work on a group science project thing.”
“All right, Mandy. Careful.”
“See you later.”
Minutes later, I hear the front door close. I run out to check the lock and then return to my room.
Maybe I should just quickly check my email before I continue to work on my paper. If I keep up this pace, I will soon have checked my email more times in one week than I did in my entire career as an undergraduate student.
Laptop: open. Inbox: empty.
After scraping off the last bit of clear nail polish from my left pinkie finger, I press the “check email” icon.
Still nothing. {The refrain of Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing” plays broken record-style.}
Focus, Callie. Paper time.
THREE HOURS LATER. THREE PAGES, hand-written. Many more to go.
3:03 p.m. Email inbox is still empty.
3:05 p.m. Almost time for confession. Leaving-the-house routine.
3:45 p.m. On my way. I drive and consider the mean things I’ve thought since last Saturday. I remember the grocery store parking lot. Those loud kids and lover boy with his girl. Unnecessarily mean thoughts just because I had to sit in a parking space for a few extra minutes. Irritation toward Dr. Gabriel. Just like every week.
Perhaps you ought to tell Father Patrick about your incessant desire to check to see if a potentially married man wrote you an email. And about the fact that you are disappointed he hasn’t written more today even though he is probably off spending quality time with his wife and son. I’m pretty sure the big J.C. really doesn’t like it when you think about messing with family units.
I tell my conscience to shut it as I pull into St. Anne’s parking lot. I want him to email me because I want him to help me so that maybe in the future I won’t be pulling into this parking lot for confession every Saturday until I die.
4:02 p.m. Confession.
4:04 p.m. Out with a penance. Father Patrick wants me to say the Hail Mary three times. I say three sets of three. Just to be sure.
4:35 p.m. Home. Mandy’s already out for the night. Dinner and a movie with some sorority sisters. I see her standard note sitting on the table as I’m drying my hands. I know what it will say before I even make my way across the kitchen.
Title of the movie she’ll be seeing. Time it starts. Theatre number. General area in the theatre where she’ll be sitting. The fact that she’ll save a seat for me “just in case.”
Just in case I miraculously forget the story I heard somewhere about people with AIDS sticking themselves with needles and then placing the needles in movie theatre seats so you can get a side of disease with your movie experience.
Still haven’t forgotten, Mandy. Check back next week.
As I walk back to my room, I have to admit to myself that it’s nice that she still asks.
More Pablo Neruda tonight. I force myself not to open my laptop until I’m scheduled to during night preparations.
11:30 P.M. THREE MORE PAGES WRITTEN tonight. Night preparations complete.
He didn’t write.
I fall asleep as the chef on television is pulling a specially seasoned prime rib out of the oven.
Chapter 7
sunday
EMAIL INBOX: EMPTY. MORNING PREPARATIONS. Leaving the house routine. Church. Home. Email inbox: empty. Pablo Neruda paper: completely typed. Night preparations. Email inbox: empty.
{U2 performs one song over and over all day: “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”}
Chapter 8
more lists
6:00 A.M. MONDAY MORNING. DA BLAKE is back in the house. Three emails sent about fifteen minutes ago.
I force my hands to shut my laptop so I can’t open any of them. He didn’t write all day yesterday—he can wait. Besides, I’ll never make it to my class on time if I start replying to his emails now.
Morning and leaving routines. One. Two. Three. Start.
9:40 a.m. I grab a 225-calorie cereal bar and head to school. At the beginning of class, I turn in my Pablo Neruda paper and then sit and listen as Dr. Sumpter discusses poetry analysis in depth.
She has now been discussing the poetry of Tennyson for over forty-five minutes. I stopped listening when she hit the thirty minute mark.
What will be on his list today? Why didn’t I just open the emails before class? Then I could have had something to think about during this Tennyson sermon.
How many more lists will there be? {Bob Dylan steps up to the microphone with his guitar for a little “Blowin’ in the Wind.”} Will he be finished with the lists by the time I have my appointment on Wednesday? {Actually, it’s a lot of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” enough to get me through most of class anyway.}
When class finally starts to wrap up, I realize that my nail polish is gone. I am going to have to paint my nails again before work this afternoon.
Dr. Sumpter gives us our next assignment. An analysis of any work by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Step aside, Mr. Neruda; I’ll be taking a new man to the bathtub with me this week.
1:25 p.m. Home. Shoes: sprayed with sanitizer. Hands: scrubbed. To the laptop.
First email. One. Two. Three. Click.
Calista,
One clarification.
Money—How do you feel about money itself? The actual green stuff?
-Dr. Blake
Oh. He doesn’t want my bank account information. This makes much more sense.
Dr. Blake,
Money is one of the filthiest things on the planet. I buy everything with credit cards.
-Calista
Count. Send. Not too bad.
Second email. Count. Open.
Calista,
Another clarification.
Flowers—How do you do with flowers themselves? Planting them, watering them, working with soil, etc.?
-Dr. Blake
Now I feel like an idiot. Of course that is what he meant by flowers, but why didn’t he just write that?
Count. Reply.
Dr. Blake,
I like to look at flowers and smell them. I don’t plant them or have a garden or anything. You never know what gross stuff is waiting for you as you dig up soil.
-Calista
Count. Send. Okay. Last email. Count. Open.
Calista,
Here is your fourth list.
1.) Music
2.)
Spare time
3.) Sex
-Dr. Blake
What? I’d really like to see an official copy of this list of “standard” questions.
Deep breath. Count. Reply.
Dr. Blake,
1.) Music
Checked Page 4