The Ruining

by Anna Collomore

  “Don’t,” I heard myself pleading. “Please don’t.” If she fired me, I would have to leave. There would be no Owen. There would be nothing. The idea of Libby hating me was unbearable.

  “I won’t—for now—only because I know you have nowhere to go. Would those deadbeat parents of yours even take you back? Especially in your condition? No, Annie. I’ll let you stay only because I feel sorry for you. And because I wonder if maybe I can help you.”

  “Yes,” I said. My voice emerged from the dark tunnel of my brain, worming its way through muddy, cottoned clumps. “Help me.”

  “Drink this,” she told me, handing me a mug of tea. “And take this.” She held out a little white pill on a napkin. “It will calm you down.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just a Valium. Nothing to worry about.” I took the pill from her and swallowed it down with a gulp of tea. The warm, peppermint-flavored liquid scalded my throat, making me gasp for breath.

  “What did you mean about Owen not being twenty?” I wanted to know once I’d taken a moment to calm down. “Why did you say that?”

  “What do you mean?” Libby’s face wore a confused expression. “When did I say that?”

  “Just a minute ago . . .” I stammered. “I thought . . . I mean . . .”

  “You must have misheard me,” she said crisply. “Twenty seems about right. His mother mentioned something about how he’d be a junior in college if he’d gone.”

  “But then what about my parents?” I asked. “You said they’d be upset if they knew I was sleeping with someone older?”

  “My goodness,” Libby laughed. “I know your parents don’t care what you do, so why would I say that?” Then she paused as if something had just occurred to her. “Oh god,” she said. “Oh, Annie.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “I wonder if you misinterpreted something I said because of your stepfather.”

  “What are you talking about?” My pulse quickened and I felt the world swirling around me. The tea had had a soothing effect, or maybe it was the Valium. I could feel my panic but it had been muted, as though someone had thrown a blanket over it. It was there somewhere but far enough below the surface that it didn’t bother me anymore. Nothing bothered me anymore. The Valium was lovely, it really was.

  “Darling,” she said softly. “Of course I know all about your stepfather. He was a vile man. Don’t be afraid to admit what he did to you. The abuse. Of course that’s why you’d be afraid of older men.”

  “Dean didn’t—he never did anything. I blocked the door.” My soft voice curled around us. It’s okay, it told me. Don’t be angry with her. She only wants to help.

  “I understand,” Libby nodded, pity in her eyes. “I know. We have more in common than you think, you and I. We’re both used to being manipulated, pushed down. Taken advantage of by older men.” The fury underneath her words was unmistakable.

  “No,” I protested feebly. “Dean never got a chance. I never gave him a chance.” But the world was fading out, and my eyelids were growing heavy. It was only nine o’clock, and Zoe needed to be put to bed. I couldn’t be falling asleep again. I couldn’t cast aside my duties.

  “Where’s Zoe?” I asked, my thick tongue making it difficult to force out the words. “I need to tuck Zoe in.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Libby said. “She’s upstairs with her dad. Hey,” she continued, as though experiencing an epiphany, “maybe you and I can have some bonding time this weekend. We can finish redecorating your room! Won’t that be fun?”

  I couldn’t have explained why Libby’s words struck fear into my heart as she draped an afghan over my shoulders and led me away. I couldn’t explain exactly what I was dreading when she tucked me into bed, stroking my hair as lovingly as I’d ever been touched.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY, Owen rang the doorbell at nine P.M. I heard it from my room, but it was Libby who answered; I’d already changed into my sweats and a T-shirt and was ready to head to bed early. I’d been feeling so exhausted ever since Libby’s and my confrontation over Owen. Everything was starting to seem bigger and more confusing and out of my control than I could handle, despite all my efforts to make everything right again. All I wanted was to return to that time of happiness I’d felt during my first few weeks on the island. But I was reminded of something my mother had told me long ago, back when I was a little girl and my best friend had started hanging out with someone else—someone with more money and all the right things—leaving me in the dust. She’d said, “Sometimes when things are broken, baby, you just can’t fix them, no matter how hard you try.” That’s how I’d been starting to feel about my relationship with Libby for the last couple of weeks. Things were beginning to feel cracked in ways that pointed to an imminent and irreparable shatter. I was struggling to bind those cracks, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.

  I wouldn’t have heard Owen at the door except that I’d been returning to my room from the bathroom. The murmur of Libby’s chilly voice—the one she reserved for unwanted guests—was unmistakable. I paused at the landing, and when I heard Owen’s familiar lilt, I dashed down just in time to hear Libby tell him, “I’ll let her know you stopped by.”

  “I’m here,” I said breathlessly. “Hi.” I didn’t even care that my hair was disheveled and I was wearing polka-dotted pajama bottoms and a Rolling Stones T-shirt with no bra. Owen glanced at Libby, obviously confused, but she just straightened her shoulders and made her way out of the room. “If you go anywhere, Annie,” she told me, “please be back by midnight. This is not your day off.” I didn’t bother responding. I just flew into Owen’s arms and felt the comfort of him wrapped around me. I loved how I had to stand on tiptoe to reach his face as he pulled me in for a kiss.

  “Hey there,” he said softly. “That’s the way to greet a guy.”

  “Sorry,” I told him. “I’m just so happy to see you. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

  “Well,” he said, trailing off, taking in my bedtime wear. “I hope not too rough to go out for a little while? I wanted a take two on the picnic. There’s this place I really want to take you to. It’s one of my favorite places in the city, and I think you’ll love it.”

  “Just give me five minutes,” I told him, leaning in for another kiss. “Don’t go anywhere.” I ran upstairs as fast as I could—we only had three hours to hang out, although my curfew was arbitrary, given that the kids were in bed. Still, I was in no mood to argue with Libby again. I threw on some jeans and flats, pulled up my hair, brushed my teeth, and slipped on a bra and tank top. Owen was . . . ugh, I hated how he made my heart beat. I hated how intoxicated I felt around him. But I couldn’t get enough of it. I wanted him and hated him for not being with me every single second.

  “You look adorable,” he told me once we were in the car. And then suddenly he was leaning toward me again and kissing me, and it was different this time, more intense and passionate. I didn’t recognize the sounds I was uttering. They emerged from some place deep inside of me that felt as if it had been locked away until then. His hands moved through my hair and down my lower back, and I felt insatiable, heady, and unaware of what I was doing even as my hands moved independently of my brain, touching his shoulders and face. Finally we pulled apart, both breathing hard.

  And then I saw her.

  Libby was standing on the second-floor terrace, looking down at us. I wasn’t sure what she could see, but I jumped anyway.

  “Holy shit,” Owen said. “I guess we should have saved that for later.”

  “Let’s just go,” I told him, my adrenaline from our makeout turning into adrenaline-fueled anger at Libby. What had she been doing out there? Was she deliberately spying on us? I glanced over at Owen, and he seemed creeped out, too. He was drumming a beat on the steering wheel with his fingers, and his brow was furrowed in a way I was beginning to find familiar.

  “Why is she like that?” he wanted
to know as we drove off the island. “Is it me?”

  “No, no,” I assured him. “It’s me, I guess. I mean, I don’t know. Things were really great for a while, and then I found those files, and it’s like our dynamic shifted.”

  “What files? The ones you mentioned before? When you almost got fired?”

  “Yeah,” I said, sighing. “I don’t know why, but things have been different since then.”

  “Well . . . what was in them?”

  “I feel bad saying, Owen. It’s not really my business.”

  “No problem,” he said, his mouth drawn into a firm line.

  “Oh, whatever. It’s not even a big deal, that’s the weird thing. I just think Libby’s a little jealous. Walker was married before. He had an ex-wife who died, and I think Libby has some sort of complex about him not being over her yet.”

  “How do you know she died?”

  “The files I found . . . there was a will.”

  “Ah.”

  “Can we change the subject, please? I really, really don’t want to think about this, and you’re my escape. Let’s not ruin it.” He smiled slightly and took my hand in his, but I could tell that he wasn’t completely satisfied. Owen’s brain was working hard the whole way to our surprise date, which turned out to be at the Audium. I could tell from his silence, and from the worry lines that creased his face, that he hadn’t stopped thinking about it.

  By the time we got to the Audium, though, all was forgotten. The Audium wasn’t what I’d expected—but then, I hadn’t known what to expect. It was a circular space with plain, cream-colored walls and a ceiling covered in speakers. All in all, there had to be at least a hundred speakers surrounding us, maybe two hundred. There were red chairs set in a circle, and once we entered the space we weren’t allowed to talk. Within a minute, the whole room went black. Owen had smuggled a bottle of sparkling wine and some Dixie cups into the theater in his backpack, and over the sound of the musical sculptures, it was impossible to hear the cork pop. I wasn’t sure how he managed to pour it without spilling a drop—maybe he put a finger under the stream to follow its path to the cups—but the thought of it seemed normal, given the atmosphere. Nothing was weird in the Audium. We spent the next two hours submerged in impenetrable darkness, letting music from almost two hundred speakers radiate above, around, and beside us until we felt consumed by a whirlpool of sound that contained only us. The sound filled me. The only thing keeping me tethered to reality was Owen’s hand in mine.

  “That was incredible,” I breathed when it was over, our footsteps sounding inept compared to the cacophony we’d just experienced.

  “It’s one of my favorite places in the city,” he told me as we reached the car.

  “What are your other favorites?”

  “The movie theaters in the Castro,” he said. “We’ll go there sometime. They’re old-timey theaters, with velvet curtains and opera seats and stuff. And the Musee Mecanique. I definitely have to take you there.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, grinning devilishly.

  “What is it?” I asked, his smile making me suspicious.

  “It’s this huge collection of antique arcade games and, like, mechanical puppets and stuff.”

  “Mechanical puppets.”

  “Right. Like the fortune-teller from Big. It’s pretty great.”

  “Because what’s better than creepy automatons,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m personally very glad we came here, at least this time,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he said in a more serious tone. “Ever since my first visit, I try to go when I need something to remind me why life is more than just us. It’s the only place I can go where I feel transcendental.”

  “Thank you for taking me,” I said softly. He turned toward me, leaning his back against the side of the car, pulling my waist close to his. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and I felt his lips on mine.

  “You’re the only person I’ve ever taken,” he told me. “You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to share this with.” He leaned his forehead against mine and kept my hands tucked tightly in his. It was then that I wondered if I loved him.

  We were home twenty minutes later, just in time for curfew.

  “Thanks,” I told him as I climbed out of the car. “I’d better run in right away before we start making out again and unwittingly put on a show for Libby.”

  “Hey, Annie,” he said, that worried look crossing his eyes again. “About that . . . something about it feels a little off.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just how upset she got after the files. How upset she gets about everything. How she’s been treating you since then.”

  “Owen,” I warned, knowing where he was headed with it. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Just a little poking around on the interwebs,” he said, smiling. “I promise I’ll stay out of trouble.” I sighed. I knew there was no stopping him once he got something into his head.

  “Fine,” I said. “But just remember: your trouble is my trouble in this. So please, god, don’t you dare ruin my job for me.”

  “Not gonna happen,” he assured me. “C’mere, babes.” I leaned in for one more kiss, and he waved goodbye as I slammed the door. The last thing I saw before I ran into the house was his adorable, crooked smile.

  • • •

  LIBBY NEEDED ME ALL THE TIME over the course of that week. She even had me taking care of Jackson and changing his diaper, “privileges” she usually reserved for herself, since she almost never let him out of her arms, let alone her sight. But that week was different. It was as though I was on call, ready to spring up to assist in the event of any crisis. But instead of bullet wounds or aneurysms, the crises I needed to attend were scraped knees or pots that threatened to boil over. I knew I should insist on some hours to rest—to do my homework, at least—but I didn’t have the will to resist her. So I leaped when she called, I answered when she buzzed, I was perpetually tied to my intercom like a harnessed animal. It was almost as if she was purposefully trying to keep me from Owen.

  I was tired.

  But it would be over soon, the busy week. And then I would get some rest.

  The house, though, was growing smaller as I scurried relentlessly through it. Sometimes I was able to step outside myself and see what I looked like from afar: a rat running through a maze, one room to the next, never really getting anywhere. All the rooms and their grandeur had begun to fade for me. The yellow wallpaper, which we’d put up on my day off, mocked me from my bedroom. I couldn’t feel safe anymore because of that wallpaper. Every morning when I woke up, I had to fight the urge to tear it down. But it wasn’t just that.

  The heated tiles in my bathroom, which I’d found so soothing when the weather first began to turn, scalded my feet. I checked the thermostat over and over; I even turned it to “off.” But I still emerged from my bathroom red-soled and wincing from the pain. My room had begun to take on a shabby tinge under the gaze of the yellow wallpaper. Instead of bright and cheerful, it looked forced and macabre, like a big, false smile. Like my mother’s smile when unexpected visitors came to the door.

  Owen was the only thing keeping me normal.

  I woke up around six on Thursday morning to the pinging of my phone. It was still dark out, the sun just barely beginning to press its gray morning light through my bedroom blinds; but Owen was up too, apparently, because the chime was signaling a new move in Words with Friends, which he’d playfully dubbed “Ultimate Warrior.” I needed more sleep. But I wanted Owen. Want versus need. I’d always thought I had remarkable self-control, I’d thought I was a logical person—until I met Owen. And then he became all I wanted and needed, both.

  Owen had played candid for seventeen points. I had a z in my stash, as well as a blank tile. I could save them or use them. In the spirit of being candid, I went for it. I played dizzy for seventy-eight points, both because it gave me an awesome lead and because �
��dizzy” was how he made me feel. I smiled at my private joke. I waited a few minutes, rolling on my side to doze until he responded. Finally my phone chimed and I lifted my aching, heavy lids. I laughed: he’d played you for seven points. I wondered if he knew he’d created a double entendre.

  My next move was hug. Now that I had a lead, I was content to have fun with wordplay. I burrowed under my comforter until I’d made a dark cave for myself, my phone offering the only illumination.

  He played hot. I let out a low whistle. Was he aware that he was upping the stakes? I decided to get risqué and play thigh. My heart thudded rapidly. Had I been too bold? But no. I hadn’t been. Because his next word, using the n from candid, was naked. My heart stopped. Tingles spread from my center outward, down my arms until the whole of me felt light and wobbly.

  Instead of responding, I slipped out from under the covers and made my way across the bedroom, grabbing my robe from where it hung on the back of the bathroom door. Maybe if he saw me outside, he would come down. And then we would . . .. What? What did I plan to do, get naked on the pool deck?

  I just wanted to see him. To touch him, to have him touch me. The rest of it wasn’t enough anymore, and I was tired of waiting days and days for a stolen couple of hours when he lived right next door. I was tired of playing outside with Zoe in the hopes that he and Izzy would walk by. I wanted him right that second. I wanted to run my hands through his hair, touch the side of his jaw where he felt a little scruffy, pull him closer, feel his arms and stomach and chest muscles press against me, feel his lips on my neck and the chills that would follow. I couldn’t wait any longer. It was an urgency I’d never felt before, a sense of immediacy that made me disregard any concern for consequences.

  So I ran downstairs in Libby’s castoffs: a cotton robe and a matching boxer/tank set. I wasn’t worried about who would see me, as long as he saw me. I ran down the back staircase and out through the back door and through the pool gate and down the driveway. I snuck alongside the fence that divided the two properties. I trailed my hand over its wooden slats as I walked, feeling the dew wet on my toes. Dragonflies buzzed around me, but I didn’t bother swatting them away. They were everywhere in San Francisco, and I’d gotten used to their presence. It was cool out, colder than I thought California could be in the fall, and it showed how much I hadn’t known about what I was doing by moving out here, even the basics. But I liked it, the way the droplets of water wet my toes and tickled the bottoms of my feet. I liked the roughness of the wood fence under my fingertips, and the way the wind blew my robe open and caressed my skin under and around my pajamas. I looked up at his window, and there he was, looking down at me. I drew closer to the fence, hugging my body to it as if I could slip right through and up into his room.