by Jade Sharma
“Hey, Jake, check out my new jacket.”
“Cool,” Jake said.
“See,” Peter said, “Jake likes it. I like it and it’s cheap, and check this out.” He flashed the lining at me. “It has a world-map lining. Isn’t that funny?”
“Please don’t,” I said. How could I walk down the street with him? Jake watched us. Oh god. Maybe it would be better to let him buy the thing and then accidentally on purpose spill something on it or throw it away, and it would remain a mystery what happened to Peter’s great jacket.
“Jake, what do you really think? I don’t like it.”
“Well, you know,” Jake said to Peter, “it’s kind of puffy around your waist. Leather should be sleek.” Thank you, Jake! I couldn’t believe it; he was helping me. I tried not to smile so as not to rub it in.
“What about this?” I pulled out a suede blazer. Peter tried it on. The color was a light tan, darker would be better, but it fit him.
“It’s nice.” He looked at the price tag. “But it’s forty-five dollars.”
“Peter, that’s nothing for a suede blazer.”
“But I want a jacket I can wear every day.”
“You need a new blazer, and besides, there’s nothing else here.”
“Actually they do have one, you just don’t like it. I’m not like you with your hipster bullshit. I just want a nice leather jacket,” he said. I was his old, fat mother. Was I being an asshole? Why couldn’t I just let him buy the fucking thing? Wasn’t I a total embarrassment all the time? Wasn’t it the least I could do? But I was the one who had to look at the thing.
“I really do like this blazer, though,” he said.
Sue showed up, holding a shirt over her arm and a dress with flowers on it. This was a dress you wore for your man to bend you over and bang you. That should be in one of those Vogue articles: “Drive Your Man Crazy by Wearing Clothes for a Wholesome Tween.”
“The blazer fits a lot better,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” Sue said. “But it’s not, like, for the winter. I mean, it’s just a blazer.” Fuck you, Sue.
“Whatever. I guess forty-five dollars isn’t that much, right?” Peter said, eyeing himself in the mirror.
“No, honey, it’s nothing if you really like it.”
Disaster averted.
We had to go to dinner at a place with a decent wine list, Peter said. So that left two options, both Italian. We finally picked the closest one. I was covered in sweat again. Peter held my hand. I kind of hated holding hands.
Dinner was a nightmare even though we took sad, sober Grace back home first. An enormous plate of spaghetti with bland marinara sauce and a few little pieces of sausage. I tried to eat it, but I couldn’t put a dent in it. I pushed the plate forward. Peter and Jake reminisced about some childhood Christmas when they were so poor their father had given them each an apple. I didn’t understand why they laughed. Something like Stockholm syndrome.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and held up my phone. Peter gave me a dirty look. I’m thirty years old and an adult, and these people are adults, I thought. Why can’t I smoke if I want to?
I turned the corner and stood between two cars on the gravel driveway. I looked up at the sky. Stars. That real pitch-black only found in suburbia or rural areas. No streetlights to brighten up the night. Crickets. The weirdest part of leaving the city was hearing all the sounds you normally didn’t hear. I called Amy.
“What’s up? Sorry I got off the phone in such a hurry earlier.”
“It’s okay. I have food poisoning.”
“Oh god, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, been puking all day. How are you?”
“We went bowling and to the thrift store. I can’t figure out if they like me. I don’t know how to talk to people.”
“Everyone likes you.”
“I know, but I have to be a PG-rated version of myself. It’s hard for me not to curse and be sarcastic all the time. I don’t even know when I’m being sarcastic. I’m so sarcastic all the time.”
“Maybe you’d be better here then, with these fucking weirdos. The sister farted while we were watching National Lampoon’s Vacation, and then told everyone she had to change her underwear.”
I laughed.
“It wasn’t funny. I know it sounds funny,” she started laughing too. “How did we end up like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Maya, are these really our lives?”
“I know. I wish Peter would just leave me already. I treat him like shit. It’s obvious I don’t love him. Then I wouldn’t be stuck in this rut, and maybe I could, like, have a life.”
“You could never dump people.”
“I know. I just treat them like shit till they leave me, which, if you think about it, is a nice thing to do, because then they can hate you and not feel rejected and sad.”
“Peter’s never going to leave you.”
“I know. As I Lay Dying of Boredom, that’s what my memoir of being married to Peter will be called.”
“Boring is better than a lot of things,” she said.
“No, boring is the worst, because you’re, like, ‘I’m not being beaten to death; I can live like this,’ and then the years go by. You know?”
“I gotta go puke.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Honestly, I kind of like puking. It’s spiritual for me, like a release of everything.”
“That’s beautiful and gross. Take care.”
I looked up at the dark sky over this little shitty town. How did people live in this quiet, where you could hear all of your depressing thoughts? Peter appeared out of nowhere. Where did he come from? How long had he been there? He didn’t say anything.
“Hey, honey,” I said, and we kissed.
“Hey, look, they know you smoke.” And before I could say, “What?” Jake and Sue turned the corner.
“It’s okay. Sue smoked when I met her,” Jake said, smiling.
“I’m sorry I lied to you guys. I just didn’t know how to broach the subject.” I put out the cigarette. Immediately I wanted another.
“Can I bum one?” Sue asked. There was more to Sue than met the eye.
And then the four of us walked down the lonely, quiet street, me and Sue smoking while Jake and Peter walked ahead of us.
Back at the house, we all stood around the kitchen and retold the day’s events. We showed them the things we got at the thrift store. At one point, Jake spilled his apple juice on the floor, and I grabbed a dish towel and wiped it up before Sandy could bend down with her crummy hip.
“So, for Christmas, I want to buy you a winter coat,” Peter’s mother said as she handed Peter a catalog for L.L.Bean.
“Let me see.” I snatched it from him. I started to thumb through it and felt Sue looking with me.
“I really like Jake’s coat. Where did he get it?”
“I bought it for him,” she said. “Where did Peter get those boots?”
“They’re Frye boots. I got them for him when we first got together.”
She nodded.
Oh god, we were two little kids dressing up our Ken dolls.
“I like that one,” she said, pointing at an image of a blond-haired man frozen in midwalk with a dog on a mountain path. He was wearing a brown leather bomber.
“Yeah, I wonder if the dog comes with it.”
“I wonder if the man comes with it,” she said in my ear. Sue was an onion peeling itself in front of me.
“I like this one,” I announced.
Peter’s mother came over to look at it. “Oh, honey, five hundred dollars, I don’t think we can afford that.” Christ, I had to pick the most expensive thing in the fucking catalog.
I handed the catalog back to Peter.
Everyone went to the enclosed porch. They put on a home movie.
In the movie, Peter was swaying in a doorway in blue jeans and a denim jacket, his brown hair falling over his face. “Whose birthday is it?
” his father, holding the camera, asked. “Gracie’s birthday,” Peter said. He was looking at the floor. Then we followed him to Sandy, who was sitting on the ground with fat-faced Gracie among wrapped presents. Jake was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Open the presents!” he demanded. Gracie was handed one but looked unsure about what to do. Jake grabbed it from her and ripped it open. Peter interceded, “No, let her do it. No! Mom, it’s not fair!” Everyone laughed.
The morning after one of my first nights with Peter, we were late and rushing to the bookstore. We huffed up the subway stairs and saw the electronic board indicating our train would arrive in two minutes. “We don’t have to rush,” Peter said, but just then we heard the train come and go before we reached the platform. “It said two minutes! That was like a second!” Peter yelled. He kicked one of the benches, pissed off. “It’s just not fair,” he said, shaking his head and doing an excellent impression of a bratty kid. I looked at him, baffled. My jaded, calloused heart flopped around, having a seizure. Peter wasn’t hardened to the daily frustrations normal grown-ups shrugged their shoulders at while thinking, “Of course, the board lied, because the world is fucked-up.” Peter’s heart was fleshy and pink, and I didn’t want anything to hurt it.
Watching other people’s home movies was so boring. It was like listening to someone tell you about a dream. Who cares, if you’re not in it?
“I’m going to bed,” I announced, and went back to the bedroom. Before I turned on the light, I heard someone come in behind me.
“I want you to know I haven’t given up on him.”
Rick was standing there.
“How do I turn this on?” I asked, with my fingers on the lamp’s neck.
“There’s a switch.” I found the switch and clicked it on and turned to face him.
“I wanted you to know. There’s still time. Maybe tomorrow in the car on the ride to the train station I can talk to him.”
Two weeks ago, I had called Rick in hysterics about Peter’s drinking.
“Okay,” I said.
“Maya, I don’t know how to broach the subject without telling him you called me.”
I sat on the bed. “Look, if you think it will help, I’ll tell him.” Peter would kill me, but I couldn’t tell his father that, because then it would look like our relationship was fucked-up.
“No, I think you’re right. He’ll just feel angry, I think.” He scanned the room. “I don’t really know what to do. I’ve always felt like I failed Peter, you know. I didn’t help him find a profession. I could have done better.” Oh god, he was confiding in me. Was I supposed to say it wasn’t true? That he had been a great father? That I knew Peter adored him? There was a silence during which I should have said something, but I didn’t, and then Rick asked, “So, how has his drinking been?”
“Better,” I said. I never should have said anything. “He went through that period of drinking every day, and it was a nightmare, but then he stopped. Probably it was only a phase.” Was it better to justify why I’d called Peter’s parents, so they didn’t think I was being a drama queen, or to act like I had overreacted, so I wouldn’t have to have this awkward conversation? I shouldn’t have ever called. Every time you think you should do the right thing, you probably shouldn’t do anything. And if we started talking about drinking with Peter, after Peter’s rage against me subsided, it would only be a hop and a skip to him telling them about my drug thing. God, I wanted a bag. As soon as I got home. “Do you think he has a drinking problem?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes, I do. I visited him once at college, and we went to a grocery store, and he bought a bottle of gin at ten in the morning, and I thought, There’s something wrong here.”
What the fuck? He saw his kid buying a bottle of hard alcohol in front of him before breakfast and did absolutely nothing about it? If it had been my mother, the bottle would never have made it to the register. I felt torn between how Peter’s and my parents were on opposite sides of the spectrum. Peter’s parents only said nice things or nothing; my mother only said awful things all the time. Finally I said, “If it gets bad again, I’ll call you.” Rick left. I popped a Xanax and got into bed.
Even though the whole talk with Peter’s dad was awkward, I couldn’t help but resent Peter. There was no one asking about me. There was no one whispering about how I was doing, trying to spare my feelings.
What was the difference between Peter drinking and me using? Maybe I resented Peter because his addiction was something legal and mainstream and pretty much accepted. Most people could relate to wanting a stiff drink at the end of the night. People thought hangovers were funny. It was easy for Peter to hide in plain sight with his obvious addiction. Sideways was about appreciating wine, not a pathetic alcoholic who stole money from his mother. But no film director wanted to pretend dope wasn’t a big deal.
When I drank for the first time at age thirteen, I thought, Why don’t people do this all the time? I loved it. I chugged whiskey for fifteen seconds longer than all the boys. But once I discovered dope, alcohol just made me clumsy and dumb, and the hangover was so dark. Elizabeth called anxious hungover thoughts the “creeping fear.” With dope, I could function. It was like wearing armor. You went through the world and nothing could touch you.
Tomorrow night I would be in my own bed with my old problems. I switched off the light.
I couldn’t sleep. I should have lain there in bed and thought weird thoughts or masturbated. But I didn’t. I went back out and joined the others. Everyone had found themselves weirdly awake and wanted to hang out more.
“Why don’t we play a game?”
“Why don’t we watch a movie?”
And then I unwittingly destroyed everything by suggesting we watch the Netflix film I’d received in the mail the day before. It was about a man who had grown up in a rural town, who brings home his sophisticated girlfriend from the city. She does not fit in. I popped it into the DVD player. Five minutes later, all hell broke loose.
I had seen it in the theater when it first came out, and I didn’t remember anything dirty. But during the opening credits, as the couple was driving to meet the guy’s parents, she started rubbing his leg, and then they got frisky while he was trying to drive and he swerved.
Peter’s father freaked out. He screamed, “I think we’ve seen enough of this!” and turned it off. Then I was faced with two angry, conservative faces. Rick’s was red. Sandy looked concerned, as though she wasn’t sure I was mentally capable of standing trial. Peter, who had been right beside me, had vanished. “I didn’t remember that,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“How could you not remember?” his father screamed. I was not used to other people’s parents screaming at me. My own parents had been easy enough. When they’d yelled, I walked away. Sandy shook her head. Jake came to my rescue.
“C’mon, Dad, I’m sure the whole movie isn’t like that. Sometimes movies start out like . . .” but Rick was pissed. An hour ago we were allies and he was caring and loving, and now he was enraged. My face was frozen in a question mark. I didn’t understand. On the edge of my peripheral vision, I saw Peter in the bedroom. His back was turned so I couldn’t gesture for him to come out and save me. Bastard. I wanted to say, “That was just the credits. It’s not porn.” I didn’t say anything except, “I’m sorry.”
Then anger. I was angry with Peter, who should have shielded me from his parents. I was angry with his parents for making me feel like an asshole. I was angry with the movie. I was mostly angry with myself for suggesting anything. Why put yourself in the line of fire? I was only trying to put on a stupid movie so we could have a fucking pleasant time, and these people were acting like I had ripped up a Bible. Hadn’t his father’s whole Thanksgiving prayer been about not judging? Didn’t Jesus hang out with some whore?
Grace put on a nature documentary. “I have to go out,” I said, and made Peter come with me.
Outside, I let him have it. “This is your house. These are your parents. W
hat the fuck? You just leave me there?”
“Why didn’t you follow me into the bedroom?” he asked.
“That’s weird. You’re weird. You were supposed to stand up for me. I didn’t know you were going to get up and leave like that! And then I was stuck there and they were screaming.”
“I’m sorry. My dad was being a jerk.”
“I bet they wish I were this white girl with a cross around my neck who has conservative white parents. I will always be, like, ‘the other.’”
“I’m going to talk to him. They were wrong to do that, but they’re not racist.” He hugged me. “Why would you bring that movie?”
“I swear that must be the only sex scene, if you can even call it that. All it showed was a married couple fooling around. How is that unchristian?”
Everyone in the room was an adult, so what was the problem? Was the problem that people made movies like that? I didn’t understand who they were fighting for and what the fight was about. The movie had already been made. Sometimes I wished I could have talked to them openly about these ultra-Christian beliefs, just so I could wrap my mind around them.
Sandy left a Post-it on the sliding glass door. “I’m sorry, but we’re prudes.” Wasn’t much of an apology.
From then until recorded history ended, I could never recommend a movie again.
I took my last three Xanaxes. Oblivion. Sleep.
I sat up and took a long gulp of warm, flat seltzer from the uncapped bottle on the coffee table.
I was going to see Ogden today.
After digging through pockets and looking in books, I found half a bag of dope from the night before. Elizabeth had told me methadone stayed in your system for three to five days and blocked the effects of the dope. Thanksgiving was only three or four days ago. It was a waste to take it.
I snorted two fat lines off an Easton leather-bound copy of Moby-Dick with a rolled fifty. I didn’t feel less or more like shit.
Peter’s father called after we’d gotten back home. He said he was sorry. He had prayed about it, and he realized he shouldn’t have judged me. Sandy’s fingerprints were all over the phone call. God bless her sweet heart. I imagined her saying, “You really should call her and apologize.” She probably felt like if she alienated me she would be alienating her own son. It still took a lot for a grown man to call up his son’s wife, whom he had been living in sin with before they eloped in Vegas, and say he was sorry. It was like when your mother cried. All of a sudden, whatever justification you had for whatever shitty thing you had done disappeared.