The bookshelves now partly bare, the space looked vaster than before, more full of possibilities, the way it did years ago, when George and I first moved in. The blemishes on the walls stood out in the most nostalgic of ways, suddenly not as dirty as lived in. You can’t surgically remove years of your life, no matter how many pictures you delete from your Facebook profile. A hefty lump situated itself in my throat as I bent back down to fiddle with the zipper on my left boot again.
We had laughs on that gray leather couch, had Thai food at the small red square table in the corner, had sex on the floor in the middle of the room, on that small area rug. And it wasn’t always bad. Sure, the Thai often gave me indigestion, and the sex left me with rug burns, but over the last seven years, certainly some of it was good. It had to be. Or else I was a bigger idiot than my family gave me credit for being.
But some of it was legitimately bad; most of it was, in fact. At least the meatier parts. I knew I had to focus on those or else I’d never leave. Not for good, anyway. Before I knew it, I’d be stuck here for all eternity, listening to Buddhist chants and lectures on the importance of alone-time and male dominance in a relationship; conflicting ideologies and principles would continue to rule my home and my common offenses would forever be punishable by yanking of the arms and stern lectures that burned my cheeks.
I rolled my belongings over the threshold and locked the door behind me. If I returned this time, too, I knew I’d never really leave. Seven years were hard enough to sever—fourteen would be impossible.
I’d heard a senior of mine, a beautiful Argentinian girl named Paz (Veronika’s visually improbable best friend), once say that relationships are like bogs, meaning that they grab ahold of you, limbs first, and hold on until you can’t move anymore—or rather, until you lose will to move at all. The unhappier the relationship, she was convinced, the deeper the swamp, the stronger its hold. Once habit takes over where love or lust had once been, we’re doomed, she’d summed up whilst perched on her desk one morning, on time for once, her heels swaying aimlessly every which way. “It’s all about addiction, guys! And addictions are tough to break.” In principle, it’s hard for me to agree on much of anything with a teenager, but, in the musty hallway of the building where I’d lived rent-free for way too long, I had to admit that, had I seen George’s smug but familiar face that morning, heard his fake but familiar guttural sobs at the sight of my departure, I’d lose will again.
It was just after six by the time I made it out into the early morning light of Manhattan, squinting up the block in search of a cab, my suitcase lumpy and awkward at my side. Having nowhere to take it, I bowed a silent farewell to my bicycle at the front steps. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see it again, half sure that another homeless man would be one bike richer by the time I got back to the States.
The air was frigid and moist, the sun again gleaming without expending any energy on providing actual warmth. Sanitation workers were busy hauling black garbage bags onto their white trucks, and morning joggers were in their respective zones—keeping right. The runners and I nodded our customary anonymous hellos, while I allowed myself a moment’s lament at not being among them. I’d been meaning to start running ever since I moved up here, always imagining myself making nothing but the most graceful strides down to the river and back, but it never happened. Today, with my bones cold and my muscles sore after a wakeful night (and what now seemed to be an impending flu), I was certainly in no position to start.
~ ~ ~
A woman who looked like she must’ve been due at least a month ago was told she had to wait to see her obstetrician while I was cordially invited to sit through an expectedly awkward exchange with the simultaneously intimidating and comforting figure that was Dr. Kasun—my now former future mother-in-law. Her wood-paneled office (with all the figurines of female reproductive organs on her large desk between us) did little to sooth my budding headache and heavy eyes.
“Do you love him?” she asked.
I shrugged for fear of accidentally telling her the truth. No mother should have to hear the whole truth about her child.
“Well, I wish I could say I didn’t see it coming, but I could see this one from a mile away. And as early as when he brought you home that first Thanksgiving,” she sighed. “You know, you try to do everything right and then…. Well, sometimes it’s just not clear where you dropped the— whatever that expression is. Anyway, I’m just not surprised….”
She nodded to herself—a proverbial pat on her own back for getting this right. Her mind scientific, I was sure she had more than banalities to say, but it was clear that I wasn’t going to be privy to her thoughts in their entirety.
“The ball,” I said.
“What?”
“That’s the expression: ‘to drop the ball.’”
“Right.”
Slowly, Dr. Kasun pushed away from her sizable table.
“Do not hesitate to ever reach out to me if you need anything, Helen. We don’t have to stop being friends just because it didn’t work out between you and my son. I know Nicholas will feel the same when I bring him up to speed,” she added, coming around to hug me now, her crisp white lab coat as pristine as the rest of her. “Best of luck to you!”
I exhaled into her hair, sending a few brown strands to fly behind her skeletal frame.
“Thank you,” I said to the diagram of a urinary bladder behind my former lover’s mother, my fingers gripping her protruding shoulder blades.
“What’s with the suitcase?” Dr. Kasun asked once she pried my tired body away from hers. I didn’t even realize that I’d been grasping on for dear life until I saw that my fingertips were colorless from the effort.
“I’m chaperoning a trip to Europe. We’re leaving after school, so I figured I’d just lug this with me to work and go from there,” I dutifully (and habitually) reported. I owed the woman more than I could ever actually own, after all.
“Smart girl,” she smiled, cocking her head to the side as she clasped her hands in front of her, appraising the validity of her own assertion. “Does George know?”
I nodded though a flush.
“Very well.”
“I left my ring in the kitchen draw—” I began, fidgeting with the handle of my luggage.
“Helen, stop it! We trust you. You keep in touch, okay? Keep me posted on life. Do you know where you’ll live after?” she asked as she picked up the set of keys I’d brought to return to her and threw them into her desk drawer with a cling.
“Probably with my parents, in Marlboro,” I chirped with the best hopeful smile my short-lived minor in theatre could help me produce on demand.
“Makes sense. And how are they taking the news?” She placed her fists into the pockets of her white coat as she asked this. Her colorless eyes, which at times seemed eerie, now appeared warm. Or maybe I was just that tired.
“I haven’t— when I get back—,” I tried, choking on tears that managed to creep up my throat without my noticing.
Dr. Kasun, busy bringing human life into the world by day and by night, took another minute out of her busy schedule to take me into her bony arms. The moment seemed too brief again.
“You’ll be fine, Helen. This is your decision and you’re too smart of a cookie to not have put any thought into it,” I heard her say when I was once again released. I covered my eyes in an attempt to discreetly wipe off my pooling tears.
“I just didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all,” I smiled from behind my hands. “Anxiety with the trip and everything….”
Dr. Kasun swore she understood, though she did eventually have her receptionist usher me out of her Park Avenue office and hail me a cab.
Chapter Five: Technicolor
“Ms. Levit, that’s all the luggage you’re bringing? For ten days? In Europe?” Paz, my gorgeous and wise-beyond-her-years senior, sang when we were all finally aboard our chartered yellow school bus. It pushed away from the curb to begin to elbow its way through rush
hour traffic en route to the airport just as I collapsed into my seat.
Paz’s long black hair, parted down the middle, swayed elegantly as the bus bobbed and waddled. The girl was always acting—every single fiber of her being was hard at work, all the time. And yet she somehow managed to appear eternally natural in her skin, her shoulders simultaneously square and relaxed when she challenged you, which was often. Ms. Paz Terranova was a character. Yale School of Drama was lucky to have that one. I would have to check my laptop to be certain, but I’m pretty sure those were the exact words I used in her letter of recommendation.
“Yes, Paz, that’s all my luggage. Spectacular observation skills! Now if only you’d pay half as much attention on your exams,” I called back from the front row.
As I leaned back in my seat and briefly closed my eyes, I could feel Abbott burning through me with his glare from across the aisle. My swelling sinuses had been threatening to make my head explode all day, so it also could’ve been the sensation of my body temperature rising, but I was pretty sure that it was Abbott’s eyes as they appeared from behind those theatrically round glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. I wasn’t even sure if the lenses in his glasses were prescription, or simply clear, but they definitely helped to cement his image as the coolest teacher over forty. The accent helped, too, no doubt.
“That’s actually a good idea, Ms. Levit!” he finally nodded in my peripheral field of vision. “I hope all of you thought to leave your valuables at home. Showing off your riches isn’t worth losing them abroad.”
I flashed him a brief but thankful smile. The night of fragmented sleep was catching up with me, my heavy lids battling hard against my rattling heart—only one of them wanted me to nap.
“Where is Sola?” I heard Veronika voice my own question. Without turning to confirm for fear of giving myself away, I imagined her to be sitting somewhere in Paz’s vicinity.
“Yes, where is this Sola? I hear he’s hot,” Paz chimed in. I let a scoff escape from my chest, hoping that no one could hear it.
“He will be meeting us at the terminal, as will another chaperone coming with us. Her name is Stephanie, by the way. I want you to show her the same respect you show us, which, I suppose, isn’t expecting much,” Abbott answered in his signature seasoned-educator cool. Only a trace of irritation was audible.
Shivering slightly, unsure if it was because of some bug that I was apparently fighting or the anticipation of Jamie Sola, I pulled my coat tighter around my aching body. I crossed my arms on my chest, leaned my head against the cool window, and tried to tune out the excited squeals of all ten teenage girls (as well as the muted chatter of all five teenage boys) around me. Just when I could’ve sworn that I was actually asleep instead of only pretending to be, Abbott hopped across the aisle to sit with me.
“Now, sweet Levit, I don’t want you to worry—your secret is safe with me, as are your belongings,” he whispered, conspiratorially, into my hair.
“Thanks, Abbott,” I managed before a sneeze erupted out of me. I sniffled and rummaged around my purse for a tissue.
“You okay there, spring chicken?”
Within seconds, I felt him throw a concerned paternal arm around my shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah, just a little cold, I guess…or early allergies. I also didn’t sleep well last night, so…,” I confessed, trying to still my muscles as they ached to shake. My stomach continued to endlessly knot on itself, spiraling within my gut in a constant loop.
Abbott squeezed me into his side as I exhaled into his rough denim shirt.
“You’ll be okay, sweet Levit, no worries,” he promised into the top of my head. His voice, muffled by my frizzy hair and his embrace, sounded smooth but distant. My phone buzzed deep within my purse sitting in my lap, but I didn’t move. I stayed in Abbott’s hold. I didn’t have to look to know for a fact that it was Javier, anyway.
Javier was a solid friend, a loyal near-confidant. A slightly chubby, charming, quasi ex-boyfriend with the sweetest of smiles, he was the constant I often took for granted. His feelings for me were like that proverbial elephant right in the center of that proverbial room—we both knew that they were there, but we hadn’t addressed them in years. We’d swept what happened between us back in Seville right under that proverbial rug the second I was due to board my plane back for D.C., and haven’t looked directly at any of it since. We hadn’t even looked each other in the eye (except through a computer monitor) in the same number of years. News of my latest breakup with George was, of course, well received by Javier, but my trip worried him. He claimed I wasn’t in the “right state of mind” to be going this far away from “everything I know.” I told him he was being melodramatic, which George would’ve probably called insensitive under any other circumstances, but when it came to Javier, as far as George was concerned, I could never be blunt, cruel enough. To soften the blow, just last night I pointed out that I was going to be in Europe—closer to his neck of the woods, if anything. You’d think that’d make him happy. But apparently, it wasn’t about the physical mileage between us for Javier—it wasn’t our geographical proximity that worried him. I couldn’t even imagine telling him about Jamie, of course.
Hey, Jessica barely got any notice at all; that alone should count for something, Javier! I’d only told her that I was leaving the country when I was already on my way out of the school building. And Jessica was my oldest friend, dating back to our pre-teen, junior high school days. She’d replied stingily: “And Yogi-George is okay with that?” I hadn’t yet told her that George’s opinion no longer mattered. It was too soon, too fragile—it hadn’t yet seeped roots into the ground. I wasn’t sure why I’d even told Javier. And, of course, I hadn’t told her about Jamie, either.
I continued breathing into Abbott’s shoulder for what seemed like hours, though it could not have been. The kids, gleeful to be going all the way across the Atlantic for their last spring break as high school students, chirped soporifically to my ear, clustered together in small groups throughout the bus. My eyes eventually closed of their own volition. I knew I wouldn’t be able to actually fall asleep, my pulse too painful for me to turn off my brain, but it felt good to turn off at least one sense at will. Though my bag continued to vibrate every few minutes, resolute, I kept my lids shut, hoping to rest off whatever the funk that seemed to be boiling inside me in time for Jamie’s arrival. I couldn’t blow it this early.
~ ~ ~
“Oh good, I don’t have to look for you guys,” I heard Jamie’s voice behind me just as I took a step toward the check-in counter. The sudden surge of adrenaline pumping through my veins made me feel hot despite all those goose bumps hurrying to cover the entire surface of my body underneath my layers of clothing, my coat still on. Turning slowly to face him, I felt my head swim. Everything was at once vivid. Technicolor.
His hair again down but for the one effortless braid on the right side of its apparently natural part, he looked, as opposed to me, rested and ready to do this. His slim body was dressed in a black turtleneck under that same roomy leather jacket I remembered seeing in the rain. He swung his backpack around in front of him to look through its pockets in an exaggerated hurry. His guitar case was at his feet.
“You made it!” I cheered, childishly, in spite of myself. “Abbott stepped out to help his girlfriend—she just pulled up in a cab, outside. The gang is all checked in though,” I reported with a strained, painful grin, gesturing vaguely to our unapologetically American crew of teenagers.
“Great, thank you. I’m sorry I couldn’t ride with you guys. I had to…well, it doesn’t matter, but I had to take care of something last minute,” he smiled briefly, his eye contact fleeting as he continued to search for something in his backpack with his left hand. “Oh, here it is—whew!” he exclaimed when he fished out his passport and waved it in the air triumphantly, successfully concealing the sound of my heart’s awkward dive to the floor.
“Oh good, good,” I mumbled as I slid my own pa
ssport over to the blonde Air France representative behind the podium, my eyes helplessly glued to Jamie’s ring finger—the thick gold band on it shone brilliantly in the industrially lit space of the international terminal. My head buzzed and blood pulsated in my ears as connections and conclusions were hurriedly made and drawn, respectively.
“Nice—we’re sitting together! I guess we can catch up, as planned,” Jamie said with a broad, open smile. That one stretch of his facial muscles, of his lips, made all the difference: without it on his long, powerful face, he could look intimidating with that strong chin, but with it—he looked like a giggling teddy bear. He picked up his boarding pass and handed me mine, seemingly oblivious to my stupor. “Are you feeling okay?” he wrinkled his brow to ask when I was slow to reach out my hand to his. On second thought, coming to, I could see some circles under his eyes; perhaps his previous night was not much more restful than mine, I thought.
I shook my head, feeling my eyes fill.
“Fine! I’m fine. It’s just a little cold coming on, I guess,” I dismissed with a wave of the hand and a demonstrative sniffle. “Better stay away from me,” I smiled, jokingly wagging my freshly manicured finger at him.
“I’ll keep that in mind when we are squished together in a metal tin can they call an airplane for the next seven hours. This is all you’re bringing, by the way? You have less baggage than some of the boys on this trip!” He laughed and I giggled, blushing, trying not to cry tears I knew I would not be able to explain. He knew not of my baggage.
“Levit is not allowed to bring a larger suitcase or she’ll be tempted to go shopping in Paris,” Abbott joked, suddenly behind us with his overly made up, middle-aged girlfriend, next in line. Somehow I hadn’t noticed them gain on us.
Continuing to giggle (likely neurotically), I picked up speed and shuffled quickly away from the counter, rushing over to our kids, possessed. I hooked Veronika’s arm and led the troops toward the security line, much to Abbott’s relief, it seemed. Once all were scanned and some were patted down (including Jamie and his guitar), I made my escape to the bathroom, where I placed too many layers of cheap toilet paper on the seat inside the disabled stall and sat down in my clothes. I cradled my head in the palms of my hands and buried my fingers in my hair, screwing my eyes painfully shut. I must’ve imagined the ring, I tried to tell myself. Yes, that’s it! My contacts must’ve fallen out during my near-nap on the bus, thus compromising my vision. The universe could not be this unkind. Feeling downright stupid, and decidedly in over my head, I dug out my phone to finally check on those missed calls.
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