by Liz Astrof
Before he could get away, I pulled him back by his shirt.
“Todd.” I was scared. “Do you think Amy will forgive me? Was it bad, my text? It was bad, right?” I yanked at his shirt, hard enough to feel a few stitches pop. “Was it bad?”
“Yeah, it was bad.”
“It was bad? Like, bad bad?” How could my own husband agree that it was bad?
“Yeah.”
“But she’ll forgive me, though—right?” I was suddenly terrified I’d piss myself from fear.
“Yeah. But you’ll have to take your lumps,” Todd said like it was the ’50s. “She’s said worse things to me to my face, by the way.”
She had? Now I was kind of mad at her. I flashed to the time of Lily’s heart surgery, when they needed blood donors and Amy didn’t want my blood because she wanted her daughter to receive “happy, positive” blood that didn’t have a ton of artificial sweeteners and Diet Coke in it.
Then again, she’d said that to my face. Not in a text to someone else.
Todd was right. I would have to take my lumps.
My stomach in knots, I followed him downstairs.
The kids were all on the back deck having the time of their little lives. It could have been a magical night, had I not ruined it. In the kitchen, Amy was filling their bowls with pasta. “What were you doing?” she asked.
“Just loving your place,” I said and then, “Hey—when’s Lily’s birthday? I keep forgetting . . .”
The sound of the screen door opening and the cheers of the collective progeny swallowed her answer. Todd and I followed Amy out to her beautifully set table, right down to the hard butter in stick form for my son, because Amy remembered that butter in swirls sent Jesse into hysterics of Rain Man proportions. Amy could remember my son’s dietary restrictions, and I couldn’t remember her favorite daughter’s birthday. There was even salmon for me, which I love—especially on a grill, which Matthew was seeing to.
My heart sank—she was being so very generous, as she always was. Why did I have to be such an asshole? I asked myself for the hundred thousandth time. Because I was rotten. But had I been born that way, or had it happened slowly? All I knew was that I seemed to always ruin everything.
I stared at Amy, spectacular in the Hawaiian moonlight, my shitty text awaiting her when she went to bed. I could throw the phone in the toilet, but what if it wasn’t just water resistant, but waterproof?!
I had to find a way to spin this. For all my flaws, I was good at two things—online Boggle and lying.
I had nothing prepared but launched into a last-ditch effort.
“So, listen to this,” I started. “Todd’s mom is coming to visit us next month, did I tell you? She’s staying in this place—she says it’s a ‘villa,’ which—are you kidding me? This is a villa—!”
Matthew brought the platter of grilled salmon over from the barbecue. I grabbed a piece with my hand, stuffed it in my mouth. I felt like a gymnast on a balance beam. If the balance beam were on fire and gymnasts were liars.
“So, anyway, Amy, Todd’s mom wants to make dinner for us at the villa she’s staying in instead of us going out to eat at a restaurant, I mean . . . She’s such a cheap snob.”
“Uh-huh,” Amy said, walking back into the kitchen.
I followed her and forged ahead, even though my story made no sense even to me. Why would Todd’s mother stay in a “villa” in Los Angeles, and not our house? And why would she cook when we were the ones who lived there? But there was no turning back now. I hung in the doorway, near the salmon (panic made me hungry), and got ready for my dismount, determined to stick the landing.
“So, I was texting with my brother-in-law—you know Jack, right? Todd’s brother, Mark’s partner—sorry, husband now—so great about gay marriage, isn’t it? Anyway, I was texting with Jack, and I was texting a whole bunch of people at the same time—including you—saying how she’s a cheap snob, meaning Todd’s mother, so if you’re the one who gets that text from me—”
“I saw the text,” Amy said, avoiding eye contact.
The words hung there.
I started to get hot again.
Well, she could have said something and spared me the . . . gymnastics, but I guess I had to let that go.
“It wasn’t about you,” I stuttered, which is what I do when the shit hits the fan.
She cocked her head, not believing me, her eyes a green too beautiful to be named. I downed a glass of wine in one swallow, followed by a fistful of pita chips that were sitting on the center island. Sweat poured out of my head.
Amy swallowed hard. “Liz—” she started to say, but I cut her off.
“No, Amy, listen to me,” I assured her in a rush. “Todd’s mother is coming, you can ask him.”
Matthew came into the kitchen and looked right at me. This time, his face was easy to read.
“Stop it, Liz,” he said. “Just admit the text was about Amy.”
Todd had now appeared in the doorway. He took one look at the desperation on my face and turned to leave.
“Todd!” I stopped him in his tracks. “Tell them how your mother is coming to stay with us.” I gestured to Amy, who was looking into her wineglass. “And wants us to cook at her villa, because she’s a cheap snob,” I said, leading him.
I shot him a pleading, “go with me” look—it was one of those times where I decided only he could see or hear me, like a sidebar between two characters on a sitcom. Instead of coming to my aid, Todd threw his hands up, shook his head in an I don’t know her way, and moved to the other side of the kitchen with the others. I was ridiculous, and he knew it. I was outnumbered, and I knew it.
Just then, Jesse ran over, wanting more butter; the sourdough bread was warm, and it was melting too fast for the butter to hold its clumpiness. I grabbed the stick from the counter and handed it to him. “Just have the whole thing.”
Watching him skip off, happily, I heard myself say, “I swear on Jesse’s life, it wasn’t about you, Amy.”
All three of their jaws dropped in unison, as if choreographed. Amy’s head jerked back a little so as to get a look at me from a farther distance; Todd’s shoulders slumped, disappointed in me. Matthew shook his head quickly, like trying to get water out of his ears. He must have heard me wrong. There was no way I had just sworn on my child’s life. And worse, on a very bad lie.
This, I would have to say, was my lowest point of the evening. Possibly the trip. Only time would tell.
I bit the inside of my mouth hard, trying to transfer all of my terror at the situation I’d created to the pain in my mouth. I felt a cold sensation and tasted blood.
“Fine,” I said to Amy, willing the earth to swallow me. “It was about you. I’m so sorry.”
Amy turned away, her gorgeous face flushed. She was hurt. I’d hurt Amy. Someone I never even knew could be hurt. Was I the first person to hurt her?! My heart broke at the realization, that I had caused her pain. I felt like crying. I wanted to cry. But I couldn’t. I physically couldn’t. The 30 milligrams of Prozac I was on combined with the Xanax I took that afternoon and the glass of wine I’d guzzled was making it impossible for me to access true emotion. And I couldn’t even frown because of all the Botox. I just looked happy and vaguely surprised about everything.
Amy went outside to check on the kids. Todd silently picked from the bowl of pasta. I tried to appeal to handsome Matthew. “Matthew, you know I love Amy so much.”
He shrugged and said, “Look—in all the years you guys have been friends, you were always true blue . . .”
I was true blue. But I wasn’t.
“. . . And with all the bullshit over the years, Amy could always count on you.”
She could count on me.
But she couldn’t.
Amy came back inside carrying the kids’ empty plates over to the sink.
I went to help her, and she wouldn’t let me. With her back to me, she said she wasn’t surprised what had happened because it just confirmed
what she’d always thought—that I talked shit about her.
“Why would you think that?” I asked her, shocked.
“Because you talk shit about everyone,” she said.
“No, I don’t!”
I do, though.
I really do. Most of the time I don’t mean what I’m saying. Most of the time I don’t even know what I’m saying. Sometimes I’ll hear someone talking and think, Man, she’s catty, and then realize it’s me and I’m talking about someone. It’s almost like a tic. But didn’t everyone talk shit? Isn’t that what reality TV is all about? This is America. It’s our national pastime—talking shit while baseball’s on.
So yes, I talked shit about people all the time. Usually because I’m nervous. Or desperate. Or maybe I hope that if I focus on everyone else’s flaws, mine won’t be so obvious.
“Amy. I would never say anything bad about you!” I insisted.
She said nothing. And in the silence, there was a chance for me to come clean. A chance to grow as a person. To tell Amy that I thought she was being a snob for complaining about the accommodations and then cheap to make us eat in at her villa. To tell her my text came from a place of my own insecurity. That I’m jealous of her on every level. She had a villa; I had to hear Phoebe’s mouth sounds! She had a mother; I had a paint stain!
Do it, I thought. Evolve. Grow.
“Amanda hates you!” I blurted, throwing yet another friend under the bus. So much for evolving or growing.
I couldn’t see him, but I could hear my husband’s sigh.
“Amanda, your friend who I met once?” Amy asked, confused.
“Yes! She resents you because you’re so pretty and your belly button isn’t herniated, and you married such an amazing guy . . .” I gestured to Matthew. “Amazing guy. Truly the best.”
“I thought we had a great conversation,” Amy said, thinking back.
“Nope. She hates you,” I said as if Amy was silly not to have realized that.
“Who’s Amanda?” Matthew asked.
“My miserable friend. Amy, I was just trying to make her feel better about her sucky life by saying I was on vacation with a cheap snob, which obviously you are not. I would have called myself a cheap snob, but she’s not jealous of me! Because why would anyone be jealous of me?!”
Amy turned back to me.
“Let’s not discuss it. I know I’m not cheap—”
“You are so not cheap—”
“Liz, please. But this was an expensive vacation, and I’m not going to ruin it by being upset.” She said this defiantly, decidedly, and then declared, “We can just deal with this after.”
I knew what that meant. The minute she landed back in LA, she would tell our mutual friends what happened. They would, of course, take her side . . . even Amanda. I pictured all of Los Angeles lighting up with people finding out the truth about me—that I’m a bad person. That the lemon didn’t fall far from the tree. And then, they would all leave me. Which I’d deserve. My paint stain mother might even slide off the wall, mortified to be associated with me. These would be . . . the lumps I had to take.
Todd left to go to the bathroom, and I suddenly realized that my lumps would probably also include Amy telling Todd the secrets she was keeping for me, from him. Amy was nothing if not thorough, and if everyone else in Los Angeles was going to abandon me, my husband probably would, too. Vows or not, Amy would win.
I followed my husband down the hallway. I needed to get to Todd before she did.
He’d closed the bathroom door. I opened it.
“It’s just me,” I said, wiggling my way in.
“Can’t I pee in peace?” he asked, midstream.
No. No, he couldn’t.
I took a deep breath. “I may as well tell you, because Amy is going to, I was still seeing Josh when I met you,” I confessed.
My beautiful husband zipped his fly and looked at me, confused. “Who’s Josh?” he asked, even more handsome now that I knew I could lose him.
“My ex-boyfriend. When we started dating, I slept with him like twice, before you and I went on that cruise,” I confessed. “Actually, okay, once after—but not after we said, ‘I love you.’ And I do love you. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” Todd replied, unsure of how to react.
But I wasn’t finished.
“And I didn’t love love you when we got married.” The words were tumbling out now. “I loved you, but probably not as much as I should have and kind of had a nervous breakdown at my bachelorette party. And also I smoked in the apartment after you asked me not to. That’s why the dog smelled like smoke all the time, not because she was hanging out with dog owners who were smoking at the dog park.” I wasn’t sure if Amy knew that. But just in case she did, he needed to hear it from me first.
Todd looked at me, blankly but not so blankly, then reached out and pulled me in. I put my head on his big, calming chest. Even though he shouldn’t have—and I wouldn’t have, if I were him—he put his arms around me and kind of patted my back. He loved me. But he’d had enough shit for the night.
I let him wash his hands in peace. It was the least I could do, after ruining our vacation.
In the living room, the kids were rubbing their eyes, falling asleep. It was time to go.
Before leaving, I grabbed Amy and hugged her hard.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Amy. Can we give you money for dinner? Not that you’d want it, because you’re not cheap. Not that that would be cheap!”
I wouldn’t let go of her. I was afraid that once I did, she’d be gone forever. My only friend who made me pee-laugh.
Matthew held the door open for us. Todd grabbed our bag of dirty laundry and patted Matthew hard on the back in a way that said Sorry, man. And then he actually said it—“Sorry, man.” The kids said their good-byes and headed for the car with their father.
With some struggling, Amy finally freed herself from my death-grip. “I’ll see you at the lagoon tomorrow,” she said, closing the door.
“You will . . .?” I asked, surprised, pushing the door back open.
“Yeah, I’ll text you when I get up,” she promised.
I couldn’t believe it. “Don’t you hate me . . .?”
“Nooo! Stop. Let’s just laugh about it and move on.”
I couldn’t believe it. She’d seen the rotten, ugly, insane me, and she was okay. Because she also saw the good. There was good. My being there for her at the hospital when Lily was sick. My offering my toxic, unhappy blood or helping her with her scripts that would make it to national television. My driving across town to stash painkillers in her umbrella stand when I thought she could use a good Vicodin buzz. It all counted.
She didn’t even hold a grudge. She’s that perfect. Which really made me hate her. And love her.
I was never going to call Amy a cheap snob again. I was never going to invite Amanda and Amy to the same parties again. And I was never going to trust the advice of a paint stain again.
The Year of the Turtle
* * *
I used to wonder how families with eight hundred pets wound up that way.
You know those families. You’ve been to their houses—the ones where every bedroom has a fish tank and every bathroom has a (loaded) litter box. There’s usually a fat and listless guinea pig (“He’s the last . . .”) living in the kitchen and a weird extinct bug in an overgrown terrarium that’s way too close to wherever they keep the remotes. Their birdcages either have a dozen little birds that never shut up or one prehistoric parrot missing half its feathers who looks like he’d rip your face off if he could figure out how to pick the lock. Their ancient dog is morbidly obese, obsessed with crotches, and saves her incontinence trick for company.
Their houses smell a little. Even the people smell a little.
We’ve started to become one of those families.
Granted, we never really had far to go, what with the two dogs (both requiring their own crates) and the geckos. (T
hough to be fair, we’ve never had more than one gecko at once; we just replace the one every time it dies before Jesse finds out and melts down. Which is why they’ve all been named Taylor. I think we’re on Taylor IV.) And the fish.
And now, our latest—and most frightening—acquisitions: the Turtles.
Phoebe’s second-grade class had been studying China, and she became obsessed with visiting Chinatown in Los Angeles. While her interest in learning about different cultures and visiting a foreign land all of thirty minutes away impressed me, I really didn’t feel like making the trek downtown. Who knew what the parking situation was going to be? What if there wasn’t a Starbucks within twenty feet at all times? There were simply too many unknowns.
So, I waited for this obsession of Phoebe’s to pass. I knew eventually she would forget about Chinatown. And just when I thought she had given up, that I had broken her, Chinese New Year hit, and she was back at it. This time, she was relentless. Seemingly overnight, my daughter had turned into one of those people who didn’t give up (unlike, say, me).
And so it came to pass that on the first day of spring break Phoebe was headed to Chinatown. But not with me—with Angela, our long-suffering nanny who was one of the part-time residents in our Animal House and increasingly unhappy with the arrangement. Angela is twenty-five, close to six feet tall, and beautiful. So pretty, she can wear her blond hair short. Or with purple or green tips. I often wondered why she was wasting her time with us when she could have been America’s Next Top Model. I wasn’t about to bring that up, though—not when I needed her to do things like go to Chinatown.
Angela took on the task with quiet resignation. Jesse, on the other hand, was furious that he had to go with them. He’d had a day of playing on his Xbox and had some hard-earned relaxation time (his phrase) planned. I lectured him about the importance of getting out from behind his screens, out of his comfort zone and seeing the world, impressing on him how lucky and blessed he was to be healthy enough to experience life. The irony wasn’t lost on me since this was one experience I refused to experience.