by Maria Semple
“Your silence speaks volumes,” David said.
The tinny trumpets of Pachelbel’s Canon in D heralded. A voice mail! Violet panted, her eyes locked on the little blinking mailbox.
David opened his hand. “Your phone.” She snatched it. “I hope you realize how much you stand to lose, Violet.” He slammed the trunk, got into the car, and peeled out.
Violet’s fingers trembled as she hit the voice mail button. One new message. “Hi, it’s your spring equinox call.” Teddy’s voice was higher and more nasal than she’d remembered. “I need a favor from you. And ask me what I did last night.”
Violet hit the reply button.
“That didn’t take long,” Teddy said. “Aren’t you impressed that I know when the spring equinox is?”
“What did you do last night?” Violet said, feral with impatience.
“I downloaded pictures of chicks who looked like you and jerked off to them.”
Violet swirled with delight. “Really?”
“I thought you’d like that.”
“What favor do you want?”
“I’d like Geddy Lee’s 4001 Rickenbacker bass.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“Listen to you,” he said. “Like you’re going to get it for me.”
“We know Geddy Lee.”
“We know Geddy Lee! Ha!”
“We used to spend every Christmas with him in Anguilla.”
“Do you have any idea how much I love Rush?”
“And you’re giving me shit about being a Deadhead? When’s your birthday?”
“May first is my AA birthday. I’ll have three years.”
“May Day,” Violet said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“May Day. It’s a pagan celebration where children with ribbons dance around a maypole.”
“Are you tripping on that hippie acid again?”
“All I meant is, congratulations on being sober for three years.” There was a puddle of oil on the floor. Violet grabbed a rag from the tool bench and started to mop it with her foot.
“If I make it.”
“Of course you’ll make it.”
“We have to stay humble in the program,” Teddy said.
“Let’s have a birthday party for you.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my sponsor’s birthday, too. And he always wants to have our birthdays together.”
“That’s cool.” Violet picked up the dirty rag with her fingertips. “I can throw a party for both of you.”
“He doesn’t exactly know about you.”
“Why not?” Violet headed toward the trash cans.
“He’s this very by-the-book AA dude and he’d be really down on our relationship.”
“Why?” She froze.
“You’re a rich married lady I jerk off to who gives me money. That’s not exactly part of the program.”
“Oh.” Violet dropped the rag.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got it figured out, though. What’s your address?”
“Why?”
“So I can come over tonight. Don’t you love it how little old junkie me knows when David Parry’s going to —” A roar from his end overpowered his voice.
“Where are you?” Violet asked.
“I just dropped off Her Majesty Coco Kennedy at the airport. Her sister is going on tour with the Cats of Japan and she got Coco a free plane ticket. Don’t ask, because it doesn’t make sense to me, either. You should hear her voice mail. It’s filled with all these producers who want to make her a celebutard reality star. What a crazy bitch.” Violet was speechless. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I thought you broke up with her. Is she still your girlfriend?”
There was a pause. No; that’s all he had to say, no. Come on, say it: no.
“Yes.” There must have been another pause, because Teddy was now saying, “Violet? Does this upset you? Hello?”
Violet’s throat throbbed. “No.”
“Great. You’re upset,” he said.
“You made me promise I wouldn’t let you get back together with her, that’s all.”
“Oh that. I forgot. Well, relationships are complicated. Am I right, Mrs. David Parry?”
“So you still have a girlfriend.”
“I’m only eighty-five percent faithful to her.”
If Violet could just hit “pause,” she might be able to separate out the vagaries tangling up her brain.
“Hit me with the deets,” he said. “What’s your address? All I’ve been eating are blueberry bagels. I need some healthy food or my liver’s going to balloon. You have no idea what it’s like. I have the body of an eighty year old. You’re a vegetarian. You can make me some healthy grub, right? Come on, where do you live?” Violet was too addled to do anything other than recite her address. He’d be there at eight. “And Violet?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re just going to hang out. No funny stuff.” Teddy hung up.
Violet felt repellent, like a duped sex predator slavering over the phone in a grimy carport. Her Mercedes was right there. She could jump in and catch up with David. She called Teddy back to tell him not to come. But his phone rang and rang and rang, then went to voice mail. She was certain he had seen it was her and not picked up, figuring she was trying to cancel. She closed her phone. The only thing to do was to have him over, whip up some spinach from the garden, and never see him again. Tomorrow morning, she would drive up to Matilija and make things right with David.
SALLY , Jeremy, and his two lesbian neighbors were gathered around his kitchen counter. “To Jeremy!” Jennifer raised a plastic cup of two-buck chardonnay she and Wendy had brought over in celebration.
“Good luck on Sunday,” Wendy said, digging into the supermarket veggie-and-dip platter. She was the guy in this relationship, judging from her bulging khakis and rugby shirt. “We’ll always be able to say we knew you when!”
Sally bristled at the sense of ownership these girls felt over Jeremy. Sure, they used to drive him places, but Sally did the driving now.
“Come on, Sally!” said one of the gals. “Have some wine.”
“I’ll stick to Diet Coke,” she said. Wendy and Jennifer launched into reminiscences about the old days. Sally excused herself. “I have to use the little-girls’ room.”
“Don’t forget your purse,” Jennifer said. Wendy stifled a giggle.
“Thanks for reminding me.” Sally smiled and grabbed her purse. Apparently dykes thought it was the height of uptightness to bring one’s purse to the bathroom. They had commented on it before. But Sally wasn’t offended. Jeremy had asked her to pick a romantic restaurant where they could have dinner later tonight. Deviating from his routine could only mean that he was finally going to pop the question. Sally had picked the Ivy, a place she had always imagined herself getting engaged. Soon enough, she and Jeremy would be kissing off Jennifer, Wendy, and this whole crappy apartment complex for a new life over the hill.
Sally shut the bathroom door, unzipped her Liberty of London cosmetic bag, and got out her lancet and glucometer. She washed her hands with soap and hot water. In honor of the occasion, Sally pricked the ring finger on her left hand. She stuck a test strip into the glucometer, squeezed her finger, and touched the blood to the plastic. The meter beeped. She sucked her finger and waited seven seconds for the reading. She had to smile: diabetes didn’t know happy days from sad ones. It didn’t care if she was getting engaged to Jeremy or dumped by Kurt, rejected by Juilliard or dancing the part of Giselle: ten times a day she’d still have to prick her finger and inject herself in the stomach.
The glucometer read 230. Sally had counted on her blood sugar being lower, considering her three o’clock injection and forty-five minutes of cardio. She would definitely want at least half a tarte tatin, the Ivy’s signature dessert. Plus, the maître d’ would probably send over champagne when he heard the joyous hullabaloo.
That would give Sally another ten grams of carbs. Should she take some Humalog now and not have to worry about it until tonight’s dose of Lantus? But her sugar levels might spike from the champagne and excitement. Then, if she ate even a couple bites of tarte tatin, she might feel too crashed to make love later. And tonight was a night she and Jeremy had to make love. Sally decided to be safe and take a shot now, then test herself at the restaurant. She removed the tiny cushioned bottle of Humalog and the syringe dedicated to it, then drew out four units. She lifted her dress, felt her stomach for a spot that wasn’t tender, and injected herself.
One of the things Sally loved most about Jeremy was the way he had reacted when she told him she was type one diabetic. And that she had lost half of her little toe to it. He frowned and said he was sorry, then never brought it up again. Everyone else got so maudlin when they found out. (Especially about the toe!) Sally knew from that point on, she’d be “poor diabetic Sally.” So she never brought it up. And always wore closed-toe shoes.
As much as she would have liked to say to Jennifer and Wendy, Hey ladies, I bring my purse to the bathroom because I’m diabetic, Sally never once used the diabetic card for sympathy. Not even with her boyfriends, who might have forgiven her some of her histrionics had she blamed low blood sugar. Diabetes was simply something she was born with. Her eyes were blue, her teeth were straight, and her pancreas didn’t produce insulin. If Sally didn’t deviate from her four-hour plan, she was no different from anybody else. Control it or it controls you.
When Sally was three, she fainted while Mom videotaped her practicing her mouse dance for The Nutcracker. David and Mom rushed her to the hospital. When she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, her mother said, “Thank God it’s just diabetes.” The one and only time Sally went to a shrink, she recounted this story. He was astonished at Sally’s unwillingness to allow that diabetes was something she should feel anger or sadness over. She left before the hour was up.
If anything, diabetes taught her the self-discipline necessary to excel at ballet. She attended the Academy of Colorado Ballet, then joined the company. Years passed as Sally watched her fellow graduates make coryphée, soloist, and principal, while she remained stuck in the corps. But then she got lucky. A guest choreographer from Russia was so inspired by her that he created a ballet around her in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of women’s suffrage in Colorado. A month before Sally’s premiere (the governor was scheduled to attend, and Don Johnson!), a blister on her little toe split open. She practiced through the pain, then the tingling, then the numbness. She ignored the black spots. The swelling and stiffness spread to her foot. She wrapped it tight, which bought her a couple of rehearsal days. Then her ankle started to swell. By the time Sally made it to the hospital, the toe was mottled white and scarlet, and even light blue. It looked like an exotic coral. The infection had spread to the bone. They had no choice but to amputate. A dancer four years Sally’s junior ended up dancing the part and was now a principal with the San Francisco Ballet.
Sally prided herself on her ability to bounce back — indeed, what else was there to pride herself on? — and she considered it a badge of honor when someone close to her didn’t know she was diabetic. None of her students had a clue. Her manager at the dance studio had no idea. When Violet sent over those crates of chocolate, it made Sally think she didn’t know, either. Sally had certainly never brought it up with her sister-in-law. But she found it hard to believe that after seventeen years, David had never mentioned it to his wife. It had been such an enormous part of his life, too. He still paid Sally’s insurance and doctors’ bills. That would be one of the sweetest aspects of marrying Jeremy: getting on his insurance, so David could finally stop paying her bills.
Sally withdrew the needle from her stomach and returned the syringe to the section of her cosmetic bag where she kept the Humalog syringes to reuse. Even though they said you shouldn’t reuse syringes, all diabetics did, because of the cost. Insurance didn’t cover five needles per day, which Sally averaged, so it made sense to use one until the tip became so blunt it made her bruise. She did it as a courtesy to David.
“Let’s see.” It was Jennifer’s muffled voice from the other room. Jeremy clomped across the floor. Even with his new shoes, his walk was loud and clumsy! Sally held her breath and leaned against the door. The desk drawer slid open and shut. Jeremy clomped back to the kitchen. Sally cracked the door. Jennifer and Wendy leered at the ring. Jeremy closed the velvet cube and dropped it in his jacket pocket. Sally flushed the toilet to make it seem as if she had been peeing, then rejoined the party.
SUPER -RICA , a funky taco stand on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, was a favorite of David and Violet’s. It wasn’t on the way to the yoga retreat, but it was worth the half hour detour. David stood, puzzling over the hand-painted menu board above the window. Violet always ordered for them, and none of this looked familiar. The line behind David was long and impatient: UCSB students and NPR-listening foodies who had made the pilgrimage to Super-Rica and knew precisely what they would order when they finally arrived at the window.
“There’s some melted-cheese thing?” David asked.
“Queso de cazuela,” the Mexican said.
“Fine. And a horchata.” The man gave David a number and a cup of the rice drink he’d been craving on the drive up. David handed the guy a twenty. “Keep it.” He sat down under the tented dining area and, in its blue glow, thought about Violet.
She had sought refuge and stability after being raised by an unreliable father. Done. She wanted to move to LA. Done. She wanted to quit her job. Done. She wanted a fabulous house. Done. She wanted a baby. Done. She wanted a full-time nanny. Done and done.
And I’m the fucking asshole?
Did she have any idea how it stung when David said something and she met him with silence? At best, she’d fake it with a zombie smile or a vacant “Really?” He knew what it was like to have Violet head over heels for you. There was nothing like it. When he met her, she was a bubbly, brilliant chatterbox, always with a million questions. Now she was remote, weepy, mute.
What was her fucking excuse? That the pregnancy was hard? That she had a baby over a year ago and the adjustment was hard? That the house she had found was harder to remodel than she thought? That she stuffed her face during her pregnancy and it was so hard to lose the weight? That having a husband support her lavish lifestyle was just so hard on her self-esteem? That making two breakfasts in the morning, one for David and one for Dot, and not having time to make one for herself was so darned hard?
How about spending high school waking up at four AM to deliver newspapers in a shitty blizzarding Denver neighborhood, then doing the afternoon and evening shifts at Baskin-Robbins to work a forty-hour week to qualify for benefits? That was pretty hard. How about a teenager filing for legal guardianship of his diabetic sister so she could be covered by his health insurance? Or never going to college, getting an accounting degree through the mail, and now sitting on $32.8 million, liquid. With compounding interest, probably $32.85 after the car ride up here. Last time David checked, that was a hard thing to do. How about being a goddamned visionary and seeing the music business about to fall off a cliff, then leveraging everything to buy publishing catalogues that had since grown into cash cows? He had done it, and would consider it hard. How about booking a band whose debut album hadn’t even been released to open for Green Day this summer? David had finalized that just this morning. These days, that was a mighty hard thing to pull off. How about the forty e-mails that came in on the drive up? From bands and record executives and road managers and art directors and the friend of a friend of a friend who didn’t want much, just help becoming a gigantic rock star! Handling all that with grace only to come home to a crazy cunt of a wife was pretty fucking hard!
Were any of these people e-mailing or calling just to check on how David was doing? Or to thank him for always being there? No. They wanted jobs or favors or rescuing from some fuckup. Since
David was a teenager, he’d been the daddy. To his mother, to Sally. Now to Violet, to Dot, to his bands, and to the hundred or so people he employed at any given time. David would consider that harder than making a pot of coffee in the morning and handing a baby off to LadyGo.
Earlier, in the carport, his wife couldn’t take her eyes off her cell phone as it rang in his hand. Just six months ago, he had to persuade her to carry one. Now she was Susie-fucking-cell-phone. Her peculiar fixation on it had made him look down at the incoming number. Bad news for Violet, David was good at memorizing numbers.
310-555-0199.
It wasn’t one he recognized. Who could have reduced Violet to such possum-eyed stupidity? A lover? That would explain a lot. But Violet fucking somebody? It wasn’t the Violet he knew. If he called the number from his cell phone, whoever it was could trace it back to him, so David went to the pay phone and dialed it.
“Please deposit two dollars, fifty cents.”
David smashed the receiver against the phone and let it dangle. A bunch of jocks, finishing up their lunch, snickered at him. On their table, among the empty red plastic baskets, was a cell phone. David pulled a fifty from his money clip and slapped it down. “I have to make a call. Keep the change.”
“Wow, sure.” A kid wearing a Def Leppard Hysteria T-shirt handed over his phone. David had managed that tour. He dialed the number. It went straight to voice mail.
“Dude, it’s Teddy. Leave a message.”
David tossed the phone back onto the table. The kids looked up, hushed. “Here, you want to use mine?” said one. The others exploded in dumb laughter.
David returned to his chair. Teddy. The name sounded familiar. He navigated his BlackBerry to e-mail, then searched for “Teddy.” One message came up, last month from his assistant.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]