The Love of My (Other) Life

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The Love of My (Other) Life Page 11

by Traci L. Slatton


  Brian sat hunched over at Ofee’s table. He was working on something and wearing a too-small T-shirt. He smelled acrid with undertones of vetiver and vomit, or was that just the soggy pile of clothes by the bed?

  “There’s nothing here with caffeine,” I remembered.

  “Yeah, I looked. Is Ofee allergic?” Brian asked.

  “Philosophically opposed. Oh, I think I’m going to die.”

  “Not funny,” Brian muttered.

  I giggled, though it was painful. “Oops.” I sat down opposite Brian and saw what he was working on: two lumpy papier maché objects. After some focusing, my gritty, burning eyes recognized them as skulls. A bowl of water and a book from which strips had been torn sat on the table at Brian’s elbow.

  “My mother said there was no right way or wrong way to do this, but I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “Skulls?” I asked.

  “Guy showed up last night after you passed out.

  His knife looks sharp. And Frances called. He’s a little mad that he hasn’t got his skull back. Actually, he’s a lot mad. I want him to cool down. Guy, too. I want you to be safe.” Brian made a concerned face at me. His eyes were circled with black rings and sunk deep in his head and his hair was even more bedraggled than ever. He hadn’t slept much, though I vaguely remembered him being in bed with me.

  It hurt my fuzzy brain to think. “How’d Frances get my number?”

  “I told him,” Brian said, with a ‘duh’ grin. “It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t give his art back.”

  Oh. I scowled and tried to focus. Were my eyes crossing or just watering? “These won’t fool Guy or Frances.”

  “They’re not supposed to,” Brian said. “We’ll pass them off as other, new Cliff Bucknells.”

  “I thought you were against forgery.”

  “I am. But I’m also for my wife. I don’t agree with what you did, but if you’re in a jam, I have to help you out. Think these are worth a million dollars?”

  “No,” I shook my head. I felt my eyes water for real, and tears leaked down my face. “Yes! This is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me!” I jumped up and hugged him. Naturally, he groped my ass. I didn’t mind. “I don’t even mind that you’re a crazy stalker who has an identical twin brother and who’s planning to murder me and drop my severed body parts into the Hudson River.”

  Brian sighed. He wriggled out of my grasp and perused me. “Tessa, we have to talk about your fantasy life. It’s going down some negative paths.

  Don’t model your universe that way. Choice plays an important role in macroscopic decoherence.”

  I kissed the top of his scruffy head. “You’re crazy but wonderful. Here, if you don’t mind, let me fix these. My hands are itching to take over.”

  By midday, I knew I still had it: my old skill as a mimic of other people’s bad art. I had never wanted such a talent and didn’t prize it, but it remained with me, like a cold sore on my upper lip or a terrible perm in my hair.

  The two skulls now looked like real modern objets d’art. They were covered in glitter, with gaping eyes made of cat’s-eye marbles. We’d found glitter, marbles, and other artsy odds and ends at Ofee’s.

  Brian gawked, amazed. “You’re going to be just fine—you’re talented. These look like the real thing.

  I couldn’t make anything this good. Not in any universe.”

  “You can’t sing or do magic either.” I smiled as I continued to refine the skulls. My fingers moved expertly over the faces.

  Brian pretended to pout. “Meanie.”

  “Sap.”

  “Sadist.”

  “Martyr.”

  “Martyr?” He looked wounded.

  “What’s the word for reveling in your own pain and suffering?” I couldn’t attend to our banter when I was making a masterpiece. Two of them.

  “Masochist, and I’m not one of those!”

  “Please.” I snorted. “You’re in love with your wife’s deadness. The dead wife you invented in an imaginary world, maybe because your identical twin brother is a superstar and you needed to feel important.”

  “There’s nothing imaginary about my feelings.

  It hurts to lose someone you love,” Brian said with heat. “It hurts so bad you can’t imagine. Sometimes I can’t breathe. The days without you stretch out like an unending wasteland, gray and empty forever. All our plans and dreams for our life died with you. I only ever wanted to be with you from the moment I met you. If you loved David here the way I love you there, you’d understand.”

  I surveyed the two skulls. Behold: they are good.

  Maybe, just possibly, they might buy me, if not redemption, then some time to figure things out.

  I glanced up at Brian and saw that my T-shirt matched his, except that it fit me better. I poked him in the chest. “You couldn’t find something else for me to wear?” I teased. “We have to be yoga twins?”

  “I packed a negligee for you, but it didn’t seem appropriate last night.” His voice was still raw and his gaze was averted.

  “I have a negligee?”

  “Back of the pajama drawer.”

  “I loved David,” I said, and the old pang of loss and regret reverberated in my chest like a gong. I placed the two skulls on a window shelf under a hanging crystal pendant to dry. “I built my world around him. But even before he left, our marriage was limping along. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

  I used to dream that I needed David desperately, but I couldn’t get my phone to work to call him. I’d wake up in a panic, crying. When he left, I had to face it.

  That everything between us had long ago come to an ignominious stop. That was a kind of death—the death of my dreams and illusions, anyway.” I ran my fingers over one of the skulls, patting down the silver glitter where it had clumped. “Two skulls, one for Frances, one for Guy. Smart. You’re really smart, Brian.”

  Brian came up behind me and hugged me, but loosely. “One of your drawings shows two people walking away from each other, going to a party or a wake, it could be either, there’s a sense of possibilities.”

  “They’re not going to a party. Oh, forget it!” I turned around to look into his eyes. It was a dislocated moment of déjà vu because of having shared so much in such a short time. And underlying everything was that odd sense of familiarity, but did we really know each other? I suppose we were still feeling each other out.

  “Want to model the negligee?” Brian asked in a thick voice, trying to be playful.

  “I would.” I felt a pang of disappointment, and I kissed the tip of his nose lightly. “But I have to go to work. There’s a ton of stuff to do for the dance tonight.”

  “Some thanks I get for saving your ass,” he muttered, stepping back.

  “I heard that. Speaking of bare asses, don’t think I couldn’t feel you in bed last night.”

  “You barfed on my clothes.” Brian gave me a wry look.

  “Not on your underwear.”

  “I was kamikaze when I went through the decohering device.”

  “Kamikaze?”

  “No undies,” he explained.

  I laughed. In that moment, I also believed. I don’t know why that moment broke open the locked gate of my inner impasse and ushered me into a magical world of faith. So maybe there was no identical twin brother. Maybe it was exactly as Brian said: he had come from a parallel world to find me. Occam’s razor, right? The simplest explanation. The explanation that gave a new luster to everything, especially my heart. “You went through a radical physics invention not wearing underwear?” Only Brian.

  “Underwear was optional; the math wasn’t. I have to take a nap, but I’ll bring the skulls to you when they dry.”

  “They’re not bad,” I told him. “They just might do the trick.”

  * * *

  * * *

  30

  The impression of infinite vastness

  The afternoon was a blur of activity at the Collegiate Church. I
helped volunteers hang crepe-paper streamers and set up tables with baked goods.

  I climbed a ladder and strung up a million-faceted silver disco ball. We swept and polished and sent emails reminding folks to come.

  Brian arrived with a box around dinner time. We placed the box in my office and then helped ourselves to Pellegrino water, cupcakes, and zucchini bread.

  After snacking and fussing some more, I went into a bathroom to change. I came out wearing a strappy black silk camisole and fluttery silk skirt. I’d forgotten I owned such a girly flirtatious outfit; Brian had packed it for me in the suitcase, and I’d stuck it in my messenger bag to bring to the dance.

  Chad and Jordan trooped in with a group of Apple store workers. I was overcome with embarrassment but squared my shoulders and raised my chin defiantly. I refused to let myself succumb to the old, familiar bad feelings. At some point, I had to cut them loose. It seemed easier to do so with Brian staring at me open-mouthed.

  “Dr. Tennyson,” Jordan called.

  But Brian was mesmerized by me. “Wow, Tessa, you look beautiful! I hate seeing you in those shapeless work clothes. You look like a banker, not like you.”

  Reverend Pincek joined us. “You do look lovely tonight, Tessa.” He beamed and then went off to greet guests, who were streaming in after paying admission to Joan and other volunteers at the door.

  The Apple store geniuses swarmed around us, though all Brian and I could see were each other.

  “Hi, Dr. T, Tessa. No flying shoes tonight, hey?

  Maybe another video, haha? That first one’s had over two million hits on YouTube.”

  “I dropped by the store this afternoon and invited them,” Brian said to me as if they weren’t present. “I figured your church needed the money.”

  “We brought copies of your book to sign, Dr. T,” Chad said.

  That roused Brian from his reverie of me. “Sure.

  I’ll sign breasts, too, especially perky ones.”

  The geniuses laughed and clustered eagerly around Brian, who joked and bantered and signed their books.

  Big band music burst out over the loudspeakers.

  People of all ages filled the floor: little kids jamming with awkward childish grace, teens, adults, even Mr. James shuffling on his walker and bopping his head.

  More people lined up outside the doors, waiting to pay and enter.

  The evening was a success, no question. It felt like my first victory in a long, bleak while, and I relished it. I breathed it all in: the social hall with people milling and dancing, the colored streamers, the flashing lights of the disco ball … FLASH: a painting. A room with a faceted glowing orb at the center, strewn light, and dancing figures. Two walls opened onto a magical mountainscape, and a man and a woman twirled off together on a beautiful, high crest. He looked like Brian, and the whole wondrous image was reminiscent of Chagall.

  Chagall?

  “Hey, Dreamy, how about this dance?” It was Brian, and I hadn’t even noticed him approaching.

  He gathered me into his arms.

  “You won’t take no for an answer.” I snuggled closer in to him.

  “Never do, when it comes to you.” Gracefully, he swayed with me in a neat box step.

  “I don’t know how to dance this way.”

  “Let me lead. For once,” he answered dryly.

  I was softening into him when I felt someone staring. The hair on the back of my neck rose and pulsed. I looked around and spied a lone figure leaning back against the wall, smoking. “Guy’s here,” I whispered to Brian.

  Brian stiffened and then released me. “Show time.”

  We made our way through the crowds of people to Guy. He grabbed me roughly. “Where is it? I want it now!”

  “You’re hurting me,” I said, straining away from him.

  “Let her go,” Brian barked. “We’ve got it.” He motioned.

  Guy dragged me to follow Brian. We all went into my eldercare office. Guy closed the door balefully.

  I reached into the cardboard box and gently pulled out one of the skulls. “Here.”

  “Voilà, a Cliff Bucknell skull!” Brian said with a flourish.

  Guy stared and turned the skull over and over in his hands. His roughhewn face softened a smidgen, and I thought he was going to accept the skull.

  “What shakes our spirit is not the impression of infinite vastness, but of infinite power.” He smashed the skull down on my desk. He pummeled it. Quick as quanta, he grabbed my right hand and pinned it to my desk. He raised his knife.

  I screamed. No one could hear me over the music.

  Brian launched himself atop Guy. “Wait! It’s in her apartment!”

  Guy shook Brian off the way a bear would shake off a small dog, then kicked him. “What’s it doing there?”

  “I’m locked out,” I cried. “I’m broke. I haven’t paid my co-op bill in years.”

  Guy made an ugly piffle of disgust. “Even with a neo-Pythagorean return to the aesthetics of proportion and number that works against current sensibilities, you were never going to be a good enough artist to make money selling your paintings. ”

  “I thought I had talent. I guess I was just fooling myself.”

  “Your talent is forging. I know, I move art all the time.” Guy kicked Brian a few more times when Brian tried to get up, then Guy placed his foot heavily on Brian’s chest.

  “I don’t want to be a forger!” I cried. “I want more than that.”

  “You have a little talent for porn. I found you tame, personally,” Guy shrugged. “Sentiments are not merely a perturbation of the mind, but express, together with reason and sensibility, a third faculty of humankind.”

  “I’m not a porn star, I’m an artist.” I was weeping hard now, big gulps of tears and snot that shook my whole body.

  “You’ll be a forger without thumbs if you don’t get me that skull. Now.”

  “I don’t know what to do anymore,” I said brokenly. “Everything I try fails. Maybe you should just cut off my thumbs. Maybe I deserve it after everything I’ve done. Making that stupid skull and all Cliff’s other pieces while he was sick. Posing for the Warhol tribute. David was right to leave me. I was so stupid.”

  “Have it your way,” Guy said. He raised his knife.

  Brian squirreled around under Guy’s foot and freed himself, then leapt to hold Guy’s arm. “No!

  Now is not the time for you to give up, Tessa!” He and Guy wrestled for Guy’s knife.

  “What do you want from me?” I wailed.

  Guy swatted Brian, who flew like a ragdoll across the tiny office, hitting the wall with a resounding thud. Guy laughed and gripped my hand. “I want thumbs to add to my collection. Or the original Cliff Bucknell skull, even if you’re the one who made it.”

  “Tessa, think, come on,” Brian croaked, holding his ribs.

  “We’ll break into my apartment and get the skull!”

  Guy considered. He released my hand but clutched my elbow painfully.

  Brian led as we walked out my office and through the music and masses toward the door. I swiped at my tearstained face with the back of my hand.

  Brian’s head tilted suddenly. He swiveled around and grabbed a big-brimmed hat off one of my old ladies. Then he dropped back behind us, hunching down.

  Guy’s eyes narrowed and he scrutinized the room, keeping a firm hold on my arm.

  I squirmed in Guy’s relentless grasp, trying to see what had prompted Brian to act so strangely at the most ghastly, inopportune occasion possible.

  The next moment, Professor Brian Tennyson passed.

  “Brian!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes?” chorused the two Brians.

  But Guy hurtled me forward, through the door.

  I struggled to look back over my shoulder.

  My Brian, always one to seize the moment, pulled down the veiled brim of the borrowed hat and stepped up to the professor. “Might I say, sir, how brilliant you are? Not only brilliant, but also hands
ome. A quick word: metric tensors in macroscopic decoherence.”

  “I’ve been noodling around on that but I’ve been too busy with book tours and rock climbing—” started Professor Tennyson.

  “Get your priorities straight,” barked my Brian.

  “Love is what matters!” Those words seemed to invigorate him, as spinach did Popeye. Testosterone up and spoiling for a fight, he swung back around toward Guy and me.

  But flashing lights cut off the moment. Siren wailing, a cop car pulled up. Guy ran me around it and bundled me into a taxi. Brian raced toward us, but the taxi took off with a squeal.

  * * *

  * * *

  31

  * * *

  * * *

  WD-40 makes the sublime slippery

  I pushed open the door. A file, a set of picks, and a can of WD-40 sat on the floor beside me. “It’s my apartment. I own it. They can’t keep me out without a court order and a sheriff. I won’t let them.”

  Brian rushed up, panting. “Tessa, how’d you get in?”

  I didn’t answer. Brian was a quick study; he’d figure it out. I felt a surge of new determination as I carefully peeled the painted-over eviction notice off the door.

  “The rational upshot of the experience of the sublime is the recognition of the independence of human reason from nature. That is to say, Tessa helped Bucknell with all kinds of things,” Guy chuckled. “She has skills.”

  “Tessa, did you burgle art you had forged?” Brian asked, dismayed. “I don’t even know who you are anymore!”

  I was about to give Brian a stiff answer. Of course I never burgled. But I had picked Cliff’s lock at his apartment in Soho and at his studio in the Catskills and even, memorably, at his beach house in East Hampton when he was too high to get himself home safely. But then my cell phone rang. I answered it without thinking.

  Guy laid a warning hand on my shoulder. He needn’t have worried; it wasn’t the kind of call that could save me from this situation. My body recoiled from the blow and my eyes closed. I murmured numbly and hung up. “That was Reverend Pincek.

 

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