by Lucy Morton
“Cruel? I interrupted her. “He was a real bastard.”
Dave was my first kiss. The child of the kindergarten who really fuck me over all the time. That the most beautiful thing he had said to me was: “Fucking ass face!” and that at the age of twelve he had kissed me in the nose when we were sitting on the bench on one side with other class friends. He was the one who asked me to be his girlfriend when I was fourteen. He was the one I danced at the end-of-course party and with whom, despite going to different college; we continued dating because “that was supposed to be” and because his mother really liked me. He was the one who, after finishing college a few months ago, told me:
“Jean… Jean, my sweet Jeanny… we have spent so many years together, right?” And it has been really beautiful!
My mind immediately went into “Alarm” mode.
“But this is it.”
This asshole of Dave had already put a ring on this Ashley Cooper’s finger that I have not got to know but with which I have shared something without knowing it for a while. It was not a big deal. Dave was a regular guy with no worries. He was not my best friend, nor has he ever been a great lover, and everything was said in passing and no regrets whatsoever, he did not even was a great kisser. I did not feel anything for him. I did not feel depressed or believe that my world would end and I did not even shed a tear. I remember Kim was looking at me like I was his heroine and I, happy, I kept that.
“I want you to know” she began to say, getting up and getting out of bed with his hand on his belly, “that we’re going to the pub tonight.” You and me, without Barbara. By the way, where is she?”
We did not know. But yes, that was the moment she was writing in an historical stone the initial of her name along with the name of the tattooed guy.
“Well, whatever. I’m going to the bathroom and then after that, we get ready to look cute, okay?”
I’d rather forget the smell of that poor bathroom when Kim came out. I think that from that moment, my sense of smell was stunted.
I took one of Barbara’s dresses that night. I did that because she was not there and I could do it. When she came back, if she came back, and she would catch me, I would give her an explanation. I would cry and I would beg her to forgive me if I needed to. We still did not know what trouble she was in with the tattooed guy, when we were testifying in the county sheriff’s office that they thought the stone they were piercing was ordinary and not historical.
“It suits you better than her, Jean”, Kim encouraged me, looking me up and down.
“Yes? Do you think so?”
I only saw a stick wearing a tight-dress for curvy woman, something that, at that time, I did not have at all.
“Is not too big for me?”
“A little, but it looks good on you.”
Never trust someone who loves you and approves you. They cannot see the reality: the mirror. However, it does show you that something is not working. The mirrors do not lie, only those of the clothes stores, to encourage you to buy more.
Two hours later, Kim was drinking a pineapple juice and I was drinking a beer that I did not really like it, we were in the lively pub. Beside the bar, Kim start cramping and going to the filthy bathroom all the time and I was holding the pitcher with one hand and the other supported to be able to support me in Barbara’s heels. We were waiting for Tom to show up at any moment there with his friends. He played hard to get, but he finally appeared. He was more handsome than in the afternoon. He came looking for something or someone and I tried to keep my emotion when he saw that it was me, when he came walking to the bar and, with a mischievous smile and pretending, stood next to me.
“Jean, the girl who stood me up this afternoon” he murmured.
Kim looked at the two of us. She put his hand in her mouth, put the pineapple juice on the bar, and she ran to the bathroom.
“Is something wrong with your friend?”
“Do not go to the bathroom… just in case.”
“Wow. Do I tell you a secret?”
He came up to me, pressed his lips to my ear and while giving me goosebumps, he said:
“I do not like beer.”
“Neither do I”, I said.
When Kim came out of the bathroom, she apologized and she went back to the guesthouse. She winked at me and that could only mean that, indeed, she really liked the guy for me. Tom and I talked, laughed and we even danced. He told me that he had a ten-year-old sister on his father’s side. That he was twenty-five years old. He had studied architecture but what he really was passionate about was acting and seeing himself acting on Broadway. He had never been to New York, but that he thought it was the best city to live in. He hated London and its dark climate and that the English girls were unfriendly and vain. He confessed to me that he loved playing video games, watching author’s movies and Stephen King’s books. And he even showed me a tattoo of a lizard that he had been made with a girlfriend he’d had five years ago. It was a drunken night in London. I told him that I had studied art history that my dream was to paint and exhibit my work in the best galleries in the world. I was passionate about traveling but that for the moment I had only visited Italy and Berlin besides Ireland and some people lost in the environs of NY. My parents were living separately since I was twelve years old and that I had no siblings to discuss with. That my friend wanted to be a writer, even he did not care about it, and that I was wondering where Barbara was. By the way, she was the crabby girl who she was also into him the first night but who she immediately replaced him with the biggest, “more handsome, taller, more tattoos and well-fitted”. Although, of course, that” more handsome, taller and well-fitted” I did not tell him.
The pub closed. His friends disappeared and we were alone in the street with nothing to do and very much looking forward to be together. We went for a walk at three-thirty in the morning, according to my watch. He grabbed my hand and at a quarter to four, he kissed me. The sky was cloudy and just when our lips felt the pleasant sensation of knowing each other, it began to rain. We got soaked, but even so, we started laughing like crazy. Maybe due to the drunkenness we had because of the beers that we did not really like at all.
We sat on the banks of the river, I on top of him, he on top of me. We caressed each other, we met, but we did not go all the way. We look at a typical Irish sunrise, without much set of neither colors nor a sun illuminating the road, because the clouds usually spoil everything. We were not afraid to get a cold, although hours later, we would know what it was like to have a great flu, if you will. We were talking about dreams, the future and our hopes. How beautiful it would be if that story, which it had only lasted a few hours, would have been more and more. Coming to New York, the perfect city to live, according to him. Having children. The more the better, he said. At least three, six at best he said. I was scared to imagine myself fat and that the pain of childbirth, as my mother always said, it was unimaginably horrible. He was laughing and he also made me imagine living with him in a little house with porch and garden, with a pool in which our children, at least three and six at best, may swim in the pool in summer while we prepared sandwiches and chocolate milk shakes for snack.
I watched as the color of his green eyes changed color according to the light he was giving. And what a so soft and firm lips of his!
When I reached the guesthouse and I lay on my bed facing the ceiling while Kim was snoring in the next bed and we did not know anything about Barbara, I could not stop thinking about he was a really great kisser. And I would surely sleep a little that day. Dave was history, a bad one. He was one of that you forget easily and that it does not hurt you. Tom was a true first love, a summer love of those who are very inside but who like the best love, end up and end in the most tragic way even if you do not want to see it. Even if you are totally blind.
Twenty-four hours before flying to New York, he told me that he had a great time with me. That he loved me. That he loved me! How stupid I was! I believed him. I did not hear
the lout voice or the sound of my mother. I was not listening to anything or anyone and I was living the moment, as in any Danielle Steel novel. If I had been a virgin I would have screwed up, but I was not, and Tom was a great lover. We made love. Well, for me it was to make love. For him, well it was just fucking, a one-night banging… I do not know those guys and their stuff. He was passionate, wild and sweet at the same time and, when he finished, he went to the bathroom of the guesthouse room. He took a shower and when he came out he looked at me and he smiled. He confessed to me that he had a girlfriend in London, that ours had been magical and unrepeatable but that he had realized, in spite of everything, and that he loved her. And that he just wanted to be with her. With a boring and vain British girl with whom he shared a lizard tattoo because he had not really broken up with her. They had been together for seven years. That London was the perfect city to live in, and she, I do not remember her exactly, though he did tell me, the future mother of his children, at least three and six at best. Indeed, I would have enjoyed to see my stupid face, but I chose to go and take a shower and get rid of the remains of the one that, until a few seconds ago, I thought was the love of my life, promising myself I would never –NE-VER, trust a man again, even if he had the most beautiful eyes in the world.
CHAPTER 9
—
We never really grow up. We just learn to perform before an audience.
A MONTH LATER
NOW
I’m afraid this is not going to be a happy Christmas. We may celebrate Christmas Eve at my parents’ house. April may even want to have a Christmas tree in the living room with its appropriate star, but he will no longer be able to raise it to the top and putting the “icing on the cake”. I am not sure about anything, because April is still gone into herself. She is wearing her helmets, something more typical of a teenager than of a girl of almost nine years and she disappears. She forgets about the world. Thinking about it. Looking at the photograph. And when she is at school, I do the same thing. I lay on her bed, on top of the flower and pink bedspread butterflies, and I look at the photograph stuck on the ceiling. I am wondering how the hell she got hooking it up there. I am staring at the torn eyes of April’s father, the most beautiful in the world. How his smile illuminates everything and how protective he is with her little girl, hugging her with his arms. Suddenly I am feeling some inexplicable jealousy; I still cannot forget the hard words of my daughter. I wish it would have been me who had died and not him. I wonder what April’s life would be like if I were not here and what would be Dad’s life. What would he have done in my place? Would they miss me? Or am I just an extra in this play and, despite being her mother, I mean nothing in all this? Had she also told her father that she wished he had died instead of me? I strongly doubt it. She would never say something like that to her father.
We went to the therapist a couple of times, but April threatened me. She told me that if she would have to stand another afternoon with that lunatic and pervert man, she would throw herself out the window. I, a little scared, and in the midst of a nervous breakdown because of the seriousness of her words, told the therapist and Ingrid about it. They calmed me down. They told me it was normal, it was a… how did they say? Typical reaction to a father death. Something like that. But the truth is that I may not see it as normal and every time I am more afraid that April can do something stupid. A way more stupid. I have some horrible ideas in my head. I imagine it in very serious situations as dead by electrocution in the bathtub, taking some of my sleeping pills and taking them all at once or one day she just disappear, get lost, somebody kidnap her… and I might not see her again.
“I thought of that”, I told Kim, with whom I’m having a coffee, “I should tell her how I met her father.”
“Something like “How I met your mother?”
“More or less”, I am laughing.
“I remember when you met him there was someone else, right?”
“Three “, I remember. “It was three of them and one of them is April’s father.
“It is such shame that it did not work out between the two of you. You seemed to be made for each other.”
That’s what everyone was saying. We both used to love Christmas and winter for the simple fact that we could wear wool hats and we do not look like idiots. We used to love coats, the Nordic covers and the cushions. We used to like going to the movies to watch a movie and staring at people instead of learning what the story was about or what the poor protagonists did with such despicable characters. We were passionate about walking barefoot in summer and looking out the sunset from the beach, the mountain or just soaking in a summer storm. We used to look at the stars in silence. But we also used to like walking. Saying absurd things and just realizing that people were right, indeed, that we were made for each other. I used to like to feel his hand on my back and he never said no when I asked for a foot massage after a tiring day. He was always staring at me and, as a joke, my cleavage. When he was smiling, there were dimples on his cheek under his lovely three-day stubble and the best moment of the day was when he came, he winked at me and he whispered very softly in my ear:
“Jean, do you see the sky?” I never had time to answer. “Did you hurt yourself when you fell?” And then I used to laugh for half an hour. I used to tell him that he was very silly and we lie down on the sofa enjoying the pleasure of doing nothing.
“Jean? Jean? Come back, Jean!”
“Ok, we meant for each other.” I am smiling sadly and Kim is caressing my hand in silence and without saying: “You will get over it. Time heals all. Relax…” etc, etc, etc… She knows I’m tired of all this talk. I am tired of the pity of people and the pouting or the “Ohhhh” of the others. Kim knows everything about me.
“It’s great what you have in mind for April. Tell her that story even if she has her helmets on and he may not listen to you. You just talk. Talk and do not expect anything. She may be interested in guessing when you’re talking about her father.”
“It is funny that when we broke up, it seemed like we have been still together, you know?” I think. “April was only three years old and we were discussing more and more… then, when we signed the divorce papers, the screams disappeared and it was him and me again but without foot massages, kisses or silly and beautiful words.” Kim nods, knowing I need to get off my chest. “We did not start a life with anyone, at least me and him. If he had a couple or any kind of trouble, he never told me. When I heard about the hit on the court, I could not believe it. He used to love basketball, like me. He had also won several games with his team and unfortunately, it has to be a basketball that causes him a blow so strong in the head that…”
I put my hands to my face and I start crying.
“I’m constantly thinking about what he was thinking about before he died. Or if he gave any time, because he apparently died instantly. How can a ball kill you, Kim? It is absurd and totally unfair.”
“Jean, I think we all have the day and hour planned of our death. It is like if we have an invisible clock tattooed on our skin and it does not matter how you hide because death will find you anyhow and anywhere. When it is your turn, that’s it. And it could have been a basketball, a car, a heart attack or a brick. Anything. He had his day and his time planned there. His time in this world just ended, Jean. Game Over.”
“He would surely think about April.” It relieves me to think that, ignoring the whole philosophy of life, belief, or whatever Kim has just told me.
“And of course, about you, Jean.”
“No, he did not love me anymore.”
“But you do, do not you?”
“I was dying to go back with him.”
“And he, too.”
“How can be you so sure?”
Kim looks down and she hides a tear. The waitress, from behind the bar, is looking at us, wondering why there are so many tears running down between two thirty-year-old friends. I wonder what my close friend is hiding me and if I am going to be angry w
ith her for keeping secrets away from me.
“You see… two days before… Well, after he died, he called me.”
“He called you”, I say a little confused.
“Yes. He asked me if you were with someone or if I thought it was very absurd that he wanted to go back with you. That it did not make any sense being really good and not being together. That both of you really screwed up when you broke up. That both of you deserved another chance. I told him that you also thought the same thing and that you still loved him. You cannot imagine how happy he got.”
“Damn it, Kim. Why did not you tell me anything?”
I do not want to get angry. I swear I do not want to get angry, and I’m sure Kim has her reasons. She’s always been a good friend. The best one.
“He made me promise not to tell you anything. It would be a surprise.” And telling you this, after the funeral… uff, it really hurt me, Jean. It really did. I simply could not do it.”
“What did he want to do?”
“The day he died, that very night, he was going to make you dinner and telling you how much he loved you. He really wanted to go back with you.”
“Oh, my God, Kim…”
She is holding my hand again but I push her aside. He looks at me, she gets up and she tries to hug me, but I am not allowing her to do that. I whisper “I’m sorry” and I leave there under the watchful eye of my friend whom I know I’ve hurt her. I’m not mad at her. I will talk to her later. I only have a lump in my throat that it is really unbearable. It is keeping me from breathing and at the moment, if I was hit by a car, nothing would happen. I would not give a damn.
CHAPTER 10
—
You have me in your hands and you read me the same thing as a book.