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One Last Lie

Page 16

by Rob Kaufman


  “Mmmm, yeah?” She whispered in a way that let him know she was waiting for more.

  “Great, so are you set for the next few days?”

  “What do you mean, ‘set’, Philip?”

  He rolled his eyes, the churning in his stomach starting to roll like boiling syrup. It’s now or never. “It’s nothing big. Jonathan and I are going away for a few days. We just want to make sure you don’t need anything before we leave. We’ll be back on Tuesday.”

  A few seconds of quiet and Philip could feel a thread of hostility stemming from both ends of the phone and meeting somewhere in the middle. He was done speaking and decided not to say another word; they’d sit in silence until Angela spoke, even if he had to stay in his office all night.

  After thirty more seconds of quiet, she moaned and he heard her getting up from the sofa. He pulled his neck forward as though it would help him hear exactly what she was doing.

  “Where are you going?” Her voice was monotone.

  “Florida,” he cleared his throat again. “Just for a few days. We just wanted to get away, catch up on some rest so we can be there for you in full force over the next few months. Plus it’s tax time here and I’ve been working eighteen hour days. I need to decompress and get some good sleep.”

  “Huh,” she said. More silence, then, “I don’t think you want to talk to me about not being able to sleep, Philip. I have to try to fall asleep sitting up, surrounded by pillows. I feel like the God damn Elephant Man. I’m basically up the entire night, trying to get comfortable. And the doctor won’t even give me a sleeping pill. So I’m pretty much screwed until the end of June or July or whenever this baby decides he wants out.”

  Philip closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “I know, Angela and I can’t imagine what it must be like. But remember that day we were sitting in the living room discussing these exact things before we got pregnant? We talked about how you’d gain weight, how uncomfortable it would be, how your hormones would go haywire. Remember that?”

  “Yes, Philip, I remember. But talking about it and living through it are two different things.”

  He sensed the bitterness on the edge of her tone; resentment that although they’d discussed the potential pitfalls of pregnancy, they could never know the harsh reality of a hypothetical conversation that came to fruition.

  He looked at his watch: 7:10. He was tired and felt too weak to have this discussion with a logical and constructive outcome. Time to end it before they both said too much.

  “I understand, Angela, and for now…”

  “You don’t understand, Philip, and that’s the fucking problem! You’re getting on a plane to go lie on the beach and swim in the ocean while I’m stuck in this shithole with no life. You think you and Jonathan need to get away? Did you ever think I’d like to go away for a few days? Did you ever consider I’d like to crunch my toes in the sand and get some sun on my face? When did you become so selfish, Philip? You never used to be so egocentric. Did Jonathan make you like this?”

  Philip’s heart was pounding, his hand trembling as he pulled the phone receiver from his ear. Who the hell was he talking to? What was going on inside her head?

  Even when he and Angela had had their disagreement those many years ago, she’d never spoken to him like this; so full of accusation and hostility, as though he’d done this to her on purpose. For a split second he wasn’t certain who was on the other end of the phone — the anger making her voice almost unrecognizable.

  His mind shot back to the meeting he and Jonathan had with G many months ago to get her legal take on things. Her words rang in his head, “agreements are great to have… but it’s the people who will make the difference between a wonderfully civil partnership and a horrific, unsettling one.” How right she’d been.

  “Angela, I honestly have no response to that, and I’m going to end this conversation before one of us says something that might cause damage to our relationship. There’s way too much on the line for disagreements like this. I think we need time to calm ourselves. When we get back, we’ll talk this through. We have to make it work — for all of us.”

  Silence again and Philip still refused to speak first.

  “Fine, Philip. That’s just fine. You have a nice trip.”

  Click. She hung up without giving him the opportunity to smooth things out just a little more.

  “Bitch!” Philip grunted under his breath. He slammed down the receiver, more distressed by his furious reaction than her audacious provocations. He’d learned long ago how to make sure people didn’t get under his skin. Through experience, meditation and an innate spiritual sense, he discovered that allowing others to raise his blood pressure would only cause him harm — both physical and mental. He learned early in life how to command his negative emotions. But this conversation with Angela made him forget everything he’d learned.

  He jumped when his phone rang and picked up it immediately, hoping she was calling back to apologize.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey back,” Jonathan replied, “How are you?”

  “Great,” said Philip. “Everything’s great.”

  “You’re full of it. What’s wrong?”

  Philip closed his eyes, trying to think of something to say. Jonathan knew him too well. “It’s work… just trying to get out of here. I should be home in about thirty.”

  “I’ll be waiting. Martini in hand, as a precursor to our vacation.”

  “Nice. I’ll try to make it twenty!”

  “Drive careful and I’ll see you in a few.”

  Philip gently placed the receiver in its cradle and looked into the dark sky. For now, he wouldn’t tell Jonathan about his argument with Angela. Maybe he could get her back on meds before Jonathan had to deal with her again. The idea of hiding something from Jonathan clawed his gut but this was the best way to handle the situation — for now.

  He threw the folders from his desk into his leather bag, looped the strap over his shoulder, and walked to the door to shut the office lights. His mind needed a few moments of calm, just a minute or two in the quiet of the room with the fluorescents off and nothing but the lights of the city and shadow of the sky to fill his view.

  As he took in the tranquility, he caught a glimpse of a spark of light, the same flicker of distress he’d seen earlier. Squinting, he leaned forward to discover its source, but the light was too far away. He moved slightly to the left, trying to get a better perspective and noticed it disappeared. Moving back to the right, it quickly reappeared.

  “Idiot,” he whispered to himself, realizing it must be a reflection from inside the office behind him. He turned around, but could see nothing on the wall behind him: no illuminated computer buttons, no fire alarm warning light or anything electrical that could produce this kind of reflection. Turning back around, he listed left to right, watching the light appear then disappear with each movement. The hair on the back of his neck began to rise from a strong feeling that started to penetrate his skin; a sensation that the signal of distress was for him. He flew to the door and stumbled into the lighted hallway.

  “I definitely need a vacation,” he muttered, trying to cast off the feeling of dread. His mind was now on one thing: getting home and hugging Jonathan, the one solid thing in his life. He shook his head as he hurried toward the elevator… the light would be yet another secret to claw at his gut.

  16

  “Holy shit, Angie, what the hell happened to you?”

  Tommy dropped his suitcase next to the mud-stained welcome mat and closed the door behind him. He followed Angela to the sofa, sidestepping to avoid an empty pizza box, and watched her fall onto the grimy cushions.

  If he wasn’t so bewildered by the sight of her, he would’ve laughed at the paisley housedress she was wearing — almost identical to the one his obese Gramma wore every single day. Angela moved painstakingly slow, the sofa pillows giving in to her every move, apparently making it impossible for her to get comfortable. He caugh
t glimpses of the huge limbs beneath her dress; folds of skin dangling like a sack of potatoes, heavy with cellulite that looked as painful as it did hideous. Her once slender legs were now thick and mapped with veins that traveled all the way down to the powdery-blue ankle socks covering her swollen feet. Tommy felt sick to his stomach.

  She leaned over to grab the television remote, heaving a short grunt with each movement. He hesitated before looking into the short sleeves of her housedress, taking in the sight of the dangling skin beneath her arms, miniature versions of the potato sacks he’d observed swinging below her thighs. He covered his eyes with his hand, using his thumb and forefinger to rub his eyebrows and hoping that when he reopened them, the old, beautiful Angela would be sitting beside him, her slim legs crossed, her perky breasts awaiting his searching hands. But when his eyes parted, a younger version of his Gramma seemed to drape herself over the entire sofa. Once again, his heart dropped like a weight.

  He glanced at the door, planning his escape, but his eyes caught Angela’s and he saw a vague reflection of the woman he’d fallen in love with; the Angela who always made his heart skip a beat and his groin burn with desire; the woman who could literally drive him away at times, then draw him back with a sensual gaze. Her eyes were as deep and mysterious as they’d always been and for a few seconds her face changed; the jowls gone, the dark circles under her eyes lightening like magic. He fell back into the sofa and wrapped his hand around her foot.

  “Angie, what the fuck? What happened?”

  She hit the Mute button and threw the remote onto the table. “For God’s sake, Tommy, I didn’t invite you out here to give me the third degree. I need help.” She grabbed an open bag of Ruffles lying on the table, stuffed a few into her mouth, and jammed them down with a swig of Diet Coke. “Can you do that for me? Can you help?”

  Tommy squeezed her foot. He wasn’t going to be strong-armed by her without a fight. “Yeah, Angie, I can help. I can help you with anything. But I’m not doing a God damn thing until you tell me what happened and why you look like this. If I’m going to help you get your shit together and lose all this weight, I gotta know where it came from… why you let yourself go like this.”

  She tossed her head back and laughed, clapping her hands as though he’d just told her the funniest joke she’d ever heard. Tears rolled down her round cheeks as she stamped her feet against his thigh and tried to catch her breath.

  “Lose weight?” Angela wiped her arm across her eyes to help dry her tears of laughter. “Are you kidding me?” She grabbed both sides of the housedress and pulled down to show Tommy her swollen stomach. “There’s more than fat here, Tommy.”

  Tommy sat motionless, his head spinning.

  “You’re not…” he started.

  “I am.” She rubbed her stomach like a genie’s lamp. “About five months. Due in July.” She continued to massage her belly.

  Tommy jumped up and took a deep breath, leaning against the wall and banging the back of his head against it a few times. Strands of hair fell in front of his eyes. “Whose is it?” His tone was vapid, lifeless. She tried to shift around on the cushions and held out her hand.

  “Tommy, let’s not get into that right now. The thing I need your help with is that…”

  “Fuck you!” The force of his voice made her jump back, the words hanging between the two of them like a rabid dog that both of them were too afraid to approach. He swung his arm through the air at nothing. He gathered air into the pit of his stomach so he could increase the force of his voice. “You don’t let me visit you for all this time, and then out of nowhere you call me up and ask me to visit.” He pointed his open hand to her stomach. “And then you tell me this?”

  “Tommy, you have to let me…”

  “Holy shit, Angela. I actually thought you were ready to have me live with you… to start a life together like you always said we would. And now you’re pregnant with someone else’s kid.” He held his head with both hands and rattled it back and forth as though he could shake up the pieces inside and make some sense out of them. Tommy knelt beside the sofa, his face only inches from hers. “Whose is it Angela? Who did you fuck to get pregnant?”

  “I didn’t fuck anyone, Tommy. I swear.”

  Hearing a tremble in her voice, the knot in his stomach loosened a bit. Maybe he finally had the upper hand with her.

  “So now you’re Mother Teresa! God got you pregnant?”

  Angela closed her eyes and winced. “First of all, it’s Mary, not Mother Teresa,”

  “I don’t care if it’s the freakin’ Queen of England.” He grabbed her by the arm. “Tell me who got you pregnant.”

  Angela tried to pull away, but he held on tighter. She huffed and fell back.

  “I was artificially inseminated.”

  “By who, Angela?”

  “Jonathan,” she said under her breath.

  He threw her arm onto her stomach and leapt up, almost tripping backward over the coffee table. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Angela. I’m sitting forty five minutes away in New York waiting for an invitation, while you’re getting knocked up by a God damn fag? None of this makes sense. I don’t get it.”

  As though ice water had been injected into his veins, Tommy’s entire body went cold. Here it was again — the irrepressible anger and anxiety that showed up every time he was in an unmanageable situation — overpowering his thoughts and creating bedlam inside his head. With his eyes on fire and his muscles starting to twitch, he ran to his suitcase, unzipped the side compartment, and pulled out his Xanax bottle. He tossed two pills onto his tongue and let them slide to the back of his throat. .

  Seeing Angela open her mouth, Tommy held up his hand.

  “Don’t!” His voice quivered, but was strong enough to keep Angela quiet.

  Kneeling on the floor beside her, he started banging his palms against the side of his temples, trying to get the cruel thoughts out of his head. This is Angela. Angela. Angela.

  “Tommy! Stop it! Now!”

  From what seemed like a far distance away, he heard the old Angela yelling to him, telling him to stop hitting himself. So he did, letting his fingers crawl down the side of his face and onto his knees. The Xanax started to kick in, bringing warmth back to his veins. He crawled over to Angela, leaned over the sofa, and gently kissed her on the lips. She kissed him back the way she used to, her tongue gliding over his, her hand reaching down the front of his jeans. He pulled himself onto the sofa and slid up against her, her hugeness so new to him he opened his eyes, unsure what to do with his hands.

  “It’s still me, Tommy,” said Angela, pulling him closer.

  But it wasn’t. He closed his eyes again and laid his face on her chest. The flannel of her housedress rubbed against his cheek, pulling an unvisited part of his mind back to a place he’d been long ago; a time when this same long-familiar sense of comfort had enveloped and given him peace. At first, his memory wouldn’t offer up the exact time and place, but the sensation was enough to bring tears to his eyes; the comfort and pain of the surfacing thought at odds with one another. For a brief moment he let go, waiting to see which one would win.

  Tommy lightly scratched the lint pills on the arms of the housedress, listening to Gramma’s voice as she stroked his hair and twirled his curls around her plump fingers.

  “That father of yours will never beat you again,” she said softly. “God saw to that by crashing his drunken ass into that tree.”

  Tommy put his thumb in his mouth, hooking it onto the back of his front teeth. He wanted to respond to Gramma, but couldn’t find the words or the energy. It had only been a few hours since the police had pounded on his front door sweeping him into a semi-conscious whirlwind of activity. Still in a sleep-induced fog, he’d followed the sound of incessant knocking, glancing in to his father’s room and noticing the night table lamp still burning, the bed unmade. When Tommy opened the door, a woman police officer bent down to greet him.

  “Hi dear, is y
our mother home?” She pulled off her hat and a few strands of auburn hair fell in front of her eyes. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but Tommy saw her beauty right away, as he did any woman who took the time to show him kindness.

  Her complexion was as smooth as glass. The lights from behind him gave her cheeks a glow that almost lulled him back to sleep. Through the strings of hair bunched atop her head he could see blue and red lights flashing from the police cars. On the other side of the street stood people he’d known for years, families dressed in bathrobes and pajamas watching the scene play out like a television drama.

  “Is your mommy here?” the policewoman repeated. “We need to speak with her.” Tommy shook his head, his hands by his sides as he still waited for some sort of news. “Where’s my dad?”

  The woman shot a look to the balding officer standing by her side and turned back to Tommy. “That’s what we need to speak to your mom about, son. Where is she?”

  Tommy looked down to his bare feet and curled his toes. “She’s dead,” he said. “Gone.” He returned his gaze to the policewoman. “Where’s daddy?”

  The officer stood up, tucked her hat under her arm, and led Tommy inside with her hand on top of his head. “You’re the only one home?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She walked with Tommy into the living room, taking in the sights: beer cans littering the floor, a half-empty bottle of generic vodka sitting atop the television, a chocolate brown carpet discolored by grease, bleach and what looked like dried blood. She gestured for him to sit down on the lumpy sofa and then sat down beside him.

  “What’s your name?” Her voice was softer now, and she offered Tommy a friendly smile that helped settle his nerves.

  “Tommy,” he whispered.

  “Tommy, my name is Maria. Your father’s been in an accident. Is there anyone else in your family we can call? We’d like to speak with them and have them come pick you up so you won’t be alone.”

 

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