Catch My Fall

by Wright, Michaela

  “This is Faye Jensen, and I’m sure you’d be interested to know this is my fourth attempt at leaving this voicemail and yet again, I sound like I’m reading a script written by a monkey with a typewriter. Spectacular! One would think this would be an easier process, but given that I’m one of the desperately unemployed and that apparently makes me an imbecile with a cell phone, I’m beginning to question why our species gave up Smoke Signals. I’m pretty sure I could come off classy in smoke signals. Maybe not, given that I’d end up setting myself on fire with my luck. Alright, here goes try number five.”

  I pressed the pound sign and then star and put the receiver to my ear.

  “Your message has been sent.”

  I froze. “Wait. What?”

  I stared at the phone, aghast. Had I somehow managed to hit pound twice? Had I somehow managed to send the voice mail message of a lumbering jackass? Was that me? Was I that jackass?

  I almost burst into tears. My mother appeared, smiling. She wasn’t aware that I had just completely blown that opportunity like a two dollar hooker.

  We went out to dinner, downtown. She was excited because they were bringing a Pollock exhibit through the museum for a couple months. The exhibit revolved around the acquisition of a new Jackson Pollock in permanent housing. My mother loved Pollock, and she’d been fighting for the piece and organizing the event for months now. Over the years, her fervor for the job had waned. I remembered going into Boston to visit my mother’s work as a child, looking through the paintings of Dutch Masters and Yonic flowers by Georgia O’Keefe. I remember asking where the photographs were and later in my youth, asking about animation stills or cartoonist sketches. There were masters in such genres, why didn’t the museum foster that.

  She smiled and winked at me. “Maybe we should do something about that.”

  I listened to her stories and her work concerns, but in the back of my mind I was preoccupied. I’d drawn for nigh on seven hours that day, yet my mind was still fixated on the details, the characters, the antique trellises of the old zoo. It was as though I’d been chipping away at a dam and the flood was about to breach. I wanted to be home when it happened. The catastrophic voice mail slipped to the back of my mind and instead of wallowing in self-pity as one might expect, I wanted to go home and continue working. I did my best to hide that fact from my mother.

  We enjoyed our meal and walked back as the sun was setting, my mother settled in the front room to read while I returned to the office. I sat down and started planning a quick comic strip I wanted to create before I called it a day.

  The email icon at the top of the screen reminded me of my utter failure earlier that evening, but I grit my teeth, determined not to let it deter my focus. I wanted to get this comic out, then if I really needed to, I could wallow in self-loathing til the proverbial cows came home. Or perhaps I could walk away and forget I have an email account at all. Hell, I could borrow some money and go buy sketchbooks instead, grow a beard and train squirrels to do my bidding, and never have to look at another computer screen again. As I was contemplating relocating to the woods and living in a hut built of dung, a tiny number appeared next to the email icon.

  Oh shit.

  Faye,

  Your voicemail was hilarious and completely unexpected. I’d say you’d fit right in here in the office. Though I had a good laugh, you didn’t leave a number where I could reach you. Please give me a call tomorrow morning and we can set up your interview.

  - Dennis

  Oh. My fucking. God. What?

  I launched out of my chair and into the front room, bounding around the place as I explained the situation to my mother. I kept my voicemail experience to myself, but now I was almost proud to be such a rampant jackass. Somehow, being a jackass might have led me to success. Who knew you could be yourself and still be appreciated for it?

  She smiled, gave me a ‘good for you,’ and sent me on my way. I tried to sit back down at the desk, but instead I texted everyone, ecstatic to have a prospect to speak of. I was going stir crazy. I needed to get out of the house.

  I grabbed a sweater from the hall closet, waved a quick good bye to my mother and headed out.

  Linda greeted me with her radiant smile. Lennart was busy watching crime dramas. I waved in to him, hoping not to disturb. He smiled my way and waved back. Before I could head down to Stellan, Linda cornered me in the kitchen – how was my mother, the museum, my life, and so on. I did my best to answer her questions.

  “I hear you’re working on something with my boy?”

  I nodded. “Just some animation stuff. I’m not even sure he’ll be able to use any of it.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful.”

  I shrugged. Then without warning, words spewed from my lips as though they’d been rigged in a trebuchet. “I actually have an interview coming up for a marketing job.”

  Linda’s eyes lit up just as the basement door opened behind her. Stellan appeared, and I realized in the excitement of my news, my stomach had forgotten to tie itself in knots at the sheer thought of him. His appearance quickly remedied that.

  Linda turned. “You’re just in time! Faye has wonderful news.”

  Stellan smiled at me over his mom’s shoulder before kissing her on the top of the head. He then went straight for the fridge, which in the Ødegård house was a signal to his mother to go into overdrive.

  “You hungry, gullebit?”

  He leaned into the fridge, stared a moment, then turned to his mother with an accentuated pout. She gently slapped his hand away from the fridge and began procuring her ingredients from within. She went to work like a conductor preparing for Beethoven’s Ninth. Within five minutes there were two huge sandwiches on the counter and a cold can of root beer. Stellan wrapped his arm around her neck in a gesture much like an affectionate choke hold, pulled her toward him and kissed her head again. She smiled and patted his stomach.

  “Tack, Ma,” he said. She left us and joined Lennart in the living room. Stellan sat down to his supper, happily munching away in silence.

  I smiled. It was as it had always been, Stellan doted on and adored by his mother to the point of his father complaining. Seeing him in his thirties and still able to procure his mother’s doting with a simple pout was humorous. I thought of him giving me that pout one day in the hopes that I might make him something to eat.

  What, are you married now, Faye?

  I quickly redirected my thoughts.

  “She still calls you gullebit?”

  He gave me a mischievous smile. “How could she not?”

  ‘Gullebit’ had been his parents’ nickname for him when he was a child. It meant “gold piece” or treasure. His father stopped using the term when Stellan began to resemble a man, but apparently his mother was still keen.

  “How adorable.”

  He smirked at me. I laughed, and he threw his crumpled napkin at me before taking his plate to the sink. When he returned I was still smiling.

  “Welcome back, gullebit.”

  “Tack så mycket, sötnos.”

  Something shifted in my very psyche and those words – words I’d heard a thousand times, words that were probably a wiseass comment if I knew him at all - suddenly felt warm and hypnotic. Their every syllable played me like a cello, my frame reverberating with each note. This wasn’t good. If I was going to start feeling googly-eyed every time Stellan spoke Swedish, I’d never be able to set foot in his house again. I openly shook my head, as though denouncing some silent declaration.

  Stellan eyed me a moment and smiled. “You all right? Sure you’re not hungry?”

  “Oh I’m sure. Just had dinner with Mom.” (And you speaking Swedish makes me want to stick my tongue down your throat.)

  He sat across from me at the kitchen island, resting his weight on his elbows, his white button down shirt open, its sleeves rolled to his elbows over a Bruins t-shirt. His hair was wilder than usual, having most likely reached
this stage when he rolled out of bed and never cared to tame it. He was staring at me.

  “You seem happy today,” he said, suddenly.

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah, you do. You’re very smiley. What have you been up to?”

  I smiled and covered my face. He’d seen it and chuckled. The sudden accusation made me painfully aware of just how much I was smiling in his presence. Christ, I felt like I was in fifth period study hall with Joe Mullen all over again.

  “Actually, I spent a good amount of the day trying to figure out that tablet of yours.”

  “Really? How’d it feel? Did it work for you?”

  I could hear a vibration in his voice. He was hopeful, but trying to conceal it. I thought of the comic strips, the Adventures of Stanley, the doodles and early sketches of insane apes and other unseemly images, but despite the silliness of what I’d been doing, I felt accomplished.

  “It did,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I drew for seven hours today.”

  Stellan reached across the island and squeezed my hand, shaking it. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  I shrugged, but I smiled.

  “That’s fucking fantastic, F-bomb. Yes!”

  “Well, I don’t know how great it is. I did a lot of nonsense rather than actual work -”

  “You don’t owe me shit, woman. It’s there for you. Draw whatever you want.”

  “I did draw up some stuff -” I started, then remembered the various monkeys hovering around that chalkboard, diagramming the scientific trajectory and splatter pattern of well thrown feces. I laughed to myself, but the thought of trying to share it in words stopped me dead. I imagined it funnier if he saw it in drawn form. “Nevermind.”

  He leaned across the table and shook my hand by the wrist again. I met his eyes; they were warm and wide. “I’m so glad you’re drawing. You have no idea.”

  “Well, it’s just stupid crap I’m doing, nothing profound -”

  “But you’re drawing.”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  I wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this.

  “It reads on your face.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “What does?”

  “That you’re working. That you’re doing what you love.”

  I shook my head. “It was just stupid stuff, Stell. I wasn’t working, I was just -”

  “- enjoying yourself. I know. You can tell.”

  I didn’t speak. The truth was, even before I’d noticed that email from Dennis Shay, I’d felt lighter. And I suddenly realized that though I’d come running here to share my glorious news, I still hadn’t thought to tell him about it. “I think you’re just trying to claim responsibility for my good mood.”

  “Oh please. I’m always responsible for your good mood.”

  How right he was. He asked me to describe some of my work from the day, and I took him through a few sketches I’d come up with. As I sat there, I compiled and organized in my mind as much of my work from that day as I could remember; thinking of Stanley and his army of obnoxious waiters, or apes and gorillas and bears, oh my. I thought of Stellan’s response to seeing the some of the stills and laughed to myself.

  He nudged me again. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you like this.”

  I met his eyes, waiting for an explanation. He just smiled.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you.”

  “Well, you can’t fault me. I’ve been going through some serious crap the past few months -”

  He shook his head. “I’m not talking about the past few months, babe.”

  I waited for an explanation, but he just grinned.

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  He shrugged. “You just seem more like you tonight than you have – well, in a really long time.”

  “Well, yeah! I have something to celebrate.”

  I quickly relayed my news of prospective job, but he brushed it off.

  “Oh please. You think the prospect of a job is doing it? If that’s the case then I really don’t know you at all.”

  There was something profound in that statement, but I let it slip by. He leaned in, and I tried my best to hide the sudden draw of breath I took at his approach. If he caught it, he paid no mind.

  “You laugh -”

  “How dare I?”

  “- shut up, I’m serious. You’ve been laughing at your own thoughts,” he said. I blushed and started to defend myself, but he continued. “When we were kids you used to do that all the time. We’d be hanging out, and you’d chuckle to yourself and pull out your sketchbook. I’d back off, and ten minutes later you’d hand me a sketch to let me in on the joke.”

  I let my lips fall open as though I wanted to respond, denounce this declaration of my character, but I was overwhelmed by too many thoughts – he was right, and the thought that someone had paid that close attention – that he did – was enough to ruin me. If I was going to stop thinking of him with desire, he needed to start being a thoughtless asshole, and quick.

  I didn’t look at him, but I smiled. “I must seem like a lunatic.”

  “No, you seem happy. It’s been missed.”

  I shrugged. “No it has not -”

  He nodded, and his expression was strange. “I can tell you the exact day it went away -”

  “You cannot!”

  His brows shot up, and his lips pursed in an almost daring expression. “It was the day before you quit art school.”

  I stopped short and swallowed. A memory seemed to bubble up and spill over, like a boiling pot of potatoes left untended.

  I shook my head, wanting to deny this profound revelation. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am. Actually, I always wanted to ask you what the hell happened.”

  “Why I changed majors?”

  “And why Faye Jensen, the most creative, punk rock, and funny person I’d ever known, decided she needed to go straight and be a responsible, humorless yuppy at the age of twenty?”

  I stared at him drinking his root beer. Before I could even consider the implications of being honest, I knew I would be. Somehow, I was ready to tell a secret I’d kept for a third of my life.

  I took a deep breath and watched his face. “My dad came back.”

  The implications were clear immediately. Stellan’s lips parted, but no words came. He stared at me.

  My hands grew heavy in my lap, as though someone had sewn thread through my fingernails and tied them to a sinking anchor. I waited for him to speak. The waiting began to burn.

  The last time I saw my father – well, the time before I was twenty – is my earliest memory. He was standing on the third story landing of our old apartment building, sobbing. I remember his voice, pained and high, like a woman’s almost. He was begging my mother to let him in, to let him see me. She’d put me to bed hours earlier, but the sound of my father wailing had woken me. I looked outside and saw him, his face contorted so deeply I feared he was in physical pain. His brown hair was sticking up around his unshaved face, his shirt sleeves were tattered where they could be seen at the hem of his jean jacket, and his work boots were untied. As always he had paint spattered all over his jeans. He looked lost somehow, like some stray that had found its way up onto our porch. My mother didn’t let him in that night, or ever again. When she finally threatened to call the police, he left. She came back into the dark living room and startled at the sight of me out of bed. Her eyes were so sad, and her face slick from tears. She let me sleep in her bed that night. I found out much later that the initial restraining order wasn’t requested until the following day, when while I was at preschool, my father returned to the porch with a baseball bat, screaming to be let in.

  “You can’t keep her from me, I’m her father,” he’d screamed until even the neighbors were calling the cops.

  She didn’t just threaten him that day.

  I was four years old.


  My father’s name is Charles Winslow Bentley, and he’s also a heroin addict.

  He’s also a genius.

  Not like Stellan. From what I gather, my father couldn’t solve a math problem with a calculator and a borrowed brain. Yet, when it comes to painting, my father was and is a master. He could recreate any work, any style, to the point of fooling an expert, in just a few days. He is four years younger than my mother, and the two of them fell madly in love at college. My mother was studying Art History. She met this young painter there on full scholarship during one of the student art shows, and that was the end of it. The two of them were together every day after that.

  My mother used to tell me how she reveled at my father’s talent, watching him paint into the late hours. She loved art, and he literally breathed it. Despite my protests, I’ve heard how passionately they expressed their love, spending months at a time naked in my father’s apartment while he worked. My mother still has dozens of his paintings hidden away. One of them is a portrait of my mother, nude.

  I was born shortly after my mother finished college. My dad didn’t care much for school and dropped out. My father worked, my mother took care of me, and that was life.

  Dad had been using for a year when my mother finally kicked him out. He’d become distant around us, my mother said, acting at times as though he’d come home to strangers. My mother tried to ignore the signs; the strange hours, the calls from his boss wondering where he was, the stuff that went missing around the house. It wasn’t until he came home alone one afternoon after taking me to the park that my mother was forced to accept him for what he was.