Selling oranges from a motorhome kind of required two people, not counting babies.
“You settle in and relax while I put your stuff away, okay Honey?” said Adrian, heading outside to the pile of luggage the taxi driver had dropped off. I could tell he thought that we were happy again. I got up and wandered around to see what kind of damage Alexa had done to our house. Adrian’s house, I corrected myself.
The kennel called and told me to get your mean dog. I did, but then he got away. Sorry! was written on a scrap of paper towel. Otherwise nothing appeared out of the ordinary. I sat down on the couch, not quite ready to do much else.
“I’m so glad you’re home, Sweetie,” said Adrian, setting down my suitcases. He gave me a kiss on the top of my head and then disappeared into the dining room. A moment later he reappeared. “Where do you want me to put this?” he asked, holding a huge box of French baby clothes.
I shrugged.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, setting down the box.
“Nothing. I’ll put those clothes away.”
“No, this box is really heavy. I’ll just put it away for you.”
“You can take it up to the nursery.”
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, picking it back up.
“Sure. I’m alright.”
He came over to me and kissed me again on the top of the head. He turned to walk away, but then he stopped and set the box back down. “Mind if I sit down?” he asked.
I nodded.
He sat beside me and took my hand. “All I want is for us to spend the rest of our lives together, and raise this baby, and make each other happy. Can we still have that?”
“It sounds nice,” I said.
“But not nice for you?” he asked, judging from my tone.
“It sounds like a nice life for someone. I’d like it to be mine.”
“So let it.”
“I don’t want to choose it just because it’s easy.”
“Honey, love should be easy.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“So tell me what you mean. Easier than what?”
“Leaving. Leaving you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
I drew in a deep breath. “That’s my motorhome outside,” I told him. “And in that big, flat envelope over there,” I said, pointing to our stack of mail, “are its decals. I’ve been planning to become a fruit vendor. I guess it’s time I told you the truth: I’m leaving you so I can sell oranges.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That blue motorhome – it’s a home, not a camper – is where I’m going to live. I didn’t think it would be ready so soon. But there it is.”
“Very funny, Sweetie.” But he did not look amused.
“I’m serious. I’ve been trying to tell you for months. You just wouldn’t listen.”
He got up and tore open one of the envelopes. From inside it he pulled out a huge, laminated sign. Delicious Juicy Fruits! We’re Manic about Organic!
“Wow! They did a great job,” I said, taking the sign from his hands and admiring it. “Is there another one in there? Because they were supposed to make one for each side of the cart.”
“Are you kidding me?” yelled Adrian. He tried to tear it in half, but the lamination was so thick and durable that it only twisted.
“Adrian, you’re going to wreck it,” I said, pulling it away from him.
“Who’s we? Why does it say ‘We’re Manic about Organic?’” he demanded.
“Well, ‘we’ means me and the baby. Plus, I thought it sounded safer. You know, so people would know more than one person was inside the motor home at night when I’m sleeping.”
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he asked, sitting down and putting his head in his hands.
“You don’t need to swear.”
“What is the matter with you?”
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I really am sorry. But this is what I have to do. How can we go on like this, after everything that’s happened? I can’t just sweep stuff like that under the rug. Especially when there is about to be a baby involved. I was planning on January first being the day I left, but it looks like there’s nothing stopping me from taking off a little sooner. I think I’m going to drive to California and get started there.”
“You aren’t leaving with my baby,” he said.
“Well, I can’t leave without it.”
“Why don’t we go out for some ice cream, do a little shopping, and wait until this passes,” said Adrian, soothingly, trying a new tactic.
“No.”
His soothing tone snapped back to angry desperation. “You’re going to walk away from our marriage? No. No, it’s not going to happen.”
I stood there, unsure of what to say to that. Adrian began to cry.
“This is what I have to do,” I whispered. A part of my brain was telling me to say I was kidding. Turn it around while you still can, it was warning me.
“I love you, Honey.” He was sobbing.
I began to doubt myself even more. I wanted to hold him.
Stay strong.
You knew this wouldn’t be easy.
Are you sure you want to do this?
I don’t know.
“Adrian, I’m going to leave today, I think.” How could I not? It wasn’t as if I could say all this and then we could go on with our lives for a few more days.
He did not answer me.
I waited for him to say something that would change my mind. I wasn’t sure what it might be. I would know it when I heard it.
He pressed his hands against his face. He did not speak.
I listened to the ticking clock and to the neighbor mowing his lawn. I waited. Neither of us spoke. Finally I stood up and went outside to the motorhome. I opened the little door and went inside. It was tiny inside. Cramped and hot. There was barely room to move, and it was so outrageously decorated that it was like stepping into an overflowing jewelry box. I propped open the door, reality coating me in humid, sticky waves that smelled like new textiles and paint.
Bruce had certainly done his job. It was a virtual paradise on earth, complete with a tiny wine refrigerator with a glass door. Tasseled tie-backs held the velvet curtains in place. A small stretch of marble counter top was laid out with a crusty loaf of peasant bread and some withering grapes.
I stepped back outside, catching my breath, fanning myself with a brochure about taking care of my new upholstery. I looked up and down the street, realizing the blue motorhome and silver trailer were drawing a great deal of attention. Anyone not at work was gardening with sunglasses on, coincidentally facing my way. I wiped some sweat from my temple and stuck my head back inside for another look around. Toward the back there was an adorable, linen-filled crib for the baby and a bigger bed for me.
Needing to escape my watchful neighbors, I climbed back up the steps of my new home and sat down on the bench that doubled as the seat for the dining room table. It was so terribly warm and the scents were so overpowering, that I was becoming nauseous. I looked around, trying to find how to turn on the air conditioning. I didn’t see a thermostat anywhere. Did the engine need to be running for the air conditioning to work? I had no idea. I knew nothing about motorhomes. What was the next step? Where would I buy my oranges? How would I fill my evenings when it was too late to ring strangers’ doorbells? Was there even room for my sewing machine in here?
Adrian appeared in the open doorway and set the box of baby clothes in the opening. It took up the only free space I’d had. He turned around and left without saying a word.
I stood up and opened a window, which created a whisper of breeze. If things got too bad, I could sell all of this on eBay, I reminded myself. The important thing was, I was going to live an honest life. This decked out motor home was a little head start to get me on the right track. It was a little crumb broken off from the cake of the good life.
I avoided looking out the tiny window at our gigant
ic home. I looked instead at my newly bare hands, both still bearing the faint markings of the rings they’d worn for years. Free and naked now. Gone were the rings that symbolized love and belonging, and being owned.
I could do this. I would do it because I had to.
I went back inside the house to pack up my belongings. Adrian was in his studio with the music turned up. I realized I was halfway packed as it was, since all my bags from the stay at Alexa’s were sitting in the foyer. I took them to the motor home and then went back into the house. I found the old duffel that had held all my money earned a million years ago for watching Grandma Betty, and filled it with my homemade sundresses. I noticed a few of my favorite dresses were missing. Alexa must have taken them. I might never see Alexa again, I realized. Then it occurred to me that I might never again see anyone I didn’t want to see. My parents, my aunts and uncles. It was entirely up to me.
I dumped books, chipped pottery, and shoes in the bag too, and then opened my bathroom drawers and poured my makeup on top. I hauled it all outside and returned for another load. The door to Adrian’s studio was still closed.
I stood outside it, staring at the pattern of the woodgrain, listening to the blaring music. I was half hoping he would come out and stop me. I knocked but he didn’t answer. Maybe he couldn’t hear me knock. I tried again. I was losing my nerve, doubting myself. My sewing machine and a tote bag of fabric were all that remained. I honestly considered asking him to carry them out for me since I thought they might be heavy and I didn’t want to make two trips. I was that dependent on him. I was still that far from seeing any of this as being real.
I stood outside his door, listening, waiting.
Was he really going to end it like this? With a closed door. No goodbyes. Nothing.
He doesn’t believe it’s over, I realized. He thinks I’m bluffing.
I got a glass of water from the kitchen and drank it, stalling. The music continued to blare.
Well, time to move on out.
But I continued standing there, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, waiting for the door to open. The momentum was changing. The intensity of the sun was waning. If it got any later, I would not do it today. If I did not do it today, I would never do it.
I wondered what had happened to that spontaneous girl I used to be. That girl who kissed bartenders and fell down drunk, who didn’t mind houses with rats and roommates.
I missed her.
She made a lot of bad decisions, I reminded myself.
But she, unlike every other version of myself I’d ever been, had a lot of fun.
I knocked on the door again, wanting to say goodbye. Believing I could say goodbye and mean it. But Adrian would not open the door.
So I did it. I left. I picked up the tote bag and sewing machine, realized they weren’t actually that heavy, and carried them out to the motorhome. I set them on the passenger seat, the only free space left, and found my keys beneath the visor. (They were on a fancy silver keychain. Thank you, Bruce Dash.) And I rolled out of town in a blue, triumphant bullet with a shiny silver cart, hopefully pointed in the direction of California.
Part Two
2012
I’d like a chance to explain.
I always felt there were parallel universes. No one would have believed some cheerleader would think about parallel universes, but I did then. I still do. And I’m right, aren’t I? I’m forty-three years old, nearly forty-four. I’m the mother of three. I weigh a hundred and eight-eight pounds. But just two hundred miles away, I am eighteen years old forever. I am dead and gone, and beautiful. Was that really me? It still is. In Hudson, Wisconsin, it still is.
There are other versions of me out there. Unlimited possibilities. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book with infinite pages. There are versions of us all. There are other versions of Rob, and in each of them he aches for me. I’m not telling you what I merely imagine; this is what I know.
There is the me I would have become if I’d had all the chances I deserved. I always felt that Van and I both died that night. He lost his future, so did I. What they did to me took the forks in the road of my life and turned them into a knife. I was ruined. Worse than ruined, I was humbled. Have you ever been humbled? It is better to be ruined.
Everything had been easy for me. Easy felt normal. I didn’t understand why everyone else made it look so hard. They seemed lazy and clumsy. They seemed like they made excuses. I thought if everyone would just turn it up a notch they would have it, like I did. I didn’t know that I might as well have been a different species. They were never going to catch me.
But after what happened to me, I got it. I became a victim, like I now realize most everyone is. I didn’t go out in public for nearly a year. Everything frightened me. A trip to the grocery store immobilized me. I second guessed myself when measuring the ingredients to make a cake. I would wash my hair over and over, unable to keep track of whether I had washed it at all or had just gotten it wet. I was too insecure to go to restaurants, afraid to order off a menu, afraid I would not leave the correct tip.
Those things that happened that night destroyed me. That’s what I want you to understand. I was no longer the Valencia my friends and teachers and family had admired. That elusive, beautiful part of me, the part I barely understood, but had always taken for granted, was murdered. Even if the rest of me lived on. I was no longer special. I couldn’t show myself. I turned to Rob not with something to give, but with desperate, broken need. He came to me as I knew he would and he learned to love someone else entirely. He did it not for the new version of myself I ashamedly presented to him, but for the girl he remembered, the way someone cares for a loved one with Alzheimer’s.
He mourned the loss of Valencia, despite promising me that I had never left.
He cared for me, he cared for the green eyed child who was not his own and raised him as lovingly as he raised Coral and Mikey. He gave me a better life than Val should have had, though not the life Valencia deserved. But he kept my secrets, and that was worth more than anything.
In my world of parallel universes, there is a version of me, still beautiful, married to someone else. I am living the remarkable life that 1986 assumed was my destiny. Rob is out there too, and we run into each other at high school reunions, and his heart is broken, because of me. And he aches as deeply as he never does now. This is how it should have been. This is the life that would have happened.
It’s funny how this humdrum existence, the one I am spending all my time in, sure feels like the real thing. It’s funny how I think of those parallel universes less and less.
Oh no. Am I disappointing you? Or even worse, perhaps I am boring you. It hurts to be a bore and a disappointment. Valencia didn’t know what it felt like to be either of those.
Despite severing ties with my mother, she still holds me back. I’m like her: A victim of my past perfection. Can’t. Stop. Missing. Myself.
Really, it’s sick.
So where do I start? Actually, that is easy. Obvious, even. I start with Van. I started with Van. Literally, I began when he began. In my heart, he was my only true family. We spoke our own language when we were very young. He was never mesmerized by me, and it was such a relief. No one else was ever completely comfortable around me, and I longed to make someone comfortable. He was, though. How could he not be? It was a relief to be with him, to relax, to be a beautiful mess.
Others tried to overcompensate sometimes, in meanness. They tried to be disinterested and rude, as if that was the bait to tempt me. Look, their actions said, I am different. I am one of the few who has no use for you. They thought it would intrigue me. But I saw right through it.
I was so lonely, wanting to be normal.
Normal, it turns out, is not as great as I’d hoped.
After it happened, I needed to be alone. By alone, I mean with Rob. Only Rob. Going to him was natural, and right. But now I see how it changed us. Of course it changed us. I was still thinking like Valenci
a, still unable to guess the road that lay ahead of me. Not realizing by the time I called him, all my bridges back to my former self had been burned.
If I could have survived without Rob’s help, I should have tried to do so. Like a wounded animal, crawling off to be alone. Not caring if I healed or died, as long as he didn’t see my ugliness. I could have left him with Valencia forever. The preserved, beautiful version of myself that everybody else got. I didn’t know then that my vulnerability would become a burden, that my very presence would become a shadow on him.
My face and my body were mangled. Beaten. I am nearly blind in my right eye now. I escaped from a basement in the Cities, through a window. I remember finding a drive-up phone at a gas station, something they don’t even make anymore, and standing there while a family in a car waited impatiently, glaring and honking at me. I calling Rob collect. I felt crazy. I was expecting to be captured again. I could not believe I had escaped. I could not believe it was over. I was afraid the car of rude people would leave; I planned to run to it if I had to. Ironically, in the midst of this, I prayed Rob’s mother would not answer. I must have really hated her.
And he answered. His voice sounded like safety and home. I never thought I’d feel safe or whole again. And with just the sound of his voice, I started over.
Sweet Rob.
There is no love like the love a man has for a perfect woman. It’s very rare. You’ve probably never experienced it. It is the predecessor to eternal disappointment. It is impossible to recover from.
He had thought I was dead. He was shocked. Overjoyed. He came for me and wanted to take me to the hospital but I wouldn’t let him. He said we needed to go to the police and tell them what happened, but I told him I could not remember how I got to the gas station. It was not true; I didn’t care about anything but getting out of there.
“Just take me to your house,” I told him.
“Should we go to your parents’ house first? Should I call them?”
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