Book Three_A Codependent Love Story

by Paloma Meir

  “I have finals.” I said as we lay down on the bed together.

  “Are you really not going to take your clothes off?” She regained her composure and rolled on top of me.

  “You do it. I left the condoms in the bathroom." I rolled her off of me and sat up.

  “You move so fast... I should have told you before. I’m on birth control pills.”

  I went into the bathroom to get the box and considered whether or not to give her a lecture on STDs. I decided against it. She had heard all the warnings, and again I didn’t want to break the mood.

  “I’ll take them off.” I took off the rest of my clothes, folding them neatly and put the pile on the floor beside me, “Open your legs.”

  “You’re so smooth.” I sat in front of her bent open legs and used my thumb to trace her opening, not really touching anything. “You know the real difference between high school and college? Pubic hair. Where did it go, Veronica?” I took my hand off her and stroked myself. She raised her hips. “You miss my hand?” I took both of them and massaged her inner thighs.

  “You can’t tell Zelda about this,” she said.

  And with that Veronica destroyed my carefully cultivated mood of debauchery. I removed my hands from her bronzed endless legs and felt my erection recede. “I wasn’t going to call her when I left the room.” This had been a bad idea.

  “You know what I mean.” She sat up and tried to kiss me.

  “The three of us don’t do well with secrets.” I pulled away from her and put my clothes back on, angry with myself for thinking for even a moment that it was okay to have sex with one of Zelda’s friends.

  “Stop it Serge. That’s not what I meant. I’ll tell her later, in a couple of days when I get back to New York. I don’t know why you’re so upset. It’s not like you’re even really friends with her anymore.”

  “I’ll leave it to you to tell her whenever you want, but we’re done here.” I felt like I couldn’t breath. I wanted to be with Zelda.

  “She’s so possessive of you. I didn’t want the rest of the weekend to be uncomfortable.”

  “Possessive, not friends, make up your mind.” I didn’t know how I was still standing in the room talking to her. My mind was already halfway to Zelda’s apartment building. “This was a mistake. I’m sorry, Veronica.”

  “No, you can’t go. You don’t understand.” She jumped up and hugged me. “I ruined it. She’s my best friend. I’ve always liked you and she’s so difficult. Think about all the things you said to me. You feel the same way.”

  “You’re not any less beautiful. That’s all I really said to you.” I knew I was being cruel but continued anyway, “You flirt with everyone. Vivacious that’s you. You’ll be over this by the time I get down to the lobby.” I took her shoulders in my hands and moved her out of my way.

  “You think I’m easy?” She pulled the duvet off the bed and wrapped it around herself.

  “No,” I was desperate to leave. “You like to have fun like half the other girls I know.”

  “Get out, Serge.”

  “I told you I’m still with Marianne. You understood that.” I had been friends with her too long to leave her this way. “I’m not any different than you. I’m not judging you. Back to friends okay?”

  “I’ve never for one minute just wanted to be friends with you.” She sat back down on the bed and pulled the duvet higher, up to her neck. “People chase after me. I don’t chase after them and never have I made it easy for anyone. Go, Serge.”

  At the door I took one last look at her and saw a tear rolling down her cheek. Never had I ever been less than an empathetic ear to any girl or woman. I was the one they came to in my dorm when things weren’t going their way. I was at a loss of what to do. I couldn't understand how it had gone so wrong.

  “Veronica, how did you think this was all going to play out?” I knew I had asked the wrong question.

  “I thought that you would fall in love with me. Why not? Everybody else does.” She laughed in her high breathy way and looked at me with more anger than sadness.

  “I don’t want to leave you this way.” I went back to her and kneeled before her, trying to take her hand in mine.

  “You like me now that I cried a few tears?” She shook away from me. “You’re gross Serge. Stick to your convictions. You made it clear that you don’t want me in any real way... Crying brings you back? You want me to be delicate like Zelda? Always crying the way she does? That’s not me. Leave now.”

  “She didn’t always cry like that.” I wished I had already left.

  “She doesn’t cry like that anymore either, but I bet you like to think of her that way... All that defenselessness... You and Danny love that. I’m surprised she hasn’t run half away around the world to get away from the two of you.” She jumped up and screamed in my face.

  “This was never about her.” I had no idea what we were even talking about anymore. I went to the door grateful that I was leaving her angry instead of hurt. It wasn’t ideal, but I needed to get to Zelda.

  “Take your fucking condoms.” I turned around, and the box hit me in the head. I thought of telling her to keep them for STD protection, but didn’t think she would appreciate that. I did not take the box or acknowledge her use of a word she had asked me not to say as I closed the door.

  I looked in the mirror by the elevator and found Veronica’s lip-gloss smeared around my face. I raised my hands to wipe it away and caught the scent of her perfumed body lotion. I saw her legs in my mind, her long lustrous legs.

  I thought of seeing her at parties in high school, the way the perfection of her would run to me, taking me from Marianne in her playful way. She would joke about how hard it was to share a boyfriend with her, and lead me around the party, making up funny stories about all the things we would do together as if she were an actress practicing improvisation.

  Loud and fun was always what she was, I had never taken her words to have meaning. I imagined she had other “boyfriends” she would do the same thing with when I wasn’t around. It had been flattering, and she was one of the few girls I knew who was genuinely friendly to Marianne.

  I looked down the hallway towards her door and took a step forward. I stopped myself and considered the consequences of what I was thinking of doing. Marianne was very much a part of my life, but not in the way I said to Veronica and most everyone else. We had a firm break-up when I left for MIT. She had driven me to the airport to see me off. There was tears for her and sadness for me, but it was over in both of our minds.

  When she wasn’t in a relationship, which wasn’t often, I would see her over the school breaks but it was always casual and rooted in friendship. I felt like her father in some ways with how I guided her through life. She would probably have encouraged me to spend time with Veronica.

  I went back to Veronica’s room. I knew I could knock on the door, and say all the things she wanted to hear. I knew most of the words would be true, and maybe always had been. I knew we could spend the days locked in her room ordering room service, watching endless movies, and getting to know each other in a real way.

  I put my head and hand against the door and considered her ridiculous fear of Zelda’s displeasure. It was a non-issue to me. Zelda would get over it. What choice or place did she have judging what we did? I wouldn’t be “having sex” with her friend. It would be a commitment.

  I still felt a pressing need to get to Zelda, to resolve the problem of having grown apart from her, but I also knew it could wait. She wasn’t going anywhere. I could see her Sunday after Veronica left, or maybe Monday or Tuesday if Veronica stayed longer as she said she could.

  I could finish my Neutrino paper in Veronica’s room with her leaning over me, entwined with me, her perfumed scent filling the room inspiring my words. I had already been informally accepted into the PHD program. No worries there.

  I raised my hand to knock on her door, and in my mind saw her sitting on the bed, the luggage spilled out around h
er feet. She hadn’t packed sweats and jeans, and she wasn’t sleeping on a sofa at a friend’s apartment like all the other students across our country traveled. She had checked into a rather large room at the Four Seasons and had booked a spa day, not a simple massage or facial but a day.

  I thought of how she flew in every few months scooping Zelda up to fly first class to Paris for long weekends to visit Theodora. The two of them would say that coach would be too hard on their bodies for such a quick trip.

  I put my hand down and lifted my head up. There was no place for Veronica in my life. What I had gone to her to do was the only real thing I had to offer in any way. There was only room in my life for one rich girl, and that would always be Zelda.

  I walked back to the elevator and understood the words "heavy hearted" in a way I had never wanted to learn.

  …

  I stood in front of Zelda’s apartment building, freezing and not knowing how to proceed. I assumed Danny was back from the drive which was okay, but I preferred to be alone with her in my ill thought out attempt to reconnect with her.

  I waved to the doorman who recognized me but I didn’t want to go upstairs. I took out my phone and called her without a thought to what I planned to say to get her to come downstairs alone. “Hey Zelda, I’m in your lobby.” Not quite true, “Could you come downstairs?”

  “Yes,” and with that she hung up the phone making me laugh. I figured I had five to ten minutes to think of a reason for my request or at the very least something interesting to say.

  Wrong. The elevator door opened within one minute to a black robe style coat wearing Zelda who practically hopped out in her high shiny black boots.

  “Serrrrrrge are we going to have an adventure?” I wanted to say yes, but I couldn’t think of anything to do with everything closed for holiday.

  “It’s Alpha Centauri, perfect viewing tonight. I wanted you to see it. Let’s go for a walk in the Commons. Look.” I pointed up at the sky, and saw what I should have known. No stars on that snow cloud filled night. I moved my hand to the only visible star in the sky. “You know from our vantage point we only see one star, but it’s actually three.”

  “Serge, that’s not Alpha Centauri. You’re not going to be much of an astronomer if you can’t recognize the North Star. You’re all turned around." She turned me in the opposite direction. “Alpha Centauri is this way, but as you told me when you did my physics class for me, it can only be seen from south of the equator.”

  I stood with what felt like a goofy smile on my face, embarrassed by what I had said, but happy she remembered anything about the Milky Way. She had been obstinate about her studies after 'the bad day', which was how she referred to it. I had been forced to do the whole class for her. I read the textbooks out loud as she sat beside me knitting and childishly ignoring me.

  “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.” I took her hand.

  “We’re not going into the park. It’s dangerous at night.”

  “You don’t have to be scared. You’ll be with me.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” She rolled her eyes, “Danny doesn’t even walk through it at night. Basic safety.”

  “Let’s go get some tea or hot chocolate for you.” I looked around for anything that could be open.

  “Okay, let’s go back to the hotel.”

  “No, there’s a diner...”

  “Nothing else is open.” She let go of my hand and ran her fingers through my hair. “What’s wrong, Serge? Your hair’s all wet. I like it long like mine, but it’s not you. Every time I see you, you’re wearing the same thing. You’re not taking care of yourself. This is worse than when you were working on that Prism project. What was that project again?”

  My hair barely reached my shoulders. It was not waist length like hers. It was wet because I had practically showered in the bathroom of the hotel to get Veronica’s jasmine scent off of me before going to see Zelda.

  “Color coding the radiation...”

  “I didn’t understand it then, and I’m not going to understand it now. Dinner has been over for at least two hours. Have you been outside this entire time? Are you wet from the snow? You’re going to have to come upstairs with me. You always take care of me, now it’s my turn to take care of you.” Her fingers worked their way through the tangles in my hair.

  “I didn’t... it wasn’t enough.”

  “Let it go” She mumbled and released my hair from her hands, “Come upstairs. Danny’s not back yet. We can have a feast and make a mess.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into her lobby.

  “Hi Scott,” She waved to the doorman, “This is Danny’s best friend, Serge. He can come up anytime he wants.”

  “I’ll remember that Zelda. Have a good night.” She linked her free arm through mine, rested her head on my shoulder, and spoke a mile a minute as we got into the elevator.

  “First, I’m going to feed you. You look starved. Didn’t you eat your dinner? Then you’re going to take a hot shower so you don’t catch a cold, and then I’ll put you to bed on our sofa. This is going to be so much fun. A big sleepover.” She paused for a moment lost in thought, “Do you remember the last time you slept over at my house?”

  “It’s all one big memory of pillows and waking up to cookies.” I felt myself lighten with the thought that I had imagined a distance between us. Veronica fading away.

  “Hmmm, it was a long time ago.” The elevator doors opened to her floor.

  “I’ll make you cookies in the morning. This is going to be so much fun.” She ran down her hallway, dragging me behind her. She opened the door to her apartment, amazing me with her coordination because she had not let go of my arm.

  What an apartment it was, 1,500 square feet overlooking the Commons that we were not allowed to walk in at night. The furniture, all heavy dark woods with white linen upholstery. It looked as if she had taken it from her childhood home. She had not. She had bought it all when they moved in. No orange crates and cinder blocks for the fair maiden.

  The apartment and choice of decoration had been almost an argument between Zelda and Danny. I say almost because the two of them never had a difference of opinion, ever. The problem was more their parents. Danny’s family had wanted them to live separately in dorms, pretty ridiculous even to me after their years of living together back at home with their permission. Zelda’s family didn’t care if they lived together or not but insisted she live in a high security building close to her campus.

  Somehow in all the back and forth, Zelda’s father had given her the first installment of her trust. Seven million dollars for the then eighteen year old Zelda. The second installment was due on her 21st birthday, and the last when she turned twenty-five. I knew this from Anthony, who didn’t appreciate having to wait until he was thirty for anything, under his father’s theory that men should work for what they have in life. I agreed with Mr. Moreau, but silently questioned the wisdom behind handing over such a large amount of money to anyone as young as Zelda was at the time.

  Danny hadn’t liked it at all. In his mind Zelda was his to care for and nobody else’s. The whole thing got a little weird. I don’t know the details of how it all worked out, but they ended up living together in this over the top building. I did know Danny paid all the other bills, which had been hard on him until his 21st birthday when he had received a much smaller inheritance from his deceased grandparents.

  “Should we call Carolina? Wish her a happy Thanksgiving? I haven’t spoken with her in weeks.” I asked as she led me into her very modern kitchen and opened the refrigerator, my arm still held tightly by hers.

  “No.” She took out a large bowl of what looked like spaghetti and meatballs. “You know the best part of college? Food, there’s so much of it. Look in my refrigerator. I love it here.”

  “Zelda,” I laughed and removed my arm from her grip, worried that she would start dropping the bowls she was taking out of her very full of food refrigerator. “You make it sound like you grew up in pover
ty. The “food” isn’t part of college. It's Danny cooking for you. This would be the best part of you living with him.”

  “You’re so silly,” she laughed. “The food isn’t the best part of living with him. The best part is everything.” She spun around with arms out wide almost knocking over the bowl of pasta on the counter.

  “All right whirling dervish. I’m guessing you had coffee instead of herbal tea after dinner. You heat up the food, and I’ll make you a cup of warm milk. I’ll put some cinnamon and vanilla in it to satisfy your sweet tooth, okay?”

  “How did you know? I just started drinking it. I love it. It helps with my crocheting. Did I tell you? No, I haven’t talked to you in so long...” She carried on speaking quickly about crocheting bodysuits, meeting the buyer of Barney’s while having breakfast at the Four Seasons, and him giving her a large order she didn’t know how to fill because she made them all by herself. On and on she went about the quality of cashmere and her fingers getting tired until I broke down laughing, almost choking on my mouthful of pasta.