by Annette Fix
“Too small, throw him back,” chimed Bonita from the kitchen.
“It would revolutionize the entire dating process.” Valerie laughed and sucked the last of the Merlot from the bottom of the bottle. “They always check out the size of our boobs, we should be able to check out their packages.”
“Wait, wait.” Bonita poked her head back into the room and suppressed a small hiccup. “We should create a commune for suburban divorcees.”
“Hellooo… That would actually require me to get married and divorced first,” I said.
“And we can have male sex slaves like those tribes of Amazon women. And we won't have to shave our legs,” Valerie said.
“Val, you never shave your legs anyway. You could braid the hair and put beads in it.” I reached for her furry leg.
She quickly shifted to pull away. “What's the point? No one sees them but you two anyway.”
Bonita returned to the room and lowered herself to the floor. She rolled onto her back, lifted her feet toward the ceiling, and contemplated her bare toes. “I need a pedicure. Let's all get one this weekend.”
“Seriously,” Valerie said, “we should just move in together. After the kids go off to college, we should buy some land and build three cottages on it.”
“We can grow old together,” Bonita said.
I lifted my glass in a toast. “To a celibate, man-free life of slumber parties, pedicures, and hairy legs.”
It seemed as good a future plan as any other.
birth of the elect
The Break-Up One-Year Anniversary
Wednesday, October 23
A giant tent filled the expansion lot alongside the Orange County Performing Arts Center. We stepped through the wood shavings scattered on the ground and sat on one of the bales of straw set out like couches in the open area near the entrance.
I looked around while Mom read the program. Theatre Zingaro: a French equestrian performance troupe. I thought the tickets would make a good early birthday present for her.
“It says here,” she turned the page, “that this is their third time in the United States. They flew twenty-three horses all the way from a Paris suburb called Aubervilliers.” Mom sat engrossed in the information, her short, gray curls peeking above the edge of the brochure.
I may as well have been in France. I was at least a continent away in my mind. Mom and I were at the show to celebrate her sixty-first birthday, and I guess, unofficially, my one-year anniversary of The Break-Up.
After a year, it wasn't like I thought about Kevin every day. At least that torment had passed, though I didn't remember exactly when.
People began moving into the tent, so we rose and followed. The tickets were good. Our seats were in the row closest to the partition of the circular arena: an unobstructed view.
The performance of Triptk began to the strains of Stravinsky's “The Rite of Spring.” Unfolding before us, there was the beginning of a new life, a struggle fraught with birth pangs. The symbolism was not lost on me when foals played out their capriciousness in a lost paradise.
After the intermission, a male and female struggled with each other in a dance between the ossified and the tender. In the end, a lone, cloaked rider sat motionless on a prancing steed as darkness descended. The final lingering wind of the clarinet haunted my thoughts.
While the audience filed out of the tent, Mom and I sat quietly in our seats.
“What's the weather like where you are?” she asked. “You weren't even paying attention.”
“I was too,” I said, still absorbed in the spell of the performance. “I felt like the story mirrored everything in my life. Ryan. Kevin. Where I'm going with my future.”
The look on Mom's face said she clearly didn't see how I could make that connection to any symbolism in the show. Trying to express my thoughts about it made my heart feel heavy. “Today is the anniversary of The Break-Up and I can't believe it's been an entire year since he left.”
“I wondered if that was bothering you,” she said.
“I decided that I'm not going to date anymore. I need to do my own thing—alone. Ryan was a mistake. And if he hadn't been so persistent, it never would've gone as far as it did.”
I studied Mom's face to read any unspoken thoughts. She seemed to be weighing her next words.
“You can't control what other people choose for their lives. Ryan wanted all of your love. It's very much like what you wanted Kevin to give you, but he couldn't.”
Her logic was always delivered with brutal honesty. It had a certain clarity that came from wisdom and objectivity. But knowing that didn't make it any easier to hear.
She was right though. My relationship with Ryan was a mirror image of my relationship with Kevin. Kevin must've felt that being with me was settling for less than what he wanted. I didn't want to settle in my life and I couldn't blame him for feeling the same way.
dating dilemma
Friday, October 25
The music pulsed. It was a typical Friday night: groups of guys gathered to drink beer, watch the shows, and flirt with the dancers. A single three-minute set on stage could easily yield from $75 to $100 in tips, but with forty girls on the rotation list, a stage set only came around once every two hours. The big money was from the private dances. Five in a row brought in $100 in fifteen minutes.
I glanced across the crowded club, looking for my next meal ticket. My breath caught in my chest. The roar of blood coursing through my body drowned out the voice of the DJ announcing the drink specials and the next girl on stage. I walked hesitantly toward the bar.
His blonde hair, the shape of his face, the outline of his body—Kevin. It startled me to run into him like this. I never expected to see him again and couldn't imagine why he would show up at the club.
Should I say hello? A sinking feeling buckled my stomach.
He looked briefly in my direction, yet nothing registered on his face. He turned back to his drink.
As I got closer, I realized the guy had a fuller face and broader shoulders. Even sitting on the barstool, I could see he was taller. It wasn't Kevin. An involuntary exhale drained the tension from my body. I didn't need to worry about being friendly and thinking up something casual to say.
In that single, terror-stricken moment, I had discovered a new medical breakthrough: contact lenses would prevent heart attacks.
I walked past the blonde guy at the bar.
“Excuse me, are you okay?” He reached out to touch my arm. “You were looking at me as if you were frightened.”
“Sorry. I thought you were someone I used to know.”
“My name is Steven.” He held out his hand and I shook it. “I'm sure I would have remembered you if we had met before,” he said.
“I'm Beth. It's nice to meet you.”
“Can I buy you a drink?” He flagged his hand to summon the bartender.
“No, thanks. I don't drink.” I knew as soon as I said it that my response was a dead end, so I tried to rescue the moment. “I'm like a camel. I know I should drink more water, but I hate water, I know it's good for my organs and my skin, but it doesn't taste like anything—so, what do you like to do for fun?”
It was always so much easier to talk to cute guys in flirty stripper-speak. With Steven, there was something about him that made me stumble and feel like I was in a ridiculous struggle to create a normal conversation.
Steven looked mildly amused by my rambling. “I enjoy traveling. I just came back from a mountain biking trip in Utah, and I'm leaving for San Francisco tomorrow for a couple days.”
I leaned against the bar railing. “I've never been to San Francisco. But I like sourdough bread.”
Because clearly, my discerning palate more than makes up for my lack of worldliness and my inane comments. God, he must think I'm such a dork.
“Would you like to go with me?” His offer sounded genuine and friendly.
For some reason, I had an immediate urge to say, Sure, why not! Something about
his gentle manner made me feel like I would be safe with him. It sure sounded like a great adventure: hop on a plane for a weekend in San Francisco with a perfect stranger. But then, again, it also sounded like a great way to end up with my body chunked in twelve different Ziploc freezer baggies.
“Are you sure you're not a serial killer?” I studied his face closely.
“Not that I know of.” Steven chuckled and shook his head.
Would he actually tell me if he really was?
“Because that would be my luck.”
“You can be most assured that I am definitely not a serial killer.”
“I figured you probably weren't. I think I'm a good judge of character…” I smiled at him playfully. “…but I'm going to have to pass on the San Francisco trip.”
“That's too bad. I think we would've had fun. May I have your number so I can take you out to lunch sometime?”
Hmmm…dilemma.
“Well, I'm not really dating right now,” I said. “I'm just sort of focusing on… other things. But I guess you can call me and we can talk on the phone.”
I wrote my number on a cocktail napkin and handed it to him. He folded it carefully and pressed it into his pocket.
delete key = weapon of mass destruction
Tuesday, October 29
“It's been two hours already. Is it supposed to take this long?” I rubbed the searing lump on the back of my neck.
“I'm not sure,” Mom shrugged. “I've only done this once before.”
It was the flat blind following the visually impaired.
“I thought computers were supposed to save time.” I looked at the mess of disks, instruction manuals, and cables around the second monitor perched unstably on my bed. We both crouched on the carpet in sweats, hunched over the project like mad scientists.
Around four in the afternoon, Mom began transferring the data on my hard drive with a cable from my old computer to the new one. My Cro-Magnon version software and Stegosaurus bone hardware had finally become extinct. Okay, so I admit, I'm a complete technotard and when it comes to gadgets, I'm not exactly screwing at the top of the pile in a technology orgy.
For an early Christmas present, Mom bought me a new species of PC with tons of great features that I didn't even know how to use.
I looked up to see Josh leaning in the doorway with an amused look on his face. “Need some help?” he asked.
From the age of seven, Josh had loved to disembowel old computers he scavenged from neighbors. My garage still held casing carcasses and a treasure box full of motherboards.
“No thanks. I actually need it to work.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “Yeah okay, whatever,” he said and wandered away.
Mom smiled, her silver hair disheveled from running her hands through the curls. “I think I've got it. I finished transferring all your data for your banking, recipes, photo files, and address book.”
“What about the rest?” I asked, peering over her rounded shoulder.
“Well, I just selected and highlighted all the files inside your ‘Writing Stuff’ folder. I wanted to do it separately because it's so big. Now, all I have to do is—”
The mouse pointer slipped from the copy key to the delete key under Mom's quavering touch.
Every little yellow folder instantly disappeared.
ALL FILES DELETED—popped to the center of the screen.
Mom's face crumpled and she burst into tears.
“Oh God!” The words choked past my heart, which had rocketed into my throat. My blood pressure shot up: full body flush, staggering dizziness. Fade to black was almost a physical reality. I grabbed the edge of the dresser for support and fought to keep the darkness from closing in.
Everything I'd written in the last six years.
My book. Scripts. Articles. Editorials. Essays. My thesis. Journal entries. The beginnings of a stage play. A 200-page grammar textbook project. Seminar and craft notes. All of my industry contacts and conversation logs. Gone.
“Tell me you have it backed up on a disk?” Mom's tears ran freely, her hands grasping at mine.
I think I'm going to throw up. “No,” I whispered. “I don't.”
Why didn't I have my files backed up? Blind faith in technology. Frugal, blue-collar sensibilities that balked at spending extra money for an external backup drive. The reason really didn't matter.
“It's okay, Mom. It'll be okay,” I said, not sure if I was trying to convince her or myself. “There's got to be a way to get it back.”
Her shoulders slumped, tears continued to zigzag down the lace of her parchment cheeks. “I'm so sorry.”
The idea popped almost audibly. “Norton Utilities,” she said, “I think it has a recovery wizard in the recycle bin.” Her voice gained strength. “I think it might work to get your data back.”
Mom launched the recovery function. One by one, each of my 467 files began to reappear on the screen.
I crossed my fingers: a clichéd, stupid superstition.
Finally, at ten o'clock, the recovery wizard prompted us to finish the last command. Then the screen froze. End task to black. No response. Warm reboot to blue screen.
CRASH.
It all went down.
The operating system crashed and now the files were unreachable, trapped inside a computer that could no longer be accessed.
Mom left an hour later, drained and feasting on self-reproach. I was still in shock. I didn't cry. Well, not sobbing anyway. Tears only filled and slid out of my right eye. Strange. I thought the left side of the brain controlled the right side of the body. And it was the right side of the brain that had everything to lose.
I slipped into a bubble bath scented with lavender oil, took a small fistful of Ibuprofen and washed them down with a cup of hot cocoa. A candle flame sent flickers of light dancing into the shadows while my muse curled in the far back corner of my mind. Crippled. Tight fetal position. Quaking in fear.
I'll never write again.
The bath water turned tepid. Chilled and shaking, I stared at the ceiling and continued my litany of unintelligible prayers.
crisis pilaf
2 computer end-users
467 pc. vital documents
1/4 tsp. computer knowledge
2 lbs. anxiety
Take 1 end-user. Collect vital documents in copy function bowl using small amount of computer knowledge.
Completely evaporate documents until nothing remains.
Simmer anxiety until last end-user goes totally limp and all tears are absorbed. Fluff with pitchfork from mental hell.
Yield: Complete breakdown.
Unlimited servings.
Nutritional Value: None..
Guaranteed 2 lb. weight loss.
All water weight from ceaseless crying.
8 miles of inspiration
Sunday, November 10
Josh and I sat in the dim theater listening to the music while the last of the movie credits rolled. For our mother/son date, Josh wanted to see 8 Mile.
“So, where do you want to go for dinner?” I asked once we settled back into the car.
“Peppino's,” he said after taking a minute to think. “Can I have spaghetti with meat sauce? The big one, not the kid's one. And a salad, and some hot bread, and that brown vinegar in the oil on a plate?”
“Peppino's, it is.” I directed the car across town. “So, what did you think of the movie?”
“It was great.” He turned in the seat to face me. “I liked the part where Cheddar shot himself in the nuts. That was funny. But I thought it was sad when Rabbit forgot what he was going to rap. That's embarrassing.” He studied my face. “Did you like it?”
“I liked how hard he worked to make a better life for himself. I liked that he had a dream he pursued and a passion for his music,” I said.
There was more to it than I could explain to Josh. The movie resonated with me. I wasn't exactly the target demographic, but Eminem's song, “Lose Yourself,” could've been my
personal theme when I decided to leave Fontana and move us to South Orange County.
It was a big step and I wasn't sure I could afford it, but he deserved to grow up safe. With plenty of opportunities. No meth labs. No trailer parks. No predators. The OC was like paradise—and culture shock. Maslow's theory executed. Our hierarchy of needs had moved from basic survival to success— with the help of a U-haul truck.
My thoughts kept me silent for the short drive. Josh sat hunched over his Gameboy, his thumbs tapping quickly on the buttons.
The hostess at the restaurant seated us at a table for two in the middle of the room. After we ordered, Josh's face turned serious. “Mom, what do you want me to be when I grow up?”
“Happy,” I answered without hesitation.
“No, that's not the right answer.” He shook his head. “I mean, what do you want me to be? A doctor? A lawyer? What?”
I dipped a crust of bread into the circle of balsamic vinegar on the small plate between us. “I want you to be whatever you want to be, as long as you're happy.”
“What if I want to be a rapper?” he said.
“Well, if that's your passion, then you better start practicing.” I covered my mouth with a cupped hand and began breaking down a beat with my lips.
Josh's eyes widened. He reached across the table and snatched my hand away from my mouth. “Mom! What are you doing?” His shoulders hunched, he glanced around the room to see if anyone heard my poorly rendered beatboxing.
“If rapping is really your passion, I'll help you pursue it any way I can,” I said.
The waitress brought our food and the conversation stopped while we ate. I twirled my fettuccini around my fork using a large spoon as a base.
Josh paused mid-shovel with noodles hanging from his fork only inches from his mouth. “But what if I don't have a passion?” His voice lowered in defeat.