by CD Reiss
She rolled off my lap and sat next to me, looking into the empty, diagonal street. “You hurt me too, when you did that. With the invoice. Any box could have been held up. I might not have been able to figure it out.”
“I didn’t care. Don’t you get it? I wanted to possess you, and I didn’t want Kevin in my way. And you love me, Monica? Do you still love me? Are you that naïve?”
“I still love you.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. Look what I’ve done to you already. You’re stealing things and drugging me. What are you turning into?”
“You’re turning into a dick.”
“I’m not turning into anything. What I am now, I’ve always been. I can’t believe you can hear this story and sit there as if it’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” She pulled her knees up to her chin, a defensive posture if I ever saw one. “Did you want me to judge you?”
“Why wouldn’t you? Don’t martyr yourself to me.”
“Jesus Christ! What is wrong with you?”
“Your decency is endearing, but it’s already dying.” I stood up, my course of action set. I felt that tightness in my chest again but ignored it. “At least with Jessica, she knew what she was getting, and she could handle it. I can’t say the same for you.”
That hurt her, as it was meant to. The urge to gather her in my arms and say I was sorry was overwhelming. I had a moment where I could have done that, explained it all away, but that would be an act of a cowardice. I refused to allow another woman to be ruined because of me.
“Get out,” she said, feet on the swing, curled and tangled at the ankles. “Just go.”
“Your car is fixed,” I said, scooping Jessica’s phone and envelope.
I walked off the porch without looking back. The slap of the car door seemed final. The roar of the engine and backing onto her sheer drop of a street seemed like continued punctuations in an ever long sentence. I rounded the corner, then another, up a hill, until I was at the top of hers again. If I went back around and she was still on the porch, I’d grovel. I’d pour my heart out to her. If I told her I was afraid of corrupting her, exposing her to my family, turning her into an unscrupulous monster, killing her, maybe she’d prove me wrong.
But she was gone. Part of me was glad she was protected from truths that could be used to draw forgiveness and love from her. But the rest of me felt cracked down the middle.
I parked the car at the side of the road by the freeway entrance because the crack had opened into a void, and I was falling into it. I couldn’t drive. I knew I’d done what I had to. I knew I’d been a man. Done it right. Taken responsibility. I vowed that my single life wasn’t going to be what it had been before. I wasn’t going to bed whoever caught my fancy. I would play it straight. No looking. No dating. No casual fucking.
Because who else did I want? Who else fit so right? Who else could heal me? Who else could I damage as deeply, hurt as fully? Who needed more protection from me?
Right there, in my car, I said good-bye to a piece of myself. I gave up on it because doing so saved Monica from being the third in line for ruination. Saving her was a dark glow at the edge of the void, and that void… My God, that void was endless, lonely, black with loathing, and I clutched the wheel, white-knuckled, as I fell down it.
twenty-five
MONICA
That was bullshit.
That was a guy who felt responsible for his first love dying.
The choice was clear. I could get upset or not. I could disregard everything we’d been through already and write him off, or I could do him the favor he did me when I walked away and be ready for his return.
I opened my text messenger to let him know I was there for him when he came to his senses. I didn’t hit send. The send button would deliver an immediate ding across the city, and he’d answer it (or not) and then we’d bounce texts (or not) but nothing would be solved. I’d prolong whatever agony he was going through.
I was fully awake, and though my second wind would be short, I had enough in me to give him something with the ghost of a chance of truly comforting him. I wanted to sing him a song. Make him music, and one ding wouldn’t cut it. He needed more dings. A chorus of them. A symphony. His phone needed to light up and make music.
I crawled out of bed and got my metronome. After placing it on the night table and setting it mid-tempo, I broke down a song into the beats of a send button without sending it.
I_a
m_h
er
e_und
er_
the
_r
ains
If each letter became the tap of a beat, time taken, and the send button punctuated each line, assuming the network functioned properly, his phone should ding to the rhythms of my hurt and my steadfast concern. Three/three/two/five/three. Sixteen beats. Four measures. No downbeats or dynamics with a phone ding, but I could play with the timing and give every fourth a dotted quarter for umph if I needed it.
I set the metronome and practiced tapping into my phone. I used the enter key instead of the send button. An hour later, I felt like I’d nailed it, and my second wind was wearing down. Now or never. I cracked my knuckles and began.
twenty-six
JONATHAN
Two in the morning. Still raining. I could have called any Asia office and caught them in time for a good balling-out over whatever. God help them if they called me with some crap they could manage themselves.
I wanted her already. Her body under mine. Her voice saying my name. Her all-consuming hunger for life. The first months would be the hardest. I knew that from losing Jessica. How could I compare the blip that was Monica to the ten years I’d spent with my bitch of a wife?
Even if I hadn’t believed it at the time, Jessica had run her course. That was the difference. My time with Monica had been cut off at the knees.
I already wanted to know what she was doing. Instead, I went into the shower and tried to scald the thought of her from me. I undressed in the bathroom, leaving my clothes on the floor like a slob.
My phone dinged once, then again. It was in my jacket pocket, draped over the vanity. Fucking Asia. The whole continent should fall into the sea, and by the urgency of the dinging, it sounded as if it was. By the time I got there, it had gone off another ten times, and a rhythm was appearing. The texts were coming furiously. The thing must be broken or stuck.
I finally got it out of my pocket.
The
_sk
y_
split
_ap
art
_t
ears_
fal
lin
g_
into_
the
_un
It went on. And on. It was Monica, singing me a song. I sat on the toilet, dripping, staring at my dinging, buzzing phone, and the seeming nonsense streaming across my screen. I could put it together if I concentrated. The effect was hypnotic.
The dinging stopped, then something came in a full sentence.
I_am_here_under_the_rains_the_sky_split_apart_tears_falling_into_the_unbreakable_sea_I_am_wider_for_the_rain_fixed_under_the_cracked_sky_waiting_for_you
A fist gripped my chest, tightening when I thought about what to do next. My neck and arms hurt as if the nerves were being squeezed. I broke out in a sweat. Ridiculous. I tried to get control of myself, but it was hard to breathe. I leaned back again. I must have been coming down with something.
I did the only right thing and blocked her number.
twenty-seven
MONICA
I didn’t hear back.
How long had he waited for me? Two weeks or more? I felt as though that would kill me, but I’d do what I had to, even if it meant I didn’t sleep the night before a huge meeting and I felt like hell. I checked my phone constantly. Nothing. I had to remind myself to breathe.
That was why I’d been celibate, to avoid staying up all night b
efore meetings. Of course the meetings had come just as I was getting more drama than I could handle without a therapist.
I am music.
I am music.
I am music.
In a sense, I was a wreck. The night was emotionally devastating. I never heard from him after my song. I believed I’d have him back, eventually, if he didn’t find someone else in the meantime, but I was upset. I’d never been dumped, and the powerlessness and vulnerability was physical. My veins felt sucked dry, and my rib cage seemed to have shrunk too small to contain my lungs.
A good cry might release some of my anxiety, and I’d been tempted to let it come, but I didn’t want to risk being unable to stop. I put all of my emotions in a box and taped it shut with words.
I’m fine.
I’m fine.
I’m fine.
I couldn’t play my viola. Much as I tried to keep the notes strong, the dynamics kept dragging toward sad. I had better luck with the piano, pounding the keys until I was sure the cops would come.
I got control of myself. I didn’t know how long it would last, but if I could keep myself together through the meeting with Carnival, I’d be satisfied.
A text came through. I jumped, anxiety flowing out of me in a torrent and sucking back in when I realized it was Darren.
—Are you guys decent?—
—No, but I’m dressed and alone—
A knock on the door was the response. I opened it to a perfect, clear fall morning, and Darren with his laptop.
He jerked his finger toward my driveway. “He left his car?”
“No, I—” I noticed a note on the porch swing.
Monica:
Please know I’d arranged for this replacement before last night. Just take it, and we can call it even.
-Jonathan
I had an old black Civic with more dings than a bell choir rendition of “Deck the Halls,” and what sat in my driveway was a pristine white Jaguar roadster. Convertible. Top down.
“Asshole,” I said.
“Dr. Thorensen’s parking in your driveway again?”
I reached in my mailbox and found a navy blue Harry Winston box tied with a white ribbon.
“You are fucking kidding me,” Darren said, plopping into the porch swing.
I opened the box. Inside was a heart-shaped silver key ring and a white car key. “I don’t think I am.”
“That for the hickeys all over your neck?”
“I should buy him a car for these hickeys.” I pressed the button. The lights flashed, and a soft pip emanated from the car. Darren left his laptop on the swing and stood next to me, looking at the thing over the porch rail. “It’s gorgeous. Too bad it’s going back.”
“What? That car—”
“We broke up.”
“Again?”
I sighed. “He feels so right. When we’re together, everything is perfect. But his past, it’s ugly. It messes him up. I don’t know how to get him out of it.”
“Probably not your job.”
“Yeah.” I sat next to him, and he put his arm around me. “I don’t know what to do.”
Darren didn’t say anything but pulled me closer. I felt exhaustion in my bones and a deep pit of sadness in my chest. I wanted to cry so badly, but I couldn’t go to my meeting at Carnival puffy eyed and dehydrated. If I accepted Darren’s comfort, I didn’t stand a chance of keeping my shit together. I stood up.
“Let’s go on Mulholland,” he said. “Or hit the 405 at, like, noon.”
“I have a meeting in Beverly Hills in an hour and a half, and I think I should leave early in case I wreck on the way. I’ve never driven anything like this before.”
“Can I sit in it for ten minutes? Come on, don’t hold out on a guy.”
Men, even cute, sensitive, bisexual ones, were still men, and cars and guns were somehow hardwired next to sex and food.
“Whoa, Monica!” Dr. Thorensen leaned over the fence, staring at my car. “Take out a HELOC?” He raised an eyebrow at me, smirking. A lock of light brown hair fell in his eyes. He was in his late thirties and looked as though he was in his late twenties. Single. Straight. My friends melted whenever they saw him walk down his driveway.
“Dr. Nordicgod speaks,” Darren whispered, obviously not immune to the good doctor’s charms.
“It’s a loaner,” I called out.
“If you’re taking it for a spin, I’ll come along.”
“I can’t. I have somewhere to be, then I have to return it.”
He whistled. “Sweet ride. Come over and tell me how you liked it. I might take one for a test drive soon.”
“Will do.”
He waved and went inside.
“Fucking Echo Park,” I grumbled, turning to Darren. “What brings you anyway? New car smell wafting around the corner?”
“My wi fi died, and I didn’t want to have to get a four-dollar coffee to use the signal at Make.”
“All yours.”
“I was going to go through Gabby’s room.” He looked at me as though he expected me to deny him access.
“No problem. And please raid my refrigerator. It’s stuffed.”
twenty-eight
JONATHAN
“Are you taking Monica to the Collector’s Board thing?” Margie asked outside the conference room. Her office buzzed with activity, but no one approached her when she was about to go into a meeting.
“Not going.”
“Good. I don’t want to get dragged. Dee and Emm are going.” Dee and Emm was code for Dad and Mom. The worst thing wouldn’t have been taking Margie but Monica.
“All the better.” I couldn’t tell her I’d walked off Monica’s porch with no intention of seeing her again. My sister liked her, and I didn’t want to disappoint her or explain my failings.
“You sleep at all?” she asked.
“Same as always,” I lied. I’d slept about three hours less than usual.
“You need to rest before you open your mouth in front of her lawyers. I can’t believe I have to tell you this again.” Her annoyance was a show. We needed to appear to be having an animated discussion when Jessica and her lawyers turned the corner. Margie and I had been in the same room since five in the morning when I drove to her house.
The car had smelled like Monica, and the mirrors were set to accommodate the angle of her beautiful neck. She’d put the seat too far forward and left the wheel turned too far to the left. Still, I wished I could lend her the car another hundred times, just not to see Jessica.
My ex-wife turned the corner, lawyers flanking her. Ryan Myers, who had overseen the divorce, was in his fifties, in a brown suit that matched his fake tan. He’d been ready to tell the neighborhood I beat Jessica for kicks. The other guy was in his thirties and wore a grey pinstripe three-button job with a magenta tie. I didn’t recognize him. Margie filled in the blanks without me needing to ask.
“Bennet Rinaldo. Litigator. Ass pain.”
“Why do they have three people and we have two?”
“Because you’re the aggressor, Jonny. You have to walk in here undermanned or you look like a bully.”
“She asked for it.”
“Say that any louder and you’re on your own.”
Polite smiles were exchanged between the five of us. We were having an informal meeting, yet no handshakes were exchanged. Margie held out her hand to indicate they should go in first.
The conference room had windows on two sides and a large wooden table in the center. Coffee and fruit had been laid out on the sideboard. Jessica found her place between her lawyers, and Margie and I sat opposite them.
Jessica was beautiful, and exactly what I’d needed when I was with her. She was sharp, and cold, and in control. I never thought I’d need anything else from a woman because I hadn’t yet become a man. I’d changed, but she hadn’t. She sat in the clear sunlight, hands folded in front of her. For the first time, she awakened not an ounce of longing, anger, or regret in me. I was glad she was out o
f my house, out of my bed, out of my daily concern. I wasn’t even pissed at her anymore. I didn’t think she could get me to hit her again because, somewhere in the past weeks, I’d let her go more completely than I’d imagined possible. A relieved smile crawled across my face, and she saw it before I could wipe it away.
“Gentlemen and lady,” Margie said, sitting, “good morning. I understand an order of protection has been filed against my client and is waived temporarily because the plaintiff’s lawyers are present.”
Legal formality and boring. I tried to keep my eyes off my ex-wife, but she looked like a stranger, and that fascinated me. Had I kissed her lips while she slept? Had I stroked her body languidly while the breeze came through our open window? Had I confessed everything to her in a heat of intimacy or brought her to orgasm with loving care and tenderness?
I couldn’t attach any feeling to the events I knew had occurred. I was sure they happened. I’d held her hand when her father died and wiped her tears away with my lips. We’d argued about silly things, like everyone, and we’d argued about serious things. I’d panicked when she told everyone about my kink because I thought I’d lose her. I remembered the fear, and when she told me she was leaving, everything that I was afraid of actually happened. I begged, on my knees, I’d begged her to stay. I remembered all of it as if I watched it on television or read about it in the paper, as if it was someone else’s story.
There was a sharp pain in my calf that felt suspiciously like Margie’s heel.
“Can you answer the question, Mr. Drazen?” said Rinaldo, the litigator, with a shitheel, superior tone that made me want to punch him.
I leaned forward. “You’re going to need to rephrase that.” I had no idea what the question was, and I needed him to repeat it.
“On November the twenty-fourth, what were your intentions when you met your ex-wife, Jessica Carnes, at your house?”
“My intentions? My intention was to go home and get some work done before a dinner meeting. She was already there.”
“You’re stating you did not expect her?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe your frame of mind?”