“How about what?” Paige asked, confused.
“Oh, you don’t know. She’s been calling him, trying to get him to come see her.”
“She has? I didn’t know that. Has he gone?”
“Maybe. He shouldn’t, though.” Al sat beside her and leaned back. “When Tina calls, she always has something, and wants company snorting or smoking it. Know what I’m saying?”
“Jesus. It never ends for him.”
“No kidding.” Al sipped his wine and set it back down on the table. “Tell you what, though, he had better make his peace.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He paused for a stretch. “I mean, I don’t know how long she will be with us,” he said, carefully picking over the words.
“Why does he need to make his peace? What does that mean?”
Al looked at Paige’s face. His eyes traveled from her eyes to her hair, to her mouth, and back again. “So you’re not all fucked up for the rest of your life over unfinished business,” he said, eyeing her on the level. “Have you forgiven your parents?”
“I…No, for what?” His cursing startled her.
“Not being good parents. Ignoring you. Dying. Leaving you with your aunt and uncle who ignored you.”
Paige felt dizzy. “Why do I need to forgive them for that? They were who they were.”
“And made you who you are,” he said, gently. His hand was next to hers on the sofa, and he moved it closer so that it rested against hers. Paige lifted her hand away to flick her hair off of her shoulder.
“What about your parents?” She asked, nervously. “What about your mom?”
Al smiled. “My mom did her best,” he said. “She’s had some raw breaks but Darnell moved her out of Pleasantville years ago to a nice apartment near the university. She has a live-in companion and she’s doing real well.”
Paige looked at him sidelong. “And your dad?” she asked.
He made a strange noise in his throat. “I didn’t know him.”
Paige tucked her feet under her on the couch and moved to fully face Al. She hadn’t the faintest idea why she felt the need to know more, and more, but she couldn’t stop herself from chattering on. “Do you know anything about him?”
Al looked at Paige quizzically. Then he sighed. “I know he was white. I know that he was out of the picture pretty soon after I was born.”
“What else?” Paige asked.
Al smirked. “I know he was damn good looking.”
“Have you forgiven him?”
“Way to turn it around on me!” Al’s smile was terse.
“Seriously,” Paige insisted, inching closer to him. She draped her hand on his arm and he looked down at it, then up at her. Who do you think you’re fooling? He picked up her hand and placed it back in her lap. “Who would I be forgiving? He wasn’t my dad.”
Paige felt her energy sagging. And she was teetering on the very end of a limb that she had never climbed out onto and wasn’t sure how sturdy it was. She decided to hop off and snuggle closer to him.
“Paige, stop.” Al stood brusquely and stepped toward the tree.
Why stop? Why? “You don’t know what I know and what I don’t know.” Her voice was like a toddler’s foot stamping.
Al turned. “You’re right, kid, I don’t,” he said. “I’m just saying, I would advise against joining any gangs.” He stood and plugged in the lights. “What do you think this tree needs?”
Paige inspected the tree up and down, from its spiny peak to the draping limbs now adorned with tangled strands of lights and a mish mash of second hand ornaments. “Honestly, Al, I think it needs Deirdre,” She said. “But…I wouldn’t know. Christmas trees I honestly know nothing about.”
Al grinned at her. “There you go,” he said. “There you go.”
The evening of the holiday party, Paige sat before her old-fashioned oval mirror, set in a frame of the same shape that rested on scrolled feet, flaking sage green paint. She stared at the reflected ghost in the glass, Paige Davenport, expertly dolled up for a night out in Center City Philadelphia. Paige Scott was shocked to see her.
Paige moved her head slightly to one side, and could see David behind her in the mirror. He watched her with a saucy expression, ready early, as usual, appreciative of her tall good looks. She could smell his expensive cologne. He always doused himself in it. Paige never bothered to wear any perfume because no one could smell anything but David when they were together.
He leaned against the door frame, watching her apply mascara to her lashes, sweeping red lipstick onto her lips. Her dark hair hung glossy and sleek, curling under slightly against her back. She had splurged on a haircut at the town's two seat salon and her bangs slashed straight across her forehead again, just above her eyes. Her gaze flicked up again to David’s reflection, her mascara wand mid-air in her hand. He was half smiling. He walked to her and put his hands on her shoulders. Paige held herself in place, straightening her back so as not to pull away. She gazed from his reflection, to her own, and back to him. If she didn’t have him, she would have only the sea of acquaintances that they were about to join at Simone’s Christmas party, people who would fade to faceless figures, whose names she would forget. And Paige would always be faceless in a world that didn’t need or want her, and the capsule around her would close and sink low in the earth.
Paige twisted in her chair and grabbed David’s hands, squeezing them in her bloodless fingers, but he was gone, and she looked down at her empty hands, clutching the top of the chair. She whirled back around to face the mirror. She could see most of the bedroom in the reflection, her small Wells Lake bedroom, the window frame’s chipped paint, and the stalwart, snow-caked tree just outside. She could see the corner of her bed, the quilt that Carmen had hand made for her with the print of tiny purple flowers.
Bryce poked his head around the door. His hair was wet from the shower and his face clean shaven. “Look at you Miss Thing, go-whore-geous!”
Paige looked at herself in the mirror again. She smiled. She was beginning to like Bryce’s latest favorite phrase, even though he used it on practically everybody and everything, with the exception of Al’s Christmas decorating efforts. His response to that had been a quick call to Deirdre – “Emergency, get over here STAT. Code Crap!”
Bryce’s head disappeared around the corner and she heard him through the wall in his own room, playing ABBA’s Dancing Queen and thumping about. Paige stood, smoothed her black v-neck sweater and gave her black skirt a tug. She pulled black boots over her black stockings and realized that people in this town were going to think that someone close to her had died.
In a way, they would be right.
The old house was transformed, Paige thought as she descended the stairs, looking around in bewilderment. Shakily she walked to the middle of the living room, watching the light from several candles dance in reflection on the gleaming floors, and in the glass bottles on the makeshift bar in the corner, and the shining colored balls on the tree. A fire blazed in the wood stove. Deirdre had set up small, round tables around the dining room and living room covered in red cloth, and a similarly clad folding table in the dining room to hold food the people would bring. She had also mercifully covered the glaring pink living room furniture with slip covers that she and Carmen had sewn from a soft, cream colored fabric.
Al was suddenly at her side with a glass of wine, looking like a fashion model in a navy blue, crew neck sweater and jeans that hugged his body in just the right places. He smelled luscious. Bryce flounced down the stairs and into the room wearing ripped jeans, combat boots and a Bad Brains tee shirt over a long sleeved thermal. Around his neck hung his favorite spiked dog collar, and over his jeans he wore a green, sparkly ballerina tutu that bounced as he walked, buoyant with layers of stiff mesh and holiday spirit. His blond curls were clean and glossy, and his young face had a healthy glow. He twirled and hugged Paige.
“Wow, you look fabulous,” she said, startled by
the embrace.
“Yeah,” Al said. “Like a punk sugar plum fairy.”
The door opened. Deirdre, Carmen and her boyfriend Paul were swept inside with a cold gush of air and cloud of snow. Al looked at Paige and smiled wide. “Let’s get this party started!”
Two hours later, as guests streamed in and out, many more than Paige ever expected, Deirdre returned to her in the kitchen with a bottle of Pinot Grigio. She refilled their glasses and set the bottle down on the counter. “Okay, where was I?” she asked, steering Paige back to the kitchen doorway. “Oh, that one there,” she said, “he’s married with three kids.”
Paige sipped her wine. “Don’t tell me you slept with him, too.”
Deirdre nodded. “Not recently, but yes, I did,” she said, her blue eyes wide. “I’m trying to tell you, the past is the past, and everyone who has lived a little has screwed up a little.”
“Yuck,” Paige said, looking at the man who resembled an aging turtle.
“Oh, you know how men are,” Deirdre said. “They get to be a certain age, they’ve had a few kids, and then they notice that their wife’s ass is a lot bigger than it used to be, and that gets them questioning how they got to where they are, what they could have been or done, they feel tied down, like it’s the family’s fault that they got older and lost their hair, and so on, and it’s all a bunch of kakapoopoo!” She paused and slurped up some wine.
“Kakapoopoo?”
“Yes. It’s all to justify going out and getting what they really need, which is some ass that’s not their wife. You know. To get them feeling excited again.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Paige said, softly.
“Yes,” Deirdre practically yelped. “Ridiculous is the right word! All that soul searching crap so that they can go back to their wives and feel like they’ve been on some inevitable life journey. It’s bullshit.” She was beginning to sound a bit slurry. “Men are dogs.”
“You’re right,” Paige said, David and Simone flickering through her mind. She wasn’t sure which of them was the dog. Perhaps they both were. She wouldn’t allow herself to think of Jeremy, or Jeremy and Paige. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about him, them, for a long time. She sipped her wine and moved to a chair at the table. “Are you dating any dogs right now?” she asked, bracing herself for another onslaught.
Deirdre’s eyes softened. “I have a special friend,” she said, her lips curling up slightly.
“More than I can say,” Paige blurted.
Deirdre turned to face her, all business. “Time to fix that,” she said.
“I don’t want to date, really, I don’t. I’m still married, for one thing.”
Deirdre waved away the words in the air like flies. “I’m talking about friends. Who have you got?”
“No one. David got all the friends.”
“They weren’t real friends. Go back further.”
Paige’s mind snaked backward in time, ruffling through blurred snapshots of her life. A few faces seeped into focus but she couldn’t call them friends now, if they ever had been. She shook her head firmly. “I wouldn’t know where to begin, finding anyone, getting back in touch.”
“Darlin’, it’s the age of social media. Facebook does the work for you.”
“The age of social media?”
“Yes! I need a picture of you. I’ll scan it in tomorrow and we can set up your profile page.”
Paige nodded, unsure of what to say. They stood in silence for a moment. Then she realized that Deirdre was, in fact, waiting for her to get a picture right now. “Oh,” Paige said. “Um…Let me go up to my room and see what I have.”
Paige wove through the small crowd and headed upstairs to her bedroom. She opened her top dresser drawer and retrieved the modest photo album that David had sent away to her, tossed in a box amid the other flakes of her life. She fingered the cover, plain, burgundy, light enough to hold on one palm. It was unmarked, no writing embossed on the outside to announce the inhabitants within.
She flipped quickly past the few photos of her as a child, salvaged from somewhere. There were mostly formal pictures taken of her in school, by a photographer brought to the school. An unsmiling and intent looking picture of her at her high school graduation, from a wealthy, private institution that found it appropriate to have the graduating young women dress all in white. Paige sat like a child bride between a boy in a suit and another bride from her class, the rest of the graduates outside the frame. The ones who flanked her were smiling happily, about to wed real life with shining eyes, brand new cars and plenty of cash for college, because that was the real life that was before them.
Paige focused on her younger self in the picture. She was sitting straight and looking just beyond the camera. Her hair was smooth and her cheeks round with youth, her pale neck long and craning to see something else. She seemed ready to stand. Ready to escape.
Skipping ahead in the album, she perused a smattering of photos from her life with David, glimpses of their times together. All were posed, taken by others, the occasions indistinguishable – in a café in Paris, their honeymoon? Standing before a body of water? In a tuxedo and gown at a party somewhere? They weren’t embedded in rich memories, so they floated on the surface, around one another. She was left with nothing after they all ended, that period of her life growing darker, gathering clouds, covering empty space where she showed up in pictures but hadn’t existed. She slowly flipped backward to the middle of the book, and found a picture from college. She knew it was from college because there was a sliver of a young man’s face in the frame, an outline of pale skin and dark hair, a piece of his jaw line, his arm around her shoulder, covered in a gray sweater that would have matched his eyes. She could tell he was smiling from the contour of his cheek.
She had met Lucien at the beginning of their Sophomore year, in a Mass Media and Society course, a requirement for both for their Communications degrees. He was there on scholarship, she was burning through what was left of her parents’ money. Paige had taken an immediate shine to Lucien, beyond his devastating good looks. Indeed, he devastated women quite regularly. He seemed to be on a mission, like herself. What it was, she never bothered to pinpoint, but she could feel that it wasn’t to do with her personally, so she went out with him, discovering and enjoying a sexually lively relationship, while staying on her own course. This veered Lucien off of his own path, whatever that was, and he became more driven by her lack of devotion. Her distraction drove him increasingly batty, and Paige found herself fascinated by this, having never had such a strong effect on anyone before in her life.
She toyed with this power, not understanding it but experimenting with it when she grew bored of classes and Lucien’s entitled attitude. He didn’t come from money, the way she and many in their circle did, but he was driven by it, determined to win over women who had it. Paige admired this twisted motivation, but still amused herself with letting him think that he was getting inside of her, and then making it clear that he wasn’t even in the right building. Then she grew weary of that, and simply went through the motions of their relationship, to continue to have sex with someone, to have someone to walk with around campus and talk to, so that others wouldn’t try to butt in and scoop her up. This drove Lucien even more insane, and he eventually broke away, perhaps because he did have pride, or she won, or, because he was a man who scrutinized himself constantly, he was able to recognize a pawing dog in the mirror. He was not one to stare into someone’s eyes that were looking over his shoulder for long.
Paige felt mists of guilt rising off of a deep stretch of years.
Bryce sauntered into her room and flopped down on her bed, leaning back on his elbows. His tutu flipped up in his lap and he tried to smooth it back down. “What’s up, Buttercup? Did you get anything to eat?”
“Just some cold crow,” Paige said. “What are you doing up here?”
“I had to take a break. All that cocktailing around me was making me really want some. I’ll be
fine in a few minutes.” He lit up a half smoked joint from his pocket. “Al’s looking for you,” he said, exhaling a thin swirl of spicy smoke.
As she descended the stairs, Paige was hit with a cold blast of air as the front door opened. Darnell filled the door frame. He practically had to duck and turn sideways to get inside. Paige hovered with her hands on the railing as Al clapped him on the back and took his coat. She still found Darnell dreadfully intimidating.
“Yo, bro, Merry Christmas,” Al said. “I thought you had to work.”
“I closed for a couple of hours,” Darnell said, his voice like a rich cabernet. “The place was dead. But I’ll be open later after this party winds down,” he boomed, so that everyone in the room could hear.
Paige glanced around the room and her gaze snagged on Deirdre, who was staring at Darnell, motionless, a small smile curving her lips. Paige clicked carefully the rest of the way down the stairs, unused to her high heels, and crossed the room to the kitchen doorway. “Here,” she said, tapping Deirdre’s hand with the edge of the photo.
Deirdre turned, startled. “Oh, wonderful. We’ll get you up and running tomorrow.”
Paige wasn’t sure what “up and running” actually entailed, but it sounded inconvenient.
Paige hung around the kitchen until the guests began twittering about going home or to Darnell’s. Darnell grabbed his coat and began making his way toward her. He was waylaid a few times. One man shook his hand and pulled him aside, where they talked privately and Darnell put his hand on the man’s shoulder and nodded. A young woman caught his arm when he resumed his path and leaned in to talk quietly before hugging him briefly. Darnell patted her back and nodded again, smiling and shrugging on his coat. This continued until he finally made it to the kitchen.
“Good evening, Paige,” he said. When he smiled directly at her, she could see strong similarities to his brother. They had the same jaunty, almost coy expression when they addressed a woman. Especially when he turned to address Deirdre.
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