FACT: You didn’t see West all day Thursday.
At one point, your father found you reading your book by the side of the pool and said, “Where’s West?”
And you shrugged and mumbled, “How should I know? I barely even know the guy.”
And your father said, “Okay.”
He started to walk away, but then you said, “And by the way, it is supremely weird that you would make me share a room with this twenty-six-year-old man I don’t know.”
And your father said, “Come on. You know West. You grew up with him.”
“He moved out when I was six.”
Your father rolled his eyes. “So you want your own room, like you have at home? Is that what this is about?”
“No, Dad—”
“Because lots of people share rooms with their siblings. I shared a room with my sister until I went to college—”
“No, it’s not about that. I just think it’s kind of fucked-up that this vacation is the first time I’m meeting him.”
“It’s not the first—”
“The first time since I was six.”
“First of all, please watch your language,” he said. “Second of all, what you might not understand is that West has done a lot of growing up in the last ten years. Your mother and I did what was best for you. If you’d gotten to know him when you were younger, I don’t think you would have liked him very much.”
And you said, “Yeah, well, I hardly like him now.”
“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, but you’re not getting your own room. These rooms are very expensive.”
FACT: Your father was kind of an asshole.
* * *
—
Friday morning, you woke up to find West lying facedown in his bed in a pair of boxer shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt, the sheet half off the mattress. You were going to leave without saying anything, because honestly, what was there to say?
But then he flopped around on the bed, and you couldn’t tell if he was waking up or if it was just like gas escaping from a bloated corpse. And like a sick thing looking for a place to die, the question crawled out of his mouth: “Are you coming to the beach today?”
And you said, “Where have you been?” You tried to sound casual when you said it and then immediately hated yourself for trying to sound casual. As if you owed him that.
And he groaned, “You know, around. Come to the beach.”
“Is Jordan going to be there?”
“Jesus, I don’t know.”
And you said, “Where have you been?” but this time you said it really seriously, so he would know that you were really serious.
And he said, “What, just because we hung out for a couple days, now we gotta do everything together?”
And you said, “What is your deal? Why did you even come here?”
And he said, “I came here to sit on the beach and get drunk. Why did you come here?”
And you said, “I came here to see you.”
You thought that would shut him up, but you were starting to discover, FACT: The men in your family didn’t shut up.
“Oh, really? Is that why you keep going on little outings with your parents?”
And you said, “You know, my parents are the ones who are paying for us to be here. These rooms are very expensive—”
And he said, “Oh, good, yeah, so I guess everything’s settled then. I guess they didn’t fuck me up when I was a kid because now they’re letting me tag along on their expensive vacation.”
“I don’t know why you’re taking it out on me. None of that is my fault!”
“You think I want to get into this shit? I just wanted to go to the beach!”
And you put your hands on your hips and said, “Okay. Let’s go to the beach.”
And he said, “No, now you’re being a brat. Are you on like five different periods right now or what?”
You went to the beach. And Jordan was there, waiting. West got a beer and Jordan got a beer, and every few minutes, they would start giggling for no reason it seemed, and you would say, “What’s so funny?”
And West would say, “Nothing. It’s stupid.”
And Jordan would say, “It’s an inside joke.”
Then your mother walked by and asked if you wanted to get a massage at the resort spa and you said, “YES.”
How was the massage? It was fine, whatever, it was great. Thanks, Mom.
Later, you found West at the poolside bar, talking to the woman who had gotten out of the cab with her husband that first night, the drunk woman who thought it was so funny that there was a dog.
West smiled at you. “Hey, Heather, you remember Amy? This is my kid sister, Heather.”
“Aww,” Amy said. “Cute.”
West winked at you.
And you said, “I have to go.”
* * *
—
That night, you all met up for dinner at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant your mother found on the internet. West had a green bruise on his face that looked like the early stages of a black eye. “Oh my God, what happened to your face?” your mother said.
“I got into a fight with a seagull,” said West in his signature dry style that made it clear he was joking but unclear what exactly the joke was.
“I don’t understand,” said your father. “How did you get in a fight with a seagull?”
West shrugged. “We got in a fight. We had a difference of opinion, but it’s all settled now.”
Dinner was fine; you had a quesadilla. At one point your parents excused themselves and West said, “That’s how you know you’ve been living with someone too long—if you have to go to the bathroom at the same time.”
You looked at him. “Did Amy’s husband do that to your eye?”
And he said, “Why do you always gotta poke at shit, Heather? Why can’t you ever just let shit be shit?”
And you said, “Jesus Christ.”
And he said, “All night, you’ve been looking at me; you know what that feels like?”
And you said, “You’re mad at me because I looked at you?”
And he said, “Please don’t start. I get enough stupid teenager bullshit from Jordan, believe me. Christ, it’s like high school all over again with you two.”
And you said, “You’re the one who slept with her—no one told you to do that. I don’t even know what you see in her, honestly; she’s a total ditz and she has wide hips.”
West laughed. “God, you two are exactly the same. You act like you’re friends, but you say the meanest shit about each other when the other one’s not around.”
Your face got hot. It hadn’t occurred to you that the two of them had talked about you when you weren’t there.
“I don’t know what you expect from me,” he said, and you started, “I expect you—” but he didn’t wait for you to finish: “You’re just like your mom, you know that? Did you think you were going to come down here and get some real, authentic, genuine experience? What do you think we are? You don’t know me. We have these dinners together and everyone acts like we’re some kind of family. But we’re not a family. We’re fucking tourists.”
You leaned back in the booth. “You got some food on your face.”
He wiped his face with a napkin. “Did I get it?”
“Yeah.”
Your parents came back to the table. “Your father and I thought it might be nice to go salsa dancing tonight, all four of us. We found this place in town where they’ll teach you.”
“I don’t think I’m going to do that, June,” said West, pushing a piece of meat around his plate with a tortilla chip. “You know, ’cause of my foot and everything.”
“Your foot is fine,” your father snapped. “Damn it, we paid for you to fly down here to be with th
e family, not to sit by yourself on the beach getting drunk all day.”
West looked up, and for a second it seemed like he might pick up a plate and chuck it at your father’s head, but instead he said, “Okay. Let’s go salsa dancing.”
The salsa dancing was not quite as intimate as you would have liked/disliked. The instructor had you constantly switching partners, so you danced a little with West, a little with your father, and a little with strangers. You danced mostly with strangers.
“That was fun,” your mother said, flushed. “I thought that was fun.”
As your parents debated how much to tip the instructor, you and West wandered outside to get some fresh air and/or a cigarette. You stood out on the curb in silence for a minute. West coughed and said, “Hey, Heather?”
And you said, “Yeah?”
And he said, “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have to tell you things, because I feel like when you look at me, you can see everything.”
At the time you didn’t say anything, because honestly you didn’t have the energy to argue with him anymore, but later you realized this was his best and only attempt at an apology.
* * *
—
So, Saturday.
When you woke up, West was lying in bed, asleep, with his shirt off. This was the first time you’d seen him with his shirt off; his back and arms, as it turned out, were awash in inscrutable tattoos, faded and scarred, another mystery that would never be explained.
After breakfast, your parents went over the bill with the front desk (“My son charged how many drinks to the room?”), and West carried your luggage out to the curb. He was leaving on a flight later that afternoon and his plan had been to spend his last few hours on the beach, but now he wasn’t so sure. “I’m kind of over the whole resort thing,” he said. “Maybe I’ll leave my bags here and just dick around town for a little bit.”
You thought about your flight home, and you thought about the coming summer. You and Katie Connor had gotten jobs as lifeguards at the city rec center. You were sure she would have a week’s worth of gossip to fill you in on, never once asking you about your trip to Puerto Vallarta.
Then you thought about college, what your roommate would be like, what classes you’d take, and all the adventures that lay in front of you, as long and complex as the whole long history of Mexico.
And West said, “Hey, don’t be a stranger, okay?” And he looked at you. And he gave you a weak kind of smile and a shrug, as if to say, “Well…” And for some reason, that little nothing was enough to set you off. You started crying, right there in front of the hotel, while the bellhops loaded your bags onto the airport shuttle. You started crying, not because of anything West said or did really, just—you started crying.
And West got real uncomfortable and kind of ignored you for a second and looked around like there was maybe someone he might know that you were embarrassing him in front of. And he said, “Hey, come on. You don’t need to…That’s enough.” You tried to stop, but that just made you cry more, and he said, “Hey, for real, stop it, would you? You’re giving me the creeps. Hey, I’m serious, cut it out. Stop it. Stop it. Please stop it. Please. Please?” This last “please” was too much, and you shook your head and you looked up at him, and he didn’t say it, but you could tell he was thinking:
Yeah. I know.
Lunch
with the Person Who Dumped You
You get an email from your ex-whatever-it-was-you-two-were-exactly, asking to meet for lunch. The tone of the email is friendly, casual, if a bit stiff. You agree in a friendly, casual, if a bit stiff email of your own, and a date is set. But what kind of lunch will it be? Hold your breath and SPIN! THAT! WHEEL!
THE NO-HARD-FEELINGS LUNCH
This is probably the best-case scenario. You can be friends again and put all this ugliness behind you.
“You and me, we’re okay, right?”
You’ll agree that whatever it was that you had was nice, for what it was, but the timing was bad, you wanted different things, you’re two different people, after all; it was “Just One of Those Things,” as Ella Fitzgerald sang, but minus the part about it being a trip to the moon on gossamer wings.
You’ll offer each other weak declarations that there are no bad guys here (because there aren’t, not really) and half-hearted promises that you’re not reviled by each other’s friends, that there haven’t been long, heated conversations about how much you suck. Most important, though, is the unspoken understanding that both of you are people—weak, wounded, fragile, forgivable people doing the very best you can under the impossible circumstance that is day-to-day existence.
In the great grand scheme of things, this is nothing, this wound—it’s a nick of a razor, a scrape of the knee—and if you say it enough times and with enough vehemence and smile wider each time you say it, you can even convince yourselves. After all, what were you hoping for, really? What was this ever going to be, realistically? Isn’t this the best thing that could have possibly happened, for it to have ended now, before somebody really got hurt?
This is much better. This makes sense.
Everything’s fine, you can assure each other and yourselves. Everything will always be fine.
THE LOADED-WEAPON LUNCH
Are you prepared for this? Do you have a list, with bullets, ready to go?
The breakup was abrupt. Maybe you didn’t say everything you wanted to say to each other; maybe now, with time, you’ve started to realize all the ways in which you were wronged. I hope you’re crafting the righteous indignation in your head, shaping it, sculpting it. What’s the sharpest turn of phrase, the cruelest, fastest way to draw blood?
When the sparring begins, hang back, float like a butterfly, let your opponent use up all the good material, then strike. Remember, the one who laughs last laughs longest, so make sure you laugh last and when you do you laugh heartily but with a detached air of none-of-this-really-matters-I-haven’t-been-lying-awake-at-night-staring-at-the-ceiling-regurgitating-all-this-pain coolness. This lunch will decide once and for all who is the winner and who is the loser of this breakup. This is the moment you’ve been training for, the reckoning where at long last justice will be had. The crowd roars. The judge pounds the gavel. O, Glorious Retribution, how sweet thy taste, how bitter thy sting.
This will not be pleasant, this lunch, and you will both feel terrible afterward—it will not at all provide the closure either of you had hoped for—but if there’s a silver lining here (and you’re not sure there is one), it’s the assurance that what you had, whatever it was, had weight. It made an impact. You can put to rest the fear that you were a blip in this other person’s life, a footnote. What you did was important. You hurt somebody, and somebody hurt you.
THE RECONCILIATION LUNCH
The Tail-Between-the-Legs Apology Lunch. The Tearful I-Miss-You-I-Made-a-Horrible-Mistake-Can-We-Please-Get-Back-Together Lunch.
It probably isn’t this, but you should maybe have a plan just in case.
Because if it is this, if your former lover has indeed decided that the wasteland that was your relationship is more attractive than the wasteland that is being alone, you have a couple options and you should consider them both ahead of time.
Option A is yes, yes, yes. You can attack that yes with desperate vigor, charge blindly, romantically, hysterically into yes. Take a match to your pride and turn back the clock and pretend this breakup never occurred. You were fools, both of you—you were different people then, you were children. You can make it work this time, because now you’ll know what it is you could have lost. You’re really going to try this time, you swear it, this time you’ll do everything not in shades of beige and gray but in bright, bold, brilliant, beautiful COLOR.
But then again, maybe you’ve done a lot of thinking since your split. Maybe you’ve seen the foolishness of throwin
g yourself so recklessly headlong into the fray that is this other person. Maybe this was just the splash of cold water that you needed. I mean, let’s be realistic, after all.
This is the question and you should have a plan: Do you welcome back love with open arms, or do you, under the auspices of rational thinking, break this person’s heart, like this person broke yours?
You should have a plan, but don’t get your hopes up. The lunch probably isn’t going to be this. There are a lot of things this lunch can be, but it almost certainly isn’t this.
THE FOR-OLD-TIMES’-SAKE LUNCH
If you meet for lunch near one of your apartments, your meal might be a prelude to one more roll in the hay. You know, for old times’ sake. You know, for the sake of the old times. All those old times that would be really disappointed if you didn’t fool around again, you owe it to them.
Those times.
Of old.
This isn’t a reconciliation, and don’t fool yourself into thinking this is closure. It’s something in the middle. Is it even something? Perhaps, in the loosest sense of the word “something.” It’s not quite something but slightly more than nothing, this.
It’s like a movie adaptation of your favorite novel, a theme park ride version of your favorite movie. It’s a Xerox of a Xerox, a shadow of a ghost.
It’s gluten-free pasta, this.
But at least it’s pasta.
THE HERE’S-YOUR-STUFF-BACK LUNCH
What more is there to say?
The world, it turns out, has continued to exist.
The waters have receded. The fires turned to ash.
You knew this day would come, but you didn’t want to believe it.
The scars have healed, the universe has cooled, the porcupine that is your cautious heart has uncurled itself, put away its quills, and continued on in whatever random direction it was headed. And a sweater has been sitting in someone else’s closet, a barely there reminder of nothing much really.
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory Page 9