Bathwater Blues: A Novel

by Abe Moss

  “Do I get to kiss you now?”

  Addie hesitated. “Do you still see them ever? I mean, before you ended up here.”

  “I moved out when I was eighteen and I rarely see them since…” He took a deep breath. “But they follow me everywhere I go, like an odor. They raised me to know what a mistake I was and I can’t shake it even now. I wish they weren’t so religiously inclined, so maybe my mother would have just done away with me before I’d ever known it.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Of course I mean it. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “I just…”

  “My parents gave my brother nothing but praise and all their love and he flourished for it. He has everything. I have nothing. They never let me forget how ugly I was. Am. My face only ever served to remind them of my mom’s cheating. I look nothing like my brother, so I assume I look more like my real dad. I don’t think I’ve ever made eye contact with either of my parents without seeing them grimace. I don’t see the point of bringing something into the world if you have no intention of loving it. Now I’m fucked and there’s nothing I can do.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You don’t know…”

  “There are so many other people in the world besides them, people who know nothing about them or your past. You’re just another person in anyone else’s eyes. Leaving them, it’s like having a blank slate. You could be anyone you wanted. Build yourself brand new.”

  “That sounds great, but I’m not that person. I don’t know how to connect to other people. I can’t. I’ve never had friends. I’ve always been alone. It’s just in me. I can’t escape it. I can’t help what I am… what they turned me into…”

  “You can’t blame them forever…”

  “Of course I can!” His voice raised and Addie tensed. “I’m their doing. I know blame doesn’t change anything, but that’s how it is. I don’t have it in me to be different. I see my face and I see what they see. A mistake. An ugly reminder.”

  “You’re not ugly.”

  “Oh, would you shut the fuck up?”

  “Lyle…”

  He folded his arms and looked to the opposite wall like a stubborn child.

  “It’ll be harder to change on your own. Other people can influence you a lot, I think, if you let them. People who aren’t your parents. Nice people. Honest people.”

  “You run into those pretty often back home?”

  “Well, no… but…”

  “What makes your advice so sound? If you know so much about bettering yourself, changing, why would you be here?”

  “I don’t know anything. But it sounds like common sense when I say it…”

  “Then what’s stopping you from taking your own advice?”

  Addie struggled to come up with an answer.

  “You can’t, can you? You don’t know how, the same as me. You’re as helpless to change as I am.”

  “I don’t believe that.” She thought about Nuala and the doctor, and Bud and Joanna, and how little time she’d really known them all, and yet it felt like she’d been with them a very long time already. “I think this whole experience has affected me some already. It’s not as easy to pinpoint change in yourself, but…” She was chasing a train of thought, realizing things as she said them, and she was filled with a sense of epiphany as she sank her mind’s teeth into it. “You’re never the same person from one day to the next. Even if it’s just in the smallest of ways…”

  “Sounds like you’re the one who likes to hear yourself talk now.”

  “No. We’re always changing. You just have to be open to it, is all.”

  “And how does a person know how to open themselves up to it? You say that like it’s a choice anyone can make.”

  “I don’t know. Things can just hit you, I guess, if you’re lucky.”

  “Lucky. Mhmm.”

  “I’d say being here is pretty lucky.”

  “You serious?”

  “I mean, compared to the alternative. I think it’s really up to us, now. Not this written-in-stone fate you describe. Maybe we wouldn’t have known how to reach out for help before, but we’re lucky enough right now that help reached out to us.”

  “I don’t feel helped at all.”

  “Because you want to feel sorry for yourself. It’s easier than listening.”

  “Addie, I know you think everything you’re saying makes the perfect sense, but it still doesn’t work under my beliefs. A person can’t decide what affects them or how. Help might reach out, but some people still might not know what to do with it. I feel worthless and helpless. I don’t know how to change those feelings, and nothing has been shown to me yet that makes me question it. Maybe the mind can be trained, but that’s an investment being made by someone else, and I don’t think I’m worth that effort to myself or anyone.”

  Addie’s epiphany was crumbling into something fiery and black and she wanted desperately to hold onto it, but didn’t know how to argue Lyle’s belief. Or… perhaps what he said was true, she thought, and what she said was also true… for herself, at least. Maybe her truth just wasn’t his.

  She nodded as she thought this, and Lyle sighed next to her, bringing her back into the moment.

  “I guess we can only do our best and see what happens,” she said.

  He looked at her, his face obscured by darkness, and nodded as well.

  “I can agree with that.”

  Addie shifted on the bed. “Do you still want to kiss me?”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. “What about your parents? What are they like?”

  “They’re both dead,” Addie answered quickly.

  “Do you remember them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, what were they like, then?”

  “I guess, let’s see… my mom hated me. She always did. I never got along with her and I have very few fond memories of us together.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “My dad…” Addie thought for a second. “My dad was the exact opposite. He loved me more than anything, I think. I looked up to him. He was what my mom could never be…”

  “How did they die? If that’s okay to ask…”

  “My dad overdosed. He had some bad habits. It didn’t really, well… he was a good dad, I think, despite it. My mom… she—”

  Before she could say anything else Lyle leaned in and put his lips on hers and for that she was thankful. He put his hand on her cheek and she returned his kiss.

  They sat and kissed late into the night. Several times Addie found her thoughts wandering—good thoughts fading and bad thoughts seeping in, thoughts of her mother—but just when those thoughts seemed about to cloud over everything else Lyle’s hands touched some place different and brought her back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Joanna remained too taken with her new pet to notice anything between the two of them. Bud, however, noticed a change. First it was the way they avoided speaking or talking to each other at all in front of others. If they all shared a room or space together, Addie and Lyle wouldn’t so much as exchange glances or even breathe in the other’s direction. Bud wondered if they had a fight he didn’t know about.

  Then it happened one day that Bud returned into the guesthouse from outside to find them sitting on the couch next to each other. It wouldn’t have seemed strange, except for the intense quiet he found himself stepping into, like a deafening fog. Lyle stared one way and Addie into the other, as though they had nothing to do with each other despite sitting exactly side by side. It wasn’t his business to ask, he thought, though he became increasingly curious.

  One afternoon, when Lyle took a trip to the outhouse, Bud approached Addie.

  “Is there something going on between you two?”

  The look on her face was priceless—a mixture of feigned confusion and involuntary guilt.

  “No? What do you mean?”

  It was clear he wasn’t to know about it, so he didn’t ask f
urther.

  ✽✽✽

  “Have you noticed anything weird about them?”

  Bud sat with Joanna at the edge of the yard where they played an endlessly repetitive game of fetch with Meatball using a short stick they’d found behind the doctor’s home. Joanna was focused entirely on the dog, tossing the stick and glowing with unadulterated joy each and every time he returned it. Bud thought her face would split in two, grinning so much after so long being set in stone.

  “Joanna, can you pay attention to something besides that dog for one second?”

  She looked up. “What did you say?”

  “I said, have you noticed anything weird about them?”

  “About who?”

  Bud groaned. “About them.” He pointed across the yard where Lyle drank from the water pump and Addie waited innocently behind him, just two people standing near each other for no other reason than to get a drink—never mind that they each left the guesthouse a minute apart to avoid the appearance of keeping each other company. “Don’t they seem different to you?”

  “I don’t know, I guess. What do you mean?”

  “They’ve been hanging around each other a lot more lately. But… they haven’t been talking, really. Just hanging around each other. At least while we’re present…”

  “I guess I haven’t noticed.” Joanna praised Meatball in a tone that betrayed anything one could assume by looking at her and threw the stick again. “I thought she hated him.”

  “So did I.”

  Joanna joined Bud in watching them while she continued her game of fetch.

  “I think she’s looked at us over her shoulder four times now,” Bud said. “How long does it take to drink some water?”

  “It does seem strange,” Joanna agreed. “What are you so worried about, though? Not like it matters to us…”

  Bud nodded, barely managed to rope his gaze in. “No, you’re right,” he said. He scratched the dirt with his finger, bored. “It doesn’t.”

  ✽✽✽

  That night Bud sat alone in the foyer after the others had gone to bed, watching the fire burn slowly toward its dimming death.

  A door opened from the hallway. Bud heard it over the crackling flames. He squirmed nervously, shifting his position to something he thought would appear comfortable, which didn’t make sense since he’d been comfortable before the door had opened…

  Lyle appeared in the hall doorway, headed straight, but as he glanced into the foyer and spotted Bud, he paused. He changed course, entered the foyer instead.

  “What are you still doing up?” he asked.

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  Lyle stood, arms wrapped tight around his middle, chewing his lip.

  “Why are you up?” Bud asked.

  “I was thirsty.”

  “Ah.”

  Lyle took a couple steps toward the front door and stopped. He titled his head toward Bud, eyes narrowed, mouth smiling only a little. He came closer to the couch.

  “So… are you gay?”

  Bud’s insides caught cold fire.

  “Um… yeah, I am. Why?”

  Lyle shrugged. “Just wondered. That’s cool if you are, of course. I mean… not that you need my blessing or anything.”

  Bud tried to appear relaxed, and he was lucky the fire added a healthy red glow to his face or else it would have been all too apparent the blood had fled his cheeks in his fright.

  “It’s just, I remember seeing you and Addie together quite a lot and I wondered why… you know… you hadn’t started anything.”

  “I guess even if I wasn’t gay, I probably wouldn’t feel this was the place to start a romance.” He gave a good-natured laugh. “Know what I mean?”

  Lyle smiled. “Yeah, definitely.”

  They watched each other briefly before Lyle turned back.

  “Well, I hope you sleep well. Night.”

  I bet you do, Bud thought. “Night.”

  Lyle returned to his room, forgetting how thirsty he’d been.

  When Bud went to bed shortly after, it wasn’t long before he heard footsteps down the hall. They weren’t Lyle’s. There was the sound of a door shutting in the next bedroom. Then, through the walls that were far thinner than real privacy required, he heard the slow, careful squeal of mattress springs.

  ✽✽✽

  Addie was sitting on the front porch when Bud opened the door to take a walk outside. She looked up at him, smiled. He closed the door and stood next to her for a while.

  “Where’s Lyle?” Bud asked.

  “How should I know?”

  “I just thought you might.”

  He sat next to her. “We haven’t really gotten to talk in a while… how are you?”

  “Good.”

  Bud followed her eyes toward the doctor’s. The curtains in the upstairs windows were pulled open.

  “I guess you’ll be the last in the tub. Shouldn’t be too bad, now you know what to expect. Right?”

  Addie didn’t say anything, but she continued watching the windows, distracted. Bud couldn’t figure out why, but he sensed a distance between them now.

  “Is Lyle in there now?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Why did you say you didn’t know?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to gossip.”

  “It was just a question.”

  He sat next to her a while longer despite the unpleasant push he felt, like a magnet repelling another.

  “Did he get a letter?”

  “This morning. I found it on the table.”

  “Oh.” It was boiling up—an awkward sense of losing something, or having something taken from you, something you cared about being given to someone else. And to Lyle, of all people… “So are you guys best friends now?”

  A cutting look of disdain. “Huh?”

  “Well, it’s just…” He paused, face burning. He felt betrayed, maybe his feelings were inflated, he thought… “I thought we were all here to experience this together, but now that you two seem to be little lovebirds or whatever…” Addie scoffed. “…it’s like you’re happier forgetting about the rest of us. About… Joanna and me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, and got to her feet, “but I think you should mind your own business from now on.”

  “I’m sorry!” he blurted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so…”

  Addie studied him uncertainly. She softened.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  He lowered his head. “Maybe not. I’m just… I don’t know.”

  Addie sat down again. “You know you can talk to me whenever you feel like it.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He did feel ridiculous. So what if Lyle didn’t want his letter broadcast to the whole group? So what if he chose Addie as his confidant? Would it make him feel better if Addie had shunned him? He didn’t own her friendship, after all. Even if Lyle was slimy and toxic…

  “Are you friends now, though? I’m just curious.”

  She thought for a minute. “He’s much different when you get to know him a little.”

  Bud didn’t think he’d ever want to get to know him. But perhaps that was only his jealousy talking.

  “I guess that’s true for anyone.”

  ✽✽✽

  Lyle didn’t return from his visit emptyhanded. He came through the front door with something under his arm, shiny and silver and flat.

  “What is that?” Bud asked.

  “Oh this?” He held it in both hands, faced it toward Bud. Bud’s heart nearly gave when he saw himself in the object’s reflection.

  Joanna walked over, her attention grabbed by Lyle’s return. “He gave you a mirror? Why?”

  “I’m just supposed to hang it in my room. Nuala’s going to help.”

  “But why?”

  Lyle shrugged.

  Joanna didn’t press the point. “I’m glad it’s going in your room. I don’t need to see what I’ve become the
se last few weeks…”

  Lyle didn’t seem glad or upset to have the mirror. It was just… a mirror. Bud knew it must have meant something to him for the doctor to have given it away, but he was doing a fine job not letting on about it. He disappeared into his room to put it away and Addie trailed behind him.

  “What do you think it’s for?” Bud asked Joanna, who plopped onto the couch with her dog curled sweetly in her lap.

  “I don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “It must mean something. It’s part of his therapy, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna said again. “I don’t think it really matters.”

  ✽✽✽

  Bud couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned for what felt like hours. He slammed his arms irritably against his mattress, kicked his sheets off onto the floor, hoping to tire himself with a sleep-deprived tantrum, but all he did was make himself hot and more alert. His thoughts raced from one thing to the next, skipping like a stone over a black lake, each touchdown bobbing something up underneath.

  At first he couldn’t shake Addie and Lyle from his mind. He imagined them cuddling together and felt guilty for it, and guiltier for being angry at the idea. It wasn’t like him to feel jealous like this, he thought. When he couldn’t stand thinking about them any longer, he willed his mind onto something else. What it happened upon he liked even less.

  He remembered nights like this at home. Nights he went to bed angry and couldn’t sleep for hours, usually following battles with his parents. They did that a lot before he moved out. It was hard to speak to them about anything. And whatever the disagreement, it always bothered Bud worse than it did them. He left them wondering on multiple occasions what was wrong with their son. Was he depressed? Was he bipolar? Did he need to see a doctor? Why does he hate us so much…

  I hated you because I knew. I knew the people you’d turn into if I told you. I hated that I couldn’t tell you. I hated that I knew your love for me was so conditional…

  GAH!

  He got out of bed and went into the hall. The house was quiet. He made his way through the foyer, out the front door onto the cool cement porch. Insects chattered in the fields. Moonlight bled through a blanket of clouds.