Rotten Peaches

by Lisa de Nikolits

  I nod and he leaves.

  I dig into my purse and find the bottle of pills. I dissolve another tranquilizer under my tongue. I’m going to need more of these. I’ll find a therapist and get a prescription from my doctor. No more fucking about. There is only one solution to this. I have to get over JayRay. I’m an addict and he is my drug and I need to get him out of my system, cold turkey, detox. I can do it. I had been leery of him from the start, but I fell for his charms and it nearly cost my family and my job. I can’t let him ruin anything else. Iris is welcome to him. I’ll deal with the jam situation. If they find out it was me, I’ll say I was delirious with a fever and Iris will attest that I wasn’t feeling well. I wait until the pill calms me down and I walk slowly to the conference hall, ready to face the rest of my day.

  20.

  “I STEAL THINGS,” I TELL MY FAMILY DOCTOR. “I can’t help it.” I describe the jam episode. “I couldn’t stop myself. I was lucky they never found out it was me. Their cameras weren’t working. I would have been fired. I need you to help me. I’m losing control of my life. I had to take Xanax to get through the whole thing and now, here I am. And I need more Xanax.”

  My doctor doesn’t look at me while I speak. She scribbles on her notepad, scribbles until I want to scream: Look at me, me, I am here, I’m the one with issues not the fucking notepad. But I hold my anger in check and pick at my nails instead.

  “My relationships with my children and husband are strained, maybe broken. I’m full of pain and fury all the time.”

  The doctor finally stops writing and she looks at me. “I gave you a list of therapists the last time you were here. Did you get in touch with any of them? I’ll give a prescription to alleviate the anxiety, but you need to see someone and the sooner the better.”

  “I didn’t have the time to find a therapist yet. But I will, as soon as I get home. I need more Xanax. No anti-depressants. That shit fries your brain and I’m a scientist, I know the facts behind the advertising crap. And I’d love something to help me sleep too, some zopiclone, that’s the least harmful. I can’t sleep at all. I get like maybe like two hours a night.”

  “Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep?”

  “Both.”

  “You’re wrong about anti-depressants but I’ll leave it up to you. And I believe you can handle a lot more than you think, you’re just struggling right now.”

  The doctor’s vote of confidence cheers me. As do the prescriptions for Xanax and the sleeping meds. And then there’s the happy fact that the next conference is in Los Angeles and I won’t have to see JayRay with Iris.

  I haven’t spoken to him or texted him or heard from him since he left the breakfast table. He and Iris were everywhere and their happiness radiated like a fucking lighthouse on a stormy night.

  When I got home, I was momentarily comforted by the noise and chaos of family life and the girls appeared to have forgiven me for the Muffin episode. Despite our great-sex sendoff, Dave was cautiously welcoming but he was definitely holding back until I took some action.

  I get home from the doctor and I look up the therapists online. I like the look of Dr. Gerstein and, bonus, she works from home, not even ten minutes from our house. I phone and make an appointment and I tell Dave as soon as he comes home. That news wipes the Miss Priss pinch off his face and I feel rewarded by the warmth of his approval. Then I think back to my father and I hate myself for needing approval at all, and for responding to it, like a good little doggie.

  “I need to talk about my childhood,” I tell Dave, wanting to get his opinion, if not his approval. “I need to talk about my father. I’m stuck in the past.”

  “I agree. You’ve got a lot of anger about how he treated you. But your mother hurt you too, by not standing up for you. You’re angry about her too and yet you never acknowledge that.”

  Of course I can’t tell Dave the truth about why my mother hates me. I wonder if she’s still alive, up there in Coldwater. I assume someone would tell me if she died. Or maybe not. Whatever, I can’t think about that right now. I fall into gloom. “I’m not angry,” I object. “I’m sad. And maybe there’s too much to fix. Maybe I can’t be fixed.”

  “Honey, you’re not that broken. Trust me, you can be fixed. I want you to be happy, that’s all. I want us to be happy and we can be.”

  I’m exhausted. “I’m going to take a nap. I need a rest from all of this.”

  I lie down on the big sleigh bed and fall asleep. I wake feeling better, stronger. I go downstairs and sit down at the kitchen table with the girls.

  “Mommy’s going to help you with your homework. How about science? Mommy’s a science whiz, you can ask me anything.”

  “Anything?” Maddie looks at Kenzie and grins.

  “Anything,” I reply and for a moment my heart is happy and I catch Dave’s eye and we both smile.

  21.

  WE’RE IN LOS ANGELES, at the Craft, Hobby, and Security Show. JayRay’s there with his usual mile-wide grin. And he’s there with Iris. Iris, who is giggling with happiness and hanging onto JayRay’s arm.

  “You were the matchmaker,” Iris bubbles and giggles her thanks to me at the same time. “I never thought I would be this happy again. If you hadn’t invited James to dinner that night, I would never have ended up with him. He is very grateful to you too.”

  I am sure he is. I dissolve another tranquilizer under my tongue and try to smile. I’m feeling all kinds of discombobulated, and it isn’t just JayRay; it’s the feelings that Gerstein the therapist has unearthed. The muddy bedrock of my life has been unpleasantly stirred up and the murky waters are clouded and threatening.

  “I couldn’t be happier for you,” I say distantly to Iris and she beams.

  “It was his idea I come along to this show. I’ve never been to any of the U.S. shows. I know, I should have but I stuck to my job of overseeing the Canadian ones. This is such fun! To be a visitor at a show! And afterwards, James and I are going to Long Beach and then he has another show. How you people do it, I have no idea! Busy, busy, busy! I might stay home for that one. You know,” she lowers her voice to a whisper, “James has moved in with me. I know it’s rather sudden but when love hits, it hits, and the heart knows what the heart wants. I am having a gym built for him, as a surprise. He is so athletic and he hasn’t had much gym time since we got together and he’s moved all the way out to Mississauga for me. I know his apartment was much more central, being downtown, but he says he can’t bear to be away from me.”

  I try to imagine JayRay in a gym, hopelessly unsure how to use any of the equipment except perhaps the stationary bike. My tranqs protect me like a hazmat suit and although I can hear Iris, what she’s saying doesn’t penetrate.

  “He’s a kind and generous man,” I articulate carefully. “He cares about people. He’s a real people person.”

  “He is that. Listen, Leonie, I need two more jars of the nighttime cream. I have been using more than usual, wanting to look my best for him. Can you mix me up a new batch?”

  “Of course,” I assure her. “I’ll do that right away.”

  “I’ll come back later and pick it up. I’ll skedaddle now. You’ve got people waiting for you.”

  I look up. It’s true. Good thing I have my spiel on autopilot. I move over to the lineup and begin my pitch. I sell a bunch of starter home kits and look at my watch. Only two hours have passed and my numbers are good enough that I can leave and go back to the hotel and sleep off the rest of the meds but then I remember Iris’s cream.

  I look up at JayRay across the way, he’s talking and grinning and selling like a madman and I hate him with all my might. I notice that he is deliberately not looking in my direction. I reach under the table for my bag of secret ingredients and I mix up Iris’s cream, trying to steady my shaking hands.

  The shakes must be a side effect of the meds and I’ll happily take th
em over feeling the pain of JayRay’s betrayal. I’m not sure if it’s my unreliable hands or my hatred for Iris that makes me add a little too much mercurous chloride to her jar but I don’t care one way or the other. Iris is going to get what’s coming to her. I try to remember the side effects from too much mercurous chloride penetrating the skin and I recall something about nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration.

  I pause and then I add a micro amount of potassium cyanide. A tiny bit more than the last time. If you want to look good for your man, you have to do what it takes. At least then, when you’re throwing up your intestines, your skin will look as pure and smooth as a baby’s bottom. I smile at the thought and package up Iris’s products, tying the bag with a large bow.

  True to his word, JayRay hasn’t been in contact with me once. Not a text. Nothing. And I, in retaliation, have not sent him one message either. If he wanted our relationship cut off, then cut off it is.

  I think about what Gerstein the therapist said. Her theory, after listening to my version of my childhood, is that I’m still trying to fill the void that my father’s cruelty left in my life. Which sounded like a crock of shit to me, a real textbook cliché. What I hadn’t told the therapist was how my father had ultimately shamed me. I never told anyone what happened, not even Dave or JayRay.

  My father. A beautiful man. Tall, like a Grecian god, with dark curly hair and a distant look in his eye. An inventor with fine hands and long fingers. None of his inventions ever came to anything, but he was from old money, so it didn’t matter. He spent his days secreted up in a cabin in the woods, endlessly working on a prototype for something or other that would change the world. We lived just outside of Coldwater, Ontario, a village that was hardly more than a hamlet, and my father financed his endeavours by selling off parcels of the once-extensive family farm to greedy subdivision developers.

  My mother was an aspiring figure-skater but she blew out her knee with one catastrophic landing that shattered all her dreams. I have memories of my mother lulling me to sleep with tales of how my father loved watching her glide and swirl. And, when she fell, he was the first to rush onto the ice and hold her hand while she waited for the stretcher to carry her off, never to return.

  My father was rich, good-looking, aristocratic, clever, and aloof. All of which made you think he was worth so much more than he was. He was also unloving, disinterested, and cruel.

  I craved my father’s attention to the point of obsession. I sat outside his cabin, a couple of feet away from the front door. I’d read or do my homework, or wait for him to come out and show me the slightest bit of attention. Of course, I was never allowed to knock on the door, or go inside.

  And one day, while I was waiting for him, I needed to go to the toilet. Not a number one. A number two. I needed to go badly and I knew I wouldn’t make it back to the house. The spasms came out of nowhere and my stomach needed instant relief. I didn’t even have time to rush back into the woods; I simply had to go right where I was. I ripped down my panties and squatted and my stomach relieved itself in a hot fluid rush.

  And then I was stuck there, squatting, unsure what to do. I was eleven, such a vulnerable age. It strikes me in a flash, that’s the same age Kenzie is now. Had Kenzie’s eleventh birthday triggered my current emotionally wrecked state? No, it has nothing to do with her and everything to do with JayRay.

  I force myself to continue thinking about that event. There I was, squatting, terrified my father would come out and find me before I got myself cleaned up. I had no idea what to clean up with. I gathered a leaf and tried to wipe the mess with it but I only succeeded in smearing the shit further. I grabbed my panties and tried to clean myself with those and that was how my father found me, covered in excrement and rubbing at my legs with my soiled panties, stinking and shamed.

  He opened the door to his cabin and looked out at me. It was the first time he had looked at me in years. He stretched and cracked his back. He straightened up slowly and walked towards me. I was frozen and I watched him walk towards me and neither of us said a word. I couldn’t move from my crouched position and he stood over me for what seemed like forever.

  Then he turned and walked back to his cabin and he shut the door.

  I rose to my feet, my legs aching with squatting and I ran back to the house, still holding my panties in my hand.

  My mother was ironing and she rushed over when she saw the state I was in. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “My stomach,” I said and I started to cry. “I had an accident.”

  My mother soothed me and ran a bath for me and helped me clean up, but later that night, I could not sit at the dinner table with my father. I blamed my stomach again, saying I had to lie down. I had no idea how I would ever face my father again.

  I heard my mother urging him to check on me and he mumbled an impatient reply. I lay as still as I could, listening for his footsteps reluctantly climbing the stairs. When he finally stood over me, I pretended to be asleep and I hoped he would leave but he didn’t. “Such a dirty little girl,” he finally said and he left.

  I cried after he left, and I hated him. I never went near the cabin after that and I was polite to him but that was all. I told myself I would have my revenge, I didn’t care how long it would take, but I would have the final word. And, I did.

  When I am with JayRay, that dirty little girl doesn’t exist. I feel clean with him, understood. I had been waiting for Dave to discover I was unworthy and now he has. But until the jam episode, I never had to worry that dirty little Leonie would humiliate me in front of JayRay.

  Now I am that shamed and unloved girl again. I look over at JayRay and I hate him through the soggy numbness of my medicated self. I know that I will have my revenge with him too. It’s simply a matter of time.

  I have to stop taking so many tranqs. They’re interfering with my brain and I can’t trust myself. Not that I can trust myself at the best of times, but I feel even less in control than usual. I make a vow. I will not steal and I will not break down about JayRay in front of the whole roadshow, but I do need to get myself back. This anaesthetized state is worse than anything.

  “I’m back!” Iris pops up and I hand her the big shiny bag.

  “Thank you, my dear. Would you like to join James and I for dinner tonight?”

  “Sorry, I’ve made other plans,” I say and I smile. “But maybe another time.”

  “Perhaps the next show? I plan on accompanying James to all the shows! He says he can’t bear to be away from me for such a long time. Isn’t that the sweetest thing?”

  “Very sweet.” I make a note to change stalls. There’s no way I can stand watching JayRay for days on end, aching to touch him, missing him with every molecule of my being. I remind myself that he’s just an addiction, and that all addictions can be conquered and managed. I will be kind to myself, protect myself, and see myself to the finish line of managing to live happily without him.

  “Well then, toodle-loo,” Iris waves her fingers. “See you soon, sweetie.”

  I wave back and start closing up my display. We’re moving to Long Beach the next day and as soon as I finish packing, I exchange stall numbers with a woman an aisle down who sells handmade animal-shaped fluffy slippers.

  “But yours is a prime spot,” the woman is confused, “on the main aisle. Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, hoping that my numbers won’t drop and Ralph won’t fire me. “I like this spot of yours. I’m desperate for a change of scenery, you know how that goes.” The woman agrees that she does. We exchange paperwork and it is done.

  When we get to Long Beach, I know I made the right decision. It’s a relief not seeing JayRay and my new neighbours are friendly. I don’t even have to take any meds.

  I am startled, at the end of the day, to look up and see JayRay standing at my table. He looks forlorn and beautiful and I want to welcome him a
nd tell him how much I missed him and that I still love him but I don’t.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” I say instead and his shoulders droop even further.

  “I miss you. Why did you move? I liked you where I could see you.”

  “That’s exactly why I moved.” I had resolved not to say anything about Iris but I can’t help myself. “Your love life is moving along swimmingly. Congratulations.”

  He brightens. “Oh Leo, she’s really nice. She’s kind and funny and considerate and energetic and all the things I need her to be.”

  “And rich and generous and giving,” I add and JayRay grins.

  “Yeah, that too. How are you doing?”

  As if you care, I want to say. “Fine,” I am short with him. “Good.”

  I start to fill in my sales sheet and JayRay clears his throat. “I’ll let you go. See you later. Take care, Leo.” He walks away.

  Two fat tears fall down onto my paperwork and I blot them up. I force myself to concentrate. My numbers are fine. I have two more days left to go. I can fucking do this.

  22.

  I LIVED THROUGH LONG BEACH. I lived through Seattle and Philadelphia. The months passed and the seasons began to change and it never got easier, seeing JayRay and Iris bounding around like teenagers in love, holding hands, holding fucking hands! and frolicking like they just finished making out in the back of a Cadillac with the top down.

  Iris seemed in good health whenever I saw her. She must have had the constitution of an elephant or my doses weren’t high enough. She had mentioned her high metabolism and I wondered if that had anything to do with it.

  Back home, I dutifully attend therapy sessions. I have sex with Dave. I am enthusiastic at the kids’ after-school activities and I do their homework with them. I walk Muffin, I buy the kids an aquarium, and we have fun. We go to the movies and on shopping trips to the mall and I even take up gardening and get the unruly mess in our backyard under control. And all the while I feel as if my heart has been cut out with a pair of shears and there’s a big black hole where it used to be. But Dave and the kids seem happier and JayRay is lost to me, and there is nothing else I can do.