Once it is in your veins, once you have tasted its taboo sweetness, once you have basked in its afterglow, you are hooked.
In this haze, this pleasurable, orgasmic euphoria, nothing else exists but you and it. There are no bills to pay, no kids to feed, no deadlines to meet. Only a cool buzzing in your ears and a tingling in your limbs; a smile on your lips, a glaze in your eyes.
In this haze your mistakes are erased, the space-time continuum tears open and lets you revise yourself, become more of who you think you should've been had you made different choices.
Out of the haze, you realize, had you made different choices, you might have never known the pleasurable orgasmic euphoria of it. Had the space-time continuum really allowed you to revise yourself, you might not have become the kind of person who succumbs to it. And it's a gamble whether or not it is a better or worse existence.
So you need more, and more, and even more of that sweet taboo. You need it to help you forget the past, avoid the present and postpone the future. You need it because with it you are made new, and part of you really likes the high.
And when you are forced to face your addiction, the stark realization of how much you depended on it, how much of yourself got lost to accommodate it in your life, buries you into a black hole of misery and fabricated memories. You forget what was real and what only appeared because you had it in your blood.
And you struggle to stay off the horse in every minute of every day, which would be easier if you did not live across the street from the barn. All you can do is cross that street and come face to face with it in every minute of every day, and wait for what will happen next.
A buzzing high? Or a passing phase?
Depends on where you've hidden your reins...
*smooches...finding this still relevant in my life*
--------- don't ask.
She couldn’t remember if the red ones were the uppers or the downers. Only that she wanted one.
Today coffee was not enough.
Today she needed something other-worldly and fast acting to help her forget what she had to do and where she had to go.
Her black Nicole Miller hung on the back of her bedroom door. Fresh from the dry cleaners. The plastic bag thrown casually on the floor.
Maybe the blue ones were the uppers?
In the carved mahogany mirror, her reflection was someone unknown to her.
Oh my God! Is my hair red? Since when?
A stray strand of red curl twirled in the path of the fan on the vanity where she sat. An antique vanity she had flown in from a shop on Melrose Avenue during her last visit to LA. Lifestyle perks of a young, rich widow.
Red--the red ones for sure.
The curl continued its dance across her right (left?) brow. It seemed to plié at her reflection. Its leaps and turns graceful. New York City Ballet graceful. Better even.
The curl held her attention until the door opened and her dress floated out of sight.
“Tea, miss?”
The curl took a bow and froze in place. It became angry at the interruption.
“I said don’t bother ME!” How easily the fan crashed into several plastic chunks, leaving dust on her dress. Maybe now she wouldn’t have to wear it. Instead maybe they’d let her hide out in her room all afternoon. Just her and her pills and her dancing red curl. She’d already been to one funeral that year. Two was just unfair.
But when had she dyed her hair red?
And what day was today, anyway? Tuesday? Her reflection offered no explanations. Why didn’t anybody wake me up? Tell me what was going on?
Maybe it’s Wednesday. Wednesday is definitely a red pill day.
She swallowed three of them, dry.
*smooches...digging up a long forgotten tale*
--------- it was buried for a reason, though...
I fumble with my keys, looking behind me in terror. I’ve practiced this terrified look in the bathroom mirror many times. C’mon, c’mon, I whisper. The jingling of my keys will give me away if I don’t get this door…OPEN! I’ve used the wrong key, and the lock refuses to turn. I can feel Pop, the creepy guy from next door, peeping through the door at me. “You okay?” he says through the door. This heightens my anxiety. I have to get out of the stairwell. Pop may be one of the bad guys. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken those caramels from him last week?
This is Day 3 of practicing my serial-killer-victim, mad-dash-to-the-door. The keys are new. Yesterday, I banged on the door screaming, “Let me in, let me in,” but Nana didn’t appreciate it. “Niña,” she yelled. “¿Estas loca?” She had sweat dripping from her brow from the heat of the stove, and a crazed look in her eye. She hadn’t had time to put on her shades. Her brown eye glared at me in frustration. The green, bruised one was confused.
“Sorry, I was just playing,” I mumbled to myself.
“Play-ing?” she asked in her broken English, mocking me. “This no funny! Entra, ya, before they call police!” she whispered while pointing to Pop’s door.
So today I choose the classic horror movie key fumble. I thought for sure no one would hear, but I forgot about our nosy neighbors; they hear and see everything we do.
I finally get the door open, slam it behind me and lock it. I brace myself against the door taking quick victory breaths. Made it! “¡Niña, por Dios! ¡No estrayes la puerta! ¿Que te pasa?” She’s getting fed up with my entrances Tonight she will tell my mother. I feel it.
I walk down the hallway toward her, head down, whispering, “Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m just acting.” She puts her hand up to stop me.
“Oye, Yadira ees esleeping here, okay? So callate la boca.”
“What’s she doing here?” On a Thursday? Didn’t she go to school today?
“Esta enferma.”
I nod at my grandmother and tip-toe into the den. Yadira is laying on the full-sized bed, the one that used to be Elenita’s, the one that used to be in Nana’s bedroom before the bunkbeds took its place. She is on her stomach, her face buried in the pillow. Her orange-red hair is spread out across her back, just reaching her naked upper thigh.
Yadira is wearing Elenita’s “Ice Cream is Brain Food” night shirt. I recognize the lavender trim on the cap sleeves. This is going to be a problem later, for sure. If I know my cousin, she’s gonna catch a fit that Nana allowed Yadira to wear her clothes.
I follow Nana into the kitchen, putting my book bag on the little brown school-chair that is also Elenita’s. It occurs to me, suddenly, that nothing here is mine. "What’s wrong with her?” I whisper to my grandmother as she stirs the beans with one hand, and adds flour-coated eggplant slices to a pan of hot oil with the other.
“No te preocupes. Go do you homework,” she instructs.
This smells of a scandal. Whenever I “shouldn’t worry myself” over something, it means the grown-ups will discuss it later. I hear Nana curse under her breath in Spanish, something about ginger.
“Agarra aqui,” she says, calling me back and handing me the spatula. I despised fried eggplant, and now she wanted me to help her cook it? Nana wipes her brow on her housecoat, the white one with the blue flowers and the missing buttons. A few stray salt-n-pepper strands of her soft hair remain pasted to her forehead. “I go to the store” she declares, and leaves me in the kitchen.
“Going,” I call after her. “I’m going to the store.” She sucks her teeth, walking through the long hallway towards her bedroom to get dressed and go.
When she is gone, I transfer the eggplant to a plate covered with layers of paper towels and turn off the flame. The rice, beans and London Broil smell done, and I turn them off, too. Quietly, I inch over to the entryway of the den. Yadira is now lying on her side. Sections of redness have fallen over the side of the bed. I notice that she’s blinking, staring at the white molded ceiling of Nana and Papi’s third floor walk-up. Even her eyelashes are orange, seeming almost like they are not there. She is covered in red freckles all over her pink skin.
Yadira is curvy, with large breasts for her age. The first of us girl cousins to grow up. She is fifteen now, but had been this voluptuous for three years. Voluptuous. I learned that word last week. I liked the way it rolled off my tongue. I long to personify the definition. Personify was yesterday’s word. Elenita and I are still in training bras.
“Are you awake?” I ask her quietly. Wherever Nana is, her senses are telling her that I have awakened her patient.
“Yeah.” I walk over to the bed and sit next to her hair, gently running my hand over it. It feels rough, like straw.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“You’re too young to know,” Yadira doesn’t look at me. She stays fixed on the moldings. A tiny roach crawls up the wall next to the bed and we both follow it on its path up to the ceiling with our eyes. “Goddam this fucking house and the fucking roaches!” she complains. She covers her face with a pillow and sobs.
“Don’t cry, Nana will make you feel better. I think she went to get ginger for your tea.” It was her cure-all: ginger tea with orange peels.
“What the fuck do you know?” Yadira stops crying and grabs my arm. “You’re just a stupid kid with no problems!” She lets go of me and I yank at her hair.
“Well then fuck you, too” I yell. That is going to cost me three Hail Mary’s tomorrow. “And I’m not stupid, you are.”
“That’s right, you’re the smartest thing alive, no? You want to know what’s wrong, smarty pants? I just got kicked out of my house.”
“Why? What happened?” My anger for her leaves. What would cause Tia Frida to throw her only daughter out of the house?
“Because Sammy got me pregnant, and I got an abortion. There. Now you know everything.” She throws her face back into the pillow. “Now go get your brainiac dictionary and look it up. You know you want to.”
There is a thick pause between us. Instantly, I no longer crave her curves. I suddenly want nothing to do with breasts and hips and vaginas with pubic hair. I want voluptuous out of my memory bank. “I don’t have to, I know what it means.” I stare at my hands. Planned Parenthood ladies had already visited my fourth grade class to talk about our changing bodies and the consequences of those changes. The nuns added their own piece on treating our bodies as temples for Jesus. “You know you can go to hell for that, right?”
“Fuck you and your fucking priests! You think I believe in that shit?”
“It’s not shit!” Damn! Three more Hail Mary’s! I am letting her get me in trouble. Where is Nana already?
I turn away from Yadira towards the hallway to the living room. I don’t have to take this.
“Wait. I’m sorry Muñequita.” She looks up at me with puffy red eyes that almost match her hair. “Please sit with me till Nana gets back?” I sit at the edge of the bed and stares out the window at the head of the bed, while Yadira returns to her moldings. “I know I’m going to hell. You think I don’t know? I been going to hell. This abortion ain’t gonna make no bigger difference.” We sit in silence some more, neither one looking at the other, until she decides to change the subject and lighten the mood. “How’s the acting going? Elenita told me you got in trouble for dirtying your uniform?”
“Yeah. I’m practicing being chased by a killer. Day before last my throat was cut on the steps before I could even reach the door to bang on it. I had to crawl the rest of the way, gurgling for help.” She laughs at my recounting of Day 1 with this new study. “I managed to tap weakly on the bottom of the door, and then Nana opens it and says '¡Ay Dios Mio!' I do my best impression of my grandmother, throwing my hands up in the air, sending Yadira into full-on laughter. "'You’re getting all dirty!'" I use my best Nana-English, and Yadira is in hysterics. “Then she made me wash my uniform in the bathroom sink, by hand: jumper, knee socks, vest and shirt- the whole thing! Nana doesn’t understand modern cinema.”
“She understands, but you know that your mother would have beat your ass if your uniform had come home dirty on a Tuesday.” Yadira pauses to wipe tears of laughter from her eyes and stares at the ceiling again. “Nana understands a lot.”
“Yeah, I guess. She never told on me.” I look back out the window. For a second I think I see a shadow pass by the window across the alley from us, the window of the third floor of the abandoned building. I hate that window. “What does it feel like?”
“Sex? Or the abortion?”
“Both, I guess.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re too smart to end up like me. You’ll probably marry some great Catholic guy and it will be painless and perfect.”
“It hurts?”
“When you’re a girl, everything hurts.”
“Oh,” I said. I peek up at the moldings for a minute. I try to find what Yadira is looking for, help her out in the spirit of Jesus. Save her soul. Then I hear Nana’s heavy footsteps on the stairs, her key in the lock, her breathing in the doorway. I lean over the side of the bed and say “hey” to her as she shuffles towards the den. Her scowl sends me upright.
“You in trouble?”
“Yep. I better go do my homework.” I get up, grab my book bag from the chair in the kitchen and begin walking towards the living room, again. I keep my head down to avoid Nana’s glare.
“Muñequa,” Yadira calls after me as I pass the bathroom. “What’s your word today?”
“Ubiquitous.”
“Jesus Christ! What the hell does that mean?”
I walk back towards the den. “It’s an adjective. It means ‘being present everywhere at once’. Like God, you know, omnipresent.”
“You’re nuts! When are you ever going to use that word?”
I sit at the edge of the bed again, thinking. “I don’t know.”
Yadira laughs her hearty laugh that draws me into her. “Go do your homework.”
*smooches...offering you another taste of my genius*
---------- this is actually a rare glimpse of the first few pages of my novel-in-progress; hope you like!
Papi sits across from me at the living room table with his hands folded tight. This was the first time I’ve ever gotten in trouble with him and I don’t know what he is going to do. Usually when any of us kids gets in any trouble we get Nana’s slipper across our butts, or thrown at us if we try to run. Or sometimes my mom will actually try to be a mom and uses her belt. But Papi has never beat us.
“She started it!” I tell him, just so that he knows it wasn’t my fault.
“Eso no fue lo que te pregunte. Tell me what happened before Nana comes home.” And spanks you. That’s what he wants to say; I know it. “Why were you and Amanda fighting?” I suppose I can tell him the truth. Amanda is way on the other side of the apartment, our older cousin Yadira, visiting from Florida, keeping her quiet until it’s her turn to sit in front of Papi. Probably telling her lies about me. I just bet!
“I’m waiting…” said Papi, tapping on the table with his cigarette lighter.
---------------------------------------
The Talent
As soon as we walked through the door, Amanda grabbed the stereo. She didn’t even ask me if I wanted to tape today, she just grabbed it and said we were taping. I told her I wanted to eat first and she rolled her eyes at me. I know you say we shouldn’t fight, we’re sisters and it’s wrong to fight, and all that, but you don’t know how mean she is. She's worse than Trujillo! One day I'm gonna wake up and find some creepy guys with guns forcing me to wake up just to record another one of her stupid songs. No, she's worse than Trujillo--she's like, like Mommy Dearest meets the Exorcist!
Okay, well maybe not that bad, but she’s mean. I had to scarf down my food because she was rushing me. I didn’t even get to finish my chuleta before she grabbed the plate and said, “Okay, let’s go.” Sometimes I wonder why I bother playing with her. Things never go my way. I’m like her puppet! “Livvy sing this way,” or “Livvy this is today’s topic,” never “Livvy, what do you want to do today?” She thinks she’s the boss of me because she’s older and bigger, but she’s only older by 20 minutes!
And that damn contract I signed. What was I thinking? Oh you didn’t know about that, huh? She made me sign a contract- that I’d record a bunch of songs with her and only her and not try to record on my own. She's in total control and I get to be her lapdog, and you and Nana don’t even see it.
I was not in the mood for singing tonight and she knew it. I wish we could have just stayed home. If mamí had just gotten off her butt and cooked dinner…sorry. But she's another one that's no help. I know she knows what's going on with Amanda and me, but she doesn’t say anything to her.
And you know what? I don't always get all the credit I deserve, but without me, this show would be nothing. I do all the real work, not Amanda. All she does is sit on her fat butt and press a few buttons. No one pays to see a button-pusher. If we were in Hollywood, people would love me. They’d want to be me. Boys would want to marry me and girls would try to look like me.
Other shows wouldn’t be able to compete with my ratings. And it would all be because of me, because of my star power. My show would be seen and heard all over the world. My albums would sell millions of copies. I would get crazy money to keep me in limos and mansions. I’d only date movie stars and famous guitar players, and I can’t even count how many magazine covers I’d been on. I’d be the biggest thing since Elvis, for heaven’s sake! But does she even see that? No.
So here I am, still in this rotten living room doing this stupid show with Amanda. She should get down on her knees and thank me for all the good stuff I've brought her. I bet, if we tried to get into the Palladium she’d only get in because she’d be with me? No way a bouncer would let her in- just look at her. She's like 200 pounds, easy; she can't dress and always looks like she's ready to fight somebody.
Who wants to dance with someone like that?
And still she gets me in this living room whenever she says and acts like it her right to tell me what to do. Who does she think she is?
Plain and simple-she’s jealous. And why not? Can you blame her? I mean- look at me and look at her. She can't even carry a tune. I’ll be on top, and she can join the rest of the world and lick my rhinestone-studded boots.
Okay, so then she gave me the "ten-minutes-to-show-time, hurry-up-and-finish-eating" wave. Can't I have a minute of peace? Is digestion not in my contract? I just knew I had to sing that stupid theme song again. God, shoot me for ever saying I would do this. I should break out on my own. Get a new manager. Sign a bigger contract. Get out of this crappy studio once and for all. I could be Anita in West Side Story, or Rizzo in Grease. Maybe I'll let her be my limo driver. That'll take her down a notch.
I went into my dressing room, you know, the bathroom? And she just came right in. So I said, “Ever hear of knocking, Lardo?” I snapped. It was just too much! I mean, knocking- it’s not a new concept! She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Who you callin’ Lardo, stupid bitch?” Yeah. She called me a bitch, Papi, I swear to god.
Then she said, “Hurry up so we can tape the new song,” and I said “Why don’t you go choke on your new song; I'll be a big star one day, without you, thank you very much,” and that’s when she hit me. See, right here on my arm where it’s all black and blue? That’s where she hit me first.
---------------------------------
I can see Papi is listening to everything I say, and I know he’s making mental notes so he’ll know what to tell my mom when she comes to get us. A few times he made this horrified look on his face, so I know he can sympathize with what I have to put up with.
Finally, someone understands what I deal with everyday. He sees that this wasn’t my fault, that she pushed me. She started it. She always wants things her way. If I let her push me around forever, I’ll never be the star I know I can be. Maybe they’ll send her away to military school in Santo Domingo and I’ll never have to see her again.
*smooches...dropping more gems into your life*
--------- just wait until you read the whole novel...
Dedicated to all the greats that inspired this haunting tale: Stephen King, Clive Barker, Joss Whedon and the TV movie "Devil's Food"
---------
“So I just sign on the dotted line?”
“That's what it's there for. Just a few quick strokes of your pen. Two seconds of your time. Really not that much considering. And then the contract will be in effect.” His small, dark eyes glisten as he says this to me, and I can't be sure but I swear I see droplets of saliva escape the sides of his mouth.
“It's such a big decision, though. Can I have a day or two to consider it?” I get that itchy sensation in the palm of my hand that always appears when something is not right. Ever since I was a child I could sense when I was about to fail a test, get in trouble at home or have an accident. As I grew the feelings faded, but when they came they were prominent. It was a warning sign. Something was not right.
“Sweetheart, if you sign on the dotted line right now, you will have an eternity to mull it over.” He sits closer to me, holding up a round mirror with a gloved hand. The pungent smell of the leather attaches itself to my nose hairs as if the gloves were just made and sent overnight from Tangiers. I am brought back to my trip to Morocco, right after high school, something I did to try and find myself. It is a benefit of having parents raised in the Free Love era; carte blanc to piss off the real world responsibilities and extend adolescence for a few more years.
I stayed with the family of a friend I'd made while volunteering at the hospital. Bibiana Fernández was a medical student, and we became fast friends the moment I heard her being summoned by one of the nurses. “You have a beautiful name,” I told her when we had a spare moment in the break room. “Where are you from?”
“Tangiers. Morocco. And my name is not so beautiful; it is a burden.” Bibiana had a most interesting accent that I couldn't place having never before met a Moroccan on the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut. “My parents, they named me after this actress they admire. She is a man.” That revelation hung in the air for a few seconds before she laughed an infectious laugh. “It is a joke! The actress and I have the same name by chance only.”
Bibiana's parents had meager accommodations, nothing like I was used to, but I immediately felt as one of their own. I barely noticed that my bed was uncomfortable, or that the stench of livestock was embedded into the textiles. Mr. Fenandez made leather all day for a couture label, and when he returned home at the end of the day he added many new malodorous layers to the house. Upon returning to Connecticut, I had to launder my clothes three times to rid myself of what my mother called “that dead carcass smell.” I hardly noticed it.
His gloved hand, ever so close to my nose, smells just like the Fernandez's house.
“Have you ever been to Tangiers?” I ask him out of sheer anxiety.
“I've been everywhere,” he responds in a low whisper. “And now I'm here. With you.” I am unsure if his last statement is meant to make me trust him, but it has the opposite effect. My palm itches so much at this point that it's almost painful, as if a small fire is brewing in my hand. “Look at that beautiful, smooth face,” he says, making sure to angle the mirror so that the lesion in front of my left ear is not visible. “You must drive the men wild with your smile, right? I just bet you do!”
I let out a chuckle despite myself, even though I am very aware of the chill that runs up my spine. I'd never met a man that repelled and attracted me at the same time before. “You have to say that.”
“Don't be coy with me, Lillian. It's not becoming. You know you are a stunningly beautiful woman. I mean, even I was taken aback when you walked in!” The combination of reprehension and admiration in his tone confuses me. I try to turn my face to the right, to see the thing that ruins my reflection, but he keeps my head still. “No, Lillian. No.” He sits even closer, and his full lips are pulled taut as he exhales hot breath on my neck. “Don't you want to keep this beautiful, smooth, young face the way it is?”
“Yes, but...”
He pulls away from me taking the mirror with him. “But what? I've written everything you asked for into the contract. What's there to think about?” He was soap opera handsome. The kind of man, if you could call him a man, that probably knows his way around a woman's body. His dark hair was perfectly coiffed to look carelessly tousled, and his eyes, his eyes were my favorite. They don't look at me, they look into me. It was the first thing I noticed when I walked in and faced the man behind the voice on the phone. They were cold eyes and yet, I didn't want them to stop looking at me.
“Forever. It's such a long time, I guess. It might be more than I bargained for, you know?”
He furrows his brow at my hesitation and I can tell his patience is waning. My chilled spine and burning palm send sensory alarms to my brain that all seem to yell run! But I cannot. Or, more accurately, will not. Part of me still wants to be here and sign the contract. It was me, after all, that sought him out. “Forever, my dear, is everything it promises to be and more.”
I take the hand mirror that he now slides over to me and hold it up in front of me. I do like my face. Very symmetrical, a painter on the streets of Manhattan told me once. After Tangiers I went to New York City to visit the son of a diplomat I met while staying in the Fernandez house. David. He was attending film school and invited me to crash with him before the term began. One night after a large seafood dinner in Little Italy, a middle-aged man stopped us as we turned onto Spring Street and he fixed his eyes on my face. He was carrying an over-sized blank canvas and an art case in one hand, and a computer bag in the other. His features were soft but dark, and I remember that it occurred to me David could be this man's son. He was what David might look like at age 50.
“Young lady, you’re beautiful!” he said. “Your face…it’s very symmetrical. Your fella is very lucky.” And just like that kept walking along Spring Street.
“That was odd,” David muttered.
“What? Don’t you think I’m beautiful?”
“Oh no, I’m not falling for that classic trap.”
“No look at me. Am I beautiful?” I made him stop walking and look at me like the middle-aged man looked at me.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I want to know.”
“If I were casting a movie, honestly, you'd get the role of the best friend and confidant.”
“Are you for real right now?”
“What? That's not a bad thing! Sometimes we just want the girl next door. The one that's more accessible. The leading lady has too many suitors, you know? It's easier to go after her friend. The chances are better.”
I nodded after every sentence, quietly constructing a to-do list in my head of everything I needed to repack once we got back to his apartment. David took my hand and smiled, gently pulling me in the direction of his building. “Are we good?”
“Yeah. We're fine.” I thought it easier to leave in the morning after we'd had sex one more time and he'd gone to register for classes. I didn't bother to leave a note.
*smooches...dipping my toes in the genres*
---------
this is another baby that keeps getting turned down ::double frowny face::
No one seems to want to publish this poor baby. I've sent her out about eight times this spring and I do believe if I go onto my tracker I'll find she's been rejected for publication eight motherfucking times. Shit like that makes me rethink my entire reason for being.
WHY YOU NO PUBLISH MY STORY, PALOOKA JOURNAL?!?!?!
-----------
Bad Nights
It all felt so real: his hands on my legs, caressing me from ankle to thigh; his whispers in my ear- soft, beautiful words; and kisses, delicate ones, all over me. But it was just another vivid dream jolting me awake. 3am again. Like clockwork.
It all felt like love, too, like the feeling one gets at the movies when the star-crossed lovers kiss and the butterflies flutter about and the music crescendos.
Everything, every spoken word, every gesture of kindness, it all felt like real love. Even after only a couple of weeks of knowing each other. And especially now that it was gone.
I fought myself for another couple of minutes before I opened my eyes to the moon that peeked in through the bedroom window sometimes.
I sat up, ignoring the mess of clothes, broken glass, empty beer cans and plates of rotting food that decorated my bedroom, definitely not something that Martha Stewart would ever feature in her magazine. Depression chic, I called it.
Now that it was just me in the California King that we’d picked out together, tossing about in my sleep every night, and fighting his ghost at every turn, I decided it would be my last night in the room.
I grabbed my pillow and blanket and headed to the couch. I pushed aside the cushions we had once used in a playful pillow fight, and arranged a cozy, makeshift bed. 4am; the light from my neighbor’s window across the alley shone in my face. She was up already, making breakfast and lunch for her husband. The curtains on my window were dangling from the bent curtain rod I had thrown a boot at last week. Each day they slipped further down off the rod, and I guessed it had maybe two days before it fell in a heap on the floor.
That curtain was me, two weeks ago, on the phone with him.
“Nicholas? I’ve been calling you all week! What’s going on?”
“I know, Carmen, I’m sorry, I meant to call you before.” I could tell from the tone in his voice. I already knew what was coming next.
“Are you avoiding me?” I asked.
“I just…I’ve been thinking. We’re moving so fast.”
The Backslide
There was no mistaking those deep brown eyes, even if the hairline was farther back than I remembered. He was once the love of my life and now there he was- a face in the crowd waiting in line for the free concert at the park. And he notices me right away.
Although we give each other genuine smiles, the hug is stiff and awkward. The memory of the last time we saw each other was evidently still fresh in both our minds. I steal a quick glance at his hand, making sure he sees mine holds no ring as well.
The “what ifs” come racing back after so many years apart but I don’t let on. I do, however, fill up on his familiar scent. How can he still smell like that after all these years?
“What are you doing these days? Are you still in Brooklyn?” he asks, and his use of the word still makes me feel stagnant.
“I jut moved back a few years ago,” I say a little too defensively. I want to say, I DID move on, you know! I hardly think of you ever! but clench my jaw instead. “I finally opened my event planning company. You?”
“I’m actually up in Soundview now; found a place close to work. I’m still teaching up on the Hill.” He uses still again, I notice, but this time he made it sound permanent and consistent and responsible. Typical of him.
I don’t miss my chance to chide him, though. “Just teaching? Not department head? Or dean?”
He doesn’t miss a beat, either. “I’m head coach on the tennis team. It doesn’t leave too much time for anything other than a few classes a day. We’ve been city champs since I’ve been there, you know.” Checkmate.
“Yes, I remember.” Just like that, just seconds after I had held his cologne in my nose hairs for later use, he reminds me why we weren’t together anymore. Why I gave him back his ring. “So I didn’t know you were a fan of reggae music. What brings you back to the ‘hood?”
“My girlfriend is Jamaican; she’s been waiting for this concert all summer.”
Girlfriend. Girlfriend. He uses the G word in my face and doesn’t even flinch. I hope he doesn’t notice my stifled grimace. There really isn’t a way to come back from that so I don’t attempt it. “Well I hear they put on a great show so you’re both in for a treat. Enjoy it,” I say, walking away and waving at the man that was almost my husband, almost the father of my children. The man who held my hand at my dad’s funeral and helped me bail my sister out of jail. The man who encouraged me to go into business for myself long before I had amassed the courage to do it. I wave at him as if he wasn’t the one who gave me some of the most deliciously orgasmic nights of my entire adult life, as if he was an old co-worker that I’d run into while waiting in line for a concert. It was the only bit of ammunition I had left in my arsenal: indifference.
Two weeks later, he is in my bed. Naked. Sweaty. Burying his face between my thighs as if we’d never been apart. Jamaican girlfriend? What girlfriend? She didn’t exist in these sheets. He is in my bed, in my folds, in my arms, in my mouth.
“You still have the Santa Barbara I got for you in Venezuela?” I followed his gaze towards the tiny statuette of the famed saint on the night stand. She had dust particles caught in the crevices of her eyes, nose and mouth and it occurred to me that I hadn’t given her an offering since Nicholas was last here.
“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. Everything else of mine is gone, I guess I just figured she’d be gone, too.”
“It’s not Santa Barbara’s fault you’re an asshole. It wouldn’t have been fair to throw her away.”
We laid in silence for a few minutes long enough for me to construct a small poem to the rhythm of his heart:
We always Meet here In bed In silence And fuck All night Til morning Then leave
“Why are you here?” I break the silence after my own heart-poem upsets me.
“What do you mean?” He answered my question with a question. Again. My number one pet peeve.
“I hate when you do that! You know what I mean. Why are you here?”
“I thought you wanted…”
“What? Your dick? Because that’s all you’ve offered me so far. In fact, that’s all you’ve ever offered me!” I find myself picking this fight for no other reason than me being upset about forgetting to offer tribute to Santa Barbara and that being Nicholas' fault somehow.
He lets go of me and slides over. I suppose it is rather stupid to continue spooning with someone who calls you emotionally unavailable.
“Are we really going to do this again?” His tone said it all. We were right back where we were three years ago when he left. Nothing had changed and I’d been too blind to see it.
“Get out!” I say, more angry at myself than at him. He was the same Nicholas he
always was and I was the same idiot I always was, who’d refused to see it.
“Carmen, you’re being…”
I put my hand up to interrupt him. “Nicholas I swear to god if you finish that sentence I’m going to smack the shit out of you. Just get out! Leave! Isn’t that what you do best anyway?”
His confused face angered me more than Santa Barbara’s dusty eyes. All I could think was, Why couldn’t he get it? “Yeah, you’re right,” he says, putting on his clothes, “but only because your specialty is pushing me away!” Nicholas stops to look me square in the face. “You think it was easy for me to walk away from us? You did that. You ended us. You threw my ring in my face.”
I slap him in that infuriatingly gorgeous face of his and waited for the sting of his retaliation to pulse through my own cheek. It didn’t.
“Fine,” he says, my hand print very visible across his jaw. “But this is the last time, Carmen. I mean it.” And I could tell by his tone…he meant it.
*smooches...headed back to the drawing board with this one*
----------- I'm not sure why it keeps getting rejected *frowny face*
Read my first published story, Grey Matter, at Blue Lake Review online.
Also, you asked for it so here it is: click below to buy my book, My Ego Likes the Compliments...And Other Musings on Writing, for just $10 plus $2.00 flat shipping rate to anywhere in the continental US.
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