Her Perfect Life

by Rebecca Taylor

  “You lecture me about not giving up, but you write too. And you never send anything out.”

  “I’m not a writer,” Clare said flatly.

  “What the hell are you talking about? You write every day. You have hundreds of journals stacked up in boxes at the back of your closet.”

  Clare’s gaze suddenly zeroed in on Donna. It was Donna’s turn to sit back in her chair. “Yes, I’ve seen them. Filled to overflowing with words. You are as much a writer as I am. At least I put my work out there.”

  “You read them?” Clare’s voice ratcheted up several octaves.

  “No! Of course not,” Donna defended herself.

  Clare watched her friend for any signs of a lie. She couldn’t bear the thought of someone reading her private thoughts.

  “I swear!” Donna continued. “I’m not barbaric. But I will say, I wanted to. I want to know what you scribble about in private.”

  Clare narrowed her eyes. “Nothing, just my life.”

  “Just journals?” Donna pressed.

  “Maybe a short story or two…a couple of poems.” Clare shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t do it the way you do.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “The stuff I write, it’s just for me. I don’t have the desire.”

  “Desire?”

  “Publication, recognition, for other people to read my stuff. It’s mine.”

  Donna took another sip from her beer and shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

  Clare laughed. “I don’t care if you believe me. It’s true.”

  “Have you ever let anyone read your work?”

  Without meaning to, Clare took a sharp intake of breath through flared nostrils.

  “Ah ha!” Donna pointed at her across the table. “I knew it! You once upon a time let someone read your work. Or submitted it. Or turned it in for a high school writing assignment and whoever it was fucked you up too early and shot you down.”

  Clare shook her head. “The only other person I’ve ever let read my work…” She hesitated. It had been almost three years. She had never even uttered his name to anyone in her new life. And now, it was right there on the tip of her tongue. “He loved everything I ever wrote.” She stared out the window, not really seeing beyond the nonsensical blur of this busy city she had so effectively hidden herself away in.

  “So why keep it to yourself?” Donna pressed.

  Clare returned her attention to the expanse of table between them and shook her head again. “I guess, mostly, it really never occurred to me to do anything with my writing.” That was true, sort of. She had occasionally, certainly more recently, considered what it might be like to stand on that stage one night herself, but she never got any farther than imagining the embarrassment, her own hands trembling just like she’d witnessed in so many others. “I’m not sure what the point would be, I guess.”

  “What do you mean, what’s the point? The story is the point. The connection, the creation—the rush of knowing someone read your words and felt something you created. That is the fucking point.”

  Clare took another, longer, drink from Donna’s beer and nodded. Yes, she knew what Donna was getting at. It was just that Donna didn’t understand, maybe couldn’t understand, that Clare already had that. She’d had it, with Adam. Adam who, for practically their whole lives, would lay his head in her lap and close his eyes. There wasn’t any other connection she ever wanted.

  She would never feel his head in her lap again. She would never hear his voice. Feel his touch. Look into his eyes.

  “Tell me a story, Clare.”

  “I think you’re afraid,” Donna finished with a dare.

  Clare sighed, not taking the bait but still somewhat intrigued by some new possibility dawning on the horizon of her awareness. “I’ll think about it.”

  “No thinking.” Donna smiled. “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

  “Nice… Karate Kid?”

  “Actually I think that’s from Star Wars. Either way, it’s high time you dust off some of those journals and let the light of the world’s cold hard judgment rock your foundations a bit. Plus, that way we can be miserable together and for the same reason.”

  Clare smiled. “I better get back to work,” she said as she pushed away from the table and stood.

  “I’m going to hold you to it.”

  Clare waved Donna off and headed back to the stage.

  “I mean,” Donna called after her, “are you really planning on working in this dump for the rest of your life?”

  Thrown off by the interruption, the reader onstage lost her place and stumbled over her words while several customers turned to glare at Donna. Brian shot her a dirty look and pointed his index finger at her—watch it.

  By the time Clare got back to their apartment after her shift, her feet aching and her hair reeking of secondhand smoke, Donna, Sergio, and Flynn were already all the way in the bag. Donna squinted her eyes at Clare as she dropped her purse and kicked off her shoes near the couch.

  “Don’t think I forgot,” Donna warned.

  “Forgot what?” Sergio asked.

  “Nothing,” Clare said as she waved them all off and headed to the bedroom she shared with Donna.

  “Come back and have a drink with us,” Flynn called after her.

  “In a minute.” Back in their room, Clare opened the closet door and pushed her clothes to the side. Four square moving boxes stood stacked two by two. They contained all her journals both from her before life, and the after. Earlier, she hadn’t been completely honest with Donna. Yes, they were mostly journals, stuff about her day-to-day life. But there was more than a couple short stories in there as well.

  Many, many more.

  For the first time ever, Clare wondered how many stories she had written over the years. She had never bothered to count. Why would she? Clare pulled one of the top boxes closer. This was the one with the most recent journals, almost all of them from since she had arrived in New York two years ago with a suitcase, her meager life savings, her mother’s gun, and absolutely no plan. She had some stories in there. Some of them were maybe not even half bad.

  Why didn’t she ever consider trying to get one published?

  “Wha’cha doin’?” Donna asked from the doorway.

  Clare jumped, her hand flying to her chest. “Jesus! Nothing.”

  “You’re thinking about it.”

  “About what?”

  “About what it would feel like to see your very own name in print.”

  Clare opened the top of the box and stared down at the stacks of journals inside. “My name? Clare Kaczanowski? Yes, it just rolls right off the tongue.” She stared at the ring she still wore on her left hand. “I would use a different name.”

  “Oh ho! We go from not even dreaming of trying to publish to having a pen name picked out in less than five hours,” Donna teased. “And you say you’re not a writer. So what’s this new pseudonym you’ve already decided on? Tell me and I’ll let you know if it makes you sound like an asshole.”

  Clare took the first five journals from the stack and set them aside. “Clare Collins,” she whispered. “If I ever published anything, it would be as Clare Collins.”

  “Clare Collins?” Donna asked, wrinkling the space between her eyes as she tilted her head back slightly and stared at an empty space of wall behind Clare’s head. “Clare Collins…Clare Col-lins.” She flattened her lips into a straight line and nodded twice. “Okay, I like it. You can use that.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Clare said.

  “On one condition.” Donna held up her index finger.

  Clare scoffed but still smiled at her friend. “And what is your condition?”

  “You let me read something by Clare Collins by the end of next week. And if after reading it I don’t think you�
��ll embarrass yourself too much…you’ll join my writing critique group.”

  “With all your MFA friends? No, thanks. I think you’re forgetting that some of us didn’t even attend their local community college, so there is no way—”

  “I’m going to go ahead and stop you right there.” Donna held up both her hands. “First, a bachelor’s degree in English does not make someone a good writer, and neither does an MFA, for that matter. Second, not everyone in my critique group is from my MFA program. And third…” Donna took a deep breath and let it out before continuing. “Maybe you don’t know this yet, but I’ve seen the look on your face when other writers read their stuff down at the Blue Spruce. You want this. I think you need to give yourself a chance.”

  Clare dropped her eyes to the stack of journals in front of her. “What if I’m not any good?” she whispered.

  Donna smiled. “Now, see, that question right there proves you’re a writer. You’ve already got all the self-doubt, and I see real potential for genuine, clinical-grade self-loathing.”

  Clare smiled and shook her head.

  “One week,” Donna said. “Pages, words, in my hands. Got it?”

  Clare cleared her throat, swallowed, then sighed. “Okay. One week.”

  Chapter 20

  If You Leave

  A Short Story by Clare Collins

  He had been growing more and more frustrated with her ever since the recital. Frustrated and distant. She didn’t know what to say to him anymore. All he ever talked about was everything that had to do with him leaving. The date he was leaving, how long the drive out to Indiana would take, what the campus would be like, who his dormmates would be, when basketball practice started, what classes he would be taking in the fall—how over-the-moon excited he was about every single thing that had to do with him leaving Casper and getting on with his life.

  Ever since the night of the recital, she hadn’t heard very much more about how worried he was to be leaving her behind. There hadn’t been any more tears, not out of him anyway, no more sad declarations of how much he would miss her, how impossible it was for him to imagine a life without her in it every day. If fact, lately, all she’d heard was exactly the opposite—how amazing college would be, how he couldn’t wait to get on the road. He was starting a whole new life.

  She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to hear about it. She hated all of it and was incapable of hiding her true feelings; it had become next to impossible for her to even pretend to be happy for him.

  The Tuesday before graduation, he had stopped at the mailbox on the way into the house and pulled out yet another large manila envelope. “It’s from Indiana!” he said as he smiled at her and held it over his head, the school’s distinct red trident-looking logo stamped next to the return address.

  She raised her eyebrows, plastered on her weak smile, and nodded. “Great.”

  Standing in the kitchen, she watched him rip into the envelope like a kid on Christmas. There were several stapled pages of information, more glossy brochures, more details and promises about everything he had to look forward to. She picked up one of the trifolded pieces of marketing card stock. It showed smiling, well-groomed, successful-looking young adults with backpacks sitting under an autumn-colored tree on a well-manicured lawn, the prestigious pale-brick university building looming behind them. The title Student Life was bold and centered across the top.

  “Why do they keep sending you all this crap? Didn’t they get the message? You’ve already accepted their offer.”

  Adam furrowed his brow and glared at her. “It’s not crap. They’re trying to prepare me. It’s going to be a huge change.”

  Clare shrugged and tossed the brochure back onto the table with the others. “They send all of this to everyone, I imagine. Seems like a huge waste if you ask me. I’ve heard…” she hesitated, but only for a moment, “that thirty percent of college freshmen wash out their first year. If you ask me, they should prepare you for that.”

  Adam stared at her then, a coldness in his eyes that she hadn’t seen directed at her before. “Well,” he said quietly, “good thing nobody is asking you.” He shouldered his backpack, raked all his Indiana papers and pictures, even the torn-up envelope, into his hands, and carried it upstairs to his bedroom.

  Still standing in the kitchen, wondering what was happening and what it all meant—why she seemed to insist on making everything between them so much worse—she heard him slam his door. She waited fifteen minutes, paralyzed between hope and rage—hope that he would come downstairs, kiss her, and say he was going to miss her, that he couldn’t live without her, and rage that burned brighter with every second that he didn’t.

  She glanced up the stairs and considered going up to him herself—she could apologize as well. Honestly, she was making this difficult, punishing even. She was punishing him for being happy about all he had accomplished, making him pay for all he had to look forward to by subjecting him to every ounce of her own misery.

  On some level, beyond all the hurt, she knew she was wrong.

  With one hand on the splintered banister, Clare swallowed her hurt, her fear, somehow even her pride, and started up the stairs to Adam’s room. On the wall next to her, the familiar collage of framed school photos of Adam and Kaylee stared back at her—their baby-toothed kindergarten grins all the way through to, up here at the very top of the stairs, their senior portraits. Both of them beautiful, well dressed, posed by a professional photographer outside on a rustic bridge. Not believing anyone in town was capable of capturing this seminal moment to match her exacting expectations, Mrs. Collins had driven Adam and Kaylee down to Cheyenne for the photo session.

  On the last step, delaying the mortification of begging Adam for forgiveness, Clare stared at the pictures of them both.

  Eileen had taken her senior picture—and actually Clare thought that her sister had done a much better job than Mrs. Collins’s professional. Not because of Clare as the subject, no, but because Eileen had an amazing talent, an eye for setting up a shot. Capturing the light, an expression, an exacting tilt of the head, and she always chose the most beautiful locations for her pictures—even if the beauty was not the obvious kind.

  Clare’s senior picture had been taken in the brick planter in front of the Natrona County Library with the bronze statue of an upside down Prometheus giving the gift of fire to humans. Despite the architectural attempt to spice up the front with a concave cement facade, the library would be nobody’s obvious choice for a senior photo. Except it made perfect sense to Eileen when thinking of where to pose her sister. Aside from school and their own house, the public library had been the setting for their childhood. It was always safe, warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and so long as they kept their voices down and didn’t mess around, the librarians would let them stay as long as they wanted. When they had been little, and their mother was on duty, and their father too unpredictably frightening to be around, the library was their first choice whenever it was open. Probably other people wouldn’t understand Clare’s senior picture, but to Clare and her sister, it was the perfect spot.

  Eileen had taken several photos of Clare in typical poses, a variety of smiles, but the one they both thought was the best, and the one Clare submitted to the yearbook, was one Eileen had captured when Clare wasn’t paying attention. Clare was in profile, staring up at Prometheus, her hand resting gently on the one part of the statue she could reach, the ball of flames. Her face was relaxed, curious, and much more natural than any of the poses. But the coolest part had been how their reflections, Prometheus’s and Clare’s, had been captured in the library’s half circle of windows behind them, reflecting their image from every angle that the photo did not.

  “I think that is the best picture I have ever taken of anyone or anything,” Eileen had said after they got the prints back from the One-Hour Photo.

  “The best one ye
t, anyway,” Clare had said, staring down at the picture of herself in her hands. She felt almost the same way looking at the picture as she did looking at the art itself. It was beautiful, yes, but there was something more to it, a deeper meaning, and even though she was part of the art’s subject, being the art didn’t give her any instant insight. “Thank you,” she had said to Eileen.

  In her personal opinion, it was much more special than standing on a bridge in a town you didn’t even grow up in.

  Clare placed her hand on Adam’s doorknob and took a breath, preparing to humble herself before him and apologize. When she heard his voice, low and muffled on the other side of the door, she paused, then leaned in closer and strained to hear better through the hollow core wooden door.

  He was on the phone—and he was obviously trying to be quiet.

  She stood there, her heart beating hard, adrenaline leaking into her bloodstream as her mind raced. Something was going on. She could feel it—her body knew, even if her brain couldn’t formulate a logical reason for the storm of panic brewing in her chest. She should open the door, walk in, see how he reacted—but her body wouldn’t move. What would she say if he looked even a little bit guilty? Guilty of what? she wondered. Speaking with someone privately on the phone? Yes…but why? And more importantly, who? Who would Adam have called right now, because she hadn’t heard the kitchen phone ring, so he was the one who made the call from the extension in his room.

  Clare took a breath and opened the door.

  Adam was lying on his back on his bed, his left arm behind his head while his right cradled the phone to his ear. His eyes met hers. “I have to go,” he said in a now-normal voice, removed the phone from his ear, and placed it on the cradle on his nightstand. When he sat up, he swung his long legs over the side of his bed and stood up to face her, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Who was that?” she asked, the accusation clear in her tone, even though she had wanted to act like nothing was wrong.