by K. B. Draper
I’d attempted to emotionally prepare for the day that Carly would realize I wasn’t enough for her and would leave me but I had not, in any way, shape, or form, prepared myself for this. I was so distracted and freaked out about the future and consuming myself with the “what ifs” that I had completely ignored the present. And the present had just hit me smack in the face. It was like I was driving down the road, so worried about dodging the potholes that I’d completely missed the “Bridge Out Ahead” sign.
I made some immature jealous comment and Carly dismissed me, stating I was being completely ridiculous. I knew in my heart of hearts that this nurse was a threat and that I had done enough damage to the relationship for her to be a serious one.
Two days later, they had lunch again. A week after that I was on the phone with Carly, attempting to convince her to come home so we could talk things out. She was sitting on the nurse’s porch planning on staying the night because she needed to be away from me to think. In that second, I realized that nothing I had imagined in my mind was as painful as the reality of actually losing her. I’d made the worst mistake of my life. I loved her. I wanted to be with her no matter what and maybe if I loved her in the way that expressed my true feelings for her, then maybe I would be enough for her. She had fallen in love with me, not because of my job, not because of my finances, and not because of anything more than the way I loved her. But now, because of my own self-doubt, my own ego-destructive thoughts, I had fulfilled my own misguided self-fulfilling prophecy. She was going to leave me not because she felt I wasn’t good enough for her, but because I thought I wasn’t good enough for her. I had stopped being me, stopped being and acting like the person she fell in love with.
“Please, Carly. Come home so we can talk,” I begged.
“I’ve been asking you to talk to me for months,” she replied.
“I know. I know. I was confused. I want you to come home and let me explain. Please!”
“I don’t think there’s anything more to say. I need to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“I don’t care where we live as long as I’m with you,” I said, but she was already gone.
If you love someone let them go; if they return they are yours forever.
If you keep letting them return …
Umm, yeah I got nothing.
Loren September 2000
I was supposed to be meeting Stacy, Little Jo, and Sheila for drinks but, as always, I was running late. I jumped into the shower, having time to tend to only the top three essential areas: Butt, hootie, and head. I was applying conditioner when my phone rang. Knowing it was Stacy calling to inquire where I was, I blindly reached out of the shower and grabbed my phone. “I’M COMING. I’M COMING. GEEZ!”
“Good to know,” a voice, not Stacy’s, but just as familiar, replied. It had been nearly two years since I’d heard from Loren. Why was she calling now? Probably like all good predators, she could sense when her victim was wounded, vulnerable, and weak.
“Loren?” I said softly.
“How are you?” she asked.
HANG UP! HANG the FUCK UP! Ahhh man … Why am I not hanging up? “Okay. You?”
“Okay. I’ve just been thinking about you lately and wanted to see how you are.”
“I’m fine. It’s been two years. Why are you calling now?”
“I’ve missed you. Can we get together? I want to see you.”
NO! HELL NO! “Ummm … Sure. Yes, I guess.” Oh my God, who is this talking right now? To-do list: Make an appointment with a priest for an exorcism.
She talked for a little longer and we said good-bye. I remained sitting on the edge of the tub, wondering what I had just done. I must have stolen candy from babies, kicked old women, slapped nuns, and tortured kittens in a past life because that was the only viable explanation for why God was punishing me in this one.
The phone rang again. She must be calling back because she forgot to ask for money or a vial of my blood. I answered tentatively, “Hello?”
“Where are you?” Stacy’s voice boomed from the other end.
“I’m coming. I’m coming! Geez!”
I toweled off, grabbed the hairdryer, and began to dry my hair. What the hell? I jumped back into the shower, rinsed the conditioner out of my hair, and redid the butt and hootie routine just in case it was actually a “do” versus a “redo.”
Loren called the next day. “Can I come over?”
“Sure,” I replied.
To-do list: Move up the appointment with the exorcist.
Loren showed up an hour later. She looked the same, same big smile and same big personality.
“So how’s Whitney?” I asked as I motioned for her to take a seat on the couch.
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her in over a year.”
Fleetwood Mac’s “Little Lies” began playing in my head. “Hmmm.”
“How about you? You been seeing anyone?” she asked.
I decided not to reply, “Yes. In the two years of your absence I found the love of my life, lost her due to my own insecurities, and she moved to another state with an over-caring nurse taking my heart with her and leaving me broken, numb, and empty, and as a result I apparently am now susceptible to bouts of stupidity and self-destructive behavior (i.e., talking to you).” Instead I replied, “Ahh. You know.” She slid closer.
I stood quickly before her fangs appeared and she lunged for my neck or my wallet.
“Uhh, maybe we should go get something to eat?” I suggested.
We had dinner. We had breakfast. And the masochistic cycle began again, only this time there was nothing left for her to hurt or destroy except my pocketbook. I realized maybe that was what I deserved or what I was meant to have in my life; a revolving door of women taking little bits of me as they went. The worst part of that whole realization was that I didn’t care. Loren could come into my life this time and when she left, as I knew she would, there was absolutely nothing left for her to take.
For three weeks, things fell into an all too familiar normal. Normal being sleep, eat, work, and run the occasional errand, a stop by the post office, the dry cleaners, or the grocery store. Meantime, Loren would sleep, work, and randomly call proclaiming the need to complete errands of her own, providing vague, if any, descriptive details to indicate what type of errand she was running. I could only assume her errands were far more demanding and labor intensive than applying stamps, mailing bills, picking up laundry, or picking up a gallon of milk because her errands kept her out until 2:00 a.m. I didn’t ask because I honestly didn’t want to know. Ignorance was bliss. Or in my case, ignorance would allow me to honestly reply, “I have absolutely no idea” when I was inevitably called to the stand and the prosecutor questioned me as to Loren’s whereabouts on a certain evening.
One normal Wednesday night, Loren was somewhere doing something and I was home re-honing my active avoidance skills when the phone rang. I glanced at the clock, 7:30 p.m. Too early for Loren’s “I’ll be there in a couple hours. I still have some things to do” phone call but not too early for the “Can you call a bondsman?” call.
“Hello?” I answered reluctantly.
“Hey,” I heard.
My heart hit my stomach and tears started gathering at the corner of my eyes. I choked down the knot that had formed in my throat the instant I heard Carly’s voice and managed to say a weak “Hey” back.
“How are you?” she said.
I’m miserable. I’m an emotional zombie. My life is just a bunch of meaningless events without you. I want to be with you. I need you. I love you. I would give up everything just to spend another day with you. “Okay, I guess. How are you?”
She began to tell me about her job, her house, and her new life without me. “I really like my job, it’s …” you’re an idiot, the biggest idiot that ever lived, well except maybe Pauly Shore and 95 percent of the people on America’s Home Videos, including Bob Saget “… broke up a week ago …” Broke up! Wait. What? What
broke up, who broke up? Please God let her be talking about her and the nurse and not the Smashing Pumpkins, Ellen and Anne, or some nasty kidney stone story from her residency. “… yeah, she moved back there a few weeks ago.”
Yep, the nurse. YESSSS! “I’m sorry,” I attempted to say with some semblance of sympathy in my voice, despite the fact that Kool and the Gang was now singing “Celebration” in my head.
“I have a house here now …”
Ask me to move there. I won’t hesitate, just ask me, ask me to move. I started to mentally pack. Fuck it. Underwear and my dogs, I can live without everything else. I can be there in five hours. No, make that four hours and forty-five minutes. I won’t stop to pee.
“… I’m seeing someone new,” she continued.
Again my world and my thoughts stopped. Surely, I didn’t hear what I just thought I heard. It was probably “Without you I am blue” or “I’m still in love with you.” Right? There was no way I heard …
“… she’s a nurse and …”
And, nothing. I heard nothing more. My great-grandmother once told me that she and some other women would sit next to the bedside of the sick and dying to give them comfort when they passed. She said when they died happy and fulfilled she’d seen their spirits leave their bodies and ascend toward heaven. I’m positive that if my great-grandmother were there with me at that moment she’d have seen my spirit leave my body, fly to the top of the nearest building, jump off, land on a bed of jagged glass, rabid cats, and rusty razor blades, then get back up and fling its bloody spirit body into a vat of peroxide. Repeatedly.
“You there?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m happy for you.”
“How about you? You seeing anyone?”
“Me? Uh, yeah. Loren is kind of back in the picture.”
“Why? Why would you let her back into your life? You deserve so much better.”
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because after you I decided to commit emotional suicide, only to discover you actually have to have emotions to do so and since you and Meg Ryan are currently unavailable at the moment then there really is no point. So, I’m going to just kill myself slowly by dating Loren. “It just kind of happened.”
“Why would you do that to yourself?”
Because maybe she’s all I deserve. “It’s fine. She’s okay.”
The phone rang again an hour after Carly and I hung up. I’d thought maybe it was Carly again. That maybe hearing my voice reminded her how much she loved me and she was calling back to tell me. I pulled the covers from over my head and jumped from my bed where I had been for the last hour awaiting the arrival of a pack of old women to sit at my bedside. “Hello?” I said just a bit too anxiously.
“Do you know where your girlfriend is?”
Not Carly, but Sonya, my supervisor Lucy’s girlfriend. Sonya, the state trooper assigned to oversee the riverboat casinos.
Oh damn. “I have no idea.”
“She’s here at the casino, gambling with another girl at a blackjack table.”
“Are you sure?” I asked with a sigh.
“I’m positive. She and whoever she’s with are damn near making out on one of the tables. I’m watching them on the cameras right now.”
I considered briefly using my re-honed skills of active avoidance and letting it go. Then I decided my skills weren’t that finely tuned. If Loren was with Whitney again there was no way, no matter how emotionally numb I was, I could let her get away with it … again. I thought about the last three times I’d let Loren come in and out of my life. Interestingly, I found that my emotional numbness didn’t seem to include anger.
“Can you record and burn me a copy of the video?” I asked.
“No, but I can print you some still pictures.”
“Perfect. I’ll be right there.”
I called Little Jo and Sheila for some moral support. They both were more than eager to be a part of the “Busting Loren” mission.
Thirty minutes later, the three of us piled into the surveillance room of the casino. Surveillance videos of the casino gaming floors were playing on TV screens located on the wall. I saw Loren immediately, sitting at a blackjack table. I watched as she turned over a king of hearts onto her nine of spades and three of clubs. Busted. Then the other familiar blonde sitting next to her leaned over for a consoling kiss. Busted again.
Sonya gave me two printouts with eight framed aerial shots of Loren and Whitney in a variety of different poses: leaning toward each other, holding hands, hugging, kissing, and other forms of affection that shouldn’t have been displayed in public.
I contemplated briefly going down and casually sitting next to the lovebirds and getting dealt in a hand of blackjack, but I feared once Loren said, “Hit me” I would before the dealer could. Since I wasn’t one for making public scenes and wasn’t too fond of being hit back or arrested, I decided to head home with photographic evidence in hand, making only a quick stop at the store for new door locks.
Three days later, I heard knocking on the front door. Not expecting company, I figured it was either a solicitor or Loren finally finding her way back to my house. I wished for a solicitor. I unlocked the door.
“My key isn’t working.” Loren stated as I opened the door.
“That’s a common side effect when the locks get changed,” I replied.
“Why did you change the locks? Are you mad because I haven’t been around for a couple of days? I’m sorry. There was some family stuff I was dealing with and I didn’t want to bother you with it.”
“You’re so considerate.”
I thought about calling her out on her family problem lie but I just didn’t feel like it. I simply picked up the pictures of her and Whitney and handed them to her. She looked them over for a minute and handed them back.
“Who is that?” she asked in her best “I’m completely innocent” voice.
“You know exactly who it is. I don’t want to argue or even talk about it. I think it would be good if we never see each other again.”
She cussed at me and accused me of spying while acting like it was a greater sin than cheating. I listened, I nodded, and I watched her walk out my door again.
You can’t buy love.
But you can pay $19.95 per month and search for it …
Alicia November 2001
It had been a year and a half since Carly left and besides that one month of self-inflicted punishment with Loren, I hadn’t desired or even had the energy for a date, much less a relationship. Although I was perfectly content moving through life as an emotional zombie, my friends didn’t find my actions so tolerable.
I was standing in front of my refrigerator, attempting to come up with an edible meal out of sour cream, ketchup, carrots, orange juice, and an egg when the phone rang. I checked the caller ID hoping it was Julia Child with a creative omelet recipe. It was Little Jo, even better. Ten minutes later, after letting it “slip” that I was getting ready to make a sour cream and ketchup omelet, I was in the car heading to Sheila and Little Jo’s for lasagna. I didn’t feel bad for guilting my way into a dinner invitation because it was their decision to buy a house together, which in turn caused me to lose my chef and my lawn mower-er. Now I just needed to find a way, over dinner, to sucker Sheila into mowing my yard next weekend and the world would be righted once again.
An hour later, I secretly unbuttoned my pants and asked Little Jo for seconds. Since I’d sworn off women and dating, I figured there was no need to watch my waistline.
“You know, if you found a woman who could cook …” Little Jo began.
Knowing where this conversation was headed, I quickly interrupted. “But I have you, and your unbelievable cooking skills have spoiled me for any other.”
“Oh, please. Come on, it’s been like a year since you dated anyone.” I opened my mouth to protest. “We’re not counting the month of insanity with Loren as dating,” Little Jo replied.
“And she too has spoiled me for any oth
er,” I retorted.
This little back and forth “convince and reject” exchange between Little Jo and me continued through dessert. As I drove home later, I had to admit that while I had reasons for my dating abstinence, I’d watched Little Jo and Sheila interact, their thoughtful gestures, the occasional hand holding and kiss. The exchange between girlfriends had made me a little envious of the silent intimacy that one shares when in a relationship. I briefly considered violating my no girlfriend covenant but then quickly realized there was really no place to find a potential future ex-girlfriend while wearing sweatpants. I was relatively sure sweatpants would be the only item of clothing that would fit after my lasagna gorge-fest, not to mention the two pieces of double-layered chocolate cake I had also inhaled. To-do list tomorrow: join a gym.
A week and three painful gym visits after my last meal at Little Jo’s, I again found myself in front of my open refrigerator contemplating how I could meet the five essential food groups with sour cream, ketchup, and leftover white rice from last night’s take-out Chinese. The phone rang. Come on, let it be Julia Child.
“Please say you’re calling to tell me you’re cooking roast beef and mashed potatoes, so I don’t have to eat ketchup fried rice tonight,” I said as my hello.
All I heard was sobs and sniffling. “Little Jo?” More sobs. “Little Jo, you okay?”
“Can you come over?” Sob, sob. “Sheila … Sheila’s gone.” By the significant amount of sniffling, gasps of breaths between sobs, and tone of her voice, I assumed that by “gone” Little Jo didn’t mean to the store to get a roast beef. I was immediately sorry on two levels.
