Parts Unknown

by Davidson, S. P.

  “Let’s not talk about our families, okay? Let’s just have it be us, that’s all. Just for this week. When we’re together—they don’t exist.”

  I nodded mutely. And then consciously let it all go, like the evening last week when I’d been so absorbed in researching Josh I’d forgotten all about Lucy. And so his body rubbing against mine excited me again, and for a while I was able to completely forget everything. In that bed, we could be anywhere. It was our haven. We could be outside the real world, protected in our own little universe, just like we used to be. Just our bodies and our minds, seared together, welded in place.

  12:15. A sixth sense made me look at the bedside LED alarm clock as we drowsed in each others’ arms, our lips brushing, him still inside me so that we were totally connected, even while half-awake. A whole morning had gone by, but it felt as if only minutes had passed. I jerked out of bed convulsively. “I have to go,” I gasped, hastily pulling on clothes, forgetting my underwear in my hurry. I leaned down for a lingering kiss, feeling wetness leaking down into my jeans, soaking the crotch. Like stupid kids, we hadn’t even been using protection. He hadn’t asked, assuming I had it covered. I didn’t ask, because I wanted to feel him, whole and alive, throbbing inside me. And I simply hadn’t thought about going to a drugstore and buying condoms. And getting pregnant for the second time had been such a dismal failure so far, I was beginning to decide I was probably infertile anyhow, Lucy’s birth some fluke or miracle. But really, those were all pitiful excuses. I was really, secretly hoping that maybe I’d get pregnant, and I would be bound to Josh forever, through our child. It was both a calculating and self-destructive move, but I hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night for more than a week. Right then, it seemed perfectly logical.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I murmured into his lips. “I love you.”

  I hurried down the stairs into the afternoon breeze. The unseasonable heat wave of the previous days had passed. It was cool March weather again, windy, cloudy, in the 60s. The air had shifted.

  ~ ~ ~

  Tuesday night, I closed myself in the office room, explaining to George that I needed to catch up on e-mail. I didn’t think I could manage spending the evening next to him on the sofa, pretending everything was fine, making small talk.

  I checked my email. In fact, I was caught up on my correspondence, such as it was. The only people I emailed regularly were my high-school friend Kim and Padma, the friend I’d made that year in London. But there was nothing new from them. I clicked over to Facebook and noted Alex was online.

  Hey mister, I wrote on his wall. Long time no talk. That was an understatement. We rarely emailed, and spoke even more rarely. He hadn’t visited our parents’ house since he’d left for college so long ago. Not for Thanksgiving, not for Christmas, not ever, not once. He sent cards to everyone on the appropriate birthdays and anniversaries; he phoned me sporadically, and when he was in the Los Angeles area for work or vacations, we’d meet for lunch: hasty affairs in which we recounted facts about our lives, small anecdotes, and then after forty minutes he’d check his watch and explain that he was late, he really had to go.

  Tonight, though, he posted back, within minutes: Been busy. I’m sorry. Been meaning to catch up.

  IM? I typed, then double-clicked my instant messenger.

  Seconds later, he logged on.

  So what have you been up to these days?

  Working mostly. I can never catch up. I don’t remember what it’s like to get more than five hours of sleep a night.

  Poor you. That’s what you get for being a corporate lawyer.

  Shut up.

  What’s Sheila up to?

  She’s pissed at me. I forgot our anniversary.

  Recklessly, I went for broke.

  I miss you.

  Me too. Maybe I’ll get to LA this summer. Will let you know.

  No, I wrote. I miss you. How we used to talk.

  What do you mean?

  A long time ago. When we were kids.

  That’s dredging up some ancient history. I could feel his impatience. He was going to log off soon, pleading work.

  What if we could let it go? What if we didn’t need to hold on to it anymore? What if it’s crushing us inside, and if we just even talked about it for once, we’d be okay?

  A few minutes passed, but Alex was still there.

  I know that if you don’t talk to me, or to them, you don’t have to remember. But it was a long time ago.

  Why do you have to bring this up now?

  Because maybe holding on to it makes it worse. Worse than it really was.

  It’s true that nothing happened. But it could have. The thing that kills me is, would they have let it happen?

  What they did was wrong. But some good came out of it, didn’t it? We got opportunities we wouldn’t have had.

  Maybe. Like you believe that.

  No, really! Mom especially has been trying to make amends, ever since Lucy was born. It’s true they’re not the most loving parents. They never were. But they’re trying.

  They are what they are. And it’s not even that. If you take that situation away, you’d still be left with people you wouldn’t even want to spend time with if you weren’t related to them.

  But we are. And just because you walked away doesn’t mean they aren’t still your parents. They talk about you all the time. They always did. Sure, part of it’s bragging and keeping up appearances. But if you look past that—they miss you, too. Can you accept them, for who they are? And maybe start again from there? And can we be friends again, really friends?

  You and I—definitely. Mom and Dad—no. I can’t.

  I understand. I love you, Alex.

  I love you too.

  Bye.

  Till next time.

  Chapter 14

  “I want to apologize,” Josh said early Wednesday, as we leaned breathless against the apartment door after slobbering all over each other for about fifteen straight minutes. “About what happened at the end.”

  “It’s all in the past,” I demurred. “What happened, happened. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

  “No—I’ve always felt incredibly guilty. Like I wasn’t paying attention. And I lost the one thing I should have held on to.”

  “It would never have worked,” I replied. “We were just kids. A long-distance relationship for two years, until I finished college? It would have been impossible. And your family . . .”

  He sighed. “You only get that one chance, though. How often does anyone meet their soulmate, in the first place? We were so lucky. We found each other, and we were together for a little while. But we could have had so much more.”

  I pillowed my head on his chest. “It was better, sometimes, to have the memories. Of that one perfect month. We weren’t together long enough for anything to spoil. Just long enough for it to be amazing, and beautiful. The most memorable experience of my life. My one great adventure.” I pulled back a bit. “Anyhow, what are you talking about having just one chance for? This is our second chance, right now.”

  “Maybe,” he whispered into my hair. Then: “It’s different, long. I miss the spikes.”

  “I’ll cut it again.”

  Then I stopped thinking, stopped talking, our sweaty bodies stuck together like pieces of plastic wrap, hands grasping, groping, touching. All I needed to do was live right in that moment. Letting my other life fall away like a snake’s discarded skin.

  “You’re exactly like I remember,” he murmured into my hair afterward.

  “But I’m so different!” I exclaimed. “I’m just a housewife—just a boring mom, like anyone else.”

  “No, you’re not. That’s what you are on the surface, sure. But I can see the real Vivian is still there underneath. No one can paint like you do and be just a boring mom.”

  “Well, you’re the only one out there that thinks so. But thanks,” I said, a bit forlornly. Inside, though, I was starting to glow.

  He chu
ckled. “How many boring housewives are doing this every morning while their kids are in school?”

  “Probably more than you think,” I retorted.

  After a while, we wandered into the kitchen holding hands, naked, me suddenly ravenous. The kitchen window overlooked the dining room of the neighboring duplex, but I didn’t care. I rummaged through the fridge, excavating the detritus previous renters had left behind. I tossed long-expired salad dressing and some dubious salsa, and exhumed a carton of eggs, just a few days past their expiration date. I scrambled some in a pan while Josh lounged at the kitchen table, paging through the Larchmont Chronicle, the neighborhood paper. I wondered, in jumbled fragments of thought, what I loved more: being with Josh, or loving the way I felt about myself when I was with Josh. I loved the way he saw me, as the talented artist he knew before. I wasn’t that person anymore, really. But when I was with him, I could be. I could touch the self I used to be, with the spiky hair, and the thrift shop clothes, and the passionate ideas.

  When I was with Josh, I could be twenty-one again. I could be that girl once more, and, too, the girl I’d been at the Getty that day, right before I met George. All the possibilities in the world spread before me.

  We ate the eggs, feeding each other with our fingers because I couldn’t find the silverware. Naked, at the kitchen table, sucking on Josh’s index finger, we were like a parody of a couple. Some Hieronymus Bosch vision of bliss.

  “Have you kept in touch with Trevor or Dov?” Josh asked.

  “What? Oh goodness, the last time I saw them both was at that farewell drinks night at the pub.”

  “That’s funny—you seemed so close with them,” he said. “I would’ve thought you saw them in London that year.”

  “I never went back.” I pushed my eggs around on my plate with a finger. “I wanted to remember everything the way it was. And going back to that amazing flat would ruin it somehow.”

  “You mean, that grungy place?” Josh scoffed. “Oh, please. I couldn’t wait to leave it. The only good thing about the flat was having you there.”

  “I loved it there!” I exclaimed, surprised. “Everything about it—that crazy back garden, the stove that didn’t work—it was all wonderful. I can’t explain it. It was like being there was magical, like anything could happen.”

  “Oh, you’re just a hopeless romantic,” Josh snorted. “It was just an apartment, is all. With some craaaazy roommates. You and me—we’re magic. Not that cut-rate place.”

  But that wasn’t true. It had been everything. Josh, and the apartment, and the sense of possibility, all of us there on the verge of something new.

  That was the difference between me and Josh, right there. He’d left that flat behind him long ago, but I was still there, and I couldn’t get out. I kept trying to move forward, but there I still was, yearning for 1998.

  And at 12:15, there I went, back into the world I lived in every day, dreading the prospect of an entire afternoon with Lucy, the dreary options for dinner, the long hours till bedtime. I wished desperately that the world inside that spacious duplex was the one I really lived in, and that my days with George and Lucy were just a detour from my real life.

  ~ ~ ~

  I made a last-minute appointment with Liz, the hair stylist I went to on occasion. She worked out of her garage in Los Feliz, and she could slot me in at 7:30 pm that evening. George came home at seven, and I kissed him perfunctorily as I dashed out the door, yelling back at him, “Lucy needs a bath; I’m getting my hair cut; back later!”

  I noticed belatedly that he was carrying a bouquet of flowers. He never brought home flowers—the place was a friggin’ orchid conservatory already, for crying out loud. He gaped after me, baffled, but I was beyond caring. Battling traffic on Western, I had plenty of time to think, and all I thought about was Josh. The world had narrowed to a small pinprick—I could only really see one person. He was my everything. I was living a corny pop song, replacing my life’s previous dystopic Talking Heads soundtrack with some peppy Ashley Simpson tune.

  I walked around back and Liz let me in the garage. Her hair was dyed silver this time, which looked shocking paired with her mid-twenties face. Post-ironic or something. I hopped into her vintage burgundy barbershop chair and instructed, “Liz, it’s all gotta go. Cut it off.”

  Liz got out the shears, and as the hair fell to the floor, I felt a reverse Samson-and-Delilah moment. My head got lighter and lighter, so it almost bobbed on my neck. I felt the blood rushing to my brain. I could think so clearly now, see so clearly.

  But when I got home, George squinted at me quizzically, marking his place in Fermat’s Enigma as I came in. “So what was the big deal,” he inquired, “That you had to rush out, at a moment’s notice, to get your hair cut?”

  I blushed. “I just needed to . . . you know the feeling, when your hair’s too long, and you can’t wait another minute to get it cut?”

  George didn’t know the feeling. He had a standing appointment at the old-fashioned barber shop on Larchmont—a place where the proprietor still lathered your neck with a brush, and shaved you with a straight razor. George cut his hair whenever it exceeded ½ inch.

  “It’s how you used to wear it, before we got married. I thought you had moved on from that look.”

  “How can you move on from a haircut?” I asked defensively, arranging and rearranging the fanned magazines on the coffee table to give my hands something to do. “I mean, it’s just hair. I don’t know—I just wanted a change.”

  “I don’t mind putting Lucy to bed. You know that.” George’s cheeks were flushed too. “But I like to spend some time with you on weekday nights. I have a long day at work. You’ve got all morning to run your errands. So it shouldn’t be a lot to ask, for us to just talk for a while after Lucy goes to bed.”

  “Of course.” I ran my fingers nervously through my hair, still surprised not to feel anything past the bottom of my ears. I tried to force my shaky voice to match the evenness of his tones. “It’s not too much to ask. You’re right. Anyhow,” I said, defeated, “It’s just a haircut. It’s not like I did anything major, or anything.”

  The flowers he’d been carrying were arranged in a vase in the center of the coffee table. The glass table surface reflected them underneath—bright daisies, filler clumps of statice, little baby ferns. “What are the flowers for?” I asked.

  “They were for you,” George said.

  “Thanks—that’s really nice.” I leaned to inhale their scent—grassy and ordinary. “What’s the occasion?”

  “I don’t know.” George looked down. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

  “Well, it’s really sweet.” I pecked his mouth, puzzled. Why would he buy me flowers?

  We so rarely fought, having two disagreements in less than two weeks was unusual. Our days together coalesced like the water in the bathtub, after Lucy’s bath was done: small ripples, puddling a little to the sides, a scummy sheen over the top, so you couldn’t see what was beneath.

  Of course, both of our arguments were my fault. Everything had been fine, so long as I stuck with the plan. So long as I didn’t change anything. And now here I was, sneaking around, sleeping with Josh behind George’s back, like a belated teenage rebellion. Not like my parents ever had much in the way of rules—they wouldn’t even notice if I’d ever stayed out past ten p.m. Like I ever did. So now, here I was at age twenty-nine, faced with my first chance to defy authority. I was pushing back against George—but this time, it wasn’t some juvenile slip-up. This was for real. It my own life I was screwing up, for good.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “George—I’m really sorry. I’ll stay home every night from now on, I promise.”

  His eyes lit up and I could feel his palpable relief as he squeezed me close against him on the sofa. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that,” he said.

  ~ ~ ~

  But even as I apologized, I knew I’d go back. I couldn’t stay away, knowing Josh was right there, just blo
cks away, waiting for me.

  Josh rubbed my head when I arrived the next morning. “You look great. But you didn’t do this just for me, did you?”

  “No!” I said, too quickly. “I did it for myself, of course.” I realized I was starting to talk like I had when I’d first met Josh. Over the years with George, I had grown to speak a bit like him—slowly, deliberately, with spaces between the words so long you could insert a finger into them. Now I spoke fast, matching Josh’s intonations.

  We kissed for a while but didn’t move toward the bedroom. I wondered what to talk about. Our families were off-limits, and I hadn’t painted at all this week—I’d been with Josh the whole time. I longed for the days in London when we were constantly in motion—either exploring the city, or creating art and writing together. It seemed silly for me to bring my painting supplies to his apartment when we were together for so short a time, though.

  I slumped on the sofa. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Time stretched out, embarrassingly. Oh no—he was going to realize what a boring person I really was. Thinking furiously, I asked, “So what are you thinking about writing next?”

  “Ah!” Josh perked up. “I’ve got a couple ideas, actually. But before I tell you about them, I just want you to know. You always were the only one who understood. You’re the only person I can talk to about my writing. I just never felt comfortable with anyone. Not even Caroline. It’s just the way it is. I’m used to it, because I’ve never trusted anyone that way, except you. But now that we’re together again, I realize how much I was missing.”

  “With you too,” I agreed. “It’s like living in two dimensions, instead of three dimensions. You go along and you think those two dimensions are normal. But then you see how much more you could have, and you’ll never be happy the way things were again.”

  He massaged my neck, gazing at me with that sleepy, sexy look I loved. But then his cell phone rang and he walked over to the fireplace, picked up the phone from the mantle, looked at the number, and said, “I need to get this.” I hugged my knees as he walked into the kitchen. Although he spoke softly, in the echoing apartment I could hear him clearly enough: