Steamed

by Conan-Park, Jessica

  I hadn’t. I was now facing the consequences, which, on this Saturday morning, consisted of shame, guilt, anger, embarrassment, and feelings of such inadequacy that I felt a desperate, impulsive desire to bleach my red hair to white blonde, begin regular tanning sessions at our local QuickTan, and trade my Saturn up for a BMW I couldn’t possibly afford. But I decided I must stick to the rule of not doing anything drastic when in distress. I didn’t want to leave my apartment because Noah might see me, and I didn’t want to stay in my apartment because Noah might stop by. I will never sleep with any neighbors, I will never sleep with any neighbors, I repeated to myself. I am not going to cry, and I am not going to care!

  But I did impulsively call up my friend Daniel.

  “Chloe, it’s too early,” he mumbled in an I’m-still-asleep voice. “Call me back later.”

  “It’s an emergency!” I pleaded.

  “Nobody has emergencies at eight thirty on Saturday morning. Go away.”

  “No, listen! I need your help.”

  Daniel had had a serious girlfriend for over a year, but after explaining this morning’s events, I demanded that he come over and make out with me in front of the condo building. We’d slept together before, so I didn’t see the harm in a little kissing. Actually, we were each other’s backup person in case of a dry spell. In fact, I’d probably slept with Daniel more than with anyone else—meaning little sleep and rarely a bed. The front entryway to his apartment building, a parking garage at two a.m., and an empty football field? Yes. A bed? No. And as much as we liked having sex, we never got it together to actually get involved. But somehow we had managed to stay friends. And right now I wanted him to be a good friend and help me out of this humiliating situation with Noah.

  “I’m not getting out of bed to come make out with you. The guy sounds like a prick. And, besides, I can’t. What about Shelly? I don’t think she’d exactly be thrilled.”

  “Just explain it to her! She’ll understand!” I practically screamed at him. “It’s not real kissing. It’s helping-out-your-friend kissing. Revenge kissing, we’ll call it. And maybe a little groping, like I’ve been having another man on the side the whole time?”

  Daniel gave a simultaneous sigh and laugh. “I’m sorry, Chloe. I’d help you if I could, but I can’t.”

  “I’d do it for you!” I slammed down the phone, furious, flopped on my bed, and pictured Noah’s face as he looked out his window and saw me entwined in a passionate frenzy with a mystery man. He’d probably just nod with approval, the jerk.

  I called my sister, Heather, who didn’t hear a word I said because her three-year-old, Walker, and her two-month-old, Lucy, were both wailing. In the background, her husband, Ben, was saying something about orange-colored poop. Over the family noise, she did seem to understand who was calling and shouted that she’d call me back.

  Heather is only two years older than I am, but at twenty-seven, she already had her life totally together. Married at twenty-three to the wonderful Ben Piper, an architect, she was happily settled in wealthy Brookline in a four-bedroom house I completely envied. Hard not to hate her sometimes.

  My best girlfriend, Adrianne Zane, who has insisted on being called Adrianna since The Sopranos first aired, didn’t even pick up her phone. Thanks to voice mail, screams for help wouldn’t boom out of an answering machine and wake her up. I left a message, anyhow. I said that Noah had had sex with a blonde with bad roots and tawdry fashion sense.

  Adrianna is an independent hairstylist who works for herself. In private, she likes to say that she is willing to do almost anything nonsexual for money. She’ll do hair, clothes, and makeup. She’ll liquor up a terrified bride who refuses to walk down the aisle without a dirty martini in her system. Unfortunately for me, she sleeps until noon most days, so I was left to stew about my love life alone.

  I was lonely. And pissed off. It had been seventeen months since I’d had a real boyfriend, a real relationship that didn’t involve “arrangements” and “mutual understandings.” What really annoyed me was that I didn’t need a boyfriend to feel fulfilled. I liked my alone time. I could watch videos without snuggling with a guy on the couch. I was a self-reliant woman. I just wanted somebody in my life. I was fighting back tears. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t find a normal boyfriend? I wandered in and out of my bedroom and looked around at my disheveled apartment. Even if I got my act together today and cleaned up the mountainous piles of laundry strewn across the bedroom floor, there would still be the matter of the damn non-dishwasher-safe pans molding in the sink—the dumb pans I’d stupidly bought thinking, Of course, I won’t mind a few extra high-quality pans to scrub. Well, no wonder no one wanted to be with me. Every guy out there probably sensed that I was a huge slob with a schizophrenic decorating sense. I eyed my walls with growing embarrassment.

  In a moment of inspiration after watching some cable do-it-yourself show, I had taped off a series of lines on my bedroom walls and halfheartedly started to paint alternating stripes of Tiffany blue and homestead yellow. In my rush to create a dramatic transformation, I had failed to level the lines, which now angled crookedly across the room. Also, when I had started to remove the tape from the wall, bits of plaster had ripped off, leaving a real disaster behind. I’d left the remaining tape in place in the hope of creating the impression of a composition in progress with artistic results to come. I had to stop watching those home improvement shows.

  I hauled myself toward the bathroom to take a shower. En route, I passed through the neon-red living room. What had I been thinking? Neon red! I had to get out of the house. Even if it meant the risk of running into Evil Noah, I had to get out. But first, I needed to handle my mortification by getting the best revenge; I was going to look good. And so began a long shower, complete with ginger-rosemary salt scrub, grapefruit shampoo, banana conditioner, and green-tea bath splash. I shaved every traditionally shaveable part of my body. After a careful application of three smoothing, shining, rejuvenating hair products, I spent forty-five minutes with a blow dryer and a straightening iron until I had coiffed my shoulder-length hair into what I hoped was a go-to-hell style. I did use my styling time to consider why a so-called feminist like me was doing all this grooming and to wonder whether salt scrubs were banned at social work school. Did slathering myself in girly products mean I supported sexist thinking? I had no idea, but I did know that the early fall weather made this a good day for tight black pants, a padded bra, and a fitted sweater. Call it the new feminism.

  I was off to Home Depot to correct my painting misjudgments. I would clean up my apartment, decorate with style, and charge into social work school with a passionate drive to save the world. And, most important, I would show Noah what he was missing out on.

  TWO

  SASHAYING out of my apartment, down the stairs, out the door, and past the Evil Bachelor’s window, I sported what I hoped was a look of confidence and sophistication. There was no indication that Noah saw me—fortunately, since I caught my high-heeled boot on the bottom step and crashed into the peonies. Brushing the dirt off my pants, I thanked God that I was wearing black and continued to strut to the car. On the off chance that Noah was peeking out his window and eyeing me with regret, I gave a great hair flip and slid into the seat. I peeled out of our driveway and sped away, presumably off on an adventure of my own.

  The driver of a black Lexus SUV honked at me for daring to pull into his lane to make a right turn into the Home Depot parking lot. God forbid he let one car get in front of him! It’s amazing that Boston drivers ever reach their destinations alive; this is a city where changing lanes means a near-fatal accident. And who needs a luxury SUV? A sedan is insufficient to cart kids from private school to private lessons to the ultraprivate mansions tucked away in Weston, Lincoln, and Wellesley Hills? But maybe I just had it in for expensive cars this morning.

  All dolled up for paint shopping, I left the car, grabbed the first massive shopping cart I saw, and wheeled my way into the h
allowed halls of the do-it-yourself wonderland. And I would do it myself, I thought pathetically. All alone, with no companion to work with me, to reach the high spots on the walls, or to finish the inevitable third coat all my projects required. Don’t cry in the store! I ordered myself.

  Coming out into the world was beginning to seem like a mistake. Had I really thought that Noah would see me from his window and rush down the stairs to admit that he was a fool and that I was the right girl for him? No. I knew better. But I wanted someone to rush after me, someone to realize I was fall-in-love-get-married-have-children-live-happily-ever-after material. Yes, I was going to be a big hit with the radical feminists at social work school.

  I pushed the cart as fast as I could to the Oops paint section. My favorite part of this store was the steel cart with shelves full of returned cans of paint. Gallons were five dollars, quarts only a buck. I refused to pay full price for paint I was doomed to paint over the next month. On some days, the choices were so unappealing that it was easy to understand why buyers had brought the colors back. I always felt sorry for the returned cans, as if the unwanted colors had been hoping for a purpose, longing for the opportunity to change a room’s atmosphere. How hurtful to have an unappreciative buyer slop a sample patch on the wall and exclaim, “Ugh! What a revolting shade of violet!” And the poor paint would cry, “But you picked me! I was chosen! I was just what you wanted!” So I went on empathic rescue missions to the steel cart to save some of the unwanted. Hm . . . maybe I was cut out for social work after all.

  I looked at the lids of all the cans, each lid with a dab of the paint color and a small neon orange splotch sprayed on to indicate the “Oops” status of the reject. Lots of beiges, browns, and other earth colors today. Perfect. I felt suddenly inspired, and my spirits even lifted some. I would clear off all the bold, disarming hues and designs from my walls to create a solid, clean feel. Simplify, get back to basics, and tone it all down. Clean, organized living was just what I needed to begin the fall. I collected a rich brown, a few coffee shades, and a yellowish color with a sandy texture to it that I hoped would add a brushed-stone effect to the entryway. I gathered up brushes and a heap of plastic paint trays so I wouldn’t have to go to the basement and scrounge through piles of supplies that I hadn’t cleaned properly. Best to start fresh.

  I went to one of the self-checkout aisles and started to scan my items. The register’s computerized female voice began to scold me in loud tones for failing to bag my last scanned item. When I set a gallon of Navajo brown back down on the counter, the computer woman went into convulsions and began asking how I could have been so dumb. Didn’t I even know how to bag items? And what was wrong with me that I couldn’t stop myself from sleeping with a narcissistic pig like Noah? Well, not that last part, but she did rail on at me until a lanky male teen with a ponytail and an orange vest ran over to me to recite informative facts about the self-checkout process. He fixed my purchasing errors and finished the scanning for me.

  “And the money goes in here.” He pointed to the slot.

  By the time I got to the car, my cheeks were streaked with tears. I barely managed to slam the door before I broke into full-blown sobbing. I was so ashamed, not about the paint-buying incident, but about the embarrassment I felt at my latest romantic disaster. I let myself cry for the next twenty-five minutes, but had no tissues and had to blow my nose on a paper bag from Eagles’ Deli. I wiped my face with my hands and checked my appearance in the rearview mirror. The reflection sent me into a fresh bout of wailing. Why had I left my apartment, and how was I going to get back in looking like this? My pale skin was red from crying, my eyes were puffy, my makeup was shot. What if Noah saw me and knew he was the source of my misery? How humiliating would that be? I called Adrianna again from my cell phone but still got her voice mail, so I just hung up. I fixed myself up the best I could, started the engine, and drove out of the parking lot toward home.

  I peeled into my parking spot at the condo and prayed not to run into the guy with the wandering body parts. I unloaded my purchases and tried to slink inconspicuously to the house. Fortunately, Noah wasn’t around. At a guess, he was still languishing in his apartment, savoring the memory of the previous night.

  But Harmony was outside on the lawn.

  Harmony lived on the first floor of our building and annoyed the hell out of me. She weighed next to nothing but had bought herself enormous silicone breasts that threw her off balance, thus creating the impression she was on the verge of toppling over at any minute. Harmony’s involvement in a car accident a few years back had netted her a good-size settlement that had paid for her massive boobies. The bosomy funding source was no secret; she shared it with everyone she met, usually within a few minutes.

  Her asinine banter always drove me completely bonkers. I was still irritated with her from the previous winter, when she complained at one of our monthly condo meetings about the poor job I’d done of shoveling the walkways around the house. In theory, all the tenants were supposed to take turns shoveling snow. The January condo meeting turned into a massive fight about who had actually met the obligation and who had not.

  Harmony was loudly relating an encounter she’d had with a car salesman that afternoon. As she needlessly pointed to her breasts, she said, “ ‘I’m a big girl,’ I says to him. ‘And I need a lotta seat room,’ but he just wants ta show me this little compact thing, and I keep sayin’, ‘I’m too busty for that little thing,’ and he keeps tellin’ me to move the seat back, but I keep tellin’ him I can’t reach the little bar unda the seat ’cause of the girls up here, and then—”

  At that point, Tyler, an acupuncturist on the first floor, was so desperate to shut her up that he shot to his feet and spat out, “So, there seems to be a dispute about the shoveling?”

  Harmony responded by delivering a speech about how dissatisfied she’d been with the path I’d shoveled after the twenty-four-inch snowfall we’d endured the week before. My path was way too narrow for her, she maintained. Did her breasts need more room? I wondered. I snarled that the path had been perfectly acceptable and that at least I’d waited until the snow had stopped before I’d shoveled. I went on to remind everyone of the time Harmony had shoveled only the first three inches of what had turned into a foot-and-a-half blizzard and had claimed she’d met her shoveling obligations. At the end of a long and irritating discussion, the group agreed that all the tenants would like a wider path next time, so Tyler requested that I add, say, another ten inches to the width of my paths. Easy for him to say. He hired some man named Sergio to do his manual labor.

  So my crummy mood held fast this Saturday morning when I saw Harmony, who was standing over a hot Weber grill. She wore what looked like a teeny nightgown with a pattern of minature flowers but was presumably a dress. As she flipped super-size meat patties, balls of sweat dripped down her face, hit the coals, and sizzled. She and her breasts turned to me as I approached the house. She tilted her head and, with a look of concern, asked how I was doing.

  “Fine,” I replied hesitantly.

  Harmony pursed her lips and gave me the thumbs-up sign. “Hang in there. There’s otha’ fish in the sea.” Sympathy and sisterhood! Harmony must have seen Blondie leaving this morning, too. I felt worse than ever.

  Having failed to shrivel up and perish, I nodded halfheartedly, started up the fire escape steps, rushed past Noah’s door, and finally reached the security of my apartment.

  “Bastard,” I said for the hundredth time that day.

  Gato greeted me as I tumbled into the living room with my painting supplies. He quickly brushed up against my leg before rubbing the gallon of honeyed pecan with his long body and letting out an overly affectionate purr. Gato couldn’t even tell the difference between human beings and paint cans—no wonder my mother described him as “socially challenged.” His rubbing and purring meant either that he was in love with my new colors or that he was hungry. I assumed the latter. In the kitchen, I filled his dish with
Iams, grabbed the phone, and checked my voice mail. Nothing. Just me and my paint and my socially challenged cat. I stroked Gato while he devoured his meal and then gave him a final pat.

  I had another shot at brewing a pot of Peet’s coffee and was rewarded with billows of steam surging from the appliance and dark paste seeping out the bottom. I poured a gross cup, changed into torn sweatpants, and decided that if Noah showed up, I wouldn’t answer the door. I threw on a Patty Griffin CD, cranked the volume, taped off the trim in the living room, loaded the paint tray with primer, and started rolling. To cover the red, I’d have to put on a good two coats of primer before I could even begin to create my tranquil room.

  My apartment was small: bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom all joined by a small hallway with a large linen closet. The garish paint and unfinished projects made the place seem cramped. I was convinced that my new design plan would remedy everything. By the third time Patty had sung “Blue Sky,” I had put on two coats of primer. I was just about to start the first earth tone when the phone rang.