Girl Before a Mirror

by Liza Palmer

  I’m fine.

  I’m at the Mermaid Bash in Phoenix, Arizona, and when not challenging my boss like some frat boy in a Viking hat and being besties with a twenty-five-year-old pinup girl who just got soooo drunk, guuuuuyyysss, I’m spending my nights with a British stranger revealing more about myself than I did with my ex-husband in eleven years of marriage.

  I’m fine.

  Preeti comes back with our drinks, and we fall back into easy conversation, but when I go to take a sip of my club soda I notice my hands are shaking.

  I’m fine.

  I remember my mother would always ask me how I was doing when she came in after a long day painting. And I’d say, “I’m fine.” She would smile blithely and return to her studio calm and happy, secure in the knowledge that I was content.

  Fine.

  I was never fine. I came to loathe fine. And then I got really good at actually being fine. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to cry and laugh and tell stories about my day and perform the elaborate plays I’d written with Cheetah for her. I wanted to hug her and I wanted her to brush my hair like the moms in the TV shows did for their daughters. I wanted her to be nosy about my business so I could say, “Butt out, mooommm.”

  No, this isn’t about Lincoln. Or Sasha. Or Audrey. Or Lumineux. It’s about me. About me being brave enough to let people get close, without a guarantee of happy epilogues and hand-in-hand walks into the sunset. Trusting I can handle it, even if things don’t work out.

  Of course, I know this already. Everyone does. It’s the gist of 99 percent of the quotes on social media walls. Be brave and let go and let people in and love with your whole heart, blah blah blah. We all know what’s good for us. The stumbling block is whether we believe we deserve better. The sad truth is that most of us are far too happy with settling for fine because that’s the most we think we’re allowed.

  We know there is such a thing as greatness; the hitch is we don’t think we deserve it.

  Preeti and I make our rounds. Talk to the ranks of the League of Romance Novelists. Helen Brubaker is doing some television thing, so she’s absent this evening. I’m kind of glad. After the proper amount of time, Preeti and I exchange exhausted looks. We say our good-byes and walk out to the valet together.

  As we’re waiting for our cars, I’m hoping she’ll bring up her lunch with Audrey. Something. A progress report, what they talked about, how Audrey is half the woman I am and isn’t it hilarious that she thinks she’s going to horn in on this campaign! High five! The valet brings her car first. She says good-bye, and I can feel waves of desperation infused with competitiveness and laced with territorial rage bubbling up inside me while I airily wave to her as she drives off into the stultifying Phoenix heat. I drive to the hotel in silence. I don’t even know where to start at this point.

  Exhausted, I happily pull in to the Biltmore. The hotel looks particularly gorgeous at night all lit up.

  I’m walking in from the valet when my phone rings. Ferdie.

  “Hey, hold on a sec. Let me get into the lobby,” I say, weaving my way through the crowd at the entrance to the hotel.

  “Yeah, all right,” he says.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask once I’m out.

  “Yeah . . . yeah, it’s fine,” he says.

  “Ferdie.”

  “I mean, I’m in jail, but—”

  “What?? Come on,” I say, walking farther away into the lobby.

  “I wasn’t even going to call you, but you know the whole one-phone-call thing,” Ferdie says.

  “What happened? What did—”

  “What did I do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do I always do?”

  “Fighting,” I say, resigned.

  “Yeah, there’s a bunch of us in here. It won’t be anything.”

  “I thought everything was going so well,” I say, hating that I thought for even one second that Ferdie was out of the woods.

  “It is,” he says.

  “Don’t act like that. Don’t be shocked that I’m upset,” I say.

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “To you. Which is my concern. I’m hoping you’re just nobly downplaying this so I won’t worry, but oddly I don’t think that you are,” I say.

  “Look, I called. I drank too much and said some shit. I’ll be out in the morning,” he says. I am quiet. Shaking my head in the lobby of this stupid vortex of a hotel in Phoenix—a city I will never return to, thankyouverymuch. “Anna. Anna, I’m sorry okay?”

  “No, you’re not. You’re just not.”

  “I am, I feel really bad,” he says.

  “But you don’t, though. Whatever this life of yours is? It’s working for you. If you wanted to make a change, you would.”

  “Oh, like you?”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t turn this around. We’re talking about you.” I can hear the clicks and beeps of another call coming through on my phone. I check the screen. Lincoln. I don’t answer.

  “Yeah, we always talk about me.”

  “Yeah, we do, don’t we? I am so tired of worrying about you,” I say.

  “Well, no one asked you to.”

  “Oh, so this call is supposed to what? Make me feel awesome?”

  “I was just checking in.”

  “Next time could you check in from a job? Or how about the house of a nice lady friend that isn’t named Jade and doesn’t accessorize with bongs and dream catchers? Come on, Ferdinand. You’re better than this,” I say.

  “No, Anna. I’m not. That’s where you’ve always been wrong.”

  “Look, I get back Sunday night. We’ll talk then.”

  “Fine.”

  “Can you stay out of trouble until then?” He is quiet. “Ferdie?”

  “My time’s up. Hey, have fun in Phoenix,” he says.

  “Ferdie. Ferdie.” He hangs up and I feel like screaming.

  “Motherfu—” I say, hanging up. I’m however many thousands of miles away and . . . it doesn’t matter. How much longer am I going to have to worry about my little brother? I thought this new gig reffing hockey would do something. Would make him happy.

  I feel so lost. Angry. I’ve been good my entire life. A hard worker. A good friend. And over the last year, I’ve taken my life down to the studs, asking the big questions and . . . a text from Lincoln comes through. I throw my phone into my purse. No. No. I survived parents who couldn’t have cared less and grew up with nothing to hold on to but myself and my anvil of a brother, constantly drowning me in worry. And work. I had my work. And I loved it. Because if I worked hard in school, I got good grades. If I turned in assignments I got a gold star. It was fair.

  But now Audrey—oh, sorry, Ms. Holloway—wants to swan in and take the credit and get the grade I earned? It’s not fair, but work hasn’t been fair for a very long time. Relegated to the pink ghetto of only repping products for women, because God forbid I could sell something as out of my league as breakfast cereal or a running shoe. Several years ago at a huge advertising conference a couple of men from my office and I were asked to speak on some panels. I was over the moon at the prospect. Was it going to be about planning a big campaign, how to work with the art department, seeing an idea through to fruition? Nope. Those panels were for the other two men from the agency. Three other women and I were put on a panel called “Ladies Who Sell.”

  I feel my phone vibrate in my purse. Lincoln.

  I can’t.

  As the lobby buzzes and moves around me, I am still. Paralyzed with anger. My parents are luxuriating in their Friday night, free from the knowledge that their one and only son is in the drunk tank again. I can hear Dad now preaching about personal responsibility and it’ll do Ferdinand good to spend the night in jail and tough love this and man up that. And Mom would just be so overwhelmed with it all and disappear into her studio with just a string of French words and Dad would tell me, “Now look what you did to your mother.”

  I begin to pace around the lobby, tryi
ng to downplay the muttering. I can’t help but talk this out. I have to get to my room, but I can’t be trapped like that right now. The only thing keeping me sane is that I’m in public, ugh, I’m in public. I fold my arms across my chest and the intensity, the anger, and the unfairness of it all are momentarily contained. How . . . do I go home tonight? Will another opportunity be ruined by—

  I look up to Lincoln walking across the lobby toward me, wearing a tuxedo with his bow tie untied. As he nears, he begins to take in how off the rails I am. His expression goes from confused to concerned to a tad bit scared in seconds. And yet he continues walking toward me. I have a thousand things to say to him. I’m fine! It’s okay! Let’s grab dinner! My brother sucks! Nothing is fair!

  But Lincoln just walks over and pulls me into him, wrapping his arms tightly around me without so much as a word. And I just cry. And cry. Cry as he holds me and tugs me in closer and soothes me with a shhhhh with the lobby buzzing around us and people staring and the baseball game playing on the TV in the background and Audrey getting credit for my work and Sasha passed out and Ferdie in jail and my parents don’t care and I’m all alone . . . I’m all alone . . .

  “It’s going to be all right,” Lincoln says.

  11

  I don’t want to talk about it as I follow Lincoln to his room. And I don’t want to talk about it as I free him from his tuxedo. I don’t want to talk about it as he strips me of my sensible business casual attire. And I don’t want to talk about it as we fall into each other again with an intimacy and a tenderness that now seem frightfully commonplace between us. I don’t want to talk about it as I take a shower later that night and I don’t want to talk about it when he joins me. I don’t want to talk about it as I sneak back to my room for my pajamas and toiletries wearing just his bathrobe and with a wet head from the shower. I don’t want to talk about it as we order enough room service for a small army and I don’t want to talk about it as he takes me again while we wait for the food to arrive. As I sit on his unmade bed in pajamas I thought no one would see, Lincoln lets me not talk about it. For a while.

  “Tomorrow’s the last day of the conference,” I say, dipping my chicken fingers into a swampy barbecue sauce.

  “And you leave . . .” he says, wiping his face after taking a giant bite out of a hamburger.

  “Sunday morning,” I say.

  “I leave Sunday morning, as well,” he says.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  We are quiet as we eat from a selection of food that would please any seven- or eight-year-old, with the dark cloud of real life hovering over both of us.

  “What do you have on for tomorrow?” he asks.

  “Nothing until the big pageant,” I say.

  “So we can just stay here until then,” Lincoln says.

  “Here as in . . .”

  “This room,” he says, taking a sip of his water.

  “And then what?” I say, even though I hate it. I can’t not say it. It’s the elephant in the room and I can’t stand it anymore.

  “Hm,” Lincoln says, his mouth full with hamburger.

  “You can’t keep shoving that hamburger in your mouth all night,” I say. He swallows.

  “And why are you so keen to have that conversation and yet perfectly comfortable not talking about what was so disturbing to you earlier?” He shifts in his chair.

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” he says. He takes another giant bite of his hamburger.

  “Nice. Very nice,” I say, just as the sound of his chewing fills the room. I’m just about to start talking again when he takes another giant bite. “Fine. My brother called and . . . and he was annoying. Little brothers, right?” My voice clunks and hitches over what isn’t said as if my answer has been redacted by some government agency. Lincoln takes the napkin from his lap and politely wipes his mouth. He sets his hamburger down on the plate.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that, love,” he says.

  “Whyyy?!” I ask, flopping down on the bed. “Can’t we just . . .” I try to look sultry in my droopy, stained pink tank top and men’s blue-striped pajama bottoms, and my hair up in a ratty topknot from the shower.

  Lincoln yawns.

  “It’s my fault. It’s my fault he’s a screwup,” I say. Out loud. For the first time.

  “Who’s a screwup?”

  “Ferdie. My younger brother,” I say. “By nine years.”

  “How is it your fault?”

  “Because I essentially raised him, so I mean, I’d love to blame my parents, but . . . it was me,” I say, unable to look at him.

  “That is not your fault.” His voice is solid. It’s not a question and he’s not confused.

  “But—”

  “I don’t need any further information. I don’t need to know how it was that a ten-year-old Anna Wyatt couldn’t properly raise her baby brother. Have you ever thought that it was you who got him this far?”

  “To a drunk tank in Georgetown?”

  “Is that where he is?”

  “I’m assuming so. It’s where he was the last time. And the time before that.” I gesture and the time before that and before that and before that . . .

  “Is it the drink?”

  “I know what you’re going to say next, but—”

  “Do you?”

  “The whole AA thing.”

  “The whole AA thing?” he repeats.

  “Ferdie’s not an alcoholic,” I say.

  “Well, congratulations to him then,” Lincoln says.

  “I didn’t mean to—” My eyes drop to his chest. The scars and the dents, the burns and the rebuilding of tissue. “I’m sorry.”

  “The first step is admitting you have a problem.”

  “Wait, so I have to do that for him, too?”

  “Of course not, but he may not be the only one who has to come to this realization.”

  “He’s my brother,” I say.

  “And he’ll remain your brother, but—”

  “But what?”

  “But maybe he’s not simply the loser you fear he is. Maybe he’s an addict.”

  “Oh, so now he’s an addict?”

  “You tell me.”

  “He’s addict adjacent.”

  “Hm,” Lincoln says, shaking his head.

  “He’s all I’ve got,” I say. This rush of emotions swirls inside me. I have no idea where they come from or how I can explain them. But I feel as though if I started crying right now I’d never be able to stop.

  “Well, he’s not all you’ve got,” Lincoln says.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think I do.” I walk over to him, closer to the chocolate flourless cake he ordered. I lean over and kiss him. Another kiss. “This argument is fast becoming oddly arousing,” he says, pulling me onto his lap. He wraps his arms around my waist. “And yet you’re still attempting to get out of talking about what was bothering you earlier this evening.” He kisses me. And I feel him smiling. I pull back from him.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, leaning back to reach for the fork.

  “Will you stop at nothing?” he asks.

  “I don’t want to talk about sad things anymore,” I say. I cut into the cake and bring the bite over and feed it to Lincoln. He lets me. He chews and swallows. But once he’s finished, he stops my hand from feeding him another bite.

  “I’m trying to get to know you,” he says. I stand, take the cake, and go back over to the bed. Lincoln watches me. I take a bite of the cake.

  “Why?”

  “Just start bloody talking, woman.”

  “We have one more day, Lincoln. Why—”

  “That may be, but—” His face changes in those seconds.

  “So you agree with me. That we only have one more day.” Lincoln is silent. He refuses to take the bait. “You know how you think about talking about one thing and then it becomes this tangle of cords you can’t find th
e end of?” I say, taking another bite of the cake.

  “Very well acquainted.”

  “If I talk about what was upsetting me earlier, it’s everything. It’s always been everything,” I say.

  “I get that.”

  “There was this great quote in an Agatha Christie mystery once that—and I’m paraphrasing—that everyone always acts like the murder is the first thing to happen, but it’s actually the last.”

  “So, our lives are analogous to a dead body.”

  “No, you know—”

  “I’m just trying to make a joke so I don’t let on how much that one statement completely resonated with me.”

  “As you do,” I say. Lincoln laughs. His smile fades.

  “Because then I’d have to ask why was I in Afghanistan in the first place,” he says. “What came before.” He brushes his hand over his scars. “You know what I used to say to women when I was . . .” A long sigh and he looks up at me as if he’s thinking, why not. “When I was done with them?” I shake my head no. “They’d ask me about what happened in Afghanistan and I was probably pissed and definitely didn’t want to talk to them about it. I would just say—oh my God, this is mortifying—I’d just say, ‘All of my scars are on the outside.’ The worst.” I am quiet. Trying not to laugh. “No, please. Feel free. Who says that?” I’m just shaking my head. “I may have said baby. ‘All my scars are on the outside . . . baby.’ ”

  “Yeah, I said it with the baby attached in my head,” I say.

  “You would have to.” He has something else. “I was shirtless all the time, by the way. Just all the time. That way, they’d be so focused on the scars, never on me. They were always so cautious with me. Let me get away with anything. Not you.” This catches me off guard.

  “What?”

  “You weren’t cautious with me. For the first time in a long time I felt . . . like me. Normal. I don’t know why I’m telling you that. It’s just . . . something I was thinking about.”