True Story

by Kate Reed Petty

  The person who answered the door did not seem like a psychic, but perhaps my ideas about psychics were shaped by the same lazy eighties movies that misled me about trash-can fires and cities. Come in, the psychic said. He was a white man, with a thick salt-and-pepper beard, maybe in his early forties. He wore a white linen tunic and a long string of wooden beads around his neck. He spoke with a formal affectation, called me “miss,” offered me water or coffee, invited me to sit at a low card table draped in a red checked tablecloth. You’re here because you’re in love, he said. Maybe not quite love, I said. Ah, he said, but maybe not not love. I had to admit that it was true. The small room was draped in bedsheets that had been spray-painted with gold streaks. Mardi Gras beads were hung all over the ceiling, stuck precariously with masking tape. The room was lit with candles. Felt like a haunted house built by Boy Scouts.

  You have a great ambition in life, and you worry that you will not be able to meet your own personal needs while striving for your goals. You are struggling to balance your need for love with your need to be independent and focus on yourself. You sometimes feel like nobody really understands you, and you worry that it’s not their fault but yours, because you don’t know how to open up and ask for help. You’re hoping this love will help you learn to be vulnerable. And also: don’t trust your friend with the red hair.

  I thought about that last bit, the only specific piece. I don’t have any friends with red hair, I said. One of the strands of beads fell from the ceiling. Landed with a clatter to my left. I jumped. A sign! the psychic said. Of what? I said. He looked at me with his eyes wide and his hands spread. I guess you have to interpret it, he said.

  Paid my ten dollars, pathologically trying to hide my disappointment. Was raised to treat everyone with kindness and support, as if everyone’s feelings were as fragile as mine. That gave me a lot to think about, I told the psychic politely. Standing in the vestibule, about to leave. He peered at me. Do you want this person to fall in love with you? I did not think about it. Yes. Of course. The psychic said, I can give you a spell. Fifty dollars. But it’s very powerful. I was in no position to spend fifty dollars on anything, let alone a love spell from a middle-aged man who had decorated his psychic consultation room with spray paint and bedsheets. But I was dizzy in love, deluded.

  And there was truth to what he’d said. If nobody knew me, if nobody loved me, it wasn’t their fault but my own, because I never let myself be vulnerable. What was fifty dollars?

  Do you take credit cards? I said. He said, How about thirty dollars cash. I hadn’t realized this was up for negotiation. I’ve got twenty, I said. Deal, he said.

  When I was little, I knew that I could probably fly. Hadn’t been able to fly yet. But surely could. And would. Probably just needed to believe a little harder. Eventually realized for certain that flying was impossible. Saw my imagination was a lie. It was sad and embarrassing. At some point in my early twenties, I realized I had the same misconceptions about love. Was not going to meet an incredible man and know for sure that it was fate. Was not going to be swept away. Was going to have to choose from among the boring Andys of the world and then live with my choice.

  Then: With Q on our second date. Couldn’t get the words out fast enough. Kept touching each other on the shoulder, holding hands, and I thought, maybe I can fly after all.

  Over our third beer, confessed that I had been resisting texting him all week. Preserving the excitement. Thank fuck, Q said. I’ve been terrified you were avoiding me. But I did text you once, I protested. On Wednesday. The photo from the psychic. What photo? Q said. What psychic?

  The psychic ducked out of the sheet-draped room. Reappeared with a heavy wooden box. Filled with Scrabble tiles. Carved with strange circular runes. Talk about this man, he said. I said, Handsome, smart, and funny, while the man picked out tiles, arranged them, nodding. He studies philosophy, he’s getting a PhD, I said, and I think that’s why he’s so patient and thoughtful. His research is about whether ideas are essentially good or bad, or whether they’re all neutral. Interrupting me, the psychic spread his hands. There were fifteen tiles on the table in front of him, arranged in an asymmetrical pattern. Like a finished game of dominoes. Got a phone? the psychic said. I did. Take a picture of this, the psychic said, and text it to the man, along with this message. He held up a piece of paper with some words scribbled on it. Am too embarrassed to reproduce the words for you here. Was a sentence so saccharine that an electric shock ran through my jaw, like a toothache. (Seriously, Haley, you would throw up if I typed it here.) It was like the punch line to a Hallmark card from the 1950s. I know, the psychic said, I know, but don’t worry, he won’t actually see it.

  I did it because I’d been prepared to spend fifty dollars on it. Because I was convinced that I was broken. Because I really did want Q to fall in love with me, and if he wasn’t going to fall in love with me then fine, let him think I was crazy, it will save us both time. Anyway. I did it. Texted him the ridiculous rhyming love couplet, along with the image of the tiles.

  But: What picture? Q said. The picture from the psychic, I said, of the tarot-card tile thing. He looked at me, wide eyed. We both started laughing. Both thinking the other was setting up some kind of charming joke. One of those standard fake arguments, flirting. Showed me his phone to prove the point: No photo. No text. Opened my phone to prove that I had sent him something. I knew that I had typed it and sent it. I was not the kind of person who forgot things. But then: No text on my phone, either. No photo. Strange, I said. Q leaned back, satisfied. Told you, he said. I think I was scammed out of twenty bucks, I said.

  But to myself, I thought: It worked!

  For two weeks, we talked nonstop. Tried not to see each other too often. Didn’t want to move too fast. Emailed all day long, like I’m writing now. Paragraphs at a time, picking up the stream of consciousness where the other left off. Texted in transit, talking ourselves to sleep on the phone. Broke down despite deadlines and saw each other the third Wednesday, sharing Chinese food on his couch and not sleeping. Dragged myself to work at a corporate office where I sat at a reception desk at a back door. Literally no one walked by me all day. I wrote an essay about how beautiful and true romantic comedies actually are (was never published). I went back to him Thursday night and then Friday and Saturday, too, with breaks in between only to run home and change clothes and bring Khloé a paper bag to play with (she loved paper bags).

  Two or three times, early on, Q stayed at my apartment, but usually he convinced me to come to his place. I don’t sleep well in other beds, he said, and I saw it was true. I didn’t push it. Was embarrassed about my apartment. Small. Cat hairs clung to your clothes, needed a tape roller on hand at all times. Shower caked in rings of rust, stained so that it looked dirty no matter how hard I scrubbed. The incessant rustle of a paper bag in the kitchen where Khloé was wallowing like a hippo in mud. Q didn’t grumble too much, but on the handful of nights he stayed, he wrinkled his nose at Khloé, wouldn’t set his toothbrush down on the edge of the sink. I liked being there, liked having all of my clothes to choose from. But I liked Q more. Started staying at Q’s three nights, four nights, five nights a week.

  Poor Khloé. Mad with grief. Started howling when she heard my key in the door, spent all of her time as close to me as possible. Followed me to the door on the way out and pleaded, her paws on my calf. At the end of the third week she peed in my laundry basket. Came home and found her hiding under the couch, ashamed. Was such a good cat. Even acting out, she only messed up my dirty clothes.

  After that, tried to get home more often. Tried to see Khloé at least every eight hours. After work on Friday I’d feed her and pet her for an hour, then meet Q for a movie or a party or dinner and spend the night with him. I’d go home Saturday morning for fresh clothes and Khloé time, then meet Q again. But over the months, I relented slowly: Leaving extra food for Khloé on Friday, staying through Saturday night. Packin
g extra clothes. Was afraid she would tear up the couch cushions or knock over a bottle of wine in the kitchen and track it all over the apartment. But it was hard on a Saturday morning, or over a beer on Friday evening, with Q, his hand in my hair at the base of my skull, murmuring, Don’t you have a neighbor who could feed it?

  Four weeks in, I woke up in his bed on a Saturday morning and he was gone. I got up and showered, humming to myself. Planned to leave early, had a piece to write and wanted Khloé on my lap while I worked. Later, walked back from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, found Q sitting on the bed with a bag that smelled of warm bagels and two paper cups of coffee on the bedside. He was frowning. Said, I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed.

  I was overwhelmed. Such a simple gesture. Such an elegant image of a beautiful life together. I imagined being pregnant, him bringing me breakfast in bed. Imagined him and our children, bringing me breakfast in bed. Had never been the kind of woman who picks out her wedding dress or the names of her future children but this simple idea stirred me. Imagined being old and happy. Him bringing me breakfast in bed.

  I sat next to him on the bed and put my head on his shoulder. Thank you, I said. He kept his hand on the bag of bagels, closed tight. But you got up, he said. I showered, I said. How do I bring you breakfast in bed if you get out of bed? he said. I didn’t know you were coming back with breakfast, I said. You thought I wouldn’t come back? he said. You thought I’d just leave you?

  We kept talking about it. The bagels cooled off in the bag. Talked and talked and talked. I didn’t understand the problem. I must have done something else, I thought. He must be stewing over some earlier hurt. I probed, tried to get him to tell me what was really going on. But there was nothing more—just the fact that I’d gotten up when he wanted me to stay. Finally we agreed that I would get back in bed, and we could eat the bagels together then. I guessed it was just that he really wanted to do something nice for me. I hung up the towel and climbed into bed. Q watched me. Close your eyes, he said. I closed my eyes. I felt the pressure as he sat on the edge of the bed next to me. Wake up, Alice, he said, I brought breakfast.

  Grew up in a family that did not talk about it when we were angry. I often hurt my mother’s feelings without realizing it, until she made a sarcastic remark three weeks later. So it seemed totally natural for Q to be channeling some kind of frustration into the breakfast thing. And hadn’t I been stirred by the idea of breakfast in bed, too? It was a stirring idea. No wonder he’d wanted it to go well. He just wanted the thing he had imagined. Next time, he said, when we had finished the bagels and he was kissing my forehead and taking my empty paper cup—next time don’t get up until I tell you. I laughed and promised I wouldn’t.

  It was incredible to be wanted so consistently and firmly. Not in a jealous way, not like boys I had dated in college who seemed terrified of time apart in case I met someone better. Q just liked me. Laughed at my jokes. Had things to tell me that he’d saved up all day. Was not hiding or playing games. I worked long hours, he did coursework for his PhD, after hectic days it was so relaxing to fall back into each other, to be with someone who was not waiting for you to say that you wanted them first.

  Do you remember when I wrote a piece about Hillary Clinton and women and consolation prizes and they tried to shut the whole site down? I’d always gotten hate mail, but only email. After that they started sending packages with stink bombs to my editor’s office, prank calling, ordering fifty pizzas in my name. Thank God my editor had lived through her own dose of hate. Of course I’m not firing you, she said. But I had a hard time getting back to writing, with the hate still flooding in. It took three weeks. Every night in those awful weeks, Q came to my apartment. Was waiting there for me when I got home from an empty corporate office at six or seven or eight, with comfort takeout and a foot rub. Khloé loved it even more than I did, spent the whole time in the crook of my elbow. Q tolerated her, sitting on my opposite side, nestling me into the crook of his.

  After the first week of that barrage of hate mail, Q insisted I take Sunday off. Declared Sunday a hate-free day. But if I skip a day, I said, it just means twice as much on Monday. So that day he did it for me. I gave him my email password. He got up before me and went out to get bagels and coffee. Came back and sat on the end of the bed. I lay in bed naked, sipping coffee. He described the emails to me as he deleted them, pretending they were fan letters. This one says he loves your use of adjectives, he said, hitting Delete with a flourish. This one thinks you’re the smartest writer working online today. Smiled at him, said, That’s so kind. I don’t want to read you this one, it’s too complimentary, you’ll get a big ego, he said, smiling at me, closing my laptop, running his thumb over my big toe.

  Felt lucky to have him. Andy would not have been around in hard times. Andy would have waited for me to call. I had never even broken up with Andy. I just stopped calling, and that was that. Q was a blessing. Steady. Caring. Rescuing me during a hard time. I needed him. The hate mail felt too much like high school, like walking down the hallways and finding Sharpie scrawled on my locker. But now I had Q. It was that Sunday morning that I made this connection. As he rubbed my feet, I told him some of what had happened—the broad strokes, my accident. He listened. He was kind. Afterward I told him I loved him. It was the first time I knew it was true.

  Came home Friday to find Q had made pizza. Handed me a beer at the door. Took my bag and shoes, carried me to the couch. Loved to do things like that. Often carried me around. I liked being carried. My arms around his neck. I smiled up at him. Set me down on the couch and Khloé leaped immediately onto my lap. I scratched her chin, she put her paws on my shoulder and nosed my ear. She had been delirious with happiness to have me home every night that week. Didn’t mind competing with Q for my attention. Q minded. What would I do without you, sweetie? I said to Khloé. I’m the one who brought you a beer, Q said from the kitchen. I laughed. We ate the pizza and watched a movie about a woman who moved to the big city to join an orchestra. She practiced until her fingers bled. She had the love of a good man but was too obsessed with her work to see it. Q brought me a second beer. My attention drifted. I slid down into a comfortable space between the couch cushions, my legs in Q’s lap, Khloé curled up inside my elbow.

  Woke up in the dark. Felt like I’d just closed my eyes. Hours had passed. The television was off. Q was sitting quietly in the chair on the other side of the room. I have bad news, he said. Followed him into the kitchen. Khloé on the floor. Looked like a picture from my hate mail, the Photoshop jobs from strangers. Blood in a looping rope on the tile. Cats get into things, Q was saying, it’s going to be okay. I thought that meant she was still alive. I went over to pick her up. I crouched down and held her, my hands got sticky with her blood.

  Cats get into things, Q said. He was right. Showed me the bleach, spilled out from under the kitchen sink. I’d left the bleach in a paper bag. The cap must not have been fully on. That cat loved paper bags, he said. How could I? I’m so stupid, I said. I turned away from Khloé. I couldn’t look at her. Q wiped my hands on a dish towel. Held my head to his chest. Things happen, he said, it’s going to be okay. Took care of it. Like he always took care of things. I lay down on the couch and cried so hard I threw up. Felt a little calmer afterward. I lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling. Then Q came in with Khloé in a plastic garbage bag.

  For a second I hated him. Take her out of there, I said. I grabbed the bag out of his hands. He watched me, frowning. I reached in, pulled Khloé out. He had wrapped her in newspaper, like a fish. I started yelling at him. Unwrapping her. Held her soggy stiff thin skeleton against my chest. You’re really emotional right now, Q said, take a break, give it to me. I screamed, You’ll throw her away! Carried her into the kitchen. Ruined my shirt. Dripped blood on the floor.

  I grabbed the paper grocery bag. Laid Khloé inside it. Then burst into tears. Set the bag on the floor and would have curled up next to it, but Q
stopped me. Picked me up. Put my arms around his shoulders. Carried me into the bathroom, started the shower, took off my clothes, and put me in. Put my clothes in the trash can. Brought me a cup of tea. I was overwhelmed and exhausted. Suddenly needed to sleep; I felt my eyelids closing heavily. Got into bed, still wet and naked, and fell asleep. Slept through most of the weekend. While I was asleep, Q called the vet, and they came, for thirty-five dollars, and took Khloé.

  I took Monday off work, spent the morning lying in bed reading, swearing that I would never have another pet, and scrolling through pictures of foster kittens online. Q skipped his office hours and came over in the afternoon with soup. We have to get you out of here, he said. I shrugged. Let him pack me a bag. I don’t need so many pajamas, I said. You need to relax, he said. I didn’t fight it. I wasn’t sure I was going to go to work the next day. Was feeling the way I felt as a teenager, when despair was like a heavy jacket. Followed Q and my three sets of pajamas out the door. He had brought his car, drove me to his place.

  I grieved for Khloé hard. She was my first pet. I knew I was attached to her, but had no idea that loss felt like that. My grandparents, when they died, it was sad but seemed natural. They lived several states away. I missed them, was sad about it, but it wasn’t unfair. Khloé was just a stupid cat but she made me feel the unfairness of the world. Things died. For no reason. There was no way out of that. How spoiled I was to be realizing this only now, at twenty-six, over a cat. I cried because I hated myself, too. I blamed myself for her death—it was because I was working too hard, it was because I was distracted, or I never would have left the bleach in the paper bag like that. I refused to talk about her with Q, and he did not bring her up, either. I cried myself to sleep all weekend, and when I woke up Monday morning, I remembered she was dead as I opened my eyes, a fresh shock. A lot of things changed after Khloé died. But that first Monday skipping work it felt like nothing would ever change, permanent gray.