Notes From the Backseat

by Jody Gehrman

  When she didn’t elaborate, I croaked, “Honesty issue?”

  Folding her legs into lotus position, she studied my face. “Here’s the thing, Gwen, and I only say this because I like you and I think you deserve to have all the information up front: Coop’s great in bed, but he’s not the best communicator. If you ask him about our past, he’ll deny it. That’s just the way he is. He thinks it’s better to offer someone comfort than to slap them with the truth. He never told Vicky about us—in fact, I’m sure he’s never told anyone. He’s into revisionist history. If you can deal with that, you can deal with Coop, but for me the whole thing was just a little too slippery.” She grinned. “As lovers, I mean. As friends, it doesn’t really matter. He can sleep with whoever he wants and lie about it till he’s blue in the face—it’s none of my business, so what do I care?”

  I felt like she’d punched me in the solar plexus.

  Her hand reached out and rested on my shoulder. “I hope I haven’t upset you,” she said. “I just think you should know what you’re getting into.”

  “Sure,” I managed to mumble. “I appreciate that.”

  “I’m going to do a few sun salutations. Do you want to join me?” Her offer was all sweetness and light. “It’s a great way to greet the day.”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m going to write for a while.”

  “You sure do write a lot, don’t you?”

  “It’s a new thing,” I told her, lunging for my notebook like an alcoholic going for the bottle. “It relaxes me.”

  The roosters are crowing. Sun is streaming through my bedroom windows, illuminating the accumulated cobwebs and muddy paw prints on the glass. Dannika is taking a long shower, which no doubt pisses Steven off, who guards the house’s finances with stingy diligence. It gives me a tepid surge of pleasure knowing Dannika’s irritating the shit out of someone else for once. I can hear Coop in the kitchen chatting up my mom, offering to help with breakfast, complimenting her coffee.

  I can’t decide who I hate more right now: Coop for wrapping me in a cotton-candy confection of lies or Dannika for turning my pink cloud into a sticky, gritty mess.

  I considered catching a plane back to L. A this morning, but I’ve decided to see this trip through to the end.

  From here on out, I’m in it for the revenge.

  Friday, September 19

  9:04 a.m.

  Dear Marla,

  First, a fashion update.

  The magic words today are understated, fetching, femme fatale. It’s neither the first day of the trip (which requires more fortitude and formality) nor is it the day of the wedding (for which I’ve reserved my secret weapon, to be revealed at a later date, i.e. tomorrow). Thus, I’ve carefully chosen my elegant shirtwaist dress in off-white acetate rayon with French cuffs, rhinestone-jeweled buttons and matching cufflinks set off by bracelet-length sleeves. I’ve got a string of pearls at my throat, cat-eyed sunglasses with rhinestone details and, of course, my signature leopard-print kitten heels. Over my shoulders I’ve draped my favorite Norwegian blue-fox stole, which I’ll admit seemed a touch dressy for the occasion, but I couldn’t resist its silky depths once I dared to try it on. All in all, I’m perfectly prepared for the weather here in the backseat which is, frankly, cold as shit.

  While arctic winds blast us with gale force, the sun is shining and the sky is a clear, cloudless blue. Dannika won this morning when she sweetly suggested we continue on our coastal route. We were eating eggs and bacon—well, I should qualify that. Coop and Mom were shoveling in eggs and bacon, I was toying with mine, Steven was drinking coffee, gazing at Dannika with puppy-dog eyes, and Dannika was eating a banana and sipping her peppermint tea. She said, “I guess we’ll stay on the coast, since we’re so close.”

  My mother looked at her with cold eyes and a tight smile. “Honey, you don’t want to take the coast. That road winds around so much, it’ll take forever.”

  Dannika smiled back, her eyes equally hostile. “I know. I like it that way.”

  “Well, it might be fine for the driver,” Mom said. “But whoever’s in the back is going to be sick as a dog. The curves on that highway make me queasy just looking at them.”

  First, Coop looked at me, then Mom did, followed by Steven. Dannika just stared into her peppermint tea.

  “I don’t get carsick,” I said, looking at Mom. “You know that.”

  Mom was right, though—a lesser woman would be puking up her three bites of scrambled eggs, half a piece of bacon and coffee by now. I guess it’s a minor miracle that I’m so immune to motion sickness I can write to you back here and not get nauseous at all. Of course, it’s a little hard to concentrate when I’m having a near-death experience every time we hit a curve; Dannika’s driving has not improved overnight. But in some ways, I’m glad we chose this route. This stretch of highway is mind-blowingly scenic. To our left, the ocean is sparkling in the sun like a sheet of crumpled tinfoil, and when we rise up on a dramatic cliff and get a glimpse of the panoramic view, it feels like we’re skirting the edge of the world. Also, I needed the extra car time to mull things over.

  Coop keeps turning around in his seat, flashing me his secret little crooked grin and reaching over to give my knee an affectionate squeeze. Sometimes he lets his fingers slip under the hem of my dress and graze my thigh suggestively. He’s so incredibly sexy. Why does he have to be the only man I’ve ever met who’s perfect in every way? (For now, let’s table the alleged tendency toward pathological lies.) Even the things that shouldn’t be perfect become perfect on him. I mean, just look at his hair—it’s a mess. Why do I adore that mess? When he wears something mildly stupid, like the faded, threadbare The Nerve Agents T-shirt he’s got on today, I swoon. Why? I’m the woman who said I could never love a man who didn’t wear cufflinks and a flannel suit at least five days a week. Do you think Coop has ever worn cufflinks or a flannel suit? Yeah, right. Coop’s idea of dressing up is tucking his T-shirt into his jeans.

  Oh God, Marla, I’m so confused. Who am I even talking about? The Coop I’m thinking of—the one I kissed for the first time on Venice Beach, the one I had sex with this morning—is now dead. Dannika killed him when she touched my arm and said in that pious, condescending tone, “I just think you should know what you’re getting into.”

  I abhor dishonesty. You know that. No one’s ever cheated on me because I refuse to give them the opportunity. The slightest indication of a wandering eye or a spotty relationship résumé and I’m out of there. And yes, in the past, I’ll admit I had a tendency toward hair-trigger responses. My shithead radar was, perhaps, a little too finicky and subject to faulty readings. Sometimes my tactics were downright preemptive. But even by normal standards, the information Dannika dumped in my lap this morning should have sent me screaming back to L.A. He was practically married to Vicky—who I’ve never even heard of, by the way—when he spent a week filled with searing-hot yogi sex in Malibu. And then (you know this is the sin among sins, for me) he didn’t even fess up. He went on pretending nothing had happened, when he knew the girl was aching to walk down the aisle in a big, poofy meringue of a dress.

  So by my own logic, I shouldn’t be here. I should be back in my apartment in Los Feliz, ripping up pictures of Coop and getting slowly hammered on dirty martinis.

  But I’m not. See, that’s the weird thing. And I have to wonder, is this how it happens? Is this the first step down the slippery slope of I know he’s an asshole, but I love him? You know when you see women in airports or malls or—oh, say, a dog hair-infested house in western Sebastopol—who are married to men so much beastlier than themselves, you’re forced to wonder if they’ve been subjected to some bizarre form of hypnosis? Maybe it’s not hypnosis at all, but the systematic denial of facts due to excessive amounts of whatever-that-chemical-is-in-orgasms-and-chocolate flooding your bloodstream.

  I’m beginning to think this is how it goes: You’re crazy about someone. You discover a skeleton in his closet; maybe it’s a
week in Malibu, maybe it’s a history of recreational cannibalism. The details are unimportant. The point is, you discover that your prince charming is flawed—not leaving-his-boxers-on-the-bathroom-floor flawed, but flawed in a way that threatens the very fiber of your being. What do you do? Flee like a sensible girl? Hatch a diabolical plan that will humiliate him in front of all womankind, thus making it impossible for him to have sex even with the bucktoothed checker at Wal-Mart? No, you don’t. Because you’re in love. So you tell yourself his tendency to gnaw on human femurs is endearing or the week in Malibu was just a blip and you go on as if nothing’s happened. And the next time, when even more damning and repugnant evidence bobs to the surface, you continue to tell yourself that love is about forgiveness and compromise and, yes, your coffee table is made of human bones and okay so you had to sacrifice your left forearm, but what’s so wrong with that, if you’re really nuts about the guy?

  You see, I’m inching into dangerous territory, here, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Riding behind Coop under a brilliant blue sky, I’m horrified to discover that I still want him. I could try to tell you it’s just my body responding to the sight of him—a stupid, hormonal reaction to his cheekbones and his eyebrows, his sensual, full lips—but I’d be lying. The feelings I have for Coop run all the way down to the chemical makeup of my toenails, the spongy center of my bones. With guys before him, the very hint of disloyalty turned my affections sour. That’s why it was always so easy to bail; once I saw them as scamming womanizers (whether or not they were), I didn’t even crave them anymore. Remember Tom Jepson, the lawyer with the Porsche and the cat and the gorgeous flannel suits? I was so into him, but the minute I learned he’d cheated on his ex-wife, I was out of there. Amazingly, I suffered no withdrawals, even with him. I could kick the habit of any man cold turkey as soon as he gave me the slightest reason.

  I’m afraid those days are gone. Right now, watching Coop’s hair blow this way and that in a wild tussle of brown and dark honey hues, my heart’s aching. I always thought that was just a figure of speech, not a physical sensation, but watching his profile, I can feel this dull pain inside my rib cage, like my heart is swollen and throbbing in the too-tight space. My mind is spinning with images of Coop and Dannika. I see him leaning in to kiss her in front of a massive stone fireplace. I see him gazing at her sundappled face as she sleeps, brushing his fingers lightly along her peach-colored cheek. I watch their limbs intertwine as they make out in the frothy Malibu surf like the black-and-white models of a Calvin Klein perfume ad.

  Coop just turned around and said, “Kitten, you’re going to rip the paper if you keep pressing so hard.”

  I offered a faux-serene smile. “Almost out of ink, I guess.”

  “Looks like you’re almost out of pages, too.”

  He’s right. I’ve already burned my way through all but two pages of the journal you gave me. And why is that? Because if I don’t, there’s going to be blood on my hands. Blonde blood. Every once in a while I try to comfort myself with the words Donna Horney, but they don’t help. If anything, her tragic past, her ability to transform herself so thoroughly, only makes her a more formidable foe. Besides, the problem now transcends Dannika and her perfect size-two ass. The problem now is epic. I’m grappling with Coop’s fundamental ability to be honest. If Dannika’s story is true, Coop is alarmingly capable of deceit—not just capable, but good at it. To date a liar is one thing, but to date a master liar is to find yourself in the worst sort of paranoid schizophrenic hell. Those sort of men make you doubt your own name—they make you second guess your very existence. You and I have both dated enough actors to know just how treacherous trained liars can be.

  I know what you’re going to say. What if Dannika’s the one who’s lying?

  There you are, sitting in your Parisian café, sipping your third cappuccino. Your eyes are all bugged out from the excess caffeine and you’re dying to throttle me for assuming the worst about the man I adore. You’re saying, Jesus, Gwen, get a grip. Should you really believe a girl with silicone tits, bleached-white teeth, $200 highlights, a coke habit and a pseudonym?

  And yes, you have a point. Maybe there was no sizzling week in Malibu. It’s possible there wasn’t even a Victoria, though I’ll bet she’s clever enough to have used the name of a girl Coop once dated, even if she exaggerated how serious they were. Maybe Dannika is bent on sabotaging our relationship because she wants him for herself. Or maybe she’s just one of those girls who doesn’t like to share.

  It’s possible.

  But don’t you see, Marla? There’s no way to know. If I ask Coop about Dannika’s story, he’ll deny it, like she said. He’s either an amazing liar, in which case there’s no hope, or he’s perfectly innocent—there’s no in between. The only way for me to sniff him out, here, is if he’s a bad liar; then I could confront him with Dannika’s claims and he would naturally give himself away. He’d be unable to look me in the eye, or I’d catch him on some minor detail as I cross-examined him. But that just can’t be. Coop is good at everything he does. If he’s a liar, I’m willing to bet money he’s a talented one.

  Besides, suppose he’s innocent? There we are in idyllic Mendocino. Out of nowhere I start ranting about a secret fling he and Dannika supposedly had years ago and some imaginary almost-fiancée he lied to. If it’s all fabricated, I’ll seem like a jealous, unstable, possessive bitch. Dannika might even deny having told me anything. They could have me wrapped in a straightjacket before the weekend’s through. I could be writing my next letter from inside a padded cell.

  Marla, help! I’m caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place, flooded with a confusing mixture of rage, doubt and hormones. I’m struggling madly but remain perfectly still, my complete confusion mistaken for vacuous calm.

  I have to find out who’s lying, and to do so I’ll need to work undercover, watching at all times. From behind my cat-eyed, rhinestone-studded glasses, I’ll note every move, every twitch, every glance. I’m the spy in kitten heels.

  And when I root out my villain, beware….

  Stealthily yours,

  Matson.

  Gwen Matson.

  September 19

  11:11 a.m.

  Dear Marla,

  We’re getting closer to Mendocino—we just passed Gualala, where we stopped for gas and I bought this new, considerably inferior notebook. When I slapped it onto the counter with a backup pen, Coop gave me a funny look. “I had no idea you were such a prolific writer.”

  “Neither did I.” I produced what I hoped was the mysterious smile of a budding artiste and not the mad grin of a neurotic letter addict.

  Okay, so my compulsive scribbling is a little weird. I can see that. You set this in motion, Marla, and suddenly I can’t stop. I’m fixated on the idea that this weekend will seal my fate and if I don’t record every moment of it, like Gretel scattering breadcrumbs, I’ll lose my way. I don’t even know what that means, exactly, but the thought is haunting me around every curve, through patches of fog and orange bursts of sunlight, through everything.

  When Coop first brought up this weekend about a month ago, I believe his exact words were, “Come to Mendocino with me. My best friends are getting hitched.”

  “To each other?” I’d asked.

  “Yeah. What could be better, huh? I only have to use one page for them now in my address book.”

  I’d been thrilled at the intimacy of the invitation and the casual way he threw it out there, like it was nothing. I got the feeling this would be the first in a long series of such adventures—trips we’d take to celebrate the change of seasons, promotions, anniversaries, whatever the hell we felt like. It would be us out there in the world, together, peeing in grubby gas station bathrooms and discovering perfect little out-of-the-way bakeries with the most amazing chocolate chip cookies.

  Anyway, the point is that this trip took on epic proportions in my mind. I spent long hours at the shop steaming wools and taffetas, dreaming of our ro
mantic getaway to the north coast, land of rugged, remote beaches, pristine redwood forests, supple, satiny wines and patchouli-soaked hippies. I envisioned long walks on the beach in bulky sweaters (well, he’d be in a bulky sweater, I’d be in my elegant wool trapeze coat). The wedding would be packed with beautiful, fresh-faced vegetarians and we’d all throw rice in front of an old-fashioned white clapboard church.

  Then one day, about two weeks before we were supposed to leave, Coop was cleaning the burnt crumbs from my toaster when he said, “I talked to Dannika last night.”

  “Oh,” I said brightly. “How is she?” He’d mentioned her enough for my antennae to rise, but I wasn’t making sketches of voodoo dolls or anything.

  “She’s fine. I guess she wants to come up north with us.”

  I said, “Uh-huh…?” trying hard to sound neutral and open-minded.

  “I told her she was welcome to ride up with us, but then this morning she called to say she checked her schedule and she’s got to teach at some conference in Ojai that weekend.”

  “Mmm,” I said. “Too bad.”

  Oh God, if only that stupid guru hadn’t died. Then the conference wouldn’t have been canceled and she’d be demonstrating downward dog for flabby housewives in Ojai instead of torturing me with her brilliant blondeness. Of course, staying with Coop would mean crossing paths with Dannika eventually, but it would have been nice to drift in ignorant bliss for at least another couple of months.

  Sometimes I wish I had a map of my future, something I could stick in my wallet for quick reference. There’d be a roving star with the words You Are Here and then the paths ahead could be viewed in miniature, labeled clearly—a sort of portable GPS tracking device for potential destinies. Eastern route: treacherous self-deception, premature gray, brief marriage with Coop resulting in one child, ugly divorce, insufficient child support and severe emotional scars. Later years involve ungrateful daughter with prescription drug addiction, string of well-meaning but ultimately unfulfilling boyfriends, and untimely death by number-five bus. Western route: Brutal honesty with self and Coop resulting in cathartic breakup, journey to Taos, scorching affair with alcoholic English professor followed by reunion with contrite and reformed Coop. Glamorous, jet-setting life springing naturally from the publication of cowritten relationship book, Letting Go for Love; death at age ninety as a result of well-publicized tandem skydiving accident.