by Harper Bliss
At first, it startles me, until I relax against her generous touch, and I let all the tension of the day drain from my muscles.
Within minutes, I fall asleep totally wrapped up in Dolores.
Chapter Thirteen
“Still sleeping in the big old lesbo bed?” Jeremy asks.
Lips pursed, I nod, while remembering how, this morning, I woke up with the front of my body pressed against Dolores. I must have turned in the middle of the night and, in my sleep, searched for more comfort, my sleeping body believing I was throwing my arms around Ian.
“I agree that it’s marginally better than sleeping pills, Sophie, but before you know it, it will be a thing you can no longer do without. You can’t sleep in Dolores’ bed forever.”
“Is that advice or judgment?”
Jeremy cocks his head. “Have you ever known me to judge?”
“It’s basically how you make a living.” My reply is snippier than I want it to be.
“I may judge others, but never you, my dear, cranky friend.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been feeling so restless the past few days.”
“Of course you have. You’re bored, sweetie. You need to do something with all this time you have on your hands.”
“You might be right, old wise man.” I nod. “A lady of leisure, I am not.” I must have written Ian twenty letters by now, all written by hand, then copied onto my computer, stored in a folder named Letters to my dead boyfriend.
“I know for a fact that Jackie O. is ready to be pitched to, Soph. She’ll go for any subject. The Post needs you.”
“I’ve gone over my notebook with possible topics many times, but I just haven’t felt that spark. Any project I undertake is a big commitment and I’m not sure I have it in me.”
“Then write something shorter, a subject that doesn’t require weeks of research. It’s just an idea, but you could interview me, for instance. Didn’t they ask you to write more frivolous pieces?” Jeremy bats his lashes. “I’m as frivolous as they come, honey.”
I burst out laughing. “That should definitely entertain me, though I wouldn’t find out anything new, because I already know everything there is to know about you, down to all the sleazy details.”
Jeremy waves me off. “Maybe you should ghostwrite my memoir. Or we could do it together. Your journalistic gravitas combined with my effortless wit and fascinating life. It would be a hit for sure.” He waggles his eyebrows.
“There’s frivolous and then there’s so airy it’s almost weightless,” I joke. “It would barely take my mind off things.”
“You have to know what you want, Soph.” Jeremy scans my face with his gray eyes. Familiarity between us grew so instantly after we met that I never took the time to consider if he’s handsome or not. He doesn’t have the most symmetrical face and he always looks a little tired, but he’s got bags of charisma and can charm the pants off anyone.
I plant my elbows on the table between us in despair. “I know. I’m a journalist and writing is what I do, but it would feel like going back to how I was before. As much as I want to work, I just can’t face doing the same exact thing I did before he died. It doesn’t feel right. I want to make a change. Do something different.”
“If this is going to be one of those follow-my-dreams speeches, I have a suggestion for you.” Jeremy leans over the table conspiratorially. “Maybe it’s time to dust off that novel you’ve been working on for as long as I’ve known you.”
I huff out a breath. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”
“Really? Because you sure talked my ear off about it when we’d just met.”
“Back then I was just one of those beginning journalists with the same dream as every other journalist: write the next great American novel. I was just being a cliché.”
“I’m just saying, Soph. You want a project and it needs to be something different, but something you’re passionate enough about. Maybe now’s your time to do this. You can afford to take time off. Why not lose yourself in an epic plot? I’ll help you. I love making stuff up.”
“It’s not even such a bad idea.” I look Jeremy straight in the eye.
He sits there with his palms facing upward, head slanted, as though wanting to say—without words—that he’s always full of good ideas. “I wouldn’t use what you showed me years ago though. I would start anew.” I can always count on Jeremy to be straightforward.
I nod, my heart beating a little faster, my mind working quicker than it has in weeks.
“Now that we’ve sorted out some occupational therapy for you, I have another question. When will you be ready to attend social functions again? I was thinking about having a small gathering at my place. Nothing fancy, just the usual gang. Your friends want to see more of you, darling. We miss you.”
“You see me all the time,” I say evasively, knowing it’s hardly true.
“Correction: I used to see you all the time. Now I’m lucky if I get to see my best buddy once a week. That’s not how we are. We are closer than that.”
“I know.” It’s just been so cozy at Dolores’ house. Whenever I refused an invitation, always carefully crafted and with plenty of options built-in to give me an easy way out, my first thought was always that it would make me miss Dolores too much. Just having her around, staying at her house, my ears perking up when I hear her come home. Maybe Jeremy is right. I’m leaning on Dolores too much. It has been almost two months. I can’t hibernate with my mother-in-law forever. “I’ll come to your party.”
“Oh, it’s not a party at all. Just a bunch of friends hanging out together. You and me. Alex and Bart. Sydney and Ethan. Bo and Cindy, if you want them there. And maybe Brandon… You have complete veto right over the guest list.”
“That sounds fine, Jeremy. Thank you.”
“No need to thank me yet. How about this Saturday? We’ll start early. You can stay the night.”
With a new kind of determination simmering inside of me, I agree.
“Oh, and one of our friends won’t be drinking, if you know what I mean.” He gives me an exaggerated wink.
“I don’t. What do you mean?”
“One of them is up the duff, with child, has a bun in the oven.”
“Really? Who?”
Jeremy folds his features into that irresistible apologetic pout he does so well. “I’m not supposed to say. But see what I mean, Soph? You’ve missed all the gossip.”
“Is it Alex?” She and Bart have been trying for a while.
“My lips are sealed, but you’ll find out on Saturday.” While he says this, Jeremy gives a slight downward jerk with his chin. It’s barely a nod, but it says enough.
Alex is one of my best friends and she hasn’t been able to tell me her good news. It really is time to come out of hiding.
Chapter Fourteen
“Come here,” Dolores says, and throws her arms wide.
I step into her embrace and whereas before I’d have just let her hug me, now I hug back firmly, all my intention behind it.
She kisses me on the top of my head, and says, “I’m proud of you for doing this.”
By the way we’re standing in the hallway so dramatically, you’d think I’m leaving on a month-long expedition to the North Pole, while I’m only just going to Jeremy’s house for a party and a sleepover.
We don’t say it out loud, but it hangs in the air between us. We’ll both be sleeping alone tonight. I’ve taken naps on my own. I’ve stayed in bed in the morning on my own after Dolores has gotten up to go to work. But never, in the past two months, have I gone to bed without her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I step out of our embrace, which was lingering and a little unsettling because it makes me wonder whether Dolores will be all right on her own.
“Have fun,” she says. I swear there’s an undertone of sadness in her voice, more than usual, or perhaps it’s just my imagination.
On the way over to Jeremy’s, I clasp my hands around the steeri
ng wheel so tightly my knuckles are white by the time I arrive. I take a couple of deep breaths, reminding myself that these people are my friends. They’ve known me for years. But, despite having been to Jeremy’s many times since Ian died, walking into his apartment now feels like stepping into a different world entirely.
* * *
After I’ve been hugged extensively and much longer than I would have been before, Alex pulls me aside, into the kitchen, where she shoos Jeremy out, and says, “Oh, Soph, I’ve missed you so much.”
I’m glad that Jeremy already spilled the beans about her pregnancy, so I had time to adjust to the idea that for everyone else life goes on. New life is being created. Couples take the next steps that Ian and I will never take. Though he’s not the king of discretion, I suspect that’s the exact reason Jeremy didn’t keep his mouth shut as he was most likely instructed to do.
We go through the motions of her asking me how I’ve been doing and me inquiring about her life. Then she says, “I didn’t know when to tell you, but Bart and I are expecting. We’re going to have a baby.”
I give her a big smile—I don’t have it in me to clasp my hands in front of my mouth in fake surprise. “That’s really wonderful. I’m so happy for you.” I pull her into a hug and when I stand with my arms around my friend, a person whom I wish nothing but well in this world, a pang of jealousy lances through me. Because for her, nothing much has changed, while for me, everything is still as broken as it was two months ago. Even my coming to this gathering, which is really a party—but couldn’t possibly be called that—doesn’t alter this situation.
“I shall raise a glass to your good news, Alex.”
“I was a bit nervous about telling you,” she says. “But I’ve got quite a belly on me now.” She points at her stomach, which protrudes ever so slightly. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at her.
I smile widely and try to gather myself, pull myself together and push back the anger that’s boiling up within me. It’s not as if Ian and I had decided that we wanted to have children. But now we don’t even have the option anymore. Maybe I should check with that attorney, Mr. Coates. Considering Ian was so practical about what would happen after his death, perhaps he had some of his sperm frozen without telling me.
I realize this sudden burst of anger isn’t aimed at Alex; it’s directed at Ian, for leaving me like that. For not being more careful. For not staying the hell alive. It’s not that hard. Look at all the people at this party. They’re all alive. Why them and not him? Why did he have to be the one to die?
“Are you okay?” Alex asks, her hands on the exact same spot on my upper arms where so many people have planted their sweaty palms since Ian’s death. It’s not on my shoulders, but just below. The imprints I have amassed there, as though the press of a palm in that exact spot can inject me with a secret force, a newfound inner strength stemming from the energy of the palm-planting party, and make it all okay.
I know I’m being unfair, and that everybody is just doing the best they can under the circumstances. But so am I. This angry person who feels so unfairly treated by life is the best version of myself I can be at this moment.
I need a drink.
“Yes,” I say, resolutely, my mind on nothing but pouring some of the Veuve Clicquot Jeremy always treats us to at one of his parties down my throat. Tonight, I want to forget. I want to listen to my friends talk about their lives, moan about their jobs, argue about politics, gossip about colleagues, as though Ian were still alive but simply couldn’t make it to the party. He’s at home with a migraine and he didn’t want me to stay with him; it would only make him feel worse. He forced me to come here and have a good time with my friends.
I can’t pour the champagne down my throat fast enough to keep the fantasy alive.
* * *
“Hey there, Miss Thirsty,” Jeremy says while he replenishes my glass. “You’re going to regret this so much in the morning, but I’m not going to be the one to keep you from drinking your tits off tonight. Oh no, not me.” He grins, then kisses me on the cheek.
I glance at the kitchen wall where he has lined up all the bottles we’ve emptied tonight, and I might be seeing double, but there are at least ten already. Apart from Alex, my friends are all drinking with me. We’re doing this together. Getting mindlessly, recklessly wasted together, because what else are we going to do? The more we collectively drink, the more stories about Ian come to the surface.
His best friend Ethan, whom I’ve always found a little weird with his hippy man-bun and very socialist ideas, says, “The thing about Ian was that he was willing to believe everything anyone told him. He always gave you the benefit of the doubt, no matter how crazy the idea you put to him.” For a socialist, he’s enjoying the Veuve with a lot of gusto, knocking back the last of his glass in a fluid backward motion of his head. Then he continues. “Let’s drink to Ian.” His voice cracks and he grabs his wife Sydney’s shoulder. He raises his glass nonetheless, even though it’s empty. A guy Brandon brought to the party presents the bottle for a refill, because Jeremy seems to have grown tired of topping up drinks.
Ethan locks his gaze on me, gives a small nod of the head, and a tear glistens in the corner of his eye. Through the haze of alcohol, I realize that so many people have been missing him like crazy. That I’m not as alone as I thought I was, during those first weeks of grieving, when the pain was too great to think of anything or anyone else. Our friends’ lives have been crushed, too.
No matter how drunk I am, I have enough presence of mind to realize that being here with my friends is good for me. These people whom we had built our lives with and around. Ethan and Bart, whom Ian went on fishing weekends with, never bringing back anything resembling fish. Jeremy, whom Ian had long discussions with about LGBT rights and about how, even though same-sex marriage was now a fact, the battle was a long way from over. And Bo and Cindy, always referred to by everyone as “The Girls”, who were friends of Jeremy’s first, but whom Ian was always trying to meet up with and getting to know better because he admired them so much as a couple—and, perhaps, because they reminded him of Angela and Dolores when they were younger.
The love we share for him is magnified by us being here together, remembering him, toasting him, having a good old party in his honor, which he would have vastly preferred we do rather than mope about and succumb to infinite sadness. That’s why I allow myself to give in to the vibe of this night, to let the atmosphere, and the copious amounts of alcohol, carry me through, no matter the consequences tomorrow. A hangover is really the last of my worries.
After taxis have been summoned and everyone has left, and I make a feeble attempt at helping Jeremy clean up a little of the mess, he says, “I will have none of that, princess.” He swats a napkin from my hand. “Sit down and relax. Drink some water while you’re at it.”
“Is now an appropriate time to thank you?” I ask.
He sits next to me. “The best way to thank me is to get out more. This was good, wasn’t it? It did you good.”
I nod.
“You must be tired. All that hugging and crying and drinking. It tends to wear a person out.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“Why don’t you go to bed?” He puts a hand on the small of my back. “Come on, I’ll tuck you in.”
With a loud sigh, I push myself off the couch. The heartwarming nature of tonight’s party has thawed the ice around my soul a little, but now I have to go to bed alone. In my fantasy, in which Ian is still alive, just in bed with a migraine, I’d go home to a warm bed, fling my arms around him and cozy up to his strong body. Walking to Jeremy’s guest bedroom, where I stayed when I was at my worst, puts an abrupt end to that foolish piece of make-believe.
I stand in the doorway, Jeremy behind me, and I look at the empty bed. I stare at it for what feels like forever and don’t move, because I know I can’t do it. I can’t slip underneath its covers and fall asleep, not even with the
amount of alcohol I’ve had and which is nearly knocking me to my knees. I simply can’t. An invisible barrier has been thrown up between me and the bed.
I need Dolores.
“What is it?” Jeremy puts a hand on my shoulder. “Did someone do something immoral in here while I wasn’t looking?” Jeremy doesn’t even laugh at his own joke.
“Will you call me a taxi, please? I can’t stay here. I need to go home. I’ll collect my car tomorrow.”
Jeremy spins me around and looks at me intently. “Are you sure?”
All I have in me is a quick nod.
Chapter Fifteen
I try to unlock Dolores’ door as quietly as possible. It takes a few seconds before I remember the code for the alarm, but I manage to punch it in, anyway—it’s the numbers that make up Ian’s birthday: 17061981.
Oh shit, his birthday is in less than three weeks. The sudden realization makes me stand with my hands against the door for a minute, catching my breath.
I’m too drunk to do this gracefully, I think, when I head up the stairs to Dolores’ room—our room. I don’t always use the guest bathroom anymore, but tonight I do. I shed my clothes, leaving them in an untidy pile on the bathroom floor, and only bother to put on my pajama top. It’s getting warmer. We’ll have to switch on the air conditioning in the bedroom soon. I forego brushing my teeth and tip-toe to the bedroom.
The TV is still on, but paused on the Netflix home screen, casting a sleeping Dolores in a gaudy sort of light. I’m glad for the illumination so I don’t wake her with my stumbling in the dark at this ungodly hour. I’m not sure whether I’m glad she managed to go to sleep without me, but then, when I take a closer look at her peaceful sleeping face, I am. A warm glow spreads through me at the sight of her. Then I see the bottle of Ambien on her night stand. I can guess where she got that.
Figuring I no longer have to be ultra-quiet, I walk to my side of the bed, sit on the edge and switch off the TV. The Ambien must have knocked her out really well, because Dolores is lying in the middle of the bed and, despite it being a generous king-size, she’s not leaving me a lot of room. But I didn’t come back here for a lot of space in bed. In fact, I rushed over here in a taxi in the middle of the night because I wanted the opposite.
