by Sam Mariano
My pulse quickens at the mere mention, however indirect, of Liam. I imagine another lifetime where we would’ve talked about a man I had feelings for, but this is not that lifetime.
I don’t answer, but I’m tempted to. The problem with being as isolated as I am in the world is there’s no one to turn to. I’m an island, no friends, no similarly-aged sister, not even a mother to confide anything in. I bottle it all up, because there’s no place else for anything to go.
“How’d you meet him?”
I don’t even like her, but God, do I want to tell her.
“What’s he look like?” she tries again, a lightness to her voice as she tries to coax me into girl talk.
I finally turn to look at her and she brightens, thinking I’m going to spill like she’s my girlfriend and we’re on a joyous trip to the mall.
Instead I ask, “Why did you keep my bedroom the way I left it?”
The light goes right out of her face. For a minute, I don’t think she’ll answer, so I lay my head back against the glass.
“I don’t know,” she finally says. “I guess… it felt like I couldn’t lose that part of you, even if I lost the rest.”
She says it like I’m the bad guy and she’s the victim. Poor her, losing her daughter. I roll my eyes and don’t ask anything more.
When we get to the store, I’m already exhausted. I didn’t have much energy to begin with, but just the car ride with her zapped me of what little energy I’d mustered.
As we pass racks of men’s clothing, I see a fitted black shirt that reminds me of Liam. I don’t think about it, I certainly don’t intend to, but as we pass it I reach out and caress the front.
My mom gives me a side eye and looks back over her shoulder at the shirt. “Pretty shirt.”
“Yeah.”
“Does he wear shirts like that?”
“Paul?” I ask, deliberately oblivious. “No.”
Just the thought of Paul in a shirt like that makes me want to retch.
“No, I—what’s his name? I feel silly not knowing.”
“Why would you?” I reply, and walk a little faster, hoping to leave her behind.
But she doesn’t give up. “Because I’m your mother. You were a teenager the last time you talked to me about a boy you liked.”
Yeah, before your husband killed my dad—go figure.
I don’t say it, but I’m sorely tempted to.
“We don’t have that kind of relationship anymore,” I say, because it’s just easier.
“Well, maybe I don’t think that’s fair.”
I scoff, but I really don’t want to get into it with her. I don’t have the energy, and if I did, it wouldn’t be in front of shoppers at the mall.
“Let’s just get a dress and get this over with,” I tell her.
She’s unimpressed with my attitude but I’m unimpressed with the whole of life, so I win.
Eventually we make our way to the pretty dresses. I used to like dresses, but I never wear them anymore. Still, it’s not torture to slide the hangers down the racks, searching for that perfect dress.
In my mind, in my dumb, stupid, idiot mind, I picture wearing one for Liam. Without ever having seen that man decked out in a sharp suit or button down and slacks, I’d bet everything I own he would look like a dream. I picture a different life, one where we were free to be together, and Paul, I don’t know… perished in a soggy condom on the end of his father’s dick, and I’m loved and protected by the stoic stranger who pinned me up against my tree.
There’s no version of that life, I imagine. How would I have ever met Liam if not for all this?
I don’t even know what he does, exactly. He seems like a soldier, but I seriously doubt he’s any kind of Mafia if he’s working for Raj. Private security, maybe. Former military. He has the build and posture for it.
I want to know so much more about him. I want to know everything. Does he have sisters? Are his parents alive? Does he snore? What did he want to be when he grew up? Probably not whatever he is, but maybe. I just want to know.
And I never will.
That’s so depressing that all the dresses are suddenly ugly, their looks withered with my mood.
“What about this one?” my mom asks, lifting a Barbie pink dress with rhinestones.
I blink. “Mom, no.”
“It’s pretty!”
My eyes go wide and I just turn and walk away, because there’s nothing else to be done about that situation.
I find a rack of black dresses much more suited to my mood but my mother comes over and glares at me like I’ve massacred a litter of kittens until I finally give up and walk away from them.
After the Barbie dress, I don’t have a lot of faith in my mom picking a dress I’ll like, so a moment later when she says, “Oh, this is lovely,” I’m not expecting much.
But it is.
The dress she holds up is deep red satin with black straps. The bust is adorned with rhinestones, but it looks elegant, not like the Barbie dress. I have a hunch my boobs will look great in it, and I want Liam to see me in it, because maybe then the bastard would actually want to bang me.
I’m pretty sure I’d look bangable in that dress. I pluck it from my mom’s hand and look at it from all angles, the front and the back. “I’ll try this one on.”
She’s proud of herself, but I don’t hold that against the dress.
Standing in the dressing room mirror, I admire my reflection. I didn’t try this morning when it came to hair or make-up—ratty bun, what is this make-up you speak of?—but the dress twinkles in the light and I love it.
I emerge with the dress hanging over my arm. My mom waits on my verdict, and I offer a satisfied nod.
She claps—actually claps, just once, but she still did it—and lets out a little, “Ha!” but I ignore her. I’m so pleased with the dress I even smile a little, but with my back to my mom so she doesn’t see it.
Before we leave, she hauls me into the ‘intimates’ for a new bra and panty set to go with the dress. I don’t know why she bothers, since I have to attend the party with Paul, but given the cut of the dress I’m not positive that any of my bras will actually work, so I allow it. I end up having to try the dress on again over several black bras. The V is really deep and it takes quite a few tries before we find one that works.
I’m tempted to take a picture in the dressing room to send to the number Liam gave me, but I haven’t used it, and to be honest, I’m not sure if it’s even a cell phone number. The last thing I need is to send a sexy picture to a rotary phone or something, and I’d take his silence as yet another rejection.
I don’t want to think about that. Not his rejection or the fact that, in our actual lives, there’s no way of anything working between us. At all.
I may as well be a princess in love with a goddamn toad, for all that he’s available to me.
Or maybe I’m the toad.
Shaking off thoughts of ill-fitting fairy tales, I take off the dress and head outside, relieved that this whole shopping excursion is over and I can finally go home and climb into bed.
Annabelle
After the shopping excursion, I’m hit with a depressive state. Another cloudy chunk of time where I don’t leave my bed, but the sun rises and sets for everyone else.
I think it’s the third or fourth day when I feel like getting up.
Paul doesn’t come home that night, but now that I’m paranoid about the house being bugged, it doesn’t feel much more relaxing. Initially I thought, no, when would they have bugged the house? I’m literally always here.
But then I remembered the sudden invitation to dinner. We were out of the house all evening. If they started following me after that, they would’ve had a perfect opportunity to come into my house while Paul and I were over at my mother’s.
So maybe my house is bugged. That’s fun.
When I emerge from my sleep cave, I find the house a mess.
Paul has been home each night I’ve
stayed in bed, so dishes are piled up in the sink and the kitchen smells sour. Empty Sprite and beer cans litter the countertop (the garbage can is just so far away) and there’s an ashtray full of ashes on the coffee table in the living room.
He’s smoking again?
I’m more aggravated by the fact that he smoked in the house than anything else. When we first moved in, Paul was a smoker, and I was very adamant that if he wanted to keep up with that disgusting habit, he could smoke in the driveway.
I thought he quit over a year ago, but I guess I haven’t really been paying much attention to his habits.
I spend the day cleaning. Sweeping and mopping and doing dishes. There’s a rust stain on the sink from a pan he shouldn’t have left soaking in water. I even open the window above the sink even though it’s really chilly outside, because I need to get the sour smell out.
Some woodland creatures to help out would be nice.
I get everything cleaned and take a shower, but it just makes me think of Liam. I close my eyes and imagine his hands on my breasts, his rough thumbs swiping across my nipples. In my fantasy, he bends to take one and then the other into his mouth, and before I know it, I’m a sexually frustrated mess.
Since I’m in the safety of my shower, I let my hand wander down between my legs, and I imagine his much larger fingers pushing inside me. My other hand caresses my breast, like his would, and I give myself the orgasm he didn’t.
My body feels better afterward, but overall it just makes me sad.
I want Liam.
I can’t have Liam.
I could’ve at least had Liam for a few minutes, but Liam pulled back.
I turn my thoughts off before I wind up back in bed.
I decide to go for a walk, more because I want to see if I can figure out who’s following me than because I actually want to freeze my ass off. I imagine whoever it is out there scrambling, unsure what to do. Am I going to meet someone? How will they keep an eye on me? They can’t walk with me. If I see the same car passing me over and over, I’m bound to think something is up.
Paul calls when I’ve made it a block away, and Paul never calls me, so I’m severely unimpressed with their stealth skills.
“What are you up to?” he asks, his tone all droopy and lame.
“Going for a walk,” I reply.
“Why?”
“Because I felt like it?”
“Oh. Well, I wanted to call to let you know I won’t be home tonight.”
Like that’s something new. He’s only ever let me know he wouldn’t be home a handful of times—he usually just doesn’t show. But I know what this is. His guy told him I left the house and they wanted to find out why. I guess that answers the question of whether or not Paul knows.
“I’ll be home tomorrow, but not until dinner time,” he tells me.
“Okay,” I drawl.
“Maybe you could run to the grocery store tomorrow,” he says. “There’s no food in the house, and if you felt like making dinner tomorrow, that would be pretty great. Maybe you could make your ziti.”
I weigh the idea, rocking my head side to side. “Maybe.” I do enjoy a good ziti.
“Cool, thanks.”
“I don’t have any money.” There’s like $3 in my purse.
“I left a twenty in the bill envelope in case you needed it.”
That’s surprisingly thoughtful, but I don’t say so. “All right.”
He stays on the phone for a bit longer, but neither of us has anything to say. I want to look around for the guy, but I can’t very well turn around and start looking or they’ll know I suspect something.
Finally I say, “So, I’m gonna go.”
He doesn’t argue but I can tell by the way he drags out his goodbye he’d like to stay on the phone.
When I hang up, anger spikes through my stomach. Motherfucker. That stupid asshole is having me followed. Of all the hypocritical bullshit he could pull….
I’ve lost count of all the mistresses he’s had over the years—because I’ve been relieved rather than resentful, like an actual wife—but the first time he thinks I’m into another guy, I have the goddamn mafia literally watching my house for him to come.
Stupid misogynistic asswipes.
I wonder if Liam has driven by to check on me.
I walk for a long time because it’s the first taste of freedom I’ve had lately, but eventually I have to go home. I glance in the windows of the cars parked on the side of the road as I make my way back, but there’s nobody in any of them.
The following day, as expected, I wake up alone.
Since Paul put the idea of ziti in my mind, and since I have an appetite, I decide to go to the store to get the ingredients I need to throw it together. It’s another nice, cold day, so it’ll be a good day to have the oven on. Maybe I’ll curl up on the couch with a book and a blanket while it cooks.
The day turns out even cooler than I expected, and by the time I get to the grocery store there’s a lovely, light snowfall catching on my hair and coat. It boosts my mood and I’m feeling pretty good as I peruse the aisles.
“Annabelle?”
I’m just about to reach for a pair of bananas. I pause and turn toward the female voice that doesn’t ring any bells, and I’m surprised to see my old friend Bethany. In high school we were good friends, but after I ‘married’ Paul and she went off to college, we lost touch.
“Bethany, hi.”
She does that thing where she grabs my shoulders and looks me over, all bright-eyed and normal. I don’t love being touched, but I don’t say anything.
“Wow, you look great!” She sounds surprised, but maybe I’m just not used to the decibel of her voice anymore. God, she’s perky.
Much more subdued, I offer a smile. “Thanks, so do you.”
“Wow, it’s been—God, I don’t even—has it been ten years? We can’t be that old!”
I smile and my gaze drops to her shopping cart. Empty, except for her purse.
She’s touching me again, tapping me on the arm, and my gaze moves back to her face. “Hey, I have a wild idea.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Let’s grab lunch. We haven’t seen each other in so long, we probably have so much catching up to do. I was just thinking about you the other day!”
I don’t want to say I only have enough money to buy the groceries I need for dinner and this pair of bananas. Before I can, she’s looping her arm around me and giving me a hug that I make terribly awkward by not returning it.
She seems a bit ruffled, but otherwise undeterred. “Come on,” she says, nodding her head toward the door. “Do you have anywhere you have to be? Let me buy you lunch.”
Well, hell, if she’s buying.
I insist on driving separately, because I need a few minutes to recover from her enthusiasm before I can stand to sit across from her and endure more of it. I feel a little guilty, because I know I used to be a brighter person myself, but Jesus, I wasn’t this fucking cheerful.
By the time we get to the restaurant, I’ve recharged a bit. I’m not used to socializing anymore, so I’m not sure I’ll be much good at it, but I’d like to try. I don’t have friends, but she used to be my friend, so who knows? I was just thinking when I went out with my mom how nice it would be to have an actual friend to talk to. Someone removed from all this bullshit.
Someone like Bethany.
Securing her purse in the spare seat beside her, Bethany looks up at me, beaming. “How are you?”
Still following social norms, even though it isn’t the truth, I reply, “I’m good. How are you?”
She begins to prattle on about how good she is, about her fiancé and his dog and the romantic hiking trip they went on when he asked her to marry him. I nod and smile politely, but dread creeps up on me at the prospect of her asking me similar questions.
And then she does.
“What about you?” she asks, and I can tell she’d tap my arm again if not for the table between us. I a
bsently give the table an approving pat. “You got married, didn’t you?”
I feel myself clamming up. “Yeah.”
I don’t know how to talk about my marriage, since it’s not real and certainly not normal. There’s no romantic proposal story, no highlight reel, no epic, hormone-induced love story responsible for me ‘marrying’ so young. My story isn’t the kind you tell an acquaintance over coffee, or lunch, or anything less than a bucket of stiff drinks so no one has to remember it come morning.
She catches sight of my ring finger. I’m still wearing my ruby ring (just in case I end up having to leave in a hurry, on account of someone maybe trying to kill me) but no wedding ring.
And then I have an idea. To be free, if only for the next hour.
“It didn’t work out.”
She offers a sympathetic grimace. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
But I’m feeling lighter already and I wave it off. “Oh, don’t be. It was for the best. Never should’ve gotten married in the first place. Oh well.”
She nods and the waitress comes over to get our drink order. Bethany goes off on a tangent explaining to me how she’s doing a green tea cleanse and they don’t have green tea, so she’ll just have water. I’m not sure if a green tea cleanse allows eating out at a restaurant, but she’s prattling on about how Becky lost eight pounds doing it, and I don’t think she needs to lose eight pounds, but maybe she does.
I remember her being a nervous talker, now that I think about it. Just on and on and on about anything that pops into her mind. I try to be less antisocial and intimidating to make her more comfortable, but I just find myself smiling a lot in the attempt.
After the waitress brings our drinks and takes our meal order, Bethany circles back with what I think is a playful smile.
“So, is there a special man in your life?”
I feel so awkward, because I don’t know how to talk about this anymore either. I bite down on my lower lip and take a drink. My heart is oddly racing, and it feels forbidden and dangerous to talk about Liam, but this is the perfect chance.
“Yeah, sort of,” I say.
