by Pamela Ribon
That night in bed, as I was babbling on about the next year with Matthew, I mentioned that there was enough interest in the photographs of my miniatures I’d posted on the Internet that I might be able to get my miniatures seen in the real world, in bigger places. Maybe I could get a show going.
“That sounds exciting,” he said. “Get seen outside our living room.”
I liked the way he dressed for bed, in actual pajamas. He’d comb his blond hair over to the side and tuck himself in like a dad from the fifties, complete with the day’s crossword puzzle from the newspaper. I often wanted to buy him a little pipe he could stick in the corner of his mouth after he fluffed his pillows. It made me smile, how he always seemed very official. This is bedtime.
I tapped him on the newspaper. “I wonder what’s going to happen to me,” I said.
Matthew lowered his crossword as he jammed his pen into his mouth. He stayed that way for a while, long enough that I decided he was pondering the answer to nine-across, and not my future.
But then he said, “You never say, ‘I wonder what I’ll do,’ or, ‘I can’t wait for this to happen.’ You sit and wonder what will happen to you. As if you have no choice. As if life just does things to you. You have free will, you know. You can make things happen for yourself.” He picked up the crossword and whacked it back to upright, concentrating again on the lower right quadrant.
With as much drama as I could muster, I fairly levitated off the bed, like I was consumed with the spirit of indignant outrage. “You’re right,” I said. “I can make things happen for myself. So I’m going to use all my free will to go sleep on the couch.”
He leaned his head back against the wall and made a sound deep in his throat, as if I were somehow being unreasonable. “Charlotte . . .”
“No, you seem to think it’s okay to talk to me like a parent. But I am not interested in sleeping with my mom,” I told him.
“Don’t you mean your dad?”
“Not when you sound exactly like my mother. It’s creepy. And stupid. Good night.”
I made sure to make my motions in the living room as noisy as possible, so he would know that I wasn’t finished with our conversation. It worked, and Matthew came out to the living room a few minutes later to apologize. “Don’t sleep out here. Please.”
“Why would you talk to me that way?”
“I’m sorry” was all he said. Because back then, that was all it took. One smile from Matthew, one apology, one touch of my lower back, and I would find a way to get back to how I had felt just before I got upset.
When it comes to problems or misunderstandings, I’m like a sitcom character. I want anything bad or uncomfortable to be over within twenty-four minutes. Less than half an hour later, I want us to be swapping apologies, each of us insisting we are more to blame, but have learned “something very important” from all of this. I want things resolved so the credits can roll, so that I can find rest.
More than likely, things went bad between Matthew and me because I rushed the sitcom ending. I rushed through our problems so quickly we rarely discussed what was actually wrong. Things got ignored, or at the very least diminished. They got squished down and shoved inside me, piling up higher and higher, until one day I guess they clenched my jaw shut.
That night, after I’d left the couch and once we were back in bed, I curled around Matthew. He stroked my hair and whispered, “What’s going to happen to us?” We kissed, and then answered that question together, silently, in the dark.
There was a time when I looked at Matthew and only saw All Things Good. I pushed everything else aside. I saw him and I smelled him and I felt him and I wanted that to be my future. But then.
Two words that hurt: “But then.”
I once had hope.
But then.
5.
When I get back to my desk, I find a McDonald’s bag sitting on my chair. A Happy Meal, with a Hello Kitty toy.
Jonathan enters. “What are you doing?” he asks. I don’t get tricked; I know he’s on the phone, his tiny glowing earpiece on the side of him I can’t see. If Jonathan isn’t actually sitting at his desk, he will be on the phone with his wife. Cassandra likes him to give constant updates on his life, apparently worried that if he has a single minute to himself, one that hasn’t been thoroughly dissected with her, he will morph into a different person and they will grow apart. Mostly Jonathan spends his time placating Cassandra about whatever it is that’s currently spinning her world into chaos. I would try to convince Jonathan that this is no life, but first of all I am not one to be giving out relationship advice, and secondly it appears Jonathan likes feeling needed.
“No, don’t try to fix it,” he says to Cassandra. “We’ll go buy a new one.”
As he lowers himself into his desk chair, I notice the tag from his khakis poking out over his waistband. It’s making his shirt ride up, exposing a tuft of dark back hair.
Jonathan’s not very tall, not very fit, not very smooth, and always just a tad sweaty. I don’t exactly know how, but he makes this work for him. There’s something about this that comes off as confidence rather than having given up, which is much closer to the truth. It doesn’t make any sense. The unhappier he is, the more people like him. The ruder he gets, the more people laugh. I’ve tried to figure out his secret, because if I could determine whatever it is that makes this short, damp, hairy man one of the most popular guys on our floor, I would be a bajillionaire.
I rap my knuckle on my desk to get his attention. I point to my bag of McDonald’s and mouth a thank-you. He shakes his head, eyebrows up, like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “Whichever one you want, my love,” he says into the air. “And if that lamp isn’t good enough, then we’ll get another new one, and another, until I buy you the sun if I have to.” He pauses. “No, I’m not being sarcastic. But I have to go.”
He flings the earpiece at his desk, but it lacks the flair of slamming down a phone. “Half an hour I’ve been hearing her complain about a lamp,” he says. “I need my wife to have more friends. Do you girls honestly call each other and complain about lamps? How do you stand each other all day?”
“Thank you for my lunch.”
“Honestly, I didn’t do that.”
“Okay, play it that way,” I say, as I turn back toward my computer. I glance at the screen and then freeze.
For the first time in a long time, there’s an email from Matthew. Subject line: PLEASE READ.
This can’t be good. Lots of other subject lines out there he could have chosen. This one needs attention. My attention. My hand trembles as I drag the mouse and click.
C—I was trying to make some room for my weight bench, and I was wondering if you would come pick up your sewing machine. I’ll put it in the closet if you don’t want it, but I thought I’d offer before I moved it.—M.
When I read the message to Jonathan I can’t help the sarcasm that pours out of me. I practically shout the initials Matthew used as placeholders for our names. As if anybody ever calls me C. As if that’s how we talked to each other. “Oh, C, my darling. My sweet. My one and only. I love you. I love you, C.”
But somehow Jonathan doesn’t get how flippant and arrogant Matthew’s message sounds. Instead he asks, “So, are you going to pick up the sewing machine?”
“I think there are more important things to talk about than the sewing machine,” I scoff.
He slumps down in his chair, the heel of his right hand mashing his forehead. “Oh, no. Don’t go crazy.”
I play with the mouse cord, bending it into little loops. “I’m not. I won’t.”
“You are. I see your loony brain working. You’re making a big deal out of a couple of sentences.”
“Well, in those couple of sentences he’s saying a lot.”
“He’s saying he wants to make room for his weight bench.”
“Obviously he wants to exercise more.”
“What an asshole.”
I rip open the
Happy Meal bag, stuffing cold french fries into my mouth. As the only thing that truly soothes a woman scorned is chilled salty potato.
“I know you know what this means,” I say.
“He wants to be in better shape?” Jonathan snakes his hand up the bottom of his shirt to root around his belly button. The friendship boundary between us has long been clearly defined and is constantly reinforced.
“Exactly. To impress someone. Someone obviously not me, because he wouldn’t want to move my things to do it.”
“Where does he keep his weight bench now?”
“That’s the thing. He didn’t have a weight bench when we were together. This is new. This is New Matthew, the one who works out with a weight bench.”
“I think if he was really looking to meet chicks, he’d go to the gym. Not work out at home. How lazy is that dude?”
I shove more fries into my mouth, enjoying the mushy-salty feel against my tongue. I shrug. “He’s trying to claim territory in the house. That’s why he wants me to go get my sewing machine.”
“You don’t have to go get it. He said he’d put it in the closet.”
“Oh, great. Off to the closet with memories of me!”
He leans over to steal one of my fries, and then steals five more while he’s chewing the first one. “When was the last time you used that sewing machine?”
“That is not the point.”
“I’m done with this,” Jonathan says, turning back around to his desk.
My computer dings. More email. This time it’s from Petra.
R U COMING 2 MY GIRLS NITE PARTY TOMOOROW NITE?—P.
Shit.
Besides being functionally illiterate, Petra is a friend and coworker. Well, she started as Matthew’s best friend’s girlfriend, which made her a forced friend (but one I genuinely enjoyed) whom I helped get a job here. Then Petra and Pete got married and she got a promotion, and then Matthew and I separated, so these days she’s Matthew’s best friend’s wife and my boss. Petra is my supervisor and awkwardly estranged friend. It’s great.
Add to that the fact that once Petra got her promotion, she worried people would accuse her of giving me special treatment, so when we’re at work she acts like she barely knows me. She’s all business, not wanting to have personal conversations. Her emails to me, if they aren’t about work, are extremely brief, almost in code:
TONIGHT: 8 PM. THE PLACE WHERE WE SAW CREEPY GUY. I’LL BUY.
I can’t skip out on Petra’s party, because then she’ll tell Pete I wasn’t there, and he’ll tell Matthew I wasn’t there, and then Matthew will think I’m either too sad to go to Petra’s party or too busy having fun to go to Petra’s party, and I don’t know which is worse. I turn to ask Jonathan, but he’s busy looking up lamps on the Internet. I’ve bothered him long enough.
I write back to both Matthew and Petra, telling each I’ll be by tomorrow night. I’ll stop by Matthew’s for my sewing machine, and then I’ll swing by the liquor store, and then I’ll go to Petra’s and get superdrunk.
And that’s how this girl spends her Friday nights.
On my way to the break room to throw away my Happy Meal bag and get a cup of coffee, I run into Goth-Girl Francesca. I mean I actually bump right into her, turning a corner. Our heads come so close together, I almost accidentally kiss her. Her dark eyes widen as she laughs.
“Oh, sorry,” I say.
“It’s fine,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.” She wipes her bangs back with the palm of her hand. I see black scribbles across her skin, snaking up her forearms. Phone numbers written in pen. She points at my empty McDonald’s bag. “Did you like your lunch?”
Is this small talk? “Um, I did. Yeah.”
“Cool,” she says, and walks away.
I take some comfort in knowing I’m not the weirdest one in this building.
6.
I blame Matthew,” Andy says, pushing my hair behind my ear to inspect my temple.
We are standing in the kitchen, getting ready to make the mouth guard I bought on my way home from work. I’m grateful Andy is here to keep me from wallowing in what could be a rather pathetic evening.
He briefly kisses the soft spot where my jaw meets my ear. “I blame Matthew for lots of things,” he continues. “Things that have nothing to do with you and your sadness. The other day someone knocked over the recycling trash can outside my place—broken glass everywhere—and I raised my fist to Heaven and shouted, ‘Dammit, Matthew!’ ”
“I get it,” I say as I turn toward the stove, hiding my smile. I’d thank him again for being here, but I know he’s having a fantastic time at the event he has crowned my “Dorkination.”
Andy and I became fast friends our freshman year of college, when we were stuck waiting in line for our IDs. It was aggressively hot that day, and we were on our second hour outside in the unwavering, unforgiving Los Angeles sunlight. Before we ever spoke a word to each other, a silent bond had already formed between us as our mood dipped from grumpy to spiteful. I think he was the first to make fun of the girl a few feet ahead of us, the one who was losing a desperate battle to save her hair and makeup. I joined in, pointing out the ones who were obviously hungover. By the time we reached the end of that line, we were the proud owners of two horrible IDs and a friendship that would last forever. We never dated, but we kissed once. It was a New Year’s kiss, it felt inexplicably incestuous, and we agreed never to do it again.
We did get really drunk and go skinny-dipping once, the one time he’d gotten me to go camping. We were in some spot outside San Diego, a city where I would have been much happier in a hammock near a swim-up bar, but he wanted to show me how fun it could be to “sleep under the stars.” I know this because I remember asking him then, “Isn’t that why people live in Hollywood?” and he has still not given me the proper amount of accolades I feel that joke deserved, considering my response time.
There were a lot of things I didn’t like about not having shelter for an entire weekend. It’s pointless to list them, as they were the things that any normal human being would crave during the course of a day. I don’t really understand why people would willingly wander away from plumbing or pillows. But I did like the sense of discovery, imagining we were exploring a brand-new world. I think I only truly enjoyed it because I pretended Andy hadn’t already been here before and didn’t know every step of the trail we were hiking. It made me able to get into the spirit of things while still knowing in the back of my mind that absolutely nothing unpredictable was going to happen. Like bears or coyotes. Or bears and coyotes.
At one point Andy led us to a private swimming spot where we could splash and play in the dark. Whenever I was out of the water, I would shelter my body with my hands, trying to be modest, until Andy said, “Don’t worry. You do nothing for me.”
“Thanks.”
He was floating on his back, staring down at his tiny toes jutting out of the water. “It’s not that you’re not pretty,” he said. “But I think of you as my sister.”
I swam over to him, touched that he felt that close to me. As an only child, I’d always wanted a sibling, someone closer to me than anyone else who would be stuck with me forever. A twin would have been perfect.
“You really think so?”
Andy nodded. “Mostly because you look like my brother.”
I grabbed the top of his head with both hands, trying to push him under, but he was stronger and ducked out of my grip.
“You kind of even have the same mustache,” he continued, his laughter echoing off the cliffs, bouncing around us in the dark.
Andy dates lots of girls. They rotate in, they rotate out. The only thing I can find in common about them is that they all have voices like singing mice. I’ve made him promise not to introduce me to another one unless he’s sure she’s The One. Like, they must already have wedding invitations in the mail.
But who wouldn’t fall for Andy? He’s got that dark and broody look without the accompanying dark and brood
y personality. He’s one of those freaks who actually likes working out. He also takes advantage of the parts of California one usually enjoys only in theory (hiking, surfing, tai chi in the park). Most people never actually do these things because it’s hot and sunny and tai chi is boring. But Andy will throw himself into anything that might involve taking off some or all of his clothes, as he thinks a body as nice as his shouldn’t stay under wraps. It would be a crime to cover such hard-earned perfection, and quite frankly rather unfair to people who have working eyeballs. Being familiar with the mostly naked version of Andy, I have to say he’s got a point.
I’m so glad I’ll never be Andy’s girlfriend, because if I gained even three extra pounds I’d feel like a monster next to him. It is hard for Andy to find women who don’t feel at least slightly physically insecure next to him, so he tends to end up with the most vacuous pretty girls in this city. Although I might be giving him too much credit here. He could be dating the most vacuous pretty girls in this city because there’s no shortage of vacuous pretty girls in this city. Girls you wish you could hold down with one hand while you slice open their foreheads and jam some brains in with the other.
So while Andy plays around with all those girls, for about the past decade or so the woman in his life has been me. Lucky me.
“You should try saying ‘Dammit, Matthew,’ too,” Andy says to me now. “Say it. ‘Dammit, Matthew!’ Just once. Please.”
“I would, but I’m very busy.” Using a pair of tongs, I dunk the mouth guard into a pot of boiling water, softening the plastic.
Andy frowns. “Blue? Why a blue mouth guard?”
“I thought it would be cuter,” I mumble.
Andy gives a quick whistle, placing his hand on my shoulder. “That is sad to me. You are breaking my heart. Truly.”
I know Matthew would have had a great time making fun of this, too, probably calling out football plays as I climbed into bed. “Sleep-97! Dream-97 Hut hut hut!” But now it’s just going to be me, my pillow, and whatever book I’m trying to read in order to blank out the fact that these days I sleep completely alone.
