by Pamela Ribon
Andy strolls right into my apartment, like we’re still roommates. As he takes in the complete mess I’ve made, scanning the piles of books and papers and mountains of clothes, his smile is huge.
“Now this,” he says, “is what I call progress.”
“Me too. Help me carry this stuff into the kitchen.”
I hand him a roll of butcher paper and my art supplies, snag a bottle of wine I’d been saving for the perfect moment, and get to work.
36.
I’m not leaving until you open up,” I say into my cell phone. “So unless you want your neighbors to think you’ve got a heartbroken lesbian lover camped out in your creepy hallway on the dirty green carpeting, I suggest you let me in. Also, I know you can hear me in there. I’m talking to voice mail, not an answering machine, so I’m just going to take up all the free time on your phone. And all of my minutes, so if you think about it, I’m making the sacrifice here.”
The door opens. Francesca’s in a pair of green Paul Frank monkey pajamas, holding a cup of coffee. “What do you want?” she asks.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I know. You said that a million times on my voice mail. And all the little Post-It notes on my office door. And the carrier pigeon you sent over.”
“But no email! See? Still staying away from Internet.”
“If you’re here for a certificate, you can fuck right off.”
“No certificate,” I say. “I’m here to kidnap you a little.”
“I don’t think that’s physically possible. Kidnapping just a little.”
I check the time on my phone. “Just get in my car. I’ll explain later. Please.”
She sighs as she starts shuffling back into her apartment. “Let me put on some clothes.”
“No!” I say, leaning forward to grab her arm. “No time. You can change later!” She snatches her keys as I grab her, coffee cup, bare feet, and all.
• • •
As we enter my place, I tell Francesca I can’t believe she kept her eyes closed the entire time.
“Unlike you, I believe in promises,” she says. “Plus, if you’re taking me somewhere to kill me, I don’t want to see it coming.”
I push her into my bathroom, hand her the black dress from my hostage kitten costume, and tell her to change. I start the kitchen timer I have sitting on the sink. “When that bell rings, open your eyes and come out here,” I say.
I run over to the kitchen, turn on the Christmas lights I have strung from end to end across my ceiling, straighten the backdrop I have covering the windows that I’ve painted to look like the interior of a Parisian café, and start the Amélie soundtrack on my iPod player. I run over to the table, open the laptop, press a few keys, and pour a glass of wine while I wait.
A few seconds later, Jacob’s face appears in the chat window. “Is she there?” he says, his excited face filling the screen. He’s dressed in a red-and-white striped shirt, a beret on his head. He’s painted a silly skinny mustache over his upper lip.
I quickly shush him and hold up two fingers. “Soon,” I mouth. I point at him and shake my head, letting him know he looks ridiculous.
He shrugs, chuckling, and I can see how excited he is. He gives me a thumbs-up. “Thank you,” he mouths. Then he whispers, “It looks awesome. Très magnifique!”
I check the time. I’ve got sixty seconds to get out of that apartment.
“Au revoir!” I whisper into the microphone. I quickly put the plate of cheese and bread next to the glass of wine, grab my keys, and run out through the apartment.
I hear the kitchen timer go off just as I shut the door.
• • •
An hour later, Francesca finds me at the coffee shop, where I’d told Jacob to send her when they were done with their date.
“What you did is about 60 percent stalker and 100 percent awesome.”
I put my book aside. “I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”
“So you got me a date. With my boyfriend. In fake Paris. In your kitchen.”
“I couldn’t afford to do the real thing.”
She wrinkles up her nose, and for the first time I notice she has a sprinkling of freckles. “Did you see what he was wearing?” she asks. “He looked like a candy cane.”
“Don’t let him wear that if he ever takes you to the real Paris.”
“I can’t believe you orchestrated all of that. He told me you found his number in your cell phone.”
“You borrowed mine once when yours died.”
“I remember. While I was busy hating you, I kept remembering other nice things you’ve done for me. Like when I was sick that night you made me soup. Or when you broke up my shin hematoma with your thumbs when I was too grossed out to do it.”
“About that,” I say. “I’ve got one on my thigh I might need you to do for me.”
“Not until you say you’re my derby wife.” She passes a fresh cup of coffee across the table. “Anyway, all those thoughts pissed me off, because it made it so much harder to stay mad at you. I missed you.”
“I missed you, too. Things with Jacob are better?”
She nods. “I told him that things had to end if he couldn’t find a way to fit me into his life. I said—and don’t take this the wrong way—that I didn’t want to be like you, always in limbo.”
I understand, but I don’t know what to say to that. So I nod.
She goes into her purse. “This came for you.”
She unfolds a new certificate. It says: CHARLOTTE GOODMAN HAS SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED: FIX SOMETHING YOU DID WHEN YOU WERE BEING A TOTAL DOUCHE BAG. HAS ACHIEVED LEVEL: LIEUTENANT BADASS.
“I particularly like the drawing of the douche bag.”
“I’m pretty proud of that myself.”
“I didn’t know this was one of the rules.”
“I had to make it up after you turned into such a douche bag. But I obviously forgave you when I let you kidnap me.” She leans forward, resting her chin on her fists. “So,” she says, her tongue darting briefly to her front teeth as she poses. “What’s new?” she coos.
“I signed up for the Rookie Rumble.”
“I know. Bruisey-Q told me.”
“She did? When?”
“When I signed up.” She kicks me under the table, not lightly.
“Ow.”
“Would you rather I kicked your ass?”
I shift uncomfortably, reminded of the pain that I’ve oddly become accustomed to over the past couple of weeks. “You’ll be doing it soon enough, once we’re on the track.”
Her face turns to worry. “Oh, no! What if we don’t end up on the same team?”
“Either way, we’re going to die.”
“I know.” She reaches over and takes my hand. “But it’ll be fun getting killed with you.”
37.
Finally, I’m cleared for light practice. While I’m itching to get back on my skates so that I don’t end up being the worst one on my team, a slight problem has developed. I’m scared to get back on the track.
This is why Francesca and I have come to the Wheelhouse an hour before practice to skate alone for a little while, until I don’t feel like throwing up at the thought of skating next to someone. She’s also brought me a present: crash pads.
They’re shorts that are padded around the hips, with extra protection around the tailbone.
“These things always existed?” I ask, incredulous. “Why don’t they make you skate with these all the time?”
“I don’t like wearing them. They feel like diapers to me. But for you, they will be your Confidence Pants.”
“How do I look?” I twirl on my skates, feeling three feet wider around my ass.
“Like a dinosaur. Charlottosaurus. A C. rex.”
“Okay,” I say, as I skate to the track. “Now what?”
She runs at full speed, slamming into me. I fall immediately, right on my ass. “Hey! It didn’t hurt!”
“I know! Confidence pants!”
I chase after her. “Grr! C. rex angry!”
After we’re warmed up, Francesca suggests working on hitting. “You’re probably going to be a Blocker since you’re good at slowing people down, so you should get used to knocking people over.”
I tell her something I haven’t told anyone before. “Sometimes I feel bad when I knock into a girl.”
“But that’s the game.”
“Do you know Sandy has four kids?”
“Who’s Sandy?” Francesca asks, scrunching her face.
“Oh, um. Bloodfist. I saw her driver’s license when she was paying dues at the front, and now I can only think of her as Sandy.”
“Bloodfist has four kids?”
“Sandy has four kids. Four! One of whom is a newborn. What if I hit her and she falls on her arm and then can’t breast-feed? I can’t hit a baby mama.”
“You hit me. I’m smaller than you are.”
“Right, and I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
“Why not?”
I sigh. “Because you’re my friend, Francesca.”
“No. I’m Blowin’ Past’er. Why do you think we all have these other names? That’s why on the track Sandy-with-the-four-kids is known as Bloodfist. And you’re supposed to knock Bloodfist down before she does exactly that to you. Her baby-popping vagina’s not the only thing that’s mighty. That girl can hip-check you right onto your face.”
Francesca bumps into me. “Hit me as hard as you can,” she says.
“I don’t know.”
“Do it, Broke-Broke! You have to hit me. Everybody on this track knows the risks. Including you. Are you mad at the girl who broke your tailbone?”
“No. Nobody did it. I fell when I was celebrating.”
“Well, that is hilarious. Now hit me.”
I bump into her. Not a hit. A bump.
“Are you kidding me?” She jams her mouth guard in and growls around it. “Hit me like you mean it. Like I called you fat. Like I called you ugly.”
I go at her, but she sidesteps around me. I miss, and fall.
“Get up,” she says.
I get my feet under me and push toward her. I skate up the incline so that I can use the momentum down the track to plow harder into her arm. I go at her, but she picks up her pace. I miss, sliding right into the infield, crashing on my knees.
I hear her from the other side of the oval, taunting me. “Are you mad yet, Broke-Broke? Get mad. Get mean!” She rounds the bend, coming toward me. She points at herself. “I’m not your friend up here. I’m Petra. I’m Matthew. I’m the dick who cut in front of you at the grocery store. I’m—”
I sidestep into her, hitting her hip with mine. She goes down quickly, her chatter quickly halted. She looks up at me with surprise. “Whoa.”
“You okay?”
“Broke-Broke. That hurt!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t say ‘sorry!’ ” she yells. Then a huge smile breaks out on her face. “I’m so glad you’re on my team! We’re so going to win!”
We spend the rest of the hour chasing each other around the track, slamming into each other. Each time we call out another thing we’re hitting instead of each other. Whatever it is that gets us furious.
“I’m not hitting you, I’m hitting my mother!”
“This time you’re the babysitter I had when I was ten!”
“Hit me, I’m Elmo!”
“Take that, soy milk!”
We are in hysterics by the time the other girls show up for practice.
During the last jam of the last scrimmage, Francesca plays Jammer for the opposite team. As she tries to pass me, I step in and slam her, not just her shoulder, but as if I were hitting her through her shoulder. She leaves the ground, shooting up and spinning as she falls backward. Terrified that I’ve just killed her, I turn around and skate back to her.
“Jesus, are you okay?”
She’s flat on her back, eyes closed. Her tongue pushes out her mouth guard and it bounces onto the track near her neck as she whispers, “Holy fuck, Broke-Broke. You’re a killer. That was awesome.”
That night I buy the beer, and Francesca makes me a certificate of completion on a cocktail napkin. My favorite one so far: CHARLOTTE GOODMAN GOT ANGRY.
38.
When Petra calls my name from the door of my office, it makes both Jonathan and me jump right out of our chairs.
“Jesus, Petra,” Jonathan says. “When it’s quiet because we are working, I would think you’d like that.”
It’s also that quiet because Jonathan and I don’t talk to each other much anymore, and I’m starting to miss his company. He’s on the phone with Cassandra half the day now, her pregnancy having taken over both of their lives. I like listening to his half of the conversation, though, to hear how concerned he is for her comfort, for the safety of the baby. He thinks it’s going to be a girl, but Cassandra is hoping for a boy. One day when Jonathan thought I had music playing through my headphones, I heard him tell Cassandra to put her cell phone to her stomach. He sang the baby an impromptu song about how fetuses shouldn’t make their mommies want to puke every day. Then he freaked out when he realized how dangerous it might be for his wife to press a cell phone against her womb.
“I need to talk to you,” Petra says to me. “Conference room?”
As I walk down the hall, I quickly go over the past few weeks in my head, trying to determine what I’ve done wrong. I can’t think of anything, but whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. This job is just a job, nothing more. The more I’ve started to enjoy my real life, the less of a hold this place has on me. It’s no longer my solace but once again a place I feel like I just have to endure.
On nights off from the track, I’ve been playing around with making miniatures. At first I was just seeing what came out of fiddling with a few pieces of wood, but I had all these empty boxes from my closet, and an idea started to take shape.
I’m making a series that re-creates the places I’ve lived in over the years. Each box is transformed into a diorama of the layout. My childhood home, my dorm apartment, my first tiny studio all by myself, and lastly, my house with Matthew. That one has been more difficult, and I find I get stalled around the bedroom, the front porch where I was once carried over the threshold, the bathroom where I shared a shower with my husband, the back porch where I planted lilies . . . Even in tiny form they are still filled with powerful memories. Going back to places where I lived in high school and college was much easier. The thoughts that emerged during that time were mostly warm ones, filled with silly nights amped up on too much caffeine when Andy and our friends and I laughed way more than we studied.
Even though it’s been a long time since I’ve worked on anything, I’m impressed with the changed direction my art has taken. There’s a mood in my miniatures now that I think was missing before. I’m not so worried about getting the re-creations exactly right, but more concerned that they carry an emotion in them. The rooms feel like they’ve been lived in. They aren’t just dioramas or models; they are snapshots of my life.
Petra is already seated at the table when I enter the conference room; it seems like she’d have to have teleported herself there for that to be possible.
“Sit down, Charlotte,” she says, because apparently she assumes I might choose to drop to the floor or crawl up onto the overhead projector and perch like a monkey.
I take the chair across from her, opting to place as much table between us as possible.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, trying to smile.
She’s changed her hair. It’s red, and she’s attempting to pull off a headband, but her forehead is too exposed, her skin dry and flaking around her eyebrows. She must have just applied lipstick, but she did it hastily and it doesn’t cover her upper lip. In the harsh lighting of the conference room, it glares orange. She says, “This is awkward, but I’m wondering if you’ve decided what you’re going to do about Matthew.”
“Is this w
hy you called me in here? Is this the meeting?”
“You know, he’s seeing someone. Someone he . . . well, I’m not supposed to tell you these things.”
“Then don’t.”
“Look, I’ve watched you destroy yourself over the past year—”
“I’m doing better now,” I say, hoping she will take the hint and start minding her own business.
“Really?” she asks. “Because fun time with Goth Girl seems to be taking away a lot of time from work. You had to take time off because you hurt yourself roller-skating? Aren’t you thirty?”
“Petra.”
“Do you know Matthew spends most of his time at our place? Neither of you want that house. It’s making it so that my life is affected now. Not just yours. Pete and I aren’t on the plan anymore.”
“The plan?”
“We were going to buy a house, start a family. But ever since you and Matthew split up, Pete’s worried that we’re not going to make it, and all he talks about is whether or not we’ll ever get a divorce. And if this keeps up, we will get one, and I don’t really want to end up like you and Matthew.”
Now that I hear someone else talk about how frustrating it is to deviate from a personal plan, I realize what Francesca’s been trying to tell me all this time; my daily plan wasn’t just ridiculous, it was futile. That’s what sets people up for disappointment. It’s not the promises that let you down; it’s the plans. You can’t predict your day any more than you can predict the next thing a person’s going to say.
“I quit.”
Like that. That’s what I’ve said, and I couldn’t have predicted it.
Petra taps her pen on her bottom teeth. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“I quit this job.” My brain is racing through my bank account. If I don’t spend any money on anything I don’t truly need, that doesn’t feed or house me, I can make it for a few months.
“That’s not necessary.”
“I think it is.” I stand up. “By the way, you’ve been an incredibly shitty friend.”
I practically float back to my office.
