Screw Cindy and Richard, screw Jack and Jeremiah, and screw everyone watching everything going down like we were just a bit of dinner theater. Having a breakdown? Yeah, probably, but if I was, I was going to do it my way.
“Maybe I am having a breakdown, Cindy. What does it matter if I am? It’s none of your business, regardless, but it seems like no matter how hard I try to avoid you two, you still manage to be in the same place as me no matter what. You are like the cockroaches of people. Did you know that, Cindy?”
I didn’t care who was listening, I hadn’t even said a swear yet, but it was immensely satisfying to finally get to say something, anything to the two people that hurt me the most. Jack thundered up to our small group, not so eager to take part in it, but frantic to stop it from exploding even further. Well, if he wanted to diffuse the situation, he used the wrong choice of words.
“This is not very professional, Regina.”
Oh, no he did not.
“Not very professional? Not very professional, he says?” I was talking to the entire room at this point. Why not? I had nothing to hide, and I was pretty sure I was walking out of this party unemployed anyway. The thought of being free of the whole mess was invigorating, giving power to my voice, allowing me to project throughout the room. I didn’t need to be quiet. Everyone was so interested in what was going on, let them hear.
“What is unprofessional is emailing your distributor sales rep at work to let her know that you have been fucking the man she has been living with for the past four years. How’s that, Cindy? Not very professional, was it? Scarlet from hairline to neckline, Cindy couldn’t say anything. She probably wanted to, but what I said was absolutely true and she hadn’t been prepared for me to throw it all to the wind like that.
“What is unprofessional,” I continued, “is having a boss who knows how hard I tried to do the right thing by giving the whore’s account to someone else to handle. But even then, the person who was given the account doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, and still managed to screw everything up—Jeremiah, I’m talking to you. So what does the boss do? Instead of counseling the errant employee, he comes back to me, in a complete conflict of interest, tries to force me back into a working relationship with the whore, sorry, the client.”
Jeremiah’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, and Jack’s face was purple with rage. But I was a boulder, rolling downhill and picking up speed as I went. There was no stopping me, anyone who tried would just get crushed as I steamrolled over them.
“What is unprofessional, is having a boss that tells me to dress like a prostitute at a work function or my job will be at risk. And you know what? I’m the idiot that did it. I don’t normally dress like this, you know?” I asked the nameless man next to our little circle who was staring at me with rapt attention, transfixed by the spectacle. He had his cell phone out and was probably filming, that’s what people did when they witnessed a car crash these days and I was definitely headed for a collision. Whatever. I smiled for his video. I hope he got my good side while I was going down in a blaze of glory.
“That’s enough, Regina.” Jack was shouting now, his outburst garnered the attention of anyone in the far corners of the venue that hadn’t been privy to our happenings. If they weren’t paying attention before, they certainly were now.
“Oh, zip it, greaseball.” I was over it, over him, he had no authority over me anymore. “This is what you’ve been watching for, isn’t it? Pushing me and pushing me into extremely uncomfortable situations, waiting for me to crumble and lose control? Well, here you go”—I swept my arm out wide showing myself off from head to toe—“this is me falling down. Are you enjoying the show? All of you—are you happy with this? Of course I’m struggling, anyone would in my situation, so stop trying to make me feel like a freak because I’ve been hurt by someone. By multiple someones. It’s normal to fall apart and put yourself back together because here’s the thing—I will put myself back together. It’s you who lose. Cindy, you lose out on a great friend and a fantastic sales rep. Richard, you lose at life in general so you can just fuck off. Jeremiah, I don’t even have words for you, the fact is that you are just an HR nightmare that I don’t have the energy to even pursue, so I’ll just leave you alone. But Jack—I think you lose most of all. Because the truth of the matter is, that no matter how much you postulate and sit on your big chair, the one that is taller than anyone else’s, you have to admit that I was your best sales rep. I made you so much money over the last few years, it was my work, and my relationship with clients that has given you the means to act like the douche you are. So here’s the thing. I’m damn good at what I do, which is sales. It doesn’t have to be for you. Think about that for a minute. I’ll be fine wherever I go from here, the hard work is going to be you replacing me. Good luck with that.”
I was done talking. At some point the DJ had even turned the music off, which I only noticed because my stiletto’s made a tap tap tapping sound that ricocheted loudly in the tomb silence of the party venue. Those shoes were going directly in the trash when I made it back up to my room. Maybe the DJ turned the music back on after I left. Maybe the party carried right back on like nothing had ever happened, it didn’t matter. I was done. With all of it.
It wasn’t until I was sitting cross-legged on the bed in my hotel room, comfortable pajamas on and a three pound room service cheeseburger half eaten in front of me that I realized the reason I still felt hollow inside. I should have felt righteous, vindicated even, and to an extent, I did feel better, but the person that I most wanted to share the news with was the person that I dared not call. No, I wasn’t all better, it still hurt after all. Fresh waves of pain wracked my body and as I pushed aside my half-eaten dinner and curled up into a ball I realized something. It didn’t matter that I had just stood up for myself, a grown ass woman in a room of my peers, a broken heart was still a broken heart. And even though my mantra had been never let them see you cry, it seemed that in private, I still had plenty of tears left to shed.
News must have spread fast because I wasn’t even at the airport yet when my phone started dinging like crazy. Job offers. From all over. Not even in the same industry. Message after message from companies looking to offer me a job. Some of them were simply messages that said,
Give us a call to discuss possible employment opportunities, to one message I got from an acquaintance that owned a Hemp bath and body line that said,
I don’t give a shit what you wear because you can work from home. Join my sales team and you can work in footie pajamas for all I care. Call me!
Okay, so it looked like I had options. I was in no position, however, to make rash decisions. I had to admit, I was a mess, maybe I had cleaned up professionally, but my personal life was in shambles. What I most needed was to take some time for myself, something I had never done before, and figure out my next move. What was going to be beneficial for me? What was going to make me happy? The truth was, I didn’t really know.
I’d been home and unemployed for a couple of weeks. I hadn’t yet decided what I wanted to do, but money wasn’t really an issue yet. Working for Slow Grind had been incredibly lucrative for me, and I had enough savings to keep me going for a while. The calls were still coming in with job offers, so the interest was still there, and it was time for me to start taking them seriously and at least give some thought to my next move. Apparently the guy with his phone out had uploaded the video to Youtube with the title “Sex toy sales chick goes on epic rant” and it was hot news in the industry. I was industry famous, and so were Richard, Cindy and Slow Grind. Not the good kind of famous either but I couldn’t bring myself to care about their fallout. They got what they deserved. I’d managed to start sleeping in my own bed again, which was good for my back. I had even gotten kind of good at styling my hair on my own. It was starting to grow on me, and now when I looked in the mirror, I saw Regina. Not Old Regina, or New Regina, but Regina. I was still on my journey, still not read
y for that new tattoo and not sure how I would go about getting it even if I was. I doubted another artist would be able to look right inside of me like Beck had.
Yes, Beck was still on my mind. I still had so many questions that I needed answered, his place in my heart was still a raw, open wound that showed no hint of closing or scabbing up. Something nagged at the back of my mind whenever I thought about Beck. Like, maybe I should have asked more questions instead of hurling bottles at him. I don’t know, something. Something just felt off. I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe I had done something I shouldn’t have, even though I couldn’t figure out what it was. Anyone with eyes would have drawn the same conclusion I did, so I couldn’t pinpoint where the feeling was coming from. So I continued to hurt, privately.
It was a Tuesday evening when the phone rang, surprising me in the middle of my dinner that I was eating on the couch in front of the television. The surprise wasn’t that it was an unknown number, all the numbers were unknown lately, what with all the job offers. It’s just that those were all messages sent through text or email, this was an actual phone call.
It surprised me enough that I answered it, and the voice on the other end had me sitting stupidly in shock.
“Regina, its Cody,” the voice on the other end spoke in hushed tones, like he was trying not to be overheard. Dread flooded my body, why was Cody calling me? What had happened to Beck?
“Cody? What happened? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, well, okay, sort of. Not really. Well...” He wasn’t getting his words across but I at least gathered that no one was gravely injured. “Everyone is okay, but like, Beck is being intolerable lately, and it started when you stopped coming around.” His voice got quiet again and I heard noises in the background.
“Cody, are you calling from Gallery B?”
“Yes, I’m looking at the schedule and I can try to get you in for a consult sometime next week, what is your Thursday morning looking like?”
Okay, so he was at the gallery, and he didn’t want anyone to know he was talking to me, that much I gathered.
“Okay look, Regina, I don’t know what happened, or what you think you saw, but Beck is a good guy. He’s hurting right now, and when he’s hurting he’s a real asshole to like, everybody. If you could please do us a favor and just, I don’t know, fix it. Whatever you did, fix it, please. I’m always going to be Team Beck, and he would kill me if he knew I was telling you this right now, but there is a lot you don’t know about him. About us. I think it would help you both though, if you did.”
There it was. That tiny sliver of hope I had been yearning for. That rope swinging down into my pit of despair which, if I could just understand and grab it, would pull me out of the dark world I was living in.
“Okay, Cody,” I said into the phone, my dinner forgotten on the table in front of me. “What do you need me to do?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The address Cody gave me was an old elementary school building on the corner of a crumbling street in an even more deteriorating part of an Old West End neighborhood. It wasn’t sketchy exactly, just that everything looked so derelict. Like, whoever had been there had just up and left, the school was clearly past its heyday. Grass burst through the asphalt playground in persistent clumps and the steps in front of the main entrance were slightly askew. I had driven past so many times; I just never paid much attention to the building before now.
Many little feet had gone up and down these stone steps, I thought. How many people’s babies grew up here, and learned here? What was I even doing in this place, what was I going to find out? It could have also just been the dim light of the evening that made everything look abandoned and spooky. After all, it was still a populated neighborhood. People still lived here, it was just that at eight in the evening, most people were at home and no one would normally be at an elementary school at that time of the evening. Especially one that hadn’t seen a full school room in probably ten years.
The building was privately owned now, from what I understood, and people rented out the rooms for various activities. I had seen dance classes advertised here before; a belly dancing class, a pole dancing class and a ballroom dancing class, I knew for sure. There was also a karate school operating out of one of the floors, and if I remembered correctly, a roller derby team had used the gymnasium for practice once upon a time. None of that was helpful to me when I was trying to determine what I was going to see when I walked inside. There were a few cars in the parking lot, but no one milling around outside that I could see or ask any questions.
Gingerly I made my way up the crumbling stone stairs and into the building, the heavy glass doors swung open without too much effort. The inside lobby and hallways were brightly lit, and I could see the worn and warped linoleum of a hallway going to the right, with a sign for rooms 101-115. To the left was a set of open double doors marked, auditorium. The paper where I had written Cody’s notes mentioned auditorium, so that was where I wanted to be. To the left it is. Into the unknown.
The doors to the auditorium were open, which was good, because I didn’t want everyone to turn around and look at me as I entered the room. I had a vision of the doors creaking loudly as I pushed them open and everyone turning around. “What is SHE doing here?” they would cry out. “Who invited her?” At least that was the horror story that played in my mind. I paused at the entrance when I saw the small A-Frame sign off to the right of the open doors. My heart dipped a little at the bold black text on the plain white background.
Bailey’s Choice.
Bailey.
Bailey . . .
Bailey was Beck’s sister’s name. The sister that had spiraled into the tragedy of addiction after the accident that left her paralyzed. The subject of Beauty Sleeping. Still confused, a small kernel of awareness started to unfurl in my stomach. I peeked in through the double doors, into the auditorium only about a quarter full of people, only the first four rows or so were full, the entire back of the hall was empty. It looked pretty much like what I thought it was, some kind of support group.
I could see Beck, sitting in the front row. He was really hard to miss, considering he was such a big man. Cody sat to the left of him, the girl whom I had seen Beck with before to his right. Tears of shame pricked the back of my eyes. I didn’t know what I was feeling sorry about yet, but I would be finding out soon. Something just wasn’t right, and I had the sinking suspicion that I had screwed up horribly. Cody invited me here for a reason, though, and I owed it to Beck to find out what was going on.
Sneaking like a thief, I made my way up to the middle section of seats, not quite the back, but still far enough behind that no one would notice me sitting there. I was here to observe after all, not participate. It wasn’t until I had myself situated in my sneaky half-slump for observation that I turned my attention to the stage. My posture straightened immediately, and I sat upright in the seat, forgetting that I was trying to be hidden in my effort to get a better look at the person on the stage.
Beauty Sleeping.
Bailey Gallagher. Very much alive and looking resplendent in her wheelchair, long blonde hair in a braid that fell over one shoulder. She held a microphone in one hand and was speaking into it, the other hand gesticulating wildly. She talked with her hands too, just like Beck. I stared at the back of his head, trying to figure out what was going on. He had never said she was dead, exactly, I had just assumed from the pain in his voice as he had talked about the painting. I didn’t know, or take the time to try to know, what kind of pain he had been in or was still dealing with. The extent of my selfishness was starting to hurt. More so because I was beginning to see it was a self-inflicted injury.
Hadn’t he said something before about wanting to help people? Had I just not been listening closely?
“You all know my story, of course. But we have a speaker tonight that some of you might not know that well.” Bailey’s words caught my attention and my gaze was dragged back to the stage, and the f
amiliar stranger as she sat upon her metallic throne. “Chessie, would you mind coming up here and sharing your story with us?”
The girl sitting next to Beck slowly rose out of her seat. She hesitated as she stood, and Becks hand rubbed small circles on her back, urging her to keep standing. It was a familiar gesture, a friendly one. There was no jealousy in my heart as I watched him urge her to go onstage, she was clearly nervous and trying to find a reason to not go up there. Bailey didn’t call her name again, just sat on the stage and watched with a small smile on her face, as if she too had been nervous and hesitant once upon a time.
The entire room was swaddled in patience, there was absolute silence as the girl named Chessie hovered on the brink of her own fight or flight reflex, until she finally made a decision and, flashing a shy smile to Beck, made her way up to the stage and took the microphone from Bailey’s hand.
“Hi, I’m Chesapeake, and that is a mouthful of a name for a woman, much less a small girl, so ever since I was a little kid I’ve been called Chessie.” Her voice shook a bit as did her hands, I could see the microphone trembling even from several rows back. “You’ve heard the commercials on the public service ads, no one ever says they want to be a junkie when they grow up. That’s true. No one fills out career paperwork in high school saying they want to stick needles in their arms for fun and then die, but it happens to so many just the same. I wanted to be a dancer, a career dancer, and I worked really hard from a very young age to make that happen. I come from a loving home, a middle-class family. My parents taught me right from wrong and the value of hard work. They put me through performance arts school, but I still worked to make ends meet. Pizza delivery wasn’t a glamorous job, but it paid for utilities on my apartment and groceries, even if my parents paid for everything else. I had friends, and a really nice boyfriend, and a car that got me where I needed to go, even if it was a bit old. I was privileged, in the way that people don’t think about when they think of people who abuse drugs.”
The Permanence of Pain Page 11
