I laughed softly and agreed. Somehow, I found the suggestion reassuring. Stellan was unchanged and in Stellan’s world, all roads lead to food. I explained I needed to bathe before I saw the light of day. He assured me that I was the most beautiful woman to be raised by wolves in the world.
I punched him gently.
He tousled my hair. Like a big brother would.
When I reached my room, I heard the TV switch on downstairs and the sound of Stellan’s heavy boots clomping down on the coffee table.
I stood there, just a few yards away from him, shut my bedroom door and slumped down beside my bed. This time I cried without boundary. I keened so hard, I was silent. I was grieving - grieving for something I would never have.
These tears I did not want him to see. These tears he could not soothe.
I’d heard of timeless love stories that ended with war widows dying of a broken heart. In their beds, unable to eat, sleep, or live without their husbands. I understood that now.
The next morning, I deleted Stellan’s texts. I’d been saving every single one he’d sent me for months. They’d made me smile before, but now, I didn’t want to think about them, about how ridiculous I’d been to save them. God, if he’d known…
I continued in the fury of that spirit and deleted every text in my phone. I’d made a habit of deleting Festering Asshole’s texts, but Jackie and Meghan received the same treatment. I wiped the phone clean, as though perhaps letting go of the past few weeks would make me forget them. When I was done, I went for the office.
I stooped under the desk, pulled out the empty trash can and proceeded to dump, crumple and tear every single scrap of doodle covered paper into the bucket. Everything – every comic, every sketch, doodle and design, all shredded in my strange purge. When I was done, I combined it with the kitchen garbage and took the lot outside to await the trash pickup a few days away.
Somehow, this felt better. Somehow, this masochism felt deserved - righteous. Had I been armed with lighter or matches, I might have set the whole mess on fire.
What would the neighbors think?
These words seemed to come in my Grandmother’s voice.
I passed the bird feeders, hanging half full on their metal pole, and stopped. The oak trees were rustling overhead, their leaves having left the backyard a yellow and orange sea of quivering leaves. Every footfall of bird or rodent was announced with their quiet shifts. I listened to the sounds of the neighborhood, smelled the crisp Autumn air. Someone was raking on the next street over, their dog yelping at them in protest from a house window, and far off, the high school marching band was practicing.
I waited for some sound, a declaration that everything was going to be okay. When none came, I slipped back into the house. It even smelled empty.
Stellan asked me to stop by that day, to bring by the sketches I had. I thought of the clean office, of setting to work, checking my email for news from Chalice, moving my art files to a flash drive and walking downtown. Neither thought helped the tension in my stomach. Instead I stood in my living room, swaying as though a soft breeze might knock me off my feet.
I couldn’t explain my next move. I didn’t even see it coming when I turned and strode up the stairs with purpose. I walked through my open bedroom door, took my phone up off my bedside table as though in a trance, and without knowing what I would say or why I was calling, I pulled up the contact in my phone and pressed the call button.
When Evan answered, his voice had the timber of a man in bed.
I fought to speak, afraid I’d awoken the lumbering entrepreneurial giant and perhaps his wrath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Jensen, hey. Don’t even worry about it. What’s up?”
I stood there in my room, the phone to my ear, but I didn’t speak.
“You alright?” He asked.
Again I didn’t speak. Why had I called him? I couldn’t decipher a purpose or a word to say. Why would he have any comfort or advice to offer me? There was no sense to the phone call, yet still - “Are you back in L.A.?”
Evan shifted on the other end before he answered. “I am. Why, do you need me?”
I shook my head. Sadly, he couldn’t hear it.
“Faye? What’s up, goose? What’s going on?”
I scratched my cheek, letting my fingertip graze over my skin idly as I stood there, wordless. I didn’t know the answer to his question. When I finally opened my mouth, I was surprised by my response. “I think I’m losing my mind.”
He shifted again, the sound of a man pulling himself out of bed. He was chuckling softly. “You and me both, dahlin. Why do you think you’re losing your mind?”
I sat down on the bed and listened to him getting up. I started talking – told him about the pancakes I couldn’t eat, about the undeniable urge to burn everything I’d ever created. He listened to me ramble as he got dressed and made his way into what I could only imagine was a wing in his monstrous house. I never mentioned Cole. I never mentioned Stellan. Still, Evan and I remained on the phone, a comfortable rapport between us as we both went through the motions of our mornings. He managed to get me talking about the sordid tale of my job loss and then my house loss. He regaled me with tales of his most recent acquisition and the resulting backlash of user protest at their favorite site being ‘assimilated.’ He called them ‘whiny internet bitches,’ and I laughed. I felt small in the wake of his problems. Somehow, that smallness was soothing. By the time I became aware of the time, Evan and I had been on the phone for two hours. I offered to let him go when he finally breached a subject I’d have loved to avoid.
“Did you finally talk to Stellan?”
I paused. “I did.”
Oh dear God, he must know about my drunken make out attempt. Suddenly the comfort of the conversation was a distant memory.
God, I’m pathetic. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.
“Yeah? You two all good? He was fucking intolerable the past couple days.”
“He was?” I cringed at the hopeful tone of my voice. He’d been affected. Despite my self-flagellation, my heart leapt at the thought. “Yeah. We’re good. We had a bit of a screaming match this morning, but I think we’re good.”
Evan gave some errands to someone on the other end of the line, and I waited for his attention to return. Suddenly the notion of him having company struck me. “Who was that?”
Evan coughed, as though almost uncomfortable. “That was Louis.”
“Who’s Louis?”
Evan paused. “He’s my assistant.”
I called him out. “Do you have a fucking butler?”
“What? No!”
I could tell by the tone that the answer was, in fact, yes. “Are you fucking kidding me? You have a Mr. Belvedere?”
“No! I have a Louis! He’s different.”
I shook my head, laughing. My mind was suddenly flooded with images of Dudley Moore in Arthur, and placing Evan’s face on his tiny, clumsy body. “My whole world is blown.”
Evan chuckled. “Shut the fuck up, you.”
“Why didn’t you bring him to the party? Does he not travel with you?”
Evan coughed again. “No…” I waited for him to continue. “I have staff on the East Coast.”
“Blown, I tell you!”
“Don’t you fucking judge me, woman!”
“Oh, I’m gonna! Does he actually live with you?”
“No…yes.”
I shook my head. “Evan Lambert has a butler. One who butles.”
“I believe the correct term is a ‘Gentleman’s Gentleman,’ thank you very much.”
I managed to get Evan to admit to a few more regular staff in his household – housekeeper, chef, he even had a clothes shopper, though he assured me they did not live with him.
I mocked him mercilessly the whole time. The truth was, his life sounded beyond blessed, but the notion of naked ass, acid-loving Evan running through his h
ouse on mescaline while a man in a vest and tie picked up the clothes trailing behind him made me warm.
Evan expressed a desire to come back home soon and promised to keep me posted when he would be in town. I assured him I would have my assistant make time in my busy schedule to see him and we hung up.
And somehow, I felt better. Evan was like an island. He was this entity that existed outside of the rest of my life, outside of the drama and the anxiety of my relationships, my job hunt, my failures. Talking to him was like time traveling to days before I saw myself fall.
I glanced at the clock and cringed. I’d woken him up at seven in the morning, his time. Still, he hadn’t begrudged me the company. I promised to be considerate of the time difference if the need to call him arose again and headed for the couch. There, I wasted away the day in front of the TV. I never stopped in to see Stellan.
CHAPTER Fourteen
I could say the month of October barely happened, or perhaps passed with a whimper, but after that morning with Stellan, I hardly interacted with anyone.
By the time Halloween rolled around, I’d seen Stellan maybe twice since that morning he’d camped out on my porch. Yet, somewhere in that span of complete antisocial behavior, I’d managed to clock several hours on the phone with Evan Lambert.
I couldn’t quite express the comfort I felt when he and I spoke. There was solace there, when everything else felt like din. He didn’t know my failures unless I told them to him. He still knew me as the bright, shining, glorious version of myself; the one he’d last spent time with before the night of his Halloween party – before I’d learned to be ambitious, before I learned how to succeed at life, before I’d set myself up for complete and utter disaster.
Sure he knew the sordid details of my downfall, in fact it felt almost nice to retell the story to someone who hadn’t looked on in pity as it all happened.
Evan and I shared that same ingrained memory, that mark that children of troubled parents have. He could understand why the notion of failing, of falling apart seemed like such a sin. Achieve something, and you’re the exception to the rule. Grow up to mediocrity - or less for that matter – and no one will be surprised.
God damn it, I wanted to be a surprise.
Evan often reminded me that I had a long way to go before sucking cock for crack rocks.
I said, “Wait, is that a bad thing?”
Despite the wishes of my inner hermit, Halloween came with a tradition. Every year, Stellan and I sat on my porch handing out candy, and every year we played the Beetlejuice theme, dressed up in matching costumes, and made goofball comments about the little ones’ costumes. Or Stellan made snarky comments about how a nineteen year old in a hole ridden t-shirt should by principal, be required to give him candy.
“At least put some effort in. Seriously,” he’d say.
They never agreed and were learning not to come to my house at all.
Stellan raised an eyebrow when he got to the house and found me in jeans and a black cable knit sweater.
“Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re a nihilist?”
I laughed.
“Jehovah’s witness? Wait, who doesn’t celebrate birthdays?”
I assured him he’d been accurate on the religious reference, but not on my costume. “I couldn’t think of anything.”
He shrugged. “Suppose it’s good I didn’t put my zombie makeup on before I came over then. Would have made your nihilism truly frightening, and we have children coming.”
I stifled a laugh. “Shut up”
I had trouble looking him in the eye as we meandered into the kitchen. He didn’t seem to notice, quickly grabbing the first bag of candy he saw. The pile of bags was bigger than we would need, but given Stellan’s habit of eating a good amount of the candy each year, I always made a point to buy extra.
He seemed his usual self. As far as I could tell, he had no sense of the chasm that had opened between us.
“So I hear you and Evan have been talking.”
Oh, maybe he did.
“Yeah, it’s been nice to catch up with him.”
Stellan stuffed the first Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup into his mouth, offering me one as he did.
I declined. As expected, my stomach had turned to violent churning the moment he’d walked up to the house. I could no more put that Reese’s in my mouth than I could a Mack Truck.
“He seemed pretty chuffed about it.”
I smiled. When I glanced at Stellan, he showed the subtle glow of a man in chocolate and peanut butter heaven. He tossed the bag toward me.
“Run, save yourself.”
I grabbed the bowl from the cupboard over the sink, a tired old mixing bowl my Grandmother used for making pancakes and stuffing at Thanksgiving. We filled it with Reese’s, Snickers, Twix, and Three Musketeers, and made our way out to the porch. Stellan took the chair closer to the stairs, despite not being dressed to terrify. The children would be forced to pass him in pursuit of the bowl of candy. Perhaps his sheer size might give them pause. If not his size, surely his sarcasm would.
Our first visitor was Bethany from across the way. There were a couple younger families on my road, some with kids, some with teenagers. The teenagers brought parties and double-barreled park jobs, but they became rare for one reason – Mr. Hodges did what the rest of the neighborhood was too ‘polite’ to do and called the cops. Parents were informed, privileges were taken away, and parking equilibrium was restored. Now, it was Mr. Hodges’ pride and joy, his eldest great-grandchild, coming up the walk. She was a shy thing, being slowly coaxed toward our steps in her mother’s intricately made princess costume. Her sleeves flowed at her sides and her dark hair was framed in a floral wreath.
Bethany froze at the bottom of the steps, glancing back to her parents who stood smiling and urging her on from the sidewalk. The chair beside me lurched, and Stellan was up, the bowl of candy in his hand. Before Bethany could run, Stellan had slipped down the stairs with unnatural grace for a man his size, knelt beside her on the walk, and held the bowl to her with his head bowed.
“M’lady,” he said.
She seemed to bloom before him, blushing a deep red. She smiled and hid her face behind her plastic pumpkin.
I feel inclined to say I would have responded the same way. When I caught Caroline’s eye, her expression said I wasn’t the only one.
Caroline was a playmate of mine when we were very young. She visited on weekends here and there until her weekends were taken over by going to campgrounds with foam weapons and elaborate dresses, beating the hell out of other similar minded people. She’d met her husband at just such an event – Jason, a long haired fellow who roamed the world dressed like a pirate. Though I rarely saw them now, I liked them both. They seemed to feel the same, given that she invited me to their wedding years earlier, which had been one of the strangest events of my life. Fun, but strange. Stellan and I were two of the only people not dressed like employees of Medieval Times. Mr. Hodges had made a face at me from behind a knight, and I’d been reminded of why my Grandmother liked the man so much – why I liked him so much. He didn’t take anything too seriously.
Except parking, that is.
Bethany took a piece of candy only to be met with the declaration that “M’lady receives no less than three pieces of candy. Per order of the Queen.”
He glanced back at me.
Yep, I was right about that blooming sensation.
I fought not to giggle as I waved magnanimously in their direction.
When Bethany skipped back to her parents, I heard her inform them that Stellan had given her far more than three.
“He’s a keeper!” Caroline called back to me as Stellan returned to the porch.
I waved. “Don’t I know it!”
Shit! Why did I say that?
I glanced at Stellan, who was making love with his eyes to another Reese’s.
Great. Make out with his face? Check.
Announce in his company that I think he’s a catch? Check. Declare my unrequited and all-encompassing, misguided affection for him? As good as done.
I inspected him out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t show any signs of discomfort. He did, however, show an unhealthy affection for those Reese’s.
We waited another fifteen minutes, and the flood began. Kids from nearby neighborhoods, kids who came to trick or treat in their grandparents’ neighborhood like Bethany - we were one of those lucky parts of the world where you could actually feel Halloween in the air. Rather than deal with traffic, low house participation, or worse, unsafe neighborhoods, people would carpool in to trick or treat in my neighborhood.
We also give the good candy. Though Davis Court wasn’t one of the most populated roads in town, we were one or two roads over from the best Halloween streets in town, and we received runoff as a result.
Naturally we had a comment for everyone that came along:
Three year old Spiderman –
Me: “Holy cow! Spiderman!”
Stellan: “Hey Spidey, could you hop up there real quick and clean out my gutters. Thanks pal.”
Five year old Spiderman with full muscle suit, shortly thereafter -
Stellan: “Whoa! You’ve been working out since we last saw you?”
Three year old Spiderman with his mask off –
Me: “No, Spiderman! Your secret identity!”
Half assed seventeen year old Jack Sparrow -
Stellan (in pirate voice): “Arrgh! You can’t have me booty!”
A truly convincing eight year old Jack Sparrow right afterward -
Stellan: “Arrgh! You CAN have me booty!”
Spongebob Squarepants -
Me: “How are you breathing, sir?”
As the evening wore down, and the crowds thinned, a twelve year old boy dressed in full drag walked up the steps in slow motion, sideways, staring us both down to the point of near discomfort until he finally spoke.
His English accented lisp was perfect. “Trick or Treat?”
We both sat, dumbfounded be how fierce this kid was.
Catch My Fall Page 23
