by Doyle, K. T.
It was as if I dreamt the whole thing.
II.
The brown leather of the armchair stuck to the back of my bare legs, making escape impossible. The air conditioner was on the fritz. I was hot and sweaty and irritated. I squirmed, hoping to break free, but I was trapped like a bug on flypaper.
Dr. Cramer sat in a chair in front of a large wooden desk, fanning himself with a folded up piece of paper. “Are you okay, Alex?” the psychiatrist asked.
I glared at him. “Yes.”
“So your mother tells me you have a boyfriend,” he said. “Tell me about him.”
I looked at my mother. She was smiling at me with wide unblinking eyes as if to say, “Don’t embarrass me, just answer his questions.”
“His name’s Bobby,” I began. “He’s fifteen and a freshman.”
“Such a nice boy,” my mother added. “He’s taking her to the Spring Formal in a few weeks.”
“How did you and Bobby meet?” he asked.
Bobby Fraser and I had met five months before, in January 1992. We were both waiting outside the front entrance of our high school for rides from our mothers. He had missed the bus; I had stayed late working on the annual literary magazine.
Bobby and I knew of each other from friends we had in common, but we never officially met until that day. We recognized each other as we stood outside shivering in the cold. He drifted over for a proper introduction and offered me a pack of cigarettes.
I refused them at first, saying I didn’t smoke. But Bobby insisted, so I took them to be polite. He didn’t smoke either, he had said; he used cigarettes as a way to make friends and to get girls to like him. Bobby got his older brother to buy the smokes for him, in exchange for every penny of his weekly allowance.
I never understood why he blew his cover that day and admitted his M.O. to me, other than he thought we’d only ever be friends. And I was initially perturbed by his habit, giving cigarettes away to high school kids, enabling them, getting them hooked on nicotine. But one long look at him made me realize he needed all the help he could get.
Bobby was tall and gangly and awkward, his chin and forehead dotted with pimples, his hair shiny with oil. Not exactly a chick magnet, but typical enough for a teenage boy. But he had beautiful hazel eyes and deep dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, and that was enough to make me forget all his other shortcomings.
My mom pulled up right as Bobby was pulling a lighter out of his book bag and offering to show me how to smoke my first cigarette. I said maybe he could show me another time and I left Bobby standing alone in the cold, flicking his lighter off and on.
From then on we said hello whenever we saw each other in the hallway at school. It progressed to talking occasionally on the phone, to hanging out under the bleachers after football games, where we shared our first kiss one night after demolishing our number one rival in a blowout 21-0 victory.
I fell hard for the kid. Bobby was my first crush, my first boyfriend and my first true love. Yes, he was a geek. But he was my geek.
Once I had decided on Kilmore University, I tried convincing Bobby to go there too by praising its excellent Bachelor of Science curriculum. With his smarts there was no doubt he’d get a full scholarship to study math and science. I added that college was several years away for both of us but we’d probably still be together and wouldn’t it be romantic if we both went to the same college? Bobby, unfortunately, had his heart set on M.I.T and not so much on me.
I shrugged at Dr. Cramer’s question. “We met at school. We have friends in common.”
“Tell me about his family.”
“He has an older brother named Brett who graduated high school last year.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” my mother said, as if this was pertinent information I should’ve disclosed to her.
“His mom’s nice,” I said. “But his dad’s an asshole.”
“Alexandra!” my mother said. She always used my full name when she was upset as me. Every other time I was simply Alex.
“What? He is!” I said.
Bobby occasionally complained about his father. How he yelled at Bobby all the time to do his chores, finish his homework, help his mother around the house. Even when Bobby complied and did everything he was told Mr. Fraser would find something else to yell at him for. I oftentimes heard Mr. Fraser yelling at him in the background when we were on the phone. Bobby was jealous of Brett because the minute he graduated high school he moved out of the house and was free.
But I wasn’t about ready to tell my mother and Dr. Cramer any of that. I was convinced all adults knew each other and had a secret society where they all sat around and talked about their kids. The last thing I wanted to do was get Bobby in trouble or have Child Services swoop in and snatch him away. I had to think of another reason why Mr. Fraser was an asshole.
“He drags Bobby to church every week.”
“That doesn’t sound so terrible,” my mother said.
“It is if you don’t believe in God,” I said.
The doctor stopped fanning himself and folded his hands in his lap. “Bobby doesn’t believe in God?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So that’s why he objects to going to church?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you believe in God?” he asked.
Bobby told me that in church each week his dad would pray for the sick and the dying, put money in the collection plate, and walk the aisle without fail for communion. On the ride home, he’d preach to his family about holy pursuits of faith and love and peace. He encouraged Bobby to get involved in the community, volunteer at a homeless shelter, the local SPCA, a food bank. Mr. Fraser claimed this would ward off impure thoughts and actions, and enable him to stay away from anything that promoted lustful yearnings.
Mr. Fraser especially liked to talk about how important it was for him, the patriarch of the family, to live a decent, honorable life so as to set a positive example for his children.
But the minute they were home, the yelling would start. It seemed Mr. Fraser was two completely different men. A nice guy when in the presence of God, a jackass at home. A true Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. No wonder his older son, at only eighteen, was in such a hurry to move out of the house.
If God existed, how could He possibly approve of people like Mr. Fraser? Wouldn’t He have just wiped him off the face of the planet?
“I don’t know if I believe in God,” I said in response to Dr. Cramer’s question. “I never really thought about it.”
I glanced at my watch. Thirty minutes and already I was tired of sitting in that chair, listening to a shrink, talking about my feelings.
Dr. Cramer eyed me and then looked at his own watch. “I think that’s enough for today,” he said.
With that, I was gone. I ripped myself from the clutches of the oppressive office and stole across the room towards freedom.
Once outside, I reached in my purse for a cigarette. I leaned against the wall and waited.
My mother came out several minutes later. Upon seeing what I held in my hand, she gasped in horror as if witnessing a blood bath.
“What on Earth? When did you start smoking?”
There was no need for her to know the truth.
“This morning,” I quipped.
“I wish you wouldn’t. It’s so bad for you.”
Little did she know that the pack of Marlboro Lights Bobby had given me four months before sat unopened all that time in the bottom of my book bag. I never had the courage to light up a cigarette until the day after my seventeenth birthday party.
The first thing I did that day was tell Bobby what I heard my parents arguing about in the bathroom. Then I sat by my bedroom window, blowing smoke through the screen, coughing and sputtering through my first cigarette.
I had no intention of ever smoking in front of my mother. When she was around I used a cigarette as a prop, mostly to antagonize her.
I held the cigarette up in her face. “Want
one?”
She seemed to ignore it. “Your father’s mother died from emphysema. Did he ever tell you that?”
“What’s emphysema?”
“Enlargement of the tiny air sacs inside your lungs that help you breathe. Over time, smoking destroys the walls of the lungs until eventually your lungs break down and you die.”
I wrinkled up my nose. “Ew. No, Dad never told me that.”
“He should have. It’s important that you know.”
We started walking across the parking lot to my mother’s station wagon. I squinted against the glare of the May sun. It was unusually hot.
“Whatever. We’ve all got addictions,” I said. “For me it’s cigarettes. For you it’s a shrink.” I pointed over my shoulder with my thumb to the building behind us.
“Alex, you know this is my first appointment with Dr. Cramer.”
“I know.”
“He’s trying to help us.”
“So you say.”
“It wasn’t very nice what you did back there…rushing off like that. Give him a chance.”
We reached the car. I looked across the roof at my mother’s chin-length hair. She was originally a brunette, but had recently dyed it blonde for the first time in her life. She said she needed a change. But as I stood looking at her, waiting for her to unlock the door, the thought had occurred to me: Maybe my father preferred blondes and that’s why she’d done it. Either way, today her hair was looking especially bright and unnaturally blonde.
The image of dancing shadows and raining pieces of paper flashed in front of my eyes. The incident from the week before was still fresh in my mind.
Somehow, my mother knew that I knew. The next morning she came down to breakfast, busied herself with making the two of us pancakes, and, without so much as a sidewise glance, said, “I’m sorry you had to hear that last night.”
I could’ve denied it, played dumb, but there was no point to that. My mother was smart. She always seemed to know when I was lying.
I shrugged and said, “Whatever.”
My mother had wasted no time in ushering her and myself into counseling. Without my father.
I slammed the car door shut. “I already told you, Mom. I don’t need your shrink.”
She strapped herself in and started the car. “Okay, then. I’m trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help. I’m fine.”
“I just thought you might need someone to talk to.”
“Why would I need someone to talk to?”
“To validate your emotions. To let you know that whatever you’re feeling is okay.”
“I feel fine.”
“You won’t talk to me, so maybe you ought to talk to someone.”
“I’ve got Bobby.”
“Yes, well…” my mother said. “You need someone professionally trained and experienced like Dr. Cramer.”
I threw the cigarette back in my purse and tossed the purse on the floor between my feet. It was going to be a long ride home.
“Dad cheated on you. He didn’t do anything to me.”
“Alex—”
“I don’t need anyone,” I interrupted. “Especially not a shrink!”
I turned to look at her profile. It was the first time I had gotten a close look at her in a week. She seemed to have aged ten years in that time. Her smooth skin had wrinkled and fine lines had suddenly appeared in the creases of her eyes.
This is all her fault, I thought.
I looked out the window at the blurred images passing by. I felt so lost and confused. Just last week everything was fine. I had celebrated my seventeenth birthday with friends and family and Bobby and everyone was happy. And now…this.
My mother claimed that our family had been destroyed by my father’s infidelity. But surely he wasn’t completely to blame. She must have done something to him, caused his infidelity—something that left him with no other option than to cheat. What did my mother do to my father that forced him into the arms of another woman?
On the other hand, I couldn’t let my father off the hook. He had a role in all of this, too—that of lying bastard.
When I was nine, my fourth grade class was involved in an after-school choral recital. I was so proud to be a part of it because I love to sing. I had practiced so hard and knew every word by heart. My mother missed it because a relative of hers had died. She had left the day before the recital to spend a few days with her mother’s side of the family in upstate New York. In the days leading up to the funeral—the first time in which I would attend church—my father was in charge of the house and of taking care of me.
I was disappointed that my mother wouldn’t see me sing, but I knew she had a good reason for missing my recital. The same couldn’t be said of my father. He missed it because he was busy fucking another woman.
Of course I hadn’t realized that at the time. I was only nine.
The revelation occurred to me the night I witnessed my parents’ fight in the bathroom.
I had stood in the school lobby after the recital for what seemed like forever to a child. I anticipated the moment my father would greet me, scoop me up in his arms, and gush on about how proud he was on his little girl.
But he never did.
The noise in the lobby died down until eventually I was the only one left. After all the other children had been escorted away by their parents, I walked out into the empty parking lot. Maybe he was waiting for me there.
But he wasn’t.
My innocent mind was quick to make excuses for him. Maybe he couldn’t get off work. Maybe he was busy taking care of the house—you know, with my mom being away and all. But still, he knew how important this recital was to me. How could he have missed it?
My father finally showed up just as the school janitor was locking up the front entrance doors for the night. He sped through the parking lot and pulled up next to the curb where I stood. He left the car running and got out to greet me.
My little heart sank. I sang my guts out for him and he missed the whole damn thing.
“Where were you, daddy?” I asked him.
He bowed his head down to my sweet face, looked me softly in the eyes, and lied. Again and again. “Sorry, honey. Daddy got caught up at work.”
“You just got off work now?”
“Yes.”
I noticed he was cleaner than I ever remember seeing him. “Where are your work clothes?”
“They’re in the car.”
“Oh. No boo-boos today?”
“No, honey. No boos-boos.”
I turned away from the window to erase the image from my mind. But the thought remained: had that been the first lie he told me, or the tenth?
I didn’t know who to be the angriest with—my father for having deceived a child…his own daughter; my mother for forcing me to talk about it; or myself, for not having figured it out sooner. And I didn’t know who to feel the most pity for—my mother, the victim; my father, the deceitful coward; or me, the indifferent fool. I simply didn’t know who to blame.
Why hadn’t my father destroyed those letters before they destroyed my family? Before they destroyed me?
CHAPTER 5
I.
I walked across Main Street to Kentmore Hall to meet Matthew Levine for my first private guitar lesson. The night was dark and cold and the late October sky was sprinkled with a few stars. It was just before 6 p.m.
I knew the building would be locked so I sat on the curb outside the front door, wrapped my arms around me, and kept my head down. It was an effort to keep warm, mostly, but also to block out the annoying sound of the streetlight that buzzed above my head. It was a noise I hadn’t noticed before.
I welcomed the time alone to think. What would happen with Matt tonight? I thought. Would there be another spark of attraction? Or would I be left hanging in my own waking dream again, clinging to a sliver of hope that my feelings for Matt would be requited?
The thought of it all made my knees tremble. I
t could have been the cold, but I was aware enough of my own body to know that it took more than meteorology to give me the shakes.
I lifted my head to breathe fresh air into my lungs and to stretch my muscles. When I opened my eyes, Matt was standing in front of me. He was slightly bent over with his hands on his knees, and he was struggling to catch his breath. He had arrived out of nowhere and his sudden presence startled me.
“Oh, hi,” I said.
He lifted his head to look at me briefly before lowering his gaze to the ground again, his chest heaving. “Am I late?”
I saw his dark eyes in the dim light. Too cold and stunned to look at my watch, I said, “Right on time.”
Matt unlocked the door and ushered me inside. He flipped the switch for the chandelier and we made our way to the stairs. He started climbing the steps, but I paused at the kitchen, unable to follow him. At that moment, my desire to go inside the kitchen was strong. I looked at the swinging door and the darkness that crept around it, from it, under it. Something was willing me to breech the threshold, an invisible pull teasing me to cross to the other side. It was like witnessing the aftermath of a horrific car accident—I couldn’t peel my eyes from it. The intriguing uncertainty that lay beyond was a force I couldn’t stare down. I had to go inside. I reached my hand out…
“Alex?”
I turned my head and looked up in the direction of the voice and saw Matt looking down at me from the stairway. “Are you coming?”
Awakened from my trance, I smiled and nodded and said that I was.
Once inside the practice room, he closed the door behind me and threw his coat on the floor. I draped my jacket over a chair.
“All right,” he said, grinning. “Let’s get started.”
Half an hour later we were sitting face to face cross-legged on the floor, about five feet apart. Both of us had an acoustic guitar nestled in our laps.
I hadn’t learned much in those thirty minutes. I’d been too busy breathing him in. He’d mentioned something about distorted and clean electric guitar sounds, but who cares? I was studying his face, listening to his voice, searching for any sign of mutual attraction. What was he really trying to convey with his crooked smile? What was concealed behind the beauty of his dark green eyes?
