by Corine Gantz
“No one,” Lola assured him. His lowering his voice seemed to instill her with some form of strength. “I...had to leave because I couldn’t stand the abuse anymore.”
Mark had little he could say to that. “Tell me where you are, exactly.”
While Lola stuttered, Annie scribbled frantically on the pad and brandished it before her eyes.
“I have every intention to come back,” Lola read. “But if you don’t make some changes, this relationship is over. Think about that. I’ll call you tomorrow at the same time.”
“I’ll be back in L.A. tomorrow,” Mark said matter-of-factly. “I have meetings.”
Annie sliced her throat with the side of her hand.
“I’ll call you tomorrow at the same time,” Lola repeated like a robot, looking at Annie. And before anything could ruin this perfect moment, Annie tore the phone out of Lola’s hand and hung up for her. For an instant, they were stone-faced, a second later they were breathing a collective sigh of relief. Annie brushed her hand across her forehead. It was drenched in sweat.
In Althea’s room, a dozen canvases stood on the floor against every free inch of wall space. She kneeled next to a painting of a desolate urban land that reminded her of home. At the very bottom, lying on her side was the fragile silhouette of a small girl with blonde hair. How did this painting have anything to do with her?
Every night that week, long after the rest of the house had gone to sleep, Jared had tapped at her door. Each time she let him in and he apologized for being late, which made no sense at all. It took him a while to decide on a position. He moved her and she made herself like soft clay under his beautiful hands. Once he moved to his colors and started mixing, it was her clue to freeze in position. From there on, and unless he came to her and moved her again, she would not budge for hours. Her body as outwardly still as it was pulsating wildly under the surface. She kept her face still as well while her mind buzzed with a mix of euphoria and burning questions as to the whys of this.
Jared mumbled to himself in French and asked her dozens of questions per session in terrible English. Was she comfortable? Was she cold, hungry, thirsty, tired? But he asked her no personal question, and she told herself she preferred that. He sometimes spoke about his painting in French, saying “tu comprends” and she nodded yes. He did not enquire as to how much French she knew, and she did not offer the information, which might have then forced her to speak, something she did not want to do for fear of breaking the enchantment.
Sometimes Jared drew instead of painted: the back of her neck, her hand. Sometimes he mixed colors and looked angry. Sometimes he mixed color and did not or could not paint at all. After an hour, or five, Jared stopped. He thanked her. He seemed shy then. Apologizing, he left her room like a criminal, and Althea felt flustered and ashamed. But then, the following night, she’d hope he’d come, and he would, amidst the mighty smell of turpentine fumes that made her dizzy.
On the glass of her bedroom window droplets of condensation collected like a testimony to the unacknowledged heat their bodies generated.
Chapter 17
Annie and Lola closed the front door and descended the steps on a crisp morning that smelled of spring. Lola had done her share of crying and wringing her hands since the phone call to Mark, but this morning she was back to her own calm self and Annie wondered if she was witnessing an expression of Lola’s denial at work. Lola was barefoot in her Birkenstocks, a gross overestimation of the shy sun’s progresses. She was dressed for yoga in black leggings that made her slim legs appear even longer, and carried a rolled mat in a cotton bag. Annie held her grocery baskets the ten steps to the street and wondered if she too shouldn’t be barefoot and in leggings instead of in heavy boots and wrapped in that red poncho that made her look like a tent.
Together they walked down rue de Passy. Lola had found an English-speaking daycare willing to take Simon for a few hours every day so that she could take a yoga-teaching course. She had organized things to give herself free time, just like that. Annie had always lacked the ability to delegate. Besides, being a mother was what she did best. Perhaps the only thing she did well. So, Lola was from another Galaxy. She was an alien. And she was her friend.
The word dismayed her. Friend. A friend is someone you trust, and she somehow trusted Lola. She trusted her in the sense that she believed that Lola was absolutely benevolent towards her. Benevolent and admiring, which baffled her even more. Maybe this was not the kind of friendship where she would reveal her innermost thoughts. No, that was something she reserved for Lucas, the poor guy. Not that she told him everything either, but with Lucas she let herself be more vulnerable. With Lola, she was the grown up. The mother. Always the mother. She probably would have been The Mother with Lucas but he never let her. He let her feed him yes, but not mother him.
Lola was possibly the first woman friend she had made in ten years. How she mistrusted these Parisian women. How she mistrusted all women. And most men.
Annie tried to unbutton her poncho as they walked, looking for air, for more skin to air contact. “How can you go to yoga with what’s going on with Mark?”
“I can’t think straight when I don’t meditate. I have to de-stress first.”
“What I mean is that you’re putting Simon in daycare, and you’re taking a class. It’s like you’re planning your future here. But you know it’s not going to be that simple, don’t you?”
Lola gripped her mat. “You mean I should go back to him?”
No, Annie did not want Lola to go back. She wanted Lola to stay. But she had to wonder at her own motives. “I don’t know what I mean,” she said.
“France happened to me for a reason.” Lola said, walking. “I can’t just come back home as though nothing happened. I’m so terrible at making decisions.”
“You’ve made a decision if I ever saw one made. France didn’t just happen to you.”
Lola stopped in front of the door of the yoga studio and looked into Annie’s eyes. She always searched her eyes like that. It was unnerving. “So what do you think I should do?”
“Take action legally, not illegally,” Annie said. “Get some child support out of that cretin.”
“You’re right,” Lola said feebly.
“You always say that I’m right, but you go on doing the opposite. Like yesterday when you told him you were in France. Now the shit is hitting the fan.”
Lola shuffled her weight. “You’re right that I should want a divorce.”
“Should, shmould.”
“But I don’t. What I want is for Mark to change. Back to the way he used to be. I know he has it in him. He was different at the beginning of our marriage.”
“Then give him an ultimatum.” What she wanted to say was “grow a backbone,” but she refrained.
“I can’t jump into things. People distribute ultimatums like chocolates. I’m different. I won’t give an ultimatum I’m not willing to follow through on.” Lola paused, then said, “and I don’t want to leave. Not yet. I’m happy here, Annie. I’m healing. Being under your roof is very healing for everyone. It’s good for me, it’s good for Lia, and it’s good for Simon. Just take a look at them. I leave Simon at a daycare for the first time in his life, and not a peep!” Lola put her hand on the yoga’s studio door and added “Even Althea is not poor little Althea anymore.”
“She isn’t?”
Lola smiled mysteriously “Looks to me like she’s in love.”
“What love? What’s going on?”
“Althea and Jared spend a whole lot of time together in her room.”
Out of the loop again. Annie stepped onto the sidewalk. “What? I refuse to believe it.”
“Three hours yesterday. In her room.”
“What are you talking about? Jared has the hots for you.”
“Oh, come on,” Lola laughed. “First Lucas, and now Jared? You’re being paranoid.”
“To be paranoid I’d have to care. I’m just concerned about Althea.”
>
“She’s young, pretty, and has her life ahead of her.”
“I don’t know what he sees in her,” Annie said as she walked away.
Annie hurried down the street and after a few blocks set her straw bags on the sidewalk, removed the Poncho, made a ball out of it and stuffed it in one of the bags. Cool air billowed under her shirt, a button down flannel shirt that Johnny used to wear only on weekends. She had not imagined it would be so warm out today. Even the flannel shirt was too much. She stopped walking, set her bag down again, removed Johnny’s shirt and rolled it into a ball. If she put the shirt in her bag she would run out of room for groceries. She thought of tying the shirt around her waist. So hot. She held the shirt in her hand, looked around. There was a city trashcan. She picked up her bags, opened the trashcan and tossed the shirt into it.
Lola had spent the night rehearsing her future conversation with Mark, and rehashing the one they’d had. She felt utterly exhausted, utterly weak and confused. Still she went on as planned and took the first of a series of classes toward a yoga-teaching diploma. This was an accelerated program where she would be learning and practicing yoga for five to six hours each day. In just a few weeks she could get accredited to become an instructor. No matter where life led her thereafter, this diploma could not be taken away from her. This was the first time, probably in her life, that she was making a decision by herself, meaning without an agent, a manager or a husband’s advice—not even with Annie’s advice—to do something for herself with the grander scheme of things in mind.
By the end of the very first class, she felt somehow stronger, more empowered. Taking the class, she sensed possibilities for herself, and felt that she was closer to being able to finally take action. But the evening came, and the time to call Mark, and she felt weak again.
“Tell him what you want. Do you even know what you want?” Annie asked her.
Lola knew her plan had never gone this far. “I don’t want him. Not the way he is now.”
“Tell him. Set ground rules. He isn’t in front of you, so you can be a bit more aggressive.”
“Isn’t passive–aggressive good enough?”
Annie patted her on the back. Don’t worry, “I’ll listen in and help you.”
How to tell Annie she did not want that. She hesitated, “I’m pretty sure I’m ready to take sail on my own.”
“No, really, let me,” Annie said excitedly. “I’ll put some serious wind in your sails.”
Lola hesitated. “I’ll be... fine?”
“You were crumbling yesterday. You could not wait to cave in and tell him about France. Trust me. I’ll tell you exactly what to say.”
“To be honest, I don’t want to feel harassed from both ends.” Lola said. This might be the most insensitive thing she had ever said to another human being, but Annie only shrugged it off.
“Suit yourself. I’ll grab a shovel and start digging your grave in the backyard meanwhile.”
Lola’s hands shook wildly as she dialed her own phone number in Bel Air, a place where she’d lived eons ago, in another lifetime. There was one ring, and Mark picked up. “How are you doing?” she asked the instant she heard his voice, these being the only words she could utter.
“I’m doing,” Mark grunted from somewhere in the mansion, maybe the bedroom. Was the housekeeper coming every day now that she was gone? It would have been unnecessary. Lola could hear the TV in the background. Football it seemed.
“How’re the kids?” Mark asked. This could have been a conversation between them a month ago. She almost melted with joy at the normality of it all.
“They’re wonderful.”
“How well could they be doing, without a father?” he barked. How could she have responded without hurting him? But Mark spoke before she could. “The kids know I have a temper, big deal!” Something in Lola’s chest sunk. Mark knew. He knew. “How do you think I grew up?” he continued. “I got my ass kicked all the way to adulthood. If you think you’re doing them a favor by protecting them from real life, well you’re wrong! Life—I’m talking about real life, not the cocoon you live in—is tough as shit.”
“You make it tough,” she responded, picturing the thumbs up Annie would have given her for this.
“It doesn’t mean I don’t love my kids,” Mark said.
Lola felt her tears, irrepressible. “I know you love them,” she said softly, “and I know you love me. But you don’t show the love you feel.”
“Lia hates both of our guts equally, I’ll have you notice. And Simon—the kid isn’t missing a limb for God’s sake. They need a dad that’s a real man. Not some faggot French guy that...Are you fucking a French guy?” His voice rose. “Is that why you left? For a French guy?”
Lola was incredulous. “No, of course not.”
“So what’s the point? What is it you want, Lola?”
“I want...I need for things to change.”
“Like what?”
“I...I want to be a useful part of society, find a career.” She imagined Annie would want her to tell him, tell it to him like it was. “But mostly, I’m very...anguished by our marriage.” She waited for Mark to respond but he didn’t. “I’m so sorry, Mark. I need this time. I was losing ground. I was so...unhappy and confused.” Lola wanted to tell Mark how she felt free in France, boundless. How she cooked, ate, drank, laughed, flirted, explored Paris. How she felt light, playful, and happy with the children. Instead she said, encouraged by Mark’s silence, “Here, I’m discovering who I am and what I like, and even what I’m good at.”
His answer came, glacial. “And what might that be?”
Did he mean who she was or what she was good at? “I’m going through training right now,” she continued weakly, “to get certified, as a yoga instructor.”
“Certified at putting your legs behind your head? ”
This was precisely the kinds of remark she was leaving him for, but she let it pass, regretting immediately having done so. “I can be a yoga instructor in L.A. just as easily,” she said.
“And earn peanuts? Suit yourself.”
“I needed to be away from a materialistic lifestyle, the facade, the arrogance.”
“So you went to France?” Mark chuckled.
“My self-esteem was so low.”
“Don’t hold me responsible for your low self-esteem,” Mark said. “That came long before you met me, honey.”
Mark might be right about that. But he was certainly not innocent. Lola surprised herself and snapped. “Then why do I only feel low self-esteem when I’m around you?”
“You tell me.”
Lola took a deep breath, stared at her feet, at the wall, and said, “You’re a fault-finder.”
“You’re the fault-finder,” Mark retorted, “as you just proved. Only you’re a hypocrite.”
“I’m a hypocrite?” Lola said anxiously.
“You never said anything.”
“I was afraid that you’d stop loving me. I was afraid that you’d leave me.”
“So instead you leave me? What a joke.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It suits you to see yourself as victimized and me as the tyrant, but you constantly insinuate that I’m a bad father, a bad husband.”
“I never said that.”
“Oh spare me. I read it in your eyes.”
Lola was dumbstruck that Mark allowed himself to be so candid. “But I...”
“And sex,” Mark interrupted. He paused, “There’s always an excuse. Your libido.”
Lola’s shoulders relaxed suddenly. Sex, that time-honored weapon of conjugal life. “Maybe I was just resentful.”
“Well, I’m sure glad you admit it at last. I knew it was a crock of shit.”
“You know it’s not that I don’t love you.”
“What do you want me to do, Lola? You want me to crawl back to you on my hands and knees? You know me better than that.”
“We need to communicate.”
“Girlfrien
ds ‘communicate.’”
Lola’s heart sank. “So what do we do?” she murmured.
“I’m not running after you, if that’s the game you’re playing. I won’t be waiting long. You’re not the only mermaid on Malibu Beach, as you well know.”
“Are you saying you want to see other...people?”
“Hey, not a bad suggestion! You know, try out a French guy.” He laughed nervously.
“There is no French guy.”
“After you’ve finished gut-wrenching communication with the perfect wimp of your dreams.”
“But it’s not what I want.”
“I’m what I am,” Mark said, “It’s my way...”
“Or the highway...I know.”
“Well, fuck you! I’m hanging up,” Mark said, and he did.
Lola stared at the receiver and burst into tears. Annie was there in an instant, an arm around her shoulders, letting Lola sob against her. “I listened to the whole thing,” Annie admitted. “You’re making real progress.”
“You think he’s beginning to see my point?”
“Well, no. What I mean is that you’re closer to standing on your own two feet.”
“You know what is bothering him the most about having us disappear like this?” Lola wept. “It’s that he can’t explain it to people without looking like a complete loser. He doesn’t care at all about us...about me.”
In Bel Air, Mark hung up the phone. It was dark now and he had not bothered turning the lights on in the living room. So when the headlights of a passing car in the distance briefly brightened the room, Mark lifted his head, startled. For a second he was disoriented and took it for Lola’s car coming up the driveway, which was absurd. The house had a different smell now, a different sound. From the couch, Mark counted the interval of the security system’s light, red against the wall, and the green lights of the message machine that showed thirty unheard messages. He better have the doctor check that hollow feeling in his solar plexus that felt kind of like acid reflux, but not exactly. Far away, in the kitchen, the refrigerator hummed. He searched the darkened room for signs of life but there were none, no movements and no voices, only the echo of his breathing bouncing off the walls. He got up from the couch, turned on a few lights, then turned most of them off. He walked up the steps and wandered through the immaculate house—immaculate, the way he thought he liked it. The sound of his steps muffled on the carpet but echoed like in a museum when he entered the bathrooms. He opened the kids’ bedroom doors, smelled the air for signs of them. He was a good man. Unlike his own father, Mark would never have raised his hand to his children or his wife. He only raised his voice. Only his voice.
