I was glad we were on the phone and that he couldn’t see my face, glad he couldn’t see the fear and wanting that was surely there.
In order to make sure he couldn’t see my face, I played with my hours at work, made sure I’d never be behind the desk at any of the times that he typically came in. I couldn’t have said why. All I knew was that I was only able to talk to him over the phone. I wasn’t ready to have him see my face.
Not just yet.
39
Life is unpredictable. A does not always follow B, no matter how much we might like it to. The ending we most dearly hope for becomes lost in the actions of others and our own folly.
“Are you proud of being a crazy woman?”
I sat on the edge of Steve’s couch, contrite, hands dangling between my knees. “No, I wouldn’t use the word proud exactly—”
It was another Saturday night and I’d been hoping to have somebody, but it was beginning to look like I was wrong. I’d called Steve up, inviting myself over. Then I’d arrived, dressed as Scarlett, ready to come clean.
If I’d been seeing Steve’s place for the first time under better circumstances, circumstances under which he was not totally annoyed at me, I’m sure I would have been impressed. His house was so homey and artsy, all at once, like somewhere that van Gogh might live if he’d let Barbara Bush help him decorate. All over the wall were huge paintings, Steve’s work, each one startling in how good they were, jumping out from walls that had been painted an off shade of red. The furniture in the high-ceilinged living room was off white, big and cushiony, each piece offering the comfort of an entire bed.
I could easily picture myself living there.
“So, basically, Scarlett, you’ve been lying to me, about damn near everything, since the very first moment I met you.”
Sarah had been so much easier than this, so incredibly forgiving. Funny, you’d expect a twelve-year-old girl to have more trouble than a grown man at understanding human nature—granted, my particular human nature—but there you have it.
“Not everything,” I said. “Those were just some particulars that I lied to you about, but it wasn’t everything.”
“Oh, right. It wasn’t everything. You only lied to me about what you really look like, about what your name is, about having kids—”
“I didn’t lie to you about the kids. They were the ones who insisted on calling me Mommy.”
“Right. And you didn’t correct them.”
“Right, but I didn’t lie to you about everything.”
“What’s missing on my list? What part of ‘everything’ didn’t you lie about?”
The word came out in a whisper. “Me.”
“What?”
“I didn’t lie to you about what’s inside of me. For the first time in my life, I let a man see inside of me.”
He laughed, a kind of bitter-sounding laugh that didn’t suit him at all.
“How would I know if that was the real you or not at all, Scarlett?” he said.
“Because you drew me, in that picture. You couldn’t have done that if you weren’t really seeing me.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I liked that stuff you said about Greeks and passion, and about being a librarian. I wanted to know that woman, I wanted to be with her.”
“I’m still that person,” I said, “maybe more so.”
A part of me was surprised in a way by the bitterness of his reaction. A part of me thought he should have been happy about it. After all, he was getting a better-looking woman than the one he’d had before. He was upgrading. Shouldn’t he have been sort of pleased with that, like Roland had been when he’d learned that he’d gotten a far more experienced librarian for the price of an inexperienced one?
And there was something else weird about his reaction, something underlying it that was tough to put a name to, something that would have smacked, if I didn’t know better, of guilt.
“Don’t you like the way I look?” I asked, perplexed.
“Of course I do,” he said. “But I liked the way you looked before, too. Not that it made any difference. I would have liked you no matter what you looked like.”
“Why?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Because you’re you. Because you’re funny and you’re different and you’re quirky and abrasive sometimes in a way that makes me want to draw closer rather than pulling away.”
“I could still be that way,” I offered, still campaigning.
“Could you?” he asked, and I saw the tide turning behind his eyes. “Could you really? Because if you could be the same person, the same person I was originally attracted to, then we might have a chance.”
Okay. There I was, on the brink of having exactly what I wanted. He was going to give me another chance, I knew he was, if only I could say the right thing.
“What is it you want?” I asked.
“I just want you to be yourself,” he said. “That’s what I want. Just be yourself.”
There that was again.
Instinctively, perversely, I drew back from it.
“I’d like to try,” I said, my actions belying my words as I inched backward toward the door. “But maybe we need to wait and see. This is an awful lot for you to think about. Maybe you’ll feel differently in the morning.”
“I won’t—”
“No. Really. You might.”
Then I fled.
40
I went back to being a fucked-up person just long enough to fuck up the life I wanted, the life I would have given all my books for.
When I got back from Steve’s, I picked up the mail, among which was a postcard from the owner of the house.
I hope you haven’t changed too much, it read.
How bizarre!
Still, I didn’t have time to spare a thought for that, since I was…
“What are you doing?” Best Girlfriend asked as I shot by her and up the stairs.
“Going out.”
It’s a lot easier to dress as a dowdy version of a librarian than it is to vamp it up for a night on the town. For my purposes, purposes unspecified, I wanted something that would be eye-catching.
Going through my closet, my drawers, I rejected the usual tight jeans and sweaters. Then I glimpsed something in a heap at the bottom of my closet: the Morticia costume from Halloween. I held it up. It was a little rumpled, but I knew that if I hung it on a hanger next to the shower, the steam would pull most of the wrinkles out; not to mention that the tightness when I put it on would take care of all the rest. But the hem of the dress was way too long for anything but a costume party, so I got my little gold scissors from the bathroom, the same ones I’d used to cut off my own hair all those months ago. You’d think I would have learned by now, gone out to buy a more professional pair of shears just in case, but no. So I used the little gold scissors, imitating the hem that already existed, but taking it up about two feet, from ankle length to mid-thigh.
As the steam did its work, I went through my jewelry, finally settling on a dangling pair of marcasite-and-garnet earrings, but rejecting all necklaces. What, after all, was the point in distracting from the all-important cleavage? True, there was the theory that jewelry drew the viewer’s attention to certain parts of the body, but I knew that with that dress, nobody would have to be drawn anywhere. Why gild a perfect lily?
I thought about asking Best Girlfriend if I could borrow some of her makeup, but then thought: Why bother? I’d never become deft with the stuff and there was always the danger of going overboard. I didn’t want to look like a slut, did I? So I just did some softer-than-usual spikes with my hair, slapped on some dark lipstick, fished out my bondage heels from the back of my closet—wouldn’t you like to know—and then slid the dress over my head, shimmying it over my hips, looked in the mirror and called it a wrap.
“Where are you going?” Best Girlfriend asked as I came downstairs.
“Out,” I said, “to shoot pool.”
She must have seen som
ething in my eyes. “Would you like company?” she asked.
“Thanks,” I said, “but not tonight. We’ll have breakfast or lunch together tomorrow.”
Once in my car, driving, I did an unexpected thing; unexpected to me, at any rate. I fished my cell phone out of my purse, punched in the number for information, asked for Kelly Seaforth’s number. Then I called Kelly to see if she was home, see if I could stop by for fifteen minutes.
She said sure, she wasn’t doing anything, anyway.
As I pulled up to the address she’d given me, I saw that Kelly lived in a condo in Bethel, not much different than the one I’d lived in when I was still living in Danbury, except that hers had a deck but no pool.
Kelly At Home looked different from Kelly At Work, I could see immediately as she opened the door. She didn’t have any makeup on, and without it, I could see uneven coloring and a few acne scars. She was also dressed a lot less formally, with loose jeans and a sauce-spattered shirt.
Weird: all of a sudden, I was back to being the best-looking woman in the room.
“I was making pasta.” She indicated the shirt apologetically. “Care to join me?”
“No,” I said, “but you go on and eat, if it’s ready.”
She led me through to a small maple dining room set, where she’d set a place for one and had already poured herself a glass of red.
“Would you like one?” she offered, stumbling a bit before: “Scarlett?”
I shook my head on the wine. I needed to stay sober, so I could drink a lot later.
“I have to say,” Kelly said as she brought over a plate of pasta and sauce for herself and I took a seat at the table, “it’s going to take some doing, learning to call you something new. When Roland told us…”
“Yeah,” I said, “you don’t need to say anything. I really am the strangest woman who’s ever lived.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say you’re the strangest…”
“But close?” I suggested.
She smiled, an easy smile. “Well, maybe.”
I watched her eat for a minute. I wouldn’t exactly say her manners were revolting, more like nonexistent. She didn’t bother with a napkin in her lap, didn’t notice when she spilled a little more sauce on herself, and she didn’t bother twirling the pasta neatly around the fork; she just scooped up a bunch and shoveled it in, dangling ends sticking out of her mouth be damned.
It was odd seeing her like this: the sloppy clothes, the un-made face, the deficient manners. It was like being in Oz and finding the Wizard behind the curtain.
“So,” she said, washing down a mouthful of pasta with a mouthful of red, “what can I do for you?”
Well, now, that was the big question, wasn’t it?
I’d made the snap decision to go talk to Kelly because it seemed like there was no one else to turn to. I certainly wasn’t going to Pam; Delta had helped Pam set me up with that whole Mommy thing, so she was out; T.B. was undoubtedly occupied with Ex-Al; and I really didn’t want to talk anymore about it to Best Girlfriend, who seemed to be hurt by some of my self-revelations. Who did that leave—my mom? Pat? Definitely not Steve, since my feelings for him lay at the heart of my problems.
So, instead, I’d chosen to come to the Good-Looking Woman for advice. After all, people used to ask me for man advice, so I figured she could perform the same function for me. Surely, despite my vague recollection of what she’d said about being lonely that night we’d gone together to the massage parlor, looking the way she did—at least in daylight hours—she had a lot of experience with men.
But when I asked her point-blank, having told her about Steve, what I should do about fixing things, if that’s what I ultimately decided to do, she practically spewed wine across the maple table.
“Oh, hell, Scarlett, I don’t know!” she laughed.
“But surely you’ve had tons of dating experience,” I suggested.
“What in the world makes you say that?”
I thought about it. It wasn’t like, when people gossiped at work, I’d ever heard anyone say anything about her having a boyfriend, or even about her going out on any dates.
“Don’t you remember the things I told you,” she said, “when we went for the massages?”
“What things?”
“The things about me and men and how men always act all screwy where I’m concerned.”
I didn’t want to confess that it’s kind of hard keeping track of other people’s social dilemmas when you’re already obsessed with your own, so I just nodded, hoping there wasn’t going to be a quiz later.
“Well, then, you must realize, with men always treating me like some kind of object, I haven’t let myself get close to too many. And other women are even worse. That’s why I thought we could be close. You seem so nonthreatening and nonthreatened.”
I thought that if she let herself wear that sauce-spattered shirt in public she probably wouldn’t have to worry so much about being objectified, but I kept mum.
I looked at this woman who had actually thought of becoming my friend, as if I was a desirable thing, and it occurred to me that she wasn’t who I had taken her for; she wasn’t the Good-Looking Woman, she was merely a woman. I’d made assumptions about her, wrong assumptions, just like others had so often made them about me. But she was just like anyone else. She wasn’t a red M&M at all. She was just like anyone else, trying to make sense out of a nonsensical world, sometimes failing miserably, but still trying all the same.
“Well,” I said, “if you can’t tell me how to fix things with Steve, can you tell me why I’m screwed up about all of this ‘be yourself’ stuff?”
“’Cause you’re screwy?” she offered.
That was helpful.
I figured I’d try one more time. I told her about Pam, Pam’s plan, and how I’d gone from Scarlett to Lettie and back again.
“Why?” I asked her. “Why do you think Pam put me through that? And why do you think I let her?”
Kelly squinched up her pretty nose. “Because women are screwy?” she repeated. “Because you’re kind of screwy, too?”
It was good enough for me.
Chalk Is Cheap was already pretty crowded for what was considered to be still early on a Saturday night. All the usual suspects were there: the French Canadian contingent of working-class stiffs, holding the bar up and waiting for yuppies to come in, from whom they would later take money off at eight ball; the young guys just trying out their recent legitimate IDs to see how it felt to be both legal and drinking; the little clusters of girlfriends, wondering if they’d get lucky, never wondering if they’d still feel lucky in the morning.
Plus Pam and Delta and T.B.
They all looked at me as I sat down, no one commenting on my appearance.
“I was supposed to go out with Ex-Al tonight,” said T.B., “and Delta was supposed to go out with Dave, but Pam said it’d been too long since we’d done something just-us-girls. Ex-Al understood.”
“Dave actually seemed to like the idea,” said Delta, “said he’d appreciate it more, having to wait to see me until tomorrow.”
I didn’t ask why no one had called me. Instead: “Has he met Mush and Teenie yet?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And he didn’t hate them.”
“Hey!” I said, putting my hand up for a high five.
“I’m very happy,” she said shyly, slapping my hand.
“I’m glad,” I said, meaning it.
“You look great, Scarlett,” said Pam, addressing me for the first time.
I looked at my Default Best Friend closely, trying to figure out what it was I was hearing beneath her words. I couldn’t figure it out, but I did see that the transformation Pam had craved for herself was now complete: she’d lost all the weight she’d wanted to, her tasteful clothes fit nicely, she had good hair. Hell, she looked like the kind of woman that anyone would be happy to date, until she opened her mouth and the bitterness flew out.
“But you didn’t discuss this with me,” she said angrily.
I shrugged. “I made a unilateral decision for once. So sue me.”
I excused myself from the table, bellied up to the bar, watched, waited, not knowing what exactly I was watching and waiting for, but knowing I’d recognize it when I saw it.
I was almost ready to give up, half my mind wondering if I could shoot pool in this dress, at least salvage some fun out of the evening, when Saul came in. As he stood at the bar next to me, I don’t think he even knew who I was.
“Hey,” I said.
He looked down the height that still separated us, even with the bondage shoes.
“Hey!” he said, enthusiastic, source unspecified. “You look—”
“Come on,” I cut him off, making another unilateral decision, grabbed my bag off the bar, headed for the door, “let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, but he followed.
“Your place,” I said. “You do have a place, don’t you?”
I realized that I was very angry, source unspecified.
“Of course I have a place,” he said. “But what about your kids?”
“Those weren’t my kids,” I said.
“You don’t have to—”
“What? Do you think I’d disown my own kids, if they were my own kids, for social expedience?”
“Okay, Lettie,” he spoke steadily, softly, perhaps in an effort to calm down the crazy lady.
“Scarlett,” I said as he fired up the ignition, “not Lettie. My name is Scarlett.”
He looked at me in the dark of the car.
“Sure,” he said, “whatever you say.”
Saul’s place was so different from Steve’s that the only thing you could say that they shared in common was that both were occupied by men. Where Steve’s place had been all an expression of self, Saul’s place was a pantheon of want: the electronic toys, the magazine selections, the right furniture all serving as a means to impress rather than express.
A Little Change of Face Page 23
