A Clean Slate

by Laura Caldwell

  Laney jumped right into the fray, stuffing a handful of Cheetos into her mouth, punching a little boy on the arm. I stood where I was, almost huddled in the doorway, tingling with a mixture of apprehension and awe. At our apartment, I might hear my mom giggling with a date or Dee talking softly on the phone, but we weren’t a loud family. There were only three of us, after all, and none of us was particularly musical or rowdy. So that scene in Laney’s kitchen, the sheer sound and activity, overwhelmed me, and yet I was envious of it. Even more, I envied the way they were all so comfortable with that noise, with themselves, with the other people in their family. They had their issues, but they worked well together. They talked over each other and kidded each other and handed out food. It was like watching a raucous but finely tuned circus with ten simultaneous acts under the big top.

  The Pendletons invited me into the chaos that day, and I eventually grew more comfortable there. Still, I always had to prepare myself before I visited. I had to remind myself that it would be crazy, that I would leave exhilarated and stuffed with food but with ringing ears.

  So as Laney and I walked the few blocks from the El station, I made those reminders to myself again. I took a few deep breaths and shook out my shoulders. It was cold, with mid-October bringing a sharp, chilly wind to the city, and we both had our hands in our pockets, our scarves around our necks.

  “They’ll be so glad to see you,” Laney said, turning to look at me in that stiff-necked way people do when they’re bundled up.

  “Me, too. It’s been a long time then?”

  “Well, the last time was definitely before your birthday.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see your family all summer.” It was like not seeing a nearby beloved grandma for five months. Laney’s family had, in a sense, become my larger, rowdier extended family, an inclusion I cherished, since I had no extended family to speak of. My mom had fallen out with her parents after she married my deadbeat dad, much to their chagrin, and my dad’s family never took any interest in me. At least that’s what my mom had told me.

  I’ve never told her, but I do have one memory of my dad’s mom. I couldn’t have been much older than four, possibly the last time I saw her. I think my mom had a date and no one to baby-sit, so she dropped me off at my grandmother’s as a last resort. I don’t remember much about the house or whether she played with me or whether she sang me any songs. All I remember is that she fed me lemons. She cut up a lemon into fourths and told me to bite into it. My face scrunched up at the acidic tartness. I felt the sting of the juice running down my chin, and she laughed. Thinking back on that time, she sounds cruel, and yet I loved that she was laughing. She had dyed brown hair, curled up tight from rollers, and she wore a pink sweater. And I loved how she laughed and laughed and laughed. I don’t know why I’ve never told my mom that. I don’t know why a woman would feed lemons to a child.

  “The upside of not seeing my family,” Laney said as we walked down her street, “is that you don’t have to pretend you remember anything. I assume you don’t want to tell them about the memory issue?”

  “Nope. Too complicated, and you know…”

  “I know, they’ll all have their two cents to put in and they’ll never let you forget it.”

  “Exactly.”

  We turned a corner and the house came into view. A few seconds later I was being hugged and smooched by a pack of women in the Pendletons’ warm, crowded kitchen, which was filled with the inviting scent of spicy tomato sauce. Laney and her sisters look very much alike. They all have the dark hair and animated dark eyes of their Italian mother, with the fair skin and mischievous nature of their Irish dad. Their father, a wonderfully sweet and funny man, who I sometimes liked to pretend was my own dad, had passed away a few years ago from colon cancer, an event that darkened their sparkling household for a while, but they all seemed to be doing well again.

  “Where the hell have you been, Kelly?” said Frannie, the sister who was only a year or so older than us. She was bouncing a baby on her hip, looking like a less fashionable version of Laney in her gray sweatpants and stained ivory sweater. “Are you helping Laney drink Chicago out of all its tequila?” She laughed.

  I gave her a polite grin. Frannie is the one member of the Pendleton family that I’ve never liked very much. I think it has something to do with the fact that she’s so close in age to Laney and me. In high school, being one year older is everything. Frannie ran with a crowd that Laney and I saw as achingly cool, and she’d mutter things like “yearbook geeks” when we patrolled the bleachers on a Friday night, interviewing people.

  After we grew up, I disliked her even more, but for different reasons. I no longer felt that Frannie was superior to me. In fact, once she got married right out of college and popped out three kids in quick succession, I felt superior to her. I think it was some kind of coping mechanism, some response to what she represents—the ugly side of marriage and kids. Her husband is the prototypical pompous ass who spends more time with his buddies than he does his family, and their kids are not the nicest tykes I’ve ever met. Her eldest, Nick, Jr., a boy of six, threw up on me last year and then giggled like a hyena. Is it wrong to hate a child?

  I know it doesn’t have to be that way. I know that some people get married and have children and then blossom. They have even more fun than they did before, albeit in a different style. But here’s the thing—how do you know which group you’ll fall into? You don’t. And so last year, the closer Ben and I came to being engaged (at least in my mind) the more I disliked, even feared Frannie, as if her unhappily married and mothering self could somehow rub off on me.

  Laney doesn’t see Frannie the same way. She’s always felt like we did in high school—inferior. In fact, Laney feels inferior to all her sisters because they’re grown-ups, she says, and they don’t take her seriously. They have families and responsibilities and perfectly furnished suburban homes, while Laney’s eight-piece set of margarita glasses is the only matching kitchenware she owns.

  Two of Laney’s sisters sat on the countertop now, yelling to their kids, when they tore through the kitchen, and giving Laney shit about dating yet another musician. Laney’s eldest sister, Nancy, stood near the stove laughing with their mom, a sweet woman whose curvy body and wavy hair managed to be both sexy and comforting.

  Timmy, who had just turned twenty-one, ambled into the room, oblivious after all these years to being one of the few males. “Yeah, Kell,” he said, “what’ve you been doing lately?” Timmy had grown out of his gawky teenage self and into a man who knew that his tall frame and broad smile were undeniably appealing. He flashed me a rather sexy grin, and I wondered for a second what it would be like to fool around with a twenty-one-year-old. Not Timmy, of course. He would always be a kid brother to me, but maybe I could have my first one-night stand (if that hadn’t already happened with the two-freckled man) with a sexy younger guy. Maybe I should try the bar scene again. Maybe Timmy had some friends who would stop by. Maybe I’m getting a little carried away here.

  “I haven’t been doing much,” I said, trying not to think about sex with Timmy’s buddies, most of whom probably lived in their parents’ basement, as Timmy did.

  “Sorry to hear about you and Ben,” Nancy said, looking over her shoulder as she stirred a red sauce on the stove.

  “And the job,” said Mrs. Pendleton.

  I waved a hand as if it were no big deal, but I felt embarrassed at the thought that Laney had been coming home every Sunday with tales of woe from my life, probably telling the family what a depressed psychopath I’d been all summer.

  Laney, who must have read my thoughts, whispered in my ear, “They only know the basics.”

  I smiled at her. “Yeah, I’ve just been taking it easy for a while.”

  “I almost called you a few weeks ago,” Nancy said. “Rob and I were going out of town for a weekend, and I thought you might want to baby-sit for some extra money. But we found someone in the neighborhood.”
/>   “I would have baby-sat for you,” Laney said, before I could reply. “And you wouldn’t have had to pay me. Why didn’t you call me?” She sounded hurt. Laney was forever offering to watch her nieces and nephews, but no one ever seemed to take her up on it.

  Nancy waved a wooden spoon in the air. “You’re busy. You’re always going out, and you’ve got your boyfriends.”

  “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have cancelled my plans to help you out.”

  “No big deal,” Nancy said, but as Laney slumped into a chair, I could see that it was a big deal to her.

  “So seriously, what have you been up to, Kelly?” Frannie asked.

  I leaned over and squeezed Laney’s shoulder. “Just staying home a lot.”

  “Well, I saw you when we ran into each other in front of the Radisson Hotel,” Frida said from her perch on the countertop.

  I looked at Laney’s sister, drawing a blank. “What?”

  “Yeah, I forgot to tell you, Lane,” Frida said, “but you remember that, don’t you, Kell? It was at the beginning of the summer.”

  I tugged the scarf away from my neck. The room was hot, and the tomatoey smells were cloying now. “I, uh, I can’t remember.” It was true, of course.

  Frida’s forehead creased. “We talked for a while. I can’t believe you don’t remember. You were meeting your friend.”

  “What friend?” I exchanged looks with Laney, knowing we were both thinking the same thing—the two-freckled guy. Was he the friend I was meeting?

  Frida chuckled. “I don’t know who it was, but I was thinking that it was probably someone who was helping you get over Ben.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “You were so secretive. You didn’t seem to want to tell me anything about this friend or what you were doing, but you were coming out of the Radisson Hotel, after all.”

  Timmy made a knowing sound as if to imply that I’d been having an afternoon of crazy hotel sex, and all the sisters laughed.

  I helped myself to a few crackers from a tray and fake-laughed along with them, wondering if Timmy was right.

  That next week at work, I actually began to enjoy myself a little. Cole was still generally a sarcastic “arsehole,” as he would say, but there were some subtle changes, due, I supposed, to him taking my suggestion about William’s sweat and the fact that we’d had a drink with Laney. For one thing, he was suddenly using the term “we” very often, as in, “We don’t have a shoot until Thursday,” or “We should get some more red gel for the back lights.” He also seemed to trust me more, not hanging over me all the time and shooting me snippy instructions. He even gave me a compliment one day.

  I was on the phone making production calls for a shoot that would involve catalog work for a lingerie ad. I’d been surprised to learn that Cole, as the photographer, had to do nearly everything for these shoots, including casting the models, ordering food for the crew, scouting locations if it was in a remote site, obtaining the necessary permits, setting rates for the models and himself, and so many other things. For this particular lingerie shoot, Cole had asked me to arrange for the food, and lacking any other thoughts, I immediately called the caterer that used to stock Bartley Brothers with bagels and fruit for our Friday-morning meetings. The quote they gave me was astronomical. No wonder I’d gotten laid off; Bartley Brothers needed to make room in the budget for three-dollar bagels and fifty-dollar tubs of melon.

  Next, I called a number of small restaurants I used to frequent in the Loop, figuring they’d jump for joy at a catering deal. I found a Greek restaurant that would supply us with feta eggs and fruit in the morning and Greek salads and gyros for lunch. It was a tad tricky deciding how much food to order, since so many people at the shoot would be models, and although I knew the whole anorexia thing might be a cliché, I’d starve myself too if I was going to be photographed in a thong. Finally, I secured the amount, the pricing and the delivery schedule, and I typed the whole thing up for Cole on his computer.

  I was on the phone again, this time with a booker from one of the modeling agencies, when Cole walked over to me, reading the printout.

  “Great work,” he said when I hung up the phone. “You’re so much better at this than I am.”

  I was proud despite myself.

  Later that day, I could hear Cole on the phone, talking fast and excitedly to someone, although I couldn’t make out what he was saying. When he got off the phone, he was more animated than I’d ever seen him.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  He bounced around on his feet, moving from his butcher-block table, where some equipment was lined up with militarylike precision, to where I sat. “Can’t say. Don’t want to ruin it, if you know what I mean, but soon. Maybe soon.”

  That’s all I could get out of him, but he was in such a charming mood that he let me leave at three o’clock. When I got home that day, I was feeling good about my new job and wanting to try out some of the photographic techniques I’d picked up by watching Cole. I dug my camera bag out of the closet by the kitchen, making sure that I still had battery power. I checked to see if there was any film. Yes. There were twenty-six pictures left on a roll of thirty-six. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken any photos. Had it been this summer? Or even before that? The last time I could actually recall was Christmas at Ben’s house, and then my mom’s apartment after that. But I’d already developed those. So when had I taken ten pictures and, more importantly, what had I taken them of?

  The only way to find out was to finish the roll and get it developed. I headed outside and walked through Lincoln Park up to Fullerton Avenue until I reached the botanical gardens. It used to be a favorite practice site of mine, the huge greenhouse, its glass bleary with humidity and the oval ring of flowering bushes outside. I started shooting one frame after another, loving the satisfying click of the shutter. I tried out some of Cole’s techniques—using a long lens to shoot a single bloom and fuzz out the background, taking the shot a little off center to bring some other element into the picture.

  When I was finished with the roll, I walked back to my place, feeling pleased, centered. Taking pictures always did that to me. As I neared my apartment, the sky was hanging low and purple, the way dusk falls in Chicago. The encroaching darkness brought a chill with it, but I was warm inside. Things were finally falling into place. I had a decent job, I was getting over Ben. No, I was over Ben. I marched on happily toward my building, crossing the street and walking up my circular drive.

  And there he was, as if he’d heard my thoughts, sitting right in front of my building on the rim of the fountain.

  15

  Ben stood when he saw me. “What did you get?” he said, gesturing to my camera bag.

  It was such a familiar question, the one he’d ask whenever I came inside from taking pictures, that I immediately began to answer it, telling him about the botanical gardens and the flowers I’d shot. For a second, I could see us in my town house, Ben sitting at the kitchen table while pasta boiled on the stove, me rambling on about the shots I’d taken.

  Ben nodded as I talked, and asked other questions, and before long it began to feel comfortable. Too comfortable.

  “Why are you here?” I said suddenly.

  He blinked a few times, as if he hadn’t expected me to say that. “I, um, forgot to ask you something on Saturday.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Why didn’t you want to marry me?

  “Okay, well, should I go first?” he asked.

  “Sure.” I set my camera bag down and pulled my jacket tighter around me.

  “Should we go inside?”

  “No.” I answered quickly. I didn’t want him to see my bland apartment, which was such a step down from the town house.

  “Okay. It’s just that I forgot to ask you about this memory thing.” He waved a vague hand toward my head. “I mean, are you still having problems?”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  “Oh. Great. So you can rememb
er everything again?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  More blinking. “So you still have this memory gap, or whatever you’re calling it.”

  “I’m not calling it anything, and it’s not a problem. It’s just…there.”

  “Kell, that’s not good. I really think you should go to the doctor.”

  “Well, you don’t get to have an opinion anymore, do you?”

  He shook his head, as if refusing to get pulled in by my childish taunt. “It’s not healthy, not remembering like that. You need to see someone about it.”

  I squirmed. My body was agitated and itchy with the introduction of this issue that I didn’t want to think about from someone I didn’t want to care about. “I’m not kidding, Ben. You don’t get an opinion on this. You wanted out. You’re out. So don’t come around here telling me what to do.”

  A car drove into the circular drive and parked near us. Ben glanced up, then back at me. I could tell he was reining in something else he wanted to say. “Fair enough,” he said finally. “So what was the thing you forgot to ask me this weekend?”

  I squirmed again. Why now? Why was this happening now, when I was just starting to feel like I was getting my act together?

  “It was nothing,” I said.

  “Well, it was something.”

  “No, it’s nothing.”

  “You said you forgot to ask me something, so just ask.”

  “Why didn’t you want to marry me?” I blurted it out, right in the middle of his question, right there in the middle of the driveway.

  His mouth hung open a little, and a heavy silence weighed on us, despite the buzz of the city and the cars speeding by on Lake Shore Drive. His face was turning a little pink from the chilly night air, and old instincts made me want to hurry him inside and fix him a cup of coffee.

  “I told you,” he said after a few long seconds. “You made it clear that you wanted a ring by your birthday, and I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”