Free Fall

by Unknown

  Thirty minutes later, she was at his kitchen table reading the note Nina had left. "So, what did you do?"

  "I slept with someone else," Joseph whispered.

  "Joseph!" She picked up a magazine off the table and thwacked him over the head with it. "What the hell?" She smacked him again and Joseph put up his arms to shield himself from the blows as she brought the magazine down with each word, "You. Freaking. Moron. God!" She put the magazine down and sat there, thoroughly pissed off. "I don’t blame her. She’s not one of your little bed buddies you know! You can’t treat people that way!" Laura got up and started pacing the kitchen floor. "Well, what do you want me to do about it? She’s not going to listen to me, there’s nothing I can say to fix this!"

  "I don’t want you to do anything about it," Joseph said.

  Laura stopped her pacing and looked at the slump of his shoulders. "I’m sorry, bro," she said softly. "I’ll stay here for a couple days, shall I?" She massaged the back of his neck. "I know! Let’s go out and get shitfaced! When’s the last time we did that?" She went to the door off the kitchen, pounded down the stairs and grabbed a bottle of Cuervo from the bar. Coming back up into the kitchen, she said, "Let’s start with this! I’ll call a cab and we can go to that new place, I hear it’s got a blues band." She poured two shots of tequila and handed one to Joseph. "Take your medicine!" Joseph dutifully downed the shot as Laura reached into the fridge and opened a couple of beers. "Now chase it!" She picked up the phone to call for a cab.

  The next morning Joseph told Laura to go home because he was so hung over that all he wanted to do was sleep all day. Got drunk again! What is wrong with me lately? Laura had seemed perfectly fine. She rarely felt the after effects of alcohol and right at this moment he hated her for it. How can two people with the same genes be so different in that way? He found some Tylenol PM and dumped three pills into his shaking hand. He popped them in his mouth and turned on the water to gulp down several mouthfuls from the sink. He waited to see if the pills would stay down and then staggered woozily to lie back down on the bed. Funny how people drink to forget. It does help you forget for a little while, but then the memories always come back the next day. Except they are a hundred times more painful when you’ve got a hangover than when you were sober before you started drinking to forget. What a fool! He had to be back at the studio tomorrow and he needed to recuperate quickly so he could be sharp for it. He closed his eyes and chased thoughts of Nina away.

  He slept through the day and most of the night and woke at four o'clock in the morning. He reached for the other side of the bed and found it empty. The whole truth slammed home again. She’s really gone. The silence of the house mocked him so he went downstairs and turned on the stereo, but the music got on his nerves and he couldn’t find a song to suit his mood. He decided he really didn’t deserve to enjoy music. He thought about going for a swim, but that was also something he enjoyed. He hated running so he turned on the treadmill, painfully aware that Nina had used the machine more than he had. He ran three miles, sweated out all the toxins, and felt better physically.

  After he showered, he tried to think of other ways he could punish himself. He was ravenously hungry so instead of the fry-up he longed for; he got out some old rice cakes from the cupboard and ate three of them with peanut butter. The knowledge that they were something that Nina had bought made the dry stickiness that much harder to swallow. An idea struck him. The restraining order against Karen was ready to be served. He would stop by and pick it up and present it to her himself. He needed someone else to hate besides himself, and she was as good a thing as any.

  As soon as he arrived at the studio his mood lightened. The show was a good thing for him and he wouldn’t screw it up. He went to one of the cubicles on one side of the warehouse to a makeup chair, and read over the day's script. He saw someone walk behind him out of the corner of his eye. What do you know? He started to feel even better.

  "Hey, Karen." He swiveled the chair around to catch her attention.

  "Joseph! Isn’t this great! We’re finally going to be working together." Karen was in full make-up and costume, a tight fitting police uniform. Her hair was done in a French braid down her back. "You know, I’ve always wanted this."

  "My scenes aren’t with you. Your scenes are at the police station. I’m undercover. Our characters never meet." Joseph enunciated each word as if he was trying to speak English to someone who didn’t know the language. "You've got probably five minutes total air time."

  "I know, but still…you can help me out, can’t you? No matter what happened to us before, I’ve always had the deepest respect for your talent. You used to teach me, remember?"

  "I got nothing for ya, sorry. Oh, but wait! I do have some lines you can read right now." He pulled the no-contact order out of his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to her. He stood behind her and looked over her shoulder while she read it. "This paragraph here says that you must not come within five hundred feet of my house. And this…" He pointed further down the page. "…says that you cannot enter the gate to my development unless you’re a registered guest of one of the residents there. And this, my very favorite really, says that you are restrained from making calls or, compelling someone else to make calls, to my cell phone, my house phone and my girlfriend’s cell phone and house phone. See that word there? That says harassment." Joseph sat back down and started swinging the chair left and right.

  "Are you crazy? Why would you do this? Is it that woman, Joseph? I think she may be a little paranoid. Does she want you to get restraining orders against all the women in your life?" Joseph didn't reply. "There’s absolutely no reason for this. A little overkill, don’t you think?"

  Joseph’s felt a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. His legs kept swiveling the chair. "That’s all I got," he said with finality. "That’s all I’ll ever have for you, ever again." He swung back to the mirror, turning his back to her, and picked up his script.

  "This is ridiculous! You can’t keep me five hundred feet from you! We work on the same lot, Joseph." She took a step towards him and laid a hand on his arm. "This is unnecessary, I haven’t done anything. We can be friends, can’t we?"

  Joseph looked down at the hand on his arm and then looked up into her eyes with such a seething look of hatred that Karen backed away.

  Thoroughly disconcerted, she returned to the dressing room she shared with three other actresses. Joseph couldn’t know anything. Louis didn’t tell, she was certain, because if he had she’d be in a lot more trouble than this. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm her panic. Everything she had done was for nothing? No! It couldn’t be! She looked at the date on the restraining order. Two days ago. This was done before that woman left. It was all her fault. Joseph probably needed some time to forget her. Were they actually broken up or did she just go home for a visit? She had no way of knowing if it was because of what happened at the hotel in Las Vegas. For now, she would hold onto the pictures in case she needed them. The nobody was gone. Karen didn’t care under what circumstances, she had left and that was what Karen had set out to do.

  At the hotel Louis had unsuprisingly, blown his wad in the first twenty seconds of intercourse and then blamed her for it, insisting she stay so he could prove his manhood a second time. She grudgingly surrendered to it, barely tolerating his sliminess. When a full two minutes had passed with her under him like a dead fish, she finally forced herself to respond a little and fake it, so he’d finish and get off. While he strutted and postured around the room, she got into her clothes, anxious to get home for a two-hour soak in the bath.

  "Here’s her number," she said. "I want you to call her and make up something, try to find out if she’s in Seattle to stay."

  "You said you’d stay all night long." Louis made no move to get dressed, and Karen avoided the sight of his shriveled penis, barely discernible now in an unruly nest of overgrown pubic hair.

  "I have an early call tomorrow Louis," Karen said, "some othe
r time, okay?"

  Louis threw the slip of paper on the bed. "Maybe I will and maybe I won’t." The balance of power had shifted, as Karen knew it would. That’s why it was vital to keep men from getting what they wanted. It was all in the chase, the big bad hunter scoring the kill, a pathetic affirmation to their silly egos. Karen sighed. She was done with him anyway.

  "Do it or don’t do it, but if you do it, let me know."

  "Stay here and I’ll do it all you want."

  "No. Sorry, but I really have to go." Karen’s only thought was to get away from this douche bag and not spend one minute more in his company. She promised herself that she’d never see him again.

  Back in the dressing room, Karen made the decision to back off for a while. Give Joseph time to collect himself. She would do her best to draw his attention to her while on the set, but wouldn’t approach him again. She had no intention of giving up. She always got what she wanted and, with a little perseverance, she would get Joseph too.

  TEN

  NINA got back to Seattle, unpacked, and then thoroughly cleaned her apartment. Her neighbor had done the stack of dishes she’d left in the sink six weeks ago, but Nina had plenty to do for the rest of the day. She washed her bedclothes and did two more loads of laundry. She dusted every surface of the house, including the knick-knacks and pictures one by one. She vacuumed, swept and mopped the floors, cleaned the bathroom and tub. She got down on her hands and knees and cleaned the inside of the kitchen cupboard under the sink where she kept her trash. Satisfied that everything was spotless she got out of her stinky clothes and spent fifteen minutes under the shower. Then she called Trish from the comfort of her familiar and cozy bed and informed her she was in Seattle, saying only that she had taken her advice and was home for a visit. Although Trish tried to get more information, Nina wouldn’t budge. A part of her still wanted to protect Joseph but mostly she wanted to protect herself from any sympathy or outrage her friend might express. She told Trish she would be back at the club the next night and would see her there.

  In the following days, she threw herself at everything with all her energy until she got so tired she crashed and slept hard each night. She went to the club where everyone welcomed her as if she'd just got back from vacation. She re-established herself with the regulars and added new songs to the bands repertoire. She spent time with Trish and her family and did her best to fill every waking moment with activity. Mornings were the hardest, when it all came back to her like a blow to the chest. But she refused to think about Joseph and, when she was reminded of him, she pushed him out of her head. Her mind was in a constant battle to keep him away as if she were suffering from a split personality disorder. She talked to herself when she was alone, argued herself out of calling Joseph, fought with herself to keep from crying. Eventually it became second nature. The thought of Joseph popped into her head and was gone in a blink of an eye. As long as she kept busy.

  On the Fourth of July, Nina went to Luke’s annual celebration at his house on Lake Washington. When she drove up the street to his house she saw several familiar cars. The band was here. Trish, George, and Patrick were here. She saw her nine and ten-year-old nephews standing by the front door and walked up to greet them. The house, a forty-year-old, three-story colonial, smelled liked grilled steak and garlic bread. Luke was on the wide deck outside, barbequing, and his wife Dana was in the kitchen making a red velvet cake for dessert. There was a Rubbermaid trashcan by the patio door filled with ice and three different kinds of beer. Dana gave her a hug and ordered her to take the bread out of the oven. Through the kitchen window was an expanse of green lawn that rolled down to a dock at the lake shore and a spectacular view of the lake. On the grass, Patrick, the Live Wire's bouncer, stood out in shorts and a tank top, his muscles rippling. He was playing a game of volleyball with Luke’s band mates, Rudy and Bruce. George was also playing beside another young woman who was Patrick’s latest girlfriend. Trish was standing on one side of the net, marvelously attired in a bright red sundress with matching red Vans. Nina set the pan of bread on the stove and covered it with a dishtowel to keep it warm. She snagged a beer from the trashcan and stepped outside to say hello to everyone.

  More people arrived; some neighbors from down the block with their kids in tow, and the party got going into full swing. After steaks, hamburgers and hotdogs, potato salad, baked beans, and garlic bread everyone but a few parents and the kids adjourned downstairs where Luke got out the hard liquor. He and Rudy, who played bass, set up the instruments and amplifiers so they could jam. It was about four hours till dark when they would all go outside to the water and watch the fireworks show over Lake Washington.

  Nina drank one and a half beers. She enjoyed the food, but when she was sitting around downstairs listening to the guys playing half tunes, amiably bickering over what song they would play, she became restless and edgy. She wanted to go home and continue with the remodeling of her bathroom. She was also planning on doing the kitchen and maybe installing new flooring too. These projects had kept her occupied for the last two weeks. Her stomach started to feel a little off, so she got up and told Luke that she didn’t feel too well and was going home. He immediately offered some Tums or Pepto Bismal. She assured him she’d be all right and guiltily snuck out of the house without saying goodbye to anyone else.

  What is wrong with me? She asked herself as she drove down Union Street. It wasn’t like her to ditch everyone like that. As she expected, when she got home there was a message from Trish. She called her back, making it as short as possible without being rude. Yes, I’m okay, a little stomach flu probably. Just want to lie down. I know it’s the Fourth of July. No, I don’t want you to come over. She felt her gorge rise and dashed to the bathroom just in time to vomit everything out of her stomach in three great heaves. Holy crap! She rinsed out her mouth and looked at the sage green tile stacked on the floor. She had already measured the layout for the tiles to fit on the walls. She had never been the home improvement sort, but once the idea took shape she found it was a great way to kill time. She followed the instructions she'd downloaded from the Internet and picked up the trowel to slather Mastic glue on the wall over one end of the tub. She felt fine now.

  Two hours later she had finished the one side and decided to leave the other walls for tomorrow. She got a third orange Popsicle out of the freezer. What’s up with the Popsicles? She wondered. Why am I craving orange? Naranja, she thought idly, recalling the Spanish word for orange. "A ella le gusta comer Popsicle naranja," she said aloud in her tenth grade Spanish. She looked at the Popsicle. "I crave orange," she said. "I have a craving for orange," she repeated. She dropped the Popsicle into the sink and stepped out into the hallway that faced the open bathroom and looked at the toilet.

  "I puked in the bathroom." The impact of what this might mean hit her with full force and she let out of whoosh of air. "No!" She got the calendar off of the kitchen wall and sat on the floor, flipping through the pages. I only knew him three months. It was just three months out of my life. The last mark on her calendar showed that her last period had been the second week she'd first met Joseph.

  Images of him exploded into her brain as she remembered being on her period here in her apartment with Joseph. She scanned her memory of all the times they had had sex, here and in LA. No! She couldn’t remember being on her period again. She snatched up her purse from the floor and scrabbled inside to find her birth control pills. She'd been taking a low dose for years because of her heavy periods and bad cramping. The current month’s pack was full; she hadn’t taken them for the last four days. How had she forgotten? In last month’s pack, all the pill holes were punched out except for the seven filler pills she was supposed take when she started her period. That wasn’t unusual because she never took them. It’s just my body freaking out because I stopped the pills she thought, grasping at this idea. Then again, I haven’t had a period for two months! She punched one out and brought it to her mouth. Can I take this now, or should
I wait? She put the pill back and shut the case to keep it from falling out. It can’t be! The pill is ninety-nine percent effective. How could I be in the one percentile? Impossible!

  Clutching her bag, she walked over to her tennis shoes on the floor by the door. She slipped them on and left the apartment, hoping the mini mart on the corner had a pregnancy test.

  An hour later she sat on the toilet, willing herself to pee in a Bakelite coffee cup. Her bladder was not cooperating. She reached over and turned the water on. A full minute later, she finally started trickling into the cup. She quickly wiped herself and picked up one of two different pregnancy tests on the counter. The mini mart did have a pregnancy test, but the expiration date on the box said it was two months too old. Nina pointed this out to the clerk behind the counter, but the woman had just shrugged at her. So, Nina walked five more blocks to the QFC and bought a First Response and a Clear Blue Easy. It was dusk by the time she got back and she could hear people setting off fireworks. She unwrapped the Clear Blue Easy stick and held it in the cup for twenty seconds as instructed. Then she set it on the counter and stood in her underwear with her shorts down around her ankles looking at her watch. At three minutes the hourglass in the little window on the stick had turned into the word ‘pregnant’.

  "Nooo," Nina breathed. She ripped into the other package and quickly followed the same instructions that were on the first test. This time the stick turned into two pink lines for pregnant.

  Nina listlessly pulled up her shorts. She walked slowly to her bedroom and sat cross legged in the middle of her bed. Tears started in her eyes and she hugged herself, her chest locking up so tight that she couldn’t breathe for several moments. She sat there rocking back and forth until the wave of wretchedness passed and she gasped for breath. "Joseph," she whimpered. "Oh, God! Why did you do this to me?" She lay down in a fetal position and cried hard for the first time since she'd left LA. Outside she could hear fireworks as the people of Seattle celebrated the Fourth of July.