I'm Your Girl

by J. J. Murray

  I hike up my dress, drop my panties, and sit on the toilet, looking at half a roll of toilet paper. They used this same roll, I’ll bet.

  This is awkward, and I’m having trouble peeing. I’m sitting in their bathroom, where Noël gave Stevie baths; where Noël showered or took a long, hot bath; where Noël sat and did her business. I try not to look into the large mirror above the sink, because I’m afraid I’ll see her ghost.

  This is creepy.

  I finish, wipe, flush, and hesitate before picking up the bar of Dove. No one has ever used this. It’s just for show, and for some reason, if I use it, I’ll be desecrating this “shrine” to Noël and Stevie. I’ll bet there are even some toys on the ledges of that tub behind that curtain. I just can’t desecrate anything in here.

  I leave the bathroom and stare at two closed doors. I don’t open them. One has to be Stevie’s room, the other Noël’s. I go instead to the kitchen, flip on a light—hey, this is nice!—where I use some Softsoap to wash my hands and dry them on a dark blue towel. This isn’t what I expected at all. I expected a sink full of dishes, garbage spilling out of the can, a table crawling with crumbs and a colony of ants, and a streaky floor. Instead, it’s like a picture from Better Homes and Gardens in which everything gleams and shines.

  I love this kitchen! My own kitchen is cramped, but this one has some space to move from the sink to the stove to the fridge to the microwave on its own cart. I marvel at the cabinet doors of frosted glass, the window treatments matching the wall border exactly, all the pots and pans hanging—

  “You’re in my favorite room,” Jack says behind me.

  “It’s nice,” I say. It’s more than that, much more. This is the heart of Jack’s home. This is where Noël’s heart beat most.

  He opens the fridge, and I look inside. Jack…drinks a lot. And such a variety!

  “I wish we had some more of that red wine,” he says, grabbing a bottle of…is that eggnog? With Santa on the bottle?

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  He puts the bottle back. “Me, too.” He hands me the disk. “I hope you have Microsoft Word.”

  I look at the disk, “second draft” written on it. “I do.”

  “I could make you some coffee or some hot tea.”

  And I could do the same for him at my place. “I’m okay.”

  “All right.” He leans against the fridge, and that’s when I notice it’s completely clear of all those magnetic doodads people put on them. “Um, I’d give you a tour, but…”

  “It’s okay.” I’ve already kind of taken one. “But I want to see where you write.”

  He takes me downstairs past three closed doors to the end of the hall. He stands aside so I can enter….

  What is this place? This is where a writer writes? This is an office?

  “It’s kind of…crowded,” he says.

  “Crowded” isn’t the word. “Shoehorned” would be better to describe this library/office/dumping ground.

  “You write in here?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  “Doesn’t it make you claustrophobic?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I take my laptop to the kitchen and write.”

  To be nearer to Noël’s heart. I turn sideways so I can navigate between a TV stand with no TV and the edge of a…bed? There’s a bed under all those papers, files, and Post-its. I look up at some seriously sagging shelves. The man is well read.

  “You have quite a collection, Jack.” I look at his desk and see even more pictures of Noël and Stevie. “Is there, um, some kind of organization here?”

  “No,” he says. “But I kind of know where everything is.”

  I shimmy past the bed/open-air filing cabinet to his chair and take a seat. “So, this is where you sit.”

  He comes up behind me. “Yep.”

  “Is this where you wrote Wishful Thinking?”

  “Yes.”

  I can now see better where and how Dan Pace lived. “Is your book kind of autobiographical?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Most of the places are where I used to live. Dan’s apartment, for example.”

  I play dumb. “Dan?”

  “Yeah, my main character, and he’s quite a character. He lives in a one-bedroom efficiency like I used to.”

  Which means that Jack…had a king-sized bed in that little apartment. Is there a king-sized bed upstairs right now?

  “I don’t know how you do it,” I say, swiveling as far as the chair will go, almost facing Jack. He needs a new chair. “I would go crazy down here.”

  “I’m used to it.” He gives me his hand. “I’d better get you home.”

  I hold his hand with both of mine. “No rush.”

  He sighs.

  “Unless this is too awkward for you.”

  He nods. “I, uh, I need to get out of here, maybe get another efficiency. This is too much house for one person.”

  I don’t know about that. I still think three people live here. “Was this your first house?”

  He nods. “First and last, I used to think.”

  It still might be. I’d have to remove most of the pictures first, of course, and this room has to be tipped on its side and emptied, but…I can see myself in this house. I’d definitely stand out with all the whiteness in here.

  I pull myself up to him, draping my arms around his shoulders. “Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t sell it. It’s a beautiful house.”

  “Thank you. I like your house, too.”

  “It’s not nearly as big as this one, or as modern.”

  “I like old-fashioned things like hardwood floors and real wood furniture.” He looks down. “Your house says quality and craftsmanship.”

  I smile. “My furniture says secondhand at a yard sale.”

  “You have good taste.”

  “Thank you. Um, would you like to take me home now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you come in for some coffee? I make a mean cup of coffee.” With a coffeemaker I’ve been using since college.

  “I’d like that.”

  But when we get to my house, and I let him in, I have no intention of making any coffee. I close my door and lock it, and then I lock lips with Dan until we’re both on my sofa pawing at each other. I get his jacket and tie off quickly enough, but there are too many buttons on his shirt—

  He pulls away, breathing heavily, but not nearly as heavily as I am.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I, uh, I haven’t been with anyone else.”

  I sit up, letting the slits in my dress keep on revealing my legs. “You mean, since…Noël died?”

  “No. Since…ever.”

  I don’t know what to say at first. I mean, what do you say? Do you say, “You were a virgin when you got married?? Do you say, “I like a faithful man”? Do you say, “I find this hard to believe, Jack”?

  Or, do you believe it and say nothing?

  Not only did he lose a wife; he lost his first love and his first lover. And here I am, on my reading sofa, ready, willing, and able to be his second. It’s not as special as being his first, of course, but I’ve been waiting long enough! I’m sitting on the sofa where I have had many wicked fantasies that sent me running to my bedroom for some privacy and buzzing under the covers. If only I hadn’t had trouble with all those buttons!

  I straighten out my dress, pulling a sleeve back to my shoulder.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to, Diane. Really.”

  From the way he, um, grew down there, I believe it, too.

  “It’s just…I’m…I’m not ready. I know that sounds cliché.”

  A man whom I was about to let be my first…isn’t ready to be my first? This is definitely a first. “I understand, Jack.”

  “You do?”

  I nod.

  “Well,” he says, “I wish you could explain it to me.”

  Now what do I say? “Noël, um, she was your first love.”

  He nods.

  “And, u
h, you still love her.”

  He nods again.

  Shoot. I’m in competition with a dead woman. It’s as if Wuthering Heights has broken out in my living room. “And you still love her enough…to remain faithful to her.”

  “Yeah.” His eyes are tearing up again. “Yeah, that’s what I’m feeling.” He turns to me. “It’s not fair to you, though.”

  True. “We’ll have to take it slow then.”

  “Thank you.” He sighs. “I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

  I slide next to him, putting my head on his shoulder. “Yes, Jack, you are a mess.”

  He laughs a little. “I’m sorry, Diane. I thought I could…let it all go.” He kisses my forehead. “But I can’t.”

  “We have time,” I say. “I’m a patient woman.”

  He kisses me tenderly. “You’re one of a kind, Diane Anderson.”

  “You’re pretty unique yourself, Jack Browning.”

  And then…we snuggle, not speaking, for a few hours, just sharing each other’s company—and warmth—occasionally kissing, squeezing, smiling, sighing…until I fall asleep.

  And when the sunlight wakes me on the sofa a few hours later, Jack is gone.

  40

  Jack

  Why did you leave? She wanted you to stay!

  I couldn’t stay. I can’t stay.

  Grandma Ella would say “can’t” really means—

  I might stay someday. Just not today. This is all too soon, too soon. It feels like I’m cheating.

  You’re not.

  I know I’m not. It just feels like I am. I’m not done being faithful, okay? We went out to eat, went to church, kissed a bit—

  You two were doing some grinding on that sofa, too. Don’t forget that.

  I almost lost control.

  You’re human, Jack.

  I know.

  And she seemed willing, right?

  She was so soft, so…there.

  Is Diane who you’re thinking about right now in Noël’s bed?

  No.

  Then turn off that tape!

  I had found the tape in the tape player under the bed, cued up to “Right Here Waiting” by Richard Marx. That’s where I am, Noël, I was thinking, just oceans apart from you. “All I Want Is You” by U2 made me think of the promises I had made to her, from the cradle to the grave. Billy Ocean’s “Suddenly” didn’t give my life any new meaning, Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” reminded me that my box of wishes is empty, and now…

  Turn it off, Jack.

  But it’s “Back in the High Life” by Steve Winwood.

  Then do as the song says and let the good parts last.

  What good parts?

  It’s supposed to be a happy song, Jack! You’re supposed to be drinking and dancing. Aren’t you listening to the chorus?

  I only hear the verses.

  The song fades out and fades in to Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight.”

  Please, turn it off. Get some sleep.

  No.

  This song always depresses you.

  I know.

  Then turn it off!

  No…Here come the drums—

  Don’t—

  “The hurt doesn’t show, but the pain still grows…,” I sing, and then I sit up and play the “air drums.”

  I need a drink.

  No, Jack.

  Am I hearing myself correctly?

  Yes.

  But you’re Dan Pace. You’re the party animal. I thought for sure that you would be thirsty.

  Now isn’t the time. Rest.

  But it’s a brand-new year! Drinking is the thing to do on New Year’s Day!

  Don’t.

  Why? Are you afraid I’ll drown in my memories?

  No. I’m afraid you won’t want to make new ones.

  Oh, shut up.

  I go to the kitchen, grab a full bottle of Boone’s Farm Melon Ball, and down half of it in one gulp. Then I make a toast: “Okay, then. Here’s to no memories.”

  41

  Diane

  I wake up alone.

  I’m used to it, so it doesn’t bother me that much. At least he locked the front door after him. And he did leave the disk on the kitchen counter. At least I have that.

  “Happy New Year, Diane.”

  I stretch and wander into the kitchen, start the coffeemaker, and look at my tiny kitchen. There’s only room for one cook in this kitchen. I can stand right here on this tile and almost touch everything—

  Okay, it bothers me.

  Shoot.

  I wanted to wake up with him. I wanted to cook him breakfast in this tiny kitchen. I wanted to spend the first day of the brand-new year with him, reading his book while he…What would he do? Hmm. I would have sent him home for his laptop, and he could be writing his next book while I’m reading the first. We could have had lunch together. We could have maybe even watched the Rose Bowl parade or even a football game or two. We could have, I don’t know, had dinner at his place—Wait, there was no food in the fridge. Well, we would have driven around and found something at maybe a convenience store.

  I miss him.

  He should still be here.

  I shouldn’t have fallen asleep, but I felt so…something I’ve never felt before. I felt needed, wanted, cherished. I felt…

  Lord, I felt home.

  I pick up the disk. “Looks as if it’s just you and me.”

  I take my cup of coffee to my library, taking sips and nodding to myself, and boot up the computer. He just needs more time, that’s all. He’ll come around. I mean, he practically stayed the night, right? He knows a good thing, and I am a good thing. And next time—and there will be a next time—he’ll stay even longer, maybe even the whole night. And one day, when we least expect it, we’ll be in my bedroom…

  I should have opened that door on the tour, you know, to give him ideas.

  I double-click the Word icon, then load “WT,” the only file on the disk. And then I start reading the screen with a new set of eyes.

  And I get an eyeful.

  What I read hardly matches the advance review copy. Dan is so much more endearing and much less of a pervert, Ty is softer and not nearly as rugged, and though they still bump into each other before that teacher conference, it’s so much more romantic…and realistic. Pat the freak and Mike the gay guy don’t even make an appearance, and I get a clearer glimpse of Dan the teacher—and Jack the man:

  …I’m a grumpy man who stayed up late pounding nails into boards. I leave a message with the real estate company that owns the Cube to replace my door—“steel preferred,” I tell them. There’s just not that much wood left to nail into anymore.

  As whipped and tired and grumpy as I am, I still manage to muddle through traffic to Monterey, and on a whim—and because I really don’t have a lesson planned—I have my first class redesign then rearrange the room. And, of course, the principal, Mrs. Wine, chooses the moment we begin scraping desks noisily around the room to enter, settle her rump behind my desk, and start taking notes for my preliminary evaluation.

  I’m in trouble.

  The students decide they need to be able to see me and each other (not always a good idea), so they design a room arrangement that can best be called “the wagon wheel.” The desks are “spokes” radiating from a circular “hub” (me) in six directions. One of the spokes can’t be completed because my desk is in the way. And because my students and their education come first, I ask Mrs. Wine to get up from my desk.

  Oh no he didn’t! I’ll bet all this really happened, too.

  “Pardon me?”

  “We need to move my desk to complete the spoke, Mrs. Wine.”

  A full minute later, the monolithic Mrs. Wine extricates herself from my chair and hovers nearby. “Hovers” is probably the wrong word. She, uh, wobbles nearby. The faculty really needs to buy her one of those electric scooters to get around.

  Once the last spoke is finished, we slide my desk into a corner where only skinny me could
possibly get into my chair.

  Mrs. Wine, then, has to stand and sway.

  She is not pleased.

  “Okay, class,” I say from the hub, “I need someone to give us a review of what we covered Monday.” Mainly because I can’t honestly remember myself. The kids don’t call me “Mr. Space” for nothing.

  Dan is definitely Jack here. I wish the book coming out in April had more of him in it, too. Why do editors cut out reality in favor of sensationalism? Not all books have to be complete escapes from reality!

  Kendra raises her hand. “We were talking about the Greeks.”

  We were? Hmm. “And what did we learn about the Greeks?” No hands, not even Kendra’s. Help me out here, kids! “Tony,”—the student who usually has his hand raised more than Kendra does—“what did we learn about the Greeks?”

  “I was absent Monday, Mr. Pace,” Tony says.

  I wince. I should have known that! “Raise your hand if you were here Monday.”

  Eighteen of thirty hands drift into the air. I zero in on Angie. “Angie, what did we learn about the Greeks?”

  Angie shrugs.

  “Kevin?”

  Kevin shrugs.

  “James?”

  James takes a deep breath, and I hold mine. Yes! I taught them something! James exhales loudly and says, “I dunno.”

  I’m in serious trouble. Because I’m standing in the middle of the hub, I can’t get to the board to write anything without half the wagon wheel having to turn completely around.

  “Um, did I tell you any stories?”

  Thirty heads shake back and forth. Wait, only eighteen of you were here! How could all of you be shaking your heads?

  I will never be a teacher. There’s entirely too much drama!

  “So I didn’t tell you the story of…” Think! I look at Mrs. Wine, her long, stringy hair plastered to her head like a squid with tentacles curling up at the ends and resting on her more than ample bosom. “Medusa?”