Donna Has Left the Building

by Susan Jane Gilman

  For a moment, there was more silence.

  “Donna, where are you?”

  I pulled open the door and wandered back toward my table. I needed to eat, I realized. I was light-headed. “I’m in Nashville. With my brand-new guitar.” This was the truth, and it felt good to say something that would sting.

  “Nashville?”

  “Kid Rock’s having a fish fry.”

  “Kid Rock?” Joey said with confusion. “Since when do you like Kid Rock?”

  I shrugged—though, of course, he couldn’t see this over the phone. “I have some secrets, too, you know, Joey. You like dressing up as a French Maid in a grotesque parody of a woman and destroying our marriage, and me, I like Kid Rock.”

  “Okay, now you’re just being nasty.”

  “Why are you so surprised that I might want to take some time off to go to a music festival?” Without looking, I jabbed my fork at my plate and found a hush puppy impaled on it. I tried to take a bite without Joey hearing me chew. “Or, you know, maybe I’ll even try playing some gigs myself? I used to have a music career, you know.”

  “A ‘career,’ Donna?”

  I pulled the phone away and just stared at it for a moment.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “That came out wrong.”

  “You’ve always thought my music was a joke, Joey. My CDs were just some novelty to dig out and show our friends at Christmas.”

  “Donna, I didn’t mean it that way,” he said quietly. “I’ve always been proud of you, you know that.”

  “The only reason you liked my music was because it made you look cooler by association. You treated me like a punch line.” I suspected this wasn’t entirely accurate. But now that I’d found a vein of righteous indignation, I was determined to mine it.

  “Look,” Joey exhaled into the phone, “if you need to do this, Donna, if you feel there’s some part of you that’s dying to be expressed, or if you just really want to hear Kid Rock—or whatever—okay. Do what you need to. I get it. Believe me. I know better than anyone what it feels like to have some part of yourself—”

  “Oh, don’t you dare. This does not excuse your cheating, Joey. This is not equivalent.”

  I felt my anger flare again. I refused to cede the higher moral ground on this. Yes, okay, I myself had just driven over a thousand miles for the sole purpose of hooking up with an ex. But does anyone ever cheat in a vacuum—and without feeling some perverse self-justification while doing so? Joey had betrayed me first. And I’d been in love with Zack long before: Wasn’t there some sort of grandfather clause for old flames? Maybe it wasn’t even cheating so much as embarking on a crucial midcourse correction in my life; maybe Joey himself had been the detour, the decades-long mistake.

  Again, he was quiet. “Listen, Donna,” he said finally, “if I felt like I could control it—”

  “How’s Austin?” I said abruptly. “He said he had a math test?”

  “He’s okay, I guess. His friend Rodrigo stayed over last night. They’re working on some rap song.”

  I blew my nose. “What about Ashley? Any word?”

  “Not since a few days ago, when I got a couple of dozen links from her. Sanders for president. Dead babies from Syria. Some Indian burial ground coming under attack. The usual. Oh, yeah. And some vegan spaghetti recipe.”

  “Yeah. Here, too. Well.” I shook my head. “No one can ever accuse her of being frivolous, I guess.”

  “Ha. No.”

  The moment hung heavily in the air between us. My phone pinged. Zack: Should be done soon! Meet me at Fontanel at parking lot by the distillery. Rt off route 65.

  Distillery?

  “Look, I should get going,” I said.

  “Well, keep me posted, okay?” he said miserably.

  “Okay.” The breeziness of my own voice astonished me. I’d always imagined that if I committed adultery, the ground beneath my feet would actually quake and my skin break out in boils. Yet how effortlessly I lied! It was positively mundane, in fact, as easy as sliding into a pair of slippers. Unless you got caught, there really was nothing to it. So this was how people could become spies, I realized. Or white-collar criminals. Or adulterers like Joey and me. And I was surprised by how powerful this casual deception made me feel—my husband had no clue!

  “And let me know if you hear anything from Ashley?” Joey said. “Oh, also. Some folks have been calling saying you were supposed to do cooking demos for them. They sounded pretty angry. And Colleen Lundstedt’s been calling asking what’s going on.”

  “Shit.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  I sighed. “Tell them the truth, Joey. Tell them there’s a family crisis. And I’m temporarily indisposed.”

  “You don’t think that sounds sort of fishy and vague?”

  “So then make up some excuse. Or no. Wait. Don’t. Good God. We both know your track record. Tell them it’s none of their fucking business. I’ll deal with Colleen myself.”

  When Joey hung up, I scrolled through my phone for her email address. I didn’t have to look far, because it turned out she’d just written me.

  Dear Donna, it began. As you know, I’ve always liked to think of our Privileged Kitchen Culinary Ambassadors as family…

  Uh-oh. No email that started like this could ever be anything good.

  Quickly, I scanned it. As a working mother myself, I understand the challenges…however, as a Privileged Kitchen Culinary Ambassador…a modicum of decency and respect…at least 48 hours notice when canceling events…keep PK headquarters informed of any inability…our good name is something we lend to you in good faith…

  Blah, blah. I could just see her, tapping out the message on her phone with a silver stylus so she wouldn’t chip her manicure.

  She concluded by reminding me of Privileged Kitchen’s policy of buying back all unsold inventory from any ambassador who “no longer wishes to remain in our family” for “30% of the original wholesale price should you wish to do so at this time.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said out loud. I scrolled through my calendar. At that very moment, I saw, I was supposed to be demonstrating how to bake “Healthy Pumpkin-Spice Halloween Treats your whole family will go wild for” using PK’s “no fuss, no stick” silicone muffin molds at the home of one Teresa Wipnicki in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Fuck. When all was said and done, I saw, I’d been MIA from Privileged Kitchen appointments for exactly four days. Seven demos in total. Okay, that was something—but still. Every goddamn mile I’d driven over the years—how I’d thrown my heart and soul into selling colanders and egg-slicers—the best years of my life I had spent as a slavish and devoted sales rep for the Privileged Kitchen, talking it up at dinner parties and book clubs, always keeping some of my inventory in my car just in case I could make an unscheduled pitch or ran into someone, somewhere, who might be in need of a kitchen timer or a meat thermometer as a last-minute present. And this was how I was being treated? Reprimanded like a child—or a robot—after a mere handful of missed demonstrations?

  Dear Colleen, I began to type.

  Please don’t lecture me about “decency and respect.” I’ve been busting my ass for your company for twelve years now. Until this month, I have had a PERFECT attendance record, including seven whole years when I often performed PK demonstrations stinking drunk. You didn’t know that, however, BECAUSE I AM A CONSUMMATE PROFESSIONAL. Even blitzed out of my brain on Costco tequila, I was capable of turning out a perfectly golden chicken divan using a toaster oven in the middle of a fucking shopping mall. I have consistently outsold every other PK sales rep for years, yet you just gave your biggest sales award to some insane CHILD with a Twitter feed. I have never, until now, had “unsold inventory,” and if I continue to do so, I will sell it back to you if and when I damn well get around to it.

  I thought about closing with some other line about where, exactly, Colleen Lundstedt could shove her unsold kitchenware, but I decided against it. I was, after all,
a consummate professional. It did occur to me to pause for a second before hitting Send. But then I thought: Fuck it. I’d been on pause in my life long enough. Now, I was in Nashville. Now, I was just done. I hit the Send arrow, and, just for good measure, switched my phone to airplane mode. Then I headed off to meet my old high school sweetheart in front of a distillery.

  Fontanel, nestled in the Tennessee hills in the little town of White Creek, was a recreational area boasting miles and miles of “Hiking trails! Zip lines! Fine dining! A boutique country inn! An outdoor amphitheater! Fun for the whole family!”

  The entrance was flanked by Pritchard’s Distillery on one side, and a place called the Natchez Hill Winery on the other. As I eased into the parking lot, I felt like a priest pulling up between two whorehouses. “Really?” I said. “First thing?”

  I got out of the Subaru, righted my miniskirt, reapplied my lipstick. The air smelled peaty, of damp leaves and soil. The place was oddly empty. A mud-spattered ATV careened into the lot and jerked to a halt right beside me. “Hey, hey, gorgeous!”

  Zack was wearing a construction worker’s hard hat and a laminated ID card on a lanyard around his neck. In the daylight, I could see more flecks of silver in his razor stubble and ponytail. “Here I come to save the day,” he sang grandly, rising up in his seat. “Welcome to Fontanel.”

  The ATV looked like a hybrid between a motorcycle and a Tonka truck.

  “What. No monster wheels?” I deadpanned, though I could not conceal how thrilled I was to see him. In my heeled boots and miniskirt, it was a bit of a struggle to mount the vehicle gracefully. “Do I need a helmet?”

  “Nah. Speed limit here’s 15. Most people ride around on golf carts. I just wanted to make a grand entrance. You like?”

  “Of course. You know me. I like anything fast and hard, baby.”

  “Ha-ha! Damn but I’ve missed you, Bella!”

  The enormous machinery thrummed beneath us—every one of my vertebrae vibrated—it reminded me of those kiddie rides where you fed a quarter into a slot, then jiggled violently atop a metal hobbyhorse on the sidewalk outside Kroger’s supermarket for three minutes. “It’s fucking awesome, isn’t it?” Zack shouted. “Even at fifteen miles an hour! You and me, baby, we’re going to be riding around on these things when we’re, like, eighty. No wheelchairs for us!”

  I squeezed him tighter and grinned. When we’re eighty.

  “I got us some free tickets for a tour of the big house.” He pulled into a visitors lot. “Wait’ll you see this. There’s a helipad. A glass-topped swimming pool. An indoor gun range.”

  The Mansion at Fontanel was described as country star Barbara Mandrell’s former “log cabin–style home”—and it was, all right, in that it incorporated a whole lot of logs. Otherwise, it was a 30,000-square-foot estate that looked like what Versailles might’ve been like if it had been designed by the creators of Hee Haw.

  I looked around dubiously. “Zack?” I took his hand. “I don’t want to go on some cheesy house tour. I want to see your world.”

  “Oh? Do you now?” Teasingly, he dragged my hand down the front of his jeans. “Oh, I’ll show you my world, all right.” Then he slapped himself playfully on the cheek. “Zakkolator! Behave!”

  Zack’s worksite looked like a carnival being assembled. “Welcome to ‘Redneck Woodstock’! And here, that ain’t no insult, neither!”

  He helped me down from the ATV and led me across the fairgrounds, sauntering ahead of me with his tool belt flopping around his hips, high-fiving the security guards and the carnie who’d trucked in the Ferris wheel and the crew who were setting up some marquee tents, looping garlands of wire between them. “Hey guys! This here is my gal Belladonna! Numero Uno kickass guitar-player from Michigan!” Some of the staffers seemed caught off-guard. As he bounded toward them, they got a deer-in-the-headlights look.

  On a little rise was an antique Chevy pickup with the Fish Fry logo painted on the side. “Check this out. Awesome, right? Let’s get you up close to me.” Angling his phone, Zack snapped the two of us beside the truck. It reminded me of when we’d gone to a county fair one weekend and taken photographs of each other in front of a giant tractor. Zack had won me a cheap, sawdust-filled purple monkey with a tinny jingle bell around its neck. “Hi, Bella!” he’d said in a terrible falsetto. I’d named it Thelonious Monkey.

  Zack was moving so quickly across the grass now, it was hard to keep up. I wanted him just to stand still with me for a moment, for us to be us together, to breathe him in.

  “Hey.” I grabbed his arm. “Slow down.” I drew up close. “Do you remember that time at the Oakland County Fair?” I said. Afterward, we’d parked behind a water tower. Zack had peeled off my panties with his teeth. “And in your van later? And Theolonious Monkey?”

  “Who?”

  Spotting a guy from his crew, Zack hollered across the field, “Yo, Hellboy. The Condor’s free, yes? Here’s what I do remember,” he said, turning back to me finally. “That very first day we met. On those railroad tracks? When I rescued you? Oh, now that was hot.”

  “Ha!” I slapped him playfully on the shoulder. “The first time we met was at Ann-Marie Larkin’s house. You were with Rooster, delivering weed. And it was you who crawled off those tracks first, not me, baby. I was down for the count.”

  “Yeah. Right.” Rolling his eyes, he squeezed me affectionately around the waist. “You were like, lying there on the tracks, all ready to kill yourself. This damsel in distress. And I remember being like, what the fuck? And I pulled you off at the very last minute.”

  “What? Excuse me? Are you serious? No way. That’s not how it happened at all.”

  “Yuh. I totally remember. I sat down beside you, and I was, like, ‘Hey, you’re not committing suicide, are you?’ And you were, like, ‘I dunno. Maybe.’ And then we started joking how we should make a pact. Everyone in Dry Lake would think we were these tragic lovers, when actually, we barely knew each other. And we’d become, like, this legend.”

  I had absolutely no recollection of anything like this, though I had to admit, it sounded eerily like us. “I was not trying to commit suicide,” I said.

  “Hey. Com’ere. Check this out. Tah-dah.”

  We were at the amphitheater itself now. A tented roof was suspended high above an open-air stage by metal lattices. Risers had been set up. Dozens of road boxes and base bins sat waiting to be unloaded.

  “Just for the record,” I said, “you jumped off the tracks first.”

  “Now this is what I do.” Zack waved from corner to corner. “Our rigging crew, we come into a venue—it could be a park or a field. Or a stadium. We assemble everything you see. Right here. The scaffolding. The screens, the lights. All of it.”

  He motioned to the fretwork overhead, though I wasn’t really paying attention. I was overwhelmed by the scent of him again. The sensation of his hand in mine was like an electric current running straight up my arm, then down between my legs. But also, I was smarting a little.

  “Now, here we do a load-in with a Condor. But in indoor arenas, when there are lights all the way up in the rafters? Hundreds of feet up? Well, baby. That’s me. I crawl out on the grid and hang everything.” He pointed to the rows of lights above the stage, aimed downward. “As soon as the concert’s over, we take it all down again: every chain and screen, strike the scaffolds. Melt the steel.”

  As he pointed, I noticed a tattoo on his forearm. “Lexie” in extravagant script, a heart dotting the “i.”

  “Oh. Who’s Lexie?” I tried to sound casual.

  Zack looked down at it as if he’d only just realized the ink was there. “Ha! That, my dear, is the love of my life. Hang on.”

  Fumbling for his phone, he began scrolling through thousands of photos. I felt my stomach twist. “Donna Cohen, meet Lexie Amelia Phelps.” I saw a blond, pubescent gap-toothed girl with Zack’s eyes and impish smile staring directly into the camera, holding out a Denny’s milk shake as if offering it to me. “Isn’
t she awesome?”

  I thought of Ashley when she had been that age. Then of Austin again. Mom, u can call me.

  I nodded. “She really is.” My voice cracked. Zack tucked his phone back into his pocket.

  “Sorry.” I fanned the air around my face in little flutters, blinking. “Sorry, sorry. Whoa.” I sniffled. “I did not expect that.”

  He kissed me lightly on the forehead. “You okay?”

  “Mmhm.”

  He frowned, cocked his head.

  “I just get really emotional sometimes. You know that.”

  I didn’t want to explain any further. I didn’t want to be Donna the alkie or Donna the mom or Donna the wife or Donna in perimenopause. I just wanted to be Donna Cohen at sixteen again. For just a few minutes. Donna of Zack-and-Donna.

  He turned back to the scaffolding. “Every day, it’s like I’m playing with a giant erector set.” He pointed around his tool belt. “Every rigger, we’ve got our own equipment. I’ve got my own harnesses, scaff hammer, podger, c-wrench, knife—”

  He unclipped a flat metal trapezoid that looked like a piece of mountaineering equipment. “This is a carabiner. You fall in a harness with a tether clipped to this thing, believe me, it’ll hold you. I almost never use a harness, though. The other riggers, they call me ‘Spider-Man.’”

  “Spider-Man? Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Welcome to my web, ha-ha.” He walked me around to the back of the stage. A small construction trailer was set up behind it in the mud, as well as what looked like a folded-up cherry picker. Twilight was setting in, and most of the crew had left by now. “Wanna go up?”

  “In a cherry picker?”

  “Please, woman. That’s not a cherry picker. It’s called a ‘Condor.’”

  Yeah, sure. Of course it was. But still—it was a cherry picker.