F*ck Love

by Tarryn Fisher

  There are two hotels in town, and both are said to be haunted. I check into the Palace Hotel and suddenly feel incredibly lonely. It’s all fun and games until you realize you don’t have a home anymore, and Phyllis probably isn’t your real friend. This has to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I fall face down on the bed and pretend cry into the comforter. I don’t have real tears; I’m in survival mode. The comforter smells strangely of peanut butter, and that creeps me out. What am I really doing here? Am I here for Kit? Sort of. I may really be here for Greer. I’ve seen one of the girls Kit chose to be with; I know her so well I can read her mind. There is nothing so terribly deep or fascinating about her gray matter. So, now I need to see the other woman. The one who started it all. I need to make a comparison and know why he chose Della. And all for what? To understand why the man in my dream was so different from the man in real life? Why Dream Kit would choose me over Della and this Greer person?

  Wait. Do I have an obsessive personality? I obsess over this for a little while, before changing into something warmer and heading out for dinner. I take pictures because I want to remember this place and all the things it made me feel. What does it feel like? I ask myself. Like cold air in your lungs after too much warm air. Maybe this is how you feel when you find your place in the world.

  I go to the library first, and, as I climb the stairs, I assure myself that I am here because of my deep, abiding love of books. I need to smell them, touch them, and be near them. Books, beautiful books! I am really here to look for Greer. Do I have an obsession to see the girl Kit loved? Absolutely not. I am merely curious. Mildly so. It’s always been my nature, and my third grade teacher, Mrs. Habershield, told me that curiosity was a beautiful thing. I ask the librarian where I can find the county yearbooks, and then make my way to a dusty, forgotten corner of the library. Kit is three years older than Della. I find the right yearbook and flip to the index. Kit Isley is listed as being on pages 20, 117, 340, 345, 410. Popular. I was only on one page of my senior yearbook. If they were high school sweethearts, Greer will be in some of the pictures with him. My prediction is right. Greer Warren stands next to Kit Isley at Prom, wearing an amethyst dress. She is full of braces, smiling widely yet still quite pretty. She has a purple streak in her brown hair, and Kit has given her a purple carnation corsage, which juts ornately from her wrist. I presume purple is her favorite color, and when I find additional pictures of her on page 45, 173, and 211, I find that she was on the yearbook staff, played volleyball, and started a program her junior year to donate one weekend a month to big brother Seattle’s inner city kids. She was voted Kindest, Most Likely to Start a Charity, and won Best Looking Couple alongside Kit. I stick out my tongue. Overall, high school Greer Warren was a kind, athletic, humanitarian with a super hot boyfriend. I linger longer on Kit. He smiled more back then, dressed in what would be considered skater boy attire, and for the most part, he kept his hair cut short. I prefer his flannels and ripped jeans, the longer hair and scruffy face. I close the book and slide it back onto the shelf. I want to keep it, but I don’t have a library card, and stealing is wrong.

  Well, there you go. I got what I came here for. I dust imaginary crumbs from my pants, and try to figure out what to do next. I have to go back to Seattle, buy a car, pay my deposit on my downtown apartment, and sign the lease. Busy, busy. My little trip to Port Townsend has come to an interesting end. Tomorrow, I’ll say goodbye to little Port Townsend and go back to where the Muggles live.

  Tomorrow comes, and instead of getting in my rental and driving to the ferry, I walk once more down Main Street. I turn right in the direction of the water. I walk toward a beautiful, old brick building with aquamarine doors. This was the clam cannery someone mentioned. Someone purchased it a few years back and lived on the upper floor. The dock surrounding the cannery is open to public. A few couples stand with their backs to the water taking selfies and kissing. I wait until they are gone to venture closer to the water, my eyes searching for the glossy bodies of seals. It is breathtaking, this place. I desperately want to stay here. So why not stay? a voice in my head asks me. It is not my voice. It’s the reckless dream voice that told me to take art classes, and pottery classes, and move to Washington. I tell the voice to shut up—I’ve listened to it too much lately—then I make my way toward my hotel. I’ll leave tomorrow morning. Bright and early. I cross the street and turn back to look at the cannery one last time. That’s when the door opens.

  She looks nothing like her pictures in the yearbook. I only recognize her because of the unique structure of her face. High cheekbones and full lips. She’s wearing a lavender dress, simple. On anyone else it would look like a sack. To wear something that simple, you had to be stunning. God, Kit. I seriously want to face palm on his behalf. She has a trail of lavender flowers tattooed down her outer thigh. The Greer of my mind disintegrates into a pile of camp T-shirts, leaving behind this lean, pert breasted beauty with silvery hair and bright strawberry lips. Her right arm is tattooed from wrist to shoulder, with what looks like vines and lilacs. She’s like a canvas for expensive art. Kit’s Greer can make straight girls gay. I know this because I consider it. I watch as she opens the lid to the giant dumpster behind the building and tosses her trash bag inside. She stops on the way back to the cannery to crouch down and talk to a little boy in red shorts who is walking with his mother, then she holds open a door for an elderly woman trying to fit her walker into the tight doorway of a gift shop. And finally, to top off all of her fun, spunky kindness, she high-fives a bum who looks genuinely happy to see her. When at last she disappears back into the cannery, I am hungry for KFC. I wander into an art gallery. I have never viewed art as something you do on weekends. Something you do outside of extra-curricular credit. The smell of paint pulls me through the door. It’s the smell of my stolen nights at painting class. They are acrylic on canvas; Neptune taught me that. The artist is the same for most of the gallery—local I take it. The paintings are of water. But, not the way water is usually painted, with land stationed around it. There is just water, as viewed from above. There are ripples, sometimes disturbed by only a leaf or a feather. Mostly just water. I don’t know that I can say these paintings make me feel things that are good. But perhaps art isn’t supposed to make you feel good, but just to make you feel. Does it cure the numb? I don’t know. A woman greets me; she is lean and tall, her hair tied in a bun on top of her head. I tell her I just moved here and wandered in. She is aloof but friendly. She asks what I did before I came, and if I need a job. I think about the accounting job my mother lined up for me in Seattle, and I automatically say yes. I don’t want to go back to Seattle. I want to stay here. The woman’s name is Eldine, and she owns the gallery, which features the work of local artists. “People come from all over America to buy her work,” she says, nodding to the paintings of water.

  “What’s her name?” I ask.

  I suddenly get psychic. I know what she’s going to say before she says it.

  “Greer Warren. She lives in the old cannery along the waterfront.”

  I feel my head spin. This keeps getting better and better. I can’t call this fate because I came here looking, but it’s still weird how things are manifesting. I look back at Greer’s paintings and wonder if they’re about Kit. The ripples she caused in their lives. The effects of her choices. Kit, the writer, was engaged to Greer, the painter. How perfect. How beautiful. I can picture him living his life in the cannery, being full of art and happiness, and bullshit. They’d have a candy jar filled with Kit Kats, and he’d trace her thigh lilacs with his Kit Kat stained tongue. This is exactly the reason Kit looks awkward in Florida. He was from a place where giant bubbles blew down Main Street, and artists lived in old clam canneries. The magic of this town clung to him.

  “A few of us business owners around town could use help with our books,” she says to me. “Part time accounting?”

  “Sure,” I say. What are you doing? What are you doing?

  “You
can work some hours here at the gallery if you like. I could use the help.”

  And so I wander into a gallery, lost, and leave it found. I have a job in this little town of magic. I get to stay. I stop outside the cannery and look up at its high windows. Somewhere behind the Coke bottle panes is an ashen-haired pixie who Kit loved. I want to know her. Is that wrong? There are so many things wrong about me.

  If only Della could see her predecessor. She’d freak out and ask Kit a hundred times if he thought she was prettier than Greer. Kit would have to lie. Della has always been unparalleled in her beauty, but Greer is not even human; she’s ethereal. I turn my back to the cannery and walk back down Main Street, the air whipping my skirt around my legs. I am in so way over my head. I’m not so sure the Sorting Hat would put me in Ravenclaw anymore. I am Slytherin. I take a selfie, Port Townsend outlined behind me. I call it, crazyperson.

  When procuring a place of residence, most people take to Craigslist. I find Craigslist creepy. Who is Craig? Why did he make a list? I prefer the newspaper, or community boards. I find the nearest grocery store and check out their board. Two enthusiastic teenage girls have made babysitting fliers. Trustworthy! Fun! Reliable! Each word is written on a pompom, each letter in a different colored marker. I respect their handmade signs. Babysitters who rely on the computer for everything should not be trusted. All the children I’ve had can tell you that. I lift the corner of their paper to study what’s underneath. There’s a guy looking for a girl roommate. Clean guy looking for girl roommate who likes to do dishes. No pets. To me this says: Needy, incompetent male with control issues. Looking for a wife. “Ew, dude,” I say. I pass it up and find another pinned to the top left corner. It’s buried underneath a community garage sale flier, printed on lilac paper. I pull out the pin holding it to the board so I can read it.

  Likes to take long walks on the beach-but not with you!

  Looking for an independent FEMALE roommate to share my space.

  I don’t want a sister. I don’t want a friend. Just a roommate.

  I laugh when I read it. The only thing she’s given is an e-mail address. I should put it back, but instead, I fold the paper into a small square and slip it into my back pocket, glancing around to make sure no one has seen me. Fuck them, I need a place to live. I give the whole grocery store a dirty look, then turn to march out … and walk into a wall. It’s a beautiful thing to be humbled.

  Her e-mail address is Gswizzle@gmail.com. She says that we can meet at a teashop on Main Street. How will I know it’s you? I send back. This is creepy; she could be a he. Maybe I should have trusted Craig and his list.

  You’ll know, she sends back. I don’t trust bitches that easily, but what choice do I have? I arrive at the coffee shop an hour early to scope out the place. I realize that I veer toward dramatic, but this place is maybe a little too perfect. I order a scone and they hand me a dollop of cream and jam. Too perfect. I take it, frowning, and find a seat to wait for my tea. The tea comes in a delicate glass mug—too perfect. I sip suspiciously from my corner, licking the cream from my lips. I am turning on Port Townsend. Distrusting and sour. And then she walks in. Her. The purple fairy, with her lush silver hair tied back in a ponytail. Hell no!

  Greer matches her flier. I take it out of my pocket and smooth it on the table as she glances around the tearoom, smiling at those she knows, looking for … me. I hold up the flier like an idiot. Her eyes light up when she sees me, and she waves with both hands. I want her to trip over a chair leg or something, but she’s graceful, and she slips through small spaces like a lithe, little minx.

  “Helena?” she asks. I stand up, and she hugs me—throws her arms around my neck like we’re old friends. I try to stiffen and pull away, but I’m weak, and I really need a hug. Also, she smells like spices: nutmeg and cinnamon and clove.

  “How brave,” she says, still holding on to me. “To move all this way alone.”

  I don’t feel brave. I almost miss my chair when I sit back down, but Greer doesn’t seem to notice. “I’ve only ever lived here,” she says. “I’m too chicken to leave.”

  Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. I like her. I smile weakly and pick up my tea, which has gone cold. She’s painted flowers all over her skin, and dyed her hair gray, and she’s still talking about being a chicken, and how brave I am.

  Hello, I’m beige bitch, I want to say.

  “Tell me about yourself,” she says finally, leaning forward. She has gray eyes. They match her hair and add to the overall ethereal look. It’s very intimidating to sit across from a real life fairy and know you have nothing interesting to tell her about your life. Well … maybe something a little bit interesting, like, my best friend dates your ex fiancé.

  “I … I just want to … find myself.” It’s a horribly cheesy thing to say, but Greer is nodding, like finding yourself is something to be taken seriously, rather than the words spoken by a lost girl.

  “You’ve come to the right place,” she tells me. “Not just Port Townsend, but Washington. It’s God’s country. Something about this place heals people.” I take hope in her words. There’s nothing about me that is broken or disparaged. I am not the unfortunate heroine in a romance novel. My parents are not divorced, and my heart has never truly been broken. I am an overly simple girl who got an itch. I do not tell Greer that my itch came from a dream about her ruggedly handsome ex-fiancé, nor do I tell her that in my mind the line between Harry Potter and real life is blurry, if not non-existent. I rub the hem of my beige top between my fingers and listen to Greer’s lyrical voice talk about all of Port Townsend’s hidden gems: the cinema, built in 1907, which had an old fashioned popcorn maker, and only showed three movies at a time. She told me about old, Mr. Rugamiester, who went to a movie every single Saturday and sat in the same seat, in the same theater, wearing the same navy blue corduroy sports coat. “He doesn’t care what is playing in theater number three, or how many times he’s seen it. He’s there for the three o’clock show with his bag of popcorn.”

  “But there has to be a reason.” I lean forward despite myself, pulled in by old, Mr. Rugamiester and his bag of popcorn. Greer’s eyes never leave my face; she’s laughing at my reaction, her knees pulled up underneath her, a cup of tea in her hand. It feels like old friends having lunch. “There isn’t always,” she says. She reaches out and her slim white hand covers mine, just for a moment. “There isn’t always,” she assures me. And then her hand is gone. I ponder her words, wondering if she’s right. I believe in math, and I believe in answers, and I believe if you keep looking, you’ll find one. Maybe it was just a dream. It was just a dream. But this is real, and I am here now. There is a single white female feel to this moment. I most certainly am a creep, because I know who this woman is, yet she does not know who I am.

  “Greer,” I say, once the talk of Mr. Rugamiester has finished. “I think I know someone you may know. I’m not sure if you’re the same person, but he says there’s only one Greer in Port Townsend.”

  Greer sets her teacup on the table and unfolds her legs so that she’s leaning toward me with her elbows resting on her knees.

  I can’t look at her when I say it. I’m afraid she’ll think I orchestrated this whole thing. “Kit Isley,” I say. “Do you know him?”

  Her face betrays nothing but happiness. She nods, and smiles, and asks how I know Kit.

  “He’s dating my friend,” I tell her. “I don’t know him very well; they hadn’t been dating for too long before I left.”

  “How is Kit?” she asks. “He just up and left us for sunny Florida.”

  “He seems to be well. He wears a lot of flannel,” I blurt. Greer laughs.

  “Well, Helena. I’d love to have you, if you still want the room.”

  I’m a bit shocked. We moved past the fact that I know her ex-fiancé like it was no big deal. She doesn’t even further question me on the matter. We exchange cell phone numbers, and Greer hands me a folder that has all of the information about the cannery, the rules, a
nd a lease to sign and return to her. She says since we sort of know each other, she’ll waive the deposit. When we part ways outside of the teashop, she hugs me, and my face gets lost in her silver hair. “See you tomorrow,” she says, and then adds, “roommate.”

  I haven’t even seen the place, but I’m so happy. I didn’t do the expected thing—the Helena thing. I veered off and took my own road. This is a big, old deal. I’m learning magic.

  The historic Clam Cannery building on the Quincy Street waterfront is a 6,482 square foot two-story brick building, which dates back to 1873. Greer is waiting outside for me when I pull up in my rental car.

  “Wow, nice car,” she says. I blush.

  “It’s just a rental. It’s not very big inside. I actually really need to return it to Seattle and buy a car.”

  “You don’t need a car here,” she says. “And you can always use mine.”

  “Thanks.”

  The kindness makes me feel awkward. I’m usually the one dishing it out. I follow her inside, and it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust.

  “Whoa,” I say.

  “Greer ducks her head, kind of shy about it. There’s lots of space, exposed beams, and concrete flooring. Is it just me, or does it smell like saltwater in here?

  “I don’t do anything with this part. I was thinking about opening it up to the community. Letting them use it for meetings and stuff.” I follow her up the stairs and into the living area. To my relief, I see that it’s much cozier up here. A small kitchen with three green barstools sits under mellow light. She’s addicted to candles, and the color purple, and candles that are the color purple. Not that it’s a new observation. I eye her tattoos and look away quickly when she turns to face me.

  “The kitchen and living room,” she says. “I know, I know. I just love the color.” The kitchen/dining area leads into a hallway with two bedrooms. Greer opens the door on the left and I press back a smile when I see the large windows and skylight.