Burning September (32 page)

***

“Just fake it,” Caroline said, crisscrossing her legs beneath her on the couch in Breakthrough’s lobby.  “I know it’s easier said than done, but try.  Don’t avoid his eyes or anything, but don’t look at him for too long if you can help it.  If I were you I’d show up with only a few minutes to spare, just so I didn’t have to be alone with him for more than a minute or two.”

“That’s it?  That’s all you’ve got?”  It seemed amazing that’s all her advice would amount to, especially from the woman who broke a million hearts, dumping guys left, right, and center, walking away from their apartments in a sheer dress and sunglasses, not a care in the world.  Where were the cutting remarks, bitingly clever, that could knock someone down to size?  “What, no eloquent way to say
hey, fuck you
?”

She wagged a prim finger in my face.  “A
hey, fuck you
would only hammer in the point that you do, in fact, care.  If you’re trying to portray the opposite, you want to stay away from lines like that.  People who don’t care anymore don’t lash out irrationally.  They just…don’t care.”

I slumped into the cushions, feeling the beginnings of a scowl crop up.  “I can’t believe that’s all you’ve got.”

She snorted.  “I don’t know what to tell you, babe.  You want to borrow my gas can?”

I gave her a sideways glare.  “You never told anyone where you’d dumped it.”

“And wasn’t that smart of me?”  She sighed, having failed to coax a smile out of me.  “Listen, I don’t know what to tell you.  Men are pigs, that’s just a fact.  It’s a lesson for next time.  Never get too invested.  God knows it turned out badly for me.”

“Don’t you worry about getting lonely?”  I’d never known what a relationship felt like until Kyle, I’d never realized what I was missing.  It had been easy for me to discount the idea of love before I’d ever felt it.  Colorblind people probably didn’t care what green looked like.

But if this feeling was at the end of the relationship tunnel, I had my doubts on ever falling through that rabbit hole again.  I wouldn’t sign up for this feeling in the future.  I couldn’t believe other people did.

“I’m never lonely.”  She squeezed my kneecap.  “I’ll always have you.”

***

I wished I had a Valium as I walked into Karen Stone’s hot, bright studio.  Something to slow the flow of blood shunting through my veins.  I’d expected to calm down after thirty minutes in wardrobe, but it hadn’t happened, I kept fidgeting and got pricked with a battalion of pins. In makeup, the woman who had painted on my TV face told me off for jittering, groaning every time she had to clean up a black smudge of eyeliner.  It was with a sigh of relief that she waved me out of her room. 

Someone fell into step beside me, holding a clipboard, directing me to a chair.  I followed the path of her pointed finger and sat, wishing I had something to do with my hands other than pulling at my clothes, picking off nonexistent lint.  For the first time during one of these tapings, I wished someone would talk to me. I craved idle conversation, anything to make me look busy.  I could have discussed soap scum, Afghanistan, photosynthesis. 

I didn’t look around, but I felt Kyle’s presence somewhere in the room.  I kept my eyes trained on my knees until Caroline’s voice gave me a nudge.

Don’t stare at the floor, it’ll make you look self-conscious, like you’re about to crumble into a thousand pieces.  Fake it till you make it, babe.    

So I did what she would have, lifting my eyes, slowly scanning the room, pretending I didn’t care about anything, let alone Kyle, when Karen Stone clicked over on high heels, silver pins scattered in her hair, a few hot rollers around the crown of her head.

She clasped both my hands in hers like she always did.  “It’s nice to see you again.  I hope you’ve been well?”

You couldn’t give anything but an affirmative answer when Karen Stone asked you that, so I bobbed my head
yes
like a good girl.  “Yes, thank you.”

“We’re going to get started in a few minutes.  Jason needs to give you a mic, and I’ve got to get these things out of my hair.”

“I thought I wouldn’t be speaking?  Why do I need a mic?” 

It wasn’t Karen who answered me, though.  Kyle dropped into the seat beside mine.  “It’s just in case.”

I ignored the pull of my peripheral vision and kept my gaze on Karen.  “I’m sorry, I was told I’d be seen and not heard.  I guess I got faulty instructions.  That happens when tasks get delegated, I suppose.”

Karen’s professionally groomed brow rose a millimeter. 

“Sometimes you have to delegate tasks when the person you’re trying to reach has suddenly gone MIA,” Kyle said, resting his left foot on his right knee. 

“And sometimes people have a good reason for going MIA for a little while,” I answered, keeping my eyes on Karen’s slightly bewildered ones.  “That doesn’t mean they should be forgotten quite so quickly.” His face flushed dark with anger, I saw it harden into a stony mask out of the corner of my eye.  I was glad I’d made him mad.  That was nothing compared to dry swallowing that huge bitter pill of finding him with some other woman who made me look like a toothless hillbilly.  He was lucky I hadn’t taken Caroline up on the gas can offer. 

“I’ll just call Jason over.”  Karen stood a step backward.  “He needs to mic both of you.”

I turned my head away, feigning interest in the fake ficus in the corner.  I’d actually never seen a real ficus before.  I wondered if they even existed or if they were just something IKEA invented. 

I sensed movement in Kyle’s direction, felt him turning in his chair so he faced me directly.  I flinched like he’d burned me when he slipped his hand on my shoulder.  I shook it off. 

“Kat, I—”

Thankfully Jason swooped in then, a harassed look on his face and two mics in hand.  He pinned one on Kyle’s collar and then did the same for me.  “You guys are all set.”

Suddenly I was glad they’d given me a mic.  We couldn’t talk without being overheard.  The whole studio would be privy to our squabble. 

So we sat there, surrounded by bustling assistants and chatter in our own little bubble of silence.  I wondered if he was experiencing the same physical ache I had, like a giant fist had yanked out my intestines through my belly button.  Probably not, it hadn’t taken him any time at all to move on.  Asshole.  How outrageous was it that two people who’d had so much to say to each other in the past couldn’t be on civil speaking terms now? 

I thought of Caroline, how she’d always been my constant anchor, how I never thought she’d leave me.  Even when I couldn’t count on my parents, I could count on her.  It was one hell of a wakeup call when she left.  Nothing is permanent.  Anything could rip those links away, life wasn’t one of those expensive diamond bracelets double knotted between stones so if you lost one, you wouldn’t lose them all. 

If it were possible to erase Kyle from my memory, I would have.  In an instant.  I regretted ever having had contact with him.  But that was the thing about regret, there was absolutely no end to it.  If I had to look at each loop holding this entire chain together, I guessed I’d have to ultimately blame Caroline in the end.  It wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t lost her head, killed her boyfriend.  Did I regret that she’d given in to his hundredth date proposal?  Or did I regret that she ever met Victoria Rasmussen, the woman who had connected her to the law firm employing Kyle?  It made my head hurt to trace back each link.  A person could drive themselves mad untangling a mess like that. 

I pretended to examine the curve of my thumbnail as though I’d never seen it before.  Kyle heaved a big sigh, crossed both arms over his chest. 
What do you expect when you deal with children?
  I could imagine him thinking. 

I didn’t look up until Karen clacked over, all smiles in her ivory blazer, red lips like a gash, a waterfall of loose curls hanging over one shoulder.  “How’s my hair?  Are you two ready?”  She sat opposite us as the camera started rolling.

The studio lights didn’t even blind me anymore. 

***

In the general flurry of chaos in the aftermath of filming, I slipped out the back doors of the studio.  Kyle had been tied up in a conversation with Karen Stone’s producers, discussing another potential session and possible air dates.  I doubted he would notice my escape.

I drove the Challenger back home, thinking that this would be the first Karen Stone special I wouldn’t be watching with Kyle, half amused and half insulted as he mimicked my answers, laughing around the lip of a beer bottle.

Maybe I wouldn’t bother watching at all. 

***

Sandwiched between a dry cleaner and pet store, the coffee shop on Third and Main had all the makings of a college hangout.  Tattooed baristas with nose rings, a corkboard piled with roommate want ads and band showcases, mismatched furniture alongside rickety end tables.

It didn’t look like the kind of joint Greg Lawlis would willingly frequent, but there he was on center stage, a guitar on his lap and a kid my age on the stool beside him.  I imagined he’d kept his head bent low as he strummed because he didn’t want to showcase his smirk.  Edging around the corner near the bathrooms and next to the stage, I found I’d been correct in that assumption.  And it made me smile for the first time in weeks. 

The kid’s singing sounded like a grinding saw, he was terrible, but there was something sweet about the fact that his girlfriend in the front row didn’t cringe at the racket.  She kept her cell phone raised, snapping endless pictures.  If that wasn’t love, I didn’t know what was.

I felt so old, looking around at the crowd, though the bulk were no older than me.  I wondered if I’d be able to connect to them on any level at all.  A few girls conspired over their lattes and cell phones, sneaking glances at the table of guys behind them, and I couldn’t imagine being one of them, Instagramming girls’ night, out shopping for a boyfriend in new skinny jeans and tank tops their parents had paid for.  Having a father who worried about you, though all those women likely felt that worry was misplaced.  When you’re young, you’re never going to age.  Bad things couldn’t possibly happen, it was inconceivable.  The only dark cloud looming over their sunny horizons was the fact that summer would soon end, they’d have to go back to classes, studying for exams, planning their lives, looking forward to weekend keggers. 

College was supposed to be one of the best times of your life.  I wouldn’t hold out hope on that front.  The only one I could connect to sat onstage with a metal leg and a gloomy outlook on life, hiding a smirk behind a twitchy gray mustache. 

“Do you know any Nickleback?” I asked after the song had concluded and they’d called a break between sets, knowing Professor Lawlis’s reaction would be priceless. 

His shoulders shot up by his ears as he looked around, his gaze finally colliding with mine.  For the first time, his smile didn’t look like it hurt, like the muscle movement tore into invisible stitches around his lips.  “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“I look that shitty?”

He set his guitar aside, balancing it against his stool, and limped over.  The clap on the shoulder he gave me was shockingly intimate when you considered the source.  “I’m just surprised to see you.  How’ve you been?”

I stapled on a smile that felt just as painful as his always seemed.  “Good.  I’ve been missing my guitar Hitler.  Nobody there to crack the whip when I mess up anymore.”

He snorted, gestured for me to follow his stilted gait to the coffee bar.  “Did you order?”

“I just got here.”

“Grab us a table and I’ll meet you.”

I snagged the last one available, hanging my purse off the strap of one chair.  He hobbled over a minute later, two chipped mugs in his hands. 

“I don’t know if you like one of those mocha caramel frappezoid whatevers, but I just got regular.” 

I accepted the mug with a laugh.  “I usually just take it black.”

He sat, stretching out his fake leg, cracking his neck.  “You know, I read somewhere that most every serial killer took their coffee black.”

“Hmm.”  I blew ripples over the surface of the coffee, watching steam rise.  Caroline was one murder away from being a serial killer, and she’d always taken her coffee black.  “You better watch out, then.”

“How’s your sister?  I heard the trial’s starting mid-September.”

“She’s as good as you’d expect, I guess.  I think I’m the one who’s most nervous.”

“I can tell.”

I blinked up at him, feeling my forehead rumple.  “No you can’t.”  I hadn’t stuttered, my fingers didn’t shake.  I made steady eye contact, I hadn’t burst into tears.  I’d worked hard on my brave front; it was annoying he hadn’t bought it. 

“Yeah, I can.  I know you pretty well.  What’s going on?”

I heaved a sigh, grabbed a coffee stirrer as a prop and swilled the dark roast around.  “Nothing.  I just wanted to see you.  Find out if this open mic night was as funny as I’d imagined.”

“It can be.”  He looked over at the stage, then back at me, eyebrows wiggling.  “You want in?”