Come As You Are (7 page)

This is the part of the relationship I love. Some people call it the honeymoon phase, but it’s the only phase for me. The wonderful before the end. I get that I shouldn’t think that going in, but it helps for me to know it’s temporary. It helps for me to know it will never get too personal. It will just be magic and when the magic stops the relationship ends.

I never tell guys that because what’s the point? It would only hurt them, and it would only lead to confusion about something that’s very clear to me. I can’t have a guy in my life. Not a guy who never leaves. I think part of it is because of who I am when we’re in the magic. I can be everything he thinks I am, because for a while I believe it too. I need to believe it too. But that state of mind can only last so long.

Sometimes I think I should see a shrink, because I do have a lot of crap to deal with. But then, at other times, I think,
I’m the one who gets this. I’m the one being realistic.

I guess some would consider me a downer, but I like to prepare myself. I like to know where I’m going. And other people just want to be oblivious to it all. And those people—when the world crashes down around them—those people can’t handle it. They break and they freak and they quit school and they quit work and they start doing drugs and drinking and never get out of bed.

I can handle it. Every time I break up with a guy the next day is fine. I’m fine. I go to work and I hang out with friends and I don’t need breakup sex. The day is the same as any other day. Because I’m always prepared. I always know the end will come.

Over the next two weeks, Ian and I kept going on the house, but we didn’t get as much done because we spent so many hours allowing ourselves to be distracted. We had sex all of the time, in almost every room. I hate to admit it, but we even did it in the kitchen, utilizing the counter and finishing up on a chair. We had sex in the shower as we scrubbed the paint from our bodies, paint we’d gotten everywhere while rolling around laughing on the floor. Occasionally a knock would sound on the door, and we’d both stop moving, Ian buried deep inside me. And we would look into each other’s eyes, and we would listen while the footsteps walked away, and then we would laugh and keep going.

He really did have the most beautiful body. Not all muscular, but lean and firm, his skin soft and velvety, and a penis that was actually lovely to look at. Because really, aren’t a lot of them just plain gross? But Ian’s had this lovely color, pale and smooth and not that veiny even when fully erect. I loved to kiss it and lick it and curl my tongue around the tip until he moaned and ground himself against my mouth. I wanted to take a photo of it and frame it and hang it on the wall. A few times I actually thought about that. About taking a picture when he was sleeping.

I’d pull down the sheet and stand there and look at him. I knew he would be out of my life one day, and I wanted to remember it, and remember how he looked in bed in the morning, his hair a mess and curling over his forehead and around his ears; his jaw dark, needing a shave, his lips red from the night before.

But I didn’t take a picture. Of course I didn’t. I just tried to memorize him. His flat nipples, his flat belly and the faint line of hair that trailed from his navel to his penis.

Sometimes I wondered why he never volunteered any information about himself, but Ian was smart—another thing I liked about him. I suspect he knew, maybe not in words, but he understood that I always wanted him to be that guy I met in the bar. The one-night stand who just stayed a little longer. Because when that happened, when you knew someone wouldn’t stay, it led to sexual experiments that a person might be too shy to try if you knew you might be together for years.

During this time, and in between the sex, I went to school. And sometimes Ian helped me with my harder classes. Those days we’d sit in the finished kitchen, books across the table, white cupboards behind us along with the cement countertop, and he’d lean close and carefully explain a math equation.

Those evenings made me feel a sense of warmth and completeness, a calmer kind of happy that was just as good as pale-yellow walls. And those nights we’d go upstairs to my room, because we always slept in my room, and our love would be so tender and sweet it almost hurt my heart. Almost. And I would feel his hands tremble against my skin, and I would blow against his neck, soothing him. He would lock his fingers in mine, and he would wrap an arm around me and hold me tight.

This. This is what I’m afraid of
, I’d think. And I would know I was getting too close to what I didn’t want, and what I couldn’t allow.
It was getting too real.

When I felt that kind of night in the air, and as that kind of night became more and more frequent, I’d tell him to sleep in his room, and I’d tell him I had to get my seven hours because I had an exam in the morning. And he’d go to his room, my father’s room, and I’d hear him turn and sigh, and I’d imagine him naked under white sheets. And I would miss him.

I never wanted to miss him.

“What do you think about this table?” Ian asked.

We were standing on the front lawn of a massive stone church located in Dinkytown. The church was having their annual bazaar that involved the congregation dragging in all of their crap until every corner of the church was filled. What wouldn’t fit inside sat outside on the lawn.

Visitors to the Twin Cities always rave about the fall, saying it lasts forever. Two months, usually. I don’t know if that’s so remarkable because I’ve never lived anywhere else, but I’ve come to the bazaar almost every year. It’s where I got my dresser with the oval mirror, and one time I picked up a vintage hat with black netting that I’ve never worn. Maybe someday…

We both had albums tucked under our arms. Me,
Songs of Leonard Cohen
, the one with “Suzanne”; Ian the Rolling Stones
Let it Bleed
, the one with the cake on the cover.

We both wore hoodies that we’d unzipped as the weather had warmed up. Leaves crunched under his sneakers and my boots, and I could smell coffee coming from a nearby café.

The table was nice. It looked like something that had maybe come from a grandmother’s house, something that would have had a crocheted tablecloth and a matching buffet. But the idea of picking out furniture together made me uncomfortable.

I checked the price tag. “It’s kind of expensive.”

He didn’t seem to have a problem spending money on stuff for the house, and I’d started to wonder if he was some trust-fund kid, or if my father had stashed away more cash than I’d thought. I could ask, and Ian would probably tell me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

He bought the table.

Borrowing a screwdriver, we removed the legs and carried the top to the van, laughing because it was hard to hold, pausing to rest, finally wedging it inside to return for the table legs and our albums. Like some couple. Next he’d want to buy a gas grill and a patio set.

I felt a flutter of fear, fear for the end. I’d never feared the end before. That was my thing.
Don’t fear the end of a relationship. Embrace it.
When one door closed another door with a good-looking guy behind it opened.

I’m so shallow.

Instead of driving back to the house, Ian aimed the van in the direction of the University of Minnesota.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I want to drive through the campus.” At the light on University Avenue he peeled off his sweatshirt and tossed it behind the seat. “I’m filling out an application for a master’s program,” he said.

My heart dropped in my chest and panic washed over me from head to foot, making me weak. “Really?”

“Why do you say it like that?”

Luckily he was watching the road and not me. “I dunno.” I told myself to calm down. “I kind of figured you’d eventually go back to California and Berkeley.”

“Really?” Now it was his turn to sound weird.

Here it comes, I thought. Before he could dive into the whole
I want to stay with you, why would you think I’d leave
, I reached across the space between the seats and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go back to the house.” I gave him a little smile.

The light turned green and he pulled through the intersection, then whipped the van around. But this wasn’t him saying, “Okay, let’s go back.” This was him mad.

“What am I to you?” he asked.

I started to say my boyfriend, but I couldn’t make the words come out. I couldn’t lie to him.

“Am I still that guy you attacked in the hotel room? Am I just a diversion? A fuck?”

“Jesus, Ian. I just said let’s go back to the house.”

It was happening. We’d gotten to the place where I could no longer fool him.
So fast. Too fast.

“You didn’t want to talk about my application. I didn’t mention it earlier because I had the feeling you’d freak out. I don’t understand you. I’ve tried to give you space and tried to keep out of your business, and tried to just be here for you because your dad’s only been dead a couple of weeks. My mom died four years ago and I know how that messes with a person’s head. You think you’re okay because you don’t realize you aren’t. But you don’t need people around always patting your arm and asking how you are. Or pretty much avoiding you completely. I imagine you must have other friends since you’ve lived here your whole life, but nobody calls you and nobody comes over. I know how friends scatter when somebody dies, so I was just trying to be here. But I can’t keep my mouth shut anymore. Because what is this? You and me? Am I your therapy?”

He braked at an intersection, then squealed the tires taking a corner. He nodded as he contemplated being my therapy. “I’m okay with that. I am.”

He pulled to a stop in front of the house. My dad’s house. Ian’s house. Not our house. He shut off the ignition, draped his arm over the steering wheel, and turned to look at me. “I like you, Molly. I like you a lot. Maybe more than a lot. I’m not sure.”

“You don’t know me.”

“No, not very well. But I know you’re hiding. Maybe it’s your dad’s death, but maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s more than that. I have no idea. But I’m shut out. Completely shut out. And like I said, I’m okay with that. For now. For
now.
But not forever. I’m not okay with that forever. But I don’t think you’re worried about forever, are you? You want me to leave. You want me to go back to Berkeley.”

He was so mad. Mad and hurt. I was seeing a whole new side of him that I didn’t know existed. If I was shut off, he’d been shut off too. If I was hiding, so was he. Not for the same reasons, but
because of me.

“I don’t like this.” Oh, the humiliation. My voice shook, and my lip quivered, and my eyes burned and my throat hurt. “Don’t yell at me.”

His face changed. All of the anger seemed to melt from his face. It hit his shoulders, pushing them down, and now he was just sad and hurt. Now he just wanted to make me feel better.

Behind us was the table. That stupid table. Just minutes ago we’d carried it to the van, and we’d laughed and I’d looked at the breathtaking beauty of orange maple leaves against a blue sky and felt it was one of the best days of my life. And now this.

I could see he was going to touch me and comfort me. I didn’t want him to. I would break. I would shatter. I would cry.

I grabbed the record I’d bought and turned the door handle, pushing it open with my shoulder as I baled out. On the sidewalk I pulled the Leonard Cohen vinyl from the sleeve, checked it for scratches. Mint. Then I tossed it. Hard. With my whole body. Like a Frisbee. Right at the house. It hit a porch pillar and broke in two pieces. Perfect. And now the new hurt I felt was about the album, about what I’d done to a vintage treasure. I was no longer hurting because of Ian.

I pounded into the house and up the stairs to my bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind me.

I wondered if he’d come and knock and tell me to open up and let him in, but he didn’t. I heard the sound of an engine followed by barking tires. I looked out the window in time see the van disappear around the corner.

Sometimes I think I’m more like a guy than a girl because I hate drama. I really do. And now I felt ashamed of myself for losing it. And the album. What a waste. What a stupid display.

I unlocked the bedroom door, went downstairs and outside, picked up the broken pieces, then circled around to the back of the house to toss them in the green plastic trash container next to the garage.

For so many years I’d wanted to get away from this house. Even when I was little I fantasized about running away and living with a new family. One time I even packed my school bag with pajamas and my stuffed elephant, along with my toothbrush and peanut butter sandwich. After school I told the bus driver I was staying the night with relatives, and I pointed to a home and told her to stop. She did. Amazingly, she did. The doors opened and I stepped off. While she waited, I walked up the sidewalk to the strange house, all the way to the door. Then I turned and waved. She pulled away and I watched until she was out of sight, then I left.

One block. Two. Three. My bag got heavy, and somewhere along the way I decided to stop and sit on the curb to eat my sandwich.

That’s when a cop stopped his car to see what I was doing.

“Are you lost, little lady?” That’s what he called me. “Little lady.”

I was worried that my dad would find out and I lied to the cop. I said I’d gotten off the bus on the wrong street. I knew my address, so he helped me pack my unfinished sandwich and then he took me home. Back to the house I’d tried to leave.

But now, when I knew I should go and nobody would stop me, I couldn’t make myself do it.

My liberal arts class on Nirvana was held in Folwell Hall. Like a lot of the buildings on the U of M campus it was located in a vine-covered brick building with marble floors, creaky elevators, dark stairwells, and a lot of deeply stained wood. Inside, the marble steps to the second floor had been worn away in the center, and the wooden railing had been polished by a million hands. Ceilings were high, with caged light fixtures that looked Steampunk.

Yeah, that was it. The whole building felt like Victorian era invaded by kids in skinny jeans, backpacks, and iPhones. And I was one of them.

“Your paper was excellent.” This from the TA as I stepped into the room. He was young and earnest, dressed in khaki pants and white shirt, looking like he could work at CopyMax. “Professor Scott wondered if you’d be interested in reading it to the class.”

My stomach sank. Read it? I didn’t know if I wanted to be singled out like that. And I wasn’t even sure I was going to stay in the class. I’d dropped two already. I adjusted the strap on my messenger bag. “I’d really rather not.”

“Participation is a part of your grade.” He blinked and adjusted his thick black glasses. “Just thought it might be helpful. Three minutes of your life, that’s all.”

Professor Scott appeared beside him. He was maybe fifty, tan and fit, giving off the aura of someone who biked twenty miles a day. Short-sleeved plaid shirt and a skinny black tie. “Are you taking any journalism or creative writing classes?” he asked.

“No.”

“What’s your major?”

“I’m undecided.”

“You have a nice writing voice. Very descriptive but straight forward.”

I got the feeling he wanted to say more, came to a decision, then continued: “Your paper on the death of Kurt Cobain wasn’t quite what you were assigned to do, but I liked it so much I’m going to overlook that. You’ve focused more on style and emotion rather than analysis. Which is why I mention writing classes. You seem like a natural.”

“Thanks, I’ll think about it.” Weird that he’d latch onto the writing thing. Not that I hadn’t thought about writing, fantasized about it, and okay, tried to write a few things over the years, but writing wasn’t anything I would have considered myself good at.

Ten minutes later I was standing in front of the class of about fifty students. I felt like an idiot. It was really out-of-body, and I almost felt like I was watching myself read from somewhere above my head.

My story was told from a studio intern’s point-of-view. I knew it didn’t fit the assignment, and I only wrote it because I figured I’d be dropping the class and I’d wanted to write something that gave me a sense of satisfaction. But now I felt ridiculous standing in front of everybody, the chairs filled with cool people and people who wanted to be cool. Hipsters and mods, more guys than girls. A few sporty-looking types. Not sure what they were doing in the room. Probably thought it would be an easy credit. My father had warned me about classes that looked easy.

“They can be some of the hardest,” he’d said as we sat at the kitchen table going over my choices.

I read.

February 1993

Pachyderm Recording Studio

It was her fault. All these theorists talk about how she hired a hit man. Some even say she pulled the trigger, but that’s bullshit. She poisoned him with herself, that’s what she did. That’s what I’m talking about.

The session was going great until she got here. She brought the poison with her. It was in her red nail polish and her smeared red lipstick. She left it on the rim of coffee mugs, and when she jumped in the pool an inky black question mark rose to the surface.

The studio is haunted. Everybody knows that. Before they ever came, before they unloaded their equipment, I heard crying in the hallway.

Somewhere in the middle of my reading I looked up and realized most of the people dressed in dark clothes were listening to me. And they seemed interested. I kept going, wondering how much time had passed. Was I reading too fast? Too slow?

I finally reached the last page:

Once they were gone her poison lingered. We turned on the exhaust fans and opened the windows until wood warped and strings went out of tune, but we couldn’t get rid of it. Thirteen years later I sometimes catch a whiff. I often wonder what music would be like if he hadn’t killed himself, because you know it wouldn’t be like this.

I finished with a few lines from a John Berryman poem, Dream Song #143:

He only, very early in the morning,

Rose with his gun and went outdoors,

By my window, and did what was needed.

I dropped my arms to my sides in defeat. Done. I thought about the bridge on campus where so many people had died, the bridge where John Berryman himself had jumped to his death. And I thought about how Kurt shot himself. That took guts. A gun? Why a gun? I mean, he had to have a lot of drugs around. Why not just overdose? A gun meant you hated yourself. A gun meant you wanted to make sure everybody knew this was no accident.

Something weird happened to me. Something totally unexpected. Standing there in front of those cool kids, I burst into tears. Like somebody flipped a switch. I hadn’t felt it coming. Not at all. Otherwise I would have moved. I would have sat down. But suddenly I felt overwhelmed, like this weight was pushing on me, smothering me, and I had nobody to turn to, nobody to confide in. It wasn’t just my secret that I carried hidden deep in my belly, but death. The idea of death. About someone being here one minute and gone the next.

Where did they go?

Nowhere?

Just gone?

Yes. That’s what I think. Just gone.

My thoughts were racing, and it felt like I was falling into this dark pit that I’d never get out of. The classroom was gone. The hipsters were gone. It was just me in my head.

Somebody said something to me.

Professor Scott. With a humiliating jolt, I realized I was still standing in front of the class, and I was still crying. Huge gulping sobs.

I dropped my papers on the floor, dove for my desk, and grabbed my things. Clutching books and notebooks to my chest, I ran from the room, passing a blurred line of faces with mouths hanging open.

Someone shouted. I looked over my shoulder and saw Prof Scott standing in the doorway. I gave him a jaunty wave. “I’m fine!” And I kept running.

At one point in my flight I stopped and sat on a bench long enough to stuff my stray books and papers into my bag. Then I ducked under the broad strap and took off again.

I should join the running team, I thought. Then I could just run and run all day long and I wouldn’t be running away from anything. I’d just be running.

Unable to go any longer, I slowed to a walk. Bent over, hands to knees, I struggled to catch my breath. When I straightened back up I saw the suicide bridge.

How do I keep ending up here?

I needed to talk to somebody, I thought as I walked toward the bridge. But who? Rose? Rose who didn’t like heavy subjects? Taylor? Who’d never said a word about my dad’s death? Taylor, who lived to get high? I thought about a shrink, but I couldn’t really see myself unloading on a stranger. But wasn’t everybody a stranger to me? Really? Ian had been right about shutting him out. He just didn’t realize I did that with everybody.

It was windy on the bridge. My hair and dress whipped around me, and my bare legs were cold. I wondered where John Berryman jumped. From the middle? A little to the side? They should put up a plaque but I guess that would be an invitation.

Oh, hey. Good idea. Was just on my way to class but now that you mention it suicide seems a better option.

Behind me, a bus shifted gears and shot a blast of diesel fumes my direction. Below, the Mississippi reflected the blue sky, and across the bank the trees were a flaming orange and red. Winter was coming. Ian had been excited about winter.

I wasn’t sure where he was, and I’d spent the past few days trying to find another place to live. So far I’d narrowed it down to a house in Uptown where four people lived. It was close to Mean Waitress, but the idea of moving in with a pack of strangers didn’t appeal to me.

My phone rang. Or rather my ringtone. I checked the display. Minneapolis number, no name. I let it go to voicemail as I walked back across the bridge, toward the Frank Gehry designed Weisman Art Museum where I found a little alcove so I could check the message without wind or traffic noise.

Professor Scott. “Hey, Molly. Just wanted to make sure you were okay. If you need to talk, today or anytime, you can always send me an email or stop by during my office hours, which are three to four-thirty. The next assignment is online—a ten-page essay on the impact of suicide on youth culture. I promise I won’t ask you to read yours in front of the class.” End of message
.

How could I go back there and face all those kids? Jesus. I should drop everything, but at least school gave me a focus. What would I have right now if not for school? My waitress job. That’s all.

Before putting my phone away I sent Rose a text message.
Let’s have a party at my dad’s place.

Rose replied almost instantly.
When?
She was always up for a party.

Tomorrow. It’s my birthday.

Rose: How many people?

Me:
As many as you want. I’ll post it to a couple of message boards. See if any bands want to play.

Rose:
Are you sure? Do you feel ready for this?

Me:
I NEED a party.