The Break-Up Psychic (2 page)

“Well, I guess we both got what we deserved then,” I say. “Don’t call me, and while you’re at it, burn the sofa.”

As the elevator doors close I watch his face. His appearance is everything it’s supposed to be. His eyes are cast down in shame, his shoulders hunched forward in disappointment, but he doesn’t come after me. He doesn’t place his hand between the elevator doors at the last moment to force them open and beg my forgiveness. He doesn’t call out my name in agonized desperation. He just lets me go, and I didn’t see that one coming.

Luanne, big hair silhouetted in the open doorway, steps aside as I enter the apartment.

“What is she, dental hygienist or yoga instructor?” she asks.

“She’s a masseuse.”

“Well, she must give one hell of a happy ending.”

Luanne’s place is above a Chinese restaurant and it always smells like fried rice. Her walls are lined with French poster art of 1920’s liquor propaganda and her furniture is all second hand. It’s warm and inviting, just like her.

I plop myself down on the sofa and wipe the tears from my eyes with the sleeve of my cardigan. I know I should go back to work, but the thought of re-stocking shaving gel after coming face-to-face with Suzy’s wax job is too much to bear. I turn my head away from Luanne, unable to look at her for fear of seeing any smugness cross her face. “I guess you can say you told me so.”

“I told you so. Now get on with it.”

Luanne perches herself on the arm of a chair to my left. Her face is passive, if not a little empathetic, as she waits for me to spill the beans on my newest sob story.

“There’s not much to tell really. I went home at lunch to grab those shoes you wanted to borrow and found Tim screwing our neighbor. I ran out of there as fast as I could. He followed me and we fought in the hallway. He basically told me I pushed him into it.” I look at Luanne’s face out of the corner of my eye, trying to gauge her reaction to the events. Her mouth is clamped shut, twisted in a frown. “What?” I ask, turning to face her. “Do you think I pushed him into this?”

“Of course not. It’s not like you hired a prostitute to try and seduce him to prove a point. Did you?”

“No! Of course not, how could you think that?”

“Well, I don’t know, you did ask me if I wanted to stake out one of his late-night office meetings with you,” she says, sheepish.

Although she may have a point, Luanne is bound by the code of girlfriends to be on my side no matter how crazy I get. Her reluctance to see my behavior as anything less than logical has me scooting to the edge of the sofa and crossing my arms in self-righteousness.

“Now wait just a minute,” she says, placing her hands on my shoulders to keep me in place. “Of course I don’t think you hired a prostitute to seduce him. It’s just that, well, you were certain this would happen and…”

“And what, I got what I wanted?” I cry. “That’s pretty much what Tim said.”

I double over, my stomach feels like it’s going to revolt and regurgitate my cheese bagel from this morning. I know she’s right; I’m partly to blame for what happened. In my desperation to avoid a broken heart and repress my intuition, I went too far. I don’t want to be the crazy lady that’s been scheming to trap her boyfriend into happily ever after. I just wanted Tim to be different.

Oh God, here it comes, the ugly cry.

“
Shhh
, hush now.” Luanne moves from her chair and takes a seat next to me on the sofa. “It’s going to be okay.” She rubs my back in small circles, the way my mama used to do whenever I came home from school, brokenhearted over some pimple-faced boy.

“Ellie, you are a beautiful, funny, talented woman, and Tim is nothing but a selfish, metro-sexual man-whore who doesn’t deserve you.”

“I thought it would be different with him. I thought he might really love me.”

Luanne drapes her arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. “I know you did, sugar. But you’ll find someone else out there who’ll treat you better.”

I wipe my runny nose on the sleeve of my sweater and look Luanne in the eyes. She believes what she’s saying even if I don’t, and that will have to be enough for now.

“Anyway,” she says, “there are more important matters at hand.”

“Like what?”

“Like, did you remember to grab those pumps on your way out the door?”

“Lu!” I can’t stop the bark of laughter that escapes. I give Luanne a soft punch in the arm for ruining my pity-party.

“Thanks, I needed that,” I say, collapsing against the sofa and raking in a deep breath. “And I’m sorry for getting upset with you. I know you’re just trying to help. I guess you’re allowed to be a little smug about all of this. After all, you knew this relationship was bound to self-destruct.”

Luanne stands and walks the few feet it takes to enter her tiny kitchen. “This apartment is made of brick and plaster, honey, not glass,” she calls over her shoulder. “Don’t be looking at me to cast stones. I’ve got enough bad habits without adding know-it-all to my resume.”

Luanne reemerges with two mason jars full of iced tea. “Here, take this,” she says, handing me a glass. “It’ll make you feel better.”

I take a big sip and then slap my hand over my mouth to keep from spitting the stuff back out. I force myself to swallow and the amber liquid burns a trail down my throat, making my eyes sting. “Oh my God, Lu, what kind of iced tea is this?”

“The kind with vodka in it,” she says, taking a long pull from her glass. “Come on, don’t be a baby. If you can’t drink when your heart’s been broken then when the hell can you drink?”

I think of Tim and of all the failed romances that came before him, including that of my parents. Maybe I’m just one of those people destined to be alone. Would that be so bad? I could start over, become an eccentric or a nun. No more broken heart, no more alarm bells.

I extend my arm and touch my glass to Luanne’s. “What the hell, to being psychic.” I down the remaining tea in one go.

“Whatever you say, hon.”

I have to admit, getting sauced in the middle of a workday is pretty fun. After Luanne and I finished off an entire pitcher of the vodka-enhanced iced tea, we each claimed a spot on the floor and began eating our way through two bags of chocolate chips before starting down the long, dark road of failed relationship storytelling.

“Wait a minute, I’ve got it,” Luanne declares as she rises unsteadily to her feet, chocolate chips scattering across the floor. “I’ve got two words for you: Norman Sherman.”

I burst into a fit of giggles. Norman Sherman was Luanne’s old supervisor at the Take N’ Tumble Laundromat. He was skinny as a rail except for a protruding beer belly, had a super-mullet haircut and, despite being the manager of a Laundromat, had pit stains the size of pie plates under each arm.

“What does it say about me that my best date in eight months has been with a man who wore a navy blue Member’s Only jacket to his own mother’s funeral?” Luanne asks, popping more chocolate chips into her mouth. She paces the room, obviously doing some serious self-analysis under the influence of the tea-vodka. “I mean, Sherman Norman—”

“Norman Sherman,” I interrupt.

“Right, Sherman Norman, who smelled like beef jerky and only owned Tesla CDs, wasn’t even my worst failed relationship.” Luanne holds up her hand, preparing to count, finger by finger. “There’s been Bobby Jack who dumped me for his second cousin; Casey
Runsinger
who robbed me after I bailed him out of jail, twice; and Jason Mercer who turned out to be a drag queen named Jacqueline Midnight, and that was just this year!” Luanne stands stock-still in front of me, three fingers raised on her right hand and an expression of horrified disbelief etched onto her face.

I stretch out on the floor in front of her, cradling my booze-addled head with clasped hands, and close my eyes. “Listen, Lu. Just because we’ve made some bad decisions doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with
us
.”

“I think you’re just trying to avoid the truth here,” Luanne says, crashing down to the floor and stretching out beside me. “Both of us must have some kind of sick desire to be treated like dirt. You’re always falling for the high-brow cheaters, and I’m always
gunnin
’ for the low-brow
skeevers
. If there was only one dirt-bag left in all of Texas, one of us would fall in love with him. It’s our gift.”

I know Luanne’s right. I know I have a ‘type.’ I fall for men who’re sexy, charming and a little bit dangerous, a little bit unpredictable. It’s the thrill junkie in me. Tim may’ve been in finance, but he had a dark side, and it’s what drew me to him. I guess there’s something to be said about girls wanting to be with men who remind them of their fathers. In my case, that’s definitely true. My father, Glen, is an ex stunt man. He met Mama when he wound up in the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. She was his nurse and claims to this day that he gave himself a concussion and broke two of his own fingers just to have an excuse to go back and see her. In the end it was he that left her broken.

I hear Luanne gently snoring beside me. I know I should wake her but I’m not sure I’m capable of raising my arms anymore. I roll onto my back and stare at a watermark on the ceiling. Why is finding someone so hard? Am I just destined to wind up alone in a house full of porcelain dolls and cat skeletons? No, that’s not the ending I want for my story. I want love. I want a husband and children. But mostly, I want to never hear those damn bells ever again.

From this moment on, I resolve to make better choices. I’m going to find a nice, boring guy who’s into organic produce and riding tandem bicycles. No more bad boys, no more swagger. I’ve been approaching this love thing all wrong. Love isn’t going to strike me like lightning or come wheeling through the ER doors. I’m going to choose it. I’m going to be ready for it. I do so solemnly swear.

My head hurts. Am I blind? Why can’t I open my eyes? Maybe I’m dead. Maybe I died of a broken heart last night. It would serve Tim right if I were dead. I could start haunting him. I could…wait, why does it smell like fried-rice in the afterlife? I crack open an eye to confirm that I am not dead but am sprawled across Luanne’s floor, grossly hung over.

“Ugh. Oh my God…what happened last night?” I moan.

“You let me fall asleep on top of a bag of chocolate chips is what happened.”

Luanne’s voice is deafening to my heavy skull. I pull myself into a sitting position and assess last night’s damage. Sure enough, chocolate chips are scattered across the floor along with pictures of Luanne’s old boyfriends and a pitcher I know once contained about 32 ounces of iced tea and 20 ounces of vodka.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice sounding raspy, “sorry about that.”

Luanne sets her disapproving ‘mother eyes’ on me as she saunters out of the kitchen with two mugs in one hand and a small container in the other.

“Here,” she says, shaking the container at me, “take some aspirin and drink this.”

I shake out the aspirin but eye the mug suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, it’s just coffee. I swear.” Luanne forces the mug into my lazy hands and I take in a deep breath. The coffee smells rich, dark and liquor free, so I pop the pills into my mouth and offer up a small prayer for the health and safety of Juan Valdez. I wonder if he’s single…

I twist onto my knees, too unsteady to walk, and use my free hand to crawl my way over to the sofa. Luanne is sitting at the far end, one tanned leg thrown over the other and looking no worse for wear.

“That helping, sunshine?” she asks, smiling. “It’s clear to me now that we haven’t been spending enough time together lately. You sure can’t hold your liquor anymore.”

“Tim only drank red wine,” I say, finally making it into a sitting position on the sofa.

“Of course he did. Never trust a man who can’t handle hard liquor. That’s how I was raised.”

“Noted.” I take another healthy sip of the coffee and look down at my wrinkled clothes. “Do you think I can borrow something to wear? I don’t want to go back to the apartment and I have to work today.”

“Well, of course you can.
Mi
casa
es
tu
casa
. I think I can find something appropriate enough for the Bath Shop, but you better jump in the shower. It’s already eight o’clock.”

“Great.” I get to my feet, which remain miraculously steady beneath me, and hobble to the bathroom. The space is compact and I can’t escape the reflection leering back at me from over the sink. The evidence of yesterday’s crying jag is smeared in black mascara across my cheeks, and my hair is matted against my head. I look like shit run over, scraped off the pavement, put in a brown paper bag and set on fire. Getting presentable for work is going to take a gallon of cold cream. Maybe a blowtorch.

I step into the shower and close my eyes against the spray. The heat makes my head feel a little less fuzzy, but my heart’s still a big
ol
’ heavy mess. I can’t stop the tears from spilling out beneath my closed eyelids. Why does heartache make your stomach hurt? It feels like someone’s torn away at my insides. I feel bruised. A sob escapes my throat and makes my legs shake from the effort to stand. I place a hand against the wall in front of me and lean forward, submerging my face beneath the steady stream. Does it count if you cry in the shower? Isn’t it a little like a tree falling in the woods?