The Corner of Bitter and Sweet (34 page)

Which would have been great . . .
if I had applied.

I remembered my conversation with Billy on the train ride back from New York. He and Ben were the only ones who knew about that fellowship—and Ben wasn’t on the board of CalArts. Since that day, Billy and I had had a bunch more talks about my photography—mostly his telling me how good I was, and how I should really put my work out there, especially the stuff I had taken over the last few months that had to do with my mother, and me shrugging it off and coming up with excuses about why I didn’t want to.

He thought I was afraid of rejection. But it wasn’t so much about submitting stuff and being turned down. It was more about the fear of being seen and known. Sure, in the last few months with meetings, and with Walter and Matt, I was getting more and more comfortable opening up to people, but even then I could still control the information and the flow of closeness. But putting my work out into the world—especially the Mom stuff—was different. If I did that, I couldn’t control people’s reactions, and I couldn’t be there every single minute to explain and defend and justify Mom or myself or our relationship. Plus, if I went, it would mean leaving Mom. For a month. Other than when she had been at Oasis, we had never been apart for longer than a few nights.

After cursing myself for not having any Play-Doh (Was it really
that
awful to have a sniff once in a while?) I ran into the living room, where I found Billy rubbing her feet as they watched TV. That had been one of the things that had made me think he was the real deal, because her feet, with all the bunions from years of high heels? Nasty. Even back when we had money and she used to offer to pay me if I would rub them for her, I said no.

I held up my iPhone with the e-mail. “How could you do this?” I demanded angrily.

“Is this about the carrot cake?” Mom asked. “Annabelle, I’ve been doing my best to not say anything about this, but I’m getting a little concerned about the baking,” she said. “Honey, I need you to tell me—are you baking out of
happiness
? Or is this a way of acting out because you’ve got some food issues? Because if it’s acting out, then maybe when we get back to L.A. I could get Beverly from my Thursday women’s meeting to take you to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting so you could see if you relate at all—”

“I don’t need to go to OA!” I yelled. “I need
him
to butt out of my life!”

“Whoa. Calm down,” Billy said. Calmly. Which pissed me off even more. “What did I do?”

“What did you
do
?!” I demanded. “Mm, I don’t know. How about the way you used the fact that you’re rich and famous to force some stupid college to agree to let me into their stupid program even though
I told you I didn’t want to go
!”

“What are you talking about?” She turned to Billy. “What’s she talking about?”

At least he had the decency to look busted. “I thought they would get in touch with me first,” he said quietly. “So that I could—”

“So that you could what?” I snapped. “Figure out the best way to tell me that you had found a way to ship me off?” Billy had to have known that if I took the fellowship, it meant leaving Mom here for a month by herself. “You didn’t do this because you believe I have talent! You did this so that you can be with my mother without her dumb daughter in the way!” I shook my head.

“Annabelle, that’s not true,” he said. “Let me explain.”

“I’m going to ask again. What is going on here?” Mom demanded.

“What’s going on is that when he asked to see my photos—obviously because he was just trying to earn points and make me like him so that I wouldn’t freak out if you guys got together,” I said, “I was dumb enough to show them to him, and even more dumb to believe him when he said they were good.”

“Because they
are
good!” he said. “They’re incredible.”

“You showed Billy your photos? You never show
me
your photos,” Mom said, clearly hurt.

She was going to make this about
her
? Seriously? “Because you never ask to see them! You ask me to take your picture, but you never ask to see any other pictures!” I cried. I remembered how Dr. Warner’s eyebrow had gone up when I had told her that I was fine with the fact that Mom showed no interest in my photography; that it was probably a good sign of boundaries. When she said that it looked like my mother was frightened by my photography, because it was something apart from her—something where, had I put my work out into the world, then I would no longer be hidden in her shadow, where she could keep me close so I didn’t leave her—I had gotten really mad. Probably because, yet again, she was right and I couldn’t handle it. “And then he went and made CalArts give me a spot in their high school program!”

Mom thought about it. “Well, is that so bad?” she asked. “I mean, it sounds like he was just trying to help—”

There it was. Now that all those dumb hormones had been kicked up, she was doing her thing where she chose a guy over me. Why couldn’t she just go through menopause already? “I didn’t ask for his help!” I cried.

“I know you didn’t,” Billy said. “And you’re right—I had no business doing that. I just . . . you’re
really
talented, Annabelle. I know what it’s like to be afraid of letting yourself believe people when they say that—”

“I’m not afraid,” I snapped. “What was I thinking even showing you in the first place? That stuff was
personal.
”

The maternal part of Mom’s reptilian brain—the part that knew when to check if I had a fever, or knew when I was sneaking cookies before dinner—lit up, and she turned to Billy. “What exactly were those photos of?”

“Mom, no! It’s nothing like that. They were just photos of . . . things.”

“What
kind
of things?”

“Photos I had taken when you were in rehab,” I said. “To try to make sense of how I felt.” I looked at Billy. “But unlike
some
people, maybe I don’t have this overwhelming need to have the entire world tell me how great I am. Maybe I just want to live my life like a normal person, without attention.”

“And maybe by showing your work, you can help people!” he retorted.

“How is my stuff going to
help
people?!”

“By making them feel understood! And less alone!”

“Yeah, well, if I ever wanted to do that, it needs to be my decision!” I yelled. “Plus, I’m here for the summer. The program starts in a week! What am I supposed to do, just up and leave?”

“This program is now?” Mom asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. For the month of August.”

“You’d leave me?” she demanded.

I sighed. Again. More about her. “You don’t have to worry.” I looked at Billy. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A RANDOM LIST OF THINGS I DON’T LIKE

• Prejudice or discrimination of any kind
  
• Right to Lifers
  
• People who cut in line
  
• Teva sandals (Matt has a pair, and he says they’re really comfortable, and I let it go because I’m in love with him, but I’m sorry, they’re just
  wrong
  from an aesthetic point of view.)
  
• Kale (I’ve tried. I really have. But it has a weird aftertaste.)
  
• When you go to someone for support because you know they’ll agree with you. And then they don’t.
  

As I drove to Target (I’m sorry, but if there was ever a time to get back on the Play-Doh train, it was now), I called Walter to download what had happened.

I had a feeling that he wouldn’t give me a “Oh, poor Annabelle . . .” pep talk, because that wasn’t what Walter did. What Walter did was listen to me—sometimes crunching away on Sun Chips, sometimes smacking gum, sometimes glugging down Coke, sometimes, if I was lucky, remaining quiet—and then when I was done, he’d wait a second before giving a heavy, semi-annoyed sigh and say “Are you done?” Sometimes I wasn’t, so I’d go on a little bit longer, and then I’d say “Yes, I’m done.” And he’d say, “Okay, so now that you’ve told me why you think the other person is wrong, what’s
your
part in all this?” That would totally piss me off because I didn’t have much interest looking at
my
part—because to discover I had a part meant that I was not perfect and all sorts of other things that I disliked. But eventually after some grumbling, I’d talk it through and find my part and instead of making me feel worse, figuring out which of the less-than-admirable behaviors off my greatest-hits list had been in play actually made me feel better, because in being aware of it, I could try not to do it the next time.

So when Walter told me that, no, he didn’t agree with me that Billy was a total control freak who was trying to ruin my life and maybe him getting me into the photography program was an H.P. thing (H.P. = Higher Power = God = Walter’s paranoia about saying it out loud and people thinking he was some sort of religious freak if they knew he believed in God) since I was too scared to take steps to do it myself, I wasn’t too surprised and I didn’t get mad. What I did do was thank him for the feedback and say that I was about to lose reception because I was going through that weird intersection at 9 and 9G, where things got wonky. Which was not a total lie, as I would be going through the intersection . . . in about fifteen minutes.

After I hung up and turned around (I had gone this long without Play-Doh, why ruin it now?), I called Matt, who was nearby in Tivoli finishing up a cater-waiter gig at an event at Bard.

“Obviously because I love you, I find it cute, but you do realize that some people might think hanging out at a booth in a gas station is kind of weird, right?” he asked as we sat at the one in Stewart’s a few minutes later.

I shrugged as I sipped at my iced coffee. Since we had sat down the straw had not left my mouth; it was like an IV drip.

“So what’s going on?”

I unclamped my teeth from the straw and told him what had happened. Matt was a good listener because he gave you just enough facial feedback (a slight nod here; a small smile there) to let you know that he was paying attention, without giving so much that you were tempted to stop talking every few moments and say, “Wait—how come you just raised your eyebrow like that?”

“So that’s what happened,” I said before I clamped my mouth back onto the straw.

Matt nodded and scratched the side of his nose while he thought about what he was going to say. Walter did the same thing—taking a second before giving a response. So did Ben—but in his case, he would stroke the bottom of his chin, which, because he hated shaving, would always make a scratchy sandpapery sound. I had thought about calling Ben about this, but I wasn’t sure how much he knew about what was going on between Mom and Billy. Plus, Ben was not my Ben anymore. Actually, now that I thought about it, Billy had become my Ben this summer. At least until a few hours ago.

“I mean, I’m sure there are probably a few ways that I could have handled it differently—” I started to say to fill the silence of the thoughtfulness. “But still—”

“I think you should go,” he said.

“—even if I . . . Wait a minute.
What?
”

He chugged some of his water. Unlike me, Matt was not a fan of Stewart’s iced coffee. In fact, when he had tried mine, his response had been along the lines of “Is this all chemicals, or is there actually coffee somewhere in here?”

“I said I think you should go.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s an amazing opportunity.”

“But . . . he did that without telling me. . . . Don’t you think it’s wrong?”

He shrugged. “Well, sure, it probably could have been handled better,” he agreed. “But you wouldn’t have agreed to apply.” He grabbed my hand. “I know you’re pissed and don’t want to hear this right now, but Billy really cares about you, Annabelle. And as weird as I know all this has been for you, I think you feel the same way.”

“But . . .” I bit the side of my tongue to stop the tears that were getting ready to do a swan dive from my eyes. “If I went that would mean . . . leaving you,” I said quietly.

He sighed as he squeezed my hand. “I know. And that would totally suck. But you’re a real photographer, Annabelle. You need to start owning that. And I don’t want to be that guy who stands in the way of that.” He shook his head. “That’s what my dad did to my mom. Look, it’s not like you weren’t going to leave anyway,” he said.

I sighed. I knew that.

“So it would just be happening a little earlier than planned,” he went on. “What is it your mom always says? You make your plans and God laughs?”

I nodded. She did like that expression. Thankfully, she hadn’t found a bumper sticker of it yet.

“When do you have to give them an answer?”

“Wednesday.” I sighed.

“So you have two days,” he said. “Just think about it.”

I was still angry about the whole situation. But I did think about it. I thought about it; I read my daily, weekly, and monthly horoscopes on the sites that Mom considered to be the best ones; I did tarot card spreads on it using facade.com. I was so desperate for an answer that if I had had a Magic 8 ball, I would have tried that as well. I guess I was more like my mother than I thought. But the more I tried to figure it out, the more confused I got.

I was in the middle of trying to meditate, in hopes of being hit with an answer, but was spending most of the time opening one eye to check the clock to see how much time had passed, when my phone buzzed with a text.

BUG CAN YOU PLEASE COME MEET ME FOR LUNCH TODAY!! IT’S IMPORTANT!! THANK YOU!! XOXO

My mother overdid it with everything. Especially with caps and exclamation points.

“You didn’t tell me this was the scene you were shooting!” I cried, holding up the schedule of what was being shot that day as we stood in the cramped wardrobe truck later, with Mom wearing nothing but her underwear. I had avoided the set ever since I went to meet her for lunch one day and she was shooting a scene where she gets sick from chemo. She was so good and so believable that it freaked me out.

Georgina—the wardrobe woman—and her assistant scurried around gathering up an assortment of hospital gowns for her to try on. Like all wardrobe people I had met, they didn’t even blink when Mom stripped down in front of them.