The Love Sucks Club (27 page)

“I’m fine,” I yell. “I’m perfectly fine. Everyone can stop staring
at me.”

“It’s not a problem,” Rick yells back. “We’ve all been there.”

“Really?”
Karen is speaking loudly, but I
can only just hear her over the noise of the wind. “I didn’t think you ever
lose control.”

“No shit,” Mandy slurs. “Like Jackie. She’s a robot.”

“Excuse me,” Jackie yells back. “I’m trying to get my life under
control. I have to keep a tight lid on myself.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to be cold and unfeeling,” Karen
yells.

Rick squats in front of Karen. “I’m not cold and unfeeling. I just
don’t understand why you’re always complaining.”

“Because I never feel like you love me enough,” she yells, tearing
up.

Mandy nods and pats Karen’s shoulder. “I know exactly what you
mean.”

“How can you know what she means?” My ex looks livid. “You’re
never sober enough to recognize love.” Jackie turns to look at me. “I get it,
you know. I get it now.”

Nodding at her, I look back at
Esmé
who
is watching the argument with a pained expression. I remember her telling me
that she never felt like Fran loved her as much as she loved Fran. This time
when I smile at her, she smiles back. Tightening my arms around Roxanne, I turn
back to look at Jackie. “I know. I know it.”

Mandy waves her hands around, almost knocking herself off balance.
A vision of her falling into the tub full of water gives me a bit of a laugh.
Reading my thoughts, Roxanne laughs too.

“Karen,” Rick tries again. “We can talk about this more when we go
home. I do love you. I just don’t know what else I can do to show it.”

“You can try hugging me and kissing me and being affectionate with
me even when we aren’t having sex.”

“Yeah,” Mandy yells again, waving her hand toward Jackie.

Ignoring her, Rick looks at his wife. “Well, I feel like when I
try, you get mad.”

“Because it’s already been so long that I’m frustrated when you
even try.”

Rick throws his arms up in exasperation. “Then what can I do? I
feel like I’m always trying. I check your tire pressure every day. I take your
car in for servicing. I get up every night and walk around the house checking
the locks. I do everything I can to keep you safe.”

“I don’t want to just feel safe,” Karen says, starting to cry. “I
want to feel desired.”

Rick reaches out to touch her hair. “Sometimes it’s hard to desire
you when you’re always angry at me.”

“I know,” she replies.

Mandy leans back, almost falling into the tub again and again I
chuckle. “Shut the hell up, Dana,” she yells.

Oblivious to the screams of the roof and the storm, she pops open
another beer and chugs half of it. “You let go of Jackie and I got her. Who’s
the loser now?”

“You will be,” I yell across the room, “when she comes to the
realization that someone in recovery can’t be with someone who’s drunk all of
the time.”

Jackie looks away, staring at the wall. Karen is still softly
crying, but she’s letting Rick hold her. Sam clears her throat. “Well, as long
as we’re all in couple’s counseling,” she yells, boisterously. “Susannah,
Thomas. Anything you want to tell us?”

“Well, for a while there, I thought I might have to join your
club,” Susannah begins.

“Oh, that stupid thing,” Roxanne breaks in. “Why on earth did I
ever agree to be a part of something so ridiculous?”

“Because you’re secretly in love with me and you thought it was
the best way to get my attention?” I offer.

“Excuse me,” Susannah interrupts. “I believe I have the floor.”

We all wait while a particularly loud crash shakes the house
again. Roxanne reaches over for Frank and hugs him in close to her body. “At
least he gets cuddled,” I call in her ear.

“I’m pressed against you and you’re complaining?”

“Anyway,” Susannah says, loudly. “Thomas is wonderful.”

“Really?”
He smiles at her.

“Really,” she says.
“Truly wonderful.”

“Oh, good for you,” Mandy says, waving her beer in the air in some
kind of sloppy toast. “So glad to hear the breeders are happy.”
  

“Can it, Mandy,” Jackie warns.

“Or what?”

“Wow,” Olivia says. “What a drama queen.”

Sam and I both bust out laughing. “That’s pretty rich coming from
you,” I say, slapping my hand against my knee.
 

Olivia looks furious for a second. She opens her mouth to say
something, but closes it again. Smiling, she nods at me. “You’re right. I am a
drama queen. But I’m working on it.”

Roxanne takes her hand and the two of them smile affectionately at
each other.

“So, Olivia,” I say. “Are you still straight?”

“Does everyone have to have a label in your world, Dana?”

“Pretty much,” I say, grinning.

Roxanne rolls her eyes. “Dana is very much into the butch and
femme thing. She considers herself an old school butch.”

“What’s that mean?” Olivia asks.

“Oh you know. She holds open the car door, makes sure to get to
the door to an establishment first so she can open it, takes a woman’s coat or
sweater, and pays for everything.”

“Hmm.”
Olivia looks up at Sam.

“Hey, don’t look at me. I’m new school.”

Everyone on our side of the bathroom laughs. Mandy and Jackie
still seem to be having an argument, but I can’t hear a word they’re saying.
Squeezing Roxanne, I rest my head on her shoulder. She presses her cheek
against my face. “So, what do you think, Roxanne?”

“I already told you what I think,” she says.

“I thought maybe you had changed your mind.”

“I think you still need some time to heal,” she replies.

“That’s probably true.”

Leaning my head back against the wall, I listen to the screaming
sounds of the storm against my house. Roxanne drifts off with her head on my
shoulder. Aware that
Esmé
is squeezing my toe, I look
up at her and smile.

“How are you faring?”

She smiles. “I’ll survive. I’m sorry for the things I said about
Roxanne. She’s really a stellar woman.”

“She is.”

“Are you two a couple now?”

“No, we’re not.”

“There’s not a chance of anything happening with us, is there?”
Esmé
asks, though she’s already smiling a little sadly, and
I know she knows how I’m going to answer.

“We’ll always have a bond because of Fran.”

“I still feel like I failed her. Like, if only I could have been
better for her, she would have stayed and gotten better and lived.”

“The only thing that I’ve learned for sure,
Esmé
,
is that we can’t ever change anyone.”

She laughs. “We can only change ourselves.”

“And that takes a shitload of effort.”

We both laugh. Maneuvering a bit, I manage to reach down toward my
feet and squeeze her hand. Leaning my head back against the wall, I give in to
the heaviness that’s filling my head.

Startled, I open my eyes, aware that I had been sleeping. There’s
only one battery powered lamp on now in the bathroom. In the dim glow, I see
that everyone has managed to squeeze onto a spot on the floor. Looking at Karen
and Rick sitting on the floor next to the toilet, I send up a small prayer of
thanks that I had the house cleaned right before the storm. Jackie and Mandy
are mashed together next to the tub, with their legs draped over Rick’s.
Esmé
is still perched on the sink, wide awake. Meeting her
eyes, I smile, and she raises her hand toward me, palm forward. Susannah and
Thomas are both asleep, propped up against my laundry hamper. Olivia and Sam
are snoozing next to me. Roxanne is still pressed up against my chest and my
right arm has gone to sleep. Frank is sound asleep across her lap and she has
her hands twined into his coat. Looking over her shoulder, I
blert
softly at him. He lifts his head to blink slowly at
me. Aware that the storm has passed, I start to work on maneuvering myself out
from behind Roxanne. She wakes as I push her gently forward. As she stretches
her legs out, I hear loud popping from both of her knees.

“The thrill of getting old,” she says.

“Oh yeah, check this out.” I straighten both arms over my head,
causing my shoulders to pop.

“
Ew
.”

“I know.”

Sam opens her eyes. “What are you two jabbering about?”

“Storm is over,” I tell her.

After setting Frank down on top of Susannah, Roxanne is able to
get to her feet. She takes my hand and hauls me up. Squeezing around the bodies
on the floor, I open the bathroom door. Roxanne follows me out. We haven’t even
made it down the hallway and I can see the damage. There are pieces of debris
all over the floor. Giant holes in the roof along the hallway spill beams of
light in random spots. Poking my head back into the bathroom, I catch Sam’s
eye.

“If you come out, shut the door. I don’t want the animals out
here,” I say, softly.

Backing back out of the room, I brace myself. Roxanne takes my
hand as we walk down the hall together. The floor is damp, even all the way
back here. When we get to the kitchen, I see why. The entire roof over the
kitchen and dining room has blown off. The partition between this area and the
living room has been wrenched off the track. All of the furniture has been
knocked over or blown across the room. There are nails and screws everywhere. A
piece of jagged wood is stuck through the kitchen window, and there is
shattered glass everywhere. Glancing past the now broken partition toward the
deck, I see that the entire roof and the glass wall of the living room
is
smashed to bits. Picking my way over the shards of wood
and glass, I glance down at Roxanne’s feet. She’s wearing heavy duty shoes. She
catches me checking and smiles. “It isn’t my first rodeo,” she says.

Reaching down, I pull up a soaked and ruined copy of Annabelle
Lies from the floor. Holding it in my hands, I look down at the cover with the
shadowy woman standing near the edge of a cliff. Maybe it’s time to write the
sequel. Smiling at Roxanne, I fling the ruined book to where the kitchen
garbage can would be if it hadn’t blown away.

“Dana,” Roxanna says. “You look like a woman who has found all the
answers.”

“Oh, Roxanne.
I’m a woman who realizes I have
none of the answers.”

Sam and Olivia come out of the bathroom and make their way
cautiously down the hall. Turning at the sound of crunching glass, I catch
Sam’s eye and smile. “Looks like my roof is gone,” I say, shrugging.
    

“Walls too,” she answers, deadpan.

For a few minutes, none of us can move. Standing in a line in the
kitchen, staring at the sky through what used to be my ceiling, we’re all
silent. I’m struck by an insane desire to laugh. I don’t know why. I must be
making a strange noise while trying to choke down the laughter because the other
three are staring at me.

“Are you all right?” Roxanne asks.

“Actually, I am.”

“It’s just...I know it can be upsetting. Your house is destroyed.”

“You should see your car.” Hysterical laughter wells up from my
stomach and has me bent double. Roxanne starts laughing with me and then Sam
and Olivia are laughing, too. Standing under the ruins of my roof, all I can do
is laugh, deep, beautiful belly laughter. A ray of light is shining through the
hole in my house, and I turn my face to the sky to feel the warmth.

Looking at the sun, I realize that maybe I’m a little more healed
than I thought I was.

Roxanne, smiling next to me, takes my hand. “You’ve come a long
way, baby.”

I have come a long way. Looking down at her beautiful smile, I’m
suddenly filled with an inexplicable joy. Maybe we aren’t meant to be together.
Or maybe we’re just not meant to be together right now. Whatever else happens,
whatever other trials I go through, I know I can count on her to hold my hand
on the journey.

Putting her arm around Olivia,
Sam smiles at me over Roxanne’s head.
“What are you thinking, my friend?”

“I’m thinking we’re going to have to change the name of our club.”

The End