The One That I Want (18 page)

“It wasn’t like that.” She shakes her head. “I just thought you were capable of so much more. I always thought that you were smarter than you gave yourself credit for.” She pauses. “But then again, you were never so good at reading what was right in front of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s nothing,” she says, though I sense that it is much more than nothing. She waves the hand that isn’t attached to the coffee mug. “Besides, it was a long time ago. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with who we are now.”

We sit there for a quiet moment, a delicate truce drawn between us, and Hootie and the Blowfish pours out from the overhead speaker. An anthem of my youth. A reminder of Tyler and me in his truck—
“Hold my hand! Want you to hold my hand!”
—the wind rushing through the windows, the sun warming our cheeks. God, we were perfect.

No
, no,
I will not remember him like this
, I think. I am too angry, too
fucking furious
at my husband and who he promised he’d be to me and what he’s now done, to look back on that time through a golden filter. And just then, as if I’m not close enough to
the cusp of a mental breakdown, Darcy and my father walk through the diner’s front door. My face must register my surprise, because Ashley swivels her neck to glance toward the counter.

“Is that your little sister?” she asks, turning back and scooting her eggs around her plate. “I haven’t seen her in years. Thought she got out of here.”

“She did,” I say, my eyes still on the mismatched pair who I’d thought were sworn enemies. “She came back for a quick visit but is sticking around until I sort this out.”

Poor Darcy
, I think, an earthquake of pity moving through me. I pleaded with her this weekend to take her return ticket and head for sunnier skies, away from the insanity that was swallowing my life, what with my off-the-wagon father, my deadbeat husband, and my ability to see into the future, but she shook her head, like a stubborn toddler, and refused to abandon me. After all of these years of begging her not to go, it turned out that the only thing that could actually pin her down was me asking her to leave.

My father fishes into his pocket to pay the counter lady, and Darcy glances around, her eyes finding their way to me. She offers a perplexed wave, then shuffles to our table.

“What are you doing here?” she says, noticing Ashley, whom I can tell she recognizes, though she doesn’t know how.

“I told you I had a breakfast.”

“I see you cleaned yourself up,” she says, her sarcasm ringing clear.

I stare at her coolly as a response and then say, “You remember Ashley Simmons. From middle school.”

“Hey,” they say in unison, each bobbing her head upward as a hello.

“What are
you
doing here?” I ask.

“Dad hasn’t left the house in four days. I felt sorry for him, so I told him we could take a quick drive for breakfast.” She flops her
hands, an empathetic admission from my hardened sister. “I thought he did okay with you this weekend, so I don’t know. Just trying to make the effort, you know.”

I nod because I do know how difficult it might be for her to acknowledge my father’s recent kindness; upon hearing the news of Tyler’s abandonment, he had turned up at my bedroom, stood in the door frame until Susanna assured him that I was asleep, and then slept in the hallway just outside, in case I woke up and needed him, though he knew, all too clearly, that I wouldn’t. That I didn’t. But it was his way of saying, “Hey, I am a gargantuan screwup, but I’m still your dad,” and we all were the wiser, we all were the
kinder
, for recognizing that.

My father suddenly announces himself at our table and leans down to kiss me.

“Didn’t know we’d be seeing you here,” he says.

“Ditto,” I say back, not because I’m trying to be curt but because I’m so drained from the past two and a half days that I have to choose where to expend my energy.

“Hi, Mr. Everett.” Ashley extends her right hand. “Ashley Simmons. It’s been a while.” She squints her eyes and waits for him to remember her. When he does, he thrusts his head back just a sliver, a manifestation of his surprise at seeing her, at how much she’s changed since she was twelve.

“Wow.” He runs his hand over his chin. “Ashley. Nice to see you. It has indeed been a while. How are your parents?”

Ashley giggles, that hyena yelp, betraying her discomfort.

“My mom is sick, unfortunately,” she says, watching my father as she speaks. “My dad passed a few years back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “He was a very good man. We lost touch, but I remember him being a very good man.” What my father doesn’t say is that they lost touch when my dad
alienated nearly everyone he knew with his drinking, and some people never came back to him, even when he had atoned for his sins.

“He was.” Ashley nods.

The counter lady calls out, “Darcy, hon, order’s done,” and she and dad say their good-byes. Ashley’s eyes follow them as they head toward the parking lot, then she looks back at me and sighs.

“I see your dad has straightened himself out.”

“Sort of,” I say, but then remember his perch just outside my door and decide to give him more credit. “He had a little relapse, but we’re working through it.”

She laughs. “That’s you, Tilly. The glass is always half-full until the bitter end.” She pushes away her plate, and I take a bite of her buttered toast, the first thing I’ve eaten since yesterday afternoon.

“Enough about that. I know how you feel about me,” I say.

“Not really.” She shrugs.

“Listen, Ashley, I just need some answers. I asked you to meet me because I need you to make it stop.”

“Do you want it to?” she asks.

“Yes!” I hiss after a beat. I’d thought—just for one woebegone second last week—that it could be fun, whimsical, that wild ride that I so rarely hitched myself to. But Tyler and his abandonment have shown me that it isn’t, it can’t be, it can only bring more havoc, damage, because all I am is a helpless observer, a witness to a future that
I want no part of!
These visions aren’t going to bring Tyler back, aren’t going to make me pregnant, make me happy, make me anything other than a haunted shell.
Yes, God damn it, I want it to stop!

“I wish I could help, but I already told you,” she says, plunking down her coffee, which spills over the rim and onto the
Formica table. “I can’t do anything about it. You’re the one in control.”

“But I’m not! I’m
not!”
I say. “I can’t speak, I can’t move, I can’t change anything! I
tried
to change what happened with Tyler, and I can’t, I couldn’t!”

I slap my hands down on the table, sloshing my own coffee, which I mop up with my elbow.

“You’re thinking about this all wrong,” she says before nudging the check toward me. “It really is a gift. If you give yourself a little more time, I bet you’ll find a way to see it that way too.”

A week later, the bursting August air is even more humid than any living creature thought possible, and despite all odds, I have mustered the dignity to crawl into the shower, step into a mostly wrinkle-free pair of khaki capris, and drive in to work. Darcy has offered to accompany me, but I shake her off. She and Dante have booked another gig at Oliver’s, so I tell her to spend the day with him instead, honing their act—a small deflection of the fact that I’m a little embarrassed at the role reversal, at how, with one abrupt detour of my life’s plan, I’ve devolved into a total basket case.
I was the one who took care of people’s messes! I was the one who always had an actionable solution
. No, I assured her this morning, I could hold my head up fine without her.

Of course, this isn’t true. This isn’t true at all. I can barely lift my head off the floor, where I want to splatter out my intestines to make my asshole of a husband feel worse about himself than I do, but alas, I have a prom committee meeting that I simply cannot avoid, and by God, if these kids can find a way to spare a few minutes between their summer jobs and their second summer jobs,
then I can put that bastard aside and get over myself, if only for twenty minutes.

I close my office door behind me, lean up against it, and exhale.

“Hey!” CJ says from my couch, and I jump six inches, nearly ramming my head against the coat hook.

“Oh, good lord, CJ! What are you doing here?”

“You told me to stop by a few minutes before the prom meeting,” she says. “You e-mailed me about it last week.”
Last week
, I think.
A lifetime ago. Who can even remember what I was thinking of last week?

“I told you to stop by?” I have no recollection of doing so, though I have no recollection of the life I had when something like
prom
actually mattered, so I take her at her word. “Okay,” I say, dropping my bag by my desk and sidling up beside her on the love seat. “What did we need to go over?”

“How would I know?” she says. “You’re the one with the lists.”

“Well, I don’t have my list today!” I say, indignant.
Why can’t anyone else around here take care of these stupid lists?
“So please, tell me, what did we need to go over?!” My chin quivers, and it’s obvious to the both of us that I am not ready for this, that I am in no way prepared to either guide or counsel, much less perform the two of those acts together, but CJ’s eyes just widen, while mine fill with obese tears, which somersault down my face before I can command them to stop.

“I’m sorry,” I say, batting my hands in front of my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit of a mess this morning.”

“I heard what happened,” she says, wincing.

“Who hasn’t?” I say, dropping my chin into my palms.

“Probably no one.” She concedes, then smiles wistfully. “It sort of makes my point.”

“About what?” I grunt.

“About this town.” She shrugs. “About how it takes everything from you: your privacy, your identity … hell, just the fact that I can’t stand it here makes me an outcast.”

“You’re not an outcast, CJ,” I say. “You’re the senior class vice president and social chair. And star of the musical. And about a million other things.”
Just like I was
, I think. Like being appointed to some silly position in your school government actually matters in the scheme of your life. Like being anointed as something, as someone special,
back in high school
really promises a spectacular future. Back then, of course, I thought it did. Now, it feels like CJ might be a much wiser version of my old self.

“Well, whatever,” she says, which feels like a reasonable enough argument for me right now.
Yeah, well, whatever, Tyler, you asshole!
“No one here has any aspirations other than to live here, die here, and long hail the Westlake Wizards.” She flops back on the couch.

Suddenly, I realize that I can’t be here, in my office, with this child who is wiser than I am.
I cannot deal with this right now!

“The Arc de Triomphe,” I say.

“What?”

“The Arc de Triomphe. That was on our to-do list—bring it up at the meeting. You’re in charge for today. I found one online, and I want you guys to order it and be sure that it can be here on time.” My mind flashes with a vision of Eli at prom, with that willowy girl swaying by his side, and my perpetual nausea resurfaces.

“I can’t stay,” I say, rising abruptly.

“Um, okay, but also, I hate to ask, but community service?” CJ says.

“Community service?” I ask back, wondering if she’s suggesting that I need mental help, which, actually, I might.

“For Wesleyan,” she says. “You said I needed it. I applied for
an after-school position at the hospital, if you think that’s okay. I’ll just mostly be restocking supplies and shuffling paperwork, but they were the only ones who could give me something between school and my shift at the restaurant.”
Oh, yes, this is what I wanted to talk to her about in the first place
.

“Oh, yeah, this is why I told you to come in, but yes, yes, I’m sure that’s fine. To be honest, it’s puff work. Just something for your resume. Who really cares?”

She cocks her head at me, at my unusual brittle candor, as I fling myself out the door, then down the hallways, past the judgment and the whispers and the shattered comfort of place that once hugged me like a life vest. Now that the outside world has weaseled its way in, nothing will ever be the same,
can
ever be the same, and the question becomes, without that life preserver, do I sink or do I swim? At this point, as Tyler might say, it’s anyone’s game.

T
he bottle of tequila is half-empty on my nightstand when I finally force my eyes open. They’re crusty, and I slap the back of my hand against my lashes, but still, the hardened goo remains. My mouth is like flypaper, sticky with condensed saliva, and my tongue tastes like rotten tuna fish. My pupils slowly focus on a figure hovering above me, and I squint to make it out.

“Get up,” his voice says. “Come on, get up. You’ve been this way since Wednesday. Enough.”

My dad strips my sheet from me in one billowing swoop, but rather than acquiesce, I yank a pillow over my head, fending off the headache that is threatening to overtake my brain.

“Go away,” I say, muddled, from beneath the pillow. My voice is a scratch, like it has gotten comfortable not being used in a while.

“No. Get up. You need to shower, get out of this house, and do something with yourself.”

I pull the pillow back from my face.

“Ironic, coming from you.” I meet his eyes. “Come on, join me. Have a drink. The bottle’s right there.”

If he’s surprised at my retort, at my heartlessness, he doesn’t
show it. Maybe he thinks he deserves it, or maybe, more likely, he’s just used to the way that alcohol draws out our family’s less enticing attributes. His was mindlessness, absence when we needed him. Mine appears to be unfiltered, raw honesty.

He wiggles his hands underneath my armpits and hauls me into a seated position, folding me like a Raggedy Ann doll on the bed. The mattress bounces beneath me, and I’m surprised at his strength, how easily he lifts me. My father crouches onto his knees, his old joints cracking.