This One Is Mine: A Novel (14 page)

The glucometer read 230. Sally had counted on her blood sugar being lower, considering her three o’clock injection and forty-five minutes of cardio. She would definitely want at least half a tarte tatin, the Ivy’s signature dessert. Plus, the maître d’ would probably send over champagne when he heard the joyous hullabaloo. That would give Sally another ten grams of carbs. Should she take some Humalog now and not have to worry about it until tonight’s dose of Lantus? But her sugar levels might spike from the champagne and excitement. Then, if she ate even a couple bites of tarte tatin, she might feel too crashed to make love later. And tonight was a night she and Jeremy had to make love. Sally decided to be safe and take a shot now, then test herself at the restaurant. She removed the tiny cushioned bottle of Humalog and the syringe dedicated to it, then drew out four units. She lifted her dress, felt her stomach for a spot that wasn’t tender, and injected herself.

One of the things Sally loved most about Jeremy was the way he had reacted when she told him she was type one diabetic. And that she had lost half of her little toe to it. He frowned and said he was sorry, then never brought it up again. Everyone else got so maudlin when they found out. (Especially about the toe!) Sally knew from that point on, she’d be “poor diabetic Sally.” So she never brought it up. And always wore closed-toe shoes.

As much as she would have liked to say to Jennifer and Wendy, Hey ladies, I bring my purse to the bathroom because I’m
diabetic,
Sally never once used the diabetic card for sympathy. Not even with her boyfriends, who might have forgiven her some of her histrionics had she blamed low blood sugar. Diabetes was simply something she was born with. Her eyes were blue, her teeth were straight, and her pancreas didn’t produce insulin. If Sally didn’t deviate from her four-hour plan, she was no different from anybody else. Control it or it controls you.

When Sally was three, she fainted while Mom videotaped her practicing her mouse dance for
The Nutcracker
. David and Mom rushed her to the hospital. When she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, her mother said, “Thank God it’s just diabetes.” The one and only time Sally went to a shrink, she recounted this story. He was astonished at Sally’s unwillingness to allow that diabetes was something she should feel anger or sadness over. She left before the hour was up.

If anything, diabetes taught her the self-discipline necessary to excel at ballet. She attended the Academy of Colorado Ballet, then joined the company. Years passed as Sally watched her fellow graduates make coryphée, soloist, and principal, while she remained stuck in the corps. But then she got lucky. A guest choreographer from Russia was so inspired by her that he created a ballet around her in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of women’s suffrage in Colorado. A month before Sally’s premiere (the governor was scheduled to attend, and Don Johnson!), a blister on her little toe split open. She practiced through the pain, then the tingling, then the numbness. She ignored the black spots. The swelling and stiffness spread to her foot. She wrapped it tight, which bought her a couple of rehearsal days. Then her ankle started to swell. By the time Sally made it to the hospital, the toe was mottled white and scarlet, and even light blue. It looked like an exotic coral. The infection had spread to the bone. They had no choice but to amputate. A dancer four years Sally’s junior ended up dancing the part and was now a principal with the San Francisco Ballet.

Sally prided herself on her ability to bounce back — indeed, what else was there to pride herself on? — and she considered it a badge of honor when someone close to her didn’t know she was diabetic. None of her students had a clue. Her manager at the dance studio had no idea. When Violet sent over those crates of chocolate, it made Sally think
she
didn’t know, either. Sally had certainly never brought it up with her sister-in-law. But she found it hard to believe that after seventeen years, David had never mentioned it to his wife. It had been such an enormous part of his life, too. He still paid Sally’s insurance and doctors’ bills. That would be one of the sweetest aspects of marrying Jeremy: getting on his insurance, so David could finally stop paying her bills.

Sally withdrew the needle from her stomach and returned the syringe to the section of her cosmetic bag where she kept the Humalog syringes to reuse. Even though they said you shouldn’t reuse syringes, all diabetics did, because of the cost. Insurance didn’t cover five needles per day, which Sally averaged, so it made sense to use one until the tip became so blunt it made her bruise. She did it as a courtesy to David.

“Let’s see.” It was Jennifer’s muffled voice from the other room. Jeremy clomped across the floor. Even with his new shoes, his walk was loud and clumsy! Sally held her breath and leaned against the door. The desk drawer slid open and shut. Jeremy clomped back to the kitchen. Sally cracked the door. Jennifer and Wendy leered at the ring. Jeremy closed the velvet cube and dropped it in his jacket pocket. Sally flushed the toilet to make it seem as if she had been peeing, then rejoined the party.

S
UPER
-R
ICA
, a funky taco stand on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, was a favorite of David and Violet’s. It wasn’t on the way to the yoga retreat, but it was worth the half hour detour. David stood, puzzling over the hand-painted menu board above the window. Violet always ordered for them, and none of this looked familiar. The line behind David was long and impatient: UCSB students and NPR-listening foodies who had made the pilgrimage to Super-Rica and knew precisely what they would order when they finally arrived at the window.

“There’s some melted-cheese thing?” David asked.

“Queso de cazuela,”
the Mexican said.

“Fine. And a horchata.” The man gave David a number and a cup of the rice drink he’d been craving on the drive up. David handed the guy a twenty. “Keep it.” He sat down under the tented dining area and, in its blue glow, thought about Violet.

She had sought refuge and stability after being raised by an unreliable father. Done. She wanted to move to LA. Done. She wanted to quit her job. Done. She wanted a fabulous house. Done. She wanted a baby. Done. She wanted a full-time nanny. Done and done.

And I’m the fucking asshole?

Did she have any idea how it stung when David said something and she met him with silence? At best, she’d fake it with a zombie smile or a vacant “Really?” He knew what it was like to have Violet head over heels for you. There was nothing like it. When he met her, she was a bubbly, brilliant chatterbox, always with a million questions. Now she was remote, weepy, mute.

What was her fucking excuse? That the pregnancy was
hard?
That she had a baby over a year ago and the adjustment was
hard?
That the house she had found was
harder
to remodel than she thought? That she stuffed her face during her pregnancy and it was so
hard
to lose the weight? That having a husband support her lavish lifestyle was just so
hard
on her self-esteem? That making two breakfasts in the morning, one for David and one for Dot, and not having time to make one for herself was so darned
hard?

How about spending high school waking up at four AM to deliver newspapers in a shitty blizzarding Denver neighborhood, then doing the afternoon
and
evening shifts at Baskin-Robbins to work a forty-hour week to qualify for benefits? That was pretty
hard
. How about a teenager filing for legal guardianship of his diabetic sister so she could be covered by his health insurance? Or never going to college, getting an accounting degree through the mail, and now sitting on $32.8 million, liquid. With compounding interest, probably $32.85 after the car ride up here. Last time David checked, that was a
hard
thing to do. How about being a goddamned visionary and seeing the music business about to fall off a cliff, then leveraging everything to buy publishing catalogues that had since grown into cash cows? He had done it, and would consider it
hard
. How about booking a band whose debut album hadn’t even been released to open for Green Day this summer? David had finalized that just this morning. These days, that was a mighty hard thing to pull off. How about the forty e-mails that came in on the drive up? From bands and record executives and road managers and art directors and the friend of a friend of a friend who didn’t want much, just help becoming a
gigantic rock star!
Handling all that with grace only to come home to a crazy cunt of a wife was
pretty fucking hard!

Were any of these people e-mailing or calling just to check on how David was doing? Or to thank him for always being there? No. They wanted jobs or favors or rescuing from some fuckup. Since David was a teenager, he’d been the daddy. To his mother, to Sally. Now to Violet, to Dot, to his bands, and to the hundred or so people he employed at any given time. David would consider that
harder
than making a pot of coffee in the morning and handing a baby off to LadyGo.

Earlier, in the carport, his wife couldn’t take her eyes off her cell phone as it rang in his hand. Just six months ago, he had to persuade her to carry one. Now she was Susie-fucking-cell-phone. Her peculiar fixation on it had made him look down at the incoming number. Bad news for Violet, David was good at memorizing numbers.

310-555-0199.

It wasn’t one he recognized. Who could have reduced Violet to such possum-eyed stupidity? A lover? That would explain a lot. But Violet fucking somebody? It wasn’t the Violet he knew. If he called the number from his cell phone, whoever it was could trace it back to him, so David went to the pay phone and dialed it.

“Please deposit two dollars, fifty cents.”

David smashed the receiver against the phone and let it dangle. A bunch of jocks, finishing up their lunch, snickered at him. On their table, among the empty red plastic baskets, was a cell phone. David pulled a fifty from his money clip and slapped it down. “I have to make a call. Keep the change.”

“Wow, sure.” A kid wearing a Def Leppard
Hysteria
T-shirt handed over his phone. David had managed that tour. He dialed the number. It went straight to voice mail.

“Dude, it’s Teddy. Leave a message.”

David tossed the phone back onto the table. The kids looked up, hushed. “Here, you want to use mine?” said one. The others exploded in dumb laughter.

David returned to his chair. Teddy. The name sounded familiar. He navigated his BlackBerry to e-mail, then searched for “Teddy.” One message came up, last month from his assistant.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: mechanic bill

Hi David,

The accountant just called about a bill for $1588.04 for repair work on a 1989 Mazda 323 belonging to a Teddy Reyes. We don’t show you owning a Mazda 323 and there’s no one by that name on the payroll, so we wanted to make sure this bill wasn’t sent in error.

Kara

David scrolled through Kara’s other e-mails. He found one from later that day:

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: Re: mechanic bill

Hi David,

I just spoke to Violet and she cleared up the charge. She said you were super busy and I shouldn’t bother you with this kind of stuff. Sorry about that.

Kara