Reunited
October, 1999
Slutty Co-worker’s been seeing the wide receiver she met on the night of my quarterback catastrophe. I don’t think the relationship will go anywhere, but she sure is having a great time playing in his end zone. Suffice it to say, she hasn’t been as available to help me deal with my emotional mini-breakdowns as she has been in the past. And lately I’ve grown tired and broke from spending my evenings on Dr. Maria’s couch. So, per my therapist’s suggestion, I do what I should’ve done a long time ago- call my best friends. I decided to make up for being absent for so long by taking them to lunch. We hit up a restaurant in Danville because for some reason I can’t help being a masochistic freak who tortures herself by going back to her old neighborhood that reminds her of just how little progress she’s made in her pathetic life.
“Wow, how long has it been, guys?”
“Long enough for most of us to turn thirty, you…you…you friend abandoner!”
“I know, Nic, I suck. Honestly though, it was for the better. I needed to sort through everything alone.”
“Well…did you?”
“I think so.”
“And how do you feel? I mean, you look good…does that mean you feel good?”
“I feel okay. All the work with the attorney is done. Now all we have to do is just sign the papers, sell the house and split up the stuff. Of course, he still thinks I’m throwing him away and I’m a big fat quitter and all that. I swear, it’s like he’ll never really…God, I’m so sick of everything being about me! Tell me, how are you guys doing?”
Nicole and Courtney give me a quick re-cap of what I missed out on over the last nine months. Their stories are interchangeable and boring and they make me think I don’t fit in anywhere anymore. Then I realize Kelly’s paying about as much attention to the two doctors as I am. Actually, considerably less. I think she’s falling asleep.
“Kell…everything okay?”
“Oh, I’m alright, just a little tired these days. I’m starting to think I have a thyroid problem. I have an appointment with my doctor in a few weeks. Hopefully he’ll give me some pills and it’ll just go away.”
“Why haven’t you talked to me or Nic about any of this?”
“It’s no big deal, Courtney, that’s why I didn’t bother you with it.”
“What are your symptoms?”
“For crying out loud, I’m telling you, it’s no big deal.”
“Then you should be able to tell me.”
“Fine. Some abdominal pain that never really goes away, and I guess I don’t have much of an appetite. Really, I’m sure it’s nothing a pill or a really long nap won’t take care of.”
“So the abdominal pain is chronic?” Kelly looks wayyyy perturbed.
“I guess you could say that.”
Just as Kelly bends over to grab her purse, I catch Nicole give Courtney what looks like a worried look.
“Why’d you just look at each other like that? Is she okay?”
Kelly glances up and rolls her eyes while Nicole chastises me.
“Calm down, sensitive Susie! There was no look. I’m sure it is just a thyroid problem or maybe it’s hormonal. I’m not concerned, are you, Court?”
“Nope, no concern here. Don’t let Chrissy’s paranoia worry you, Kelly, you’re fine.”
Without lifting her head from her purse Kelly says, “You guys are freaks.”
During lunch, the four of us make long overdue plans to celebrate our thirtieth birthdays. We’re going to Arizona in December, the weekend Courtney officially becomes as old as us. Other than talk of our trip, the meal is tedious and uneventful. The two doctors talk about their typical confusing doctor stuff, which is usually fine, because Kelly and I spend the time gossiping about every single person we know. But this time Kelly was in no mood to talk, and it made the lunch completely blah. Finally, we hug goodbye.
Before I head back to my cottage, I make an impulsive detour and head to my old house to say a quick hello to the dog. As I drive, I wonder if Courtney and Nicole noticed what I did, that underneath Kelly’s baggy sweater was nothing but skin and bones. It looked to me like she lost about ten or fifteen pounds since the last time I saw her. She did mention that she took up jogging…I’m sure that’s what did it, the jogging! Jesus, I’ve got to stop finding things to worry about and start enjoying my life a little bit more. Lord knows Leo’s having fun. And only the Lord would know, because soon after he left for New York, the voicemail account was shut off. The minute I realized the phone had been disconnected, I drove to his apartment and parked out front like a total stalker. I wanted to rehash the past, to pretend I was showing up unexpectedly just like I used to, to hope some miracle would happen and Leo would come bouncing out of his front door when he noticed my car. But, all of my assumptions about Leo leaving me behind to start a new life were confirmed when I saw a couple of overly pierced white trash losers stumble out of what was once my love palace.
Speaking of contaminated former love palaces…ten minutes after leaving the restaurant, I pull up to my house. Hmmmm…there’s Kurt’s truck, but whose piece of crap Audi is that?
I take a mental note of the Stanford University parking permit, the tennis racket and the bathing suit on the passenger side seat, and after almost permanently flattening my nose onto the car window, I can make out the name Kay something or other on a term paper. Kayla? The chick eho emailed him?! But this couldn’t possibly be…he wouldn’t bring a girl into our house would he?!
“Do I go in?”
Hell yeah, I go in!
“Hellooooo? Kurt…you home?”
No answer. Hold on! God, I’m so stupid! It’s not like we’re the only people who live on the street. That car must be one of our neighbor’s friends or something. Sure the marriage is as good as done, but he would never disrespect what we once shared by bringing another woman into our home. For God sakes, some of my clothes are still hanging in the closet. Our wedding picture is on the mantle, and my doggie lives here. Bringing a woman here would go against everything… HOLY HELL, IS THAT A BRA?
All of a sudden my eyes adjust to what I really see in my house and not what I wanted to see. My once beautifully decorated family room looks like the Sigma Chi frat house. There’s beer bottles strewn everywhere, take-out food containers spilling onto my carpet, an ashtray filled with pot, and right next to that are some blankets and pillows that should be on MY bed. Then I really focus in on the carnage! Hanging off of the corner of my wedding picture that’s perched atop the fireplace mantle, is the bra. I can’t resist. I walk over to it…34D. Bitch!
To stabilize myself from the nausea that just set in, I rest my hand on the kitchen table, but it slips on the small stack of papers sitting on the edge of it, and I fall flat on my ass. I watch for an eternity as the tiny strips of paper that caused the commotion fly into the air, then float down and rest around me.
“God, could this day get any worse?” I reach out and grab the closest strip of paper. “What the hell is this?” I grab another and another and another until it starts to make sense to me. Airline tickets to Mexico! “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!” Kurt’s going to Mexico with some girl named Kayla, and they leave tomorrow. Is this some kind of sick payback?
I’ve got to get out of here! Just as I’m about to get in my car, I see the two of them with my dog riding their stupid bikes back to my house. As they get closer, Kurt and I lock eyes. There are no words to describe the look on his face. It’s like grief and terror all crammed together. It’s grerror.
“Chrissy, what are you doing here?”
Without taking my eyes off of the girl, who by the way isn’t as impressive looking as her bra, I answer him. “It’s my house too, Kurt.”
“You have your apartment, and you asked me to stay away from it. This is my space now, and you can’t just pop into it whenever you feel like it.”
“It’s a cottage!”
“Whatever.”
“God Kurt, why don’t you have the guts to say what you want to say?!”
“What’s that?”
“That you’re mortified you got caught because now you don’t look like the victim you wanted everyone to think you were. That you’d give anything in the world for me to be the one on the bike next to you instead of that girl. That you wish you could go back in time and do and say everything you know you should’ve to have prevented me from leaving you. That you know I’m strong, you know I’m beautiful, and DESPITE what you wanted me to believe for all of these years, you need me more than I need you. But nooooooooo, you can’t say any of that because your pride or your fear or your WHATEVER is soooooooo f*cked up that it’s easier for you to lose everything than expose your heart.”
Rather calmly he says, “You should leave.”
“Nice that we’re on the same page for once.”
Normally I hate being a hostile bitch, but not right now. Not when her boobs are front and center and petting MY DOG!
“But before I go, answer this for me. Don’t you think it’s hypocritical of you to take a girl to Mexico when you told me…Hooooooold on a minute! Just how far back does this little fling date back to?”
“It’s none of…”
“I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU, I’M TALKING TO HER!”
The poor child is scared out of her mind.
“What… you can hang your bra on my wedding picture and spill food on my carpet, but you can’t answer my question? Wow, she’s perfect for you, Kurt. A young dumb girl who likes to ride bikes and won’t speak up during a confrontation.”
“Shut up, Chrissy.”
“Are you actually coming to her defense? Wow, it must be love, hunny because that’s something you never did for me.”
“THAT’S BULLSHIT AND YOU KNOW IT!”
“Do you really think this is where we’d be if I thought otherwise?”
“Just go, you’re making a fool of yourself.”
“Fine. But know this. I’ll forever be sad that we failed, but the guilt of why our marriage imploded is something I certainly won’t carry with me the rest of my life because for most of the time we were together, I know how hard I tried to make you happy. You’d be a liar if you said the same. You carry the guilt!”
He’s shaking his head in pity.
“Mock me all you want! Eventually everything you didn’t do will come back to bite you on the ass, and when it happens, you’ll either be alone or worse…with someone like her.”
He’s signaling the end of the conversation by walking away, but it only makes me yell louder. “The difference between me and you is that I admitted my mistakes to myself, to you, my therapist, and my friends! I’m free. But you, you’ll be locked up in your own personal Hell forever and you don’t even know it!”
Screeching away, I look in my rear view mirror and I’m horrified at just how many of my old neighbors witnessed the spectacle that just took place. It makes me wonder, which love palace is more white trash now, the one in Moraga where Leo used to live or this one?