Beauty and the Mustache (44 page)

―
David Sedaris

It was 6:14 a.m.
and I was awake.

In fact, I hadn’t gone to
sleep.

After my knitting group
left, I paced the apartment, cleaning, straightening, turning the
TV on, turning the TV off, trying to read
The
Brothers Karamazov
and failing, though to be fair, I was only
reading
The Brothers Karamazov
because I’m a bit of a masochist.

I tried to go to sleep,
but I couldn’t.

The notebook rested on the
desk in my bedroom. It looked angry. Its presence felt like a rabid
raccoon perched at the edge of the wilderness, ready to lunge
forward and attack me until I succumbed to madness.

I realized in the wee
morning hours that ignoring the notebook was futile.

Therefore, around 2:30
a.m., I surrendered to madness and opened it to a random page near
the front. On the page was a poem.

For Ashley—

I expect man,

You are woman

Resplendent

Resilient

Refined

I turn

Before you see

The way

You affect me

It was lovely, simple, and
sad. The next one I recognized, and it made me sigh, thinking back
to the day I’d first heard it.

For Ashley—

Fire burns blue and hot.

Its fair light blinds me not.

Smell of smoke is satisfying, tastes
nourishing to my tongue.

I think fire ageless,
never old, and yet no longer young.

Morning coals are cool;
daylight leaves me blind.

I love the fire most because of what it
leaves behind

Then, I read another one,
then another. Soon, an hour had passed and I was still reading.
Some of the passages were poems; some were letters. I skipped over
the ones that weren’t addressed to me and was astonished to find
that toward the center of the book all the poems and letters
started with my name.

Ashley Austen Winston,

You don’t know how deeply
you cut when your intentions carry no knives.

Ash,

When you cried, I learned what helplessness
tastes like. Because all I could do was swallow.

Ash,

I want to give you a book so I can watch you
read it. Your lips move. I watch them as I watch you. I want you to
speak to me. I want your lips to move for me.

- Drew

For Ashley—

You are my Sugar

Sweet to taste, sweet to see

Cravings last until

Your body surrounds, comforts, and
ignites

Your skin velvet, your hair silk

Your tongue honey

Ash,

Your sheets, still a white pile on the
table, know that envy keeps me from washing them. You left an
impression, deep creases where you lay your head, where they
cradled your body. It was only three days, but they memorized your
scent, they carry it even in their stillness.

Were they too gentle? Was their touch too
light? Do you remember how it felt when they held you? Or did you
never commit it to memory?

Was I too gentle? Was my touch too light? Do
you remember how it felt when I held you? Or did you never commit
it to memory?

- Drew

Ashley,

I caught a bear today in
the new trap. We’re taking it a hundred miles north. That’s a
hundred miles closer to where you are. I’ve decided units and
measurements of distance are bullshit. With you there are only two
distances that matter:

Here.

Not here.

You are not here.

- Drew

Dear Ashley,

I’ve been reading your e.
e. cummings. I hear your voice in my head when I read his words,
and it’s a peculiar kind of torture. I can’t seem to stop doing it.
I love your voice, even when it’s a peculiar kind of torture. I
miss you in a way that causes words to fail me. They are as
inadequate and empty as I am.

I wonder, did you like
your body when you were with my body? Do you carry my heart with
you (in your heart)? He speaks of carving out places, but I didn’t
feel like I was given a choice. I removed nothing. I made no room
for you.

Yet you arrived. I saw you. You spoke. That
was it. I gave up nothing, but I lost everything.

- Drew

Sugar,

Tonight the silence sounds
like a scream. If you were here, we could chase it away with our
whispers.

- Drew

Ash,

I walked to our field today.

It was cold and the flowers are gone.

All color is absent.

Did you take them away when you left?

Why would you do that?

- Drew

For Ashley—

Your indifference feels like the end

Of a life without meaning

A life without being

Must eventually stop

Else the being

Loses its life

For Ashley—

If I told you I love you now

How many seconds would it take

How long would you allow

All that I am to break

I turn away

Before you can see

How badly I need you to stay

With me

And so I passed the next
several hours sitting at my desk poring over Drew’s field notes,
reading them over and over. At first I tried to keep an emotional
distance from the words, from his thoughts, from the depth of
emotions he’d hidden so masterfully during our time
together.

He might not have been
good at playing make-believe, pretending, or lying, but he was damn
good at hiding.

I cried a few times,
smudging the skin under my eyes with soot from my fingers. The
chair grew uncomfortable; I ignored the pain, strangely feeling
like it was deserved.

In the end my soul was
moved. There really was no other way to describe it. Reading Drew’s
thoughts was like being catapulted into the heavens against my
will. He loved me, or so he’d written. He needed me, but he’d never
said it. Never out loud.

I reflected on our time
together, seeing things more clearly through this new lens of
enlightenment, and—though he never said the words— realized that
he’d shown me in a million different ways. With every look,
embrace, and desperate need to shoulder my burdens, he was telling
me that he loved me.

I flipped back to some of
my favorites, the ones that made me feel like I might faint with
overwhelming swoony joy. But as I re-read the passages, a balloon
of doubt subtly worked its way into my consciousness, and tied to
it were so many questions.

Why had he hidden himself
from me? Why push me away? Why not fight for me? He wasn’t a
coward. He was the bravest man I knew. And why send it to me now?
With no explanation, no letter, no nothing. And why in tarnation
did it look like he’d tried to burn it?

Restlessness seized me. I
needed to talk to him. I needed to see him, but I knew that wasn’t
possible. Seeing his words in black and white, ink on a page,
written in his hand, made them feel real to me; maybe more real
than if he’d said them out loud.

Spurred by this thought, I grabbed a pen and
a piece of paper and began to write him a letter.

My Drew,

I love you. I love you
desperately. I don’t have your way with words. If I could, I would
write you poetry. Instead, you’ll have to settle for my haphazard
thoughts and explanations for my behavior.

I am so sorry that I’ve
been blind, that I didn’t understand the extent of your feelings. I
didn’t see you clearly, and that’s my fault.

When we were together,
when we met, I admit that I was in a fog. I was blind to everything
but my own grief and mourning my mother before her death. During
those six weeks, I was focused on making every moment with her
count. She was my mother and I loved her, I do love her, and I
couldn’t see beyond my own heartache and sorrow.

That’s not an excuse. It’s
the truth.

Regardless, I feel like
I’m one of those stupid, enviable romance novel heroines. The ones
that have been hit with a vanilla ninny stick, devoid of
personality and blind to the gift before them. I was doomed to
wander in ignorance until the last thirty pages of the
book.

Part of me is actively
rooting against my own happy ending because the fictional hero
deserves better than a girl who is blind to his love and
devotion.

But this isn’t a novel. I
suck at interior design. I don’t always use the tissue seat covers
when they’re available in public restrooms (sometimes I’m in a rush
or I’m feeling lazy); but I always wash my hands.

I wake up with morning
breath and frequently make poor fashion choices. I read too much, I
eat too many cookies, and I have a yarn problem (meaning, I own
more yarn than I could possibly knit into finished objects; there
is NO WAY I’ll use it all before I die, yet I’m still buying more
yarn. I probably need an intervention). I also own only one
pot.

I feel it’s important that
you know these things about me because I am flawed.

I jump to unflattering
conclusions. I’m a little judgy (something I’m working on). I’m a
coward and I don’t tell people how I feel unless I’m pushed beyond
my doubts. I hate how I look because I look like my
father.

And I understand that you
are not an alpha billionaire plagued by ennui. It annoys me that
you leave your socks all over your house. I do not think dirty
socks are going to help in a zombie apocalypse. Also, what is with
the ketamine under the sink in the bathroom? It’s
creepy.

I also find it irritating
when you tell me what to do or talk to my brothers without first
talking to me—like arranging to have me fly back on the day of the
funeral, that really pissed me off. You take too much on yourself.
Why do you do that? Why do you insist on carrying the burden for
everyone else? Don’t you understand that I need you to need me? How
can I give if you won’t take?

Also, you might not be good at playing
make-believe, but you are a master of avoidance. Work on that.

I wonder if you stayed
silent for so long because you feared my rejection? Or maybe you
feared I would grow to resent you if you’d asked me to stay in
Tennessee? Regardless, I understand that you are also imperfect. I
understand that you are brave, but that you are human and not
immune to fear.

I understand that you feel things deeply,
maybe so deeply the feelings become paralyzing.

I understand that about
you and I still love you desperately. I love you beyond reason. I
want to be with you right now. I want to live you.

Love, Ash

I didn’t give myself time
to think about what I’d written.

I folded it, placed it in
an envelope, affixed a stamp, wrote out his address—surprising
myself when I knew it by heart—and jogged downstairs to mail it. I
fitted it through the mail slot and watched it flutter away until
it landed on a pile of other letters.

I stared at the mail slot
for several minutes. I wondered if any of the other letters were
love letters.

Slowly, I made my way back
to my apartment. When I reached the second landing, I allowed
myself to think about the letter. The thoughts within were sporadic
and likely poorly organized, but all the words were true, and I
that’s what mattered most. Honesty.

It was only when I’d made
it back inside my place and shut the door that it occurred to me
that Drew might not write back. Maybe Drew had sent the notebook
because he’d moved on. Maybe it was his way of releasing me,
letting me go.

I thought about that for a
minute then rejected it. If Drew sent me the book, it was because
he wanted me to read it. He wanted me to know his feelings. He
wanted me to respond. Maybe he’d waited the two months because he
wanted to give me more time to mourn my mother. Time to heal. Time
to see.

I nodded at this train of
thought; in fact, I jumped on this train of thought like a
love-train-hopping hobo. My steps were lighter as I walked to my
room. I picked up Drew’s notebook on the way to my bed and placed
it on my bedside table.

I gazed sleepily at the
burnt leather binding as I drifted off, images of Drew, me, and our
future as love-train-hopping hobos filling my dreams.

“
Men trust by risking rejection. Women trust by
waiting
.”

―
Carolyn
McCulley

I didn’t start
to panic until the end of the third week in
December.

Drew didn’t write me back.
After a week, I wrote him another letter. This one went through
several drafts and was a proper love letter. I scoured novels for
good examples, and even browsed a selection of famous love letters
on the Internet. I wanted it to be an amazing love
letter.

I then resolved to write
him a letter every day, and I did so for two weeks, each carefully
crafted. I waxed on for pages about his goodness of heart, his
strength, his eyes, his bottom—he had an exceptional bottom—his
hands, his smile, how smart he was, his voice, his
poet-prowess.

During this time, I
avoided my friends’ phone calls and made excuses to skip knit
night. I didn’t want to talk about the journal, not yet—not until I
could report on my happily ever after.