Elena Undone (4 page)

Peyton had seen her best friend through some rough spells after high school, and after Peyton returned from college, helped her nurse plenty “a wicked arse love ’angoverster ’ang.” But Wave’s huge light was on pretty much all the many long hours Pinot Latte  —Wave’s thriving coffee and wine house—was open, serving up “a libation for every possible mood.”

Wave’s extraordinary person was the one thing Peyton could count on in a world where most things teetered one way or the other, where you could never be certain, and even if you felt you could, you could talk yourself out of it soon enough. Trust, always Peyton’s keenest issue with everything and everyone, did not exist with Wave. Because with Wave, Peyton felt safety. Certainty.

Wave was as pedigreed as they came—from the same private girl school, Campbell Hall in Studio City that Peyton had attended. That’s where they had met. Only Wave had the “hurly balls,” as she put it, “to strike out on me own and make me wee shell of a space in which to entertain all the lovely ladies.” She skipped college, waited tables from the bottom up, took a portion of her inheritance and created Pinot Latte, the medium-sized coffeehouse that reflected Wave’s personality, an eclectic blend of paintings from starving artists, oodles of old paperbacks, B movie posters plastered upon the walls, an inordinate amount of bric-a-brac, all of which made you forget you were in Pinot Latte, which was, as often as not, filled with regulars who made the establishment a second home. Wave didn’t care a whit if people thought it was speculative or risky. Wave was absolute. About everything. Except love.

“Yep, you just don’t get a cuppa joe like this any day. Trust me, my friend. No better brew on this side of…well, Silverlake anyway.” She filled up another cup at the bar and then made her way back to Peyton.

“Don’t know why you want to have a kid with Margaret anyway,” Wave shook her head and rolled her eyes. “She’s about as a warm and cozy as a crisp in a pool.”

At that moment Wave’s latest girlfriend, Erin, brash young eye candy, clad in baggy shorts, a muscle T and sporting half-purple, half-green hair (“well you know it’s prerequisite to look like a TeleTubbie when you’re in a garage band,” Wave defended), walked up from behind them, and sat next to Peyton. Wave leaned over to kiss Erin, but Erin gently shoved a coffee cup between them. “Need coffee. Loooong night.”

“Bit hung are we?”

“Is that what you think I’ve been doing? Partying?”

“Well, have you?”

“We played last night. Not that you would know, since you didn’t come.” Erin pouted.

“Well, I’m sorry if I have to make a livin’, love, but it doesn’t seem to bother you a jot when it comes to payin’ for your bike, now, does it.”

“Just the coffee, please. I’ve had my fill of drama.”

Erin was referring to the other “cooks” in the band. Wave proceeded to fill Erin in on Peyton’s terrible night with Margaret.

Erin grimaced, then turned and cocked a conspicuous eye at Peyton. “I thought you two were off baby making for now. You know, ’cuz of your sick mother an’ all.”

“Yeah,” Peyton grimly concurred, “so did I.”

“You been tryin’ a lot?”

Both Peyton and Wave exchanged confused glances.

“I don’t really know that that’s any of our business.” Wave frowned. “Even though I find it all rather fascinating spewing some dude’s sperm up one’s Vjay-jay, takin’ it out like a hamburger, thawin’ it and havin’ a go. Strange times we live in.”

Erin dumped her coffee into a to-go cup, dismissing Wave altogether, then shot a parting glance at Peyton as she abruptly left their company.

“Wrong side of the futon, I take it,” Wave mused.

“Wave, I don’t want to—”

“Then don’t. Think I didn’t know what I was getting into with that one?”

Wave grinned bravely, but underneath it all, Peyton knew Wave was hurt. And worried.

*

Elena whirled around their tiny, cramped kitchen, fixing dinner, unloading groceries, sorting bills, folding the last of the laundry as she chatted on the phone. “Yes...the church fund-raiser is the fifteenth. Yeah...no—and the retreat is on the twenty-second. Yes, I’m sending out an e-mail regarding Barry’s new Bible study. No problem. See you Sunday.”

A huge calendar riddled with appointments and church functions took over half the walnut dining room table that alongside her mini built-in desk served as Elena Central, which pretty much summed up the dining room, other than several religious paintings and a wooden cross that took up half a wall. Elena had hung the cross there because Nash had made it with Barry in a woodshop project the church had showcased. It was the only cross, of which there were many, in the house that Elena felt held true spiritual meaning—even if it was more about a father and son working on a project together than a sacred icon of prayer.

She sighed as she glanced about the chaos. True. It wasn’t the most optimal spot to have a home office, but it was the only place in the very small three-bedroom Craftsman that Elena had to attempt to create some sort of order out of the chaos of running the house, keeping Nash’s and Barry’s schedules as well as the multitude of church functions for which Elena was responsible or involved in.

She negotiated all the many tasks without ever disturbing Nash and Tori who sat with an elaborate science project, working on the other half of the dining room table.

“Mom, did you get the baking powder for our models?”

“Oh, yes, it’s in here somewhere.” Elena began to search through the remainder of the half-put away groceries. Tori jumped up to help find the baking powder and gestured at the onions and green peppers she pulled out of the bag.

Tori held the onions before them, as if a sight to behold. “Did you know ancient Egyptians used to place their right hand on onions when taking an oath?”

Barry entered the dining room through the pass door from the kitchen, several congregants following him, all holding their Bibles.

“Sweetie, can you put on some coffee?”

Elena glanced over, nodded politely at Barry and his followers. “Sure.”

“Do you have any idea why?” Tori continued, looking at the onions.

“Thanks babe.” Barry squeezed in a quick kiss. “Sorry I didn’t call first, but you know how it goes.”

Sure she did. She glanced around the room. This is how it always went. Her serving the needs of others, which she was happy to do.
It’s just…it’s just what?

“Do you know why?” Tori asked for what must have been the third time.

Elena shook her head acting interested.

“It was a symbol for eternity.”

Elena glanced around her. God forbid this was her eternity.

*

Peyton sat in glorious hues of sunset gold as she held her mother’s hand. She was sleeping peacefully. She was about to nod off herself when Margaret entered the room, dressed in an indigo blue cocktail dress and her diamond studs, blond hair up in a classy chignon, holding her favorite “to die for clutch.” She had made her grand entrance, about to do a twirl about when she stopped and the effervescent smile disappeared from her face.

She took one look at Peyton, shook her head. “Oh, God. You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Didn’t you get my messages? I texted you three times,” Peyton returned.

“Right.”

“I told you if she wasn’t doing well I wouldn’t be able to go.” Peyton glanced at her mother. “Look at her.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard it all before.” Margaret was about to stomp off, but stopped, and actually looked at Peyton’s mother. Her face softened at what she saw. “Well, part of me thinks you had no desire to go in the first place…I know how much you love these socia

Peyton grinned ruefully. “I just want to be near her…for as long as…”

“I’m not sure why…she gave you so much grief.”

“Maybe,” Peyton sighed, “maybe that’s just all part of it… but she also gave me…”

“What?…What did she give to you that was so damn wonderful, Peyton?”

Margaret walked to Peyton put a hand on her shoulder. They shared a moment of silence, Margaret smiled in sympathy, then latched onto Peyton’s watch, twisted it toward her so that she could see. “Well, I suppose this means I’m escorting myself to the fundraiser. You know Peyton, people are going to begin to wonder if I’m available.”

Peyton stood up, absentmindedly kissed Margaret goodbye. “I’ll make it up to you. In the meantime, do your best to put the rumor to rest.”

*

Elena walked down the winding trail of the large and endless park, meandering as slowly as she could. She had found the Russian Gardens park many years ago, shortly after she had Nash. It was a bit of a drive, but because the park was apparently not well known, very few people ever seemed to gather at a time, it was never overcrowded. Elena used to bring Nash daily and wheel him about in the stroller. Yes, it was off a difficult turn and she had only found it because she had gotten lost one day, but she had considered it a small bit of luck, almost sort of like it was fate, finding this park, because it had been a day when she and Barry had had one of their most furious squabbles and finding this place was like a sign that as long as she could sort out her thoughts, come to grips with her reality through the wooded paths, long open fields and extraordinary views, she could get through anything.

She sighed. This was her one place of refuge. She didn’t want her stroll to end. When it did it meant she would have to return to the house.

*

Peyton sat on a bench near a tree. She simply needed a place where she could be alone. No mom. No nurse. No Margaret. She read a few pages of
Understanding Alzheimer’s,
put the book down, closed her eyes.

A shiver crawled up her spine. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Almost panic-stricken. She wondered if her mother was okay.

She got up to get rid of whatever was threatening to envelop her, and left her book behind.

*

Elena had strolled to the far end of the park. She saw the book on the bench. No one was nearby. She wandered over to it. Looked down, saw the title
Understav>
Undnding Alzheimer’s.

She glanced around, then picked it up. She held it for a long moment. She didn’t know why, but she was certain the person who had left it would return. She set it back upon the bench, straightened it out, frowned a moment wondering if the owner was coming up from behind her, but when she turned she saw nothing. No one.

As she continued to walk out of the park and to her car, she felt a chill go up her spine.

     “...We were caught together as young boys. Outcasts, ridiculed. Where we come from, Gay will not be tolerated. It is punishable by death.” Rashid, a middle-aged Middle Eastern man, looks sympathetically at his lover, a younger, gentle-faced man who shares his ethnicity. Iranians.
     “Our families...they kept us apart for ten years…” The younger of the two chokes back tears as he remembers. “We lost one another, lost track. Each of us tried to move on with our lives—later when we shared stories, we both discovered we had promised in our heads that we would forget, but would then quickly promise afterwards—in our hearts—we would not.”
     They glance at each other. The deep love that fills the space between them is palpable.
     “Then one day, I’m in the airport, heading to London to go to school. I see the back of Rashid’s head—from across an entire airport. But I know—I know it is him.”
     “I turned as if I had no control over my body. I turned and saw...” The younger Iranian looks to his lover, his eyes well up with tears, “...him...this beautiful man who I...love.”
     “We left everything.” Rashid brushes a hand over his lover’s. “Our lives started that day, fifteen years ago. And we’ve never looked back.”
     Tyler stops his camera. Walks up to the one of the Iranians leans down to face him and looks into his eyes, with tears in his own.

September 19

As Barry fucked her Elena wondered about hoping too much, hoping too hard. That maybe you couldn’t force things, that maybe people were only allotted the children in life they were meant to have, and to complicate it by using fertility methods, to try as hard as she and Barry had been trying to have another baby, simply was fighting the impossible. Fighting against what was right or meant to be. And maybe, it was simply a righting of wrongs.

She shook herself back into her reality, opened her eyes briefly and watched Barry’s face, saw his jaw line tethered in concentration as he continued to move himself closer to orgasm, and then wondered vaguely whether she would enjoy sex more with another man, but immediately dismissed the idea. She did care for Barry. He was a kind and gentle man, and even now, while he rutted her, she could tell by the way he was preparing to come that he wanted her to be with him. She put a gentle hand to his shoulder as he climaxed, felt his saliva near her ear as he came saying the same thing he had said a thousand times, until it stung her ear, “I love you, El…”

Panting he shifted his weight upon her, and she felt him withdraw, felt the driplets of semen against her thigh and hoped that whatever essence had withdrawn with him wasn’t supposed to make a baby.