I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway (22 page)

We are staying in an adorable (and empty, except for us) bed and breakfast. The owners are loaning us the room as a favor to Paul’s friend, and we are happily taking them up on it. I don’t even feel guilty that there are no other guests here, which is probably just because it’s a Monday.

After sex, Paul and I walk to a cute coffee place down the street. It’s been a week since I’ve seen him, and it’s nice just to be back in his presence. I’m a softer, more subdued person around him. I’m not totally sure why this is, but I guess that it has something to do with the fact that he is quite manly and dominating. He has a big voice
and hair on his chest, and for whatever reason, he brings out the submissive in me. The most interesting thing is how much I like it.

“You know what we need for this video?” he says.

“What?”

“One of those backdrops with a forest of trees. You know, it’s like a giant photograph? Totally cheesy seventies,” he says excitedly.

“I remember those!”

“Can you call around and see if you can find one? You should be able to get one from a professional photo-supply store.”

“Sure,” I say. “I can do that.” Feminism be damned, again.

I’m a strong woman who is used to being the dominant partner in my relationships. How many boyfriends have accused me of being domineering? The same number who have said what a great lawyer I would have made. Which is to say, all of them. My last boyfriend left me over it, in fact. To be honest, I’ve always felt guilty about my need-slash-tendency to wear the pants in a relationship, and it’s kind of a relief to be with a man who is
no way in hell
going to let me boss him around.

Paul and I spend the day side by side, carrying out a zillion little tasks related to the shoot. We are never better than when we are traveling or when we have a project to focus on, and now we’re doing both. It’s heaven. By the end of the day, there’s a sense of being totally in sync, totally connected. Even the pop asteroid notices, and she’s completely self-involved.

“You guys are so good together,” she says.

We look at each other and smile. It’s true. We are really good together. People say it about us all the time.

As dusk settles in, the skies open up into the kind of torrential downpour that never happens in the summer in Southern California. Where the heat and the humidity build up into such a stifling thickness that there is no way out but thunder and lightning and rain. It’s glorious.

Paul and I are just getting out of the car when the clouds burst, but rather than running inside we stand there, embracing each other
while the warm water washes down. It’s similar to that moment in Stanley Park; we really feel as one.

After a long kiss—there’s so much
steam
between us—he looks at me. For a long time.

Oh, my god. He’s gonna ask me to marry him
.

Then he does.

He says, “Do you ever think of getting married again?”

All I can do is nod for a couple of seconds. I don’t really want to say anything, because it might break this feeling and this feeling is so pure and perfect. I used to be afraid of this kind of intensity—the sheer force of actually getting what you want. It makes me understand why most people never have their dreams come true. They’re afraid. Of this. Finally, I am able to speak. “Yeah, I do,” I say.

He looks at me for a long moment. “Will you marry me?” He says it with the emphasis on “me,” not “marry.”

I can’t believe I’m hearing these words. I know that sounds absurd since I’ve already been married twice before. But the first time, I never really was
proposed
to in the classic sense of the word. Marriage was more of a decision we arrived at together. And then only at my urging. The second time I did hear the actual words, but it wasn’t like this! I was pregnant, so it felt like it was something he had to do.

This
feels like my life has finally landed where it was supposed to be all along.
This
is what I imagined as a girl it would feel like to hear those words. Like the most handsome, most talented, richest, best man in the land has just chosen me to come live in the castle.

Any doubts I have, about Paul, about myself, about the serious challenges we are already facing as a couple, are immediately wiped from my mind. Not as in forgotten-about wiped. As in the-universe-will-find-a-way-to-resolve-those-problems-for-us wiped. Because I’m still considering everything that happens after my prayer part of the answer to my prayer.

Which leaves me with only one thing to say:

Yes.

I THINK MY DAD IS DOING
crime again. I can tell by the tone of his voice. We’ve been close ever since we reconciled in my college years—he gave me money from time to time when I really needed it, and one time he even drove all the way out to Salt Lake to visit me (and ended up on a sort-of date with one of my friends; don’t ask me how). I’ve come to know him very, very well, even though I’m living in Portland, Oregon, now and most of our relationship is carried out on the phone.

But I’ll wager we do more “relating” over the phone than many family members do in a whole season’s worth of Tuesday-night debates over who should be the next American Idol. Maybe because we can’t be duped (or distracted) by facial expressions, or fashion choices, or whatever’s going on in the room. Like blind people whose ability to listen is heightened beyond the normal range, we listen between the (over the?) lines. We lean in really close.

Over the phone.

And now I’m hearing some things, between the lines, that I don’t want to hear. My dad’s been dropping definite hints that he’s back in the game. It’s almost like he
wants
me to know.

“How’s everything?” I ask him.

“Yeah, well. Good.” He says “good” like he’s considered it and he’s come to the conclusion that “good” is a true answer—at least for the time being. “I got a couple of things going on. Nothing major.”

I know what “things going on” means—it means some kind of criminal activity—and I find it alarming. But we’re on the phone, so there’s only so much I can say. In case the FBI is listening.

“You know you can’t just think you’re just gonna just do…
whatever
…and just…” I search for words that will communicate what I mean—“commit crimes and
not
go to jail”—but without incriminating him. In case the FBI is listening. “And just be
fine,
” I say, putting a heavy emphasis on the word “fine.” “If you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, little gyurl,” my dad says reassuringly. “Don’t you worry about me; I know what I’m doing.”

Now I’m really worried. My heart rate is climbing like that of a white person on Mount Everest, and I have a terrible spinning sensation. Because if my dad says he knows what he’s doing, then that means he’s done it before. And if he’s done it before, then one thing is for sure: it didn’t turn out well.

“You know they’ll catch you, right? You
know
they’ll catch you. That’s what they do! The whole system is set up to catch you.” Fuck incrimination. I don’t care if the FBI
is
listening. Freddie needs to understand that there is no way he’s going to get away with anything. It just doesn’t work like that. The FBI can play this tape in court for all I care…

BEGIN FLASH-FORWARD

INT. COURTROOM—DAY

The PROSECUTOR (early forties, a Sam Shepard type—except with good teeth) produces an audiocassette tape like it’s the proverbial smoking gun.

(The prosecutor hands the tape to an ASSISTANT D.A. [a comely, ambitious late twenties woman], who loads it into a tape deck and presses “play.”)

TRACY’S VOICE

You know they’ll catch you, right? You
know
they’ll catch you. That’s what they do! The whole system is set up to catch you. They never rest. They just wait, watching, for you to do whatever it is that you always do, and then when you take your eye off the ball for one second, BOOM! They’re right there. Isn’t that how it works? You know that’s how it works. Admit it!

FREDDIE’S VOICE

Now, now, little gyurl. Your dad is smarter than that. Maybe they could get me back then…but I’m a smart fellow and I’ve learned what I needed to know to stay one step ahead. Besides, if you know the right people, it doesn’t matter
what
you’re doing…

END FLASH-FORWARD

I can’t stand talking to my dad when he gets delusional. When he insists that everything’s going to turn out fine, that he’s got it all under control, that he’s going to outsmart the Drug Enforcement Agency. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t stop him from thinking what he thinks, even if I know it’s bullshit. If he was here, sitting in front of me, I would probably start making arguments—pulling out different facts, bringing forth examples of past behavior—trying to make him see that there is no way in hell he’s going to get away with any significant criminal enterprise. He’s too much a recidivist, and the police are too constant a presence. It is plainly obvious to any outsider that if you commit crimes for long enough, you
will eventually get caught
. It’s like being in a Las Vegas casino or shopping at Whole Foods. If you stay in there long enough, you
will end up broke.

Period.

The conversation is over. I see the writing on the wall. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I hang up and call my friends. It’s Saturday night and three hours from now, if I drink enough, I’ll have forgotten all about this.

I’VE BEEN IN PORTLAND
almost two years. I came here with my now ex-boyfriend Michael after a long postgraduation stint on the sofa, which involved a lot of frustration and many ounces of weed. Michael is one of the best friends I’ve ever had, but our relationship was pretty much doomed from the very beginning.

Two words: He’s. Gay.

I’m not even mad he didn’t figure it out sooner, because without him I’d probably still be getting baked on Almond Street. And I had to get out of Salt Lake. Going to college there is one thing—you’re kind of insulated from the fact that you’re not Mormon—but as soon as you get out into the world (i.e., try to find a job) it becomes terribly apparent that you smoke, and drink, and in my case, are divorced and are having sex outside of marriage. (With a hasn’t-quite-figured-it-out gay guy, no less.) This puts you at a marked employment disadvantage since there are plenty of other candidates for the same job who don’t, won’t, haven’t been, and never would. (Or are and don’t know it.)

“Let’s move,” I say one day.

“Where?”

“I don’t care, anywhere!”

“Well, it needs to be somewhere I can get a job.” Michael is right. Especially since he’s the only person in this relationship who’s working right now.

“Where can you get a job?”

“Not Los Angeles. They don’t really hire out of Salt Lake. Somewhere smaller.”

Michael works as a television promos producer (
“Coming up tonight at eleven…something that’s not half as interesting as I’m trying to make it sound!”
) and the television business is organized by market size—generally the bigger the city, the harder it is to get a job and the more experience you need. If we could go somewhere that he could get a job
and
I could use my brand-new broadcast journalism degree…Well, that would be ideal.

“I hate San Diego. Too Republican. Too military,” I say.

“I love San Francisco,” Michael says. “But it’s still too big.”

“What about the Pacific Northwest?”

“I’ve never been there.”

“Me neither.”

“How about Seattle?”

“Edward lives there.” Edward is an old flame of mine who also had a bro-mance with Michael. (It was the eighties. Everyone was a little bit bi.) It’s a sore subject.

“Well, then. How about Portland?”

“I’ve never been there.”

“Me neither.”

“I heard it’s nice.”

“Me too.”

“Okay, then. Portland it is.”

Minutes later, it seems, we are rumbling over the Hawthorne Bridge in our white Chevrolet Caprice Classic, packed to the gills, our two cats furiously shedding fur in the backseat.

“So. This is Portland!” I say. It feels just like when Kenny and I drove into Salt Lake. I moved there sight-unseen, too.

“It looks like Mr. Rogers’s neighborhood,” Michael deadpans.

It really does. It has the cutest little train system, and an adorable downtown, and quaint little mountainy hills to the west. When it’s not raining, there are rainbows, and sunsets, and pine trees everywhere. What you can’t see is the chicken-fried steak and the level of gun ownership. I thought Portland was going to be all hippies in
Birkenstocks, but those hippies are just the blue chocolate chips in a very, very red cookie. Here, I am a black person again, whereas in Salt Lake, I was just a non-Mormon.

After six months of floundering, I finally land a job in TV news. It’s not that I wanted to work in TV. What I really wanted was a job that would allow me to smoke cigarettes, chat, and drink heavily at posh cocktail parties…you know, exploit my
real
talents. But no one pays you to do that. (Not in 1991. 2008? Different story.) So television it is.

I get hired to work as an associate producer on a light news program called
First at Four
. My big break comes just three months into the job. I am at home one night, stoned, watching
Twin Peaks,
when the phone rings. It’s the five o’clock newscast producer, Sid.

“You’re going to produce the
Four
tomorrow,” he informs me excitedly. News people love having news.

“What?!” I’m not sure I am hearing him correctly. Marijuana has a slight hallucinogenic effect that messes with my hearing. It’s why music sounds so good when you’re high.

Sid drops his voice. “Gary”—he’s talking about the
First at Four
show producer—“had an emergency. He’s going to be out for the next month. You’re going to have to jump in and take over the show. Starting tomorrow. But don’t worry, I’m going to help you.”

“Wow. Okay.”

Eighteen months later, I’m a newscast producer. I’m responsible for every aspect of the show—fifty-nine minutes and thirty seconds of airtime every day—where I decide on the order of the stories, I write all the lead-ins (
“Two people are dead after a big fire in northeast Portland tonight; reporter Joe Blow is there now with all the details. Joe?”
), and I take all the blame when the news anchors get pissed off. I’m not really cut out for this kind of work—for one thing, I’m not the most detail-oriented person and this job is a
festival
of details—but most nights I manage to slide into home base. Barely.

The news business has awakened my inner adrenaline junkie.
Live television is filled with risk—you’re working against outrageous deadlines, and it’s all do or die, or at least it seems to be, since if you miss your slot or make factual errors you’re certain to be fired sooner than later. This is the kind of risk I can enjoy taking, where the hair on the back of my neck stands on end every single day but I’m never actually in any physical danger.

As my star rises at work, it begins to fall at home. Michael and I settle into a narcotic routine of work and television and marijuana, with weekend binges at the bar and the disco. People ask me if I am going to marry him and—gay notwithstanding—I know I never will. It’s hard to pinpoint why, but I guess the simplest answer is he’s just way too committed to me for me to commit to him. There is something I have always been looking for in a man that I still haven’t found yet.

(Daddy.)

And so, I leave Michael.

Then he comes out of the closet. Which makes me feel a lot better about leaving him.

MY NEW BOYFRIEND LOOKS
like a movie star. His name is Brandon and his eyes are enormous splashes of blue sky, his hair is dark-dark-dark and tousled, his mouth is out of a fairy tale. He looks exactly like a thicker, more masculine Rob Lowe, but he hates it when people say that. He prefers to think he resembles Ray Liotta. Probably because he wants to be a gangster. Come to think of it, he looks way more like Snow White.

We meet when I look across a room—okay, a bar—and see the most amazing creature staring at me. Him. Looking like a supersexy satyr.

Is he staring at me?

Normally, receiving the amount of pure sexual attention Brandon is directing at me would send me scurrying away, but I guess all the
therapy I’ve had in the two months since Michael and I broke up is working, because I find myself doing the unthinkable. Walking across the room to talk to him.

“Hey.” He says it quickly but suggestively. He nods his head a little, then smiles r-e-a-l-l-y wide, showing a mouth full of perfect teeth the approximate size and shape of pieces of Dentyne Ice. “I’m Brandon.”

He’s wearing a leather motorcycle jacket, holding a motorcycle helmet, so it’s safe to say he rides a motorcycle. For a moment, we just look at each other. He shifts his weight from his left foot to his right, tapping his right heel on his left toe as he does it. I take this to mean he can dance.

“What’s your name?” His voice is slightly raspy but not quite as deep as the motorcycle jacket would suggest.

“Tracy.” I offer my hand to him. We shake. It’s intense. We make conversation, but it’s not that great. (Why is it that the guys you have the powerful sexual connection to are the guys with not that much to say?) The high point is when he tells me he’s always figured he would die by the age of twenty-three. Which, I guess, means he’s not twenty-three yet.

“How old
are
you?” I ask, laughing.

“Twenty-one.”

Oh boy.
“Insurance tables say if a guy lives past his twenty-third birthday, he is statistically likely to live out his natural life,” I say. This is the kind of thing you end up talking about in bars when you work in TV news. Not such sexy banter.

Who cares what he says in return? All that matters is that he’s taking my number and telling me he’s going to use it. “Call you tomorrow,” he says, in a way that makes me know he will.

Later that night, on the way home, my friend Beth says, “I would never, ever date Brandon.”

I think to myself:
Me neither. But I’m going to anyway.

By the end of our first date, he’s looking at me like he’s already in love.