If You Could See What I See (16 page)

On the other hand . . .

Decisions have to be made, and I make them. If they go well, we all take the credit. If they go poorly, it’s on my head. Sometimes I think we get bogged down in discussions and “hearing everybody’s opinions,” and these squishy feel-good attitudes at work, where there are meetings for the meetings, consensus building, and other time-wasting junk.

I don’t operate like that.

I don’t have the time or the patience, and right now the company absolutely doesn’t have it, either. I expect people here to eventually settle down, even if they don’t agree with my decision or Grandma’s, be professional, and back me and the company.

I’ve known many of these people for years, some for decades. I think they’re talented and hardworking. The ones who weren’t hardworking I’ve fired since I’ve been here. I’m considering firing another person because she gossips, something I try to smash down. I’m cutting payroll by cutting out people who aren’t cutting it.

To me, this is a business, not a charity. If people are lazy or negative or incompetent or too difficult, they’re out. Someone else would love the job.

Yes, I have been told that I’m demanding and exacting. So what? I’m not Santa.

That said, meetings—with all the noise, hoopla, emotions, people not staying on track—can drive me absolutely out of my head.

Especially ones with Tory and Lacey.

 

“We need to talk about the fashion show,” I told Tory and Lacey. I had already made a list of what we needed to do. My intimidating list included, but was certainly not limited to, finding a place, building a runway, advertising, invitations, the decor, lighting, choosing the lingerie the models would wear, finding models, organizing the show itself, getting the music, affording it . . .

“We’re absolutely going to do this?” Lacey asked. She was wearing a lime green maternity dress, snug and stylish.

I sat back in my chair at the table in my office, my boring white tennis shoes crossed in front of me. I noticed they had dirt on them. I tried to care about that. Nope. Couldn’t do it. “Yes, we are.”

“Tell me again why?” Tory asked. She had on pink stilettos, a black midthigh skirt, a low-cut pink satin blouse, and one of our burgundy negligees from the Delicate Devil line. It reminded me again of how outstanding our products are. We simply needed to get ourselves, our brand, and our message out there more.

“We need to use this as a marketing tool,” I said. “It has to be different from anyone else’s fashion show. It’s our anniversary celebration.”

“I feel nauseated,” Lacey said, already off topic. “Why do we have to be sick when pregnant? We’re supposed to procreate, right, so why does our body rebel?”

“You sure procreate a lot,” Tory drawled.

“I like kids.”

“Kids are noisy.”

“The fashion show?” I interjected.

“How would you know if my kids are noisy or not? You hardly come over and visit us—”

“That’s because I’m hardly ever invited except if it’s a holiday or birthday and Mom and Grandma are there, too.” I saw Tory’s eyes mist, but she stuck her chin out farther. “It’s not like I get a special invitation. Just me.”

“I invited you for years to come by yourself and you hardly ever did.” Lacey slapped the table with her hands, her face flushed. “The kids don’t even know you that well—”

“That’s because you say bad things about me to them, so I know they don’t like me—”

“I do not say bad things about you, Tory, to my kids.” She stabbed a finger at her. “Never have I done that.”

“I’ve never heard Lacey say anything bad about you to her kids, Tory,” I said. “We need to talk about the location and lighting. I think that—”

“You haven’t made me a part of your family, Lacey. I’m like the ogre aunt. The mean one. Sharp teeth. Eats children.”

And there was the crux of the problem. Tory was hurt because she didn’t feel a part of Lacey’s family, and Lacey was hurt because Tory didn’t make more of an effort. I leaned back and muttered, “Here we go.”

“You’re not a part of my family because you don’t want to be. I feel like you don’t love my kids!” Lacey said, her voice wobbling. “How do you think that makes me feel? And that skirt barely covers your butt!”

Tory’s temper flew up ten notches. “Maybe you should have covered your butt so you wouldn’t be pregnant for a fourth time.”

“I like to ride my husband like a damn horse. Maybe if you rode your husband like a damn horse more often he would have wanted you to stick around.”

Bad call.

Tory’s face lost color instantly.

Lacey put both hands up and said, “I’m sorry, Tory. That was mean, uncalled for, awful. I’m a wicked pregnant witch. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I said. They were about ready to cry. “You are both being way too mean—”

“You don’t know a thing about my marriage, Lacey!” Tory stood up and hit the table with her fists. “Nothing. Not a thing. You’re a mother to an army of brats—”

Another bad call. “This is gonna get nasty,” I muttered to myself.

“They are not brats!” Lacey was on her feet, too, Mother Bear roaring. “They’re just strange and troublesome. Cassidy can’t keep her pants on and Hayden believes he’s a girl and Regan collects animals like they’re stamps, but they are not brats.” My sister shook that same finger at Tory and charged at her around the table. “Take it back!”

“You take it back that I don’t ride Scotty like a horse, because I do!”

It went from there. Like a bonfire.

I lost another mannequin.

“Any chance we could talk about the fashion show?”

No. Clearly not. I started answering e-mails.

 

Regan arrived at my house about ten o’clock the next night, awash in tears, a gray, scruffy-looking cat in his arms.

“Honey, what are you doing here? It’s late.”

“What a relief. You’re up. This is a bad day. I snuck out of the house to see you. There’s been a disaster! You have to rescue this poor cat for me, Aunt Meggie. It’s a stray. Our neighbor was going to take it to the pound, but the pound will kill it.” The waterworks flowed. “I don’t want him to die.”

“Come on in.” The cat made a hissing sound at me. “Whoa. That’s a hissy sort of cat.”

“Jeepers does that because he’s unhappy. I named him Jeepers because when I heard he was going to the pound I said, ‘Oh, jeepers! He’s lonely. He doesn’t have a family to love him.’ ”

“He has your family.”

“No,” Regan moaned, his whole animal world shattering. “He doesn’t. Mom said no more cats. I think she’s being mean. Cats are friendly. Smart thinkers. They don’t make a mess, and you have a cat door here, too. He can go in and out when you’re at work.”

“Honey, I don’t want a cat. I’m hardly here.”

He plopped down in the middle of my floor and stroked the hissing cat, hugging him close in his huge arms. “Please, Aunt Meggie. Please. All houses need a friendly cat to be a home.”

“Who told you that?”

“No one. It’s what I feel inside.” He tapped his aching heart. “Right here in my gut.”

I sat down beside him. “I’ll think about it. Want something to eat?”

His face showed his gratitude. “Yes, thank you. Mom doesn’t feed and water me enough.” He said this in all seriousness. “Tonight there was only spaghetti, salad, peaches, garlic bread, and apple pie.”

“How about a club sandwich and milk?”

“That’d be great. My stomach is all rumbly from starving.”

I made him a sandwich. Good thing I had the meat. I like my club sandwiches with crackers and pickles, but I left those out for Regan.

“How’s school, Regan?”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t get math. It’s sooo hard. And science is hard and English Lit is hard and history has all these dates and the dates get scrambled up in my head like a bad puzzle. I have to study a lot and the other kids seem to understand everything. Cassidy and Hayden are so smart. They have to help me all the time and quiz me, and it doesn’t”—he pointed at the back of his head—“it doesn’t stick in my brain good. But this cat, I think if he lived here you would wake up with a smile on your face.”

“You think so, Regan?”

“Yes. I know it.”

It hissed.

“He doesn’t like me.”

“He does. I can tell by the way his ears are moving. He’s loyal and has a loving personality. Please, Aunt Meggie,” he whispered. He held the cat up so we were nose to nose. “Please?”

He hissed at me.

His name is Jeepers.

I am still waiting to see the loving personality.

 

The next day I saw a black Corvette. I knew it wasn’t Aaron’s, I knew he wasn’t in it, but I followed it anyhow, all the while acknowledging that this part of my brain was filled with mucky holes and pits of delusions.

I pulled up beside the Corvette and peered in. There was an Asian man driving. He looked at me and smiled.

I smiled back, shaky, sick, weak.

I knew that the Corvette was what triggered my nightmare that night.

Aaron wrapped a huge, human-sized Baggie around me. He filled it with detergent so I couldn’t breathe, then stuffed sponges down my throat. He dragged me to the closet by my hair, climbed to the top shelf, and threw that thing I was hiding from myself down at me. It turned into a knife and landed in my cheek.

I woke up in bed with my face covered in something wet. In the darkness, I thought it was blood.

In a semi panic I slipped down the ladder, landed hard, and ran to the bathroom, tripping once, sure my cheek was bleeding.

There was no blood on my face, only tears.

Only tears.

I have acknowledged that I am not completely mentally well.

 

By the end of the first year I was having serious doubts about my marriage, which I worked hard to smother. Aaron and I tried to work together on another film. It was on young prostitutes in Las Vegas. It did not go well. I could not do anything right, at least in Aaron’s eyes.

“Why did you shoot that scene at that angle? . . . Too close, Meggie . . . let me do it . . . you are not in charge of this production . . . your sound is off . . . bad choice of cameraman . . . I know far more about the art and the science of filmmaking . . . follow me, and learn what I teach you, so I don’t have to reteach you . . . damn it . . . this looks fake, ridiculous, boring.”

Halfway through the film he crashed and refused to get out of bed. He wore that black rat T-shirt for a week, straight through.

I finished the film. I worked all day, came home at night, and listened to him rant.

He said I was, “Taking over the production . . . let me see what you did today, that’s shitty footage . . . you can’t think that’s going to win awards . . . I’ll fix it in editing. Damn, that’s bad . . . there’s no honesty in your work . . . it looks like it’s been Photoshopped. It needs more grit, what is this, Sleeping Beauty meets Jack the Pimp?”

I would make dinner, and listen to him rave, as he pushed his long black curls out of his face. I used to think the curls and black feather were so avant-garde, so stylish; now I saw them as his desperate attempt to look avant-garde and stylish. He even bought new black feathers now and then, to “uphold the image.”

We argued endlessly, and after a while I gave up. There was no resolution. I was always wrong. He ended the arguments by shouting me down.

We went back to Los Angeles.

I hated it.

I craved Oregon like I craved air.

We lived in a dark, cheap apartment in an unsafe neighborhood. Aaron’s moods were unpredictable, like flash floods and tornadoes that came out of nowhere. Aaron alternately freaked out, fell into depression, or ran on optimum speed on a highway of energy and electricity. He would be fine one week, working and egomaniacal, and crying his heart out the next. He would self-medicate with alcohol, and then prescription pills, for a “back injury.”

“It’s either prescription pills for all my pain or pot. Take your pick, Meggie.” He flicked his black feather back over his shoulder. I grew to hate his black feather.

I was livid about the drinking and the pills. Aaron drank now and then when we dated. I never saw a pill.

He slammed his fist into walls one night after his mother, Rochelle, paid us a surprise visit.

She was drunk and obnoxious, a monster of a woman, shaped like a short pear. She had huge, pendulous boobs that stuck out to the side and jiggled. Her brown hair was cut like a dead beaver on her head. They launched into a screaming argument, and she threw three plates and called him a “bad, neglectful son who lies about things that never happened, you never told me anyhow, it was your sick imagination.” Aaron said, “You’re a lousy, drunken bitch. You sacrificed me for him. You put me on a platter and handed me over with a knife and fork . . .”

Their relationship was a cauldron of resentment, secrets, and rage. He did not want to talk about it, but I began to understand.

After her visit he became even more irrational. He was arrested for driving under the influence. He crashed his car in another incident. I insisted he go to a doctor, a psychiatrist. He refused. I started thinking about leaving him, but I couldn’t do it. Divorce was a failure. I could not fail.

I felt like I was living with my hands over my head. I worked as much as I could. When I arrived home, it was like entering a damp cave where black rats launched themselves at me, their claws scraping, an iron door locking me inside.

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