Instant Love (14 page)

“She says she loves me,” said Melanie quietly. “She wants to take care of me.”

“
Loves you
loves you? Or just loves you?”

“Both. Well, the first one. I don’t know.”

“Do you love her?”

“She says she loved me right away, the minute she saw me she had to have me, that’s what she says. That I energize her. Bring her to life.”

I traced the shape of a heart with my finger in the dirt.

“I don’t know what else to do right now but to let someone love me. It’s better than not being loved at all, don’t you think?”

I didn’t know what to say to my friend. I knew that I was supposed to open my mouth and wisdom, preferably of the sage variety, should effortlessly tumble out. That’s not my strong suit, though. I know that there are a handful of things to be admired about me. I am pleasant to look at, even with twenty extra pounds on me. I can be funny and I can be direct in an inoffensive way and people seem to trust me right away, think I look like a nice girl. I have an even tone to my voice. I am a natural blond.

But I am the first to admit I have many more limitations. I am selfish, I am that spoiled child that my husband likes to call me. I am smart but not smart enough to have foresight. When I took the truck and left the sedan, it was a major act of triumph for me, and one that was inspired mainly by a television commercial for 4X4s. I had to really think about it. I don’t like to think that hard too often. You would think I could help a friend, that my back would be strong because I am young and healthy. But my back is actually weak, because I have never had to use it before, not once. I have never lifted a heavy object, and I certainly have never had to carry someone who needed my help.

I could have fought for her. I could have told her that she was loved, not just by me, but by many other people. That she shouldn’t fear being alone. That I was her friend, and I would take care of her. But in reality she didn’t have too many friends in the first place, and she’d have even fewer left as soon as they found out she was shacked up with some middle-aged lady on this hippie island. And I wasn’t doing much better at taking care of myself; how much could I offer to her?

Instead I said, “Did you lose weight? You really do look great.”

AFTER A FEW DAYS
of clean air—I returned home the morning of Bitsy’s return because Melanie thought it would be easier that way, and I suppose she was right; I wouldn’t have to report back a thing because if I didn’t see her, she didn’t exist—I headed back to the city, to my apartment, to my life. While Melanie had clean air all around her, the air in my home was now polluted. When I left, the house had been quiet and (I thought) clean. When I returned, I discovered the remains of my marriage had turned. Our marriage was now sour milk, moldy bread, and unpaid bills, stacked high in a corner. And I was the only one left to clean it up, because Will was gone, for good as it turned out.

With him he took: the contents of the bottom three drawers of our bedroom chest, and the rest of his side of the closet; all of his shoes from the front closet, his favorite umbrella, and his rain gear; the fancy espresso machine and the French press that we got as a wedding present from his boss, plus some silverware we got from his rich aunt from San Francisco; books, tons of them, all of them, really, because I’m not much for reading; the gray suede couch he used for his Sunday naps, and the television set, the combination DVD/VCR player, the CD player, the speakers, and the entertainment center that had housed all of them. We had bought all of those last items new in the last year. I was bummed they were gone.

What he left behind was: my clothes; the rest of the kitchen appliances and flatware, including the coffee machine, for which I was grateful because I always favored drip coffee; as well as the kitchen table and chairs, the bedroom chest, the beautiful wooden bed frame and all the bedding (except, strangely, for one pillow); the big red leather chair I bought with my Christmas bonus two years ago; all of our photo albums, which sat on the otherwise empty bookshelves; and the table near the front door, the oversized glass ashtray that sits upon it, and all of the change contained within it.

I looked for a note in the ashtray and also on the refrigerator, which he used for note-leaving sometimes. There was none. I sat on the couch and stared at the space where the entertainment center used to be. I realized I would be driving the truck from now on because of the decision I had made a few days previous, and now I had to live with it. The wrong car, I thought to myself. I picked the wrong car. I’m stuck now. I’m stuck. I made the wrong decision. I am completely stuck.

HE KNOWS A LOT
of old jokes, she’s heard them all before. She wants to hear new jokes. He wants her to cook more, look at all of these appliances; she wants him to try just a little harder to make her laugh. If you could just try a little harder. Just try to be interesting. Do something.

I
cut a man once, she tells her husband. She says this after they’ve been married for two years, and he’s certain he already knows everything about her. This is just her way of letting him know: Boy, were you wrong.

I cut him right here. She slid her finger sharply across his upper thigh, near the groin. I slashed him. She is sitting straight up, neck and head held high, no pretense, no guise, just her.

Maggie, come on. You did no such thing. His wife is the nicest woman he knows.

I did, too, Robert.

And when did this alleged felony occur?

Robert has been watching too much
Law & Order,
she thinks.

The summer before my junior year of college, she says. I went a little crazy.

THAT SUMMER,
her father made her live with him in Evanston, in a huge, dusty rented house with wood floors and walls so dark and cool, she felt like she was living in an icebox. He was running a writing program as he did every summer, at a school there. He was a famous writer who led a fancy, famous life that she and her older sister, Holly, were usually absent from because he had abandoned them when they were young and moved to California.

But once a year he would be somewhere wonderful, usually on the West Coast, and they would join him, and it was always exciting because there was an ocean! And blue skies! And there was silence, too, and wide expanses of land and trees and sand that were so enormous and inspirational that Maggie and Holly would forget for exactly three months that they were supposed to hate their father. They would nestle together under the stars at night, in his backyard, and talk about their favorite constellations, while their father was off screwing one of his students.

Evanston was not California. Evanston had a lot of trees, but the houses were too close together, and flaccid Lake Michigan was a poor substitute for the untamed, wild beauty of the Pacific Ocean. Evanston made Maggie want to nap all day long.

It was the last summer she was supposed to live with him—her sister, Holly, had already made it out of the system with a self-financed trip to Europe; she sent weekly postcards from beautiful cities, each one reporting both a major work of art she had seen and how many beers she had drunk the night before—and every day, every meal, every conversation with her father made Maggie feel like she had some sort of terminal illness, that she was slowly being killed by a potent and painful boredom. But as she kept most of her feelings inside—mostly because it was more fun in there, but also because she was never proven wrong that way—that boredom turned liquid, like pus inflating a sore.

AND THEN HE
made me get a job, she says now to Robert. He wanted me to be an assistant at the English Department. Staple papers. Make copies. File. Or he said he could get me a job doing research for a friend of his doing a book on feminist iconography in contemporary music.

Robert raises his eyebrows.

Madonna, she says.

That actually sounds fun, honey, he says. You didn’t want to do that?

I didn’t want to do anything he wanted me to do, she says. Exasperated, like: you should know how I feel about him by now. She feels like stinging today.

SHE GOT A JOB
waiting tables at a country club within walking distance of their house. She had to wear a black polyester dress with a white collar as a uniform. There were tiny black buttons down the front that buttoned nothing, they just hung off the dress. She was told to wear her hair back, so she fastened her thick auburn hair with silver Goody barrettes she bought at the 7-Eleven. She bought black flats with comfortable soles and a dozen packs of tan nylons at Payless. And then she went next door, to the makeup outlet shop, and bought a tube of frosted pink lipstick.

When she walked downstairs the first morning for work, her father said, “Jesus Christ, I didn’t send you to Princeton so you could look like the fucking maid.”

HE HAD A POINT,
says Robert.

Maggie stares at him. Lately, each time he opens his mouth he makes her love him less and less. She is trying to decide if he is doing this on purpose or if she is just now realizing for the first time how much he sucks.

Nothing wrong with a little hard work, she says. You can’t argue with that.

SHE TOOK THE
lunch shifts that summer, waiting on the wives and children of the members who were too lazy to cook their own grilled cheese sandwiches at home. The wives, some older, some younger, were sharp-tongued and particular, and most days operated with a fierce sense of entitlement. Maggie was someone to do their bidding (Never fast enough, never perfectly, they would sigh, as she brought them their food), and consistently neglected to thank her. Their children were better mannered and more respectful—they at least occasionally thanked her for her service—but Maggie still found them wasteful; they ordered food just to take one bite, they heaped out gobs of ketchup they would never use, and they often ordered sugary drink after sugary drink, until Maggie was certain their teeth would turn brown before her eyes. She was silent throughout all of this. She already knew how to keep her mouth shut, keep her thoughts inside. Now she was learning how to focus those thoughts into a particular kind of rage.

She also learned how to fold napkins in the shape of swans and fans. And she learned how to carry large trays loaded with hot plates flat on her palm. She would glide elegantly through the spacious main dining room, stare out through the wall of windows at the view of the golf course she wasn’t welcome to visit, and never drop a thing. She never spilled when refilling water glasses and coffee mugs, as much as she would have liked to sometimes, right on their spoiled laps. Instead she totaled bills quickly and got people out the door so that they could enjoy their day on the links or at the pool.

Have a good game, she would say. Don’t forget to use sunblock.

She was also instructed to memorize everyone’s names so that she could greet them properly. Hello, Mrs. Pollack. Good afternoon, Mrs. Greenhill. Iced tea, Mrs. Hornstein? She was horrible at this, but they never remembered her name, either, and she was the one wearing a name tag.

Her boss, Eugene, noticed her poor memory, and called her into a meeting one day after her lunch shift. Eugene terrified her. He always put his arm around her and acted like they were buddies, but deep down she knew he hated everything about the country club, including the people who worked for him. At any moment he could turn on you.

He had a shaggy porn-star mustache and wore three-piece suits in crazy colors like maroon and honey. He thought he was psychic. He always asked everyone what their sign was and when they told him, he would say something like, “You are
such
a Scorp!” He claimed his boyfriend was psychic, too, so look out, world. Maggie wondered if they even needed to utter any words out loud at all when they were together, or if they just sat there, reading each other’s minds.

In his office, he was gentle with her.

“Not everyone has that skill set. You have other talents,” he said.

Maggie pictured herself shaving off his mustache with a straight razor. She was nicking him, and blood was slipping forth from his skin and dripping down his face in tiny droplets.