Love Is Strange (I Know... #2) (14 page)

I was going to be a real mess in the morning.

It took me over two minutes to get moving and get into the truck. I slumped in the driver's seat of my old rusted out truck and slammed the door shut behind me. The cab lurches with the movement, which rubs my clothes against my wound in a painful way. I gritted my teeth as the pain began to take over everything. My shirt was sticking to my skin with thick liquid and I knew I was bleeding. Not too much, but enough. I winced as I worked at pulling my shirt out of my jeans. The wound wasn't too deep or too long, I didn't think. Just a flesh wound that hurt like a bitch. I gritted my teeth to keep from making too much noise when I finally dragged the thick cotton up over the wound. I tried to be careful, but it was impossible not to disturb the area. I could feel a thick drop running down my side and even though I couldn't see it, I knew it probably needed a few stitches. I gave myself a minute to collect myself before reaching over and probing the wound with my finger.

“Fuck,” I hissed to myself as the pain throbs through my brain. I felt the ragged edges where the bottle gauged into me. An inch long at least. My finger brushed a sharp glass shard and I blew out a low, slow breath before I pulled it out. I squeezed my eyes shut as the pain rushed through me fast and hot. I deserved it, I know. I was a piece of shit and I deserved whatever pain I got. I was lucky that I didn't get it worse. But that didn't mean it didn't make me want to bash someone's brains in to lessen the pain. I flicked the thick little piece of glass out the window and leaned back in the creaky vinyl seat in the old truck. As the pain ebbed, I couldn't help but think about Austin again. Austin was the last time I was truly happy, I realized. I had my house, I had my nice truck, I had my freedom. Before Joanie, I had everything I thought I wanted. But the second I saw her, none of it was enough.

I rolled my shirt back down over the wound and pressed my hand against it, even though the pressure hurt like a bitch. The windows in the truck were all fogged up from my breathing and I couldn't see out to the frozen ground in front of me. The harsh wind whooshed and whistled outside, making the truck rock slightly with each gust. For the longest time, I just sat there, even though I knew I had to get home and fix myself up.

It was never bleaker than at that moment.

“Joanie,” I whispered, leaning forward and pressing my forehead against the cold, molded steering wheel. “Look what you've done to me.”

Chapter Eleven

I
have to admit that I never really thought it would happen.

I never really thought that the day would finally come. I assumed something would happen, some catastrophe or some twist of fate or maybe just Mitch realizing that I wasn't who I was pretending to be. Or maybe I was hoping for someone else to intervene, someone I had never quite given up on. My mother put event announcements in Dallas, Seattle and Austin papers, at my request. I didn't know if he was still paying attention. I didn't know if he still cared. But I tried. I tried to send a message to him, somehow, because I was about to give myself to someone else. I was about to give up on him for good. I didn't know how much clearer it could be.

I was about to become another man's wife.

I sat in a chair in front of the mirror as they poked and prodded me, highlighted my cheekbones and filled in my lips and my brows. I sat as they curled my hair and sprayed it until it was hard to keep it from moving. I stood and let them help me into the heinously expensive but beautifully delicate wedding dress my mother and I had picked out months ago.  It was my first time seeing it in over a month, since my last fitting. I hadn't really been paying attention then. I'd been distracted with my mother's questions about the guest list and the flowers and the food and all the other things that filled my brain. But as my mother and my sister-in-law Rosalie buttoned all the tiny pearl buttons up my back, I finally looked at it. Really looked at it.

It wasn't bright white – I'd made sure not to get a white dress. A white dress was further than I was willing to go. I may be a liar, but that just felt disrespectful. It was a soft ivory, and the bodice fit me perfectly and was hand-beaded with seed pearls. The dress was flat in the front and fitted close to my hips and thighs, but the train was yards of billowy silk that was lined with beads that glittered in the light. My arms were left bare and dusted with a lightly shimmering powder. My hair cascaded in perfectly coiled curls down my back. My grandmother's emerald and diamond necklace was around my neck, highlighting the graceful line of my collarbones and my cleavage, perfectly boosted by the bustier my mother had insisted on. I stared at myself in the mirror as they fidgeted with me, fluffing my train, adjusting my hair.

I didn't look like myself at all. I looked like a bride in a movie – everything was too perfect. That was what my mother had planned of course. She'd hired the best makeup and hair artists and paid for the dress to be tailored within an inch of its life. This was her idea of a wedding. She wanted people to be in awe of me as I walked down the aisle. She wanted to parade me in front of everyone and let them know that I was her daughter. It was my own fault, of course. I'd given her complete freedom. Mitch had only requested that we serve salmon and that he didn't have to wear anything other than black and white. He was wrapped up in the construction of the house, which was almost finished. If everything went according to schedule, we would be able to move in when we got back from the honeymoon.

Everything was changing.

I couldn't deny it anymore. I couldn't pretend that I wasn't going to leave the condo that was filled with so many memories. I couldn't pretend that I wasn't going to be another man's wife. As soon as I walked down the aisle, I was giving up on Elliot. I was giving up my distant hope that he was going to come back for me. I didn't realize that I'd been hoping and praying for him to return until that very moment. I'd been putting it out of my mind, ignoring the longing and shoving it away. Ignoring how much I still wanted him. He wasn't in my dreams every night any more, but he was always there on the edge of sleep. I always was waiting to curl into his arms and wake up beside him.

I was still his slave.

“Countdown. We've got five minutes until aisle,” the wedding planner announced, poking his head into the room. “Bridesmaids, last looks then line up.” My mother checked her watch and I turned to my bridesmaids. My childhood best friends, Laura and Tonya, my cousins, Pilar and Julia, and my brother's wife Rosalie, stood before me, beautiful in rose gold satin knee-length dresses my mother had chosen. I'd been a bad friend to them, distant at times, downright unreachable at other times. But they were here now, on this most strange day of my life. I appreciated it.

“Tonya, your necklace is crooked,” my mother said. “Pilar, adjust your tatas.”

“Her tatas are fine, momma,” I said. “They all look perfect.” I held out my arms and hugged each of them quickly, trying not to linger too much in the cloud of perfume and makeup and hairspray that we created as we grouped together. I didn't want to cry and I ruin my makeup so I pulled away and waved at them as my mother shooed them out of the room to meet the wedding planner. I could hear the organ music echoing through the church when the door opened. Finally it was my mother and I alone, for the first time all day. I didn't look at her because I didn't want to see her face. I didn't want to see the emotion on her face, the mixture of joy and sadness and the signs of reminiscing about long-past times when I was just her little girl. I expected all of that, but it was still hard to face it head on. I didn't want to have all of those emotions inside of me. I didn't want to explode with feelings. I wanted to control it as much as I could.

If I started crying, I might never stop.

I'd spent too much time building the dam, I didn't want it to burst.

“I feel like sometimes I don't know you anymore,” she said and I couldn't stop myself from looking at her then even though I didn't want to. “Sometimes I look at you and I don't see my daughter. I don't see the little girl that used to play dolls under the kitchen table. I don't see the girl who used to fall asleep at the foot of our bed when she had nightmares.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I knew.

“You're so different,” she said, reaching out and adjusting my curls. Her long nails tickled the skin of my back. It reminded me of when I was a girl and she used to brush my hair before school. I felt the prickle of a tear in my eye and I wanted to pinch myself to make it go away. “I accept it. I accept that you want to live your own life. You may not think so, but I do.”

“I know, momma,” I said, my throat getting tight.

“I just wanted to thank you for letting me be a part of this,” she said. “I loved every minute of planning this wedding with you.”

“I didn't do anything,” I said. “You did it all.”

“I did not!” she scoffed, smacking me lightly on the arm. “I only helped. But that's not what I was trying to say.”

“One minute,” the wedding planner popped in again, carrying my bouquet. My eyes widened when I saw it. It was a big unwieldy thing, made of roses and lilies and sprigs of greenery. It looked heavy and it was. I held it in front of me, trying to figure out the best way to carry it. The photographer shot a quick blaze of photos, the shutter clicking around me. And then my father was in the doorway, tall and domineering in his black suit. He held out his arm and I took it, hooking my hand around his bicep. He was warm and solid, like always. He'd trimmed his mustache and shaved. He'd gotten a haircut. He looked ten years younger.

I couldn't let them down, I realized.

My family was expecting so much. I'd been running from their expectations for as long as I could remember and now I was stepping right into them, in an expensive dress and covered in flowers and gold dust. I was the princess that they'd always wanted me to be, getting married in the biggest Catholic church in Dallas, with hundreds of guests. I told myself I had to do it, I had to follow through. There was no other choice. But as the organ played the wedding march and my father accompanied me up the aisle, I could feel the panic rising. I smiled and nodded as I passed my relatives and my parents' friends, and Mitch's family and his colleagues and all the other people that I didn't even recognize.

I saw Mitch at the end of the aisle, standing with my brothers and his friends beside the priest. He was smiling and his eyes widened when he saw me. I knew he liked what he saw. I'd been fluffed and brushed and starved into the best version of myself. It was all fake, an illusion. The whole wedding was one beautiful, expensive illusion. But it felt very real as Mitch held out his hand for mine and I took it. I glanced back over my shoulder at the last moment, my eye settling on the huge double doors at the back of the church. For a long moment, I couldn't look away. I was waiting, even if I didn't want to admit it. I was marrying a dream man and I was given a dream wedding, but my eyes were on the door and I couldn't peel them away. Even as the ceremony started and we held hands and looked each other in the eye as the priest droned on, my attention was to the back of the church. As Mitch declared his undying love to me, I had one eye on the door, waiting for the man I hated the most in the world to come barging in. But Elliot never came.

There was no catastrophe.

There was no act of God.

Nothing stopped me from getting married, not even myself.

*****

We went to the Mediterranean for our honeymoon. We spent two weeks exploring the coast, taking our time as we travelled from Italy to Greece. In Santorini, we stayed out all night on the beach and watched the sunrise. We made love in the mornings, the afternoons, and the evenings. Whenever we felt like it. We ate good food and drank good wine. It was the best honeymoon I could've hoped for. Mitch was the best husband I could've hoped for. Life was the best I could've hoped for. And for a few months, I thought I could make it work.

When the new house was finished, I packed up my condo and moved across town to be with my husband. I filled out a change of address form with the post office and then I put it up for sale. There was a bidding war for the little bungalow and it sold in less than a week. I never went back there again.

Three months after the wedding, Mitch started bringing up children. He'd mentioned it several times before we got married, here and there, and I would say something to appease him because I wasn't really interested in the topic. I hadn't considered having children in a long time. My capacity for being a mother had fled my body a long time ago, as far as I was concerned. I didn't have enough feeling left for my family and my husband, how would I have enough for a baby? I didn't think I would make a good mother, no matter how much of a good father Mitch would make. He was relentless, though. The topic never went away. When we went to restaurants, there were children. In the new neighborhood where we'd moved into a big new house with a three-car garage and five bedrooms, there were children riding their bikes and scooters up and down the sidewalks. Everywhere I went, from the coffee house to the farmer's market, there was a baby, staring up at me with innocent eyes from an overpriced stroller.

It was a conspiracy.

I dodged the question for as long as I could, but I was getting it on all sides. My mother joined the baby train of course, hinting and asking every chance she got. I learned to give careful answers. Never give an exact timeframe. Always push it off for a little longer. There was always something that had to come first. We had to settle in the house first. Mitch had to get his new promotion first. We had to pay off the cars first. We should try getting a dog first.

Then suddenly, in the split of a second, none of it seemed to matter anymore.

On a Saturday morning in May, we were at home. He was on the big leather sectional couch in the living room watching his golf game and I was in the kitchen. It's funny now, but I can't remember what I was doing. I just remember us joking with each other. Well, I was joking with him because I didn't want to talk about children for the hundredth time.

“When we have our first boy, I won't be wasting time on the couch. We'll be out in the yard throwing the ball around,” I remember him saying.

“You mean when we have our first dog?” I called back. “When we have our first dog you can play with him as much as you want.”

“You keep talking about a dog,” he replied and I was glad I couldn't see his face. I didn't want to see how affected he was by my change in subject. It was beginning to get harder and harder with him. “You better be careful, one of these days I'm going to bring one home.”

“We'll see,” I said. “You wouldn't know how to pick a good one. If I let you go by yourself, you'll come home with some little teacup rat who won't even know the meaning of catch.”

“Well if I let you go, you'd come back with a pitbull who hated everyone but you,” he tossed back.

“As long as he loved me, that's all that's important,” I said, smiling at the thought of the hypothetical pitbull. It really did sound delightful.

The doorbell rang and I thought it was the delivery guy, bringing a stray wedding present. For months, we'd been getting stragglers from family and friends who couldn't attend. We were still swimming in our new house and every new gift still fit in the massive kitchen or in one of the half-empty rooms. The living room and dining room and our bedroom were all decorated, but Mitch's office and the sunroom and the bedroom we were turning into a workout room were all still a works in progress. I went to the door with a smile on my face expecting a new thing to find a use for. We still hadn't gotten the custom towels or the expensive wok I'd asked for, for example. I was completely blindsided by who I found instead.

“Joan Vasquez?” he said when I opened the door. “Do you remember me?”