portions for foxes

Silly me. Thinking that Rabbit’s birthday party might actually be a party in the traditional sense.

Having met Beth only the one time, when she brought the wine, but hearing of her often, I imagined her intentions consisted of including mostly cardigan-wearing couples, people that wore pretend-ripped jeans and expensive sunglasses. People with neatly manicured nails who played charades.

But then, I thought—hey, this is Rabbit’s party. I hadn’t met many of his friends but they couldn’t all be post-engagement friends. Maybe that fact would save the day.

I looked sadly down at my slightly chipping deep red nails. I thought about the time it would take to fix it, the extra coat, the topcoat, the quick dry. It wasn’t worth it.

Needless to say I was a little anxious before going. I hemmed and hawed, thought of coming up with some horrendous lie about a barbecue I had already committed to but forgot about at the time of her original guilt-tripping (it WAS a little silly to expect everyone to show up on Memorial Day), but in the end, I really had nothing else to do. And it was Rabbit’s birthday. He deserved a good time, and an excuse to drink more than his social two to three beers.

I had never been there before. I knew Beth was very clean, very anal, and it made me curious to think of their abode. I imagined the bathroom with framed photos of flowers and potpourri. Rosewater. Perhaps one of those battery operated zen fountains. The thought made my head ache.

I thought about bringing a bottle of tequila or bourbon, but after further deliberation, I decided it could be considered a bitchy move, and definitely inappropriate for a barbecue, at least of their kind. So I played it safe and brought a few cases of Corona instead. If we had to drink beer, a shitload of it was in order.

The place was a townhouse in the middle of a very yuppie neighborhood. You could hear happy children shouting and smell a mixture of barbecue and lush roses. Three different people were washing their cars in their driveways. I went in for the most part, with an open mind and a sense of humor.

“Feliz cumpleanos!” I shouted, as Rabbit opened the door, grinning. He had shaved. It made me sad, but I tried not to let it show.

I’ve noticed the older you get, the more settled in you get with your lifestyle and your partner, the more that parties seem to focus on food rather than drinks. I knew Rabbit was a good eater and a carnivore for sure, but whereas I expected ice chests filled with different types of beer, perhaps some liquor for mixed drinks like mojitos or margaritas, instead there was a dining table, intimidating with grilled meats and salads of many different varieties. A (store-bought!) chocolate cake was at the end of the table, a quadruple layer fudgy mess.

I glanced at the refrigerator. There were some various photos of babies and small children held up with small round magnets. There was a magnetic memo pad with dog paw prints all over it. There was the wedding invitation. I looked at it closely, as I had not seen it before. He looked different in the photo. He had longer hair, some stubble, looked less groomed.

There wasn’t even any room in the refrigerator for the beer. Rabbit began going through it, taking random things out just to make room, threw a few in the freezer for good measure. Beth was doing her best to put things back in different spots, trying not to grumble, polishing her smile. I noticed a tall glass on the counter, full with brown liquid and ice. It hit me immediately. She was drinking iced tea again. I covered my mouth to keep the giggle from escaping.

It was a beautiful day, I had a cold one in my hand, and the rest was less than worth talking about. But Rabbit seemed like he was having fun, so that was something.

Surprisingly enough as well, the kind of people I really expected weren’t there. It was actually a pretty puzzling group. His best friend, the one he’d known forever, was one of those people who didn’t really have a lot in common with him anymore, but was still around for ‘brotherhood’ type reasons, history and such. He and a small group of friends were there, wearing slightly sideways baseball hats, smoking cigarettes, playing with a large dog. They might have been stoned. I think they were the only smokers at the entire party. I caught bits and pieces of their conversations, which included lots of “hella”s, “dude”s and other less eloquent obscenities.

The rest of the people were quiet and unassuming for the most part; wearing t-shirts, sweaters and jeans, drinking bottled water, taking turns playing Wii and indulging in drumsticks and the abundant fruit salad. They were smiling, helping put things away. I heard someone suggest Cranium.

In the hubbub of the eating, I somehow snagged a spot towards the middle of a sectional couch in front of a black marble coffee table. My eyes searched the surface for a place to set down my Corona. They rested on a clear glass square containing a professional photo of Rabbit and Beth together, with the words ‘Forever’ imprinted at the bottom. I rolled my eyes, chuckled, and set the bottle down, covering their glowing faces.

It was getting to be too much for me. My mind trailed off, thinking of Gina and Seth, the life they had started building together, its foundation of guilt-ridden deceit and their makeshift innocence. This situation certainly wasn’t as formidable as theirs, but it made my stomach turn to think of how manufactured this form of happiness seemed to be.

These people were trying their hardest to do things in the way they thought seemed normal or good. They had a color scheme in their living room, with candles even in the fireplace (evidently, it was just for appearances).

When I thought of a fireplace in a living room, I thought of hot toddies and the smell of singed firewood, bare feet, a black lace bra and wet kisses. I thought earthy, I thought comfortable, sexy. These people thought about the power of white. The contrast of pastels. There were flowers on the wall, just as I suspected, although throughout the entire house rather than only the bathroom. And where I expected potpourri I found scented essential oils instead.

They owned a tiny dog, a breed I wasn’t familiar with, that yipped and yelped and jumped on people constantly. The room spent a good half hour watching her and the larger dog chase each other around the living room. It made me feel old, decrepit, lifeless. They might as well have been showing photos of their grandkids to strangers.

But people did that. I wondered if this was just how it felt to be settled down, if this was what normal people did, and if I was just the crazy one.

The next chunk of time was spent awkwardly silent, people casually commenting how full they were, how everyone was being quiet to ‘let their food digest,’ which I considered to mean that a good deal of these people would probably never really spend that much time talking to each other in real life.

Some had just chosen not to participate in the social mingling game, and I was one of them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a video game system to disappear into, and even if someone had thrown me a controller I would have been so filled with anxiety to think of everyone watching me play that I would be positively ill.

The trio who had been sitting near me had made their way to the table, found wooden chairs, more suitable dining arrangements. It was just me, the white leather couch and the cartoonish coasters.

Across the room, I noticed Rabbit finishing his Corona. His eyes met mine for a second and then he disappeared among the crowd again. I picked at my drumstick and potato salad, wiped my greasy hands on the pink paper napkin folded neatly in my lap.

Before I knew it, Rabbit was sitting next to me with two more beers, smiling.

“Thanks,” I said, finishing the last gulp in my first bottle, replacing the empty bottle with my newfound one.

“It’s good to see you.” That was all he said. His eyes darted around the room nervously, as his hand crept into the pocket of his loose-fitting jeans and pulled out his flask.

I shook my head automatically. “No cinnamon schnapps for me today!” I laughed.

“It’s not.”

I took a long swig. Jim Beam. And it wasn’t even my birthday.

“Thanks,” I said again, not really knowing what to say. “I needed that.”He looked around the room and sighed deeply. “Me too.”

We didn’t talk much but he sat next to me until I drunkenly mumbled my goodbyes and slinked out. 

When I got to my car, I checked my phone. Drew had called. Seven times.

The beer was gurgling in my stomach. As much fun as it was doing the kinds of things that utilize the daytime hours, I hated the feeling of being drunk before dark, feeling so sleepy that you would waste the entire evening sleeping it off, and possibly have a ten pm hangover.

I felt wretched. I found myself sobbing maniacally, head on the steering wheel. I was thinking about Johnny and the nameless one, Drew and his army of whomever, and Vincent, the self-professed eternally lonely. He had handed that title down to me.

But I was responsible for my loneliness. I despised the traditional; what we were supposed to do, how we were expected to live. But my parents had hated each other. That had to factor in.

I cringed over thinking about how provincial people in love really seemed to be. When I was young, the idea of being in love was exciting and chaotic. It was about taking chances, evolving, and feeling like you could change the fucking world.

Now it was home décor, dogs posing as children, the magic of a perfect salad.

I didn’t know if I even wanted it anymore.

I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t go back in. Nor did I want to call Drew back and find out what possibly could be driving him to call me seven times in one day. I don’t believe, even at the peak of our courtship, he called me seven times in a month.

Maybe he was drunk and lonely too.

I played it safe and dialed a cab company. I walked around the neighborhood, biting my nails and trying not to be spotted by any stragglers. God forbid someone see me; try to offer the sad drunk girl a ride home.

I didn’t say much to the taxi driver, just wiped my eyes and counted the seconds until I was safe in my dark apartment, far from the safe color palette of the townhouse I’d just left behind. I opened my purse to retrieve my phone again, this time noticing the shiny chrome of Rabbit’s flask. The tears started again.

Freedom was so easy to lose.

mirage

This morning my throat hurt. I drank cold water and hot tea and nothing helped.

“Gargle with saltwater,” my mother would say, and a curl would fall down from her carefully placed hair, half up, half down. She would hand me the glass and I could feel her finger accidentally graze mine in a more loving manner than when I was a girl and she went to hold my hand to cross the street.

That didn’t help either, but it made me think of my mother. And that caused a stinging in my face that made my throat hurt more.

I sat on the bed, staring at my phone. I don’t know who I was expecting to call. Perhaps Johnny to tell me it had all been a hoax; perhaps Drew to propose marriage, perhaps Rabbit to confide that he’d decided to leave his fiancé after all, and run away with me to a seedy motel where we would drink and write and he would make money playing pool and poker with men with few teeth and bad hygiene.

I would write the great American novel, or at least make an honest living selling hardcore erotica to men with large trucks and small penises. I would do something that was worthwhile, I was certain of that.

The phone didn’t ring. I sat up and paced around the room. It was a day I had off and there was nothing to do. In most cases, I would sit down and write something, anything; make myself a stiff drink, perhaps spend two hours in the bath carefully shaving. But nothing sang to me. I thought about relieving the other bartender of his duties for the day, just chalking it up to money that I needed. But I didn’t need any money.

Most of my money was spent on booze and I often bought that in bulk anyway. Plus, when you work at a bar four or five days a week you don’t often have to make your own drinks. I thought about going through my closet, preparing an outfit that I would never wear.

In the depths of a trunk of mine, I found a pink polo shirt. A khaki skirt. I clothed myself in them both, regardless of the musty smell. I put on the radio (jesus, how long had it been?!) and danced around, thinking of strawberry daiquiris and hot fudge sundaes.

I thought of two bodies jostling around in Johnny’s SUV, her feet on the dashboard, bright pink toenails, his grimace at her audacity.

How to cook, for me meant a day’s worth of preparation—fresh herbs, vegetables, ingredients. Imagination. Inspiration. Love, almost. I imagined her rosy hands massaging chicken with oil and garlic, throwing it in the oven with some potatoes, doing a victory dance. It would be like breathing in and out, whereas I would sing.

It was official. Johnny had fucked with me on purpose. And I despised him for it. There had not been any reason to make such a huge deal of his moving in with this new girl, when we hadn’t even spoken more than a few words in forever. I would have rather never known, and just had my chuckles upon seeing them together in public. It amused me to imagine their arguments, upon her getting drunk in a matter of minutes, embarrassing him in front of (our!) alcohol-minded friends, having to hold her hair, put her to bed.

I ripped the clothes from my body like they had been on fire, and fired one of the worry balls at my small radio like I was a pitcher for the Yankees. It made a loud cracking noise, began to spark and smoke and the problem had been solved.

I had to get out. But it was too hot to do anything. And now the smell of old, angry smoke was filling the apartment. I picked it up and set it outside.

The hot sun beat down upon my face, and I looked up into that blue infinity, thinking of Hawaiian water; that catamaran Johnny and I rode far into the ocean on Waikiki, where we discovered fish and dolphins and sea turtles nearly as big as us.

Neither the sky nor that ocean was as clean and pure as we thought they were.

Beads of sweat begun to build at my temples. I walked back inside, closed the screen door behind me morosely, like it was my prison cell.

I wanted to call Vincent over to make everything better. But it had turned out that Camille had been positively miserable without him, and had come crawling back to him in the past week. And although they weren’t a perfect match, some part of her apparently made him happy. Sadly enough, it was more than the lay. So he was with her now, probably discussing some vintage of wine or Beatles song, noses upturned. I imagined him staring at the pearls around her neck, thinking of me and my fingers, wrapping around it, choking her. I imagined him giggling, her asking what was so funny and him not being able to respond.

For a moment, my fingers wanted to dial Jack or Daniel’s number. I was horrified by my own desperation. Boredom was one thing. This was quite another.

Feeling rather defeated, I went to the kitchen and made a drink. I took my time for once; muddled the mint, crushed the ice, preparing a beverage suitable for triple digit temperatures. I sat down in Vincent’s chair and took a sip. It was bright and smooth and cold and started to soothe the pain still dancing in my throat.

It was just then that my phone rang. Johnny.

I set the drink down and stared at the backlighting until it turned off.

tears dry on their own

I was listening to Amy Winehouse when Johnny knocked on my door. I nearly dropped my 7&7 when I noticed his eyes through the small glass circle.

It was beyond me how he could have possibly found out where I lived until it struck me that he probably had called my mother. She always liked Johnny, always expected the ring on my finger, the white picket fence, the Sunday brunch by the time I was twenty-five. It was absolutely insane.

I didn’t want to answer the door but I was pretty sure he heard me swear through the thin wood. It came from me in such an organic fashion that there was no stopping the word ‘Shit!’ from spilling over my lips and filling the room with its oblivious lack of class or composure. But I meant it, through and through.

I took a breath and a long gulp, cringed like I was threatened with a fist, and opened the door.

He was holding two red Chinese worry balls in one hand, spinning them at a moderate pace. He had some uneven facial hair, and his eyes were full of wine. He slumped down on the couch for the first time like he had sat there a million times before, and looked up at me, offering his hand.

“What’s the deal?” I queried, because at this point I was worried. I hadn’t spoken to him since that day in the bar where he came in with the pink girl that couldn’t drink. And before that, God knows how long it had been.

“Do you have a drink?”

“Why, yes, I’ve had a few, why do you ask?”

He smiled and nodded. “Same old Jolie.”

I didn’t know what that meant, if it implied an insult or a compliment. I was choosing to take it as an insult because frankly, he didn’t know me at all anymore, and one off the wall comment shouldn’t have been enough for him to assume that he did. Years had passed since he had been a part of my everyday life. People didn’t usually lose their sense of humor.

He stood up and meandered to the kitchen, began rifling through my refrigerator, all the while spinning those worry balls.

The music was loud and the drink had started softening me. I let him find the booze and pour himself a short glass. We sat down at the kitchen table.

“I’m moving in with her.”

Her. It was interesting to me because it had just now hit me that I didn’t even know her name. I mean, it wasn’t that odd because in retrospect I had just thought of her as ‘the pink girl,’ or as ‘the girl scout’ occasionally, but I never had even stopped to think about the fact that her actual name was lost to me.

I raised my glass. “Cheers?” I realized immediately afterward that it had come off as insensitive, immature even. Obviously he was ‘giving me the news’ in a manner that was to prove him still a kind soul. Perhaps he thought I was still in love with him. Which could or could not have been correct. But I was offended by his obvious vanity.

I finished my drink. “Well, cool, I guess. Why’d you track me down to tell me?”

His hand fumbled over the table to find mine. “Because I love you. Because I’ve always loved you and I’ll always love you. But I’m moving in with her and I just wanted to tell you before you found out some other way.”

It was a sweet gesture. My eyes began to sting and it was incredibly frustrating. I fought the wave of emotion that was washing over me. Then there was my victory; I could feel my body rejecting that vulnerability. I breathed deep a few times, stood up to make another drink.

“Well, thanks I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I guess. Well what else should I say?”

“How about what you’re really feeling?”

This was one of many things about Johnny I did not miss. He was very womanlike in the respect that even though we could hardly call each other friends anymore, he wanted to know what I was thinking, what I was feeling. He wanted to know how he affected me, and he wanted me to know how I affected him. Well I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

I shrugged and sort of giggled. “I feel fine about it. We haven’t even talked in a really long time, did you think I was waiting around for you or something?”

He sighed and I smelled the alcohol on his breath.

“I’m like, seeing someone.”

His eyes widened. “Really?” I was of course, half lying. Could you call what I was doing with Drew seeing someone? Probably not. I wasn’t terribly unpopular; I still had my suitors and all. Even James from time to time would be around. But I didn’t have that feeling of home, that exaltation of not having to be out there anymore, searching for the bigger, better thing. I couldn’t even say I was in love, really.

Although I had begun having a love affair with myself, so that was something.

My mind crept to my mother’s reaction; my phoning her, telling her that Johnny was shacking up with a girl scout, and her sobbing uncontrollably. The lecture that would come later. How I should have been more ready to settle down, that if I kept on this path most likely I would grow up to be some spinster or God forbid, cut my hair short and become a lesbian. “He was always such a nice boy…”

The nice boy was way more taken than I thought he was.

I wanted to parade Drew and James and Rabbit in front of him. I wanted to show him a photobooth strip, as well as pictures of us all about town and on vacation, smiling, laughing, like in the photos that come with picture frames. But I didn’t have any photos like that. As a matter of fact, I had no photos at all.

That led me to pondering the importance of photographs. Was that something that only came with serious relationships? That the only people who took pictures together anymore were drunken girls with myspace in mind or people wickedly in love?

We said little else, finished our drinks. He left the worry balls on the table when he left. I don’t know if he merely forgot them or thought I would need them.

I still didn’t know her name.