Bicoastal Babe (2 page)

Not noticing that the car is already on, I turn the key. The ignition squeals, and Steve, who has started to walk back toward his house, stops and turns.
Just go,
I tell myself.
Just get the hell out of here.
I jam the car into reverse, peel out onto the street, yank the wheel to the right, and promptly proceed to smash into a parked car, whose alarm begins to blare and honk.

I look up at Steve and he looks back at me. My sister was right on the money. I am psychotic.

After Steve’s neighbor comes out to scream at me and call me one of “these crazy women drivers,” after the police come and the reports are filed and the insurance companies called, I drive home. I’m not crying anymore. Now I just feel frozen. Steve had seen the real me, the one he would’ve dumped a long time ago if he’d known it existed.

Home at last, I make myself some tea, crawl into a hot bath, and think about my life. As my tears drip into the bubbly water, I realize I’ve never felt so conquered and crushed. You see, the problem with Steve Dunbar is that he isn’t an asshole at all. He’s not a jerk, or a liar, or a selfish mo-fo who broke any promises. He’s a pretty nice guy, actually. A kind, caring, honest man who just happened to wake up one day and realize that he’s not in love with me anymore.

I sink down farther into the hot water. I can never go near his house again. The relationship is over, and so are the drive-bys. And so is my hope and faith that it was all just a bad dream. As my eyelids grow heavy, I begin hearing phrases echoing through my mind that seem to have been written just for me:
Time heals all wounds. This too shall pass. It’s all uphill from here. The sun’ll come out tomorrow…

And the next morning, as luck would have it, I get laid off from my job.

So now you’re caught up on the backstory. Five weeks later, my real story begins. I am tired. I am alone. And I haven’t left my apartment in more than a month.

S
omething is wrong with me. I know that. I know it because on Tuesday afternoon, the pizza guy, for no reason at all, smiles at me in a very sympathetic manner and asks, “Are you okay?”

Being what I consider above and beyond the call of duty, this is a question that almost—not quite, but almost—breaks through my numbness and threatens to piss me off. I hate “added value” in the service industry because I feel pressure to give a higher tip. And then I feel cheap if I don’t. The pizza and bread sticks came to $11.65, so I brought fourteen dollars to the door, which is more than enough because the pizza place is only one block away, and the pizza guy does not have to bust too much tail to bring that pie over. But when he throws in his own personal concern, I now feel like the net value of the service increases beyond $11.65, which renders my tip too small. So I’m faced with a choice. I either hand him the fourteen dollars, look like a complete cheapskate, and out of embarrassment, never order from the place again, or I ask him to wait, go back in, and scrounge up another dollar. Like I said, normally this situation would really piss me off.

But not today. I am too numb to feel. I have no emotion, just an anesthetized awareness that it’s time to order another pizza because the remains of the last one have melted in the box, soaked through, and stained the floor. So I stand there blankly and stare at him. He’s wearing a bright red baseball cap that says, PIPING HOT! and it makes me wonder if he ever gets beckoned into lonely women’s apartments like in the porno movies. I begin imagining invitation possibilities containing the words “saucy,” “spicy,” and “hot sausage,” when I realize that he’s waiting for an answer concerning his inquiry into my health and well-being.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell him, with a tone that might very slightly and subtly suggest that he is an asshole for asking, but whatever. I am numb, so I am letting slide the extra-tip thing and I’m not going to worry about it. Hell, I’ll even order from there again. But then he pushes it one inch too far. I watch the words forming on his lips, as if in slow motion, and I just can’t fucking believe he’s going to do it.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

His question lands like a pillar hitting a concrete pavement. I look up at him slowly, glaring, with death in my eyes. But like a typical male, he mistakes it for God knows what, clears his throat, and asks again.

“Are you sure… that you’re okay?”

“Look, just give me my fucking pizza, all right? Why would I not be okay? Does it look like I’m not okay? Does it sound like I’m not okay?”

“Well…” He’s looking doubtful.

“Why would you say that to someone?
Am I okay.
What does that mean? You don’t even know me! You know nothing about me!”

His hands shoot up in surrender. “Hey, lady. I was just trying to be polite.”

“Yeah, well, if I had fifteen dollars lying around, I would’ve gotten the two-liter bottle of Pepsi in addition to the pizza and bread sticks. But I don’t.” (This is a lie.)

He is confused. “Don’t what?”

“I don’t have fifteen dollars! I have fourteen dollars.”

“What are you talking about?”

I shove the money into his palm and grab my box. “Here. Thank you. Just go.”

I slam the door, throw down the pizza, and lament the lurking complexity of everyday, simple transactions. This is why I’ve checked out of life. Because the right people won’t give you the time of day, and the wrong people won’t leave you alone.

Actually, that’s not why I’ve checked out of life. I’ve checked out because I got laid off from my job a mere week after being dumped by Steve. After the fatal drive-by, I spent several days in a row getting slurring drunk on sloe gin fizzes, chain-smoking and crying myself into dehydration. Then I caught the flu (which turned into pneumonia), bruised two ribs coughing, and pulled a muscle in my back. It was a long couple of weeks. Which turned into a very long month. And now, here I am. Still here. Still in the same grungy flannel pajamas. Still alive.

But life has improved. I’m feeling much better physically, and I’m no longer bothering my friends with the details of my sordid outlook and squalid lifestyle. In fact, I haven’t returned their calls in weeks. I’ve gone through all the Mallomars in the pantry, so my binge eating has slowed down to a crawl. The liquor store doesn’t deliver, so that’s out. And necessity has inspired creativity in me. I now look to my algorithms to explain my excessive sleep patterns, and use my own B.O. as an excuse not to go to the gym. Like I said, life has improved, and it’s only getting better. As long as everyone in the world continues to fuck off and leave me alone, I see brighter days ahead for me. At some point, before I turn forty, I may even leave the house.

I put the pizza down and take a quick survey of my apartment. I’ve been hiding out so long in here that I’ve practically morphed into the building structure. The blinking light on my answering machine is relentless, reminding me of countless calls from family and friends that I haven’t picked up and haven’t returned. My hair has gone limp and stringy, and my skin is a pale shade of yellow from tobacco and lack of sunshine. I’ve put on at least five pounds, but who cares. That’s what oversize flannel pajamas are for. I’ve long run out of things to read, so my only connection to the outside world (besides the pizza guy) is the tormented lives of the freaks on the trailer-trash talk shows. I tape them. When I’m finished watching, I rewind and watch again. Those people have the only souls in the world more wretched and pathetic than my own.

Before life decided to vomit me into a sidewalk gutter, my routine was very different. I used to rush home from the office late, slap on my workout clothes, and race out the door for my spinning class. Afterward, a quick shower, bowl of cereal, toss through the mail, a few return calls, and just enough time to finish the memos that were due the next morning. With great luck, I’d catch the last half of a
Melrose Place
rerun and get a hasty good-night call in to Steve. All that before surrendering to restless slumber, tossing and turning over the things I forgot to do, the errands I didn’t run, the moments I didn’t have time to enjoy. I was your typical suburban commuter, rushing here, rushing there, very busy, very important, and, truth be told, very put-upon by it all.

In those days I’d close my eyes sometimes and wish I were a cat. Cats have no responsibilities, no worries, no pressures. The world is one big bed to stretch out on and wait to be fed treats and massaged. The image was so serene and blissful to me, I practically quivered with longing for it. I would think about it as I furiously scratched down notes in work meetings, tapped away at computer keys, and rotated old files in the cabinet to make room for new ones. It hummed in my ear as I rushed off the train in my DKNY suits and Adidas trainers, banging into commuters and shouting apologies over my shoulder. Whenever I was stressed-out (which was almost always), whenever I was exhausted (again, almost always), and whenever I needed the hope of a calmer, more satisfying existence, I could close my eyes and dream about the serenity of being a cat.

And now I finally have my wish. I have morphed into the feline version of homosepias, the fattest, laziest creature ever to sprawl across the living room floor in a blanket of self-absorption and lethargy. I lie there all day, rising only to eat and use the litter box, and I’ve begun to view my new sprouting of body fur as something that makes me cuddly and exotic. I don’t have a care in the world. No responsibility, no worries, no pressures. Like I said, life is improving.

And then the door buzzes. Oh, God, the pizza guy is back. What does he want from me? Can’t this moron take a hint? Does not a slammed door in the face communicate that the slammer wishes not for your prompt return?

At first I ignore it. But he rings again. I can’t believe this.

I schlub over to the monitor and press the talk button. “Leave me alone.”

“Lindsey, it’s us.”

It’s not the pizza guy. It’s even worse. It’s my friends.

“Lindsey? Buzz us in.” My best friend Holly’s voice is comforting, but I sense that she’s not alone. Probably Danielle and Scott. I glance around my apartment and decide that there’s no way my friends can see me like this.

Silence.

“Lindsey! Buzz us in!”

“Uh,” I stammer, scrambling for a good excuse, “I’m still pretty sick from the pneumonia. I don’t think you guys should be around me.”

A long pause, then I can hear Holly being pushed away from the speaker. I was right. Scott takes over.

“Lindsey, shut the fuck up and buzz us in already.” Scott always has a way of making you feel like you’re holding him up, even when he’s an unwanted guest at your house.

I desperately want them to leave. Why are they doing this to me?

My thoughts are interrupted by a head poking through the curtains on my window. I gasp in surprise. It is Holly, who has scaled the fire escape and is now climbing into my apartment. Without even looking at me, she marches over to the door and buzzes the other two in. A moment later, there they are: Holly, Scott, and Danielle, come to save me from myself.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Danielle is looking around the apartment, scrunching her nose at the pizza boxes, overflowing ashtrays, piles of laundry, Mallomar wrappers, and dust bunnies. “Lindsey, this is foul.”

Danielle, Holly, and I met in junior high school and have been close ever since. Holly is quiet and empathic, a born listener, always ready to lend a helpful ear and make you feel like everything’s going to turn out okay. Danielle is the loud one, forever offering up blunt, frank opinions that are usually correct, but that you don’t always want to hear. Scott is Danielle’s fiancé. He’s from Alabama, so he speaks with a deep Southern accent, and he’s the kind of guy who starts most of his sentences with, “I’m here to tell you,” or, “I’m going to tell you something.”

After surveying the apartment, the three of them turn to me in disbelief. Holly looks like she’s about to cry. I hold up the new box from Mr. Pizza Guy.

“Pepperoni-and-mushroom, anyone?”

“Look,” Scott starts in. “Let me tell you something right now. Shit happens, Lindsey. There is no excuse for this.”

“You look like death warmed over,” Danielle observes.

“You look like death, and this apartment looks and smells like a waste dump site.”

Holly comes over, puts a hand on my shoulder. “Honey, we came over here to help you.”

I laugh. Bitter. “So that’s what this is, an intervention?”

She smiles. “Of sorts. We miss you. We care about you, Lindsey. We can’t stand to see you this way.”

Danielle is not so soft in her approach. “This is pathetic. You think you’re the first person to ever get laid off from a crappy job? The first woman to be dumped by a boyfriend? A little self-pity is normal, but this is just ridiculous.”

“She’s right,” Scott agrees. “You need to get off your ass, clean this place up, and pull it together.”

“And reintroduce yourself to the concept of ‘bathing,’ while you’re at it. It smells like a pig farm in here.”

Holly reaches over and pulls me into a hug. “They’re right, sweetie. You’ve gotta pull yourself out of this. We’ll do anything we can to help.”

Hearing my friends speak out loud all the things I know are true suddenly breaks me down. The emotions I haven’t felt in a whole month suddenly come rushing to the surface, and I break into sobs, collapsing into Holly’s arms. She watches me cry, smoothing back my hair, while Danielle goes to make me a pot of tea and Scott starts to round up the garbage.

A little later, after they’ve cleaned up the mess and thrown away the debris, I relax in a hot bubble bath, all cried out. Holly sits above me, lathering my hair with thick shampoo suds. Danielle and Scott come into the bathroom, and I’m glad to be hidden by all the bubbles.

“Now that’s more like it.” Danielle smiles.

“I’m so ashamed,” I mumble weakly. “I know how this must look.”

Scott whistles. “And it don’t look good.” Danielle elbows him.

“It’s just that it’s not like you, Linds. You’re such a strong person. How did this happen?” Holly is genuinely confused.