I Loved You Wednesday (32 page)
Read I Loved You Wednesday Online
Authors: David Marlow
Then I hang up.
Sitting down for a few minutes, I try hard to figure out just what the hell to do next. What’s odd, though, is that while I want more than anything to be alone, I’ve also got this weighted urge to share this awful news. That somehow telling someone might somehow diffuse the pain and the incomprehension and maybe get me to stop shaking!
So I call Chris’ mother in Seattle as promised, and thatturns out to be one of the worst experiences of my life. She cries, getting partially hysterical, demanding from me more information than I’m able to give. I start crying too while talking to her, the two of us on separate coasts, never having met or spoken before, united only by this common horrific impossibility.
Eventually, Mrs. Mathews and I both calm down and I get her to call Andrew Southern at the hotel in St. Lucia to make whatever arrangements she wishes.
Chris* mother and I speak several more times in the next few hours, following through with plans.
When it’s finally worked out, she flies down to St. Lucia that evening, takes Chris’ body back with her to Seattle the following day and buries her in the family plot on Friday.
I don’t fly out for the funeral because . . . well, just because.
For what purpose?
To what end?
On Friday, the day of the funeral, the following letter arrives:
April
Dear, dear Steve,
I’m sitting here on the warm sand, looking out over the most beautiful beach.
I’ve just taken all the Valium I brought with me. Sitting here, waiting for the drug to take hold, before going for a long swim, I’m thinking of you, of course, and, since you probably already know by now, thought you deserving of some explanation.
But I don’t know where to begin, really. In essence I’m too tired and too upset, too discouraged and too disappointed. I haven’t the strength to fight my way back to feeling well again, so I’ve opted to check out for good.
When we arrived here, Andy started getting friendly again right from the start. I didn’t want to go back to him. But I did. I don’t know why. Loneliness, I guess. And it was awful. Mechanical. Cold.
Now that I’m away from the city, things are finally starting to come together. Collecting, focusing in my head.
And with this, of course, the very painful realization that if I could be so blind and cruel to you, the one man who never committed to anyone
but
me, then what’s the sense of running after further futile relationships? This nagging sadness in the pit of my stomach gnaws and festers. It won’t go away. I’m down, pained and terrified. I guess it’s time to get off the treadmill.
Please understand I’m doing this alone, for myself, and for no other reason.
If you do one last favor for me, Steve, don’t blame yourself! This is all
mine.
Always was. Wow. The first Valium wave just washed over me, and
I’m starting to feel a little tired. I want to address and mail this while still in control, so I guess I’ll sign off for now. It’s important you tell no one about this note. For my mother, our friends or anyone else who might be hurt by the truth, it’s best they think I drowned, okay? I know I can trust you.
Well, Steve darling. The beach is lovely. The sky so blue and the sun quite strong.
I’m feeling very drowsy now. The water is warm and inviting.
Please understand.
Please enjoy for both of us.
Please go on.
I came to New York only to do a musical. I never expected this.
In my own, dumb, destructive way, for what it’s worth, Steve, I love you.
CHRIS
So there you have it.
Disappointed?
Join the club.
Surprised?
Come on, not really!
I suppose I always knew it might lead to something like this.
Looking back now, I realize it was much like watching someone you love withering away with cancer and not knowing how to stop it.
My life has changed a lot since Chris’ death. In the many weeks that followed I found myself walking around, confused, empty and disturbed, spending long, lonely hours asking myself redundant, impossible-to-answer questions.
When I realized this wasn’t doing much for my social life, I started to see a shrink.
And we’ve had some fairly productive sessions, the doc and I. Very enlightening. I’ve learned a lot of things about myself I never knew before.
But you know what I really think?
I think it’s all a lot of shit. Analysts set up codes of behavior for what they call normalcy, guides to happiness based on their scripts.
I’m glad I’m seeing him, though. He’s gotten me to stop blaming myself.
A couple of other things have happened in the past few months.
I never did get the part of Alfred in
March into April.
At the last minute some kid fresh out of the Yale Drama School auditioned and wowed them so he got signed practically on the spot.
Dare I say, “That’s Show Biz!”?
I’ve also found out what Chris meant when she spoke of that deepseated feeling of gnawing loneliness and abandonment, for I’m sometimes visited by this legacy of distress and let me tell you, it’s a good thing these unwelcome knottings up don’t hang around long because, believe me, they’re no picnic.
And Ruth, my chubby, beautifully-ugly snoring wonder, checked out with a grand mal of her own, piling seizure upon seizure until even the doggy intensive care people couldn’t bring her around anymore.
And I guess that’s it.
No.
One more thing.
I still see Chris from time to time.
On television.
They’ve been running her Breeze spot a lot lately and I keep calling the agency and the stations, pestering to learn what the airing schedule might be.
I sit there, glued to the set for hours in maudlin anticipation, compulsively switching channels until I find her running along the beach in her bikini, coming into my bedroom for sixty captivating seconds of two-dimensional life.
Theater is really dead now in New York. Nothing going on. I’m getting a little tired of the city anyway. I think maybe I’ll try Los Angeles for a while.
Maybe not.
I don’t know.
For now, Harry and I are just going to hang out. Watch and wait. See what comes.
Chris walked offstage before the end of the show.
Very unprofessional.
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