Sliding Past Vertical (3 page)

Chapter 6

Floating on the edge of sleep, Sarah
dreamed about her father. He sat at the end of her bed, his hands gripping the
domes of his knees. His brown socks matched his tie; his sour face was freshly
shaved and splashed with the Old Spice she’d bought him for Father’s Day,
twenty years ago. She pretended not to notice him, because she knew what came
next.

“Don’t you think it would make
sense to start looking for a job?”

He sounded like he was trying to
sell her an insurance policy. “Yeah, yeah, I will.” She turned over.
“Tomorrow.”

“You said that yesterday. And the
day before and the day before and the day before.”

His tone sounded noticeably
sharper. So did Sarah’s. “I’ll do it, okay? Get off my back.”

“Yeah, okay, fine. But you’re gonna
have to do something to pay your half of the fucking rent. ’Cause I can’t cover
you next month, too.”

He couldn’t talk to her like that.
And what was the deal about rent? He sold enough policies to take his
girlfriend to Bermuda—a girl half his age with expensive taste, which
could explain why he needed the money. “You don’t have to,” she said. “I’m
moving in with Mom.”

The laugh that followed was not her
father’s. Sarah woke up.

“Your mother? The country club ice
queen?” Dee Dee, in her nurse’s scrubs, sat cross-legged at the foot of Sarah’s
futon. “Yeah, that’ll last a week.”

“Don’t you have to go stick needles
in people?” Sarah tried to tug the covers out from under her roommate’s ass.

Dee Dee resisted. “I got a few
minutes.”

“To make my life miserable.”

“I’m just trying to help.” She tied
back her hair with a series of fluffy looking, fabric-covered elastics. “You
oversleep. You don’t go out. You look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“All right, you’re not so bad. But
you’re obviously in denial or having some kind of clinical depression or
something.”

“And I suppose you have a program
for that.”

The hospital where Dee Dee worked
had a program for everything: codependency, chronic lateness, nail biting.
Sarah needed only to mention she was having a problem and there would be a
pamphlet for the appropriate twelve-step program waiting for her next to the
coffeemaker in the morning.

“As a matter of
fact…”

“Don’t waste time telling me about
it. I’ll read the literature after you go.”

“No, this one’s
really good. It’s a support group for job seekers…”

“So I can sit around and compare
unemployment checks with other losers? Oh, I forgot. I’m not eligible for
unemployment because it doesn’t cover acts of stupidity.” Sarah pulled the
covers over her head.

“And did I also mention that your
attitude sucks?” Dee Dee had a smile in her voice.

“I don’t have much to be happy
about at the moment,” Sarah said from the cocoon of the polyester blanket she’d
bought on sale at K-Mart. “I burned down the Copy King. I’m flat broke, and my
boyfriend’s in rehab.”

“But he’s back!” Dee Dee bounced up
off the futon. “Maybe you can borrow some money from him until you get a job.”

Sarah shot upright. “He’s back?”

Dee Dee rearranged her snug white
pants and the tunic top that probably should have been a few inches longer. “He
didn’t call you?”

“No.” She puffed out indignation. “You
saw him?”

“Yeah. Couple days ago, at the
hospital. He came in about a program, to follow up on the rehab, I guess. He
looked really good. I gave him a pamphlet. See, at least
he
knows he has a problem.”

As Dee Dee scampered off, Sarah
blinked, her mind catching up. Jay had left rehab? Was he all right? And he’d
been back in town for two days, at least, without calling her?

“I’ll give him a problem,” Sarah muttered.

She didn’t drag herself out of bed,
though, until she heard Dee Dee close and lock the front door. While stagnant,
the air still felt relatively cool, but it wouldn’t be for long. She knew the
routine; she’d essentially been living the same day for the past week and a
half. It would always start badly. Her head would throb. Dee Dee would bounce
off to the hospital. A glimmer of drive and initiative gathered momentum after
her second cup of coffee. She’d think about getting a newspaper or calling
about freelance work. Then the sun beat against the windows, and despite the
drawn blinds, it would turn their second-story apartment into a blast furnace,
and whatever positive energy she’d been able to muster got baked right out of
her.

Then it started all over again. She
was almost grateful to be angry with Jay just for the break in her routine.

That morning, resting against the
coffee pot was a hospital pamphlet titled
People
Who Need People.
Sarah tossed it into the trash and watched with
satisfaction as a corner sucked bitter coffee from a filter full of wet grounds.

* * * * *

After her first cup, Sarah felt
sufficiently fortified to handle Jay. Not that she was expecting to speak with
him. He screened his calls. She waited through one ring, two, three. The sound
resonated deep in her body. So many times she’d tried to hear past that ring,
hear through the echo at the end, wondering if he was home, if he was safe, if
he was even alive. Sometimes the deepest chasm in the world was the space
between those rings, the pause between the words on his outgoing message, the
long stretch of dead air between his last syllable and the beep. Sometimes
after the beep she went still and listened. As if he were home and she could
hear him breathing. Making coffee. Playing his guitar.

“I hate answering machines,”
Emerson once told her, in his defense for refusing to buy one and for his
reluctance to leave messages on hers. “They’re supposed to help people
communicate, but they do a better job at keeping them apart.”

Five rings. Jay answered. His voice
sounded strained, out of breath.

“So you
are
back,” Sarah said.

In the long pause that followed,
she could almost hear him making up excuses.

“I was going to call you.”

She shook her head.
That
was the limit of his creativity?

“Yeah, after I was done
practicing.” He plunked on his guitar. “So, baby,” he began, in his stage
voice. “How’ve you been?”

“How’ve I been? I’m not the one
who’s supposed to be in rehab for two more weeks.”

The guitar stopped. He let out a
long breath. “I couldn’t stay in that place.”

She closed her eyes, waiting for
the rest of it.

“They wouldn’t let me play my
guitar,” he said. “They got all weirded out, said it bothered the other
patients. If they don’t get that I need this to get by, screw ’em.” As if to
punctuate his need, he strummed a few chords. “I’ve been on a wild-ass tear
since I got home. Here, listen to this, tell me what you think.”

It wasn’t bad. His voice and the
image of his hands stroking the guitar pulled at her in places she didn’t want
to be pulled at. She reminded herself to be mad at him.

“So that’s it. You’re just giving
up on getting better?”

He was humming in a soft purr.
“Naw. I want to get better. I want to stop using. I just can’t do it in some
kind of rarefied atmosphere. I gotta be able to cut it in real life. Where I
have my music.” The pause was just long enough. “And you.”

She listened for a while,
evaluating his sincerity, lulled by his melodies.

“So what’s the deal,” he said, so
softly it was like part of the song. “I’m gone a week and some guy’s sending
you flowers?”

“What?”

“Nurse Dee Dee had some at her
station. She told me where they came from.”

She’d let Dee Dee take a few roses
to work, out of the new batch Em had sent after the fire. She imagined the
previous dozen in ashes, scattered about the chipped and probably melted
crystal vase. “Oh. They’re from Emerson.”

“Porn Boy’s still sniffing around?”

“We’re just friends. And stop
calling him that.”

“Yeah, uh-huh, okay. But if it
quacks like a duck, it probably ain’t a chicken.”

“He only writes that stuff for the
money,” Sarah said.

“If he was a real writer—”

“Spare me the tortured artist
routine, okay?”

He laughed and had another go at
the guitar. Despite herself, she imagined his nimble fingers on the trembling
strings, and she ached to be touched the same way.

“Here,” he said. “I wrote this one
for you. To tell you I’m sorry.”

* * * * *

Jay brought Chinese takeout. Pleased
that he’d chosen her favorite dishes, she smiled as he arranged the spread
picnic style on a tablecloth on the floor of her room. “You remembered.”

Grinning back shyly, he sat next to
her on the futon and shrugged a shoulder. “Had a little time to think out there.
I remembered something else you like, too.”

Her gaze held his, and more of her
anger began to melt. Lunch forgotten, he slid a hand over her knee and leaned
to kiss her, his lips first brushing hers as if to ask permission.
Like you don’t already know the answer
,
she thought, letting him ease her onto the mattress.

Jay made love the way some men send
flowers. The guiltier he felt, the more orgasms he’d give her. He made sure
Sarah had three before succumbing to his own. He started for four, but she
stopped him by pleading starvation. He rolled off her and passed the
potstickers. Then he grabbed chopsticks and one of the containers. Jay dropped
bits of mu shu pork on her breasts and licked them clean, like something out of
a porno film or one of Emerson’s stories. Still part of the apology, perhaps?
Or maybe he thought he was being creative, competing with the sort of lover he
imagined Emerson to have been.

Emerson had never dripped food on
her. He’d been more than content to take her ungarnished.

A sudden wave of irritation spilled
over her. “Cut it out,” she snapped. The soy sauce stung. His stubble didn’t
help. She felt like an art film photographer’s model, or something that would
be on one of Jay’s future album covers.
Female
Buffet. Smorgasbroad.

“You don’t like anyone eating mu
shu off you?”

“Not especially.”

“Maybe I’ll write a song about it.”

“You do that.”

“Someone needs more attitude
adjustment.” He grinned at her, put down the food, and stroked her thigh.

“Jay…”

He was on her again.

“Jay…” She cupped a hand on each
shoulder. “Enough, all right?”

He backed down but gave her one
last glance just in case. “You sure?”

“Yes, I forgive you, okay?”

“I wasn’t trying to…”

“Yes. You were.”

He rolled onto his back, blowing
out a puff of air. “Modus operandi of your basic insecure male,” he said.
“Letting my dick speak for me.”

“Maybe you should write a song
about
that
.” Leaning toward the
spread for a bite of eggroll, she caught a glimpse of her clock and gasped.
The appointment!
She threw herself out
of bed, not an easy task when bed was a futon on the floor, and rescued her
underpants from the dying ficus tree where he had flung them earlier.

Jay’s head lolled over. He sleepily
watched her tug up her panties, pick a yellowed leaf from the waistband, and
grope underneath a pile of his clothing for her bra. “Going somewhere, baby?”

“I’ve got to see this detective
what’s-his-name about the fire.” And there was no time for a shower, so she had
to go file a police statement smelling like mu shu pork and rock star.

He blinked stupidly at her, raising
himself on one elbow. “What fire?”

Dee Dee thought to tell him about the
roses but not the fire? “The Copy King burned down.”

“Bummer.” He yawned. Then he bolted
up, color draining from his face. “Wait a minute. The cops are coming here?”

Sarah eyed him warily. “No, I’m
meeting him at the station in Brookline Village.” He looked only slightly
relieved. “Can you give me a ride? It’s a pain in the ass getting there on the
T.”

He untangled
himself from the sheets. “I, um, I got an audition…”

“I thought that wasn’t until four.
It’s only two thirty.”

He reached for his clothes, sorted
them out and yanked them on haphazardly. “Yeah, but I gotta go home first.
Shower, shave, get my guitar and stuff…”

She blinked at him. “But the
station’s practically on the way.”

He gave her an exasperated look.

“Fine.” A lump tightened in Sarah’s
throat. “I’ll get there on my own. I just didn’t see the big deal about—”

“Okay, okay, I’ll take you. But
don’t expect me to wait around.”

“I don’t. You can just drop me and
I’ll get home myself. You don’t even have to shut off the engine.” She whipped
a brush through her hair. “Hell, why even stop? I’ll jump out the window while
you’re rolling past.”

“Sarah…”

Oh,
my God. No. Not again.
She stopped brushing and wheeled around to face him.
“Do you have something you don’t want the police to see?”

He tied the lace of his left
sneaker.

“Huh? Is that it?”

He began on the right. Sarah’s
mouth tensed, as did her grip on the brush.

“I’m holding for someone,” he said
finally, not looking at her.

She could have smacked him. “So
much for wanting to get better.”

“It’s not much.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not
doing
any of it.”

A couple of weeks ago, she would
have believed him. And the next morning he’d be calling her, with a vicious
hangover, asking if she could bring him orange juice and aspirin.
Pretty please, baby?

“Look, I just picked it up. It’s
down in my car…”