Charmed Thirds (43 page)

“Don’t be sad,” she said, gently but firmly enough not to go ignored. “The people who really matter, you’ll see them again.”

I looked past her profile and out the window. I needed to leave. I was tired of staring at the same concrete.

the twenty-first

Perhaps inspired by Hope’s infectious spirit of adventure, I’m making a more concerted effort to bust my ruts, one rut at a time. And so, when Bridget called to say she had some big news, I suggested that we meet not at my house, or hers, or Helga’s Diner, but Cool Beanery, a tiny, homey coffee and tea shop in downtown Pineville that I’ve never patronized because I’ve got an aversion to suburban java joints that try too hard to be hip and Manhattanlike. And you know, I’ll be damned if they didn’t serve up a bracingly nutty cup of black coffee. It will be a more than adequate hangout when I’m in town (which I’m sure will be more often than I’d like to admit).

Anyway, the dramatic change in setting was appropriate. Bridget broke her dazzling news before she even sat down or shrugged off her coat, one of those heinous quilted numbers that look more like a sleeping bag than an article of clothing. But not even the ugly coat could dim her glow.

“Percy and I are getting married!” she squealed, stripping off her left-hand glove and shoving a diamond solitaire up my nostril.

And then I initiated what must have been the most girlie-girl display of my life, complete with hop-hugging, cheer-clapping, and teeth-shattering shrieks of joy.

“Not until June 2007,” Bridget giggled, answering my unasked question. “After we both graduate. Can you believe it?”

“I can!” I gushed right back. “But I can’t! It’s so weird!”

“I know!” she bubbled, still bopping up and down. “I know!”

And then she told me the whole story. How Percy bought tickets for a local high school performance of
Our Town.
It was a very deliberate choice, as they had been cast in that same play when she was a junior and he was a sophomore in high school, and it was during rehearsals for said production that they had started their “showmance.” When Bridget wasn’t looking, he slipped a piece of paper in the playbill, like those often inserted when the understudy is playing the lead role for the evening. Only on this paper, Percy had printed Bridget’s headshot, underneath which was typed:
And tonight, and for the rest of her life, the role of Mrs. Percy Floyd will be played by Bridget Milhokovich.

And when she read it she was, like, “Huh?” until Percy knelt down in the aisle and presented her with a velvet ring box containing the Floyd family engagement ring, passed down from none other than Grandma Floyd herself for the occasion.

It was a great story. And I could imagine Bridget telling it again and again. For generations and generations to come.

“Look, I know it’s, like, eighteen months away, and you’re not, like, into marriage and everything but, like . . .”

“What?”

“I would be so honored if you’d be my maid of honor,” she said.

It kind of reminded me of a few years back, when Marin was getting christened and Bethany asked me to be her godmother. I told her I couldn’t do it because I was an atheist and it would be totally hypocritical for me to stand up there and pretend that I would raise Marin as a child of God.

But this time I said yes before I let my mind get the better of my heart.

I’m not saying that this news has totally transformed my notion of marriage. It makes no sense for them to get engaged so young, especially when they’ve got more than a year of school left. It makes no sense at all. But I just am so happy for Bridget and Percy that I want their commitment to make perfect sense. I want to believe in forever and destiny and, most of all, love.

They make me believe in love.

the twenty-fifth

In my younger days, I would have begun this entry with a string of exclamation points. But I’m too old for that sort of thing now.

Unfortunately, now that I’m stripped of this youthful shorthand, I’m finding it impossible to express what I’m feeling.

Oh, fuck it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s only one event that could make me so willing to regress. And that’s what happened on this holy holiday:

The one-man phenomenon called Marcus Flutie returned to me.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, when I opened the door.

He was dressed in a wool cap, jeans, a black hand-knit sweater, and his old pea coat. He looked, remarkably, like a lot of twentysomething guys. No shirt-jacket-and-tie-goody-goody Honors uniform. No snarky or days-of-the-week T-shirts. No Buddhist pajamas. No gay cowboy chaps. The outfit was refreshing because it signified absolutely nothing.

And as bizarre as it sounds after his two years of absence, the sight of him under my parents’ portico, one he’d never before stood beneath, didn’t seem strange at all. It felt as if all the times I had opened the door to someone else were the aberrations. This—him—was the norm. He was always supposed to be there.

“Merry Christmas?” he repeated, this time more of a question.

He was beautiful. Glowing from within, a human luminaria on my doorstep. Whatever he’s been looking for all these years, he must have found it. Lucky him. But his hands jingle-jangled in his pockets, betraying a nervousness that reminded me of something rather important: I shouldn’t be so happy to see him.

“In or out, Jessie!” my dad shouted from the living room.

Was I in? Or was I out?

I sprung open the coat closet, grabbed my parka, and shouted back, “I’m out!”

I could hear my mother asking, “With who?” as I slammed the door behind me.

We walked toward the Caddie, which was parked by the curb. I shook my head in disbelief. Who would have thought this fossil burner would outlast our relationship? I tugged the stubborn door handle, then slipped into the passenger side. The springs under the leather creaked under my weight. Marcus slid behind the wheel, smiling to himself as he turned the key into the ignition. As the engine sputtered to life, and hot air blasted from the dashboard, I realized that I still hadn’t said a word to him.

“
MERRY
CHRISTMAS
,” I shouted over the noise from the heater. This made Marcus laugh. His was a genuine laugh, full and deep in the belly, one that sounded exactly as I had remembered. Hearing it made me laugh, too, even though I wasn’t sure why.

“I thought you were supposed to stay in the desert until next spring,” I said.

“I decided to leave early,” he replied. “I learned all I needed to learn.”

“So the whole silent meditation Buddhist thing, you’re over that?”

“Well, clearly,” he said. “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“Are you?” I asked, with a little edge to my voice.

“I am,” he said. I turned to the window to avoid his laserlike gaze. My parents were gawking from the front door. We were still idling in the street, and I resisted the urge to ask him to take me away.

“And you’re through with being a lonely cowboy?”

You’ll notice how I replaced “gay” with “lonely.” I wasn’t out for blood. Yet.

“I’m over it,” he replied. “It was a phase. One I needed to go through to get away from my other . . .” He placed his hands on top of his head, as if to reach in and pull out the answer. “Less healthy phases.”

Should I be so surprised that Marcus needed to disappear for a while so he could get his head together? Haven’t I also dropped out of my own life on occasion? And others’ lives—like Hope’s—when I didn’t feel like I could live up to what I thought she deserved as a person? As a friend?

And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to be quite so forgiving.

“A phase,” I said archly, wringing my cold hands together. “I never thought that Marcus Flutie would still need to go through a phase.”

“Well, when you think of it, isn’t
everything
a phase?” he asked.

“How so?” I asked, unwilling to let on how I’d come to a similar conclusion in his absence.

He pulled off his wool cap, then stuck his long, roughened fingers into the twisted, matted clumps coming out of his scalp. His hair was a dark, dirty red, and back to the dreadlocks he had when we first met. I guessed this had less to do with fashion than it did with a lack of hair-grooming products out in the desert.

“Nothing lasts forever, so everything is a phase,” he said. “Some phases are just longer than others.”

As casually as possible, I flicked the palm tree deodorizer still hanging from the rearview. “So what phase are you in right now?”

“A friendship phase.”

I let this sink in before responding.

“You think we can be friends?” I asked. “We’ve never been friends.”

After a slow start, I was gaining momentum. He’s come back because he wants to be friends. Well, isn’t that convenient for him? Coming and going whenever and however he pleases, defining our relationship on his own terms, leaving me fucked up and confused for years. . . .

I suddenly had a lot to get out of my system.

“A friend, dear Marcus, would have had the decency to officially break up with me. A friend wouldn’t pull what you did with those postcards.” Between the heater and the intensity of my feelings, I was boiling. “What was that all about anyway? I mean, really. If you had something to say to me, why didn’t you just say it? Or write a real letter or e-mail like a normal person would?” I had imagined giving this speech so many times that the words flew out fluidly. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little old for these antics? Like, it’s not enough for you to take a break from our relationship, you have to go on a yearlong
silent meditation.
And it’s not enough for you to give yourself some space, you have to go to goddamn
Death Valley.
Next thing you know, you’ll decide it’s not enough to take a vow of celibacy, you’ll have to castrate yourself with a ceremonial sword carved out of strawberry Jell-O!”

This made him laugh, even though I hadn’t envisioned a humorous reaction.

“I mean it, Marcus,” I snapped. “It was cute and mysterious in high school, but now, now it’s just . . .”

As I floundered for the right word, Marcus filled in with one of his own.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It
is
sorry,” I said.

“No,
I’m
sorry,” he corrected. “I am who I am and I did what I did. I hope we can be friends again, which is why I’m here now. That’s all I can say.”

Then he reached around and grabbed a roundish package wrapped in red tissue paper that was sitting on the floor in the backseat. He handed it over to me, and the gift sat heavy in my lap.

“Open it,” he urged, a hopeful expression on his face.

After a second or two of quiet contemplation, I dug my nails into the paper. And as I removed the wrapping, I couldn’t quite believe what I held in my hands. Not even after I saw the blue jumpsuited image of the Showman of Our Time in all his decoupaged glory.

“Remember?” he asked.

Yes, I remembered. How could I forget the Barry Manilow toilet seat from three summers ago? This was precisely the kind of theatrics I was just talking about! A bizillion questions bounced off my brain: Who the hell does he think he is? What gives him the right to pull this sort of stunt on me? When did he decide to do this? Where did he find it? Why did he want to give it to me now? How was I going to respond?

Because I had no idea what to say next, I blurted out what is, quite possibly, the least appropriate thing I could say.

“I slept with Len!”

Despite his Zen leanings, I guess I expected Marcus to react with some measure of surprise. But I didn’t get that satisfaction.

“Good for both of you,” was all he said, but it wasn’t with a trace of bitterness. He said it like he meant it, and his face meant it, too.

I huffed beside him in my seat. “That’s all you have to say?!”

He sighed before gingerly cupping my chin with his chapped hands. “Isn’t this what got us in trouble before?”

He was right. Hadn’t I learned anything in two years? Or, more to the point, was this a warning sign that Marcus and I were fated to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again?

I recoiled from his touch. I wasn’t ready for this. Not at all.

“It’s
exactly
what got us in trouble before.”

And without another word, I yanked on the door handle and left him and the toilet seat cover in the car.

Marcus idled in the road for a few minutes before slowly pulling out and into the frigid darkness. I know this because I watched him from my unlit bedroom window. I guess I wasn’t quite ready to take my eyes off him.

the twenty-sixth

Last night I was kept awake by questions:

Why Marcus?

Why did I get over Kieran so quickly? Why am I not mad for Len, who is as smart and sensitive as Kieran pretended to be? Why am I not still pining for Scotty, the first boy to kiss me? Or William, whose death promises that there will never be a cathartic resolution to what could have been? Or Bastian, who might have loved me like a real man—if only for one night? Or Cal, whom I’d all but forgotten until I saw him at the anniversary party? Why not any other man whose life has overlapped mine?

Why Marcus?

Why?

The answer to all these questions was waiting for me in the mailbox this afternoon. A postcard from the National Organization of Women. On the back, one more word.

Jessica—

NOW

—Marcus

the twenty-seventh

Not long after “right now,” Marcus and I shared the most sublime sex of our lives. It was utterly transcendent and confused the senses. I tasted his sighs. I was tickled by the salt in his sweat. I saw every microscopic cell in our one united body expanding and contracting in pleasure.

“Are you happy?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes. Yes.”

“I love hearing you say that.”

“I love you.”

I have only said these words to Marcus. And I almost got sad, trying to remember the last time I uttered them. But before I gave in to regret, I reached up and grabbed the leather string he was wearing around his neck. On it hung several totems—a piece of soapstone carved in the shape of a horse, a Native American arrowhead, a small silver ring. I inspected the last closely, and read aloud the words I knew were etched on the outside:
My thoughts create my world.