Stay (24 page)

voice and said the words again. He hung up on me, then called

back, angry. I had to break up with him several more times,

that’s what it felt like. He sent e-mails of apology and promises to

change and accusations and memories of the times we’d said it

was forever. I explained my reasons again and again. I started to

sound like those people who answer the phones at stores.
Thank

* 187 *

Deb Caletti

you for calling Vibe my name is Missy how can I be of help to you

today?
As if it were all one sentence they’d stopped caring about

several hundred phone calls before. It started to hurt to see his

name in my e-mail box or on my phone. Not hurt like heart-hurt,

but hurt like those sounds you hear at the dentist’s office you just

want to stop.

“I don’t think a relationship is something a person should

have to talk you into,” Shakti said. She was sitting at our kitchen

table, having one of Dad’s homemade pizzas with us.34*

“You shouldn’t have to defend yourself about your choice,

either. You don’t want to be there. That’s enough. That’s it. That’s

all you need,” my father said.

“He’s right,” Shakti said.

“She’s right,” he said. They grinned at each other. My dad

loved Shakti. She was what he called
a solid person, no bullshit.
It

was his own bullshit
she
liked. This was on any regular day. But,

right then, they were a pair of deprogrammers having a lovefest

while their cult member squirmed.

“Can’t we change the subject? I’m sick of this one,” I said.

“Not if you keep talking to the guy,” my father said. He leaned

back in his chair. He had eaten half of that pizza by himself.

“This is an emergency,” Shakti said.

More mutual grinning and nodding.

“Don’t answer his calls. Stay off the fucking computer. And

for God’s sake, promise you won’t ever see him again.”

34 Artichoke hearts and orange and yellow peppers. Onions and bubbly crust. Thick

cheese that you could stretch as long as the strings of a bass. Too bad I felt too sick to eat.

* 188 *

Stay

“Okay,” I said.

“She didn’t promise,” Shakti said to Dad.

“I noticed that,” he said. His smile was gone. His voice was

getting testy. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration.

“This isn’t a game, Clara. We’re not kidding around here. You

can’t give this guy any room.”

“I
promise
.”

“If you don’t handle this, I will.”

“
No
, Dad. I told you before, no.”

The house phone rang. Dad shoved his chair back. He

pushed the button to answer and just as quickly pushed the but-

ton to hang up. Who knew who just got cut off—maybe one of his

friends. Maybe some telemarketer asking for money for Seattle

schools. Maybe Christian. Still, the point had been made.

I told Christian not to call anymore, but I kept giving in. He’d

send five e-mails I’d ignore, but then that sixth would sound so

sad and pathetic, I’d have to respond.35* This could all end up

okay, I thought, if I managed him right. I was used to manag-

ing him. I knew how to keep my eyes focused on him when we

went out together. I knew how flattery could make him forget

his jealousy. I knew how to play up both my own purity and my

own desire for only him. It was manipulative. I didn’t think I

was manipulative in the rest of my life, but it seemed crucial

with Christian. People who dated diabetics likely had to learn

35 You’re groaning again. What you need to understand is how desperate he was. Here.

Think of a watching a drowning kitten. Imagine walking past and doing nothing.

* 189 *

Deb Caletti

to give shots, and people who were with epileptics had to know

when a seizure was coming. I had to do both of those things in

my own way—I gave shots of reassurance and kept watch for

an all-out disaster. I was his emotional nurse. I managed the

crisis. Maybe I could get both of us to the other side of this in

one piece. Stitched up, maybe, but still whole.

It was my responsibility. It was the least I could do. I had

made this happen.

It’s been two weeks since you left me. If you really wish the best for

me, you’d know the best thing would be to come back. I would treat

you better than anyone you could ever find. I give you my word about

that. I know why I acted like I did. I was horrible to you. I’m a differ-

ent person now, I swear. Please give me another chance. I want to go

to the park with you and swim to the dock like we did, remember? I

want to wrap you in your scarf in the winter and unwrap you until I

find your face to kiss. Remember when we bought those cherries at that

stand? You are so perfect. We are perfect together. Please—we deserve

another chance.

And then, anger
.

You say you will always love me, but that’s not true. That will go

away when you meet the next guy. You have the ability to just go on

and forget people and how much they meant, but I don’t. You can put

people in their own little boxes and leave them there. So much for love.

So much for soul mates. I’m sorry you don’t want to believe the best of

me or how I can change. You put a stake through my heart. I’m the

only one who cared enough to suffer like this.

And then:

* 190 *

Stay

I would wait an eternity for you. I will wait. I know I can never

find someone as right for me as you are . . .

My father had said that the only way to stop it would be

silence on my part, but silence only revved things up more. How

could I explain, though, what a delicate balance it all was? How

his ability to be okay or not okay was in my hands, dependent

on how I responded? When I didn’t, his e-mails would become

anxious and pages long. I would ask him again not to write or

call, saying it was too hard on both of us. I leaned on the fact that

it would be better for him, and that it hurt me too much to hear

from him. Gentleness seemed to calm him down. So did my own

“pain” which was a different pain than I was demonstrating to

him. I told him I would always love him, but love was dripping

out of me same as blood from a critical wound. The truth is, I

played up how much it all hurt me when the hurt had stopped

being hurt and was becoming a desperate desire to be free. I felt

like I had a pillow over my face. Or that we were one of those

couples in a dance contest, the only ones left standing, draped

over each other in terrible fatigue while the seasons changed out-

side the ballroom window.

He begged me to see him. I had once wanted to see him so

badly that I’d snuck out of the house in the middle of the night.

I did. We met at a park. We made out like crazy, and I went back

home feeling full and satisfied and dangerous. I had grass stains

all over my body when I woke up and saw myself in the daylight.

When I was about to meet him, it didn’t seem like my car could

get there fast enough. I would be mentally urging it and the

traffic and the stop lights to
go
. Each lost minute hurt. But now

* 191 *

Deb Caletti

I could only feel the pull and the drag. The opposite of desire—

obligation mixed with dread.

He needed some kind of closure, he said. Just one more

meeting. Just once, was that too much to ask? After all we were

to each other? To see each other face-to-face and say good-bye?

After all that had happened, I still believed he meant it. That

it was
one last time
. I actually
believed
it. I was that naive—a trait

so deep inside of me that even when I was aware of it, I was con-

tinually fooled by it.

I told Dad I was going with Nick and Akello to the movies. He

told me it was good for me to get out. I tried to act casual so he

wouldn’t see the lie in my eyes. I was lucky, because he was hav-

ing his friends Teddy and Liza over for dinner, a couple of writers

he knew. He was bent down over some delicate sauce meant for

halibut, and that’s why he didn’t notice.

In the car driving over, I tried to feel the wrongness of what I

was doing. I tried to imagine the girl at Greenlake, tried to make

her face my own. But I didn’t feel actually
afraid
. I felt uneasy. I

was nervous to see Christian again. I felt this huge, weighty block

I’d been feeling for weeks, but I didn’t think it was fear. I was just

an exhausted nurse, weeks on the job with no break, no time to

even wash the uniform, called back in to work. Another situation

to manage. One more thing, and then I’d be closer to freedom.

Naive. And plain stupid. But the truth is, when you can’t

imagine committing evil or crazy acts, you can’t imagine other

people committing them either.

It was dark, and the dashboard was lit up all spaceship-like.

Do you know how you can be just going along and see some-

* 192 *

Stay

thing and then you flash on the fact that you had dreamt that

very thing? It gives you a small hole to break open, and then you

remember the rest. That’s what happened. The dashboard. I had

dreamt it. The rest came forward—I was in a car. I was trying to

get away. It had been terrifying. He was chasing me. My heart

was pounding. One of those awful, real dreams, where your heart

actually seems to pound in your sleep. I was outside, too, running

along the banks of a dark, murky lake. Sliding in mud. It was

impossible to get my footing.

What is
uneasy
when you are awake in the daylight is
terror
in

the dark honesty of your dreams.

* 193 *

“I found this,” my father said. He slapped something

down on the table as I walked into the beach house that day I’d

seen Annabelle. I went over to look at it. A Christmas card, the

photo kind, a paper frame decorated with gold holly. It was a

young couple and their new baby. A really beautiful couple. The

baby had a red velvet dress on. The woman had long, blond hair

and a sleek black skirt and a too-perfect smile that meant she’d

had braces. I opened it.
Adam. I thought you’d like to see something

I finally accomplished. Thinking of you. Amy.

“Our film producer has a complicated romantic history,”

my father said. He was wearing clean clothes; I was glad of that.

Something was cooking on the stove in a pot. A tomato sauce. I

could smell it.

“Cool,” I said. I didn’t want to play.

Stay

“Amy. I’m thinking Amy didn’t finish college and disap-

pointed our Adam,” he said. “And now she’s popped out a

baby . . .”

I walked past him. I went to my room. I tossed my purse on

the bed. I wished I could be alone. Me and Finn’s kiss. Me and

the way things were moving forward. I wanted the happiness to

have a land of its own, a valley of flowers and flowing hills and

sunshine, minus any clouds coming in.

“What’s wrong with
you
?” I heard him say from the living

room.

Irritation shoved all that good feeling away. Good feeling can

leave you so fast. “Great. You’re feeling better for five minutes

and
I’m
the one with the problem?”

“If you’re going to take that tone with me, it would be in

your best interests to stay in there,” he said. “Work on reapply-

ing to college, which we seem to have forgotten. We won’t be

staying here forever.” I heard him moving around the kitchen.

I heard the pop of a cork being slid from a wine bottle. I folded

my arms and looked out my window. Irritation was turning to

anger, and I wished it wouldn’t. I wanted more time with that

happiness. The actual, real-life clouds outside were hurrying

across the sky, the evening rush; they would come in fast and

then drop and hover like phantoms, low and white, waiting.

Already the lighthouse was fuzzing with fog. I could see only

the tip of it, and soon—wait, now—the light was on, the slow

spin beginning.

I turned away from the window. I came back out of my

room. In the kitchen, Dad’s back was to me. It seemed like a

* 195 *

Deb Caletti

complex back. It had years of experiences I would never know.

He was a man who went to bed at night with his own thoughts.

I don’t know why the idea of that made him feel like a complete

stranger.

“What happened with you and Mom and the ocean?” I asked.

He flung around so suddenly that the lid of the pot that was on

the counter fell to the floor with a clatter, along with a wooden

spoon, which splattered dots of red sauce on the floor.