Surviving Valencia (29 page)

On November first, Adrian got up early to drive down to Jacksonville to meet with a client. I decided this was my opportunity to get some answers to the questions I hadn’t wanted to face.

I made myself a cup of tea and sat on the porch sipping it, wrapped in a thin blanket with the bright sun warming my face. Wrappers from the previous night’s trick-or-treaters blew across our front yard, but I was not motivated to clean them up. Aside from the steady drumming of my fingers on the armrest of the wicker chair I was sitting on, all was calm and quiet. I finished my tea and went inside, calling Adrian to assure myself that he was far from home.

“I’m about a half hour from Jacksonville,” he told me. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine here.”

“I should be home by eight or nine. Want to watch a movie tonight?” he asked me.

“Sure, that sounds nice.”

I told him I was going to do some sewing and we said our goodbyes. I set down the phone, took a deep breath, and prepared to get down to business.

I went into his studio, poking around in the closet, coming up with nothing out of the ordinary. Then I moved on to a tall file cabinet. It was filled with folders labeled with the names of clients in the top three drawers and other artists who inspired him in the bottom two drawers. I got a stepstool and pulled open the top drawer, slowly leafing through each file. There were snapshots and slides of the work he had done for them, invoices, notes on things like the client’s spouse or kid’s names so he could look like a personable guy who remembered details. I made my way through each file folder, examining each slip of paper, not sure what I was looking for. As I went along, I came to the woman in the photos John Spade had sent, the early photos that had implied Adrian was having an affair, and the reminder of her made my stomach do a little flip. There was nothing unusual in her file, no telling notes or extra attention paid to her. It seemed she really had been nothing more than any average client.

I finished up with clients and kneeled on the floor, pulling open the fourth drawer down, the one that housed the first section of artists. I was getting a little bored, starting to think I was wasting my time, and was being less careful now. My stomach growled and I considered scrapping this whole project and going out for a really good lunch. There was nothing of importance in the top drawer to I sat on the floor and pulled open the bottom file drawer, thumbing through the folders. As I neared the final few, an out-of-place folder slowed my pace. It was labeled as Kandinksy Samples.

I looked inside and instead of loose magazine articles or photocopies I found a single manila envelope. I pulled it out and held it in my hands for a moment, biting my lip like Valencia used to do. It was a habit of hers I had copied to the point of catching it, and now and then it came back when I least expected it.

I carefully bent back the metal closure and opened the flap. The envelope smelled like cigarettes and mustiness. I hesitated, listening, and then convinced I truly was alone in the silent, sunny studio, I carefully tilted the envelope and let its contents slide out onto the floor. Postcards featuring the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky spilled out upon the floor.

I sighed, defeated. I gathered up the colorful squares and shoved them back into the envelope. I replaced it, skimmed through the remaining folders, and closed the file cabinet. I had really thought that envelope was going to be the answer to all my questions. I should have known Adrian would not be careless enough to leave any traces of his thoughts or his past.

The floor felt cool, and since this was one room where Frisky was not usually allowed, it felt clean. I was never in here by myself and it reminded me a little of being in Van’s room after he was gone. I stretched out on my back with my fingers woven beneath my head, like a kid lolling in a summer field. I breathed in the smells of the studio, torn between liking the intensity and finding it nauseating.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I noticed the middle drawer of the file cabinet was still open an inch or two, and a yellow line on the underside of it was catching my eye. I sat up and I pulled the drawer open a little farther, and discovered that there was a manila folder taped to the underside of the drawer. Time seemed to grind to a halt. I sat up and checked the other drawers, one at a time since the file cabinet did not allow for more than one drawer to be open more than a couple of inches without locking the others out of commission, to keep it from toppling forward. I could not see under the bottom drawer, but I ran my hand carefully over its surface and it was smooth. There was nothing else.

Then I did something awful, considering I was pregnant: I went into the kitchen, found my cigarettes, and smoked one.
So what
I reasoned.
My mom smoked when she was pregnant with all of us.
So I had another. Then I washed my hands and calmly went back to the studio, reopened the middle drawer, and peeled away the tape, freeing the envelope.

This is probably going to be porn
, I told myself. But I did not believe that. And it was not porn.

The envelope was sealed shut so I tore it open. There was no way to preserve it.

Inside there were newspaper clippings about Van and Valencia. Stacks of articles. Headlines from papers in the Cities and the
Hudson Star-Observer
, their senior pictures filling up the whole front pages.

Local Twins Perish in Icy Automobile Accident

Prom Queen Still Missing

Car from Loden Deaths Found in Mississippi River

Valencia Loden Presumed Dead

Loden Twins’ Funeral Today

Local Students Speak about Loden Twins

And then their obituaries, neatly clipped out and placed inside a separate, unsealed envelope for safekeeping.

I’d had no idea this had been news in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I looked at Valencia’s senior picture. She looked like a model. She was why this was news. I took my find to the kitchen and lit another cigarette. I was shaking and it calmed me down.

I removed the obituaries from the envelope and placed them on the table in front of me.

As far as I knew, my parents had not saved any clippings from the accident. They would have hidden them from me if they had, anyhow. I’d had some of my own, cut from our local paper and saved through the years, but nearly everything I was seeing here was brand-new to me, and fascinating.

Valencia loved animals and donated over $2000 to the Humane Society in her short lifetime, it said in her obituary. Really? Valencia, my Valencia, did that? I thought of all the money I made working for Grandma Betty, and how I had hoarded it away to buy a car.

No wonder Valencia could inspire Adrian to change his entire life path, I thought, lighting my fourth cigarette.

How had he explained these to Belinda, I wondered. An entire folder filled with clippings about two dead people.

Apparently she hadn’t been as snoopy as me.

I balanced my cigarette on the edge of a plate and continued sorting through the pile. Beneath the yellowing newspaper pages was a copy of the Border’s newsletter with the article about me. I hadn’t been expecting that there would be anything about me. There were other things in there I didn’t even remember, like an article I wrote in college about ways for students to save money around campus, and a picture of me in high school, winning an award for one of my clay pots.

Finding that there had been a focus, however minor, on me too, softened me a little.

Had it been interest in me, though? Or interest in Valencia’s sister?

They weren’t the same thing.

When there was nothing left to discover, when I had read and reread everything for the tenth time, I flushed the ashes and cigarette butts down the toilet, washed the plate, scrubbed my hands, coated them in flowery hand lotion, and brushed my teeth. I got a new manila envelope and shipping tape from the craft closet in the laundry room and after carefully replacing the contents of the envelope, I taped the new one neatly in place on the underside of the file drawer. Finally, I burned the one I had ripped open, carefully, over the kitchen sink, in little pieces as to not set off the smoke detector. I opened the windows and lit some candles to make up for the stench of cigarettes and melted tape. Frisky watched me and whined.

“Quiet, Frisky,” I hissed, nervous enough without his judgment weighing on me. He sank down on the floor and sighed.

That Adrian kept such a file right there, unlocked, in his studio, showed what a trusting fool he took me for.

I went back into the studio and took one more look around, making sure nothing was out of place. It was dark outside and Adrian would be back any time. I did not know when I might get another chance to be alone in there.

I went back to the file cabinet, opened the middle drawer, reassured myself that the folder looked exactly the same as when I had found it.

There is still hope,
I told myself.
You were in the envelope also.

Something was lingering in my mind, and I reopened the bottom drawer, the second drawer of inspirational artists. I thumbed my way to the back, to a blank, empty folder very near the end. It was the only empty folder I had come across in the whole cabinet.

Perhaps I could have convinced myself that Adrian had started out following the story of the twins, as anyone in his situation might have, and had gone on to stalk me in particular. Perhaps he had obsessed over me, seen something special, amazing, compelling in me. That would be thrilling. That would prove what we had was real, and I could forgive him. If he really loved me, it would raise us above these mistakes and sins.

But the thrill was marred by the placement of this empty file, a file I suspected had once housed the hidden manila envelope. It was carefully arranged between VAA (Visual Arts Alliance) and Siobhan Vam, precisely in the spot where one would file something he referred to, in his mind, as Valencia.

A few days after Adrian’s trip to Jacksonville, Alexa called again. I had been hoping she would forget all about switching houses, and I’d thought we were safe when we hadn’t heard back from her. But as previous winters has proven, she would be unstoppable in her quest to escape the Midwest.

“Wouldn’t you like to come to Madison and see your old friends? You could eat some brats and drink some good beer. You could bike around the lake, or whatever you two do. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Adrian, wide awake and ready for a change of scenery.

It was easier to stay put. And as far as I could tell, a change of scenery was only a change of scenery. How was it going to fix anything?

“What do you think?” Adrian asked me.

“I don’t eat meat and I can’t drink beer. And it’s far too cold in Madison now to bike around the lake. Would
she
bike around the lake in November? Of course not.”

“There are other things to do there.”

“I don’t care.”

“We’re in,” Adrian told Alexa.

“Mind if I bring my new boyfriend? His name’s Glen,” Alexa asked.

“I don’t care,” Adrian said, moving away from me, hoping I hadn’t heard this.

I made a mental note to myself to lock my jewelry in the safe, but I continued looking blankly through the magazine in my lap, revealing nothing.

“Good, because I was going to bring him anyway,” she laughed. “What about your dog? Will we have to take care of him?”

“We’ll take Frisky to the kennel,” said Adrian. Frisky cocked his head to the side at the sound of his own name.

Adrian and Alexa decided we would make the switch the last two weeks of November.

Back in Wisconsin for the anniversary of the twins’ deaths,
I noted to myself, benignly rubbing a perfume sample on my wrist.

When we arrived at Alexa’s there was a long note for us. I began reading it while Adrian brought in our luggage. First on her list: She had taken her cat with her; two weeks was too long to be away from him. I felt a small pang of sadness after reading this.

Second thing: Could we
please
not eat the organic pasta. The non-organic was fine, but if we ate the organic it would be
really nice
if we replaced it. I looked blankly at the stainless steel canisters on the countertop, unsure how to tell one kind of pasta from another.

Number three: New neighbors Benton and Sylvie next door are très cool! Please try to
behave
around them.

I crumpled up the list and threw it against the wall. I didn’t want to be here.

Adrian came in with the last bag and shut the door. “It’s nice to be back here, isn’t it?” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I
like
seasons.”

“I want a divorce.”

“Oh no. Not this again. Can’t you get some pregnancy drugs to cheer you up?”

“Adrian, you are way too rude.”

“So Alexa annoys you,” he said, picking up the crumpled list and disposing of it in the garbage. “She’s not
here
. Let’s just have a good time.”

“This is not about Alexa. Although I would love to never see her again. This is about you. About
us
. You married me out of guilt. Go find Belinda. In fact, I did you a favor: I already looked her up for you. She lives on East Wilson Street. She’s not remarried. Well, if she is, she didn’t take his name. Go find her. She’s the one you really wanted.”

It was true that I had looked up his ex-wife, but she was more of a curiosity to me than to Adrian. I had never feared that he cared for her anymore. Valencia was the one he really wanted, but that was too true for me to utter aloud. It was easier to focus on Belinda.

“I want you.”

“Right.”

“Is this how things are going to be for the rest of our lives?”

“Just the rest of our marriage,” I told him.

“You didn’t just say that.”

“Yes I did.”

“I’m going to do us both a favor before this gets even more out of control. I’m going for a walk.”

“Okay. Bye.”

I turned on the television, flipping through home renovation shows and sitcom reruns. Outside, through the slats of Alexa’s new wooden blinds, a gray sky hung over the city. It was a steely day, poised for snow to begin falling at any moment, and I did not envy Adrian being out in it.
Snapped
came on the television, and despite my aversion to it, I found myself mesmerized. I rubbed my belly and popped an M&M from a bowl on Alexa’s coffee table into my mouth. Since when did young, hip people start leaving bowls of candy around their homes? I reached for some more but stopped when I noticed a sprinkling of cat hair in the bowl.

I stood up and looked in the mirror, not examining my pores or searching for gray hairs, but just looking at myself. My face was puffy and bloated. Pregnancy did not make me glow like the books had promised it would. In the corner of my reflection, the commercial break ended and
Snapped
came back on. I sat back down, finding myself nodding along to the story of Barbara, a woman pushed to the brink, who had felt she was without options.

“I can relate,” I told the television, while I picked past the hairy M&Ms, down to the clean ones beneath.

Barbara had been a good girl. A cheerleader, a bank teller, a young mother. No one saw it coming.

The remote control was beside the candy bowl, and I fluctuated between the two, thinking that any moment I would change the channel and stop picking at the dusty candy, but I stayed on the low road, continuing to munch and watch Barbara’s unfolding demise.

“Stay pure,” I said aloud, munching. I was not sure if I was talking to Barbara or myself. I rubbed my belly again and popped another M&M into my mouth. “No matter how the world pushes at you, stay pure.”

“This must be the hormones talking,” said Adrian. I jumped and screamed, spilling the candy all over the floor.

“Adrian! God. You scared me.” I began picking up the M&M’s but he waved his hand at me.

“Sit down. I’ve got it.” He went to the closet by the door and came back with a vacuum cleaner. I sat perched on the couch while he noisily cleaned up the candy. When he was done he put the vacuum cleaner away and came back into the room, raising an eyebrow at the television and handing me the remote.

I changed the channel, settling on
Fresh Start
, a reality makeover show. It was one of those extreme package deals: new face, new boobs, new butt, new wardrobe, plus they would teach the contestant a skill she hadn’t had before.

“This is Mandy, and she is ready to
Get a Fresh Start
,” said the host. Mandy appeared, looking a little overweight, a little nervous, and very excited. I felt hopeful for her.

“That’s better,” said Adrian, sinking down beside me. He put his arm around me. “You feeling better?”

I closed my eyes.

“So, what do you want to do while we’re here?” he asked.

“Hmm. I’m not sure.”

“Have you thought about Thanksgiving?”

“No.”

“Have you called your parents to let them know we’re here?”

“Not yet.”

“I think she looked better before,” said Adrian, changing the channel to a program about volcanoes.

“I liked her new look,” I said, annoyed that I was not going to see whether she learned to cook, lasso, or be a court reporter. I ignored the volcano program, considering who I would like to be, if I were free to create a new life for myself. An extreme makeover of my own. The question was, Could I be that strong? I looked down at the M&Ms caught in the hem of my shirt, and I pulled a piece of cat hair from my lips. It was doubtful.