There are times when you're so lost that even reaching for the bottle of vodka above your fridge seems too monumental an effort to undertake, let alone imbibe its contents, and that was probably the reason I managed to finish packing, order a cab and make it to the airport on time the following morning.
It was a smallish victory, but I doggedly chose to be proud of myself for being able to function.
Nobody at security thought I was particularly of interest, and if anyone suspected I was secretly dying inside they certainly didn't mention it. Not high priorities on the security threat scale, we of the shriveled souls, capable of not much more than curling up in the fetal position and moaning every now and then.
I slogged over to my gate with plenty of time before boarding but was spared the half hour's worth of aimless wandering up and down the terminal when my cell phone rang.
It was an international area code. Hal must have told her.
I put the phone to my ear.
"Oh my god, Em," a voice shrilled the second the connection clicked open. "I can't even believe that bitch. Are you okay? Do I have to come home and kick her ass? Because I will, if you want me to. No questions asked."
"Hello," I said, smiling in spite of myself. "Who is this?"
"She's an asshole," Linn carried on. "She doesn't deserve to lick the bottom of those boots you wore when you went to work at your uncle's dairy farm that one summer and had to trudge around in cow shit all day."
My brow furrowed, and I glanced around askance. "I don't even remember telling you that. Anyway, didn't you know you're not supposed to insult my ex right after? I mean, what if we got back together?"
"What? Screw that. I always thought you deserved better than her."
"Yes," I said. "I know."
I did know. Linnea was honest to a fault, and I loved that about her, even if I didn't want to sometimes. She had a low tolerance for bullshit and therefore never considered indulging in it herself. We'd sat next to each other at our graduate school orientation and had been friends ever since.
Naturally, she'd been invited to the wedding but, now practicing in Edinburgh and heavily pregnant with her second child, mere weeks away from popping, hadn't been able to come. Which I think was for the best, as Michelle would now be missing several teeth and probably a clump of hair if she had pulled her runaway bride routine with Linn in attendance. Good old Linn.
"And I swear to god, Em," she plowed on, "if you even think about taking her back after what she did to you, I
will
book the next available flight back so I can slap you in the face."
Less good.
"Isn't having kids supposed to make you a happier person?" I asked.
She tutted. "The research is iffy at best," she clipped, and then added, in a much softer tone, "Are you okay, though?"
"Yeah, I'm good," I lied.
"
Emory
."
I guess I need to work on my skills of deception.
"I'm going to Thailand," I said decisively. "It'll be good to get away from here for a while."
Saying it aloud gave it more credence somehow. It
would
be nice to have a little change of scenery. Maybe a little change of me. After all, it was Emory James who had gotten himself here, who had blindly traipsed, if not down the aisle, then at least to the church with someone who had in the end found him lacking and made it a point to tell him so, in what was probably the most humiliating way possible.
I thought of Lisa Simpson, in that classic episode where she realizes she's not the shining star she thinks she is but actually a great big nerd with no real friends, and goes on summer vacation determined to become somebody else, somebody less of a loser. To make it stick, she takes an empty suitcase so she can fill it with new clothes for the new not-loser her.
It was too late for me to employ her brilliant empty suitcase trick, as mine had already been checked in, at a predictably exorbitant fee, but there was certainly a chance for a new not-loser me. I could be anybody I wanted; nobody in the entirety of Southeast Asia knew what I was like in actual life. I could be a different person every day if I so chose.
(Though I suspect that might be confusing after a while, and tiresome to the hotel staff.)
There was a lesson to be learned at the end of that episode, too, as I recall, about the importance of being true to yourself, but as I got off the phone with Linn, I decided I was going to be the kind of person who flouts the rules and laughs in the face of the morals of all stories. Insouciant, carefree, that's me, the new me.
Goodbye, Emory James.
Hello, um, also Emory James.
Well, it's not like I'm going to be changing my name; that takes a hell of a lot of paperwork, and I only just got this passport issued.
As it turns out, being a whole new you is a lot more difficult than expected when coming off a bout of international travel. I hadn't considered the fact that being stuck for seventeen hours at a ninety-degree angle in an enclosed space is not the most ideal of circumstances for someone who's only recently approached the beginner's level of affecting carefreeness.
I lumbered off the plane cranky, and, at baggage claim, veered sharply toward the stabby end of the irritable spectrum, as I suspected that the baggage handlers had conspired to hold my luggage back from the conveyor loop until the bitter end, for kicks and giggles.
When it did finally appear, I yanked it off the belt and trudged outside to find the shuttle bus that would ferry me to my hotel.
It was hot. Tropically, humidly hot. I couldn't remember why Michelle had decided to pick Thailand, and with each bead of sweat that emerged from my pores as I waited, I hated her more for it.
Being angry was probably better than being despondent, though. I had tried despondent the night before (or maybe two nights, depending on the time zone, which I hadn't yet worked out), all useless limbs and emptied out from crying. It hadn't been pretty.
It was in fact rather surprising that I had managed to roll out of bed at all, but spite had had a large role to play in it; Michelle was probably off doing a whole montage of pretentious New Yorky things with Good-Looking Bastard, and so I would counter it by splicing together my own clip show of tropical adventure.
The shuttle bus trundled in then, narrowly heading off my untimely death of drowning in a puddle of my own sweat. It was mercifully air-conditioned, its frigid current blasting the sweat off my face, which made me strongly consider becoming a religious votary to the bus.
By the time we reached the oceanfront island resort I was in considerably better spirits, and as I stood in line to check in I was presented with a glass of juice, adorned with a perky purple and white orchid.
See, I was having fun already.
"Good evening, sir, and welcome to La Celestia Resort," said the smiley man at reception when it came for my turn in line. His gold nametag, catching the light of the computer screen, read 'Alak'.
"Hi. Checking in. Emory James," I said, spelling my last name for good measure.
Fingers tapping with speedy efficiency on a keyboard, he pulled up the reservation, and then smiled some more. "Ah, Mr. James. You are here with your wife, yes?"
"Um," I said, looking away.
Michelle had done the reservations; she had probably told them we were honeymooning here, on the off-chance of getting some kind of reduced rate, or maybe an extra mint on the pillow as a reward for completing an assisted walk down the aisle.
"No... I-- No. No wife today."
Alak blinked at me. The smile was still cemented in place, but his eyes were confused at my perseveration and slightly panicky, unsure how much he could or should ask without overstepping his professional boundaries.
"She..."
Died?
No, oh god, why would that even be the first thing I thought of? Of course I couldn't say that. What kind of an asshole would I be if my wife died and I went on vacation? Probably a felonious kind of asshole, if Investigation Discovery's regular programming is any indication.
"It's, uh, complicated," I said, hoping that would sufficiently cover it. Hey, it's good enough for my online social network, right? If two hundred of the closest people I regularly forget exist can accept such a statement, surely Alak wouldn't mind.
"Okay! No problem!" he said, a shade too brightly for my liking.
I sipped at my juice. My palate detected citrus and guilt, with a soupcon of self-reproach.
I had the feeling that had I been in top, life-changing form, I might have been able to convince Alak that the initial reservation for two had been some administrative mistake on their end -- no wife, no nothing, just a dashing young traveler out for solitary adventure, kindly update your faulty records, my good man. Wink, smile, we share a laugh, and I stride to my room fairly reeking of aplomb.
Instead, I was getting furtive glances from the clerk; he was probably wondering why I had shown up alone -- I mean, I'd wonder. A little spat, maybe? Or more like a series of little spats that had led up to a giant one? Or maybe she caught a horrible case of dengue fever elsewhere in these perilous tropics and he left her to wither alone. Or, oh my god, he stole this poor couple's identities and is on holiday on their dime!
"It didn't work out," I blurted, desperate to have him stop imagining my imaginary scenarios.
When New Year's next rolls around, I will resolve to watch fewer true crime documentaries on television and maybe also to look up my friendly neighborhood psychiatrist.
"Sir?" Alak said.
"Nothing, sorry," I mumbled.
He handed me my keys and wished me a pleasant stay, indicating with his palm which direction I was to go. Obediently, and glad to go, I left him to deal with a couple who had been waiting behind me, a couple who was probably normal and didn't show up to their honeymoon at half the original value.
The resort was a sprawling arena of pebbled walkways edged by lush, fragrant foliage that led to little villa-style rooms. The room itself was all dark wood and low lighting; pristine white towels that had been fashioned into a pair of swans greeted me from the edge of the bed, swimming in a scatter of fresh rose petals. It was all very romantic, so I undid both swans and hung them up by their former necks in the bathroom, and swept the petals into the garbage can.
A complimentary fruit basket sat on the coffee table. I selected a grape, my sustenance for the night. When you've been dumped, caloric intake seems largely unnecessary, as moping around expends little to no energy at all. But just to be on the safe side, I ate another grape, in case of emergency languishing. You never know.
They don't teach you these things in school, or in any extracurriculars. I'm fairly certain I can still write down at least half of the quadratic equation and tie a passable knot, but those skills don't come in handy often in the rest of your life. What the boys of America really need to be prepared for is how to deal with the sucker punch of heartbreak.
Try not to die of alcohol poisoning
would likely be in the top five. I don't know the rest. If I did I might not have felt compelled to flee the country.
Left to digest my pair of grapes, I plodded around the room, checking out amenities I probably wouldn't even remember were available come morning.
A long shower later, I climbed under the crisp, cool sheets, and stared at the canopy above, alone but for the noise in my head.
Michelle would've loved this place. Which probably explains why she booked it to begin with. She would have cooed over the towel swans and made a note to learn how to fold them that way when we got home; she would have pressed a couple of the rose petals between the pages of her journal for remembrance's sake; she would've inspected the room with half a smile on her face and a long lock of chestnut hair twirled around her finger while it sank in that we were here, and married, and allowed free roam in paradise for a week.
It was strange how I could so clearly see all these quotidian things about her, as if she were right here with me, and yet the biggest leap of her life, running away from her own wedding, I hadn't seen coming at all. Did that make her unpredictable, or me stupid?
I thought I knew her. I thought I knew her passions in life, her calm under pressure, her weakness for salted licorice found only online. I had spent four years knowing her, from the first day of my first real job when I'd nearly cut her nursing rounds short running smack into her around a corner, to the mutually agreed upon date we would have been wed had someone better not come along.
I felt cheated. It wasn’t supposed to work this way. All that time and effort and energy expended, all for nothing. Why, after all we had been through, was she the only one who got to be happy?
Misery climbed into bed with me, and I turned on the TV for better company. After a while, it sang me to sleep.
It was fairly early when I shuffled out to partake of the hotel's complimentary breakfast, the last pink dregs of sunrise still straggling in the sky.
At this hour, an hour I witnessed only because jet lag wouldn't let me sleep through it, the restaurant was nearly empty.
An elderly couple sat at one table reading the paper, occasionally forking something on their plates when they remembered it was there. Besides them was a Japanese group of four seated in a corner of the restaurant, eager to get a head start on the day. As far as I could tell, they were two couples come on holiday together; one pair was holding hands underneath the table. I hated them on sight, and then felt bad about it.
Despite the previous night's dieting plans of eating nothing but my feelings, my stomach was being rumbly, so I dotted my plate with little samples of every hot breakfast item on offer to appease it, and headed to the outdoor dining area.
I was the only one out there and had my pick of tables, so I took one with a view of the beach. It had an umbrella in the middle, which was helpful, as my partially Scandinavian ancestry had long ago decreed it impossible for me and future generations to properly tan; we are blessed instead with the ability to hear ourselves sizzle under the sun, and then peel like elementary school glue.
No sooner had I settled myself in the wickerwork chair than I heard the telltale slap of somebody's flip-flops come to join me out on the patio.