The Stories We Tell (28 page)

I don't move.

“But,” she says, “I also know when a man is lying and when a man is in love. So you might know the facts, but I know the truth.”

My sister walks away from me and I'm left to marvel at the role reversal that has just taken place. The earth moves. It shifts. It alters completely.

*   *   *

I was nineteen years old and Max and I were surviving on ramen noodles, caffeine, and cheap boxed wine. We worked through the night on printing projects and laughed about things that were deeply funny then and completely forgettable now. There was only one night when we ended up alone at the studio. We worked until 3:00
A.M.
and then collapsed onto the white faux-leather couch, which was covered in greasy spots and ink-stained fingerprints.

“This is a crazy way to live.” I flopped down on the pillows.

“I know,” he said. “But I guess we could quit anytime.”

“I can't.”

“Obsession is a terrible thing.” He leaned back into the couch, closed his eyes.

“Not in this case,” I said as we reclined quietly on opposite sides of the couch, exhausted. Finally, I spoke up. “I'm hungry.”

“Let's go get something to eat, then.”

“What's open at three
A.M.
?” I asked.

He smiled, propped himself up on one elbow. “My apartment.”

I looked at Max and that smile of his. I saw it all: his messy hair, the two-day stubble and crooked grin, the blue-ringed eyes. And I felt something beneath my ribs, a wanting I'd never felt before. It was something different from merely wanting to touch him. It was different from my adolescent obsession with Caden. It was different from the nervous need with Cooper. It was an open feeling, like water running.

Max slid across the couch and touched my face, his palm on my cheek. Between us, invisibly, stood Cooper and also Max's live-in girlfriend, Amanda. Cooper and I had been dating for a year by then, and I knew where we were headed. We'd talked about marriage, about family and future. But there I was with Max. I leaned into his palm, closed my eyes. I felt his lips then, on my forehead first. I moved closer and crawled into his lap, my legs wrapped around his waist, my head resting on his shoulder. His hand moved to the back of my neck, pulling me closer, tighter. It was my decision, and even in the exhaustion and confusion, I knew it was. I could lift my head from his shoulder for a kiss or stay tightly where we were and let the moment pass away, fall asleep even.

I chose the kiss. And so did he.

It was dark, so dark, in that room with a single window and a moonless night. What happened unfolded like a slow-motion dream, untethered from real life, high above us. It was in that moment that all we needed to say, all that wouldn't and couldn't he spoken, found its expression in our bodies. There was the languid way he removed my T-shirt and how my shorts slid to the floor, the path my hands took under his shirt and then to undo his worn leather belt. Our kisses moved along skin that was warm from the long night of work and the stifling room. We were one in every movement, with every shift of our bodies.

There was nothing else in the world but to make love to him. My body would come undone, disintegrate, if I didn't. A connection between us, something that had tied us together from the moment we met, was finally able to be expressed in something other than words and laughter.

Eventually, we fell asleep, an old cotton drop cloth covering our bodies. As I slipped into sleep, I understood that Max and I would find a way to be together, that we'd both been avoiding the inevitable even as each of us was committed to someone else. I'd never before felt so at peace—ever.

We were awakened by the buzz of the front door alarm as the owner arrived for the morning's opening. We stretched and dressed quickly, tripping over equipment and boxes, over our own feet. We laughed and zipped and smiled when the owner entered the back room. We greeted him as if nothing but work had ever happened in that tiny room.

And later, when we stood outside in the harsh sunlight, our separate car keys in our hands, our separate lives waiting, Max pulled me close and the panic came, something hidden far below the surface of the night's peace. What had I done? I was on the brink of having the life I'd always wanted—Cooper, safety, a house, a home, a normal family. I backed away from Max, from his hand reaching for me.

“Eve,” he said, “are you okay?”

“I don't think so. Are you?”

“Yes, I am.” He took my hand, kissed the inside of my palm

“I can't do this. I'll ruin everything.…” I pulled my hand from his. I know he had more to say; I heard his voice as I ran toward my car, toward the life already set in motion.

I married Cooper. Max lived with Amanda for another few years. Then we worked together again: nothing more, nothing less. Not once have we mentioned that night.

 

twenty-one

I've never been in a therapist's office before and I don't know what to do. “Where should we sit?” I ask.

“Wherever you're comfortable.” Dr. Parker is a petite blonde with horn-rimmed glasses. She smiled as she answered my question, but nothing can undo the tight knot of nervousness under my breastbone.

Gwen and I sit together on the love seat, each of us scooted close to the armrests, a lavender throw pillow between us. The therapist sits in a chair, a yellow pad on her lap. “It's nice to meet both of you, so please tell me what brings you here. What are your concerns?”

Gwen shrugs, so I speak first. “Gwen had a bad incident with drinking. I'm scared. Something's going on. What should I call it … some sort of issue? Some sort of hurt? We need help.”

Dr. Parker looks at Gwen. “And what do you think?”

“I think I did something stupid. That's all. Nothing big that should bring me here.” Gwen twists at the fringe on the throw pillow, glances around the office.

“You don't agree with your mom that maybe the drinking episode came from an ‘issue,' as she called it.”

“Whatever.”

That's my daughter.

“So.” Dr. Parker looks at me. “What do you believe is the hurt that spurred this?”

“My sister and my husband—her dad—were both injured in a car wreck. My sister, Willa, and Gwen are very close and Willa lives in a cottage on our property. This has been really hard for us. Gwen's boyfriend broke up with her, and her dad and I aren't getting along the best we ever have. And I think”—I take Gwen's hand and speak to her—“you are hurting more than I can help. I didn't bring you here because I think something is wrong with you; I brought you here because I want to help.”

“Dad is gonna be so pissed,” Gwen says in a hard voice.

“And why is that?” Dr. Parker asks.

“I heard him tell mom not to take me to a therapist.”

“Well, here we are,” I say. “So let's see if we can talk about things.”

“Like … Aunt Willa told me that she's going to move out.”

A sinking feeling comes over me; a helpless jolt of electric knowledge. “What?” I ask.

“You have to talk her out of it, Mom.”

“We're here to talk about you, about us.” I lean forward to place my hand on Gwen's knee, but she pulls back.

“Eve,” Dr. Parker says. “Why don't you let Gwen and me talk for a while and I'll come get you in a few minutes.”

“Yes.”

The waiting room is bland enough to be forgettable. Black-and-white photos of flowers and water and bridges and stones hang on a cream-colored wall. The furniture is taupe—maybe winter wheat, or just plain old beige. Unread magazines are scattered across a chrome coffee table and I shudder once again with the thought that maybe this is a terrible idea. But I don't have another.

I flip through a year-old
Simple Living
magazine and don't see a photo or read a word. I wait. Gwen comes out, and her eyes are puffy. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“I'm fine.” Her voice is soft, a whisper almost.

Dr. Parker hands me a slip of paper. “Gwen and I have made an appointment for Friday.”

“Do you need to talk to me?” I ask.

Dr. Parker smiles, a practiced effort, I'm sure. “Let's let this be Gwen's session for now, and we can talk next week?”

The drive home is heavy, like humidity. “How did it go?” I finally ask.

“Fine, Mom.”

“I'm glad you're going back.”

Gwen twists away from me to look out the car window, dragging her finger along its edge. “Yeah, I think maybe it's good.” She pauses before taking in a long breath. “Mom?”

“Yes?”

“I'm sorry this is so much trouble. I'm sorry I'm such a mess. I'm just sorry.”

“No.” I choke on the word. “Do
not
be sorry.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

*   *   *

Tuesday night and the Bohemian is crowded. People are three deep at the bar. The summer heat presses against the windows and only the most scantily clad girls are on the deck overlooking the river, trying to catch a breeze that doesn't exist. Beers turn warm in the glass mugs.

Cooper talked me into meeting with a group of old friends: the Williamses, the Clayburns, and the Marshalls. “Let's get back to normal,” he said. Whatever that is. We're seated at a round table in a corner booth, private. I scoot to the inside to settle into the seat, glad to be out with friends. A glass of Malbec sits in front of me and conversation spills from every corner of the restaurant.

Friendships are born in different moments for different reasons, and these four families—the eight of us—had met when all our kids were in preschool. The women, Clara, Starla, and Baylor, have been friends of mine since Gwen was born. I haven't seen them in months, and it's nice to feel settled, part of a life Cooper and I have been building for years now—all these years of making something real. I reach over and take his hand; he smiles at me and then kisses me.

“Get a room,” Starla says, laughing.

Baylor joins in, raising her glass in a toast. “Here's to long-lasting friendships and marriages.”

“Seriously,” Clara says. “I think the eight of us are the only ones who have made it from that original preschool class.” She settles back. “Remember those days? I have never been so tired in all my life.”

“That Barney cake we made for Gwen's birthday? Do you remember that?” I ask. “It took us three tries and it tasted like burned flour. I had purple fingers for days from that disgusting frosting.”

“God, yes.” Baylor groans. “And the playgrounds with the mean moms. And getting up at five
A.M.
to wait in line for the just-right preschool-class registration. The hours spent singing Disney movie songs in the car.”

“Sometimes,” Starla says, “I wake up singing the
Arthur
theme song. But I don't know how I would have made it without this group. Why has it been so long since we've gotten together?”

“Busy lives,” Cooper replies.

The men, Brad, Taylor, and Cliff, nod. “Damn,” Brad says, “I've been in town two days this month.”

“Well, I'm not that busy.” Carla pokes at her husband. “Except for keeping everything afloat while he gallivants around the country.”

“Yeah, if you can call begging for business gallivanting,” Brad says.

I laugh. “That was one of my mom's favorite words,” I say. “‘Don't
gallivant.
' What does it even mean?”

The conversations overlap; we order our meals and then, as we're being served, a silence falls over the clink of dueling forks and knives. Cooper is wearing a bandage tonight—although it's no longer needed—to cover his puckered scar.

Lifting her wineglass, Starla leans forward. She teaches yoga downtown and has four thriving kids, the kind you brag about. It would be easy to hate her, but she's as funny as the best stand-up comic. This time, though, she's serious. “Eve, I heard about Gwen's overdose. God, I am so sorry. Our kids, they just kill us, don't they?”

“Overdose?” My fork flips in my hand, clattering to the floor.

Starla looks to her husband, Taylor. “That's what you said.”

“That's what Mary Jo told me.” He shrugs and takes a long swig of his wine.

“She didn't OD,” I say. “She drank too much and … I had to go pick her up. It was awful and scary.” I smile at Starla because I know she meant no harm.

Baylor, who sits next to me, takes my hand. “We had to send Rusty to a rehab place this summer. After his knee surgery, he couldn't get off the Oxycontin, and it's been terrible.”

“I swear,” Carla says, “sometimes preschool feels like the golden days.”

Something niggles at me, something in the jumbled conversation, in the tense feeling of Cooper next to me, like a muscle cramp.

That's what Mary Jo told me.

“Taylor.” I lean forward with a false calm. “Who's Mary Jo?”

“Our accountant. She does work for all of us.” He waves his hand around the table.

Cooper doesn't speak, taking a too-big bite of steak.

“Damn gossip,” Starla says.

The topic of conversation switches as Starla tells us about the new yoga studio she's renovating. Then Baylor talks about her art endeavors and going back to school. Cliff says he's learning to kiteboard.

Cooper attempts to take my hand; I refuse. “It's been a long few weeks.” He touches his bandage for emphasis. “I have my first surgery on the twelfth.”

“It's so awful,” Cliff says. “And how's your sister?” Cliff asks me.

“Better every day. Thanks for asking.”

“Wait,” Starla says, glancing around. “Isn't this where y'all were that night?

“I wasn't here,” I say. “It was just Cooper and Willa.”