“Hello?” Theo says tonight, his voice gravelly.
“Did I wake you?”
“No,” he says. “You know that I never sleep.”
“Can I come over?” I ask, tentatively, though I’m certain it’s the question I want to pose.
He hesitates, then says: “Yeah, of course. Is…are you okay?”
“I am okay,” I say just before hanging up. “I’m writing my map.”
—
Later, we discuss that
this
doesn’t mean anything big
but also concede
that maybe it could mean something big.
But
that
I’m dealing with a lot and right now, I just want to forget about it all for a little bit
and
that we both totally understand and agree on everything.
I say that I’m not on the pill and I’m not very fertile anyway, and he says, well, I’ve been tested and am totally healthy and also, I only have one testicle, but we take no chances (because taking chances like this is really dumb and only proves my father’s theories correct) and he wears a condom, which he has stowed in his wallet.
The sex is sweet and surreal and sticky and a little weird and more tender than I remember it ever being with Shawn. I close my eyes when we’re done but then I remind myself to open them, that maybe I’ll see something I didn’t before. And I do: I see
him.
And I wonder why I didn’t say Y.E.S. to Seattle. How my whole life might have been different. How I wouldn’t have met Shawn, how I would have lived in Seattle and grilled fresh salmon for dinner and become an avid Mariners fan and driven a Prius to the co-op for organic fruit.
Theo rolls off me and kisses me on the forehead like he really means it.
“I’m so glad you called.”
“Well,” I say. “You did just get laid.”
And we both laugh, and I feel like I’m in a romantic comedy, and the whole audience is cheering and weeping and rewinding their DVRs just to watch that amazing scene all over again.
And I am totally prepared to bask in that feeling forever, or at least until I wake up and realize that I just slept with my ex-boyfriend while I am still married (technically, but I’m following the “rules”) when Theo jolts up on his forearms and says: “Shit!”
And that’s when we both look down and realize that we really may be screwed.
Fate. Inevitability. Destiny. Meant to be.
The condom broke. (Of course.)
25
“I don’t want to do this,” I say to Vanessa.
“You never want to do anything,” she replies. “That’s the whole point.”
I groan and look down. About half a mile below and to the left of the bridge, I spot the
Dare You!
crew, with their cameras pointed toward us like Uzis. The producers thought that a DVD companion video would be a smash, so they’ve ordered us back atop the Brooklyn Bridge (the second time for Vanessa; I’m the virgin) for a healthy dose of insanity in which we plunge ourselves off and pray that this ridiculous cord that is now attached to my waist somehow saves us.
I steady myself on the rail and tilt myself halfway over. If I hover my rainbow cast over the railing and Instagram it, I could write something really witty about, like, a rainbow over the Brooklyn Bridge! But my cast is sad-looking now. The rainbow is faded and greyish, and I’m certain there is mold curdling on the inside, and it itches me to the point of insanity. Even rainbows can’t stay perfect forever.
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?”
“Because we’re contractually obligated. Also, it’s goddamn awesome.”
“You and I must have very different definitions of awesome,” I say. Vertigo sets in and the world skews to the right, and I quickly jump back to the walkway. “I suppose this is a bad time to tell you that I think I may have caused my father’s heart attack?”
“What?”
“My mom emailed me with the theory.”
“Jesus Christ,” she sighs.
“She wasn’t blaming me. If it’s any consolation, she thinks he’s a jackass.”
“So you’re blaming you?”
I exhale and let the hot July breeze fall over me. Maybe it can lift me up and carry me into a different, less complicated life.
“I’m saying that I feel responsible.”
An assistant comes over and tugs my harness so tight around my waist that I think I might lose consciousness.
“You’re good to go.” He pats me on the back, like this is totally normal. That sane people throw themselves off bridges every day without a care in the world. “Have fun!” he adds over his shoulder.
“Please,” Vanessa says to me, and I can tell she’s a little bit out of patience. “I love you, Willa, but I am getting a little sick of your orbit revolving around him. It’s your life. Fucking live it.”
“I
am
living it! Do you think I want to be up here on this bridge, basically doing the dumbest thing I’ve ever agreed to in my entire life? All because you dared me? All for some reality show?”
“This isn’t even close to the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in your life,” she says. And then the assistant is back, squeezing her harness, and we fall silent.
“Okay, cool,” he says, and then looks from one of us to the other. “Hey, don’t jump angry, man. It will kill the vibe.”
He makes this hang-ten symbol with his hand, and I wonder if he’s friends with Ollie, and then I spin quickly toward Vanessa.
“Well, if you’re keeping track of the dumbest things I’ve ever done, then you should know that I slept with Theo two nights ago.”
And her eyes bulge a little and she smirks just a touch, but before she can reply, another assistant pops in and screeches, “It’s go time! Let’s do this, ladies!!!!” And his enthusiasm makes me want to throttle him, but I have no choice. Because I am here, and I am under contract, and I am starting to think that I’m the worst daughter in the world, though my father is also the worst father in the world, but I think he’d agree (and probably write a chapter on it) that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Vanessa goes first, because that’s what she’s always done in our friendship. Then it’s my turn. I’m certain I’m going to puke. I can feel my insides rising up, and I see my life in front of me — the Alps and Disneyland and Doc Martens and Theo and Shawn and everything else, too. I know that I’m going to die now. This is what happens to people before they die. I wonder if my dad also saw his own life in front of him, like a spread of Polaroids, when he was splayed and catatonic on 60th Street.
And then assistant number one is back. “Smile if you can remember! They’ll take a picture and send it to you!”
And then without warning, he yelps: “On your marks, get set, jump!”
And I murmur goodbye to this sweet life. But before I die, I try to muster the one thing that I would have done differently in this life if I had the chance. What’s the one thing that could have made all the difference? I can rewrite my master plan, I can resist inertia, I can open my eyes. But what I really need, what I’m so utterly lacking and what feels as critical to me now as oxygen, as blood flow, as air, is guts.
Guts.
If I can corral just a smidgeon of guts, then whatever this new path has in store will be okay.
So I breathe in and then I go deeper still, and beneath the panic and adrenaline and my ever-present instinct to flee, I find it.
Guts.
And so I jump.
—
Email from: [email protected]
To: Willa Chandler-Golden
Subject: Rad!
Willa — Hey! I’m part of the
Dare You!
camera crew, and I snapped this pic today just as you caught air — it’s attached. Well done, lady! I thought you might want it as a reminder of your leap. See you in a few weeks! (I dare you!) (Ha ha ha.) — Rick
Email from: Willa Chandler-Golden
Subject: re: Rad!
Rick — Hello. This is Willa. What’s in a few weeks?
—
My dad is released from the hospital the same day that my cast is due to come off. Vanessa tells me that this is a metaphor, and I can see what she means, but then they slice the plaster in two and my wrist and fingers emerge, dried up but also somehow moist (the worst word in the world), and truly, the smell is akin to death warmed over, so I discard the metaphor pretty quickly. Your cast is off, and your dad is free! By the transitive property, you should be free of him too!
I get it, I do. But there are still so many things to ask of him, so many questions unanswered. It’s not as if he can just stop being my father. It’s not as if I can just stop being his daughter.
“So ask him what you need to ask him,” Vanessa said over the phone earlier this morning while I was getting ready to head to the hospital. She was still a little irritated, just like she was up on the bridge.
“I’m trying,” I said. “It’s not easy. It’s not like I haven’t had thirty-two years of programming.”
“I know,” she said before making an excuse to hang up.
We all show up for my dad’s send-off from the cardiac ward, even my mom. The media is there too — partially because he called them. A statuesque brunette who can’t be that much older than I am wheels him out the front doors, angling her chin toward the photographers, brushing her hair back, cocking her head.
“Who’s that?” Nicky asks, with more than a little pubescent interest.
“A hospital admin?” I suggest.
My mom says: “Your father’s girlfriend.”
Raina says: “What?”
“That’s what he told me. I think the girlfriend should perhaps be in quotations.” My mother makes that air quotes gesture again.
I sputter: “You can’t be serious.”
My mom raises her eyebrows, and then smiles for the cameras because that’s what she’s always done when she trails my father anywhere. But then she stays true to her new master plan: she makes a sharp right and heads toward her own Town Car, the one waiting across the street.
I watch her go, and she must sense it, because she turns and says:
“Oh William, who cares who that girl is? Open your eyes and live your own life! Don’t worry about it too much. Your dad is always full of shit. I should have told you earlier.”
26
Facebook Profile: Willa Chandler-Golden
Hometown: New York
Friends: 261
Occupation: Fired
Religion: Looking
Relationship Status: Married to Shawn Golden
New Facebook Notifications: 2
From: Equinox Gym
Wall Post:
Dear new member, thanks so much for “liking” our page! Now that you’ve joined the club, we hope you’ll swing by and use your free training session. There’s no time like the present. Fitness is life. Life is fitness.
(
1 hr ago)
From: Minnie Chandler
Wall Post:
Willa! Look! Nancy taught me how to use the Facebook! Will you be my friend? (Is that how I say it?)
(5 hrs ago)
Oh my God,
I think,
I have no life.
I download Rick’s jpeg file to my hard drive.
Willa Chandler-Golden has updated her profile picture!
I can fly,
I write as the caption.
I stare at my screen and wait for the little red indicator lights to blip at the top, blipping to show me how much my friends like me.
Like me, really, really like me!
I busy myself scrolling through photos of other people’s lives. People who never mattered much to me. Faces from high school, random acquaintances from college. They all seem so glittery. So content. So sure of their Points North. Their eyes are always open, and they’re always bright and crystal-clear and wonderful. No one ever posts a shitty picture of her husband with his hands down his pants, passed out on the sofa with Cinemax on behind him. No one ever snaps that just-so image of her toddler, right as he’s on the cusp of a volcanic explosion, with grubby cheeks and a hateful scowl and fists so dirty that baths four days in a row won’t do the trick.
What’s illusion and what’s not? Maybe Mandy from sophomore bio lab really does have
the best, sweetest, most awesome husband and partner in the world!!!!
Or maybe she’ll be divorced by Christmas. No one really knows. Maybe not even Mandy. It’s my dad who knows: he knows that fate will be what it is. Even if your husband is an asshole or if it turns out that your kid is, too. Mandy will find a lot of solace in that, my father’s chapters, when her divorce papers come through.
The red indicator light flares atop my toolbar. I hurriedly aim my mouse toward it.
Shawn Golden likes your profile picture!
Shawn Golden commented on your profile picture!
Comment Shawn Golden:
That’s pretty awesome. I never knew you had the guts.
—
When I return from my first stint at the gym, Raina, Theo and Ollie are huddled around the kitchen island snacking on a something that looks like kale chips but could also be some other sort of veggie “chip” that I’d never dream of eating.
“You went!” Ollie says.
“You look pink,” Raina says.
“Very funny,” I say. “I did three miles. I’m getting back in shape.”
“Taking responsibility,” Ollie chimes in, which I find really irritating. “I’m helping her.”
I unpin my taupe ribbon and drop it on the counter. Ollie’s insisted they be worn at all times while in public, just in case anyone knows who I am. I’ve tried telling him that no one knows who I am — I have seventeen Twitter followers and most of them are twelve-year-olds who live in India — but he’s waved me off.
I unscrew the cap to a Diet Coke and drink deeply.
“That undoes all the healthy benefits of the gym,” Ollie says.
I ignore him, and Theo stops chewing whatever it was he was chewing and says:
“Hey.”
And though I have a million things to ask him, to share with him, instead I just say: “Hey.” And then the blood rushes to my already fluorescent-pink cheeks, and I hope that he thinks I’m just warm from the exercise, not warm from him.