This One Is Mine: A Novel (18 page)

Authors: Maria Semple

The drum sounded again. More rocks were brought in. David leaned into their unbelievable heat. It was soothing in the same way that biting down on a sore tooth made it feel better.

“Now that Great Father Sky has healed our hearts,” said Ruth, “we ask Earth Mother to do the same for a beloved friend. May this beloved friend be happy. May they be physically well. May they feel safe. May they know peace.” The rattle sounded. “To the man out there who hasn’t found me yet,” she said. “You, beloved life partner, may you feel joy. I love you so. Ho!”

It was David’s turn. He had only one beloved friend. “My wife,” he said. “Please help her. She is suffering. Ho!”

Why else wouldn’t she be here? The Violet he knew and loved showed up. The first time he had laid eyes on her, she was sitting in that ticket holders’ line ahead of time. She was a stand-up chick. She didn’t bail. She didn’t lie. She certainly didn’t
cheat
.

“My children,” another voice said. “Ho!”

Violet must have been suffering. What else could explain her behavior? She had wanted a baby more than anything. But she seemed to be running away from little Dot. That must have been so confusing to Violet. Violet, who was so intelligent and empathetic. Violet, who had said just the right thing innumerable times to all different types of people. This time, Violet was unable to help herself.

“I pray my boyfriend finds the clarity to accept my love,” said someone. “Ho!”

Violet was radiant and honest and impeccable with her word and serious and vulnerable and remembered things you said ten years later and played the piano and could quote Shakespeare and wrote thank-you notes and once even a letter to the boss of the guy at the airline counter who had been especially helpful on their way to Aspen and she kept secrets and listened to what you were saying not just with her ears but with her eyes and also her smile and she left five dollars in the hotel for the maids and knew a hit song the first time she heard one and baked teething biscuits for Dot and grew the most lovely smelling roses and knew how to crochet and spoke four languages and when someone complimented her on her perfume she’d send them a bottle the next day and anytime David looked across a crowded party and saw her talking to somebody he had no doubt they’d adore her just like he did and she never wore makeup and people remembered her for her dinner parties and big crazy words and without her he was just an asshole rock-and-roll manager that’s why the guys from Hanging with Yoko said he was an asshole because they hadn’t met Violet yet and when people met Violet they realized there must be something more to David because why would such a successful and worldly and gorgeous, he couldn’t forget gorgeous, woman be married to David if that was all he was, an asshole? To the uninitiated, David seemed like the star of the marriage. This was the truth, though: people came for David, but they stayed for Violet. And now she was gone.

David wept. Others did, too. More stones had been brought in. Water had been splashed on them. More steam arose. These things must have happened, for Ruth was praying again.

“O Great Spirit,” Ruth said, “we give thanks for the rich bounty that results from the water of springtime. You have heard our prayers for ourselves. You have heard the prayers for our dear friends. Now let us summon the Buffalo Calf Woman to send similar healing to a teacher. A difficult person who has been placed on our path to teach us compassion. The rains of the Great Spirit are not selective. They fall equally on one and all, and so should our love. We now ask the Buffalo Calf Woman to birth this equanimous love and let it rain on this difficult person who has caused us so much suffering.”

David’s head flopped down and landed squarely on the wet braid across his knees. He smiled and up bobbed his head.

“To my father, who beat me,” Ruth said. “I hope he feels safe. I hope he feels free. Ho!”

“Teddy Reyes.” David spoke the forbidden name. “Ho!”

David knew what it felt like to have Violet’s eyes fall on you and you alone. It was as if you’d been singled out for life’s greatest honor. Just minutes into their first date, in line for popcorn, David had felt it, and it made him believe he could accomplish anything. And he had! To meet Violet for the first time was to be seduced by her strange brew of curiosity and high-mindedness. Now Teddy, whoever he was, had gotten a hit of it, too. Of course he was calling. He needed another fix! Maybe he thought he was rescuing the rare, exotic Violet. From her asshole husband.

Because David was an asshole. He was mean to her. The shameful part was, he had only started being mean when she began to show signs of weakness. When she had trouble conceiving, then the remodel, and finally the pregnancy. With no money and no job of her own, David only bullied her more.

In the delivery room: Violet had been in labor for twelve hours, refusing the epidural. (She had been right; her tolerance for pain
was
high!) Violet, writhing and grimacing. David, horrified at his helplessness. In front of Dr. Naeby and the nurses, Violet said to her husband, “Please, don’t be mean to me anymore. Look at me. See how hard I’m trying? Please don’t be so mean, especially now, with the baby.” Having watched his wife endure such pain, David had already resolved to do the same. But to be called out by a woman in labor, in front of a roomful of strangers, was unendurably humiliating. David rolled his eyes to Dr. Naeby and the nurses. The good doctor smiled, oh-the-things-I’ve-seen, and shrugged. Despite Violet’s plea — indeed, perhaps because of it — David had, if anything, been crueler to her since she became a mother.

What had happened to them? When he met her she was Ultraviolet. That’s why he loved her. Not for the fantasia of good food and laughter and sex that had become their life together. But for her supreme confidence. Her boundless energy. He had found a teammate who, like himself, could take care of business. For their one-year anniversary, right after they had moved to LA, he had bought her a gold necklace from the Elvis Presley estate with Elvis’s “TCB quick as a flash” logo encrusted in diamonds. Sure, even in those early days, Violet would break down when it all got to be too much. She’d cry some mornings. But before noon there would invariably be a call. “I’m okay!” she would declare, and the sparkle was back. The mojo intact.

But this time Violet wasn’t bouncing back. She had escaped into the arms of Teddy Reyes. Poor bastard. He probably thought he had a chance with her! He may have even convinced himself that he understood her. But before Violet was David’s wife, she was her father’s daughter. David knew the stories well. Had Teddy heard them, too? Of the often drunk and always grandiose Englishman driving his erudite little girl around Los Angeles in a convertible Jag, quizzing her on Greek versus Roman gods, or the legacy of Sputnik, or devouring the latest Broadway cast album? Did Teddy know Churchill Grace once sent his daughter to bed without pudding because she didn’t know the exact round in which Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in Zaire? David understood only too well that Violet was an inveterate snob. She would protest wildly when accused of such a thing. This blind spot was her most charmingest of charms. Soon, David knew, the snob in Violet would stir from its slumber and forbid her from spurning her Croesus husband and heiress daughter for a man incapable of scraping together sixteen hundred dollars to fix a car!

The drum sounded. Ruth spoke, “Now we will begin our final round of prayer. Let us commit ourselves to the transformative love we have generated and which connects us to the Great Spirit.”

Right now, at this moment, David loved Violet.

And now he loved Violet.

And now he loved her, too.

The marriage had turned to shit. At least Violet was doing something about it. She was taking a leap. So David would take one, too: no matter what Violet said or did, from this moment on, he would love her as he loved her now.

Ruth shook the rattle. “I promise to slow down and appreciate life’s precious gifts,” she said. “Ho!”

It was David’s turn. “I will love her. Ho!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Present/Wonderful Moment
   I’m Hearing Something
   The Message