“Thanks.” I’m overcome that I’m not anonymous to her. That she likes my eyeliner. That she’s collected me in some way too. “I love your clothes. The monochrome always pops in a crowd.”
She smiles warmly.
Her dog sneezes. “Christ Almighty, Duffy, bless you.” She hugs him close to her chest.
So, it’s Ingrid and Duffy. I remember now, how I’d seen the dog with the lilac cowboy hat outside. How she and her dog have always foretold good things.
“His allergies are insufferable today. Cranky old man.” She shakes her head. “So, are you one of ours?”
“Um.” I nod slowly. “I guess I am.”
“Uch.” She pats my hand. “The beginning’s the worst,” she says. “But keep coming back. I was a gutter, gutter bulimic. Worst of the worst. I’m still crazier than a treeful of cockatiels, but I’ll tell you what—you’re only as sick as your secrets. The second you talk about it, fffffffft.” She blows a raspberry and waggles her fingers into the air. “It all starts to get a little better. Humans need to share their darkest parts. Unburdening makes you closer to everyone. There’s that thing that all addicts have, that you’re a piece of shit in the center of the universe. That everybody’s obsessed with the ways you fall short. But the truth is, we all have the same, boring problems. Sometimes the best thing you can do is talk about it. It makes no sense, but glory if it doesn’t work like a charm.
“Oh,” she says, plucking a pen from the knot at the nape of her neck and pulling a note card from a pocket. “What’s your number, dear? I’ll call you. I don’t text, I’m old school, but I’ll call you since you’re new.”
I’m equal parts suspicious and flattered. I consider faking her out but don’t. I’m so curious about what she’ll say. She writes her number and tears off a corner of the card and hands it to me. With a sky-piercing “I” and a decadent swooping “G,” her penmanship is exquisite.
“Good luck, dear.” She slides the pen back into her hair. “Keep coming back. This is the only place that will help you. Don’t go floating off to Tahiti and think it’s a cure. It doesn’t work—I can tell you from experience. Florida doesn’t work, either.” She laughs at this. “Anyway, we’ll always be here.”
Her surprisingly warm hand pats mine again before she opens the door and lets herself back in.
As I walk toward June’s, I realize I’m hungry. When I cross Union Square, there’s a small protest, for universal healthcare. I think about the person with the van. Wonder whether they got their kidney. I pass by work. All the winking trinkets in the display window that I only know now don’t make for a home.
I have wasted my entire life focusing on the wrong things and the wrong people. I don’t know how it came to be that I believed changing everything about me would change the way people treated me.
I thought a polished appearance and stellar behavior would be the passport to belonging. And when I inevitably failed at perfection, I could at least willfully do everything in my power to be kicked out before anyone left me.
I duck into a narrow sandwich shop. It’s been a fixture since 1929 and features a lunch counter where I’ve always wanted to eat. There are black-and-white framed pictures all over the walls and a nice man who wants to know what I’m having. Until I establish a usual, I order a matzo ball soup.
I text Ivy and tell her I’m thinking about her. I ask her how she’s doing. I realize how superstitiously I believed that if I just got away from her, I’d stop. That maybe we both would. I tried to blame her for everything when all she did was remind me of the ugliest parts of me.
When my food arrives, it’s beautiful. Golden and steaming. The soft mound of matzo a gift. I take a picture and send it to Patrick.
I eat my New York meal in a New York restaurant all by myself.
When I’m done, I say a small prayer to be willing to keep the soup I’ve eaten. I pray that I’ll get healthy. That my mangled body will be restored. I speak the words in my mind with sincerity and hope. I don’t know if it works, but if it doesn’t, I know where I’ll go. I know who to call.
chapter 47
When I get back to June’s, there’s a twentysomething curly blond dude with a tool belt getting ready to leave.
“Hi,” I tell him, surprised, shooting a questioning look at my sister. There’s a bookcase right in the middle of her living room.
“TaskRabbit,” says June, and thanks him.
We watch as he laces up his boots. I have so many questions and thoughts. He takes what feels like eleven minutes to put on his shoes.
“Thank you,” we say in unison. June widens her eyes at me. Seriously, sometimes it’s like white people pretend they haven’t had to take their shoes off in years.
“Ta-da!” she says brightly once he’s gone, walking me over to the white shelving grid. “Okay, so from here…”—she taps the far side of the shelf and walks around to the back of the couch—“to here…”—she glances at me to make sure I’m paying attention—“is your room.”
I’m speechless.
She points at the TV on the wall. “Obviously, the Samsung’s not yours, but you can use it occasionally. And we can get a pull-out couch if that makes more sense. I don’t care what the fuck you put on the shelves.”
I think of all the versions of home I’ve mood-boarded over the years, and this is somehow my favorite.
“Thank you.” I hear my voice thickening.
She waves this off, and when she sits on the love seat to avoid sitting on my “bed,” the heavy droplet threatening to spill over my left eye quavers. I brush it away quickly and sniff hard. “I take it the view is mine, too?”
“Just as far as the edge of the couch.”
I sit beside her and she turns to me. “So, how was it?”
“A whole lot of God talk.”
“Yikes. What flavor of God?”
“More of a Build-A-Bear, Choose Your Own Adventure kind of God.”
“Is it a cult?”
“Yeah, but there’s no leader. It’s like an independent-study cult where your homemade God helps you learn about your feelings.”
“So, it’s a small cult.”
I think about my talk with Patrick. About cults and families and the secrets and stories that bind strangers together.
“Yeah.”
“And you feel better?”
I consider Ingrid. “Yeah, I do.”
“Good.” She sighs heavily and gets up. “Gotta change my tampon.”
She winces when she returns, doubled over slightly. “I wish every muscle in my body would give it a fucking rest.”
That’s when I remember. I go into June’s hallway closet for my suitcase. I grab my crushed pack of cigarettes and slide out the half-smoked, vintage joint.
“Yo, you want to get high?”
“With you?” She sits back on the sofa.
“Sure,” I falter. “Or you could just have it. For your period or whatever.”
“Spark that shit.” June points over at the stove.