I do.
I wanted to build a life with you and I did everything right. I was a good man. I volunteered at the library. I opened my heart to you and I believed that we could be happy in Cedar Cove. But, like so many Sassy American women who trust their feelings, you spoke your truth and got thrown down the stairs. My heart is broken. Permanently.
I can’t talk to you so I play a Sam Cooke song, the one where he’s sad about a woman who left him. She broke his heart—she stayed out, she stayed out all night—and he begs her to come home. He offers his forgiveness. You can do that when the person you love is alive. You got pushed. Life does that to us. But you lost your footing and fell down the stairs because you were wearing socks—I warned you—and now you’re in a coma and you can’t burst into the Bordello to tell me you regret leaving, leaving me behind. You’re like every woman I ever loved. You didn’t walk away. You didn’t stay out all night. You left the fucking planet.
You wanted this Bordello before you ever met me and I wanted us to have Christmas together and leave the lights up all year and now you can’t even see our jukebox. You can’t do the most important thing we do as people: evolve. Apologize to your child for being human, for being a mother, for letting empathy make you go blind.
I look at my phone just to make sure it’s real and it is: They’re pulling the plug tomorrow. Thought you should know.
Nomi didn’t even call to tell me about you—she texted—and I flip the switch on the pink neon Open sign in my bookstore, where I serve Cocktails & Dreams alone. You didn’t help me build the Bordello and I can’t blame Nomi for being cold and I know she’ll be fine in the long run. She’s not one for empathy—I still see her hovering over you, I still hear those words, she’s alive—and it’s not her fault, Mary Kay. She’s moving on with her life, studying our fucked-up environment at NYU and young, wounded female victims turned sociopaths thrive in New York City and I should know.
I’ve been hurt by more than a few of them.
I try to stay upbeat. There are people out there who do love me. Ethan might visit—but he would bring Blythe—and here I go again, replaying it all in my head. I loved you like no other. The EMTs arrived and they gave me hope. The United States Injustice System cooperated this time around—cause of injury: accident—and there was no biased “investigation,” no online crazies trying to blame me for your fall. I tried to be the guy with a girlfriend in a coma—we have that book in stock at the Bordello—and I was dutiful. I was there. But every time I went to get a soda I came back to find one of your Friends in my chair by your bed. Erin disappeared and Fecal Eyes swept in with her multigenerational family of lookie-loos and I know you wouldn’t want me sitting there with that woman who brought out the worst in us.
I loved you. But my love wasn’t enough to save you. Now you sleep in a mechanical bed while a machine does all the heavy lifting. I was the man of your dreams—I didn’t think someone like you existed—and you always wanted to dance with somebody （who loves you）。 And I did love you and we did dance. But from the moment we met, we were stuck in the middle of the circle. Your Friends and family were holding us hostage every step of the way because they didn’t want you to be happy. And look how that worked out for them.
Your best friend Melanda is watching movies at Fort Ward.
Your husband Phil is snorting heroin in heaven.
Your brother-in-law Ivan is blogging about his new gambling addiction.
Your buddy Shortus is in hell doing CrossFit and your daughter Nomi is alive but motherless.
I play our Lemonheads song and I can’t believe I’ll never see you again and I wonder what you would think of the tabletop Centipede game by the back wall of the Bordello. But I’ll never know, will I?
Acid shoots through my esophagus, all that leftover love with no place to go.
I lug a barrel of empty bottles out back into the dumpster, where the air is thick as bread and Florida makes you believe in the ether, the unknown. Sometimes I get paranoid. I picture you haunting me from within like a ghost I can’t escape, the shark inside my shark.
But there’s no such fucking thing as ghosts. I’m getting older and you’re not and it will take some time to adjust to this living arrangement, the one where you’re dead and I’m turning on the TV because the music hurts but the news helps.
Naked Ocala woman urinates on customers at Popeyes
Broward County husband tells police: “My wife called my girlfriend a whore! It was self-defense!”
Father and son arrested for selling meth at school bake sale
And then an ad for a new show on Fox: Johnny Bates: The Man You Hate to Love
After you fell down the stairs and our family splintered, I thought about going to Ray, trying to get my son back. But I was right about Ray. He has cancer. And if there’s one thing I learned from my time with you, it’s that Dottie has enough on her plate right now. She’s taking care of my son. She opened an Instagram account and I followed her and she followed me right back and sent me one important message: Ssssshh.
She doesn’t post as much as Love did, but it helps to have an online family museum and I’m happy my son has more privacy now. I also have a Google alert for “Ray Quinn” and “obituary,” and that’s a thing that keeps me going.
The door of the Empathy Bordello Bar & Bookstore opens and it’s only 11:32 and we’re usually dead until noon—even in these parts, people are shy about morning juice—and I have a customer. She’s not a person to me yet. She’s a blur in the doorway and she holds the door open with her hip. She’s sending someone a text and I can’t see her face in the white light. The AC is on and the cool air is pouring out, driving our planet into despair. If I ask her to close the door, I am rude because she’s talking to someone—her boyfriend?—and if I let her stay there like that, I am complicit in the destruction of this planet, of my heart.
She moves her hip and the door closes and we’re alone in the dark that’s not as dark as it seems. My eyes still can’t get there and I’m blinking, squinting, as if your eyes cover my eyes, warping my vision. I want to see this woman—I am alive—and I don’t want to see this woman—They all leave me, they leave me behind—but it doesn’t matter what I want. Eventually, my muscles adjust—the holes in our faces have free will—and like it or not, I see the world clearly, the woman who just sat down at the bar in my Bordello. She says hello and I say hello and it defies all logic—I lost everyone I ever loved, everyone—but somehow my heart is intact. It ticks madly, just like hers.
Acknowledgments
A lot of people helped me put this book in your hands.
My editor, Kara Cesare, responds to my emails, my anxieties as well as my fears. I am so lucky to have Kara on my side, a psychic book friend who challenges me and nudges me and knows what I’m trying to say. I am also grateful for the wisdom and whip-smarts of Josh Bank and Lanie Davis. Thanks for pushing me onto a plane! I’m constantly happy to have the support of Les Morgenstern and Romy Golan. My attorney, Logan Clare, is both hilarious and helpful. I love being a member of the Random House family because of so many warm and compassionate people: Avideh Bashirrad, Andy Ward, Michelle Jasmine, and Jesse Shuman, among others. And I thank Claudia Ballard and her team at WME for their enduring belief in my work, plus all those gorgeous foreign editions.