“Give me the fucking code.”
“But you don’t have transcripts of our wine nights… our phone calls…”
I hate my skin for turning red. “Just tell me the code.”
“Pound 342,” she says. 342 as in You love me. Ugh. “You can write it down.”
I should just fucking kill her, Mary Kay. “Thank you.”
I turn to go and she baits me. “I wish you were there the night she told me about you.”
I say nothing.
“How you didn’t go to college… how you don’t have any friends… and I definitely wish you had been there the night she told me about what a bad kisser you are. Too much tongue.”
I won’t let her see my face. I know better, Mary Kay. She’s lying. She has to be lying.
“It’s so sad that you actually think you’re in competition with Phil…” My teeth are chattering. “And she’s right, Joe. You read too much.” No such thing. “You overdose on beef and broccoli…” You would never say that about me. “That’s the only possible explanation for why you could believe that she’d ever leave someone like him for someone like you. She’s too kind for her own good. Obviously she said something that put a pep in your step today but my God, honey, get a clue. MK is nice to everyone. She’s a librarian, a public servant. A people pleaser. It’s just a shame when guys like you take kindness so personally.”
She yawns like my mother and she reminds me of my mother, who would turn up the volume on Jerry Springer when I got home from school, when I wanted to tell her about my day. When I was dead to her because I was happy. That’s what’s happening right now, Mary Kay. You put a “pep in my step”—you told me I exist—and your friend wants me to stumble. She’s not smart like you and me—she can’t be happy for other people, not really—and she won’t ever learn her lesson and fuck it. Do I do it right now? Do I kill your best friend?
“Sweetie,” she says. “Could you move the TV in here? I have sensitive retinas and the glare from the window really is killing me. I’d also love a steak. I am simply dying for some real red meat, you know?”
I want to, I do. But no. I don’t have a plan and I’m not going down over Melanda.
I slam the door and on the way upstairs, my tongue pulsates in my mouth. Fuck you, Melanda. My tongue is just fine.
Isn’t it?
15
I did not give her my fucking TV and I am not going to get her a steak. Bad dogs don’t get treats. Everyone knows that. And that’s what she is, Mary Kay: a bad dog. Territorial and violent. She attacked me and I brought her home. I fed her. I tried to train her and she turned around and assaulted me again.
I definitely wish you had been there the night she told me about what a bad kisser you are. Too much tongue.
Now I’m pacing in my backyard （watching my estranged son run around on Instagram to remind myself of how fucking good I am. He’s toddling. He’s cute. I made that）。 I trip on an exposed root in the natural landscape and I hate Bainbridge Island because there is such a thing as TOO FUCKING QUIET. We’re not in the desert and no one has to be on the factory line at 7:00 A.M. so why is everyone but me asleep?
I wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. I’m a good goddamn guy but I’m a lonely guy, bullied and used. She attacked me! It’s her fault that she’s in that basement, that I’m in this mess, and did you really make fun of my kissing? Did you mean it when you said you never thought you’d meet someone like me? Or is Melanda right? Was that your kind way of telling me I’m not good enough?
I can’t be here. And no I don’t want to get on the ferry and ride to Seattle and stuff my face with salmon ampersand quinoa and visit a bookstore underneath a market—we get it, Seattle, you have history—only to be hungry an hour later and hunt down some restaurant with a twee pink door. All of that is really only fun if you’re doing it with someone you love and I love you but you’re like the rest of the islanders right now.
You’re in bed.
I put on my gloves—no fucking prints, no DNA—and I unlock the door to Melanda’s condo and set the stage for her departure in case you do pop by. I go in the bathroom—the door is propped open by a copy of The Thorn Birds that she cut in half—and it’s a foul mess of O.B. tampons and Fitness magazines and monogrammed towels: MRS. Wow. Melanda Ruby Schmid really is a very bad dog. Her parents knew it, burying the ruby because they knew she wasn’t a gem, saddling her with initials she could never live up to. I pick up a framed photo of you and your best friend and even when she’s happy, she’s miserable. Hiding behind sunglasses while you squint in the sun.
I check my phone. Melanda is tearing the sheets off the bed and she isn’t capable of appreciating a surprise movie-binge staycation because she isn’t capable of love. She only sleeps in one half of her bed at home—the other half is littered with mini Dove wrappers and oh for fuck’s sake, Melanda, you’re not a supermodel. Buy a candy bar.
She’s reading Sarah Jio’s Violets of March and no, Melanda, that book isn’t about you. It’s about a nice woman, a divorcée who got married because she believed in love, unlike some people.
Was she right, Mary Kay? Are you never gonna leave him?
I open the junk drawer in her kitchen and she has dozens of Women’s Fitness exercise calendars and they’re glued together by time and self-loathing. I look in her mirror—it rests on the other half of The Thorn Birds—and it lies to me and makes me taller and thinner than I am. I look above her mirror where there’s another big fat lie in the form of a cheery sign: YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. I pick up her computer and the last thing she googled was young Carly Simon and no, Melanda. You don’t look like Carly Simon because Carly Simon has a soul. I turn on her TV where it’s nothing but Real Housewives. She didn’t watch the documentaries made by women for women that she praises on Twitter and she listens to “Coming Around Again” so much because if no one ever stays—and who could stay—then no one ever leaves and thus no one can ever return to play the game again with her.
But this is the burden of being a good guy. I would never say any of that to her.
The person I need right now is you. And it’s late but it’s not that late.
I pick up Melanda’s phone.
Melanda: You there?
You: Yep. Can’t sleep. How’s the trip? Did you get in safe?
Oh, Mary Kay. You could sleep if you were with me and so could I.
Melanda: Yes and sooooo… okay so I met someone lol
You: Already? You just landed, no?
Melanda: Well… we actually started talking a couple months ago but long distance I mean I didn’t say anything because who knows but now I’m here and well… NOW I KNOW lol
You: Wow. Well that’s… great?
Oh, Mary Kay, you are greener by the bubble.
Melanda: lol yes with him right now so gotta scram but yay for meeee!
You: Wow! Details? Tell me he’s not married.
Jesus, you are jealous and as well you should be. You see now that Melanda took a leap of faith so she gets to be happy and this is how I make you see the light.