“I worked in a bookstore,” I say. “This guy used to jack off on our National Geographics and my boss made me scrape off his jizz with a letter opener.”
“Jesus,” he says. “Maybe the Quinns aren’t that bad.” And then he winks. “Kidding, Joe. Kidding.”
Finally, we finish the job and the Whisper Room is spotless. Oliver is on his way out the door—See you on Menopause Avenue—and in an ideal world, I would call you right now. But we don’t live in an ideal world, Mary Kay.
I pick up Melanda’s phone and I enter the pass code and I prepare for the worst. You know it all now. You’ve had time to read, obsess over every detail. Your heart might be broken… if I did a good job. Did you believe it was her? And if you did, is this betrayal going to put you off men? Off me? What do you say to the woman who violated your trust for ten fucking years? I open Melanda’s text messages and…
22
Nothing! Your best friend shocks you with a revelation about fucking your husband and she breaks up with you via text message and all you said was: Be well. Xo. I go to Instagram and Nomi still follows Melanda—maybe you didn’t tell her?—but you unfollowed Melanda.
Women are strange. You’re in the library all day acting as if nothing has changed, like you didn’t climax for me in my house. Nomi comes in with muddy boots and you are Carol Fucking Brady. “Nomi honey, can you wipe your boots?”
And she is Cindy Fucking Brady. “Sorry, Mom.”
Last month, when you told her to wipe her muddy boots off she barked at you and flipped you the bird and you flipped her the bird right back. But today she’s calm. You’re calm. It’s all way too fucking calm and does Nomi know that you unfollowed her aunt? Are you pretending that you and your Murafuckingkami didn’t put on a show for me in my living room? Every time you’re within ten feet, I brace myself for you to tap me on the shoulder and ask if we can talk. We almost had sex! We have to talk. But you remain calm, distant. I poke the tiger. I leave Dolly in the middle of Cookbooks—you hate that—but you just move the cart out of the aisle and eat lunch on your own at your desk. The Meerkat comes back before we close up shop and knocks on the desk—you hate that too—and you smile. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Did Dylan’s mom’s book get here yet?”
“Sorry, honey, I’ll text you when we get it.”
She storms out the door without saying goodbye and still you are calm. Dead calm.
This is the calm before the storm. I know that foxes are stealthy and you’re busy designing your escape. I see you, Mary Kay, I see you on the cusp of blocking out what happened between us because it’s too much, on top of that note you got from RIP Melanda.
But I am busy too. It’s not easy having a stalker and Oliver Fucking Potter is a stalker, and I need to get off this rock and pick up some supplies if I’m going to save you from your overly active guilty conscience. Think, Joe, think. Oliver’s motel is across from the Starbucks and I tell him I’m placing a mobile order and I ask him if he wants to meet up. He asks for a tall hot blond—such an asshole—and I place the order and tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes.
Now he’s at Starbucks, blowing up my phone—where are you—and I tell him that I had a change of plans—Sorry Oliver, I have to go to Seattle for an interlibrary loan issue. He’ll never catch me now and he knows it. His response is terse but respectful: Well played, my friend.
Amen to that, Oliver, and I board the ferry with all the passive-aggressive cliquey commuters. I sit in a chair and a limp-dick Amazon drudge juts out his jaw.
“You’re gonna sit there?”
“Yes, I’m going to sit here.”
“Well, sometimes one of our friends sits here.”
Fascinating. I smile and put on my headphones. “I guess not today, then.”
In the city, I use my Quinn cash to buy cameras and that’s one good thing about Oliver Fucking Potter. He reminded me that I have money. And money is power.
I book a hotel room in a Marriott and I send Oliver a picture of the receipt and then my phone rings. Oliver.
“Not cool, Joe.”
“Oliver, I’m too freaked out to be in my house. I just need one night.”
He hangs up on me—all friends fight—and sends me a link to an Andy Warhol print on 1stdibs called Peaches. And then a text: Don’t fuck with me again, Goldberg.
I buy him the Peaches and I leave the Marriott and hop back on the ferry—no cliquey commuters, just lonely lost souls hoping that the cutesy ways of Winslow lift them out of their misery—and it’s a relief knowing that Oliver won’t be tailing me for the rest of the night.
I buy a beer from the canteen—it’s stressful, having a stalker—and I check Melanda’s phone when I disembark. I can’t use her to get to you anymore—I miss our talks, me as Melanda, you as you—and you didn’t write anything more. The beer is cold. You are cold. You don’t reach out to me and I wish you would, Mary Kay. I worry about you. Did you sleep last night? Are you crying in the shower like Glenn Close in The Big Chill or are you attacking your rat husband like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction?
I have to know how you are, Mary Kay. I know Melanda’s message was a lot to take in. I know you probably think you’re a bad person and you’re not a bad person. I relate to you more than ever. I couldn’t worm my way into my family with Love and you’re still trying to find your place on this rock after twenty years but your place is with me.
You need me to watch out for you and I jog on the Eagle Harbor trail and it’s a little unnerving, to be honest. I’m still not over what happened—damn you, RIP Melanda—and I step off the trail onto your lawn and I pause. The quiet. The stillness. You and the Meerkat went to Costco after work—Nomi calls it #RetailTherapy, buying paper towels in bulk to clean up the mess of your life—and your rat is in Seattle waiting for a former Sub Pop photographer to show up. Alas, that’s not gonna happen because I’m the one who sent the fake email and I’m the one apologizing to Phil, assuring him that I’ll be there soon, man. In the Richard Scarry sense of the world, everyone in my life is busy being busy. And I’m busy too.
It’s only ten steps to the sliding glass door and it’s a good thing that your husband is such a devout we-don’t-lock-our-doors kind of asshole because that means your door is open. I grip the handle and the door squeaks—Jesus, Phil, take care of your home—and for the first time in our life together, I am in your house.
Nomi wasn’t kidding, Mary Kay. You really do like your tchotchkes and your shelves are littered with literary toys. I spy a Shakespeare doll and a Virginia Woolf puppet—who makes that, who?—and a tiny Bell Jar and I know what this is all about. You buy tchotchkes so that you can pretend that your home is the Empathy Bordello Bar & Books. It’s how you cope. You’ve been living in denial for nearly twenty years, trying hard not to see the horror around you—RIP Melanda playing footsie with Phil at the pub while you all eat brunch—and Phil’s passive-aggressive refusal to let his old songs go—a crate in a barrel, a barrel in a gun—and you’ve spoken no evil, throwing salmon steaks into the freezer, onto the grill, repeat infinity.