new writing project

III.

            Although at first I was stung by my old friend missing, I soon grew used to it. He’d arrive, eventually, carried by the wind or some shit, like a poor Indian metaphor. Until he came, I had one last person to mull about:  Todd.

            Todd was my first love, arguably only love. He found me when I was young and it stayed that way. I was enraptured under his mesmerizing spell. You should forget such frivolous things, but not me, apparently. I don’t forget. It’s a curse.

            We wound up on completely different paths, though, and I’m not saying one of us was more wrong than the other. We just weren’t on the right spectrum anymore; he chose to stay behind.

            So I called him, too.

            “Andrea we haven’t talked in ages,” he said breathlessly when he answered and recognized the inflection of my voice. I smiled, from the receiving end.

            “I know.” I couldn’t give you a countdown of days or months or weeks. Ages was enough.

            Todd had short hair that grazed the tops of his eyes with lengthy wisps, the natural variety. I remember playing with it, twisting it in my fingers, like pieces of straw. He had eyes that glowed underneath.

            “What do you want, exactly?”

            “I just wanted to talk to you. Is that weird?” There was this long, contemplative pause that didn’t sit well with me at all. Like he was chewing the proper words around in his mouth. I remembered his mouth. I remembered teeth and tongue and the way his smile angled, slipshod, to the side.

            “Well, it’s just been a while. You just don’t pop back into people’s lives like this.”

            Pop back into people’s lives. There it was. I was a disease of some kind, one he would never truly be rid of.

            “Oh.” And somewhere, when they were teaching social etiquette, perhaps in grade school or even later, I was missing.

            “I’m married.” Todd’s confession wasn’t a death sentence. Far from it. I was not perturbed.  Part of my mind, in some dark corner, expected that kind of news.

            He probably thinks I am still hung up on him, and rightfully so. I am the type that never completely falls out of love with people. I always keep the door partially open.

            “Congratulations,” I reply, no matter how late it comes. He could have gotten married last year, he could have gotten married last week. How the hell would I have known?

            “I just thought I should tell you.” And yet he sounded uneasy.  Did he detect a potential threat to his domestic bliss? Most likely. I couldn’t fault him; even unwittingly, it was something I was most capable of. Even when I have no ill will in my heart, I still manage to ruin everything and fuck up all that comes in my path. Like some demented human hurricane.

            “I respect that. We’re both adults, Todd. I’m seeing someone, too.” I wasn’t seeing anyone in reality. But you could probably tell that, before I even came out and claimed it as fact. I hadn’t see anyone, really, in a long time. Not as long as the gap between the demise of the union I had with Todd.

            “Is he a good guy?”

            “He’s a great guy.” I tried to conjure up a convincing image of this mystery man, but I just couldn’t.

            So I went back to my childhood phantom of what I always expected my husband or boyfriend to look like. I think I may have seen the man in a JC Penney catalog. Not precisely buff but spread-out well, with an American head, distinctly American brow and jaw and of course the teeth, which were of unequivocal importance. He’d be fond of those plaid shirts men who owned small boats wore like an uniform and the first few buttons would be done away with and on him it would never look tacky or unflattering. His smile would be large and would speak of charm like an exotic spice. He’d probably smell of Old Spice, or leather. His eyes would be either sparkling blue or green and extremely kind. His hands would have been weathered by years of hard work and his name would be something very catchy yet manly- Chip, for instance.

            As for this guy’s personality, I had yet to come up with that. The mystery that would mesh with my own. I gritted my teeth and repeated to myself, in a smaller voice, “he is a great guy.”

            “Well that’s good, because that’s what you deserve in life, Andrea.” Todd’s voice rushed me back to the real life, not the two-dimensional fantasy one.

            “What’s your wife like?”

            “Sandy’s pretty great, too.” Sandy? Sandy was a name for a dog. A Labrador. Or a girl you had a crush on in middle school. Not a wife.

            I sat back in my seat. Even though it was not cold out, the air that hit me felt numbed with an unnatural Arctic chill. I held my hand in front of me and became aware of the remnants of my last manicure, chipping away.

            “What does she do?”

            “She’s a dental hygienist.”

            “Oh.”

            “She loves it, though. She really, really loves it.” The career of a dental hygienist seemed less than ideal to me. Sticking your hands in random strangers’ mouths, prepping them for the incoming dentist, basically brushing your teeth for them. I could feel the vomit crawling up my esophagus as I pictured it.

            “Some of us are just that lucky.” Gag.

            “What do you do now?”

            “Not much.”

            “Do you have a job?”  I flinched. How to tactfully dance around this question? This ever-annoying question?

            “I’m in between gigs at the moment.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “That the economy is shit.”  And no one could deny that.

            “Yeah.,...but if you look around hard enough…something will turn up….”

            Todd lived in a world of “ifs.” He could barricade himself in them. If this and if that and if this comes to head and if this takes place. If, if, if. I remember not being able to stomach them after a while; it felt like a lot of fiction and magical thinking.

            “Look around you!” I had yelled at him once. “Life’s not like that!”

            Who was I to discuss what life was and was not, though?

            “Something sure will. Listen! I have a proposition for you.”

            “What’s that? I thought you called just to talk.” The word talk was inflected with disdain. I grimaced.

            “Something else, too.”

            “Shoot.” I hesitated and then went for it.

            “I’m throwing a party this weekend at an estate my friend’s borrowing. Very low key, not too rowdy. You should come and bring Sandy.”