He laughed. 'Deal.'
She waved good-bye and walked outside onto the crowded sidewalk. She'd taken BART to work this morning but decided to walk home. It wasn't that far, and she needed the exercise. She also wanted some time to think.
At the corner, at the stoplight, a convertible pulled next to her, its driver idly flipping through stations on a radio loud enough to be heard halfway down the block:
rap, dance, metal, alternative. The light changed, the convertible took off, and as she walked across the street she heard the fading drone of a currently hot rock band.
She missed the music of the seventies. To the mainstream public, it was the decade of disco, but she'd been into fusion and progressive rock, movements on the edge of the mainstream that took chances, expanded boundaries, celebrated artistic ambition and musical ability.
Everyone now had been ground down into mediocrity, afraid to shoot too high, afraid of being ridiculed as pretentious, and the result was a music scene that was terminally banal.
Art.
That's what she respected.
Which was why she was so happy with Matt.
They'd been going together for a year, living together for the past four months, and while the situation at work had been up and down, she'd never been happier at home.
Matt, she thought, was a true artist. He created his work not for money, not for fame, not for recognition by his peers.
He did it because he had to.
He didn't look or dress the part either, and that's what had sold her on his integrity. There were two looks for artists in San Francisco: designer duds and an up-to-the minute coif, or thrift-store clothes and uncombed hair.
Matt looked more like a sales clerk or a civil servant-- average--and the fact that he didn't feel obligated to play into the media's conception of an artiste made her think he was the real thing.
In actuality, he did work as a sales clerk. At Montgomery Ward's. Cameras and Luggage. He used the money he earned at his nine-to-five to fund his art: films he shot in and around Golden Gate Park with 'found'
actors--people he picked off the street to read his scripts. When he completed a film, he copied it onto videotape, passed the tapes out to friends and coworkers, and told them to copy the film and pass it on as well. Most of the people who watched his work, she knew, were not even aware that he was the filmmaker.
He always acted as though this were just some low-budget movie he'd discovered and wanted to share with them.
She found that charming.
Matt's Mustang was in the driveway when she arrived home, and her spirits lifted as she hurried across the small yard and up the porch steps. The front door was unlocked--as usual--and she opened the door and went inside. She was about to pull her Ricky Ricardo routine and yell 'Honey, I'm home!' but instead she decided to surprise him, and she moved quietly through the living room.
There was the sound of someone peeing in the bathroom, and she walked over to the open door --where a nude blond woman was sitting on the toilet, legs spread.
Matt, her artist, was kneeling before the toilet, his head in the woman's lap.
There was no silent second of shock, no delay of any kind. She ran instantly into the bathroom and yanked Matt up by his hair. 'Get out!' she screamed. 'Get the hell out of my house!'
His erect penis was bouncing around comically and the woman was frantically trying to recover her clothes, but Laurie did not let up. She dug her fingers into Matt's upper arm and shoved him as hard as she could into the hall, picking his clothes up from the floor next to the tub and throwing them after him. She did not touch the woman but continued screaming all the while, anguished, angry invectives that included both of them.
The woman, pants and T-shirt now on, ran past her out of the bathroom clutching panties, bra, nylons, shoes.
Laurie was crying. She didn't want to, wanted to wait until after they were gone, wanted to appear only mad, not hurt, but she couldn't help it and she was sobbing as she screamed, 'Fuck you, Matt! Fuck you, you pervert!
Fuck you!'
Still only half-dressed, the two of them ran down the hallway, through the living room, out the front door.
They did not bother to close the door behind them, and Laurie caught a glimpse of Matt scrambling into his car, fumbling with his keys, before she slammed the door shut and dead-bolted it.
She slumped to the floor, leaning against the hard cold wood. It had all happened so fast. One minute she'd been happy, excited, ready to relax with Matt and begin her weekend; the next, her entire life had been turned upside down and it felt as though her guts had been scooped out as she realized that the man she loved had betrayed her. She hadn't had time to think, to absorb the shock, she'd simply been thrown in the water and forced to swim.
She sat there, crying, and after a while the tears stopped. The hurt had not lessened, but it had stabilized.
It was no longer an intruder but a part of her, and she could deal with it. She stood, wiped her eyes, wiped her face, and went back down the hall to the bathroom.
Walking over to the toilet, she grimaced with distaste and flushed, almost gagging.
She washed her hands in the sink, scrubbing hard, then walked into the bedroom, slumping onto the bed.
She was still shaking with anger, but beneath the anger she felt hollow, empty. Her thoughts were rushing a mile a minute, scenes from the past months with Matt running through her head as she tried to determine whether she should have seen this coming.
She sometimes thought it would be easier if she were a lesbian. At least she understood the female mind set.
And she wouldn't have to put up with asshole men who tried to tell her what to think and how to act and then betrayed her.
She leaned back onto the mattress.
Lesbian.
She remembered when she was little, promising to marry a girl who lived . . . where? Next door? Down the street? She couldn't remember. She couldn't recall the girl's name either, but she remembered the way she'd looked, dirty and thin, pretty in a natural, unaware, unself-conscious way. Even now, the memory stirred her, and Laurie sat up again, shaking her head.
What was wrong with her?
Maybe she was attracted to women. Maybe she'd been repressing her true feelings all these years and that was why she'd consistently picked losers, why she'd failed in her relationships with men each and every time.
No. She thought of Matt's blond bimbo, naked, frantically putting on her clothes, and there was no interest whatsoever, not even a subliminal attraction, only a white-hot anger and a burning core of hate. She'd always considered herself a nonviolent person, a pacifist, but she understood now how people could kill.
If there'd been a gun in the house, she probably would've shot both of them.
She sighed, thought for a moment, then stood and began rummaging through the closet and the drawers of the dresser, taking everything of Matt's and tossing it onto the floor. She gathered it all up, took it out to the living room, threw it on the couch, then went systematically through the rest of the house until she'd found everything he owned.
She threw it all out into the yard, everything, even his art, heaving his camera as hard as she could on the ground, stomping on his precious videotapes before tossing the shattered cassettes onto the grass. The driveway, the yard, the sidewalk were all covered with clothes and books, electronic equipment and CD's, and a group of kids playing baseball in the street had stopped to stare at her, but she didn't care, and she slammed the door again and
