fucking pot. It’s about your total and utter insensitivity to me. You know how I felt growing up with him, how it felt like he was barely there.”
“Could we not have one of your therapy talks right now?” he says.
“I’m on vacation.”
“Vacation from what?”
His jaw tightens. “Fuck you,” he says, and he walks out of the room. I sit on the bed, tears in my eyes. I want to be compassionate. I really do. Toby told me stories about his childhood. His mother was mentally ill and refused to take medication. Toby came home from school each day afraid of what he’d find. Sometimes he’d find her rocking in her bed, speaking unintelligibly. For weeks at a time he lived on saltine crackers because his mother spent her Social Security checks on clothes or jewelry. Once she held a knife to her wrists and yelled, “You don’t love me!” again and again while he crouched, terrified, in the corner. Toby’s father, who left them when Toby was a baby, didn’t return Toby’s calls. In many ways I understand why he smokes so much. The pain of living can be unbearable for someone like him. My life wasn’t nearly as awful as his, but I know what it’s like to feel you have no parents, no roots to anchor you to the earth.
I feel sorry for Toby, perhaps more so than loving him. A few days into our visit, Tyler and Gill get sick with the flu. That heaviness in the air grows even thicker, and I’m desperate to get home. But the day we’re finally supposed to leave, an ice storm hits Portland, and the airport closes. Toby and I watch TV. We take walks in the neighborhood, passing the boxy brick houses that all look the same. Every few hours I call the airline, trying to work out how to get home. I bounce my knee. I can’t keep my hands still. By the time we get to the airport, the flights to Portland jammed with people whose flights were canceled, my anxiety about being trapped is so high that I feel like I’m going to cry. When we finally get home on New Year’s Eve, five days later than planned, I’m resolute. I can’t stay in this relationship anymore. Three weeks later, I move my stuff into the apartment across the street from Terri.
My therapist is thrilled.
“This is a good first step,” she says. “Now you can begin to do some real work.”
I nod, but I don’t tell her the whole truth. I still sleep with Toby every couple of weeks. I’ve also been sleeping with another guy, a boy from Tennessee who makes me beg to have sex with him and only sometimes acquiesces, who tells me I’m too sexual for him and I should really tone it down. I don’t want her to know the truth. I’m too ashamed by my weakness, my inability to sit with my pain. One afternoon, Toby and I see Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, and afterward Toby wants to eat. The plan is we’ll walk back to my apartment where I’ll wash my face since the movie made me cry, and then take his car to La Senorita for burritos. But by the time we get to my apartment, Toby says he’s too hungry to wait for me to run in.
“I’ll be two minutes,” I say. “Just let me wash up.”
“Do what you want,” he says, his tone biting and mean. “I’m going.”
Enraged, I get in the car with him.
“I can’t believe what an asshole you are,” I say.
“I have low blood sugar.” He pulls the car into the street and stops with a jerk at the stop sign.
“Then carry peanuts with you,” I say. “What are you, a child? If you know you have low blood sugar, grow up and take care of yourself.”
“I’m not going to have this conversation,” he says.
“Yes, you are.” I yank down the window, letting the cool air in.
“If you can’t wait for two fucking minutes for me to do something for myself, then you’re going to listen to my anger about it this whole car ride.”
“Get the hell out of my car,” he yells as we come to a red light. And suddenly it hits me. I don’t have to do this anymore. I left. Months ago. Yet here I am, allowing the same crap I allowed for too long.
“OK,” I say, my voice calm now. “I will.” I open the door and get out of the car. I walk away from Toby for good.
Part Three
ENOUGH
11
In my small studio, I begin my new life without him. I buy two bookcases for my books and a low- maintenance plant. I paint the bathroom sky blue and the kitchen a rich red. I take a kickboxing class. I teach four writing classes and work on the novel I’ve been meaning to write since I finished my MFA. Four writer friends and I meet regularly to critique one another’s work. Spring comes again. Cherry blossoms fill the trees, dropping their pink petals to the ground below. The air grows sweet and heady with the scent of flowers. People emerge from their homes, eyes bright, skin pale from the months of rain, and roam the streets. I feel their hunger, their readiness for something new and exciting. Or maybe that’s just me. My writer friends and I go to bars and to see live music. And my parade of boys continues.
First, Homeless. A friend names him this for his long, unkempt hair. He sits on my bed talking for hours about the organic farm he plans to run someday while I wait for us to have sex. A week later, when I run into him, he introduces me to his friend as Sarah. Then Eurhythmy, a boy who can sound out words through dance. He practices dance moves in a white robe, the official uniform of eurhythmy dancers. During my time with Eurhythmy, one of my friends tells me he tried to order a Big Mac in eurhythmy, but they turned him away.
“I don’t understand,” he had said. “I was wearing the robe and everything.”
Next is Hold the Phone—he says this to me during sex because he doesn’t want to come too soon. Another friend says “hold the phone” every time she makes me wait on the line while she answers her call-waiting.
We laugh and laugh.
When I’m with these boys, I’m still caught up with wanting more, hoping they’ll love me. But I have to admit, I’m beginning to see the humor.
Somewhere in all of this, I decide to contact Leif. Thinking about my relationship with Toby and how I reached that low point brings me back to him, how I never really got over what happened between us. All this time, I’ve never found a way to close the space he occupies in my heart. The fact is, I still love him. Leif is surprised to hear from me. We chat gregariously for a half hour, and then I ask if I can visit. I didn’t plan to ask, but now that we’re talking, I feel how much I miss him. He’s not seeing anyone, and neither am I. Maybe there’s a chance we could make things work again.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because I’d like to see you.” I bite the inside of my cheek, nervous.
“I don’t know.”
I wait, my heart heavy. I caused his reluctance, I know. But it feels awful he isn’t as anxious to see me as I am to see him.
“I can come next month,” I say. “Just a couple days.”
“You really want to come.”
“I do.”
“OK,” he says. “Let me know when you get the ticket.”
The week before I leave, Terri comes over and helps me pack. She lends me a black slip dress, which I try on before I put it in my suitcase.
“Do you think he’ll be attracted?” I ask. I turn to look at my butt, which always looks big to me, no matter what I’m wearing.
“Is he blind?” she asks back. She sits on my bed, holding the glass of wine I poured for her.
I laugh. “I’m so nervous,” I say. I pull the dress over my head, not wanting to think anymore about what I’ll look like to him, whether he’ll still think I’m pretty. “Why am I so fucking nervous?”
