Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
On Saturday night, I change three times before Oliver arrives to pick me up, as if choosing the right outfit will make this evening go more smoothly.
Ten minutes into our drive to see a Memphis band who Oliver loves but has never seen live, he gets a call that a pipe has burst at the house he’s renovating. The contractor onsite tries to reassure him that he took care of it before he left and he’ll see him there on Monday.
“Do you mind? It’s on the way.”
At first, there are only trees—towering, sleepy river birch lining the driveway.
We pull closer and the hidden midcentury home comes into view.
By the time we’ve pulled into the open carport, I’m in love.
Even with all its bruises and disrepair on display, it looks so regal, sitting in the wooded grove.
“Oliver. It’s beautiful.”
He takes my hand and leads me across a wooden footbridge, uneven and missing planks, but sturdy enough to carry us over a fast-moving creek.
As he pulls out the keys, I think about our house.
The one we moved into just before Emmy was born.
That house knew exactly who it wanted us to be: newlyweds with an open kitchen and a guest room for the mother-in-law.
And so did the house next door. And the one next door to that.
And the one across the street. The week we moved in, I caught myself walking up the wrong driveway twice.
“You’ll get used to it,” my friendly neighbor told me. “Maybe you should paint your mailbox. That could help?”
I took his advice and painted it deep purple, a color I was sure no one else would choose.
It made me happy every time I pulled up.
But the Neighborhood Association felt differently.
There was a list of approved mailbox colors and purple wasn’t one of them.
So I painted it gray again and left a single purple dot on top. A small act of defiance.
Inside Oliver’s flip, we move from room to room but it feels more like floating—the space is light and airy, with cedar beams and skylights. The construction is in progress, and the exposed wiring and unfinished drywall only add to the charm of the place—you can see the work and care going into it.
When we get to the dining area, I give a delighted gasp. “I would paint in this room every afternoon.”
“Come here. I want to show you my favorite part.” Oliver leads me to a screened-in porch off the kitchen. In the center of the room, a tree has grown up through the floorboards.
“We’re doing everything we can to save it.”
“You have to.” I run my hand down the trunk.
“I want to honor everything, you know? The original design. I’m not looking to change anything, just bring it back to life. It might kill me, but I think it will be worth it.”
We stand in silence, admiring the room. Then he takes me by the hand again and leads me to the primary bedroom. He describes what he wants to do in detail, but the more he lights up, the more I begin to panic. I want to enjoy it, but I can’t. My hand grows clammy in his.
“I have to tell you something.”
“Okay.” He looks suddenly as nervous as I feel.
“It’s big. It’s something I’ve been keeping from you.”
I drop his hand and sit on the floor in the middle of the empty room. I pull my knees close to my chest.
Oliver sits beside me. “I can hear whatever it is. It’s me.”
“I’ve been painting. More than ever. Drawing, painting, charcoal and oils, all of it.”
“That’s great, Diana.” He narrows his eyes. “Did you think that would bother me?”
“I’m painting women I interview. About their erotic fantasies.
” I tell Oliver all about the site, never taking my eyes off him.
His face is neutral, except for the crease between his eyes—it’s a familiar expression, the same one he’s always had when he’s listening intently.
“It’s a business now, really. One that’s starting to make money. ”
“Oh.” He leans back on his hands and studies me. “You played me one once…”
“Yes. I did.”
“And my reaction…” We’re remembering the same night, when I had played him a snippet of a recording. The same night he told me he was falling out of love with me.
“Is that why you were nervous to tell me now? Because of that night?”
“Things have been so tenuous with us for so long, and now they’re still tenuous but promising-tenuous? I don’t want to trip us up again.”
“Who else knows?”
“A lot of people will know. Very soon. And they’ll know it’s mine.”
“But who in your life already knows?”
“L’Wren. Liam. Petra.” I think about Lorraine and her petition. Raleigh. “Some moms at the school found out.”
“Can I see it?”
“Of course.” When he doesn’t take his eyes off me, I add, “Now?”
He nods and I pull up the site on my phone. Oliver takes in all the portraits, the dozens of women’s names.
“These are all your paintings? When did you record all the interviews?”
“Some I recorded before we split up. Some are more recent.”
“I still don’t get it. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I want to be open but I’m also scared to break the spell we’re under.”
“Can you give me a minute?”
His voice is flat, giving me little clue. The more neutral his expression, the more I feel the blood drain from my face. “Of course.”
Oliver takes my phone and shuts himself inside the bathroom.
I can hear him lean against the closed door and picture him sliding to the floor.
I mirror him so that we’re sitting back-to-back.
He presses play. We listen to the first interview together.
For the first few minutes, I hear him shifting his weight against the door.
Finally he settles in and the only sound is Natalie’s voice, fantasizing about reuniting with someone she met when she was young and broke.
…I had a job at the airport. I was nineteen, and I’d get up every morning at 4 a.m. to take two buses to be there in time to open up the coffee kiosk.
Miserable passengers headed for their cramped coach seats after having made it through the snaking lines of check-in are delirious to get their first coffee of the day, even if it’s just weak-ass drip coffee like I was pouring.
I’d warm my frozen fingers on the handle and make their day.
With the coffee. And with me. They’re up so early and they’re not expecting to see someone as good-looking as I was then, someone who the shitty uniform can’t hide the shape of, someone who rolled out of the shower with wild curls that you couldn’t pay the most expensive hairdresser to achieve.
And so with that drunk-on-sleeplessness feeling, the passengers would take me in, amazed.
Dads with their screaming kids. Honeymooners—a newlywed scornfully pulling their man away from me.
Teenage boys with their moms. Whole soccer teams. They’d stammer and stare.
I’d have to ask them to speak up when they gave me their order.
Who the hell gets intimidated by a teenage girl working at the airport below minimum wage?
Well, that’s what beauty does. I can see that now that I’m older.
Beauty changes things. It did for me too.
One day, there was a new chef standing over a griddle, and he was absolutely smoking.
I felt, from the first dawn I laid eyes on him, how the dads must have felt when they’d arrive and see me pouring their coffee.
His name was Will, he was twenty-three and wandering between jobs.
He had black hair, high cheekbones, a long bony nose, and black-lashed green eyes.
His sinewy arms rippled with homemade tattoos.
He said he was Cherokee but I don’t know, it’s what a lot of white trash boys where I’m from say when they want to be something bigger, when they want to assign a beauty to the poverty they’re trapped in.
Will was quiet, but he’d touch my hips, as if by mistake, as if I were a piece of furniture, as he moved across the tiny kitchen.
The first time he did it, I swear to God, I felt like I was gonna come.
If one of the Coffee Dads had tried to fuck me in the bathroom I’d probably had done it, so overwhelming was the hot feeling between my legs by the end of my shift.
The next day I tried harder than ever to engage Will in conversation but, politely, he rebuffed me, barely looked at me so that when he did occasionally make eye contact—sudden, unwavering—I tried not to audibly gasp.
I thought about asking him to give me one of his shitty tattoos just to have his fingers on me.
The first time he really talked to me, there was a line and some rich asshole had cut to the front.
“I’m in a rush” he snapped at a single mom with her yelling toddler.
Then he saw me and he wasn’t in such a rush.
Then he had time to chat and he was holding up the line.
“Make me a latte, sugar tits.” Will heard what he’d said and stepped in from the kitchen and asked, “Is there a problem here?” His voice was deep, which I’d barely registered as he spoke so little.
He and the asshole went back and forth, seemed to be squaring up for a fight.
Then the asshole’s final flight announcement was called and he went on his way, having served his purpose—getting Will to talk to me.
Getting Will I hoped, finally, to at least take note of my tits.
He put his hand on my shoulder, asked, “Are you okay?” I said I was, that it happened to me a lot, I was used to it, hoping he’d get the message and pursue me.
But he just shrugged and went back to the kitchen.