Chapter 16 Out
SIXTEEN
Out
Cue existential crisis.
The dissertation is done. West will take over the bar. I can’t stand the sight of my “girlfriend,” and my best friend shoved a knife in my back.
What will become of me? And I mean that exactly how it sounds.
The past few years I’ve managed to hold myself together with projects and plans, papers and payrolls.
Always having something to do—a fire to put out, an article to find, a painting to finish—I’ve depended on it.
The deadlines kept me moving forward. And now that it’s over, and I’m standing still again, it’s like I’m a semi-solid mass—you know, like goo.
I’m goo in a can. And the can just up and disappeared.
I am oozing into the world without another vessel to contain me. I am a slimy, sticky mess that’s going to be very hard to clean up if anyone ever bothers to try. I don’t even know where to start.
Helen’s house smells incredible Saturday evening. Freshly baked rolls, garlic, citrus disinfectant. It’s familiar. After spending all day at my studio alone, this is nice. I get one foot into the kitchen before she pulls me into a warm, soft embrace. “How are you, baby boy?” she asks.
I force a smile as she looks me over and moves my hair off my face. Feigning contentment is pointless because she sees right through me. It’s a talent she has. She can tell when my composure starts to crack. It’s in the way my eyes jump around, and in the way I shy away from her touch.
In psychological parlance, I believe they refer to this as “regressing.”
She frowns, concerned. “You want a drink, baby? Come on into my office.” She ushers me over to the kitchen table.
I sink into the seat she pulls out and wait as she pours us each a glass of straight bourbon.
She sits across from me with a look that says I should start talking.
There’s too much on my mind, though. It’s hard to pick one thing.
“What is it, Archer? Get it out. Is this about Jayne or something else?”
Jayne’s a good enough place to start. “I guess it is about Jayne.”
She nods her head. She gives my hand a pat to keep me talking. I move my hands away.
“It’s actually really complicated, Nell.”
“Well, I’ve worked through my fair share of complicated situations. Why don’t you try it out on me. I’ll stop you if I get confused.”
That gets a small smile out of me. “It’s just that it’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
“Maybe I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Archer Michael, tell me, or I’ll give you my opinion without hearing another word.” The next pat she gives my hand stings a little because she has to reach to do it.
“All right. Stop hitting me. Shit.”
She fixes me with a dismayed look, and I apologize for cursing at her kitchen table. “Go on then,” she says.
I take a breath. “Jayne and I have been together a long time.”
She nods, but I already see her wheels turning. Jayne’s never been her favorite person.
“Why is it you never liked her?” I ask.
“Because you don't,” she says, like two plus two equals four.
I have my mouth open and ready for any response but that, ready to defend Jayne as a person. Helen’s abrupt answer is a glass of cold water in my face. And she doesn’t look like she’s finished talking.
She studies me a moment before she lays it all out on the table. “You and Jayne—you’re just two friends sharing a bed and marking away the time together. Is she a great girl? Yes, she is. For some other man who might actually have a chance of loving her.”
“So, you don't think I can love someone?” I ask, because it’s the first place my mind goes.
“Baby, listen to me. This isn’t about that, so I want you to pay attention. Are you listening?”
I nod.
“Jayne’s not making you a better man. For one—you aren’t ever gonna let her, but more than that—Jayne’s content with you no matter what.
You’ve given her the picture of a life she always dreamed about.
From the outside looking in, she’s the luckiest girl in the world.
But you and I know better, don’t we?” Her tone darkens, and she fixes me in place with her eyes.
“We know that how things look and how things are don’t always add up to the truth of the matter.
And the truth is—she’s content with her pretty picture just the way it is.
She doesn’t want it to change. But what she doesn’t see is that with you—you need someone who’s not content with just the picture.
Until you have that with her or anybody, you’ll just wallow in your own complacency getting more and more miserable every day. ”
“You think I'm miserable?”
“I think you have been. Yes.” She rests her hand on mine, and this time, I let her hold it. “I know how hard you’ve worked for what you have. But it’s hard for me to watch you try to prove something you don't need to prove to anybody anymore. They're dead and gone.”
I’m listening. No one in my life ever talked to me like Helen does.
Growing up, my mother terrorized me with both words and deeds and ultimately her silence.
She was unpredictable and intensely terrifying.
But she was also weak. She didn’t want to get caught.
Once I realized that, I maintained the upper hand.
Being yanked out of prep school and forced to move back into her house almost made me run away when I was sixteen—a high school dropout destined for nothing.
West kept me grounded, but ultimately it was Helen who got me out of that house and became the reason I stayed in school.
It happened on Thanksgiving night my senior year. I was in this same house. I wasn’t able to sleep. West was thrashing around, and when he wasn’t thrashing, he was snoring. When a pillow flew off his bed onto my face, I left his room to sleep on the couch.
Helen was turning off a lamp in the den when I came in with my blanket and pillow. “Can’t sleep?” she asked.
“You mind if I watch TV?”
“Can I have a word with you first?”
The formality in her tone spiked fear inside me.
I’d always known I’d wear out my welcome eventually, but knowing that wouldn’t make hearing her say it any easier.
I sat down on the couch, and she sat in the adjacent chair, aware by then of my need for personal space in pretty much every situation. “Did you enjoy dinner?”
I swallowed the rising bile in the back of my throat. “Yes. Thanks for including me.”
She smiled, the warmth of it melting her eyes. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you today, but you and West might as well go to the bathroom together. Don’t ever see either one of you by yourselves.”
I felt like I was supposed to smile, but I couldn’t manage it.
“We missed you Wednesday night,” she said. “And Tuesday night. Everything okay?”
I nodded.
Her gaze sharpened, and her head cocked to the side, “You think you’re not welcome here?”
“I…” I rubbed my sweating hands on my flannel pants, unsure how to answer her.
She began to tap her temple with her fingertip.
It was something she did when she was concerned about forgetting an ingredient while she was cooking.
It was what she did when she was nervous.
“I guess I should just say what’s on my mind, shouldn’t I?
” She took a long, deep breath. “Archer. I’d really prefer if you spent fewer nights at your house. ”
“I understand,” I said, because I wasn’t really listening.
“I made up the guest room so you don’t have to listen to West snore all night.
Although, I’ll warn you, sometimes two doors shut between you doesn’t help as much as you’d think it should.
That’s what God gave us earplugs for though, isn’t it?
I got you some if you need ‘em,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper.
I frowned at her, completely lost.
“How often do you think you’ll need to put in an appearance at your house? I wouldn’t put it past your mother to accuse me of kidnapping you.”
“Kidnapping me?”
“One night a week maybe? Two?”
“To stay here?” I asked.
She wasn’t listening to me, either. “I don’t think it should be more than two. I get antsy after one—just ask West.”
I finally realized we were having two different conversations.
I held up both my hands to slow everything down.
“Hold on, Nell. Just stop.” I grabbed at the back of my head, and the way she looked at me, like she finally saw how confused I was—the understanding in her eyes and the sympathy… It clicked.
She wasn’t kicking me out. She was asking to me stay.
“I have a better idea,” she said, once she knew we were on the same page. “You just keep your things there, stop by there after school, wave at your brother, repack your bag, and be home in time for dinner.” She nodded her head. Subject closed.
I was speechless.
She stood up and stretched, letting go a loud yawn. “Happy Thanksgiving, baby. You get some rest. Your room’s all ready.”
Regarding my current housing situation with Jayne, I can see that while not offering to give me the guest room back, Helen is showing me once again, that I don’t have to keep living the way I have been.
“There’s someone else,” I tell her. “Someone I knew a long time ago.”
“And?”
“And I saw him again the other day, and it just made me think…” I sigh, putting my head into my hands.
“Oh, good Lord,” she mutters reaching out to rub my back. “Baby boy… I never have seen you like this.”
“It's just a lot.” I press my thumb and middle finger into my temples, trying to get my grinding headache to let up so I can put some words together. “I can’t focus or figure out what to do. Nothing is how I want it to be. Do you ever feel like that?”
“From time to time. You need some help?”
“Can you tell me what to do?” I ask.
“I can. You sure you want me to?”
The way she asks—she doesn’t have to say it. I already know.
“I need to break up with Jayne,” I say, burdened with the truth of it.
“It's been needing to happen for a while now.”
“What if Tristan doesn’t—”