Chapter 13
I wish I could say that was the last time we did that, but over the few weeks of my recovery we fell asleep often with each other on the phone. It’s starting to get to the point where I sleep better hearing his snore than in the silence of my own room.
The first night Callahan had hung up before my dad came downstairs so I didn’t have to answer to anything, but when Farrah’s nosy ass went through my phone when I was in the bathroom, I finally had to answer to someone.
“That is so cute!” She practically screeches, her hands coming up to her mouth.
We are seated at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, providing us with the opportunity to show that we can indeed eat a lot. It’s one of the many ways she has worked to cheer me up.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Oh yes, it is. Me and Errol do that when he is on location. We even have little video dates beforehand.” She takes a bite of her chow mein and shakes her head.
My breath gets shorter, and my chest all of a sudden feels itchy.
“Stop making it a big deal.”
She throws her hands up, but doesn’t look any less enamored with the idea.
“So does this mean you are seeing him now?”
“I don’t know. All I’m sure of is the fact that I crossed a boundary. I can no longer keep him at bay after doing these things with him.”
She slaps my fingers away with her chopstick when I try and grab at her egg roll. I do it just to piss her off, knowing damn well I can just get up and get my own.
“Well, you know my opinion on it, but you should definitely talk to him.”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t feel ready to explain my whole past to him, and why I don’t date outside of my race, and I’m not at all in the mood to just have sex. In fact I haven’t been horny since the surgery.” As if I already didn’t feel like myself.
“Do they have you taking hormones?”
“Not yet. Estrogen alone can increase the cancer, but they want to see how I progress before they put me on a whole treatment.”
She nods and pushes her empty plate away from her.
“Who do you like more, him or Charlie?”
I sigh and sit back in my chair.
“At this point, I don’t like Charlie at all. All we have been doing since this started is getting into little arguments. I haven’t told him about Callahan yet because I don’t want to deal with another hissy fit.”
“So break it off.”
“If I break it off this time, we are done forever. I need to give it a little more time to see if he will get his act together.”
“Remember how you said I have shit taste?” Her eyebrows lift up, lips smug.
I point my finger at her, fighting to keep my mouth straight. “Don’t start.”
“All I’m saying is I’m married now.”
“Because of me, I’m the one who helped you go for him.”
“Then listen to me. If Charlie is not showing up for you during the hardest time of your life, then he isn’t going to do it ever. Callahan met you right before you got diagnosed and is still coming through. I just feel like the choice is obvious.”
I flinch at her words, knowing that I’ll have to address them at some point.
It’s just that Callahan is better at anticipating my needs and providing me with the support and laughter I’m looking for in this journey.
But Charlie knows me better than most people and has been a staple in my life.
They are such different things to me, I don’t know if I can compare them.
We finish our meal, and I let her pay. At this point, I don’t have the energy to argue with her about anything money-wise.
The only thing saving me right now is my free housing, my savings, and my dad.
It’s also why I agree to let her pay for my trip to Ireland to visit her on set.
It’s probably the only vacation I will be taking for a while.
“I’m having a get-together tomorrow,” I say when we get to her car. “My dad has a long haul and will be gone for the week so I want the company.”
“I can come stay with you in the meantime.”
“Don’t you have an audition this week?”
“Yes, but that’s a quick two-day trip. Plus, I might not go. I have to leave in four months for filming, and I don’t want to keep booking myself up.”
“Why?”
“Having a relationship where you both are on opposite sides of the world is hard. If both of us stay this busy, then when the hell will we have time to see each other?”
I squeeze her arm.
“I wish I could relate.”
“You will one day, and then you’ll be sorry that you do.”
I lapse into silence, thinking over her words. Should I be pursuing anything with either one of these men if I’m planning on going back to LA? What does my future hold at this point?
Still fighting to find that joy in dancing, the fact that I can’t do it on the stage at all feels like a relief. There is no expectation on my movements, so if I do put on music, it’s just for me. Maybe that’s what will help me get back to it. Just dancing for myself.
In the meantime, I have to question every decision I make.
While this won’t be the end of me, my dad is right.
This is a wake-up call, and I need to answer it.
I need to start making big decisions, including who I might want to spend the rest of my life with.
If these were my last few months, would I have rather spent it with Charlie or Callahan, or is this a sign that I should be on my own? I need to figure out what to do.
I don’t know which man to invite to my get-together, so I invite neither of them. I make it a girls’ night instead and ask Farrah, Rowan, and her new friend, Sahara, to come. A few other girls I know from living here before say they might make it, but I’ll be happy if it’s just the four of us.
Farrah shows up first and, of course, helps me get everything together.
No longer sore from the surgery, at this point I’m milking the extra help.
Next is Rowan, and last is Sahara. Those other people I invited don’t show up.
They all have kids and futures now. Ones that I can’t currently relate to.
“I think we should watch horror movies,” I say, placing the snack board on the table.
“Why would you want to do that when you will be alone in this house for a few days?” Farrah asks, plopping next to me.
Rowan and Sahara instantly sit next to each other, their hands so close, like on St. Patrick’s Day. The looks they share as we discuss what to watch, I feel like, are not for us to witness.
With Rowan liking girls, the question seems obvious. But with that ring on Sahara’s left hand, I don’t know if I should ask it.
“If we watch that clown movie I’m sleeping in your bed tonight, Monty,” Farrah says, clutching her blanket around her.
The girl isn’t afraid to go toe to toe with a man she disagrees with, but let a fictional one raise a knife and she’s screaming.
“Can we either watch one with only Black people or no Black people? I’m not in the mood to see us die first,” Sahara says, bringing her wine to her lips.
We can all agree on that, making the choice easy. I win out on the clown movie, and we watch in horror as these women are stalked and killed. It brings me back to the conversation with Callahan, so I snip a picture of the clown killing someone and text it to him with the word hot.
I don’t get a response, and I wonder what he is up to.
At some point, Rowan ends up curled up with Sahara, but it doesn’t seem out of place because Farrah and I are doing the same thing. It’s one of those female friend things that confuse lesbians.
I watch them, trying to see if that’s what’s going on.
After the credits roll, I ask Rowan to come with me into the kitchen. We restock the snacks, and I take the opportunity to ask what I have been dying to know.
“What’s going on with you two?”
She leans against the counter, tucking her brown waves behind her ears. Trying to appear normal, she keeps her eyes trained on mine.
“She’s married.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Looking around the corner, she comes back to stand next to me, her voice lowering.
“I don’t know. We have these deep talks, and it seems like she is finding reasons to touch me, but she is married, and she is constantly talking about her husband.”
“Bi, or in the closet?”
She shrugs and starts to bite her thumbnail.
“Okay, but what are you doing?”
“I wish I knew that, too. I haven’t felt this way about someone in a long time. She just gets me. We talk about writing and living life, and she just has this way of making everything seem like an adventure. I want to kiss her so bad it hurts.”
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her into my side.
“She is married,” I say even though I don’t have to.
“I know, which is why I won’t do anything. But if you heard the way he treats her.”
I hold up my hand because I don’t want to know anything else unless Sahara tells me. Maybe tonight she will open up.
We go back in the room and I start the conversation up while talking about how trash men are.
“Not all men,” Farrah says with this glossy look in her eyes.
I throw a pillow at her, and that knocks some sense back into her. “Okay, okay. Yes, the majority need work.”
“Even when you marry them,” Sahara says, downing her drink. I quickly refill her glass.
“How long have you been with your husband?” I ask.
“Almost twenty years. We met in college in our second year and got married right when we finished. So we have been married for eighteen years.
She doesn’t look as old as she’s saying she is.
That would make her forty. I know how touchy the subject of kids can be, so I bypass it and ask about their wedding.
The way that women should light up when they talk about that day she does, but as the conversation gears towards their anniversary celebration, she becomes dull.
“God, I hope we make it that long,” Farrah says.
“I will be happy to make it two years in a relationship,” I say.
Rowan cheers to that. We ask Sahara if she has any advice.