Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
KAITLIN
The pounding at the door is like a jackhammer to my brain. I’m finally asleep, and some asshole ruins it.
“What the actual fu—?”
Jessica’s standing in the hallway with a backpack and a rolling suitcase.
Well, fuck me with a rusty fork, Scooby-Doo. This is not a welcome development.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, dragging a hand through my hair, where it catches on a tangle. Shit, I must look like a hairball the cat dragged in.
My apartment is dusty and not unlike an art store that lost a fight. I pick up paint tubes and pretend that counts as having my life together.
She follows me. “You haven’t returned a call, text, or email in weeks. Ask me how I know?”
“You didn’t need to come to Chicago,” I mumble. “I’m fine. Thriving.”
“I did. I’ve never seen you look less fine, ever, not even senior year when you drank something called Hairy Buffalo from a bathtub on purpose.” Shudder.
“I was asleep when you started pounding on my door for what reason I cannot fathom. Of course I look like shit. You could have called.”
“I tried that. For two weeks.”
I glare, and then we side hug, with me trying not to morning breath her. I stare at her with less irritation and demand, “Why are you in Chicago?”
“Kaitlin, it was me or your mom. I can work from anywhere; she can’t, so here I am.”
“Fucking Christ, I’m twenty-seven years old,” I whine. “I’m getting a master’s degree. When do I get treated like an adult?”
She gives me a once-over. “When you return phone calls to friends and family?”
Asshole.
“Have you been leaving your apartment?”
“I leave all the time.”
“Oh? When was the last time you left? Mailbox in the lobby doesn’t count,” she says, smug.
“Thursday,” I mumble.
“Kait?”
I lock eyes with her and, in a voice I don’t recognize, say, “Do not ever call me that name again.”
“Right. Sorry,” she says. “Kaitlin.”
“Don’t. Just don’t. I’m fine!”
“You look awful. You have dark circles under your eyes…”
“What did you expect when you woke me up?”
“This”—she waves her hand in my general direction—“is not a result of me waking you up one day. Kaitlin, I swear to god, I’ll call Henry Sterling myself. Today. Right now. I’ll put an end to this.”
I face her. I get quiet and still, and with a hiss that could cut glass, I say, “You will not say that name in my home.”
She sighs, then sits down on my couch.
“Fine. Whatever. What do you need?”
For her to go the fuck away, but I say, “I could use some company for a few days. How long can you stay?”
“You have me for the long weekend.”
“A long weekend sounds good.”
“Good, because I wasn’t asking.”
She wraps her arms around me and, despite my need for a toothbrush, pulls me close and hugs me so hard a bone might snap. I try to pull away, and she keeps hugging, a relentless squeeze.
“We’ve reached the this-hug-is-getting-weird stage,” I say, but it’s kind of muffled with my face jammed into her shirt.
“Shut up and hug me back.”
I list against her while she pats my head.
We stay like that for a while, sprawled on the couch, me leaning on her as she fucks around on her phone until there’s another knock at my door.
I give her a glare. A rando with a boatload of groceries is standing there, asking, “Jessica Hunter?” and I’m pushed aside while Jessica schleps the groceries to my kitchen.
What kind of heathen buys Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese Doritos? Oooooh, you know you have a true friend when interventions come with Double Stuf Oreos. Pizza rolls are my love language.
I wander to the bathroom and turn on the shower. I take a long, hard look at myself in the mirror. My eyebrows are starting to look a lot like caterpillars having a spat in the center of my forehead.
I get a twenty-minute respite for plucking.
“Can we talk now?” she asks with gentle sincerity.
“Must we?”
“Yes,” she says. “But it doesn’t have to be right now.”
“Now. Let’s rip the Band-Aid off. That sounds super fucking fun.”
“You’re as sweet as ever, Kaitlin.”
“I’ve been taking lessons at a local charm school,” I say. “I no longer talk about fucking for a living, so I’m taking nice-girl lessons.”
“And flunked.”
“Everyone prefers naughty Kait,” I protest and wince at the name. “Boring old Kaitlin sucks.”
“The phone sex version was more colorful, but Kaitlin is real and deeply loved. What’s up?”
“I’m okay. Busy.”
“Kaitlin. How busy can you be?” she asks with an air of disbelief. “School hasn’t even started. You can’t tell me this is you being busy. I won’t believe it.”
I jam four kettle chips in my mouth and chomp. She winces. I suspect misophonia, but I fucking misjudge people.
“Stop,” she protests. “You know I’m asking out of concern.”
“First, you need to know that I had a rough couple of weeks, but I’m human again. And I’m taking two photorealism classes online, kind of easing into things.”
She nods, and I keep going.
“The simple answer is insomnia. I’d lie in bed and wish I could sleep. I started to paint. That’s it. I’ve been painting. A lot.”
Jessica makes a face. “Your entire life imploded in the course of a week in May, in good ways and bad.”
“Right.” I tick off a list with my fingers as I speak. “I lost my job and my work friends, got some bucks, got into grad school, and moved here. So much changed.” My beloved chair is piled with a huge stack of clean canvases. It holds too many memories, as he intended, but I can’t get rid of it.
“My dream came true, grad school in Chicago. I’m thankful, but I miss having friends.”
“You could try answering when the friends you do have call,” she says, her tone laden with snark. “Is this master’s degree worth it? Is this what you want?”
“I’m going to love medical illustration. I can do it from anywhere. I can travel the world and still work. Once I get started and meet people, it’ll be great.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Art has been my therapy. I paint it out, put it in my spare room, and move on. Kind of like when therapists tell you to write a letter, then stick it in a drawer, with fewer opportunities to use the words ‘fuck’ and ‘you.’ I also signed up for two summer classes.”
“What about Henry Fucking Sterling?” she says. I wince. “Sorry, I mean H.F.S.”
“He was a client. I was a phone sex operator. He paid to speak to me and chose to stop. The emotional entanglement was mine. And it was weird.”
I stand, walk to one of my easels, and pick up my cup of water and dirty paintbrushes.
“I wish him well,” I say on my way to the sink.
“Thank god I didn’t get in the car to meet him that day to have him cut things off face-to-face.
Can you imagine the humiliation?” I fake gag.
That would have been horrendous. Me, all pathetic, showing up all lovestruck, and H—him being over it.
“I’m not angry. I’ve found acceptance, unless I’m in the denial stage and don’t know it. ”
“That’s something someone on TV would say,” Jess says, taking the clean brushes from me. “I want the truth, not what you think I want to hear.”
“I miss him. He was a habit I had to unlearn,” I say, and the truth of my situation pours out of me.
I’ve been holding back for so long that I’m surprised when it doesn’t hurt to talk about him.
“We talked every day. He was the first person I called when I wanted to share good news. Now, I go days without thinking about him—as long as no one says his name out loud.” I swipe at my cheeks and give her a pointed look.
She has the decency to say, “I’m sorry. That was not my intent.”
“I love Chicago, but I can’t help but think there may be a day when I walk past him and recognize his voice. It seems safer to stay in. Anyway, I wish him well, and I hope he’s happy.”
“That’s it? I wish him well, I hope he’s happy?” She looks at me as though I’ve been replaced by an alien clone that is far too chill on the topic.
“That’s the downside of caring about someone, Jess,” I say as though she’s a child. “You want what’s best for them, even when it hurts.”
“You could try dating,” Jess says.
“I can also eat shit and die, but you don’t see me looking for a knife and fork. I owe it to myself to learn from this. I’m like one of the callers who think we’re going to run away with them, but I knew better.”
“Heather knew better too. She had outside contact, got fired, and had to drop out of school for a semester until she could get a student loan,” Jess retorts.
“You’re far from the first to fall for a caller.
You were just smarter about it than most and didn’t have outside contact.
Huge difference. One is a security breach, one isn’t.
Operators fall for callers every day. You’re allowed to have feelings. ”
“I talked to Heather a few weeks ago. She’s going to graduate next semester, and she’s got a great job lined up,” I say. “Come on, I want to show you my art therapy program.”
I tug her toward my spare bedroom, where paintings go to dry and be ignored.
“Well, fuck a damn duck, Kaitlin,” she says as she looks around the room, shocked.
The room is empty except for bare hardwood covered in stacks of canvases. They’re leaning against the walls, piled in the closet and every corner of the room. They range from two inches by three inches to the one she’s staring at, which is three feet by four feet.
“The less you sleep, the more you paint.”
“This is unreal. The detail on this one is stunning.” She gestures at one with her foot. “There are so many.”
“I know, right?” I say, pleased. “I was getting deliveries constantly because I was blowing through canvases and paint, but too lazy to cart them back here. Now I buy cases, but to be fair, some of these I did in Columbus.”
“Kaitlin, I can’t tell if this is a photograph or a painting without getting close enough to see the brushstrokes.
You’ve always been talented, but this is extraordinary.
” She’s uncovered the largest one, a not-quite-faithful recreation of a certain famous photo with a chair.
It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done, but it hurts.