Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
SHELBY
December 2012
The low, constant buzz of the tattoo gun was beginning to put me in a trance. Heather was three quarters of the way through my latest body art piece, and I was on the cusp of tattoo fatigue—that place where you feel somehow equal parts light-headed and murderous.
“Do you need a break, Shelby?”
Part of me wanted to power through and just get it over with, but I figured ten minutes wouldn’t hurt. I could get up and move around, try to find my Zen, and reward myself with my favorite tattoo survival item, an ice-cold Orange Crush. I didn’t drink soda much, and if I did, it was usually diet. But something about the sugar and nostalgia made everything right with the world when I’d be near my breaking point.
And speaking of breaking point…
Six months before, to the day, at 11:46 p.m. a doctor from Froedtert Hospital called to tell me that Ari had been in a car accident and had been brought in by Flight for Life. That I needed to come to the hospital as soon as possible. That I needed to call family. I called Ari’s sister Andrea and asked if she’d be able to pick up Brody since she lived downtown near his school. I didn’t want him driving knowing he’d be worried (likely more so about me and my mental state than the state of his father). I called Ari’s parents and asked them to meet me at the hospital. Thinking back, I should have asked David to pick me up, but I needed some time alone to begin to process what was happening. I was on autopilot, driving in a haze. If you’d ask me to describe how I got to the hospital that night, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.
Once I got to the emergency room, I was intercepted by a deputy sheriff. He told me the best they could determine from witnesses was that Ari was passing a car on the left of a two-lane highway too close to a hill. He didn’t see the oncoming car until it was too late to cross back over to his lane. He veered off the road on the left side to avoid the head on collision, lost control and flipped the car several times.
None of this came as a surprise to me. Ari had always been a reckless driver. The floor mat beneath the passenger seat in his car had been worn where I would try to slam on an imaginary brake. The handle on the door practically had grooves where my fingers would dig in during high-speed turns.
Once Brody, Andrea, Ari’s parents, and his brother Dave arrived at the hospital, the doctor called us into a private room. He explained that they’d managed to revive Ari twice in the helicopter, but they hadn’t been able to get any vitals on him since he’d been admitted. He was on life support, and it wasn’t looking good. We all went into the room to see him, hooked up to a myriad of machines, beeping and breathing, tubes and cords attached to every visible body part. He looked so helpless and weak. And smaller somehow. It shocked me to my core to see him so contradictory to how he normally was. Marion threw herself on top of her youngest son in the hospital bed and wailed while David stoically rubbed her back.
Brody held my hand as we stood back from the bed just watching. I was numb, idly searching for the feelings I thought I should be having. Should I be wailing with Marion? Should I be chasing down a doctor and grabbing at his lapels begging him to do more? The tears weren’t coming, but I dabbed at my eyes with a tissue anyway.
The only thing that felt right for me in the moment, and for many moments after that was to put my arms around my precious son and breathe.
I continued breathing through the business and busyness of death. Ari never made a will expressing what he’d have wanted under these circumstances as invincibility was such a large part of his personality. It was all left up to our best guess. We chose to have him cremated and hold a memorial service at a funeral home with a celebration of life event at the restaurant afterwards. With Ari’s local notoriety as well as David’s very public persona, there were hundreds and hundreds of people paying their respects. I played my part at the funeral home in the receiving line, but Marion was the shining star. There were times throughout the day I considered her, utterly bewildered as she seemed to be reveling in the attention far more than she was grieving the loss of her son.
I didn’t have one tenth of her energy to try and deal with the throngs, so I stayed quiet. That’s the thing about death and grief, everyone processes it so differently, no one batted an eye that I barely spoke to anyone. I stayed in my little bubble with Brody, Kendra, Darius, and Randall. Brody did make the rounds for the sake of his grandparents, knowing people were very eager to shower him with their condolences and affection. Andrea would come check on me from time to time. She had been a huge help with making all the arrangements and serving as a go between with her mother and I, knowing I could only handle Marion in small doses.
I put the urn filled with what remained of my husband up on the fireplace mantle under the large framed black and white photograph of us on our wedding day, then crawled into the bed in the guest room where I stayed for the next two weeks.
During that time, I was vaguely aware of people in a constant state of hover. Between Andrea, Kendra and her husband Gary, Darius and Randall, and occasionally my parents, there was almost always someone at the house taking care of Brody and I. Making food for Brody and keeping him company. Coaxing me to eat a few bites and drink water. Helping me up and into the shower from time to time. Sitting in bed with me watching sappy movies, and if I could keep my eyes open for the whole two hours, they’d consider that improvement. I remember someone asking about my laptop and passwords to check on emails and automatic payments, making sure I wouldn’t get too far behind. I remember reminding someone about my YouTube email account that no one knew about.
Once my fog lifted enough, I got up and got outside. The summer sun and breeze were much needed balm for my weary soul, replenishing me enough to be able to make some decisions and get back to work.
David brought up the subject of Ari’s restaurant, wondering if I’d wanted any say in its future. He was still so financially wrapped up in the place, but Ari’s sous chef, Jason, was interested in buying him out over time. His plan was to keep the concept as it was for one year, complete with a picture of Ari near the host stand out of respect, then do a total rebrand.
I told David in no uncertain terms that I wanted nothing to do with it. I explained to him that it would be too hard, that there were too many memories attached to it.
But the truth was that the restaurant had been the source of most of Ari’s stress. Stress that he would bring home, and stress that I found myself having to deal with in a myriad of ways.
It caused me stress directly too, when he would come home smelling more like perfume than Mediterranean food. The first time I called him out on it, he told me I was being paranoid, bemoaning the fact that I didn’t trust him. It was a simple explanation, he’d said. One of his wine reps had come in, she happened to wear a lot of perfume and she was a hugger. I believed him.
Until I found the condoms.I had an IUD.
Apparently “Don’t fuck where you work” had gone out the fucking window.
I gave up confronting him. Fighting Ari was always an exercise in frustration, and the aftermath…well, that’s a story for another day.
David dropped the subject, and I was glad to never have to think about it again.
I’d gone back to work within the month, happy to have the day to day in my happy place. I just had to get through the story of my widowhood with every single client and be inundated with their well-intended, yet emotionally exhausting condolences.
After a while, Darius encouraged me to explore going public with Cherrie Bombshell and he helped me set up an Instagram account. Within a month, I was getting DMs for low profile modeling opportunities and public appearances at local classic car shows and VFW events. I was even part of a motorcycle company’s calendar where I posed as Miss July with a sparkler in one hand and a Bomb Pop in the other suggestively headed toward my open mouth.
Every once in a while, during the photo shoots or events, dark thoughts would creep in. A man’s voice in my head.
“ What do you think you are doing?”
“Aren’t you a little old for this? ”
“You should be ashamed of yourself, you fucking whore.”
I’d get rattled, sometimes having to employ the grounding and calming techniques that my new therapist taught me. Most of the time I’d be able to get myself together and move on.
That night after my tattoo appointment, Kendra, Gary, Darius and Randall would be coming over to watch “ Dare Me to Do It .” It seemed like a lifetime ago that I’d spent the morning with Jake Ford and so much had happened since. When I’d gotten up out of my bed after Ari died, Kendra casually told me that the show had emailed me with an air date for our episode. I thought about asking her if the email had come from Jake, but that seemed unlikely, and I had let it go.
I stood in the mirror at the tattoo shop admiring Heather’s handiwork. It was a piece I had wanted for so long, and it meant so much more at that moment than I ever could have imagined. On the outside of my right hip and thigh was a beautiful pinup mermaid done in Heather’s signature anime-esc style like the two other pinup tattoos she’d done for me. This beauty had raven hair, ruby red lips, bare breasts and a tail comprised of breathtaking iridescent scales in greens and blues. Her ocean scene was set with swirls of blue, sea stars, seahorses, and an octopus. The quote surrounding her was my favorite of Anais Nin— I must be a mermaid for I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. Tears filled my eyes as I took it all in.
“You don’t like it.” Heather lamented.
“No! That’s not it… I just…” I stammered, my emotion getting the best of me. “Heather, I love it so much. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love it.” I turned and opened my arms to hug her.
I was so grateful my friends were bringing the food because I was running late. I made it home just in time to beat Gary and Kendra into my driveway. Darius and Randall were only five minutes behind.
“Oh, Shelby! I just love your Christmas decorations!” Darius exclaimed sarcastically. I had exactly one Christmas themed flower arrangement on the kitchen island, an impulse purchase from Sendiks to try and be “festive.” I’d told my in-laws that I didn’t have the energy, that the decorations we put up every year were too difficult to deal with, what with this being the first Christmas without Ari and all.
But Darius knew the truth. I hated all our decorations because, of course, Marion had picked them out. And with the help of my therapist, I was beginning to make my way beyond my incessant people pleasing patterns.
I pulled a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and five flutes out of the cabinet.
“Veuve Grand Dame? Limited edition?” asked Gary. “You being on TV is definitely something to celebrate, but wow.”
Gary was in beverage sales so he knew his stuff. I thought this might have impressed him.
“Actually, I have another reason I want to celebrate. I’ve come to a pretty big decision.” Everyone stared, hanging on my every word. Once the champagne was poured, I held up my glass and said, “I’ve decided to sell the house.”
“Oh, Shelby. That’s amazing!” Kendra came over and wrapped me in her arms. She grabbed her glass and held it high with an arm still around my shoulders. “To new beginnings!” Everyone clinked glasses and repeated the phrase. Kendra smiled at me, “So do I have to ask if I get the job?”
“You get the job.” My best friend had been a realtor for over fifteen years—of course I would trust her to sell the house and find me my perfect home. “I’ve got to talk to David first. I think technically they still own it.” I had it in my head that I would talk to David alone and not involve Marion until it was absolutely necessary. I had a feeling she wouldn’t understand, and that it would be a whole dramatic play I’d need to rehearse for.
I had been feeling an almost unbearably strong pull to begin to form my own identity. Trying to find the whole of who I was without Ari. And without his parents.
I’d moved my vanity into the guest room, and I bravely bought a few decor items of my very own since Marion was not likely to see them. I was comfortable in that room, but for the most part I hated wandering around the bleak, bland McMansion that has never felt like home. It was time to find a place that did.
I ate and talked with my beloved friends, mostly about the kind of house I had in mind. And Darius and Randall were thrilled when I said I wanted to move to Tosa Falls and closer to the salon. Not just for convenience. The quaint little village had charmed its way into my heart.
“We’ll be neighbors!” Randall beamed.
“T minus five minutes!” Gary reminded us, although we’d all had a watchful eye on the clock. We grabbed our wine glasses now filled with a tasty pinot that Gary had brought and made our way to the living room.
I grabbed a blanket thinking if my embarrassment got the best of me, I could always throw it over my head. I always felt a cringe when I would first hear myself talk while editing my videos even after I’d been doing it for so long. And if my Midwestern accent was going to be so obvious next to Jake’s smooth toned voice and perfectly ambiguous TV dialect, I thought I might have to leave the room.
The Dare Me to Do It theme song came on and I got my first glimpse of Jake in almost seven months. It felt surreal seeing him once again on the screen after standing next to him in person. I could almost feel his warmth and smell his unique and distinctive fragrance.
The show began with Jake standing out in front of Aspire. I barely remember this part, but I bet if I looked hard enough, I might see myself looking out of the window. He introduced the show.
“Last season we did a show featuring women who did jobs most typically done by men. For this episode we wanted to explore jobs not often done by men, and the reasons behind it. My first stop is here,” Jake gestures to the sign behind him, “Aspire Salon and Spa in Tosa Falls, Wisconsin where I will talk to an esthetician, or skin care expert, and find out why men typically don’t perform waxing hair removal.”
The camera follows Jake entering the salon our “meeting for the first time” even though it had been filmed after we had shot the whole scene with Amber in the treatment room. I looked over at Darius and smiled. He was such a proud papa with his salon baby on TV. His efforts to make everything perfect seemed to be paying off.
As the segment went on, I looked around the room and four pairs of eyes were on me almost as much as they were on the television screen. I wasn’t sure if they were surprised and impressed that I’d held my own during the interview or if, like me, they were floored at how palpable the chemistry was between me and Jake. I had stolen glances at him throughout the shoot, I couldn’t help it. What I hadn’t noticed was that he had been doing the same thing. Even in the beginning, when he should have been paying attention to what I was showing him.
They’d edited out my long pause before I’d admitted I’d waxed men. A pause I had taken because Ari never knew and could never know that I saw and touched other men in such an intimate way. Imagining his reaction to this revelation, my heart began to thrum in my chest, my hands trembled, and my eyes filled with tears. That day in May, I had no idea that Ari wouldn’t be around to see this. How could I have possibly been able to keep this from him? Someone from work, or his parents, or his friends…someone would have asked him about his wife being on television and he would have tracked it down. I was so naive and cavalier. What had I been thinking, taking a risk like that?
Without me saying a word, Kendra came over and sat beside me. “Gary, pause it.”
She gently grabbed my arm to sit me up straight and clasped both of my hands in hers. “Look at me, Shelby. He’s not here. You don’t have to be afraid. Do you hear me? You don’t ever have to be afraid again.”
I looked at her and nodded. Everyone in the room looked at me with such caring concern in their eyes. They all knew how difficult Ari had been, maybe not in as great of detail as Kendra, but I’d confided in each of them quite a bit over the years. Their support had been everything.
I was grateful at that moment that Brody was at school studying for finals, having promised he’d watch the recording. I wasn’t nervous for him to see it even though he’d see his mom borderline flirting with another man. I knew Brody wouldn’t judge me for that. I was grateful, however, that he wasn’t watching me have this reaction at the thought of his father seeing the show. There was so much he didn’t know.
“I need you to keep watching this and watch yourself and how fucking amazing you are. I’m so fucking proud of you, Shelby.” Kendra’s wine intake to F bomb export ratio was rapidly increasing. Her eyes were teary, but she took a deep breath. “Okay?”
“Okay.” I nodded.
We looked at Gary and he pressed play.
I had to admit to myself that I was pretty fucking amazing after all. I had been so nervous, but very little of that made it to camera. I knew in theory I had all my answers on deck, and these were things I’d thought a lot about over the course of my ten-year career. But I never dreamed I’d be able to articulate it so well and in front of my adolescent crush no less. There was one little scene where I remembered we had just started again after Dan had told Jake to take a step back from me because we “weren’t on a date.” Jake had gotten so flustered. Remembering that and our flirtatious conversation after shooting. Remembering the hug. My heart started to pound again. But this time it wasn’t the edges of panic.
“Ken?” I said sheepishly as I held my blanket up covering half my face. “I think I have butter flutters.”
She looked at me and a huge smile spread across her face. “There is something happening there, no doubt about it.”
Darius and Randall nodded in agreement.
The rest of the show was amazing. I understood why they aired my segment first.
The second part was about why men aren’t often daycare workers. Jake and the woman he had been interviewing, Jocelyn, talked about how young men are now more commonly becoming nannies, but primarily because they are studying early childhood development for an education or psychology degree. She explained that the job interview involved the obvious question of ‘Why do you want to work here?’ And for women, the answer could be “Because I love children.” When a man said the same answer, it was different. She said she couldn’t help but beskeptical that there might be a deeper and much darker “why.”
This was all interspersed with Jake wiping little mouths and sitting cross legged on the floor playing with toy trucks and puzzles while nonchalantly wearing a plastic tiara. Toward the end, a tiny little cherub-faced, curly haired girl, not more than two years old, stood at his feet, reaching up her arms and opening and closing her fists. The universal sign for “pick me up.” Jake immediately, instinctively scooped her up into his arms. She promptly put her thumb in her mouth and laid her little head on his shoulder and I think both Kendra and I felt our ovaries lurch.
The last segment was Jake taking a turn as a labor and delivery nurse. The woman giving birth was so generous, volunteering to be filmed and allowing Jake to be just as involved as all the other nurses. Her husband was just as accommodating. Jake was kind, attentive, eager to learn and to help.
After a commercial, they’d indicated he’d been allowed to observe while they’d checked her cervix. The mom-to-be had even offered to have Jake do it, but he explained that the hospital lawyers and the show’s liability consultant had given that a big thumbs down. When it came time for her to push, Jake took his place up near her head, cheerleading opposite her husband. When the baby crowned, the obstetrician encouraged Jake to come down to get a better look, the camera went back and forth between faces—Jake’s and the soon to be parents. With wide, unblinking eyes, Jake held his hand to his mouth in rapt attention. The healthy baby girl soon fully entered the world, and they placed her on mom’s belly. Jake looked at the camera, completely at a loss for words, laughing with tears streaming down his face.
At the end of the segment came the end of the show. Jake was emotional and raw. He talked about how while the women he’d featured last year did nothing to warrant the inequality and mistreatment they’d experienced in those jobs, in these cases, men had. He apologized profusely on behalf of his gender, and somberly explained that because of the way they’ve historically behaved, trust had been broken time and time again. And now they—he’d included himself the whole time and used the word “we”—were missing out on some of the most incredible experiences in the world.
By the end of the show, as I looked at all my friends, I knew without a doubt that every single person in the room now had a big old fat crush on Jake Ford just like me.