Chapter 38
As we’re catching up in his apartment that afternoon, Chris asks what happened to me.
I tell him that I accidentally found the divine woman. “Hiding inside me this whole time, what a prankster,” I say with a
snort. “Story for another time, but look, I’m just saying if you’re having second thoughts about Olivia, I’ll support you
if you want to get back with her.”
He soaks that up and then he says that he doesn’t want to get back with her, that there’s this whisper of relief at the bottom
of the hurt that tells him it was the right thing. “But it doesn’t make it easier,” he says. “One second I was picturing growing
old with her, pushing her around in her wheelchair and putting wool socks on for her when her arthritis gets too bad to bend
over. And the next second she’s out the door, gone forever. It’s just not natural to flip a switch on love like that.” He
pauses for a breath that seems to get clogged in his throat.
Taking a big gulp, I pay Chris a compliment. It’s clunky as it trips off my tongue. “Look, Chris, I’m proud of you,” I say.
“It’s not easy to jump off a speeding train. It takes a lot of guts, and you’re doing great. It’s a real honor to be your
friend.”
Chris, too, seems to find my praise jarring but doesn’t comment on it. He just asks what I mean about jumping off the speeding
train.
“Getting off the life path you were on,” I elaborate. “It’s a hard thing to change direction against all that inertia.”
“Was it hard for you to get off the life path you were on as a kid?” he probes. “The more conventional track?”
It catches me off guard because not many people ask about my past life. Usually I prefer it that way, but not now. I want
to tell Chris the truth. Lies don’t have the allure that they used to.
“Not really,” I say. “I always felt a bit out of place just by existing. I didn’t really have friends or that sort of thing.
I was ready to be out of the house from the time I was about twelve.”
I think about telling him about Mr. Hubert and the piano lessons gone wrong. I don’t, not now, but I will at some point. That
acknowledgment feels good in itself, knowing that I’m no longer repressing the truth or silencing it, that I’m just choosing
to share it another time, on my terms. Tonight is about Chris.
“So when I got to college, I was lit on fire with rebellion,” I carry on. “The flames were my savior. It was pretty easy to
burn the old order down to the ground. The harder thing has been realizing that okay, maybe I overshot the target. Maybe all
men aren’t misogynists, maybe all commitment isn’t confinement.”
I fill him in on my trip upstate and the fuzzy little fawn and how I met the divine woman, or more accurately, how I realized
I’d met her long ago. “I’m trying to reconnect with my intuition, which is also the cosmic knowing, which is also the sacred
feminine energy in Mary Magdalene’s teachings. They’re all part of the same divine force,” I explain, like I’ve just received
my PhD on the topic and tossed my tasseled cap up into the air for effect. “And I’m actually semi-supportive of Jenni’s and
Hal’s marriages now. I even told Tara to go for the guy she’s in love with. They’re getting serious, and look, I’ve barely
got any spite.” I smile-grimace to prove the point and poke fun at myself.
Chris rests his arm on my shoulder. It makes me jolt. All those years of feeling nothing while throwing myself at strangers, and here I am out of breath just from Chris’s arm around my shoulder. I’m getting soft but I like it that way.
“I sure missed a lot while I was trying to stay away from you,” he says.
“You were trying to stay away?” I ask.
“Of course I was. Thought you knew that.”
“I suspected.” This right here is happiness, I decide, the whole basin of it. Knowing you were missed and knowing you don’t
have to be anymore. “Now let’s order some pizza. I’m starving,” I say.
Arnie wags his tail at that. I place an order from Dona Bella’s. Chris tries to pay but I won’t hear of it. “You should never
have to buy your own pizza after a breakup. That’s one rule I’m holding on to,” I say. “Plus, I’m a stock trader now. I’ve
got some earnings to blow through.”
I show him the Women’s Revolt chat on my trading app. It’s up to nearly ten thousand members—not that scale indicates success,
but it’s still kind of cool. We talk about investing for a bit and Chris says I could teach the guys on Wall Street a thing
or two.
“Yeah, I could, but I’d rather teach the women on Main Street,” I say. “We’re the ones who’ve been sidelined for centuries.”
“Fair point,” Chris says and tells me about a woman accountant he hired on his team. He’s worried she feels out of place with
all the guys and asks for my advice. This says a lot about Chris, that he’s thinking about how to help someone else when his
engagement and all his life plans have just fallen through.
Chris says it’s nice to be able to bounce ideas off me again.
“Yeah, I’m pretty great,” I say. “But I have more humility now. Haven’t you noticed?”
We share a smile at that, and then the pizza arrives and we eat it right there on the floor. I keep staring at the bare wall.
The white paint looks like it’s stinging from having the pictures ripped off it so fast. The nail holes are still there, big
and gaping. It gives me an idea.
“Hey, Chris, do you care about getting your security deposit back?” I ask.
He tells me he doesn’t have a security deposit since he owns the apartment. The way he says it is very unassuming, but I make
a face. How could I not? “Must be nice,” I say, though I’m happy about it because it means we can have a marvelous time shaking
up this place.
Hopping up, I say I’ll be back in a few, that I need to run some errands. I zoom over to the craft store down the street and
load up on paint, balloons, and glitter. Then I pop into the Patriot Saloon and swipe some darts. It’s quite a rush and doesn’t
even make me feel bad, which makes me feel good that the new me can still enjoy illegal activities on occasion.
“Time to create some masterpieces on the blank canvas of our lives,” I tell Chris as I unload the art supplies back at his
place. Filling the balloons with paint, I tape them to the wall. Then I roll up the edge of his expensive-looking rug and
lay down some plastic bags so we don’t fully trash the place. Not that I’d mind, but Chris wouldn’t like it.
I put Arnie in his crate so he doesn’t eat the paint and get sick. He gets all pouty and I tell him that I know, cages are
the worst, but we just have to help his dad feel better and then I’ll give him extra treats later.
“Give it a try,” I tell Chris, handing him a dart. “Nothing is permanent,” I remind him because I can tell he’s making an
internal list of all the things that could go wrong. “We can always start over without actually starting from scratch.”
Chris doesn’t join in my philosophical musings. He just takes off his button-down shirt so he’s only wearing the T-shirt underneath.
He looks better than good. The first dart he throws hardly makes it to the wall, just grazes the very bottom.
“Weak,” Chris says, which is exactly what I’m thinking but I don’t like it when he’s mean to himself.
“Decent first attempt,” I say. “You just need more velocity. Try again.”
He does and it’s a little better but not much. He’s still holding back like there’s a blockage in his body.
“Watch this,” I say, because I can’t resist showing off. I throw a line drive right into the middle of a balloon. Bull’s-eye.
Neon green paint splatters out and runs confidently down the wall. The whole apartment instantly brightens. It’s almost like
water has been poured over a patch of parched earth, soaking into the cracks.
Picking up the winning dart, I put it in Chris’s hand. “Okay, try this,” I say. “Pretend like this little dart has never been
outside this apartment. And this throw is its one and only chance to break out and fly through the sky, feel the wind, taste
the air.”
I’m speaking in my theatrical voice, getting all carried away with the drama because I guess I’ve still got an itch to perform.
“And you, Chris,” I say, “are in charge of this dart’s destiny. Are you going to make it count or what?”
Chris evaluates the dart like he’s trying to imagine my story coming true. Then he nods, bites his lip, and throws it like
he means it, like he’s trying to drill a hole through the wall. It punctures a balloon, and red paint drips down on top of
my green. The best part of it all is the look in Chris’s eyes as he throws it. Tenacious: There’s no other word for it.
“How’d that feel?” I ask. He doesn’t answer, just picks up another dart and does it again and again and again until the wall
is a glorious splatter paint creation. A colorful slice of the cosmos blending the inner world and the outer world until there’s
no delineation between the two.
“Now that’s what modern art should be.” I applaud. “We could open our own gallery in Williamsburg and charge tens of thousands
for our work.”
“I’m not an artist,” Chris says. “I’m just an accountant.”
“False,” I say. “Everyone’s got both parts inside of us.
The problem is that society makes us believe that we’re actually only a half circle on our own, that we need another human to complete us.
So people go around clipping their own wings so they don’t ruffle someone else’s feathers.
Or worse yet, they never even realize they have wings.
They just waddle around like flamingos, birds that can’t fly their whole lives. ”
“I’m a flamingo then,” Chris says, all dejected.
“Of course you’re not,” I snap, a bit harsher than I mean to be. “That wasn’t my point at all. You’re on a brave and colorful
flight, and moving on from Olivia is part of that journey.”
I wish I hadn’t brought her name up. Chris’s energy slumps and I know he’s thinking about her, feeling her absence and all
the lonely days that are on their way. “I should get some sleep,” he says.
“Okay, sure,” I say quickly. “I’ve got to get home anyway.” I’m wishing he’d offer up the spare room, but it’s best for both
of us that he doesn’t. “I have morning yoga with Tara tomorrow,” I add. “I can touch my toes now if I bend my knees. It’s
pretty impressive.”
After giving Arnie his treats, I pocket one of the darts to keep as a souvenir and show myself out.