Chapter 30
Chapter
The next week passes slow and strange.
After coming in so intense, wanting to spend all this time together, Mark Winterson is suddenly scarce, focused on some big project Erickson assigned. I send him a few texts, and some terse responses land hours later. A few days in, I start to wonder if I dreamed the whole thing.
Texting Greg is a similar experience—he takes hours, sometimes days, to reply, then says as little as possible.
After work, I’m spending too much time alone with my spinning thoughts.
I take longer runs around my neighborhood, down streets lined with jacaranda trees.
The vivid purple blooms almost make me blush with their audacity.
I’d forgotten about them while I was gone.
Unlike when I first moved back, I start jogging by Greg’s house, hoping to find an excuse to talk to him. But I get too scared to knock the first few times I pass by—and the third time, Sarah’s car is in the driveway, which scares me off for good.
The silent treatment reminds me of our years of not talking. By the time Friday rolls around, I’m so upset, I call in sick with a fake stomach bug.
And that afternoon, I get a text from Mark Winterson:
Mark Winterson:
come over tonight.
Ruby:
don’t tell Erica
i’m supposed to have a stomach bug
Mark Winterson:
i’ll never tell.
Ruby:
fine, but I’ll drive
For once, instead of getting into a car he sent, I make my own way to his condo and park my old Honda on the dark street outside. Mark Winterson comes out onto his front steps and stops to stare at my car, light from his doorway framing him from behind.
“That’s what you drive?” He puts an arm around me when I get close. “We’ll have to do something about that.”
But he turns on the charm again, and I almost forget about the weird dissonant moments lately. He puts on rugby and attempts to explain it while he cuddles up on the couch beside me, and I cut in with as many bad jokes as possible, and he plants kisses all over my face.
“Man, I could never live in the UK,” I say, listening to the commentators. “I think the accents are too funny. And too attractive! I’d be inappropriately laughing all the time, and also in love with everyone.”
“It’s settled, then,” he says, enveloping me in a bear hug, like he’s going to physically stop me from leaving. “You’re staying right here.”
When I wake up in the morning, Mark Winterson is gone already, and I sweep a hand over the high-thread-count sheet beside me. There’s a note on the nightstand.
Had an early meeting. Sorry work’s been crazy. There’s croissants and coffee in the kitchen.
I’ll be back later—stay and we’ll get lunch.
I brace myself and open Slack, checking to see if Mom is still there. And when she responds to my Good morning!, a rush of despair hits me.
Fuck. I am running out of things to try! Why isn’t anything working?
I’m beside myself, mind racing, overwhelmed—and I can’t even talk to anyone about it, since Greg is barely answering my texts.
There is still BE CLOSER TO FAMILY, which I leapfrogged over, before I go completely back to the drawing board.
With a pang of guilt over leaving my cousin on read for a week, I quickly tap out a reply to Trisha: Yes, I’ll be there!
you better! she writes back. It makes me laugh.
But when I try to picture bringing Mark Winterson to see my family in San Diego, the stress in my body ratchets up. It’s a visceral reaction, instant, like the snap of a rubber band. Not happening. Maybe it’s just too soon.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, painted a pale shade of gray that’s probably got a name with pebble or dove in it. And the memory I’d shoved down tumbles over in my head: how he grabbed my wrist, suddenly stormy, adamant about me not going through his things.
What is he hiding?
I slide out of bed, bare feet on the fluffy white rug by the bedside. Time to snoop!
I peek through his closets filled with pressed shirts and suits, ears straining for sounds of him returning, ready to scramble and put everything back the way I found it at a moment’s notice.
I pad barefoot down to the living room, scanning Mark Winterson’s bookshelves, thinking about when I’d spy on Greg’s reading habits from a distance.
It all starts out normal enough, but the further I get, the more the sinking feeling deepens.
Some classics. Some hefty novels I’ve always vaguely intended to read at some point.
Infinite Jest. Freedom. The literary Jonathans.
A couple books by Jack Welch—the title Jack: Straight from the Gut makes me snort.
Some Nietzsche. F. A. Hayek. Milton Friedman.
The complete works of Ayn Rand. Margaret Thatcher’s memoir.
Hmm.
On the kitchen counter, there’s a bunch of papers tossed around haphazardly, like he was searching for something and left in a hurry.
A folder peeks out from underneath the pile, and I slide it out and flip it open, trying to remember the exact configuration he left all this in so I can re-create it later.
There’s a bunch of official-looking documents—Articles of Incorporation, the papers say—and my cheeks burn with the knowledge that I should probably not be rifling through these.
But it’s strange. They’re for a bunch of different companies with similar names.
GERBO I LLC, GERBO II LLC, GERBO III LLC.
It’s a thick stack; there must be at least a dozen here.
How many companies does this guy have? Why does he need all of these? Is this some normal business thing I don’t understand?
I’m sensing my limits here—a liberal arts person who lets the world turn without understanding what makes it happen. That whole money layer of everything that flies over my head.
The sinking feeling gets deeper while I slide the folder back where I found it.
When I finish and glance at my phone, the message on my screen gives me a start.
sampaguita72:
What are you doing right now?
Annoyance sparks through me, heart pounding, on the defensive. Mom always had an uncanny sense for when I was breaking a rule, like she could put up her own psychic reader shingle.
But the tension in my shoulders softens when I remember she must be lonely in there. She just wants to be involved.
ruby.ocampo:
I’m at my boyfriend’s condo!
And then, anticipating what she’d say about me sleeping over, I quickly add:
ruby.ocampo:
I came over for breakfast
And he told me to hang out here while he runs some errands, isn’t that sweet?
I wince—old habits die hard. I’m editing myself like I would when she was alive.
When I was in New York and we talked on the phone once a week, she’d ask for all my news, like only updates showing my steady forward progress could make her happy.
She didn’t want to hear I stayed in binge-watching TV in my underwear again or I can’t remember anything that happened at work this week, it’s all a blur of screen glow and light back pain.
So I gave her only the most creatively curated updates.
I’d paint a selective portrait of every guy I dated, designed for her to approve of him.
Sometimes I’d find myself believing it, to the point where I’d lose track of how I really felt.
And I’d avoid her calls altogether when I didn’t have enough cheery news to share.
I walk around the condo taking photos for her: the spacious kitchen with its chrome appliances and marble countertops, the fridge filled with chilled bottles of Evian.
The minimalist decor in the living room, the leather couch, the art on the walls that makes me wonder if Mark Winterson paid someone to pick it out for him.
The polished hardwood stairs and the ocean view from his bedroom.
sampaguita72:
Wowww very very nice Ruby
Beautiful home!
Not like in here, so plain
Goosebumps rise along my arms. What is it like in Slack? What can she see? What did she say the other day, when I was talking to Erica?
Why don’t you wear a more colorful top? Maybe put some flowers in your cubicle so they show up in your background?
Wait.
ruby.ocampo:
Mom, can you see Zoom in there?
sampaguita72:
Oh yes, it starts projecting on one wall every time you have a meeting
I cringe, thinking back on all the awkward calls she’s had to sit through.
sampaguita72:
You were right, by the way
I blink a few times. I can’t quite process that combination of words, coming from her.
sampaguita72:
Erica really isn’t very nice
That message makes my eyes water. I reread it again and again, trying to absorb this thing I was starved to hear. It takes a while to sink in. And a question that’s been nagging at me makes its way past my fingers and onto the screen:
ruby.ocampo:
Mom, why were you so critical of every guy I dated, but you also seemed unhappy when I was single?
Then my stomach drops, and I want to delete it. But Slack informs me that sampaguita72 is typing already.
sampaguita72:
Obviously I wanted to protect you from making my mistakes.
In life Mom would change the subject, or scold me for being nosy and disrespectful, or counter with an unrelated accusation directed my way. This is new, and my heart feels like a bird trying to flap its way out of a cage. Maybe we should have tried talking on Slack more when she was alive.
I realize I have my laptop here—for some reason, I grabbed my work tote when Mark Winterson suggested sleeping over. I guess I associate him so much with TKCORP, it was habit?
ruby.ocampo:
Want to watch a movie with me while I wait for him to come back?
Even though Mom declared early in my life that she didn’t believe in romance anymore, she always had a soft spot for classic rom-coms. All through middle and high school, every Friday night, she’d sit down in front of the TV with a basket of clean laundry.
We’d watch together, making running commentary until the clothes were all folded.
She’d usually nod off well before the end credits, too exhausted to see the happily-ever-after she wanted so badly.
sampaguita72:
Oh, well, I’ll have to check my schedule
So very busy in here
I can picture her smug little smile, the one reserved for when she thought she was telling a real zinger.
sampaguita72:
I should be able to make that work
I settle in on the couch downstairs with my laptop, start a call with no one else in it and share my screen, streaming one of her old favorites.
The movie plays, and Mom’s running comments pop up on my phone.
I write back, volleying jokes back and forth, giggling into the empty room.
I can’t see or hear her, but the realization hits me in a flush of guilt mixed with gratitude, an uncomfortable ache—somehow I feel closer to her now than when she was here.
sampaguita72:
This is nice
But I miss popcorn
Have some for me?
So I get up and search in the kitchen, scared of smudging any of the too-smooth surfaces.
But I do find some microwave popcorn, and I take extra care choosing the most aesthetic bowl I can find in the cabinets, fluffing the mound of popcorn to look as appetizing as possible for the photo I’m sending her.
sampaguita72:
That’s good
And my heart hurts at those simple words, the way I’d always scramble for these crumbs of validation.