Awake (14 page)

-24-

A few guests have already arrived as Tori and I emerge in a daze from the locked study. Cecil Delaney, plant manager at the Cerritos location, sees us and comes up for congratulatory hugs.

“Look at you two,” he says. “The most beautiful graduates the city has to offer.”

Cecil is a heavier older man and balding but sweet in his own way. He plays golf once a month with my father and so has become a defacto uncle. He helps to change the mood and for that I am grateful.

“You old flatterer,” I say to him as much to show Tori I am unbothered by her accusations as to make Cecil smile. “You’re not drinking already are you? You just got here.”

He winks at me. “I’ll never tell,” he says.

“Thank you, Cecil,” Tori says before she walks down the corridor to greet more arriving guests.

The hired party host walks Cecil back to the festivities out back. I duck down a side hall and make it to a bathroom unseen. I leave the lights off and quickly close the curtains and sit on a dressing bench in the half-light.

How do I not feel like a nasty slut right now? Does love excuse everything? I know that it doesn’t. Love destroys as often as it saves. I am just a sad wretch of a girl who had never tasted love and Wade was a fucking pastry shop full of intense emotion and warmth.

He erased all my vulnerabilities. He rebuilt my heart so it could feel a true union again after so many years alone.

I’m getting a text. It’s Kat.
I’m here where are u?

Hiding
, I text back.

Don’t make me hurt u
, she responds.

Kat and Kip already have drinks when I find them.

“Cool hair,” Kip says becoming the very first person to mention my short, retro haircut today. Maybe it’s not so shocking as I thought.

“Thanks, Kip. I’m a little self conscious about it.”

“Don’t be. It’s fly as hell,” he says.

I kiss his cheek and give him a hug. Whether Kat put him up to it or not his words were definitely worth a kiss.

Kat pulls me off him and kisses both my cheeks Euro style. “Looks like you’re on the cat walk with the latest Parisian design.”

“That’s pushing it,” I say.

Kat has on a dress I have not seen for years. A cute yellow and pink halter dress that she calls her Marilyn dress. She must have lost a few pounds because I remember her telling me the dress did not fit her anymore. Sex is a good source of cardio I guess.

“This rum tastes like fucking licorice,” Kip says. “Pardon my language.”

“It’s all good,” I say noticing his extremely dilated pupils.

“He’s ripped on some dank weed right now,” Kat says. “It was the only way I could get him to come. No pun intended.”

She makes me laugh. “What about you?” I ask noticing her pupils are their normal beautiful size.

“I skipped it today,” she says. “I wanted to be one-hundred percent here with you.”

I hold her hand and squeeze it. “Thanks, Kat.”

My stepmother approaches with a concerned look on her face. Kat leads Kip away to stare at the huge sparkling crystal fountain and the two massive layer cakes.

“Erin,” my stepmother says. “How spectacularly unforgettable.” She hugs me sweetly and touches the back of my hair and neck. “Only you could pull this off so wonderfully.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I say.

“Congratulations, honey. We are so proud of you.”

My father stands with some company men I have not seen in years at the other end of the party. “The board of directors?” I say.

My stepmother turns to follow my eyes. “They’re all here,” she says.

“That’s good,” I say. “Nice they could make it.”

I am at peace with my decision. My father has put a lifetime of work into building his business and there is no way I will ever come between him and the control of it.

“You’re a wonderful daughter in so many ways,” my stepmother whispers and then moves along to greet guests.

Wonderful? Hardly. It’s my graduation party, everyone is going to blow smoke up my ass, everyone other than Tori and maybe Joyce if Tori has told her mother of my possible involvement with Wade.

It seems she has not. Joyce approaches with a wide, excited grin and takes me in her arms. “You girls are both so beautiful today. That hair is a sensation, Erin.
J’adore tex cheveux!
You have to give me your girl’s number. Enjoy yourself, dear. The weather is lovely. Everything turned out so lovely.”

“It is lovely,” I spit out lamely as she gives my cheek a peck and moves on to arriving guests.

I feel lost standing in the middle of my own party. People I know a little or not at all pat my back and shake my hand and offer me a variety of congratulations.

When I turn around I see Joyce walking back my way with the guest she went to greet. Wade. My heart stops. I might as well be drunk and on shrooms again. His eyes discover my eyes as Joyce leads him through groups of guests. I know they are headed toward Tori wherever she might be, but I must be right in their path.

A familiar hand lands on my shoulder. Kat. “Let’s go sit down, hon,” she whispers as if through the surface of water. She ushers me coolly out of his path and to a serving table where we find a tray full of champagne glasses. They’re full. I quickly empty one into my mouth and grab a second one.

“Hardcore,” Kip says with a little stoned giggle.

“Easy does it, princess,” Kat says. “Just exhale.”

I do it. I exhale. I want Kat to walk with me through every moment of my life and tell me what to do next. I don’t want to decide anything ever again. Decisions are so permanent it hurts.

He moves through the party at his own speed. His walk is smooth and certain, flowing and muscular. His sad eyes are majestic. We are connected now by our disconnection.

When Tori appears, he lights up and gives her a genuine hug.

“Asshole,” Kat says under her breath.

“What did I do?” Kip says amused.

“Not you, dipshit,” Kat says. She lovingly puts her hand on his back.

“Right on,” Kips says proudly.

Tori kisses Wade’s sexy jaw and holds his hand while they talk to her mother. I remember that no one knows about the broken engagement but a select few. This might all be for show. Wade’s classy like that. It’s none of my business anymore. I made that choice.

I turn away. “Is it time to eat, yet?” I ask no one in particular.

“Almost. Your stepmom is being so cool. She has us all sitting together with her and your father,” Kat says.

“Guilt will do that to a person,” I remind her. “Do you think Kip is up for a talk with my Dad?”

“Could be fun,” Kat says.

“You think?”

“No. Not at all. Can we have Rodrigo drive him home?” she says.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I say.

“Does Rodrigo like to party?” Kip says gleefully.

“Why don’t you ask him, big guy?” Kat says.

“For sure,” Kip says. “I’m fucking on it.”

Kat and I smile at Kip’s conviction. I glance across the party. Wade sees me. I turn back to Kat and keep smiling.

* * *

My head spins from food and wine. My cheeks feel warm. I made it through largely traditional speeches by both our fathers. Kat and I were amused by the mostly perfunctory laughter of the crowd when the powerful men spoke.

My father thanked Gloria and Joyce for all the planning and even mentioned my mother and how proud she would be if she were here today. Kat held my hand when he had to take a moment to collect himself.

Tori’s mom and my stepmom do not stand and speak to the guests. I think that the world of money is often more patriarchal than other sectors of society. Sad. Tradition is one thing, but oppression is another. Such political thoughts can mean only one thing. I’ve drunk too much wine.

I make my way back to that private bathroom I found earlier (right after Tori accused me of all manners of evil). I find it unoccupied. The curtains are still closed. I take the hanging hand towel and run some cold water on it and press it against my hot forehead.

The wine was a bad idea. I swear off all types of coping mechanisms. Reality TV, drugs and alcohol, even masturbation. Why must we dress up our days and nights with methods of disappearing? Is life really so awful?

I will allow myself one method of disappearing. Sleep. Now that I am graduated I can sleep in every day for a while. I like that idea. In Bora Bora I want to fall asleep with the Sun and wake with the Sun.

It will take a lot of convincing to get Kat to agree to skip the nightlife there, but I’ll get her onboard by planning some really exotic morning excursions. Sounds fun.

There’s a quiet knock on the door. Speak of the devil. Kat must have followed me inside. I answer the door with a smile.

“Can we talk?” he says.

My heart stalls and swells and expels an icy thrust of blood into my tingling veins. It’s Wade. He slips past me gracefully like he’s floating on air and pulls the door shut.

“Wade,” I say in a thrilled daze, but he quickly shuts my mouth with a sudden kiss. I dissolve into his arms and hunger every bit of his lips.

He lifts my dress and slides his fingers under my panties and squeezes my ass like it’s his and his alone to enjoy.

“Wade,” I say again with no intention of saying anything else.

He turns me forcefully but carefully around so he can pull down my panties and softly bite each of my little cheeks. He abruptly pulls my panties up, pulls my dress down and turns me back to face him.

My hearts races so fast in my chest I fear cardiac arrest. I can’t speak. I can barely get my breath out of my lungs.

“Sorry about all that,” he says taking a deep breath. “I miss that sweet little ass so much.”

“Just my ass, huh?” I say as my heartbeat slows. “Not me?”

“Why would I miss you?” he says. “You broke my heart. I must be the last in a long line of fools.”

“You’re anything but a fool,” I say not knowing what I can or should say. My body is screaming at me to fuck him right here in Tori’s house.

“Save it, Erin,” he says. “I knew it when I first saw you.”

“What did you know?” I say as an instinctive anger rises.

He laughs. “That you would just ball me up in your little hands and toss me aside like you did those bloody panties the morning I picked you up.”

“What the hell are you taking about, Wade?” I say. “You’re drunk obviously. And who do you think you are coming in here and grabbing my body like it’s yours? You’re a brute.”

“How can you be so cold?” he says burying his face in his hand.

“You need to sober up. I can’t talk to you like this,” I say.

“You’re the kind of woman who destroys men, aren’t you?”

I want to punch his beautiful face. I somehow resist reminding him of his obvious hypocrisy.

“You’re a black widow,” he says quietly as he sadly stares down at the ground like a hurt boy.

Now I don’t resist. “I’m the black widow? Really, Wade? I’m not the one who was engaged. How do you think Tori feels about all this?”

He lifts his eyes and whatever connection we had burns out. He stares at me vacantly for longer than I can stand. He nods to himself barely as if finally answering a question definitively.

“Take care, Erin,” he says and slides out through the door as gracefully as he had entered.

I want to die. Part of me is dying. I stare into the mirror and hate what I see with all my heart.

-25-

I wake up at 2AM. It’s the most I have slept in days. Four straight hours. Not bad. I’ll take it. I click on the bedside lamp and pick up the book I’ve been reading. Poetry. As my degree consisted of endless science and math classes I have not read a single poem since high school. That was during my Jim Morrison phase.

This book is by Rilke. I noticed two of my groovier girlfriends had clicked like on his Facebook page. The guy has been dead 140 years and he has a Facebook page. So cool.

I read a few poems indifferently until I find a few lines I like. I set the book aside and turn off the lights.

The dark is the most honest place I know. When there is light, there are so many choices. The world moves too fast for introspection. In the dark I can become one with the tortured voice in the poem. Neither of us knows how to keep our soul inside our bodies because it always wants to reach out and touch another’s soul.

The trick is to rise higher beyond the one you desire and let your soul interact with other things. I think of Alodia. She seemingly has mastered this ability. There is magic in her very presence and everything she brings into her home becomes part of her magical world.

I want that. I want to become more than I am, more than a slave to carnal desire and the vulnerability of love. Those things are not for me anyway. Not anymore. I am no good at them. The entire physical world can be my canvas. According to my freshly minted degree I am a scientist and scientists study more than one man’s absolute perfection.

Alodia’s house alone liberates the shackles of my soul. When I walk up the steps the next day, she is waiting on the porch in a wicker rocking chair. She is actually carving on a piece of wood. I can already make out the snout of a dolphin emerging from the wood.

“My gosh, Alodia,” I say. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“You can fill the ocean with things I can’t do,” she says. Her smile is so pure it makes me feel truly welcome. “But before I’m done I hope to pull another few things out of the waters. One must be always learning.”

“That sucks,” I tease. “I just graduated. I thought that was the end of learning.”

“Silly girl,” she says as she takes both of my hands in hers. “Let’s go inside for some tea. I have a new flavor and a new teapot I have been saving for just the right afternoon.”

I want a billion Alodias in the world. I just do. We’d become a much more noble species. I could get behind a species like that.

We sit at a small table in her tiny backyard almost completely enclosed in wild flowers. We can see a little stretch of the sparkling canal through her lush white peonies.

“What is this tea?” I ask. “I don’t think I have ever tasted anything quite like it.”

Alodia smiles and picks up her dark brown, clay teapot that she’s informed me is an authentic Brown Betty from England. She tops off my cup and sets the teapot down between us on the small table.

“I have never tasted it either. We will have always tasted it together for the first time,” she says. “It’s called Meghalaya cloud tea.”

“Sounds Indian,” I say.

“Very smart, Minnesota,” she says. “No wonder you have a degree.”

“Yeah, well, now I face the hardest test,” I say. “Life.”

My attempt at earnestness amuses her. “Don’t always try so hard. Sometimes all you have to do is to sit down and have some tea.”

“I guess I’m on my way then.”

“As are we all,” she agrees. “We could use some English biscuits.”

She leaves me alone dashing back into her kitchen. I breathe in Alodia’s world and realize there are so many lives worth living out there and so many adventures and so many teas to taste. The peonies’ lovely fragrance mixes on my palate with the taste of the cloud tea.

The English biscuits are more like old-fashioned cookies. I remember that at the very moment she sets them in front of me. The world is full of charming details. Nothing reminds me of that more than time spent with Alodia.

“Tell me about love, Alodia?” I say asking the question I most wanted to ask her. “That’s one subject about which I know nothing. Did you ever have a first love?”

“My lovely girl,” she says. She washes down her biscuit with a little tea and becomes reflective. “Each of our hearts define that thing for ourselves. We are all so different. No flower is identical to another.”

“It seems so dangerous and exhausting,” I offer to lighten the tone.

It works. I’ve amused her. “His name was Leonidas, the son of a Greek grocer in Ann Arbor.”

She sees that I’m pleased. I want to stay on this exact spot on Earth and hear her stories for days on end. It’s the first time since Las Vegas I feel a shred of contentment.

“He was one year older than me in school. When he was held back a year everyone made fun of him. Not me. I fell instantly in love in fourth grade with my new classmate. I was very shy. The crush varied in intensity through the years and went unrealized until ninth grade.”

“So romantic,” I say when she pauses to smile sadly at the memory.

She wets her lips with her tea and continues, “Leo was an artist. He asked a few girls to pose for him naked. I knew I was not the first he approached but I was the first to accept. I sat on a padded wooden chair in his bedroom. I trembled as I disrobed and then I covered myself shyly. He told me it was okay to cover up with my arms. He wanted to catch the beauty in my shyness.”

“Oh my god,” I say. “He really was an artist.”

“He was very talented. The painting he did of me made me cry. The next day at school I felt like I was flying on air. He opened up a whole new way of experiencing the world. Truly.”

“What happened? Did you ever become an item?”

“Not then, but for a few weeks when I was seventeen, we made love every night in his parent’s basement. They were visiting Greece and we had total privacy. He had set-up his bedroom down there. It was a bit cool and damp and when I shivered he held me in his warm arms.”

“An artist and a gentleman,” I say.

“He was just a noble boy trying to figure it out, the world, his body, the meaning of love and sex,” she says. “When his parents returned, it made it much harder to be intimate. Both of our parents were strict.”

“Where is he now?” I ask.

A true sadness overcomes her for the first time. “The next few months were heavenly. We made love when we could find a place, but mostly we talked about our dreams and future and where we wanted to travel. That boy could dream like no other person.”

“He sounds wonderful,” I say.

“He was wonderful,” she agrees. “He shipped out to basic training in June of that year. His letters from basic were full of that same old Leo enthusiasm. When he got to Vietnam his letters became shorter and shorter. They became dreamless. That place changed him forever even before he died in a place called Quang Tri.”

“Alodia,” I say, “I’m so sorry. That’s just so sad.”

“Forty-five years have passed,” she reassures me. “No need to be sad. He lived and he was beautiful.”

“And the next forty-five years?” I ask.

“The next twenty years I had many lovers but never love, not of the type that could overwhelm me in the way that I desired,” she says with a relaxed smile.

“Did you give up on finding it then?”

“Give up?” she says happily. “Not at all. Even now I am always ready for that man to walk into my life who can dazzle all my senses and penetrate my mind. I will be his in any and every way he desires me.”

“Oh my,” I say. “Aren’t you the naughty one?”

“I’m old, I’m not dead,” she says as she stands and takes my cup. “How about we move inside? I feel like listening to music.”

* * *

Most things come to an end. Other things breathe as long as we do. A love once true will forever linger inside. We are haunted by its beauty. Such splendor felt in the blood can never be forgotten. It echoes now and always within our dreams.

The night receives these ghosts with open arms. My mother’s kiss can be felt there and there only. I have been unable to fit Wade into my late night gallery of lost things. I try but it won’t take. He is still so alive in the hot splash of my beating heart.

A week has passed since my graduation party and the last time I saw him. Tomorrow I will move out of the Ashton and Westwood for the last time. My college life and any glimmer of a childhood long gone have faded into the shadows of what’s left behind.

Gloria handled the reservations for the trip to Bora Bora. Kat is so excited. She sends me photos or facts every day. Today she sent a tidbit about there being no ‘B’ in the Tahitian language so the actual name is Pora Pora to the natives. Western discoverers misunderstood the sound and their mistake has stuck for the rest of the world.

For me the trip is a perfect way to decompress. I always managed to avoid drama in the past. The last couple months have been non-stop drama and that’s not me. I need to chill. I need to be in control of my heartbeat and make choices that lead to stillness.

As Lyric, the yogi also known as Doctor Reed Hendricks, would say, “
If we become still, we become vast and approach peace.”
I’m all about that right now, restorative tranquility and meditation.

Alodia is a wonder to me. Without any of the pomp and circumstance of a regulated method of attaining peace, her soul is naturally curious and calm.

Despite the intense need and desire that dominated the hours spent with Wade, I saw glimpses of myself at total peace in his arms. I know he was only a temporary drug. Authentic peace must originate within us and not within the way a lover sees us.

I have no choice now but to roll up my sleeves and get to work on finding myself, my center and my truth. Alone.