Catch My Fall (27 page)

I didn’t say anything as we passed the Christian Reading Room and the Hardware Store, but when I glanced up to find her still watching me for a response, I sighed. “We’re not talking right now.”

If I was hoping for a day spent not talking about it, this wasn’t the appropriate way to get it. Jackie wouldn’t press. She would never press, but when she searched your face with her sympathetic smile, you couldn’t help but share. And, oh boy, did I share.

I practically unleashed. I told her about the Halloween party, about Stellan - and how dare he show up with his hair cut. I told her about the kiss, or the face licking, more aptly, and the resulting push. I managed to get it all out in a huff of exasperation rather than a font of emotion. Crying on Main Street might result in talk. You don’t live in Downtown Concord for a good amount of your life and not get to know people.

“You kissed him? And he pushed you away?”

I nodded rather than repeat it out loud. It was hard enough to say it once.

“Why did he push you away?”

I laughed. Sometimes Jackie betrayed a sweeter nature than she wanted the world to believe. “I assume because he wasn’t as keen on making out with me as I’d hoped.”

“I can’t believe you just went for it. I’m so proud.”

I stared at her. “Proud? Are you kidding?”

“Yes, I’m proud! You’d been thinking about him for a while. I worried you’d never say anything.”

My shoulders slumped. “I wish I’d kept it to myself.”

We reached Sally Ann’s, and the bell jangled over her head as she entered. I followed her inside, silent. A few minutes later we were walking across the street with a small paper bag and two boxed waters. Jackie decided we should sit amongst the old crumbling gravestones of the South Burying Ground and eat our Turkey Sandwich.

The sandwich was perfect, and I could have easily eaten two more, but again, I hadn’t the means to be greedy.

“I still don’t understand why he would push you away,” she said, finally.

The innocence of her tone was almost grating. Why couldn’t she see what I saw? That I was undesirable! He didn’t want me! “He didn’t shove me or anything.”

“That seems so forward, even for you.”

I shrugged. “Well, I did have somewhere around seven rum and cokes beforehand. Nothing like liquid courage.”

When she didn’t respond, I glanced up to find her watching me.

“What?” I asked.

“You were ‘drunk?’

I paused. “Yes?”

When she spoke, my charade splintered into pieces. “Faye.”

Fuck. Clearly I’d forgotten who I was talking to.

Jackie and I met in college. She was studying theatre at BU, whilst I was busy drawing stupid characters and apparently wasting my life at Mass Art.

In the weeks following my lunch with Dad, I’d started frequenting frat parties, if you could call them that. She and her then boyfriend found me stranded after such a party with chapped lips from making out with a stranger and no idea where I was. She didn’t know me well by then, but Jackie’s nature couldn’t leave me there, hammered and lost on a sidewalk somewhere South of Fenway. She brought me back to her dorm.

She asked me questions, something I found nice after hours of endless banter with boys who wanted to get into my drunken pants. She made me tea and toast, and we discussed our lives into the wee hours of the morning. By the time we were eating breakfast at a nearby diner, we’d exchanged numbers.

We hung out again, she brought her then ‘friend’ Kevin, and I brought some random guy. We had a couple pints, then she and Kevin headed out. Now, I knew my date hadn’t paid any mind to the amount I’d been drinking. Most guys outside of the date rape and concerned chaperone variety don’t really care to pay attention. Still, if I’d known Jackie forgot her purse, I might have behaved differently. Had I known she forgot her purse, I might have followed her to her car and avoided this moment in my life. Instead, I turned to Ben, or Jamie, or whatever the fuck his name was, and said the immortal words, “Wow, I’m so drunk right now.”

Those words are magic, ladies and gentlemen. Once they have been uttered, the gloves come off, the friendly gestures flow, but most importantly, accountability flies directly out the window. When Jackie returned to grab her purse, I was knee deep in Ben-Jamie’s inaccurate kisses, and his hand was finding its way into my blouse. She said my name, and before I could realize who I was acknowledging, I leaned in for a slurred greeting and met the eyes of a woman who could read me like Ikea furniture instructions.

She didn’t see me again until the night I nearly broke my toe in the main entrance of her dorm building, trying to flee a guy I’d let take me home. She was coming in as I was pile driving my way out, and we only managed to avoid colliding with one another because I yanked the door open directly onto my open-toe shoed foot.

I still curl my toes when I think about that.

Much like before, I spent the night in Jackie’s dorm room. Both nights she’d found me in various stages of desperation, and had learned a habit of mine I was and will never be proud of.

I stopped being a heavy drinker after my Dad reappeared. I hadn’t been wasted in years when Evan’s party came around. Still, Jackie learned a damning detail about me when we first met – I was troubled.

To this day, I consider Jackie’s friendship to be the thing that brought me in from the sea. She wasn’t perfect, as she’ll often assure you, but she was reason, and I needed reason. Without Stellan or Evan in my life, I’d felt somewhat unsure of myself in that new guise – the quirky girl, the cartoonist in art classes filled with painters and sculptors, was now surrounded by Abercrombie and Fitch wearing business majors, and I was lost. So rather than drink until I was off my head, I would pretend to. Jackie held a mirror up to my world, forcing me to see how it was being ruled. She made me look at all the times I’d smiled a little wider and spoke a little freer because I knew that ‘drunk Faye’ could get away with what ‘sober Faye,’ or ‘sensible and grown up Faye’ – the Faye Stellan knew - would never do.

She searched my face, and I felt miniscule. I thought of Stellan pushing me away, a sloppy version of myself, and I shuddered.

Was I really that drunk? Did I have seven as I’d proclaimed, or had I had three? Dear god, what would I have done if Stellan and my paths had crossed at one of those ridiculous parties, with the arm of some disgusting frat boy around my waist, heading to his dorm, his apartment - a bathroom stall? I might have died from shame. The thought of him seeing me in the various stages of humiliation that Jackie once saw suddenly made me almost nauseous. There was a very good reason why I didn’t call him the night I was stranded on that street corner near Fenway.

Alcohol, I’d learned, doesn’t change you; it reveals you.

“What is wrong with me?” I whispered.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Faye.”

“I’m supposed to be a grown up. God, I hate that you know this about me! Why can’t I act like a jackass without
everyone
knowing?”

She patted my knee. “I’m not ‘everyone,’ and you’re not exactly at 100% right now, honey. You can’t expect perfection all the time.”

I laughed, with a hint of disdain I couldn’t hide. “Yeah, that’s just another excuse, isn’t it? God, I’m fucking pathetic.”

“No, you’re not. Don’t say that.”

“It’s not untrue, Jackie. I’m just saying.”

The corners of her mouth drooped a second, then returned to a smile. “Explains why he pushed you away.”

She hopped up, and I faltered a moment.

Finally, I hurried to follow her. “Yeah, he didn’t want to make out with me.”

We threw our trash away and headed toward the Boathouse. I nearly broke a nail when I pulled on the door handle. It didn’t budge.

Jackie’s eyes brightened. “I heard a rumor about this.”

Before I could ask for explanation, she pointed to a sign, declaring her meaning.

Thank you for Twenty Five great years! – The Boathouse Bakery

I stared, agape. “Are you kidding me? This place has been open since I was little.”

“From what I hear, the owners had to choose between maintaining this or their second house.”

I frowned. “I’m almost heartbroken. I mean, yeah, their prices were astronomical, but – I mean my Grandmother used to bring me here.”

Jackie pouted. “Hopefully it won’t stay closed forever?”

I shrugged. “I wonder if Stellan -”

And I stopped. My immediate thought was to tell Stellan, or ask if he knew – share my righteous disappointment and ecstasy at his auburn coffee shrew being out of a job. Then I remembered.

Jackie and I stopped by Helen’s for ice cream – a sad substitution for Cannolis, but still sweet – and walked back to my house. I managed to keep my eyes straight as I crossed Monument Square this time.

I would not glance toward his house, hoping he might walk outside at just that moment, see me, and come running across the common, arms out, declaring his undying love.

“So when do you think you’ll speak to him about it?”

I was almost surprised to hear her return to the subject of Stellan. Almost.

“Never? I was actually considering joining the Peace Corps.”

She laughed. “You have to talk to him, Faye.”

“Why? Can’t I just pretend it never happened? I’d rather not have that conversation.” I dropped my voice, doing my best Stellan impression. “‘Yeah, thanks Faye, but I’m all set.’”

“You really think that’s what he’ll say?”

I almost coughed on my ice cream. “What else would he say? He pushed me away.”

She stopped, her brow furrowed. “I won’t push, you know - but just think about it. Would he be Stellan if he hadn’t pushed you away? He thought you were hammered.”

“So?”

“So, Stellan doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would, you know, take advantage.”

I stared into my Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. “Right. What guy doesn’t want action when it’s offered?”

“If she’s drunk? Good ones.”

I scowled. I wasn’t ready to hear logic, because this brand of logic might give me hope. I couldn’t go through having it dashed again. “Fuck that noise.”

“Seriously, don’t just take it as ‘he doesn’t like you.’ You need to have a conversation. Otherwise, you’ll never know, you know?”

Damn it, Jackie. Stop making sense.

We walked home talking about the loss of the Boathouse, the desperate need we both now felt for Cannolis, Jackie’s sudden decision to learn to make them herself, and how much we missed college era visits to Mike’s in the North End of Boston.

The one thing we didn’t mention again was Stellan. Despite not speaking of him, he never left my mind.

By ten that evening I was back in bed, my hair now washed, thankfully, and ready to forget by way of dreams. I’d curled up with my bedside lamp on, reading a recent Charlaine Harris novel about vampires and such when my phone started vibrating again.

To be honest, I was expecting another frustrated text from Stellan, but it wasn’t a text.

Festering Asshole Calling...

I felt every muscle from my throat to my groin tighten and shoot up into my mouth.
What do I do? Do I answer? What do I say? Hello, Festering Asshole? Oh God, what do I do?

“Hello?”

“Oh wow…you answered.”

His voice was as foreign and familiar as the night sky. I swallowed. “I did.”

Then I waited.

There was silence on the other end of the phone. I waited for a moment or two, listening to him breathe. It was rhythmic, almost sharp. I let my mouth fall open as though to speak, but a sudden realization caught the words in my throat.

“Cole?”

He was crying. Softly, as though I were listening to him in another room, but certain. The sound made me sad.

God damn it, how dare you call me crying? You’ve no right. No fucking right!

I didn’t say those things. I waited.

Finally, he croaked at me. “I miss you so much.”

I covered my eyes as my whole face scrunched up. A flood of accusations, angry questions, even primal screaming all came rushing to the fore.

You coward! You bastard! You’re not Stellan! You’re not the voice I wanted to hear! Fuck you for that! Fuck you for everything!

These thoughts clamored and fought to be first, tearing at one another like a trampling crowd in this unexpected moment of power. Yet, as they fought, a calmer tone passed them and slipped out.

“It’s nice to hear your voice.”

His breathing shook again. I’d said the right thing, it seemed. “What do I have to do? I’ll do fucking anything!”

I was startled by the intensity of his tone. “For what?”

“Can I see you? Would you let me see you?”

I paused. “I don’t know.”

He gave a hoarse chuckle. “I drive by your road - more than I want to admit. I went by your house last night, but you weren’t there.”

I felt my insides twist. What would I have done if I’d come home to find him here? I would have disintegrated into the soil under my mother’s petunias. I imagined the sight of him, catching a glimpse of him from around a corner, or driving down the road as I reeled from the sensation of having been rejected by Stellan. I’d had the thought in a thousand weak moments over the past few months – of what it would be like to stumble across each other’s path. Yet he’d never appeared. Then Stellan wiped away the want of his appearance.

Suddenly, the want of someone’s presence, unsatisfied and aching, was leaving me weakened. I knew it, but I didn’t hang up.

I started, unsure what I wanted to say, “I’m not -”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry, I understand if you don’t want to ever see me again. I just – I just don’t know what to do. I feel lost.”

I searched for words. Finally, one of the brawling thoughts broke free from the group. “Why didn’t you call before now?”

Like before I’d started pining for my best friend and had my heart shattered in an instant by a broken kiss.

“I couldn’t. I wanted to. Every day I wanted to. I was just so scared you’d tell me to go fuck myself. I was afraid - it would kill me. Then last night -”

His voice cracked again, and he coughed to stifle it. Hearing him in tears or in constant threat of them was painful. The man had never shown an emotion beyond irritation before now, yet here he was, pouring out his soul.