Folie à Deux (40 page)

I pass her house, once. It looks just like the picture on the internet which relieves me that I’m in the right place, theoretically. I pass again and notice that there are no cars parked anywhere on the street. The homes beautiful, hers the biggest. Her front yard landscaped more elaborately, four giant palms ominously prevent a clear view of her front door. A façade hiding a façade.

After a final pass I stop the car and let Dan drive. I grab my two letters and the manuscript copy of my memoir saying, “Ok, I’ll be back.” Without placing this choice into a parallel category of other anxious steps, I walk the remaining one hundred yards to her front door.

The large pickup truck sitting outside her three car garage doesn’t fit what I imagine her life to be in this protected part of Florida. I head up the walkway and ring the doorbell absent any further melodramatic thoughts or self-monologue. A medium size dog barks and the sound of its nails on a tile floor pass the few excruciating seconds. My stomach aches from loneliness and residual teenage inelegance when I see shapes moving behind the opaque glass verify that somebody is coming.

The door opens a crack and out of the small opening I see Carla’s face. She looks exactly as I remember. I didn’t know what to expect but was ready for any physical appearance. “Hi Carla. It’s Jim,” short pause, “Cunneely.”

“I hope you have a few minutes to talk to me.” Requesting a conversation has already been done. Pleasantries became outdated two years ago so I take to direct statements.

The shock on her face is instantly recognizable. She opens the door a little more to reveal that she is still in her pajamas. A pair of sweatpants and spaghetti strap tank top. My heart still pounds and I hear the shortness of my breath as I await her response.

“Um, hi. Yeah, sure. Um, why don’t you come around back and we can talk on the lanai.”

“No fucking way,” silently and involuntarily passes over my lips as I realize this is happening.

Instantly, as I walk from her front entrance, past the imposing pick-up truck my mind begins a primal preparation calling to the forefront all that I’ve prepared. I soften my initial approach knowing that I neither need to coerce nor convince her to speak. Each step is interdependent on her prior response so I need to regroup. I try to control my breathing as I find the screen door, desperately wanting to sound less nervous than I am.

Another, shorter eternity passes before she appears at the back door, now wearing a sweatshirt that says, “Université de Paris” and lipstick. She opens the door and extends her right hand. I shake it as she welcomes, “Hi, come on in.”

I’m met in the doorway by her dog, a wonderful diversion from the unmanageable gravity. I bend down and pet her, “Hello, how are you? She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”

“Kahuna.”

As I stand up and take two more steps inside I see a man slightly older than me, also in his pajamas, “This is my husband, Peter. Peter, this is Jim,” my title unannounced.

She offers no explanation why I’m at his back door at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday morning to speak to his wife. And strangely, he requests none. After shaking my hand he turns to walk through the sliding glass door into what appears to be an elaborately decorated, yet typical Florida home. Kahuna follows and Carla motions to a loveseat on the other side of small patio table, “Please have a seat.”

I walk around the table and position myself in the furthest corner of the cushion placing my manuscript and letters away
from where I think she will sit. Everything thus far has been civil and polite, so I take a moment to admire what’s in front of me. I’m sitting in a two story lanai, overlooking an enormous in-ground pool fed with a tile and marble fountain that backs up to a picturesque golf course. Characteristic southern birds bathe and play in the pond that separates her property from the fairway.

She sits on the same piece of furniture as me, an appropriate distance away, back straight, legs crossed at the ankles. She folds her hands on her lap.

“You have a beautiful home,” I offer sincerely.

“Thank you. We like it.”

I use some more small talk, gauging her willingness to share this moment with me and she obliges. A lull in the banter preempts anything more serious as she breaks character quickly, “I have to ask you something. Are you taping this?”

I rise, step away and pat both hands on my pockets, front and back. I shrug as I put my right hand over the breast pocket of my polo shirt, soften my voice and say, “Carla, it’s just me. I mean you no harm whatsoever. You have my word.”

“Ok, I just had to ask.”

As I sit back down she points to the pile of papers, “So what do you have there?”

“Well,” this seems a logical place to start even though I hadn’t planned on furnishing any explanations, “I think you may know that my life has taken some unusual turns since high school.”

Her expression turns into something difficult to discern. It looks a demure attempt to hide embarrassment as she opens her mouth but says nothing. I don’t wait for a response, “Well to help me deal with those issues I’ve been seeing a therapist, a gentleman who has been instrumental in helping me put the pieces of my life back together. And in preparation to come here today
I accounted for a multitude of possibilities. Since you chose to return neither my phone calls nor my letters I’ve prepared for some time to come here. In that preparation I didn’t know what I’d find so I wrote two letters. One in case you slammed the door in my face and one if you began a conversation but ended it prematurely. Each letter asks you to reconsider your refusal and tells you that I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Oh, I’m not the type of person that would close the door on you.”

I ignore her patronization, “Also, I’ve written a memoir. I’ve used that process to figure out the confusing life I’ve led since I was a teenager. I brought it here today to help remind me what I’ve done as an adult to overcome my past.”

She nods, seeming skeptical but accepting me at face value. “So Carla, I was hoping to be able to ask you a few questions with the goal of achieving some of the healing I just mentioned,” I begin because no segue exists.

She nods again looking afraid.

“So I know the answer from my perspective but I came here hoping that you could tell me what happened between us all those years ago?”

She stiffens, her back straightens even more and her mouth opens, again only silence. A few bewildered sounds of ignorance escape before, “Well, I think we shared a genuine and sincere friendship.”

I say nothing believing this is the beginning of her explanation, not the end. I wait patiently until a submissive gesture of her hands and a shrug of her shoulders inform me she has answered completely.

I bring my voice lower and softer, “Come on Carla. You know that was more than just a friendship. It was sexual.”

The same gesture appears but more animated, “I feel like I tried to be an intimate part of all my students’ lives. Maybe I’m naïve but I thought we shared something special and wonderful. I probably should have made different choices but I never meant you any harm. And you should know that I pray for you and your happiness every day.”

In midstream, I lower my expectations and accept that I’m speaking with someone equally as delusional as she was twenty years ago if not more, further insulated from reality by her lack of remorse. Despite all of my planning, I’m stunned. Of all the outcomes for which I prepared, I was certain she would have known of my arrest. In knowing, she must have made the leap that she affected me adversely in adulthood.

“Ok, then let me ask you this,” I instinctively slow my speech and clean my diction as though speaking to a child, “Was there ever anything that you lied to me about to fool me into our relationship?”

While she fumbles for words I silently hope for a confession. Ideally, about her virginity, tell me two laic people can’t perform a wedding, she knocked a few years off of her real age, she doesn’t prefer her toast burnt, I’ll take anything. Instead she stammers through, “I don’t remember ever being dishonest with you.”

I hope now to coax her by fostering honesty, “Well you know, Carla, I did get in some trouble a few years ago. I was a high school French teacher, a successful one. I became romantically and sexually involved with a fifteen year old student. And I got caught. I spent a year in prison and although my marriage was not perfect, that situation completely dissolved what remained. I must register as a sex offender. I’m completely unable to find work befitting my level of education and things are simply fucked up on a daily basis inside my head.”

As I speak she closes her eyes and sighs deeply. A single tear streams down her left cheek. I’m tempted to comfort her in this moment of sorrow, a characteristic I undoubtedly learned twenty years ago. But I do not. I sit in silence and wait.

“Oh, Jimi. It’s just like Jean Valjean in
Les Misérables.
We know he isn’t a criminal but he’s treated like one and no one gives him a chance because he supposed to have committed a crime but in reality all he did was steal a loaf of bread to feed his family. And…”

I slowly raise my hand, “Carla, stop. It’s not like Jean Valjean. He is a fictional character. This is my life and what I deal with every day. That’s a story.”

Her stunned silence coincides with a bit of noise inside the house that sounds like someone putting dishes away, “Hang on one second. Let me see if he needs anything,” she says. It seems contrived, like an escape from the reality I’ve brought. When I’m out of her sight I place my face in my hands to do the same. I regroup and remark how much better than expected this is unfolding.

Carla returns after a moment with a cookie jar in her hand. I assume she’s offering me something to eat so I raise my hand in refusal. “Give her a cookie and she’ll be your friend forever,” she says, talking about the dog beside her.

I begin to absorb the extent of her fantasy world, watching the attempt to navigate a husband and former teenage lover in the same house. Kahuna provides an outlet for this mental torment. I pet the dog after feeding her a treat to provide us both an intermission. When I stop and the dog leaves. Carla sits again so I resume.

“Listen, I told you I see a therapist regularly. I’ve suffered a lot of damage from my youth. You know I didn’t lead a typical
existence,” I pause but am not waiting for a response. “When Kevin’s mother died it was extremely difficult for me.”

She nods emphatically in agreement, “I know you did, I remember that.”

“I turned to you because I was looking for comfort and I can’t help but feel like you betrayed me. I needed a selfless person to guide me through that and you turned it sexual which was very confusing at my age.”

I stop speaking despite my urge to fill all uncomfortable silences.

“I remember how hard that was for you but I never knew you didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Whenever I think of you in high school, I remember how good of a student you were and how well you did in the forensics competitions. As a matter of fact, Peter and I were just watching a Cyrano de Bergerac movie the other night and I remember the bar scene and how I never saw anyone recite that as well as you…” I interrupt again.

“Carla, again, no literary references. I need you to know that my life is hard, very hard and the reason I see a therapist once a week is to unravel all of the fucked up memories in my head.” She interrupts me now.

“Was it hard to come here today?” she asks, a hint of remorse in her voice.

I turn my head and focus on the knee high, circular fountain babbling over into the large in-ground pool. My breath increases and my vision stings as it blurs from the tears that gather. This is the first time I allow myself to feel how scared I’ve always been to confront her. I regroup, keep my head still but cast my eyes in her direction, bite my lower lip and slowly nod. She looks at me with mirrored sadness.

“It was really fucking hard,” I whisper.

She looks away in the other direction of the lanai where her husband is now setting up a power washer. I wipe my eyes so she can’t see the tear about to drop. “As I was saying, my therapy is an ongoing process, constantly filled with adversity. Having said that I would like to continue to correspond with you, whether via email or snail mail doesn’t matter but my questions are endless and I could use your help. As you now see, I mean you no harm. I just want to be okay.”

“Oh Jimi, I want you to be okay and I know you don’t mean me any harm. I always knew you to be a good person, a person of integrity and a good Catholic,” she responds immediately.

The coincidental absurdity of her words unhinges my composure again but this time I chuckle audibly.

“Well Carla, it’s ironic you should choose a word such as integrity. You see, the entire goal of my therapy, as well as my life is that exact quality. It’s been impossible to integrate anything regarding you into my life. Do you know how difficult it is to normally integrate a sexual relationship with your French teacher into a teenage existence?” I ask rhetorically.

“It was impossible and has been for years. That’s why I need your help and frankly, I think I deserve it. I want your email address so that we can continue this conversation indefinitely.”

She tried to deflect me twice but realizes I will not rescind my request. She sits back, breaking her stiff posture for the first time and sighs. “I’m not sure about that. I believe you just want healing but I’m unsure if I’m comfortable with that. I will take you email address and give your question serious consideration. I don’t do facebook or any of that but I’ll think about emailing you.”

My immediate reaction, although I say nothing contrary, is to wonder why she should be uncomfortable if we simply shared
a genuine and sincere friendship. What would she fear me recording if I were just another student with whom she took an intimate role in their life?

“I will definitely think about it and try to help you, but maybe next year if you’re in Florida again you’re certainly welcome to come back and visit,” sweetly wraps up her response.

“Well then, I thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.” I know I will not receive an email and I know, despite sharing the same loveseat, we live in two very different worlds. I leave her house feeling different, more adult, and less afraid. I pause a second outside her back door trying to etch the conversation into my memory. There will be much to process, much to learn from what she said and what she wouldn’t say that I need to save for when my nerves calm.