After Her (33 page)

“Why do you believe I'm still married to Vivian?” Adrian asks, though he has yet to look me in the eye so I must be doing
something
right. I position myself further back on the bed, facing up, and prop my body up with my elbows.

He remains where he stands, watching me intently, arms folded with a smirk on his face. I almost laugh at myself for this stupid little performance, but as long as it keeps his attention on me, I figure I somehow have the upper hand. I intend to use it to my advantage.

“I’ve concluded that you and Vivian enjoy misery more than happiness,” I say. “No sane woman would put up with someone like you for as long as she has. And no rational man would remain married to someone like Vivian for as long as you have.”

“Neither of us has ever staked any claim to sanity or rationality, so maybe you’re correct about that analysis.”

“Well, what is the point?” I ask. “Why—when you could have a healthy marriage with a
normal
woman—are you still married to Vivian? Sure, she has some redeeming qualities. She is beautiful and intelligent so I understand the attraction, but on some level, even you have to admit when enough is enough.”

He continues to watch me, scrutinizing my face as if he’s reading words from a book.

“Why are you so interested in uncovering the inner workings of my marriage?”

I shrug, hoping he won't read too much into my curiosity.

“My parents annulled their marriage eight years after I was born,” I say. “For nine years afterwards, I bounced back and forth between their houses until my high school graduation. With all the animosity between them, I'm surprised by how long they managed to stay married, but I know they only remained married for my sake. You and Vivian have no children to keep you together.”

He nods to acknowledge my accuracy.

“You’re correct about that as well.”

“What’s the glue that keeps you bound to her?” I ask. “Why is Vivian so pathetically infatuated with you?”

“Wouldn’t you rather ask her that?”

“I’ve already heard her side of the story. I want yours.”

“Wouldn’t knowing any of this information be an encroachment on your ‘contractual terms’ with Vivian?” he asks to tease me. It’s the first time in a while that I'm forced to remind myself of that damn contract.

I sit up in bed and position my legs so that they splay open far enough apart for him to see up my skirt. It’s enough to force his attention to stay where I need it to be so I relax my shoulders until the strap of my bra slides down my shoulder as he continues to get an eyeful of my lascivious display.

“I won’t tell her if you don’t,” I say with a coquettish smile. “She doesn’t have to know
everything
you and I talk about, does she? If there is something you need to get off your chest, I'm willing to listen.”

Adrian takes the bait. It’s a pathetic attempt at flirtation on my part, but it’s also the only weapon I have left in my arsenal to combat him. If I can’t win at a spar of words with him, flirting is the next best thing.

He finally sits along the edge of the bed beside me with his hands clutching the tops of his knees, his fingers trembling. His eyes remain on me, refusing to break contact with mine as I struggle to retain some control of this situation and conversation. I pull myself upright and close my legs, hoping to keep this exchange strictly verbal.

“Vivian was and still is the only woman that has ever stuck by me through thick and thin,” he says. “Despite her many faults, she’s as loyal as a Golden Retriever. I’d be an idiot to give her up at this point.”

“This isn’t about you being in love with her,” I say. “It’s about you needing a security blanket for the next time shit hits the fan. You need the public to see you and Vivian as a united front the next time you fuck up.”

He chuckles at my words, mainly because it’s the first time I’ve dared to be as blunt as possible with him. Judging by the simper, I can tell that he appreciates brusque honesty. I’ll have to remember this for future conversations.

“Vivian isn’t just a security blanket,” he says. “She’s the only thing in my life I can ever be certain of.”

“You mean that she’s the only person in the world who’ll defend you no matter what kind of trouble you cause. If that’s what you mean, then I understand. If I had someone in my life willing to always see the best in me, I’d never let them go either.”

“I know it makes no sense to you,” he says. “I don’t expect it to. Let me put it to you in simpler terms. There always one person in your life that you can never resist. It’s a toxic kind of love, impossible to control or prevent. That kind of connection is something you can never sever. Judging by that adorably confused expression on your face, I sense that you have never experienced what I'm talking about.”

I swallow my words then forget what I wanted to say altogether. When we finally make eye contact, I cross my legs instinctively as if someone has ordered me to.

“You’re right,” I confess. “I have never been in love. The only crush I’ve ever had was on my eighth grade English teacher. I guess that disqualifies me as an expert on marriage. That doesn’t mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion.”

“What’s your opinion about me and Vivian? Are we a match made in heaven…or hell?” he asks.

“Honestly? I don’t know what you people are sometimes. You feed off one another. I don’t think either of you would survive with each other.”

He chuckles and quickly adopts an impassive expression, adding to the nauseating tension that has already eaten the atmosphere between us. My breath spikes in my throat, forcing me to look away so that I don’t hyperventilate.

I glance at the abstract carpeting, tracing the pattern with my eyes. The feel of his eyes on me makes me fidget and focus on the sound of rain pecking the window and the outside walls of the house. The eerie noises play like a backdrop lullaby behind us.

“You’ve never been in love?” he asks while moving closer. I turn from him, wanting to ignore his presence. The proximity makes this impossible.

“No,” I reply, but I wish I’d kept my mouth shut or simply lied about the answer. The last thing I need is for him to gain the upper hand. The crack in my proverbial armor is shattering my façade of indifference.

“Adrian,” I manage to whisper despite the hoarseness in my voice. He leaves me no time to finish my sentence before abruptly standing up. As I catch my breath and watch him saunter across the bedroom toward the door, he turns to add, “I sincerely hope you learn how it feels someday.”

“What?” I gasp, surprised by my frustration when he leaves the room without speaking another word. It unravels everything I thought I knew about myself, but for some sick reason, I actually feel rejected.

I spend several seconds staring at the closed bedroom door as if some pathetic part of me anticipates his return. I shut my eyes and countdown from ten, hoping to calm myself and to alleviate the unjustifiable tension in my shoulders.

35

I don’t want to get out of bed.

The only thing that rouses me are the repetitive chirps of my cell phone from beneath my pillow. I roll over to retrieve the device. With my eyes half-closed and my body stuck amidst a state of twilight sleep, I answer as coherently as I can.

“Hello?”

“Cassandra, you have ten seconds to tell me what’s going on,” Mom replies. I wrench up from bed with lump in my throat.

“Mom, I know I haven’t called you in a while and I'm sorry,” I say. “I’ve just been dealing with…some things.”

“Our last conversation left me worried,” she says. “You’ve been keeping me so out of the loop that I didn’t know what to think.”

“I'm fine now Mom,” I say, opting for something close enough to the truth. “I promise. I'm taking it one day at a time.”

I glance at the curtains, noting dim daylight peering in, announcing dawn. Muffled voices catch my ear, luring me out of bed to uncover the commotion. I set the phone aside and saunter to the window. Below, I see onto the second floor balcony where Vivian sits lounging atop a plastic lawn chair in nothing, but a two-piece polka-dotted bathing suit.

It’s odd seeing her so indisposed, so casual and subdued. She sips orange juice from a wine glass with a cigarette between her lips and a sunhat covering her head so dramatically that the brim touches her shoulders like a hound dog’s ears. I glance at the clock, noting the hour and wondering why she’s sun bathing at dawn.

“Cassandra?” Mom’s voice calls from the downturned cell phone, muffled by my pillow where I left it sitting.

“Mom,” I answer after scrambling to retrieve the phone. “I can’t talk right now. I’ll call later and we’ll talk all you want.”

“Cassandra, don’t hang up on me!” she retorts. I press the
end
button before she can protest any further. I know I'm bound to face the wrath of her anger at some point. I can only stonewall her for so long at least until I can come up with something feasible to tell her.

It’s
6:22 am
when there’s a knock at the bedroom door. Before I can respond, the door opens and Amelia enters. She’s in her usual getup, a lacy apron and homely black dress with her blonde hair pinned back in a tidy chignon. With her head down, obstructing my view of her face, I only see shadow where her face should be.

“Good morning, Miss Tate,” she says without looking me in the eye. “Mrs. Lynch has sent for you.”

“Amelia, what’s with the formalities?” I ask. “You can call me by my first name.”

“Mrs. Lynch wouldn’t approve,” she says in a surreptitious tone, inclining me to believe that the room is bugged. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather stick to the formalities. I don’t want to upset her any more than I already have.”

“What happened with me at the gala wasn’t your fault. I hope Vivian didn’t take that out on you.”

“Miss Tate, I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to talk about this,” she says. “I’ve already apologized to Mrs. Lynch for supplying you those drugs. Please don’t mention it again. In fact, I’d prefer it if we don’t become friends.”

I saunter closer to her after noticing her unusually demure demeanor. A step closer and I realize that there is a bruise on her left cheek. Amelia turns away. As she staggers backward toward the door, I grasp her hand.

“Amelia, wait,” I say, but still there is no eye contact.

“Yes ma’am?”

“What happened to your face?”

She shrugs off my question and answers with a smile.

“It’s no big matter, ma’am. I’m a clumsy fool. Can hardly walk a straight line without bumping into something.”

“Bumping into walls doesn’t often result in black eyes,” I say.

Amelia’s smile subsides. She lifts her head to face me. The extent of her injuries catches me off guard. I cover my mouth to muffle a gasp when I see that it’s not just a black eye, but also a broken nose and a deep laceration near her hairline.

“Please, don’t tell Mrs. Lynch that you saw me like this,” she says in a low voice.

“She’s your employer,” I reply. “Don’t you want her to know?”

She shakes her head immediately, visibly shaken by my response.

“Cassandra, don’t tell her, please.”

“I won’t, but who did this to you?” I ask. “Can you tell me that much at least?”

She drops her eyes to search the floor as if something there has caught her attention.

I follow her stare to the carpet, finding nothing there. Amelia shifts her stare to meet mine once more and forces what little she can of a smile.

“Don’t worry about me,” she replies. “Just…don’t make her angry.”

I gape at her, daunted by the caution in her voice.

“You mean Vivian?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. She scurries from the room like a skittish mouse.

* * *

I find Vivian where I last saw her, on the second floor balcony sprawled atop a lawn chair with an ashtray of cigarette butts to her left atop a tiny table. She must have smoked an entire pack since daybreak and begins her second when I arrive.

I catch myself briefly admiring the view. From the Lynch manor, the backdrop of Orange County resembles an oil painting, accented with a sunrise, a thin cover of clouds and a snapshot of the expensive houses with picket fences equipoising the picture in the distance. I’ll never get used to waking up to this scenery.

I realize that some part of me is already a little too used to being in this house. It’s scary, how easily I imagine myself living here long-term. I admit that though marrying Adrian is still completely out of the question, living in the Lynch manor is officially a plausible possibility.

“Join me,” Vivian says without turning to face me. I hesitantly saunter onto the balcony. My voice remains in my throat, locked away with an imaginary deadbolt that won’t allow me to speak no matter how many times I clear my throat.

“Sit,” she says while gesturing at the empty lawn chair beside her. It takes a minute to convince myself. Remembrance of Amelia’s battered face forces me to debate with my common sense, but eventually, I sit in the chair.

“Vivian, I'm sorry for what happened at the banquet hall. Things got a little crazy.”

“It’s beautiful out here in the mornings, isn’t it?” she says, ignoring my apology. Since I assume it’s a rhetorical question, I don’t reply. She continues smoking her dwindling cigarette and fiddles with a pair of bug-eyed sunglasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. “You want some breakfast?”

“Today is the last day of cram week at school,” I say. “I was thinking of heading down to the campus library to squeeze in a little more studying before tomorrow’s midterms. I missed too much coursework.”

She sits upright, tipping her sunhat back a bit to show me her eyes. After flicking the cigarette butt off the balcony and drinking the rest of her orange juice, she swivels around to face me in her chair.

“When Adrian told me you were moving in, I can’t explain how excited I was,” she says.

“I'm not moving in,” I say.

She frowns.

“Then why are you here now?” she asks. “To tease me?”

“I didn’t want to go home,” I say. “I needed somewhere to sleep. Adrian offered the guest room. I wasn’t exactly in the position to say no.”

Vivian opens her mouth to reply, but a series of wheezy coughs intervenes. She slumps forward, clutching her stomach and gasping to catch her breath. After watching her recover from the fit, I help her to her feet, walk her back into the house and upstairs to her bedroom.

I lay her atop her bed, but she doesn’t lie down. She sits along the edge of the mattress, covering her mouth to tamper the coughs. When she drops her hand, I notice specks of blood between her fingers.

“You’re coughing blood now?” I ask.

“I just need water,” she says. “Get Amelia in here.” She staggers toward the ornate mirror hanging on her wall. She nearly topples over, but manages to prop herself upright in the chair in front of the mirror. Amelia arrives carrying a pitcher of water. She pours Vivian a glass and doesn’t leave the room until Vivian’s guzzled every drop.

“You never talk about the cancer. I think it would help for you to at least talk about it,” I say as she sits admiring her reflection, poking and prodding her sunken cheeks. I note the look of nostalgia in her eye along with the saddened expression that accompanies a juxtaposition of emotions on her face.

“I was once beautiful,” she says. “It’s funny what years of Botox and botched nose jobs can do to a human face.”

I stand behind her chair to steal a better glance at her reflection. She almost smiles at the woman staring back then frowns at her own words as though she’s just now realized how true they are.

“First, they told me it was a harmless lung infection,” she says. “I took the antibiotics and they swore I’d be okay. Then it was bronchitis. Now it’s cancer. Damn doctors can't make up their minds.”

She stares once more at the mirror, touching the glass as if her reflection is a portrait of someone else, someone she isn’t familiar with. I imagine what she may have looked like in her formative years and why she mourns that person. The sickly, waifish creature Vivian is today is probably half of what she once was.

“There are things you aren’t telling me,” I say. “I thought you had at least revealed the worst of what’s to know. The longer I'm around you, the more I find out about you.”

“What has Adrian told you about me?”

“It would’ve been nice to know that you’re bipolar,” I reply. “That is not the kind of information I like to be blindsided by.”

She scowls. “My mental state isn’t important for you to know the status of.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Vivian.”

“Then why do I feel like you’re judging me?”

“Paranoia is a common side effect of bipolar disorder,” I say. “I don’t blame you for being a little agitated.”

“Don’t do that!” She glares at me through the mirror. “Don’t patronize me like I'm some child. I don’t need to be counseled or consoled.”

In thought, I catch a glimpse of Amelia’s bruised face. It’s enough to silence me while seeking an immediate exit as I glance at the bedroom door. Vivian notes my reaction and turns away from the mirror to face me.

“I’m sorry,” she says with a sigh while cupping my hands in hers. “I confess that I may have a few…unsavory emotional imbalances, but I am
not
crazy, Cassandra. Don’t let this turn you against me.”

I can’t look her in the eye for long. Something staring back breaks my heart. It’s like watching a toddler grapple for a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. Anyone in this moment and in this place would sympathize. This woman is sicker than she pretends to be and not just in the lungs.

“Vivian, I don’t think you’re crazy,” I say to placate her. She smiles then grips my hands tighter until I'm forced to pry her fingers from around mine. My reaction provokes the frown that appears on her face.

She turns back to the mirror, proceeding to gaze at her reflection. While admiring her mirror counterpart, she slips her hands into her hair and slowly removes it from her head. I gape at the auburn wig she sheds then at her baldhead while restraining my reaction by clenching my lips tight. Vivian notices me in the mirror and smiles.

“What’s the matter?” she teases. “Never seen a bald woman before?”

I turn to keep from gawking at her and I fold my arms, unsure of what else to do with them.

“Vivian, you have to stop blindsiding me,” I say without thinking until I realize what I’ve said and how selfish it sounded. I settle along the edge of her bed, gripping the bedspread in my quivering fists. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“The shock is something I’ve never gotten used to either,” she says. “Those first couple months of chemotherapy, I broke every mirror in the house and ordered Adrian to get rid of them all. It didn’t occur to me how vain I was until my hair started thinning.”

I don’t speak. This is out of my comfort zone.

“Are you disgusted with me now, Cassandra?”

I shake my head.

“Why would I be disgusted?”

“I haven’t shown many people this side of me,” she says. “Most of them assume that I’m beautiful 24/7. Most never see what nights are like around here when Adrian is away on the business and I'm left in this big empty house alone. You must think I'm pathetic, don’t you? It’s okay for you to say it.”

She sniffles before the actual tears arrive and I don’t think before approaching her. I place my hands atop her shoulders and look into her teary eyes, praying I don’t fall apart as she grips my wrists and sobs.

“I don’t want to die an ugly woman,” she says. “Promise me that you’ll make sure they make my corpse look gorgeous.”

“Vivian—”

“If nothing else make damn sure that I'm beautiful when I die.”

I discard every word I wanted to say because none of them feels appropriate enough. What am I supposed to say to a dying woman? How is anyone supposed to rectify this or make it better for her?

“Okay,” I reply. “I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”