Awash in Talent (23 page)

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” you asked me, more relieved than angry. Actually, your predominant emotion was feeling sorry for yourself because of your long, lonely drive.

The next week, the second time you taught that class, I’d had a long day. I made myself a peanut butter sandwich, lay on the couch for a while, and soon gave up. I locked up and went upstairs, where I turned on the fan so the famous leaky bedroom wouldn’t be so stuffy.

I awoke to you bursting through the doorway and thrusting on the lights. You were shouting, impossibly loud at that quiet hour, but I had been asleep, and then I was in shock from your explosion, and I couldn’t understand words yet. You pulled back the sheets on your side of the bed and hit the mattress with both fists, howling like a monkey, causing quakes that almost tipped me onto the floor.

By the time I pieced together what was going on, you had already stomped back down the stairs, leaving the lights on behind you and the impression of your anger and violence in the form of green waves in my sanctuary. I sat up and took in everything you’d shouted. You’d driven all night alone, thinking only of me, and when you got here, I’d locked you out. You rang the doorbell, you pounded on the door, you began to think I was in some kind of trouble in here, and you broke down the door. How could I go to sleep and leave you locked out? What was I thinking?

I felt violated. You had hit the mattress and not me by the grace of a tiny shred of morality and it scared me to think you could be so angry.

It took a few more minutes, but when I realized that all was not well with you, I headed down the stairs, clumsily skipping steps, to find you on the couch in front of the television. You were blinking a lot and compulsively swiveling a straw in your hand. I went to you and held you, saying how sorry I was. I was as appalled as you that I could forget about my new husband coming home late, no matter how tired I might have been. Soon enough, you said, “Oh, it’s okay.”

I looked up to see that our wedding picture had fallen face down from the mantel onto the wood floor, right in front of the TV. I went to lift it and the glass stayed on the floor in shards. The glass had somehow scraped my brother’s arm and sliced my face in half. Your family remained intact.

“It must’ve fallen because of the pressure difference when I broke the door in,” you said.

My face revealed my dismay.

“This is not symbolic,” you repeated four or five times.

But if it were true, you wouldn’t have to insist so much.

My best friend Lakshmi has come to Providence for one of her cosmetics conferences. How often do they do these things anywhere that isn’t sun blasted? I guess they got a really good deal on the Dunkin Donuts Center. Lakshmi’s come a day early so we could spend it together. She likes me so much. Her honest appreciation comes through loud and clear, not expecting anything in return from me, and I’ve never really known why. It makes me like her back, is all I know. I wonder if all friendships are so mysterious? I don’t have any others of my own to compare to. But I thank my lucky stars for her, not least because she saves me from the pathology of having no friends at all.

We’d planned the day well in advance, because she’s considerate that I have appointments to rearrange whenever I take a day off, and I told you, dear husband, all about it back then. So why was it that yesterday morning, as I got ready to leave, you hung on to me the way a preschooler might, throwing thought-darts at me along the lines of, “Don’t abandon me. Why do you want to leave me?”

“Can I come with you?” you asked, totally forgetting about your deadlines.

“You don’t even like Lakshmi,” I pointed out. It wasn’t easy to remain so calm when it felt like you were going to dislocate my arm.

“I never said that,” you rejoined.

For a second I panicked, thinking I might have revealed that I’ve read your mind. Then a few of your cyclical thoughts cropped up to remind me.

“You said she was a prissy Pollyanna who can’t keep her mouth shut.” Granted, she had advised you strongly about your personal hygiene, but you didn’t have to take such offense.

You let go of my arm and pouted. The only thing that wasn’t childish about the whole thing was that your grasp left marks on my arm that have turned into purple bruises.

A cloud of annoyance followed me across the street. I practically shouted that Lakshmi and I would have a much better time without you, but it wouldn’t do to call attention to myself. When I got near the dark, moody tea shop on Thayer Street and saw Lakshmi’s smile and wave from a table in the window, the clouds parted and all I could do was smile back.

She got up from her table and came out to give me a hug. It was pretty distracting to get such affection right there in the street—only the students from out of state are that effusive here—but I caught her characteristically optimistic thoughts as they shot out into the universe. She thought I was looking less colorful than the last time she’d seen me, nothing a little blush and eye shadow wouldn’t fix, in her opinion. But I identified what she was seeing as symptomatic of the exhaustion I feel every morning waking up next to you. It will take a lot more than makeup to fix it.

She had already ordered me a chai tea. I hate chai even though I love most other kinds of tea, but the friendly chatter and her happy thoughts swept me along so that I could’ve swallowed much worse. It seems my whole life is a compromise like that, but this is the only time I get so much in return for my sacrifice. We picked up as if we had never left off, even though she’s had two children since I last saw her. She was too pregnant to travel from Ohio, where she lives, to come to the wedding. Maybe that’s a sign that the relationship between you and me was ill fated, the only outward sign I almost paid attention to.

Even as we talked nonstop, shoving breakfast sandwiches in our mouths without a thought for rudeness, Lakshmi kept checking her phone, reading texts, texting back, and making calls, all over a thought backdrop of anxiety mixed with joy.

I glanced at my phone and found your text: “I’m sorry for this morning. Have fun today with Lakshmi.” I could almost hear you emphasize her name with a tone of jealousy. As if you could ever compete with her for that place in my affections. I looked up and felt embarrassed by my exasperation because Lakshmi never even came close to losing patience with her family. Each time her husband sent a text or a picture of the kids, well, I can’t think of a better illustration of the phrase “her cup runneth over.” The place in her thoughts reserved for her son and daughter—how to describe it? It’s like an incredibly bright light, but it’s also soft, pastel almost, and kaleidoscopes in colors too quick to mention. They are everything to her, simply. Her husband is there, too, but different, less essential somehow. Such an all-consuming love fulfills Lakshmi the way nothing else ever could. I wonder if it will mellow with age, the way I’ve watched it fade in some parents I’ve met.

How did she find someone to make her so happy? Is there any hope for a psychic like me? I almost told her I wished I loved someone that much, wished I could see marriage the way she did, as a commitment, not a condemnation. But she was so content, I didn’t want to bring her down.

We walked across the main Brown campus, dodging undergrads running between halls and houses. I showed her the impressive Greek revival exterior of Rhode Island Hall, where I used to work, and described the narrow, tilting staircase and the fact that the counseling center was on the third floor and the bathrooms in the windowless, murky basement. And how in spite of that, and in spite of all the moaning students and stressed grad assistants I saw every day, I have nothing but good memories of my fellowship.

As we followed the slope down George Street and turned onto Benefit, Lakshmi asked me, “Did you feel more fulfilled during the fellowship? Do you feel like you’re making a difference now?”

It was pretty heavy stuff and I didn’t want to talk about it. I found a worthy distraction in the historic houses on Benefit Street. These old buildings, whether colonial wood, federalist brick, or Victorian mishmash, almost have thought energies of their own. I blabbed away to Lakshmi about my most difficult clients, Emily included—I don’t use names, but Lakshmi will never tell anyone, anyway, so it doesn’t break confidentiality—and analyzed the moods of each house we passed for myself. Most were in a good, mellow humor. The farther we got from my beloved house on Cushing, the freer I felt, and by the time we came to the RISD Museum, I’d forgotten I had a care in the world.

The RISD Museum rises to the occasion of spending time with your best friend. It’s much bigger than it looks on the outside, and includes art from ancient times all the way through last week (in the form of student projects). Lakshmi is the best person to do these kinds of things with. She doesn’t get bored the way you do; she lingers at the same pieces I would if I were by myself, and her brain churns out thoughts in playful interaction with the exhibits, adding a new dimension for me as I read her. We admired the delicate lines and exotic birds of a Roman wall painting. Lakshmi pointed out the traces of paint on a medieval Virgin Mary statue while I admired her white glow. Some art depicting human beings has an aura for me. It comes in different colors, perhaps reflecting different moods or characteristics, but I haven’t quite deduced whether it’s a reflection of the psyche of the subject or the artist.

We stopped in front of a seascape and time ceased. In it, the water splashes high off the barely visible brown rocks and swirls, outraged, in the middle distance. Out to sea, a tall ship rocks unsteadily in the eerie green light. “I feel like that sometimes,” I said absently. “Out to sea.”

“But you’re doing what you always wanted to,” said Lakshmi, a little too loud in the echoing gallery. “And you have a husband who adores you.”

I looked into her eyes and her bewilderment was total.

“You’re right. What am I talking about?” I said.

It was a pretty lame save, and she looked at me with a mixture of suspicion and concern as we shared one of those giant flat pizzas at Fellini’s. She weighed all the different things she knew about me in her mind, throwing out hypotheses about whether I wouldn’t have been happier returning to California. She never quite formed any more questions for me, though, because when she wasn’t looking at me, she was talking to her husband. The perpetual need to know what her children were doing at all times, the momentary fading of the apprehension when she received reassurance, the great tides of sugary affection for her husband—it was theatrical, and if I hadn’t known Lakshmi already, I might have been offended. I would never neglect someone I was spending time with to attend to a smartphone. Then I felt like a jerk, assuming superiority over her when I clearly don’t even have the capacity for the emotions she feels. There is something wrong with me.

So I went with her to the John Brown House with a heavy heart I tried very hard to conceal with smiles. I told her how the front of the red brick structure is classic federalist, while the additions in the back are Victorian. They’ve even left a back stair landing with the original Victorian wallpaper—embossed and painted leather that pulsates with garish taste.

All too soon, it was time for Lakshmi to head to the convention center and for me to head back to you. We hugged good-bye at her car, which was all the way back at Waterman Street. “Call me,” she said, and she meant it. She imagined herself calling me if I didn’t call her, and made a mental note to write a real note to remind herself to keep track of me. I imagined a reversal of today—Lakshmi at home with her kids and husband, asking anxiously how I was and getting a wave of relief when I told her over the phone how fine and dandy I was doing. We won’t have time to see each other again before she leaves. Too much conference, too much genuine desire to return to her family.

I turned toward Cushing and my heart got heavier with every step. You were waiting in the doorway at the top of the front steps of my dream home—you must’ve seen me coming from some window. You waved and smiled with all the sweetness you could muster, but as I got closer, I could read that you were actually impatient for me to get home and annoyed that I’d wanted to spend time with someone else.

“Hey, honey,” I said, hoping to defuse you. “How was your day?”

“I was lonely,” you said as you took me into your arms in the doorway. Here’s what you didn’t say: You were too distracted by my absence to get any work done, you checked the clock incessantly, and you ate a TV dinner for lunch while watching repetitive TV. It all pissed you off more than any computer virus.

I can’t be responsible for your productivity or state of mind. You are the only one with control over that. So when you stopped squeezing the air out of me, I said, “I had a great time. Lakshmi and I went to the RISD museum and the John Brown House and ate at Fellini’s.”

Bad move on my part. “You did all that without me? You enjoyed yourself with that prissy friend of yours while I almost died from missing you?” You didn’t see this as an exaggeration.

We’d moved into the front room now, at standoff distance. You weren’t holding back, so I didn’t, either. “If you didn’t hate Lakshmi so much, we could’ve taken you with us.”

“I don’t hate Lakshmi. She’s just boring and superficial and judgmental and too set in her ways and I can’t understand how you can spend any time with her.” When I could be spending time with you, a vastly superior human being. You were trying to convince me that no one else is as wonderful as you so you can isolate and control me better. I’ve seen this in the relationships of my college-age clients over and over, and it’s abusive.

I started to cry. There was no other way for me to express my fear of you and the frustration and disappointment in my own judgment. “She’s my only friend,” I raged. “You don’t have to like her, I have to like her. And I do!” I stormed upstairs and you tried to follow, but I locked the door.

This morning, you’d learned the lesson. It seems I have to give you back some of the histrionics you so often display: that’s the language you understand. You brought me breakfast in bed and didn’t say much for fear of upsetting me. Your thoughts turned on the axis of “If I do this, she’ll stay with me.” Because you’ve already figured out on the emotional level that I’ve had it with you. I have to keep telling you I love you so that the pertinent facts don’t transfer from your intuition to your intellectual reasoning.