Come As You Are

THERESA WEIR

New York Times
Bestselling Author

COME AS YOU ARE

Copyright © Theresa Weir 2013

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I was abnormal. There. I said it. I had secrets I could never share. Maybe it was shame. Yeah, it was shame. I had to at least be honest with myself even if I wasn’t completely honest with anybody else.

You have those people who go out of their way to appear different. The art students. The music people. The Dumpster divers and crust punks who lived in communal houses. I had nothing against any of that, but a lot of those people were fake. A lot of them were slumming, coming in from the suburbs to play poor because in reality their parents lived in million-dollar homes and drove expensive cars. So you have those people, the ones who
want
to be abnormal. But if they’d grown up abnormal like me, the daughter of a batshit crazy psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, their one goal might be to wear a cloak of normalcy. Because I would never be normal. And I would always be broken. And my secrets were the reason the day my father died was both the worst and the best day of my life.

I loved him. I know I shouldn’t have, and maybe that’s where the confusion came from. The guilt. I mean, how could I love a monster? And what made it worse is that the rest of the world worshipped him.

Now that the funeral was over I stood at the door of my father’s two-story bungalow located in the Marcy Holmes neighborhood of Minneapolis. Marcy Holmes was a short walk from the U of M campus, and an even shorter walk to Dinkytown, once the hangout of Bob Dylan but now the hangout of frat boys.

I stood there in my summer dress and black, calf-high boots, welcoming people who were bringing plates of food, who were hugging me, asking what I planned to do, and if I’d keep the house, and if I’d move back home. Would I request a deferral from my first year at the U?

And all I wanted to say was: “Isn’t it wonderful? He’s gone. He’s finally gone.”

Fifteen minutes later I moved from my place at the door to deep in the bowels of the house, the bowels being the dining room, which was flanked by the kitchen and living room. I just wanted to be alone but the building was crammed with people, and it must have been a hundred degrees because of all the bodies. I thought about opening some windows, but it would mean squeezing past people to get there. It would risk someone trying to engage me in conversation.

Most of the people—academics and business associates of my father’s— were strangers to me even though I’d probably met them at some point over the years. The academics were part of a world they’d created, and they didn’t really move beyond it. Which is why I didn’t go to college right out of high school. I was so against all of it, but after two years of waiting tables I gave in and decided to give college a shot. But I knew I was just buying time, trying to figure out my life.

“I’m so sorry about your father,” a woman who seemed vaguely familiar said to me. She held a paper plate overflowing with potato salad and ham. In her other hand was a glass of cola. “He was so young.”

I nodded, although I didn’t consider mid-fifties all that young. But certainly young to have had a massive heart attack.

“I heard you found him.” Her eyes looked sad while she drilled me for information.

I’d stopped by the house to report on my first week of classes and found my father on the couch, the very couch where a bunch of people now sat. He’d been gone a while, and his skin was already splotchy. I didn’t attempt CPR. I felt guilty about that, but he was dead. Stiff, even. I wanted to tell somebody about it, how I felt, but not this woman.

“What will you do, my dear?”

“Excuse me,” I told her. “I need to put out some more ham.” And I left.

My plan was to walk slowly up the stairs to my old room, but the route was blocked by strangers. I resented them. All of them. I knew they were just doing what they felt was right, but the last thing I needed right now was a bunch of strangers in our house. Odd, because I hadn’t lived there for a couple of years. Right now I was sharing a duplex apartment with three other people, Rose, Taylor, and Devin. The duplex wasn’t far away, and close enough walk or bike to campus. But this was still home, like it or not.

“Molly—”

I turned to see a middle-aged man aiming for me. Damn. I was beginning to wish I hadn’t told Rose not to come to what we’d morbidly called the funeral after-party. It would be nice to have a friend beside me right now, someone to divert these people who felt the need to tell me how they were feeling. “You’re Molly, right?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

He held out his hand and I reluctantly took it. “I’m Richard Stinson, your father’s attorney.” Gray and black strands of wet hair were plastered to his forehead. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or just hot.

“I’m sorry to bother you about this now,” he said, “but I was hoping we could meet to discuss your father’s will.”

A few years after my adoption went through my adoptive mother died. I had no memory of her, and no memory of dealing with death. But now I knew that time got weird when somebody died. The weird time thing started as soon as I found my dad’s body and now hours seemed like days.

Another weird thing? When I talked to people it felt like I was seeing them through a semi-transparent wall. We talk, but I’m on one side and they’re on the other.

“Sure,” I said through the wall.

“I hate to spring this on you but something has come up and I think it best we go over it tomorrow. I know that’s awfully soon.” He was apologetic. And nervous. Definitely nervous.

“That’s okay.” Tomorrow would feel like next week once it arrived.

“Eleven o’clock, my office.” He handed me a card I didn’t look at.

Instead of going upstairs I swiveled and headed in the direction of the kitchen, my lie now turning into the truth as I pulled a platter of ham from the refrigerator with the idea that I would carry it to the dining room and replace the tray that was almost empty.

I didn’t.

I stared at the tray, then I put it down on the kitchen counter along with the business card and I dove for the back door. Outside I pulled in huge gulps of air and stood there on the step. Now what? Wait here until the invasion was gone? How long would that be? Somebody would find me. And try to pull me into a conversation. They would try to poke through the wall so they could touch me and look at me with sympathetic eyes. So they could make me cry.

Suddenly I was walking. Fast, my boots hitting the sidewalk like a soldier in the army, my arms swinging. With each step I felt better, and I felt this was the right thing to do. Finally I was thinking of myself and not someone else. And that was okay. It was right.
Get away. Just get away, girl.

I almost laughed at that. I felt a smile on my lips, and I didn’t try to reign in the smile. And then I started running. Running like some happy person on the beach, with this weird and totally inappropriate sense of euphoria.

People were always saying, ‘You have your whole life ahead of you.’ I used to think that was bullshit, but now as I ran away from my father’s house I felt it. The future. My life. And I didn’t want the feeling to stop. I didn’t want to go back there to the house even when the people were gone. Not even to get my car.

After a while I realized I was in Dinkytown. Wow. That meant I’d run a mile. People were giving me odd glances, so I slowed to a fast walk and pushed my bangs from my face. I was sweating, strands of hair stuck to my neck, my chest rising and falling as I tried to catch my breath.

“Where you going, sweetheart?” some dude asked.

He took a step toward me. I shoved his arm. “Fuck off.”

And that felt good too. The professor’s daughter telling a guy to fuck off.

“What a bitch,” the guy mumbled.

I turned and walked backward so I could keep an eye on him. “Yes, I am. I’m a bitch.”

His face got red, and at first I thought he was going to come after me, but he didn’t.

Canned air-conditioned air hit my face as I passed the open door of a pub, a place I’d been a few times with casual friends. The blast of air felt like an invitation, and I ducked inside and took a seat at the end of the bar. The bartender, a kid who couldn’t have been much older than me, asked what I wanted.

“Glass of water,” I said. “As long as it’s free.” I had my cell phone in my dress pocket, but I’d left my bag back at the house. Then I remembered my boots and the little zippered pocket on the side where I’d once tucked a twenty-dollar bill. Emergency money.

“Make it a beer,” I said as I crossed my leg over my knee and dug into the pocket. This was an emergency.

It wasn’t long before someone cranked up the Karaoke machine and it wasn’t long before I was singing and people were buying me drinks.

Time was weird the way it had been the past few days. That weirdness, combined with alcohol, caused the wall to thicken. I liked that. I didn’t care about anything. I was just a girl.

* * *

I had no idea how it happened. It might have been the time thing, but more likely it was the booze thing, but at one point I found myself sitting across from a guy in a booth in a totally different bar. The guy was maybe twenty-five, and he had dark curly hair and angular cheeks that hinted at dimples.

If he’d been in a band he would have been the bass player or keyboard player, the guy you didn’t notice at first because the lead singer was such a show-off. A couple of songs in, once you got tired of the antics of the lead no matter how good looking, your eyes would wander and you’d spot him. Just quietly doing his thing, maybe even hoping nobody would notice. Maybe he liked that the lead singer was strutting around, climbing things, diving off amps, sprawling on the floor.

It was hard to tear my eyes away, but when I looked out the window above our table I was surprised to see that it was dark outside.

I was talking and waving my hands, but I wasn’t aware of what I said. I got the notion that I’d simply merged into this place, this conversation, like entering the freeway at rush hour.

With fresh eyes I noted that my new friend looked worried, distracted, sad, and suddenly I wanted to know why he looked that way. Suddenly I cared.

“What’s going on with you?” I asked.

He sighed. “I came to Minneapolis to see somebody. But then I got cold feet.”

“Who? A girl?”

He shook his head. “No. Family. Somebody I used to know. My father, actually.”

“Ah, fathers.”

“Right.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m running away.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Aren’t you a little old to be running away?”

“You’re never too old to run away.”

“So who are you running from? A husband?”

I laughed at the thought of being married. I imagined myself in an apron, cooking dinner. That made me laugh again. “I’m running away from my father. Isn’t that funny? You’re looking for yours and I’m running away.”

“Hilarious.”

“I’m sorry.” I frowned, trying to remember how I’d gotten here, trying to remember where he’d come from, or how we’d met. Total blank. “How did we meet? You and me?”

“You were throwing up in the alley outside this place.”

“No.” I should have been mortified but I wasn’t.

“Yes.”

“Now I’m sorry again.”

“I asked you if you were okay, and you asked me to buy you a drink. And here we are.” He lifted his glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

That’s when I noticed we were both drinking water.

A waitress put a plate of French fries between us.

“I thought you might be hungry,” he said.

“You thought right.” And then I remembered the last food I’d seen, back at the house. The ham. My face must have darkened, because his serious expression intensified.

“You aren’t going to throw up again are you?”

“No, I think I’ve caught a second wind.” I wasn’t a big drinker, but the times I’d overindulged I’d gotten drunk really fast, thrown up, and then gone on with the night.

“I say we get a tequila shot with a beer chaser,” I suggested. “I’d buy but I don’t have any money.”

He poured ketchup next to the fries, capped the bottle and put it back on the table. “I think you should stick with water.”

“Who are you?” I dipped a fry into the ketchup. “My father?”

We both laughed, and he ordered the shots and beers anyway. I guess to prove he wasn’t stuffy. Later, maybe minutes, maybe hours, I put my phone number in his phone, and he put his in mine. We took pictures of each other.

“Duck face!” I said as we sat side-by-side. We both scrunched our lips, and I touched the camera icon on the screen.

The bar was closing and we had to leave.

“I don’t want to go home,” I said, pushing the idea of home away.

“I have a room near here,” he said.

We went. He drove his white cargo van, and I might have said something about serial-killer wheels, and he might have laughed. We parked in a ramp and took an elevator to the tenth floor.

“I’ve never been in this hotel,” I said. “Even though I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“You aren’t in Minneapolis for school? You mentioned school earlier. I figured you weren’t from around here.”

“Oh, I’m from around here.”

And then he closed the door and locked the door and we both looked at the bed.

“I’m so glad I met you,” I told him. “You don’t know how glad.”

“Me too.”

“Like destiny.” I felt stupid saying it, but here a complete stranger had helped me get through the last several hours. He’d been there for me when nobody else had. I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t want to know his name.

There was no pretense; we both knew where this was going. I kicked off my boots, then unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans. He paused to strip off his shirt while I tugged his pants down, underwear and all in one smooth, fast motion.

“Wait, wait.” His hands were on my shoulders and he tried to look at me. I didn’t want him looking at me. I hit the light switch, plunging the room into darkness while I stripped off my panties, kicked them aside, and pushed him back on the bed.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “I don’t even know your name.”

Now wasn’t the time to go gentleman.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Wait,” he said again, his hand against my chest, not in a sexy way but a stay-back way.

What was his problem? “Are you married?” I asked.

“What? No. Christ no.”

“Then what?”

I was holding the hot velvet length of him in my hand, stroking him, a knee on either side of his hips, ready to drop myself on his shaft. “Then fuck me.”

He let out a frustrated moan. “Stop.”

“Are you a priest?”

“What? No!”

“Engaged?”

“No.”

“Gay?”

“No.”

“Then fuck me.” I was ready to go down on him and he was right there, ready to fill me, all big and hot, when the hand on my chest shoved and I tumbled backward, off the bed, hitting the floor with a loud
oomph
.

“Oh my, God,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Well, I meant to do it, just not so hard.”

I jumped to my feet and groped for the light switch. Now I wanted to see him. Now I needed to see him.

The overhead light almost blinded us both. And there he was, sprawled on his back, with the biggest erection I’ve ever met. Not that I’ve met that many. Really, very few. Honestly two. Maybe three. Okay, maybe four. Five. Six. But never mind, because it was a sight to behold.

He saw the aim of my eyes and grabbed a pillow, placing it in front of him. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he said.

I wanted to hit him. Lying there with his arms full of tattoos, his chest smooth and beautiful, his dark, curly hair that made him look part angel, part rock star. I wanted to hit him, but I’m not a violent person. I’ve never hit anybody in my life.

I rolled to my knees and pushed myself to my feet. The room spun, and I took two steps back and crashed into the wall. “I thought you wanted…” I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes.