Folie à Deux (31 page)

“That was beautiful. That’s why I’m crying.”

I have a total body-adverse reaction. My head pounds. My stomach aches. Both of my calf muscles cramp and my arms quiver from holding up the weight of my entire life. She notices the shaking in my arms and asks with concern, “What’s the matter. Are you cold?”

I instantly think of the movie, “Say Anything”. Right after Lloyd and Diane have sex in the back of his car, she asks if he’s cold because he’s also trembling. Lloyd looks at her and says, “No, I’m just happy. I’m trembling because I’m happy.” Of all the extravagant words I’ve used to manipulate us into this situation, all I can do now is quote a movie, the only thing I can think to respond. I wish this moment was as fictitious as a movie. I repeat the line, the fact that there is no truth in the statement irrelevant, but it mirrors how she feels and buys me time.

I lay next to her for what I hope is an acceptable amount of time to prevent the perception of escape. The sensation in my midsection can only be caused by being ensnared somewhere between my two ego states, the adolescent and the adult. The pain unbearable. Instead of feeling the knot for just the transition, I’m stuck indeterminately. It’s uncomfortable enough when
rumbling through my body during the switch, but to exist while the sensation underpins every thought is excruciating. I think she can hear the trembling in my voice but she does not ask. Despite her witnessing, what has become fierce shaking I’m certain she cannot know the origin. I’m working through this right in front of her but luckily, she is blissfully oblivious.

After much protest, I leave, get close enough to my car to be hidden and vomit. The violence behind the purge represents years of sickness. As if I reached the tipping point. The denial of my roots, my dishonesty with everyone around me and finally this betrayal has become too much to swallow for one ill-prepared person. This is a catharsis like I’ve never felt before but it’s only momentary. Like le petit mort, it’s gone and I’m back to reality, faced with what I’ve done.

Just as every other time I’ve pushed the boundaries she debriefs through voracious texting. I play along, using the same tone of wondrous excitement. But now I’m trapped as I’ve been in every other relationship in my life. I find myself rapt from a sense of obligation to prior transgressions, only perpetuating the cycle. Perceived obligation will mark so many relationships and the superficial niceties that seem innocent at the onset become layered under debts I can never repay.

Sometime, early in the summer it occurred to me the potential difficulty of teaching Natalia’s class but understanding the breadth was impossible. When she was a freshman, no lines had been crossed. There were hints of flirtation but nothing existed to cause discomfort. Now, I’m unable to speak when in front of her class. How do I portray this façade of a well-defined role model when she knows these flaws of my personality? She intimately knows my dirty little secret.

In another attempt to cloak my malice I explain to her, “I just want you to know that this isn’t who I really am.”

“What do you mean?” she asks confused by my ambiguity.

“Well, you’re watching me lie and cheat and I don’t want you to think that you’ve gotten involved with someone who is a liar and a cheater.” I outwait her silence having nothing to add to the manipulative disclaimer.

After she works through whatever she is trying to formulate she pacifies us both, “Oh Jimi, I know the only reason you’re lying is so we can be together. Once we can tell everybody we’re in love you’ll have no reason to lie.”

There is no appropriate reply to such a bizarre confession but she clarifies that she is in love with the idealized version of Mr. Cunneely, exactly as I have spun him. She can overlook all of the blatant faults I have put so proudly on display, infidelity,
dishonesty, conniving, and manipulation in the name of love. She has found the peace of knowing that an established, sane male finds her worthy of his time and emotion and I have led her there simply with attention.

She may never use her sway over me and may not even discover its existence but she has simply to lean toward a classmate and reveal her secret, our secret and I’m finished. My initial taste of the reality I’ve created comes the first day of school while explaining such inconsequential topics as homework policy and novels. I’m outlining classroom rules while there is a continuous bead of sweat running down the center of my back. It’s so obvious to me that I’m afraid to write on the board, certain the back of my dress shirt is soaking wet. I can barely contain myself from panting. I look at Natalia as I naturally scan the room, but then wonder if I’m looking too much or if it’s obvious I’m trying to not look?

“And we’ll look at the contrasts between Le Passé Composé and L’imparfait.”

Does anyone see my deliberation about looking at her? Do I smell of sweat?

“I would like you to hand in your summer assignment and pick the topic for your research paper.”

Can anyone know that Natalia and I have had sex? What if someone looks at her and sees how she is looking at me, will that be obvious?

“Class participation will be the same as last year. A point for each time you speak French, accumulated until the end of the marking period.”

What is she whispering to the girl next to her? Ten minutes till the bell and I hope to God Talia doesn’t ask a question. Why
is she smirking every time I look at her? I feel the sweat dripping down my forehead now. Thank God for the bell.

“Au revoir, à demain.”

Routines are silently established by the end of the first week. She knows I’m free third period so she leaves her class, asking to use the restroom. She comes to sit in my room for just five minutes saying nothing of consequence, and leaves just as innocently saying, “Ok, so I’ll see you later.”

She still comes to my room in the morning and just for a minute after school. She keeps her belongings in my bottom desk drawer and her jacket in my closet so that she doesn’t have to go to her locker. Everything is made to feel so normal and no one questions her ubiquitous presence neither in my room nor my career. Navigating my own life is impossible. I’m not sure anything can make me stop. This is the route I’ve chosen and from somewhere that I cannot access, have decided to see the completion. All I can do now is observe and regret.

Twice we run into one another during the day. She looks at me and says, “Hello Mr. Cunneely,” and each time I hear her giggle causing mild panic. I seethe when she greets male classmates with a hug. I try, unsuccessfully to quash my jealousy. I remind myself that I’m a grown man who need not feel inadequate compared with a sophomore, but it doesn’t work. I am possessive and covetous. Unable to function as an adult when I see her act as a teenager.

Instead of school quelling our trysts, it adds exhilaration. We both become better acquainted with the back seat of my car. Any time we can create, we seize. We share the obsession from different points of view. No reason is acceptable for me to decline an invitation and I become afraid to reject her.

She has no idea of my real life responsibilities and I’ve never told her, “No.” She only knows my willingness to drop everything for her. She neither knows nor cares about the roots of my placation and rightfully shouldn’t.

Weekends become challenging because as the weather turns cold our one solid excuse becomes impossible. I can tell Dana that I’m going to a mountain bike race and Talia tells her mother she is going to watch. The problem being there is only so much we can do to remain inconspicuous. As a result we find more secluded places to park.

The obvious appearance of impropriety is always a danger near school, so driving someplace safer, a necessity. I become creative, finding many inventive spots. I ascertain when my parents are out so we go to their house, she does the same with her mother and we seek refuge in hers. I use my parents to babysit so we go back to my own house when Dana is at work. Fighting the elements and discovery of our secret is second only to combatting my own self-loathing over unconscionable decisions. My lies pile upon one another without absorbing how many people I exploit, yet I always remember to prevent overlap. I cannot stop to calculate the tally of damage I wreak on all my life for fear of a full blown emotional breakdown. I’ve grown accustomed to living with a constant, soul-destroying, mental conflict coupled with unending clashes of will power.

When she complains that the constant hiding is a nuisance I present an idea I fear she will find repulsive. I hope all she does is reject the suggestion without being offended.

“Did you think of someplace that we could go this weekend?” she texts me in the middle of the week. We have already planned to sneak away on Saturday but have solidified nothing more.

“Well, I have an idea but I’m not sure you’ll like it,” I hang, open-ended.

“I’m game for anything as long as I can see you,” she plays along.

“I know it might seem shady but I thought we could get a hotel room. I know one that isn’t far and is clean. At least we could have some privacy,” I offer.

I read my text in the two seconds it remains on the screen after I hit send, immediately wishing I could take it back. It tastes seedy as I list every movie I’ve ever seen where ugly things take place in hotel rooms. I wait for her response, unnecessarily nervous.

“FUCK YEAH!!” She texts. I’m momentarily relieved, but that feeling fades quickly into grief when I focus on the planning for which I have just assumed responsibility.

The major obstacle is cost, ninety dollars for the night, in our case, the day. That type of money missing from our account will surely prompt an interrogation from Dana. My wantonness has no limit, as I list ways to secretly produce ninety dollars. I can dip into the kids’ savings accounts or look in my parents’ jelly cabinet to see if they have a stash. I’m running a fundraiser at school to support the National Honor Society that I could skim, but I finally decide to ask my brother to borrow the money and pay him back over time. He innocently agrees and the last piece is in place.

I prepare her for the experience as the day draws near by asking what she wants to do, offering suggestions such as going to a movie, playing board games, or cards. I tell her, “There are always movies in the room we can order,” when my previous ideas are not well received. All of my suggestions sound lame, trying to cover up the obvious reason we’re spending the day there.

Natalia brings us right back to the ugly truth, “I just want to go the hotel room and fuck you all day long.” I say nothing because there really isn’t anything meaningful to be said.

I pick her up at home and have the usual small talk with her mom. I give a new name for an imaginary race and we talk about the weather, school, her job, my kids, her kids or the myriad other topics to keep me standing in the foyer. I feel her become nervous around me, sometimes she lets her eyes linger a bit longer after I’m done talking. It may be my imagination or hypersensitivity but I’m fairly certain she flirts with me.

Natalia and I drive forty minutes to the hotel with a familiar nervous energy. I give the clerk a credit card for deposit and verify with him four times that nothing will be charged to it so I can pay cash afterward. He directs me to the room and I leave the lobby with my head down weary of security cameras.

I pull around back and find a spot between two larger vehicles that hide my car. My thought process is weak and flawed. Although I achieve the false sense of being carefully duplicitous I just gave my real name and credit card to the man in the lobby illuminating how subconsciously bad I am at covering my tracks.

We walk inside to the smell of chlorine from the pool mixed with the caustic aroma of industrial strength cleaners. Our room is upstairs and halfway down the hall. I don’t feel my hand shaking until I attempt to put the keycard in the slot. The lock blinks red the first two times I try because I pull the card out too fast, paranoid. I wonder if she notices me shaking but when I see her out of my peripheral, she is looking around, calm as ever.

The room smells stale. The curtains halfway closed and the textured wallpaper stained from spending the majority of its life in a smoking room. The edges of this moment are surreal, like one of those experiences where I admit to myself that I should not be
here and aver to never do anything like this again. Somehow, all the potential loss hanging in the balance does not outweigh the indolence to change.

We spend the day as planned, naked and engaged in some sort of sexual act. We stop only to shower and buy Chinese takeout. We check out by eight p.m. and as I close the door to the room I’m again overcome with remorse. The feeling occurs often enough now to be analyzed. I have no parallel but imagine this to be similar to a suicide attempt. Like eating a bottle of pills only to change my mind while waiting for the result. The thought of, “Why didn’t I foresee this regret an hour ago?” creeps up violently and somehow, unexpectedly.

I despise the thought process and momentarily vow to incorporate it into future decisions but I can guarantee that this repentance will be no different than any other. I will again be overtaken with happiness and horniness when she asks me to spend a day with her. When she tells me, “I love making love to you,” I will cave again, failing to control the forces that overpower my fickle morality.