Innocent Monsters (20 page)

22 January 2001

“YOU’RE different,” Lisa complained.

“What do you mean, different?”

“I don’t know, different, like, you don’t care anymore, y’know... You don’t want me to be here.”

True. Jessica didn’t really care and she didn’t want to have to listen to this woman’s problems, it was too late. She didn’t want to look at the depressing expression on her face. Lisa was alien here, out of place. She didn’t fit in her life anymore.

Jessica groaned. What she wanted was to close her eyes and open them up again in a world where nobody else existed, nobody else but William. Nothing else but him. Just the two of them. Was it too much to ask?

Lisa was standing in the sitting room facing the window, waiting for her friend to say something, to tell her she was wrong, she did want her to be here,
we’re friends Lisa
,
there will always be a place for you in my home.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound cold or anything... It’s just that... I’m tired, I wasn’t expecting you to come.”

Lisa turned to face her. She looked outraged and distressed. “Are you saying I should have called?”

“Maybe.”

“Well sorry, I didn’t realise I need an appointment to see you these days.”

Jessica threw her head backwards, against the back cushions of the sofa, closed her eyes, waited, opened them up again: Lisa was still there.

“Lisa, please. Don’t do this.”

“Do what? I come all the way here and you tell me that today is not a good day. Let’s see, should I leave and come back tomorrow? I can rent a room somewhere if it’s more convenient.”

“Liz...”

“I’ll just call tomorrow to check if you feel like seeing me yet.”

Close, open, still there. She wouldn’t disappear.

“You’re the one who got angry ‘cause I wouldn’t talk about how shit my life is. Remember? Now you don’t even want to listen.” Lisa gawked at her, waiting. “Are you going to say anything?”

“I’m sorry. Come sit down here.”

Lisa sighed, walked slowly to the sofa looking down at the floor like a hurt puppy. She needed a friend, Jessica knew, but try as she might she could not pretend, she couldn’t feel anything but annoyed because Lisa had decided to jump on a bus and finally run away from her husband without checking if it was ok to take shelter in her apartment. And it wasn’t ok. She was supposed to spend the weekend by the beach, taking in breathtaking views of the Bay with William, not in her apartment babysitting someone who she had not seen or heard of in months. No, it wasn’t ok at all but she couldn’t kick her out of the door, she couldn’t tell her to jump back on a goddamn bus and spend the rest of her life waiting for Bobby the way she had been doing for the past two years. She couldn’t do that to her. Kaitlyn would have been disgusted.

Jessica placed a hand on her knee. “It’s just that, this has happened before and I think we both know how it’s going to end. He calls you, you start crying, you tell him you’re sorry before he can even apologise, he tells you to come home and you jump on the first bus back. He’s going to get away with whatever it is he did and this is all gonna be a big waste of time and money. Isn’t that what you always do? Forgive whatever shit he throws at you? It doesn’t make any sense, you coming here in the middle of the day because he’s not been home for three days. He does it all the time and you just sit and wait for him to come back. What’s the difference between this time and any other time? And sorry if I say this, but it’s partly your fault if he behaves like this, because you never tell him to go fuck himself.”

“Not this time. I’ve had enough.” She mumbled.

“You’ve had enough? Great!” Jessica threw her head against the cushions again. “Now, please look at me and tell me you’re never gonna see this man again. If you’ve really had enough, just tell me you’re not going to see him again, even if he crawls all the way here from Crocker Amazon on his knees.”

Lisa looked up, her eyes filling up with tears. She stood up in silence and walked back to the window in a particularly annoying stoical manner.

“You don’t understand,” she told her own reflection on the glass, her back straight.

“That’s right, I don’t. I don’t understand because you won’t explain it to me. Why don’t you just help me understand what it is that you think you’re doing with your life? What kind of life are you ever going to have with that scumbag?”

“He’s not a scumbag.”

Jessica threw her hands in the air, rolled her eyes and jumped up off the sofa. “Honestly? You’re standing up for him now? He’s not worth it, Lisa. If he was such a great husband you would not be here now, you’d be home cooking dinner.”

Couldn’t she see? Couldn’t she see what kind of a person Bobby was? Couldn’t she see it wasn’t her love he wanted? Bobby didn’t need a wife, he didn’t deserve one; all he needed was someone to stay home to wash his dishes, do his laundry, iron his underwear, someone to buy his newspaper and milk in the morning, make his coffee, someone to cook and clean. A housekeeper would have done nicely, but it would have been too expensive. A wife cost nothing. She came with a lifetime guarantee and occasional sex thrown in for good measure. It was a no-brainer.

Couldn’t she see that?

Lisa started sniffling in front of the window, her shoulders shifting up and down as she tried to choke the sobs. She obviously couldn’t see. She couldn’t see further than her nose.

“I have a purpose with him. Who else is gonna take me, Jessy?” She started blubbering so noisily, Jessica found it hard to understand what she was saying. “I’m hardly Cindy Crawford and... I can’t... even ... HAVE CHILDREN!” Then she just couldn’t speak anymore.

Jessica joined her friend’s reflection on the glass: the afternoon sun was still high up in the sky, it was a beautiful crisp day. They should have been out there, strolling happily.

She stroked Lisa’s hair moving it away from her face. “Hey, hey, come on.” She held both hands on her shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

Lisa shook her head, wiped tears away from her chin.

“Come and sit down again. Calm down. How long have you known?”

It was a few minutes before Lisa started confessing that after losing the baby two years ago, they had tried for another one without any success. At first Bobby had laughed it off —it was after all a good excuse to have sex more often— but after a few months the whole process had turned into a monotonous act of duty and they’d quietly stopped trying, started having sex less and less often.

Lisa had taken it upon herself to get checked out, secretly hoping a doctor would smile and point out her husband was probably the problem, but all the tests she’d undergone confirmed that the miscarriage and the infection she suffered afterwards had scarred her fallopian tubes so severely, not even surgery would increase her chances of conceiving.

When she finally mastered the courage to tell him he might never become a father, Bobby had seemed sweet and understanding but things between them started changing soon after. He’d slowly started shutting her out, pushing her away and Lisa couldn’t stop feeling like she owed him something, like she had to do her best to compensate this one thing she would never be able to give him.

“What about adoption?”

Lisa shook her head. “It just wouldn’t work for us.”

“I see... Well... Don’t get me wrong, it is a great shame, but just because you can’t have children, doesn’t mean you deserve to live the rest of your life in misery. There are plenty of men out there who would be quite happy to spend a lifetime without kids. And you know what? If Bobby really loved you, he would be thankful for all your other qualities, not you for the only thing you can’t give him.”

Lisa shrugged. “I s’pose.” Was all she said, when the only sensible thing to say would have been
you’re right, of course you’re right.

“
I suppose?
I really hope you don’t think he has a right to treat you like shit because you can’t give him a baby.”

“No, that’s not what I think... Maybe. I don’t know. Wouldn’t you be disappointed if you thought you were going to have a big family and then found out it’s going to be just the two of you for the rest of your life?”

“Really? Bobby wanted a big family?” She laughed, despite herself.

“This is not a funny subject, Jessy.”

“No, I know. Of course not. He just doesn’t strike me as the type, that’s all.”

Bobby walking around with four, five kids, wiping bottoms, playing football, braiding hair, it definitely seemed a little improbable.

“Well, he is the type. He was.”

“Mhm. Yes, suppose if I was that type, I would be disappointed. But it still would not grant me a license to be an asshole because of it. It just doesn’t work like that.”

Jessica tried really hard to feel sorry for her, to understand Lisa’s pain, but it was clear from the defeated expression on her face that Lisa thought she deserved the full extent of her husband’s treatment, which made her trip to Nob Hill all the more pointless. What the hell was she doing here? Why was she sitting here crying, wasting her time, wasting a beautiful afternoon?

She wanted her gone, but she hoped there would be no need to throw her out. All Jessica had to do was wait for Bobby to call, then Lisa would go back home and everything would go back to normal. Hopefully it wouldn’t take him too long.

For now, she just had to tell her what she needed to hear.

“You can stay here as much as you want, Lisa,” she said finally. “As long as it takes you to clear your head.”

Lisa looked up at her and smiled, a sincere, grateful smile, which made Jessica feel like a heartless egoistic bitch.

“How about some coffee?”

23 January 2001

THE PHONE rang the following morning at four fifteen. It could only be Bobby.

Jessica imagined him back in the dark bungalow, expecting to find his wife in bed and dinner’s leftovers ready for him in the microwave, being greeted by nothing but empty rooms instead. The thought made her giggle despite how tired and annoyed she felt.

She could hear Lisa mumbling down the receiver through her bedroom door.
Where do you think
, she heard,
you called me
...mumble mumble
...it’s really early Bobby, I really don’t think this is the
...mumble mumble...
y’know?...what do you think? Think you can go and
... mumble mumble mumble...
wish, I don’t think so
, silence, silence, more silence...mumble
... I think you should just
...
y’know
... mumble...
for a while
. Then absolute silence.

Was he going to come and pick her up later? Was he sorry for being a bastard? She didn’t care. She just wanted Lisa to go away, to disappear.

Jessica waited for something to happen, the duvet wrapped tightly around her face, then the darkness of her bedroom was broken by the light in the corridor and she waited under the blanket for Lisa to walk into the room.

“Jessica...”

“Mhm-mhm?”

“You up?”

“Mhm-mhm?”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s early. It was Bobby... He found the number on the postcard you sent, on the fridge.”

“It’s ok. So?”

“I told him to go fuck himself.”

Which meant a) she was going to stay longer than anticipated, and b) Jessica would have to tell her she had plans for the weekend that didn’t include her.

The light went off in the corridor and Jessica heard Lisa dragging her feet back to the sofa in the sitting room.

WILLIAM WAS standing outside the terrace watching the twins chasing each other around the swing; their hair was alight in the late January sunlight. From up here they looked like a couple of tiny flames running around the playground burning nothing. They moved in line with each other and apart and back again.

“I didn’t think you had friends,” William said flatly. It could have been a joke but he wasn’t laughing.

“Only one. It’s complicated. I wasn’t expecting her. I didn’t know she was coming. Her husband disappeared and she decided to leave to teach him a lesson. I guess she didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

He leaned slowly on the balcony’s white metal railing, a hand in his pocket. “Are you two close?”

“Me and Lisa? I’ve known her since high school, but... She’s my friend because me and Kaitlyn were very close. That’s how I met her. She was Kaitlyn’s friend more than she’s ever been mine. A lot of people I knew were my friends through her. When she died I lost touch with everybody we knew... except Lisa. Although we haven’t seen each other in months.”

“And she still feels you’re the one person she needs to go to when her husband runs away.”

“Some friendships obviously feed on themselves.” He laughed, looked away again. “I suspect she’s replaced me with Kaitlyn. If she’s still my friend then she doesn’t have to say goodbye to her just yet... I know it’s weird, but I think I can understand that.”

After all had she not done exactly the same herself, swapping one relationship for another? The all-consuming intimacy she felt with William was nothing new, it had just taken her a while to recognise it.

She could see now how William had taken Kaitlyn’s place in her life, she recognised how she didn’t seem able to sustain a relationship unless it was a one to one, how it didn’t seem possible for her to have more that one relationship at a time. She had had boyfriends over the years, but ultimately her relationship with Kaitlyn had taken over, she had always been the only person Jessica really needed; now the same thing was happening with William, all over again. Had she talked about this with Lorna? Had she shared it with her therapist at the time? She couldn’t remember. So many things seemed distant lately; so many things were disappearing, running away from her.

“How long is she going to stay?”

“God knows. As long as it takes her husband to come and get her, I suppose. He’ll come and she’ll forget anything ever happened. He called at four o’clock this morning, but she told him to get lost.”

“So, are we still going away tomorrow or do you have to stay and babysit” He tried to sound casual but he could hear disappointment creeping into his voice.

“Yes we’re going away. I wouldn’t miss it for the world... And definitely not for this.“

Jessica had sat Lisa down that morning, both tired after a few hours struggling to get back to sleep. She had told her how proud she was, how she was doing the right thing. She had told her again that she could have stayed however long it took, and she could have the apartment all for herself over the weekend because she was going away with William. Lisa had taken it well, better that she had predicted. She was disappointed, she’d said, but she could see how she couldn’t expect her to drop everything just because she was having problems with Bobby. Most of all she was happy Jessica had found someone to spend weekends with.

“You can come and get me in the morning. Lisa might insist you have a cup of coffee before we leave, but that’s not a big deal, is it?”

He looked at her puzzled, almost disgusted. “Coffee?”

“At mine. Only for a few minutes. She’s dying to meet you.” The look on his face was definitely of disgust now. “Look, she came looking for my support and am basically leaving her to it. The least I can do is let her have a cup of coffee with you. It’s only going to be half an hour. It’s not like we are going out for dinner.”

It made sense, put that way it made all the sense in the world. It was her friend. It was normal, natural.
That’s what normal people do Billy, they have friends, their friends meet their friends, they meet each other’s boyfriends, each other’s girlfriends. They mix. You should try it. See what it feels like. For her sake. For her only...

He looked up at the sky, moaned softly. It was only a coffee for God’s sake.

“What time should I come around?”