Love & Lies: Marisol's Story (11 page)

Okay, it wasn’t an idea whispered in my ear by some ancient muse; it was basically the story of my current life. But you used the material you had. And writing about Christina was exciting because she wasn’t me—or rather, she
was
me, only funnier and luckier and much more clever. Christina could immediately come up with all the wiseass remarks I usually didn’t think of until hours later. The advice Olivia had given us about dialogue was a big help—Christina could
talk people’s ears off. Once I got started, I didn’t want to stop. I wrote almost ten pages before I made myself quit and take a shower so I could get to work on time.

The hours at the Mug dragged. I kept thinking of scenes I could be writing between Christina and her older woman friend, who I didn’t have a perfect name for yet. Around two o’clock there was literally nobody in the restaurant for twenty minutes, so I sat with the phone book on my lap, making another list of names.

Vanessa


Ava


Blythe


Tess


Cecilia


Elana


Aviva


Geneva


Juliette


Grace


Nicole


Siena


I was so aggravated when the next customers came in and interrupted me that I made these two skinny college girls order pie even though they clearly only wanted coffee. If you get on the wrong side of me, I’m going to make you
eat
.

By late afternoon the place got busy, and I had to give up even thinking about writing. Lee was ensconced in her usual
booth, but fortunately I was not talking to her when Doug came storming in the back door. He was wearing a sweatshirt, high-water pants, and an old, scuffed pair of sneakers—not his usual working attire. It didn’t look like he’d shaved in a few days either, and the overall effect was similar to that of the homeless men who sometimes slept in Harvard Square doorways on cold nights.

He waved me back into the kitchen with Sophie and the other cook, Pete.

“Just wanted to tell everybody,” he mumbled, “Gus is back home. I just settled him in at his place with a bucketful of pills to take.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Sophie said. “He’s a tough old guy.”

“Yeah, well, here’s the thing, Sophie. Gus and me have been talking it over. He ain’t gonna last forever, you know, and once he’s gone, this place will go too.”

“But Doug, didn’t you once say that Gus was planning to leave the place to you?” Pete asked.

“That was years back, when I was a younger man. I’m no spring chicken anymore either. Once Gus is gone, I don’t want to worry about making ends meet around here. I’d have to sell the place. I’ve only kept it running this long because it’s Gus’s place and he loves it.”

“Whoever buys it would keep it open, wouldn’t they?” I asked.

Doug shook his head. “Not as a rundown old coffee shop. This is valuable real estate.”

“What? You mean they’d tear down the Mug and put up a . . . a Starbucks or something?” Even as I said it, I felt guilty.
Who was I to complain about Starbucks?

“I don’t know what would go in, but something that would make more money than the Mug, I know that. Anyway, I’m telling you this because I think you should all be aware of it. If a better opportunity comes along for you, you shouldn’t hesitate to take it. You’ve been a loyal bunch, but I know you all got bills to pay.”

Guilt and more guilt. Not everyone’s mother was slipping them money to pay the rent.

“I’ll stick around,” Pete said. “I can always get something if we close up.”

Sophie bit her lip. “Doug, I have to confess, when you said Gus was in the hospital again, I went through the want ads. I figured it would come to this eventually, and I can’t afford to retire completely just yet. I have an interview tomorrow afternoon for a part-time job at a bakery up in Arlington. Near my daughter’s house.”

“Well, I hope you get the job, Sophie. If you want it, you take it. I can’t make you any promises here anymore,” Doug said sadly. “I hope Gus hangs on awhile longer, but you never know from one day to the next.”

Doug turned his face away and squinted his eyes. I wondered if he was just feeling the impending loss of an old, close friend, or if their relationship was more complicated than that. Or maybe all relationships were more complicated than they seemed on the surface.

Even though I’d only wandered into the Mug two or three times before I started working there, the demise of the place seemed to herald something larger, like perhaps the collapse
of western civilization. How many unique places were left in Harvard Square? Not more than a handful, and now the place where T. S. Eliot might just possibly have sipped his tea was going under too. It was depressing.

Lee waited for my shift to finish at six; we sat in the pit by the T stop for a while, and I told her what Doug had said.

“I hope they don’t close the Mug,” she said. “I was just starting to feel like it was my place. I mean, someplace friendly to go where I recognized a few people.”

I nodded. “I’m pretty attached to my paycheck, too. Where am I gonna work if the Mug closes?”

“Where am I gonna hang out?”

We stared glumly at our shoes for a few minutes.

“I told my mother about you last night on the phone,” I said, finally, just to fill the empty space that was bearing down on our shoulders.

“You did?”

I nodded. “Yeah. She got all excited about meeting you. You’ll have to go over there with me one of these days.”

“She wants to meet me?” Lee’s voice was kind of squeaky.

“Maybe I didn’t tell you—she’s the standard-bearer for the local PFLAG chapter. The minute I came out to her, she became an expert on the subject of homosexuality and how it affects teenagers. I make fun of her, but really, she’s great. I can’t imagine not having her support. Anyway, when I told her about you having to leave Indiana because your parents
weren’t
supportive, she wanted to know what she could do about it. She wanted to send your parents brochures, call them up, get to be their new best friend. Can you imagine?”
I shook my head. “She’s too much sometimes.”

Lee banged her heel against the wall. “My parents aren’t
that
bad. I mean, they didn’t kick me out or anything. They just couldn’t handle it very well.”

“I know. That’s what I told her, but she gets very excited about this stuff.”

“So, that’s why she wants to meet me? To help me?”

“Or maybe to adopt you; I’m not sure.” I meant it as a joke, but Lee frowned, and we fell silent again.

Finally she said, “When are you working tomorrow?”

“I’m not. Day off. Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking of cutting my afternoon classes. Maybe we could hang out.”

“Really? You’re skipping school?” I said, as though it were a foreign concept to me. What I was really thinking was,
Damn, I want to write tomorrow.

“I only have trig and English after lunch.”

“Yeah, like
those
aren’t important. You better not.”

Lee turned and glared at me. “Marisol, I’ll cut school if I want to. You aren’t my mother, you know!”

“You’re the one who was telling your sister you might not even graduate. You can’t afford to skip—”

“I just said that to make her crazy. I’m doing fine. And by the way, you aren’t my guardian angel, either, so stop acting like it.”

My mouth fell open. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you and your mother discussing my poor orphanhood and what can be done to help me. I’m seventeen, Marisol. I don’t need a babysitter. If that’s what you want to be, I suggest you get yourself a nanny job.” She
jumped off the wall and started to walk away. “And I don’t need a pimp, either. I can find my own girlfriends!”

I got down and ran after her. “Hey, what’s the problem here? Just because I try to help you a little bit—”

“I don’t need your help!” she yelled. People at a sidewalk café stared at us, but we kept on marching.

“Of course you do. You don’t even know anybody else!”

She stopped walking and glared at me. “Do you have to keep reminding me of how
pathetic
I am? Believe me, I understand that without you pointing it out to me!”

Where was this coming from? “Lee, I don’t think you’re pathetic at all. I don’t know where you got that idea.” I tried to grab for her arm, but she pulled away from me.

“I have to go home, Marisol.”

“Do you want me to walk with you?”

“No, I don’t! God, you think I can’t even walk six blocks by myself! Leave me alone!” She was starting to cry by then, so I backed away. I was stumped by the source of all that anger, but maybe it had more to do with her lousy relationship with her parents than it did with me. Maybe she just needed to let off some steam.

In fact, I couldn’t have cared less whether she went to school the next day or not. But I had my own idea of how I wanted to spend the afternoon, and it would only have upset her more if she knew. My laptop and I were going to get going on chapter two, and we were planning to do it, God help us, at Starbucks.

I
T WAS A BAD SIGN
that I could smell our third-floor apartment the minute I walked through the downstairs door. And it wasn’t just the seldom-cleaned cat box either—this was some kind of dog disaster.

I opened the apartment door to find Birdie and Damon glaring at each other while Noodles cowered behind the couch. Birdie’s salvaged red rug was now literally crappy, dribbled from edge to edge with soupy puppy poop. The stench was overwhelming.

“God, what happened?” I said, putting my hand over my nose and mouth to try to filter the incoming air.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Birdie said. “Even though I’ve told Damon a hundred times not to leave his stupid candy bars lying out on the table where Noodles can get them, he did it anyway. And guess what?”

“How could she jump that high? You should put her in a circus,” Damon said. “Besides, if you’d taken her for a walk when you said you were going to, this mess would be on the sidewalk and not in the living room.”

“Great, then the neighbors could enjoy it too,” I said. “I
should rub both your noses in it.” But my presence was barely noticed.

“You made my dog sick, Damon, and my rug is ruined. Your fault—not mine!” Birdie was so steamed, I figured there was something more behind this than dog poop.

Damon pointed to the matted shag under his feet with revulsion. “This filthy thing? You’re upset about
this
? Believe me, it was disgusting long before Noodles crapped on it. Good riddance to it!” Had to agree with Damon on that one—sometimes the big lug made sense. I looked to Birdie for the next volley. Aside from the odor this event was somewhat entertaining.

Birdie slammed it over the net. “Who eats candy bars, anyway? I haven’t had a candy bar since I was ten years old! Which could be why I don’t have a million zits on my face like
some
people!”
Ouch.

Damon’s face (with, actually, no more than one small zit that I could see) reddened. “It’s none of your business what I eat. Besides,” he said sheepishly, “I only eat the little ones.” Oops. Never let your opponent see weakness.

“Yeah, twenty little ones at a time!” Birdie shot back. Game, set, match.

For a minute I thought Damon might smack Birdie, but instead he picked Noodles’s leash off the back of the door and called her over. “I’ll take the poor animal—about whom you care so
deeply
—for a walk. And I’ll take her to the vet clinic to make sure she’s okay, too, because I do actually care about her welfare.”

That was one good thing about Damon—he was better about walking Noodles than Birdie and me combined. He
slammed the door behind him, and I looked to Birdie for a further explanation.

“He never listens to me,” Birdie said.

“About the candy bars?”

“About anything!” He sighed. “Help me roll this up and take it down to the Dumpster.”

“Gladly.”

“What? You don’t like it either?”

“No, I don’t! And I wish you’d stop pretending this is all about rugs and candy bars. What’s going on?”

We moved the couch back and started rolling the rug before he answered me. “I don’t know exactly. I guess it’s harder than I thought to live with somebody you like.”

The smell was making me dizzy. I rolled faster, which only made the tube uneven. “You know, you jumped into this pretty quickly, Birdie. You barely knew Damon when you invited him to live here.” Give me a medal for not saying,
I told you so.

I got the length of clothesline I used for drying underwear in my bedroom when I didn’t feel like trekking to the Laundromat, and we tied it around the carpet, then hoisted the miserable thing to our shoulders. A long bath would be necessary after this job.

Birdie sighed as we started down the stairs. “He just seemed so perfect at first.”

Perfect? On what planet?

“Nobody’s perfect,” I said, “but if it’s not working out, you should ask him to leave. He can probably still get a dorm room.” It’s hard to cross your fingers while carrying a large rug.

We maneuvered the thing through the downstairs doorway and around the corner to the trash bins.

“I can’t ask him to leave,” Birdie said.

“Sure you can. You just say, ‘Please leave.’ I’d even be willing to say it for you, if necessary.”

“No, you don’t understand, Marisol. I love Damon!”

We gave a hearty heave, and the stinky shag was history. Unfortunately, Damon was not.

“You
love
him? You were just yelling at him about having zits!”

He sighed. “I know. I’m a terrible person. Being in love makes me emotionally unstable.”

“Don’t blame love,” I muttered as we trudged back upstairs.

“I shouldn’t have said that stuff about the candy bars, either. He doesn’t really eat that many at a time. But he leaves them out on the table after I told him not to! He doesn’t listen to me! What am I going to do?” he whined.