The Muse (17 page)

I could turn CarefreeJanie into anyone. Eva would never meet her. Never. This was just for fun. Eva would be the girl who introduced me to the joy of flirting. Then, one day, maybe I could venture into the real world and find me a real live Eva-type who might actually enjoy me for me and one with whom I hadn’t completely destroyed my integrity and character by lying and hiding. Girls like Eva didn’t hide. I never expected her to understand the inner hauntings of a girl who needed to. No reason for tears and faded love and all that anxiety just yet, especially when I only just planned to indulge and have fun.

Without prepping too much for the actual photo, I just snapped a couple of strange angles. Each shot grew worse. My face looked bigger. My fine lines popped out along the one eye I opted to showcase. My expression looked like something you’d find on a crazy woman who took one too many drugs in her prime. The pictures went from bad to worse until, just for goofs, I held the camera above my head, looked up and snapped. This angle elongated my body, creating a cute, slender frame. The best part, my eye looked bright blue and gigantic in relation to my baseball cap and slender shoulders. I could barely recognize myself.

So, fifteen minutes into my photography session, I called it a wrap. I downloaded it and to my horror, the pretty blue afghan had slipped off the toilet, and in plain sight, I was sitting on a toilet snapping photos of myself. Class act.

Other than that small fact, the picture was perfect.

The next day at work, desperate to claim this photo as CarefreeJanie and impress Eva with it, I did something completely out of character. I marched up to Sanjeev and asked him if I could have Photoshop installed on my laptop. “I really think Kate had some validity at our last meeting when she said my headlines weren’t exactly matching the visual. I’d really like to have Photoshop so I can set up a visual when refining these headlines.” He responded with a wink, a blush to his freshly shaven cheek, and an affirmative nod. “I’ll get the technical team to install it this morning.”

I thanked him like a polite employee, and when I walked away with an extra bounce in my step, being pretty darn proud of my assertive approach to problem solving, Katie once again mocked me with an extra sugary smile that had poison written all over it. Get too close to her men, and she turned into a territorial dog sniffing out the enemy all while shouldering a well-exercised southern bell charm.

She was not perfect. She had issues. Her husband didn’t want her. She scuttled around the world lost like a dog without a home. These facts empowered me like a little rudder hidden under a rowboat. I passed her by and lifted my mouth into the slightest smile. I, the better one, didn’t shove this knowledge in her face. She could toss clever lies and cunning sneers all she wanted. None of it bothered me anymore.

She responded with a superimposed twinkle in her eye.

Not more than thirty minutes later, Jeff from IT waltzed into my cubicle and installed Photoshop on my system. Katie and her fake eyelashes and sing-song smile neared my cubicle, stretching her lanky neck and slinking it back to normal whenever I’d look over and catch her snooping.

I waited all afternoon to launch my photo. And, when I did, I shrunk it down to only twenty-five percent so that if Katie happened to walk out of her three o’clock production meeting to get a cup of coffee, I could hide it quickly. I researched how to blend backgrounds to distort them and applied the technique. The fates of change and world wonders converged that afternoon and worked alongside me, carrying me along a nice peaceful trail where everything just slid into place for me. The result, a picture that would turn my head, too.

I was cute!

I called Larry. “I’m sending you a picture that I want to send to Eva. I want your honest opinion of it first.”

A few minutes later, he texted me. “You should have worn the red bra and undies.”

I exhaled. “She already thinks I’m sexy. I don’t want to overexcite her with too much and leave her hanging for eternity.”

“Noble gesture on your part. You’re going to make a great cyber lover.”

# #

Larry tended to whine, but he usually reserved all-out crying for situations like insect attacks and of course when his DVR recorded over
Dr. Oz
before he could watch it. Yes, Larry adored Dr. Oz, perhaps even more than Shaun T from the
Insanity
exercise videos. Anyway, Larry sat beside me bawling with his laundry bag crumbled at his feet. I fed him tissues faster than he could swipe tears. They fell from his eyes in giant drops; I’m talking total-and-complete breakdown at a monsoon level.

“Tim is married,” he managed to shovel out to me.

“Tim? Your great boyfriend Tim?”

He nodded, gulping back another round of tears. “I didn’t want to tell you. I’m lousy at everything. I didn’t want to be lousy at being this.”

“Being the other guy?” I couldn’t suppress the judgment. It flew out of me unrestrained the way air blew out of a compressor.

“I know. I’m a horrible man.”

“You’re not a horrible man.” I handed him another tissue not sure how to comfort him when I wanted to punch him. “So what happened? Why are you crying like someone stole your Lexus?”

“He had told me he was separated. So, I thought I could safely date him. But, it turns out he wasn’t. We met up at lunch, and I knew as soon as I saw his strained face that something dreadful was about to come out of his mouth.” He coughed and blew his nose. “He’s been married to his wife for fifteen years. They have three dogs, two cats and a finch. His wife’s mother lives with them and cooks all their meals, washes their clothes, and she’s even on their health insurance from his work.” He cried out in anguish, leaning back and covering his tear-stained face with his hands. “He’s afraid to leave her.”

I didn’t know what to do. So, I sat on the edge of my couch, drumming my fingers on my legs, willing my best friend to get a hold of himself so I wouldn’t have to do it for him. I was not qualified.

He sat up again. “He doesn’t love her, but I don’t believe him. How do you spend fifteen years with someone and not love her? Why would he do that?”

He stared at my empty eyes. I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“He told me he loves me, but he doesn’t want to hurt her or his mother-in-law. He asked if we could see each other quietly.”

To me this sounded logical and acceptable given that’s how I lived my life, hidden and coiled up in the corner where not even the light of day could break in and illuminate who I really was.

At least someone in this world loved him and committed to continue loving him. I’d forfeit an arm to have someone love the real me. Couldn’t he just be satisfied instead of greedy? “At least you have that.”

He scoffed and his tears suddenly dried up like the sun baked right through my ceiling. “No.” He waved his finger at me. “No, you’re not going to play this game. This crazy, foolish ‘poor me, look at me, I have no one who loves me’ game. You don’t get to do that. You know why?” He hung his jaw waiting on me.

I flung my hands up in the air and landed backwards on a huff. “Oh, here we go.”

“No. There’s no ‘here we go.’ You and I both know the reason you don’t have someone to love you is because you’re too stubborn to put yourself out there. Everyone is not out to get you.”

“You have no idea what it’s like to live in my head.” I stood up, rage spilling from every cell. I was an ugly person inside, and I wanted to keep the ugliness inside. I decided this, and I wouldn’t let him or anyone else judge me on it. I’d already judged myself enough. “Fuck you.” I tore off to my kitchen. “Fuck you and your married boyfriend, you insensitive ass.” I turned on the faucet and began scrubbing my breakfast dishes, choking back tears.

“Fuck me?” He stood up and commanded the space. The room vibrated with his frustration and echoed straight to me, straight to my sponge, straight to my heart where it strangled my selfish tantrum. He moved towards me, eyes wide open. “Fuck me? Why fuck me?” He stood two feet from me, hands on his hips, shock and hurt trailing in the fine lines around his eyes. The air whispered between us, begging us to stop this foolish nonsense and get back on the same team.

I fought with the sponge, circling it around the caked-on oatmeal from twelve hours earlier. I scrubbed it, taking out all my anger, squaring off with Larry eye-to-eye, not willing to cave on this argument. “Because.” That’s all I could say. I searched for a reason why and nothing compelling landed on my tongue.

He waited, tall, on edge, a warning resting on his lips, on his angular jaw. “Because?”

“Argh.” I hated admitting he was right. “Because you’re right about me. Okay? Feel better now that you painted my pathetic picture a little brighter?” I didn’t take my eye off of him as I continued to scrub.

His jaw softened and a tiny exhale released through his lips. Fresh tears erupted. Before either one of us could stop it, we both caved and hugged each other and wept like a couple of emotional fools hyped up on too many episodes of
Oprah
.

“What are you going to do?” I asked him.

He hugged me tighter. “I’m too deep into it. I adore him. I’m addicted to him. I can’t go a day without talking to him.”

I pulled away, stared at him at arm’s length. “He’s married.”

“But, he loves me.”

We stared at each other, accepting one another for the weaknesses we carried on our shoulders, neither one understanding the full extent to their depths. We ended on a nod, scooped up our laundry bags and went about our Wednesday night like we did every week.

# #

Sanjeev asked me to participate in a major company project that involved Eva Handel. “We need you to write up a public service announcement about our new initiative to bring health and fitness back into schools.”

“Absolutely. I’d be honored.”

He smiled like a nervous schoolboy, turning red.

In the awkward moment that followed, he scrolled down to my lips and rested for a moment too long. I pulled them in, securing them.

He looked back up at my eyes. Just as quickly as the strange moment approached, it flew away.

“Just one thing. Katie asked to be a part of it, too.” He rolled his eyes. /fonI’d rather you take the helm on this. You always work magic on my writing, so I trust you. It’s an important one.” His eyes softened on me, wrapping me in an awkward embrace.

I looked away, down at a paperclip. I reached down and picked it up. “Yeah, no problem.” I walked out of his office, rounded the corner and met Katie’s gaze from the collaboration room. She curled her finger, waving me towards her like a sneaky witch beckoning for her afternoon snack.

I walked in casually. “Yes?”

“What were you two lovebirds talking about?”

My face reddened. “An assignment.”

“Hmm. Well, Sanjeev asked you to proof some articles. I was just about to bring them to you, but seeing as you’re right here, I may as well hand them over now.” She dropped them at my feet and they flew every which way. She covered her face with her hands. “Oops. I’m sorry.” She dropped her hands and offered me an apologetic nod.

“I love organizing,” I said, playing her game. “So, thank you.”

“Well, that’s a good thing because they have no page numbers on them.” She turned and walked out, pumping her hips side to side like a pendulum, like she was the sexiest, most powerful girl in the world. She turned over her shoulder. “Oh, and he needs them in two hours. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

“Not at all,” I said.

# #

I finally attached my Photoshopped picture into an email for Eva, and after three glasses of wine and a good firm one-on-one conversation with myself in front of the mirror, I hit the send button and let destiny take the reins. I shuddered for a few long minutes after this, beating myself up for smoothing my skin too much with the Gaussian blur tool and setting the threshold too high on the hue and saturation. God forbid she ever saw me at the office and recognized me, she’d take one look at me and see the world’s biggest freak for touching myself up to the extent I did. I would never let her meet me. I viewed my Photoshopping debut as my safety net from ever having to sweat it out one day in a face-to-face meeting.