Why Can't I Be You (22 page)

W
e ran into
Myra on the walkway up to the café. “Why are you wet?” she asked.

“We went kayaking,” Heather said.

“It’s not like riding a bike,” I said. “You do forget.”

“She got caught in a wake.” Heather fake pouted, like she felt sorry for me, but I could tell she was a little amused by the whole thing.

Myra laughed and opened the door for us. Karen was already waiting at the hostess station. I recognized her from her high school pictures. She was still pretty but thinner, harder, tired. “I just put our names in,” she said, leaning in to kiss Heather’s cheek and then Myra’s. “I should have called ahead. There’s a little bit of a wait.” She kissed my cheek with as little fanfare as if she’d just seen me two weeks ago. “Hey, Jessie.” She gave me a sharp look when she pulled away. It made me nervous. I wasn’t sure if she was questioning my likeness to Jessie, but I was certain that this wasn’t a warm, fuzzy, long-lost-friend reunion.

“Is Dylan better?” Heather asked.

“Yeah,” Karen said, shoving her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. She was so thin, I found myself wondering how her skinny body ever fit a baby in it. “He’s feeling better. He’s just tired and crabby. My sister’s watching him today, and Paige is back at school. Poor kid. She spent most of her vacation holed up in a hotel room.” She made her hands into tight fists. “Oh, some days I want to track down Travis and kick him in the nuts. It’s ridiculous, trying to be everything to those kids. And all the things he’s missing.” She looked at me and looked away when my eyes met hers. “I called him to see if he’d come to Paige’s dance recital next month. You’d think I was asking him to give me a kidney.”

“Well,” Heather said, “Robbie and I will be there with the biggest bouquet of flowers that girl has ever seen.”

When the waitress came to lead us to our table, Heather and Myra followed immediately. Karen brushed past me. “I don’t believe you,” she hissed, under her breath. It was almost a relief, the idea of finally being caught, of finally giving it all up, but then she said, “Showing your face here. After what you did!”

I shivered. Everyone else walked away, and I stood there in shock for a second before Myra said, “Earth to Jessie!” and waved me over. I walked slowly. My feet did not want to take me to that table.

I got stuck sitting between Karen and Heather. Karen talked over me like I wasn’t even there. Myra and Heather didn’t seem to notice.

I was quiet through most of lunch. If Karen was going to tell the others whatever it was Jessie had done, I was pretty sure she would have already. It had to be a solid, locked-away secret for Karen to keep it all these years. But there was no point in pushing her buttons. With my mom, when I was walking around a minefield, it was usually better to keep quiet. I was good at blending into the scenery when I needed to.

I ordered what Heather was having, because I didn’t have the energy to look through the menu, and she’d ordered right before me. Karen showed Myra and Heather pictures from the trip, from the one day they spent at Disney, before Dylan got sick. I made vague efforts to crane my neck to see the pictures on her phone and pretend I was a part of the conversation. I was exhausted. My jeans were wet and getting tight. My thighs stung from the salt water. The lump in my throat felt like it could choke me. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in days. And even though Karen probably had every reason in the world for rejecting Jessie, and no reason to include me, it still felt shitty to be on the edge of their friendship.

I picked at my taquitos, sipped horchata, and focused on little things: the fraying tablecloth, the chip in Karen’s burgundy nail polish, the condensation patterns on my glass. It was what I’d always done when I couldn’t deal with what was in front of me. When my mother made me want to cry, I’d focus on the width of dark roots betraying her bottle-blond hair. It looked like I was paying attention, but in reality I was counting her grays.

“So that’s it,” Karen said, dropping her phone in her purse. “My glamorous vacation.”

“Oh,” Myra said, holding her hands over her chest. “I really wish you’d been at the reunion, Kar.”

“You should have seen Jess and Robbie singing karaoke,” Heather said, laughing.

“Yeah,” Karen said, like she was completely and totally bored. “That must have been something.”

She tried to give me another sharp look, but I busied myself by counting grains of rice on my plate and refused to make eye contact.

When we’d paid and the table was cleared, Myra rushed out because her parking meter was about to expire. Heather snuck into the ladies’ room, and Karen and I were left alone in front of the restaurant. I wished I’d asked Heather for her keys so I could wait in the car.

“I’ll hand it to you,” Karen said. “You’ve got balls. Sitting there like that, like nothing’s happened. I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Whatever,” I said, trying to act like I wasn’t afraid of her.

“The only reason I haven’t told is that I know it’ll hurt her more than it’ll hurt you.”

The door to the restaurant opened and Heather walked out. I studied Karen’s face. Was Heather the ‘her’ Jessie had hurt?

Karen’s sharp eyes gave me no clues.

“Ooh! It’s so nice to see you guys catching up!” Heather said, standing between us and putting an arm on each of our shoulders. “I worried you wouldn’t be back in time to see Jessie!”

“Yeah, that would have been terrible,” Karen said.

Heather didn’t pick up on her tone.

Heather had to go to work, so she dropped me off at Myra’s. I used the Hide-A-Key by the mailbox to let myself in, like she’d told me to. I would have felt like I was trespassing even if I actually was Myra’s old friend. My hands shook as I slipped the key into the lock.

I remembered that Myra said Jessie’s portfolio pictures were in a box in the basement somewhere. I walked down the creaky stairs, whacking my head on the low doorframe. The basement was dark and damp, the walls were moldy cinderblock, and the beams were only a few inches above my head. The light from the tiny windows was bright enough for me to see a bare lightbulb with a pull chain in the middle of the room.

There was a mess of old furniture, Christmas decorations, fake flowers, skis, a rocking horse, a dress form. I worried I’d never find the box. I poked through a stack of boxes in the corner, but they were all filled with children’s clothes. Snowsuits and hand-knit sweaters, mittens without mates, and a pair of Strawberry Shortcake roller skates that must have been Myra’s. I had the very same ones in first grade. I knocked out my front tooth skating in the driveway. It took almost a year for the new one to grow in, and my mom never let me have another pair of roller skates.

Eventually I forgot that I was going through Myra’s things. They could have been mine. Rubber jelly bracelets in every neon color imaginable. A plastic charm necklace with googly-eyed bears and bunnies, a whistle, a tennis racket, a sneaker, an abacus with rainbow-colored beads, a telephone with a spinning dial, and a harmonica that really worked. I had most of the same charms on my necklace.

Myra had a big stuffed Care Bear. Hers was Friend Bear. I’d had Wish Bear. I held his paw in my hand to help me fall asleep at night.

There was a box of Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High books. I wasn’t allowed to read Sweet Valley High at the age when I actually wanted to, but I used my allowance to buy every Baby-Sitters book I could get my hands on. We both had Debbie Gibson tapes and black hats with brims and neon-colored CB ski jackets, even though I’d never been skiing. I’d always wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. Myra had one.

I looked through each box and was careful to put everything back the way I’d found it. There was no sign of Jessie’s photos. Then I noticed a set of shelves in the corner of the room. Each one was labeled with red plastic tape embossed with one of those old-fashioned dial label makers: Eddie, Marcie, Julian, Myra.

I think Eddie was Myra’s father. She’d mentioned something about her dad retiring to Sedona. From what I’d pieced together from the photos around the house and things Myra said, Marcie was Myra’s aunt. Julian was Myra’s brother. He lived in San Francisco. Myra hadn’t seen him since Grammie’s funeral. They didn’t even talk. When their parents got divorced, Julian sided with her mother and Myra sided with her father, and it broke up their whole family. I couldn’t imagine having a big brother and not talking to him, because I’d so desperately wanted one my whole life. But maybe it was like what Heather had said about my mom—maybe I was projecting my idea of what a brother was onto Myra’s brother. I didn’t know Julian.

Eddie’s shelf had a box of golf tees and a stack of Time-Life books on the Old West, a stuffed toy elephant, and shoe boxes that were labeled things like “Army Men,” “Erector Set,” and “Rubber Bands.”

Marcie’s shelf was full of dolls in boxes, with cellophane windows that let them peek through. Their plastic eyes wobbled in their faces when I touched the boxes.

Julian’s shelf was empty. Myra’s shelf was piled with shoe boxes: “Brooches,” “Colored Pencils,” “Bric-a-Brac,” “Ribbons,” “Sketches,” “Smurfs.” The one box that wasn’t labeled was full of black-and-white photos of Myra, Jessie, Robbie, Fish, Heather, and Karen.

The first group of photos was of the gang in black and white. It looked like maybe they were taken in the high school auditorium. Hardwood floor. The background was a black curtain. They must have raided the costume closet. Robbie was wearing a feather boa, and Fish had a top hat perched on his head. Spotlights made sharp shadows. Jessie was in some of the pictures. She must have had a timer on her camera. The shots were high contrast, shadowy, film noir, and everyone but Heather played along, with longing stares, pensive looks. Heather gave the camera a great big smile. The dimples in her chubby cheeks made two big black spots on her face. There was one of Jessie and Robbie sucking in their cheeks, their faces pressed together. Their hands entwined and arms outstretched to the camera like they were doing a tango. Jessie wore a black hat with a fishnet veil covering one eye.

There was Myra, small and sad, alone on the stage, no costumes, no makeup, looking right into the camera. She must have trusted Jessie so much to look that vulnerable in front of her. I wondered what they talked about while Jessie photographed her.

The next group of photos was wrapped in a yellowing envelope and held together with a rubber band. They were a series of self-portraits. On the back of the envelope, there was a list in pencil. Jessie had taken the letters of her name and made new anagram names. Then she acted the names out like they were different people. Each photo had a name from the list written on the back.

Jasmine Gores was a Southern Belle with a flower behind her ear. Miss Jean Ogre wore a dirty lace dress like Miss Havisham. Anise Jogrems had dark lipstick painted on her lips and blew smoke at the camera. They were juvenile, cartoony ideas of who the people with these names would be, but the photos were striking.

Jessie’s resolute stare, the defiance that radiated no matter who she was pretending to be, was unsettling. I wondered how anyone could believe I was her, because despite the fact that we had similar cheekbones, the same shape to our eyes, and the same skin tone, I didn’t have that look. I didn’t have that ability to shine through any persona I took on, to insist on who I am.

I heard a car door slam. I shoved the box back on the shelf and ran upstairs just in time to meet Fish as he walked in the door.

“Hey,” he said, kissing me cautiously, like he still wasn’t used to the fact that he could kiss me when he wanted to. “I have to bring a dog out to a client at the university. Do you want to come with me?”

W
e climbed into
his truck. Waiting for us on the seat was a beautiful blond dog in a blue vest and a seatbelt harness. I was pretty sure he was the same dog I’d seen with Fish on Sunday.

“This is Matisse.” The dog looked at Fish. Fish nodded to him, and Matisse turned to sniff my hand.

He was confident and quiet, the polar opposite of the frantic Golden Retriever my neighbors had when I was a kid. He let me pet him briefly, but then he turned his attention back to watching the road in front of us. Sitting next to him made me feel incredibly calm.

“Like the painter?” I asked.

“Yup,” Fish said. “We were pretty sure he was going to be Anita’s dog, so we gave him a painter’s name.”

“Why?” It seemed like a cruel choice to me.

“She’s the head of the art department,” Fish said.

“But she’s blind,” I blurted out, and then immediately wished I could catch the words and shove them back in my mouth. “I mean, I’m sure there are ways blind people experience art. I just thought . . .”

Fish said, “Anita isn’t blind. She has seizures.”

“Oh,” I said, blushing. I was relieved that we’d clarified things before I met Anita and said something stupid in front of her. “How does a dog help with that?”

“Well,” Fish said, “the hope is that Matisse will get to know Anita so well he’ll be able to detect the slight changes that can happen before a seizure, before Anita can even tell what’s going on. But that’s really going to depend on their relationship. Matisse’s abilities to pick up on the signs and Anita’s ability to pick up on Matisse’s warnings are going to be key.” Every time Fish said Matisse’s name, the dog looked at him with full attention. “You can’t train a dog to detect seizures. But we have worked with him on the usual guide dog obedience and behavior. He’ll carry her medication and an emergency cell phone in his vest, so she can access them if she needs to call for help. He’ll lick her face to try to keep her alert. Things like that.”

Fish put his hand on Matisse’s side to keep him stable as he made a sharp turn. “And also, just knowing that he’s going to be there is an amazing comfort. It’s so scary not knowing if or when another seizure is going to happen. So Matisse gives her some peace of mind.”

“Wow,” I said. “And you’ve trained him to do all of this?”

“Yeah,” Fish said, smiling shyly. “Matisse lived with a family who volunteered to help raise him and train him until he was about a year old, and then I started working with him. Since Anita is local, we’ve been working together for a while. People who don’t live close enough usually come out and stay for a week and go through our program, but Anita has been a part of the whole training process. This is the last little bit. I’m going to take Anita through her usual campus routes so we can troubleshoot and see if there are any issues with taking a dog in and out of the buildings where she works. We’ll do a seizure drill in her office, and then Matisse gets to go home with her.”

“So you work with him all this time and then you have to give him up?” I said.

Fish nodded. “That’s always the best part and the hardest part. It’s easier now. I’ve worked with so many dogs. And I’ll just jump right into working with the next group of puppies. The first few dogs I worked with—it killed me when I had to hand them over.” He glanced at Matisse. “But I’ll get to check in with Anita and Matisse from time to time.”

When we got to the campus, Fish drove to the art building and pulled into a space in the far corner of the parking lot. When Fish unbuckled the seatbelt harness and gave the okay, Matisse followed Fish out the driver’s side door. Fish told him to sit, and then knelt down and pressed his forehead to Matisse’s nose. I stood at the back of the truck, to give them a moment. I heard him say, “This is it, buddy. You be a good boy, okay?” and felt tears well up in my eyes. I used the corner of my sleeve to soak them up before Fish could see. I didn’t want to be a big emotional mess when I was just a bystander. Fish probably needed someone to be strong and make him laugh when this was all over. He didn’t need me getting weepy.

“All right,” Fish said, getting up. “Okay, Matisse.”

We walked to the art building together. Matisse watched Fish for direction and didn’t pull on his leash or try to sniff any of the other people around us. It was obvious that he was working and took his work seriously.

“Hi, Matisse,” Anita said, when we walked into her office. Matisse’s tail wagged.

“Okay,” Fish said, and dropped the leash. Matisse ran over to Anita and licked her face. “Anita, this is my friend Jessie. She’s here just in case we need an extra set of hands.”

“Great,” Anita said, standing up from the piles of paperwork at her desk. She was wearing dark blue jeans and a worn blue work shirt that showed a history of her work in paint splatters. Her blond hair was piled high on top of her head in a messy bun. She wiped her hands on her jeans and said, “Nice to meet you, Jessie,” shaking my hand. Her fingernails were stained with paint. It made me jealous. I wanted a life where it made sense for me to be messy like that.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

We went through a condensed version of Anita’s day. I stood in for students or coworkers whenever needed, so Fish could direct Anita. It was the kind of thing that would normally make me feel awkward, but I was too fascinated watching them work to bother being self-conscious.

We put our heads together to brainstorm when a piece of furniture or the layout of a room posed a problem. We made sure there was a good spot for Matisse next to Anita in every classroom, conference room, and studio she spent time in.

When we walked into the graduate student studio, I gasped. Tall windows. Hardwood floors. The smell of paint and turpentine. “It’s a gorgeous space!” I said. “This light!”

I had taken as many art classes as I could in college, squeezed in whenever I could. Senior year, I even emptied my bank account to take advanced painting so I could finish my minor in studio art. It put me over the credits covered by tuition, and there was no way either of my parents would have been supportive of me getting an art minor. Spending the afternoon in the studio, letting everything I’d ever felt come out on a canvas, was the happiest I’d ever been. Having that sense of purpose to create made everything else feel easier.

“Do you paint?” Anita asked.

“I did,” I said. “I’d like to again. I minored in studio art in college. But then work got in the way after I graduated.”

“What do you do now?” she asked.

“I’m in PR,” I said.

“You could always go back,” Anita said, with a mischievous smile. “We like our MFA students to have a little life experience under their belts. Having a PR background is a fabulous bonus. So much of any artist’s job these days is knowing how to get their work out there.”

“I didn’t know you painted,” Fish said.

“I started in college,” I said nervously, trying to cover for the slip. It felt like the biggest lie I’d told so far. I’d been painting for as long as I could remember. The only time in my life when I didn’t paint was while I was with Deagan. It had been almost a year since I’d sat in the dining area of my apartment, with the windows open, and the paints set out in front of me waiting to become something. Deagan complained about the smell of turpentine and the stains on my hands, and eventually it just seemed like a hassle to paint. I lost the sense of joy I’d had about painting when the whole time I was working I knew that Deagan would be annoyed.

“Well,” Fish said, “it makes sense. You always took such great pictures.”

“I’d love to see your slides,” Anita said.

“I don’t have any with me,” I said, “but I do have a few pictures on my phone.” I’d taken photos before I moved my paintings into storage over the summer. I turned my phone on, ignoring the voicemail notifications, and held it close while I scrolled through the photos, just in case there was something incriminating in my albums. I found the series of paintings I’d done for my final project at school and handed my phone to Anita. She scrolled through them with Fish looking over her shoulder.

“Wow, Jess,” Fish said. “I had no idea!”

Thankfully the first picture after my paintings was just a photo of me and Luanne at the Lilac Festival. Nothing dangerous.

“It’s hard to evaluate work on such a small screen, of course,” Anita said, handing back my phone, “but I like your aesthetic. Have you considered an MFA?”

“Look at you,” Fish said, elbowing her. “Always the recruiter.”

“I haven’t thought about it,” I said. “But I’m reevaluating a lot of things right now.”

“Well,” Anita said, “I’m here if you have questions.”

After we’d gone through the studio and brainstormed potential issues and ways to maneuver with Matisse around the easels and supplies, we were done with our tour of Anita’s day. I left the room while they did the seizure drill in Anita’s office. Anita seemed embarrassed to have to pretend to have a seizure, so I asked where the bathroom was and left them to work.

I walked down the hall and went back to the studio. I stared at the easels and the huge rolls of canvas. I studied the paint stains on the floorboards. I sat on a stool in the corner and closed my eyes and thought about the things I would paint, imagining the feel of paint on brush, brush on canvas, the way a tightly stretched canvas gives just a little. Whenever I’d pictured myself married to Deagan, something about it always felt fuzzy. I couldn’t picture myself at Levi & Plato, getting promoted, having my own office. But I could picture myself in this studio, painting, so clearly. I felt like it was where I was supposed to be.

A student came in with a jar full of brushes and a big black portfolio. She had long brown hair twisted into a braid, and was wearing a shapeless green dress. She had earbuds in and hummed to herself.

“Oh shit!” she said, when she saw me. “Sorry! Sorry! You startled me. I was in my own little world.”

“Me too,” I said, and got up.

“Don’t feel like you have to leave. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“No,” I said, “I was on my way out.”

Fish and Anita were done with the drill when I got back to the office. They were both praising Matisse. “Good boy!” Anita said, beaming.

Fish had a sad, longing look on his face.

“We’re going to give you a moment,” Anita said to Fish, and hooked her arm into mine. When we got out into the hallway, she said, “Here’s my card. Call me. And I mean it. I think your combination of art and business talents could bring a lot to the program.”

When Fish and Matisse emerged from the studio, Fish’s eyes were red. “Here you go,” he said, handing the leash over to Anita.

Anita smiled. “You . . . ,” she said, kissing Fish on the cheek and giving him a big hug. “You just gave me my life back.” When she pulled away, she was crying too, which of course made me teary.

I held Fish’s hand on the walk back to the parking lot. As soon as he was safely inside the truck, he leaned over and buried his head in my shoulder. “I guess I lied,” he said. “It doesn’t get that much easier. But it’s the best thing I can do, you know?”

“I’m so proud of you,” I said.

He sniffed really hard and then wiped his face with his sleeve. He took a deep breath and started the truck. “You don’t get to make fun of me for this, Jess.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.

“It’s not exactly the most masculine thing ever, to go around crying about a dog.”

“What I’m amazed by,” I said, “is that you’re willing to put yourself through this over and over again so you can help people. It’s kind of hot.” I smiled at him.

“You know,” he said, smiling, “I think Myra is still at work.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if I can do it in Grammie’s bed.”

“Who needs a bed?” he said.

We didn’t even make it upstairs. Fish kissed me the second we walked into the living room. The curtains were open, so we stumbled into the kitchen, shedding clothes as we went. Fish picked me up and sat me on Myra’s kitchen counter.

“This is so rude of us!” I said, jumping down and pulling him to the floor with me.

“When did you get polite?” Fish asked, laughing.