Why Can't I Be You (27 page)

W
hen I got
back to my desk, the phone was ringing.

“Hey,” the voice said, “Jenny?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Robbie.”

“Really?”

“Well, uh, actually, I’m a Robbie impersonator.” He laughed.

I didn’t know what to say. “Um,” I stalled.

“Too soon to joke? It’s too soon, isn’t it?” He sounded genuinely embarrassed.

“It’s fine, Robbie,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”

“I remembered where you said you worked. I hope it’s okay that I called.”

“Of course it is.” I wanted to say more, to tell him how much the time I’d spent with him meant to me, but I didn’t know why he was calling. I didn’t want to scare him off.

“So, okay, I guess this is weird, because I haven’t actually known you since I was in diapers. But, uh . . .” He took a deep breath. I held mine. “I got my swimmers checked. The numbers are low, but not so low that it’s never going to happen for us.”

“Oh my gosh!” I yelped, clapping my hand over my mouth. The intern in the cubicle next to me poked his head up and gave me the evil eye. You didn’t have to have worked at Levi & Plato long to know that Monica did not allow personal calls. Technically, I should have told Robbie I’d call him back later, but I was leaving anyway. It hardly mattered. “That’s wonderful,” I said in a low whisper.

“Is it weird that I wanted to tell you?” Robbie’s voice was sweet and soft. I could picture him standing there, phone to his ear, scratching at the stubble on his chin.

“I think I’ve forfeited the right to decide what’s weird.” I thought about the stars. I remembered how safe I felt. “I’m glad you called.”

“You know,” he said, “I get why you did it—how it could be easier to be someone else. I know you didn’t do it to hurt anyone.”

“Thank you,” I said. I drew the sliver of a moon on my desk blotter with my pen, leaving it empty and shading in the sky around it with a blue ballpoint.

“Jessie would never have talked to me like that. And she was never much for listening. I mean, there are things about Jessie that I loved, that I always will, but she wasn’t . . . She wasn’t always a very good friend.”

“Really?” I said. “Because you guys were so happy to see me—her.”

“Jessie rarely listened. She always did what she wanted to do, no matter what everyone else needed, but, man, if you were okay with being along for the ride, it was a freaking fun ride. We all miss her, but I think we all wanted her to be more like you. Maybe you’re a better Jessie than Jessie.” He sighed.

“She’s certainly a presence,” I said.

“So how is she?”

“She’s doing well,” I said. “She has a son. He’s four. She has her own photo studio. She looks—I mean, I don’t know her otherwise, but she looks good.”

“Really?” he said, and there was this spark of interest in his voice. Even though I knew I had no right to, I felt a twinge of jealousy. But then he said, “How are you?”

I told him about the MFA program, and that I’d given notice at my job. As I talked, I drew the ground and the grass and me and Robbie and the smoke from our cigarettes curling into the sky.

“Am I crazy to do this?” I asked. “Are you all going to think I’m some sort of psycho stalker if I move to Seattle?”

“I won’t. Karen might,” he said. “But I don’t think anyone’s in the Karen fan club right now.”

“It’s not Karen’s fault,” I said.

“She kept Jessie’s secrets. And then she was so set on hurting you, or Jessie, or whoever, that she didn’t think about how she would hurt us. It’s like you’re not the only one who pretended to be someone they weren’t.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I know,” he said, his voice brightening. “I’m still glad I met you. I never would have if you weren’t a crazy Jessie impersonator.” He laughed. “Plus there’s a place near the UDub campus that has karaoke on Wednesdays. No one else ever wants to do karaoke with me.”

L
uanne was sitting
at the bar at Good Luck with her Thursday night Manhattan. “Hey,” I said. I stood next to her and waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. I thought maybe she didn’t want to talk to me, but then she called the bartender over and ordered a Manhattan for me too.

I don’t actually like Manhattans, but details like that never seemed to matter to Luanne.

“You didn’t even tell me you quit,” she said, when I sat down next to her.

“You weren’t talking to me. What was I supposed to do, send you a memo?”

“So Monica said you’re moving to Seattle?”

“Yeah.”

She pursed her lips and gave me a hard stare. “I don’t think I understand this lifestyle choice. Am I supposed to call you Jessie now?”

“I’m not Jessie Morgan,” I said. “I know that. Everyone knows that. And I’m not moving to Seattle to be her. I’m just trying to figure out who Jenny Shaw is.”

“Don’t talk about yourself in the third person,” Luanne said, picking the cherry out of her martini glass with the little red plastic sword. “It’s creepy.”

“I’m just trying to figure out who I am,” I said. “And I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

“I never tried to keep you from being who you are. I wasn’t, like, trying to stunt your growth.” She curled a strand of hair around her finger and let it go.

“I know. I never stuck up for myself. I never insisted on who I was or what I needed from our friendship. And I know that’s not your fault.”

She sighed and stared into her glass. It seemed like she was annoyed that I was there, infringing on her ritual. I hadn’t touched my Manhattan.

“You can have it if you want,” I said, standing up and tucking a ten under the foot of the glass.

“Will I ever see you again?” she asked, her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

“Do you want to?” I honestly believed that she didn’t. I was only trying to talk to her because I told Monica I would. I thought Luanne would just want me gone.

“Of course,” she said. “I love you. You’re my best friend. And I tried to be yours. I really did.”

I wrapped my arms around her and rested my chin on her head. “I love you too, Lu.”

“This doesn’t mean I’m helping you move. I just got my nails done.”

“I’m not moving for a few more weeks at least.”

“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “Same excuse then too.”

“Come visit me,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. But no backhanded compliments allowed, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “But you have to call me on my shit. Push back. I won’t punch you or anything.” She smiled and stabbed at the cherry in my drink. “At least, I’m not likely to.”

“Fine,” I said. “It’s a deal.”

“Deal.” She spun around on her barstool and hugged me. “When I visit, can we both take on aliases and talk to strangers?”

“Screw you,” I said, laughing.

“Oh, right back at you, kiddo,” she said, and planted a big, lipsticky kiss on my cheek.

I sat down next to her again and ordered myself a soda.

“So,” she said, wrapping her cherry stems in a bar napkin, “you didn’t get back together with Deagan, did you?”

“No,” I said, stirring the ice around in my soda with my straw.

“Oh! Good! I worried you would.” Her eyes were wide and she scrambled for more words, like she was trying so hard to say the right things. “I mean, it would be easy to, you know? Not just for you. For anyone. To fall back into old patterns.” She swiveled to face me, planting her feet on the bottom rungs of my barstool. “Do you miss him?”

“Not as much as I thought I would,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “Because there’s no point in being with anyone who’s too stupid to realize that they should want to be with you.”

T
he letter offering
me the position as Anita’s assistant arrived a few days later. I stuck it to my refrigerator with a magnet from the pizza place. Every time I walked into the kitchen and saw it, I flushed with pride and my stomach wobbled like I was looking down from a great height. I was taking a leap, changing the things I could change, leaving behind the things that I couldn’t.

As soon as I sent in the paperwork to accept the job, I started weeding through my possessions and getting rid of things. I didn’t want to live with ghosts anymore. My dishes were from my parents’ bridal registry. My couch and love seat were hand-me-downs my dad gave me when one of his “chippies” redecorated his condo. Deagan bought me the coffee table for my birthday. I’d always meant for the wing chair to end up in his living room.

I packed it all up carefully and arranged to have Volunteers of America come pick it up. Someone who didn’t know they were relics of failed relationships would be happy to have these things, but I didn’t want reminders of hurt in my new life. I wanted to start fresh.

I kept only what I could fit in my Jeep, only the things that felt like they were really mine: my paints and paintings, some of my clothes, a sketchbook from Ithaca, my Bombers beer stein, the fancy vacuum cleaner I splurged on when I got my first paycheck, Snuffy’s kitty condo.

I packed Deagan’s things in one of the booze boxes I’d snagged from the liquor store. Most of it wasn’t really stuff he needed anyway: the extra toothbrush he kept at my place, a contact lens case, the pair of scratched-up glasses he only wore when he was desperate, slippers with unraveling stitches, a worn-out sweatshirt. When he’d brought these things over, it felt monumental, like a leap in a new direction, but I realized when the box was sitting on the passenger seat on the way to his apartment that he’d left behind things he could spare anyway. Plus if he’d really wanted any of it, he could have taken it back when he left my suitcase. But I didn’t want the responsibility of throwing his stuff away. I guess I also wanted to say good-bye.

The fact that we were done, that Deagan left me for someone else, didn’t negate the fact that for a very long time I had thought of him as the person I was going to marry. I was really leaving. There’d be no running into him at Wegmans or hearing how he was doing from one of his friends when I saw them at the Public Market. We wouldn’t keep in touch. This was an honest-to-goodness end, and I needed to be a grown-up about it and face it head-on. I needed to say the right things and then say good-bye.

“W
ow, Jen,” Deagan
said, “your hair looks great.” He took the box from me and shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, giving me a sheepish smile. It was all very civilized.

I guess part of me had wanted him to open the door and grab me and kiss me with a passion he’d never had before and tell me that Faye was just a horrible, stupid phase that made him realize how wrong he’d really been. I didn’t want him back. I only wanted the upper hand. It was the natural breakup wish, to be the dumper, not the dumpee, to preserve a little more dignity. But Deagan looked good. Happy. And from the little I knew about Faye, she seemed like the right person for him. She didn’t even mind the horrible foot smell of the indoor volleyball courts. I wasn’t the right person for Deagan, and he wasn’t the right one for me.

“Thanks,” I said. “So, um, I’m moving and I wanted to drop this off before I leave.”

“New apartment moving or moving moving?”

“Seattle,” I said. “Moving moving.”

“Wow,” he said, shifting the box from one hip to the other. “Do you want to come in? I just made coffee.”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

He stepped aside and let me in. It was odd to be in his apartment and not picture it as the place I’d be living someday, to feel like a guest all of a sudden.

He poured our coffee. He put mine in the mug I always liked best—the handmade one from People’s Pottery—but I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or it was just the mug he grabbed.

“I shouldn’t have broken up with you like that. I’m sorry,” he said.

“Yeah.”

We sat side by side on the stools at his kitchen counter.

“I know it’s probably not important,” he said, looking into his coffee cup, “but I didn’t cheat on you.”

“Oh,” I said, taking a deep breath. My eyes stung. “That actually is important.” I looked at him. “I thought—you canceled the spa reservation like a month before and I thought—”

“I canceled because I knew I needed to end things. I knew it wasn’t fair to feel like . . .” He looked at me and looked away again quickly. “Then every time I saw you, I wasn’t sure. I’d change my mind.”

I scratched at a bubble in the glaze on the mug.

“But I didn’t even tell Faye how I felt until after,” he said. “I waited until after we broke up.”

“You mean after you dumped me at the airport and drove off with my luggage,” I said.

He gave me a horrified look. “I’m so sorry.”

I smiled at him. “I want to be mad at you for all of it—to hold on to the idea that you’re this bad guy—but I think I just need to get over it and move on.” It was easier to talk sitting next to him, to just say things out into the kitchen in general. I didn’t have to make eye contact. I didn’t want to. It was easier to say the hard stuff. “I wish you’d been honest about who you are and what you want, but I wasn’t honest either. I don’t even think I knew what I wanted. I think I was just grasping for all the things I thought I should want. Who I thought I should be.” I took a sip of coffee. It was terrible. He always made his coffee too weak.

“So, did you get a job in Seattle?” he asked. He was kicking his foot on the rung of the stool and it occurred to me that he was nervous.

I wasn’t. I felt calm.

“I’m going back to school,” I said.

“Marketing?”

“Painting.” I smiled.

“Really?” He looked at me like maybe I was someone he hadn’t actually met before.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I remember you used to paint. Why did you stop?”

“You hated the way the paint smelled.”

We were both quiet for a while.

“I had no idea,” he said finally, his forehead wrinkled up.

“Hey,” I said, “I should have told you to suck it up. I was so scared of losing you that I put all my energy into trying to be who I thought you wanted.” I laughed. “That’s really stupid, isn’t it?” I wrapped my hands around the coffee mug to warm them. “We’re not right for each other. And that’s okay.”

“Maybe I have no right to say this, Jen, but I’m really proud of you.”

“Thanks,” I said. I used my ankle to stop him from kicking the rung of his stool.

He smiled.

We finished our coffee. I hugged him good-bye. He kissed my cheek. After he shut the door behind me, I walked down the hallway, choking back tears. The next good-bye would be even harder.