Читать книгу The Last Time I Was Me - Cathy Lamb - Страница 12

I woke to a splitting headache and a pounding on my door. I had slept naked so was feeling quite nude.

I said something unintelligible to the door, which sounded like, “I don’t want any tomatoes.”

“Jeanne?” A person, perhaps of the male species, called through the door.

I tried to speak but during the night someone must have snuck in and stuffed cotton balls mixed with turpentine in my mouth, so I grunted. The grunt sounded like a boar in heat.

“Jeanne? Are you all right?” Another male species’ voice.

I grunted again, boarlike.

“Jeanne? Please let us check on you.”

I shoved the hair out of my eyes, swung my legs over the edge of the bed and felt instantly irritated because floors should not shake when one stands on them and this one did. “Stupid floor,” I muttered.

“What?” the male species’ voices said as one.

I wrestled with my jeans, slipped my purple camisole over my head and stumbled across the swaying floor to the door. I would not stay here in this swaying-floored hotel again, I vowed. The two men I had met the night before, the owners, looked at me with great sympathy when I opened the door. The short one said something to the tall one. I thought I heard the word “blood.” The tall one nodded, then left.

“Perry will be right back,” Short One said. “May I suggest that you sit down?”

He may. I trudged back across the swaying floor and tumbled to the bed, holding my head with both hands. “The floor moves and shakes. It’s too noisy in here,” I told him. It came out like “Da foor moo an shake. Ith u neezy inair.”

He didn’t say anything, but sat down on the bed beside me. Now, in any other circumstance I would have been alarmed by a man I didn’t know sitting on the side of a bed with me. But I knew that Short One and Tall One were gay so I didn’t much worry.

“Yes,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “It is very noisy. We’re trying to get the volume of the noise down right now.”

“And it’s too hot.” Came out: “Anithtu ot.”

I felt Short One move and knew he was looking at the open patio doors. I could hear the rain.

“Yes, it is very, very hot in here. Steaming. We’re working on that, too.”

“Will you turn the cool up?” I asked. Came out: “Illuturnda-coolup?”

“Yes, we’ll turn the cool up.”

“Good.” I laid back on the bed. I felt him lift my feet. He covered me with a blanket. I decided to go back to sleep. “I’ll pay you for another night.” Came out: “Allpath u pour nother wight.”

I heard someone enter the room. Must have been the tall one. Short One and Tall One pulled me up against the headboard. I smelled tomato juice.

Yummy. I love tomato juice. It’s the only thing I’ll drink when I’m flying on airplanes.

“Have a nonalcoholic Bloody Mary,” Short One said. “Then we’ll let you go back to sleep.”

I complied. One of them held me up; the other held the drink to my mouth. I drank the whole thing.

“Super,” I told them. “It’s quieter now that’s it’s not so hot. Thank you.” (“Ith kwiter now ot tho ot. Thk u.”)

“You’re welcome,” Short One said. “We’ve turned up the cool and we’ve turned down the noise.”

“Yes,” Tall One said. “More to your liking. Now let’s lay back down and relax since the heat is cool now and the noise is gone.”

I felt them lower me back to the bed. They straightened the blanket.

“Why did you wake me up?” I asked (“Ididjawakeeeup?”)

“We wanted to make sure you were still with the program,” Tall One said. “It’s important to us that none of our guests slip from this world to the next while still on the premises.”

Good idea “Slkjweoiure,” I said.

Even in my hungover state I could see their looks of pity.

I hate pity, but was too hungover to get feisty. Plus, they had brought me a (virgin) Bloody Mary.

The door clicked shut when they left.

I decided to sleep again. This time I hoped I wouldn’t hear the sound of my own screams in my nightmares.

I dreamed of my mother. Her face. Her smiling face. She came to me in my dream. I love you, Mom, I told her.

“Quit drinking,” she yelled back at me. “I’ve told you once, I’ve told you twice, quit drinking.”

When I woke up the second time I had to pee so bad I could feel it slipping out in hot dribbles. I envisioned my bladder swollen up to the size of a small pig. I waddled to the bathroom, legs crossed tight, barely made it to the toilet, did my business, relaxed on the white throne with my poor head nestled in my hands, then stood up with not too much balance and looked at my face.

I looked like death.

Skeletal, pale, and gaunt. The light outside the window told me it was time for dinner. My stomach told me I had to eat or die.

I contemplated my choices and decided that death by starvation was not on my list of things to do today. I showered, washed my hair and body with this fabulous smelling lemon-and-vanilla scented soap and shampoo, feeling my drunkenness rinsing away under the blast of the steamy hot water. I dried my hair, being careful with my aching head, and got dressed. I realized when I looked into a mirror that my clothes were rumpled and tired-looking, so I located the room’s iron and ironed away. I must say I was presentable when I was done.

I made the bed (I mentioned I like things tidy?) and opened the window to get rid of the stale, rotting body smell in the air. I grabbed my purse, shoved my feet into my fabulous shoes, and headed downstairs, my stomach roiling.

Short One and Tall One were in the living room when I headed down, drinking coffee. They both stood, smiling when I entered.

They were so cute, so eager to please, and so seemingly concerned with me, I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Coffee?” they asked.

I accepted, and pulled out my wallet and paid them for the second night. “Thank you,” I told them. “Sorry about my little drunken bout.”

“No problem,” Short One said cheerily, taking the money. “We’re delighted you didn’t vomit on the floor.”

“Or break things,” Tall One added.

“Me, too. Vomiting is repulsive,” I told them, sipping my coffee. Darn, that was good. I added a liberal dose of cream and not more than four tablespoons of sugar. “I never break things. Broken things make a mess. I like things tidy.”

“You also know how to drink coffee,” Short One said.

“I do indeed. No reason to skimp on cream and sugar, none at all.”

Tall One eyed me. He had brown eyes the size of chocolate kisses and huge shoulders. He was the kind of person you felt like hugging. “I think you need more cream in your life.”

“You’re definitely too thin,” said Short One.

I added more cream. I knew I was too thin. I didn’t particularly like how I looked. Fact was, I haven’t liked how I looked since Johnny and Ally died. When I was in love with Johnny I had curves. Hips, boobs, thighs. I weighed at least twenty pounds more than I do now. Johnny loved it. I felt healthy. After he died, I couldn’t eat.

Come to think of it, I haven’t been able to eat well since. Basically I live off of white wine, mochas, bananas (good mood-stabilizer), red wine, donuts, beer, cheese (goes good with wine), and bread.

Some days, I hardly eat. I wake up feeling ill.

Yes, I know I’m too thin. I look like a stick. Women have hated me in the past for this, but I will tell you this: I would far rather be plump than stick thin.

“Yep. I am too thin. I look like a bag of bones. I can almost hear myself rattling around. So, gentlemen, in honor of my latest binge, I think I’ll take myself out to dinner. If you could point me in the direction of a decent restaurant?”

Short One clapped his hands together. Tall One nodded. Both were instantly eager. “We were going out to eat. Would you like to join us? Our treat.”

“I’d love to go to dinner with you. You are not treating. I am. Don’t argue. I owe you one. Let’s go. I’m starving.” We went to a place called Jack’s. Fabulous clams in this buttery, garlicky sauce. Fabulous steak. Fabulous Caesar salad. I had only two drinks.

Tall One and Short One invited me to a club after dinner. The thought of going to a bar where men would scam on me as if I was a succulent and easy piece of salted meat held little appeal. They insisted on escorting me back to the bed-and-breakfast.

I semiboiled myself in a hot bubble bath, cried on my patio while sitting in a tight little ball, then tucked myself into bed.

Talking to the counselor had loosened too many mind-numbing memories. That night I dreamed of my baby. But she was joined by four other children. In the background there was a farm and a family of lambs.

I slept better.

“Okay, call Bob Davis, he’s the governor’s chief of staff, he’s at the number I gave you, so I can quit worrying, and make an appointment to meet Jay Kendall, our current governor, who is also going to be our next governor,” Charlie said, his voice anxious. “Jay’s going on vacation in a couple of weeks and I want you in Portland before to meet him. He needs a new communications director, our other one decided she wanted to study kickboxing full-time, whatever that means, and you’re it. Do it right away and call me when you’ve done it so I can quit worrying. This is a shoo-in. You’re a shoo-in. It’s one phone call. That’s it. One call.”

I kicked the water in the Salmon River with my feet, careful not to let my cell phone take a nosedive.

I did not miss the note of desperation in the voice of my older brother, Charlie. Charlie, the dear man, is insanely kind and smart and almost always worried sick about me. He is married with four children. His wife, Deidre, does not work outside her home and never intends to. My brother is smart enough to know that a woman with four children has more than enough to do at home. I have seen a photo of their white, rambling home in Portland and it made my throat close up because you know by looking at it that a happy, rambunctious, and chaos-plagued family dwells there.

I was wearing jeans but had decided to wade into the river up to my thighs anyhow. I glanced at the sun. It was about 4:00 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, or was it a Thursday? No, it was Wednesday. Thursday. Wednesday. Anyhow, I had been on the river since 7:22 that morning and had decided to end my day immersed in it.

“Jeanne?”

“Yes.” I bent to examine some neat rocks in the river.

“You’ll call and make an appointment? I really want you to do this. It’s an opportunity you can’t miss. Can’t miss.”

“Of course.” I flicked a few of the rocks over. A little fish swam by.

He sighed. “I don’t like the way you said, ‘Of course.’ You’re humoring me so we can get off this subject and you can get back to your nervous breakdown.”

I sang, “I will call,” in English, French, Spanish, Pig Latin.

“Okay, okay. I got it. Please. Now listen, Jeanne, listen up, I’m worried about you.”

“I know, darlin’, but I’m fine. Perfectly fine. Needed a bit of a change of scenery, that’s all.” Was that a frog?

“That’s not all-”

“I know it.” It was a frog! A tiny frog, right by the bank. Should I catch it? “And, I know you know what happened and I don’t want to talk about it.” My brother knew everything. From a young age he was reading all about politics and politicians. He can tell you, in great detail, all the ins and outs of all of the presidential elections for the last one hundred years. His favorite presidential campaign, however, was Abraham Lincoln’s.

Anyhow, he earned a scholarship to a fancy liberal college in Oregon, hooked up with a bunch of people there, graduated, got involved in politics, and was currently running the reelection campaign for Oregon’s governor. Along the way he had met about a zillion people. As one of his best friends is also a high mucky-muck in advertising in Chicago, it is not surprising that he had heard of my latest episode. Hopefully, he had not heard about the assault charges.

“Look here, Jeanne Beanie,” he sighed, using my childhood nickname. I could see him rubbing with two fingers that one lock of blondish hair that always fell over his forehead. Women were crazy about him, but he was so in love with Deidre that a person of the female sort could dance in front of him naked with a purple parasol and pink high heels and he probably wouldn’t notice.

“You’re a whiz kid. A whiz woman. Clear, articulate, funny, damn smart. People listen to you instead of tuning out like they do with everyone else. You know how to sell people stuff. You know how to lead, how to organize, research, market, create, how to get things done.”

Yes, and after many a day hard at work at the salt mines getting things done, I usually got quietly smashed out of my mind in the privacy of my own home.

“So, Jeanne, listen. I need you here in Portland. Right now. Why did you stop in Weltana anyhow?”

“Because I liked the pancakes.” That was the truth. Look at that! The little frog jumped to another rock. I tried to inch closer. The river lapped around my legs.

“Because you liked the pancakes?” I knew my brother’s hand was now rubbing that little space on the nose between the eyes. I could see him glaring out his office window in some high-rise in Portland.

“They’re delicious. Unbelievable. Can you drive out here and have some with me?”

“No, Jeanne, no” He raised his voice. I knew he was back to curling that curl. “No, not now.”

I strolled down the middle of the river. I watched a small wave crash into another, blend, crash again. There went the hoppy little frog. I followed.

I decided to tell Charlie the startling truth so he would get off my tail, God love the man. “I don’t want to work right now, Charlie.”

He swore very quietly, but I heard it. “Don’t swear,” I said, with quite a prim note in my voice.

“Jeanne, do it for me. You’re making me anxious. I feel anxious about you.”

I almost laughed. My big brother needed me employed so he could stop worrying about me and he specifically wanted me near him to make sure I didn’t drive my Bronco into the Pacific. “None of the other people Jay’s got in his office are the remotest bit as competent as you are, plus you’d be awesome-awesome-with the media. You speak like you know what you’re speaking about.”

“Charlie, political campaigns are nightmares. I’d rather poke my buttocks with sharp needles while cartwheeling.”

“Plus, plus you’ve always been interested in politics-local, state, even on a national level, you’re a walking, talking political history book. You have a mind like a trap, a good trap, not a bad trap. Come on, Jeanne-”

“I know nothing about Oregon politics. Nothing. I don’t even know what the gubernatorial candidates look like. I don’t know, or care about, this ‘Jay’ you’re talking about.”

“He’s a phenomenal man. He’s honest. He knows his stuff, Jeanne, honestly knows it. He’s innovative. He’s decisive. The polls have us in a dead heat against a closed-minded conservative state senator. Please, Jeanne, the pay’s good and I would consider it a personal favor.”

“I don’t owe you a single favor,” I told him.

We both laughed.

I owed him a thousand and one personal favors, and we both knew it. He had saved my life on many occasions. I watched the frog leap again. What a leaper!

“All right, Charlie, I’ll do it. I’ll make an appointment with this guy.”

He sighed with relief. “Good. When?”

“Soon.”

“How soon is soon?”

“Soon, darlin’. How’s Deidre?” The river kicked up a notch. Little baby waves splashed around my legs.

Asking about Deidre took Charlie’s mind off our conversation. “She’s doing great.”

Deidre is athletic-looking. She wears no makeup because she doesn’t need it and tells me that she makes their four kids play outside a lot because, “God made their skin dirt-proof so even if they roll in a puddle I know they’ll clean up good.” She does not allow video games. She hardly allows TV. She is super kind, well read and educated, and can talk about any topic under the sun. Beneath her cheer and good humor, she is a flaming liberal, a true and ardent believer in women’s rights.

I am sure that everyone she comes in contact with loves her.

And I cannot recall a time that I have ever been friendly to Deidre.

In fact, I have been snappish and often rude and dismissive of her stay-at-home mom’s life, the fact that she doesn’t work-isn’t she bored? Does she feel bad about not developing herself to her full potential? How can she be fulfilled? Is she, like, screaming to get out of her narrow and dull domestic life?

The truth of it is that I am crazily, greenly jealous of Deidre.

She has everything I want.

A husband. Many children. Lots of pets.

I thought I was going to be Deidre. I wanted to be Deidre. That dream was obliterated.

“She’s always wished that the two of you were closer.”

“I know, but I’m too cranky.” And currently mentally unstable. And a drunk, and a raving lunatic who appears normal from the outside. But who wants to state the truth about one’s mental health aloud?

“The kids would like to see you, too,” Charlie said, his voice so quiet. “You haven’t seen them in years. You’ve never even met the younger three.”

“I know.” Their first child is right about the same age as my daughter, Ally Johnna, would have been. Her name is Jeanne Marie (named after me). Charlie and Deidre always send me pictures of my nieces and nephews and I have scrapbooked every single one of those pictures. I love those children even though I have very rarely seen them. I send fabulous presents at their birthdays and Christmas, after consulting with Charlie about what they want. It is too bad they have such an off-her-rocker aunt who can hardly stand to look at them in real life without feeling like a sword is sticking perpendicularly through her heart, but I do adore them from afar.

“I’ll come see them, Charlie, I will.”

“You will?”

I almost cried at the hopeful note in Charlie’s voice.

“When? How about this weekend?”

“I can’t this weekend.”

“Why not this weekend?”

“I have plans.”

“What plans?”

“Fun plans. Thrilling plans.” Plans to watch this frog leap from one rock to another. I decided not to voice that.

“Jeanne, I know it’s hard for you, but the kids need an aunt. Deidre has no siblings, they need you-”

“I don’t want to talk about that, Charlie.” I snapped the words out like the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun, and regretted it. “I’m sorry. I will come and see the kids. I want to, I do.” I thought about it. Maybe I did. Maybe I could handle it.

I closed my eyes, waited for that tight vise on my heart to loosen.

“And you’ll call Bob Davis right away? He’ll set you up with an appointment with Jay. This’ll all go quick, you’ll be interviewed, offered the job, and we’ll get you moved to Portland. This is all settled. No problems.”

“No problems.” But there were problems, pesky problems. I didn’t want to work, didn’t want to write, didn’t want to help some egotistical whack-jerk lying politician get reelected.

Charlie reeled off a phone number twice, told me he loved me, I told him the same thing, and we said our good-byes and I love yous again. I watched the water swirl around my ankles. I love the colors in water. In very clean rivers, it looks clear, but the water is actually made up of different colors, clear colors, but colors all the same, and beneath the surface is a whole other life.

I bent my knees and submerged myself completely in the river, except for my cell phone. I closed my eyes, life blocked out, the current gently pushing me this way and that. When I couldn’t hold my breath another second, I stood up again. Dripping wet, I got out and headed toward Rosvita’s, picking up the almost empty wine bottle I’d left on the grass.

I thought about Charlie’s call. I didn’t want to work, but life is filled with all of these jolly, money-sucking surprises, isn’t it?

For example, I didn’t know at that wet moment that I was going to buy a decrepit, sagging home in desperate and sad need of immediate and extensive repairs in the next weeks. That was a money-sucker.

I did know that dealing with Slick Dick was going to be another herculean money-sucker.

I went to Rosvita’s back porch, stripped naked, then climbed up the stairs to my room. There were no other guests, and Rosvita was out visiting a friend in Portland who was a bacteriologist.

As soon as I was dry and dressed I headed to The Opera Man’s Café to get myself pancakes, as I did at least five times a week. Call it therapy. Call it coming to terms with my pancake past. I couldn’t get enough.

For the first time in years I actually felt like I was making a few friends. The people in The Opera Man’s Café smiled at me when I brought my sorry self in, waved me over, talked to me in a normal tone about normal stuff as if I was a normal person. I often ate with them and their good cheer always warmed me as much as the coffee.

Bring on the syrup.