The Night Before(8)

Laura: They didn’t love me. They just thought they did.

Dr. Brody: Because they didn’t know you?

Laura: Maybe. Rosie says I choose men who won’t love me. I choose them because they won’t love me. But why would I do that?

Dr. Brody: To prove a point.

Laura: What point?

Dr. Brody: It will be more helpful if you find the answer yourself.

Laura: Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hate you a little right now.





FIVE


Laura. The Night Before. Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Branston, CT.

Jonathan. John. Johnny. Jack. As I drive downtown, I wonder what people call him.

There’s traffic and I’m running late. Construction. One-lane road. Shit. It’s good to be late. Keep him waiting! I tell this to myself. I can be one of those women who pull this off. Hide the eagerness. Hide the desire.

I think about texting him, but he said he doesn’t like to text. I don’t want to call, because that’s a little extreme. And, of course, my phone is on low battery because I forgot the charger from my room. God forbid Rosie should leave one in the car.

He’ll wait ten minutes. Won’t he?

The minivan smells like Goldfish and apple juice. Rosie cleans it every week, but it makes no difference. I don’t think she smells it anymore, she’s so used to it, like the stale coffee that pervades the kitchen until Joe comes home from work and empties the pot.

The kitchen is Rosie’s domain until then, and I usually find her there staring at nothing while Mason watches cartoons. She pours me the stale coffee (to chase away the bourbon hangovers from late nights with Joe and Gabe) and recites mantras from her days as a feminist, with the same breath that she gives me advice on how to be attractive.

You don’t need a man, Laura. Not for anything.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s easy to say you don’t need something when you’re holding it in your hands. She might as well tell me she doesn’t need her coffee as she inhales her second cup.

Still, I consider her advice now as I feel the panic that he might leave because I’m ten minutes late.

I don’t need a man.

The only trouble is that after years of wondering why it was so hard for me to find one, I finally had done just that—found a man who loved me.

He didn’t stay long, but while he was here, he unlocked the door to a well of needs. And there were so many of them. The need to be held and touched. The need to laugh and cry and search another’s soul. The need to be seen. To be known. Not the fierce and fearless warrior who conquered the world, but the little girl tugging on a sleeve or the hem of a coat, looking up. Always, always looking up with the foolish hope that someone would look back and be happy to see me there.

I am pathetic with my silly daydreams.

Jonathan Fields … do they call you Nathan? Or Nate?

I wonder if he’s handsome in real life. I wonder if his hair is as dark and full as his pictures, his eyes as blue. His body as fit as it looks hidden beneath a shirt. I wonder if I will see that thing in his eyes that I love. Mischief. Just a little. Not the kind old me likes. Just enough to keep her quiet.

But whatever I see when my eyes first fall upon Jonathan Fields, I will not ignore it. I will not pretend he is the right man if there is clear evidence that he is the wrong man. And I will not invent evidence to prove he’s the wrong man if he’s the right man.

I am handicapped by a lack of instinct. Tonight will not be easy.

Jonathan Fields. I’m almost there.

Past the construction on Main Street. I make a left on Hyde, another on Richmond. I find a spot at a meter and pull in. We’re meeting at an Irish pub that is just on the block behind me. On the left. It’s nestled in between an upscale diner and an Italian place. They have seating outside in the summer. When we were kids, we used to get in with our fake IDs. I think it’s harder these days. But maybe they’ve learned how to make better IDs. Ours were more pathetic than my daydreams.

I have so many memories from growing up in this town. They’ve been crawling out from every corner since the day I returned.

Jonathan Fields suggested this place. He said it was near his apartment so he went there a lot and the bartenders would give him free whiskey. Not that he couldn’t afford whiskey. He made sure to throw that in, and I have not done anything with any of this information. I’ve left my scaffolding at home. There will be no inventions tonight. No reconstructions. No blind eyes. I had an excellent therapist, even if I was a terrible patient.

I open the vanity mirror and check my face. Mascara hasn’t smudged. Cheeks are rosy. I apply some more cherry-red lipstick because I’ve been biting my lip. I rub some of it off my teeth with my finger. That’s really not a good look. Lipstick on your teeth. Seriously. That could have been a fatal unforced error.

Damn it! Have I become my mother? I close the mirror and stare out the windshield, onto the street. After Dick left us, our mother couldn’t sleep or eat unless she had a boyfriend, and she would go to the bottom of the barrel to find one. After Dick left us, she went out almost every night and I remember hating her for it.

How do I look, girls?

We don’t give a shit, Mom. We have homework and tests and our periods and zits and the other tortures of puberty to deal with—alone—thank you very much.

I don’t want to be someone I hate. But maybe that’s what’s required.