You Love Me(You #3)(94)

I leave your bed and I open your computer—it’s old and big and the password is predictable—LADYMARYKAY—and I open your email. On the fourth day of every month for the last several years, you have written to him:

Dear Ivan,

Someday we will pay you back. I know how that sounds. But I mean it.

Love,

MK

And on the fifth day of every month, Ivan replies to you:

Dear Mary Kay,

We’re family. I’m happy to help.

Love, Ivan

I dive into the financial mess of your life and Phil blew his royalties and his trust fund—he didn’t like to work—but Ivan was smart. Straight edge. Their parents cut them both off and you and your rat were regulars at the Bank of Ivan and the house really isn’t yours. It’s his name on the mortgage.

Your house smells like dead lilies and Ivan’s sweat and my phone buzzes and I want it to be you but it’s Oliver: Watching you, my friend. Not crazy about what I see…



* * *



Days pass and you get worse and you really are in a cult. I go to Pegasus early in the morning and I wait for you—I am reading The Girls and I can’t wait to say the word CULT to you—and eventually you enter the coffee shop. But you aren’t happy to see me.

“Joe, I’m in kind of a rush.”

I close my book. “I get it,” I say. “But did you ever read this?”

You shake your head no and you don’t ask about me or my fucking cats and it’s like you don’t even hear the Bob Dylan playing in the background. You just point at the counter. “I really do have to go… I know you probably want to talk but I just…”

“I get it.”

“We have company and it’s crazy at home.”

That’s the right word, Mary Kay: crazy.

“Oh hey,” I said. “Superquick… how’s Nomi? I just hope she’s getting through this okay. It’s a rough go those first few weeks…”

I already know that Nomi is in trouble. She told everyone on Instagram that she’s taking a fucking gap year and putting NYU on hold to intern for Uncle Ivan in Denver. The hashtag made me sick: #ListenToYourHead

But you don’t tell me about Nomi’s bad decision. You barely look me in the eye. “That’s sweet of you,” you say. “And I promise, we’re good. Hanging in. Everything is under control.”

Yes, Mary Kay. Ivan is controlling you and he’s controlling the Meerkat and you buy three lattes—none for me—and you leave with a sexless wave—Bye, Joe!—and that shark is moving fast and the Meerkat is adrift. Technically, she’s an “adult,” but she’s a young eighteen and she needs someone to tell her that you don’t make life decisions when you’re in mourning. The iPhone killed romance and turned us all into lazy, nasty stalkers and now Ivan the iMan is killing us.



* * *



Three days later, it’s like you’ve gone to the dark side. I really don’t exist to you. I don’t go outside. Oliver’s so “worried” about me that he sent me a fucking cheesecake via Postmates, as if one cheesecake makes up for the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on him.

I’ve been playing “Hallelujah” on repeat, trying to hate you, trying to think of you as the woman who fucked your husband right in front of me, a semireformed brother fucker who didn’t catch on when her best friend was pleasuring her husband. I’m trying to accept that something about those men gets to you. Your rat dies and you immediately glom onto his brother. You have been brainwashed and I know that. I do. But I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop loving you.

So I send you a text: hi

You send me a text: hi

I send you another text: is it bad if I say I miss you?

You don’t answer me and eleven long minutes go by—oh, fuck you, clock—and I am the stupidest man on the planet and maybe I should kill your half brother-in-law because a man as stupid as me deserves to rot in prison for being stupid.

And then there is a knock on my door and it’s you.

“Hello.” You’re wearing a baggy dress I’ve never seen and it’s cult white.

“Hi,” I say. “Come on in.”

You enter in silence and you don’t notice the music and you don’t smile your foxy smile and you don’t cry your foxy tears. You are dead-eyed. You’re here but I don’t know who you are and you won’t sit on my Red Bed sofa and now your lips are moving. I follow your gaze.

“Mary Kay, are you… are you counting the red stuff?”

“Well, it is a lot of red, Joe. Is this meant to turn your house into a Red Bed?”

Yes. “No, I just like red.”

You nod. You’re still in there and you know when I’m lying and you tell me this says a lot about me and it does. But then you purse your lips. “You can’t make the world red. This was really confrontational of you, Joe. And overbearing.”

“Whoa,” I say. “Where is this coming from?”

You shrug. And I know where this is coming from. You listened to Ivan’s take on us. “Look,” I say. “I know you’re going through hell, but come on. It’s me. I love you.”

You close your eyes. “Don’t say that you love me, Joe. That’s just a physical sensation. It’s just a feeling.”