You Love Me(You #3)(95)

I recognize that you are in a cult and it is not your fault. The cult showed up on your doorstep and moved into your fucking house and you are in debt to the leader of the cult. But you’re in there, somewhere, and I have to try and reach you. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mary Kay, but how’s that Kool-Aid?”

“Excuse me?”

And off you go, defending that monster who’s just looking out for you and I never should have brought him into this and you’re hiding from me by talking about him. You tell me that you know I didn’t mean to take advantage of you and I am on my feet.

“I didn’t take advantage of you, Mary Kay.”

“Oh no? You didn’t hang around my house knowing that I was weak, that my husband just died? You didn’t pop by with toilet paper and wait for everyone to leave and you didn’t prevent me from being alone so that I could take charge of my feelings and put my thinking cap on? You didn’t do that? None of it?”

“Mary Kay…”

“Because the way I see it…” I as in Ivan and he is worse than RIP Steve Jobs, hell-bent on owning the world’s most important pronoun, the one that makes you you. “Well, Joe…” You never talk like this. “I did not come here to fight with you…” Yes you did. “I did not come here to explain myself to you…” Yes you did. “I came here to hold you accountable for your behavior, your behavior that was very harmful to me, your behavior that, whether or not you intended it, did drive me off course.”

The Whisper Room is right downstairs and you are in a cult and you’re not eating enough—he’s starving you, it’s part of the brainwashing—and I want to keep you, save you. I want to wrap my arms around you and you stand.

“I’m not obligated to listen to what you have to say to me because it’s not my job to take care of you…” Yes it is. We take care of each other. “And yes, I have feelings for you… but you can’t trust your feelings.”

“Mary Kay, do you hear yourself? This isn’t you. This is him.”

“And you don’t like him.”

I won’t lie to you and I can’t lie to you so I don’t say a word. You look down at your white cult dress. “Well,” you say. “I will leave you to process your emotions and do for you what you did not do for me. I will give you the space to feel your feelings about the dissolution of this relationship.”

“Mary Kay, what are you trying to say?”

I know damn well what you are trying to say but maybe if I force you to say it, you will change your mind. “You know what I’m saying.”

“No,” I say. “I don’t.”

You ignore one of my cats when he marks you as his territory and you tense up on me, on my cats, our cats. “It’s over, Joe.”

“So you want to break up with me.”

“No. People have to be in a serious relationship in order to break up…” We were serious to me. We are serious to me. “I was in a fog…” You are in the fog right now. “And Phil might be alive if you and I hadn’t been running around…” You make it sound like I grew the fucking poppy seeds and you wipe away a tear and the fog thickens. You shiver when I take a step toward you and your tear ducts go into lockdown. “No,” you say. “It’s over.”

Ivan won your head. He reconfigured your heart. I can’t give up. I tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way and I remind you of how long we’ve known each other, how hard we worked to get here, and you huff. “Yeah,” you say, and you’re not Ivan’s puppet and I wish you were but no, this is you, the woman I know. “You said it, Joe. And we really did fuck up. But I don’t want to hash it out with you.” You purse your lips. “And there’s no point…”

I step toward you and you step back. “I’m moving,” you say.

“You’re what?” No no no no no.

“We put the house on the market.”

NO NO NO NO NO. Your insanity is supposed to be temporary. “Mary Kay, come on. Slow down a minute. You can’t tell me you want to move away. Not with him.”

“I just did tell you.”

“Hang on a minute. This feels a little unfair, Mary Kay. I love you. You know that. You said it.”

And now finally you do meet my eyes. “I told you, Joe. That day never happened.”

That was the best day of my life—I have the Polaroids to prove it—and you cut me off when I try to reason with you. “I’d appreciate it if you would respect my feelings and stay away.” You take my doorknob in your hand. You squeeze. “Goodbye, Joe. Good luck.”

You close my door—you don’t slam it—and I walk to the window and I wait for you to look back—the woman always looks back at the one she loves—but you don’t do it, Mary Kay. You don’t love me anymore.





36





It’s quiet in the Whisper Room and in the great tradition of so many authors on this island, I open Microsoft Word and I open Chrome because the old adages are true: Write what you know and know thy enemy, especially if you’re going to write about him.

I open my mind—ouch—and watch a video of one of Ivan’s newest female converts—possibly a paid actor, actually let’s go with probably—and she’s wearing her thinking cap and she is energized. “Ivan should be the biggest life coach on the planet,” she says. “He changed everything for me. No more pop music, no more Air Supply when I’m PMSing, and no more sappy movies. Ivan taught me to stop feeling my feelings and start leading with my mind.”