third person

He was much better than the man before.

Over the years Mark had become friends with all of her friends. Unlike the-man-before, everyone liked him. Recently he even began to play the bass in her best friend, Jake’s, band. Jake liked him. And because Jake held a certain deference for authority of all kinds, most especially academic things, Jake asked Mark many questions about Literature and Shakespeare and teaching. Aida, her best girlfriend, thought Mark was lovely and very kind — if perhaps a bit repressed. Aida believed all people were repressed, of course, the classic psychoanalyst.

A good person, all her friends said, which she knew.

Her family loved him, too. Her father, who must have seen a lot of himself in Mark—the two of them professors, both thoughtful and generally content, if anxious and sometimes awkward and misunderstood—  and loved him a great deal, always hunting Mark down to ask very specific questions regarding 17th and 18th Century Literature and to talk in general about how Mark’s courses were going at the college. More than once her father and stepmother brought home United Kingdom-themed gifts: t-shirts with slogans about Cake or Shakespeare, or spatulas decorated with British flags. Not that Mark baked or cooked. They just enjoyed thinking of him and picking up thematic items at various stores throughout whatever journey they had embarked upon.

Her sister and mother enjoyed Mark’s tendency to pose dramatically for photographs and insisted he had the cutest dimples, an attribute she stubbornly refused to acknowledge, calling them wrinkles instead, inspiring the playful and patient rolling of Mark’s eyes and a barrage of counter-arguments from her female family members.

Her mother asked Mark how to brew the perfect cup of tea, the order in which milk and tea and sugar should be combined. Her stepfather never missed an opportunity to take Mark out for a hike, not that Mark was a physical man or particularly liked hiking, at least not the uphill sort, but Mark always went along, knowing her stepfather enjoyed the time, and her stepfather always took her aside afterwards to tell her what a decent person Mark seemed to be.

The family loved his accent, and when visiting, they wandered around the apartment repeating unfamiliar sounding words and phrases amongst each other: bAHsil and toMAHto; Would-do and Jolly-good.

He was not like the-man-before. Not at all. Unlike the-man-before, who was dapper, in fitted suit and tie, Mark sometimes wore cheap H&M ugly-colored sweaters that did not go well with his shoes. Bald at 33 and professorially soft, Mark had very different qualities. For instance, she loved that you would never know how much Mark knew about a topic, how long he might have studied it. He never needed to make a point of things like that.

Discerning and opinionated about the music he bought, the movies and plays he watched, Mark did not particularly need to impose his views on others. He wasn’t one to focus on the discord. No matter how misinformed, herself included, no matter how much Mark knew better and otherwise, he never made a person feel small. It wasn’t his constitution. He was generous. Inherently curious. She wished she was naturally that way, too.

The-man-before flaunted measurable indicators of success and prowess, all easily identifiable, serving to distract her from less visible, but more significant, characteristics. A bright young litigator, partner-track at a respected firm, Thomas was crafty with his tongue. He was handsome, athletic, and rented a lovely apartment in Old City before buying a gorgeous Twin Victorian on a nice block near the university. There, he lived with his young daughter and two cats, one named Pants and one named Guido, names she would have chosen herself, had she been creative enough to have thought of them. Thomas, the-man-before, was full of surprise and energy. He was clever and often made her laugh. She liked watching him work on his motorcycle and loved that he could build things with his hands.

She realized only later that she had failed to see what was important. It was her own vanity that blinded her to it. She felt too good taking him to the office holiday party or to a friend’s birthday engagement. She felt too much pride sharing photos of household improvements. She enjoyed too much creating holiday cards displaying photo collages of their handsome lives.

What was important, she realized much too late, was what surfaced only when they were alone. Always percolating, it seemed, but concealed behind these handsome, observable things — at least to her. Or by her. She’s never been quite sure.

What was important was that in the end there was nothing she could do to satisfy him. Nothing she could do to make him stop. What was important was that each day, as she worked too hard to understand it all, to do and change what she could, becoming all the more entangled until she forgot herself.

As it happened, walls and doors shut so slowly she didn’t notice until she was breathless, until she became too tired and too small in that Twin Victorian that had become her home.

Heartpartment.

Mark gave her cards. 

All the time for every occasion from every conceivable source. 

For instance, once after getting over a cold, Mark gave her a card signed by his “Throat, Nose and Chest,” thanking her for taking care of them the weekend before. 

On another occasion, because she had bought him a vintage 1940’s messenger bag— one much nicer than his, six years old and falling to pieces—she received a thank you card signed “Regards, the 1940s.” 

Once Mark left a card on her pillow: “On behalf of all trees everywhere, can you stop doing such wonderful things?” 

On the week of her 34th birthday, “Entertainment TM” sent her a series of seven cards, one each day, all outlining parts of “The 7 Wonders of Erin’s Birthday,” (Tagline: The pyramids ain’t got shit on this TM). 

Each card was typographically decorated by him, because at some point she happened to take a typography course. She learned things, but Mark always picked up on things so easily. And from mere end-of-day, how-was-your-day conversations.  It did frustrate her slightly. She often sat at her desk paralyzed, unable to put what she learned into action, yet here were Mark’s cards. They were pretty remarkable. Especially for a Literature Professor.

The first Christmas they shared at his family’s home in London, Mark assembled a dossier outlining the Characters, Scenes, and Acts she should expect upon arrival.  He drafted ten pages of detailed information regarding familial structure, potential inter-familial intrigue and drama, and probable events. All this because she was so nervous to meet everyone-at-once, while staying in such close, unknown quarters. The document was sent to her from “The M.H. Festive Consortium in partnership with EAD Foundation for the Entertainment of EAD.”  MH and EAD of course being their initials. 

Much earlier, before they lived together, he once slipped her a card with keys to his “heartpartment.” 

He was very creative, very funny.

Sometimes when she received these notes and novels, she thought he must love her very, very much.

It wasn’t until much later, sitting on the sofa, reading through stacks of cards and notes, that she realized how little she had actually appreciated them back then. She hadn’t appreciated them enough, not as much as she should have, at all. 

All manners of new things.

What happened was:

After they got engaged, she felt increasingly anxious about the things she usually felt anxious about and began to worry about all manners of new things she’d never worried about before.

She began thinking she should do things. And, since she really had no idea what things she should do, she thought the first thing she ought to do was research what things exactly needed to be done. 

It turned out there were practical things like rings and ceremonies and parties and invitations and dresses and hairstyles, and surrounding these practical things there were other things like debates she was supposed to have with various people about what and which and when, and who – including who should do x or y but not a or b – and discussions about whether the whole thing should be about this or that and/or not-about-that or not-about-this. And of course, there was the cost of things. 

She should look up places that had various wedding-related items and advice, she thought. And so she could make the proper decisions, she should probably look up the meaning of things. For instance the different parts of the ceremony, and whether a particular part should be included or excluded based on its meaning and whether it made sense for her, for them. She should talk to the minister. Not that they had agreed on who he was yet, but John-the-minister was also Aida’s husband and a friend, and it’d be nice to have him officiate, which is what she thought they called it. Officiating? She was not Episcopalian necessarily, but she’d been to his services now and again. And mostly, he was down-to-earth, born and raised in Queens, hilarious and smart. He once, just on his way out to conduct a funeral, walked around the living room that she and Aida sat drinking tea, and dressed in his formal minister attire, swung a set of cow-bells, predicting that no one would really know if it was appropriate or even really care if he just started wandering around the funeral with the cow bells, swinging them as though they were incense at a Greek Orthodox or Catholic Mass. “They wouldn’t even think it was crazy if I did this,” he said, swinging them around, the cowbells clanking loudly and hurting all of their ears. This is why she loved John.

She should ask if he would speak about Carl Jung at the wedding because John-the-minister loved Carl Jung and she did too, and that would be quite fun, she thought and better than the regular religious messaging. Maybe he could reference Star Wars, too. Or at least Joseph Campbell.

There was so much to learn and decide and none of them were particularly appealing to spend her time researching, she thought. Except maybe talking with John, who was always fun to talk to anyway.

Perhaps she ought to see if the neighborhood bar would allow them to take over the place and have a dance party. Although she had never really envisioned doing anything other than going to a courthouse someday, if she ever really even envisioned that, she did have fantasies of hosting a killer dance party. She liked to dance very much.

In order to understand the story.

In order to understand the story, her friends said, we need to know why they stopped feeling desire in the first place.

But if she could lay it all out for them, she thought, why would the story need to be told? She would love to be able to lay it all out.

Instead, there were gaps and points of confusion and missed moments and opportunities and she couldn’t identify them all. What was important? What didn’t matter at all? What had she confused as being the former when it was truly the latter? She didn’t really know.

They wanted to know Why.  

Was it always like this, they asked? Or was it like this because of the mess?

If only she knew. She was not certain which things fell into which category; what was cause, what was effect, what just happened. Some things happened, she thought, other things didn’t.

What was the cause of it all. She wished she knew. It wasn’t so clear.

But: Why? They asked.

She wondered if there was any Why at all. Was there always a Why?

And if there wasn’t a Why, she worried: how would she ever know what to do?

The Pillows.

The counselor sat facing them in her large black leather chair, which looked quite comfortable, unlike that old brown sofa where they sat. Nicer than the one in the waiting room, but only just, and always holding too many pillows. Too many, at least, if anyone wanted to actually sit. She never knew what to do with the pillows.

Mark sat on the far side and told the counselor he was upset she couldn’t let the small things go. It seemed she had to comment on everything, he said. Or that was the gist of it. He used a lot of words while she sat silently and tried to keep her mind open. She too felt very upset.

What upset her wasn’t so much the facts underlying his frustration, he was often in the right, she often was inconsiderate and much too critical—it was (again) the fact that he hadn’t said anything to her about it until now. It was as if he had kept the evidence tucked away, hidden until he had someone to hide behind, avoiding her, which was the problem in the first place.

When she found out these things so late it seemed as if she were, unbeknownst to herself, living in imaginary spaces that didn’t actually exist. It was jolting to find you were living in fantasies. For instance thinking the whole week that he was content with her, when he was not at all content. Admittedly, a week was a much better than, for instance, the time between the present moment and a Saturday three years ago.

The three pillows were large and square and red with small orange flecks. She never knew what to do with them. Each time she entered the office, she was forced to prepare to sit, a process of gathering up pillows and moving them elsewhere. She wondered if the placement of pillows was some sort of test, a makeshift Rorschach. For instance, if she placed the pillows on the floor or on the back of the couch or between herself and Mark, or behind her head or to her right, did it mean something? The same way the crossing of arms or legs, or leaning forward or backward supposedly did? She wondered if the counselor made notations. Wednesday, June 03, 2013. Pillow placement: Hoarding/Regressive. Avoidant/Distancing. Resistant.

She did not want to exhibit anything by the movement of a pillow from here to there, but it often seemed as though everything was a mark of something else. Wasn’t there something about a cigar just being a cigar, she thought. But was that ever true? Of course, she was often the one busy thinking about what every cigar really meant, always searching, looking for more, never content with anything simple and plain. She knew. Projection. She knew what that was too.

She spoke to the counselor directly, addressing Mark in third person. First, she said, she was listening, she understood he was frustrated and why—but also: this didn’t seem fair. Why hadn’t he brought this up before? With her? Why now? She felt like she had been brought to the principal’s office.

Why couldn’t he address her directly? Look her in the eye?

It enraged her when he tucked things away. She’d have preferred he just confront her.

It would make her feel she could exist without destroying him, without him leaving her.

Pros and Cons

She laid down, her back against the ragged cream diamonds of the rug, and thought: the things she suggested were not at all like horseback rides or writing courses.

When she suggested things, she thought, they often tended to imply a deficiency of some sort. Like when she suggested he get rid of his jeans in favor of other jeans that fit — at least to her mind — much better. Or, when she bought him a new pair of brown leather shoes to match his wardrobe. Which they did, of course, much better than his old grey ones. Or, when she suggested one Saturday morning three years ago standing over her peanut-butter toast in the kitchen, that he might benefit from seeing a shrink.

It was all with the best of intentions, or so she thought at the time. The jeans, the shoes. She had learned so much from having a shrink of her own.

But of course in retrospect, she realized she had not told Mark she loved him, old shoes, ill-fitting jeans and all, had she?

What was it like having someone suggest you are in need of new pants and shoes and a shrink? She wouldn’t even know, since he never gave her these kinds of suggestions.

It was easier to see what was wrong with things. That was the problem. The clutter. The disturbances. The things that didn’t fit. The squeaks and grease. 

Sometimes she considered writing a list of pros and cons, the good and bad, so as to remind herself, or so as to finally see on the page, what it was that was good, what it was that was going well. The rest she could conjure without much effort at all. 

Look who’s the boss of everything.

Something was to arrive at the apartment between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m., but he wouldn’t tell her what it was. He’d just tell her when it was arriving.

Already look who was the boss of everything.

His stuff was in her (their) apartment.
Crazynutso. Right then, he was in her—their—room unpacking his things, while she was busying herself thinking about what not to think about.

She was nervous but fine, and still—she had to panic, at least a little. Foremost about his stuff being in their apartment. All those books and papers. The globes. That decrepit old office chair. The maps in cheap frames. And also that huge barn table she’d been coveting, its beautiful, dark, sturdy wood and its eclectic wooden chairs. There was certainly an assortment of things.

She needed to panic. Then she needed to worry about this delivery, what it was, and how he was apparently bossing everything already; it’d been only two hours since he’d begun moving in. What would happen to her space? To her?

She ought to spend more time worrying about how often and how much she needed to control everything, rather than what she worried about. She knew how generally pointless this worry was.

She worried too much about who was the boss of what. But she was concerned she’d wake up one day to find herself some kind of puppet. Left to wonder who she’d become, exactly, now that she finally saw all the strings.

How did it happen? she’d wonder then. How was it possible she hadn’t noticed before? And now … how would she untangle herself? So unpracticed. Her sense of herself atrophied from disuse. She wasn’t at all in love with herself, but she was afraid of losing her footing just the same.

…

Now, in Brooklyn with Mark, she worried too much about who was the boss of what. It would be better not to think this way, she knew.

So, instead, at that moment, she was trying very consciously to stop ruminating about all this; to focus on Mark moving in —  on not ruining it all by obsessing about a million things that weren’t actually happening— things that were certainly not the important things.

Important things like how fortunate it was that she finally found him, and he, her. She should focus on being a little grateful that they found one another. That they would now come home to the same apartment. This would be their first summer in Brooklyn, living together, in their home.

When 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. finally arrived, he was busily unpacking, and she was wandering around exhausted from her own worry, from worrying about worrying. The buzzer rang. She ran down the two flights of stairs, swung open the door, and signed. In a box addressed directly to her, from the local flower shop: a colorful bouquet of flowers.

A note addressing her said:

Here’s the end of The Hostel at 224.

all my love.

-M

An Introduction

This is Jayne – the woman who dated Thomas While-We-Were-Living-Under-the-Same-Roof.

That’s how Karen introduced her.

…

The corner outside Thomas’s apartment in Old Town. It’s spring, mid-afternoon, sunny. The trees along the street just budding. Shadows: dappled. Karen: waiting.

Jayne’d forgotten Karen would be there to pick up Corrine. It was Karen’s weekend.

Moments before: The three of them scrambling to cross the street. Thomas carrying Corrine’s backpack, stuffed and half-zipped, Corrine with soppy chocolate ice cream cone in one hand, her hand in the other. They are late. It happens in two seconds, rushing to beat the light: Corrine drops her cone, ice-cream-first, onto the pavement. Jayne dips down, scoops and places the ice cream cone back into Corrine’s expectant hand. One movement.

They make it across before the light changes. Nearly home. No honking cars or families flattened. The ice cream cone remarkably in one piece. No tears. Child content with slightly grubby treat. You learn to keep things moving when you have a 2-year old.

3-second rule? Jayne says to Corrine’s father as they land on the sidewalk, the first moment she actually realizes what she’s done. He shrugs. Too many other things to worry about.

The sidewalk: safe, then not so safe. The Ex there, on the corner. Of course, Jayne thinks, it’s what we’re late for. How could it have slipped her mind? Karen half-waves at Thomas, then waves-excitedly at Corrine. Karen’s father, Corrine’s grandfather, stands beside her, smiling.

Jayne had just given Karen’s daughter an ice cream cone she’d scooped off the street.

She anticipates a comment, but nothing’s said about the chocolate-flavored cone adorned with asphalt sprinkles. Instead, Karen introduces Jayne: Dad, this is Jayne — The Woman Who Dated Thomas While We Were Living Under the Same Roof.

It’s shocking-and-not-shocking. Surprising-and-unsurprising. Jayne’s amazed, again, how these feelings can strike at once. Karen has become remarkable to her in this way. Part of her forever waiting for it; the other part never believing it when it finally arrived. Jayne’s belief-and-disbelief.

Thomas interjects. Jed, this is Jayne. Jayne this is Jed Moretti, Corrine’s grandfather. Thomas is used to it. The un/surprise, the dis/belief.

Karen is technically correct, perfectly so. It’s the litigator in her. It is true they were Living Under The Same Roof. Thomas had moved back in when Corrine was born, took the guest room in their old Victorian in the Valley.

Things were in-between and the two lawyers hired other lawyers to fill out papers and divvy things up. The lawyers’ lawyers talked often. They had arguments and made offers and counter offers and not-so-veiled-threats. In the meantime, he would live in the guest room, marvel at his newborn daughter, and help with feedings and diapers as much as he could.

Before all that, in the beginning, there had been no wedding for his friends to attend and none of them were surprised – Of course, they all said, his friends shrugging together. Thomas, always capricious. Thomas had written to tell Jayne about Karen and the solo wedding. It was longhand on a funny letterhead he made from scratch, a picture of himself in the upper right-hand corner pointing to the intersection of Mullet & B Streets. He loved Karen’s fiery hair, he wrote, Karen’s blue eyes, her sophisticated upper-class Jersey-Italian background. Karen was whip-smart.

Jayne was impressed to learn that Karen had named her cat Guido.

Jayne had looked forward to knowing Karen someday, the wife of her friend, Thomas. But by the time they’d finally meet, she’d never really get to meet her. The next thing Jayne heard, Thomas was having a baby and getting a divorce all-at-once. His description changed slightly. Still whip-smart, now also bat-shit-crazy; spoiled rather than sophisticated. They would co-parent, he said. Though bat-shit-crazy, Karen would be a good mom.

Now, Corrine, on her hip working on her ice cream. Nice to meet you, Mr. Moretti, Jayne says, hoisting Corrine over.

Nice to meet you, he says.

She is grateful for the hand he extends.

Fuck you, Karen, Jayne sdid not say.

Were they in court, she’d take issue with the term “dating.” Objection your honor. “Date: noun. An engagement to go out socially with another person, often out of romantic interest.” And how would this be possible with an entire country, 3,000 miles of land, between them? Is it not true that my client Thomas, lived in San Francisco at the time in question? And my client Erin lived in New York City, did she not? How could they possibly be ‘dating,’ Mrs. — excuse me – Ms. Moretti?”

That, also, was technically correct.

But, Jayne’d often thought, she would be upset too, were she in Karen’s place. Things hadn’t gone to plan. They hadn’t worked out. Karen was alone, for now at least. Why wasn’t he? A woman Karen didn’t know would take care of her only child; he had decided it without her. Thomas would decide many things without her now; there was nothing she could do. Now, this woman would help choose what food to buy, which snacks to prepare, the clothes their daughter would wear.

It was unfair. All of it. Surely. Just standing there, Jayne’s presence confirmed the injustice, a silent reminder of Karen’s place, just as Karen made sure to remind her of hers.

If it had been said to Karen’s girlfriend, pointing Jayne out across a room, she’d have understood. But to Karen’s own father, while they all stood there?

Jayne watches Jed hold Corrine, wipe the dried chocolate ice cream from her cheeks. She imagines him embarrassed, disappointed by his daughter’s sense of entitlement, her recklessness. Or is he just sad and upset for Karen? How did she get here? A stressful job, a new town, a daughter to raise, no husband. How could Thomas do this to her? Did she do this to herself? It wasn’t what he envisioned. It wasn’t what the future was supposed to become.

She imagined her own father. He’d look nothing like Jed, who wears khaki pleated pants, his button down tucked-in, brown belt, and matching shoes. His hair neat. Her father would surely be in sneakers, the different colored neon laces on each shoe left untied purposefully, a conversation piece. Loose sweat-shirt and cargo shorts, some goofy hat. Hair wavy and wild.

They’d look nothing alike but she imagined her father equally as kind. Ignoring the undercurrents and the voltage. He too would look her in the eye, whoever she was. Say her name, shake her hand. Focus on the little one with ice cream. Maybe try and sneak a bite when Corrine wasn’t looking. Always trying to steal away the moment.

She imagined him worrying about the child he held in his arms.

She remembers that Karen left her book in the stroller last week, Jayne had put it in her bag, meaning to give it back. Thomas and Karen are talking, likely sorting out when and where to pickup Corrine Monday.

It is possible there is nowhere to go from here. It is possible there is nothing Jayne can do.

She fishes the book out of her bag and hands it to Mr. Moretti.

Karen’s, she says.