“Then why did you say you were? I coulda got this shit to you any old time, I coulda had Juliette bring it by. You didn’t have to come here at all.”
“’Cause I thought you might be civil, but I can see that you’re not. And THAT’S not all my stuff,” she says, pointing to the bag near the front door. “All MY stuff’s gone.” She gets up out of her chair and waves her hand in front of the fireplace, over the coffee table. She goes into the hall and does the same thing.
And I finally notice it. That’s what’s different. Shi has taken every do-dad that belonged to Sarah and, and I don’t know where the hell it’s all gone to. There were a bunch of statues and flow-y things, and those branches, those brown branches. None of it is anywhere.
“Where is it, did you throw it all out?” Sarah is asking. She goes back through the hallways, over to the den, to the pool room. She bought me that pool table for my birthday, I think, or Christmas, I can’t remember, they’re close together, shit, it coulda been for both. I don’t use it anymore, it reminds me of her. I fucked her on it, a coupla times. Reminds me of that, too, and the times when I couldn’t fuck her on it, when I couldn’t get it up to do it. It’s like a bad taste now. But I’m not looking at that, I’m lookin’ at the shelves in there. It’s full of Backstreet Boys stuff, like a shrine to it. Doesn’t look bad in here, really, but there’s nothing that’s Sarah’s here, either.
“I didn’t throw anything out, it just got moved around,” I say.
“Well I want it,” she says. She’s standin’ there now, all five foot ten of her, her hands crossed, those cat nails diggin’ into her arms. I remember when they used to dig into my back. Then she cut them off. To learn guitar, she said. Fuck, those fake nails make great picks.
“You can have it, I just have to find out where it is.”
“What the hell do you mean?” she asks, her face leaning into mine, her eyebrows comin’ together.
“I mean that Shi moved a lot of stuff when things got cleaned and I don’t know where everything is.”
“Alex, that is so fucked up, she’s a fucking housekeeper and you let her just move stuff around like she lives here? What’s up with that?”
“Well, she does live here and the place was a mess and I let her clean it up. What do you care, you don’t live here anymore.” I shrug. I shrug because she hates it when I do that, when I blow her off like what she’s tellin’ me is no big deal. For once, though, what she’s tellin’ me IS no big deal. She DOESN’T live here anymore. She DOESN’T get to say how, when, and why I do things. Fuck it, I’ll let Siobhan tear the place up, gut it, I don’t give a damn.
“No, I don’t.” Now the lip is quivering. Man, here it comes. We’re gonna end up goin’ over EVERYTHING again. This is so not what I had in mind for tonight.
I expected to be nervous. Everything about Sarah makes me nervous now. I look at her, and I still see someone I want. I still feel a lot of desire for her. I miss her. And when she’s not in front of me, and I’m not thinkin’ about how it all went to hell, it’s ten times that, it’s a hundred times that, the missing her. I can remember her sweetness. She was very sweet when I first met her. Like a little girl kind of sweetness, but it was all wrapped up in this body, this big chested, long legged body that wouldn’t quit. I swear to god, the first time I saw her I got hard on impact and stayed that way for a month. She was goodness and badness all wrapped up in a package that wouldn’t quit.
I don’t know when I started lookin’ at her different. Things changed. She traveled with me, but we kept it light. I was still, I was, well, I wasn’t over Amanda yet, so we kept it light and on the down low. Then Amanda and I split big time, and Sarah was there and she was VERY comforting. Made me feel okay about things. I think. That’s how I remember it. A lot of that time is a big blur. I was doped up, my grandmother was dying, we were promoting a new CD, everything was goin’ too fast, but Sarah was there in the middle of it all, for a lot of it.
She was my girl.
I liked havin’ her for my girl. I liked the way other guys looked at her, and how they looked at me when I was with her. She was happy to be along for the ride. She was cool with me, with whatever I was doin’. Sometimes she had to go back to California. The first time she did that, everything fell apart. My grandmother died. I was with someone else, this other woman. I just let everything go to hell.
Fuck that. That’s a long time ago. This is now and now I’m not in the mood to go over why I’m the bad guy. I AM the bad guy. I know it, I admit it; I’m the one who fucked things up. If I had kept my dick in my pants, I’d be married to this woman.
And that thought just gives me a chill like you wouldn’t believe.
“Look, I’ll find your stuff and I’ll get it to you,” I say. I hear myself sayin’ it. She doesn’t say anything, but the tremble in her lip is gone and her chin, that sharp, pointed chin, damn, it’s Amanda’s chin all over again, it’s raised and jutting out. It’s quiet for just a moment too long. Long enough for me to know that I’m about to hear somethin’ I don’t want to.
“I have the dogs.”
“What?”
“I took them from the vets, mom brought them home. She called me when you had what’s her name bring them in. I KNOW you’re living with her, mom told me about the credit cards.”
“What the HELL are you talkin’ about?” I’m confused. Honestly baffled.
“I came over here to see it for myself. You can’t wait, can you? What’s is been, Alex, six weeks, seven weeks? You move someone else in?”
“Are you outta your MIND? She’s my housekeeper.”
“Fuck you, Alex.” She’s walkin’ now, arms held tight to her. I have no idea where she’s goin’, but she’s goin’ there fast, back through the hall and into the dining room now. God, it looks nice in there. We shoulda been havin’ dinner. I can smell the chicken.
Shi has disappeared.
“Sarah, I don’t want to have a fuckin’ argument with you, okay? I don’t know what you think is ‘goin’ on’, but there isn’t anything ‘goin’ on’. I have a new housekeeper and she took the goddamn dogs to the goddamn vet ‘cause they were fulla fleas. She cleaned the house ‘cause that’s what the HELL she’s supposed to do. Now why the HELL did you take the dogs?”
“They’re mine.”
“They’re OURS,” I tell her.
“Mine, and I want them.”
This could go on for a long time. She’s pissed off. That’s why she called. Not anything to do with clothes or what all she’s left behind. She’s pissed, plain and simple, and it’s because of Siobhan and fuckin’ Roxanne was there at the vets, just the way I didn’t want her to be, and she had to fuckin’ call Sarah and start trouble. Fuck these people.
“Shi!” I yell, and I really don’t mean to yell, but I have no idea where she went to and I want to clear somethin’ up right now.
“Yes, sir.” She appears out of nowhere, standing in the kitchen door with HER arms crossed. She’s got to have heard all this bullshit, great, just great, just what I need, someone else up in my business. But she’s completely... she’s calm. Her face says nothing.
“Shi, what did you do with all the stuff you moved while you were cleaning?”
“I have it all back here, in the servant’s rooms,” she says, and she gestures for me to follow her.
I do. I don’t even look to see what Sarah’s doing. I follow Shi through the laundry back to the empty suite and sure as shit, there’s half the house, stacked and piled. There’s no way all this is gettin’ moved tonight, it’s gonna take a van. But here’s Sarah, shoving past me, shoving past Shi, hands on hips.
“Why is everything back here?” Sarah asks, her voice rising.
“I wanted it out of the way,” I say. What a lie. I didn’t feel that one comin’. But it’s a good lie, because I could see where this was headed and now it’s headed back at me. What the hell, I’ve taken worse.
“Fuck you,” Sarah says again.
“You can’t take it now, it’s too much,” I say.
“Excuse me,” Shi says, shimming around piles to get past Sarah. I step back, to give her room, but Sarah makes her have to take a huge step over a stack of, I don’t know, fabric or something.
“Don’t you touch anything again,” Sarah says. “You leave my things alone.”
Shi says nothing, but she does something, something I don’t think Sarah sees. Her back goes REAL straight. I can’t explain it, but it was as if she gathers all the air in the room around her in that one motion. Then she turns around to face Sarah, and real polite, says, “Certainly.” She turns again and catches my eye with hers. Her blue-green eyes just ROLL before she’s gone out the door.
“Fuck you, Sarah, don’t talk to her like that. I’ll get your shit together and send it to you.” She’s bending down, taking a box filled with all those friggin’ statues she had all over the place. Sarah’s sister gave them to us. Her sister is nuts. We didn’t see a lot of her, and I’m sorta glad about that, because there’s somethin’ strange about her. I used to think she was okay, and then I changed my mind.
“I’ll take this. Where’s the big Buddha?” she asks.
“Don’t know.” Don’t know, don’t care. And I’m not helpin’ her with this stuff, either. I leave the room. I go into the kitchen and Shi is NOT there. I don’t know where she went. Maybe home. Good for her, wish I was in the pool house, too, and I’m not gonna give her a hard time about it if she bailed on me, I’d do the same.
That’s when I see it, the big Buddha, it’s in the dining room. Sarah’s already outside, she’s opened the door and the goddamn alarm’s gone off, shit, shit, shit. I go to turn it off and stumble over the piece of luggage. That pisses me off, so I kick it out the door, and THAT makes me feel kinda good. I get the alarm turned off, and Sarah is back in my face, yellin’ ‘cause the alarm was loud, and I haven’t a clue what she’s sayin’.
“What, what, WHAT?!” Now I’m yellin’, and she backs up because I’m in her face.
“Oh, go the fuck to hell,” she says. God, this is so familiar. We’ve done this enough times I could write a script about it.
“Why the fuck not? Beats listenin’ to YOU,” I tell her, and I turn to get her the goddamned Buddha. The fucker is heavy. It’s brass or bronze, somethin’ like that. I turn around and Sarah is right there, I mean RIGHT there up in my face. “Here, take it. Take whatever you fuckin’ want.”
“Fine.” She cradles the thing in her arms. Kind of strikes up another memory. She used to hold ME that way. And that pisses me off, too. No, it’s NOT fine. None of this is fine.
“You know what, screw you, gimme that.” I reach out and take the statue from her. Not a problem, the damn thing slips right out of her hands. “You want this stuff? You send a truck around for it. You fucking pack it up and YOU send someone for it. And you bring those goddamn dogs back here.”
“YOU know what? Keep it. Keep it all. You’re not getting the dogs, you don’t take care of them, you don’t care about them, or me, or anything but yourself. So FUCK YOU.”
And my mouth takes over.
“You cunt.” I’m dead where I stand. I’ve crossed into no man’s land. Sarah takes the statue from me, hefts it once and it’s like slow motion. Down, down, down, straight through the glass topped coffee table.
Then she leaves. Doesn’t even slam the door, just goes. And I’m standing here in the middle of broken glass and splintered wood. I look down at the mess and notice that I’m bleeding. Piece of glass is sticking out of my foot.
Hurts like a sonofabitch, too.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
