“That’s your option,” Juliette tells me.
Yup, sure is. I look through my mother’s pile. Personal items. Hair, nails, all that kind of stuff. Why can’t I just sign one check a month to her for some of this? Why am I payin’ for it anyway? Habit. I mean, nothin’ here is breaking the bank, but she can afford to have her hair done. Like, if she were going to a spa or somethin’, then send me the frickin’ bill, but not all this stuff.
“See these, add ‘em up and just put it all on one check, but gimme copies of the receipts. I dunno why I’m payin’ for this stuff when she can pay for it herself.” Juliette doesn’t ask any questions, just does it.
I look through the other, larger pile. This is my life. Well, it was. Hair. Coloring, extensions in, extensions out. Nails. Personal trainer. I already paid the rent on her place, this months car payment and insurance. I still have her covered on my health insurance, too, but that’s been taken care of. There’s an itemized bill from somewhere for facials. Dentist; teeth whitening. It adds up.
I’m not payin’ for all this anymore.
“I’m not payin’ for all this anymore,” I announce.
“Fine. What don’t you want to cut checks for?”
“Cut them for all of them, but this is the last round.” She looks at me, I look at her. “Rent, fine. The car. Fine with that. The health insurance, that’s okay, too. Everything else, this personal shit, no. No more. And you can send her the vet bill.”
“You’re serious?” Juliette says it like it’s a question, but it’s really not a question.
“I’m serious.”
“So what exactly went on here the other night?”
As soon as she asks me that question I sorta know that I’ve been waiting for days for it. I haven’t talked about this with anyone, only told my story at my meeting, and even then, I didn’t go into a helluva lotta detail. I sort of wouldn’t have minded talkin’ about it with Shi, but she’s been too busy and maybe she doesn’t really want to talk about it at all. I mean, I coulda said more when she asked me about the cartons and the shit in the back rooms, but it just didn’t seem right. Still, talkin’ to a room full of people that don’t really know me, or Sarah, isn’t the same as talkin’ to Shi, who was there, or Juliette, who knows how the relationship was goin’.
So I tell her how it went down, bein’ fair. I even tell her about calling Sarah a cunt, which, I don’t know, I’m not so sure I meant that; I'm not so sure that it just wasn’t me bein’ angry at her for bein’ such a cooze about everything. Not EVERYTHING, everything, just that night everything.
I don’t know what Juliette thinks about all this. I mean, she was a personal assistant for both of us, she was helpin’ us plan the wedding, she was right there in the midle of it all. I’m not so sure that she would have stayed my personal assistant if I wasn’t the one payin’ her, though. Women, they get tight. Lord knows what Sarah’s said about me to her. But she’s never gotten weird about anything. She was even the one who rushed the wedding cancellations out for us. Took charge.
I want to ask her, but I’m afraid of what the answer might be.
“And she THREW the statue into the table?” Juliette is havin’ a hard time with this part.
“Pretty much. It was more than just dropping it, for damn sure.”
“And that’s how the glass got in your foot and....”
“And I haven’t heard from her since. And she still has the dogs.”
“Do you want the dogs back?”
“Yup.”
“And you propose to do this by....?”
“Makin’ her pay for them. They’ll be back here in a week.” And I find that really funny, and laugh. Juliette shakes her head.
“Why don’t YOU call HER?”
“Why?”
“Because you keep saying that you love her,” Juliette says.
“I do. I just don’t think I can live with her.” This is the first time I’ve ever said that, in fact it’s the first time I’ve ever let myself even think that. I DON’T think I can live with her. Living with Sarah had its ups and downs. Same as living with Amanda. But Amanda never moved in ‘all the way’. My house in Florida, OUR house in Florida, Amanda stayed with me, but not all the time. She still had another place, an apartment, and she paid for the rent herself. She was workin’ the whole time. Part time work, some stuff at Universal, in some of their stage shows, and in a mall down there.
Sometimes I think that Amanda was way smarter than me. Like she knew that someday it was gonna end. I wasn’t ever fair in that relationship, but I only saw that after it was over. It was around that time, when I was with her, that I turned into Alex McLean, high maintenance pain in the ass. Up until then, I was still pretty cool with life, with work, with all of it. Still kinda dazed with the experience. None of us ever thought we’d get to be as big as we got. Fame can change people. It changed me, I know that for a fact now. Didn’t then, though. Thought everything was the same, just with more money. Liked the fame. Liked it a lot. Being at the best parties. Hangin’ out with people I never dreamed I would be hangin’ out with. Doin’ my little solo act. God, everything was a game. Dress up and make-believe and gettin’ paid for it. Everything was free. Once you can afford it, EVERYTHING was free. Clothes. Drinks. Drugs. Hotels. Cars. Toys. Girls.
Girls. Women. All of it just pushing itself in your face twenty-four seven.
Fuck me.
But lookin’ back, a lot of it doesn’t seem real. And near the end, when it really fell apart, when I thought that someday Amanda and I would be gettin’ married, that she was ‘the one’, but she didn’t, that part seems the most unreal of all.
I should have seen it comin’. Amanda put up with a lot of shit from me. She WAS serious about us, and I wasn’t, so she kept her distance in ways I never, ever understood and now we don’t even talk anymore. Used to. Even up through rehab. But she wouldn’t, WOULD NOT, have me back. I don’t blame her. I don’t. But I miss her. More than anyone knows. I miss bein’ with her, ‘cause we fit together, in a lot of ways.
But livin’ with Sarah was different. She was one hundred percent WITH me from the day I moved out here up until the day I blew it to bits. We were so much alike. We had both lost people in our lives: my grandmother, who practically raised me, and her sister, who was her only full, natural sister. We connected there.
That was all after I fell apart, though. When it was different for us than it had been in the beginning. Because in the beginning, I was drunk and stoned and traveling, and Sarah was along on that ride with me, too. I picked her up in a fuckin’ bar, for chrissake. It was party, party, party. Every night, the whole damn first legs of the Black & Blue Tour. Nonstop. Like I’ve said before, I can’t even remember half of what went on in South America. Not half.
And I don’t think she does, either.
I was passed out so many nights, she might as well’ve not been there. I can remember sometimes she’d be up on the phone, babbling horseshit to whoever. I got no idea to who, probably her mother, some girlfriend, someone. Didn’t really care. You know, later on, WAY later, when my rehab became a problem, because it wasn’t insured and the tour lost money and everything, we got this, I don’t know, this encyclopaedia of shit to go through, with all the expenses, everyone’s not just mine. And the phone bills caught my eye.
She was callin’ people all over the fuckin’ country. Not any numbers I recognized. Never said a word about it. All I know is that damn tour cost me a fuckin’ fortune in more ways than one.
But she was there. Sarah was THERE. Right up until about a week before they landed my ass in rehab.
God, I am NOT going to think about that now. No way.
Anyway, livin’ with her was a full time job. I didn’t mind, I really didn’t. And it was nice to have family around me, well, her family, because my family wanted nothin’ to do with me about then. Well, almost nothin’ to do with me, the real break with my folks came after the engagement. After that the living got even more interesting, and the spending got heavier with all the wedding shit. I am nowhere NEAR spending the kind of money I was spending then. And I’m never gonna see a damn dime of it. Lost thousands in deposits. She’s got a damn gown that costs a fortune, and I can’t see her wearin’ it any time soon.
Especially after this weekend.
All this just races through my mind. At light speed. It’s funny how your memory can work like that, like seein’ pictures in your head just flashing by. Zip! And it makes this whole, like story. I look at Juliette.
“You know Alex, that’s the most candid thought you’ve ever shared with me about Sarah,” she says.
“There was a lot of drama Friday night. Didn’t last long, but it was a shitload. I can’t live with that kinda drama. You know, since Friday it’s all felt pretty good. My head feels clear. Sarah really hates my guts. I get it. I don’t really blame her, and yeah, I still love her. I mean, she walked in the door and it was like seein’ her for the first time. I thought that maybe we could, I don’t know, have some dinner, talk, try and make some sense of everything. But she wasn’t here for that. She was here for a fight because she got it into her head that Siobhan was something more than a housekeeper, thanks to her mother, and she was lookin’ to make a big deal out of it.” I light a cigarette. Just thinkin’ about that is making me nervous. It’s the first time since Friday that I’ve had even a hint of anxiety about it all.
“You seem in a much better mood than last week.”
“Yeah, I know. And I’m sorry I was a prick, too, you know I don’t mean it when I’m like that.”
“And it’s a good thing I know that, too.”
“Well, I’m not payin’ these personal item bills anymore. Or anything for the dogs if she’s gonna take ‘em. So, umm, type up something about it and I’ll sign it, okay?”
“A letter?”
“I’m not gonna call her, Juli. No way. And believe me, if she doesn’t like that she’s gettin’ this in a letter, she’ll let me know.”
“She’ll let me know, too,” Juliette says.
“Well, I can’t do anything about that, can I?” It’s her turn to stop and think. I never asked Juliette to stay on as my PA after my breakup with Sarah, she just did. And I didn’t ask her to keep on workin’ for Sarah, but she has. Not like with me, not those kinda hours or, you know, tasks, but she did. And I’m not askin’ her to NOT work for Sarah, that’s her business, only, I pay for that, too.
“Do I have to make a choice?” she asks.
“Not as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not carrying THAT personal expense, either,” I say. Not mean like, just say it. “So don’t forget to mention that in the letter.”
“Hardball, hunh?” she asks.
“I guess so.” I do guess so, and I also guess that this will just be more shit to come back and hit my fan, but I’m not changing my mind about this. Not now.
“Is this what you’re talking to Grace about?”
“I just need to ask Grace a question and have her make somethin’ clear to me. That’s all I’m gonna say about it for now.”
“You’re the boss,” she says.
That’s the rumor.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
