Shi and Juli are sittin’ in the kitchen havin’ coffee. They don’t hear me until I’m almost in the door. When they do, Shi gets up, but Juliette stays where she is. I can’t tell if she’s angry, feelin’ sorry for me, distant; I can’t tell anything about her. She’s neutral.
“Feeling better?” Shi asks.
“A little.”
“Coffee?”
“Sure.” It’s the last thing I want but it’ll give me something to do with my hands. I look at the clock on the wall and it’s already after ten. Shi puts down a fresh cup in front of me, all ready, just the way I like it. Again.
“I have things to do, but if you need me, I’ll just be upstairs,” Shi tells me. Her hand is on my shoulder, a warm hand that gives that little squeeze. “Let me know when you want breakfast.” Then she’s gone, and it’s just me and Juliette. And it seems very quiet in the kitchen.
“Siobhan told me you weren’t feeling well today,” Juliette says.
“I had a bad night. I fucked up my meds; forgot to take ‘em.”
“Forgot?”
“Yeah, I know. Stupid. I was feelin’ good, and I just forgot. Shi’s got it under control.” She does. I know that from now on, as long as Shi is in charge of my meds, I won’t be missing a dose. I KNOW this, ‘cause everything that Shi is in charge of gets done. I take a sip of coffee. Tastes good, but different. There’s a flavor in it that I don’t recognize, but I like it and take another sip. “What have you got for me today?”
“Checks. The big ones. They’re in the office.”
“Lemme just have a minute and I’ll sign ‘em,” I say. I take a cigarette and light it, and wonder if it’s gonna be me or Juliette that brings up the nastiness from last week. I don’t have to wonder too long.
“A.J., I thought a lot about what happened before the weekend,” she says. “I’m very, very sorry about all of it.”
“Me, too.” I am. I wish, at this minute, that I hadn’t made such a big fucking deal about everything. I can see, even as screwed up as I feel right now, that she really is sorry.
“I don’t want to have to make a choice between working for you and being friends with Sarah.”
“You don’t have to.” She doesn’t.
“I know that’s not the point of everything.” She heaves a huge sigh. “The point was my interfering. I promise you, I won’t interfere again.”
“That’s all I’m askin’,” I tell her, even though I know that’s not all I’m asking. I’m really wanting her to say that she likes me better, that she wants to work for me still and that Sarah isn’t a part of any of this anymore, but that’s not going to happen. I understand that now. I even kinda understand that it’s not right for me to ask that much of her, and that what she’s promising me is really all that I SHOULD be asking from her. But that small, petty person inside of me that doesn’t want to give an inch knows the ugly truth about what I want and what I need.
“I’m not going to work for Sarah anymore,” Juliette adds.
“You can work for her,” I say. I don’t really care about that. Well, not much. A job’s a job, right? That’s Juliette’s job, to be a personal assistant. I have no say in who she takes on as clients.
“I don’t think that it’s a good idea,” she says.
And something about the way she says that sets a tiny alarm goin’ off in my head. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m out of it this morning, because if I wasn’t I think I would jump all over that ‘good idea’ shit. Instead, I just shrug. ‘Cause, really, what’s it to me? Juliette makes her own decisions about who she works with, and even though I’d like to have a say about it in this case, I can’t make her do one thing more than another. I mean, I wasn’t gonna fire her, she was gonna have to quit. She didn’t. Who else she works for is out of my hands.
“That’s up to you,” I say, and shrug again. “I just don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”
“Okay.” But there’s something funny about the way she even says that and my curiosity goes into overdrive.
“Is there somethin’ on your mind about this?” I ask.
“No,” she says, with a shake of her head. And I don’t believe her.
“Because I think it would be a whole lot better if we don’t go ‘round and around about it. I’m glad you still wanna work with me. If you wanna work for Sarah, it’s none of my business, is it?”
“No.”
“So, no problems then, right?”
“Right.”
“Good. ‘Cause I can’t cope today.” There is no one on the face of this earth that I know, other than other addicts and alkies, who will ever understand how much it costs me to admit that I can’t cope. I can’t. I can’t handle my life today. As soon as Juliette leaves I’m crawlin’ back into bed. I may not get out until tomorrow. And I’m gonna ask Shi to make me something to eat and I’m eatin’ it in bed, too. I don’t care about crumbs. I don’t care about much of anything at the moment, other than signing checks and calling my doctor and gettin’ some sleep. Even the coffee won’t help today.
I can’t cope.
“Would you like me to bring the checks out here for you to sign?” she asks me.
“I would love that,” I say, because it means that I don’t have to move. I close my eyes for a while; listen to Juliette’s shoes on the floor. Listen to the music Shi has playin’ on the sound system. I know that upstairs there are clean sheets being put on my bed. I know that clean towels will be waiting for me when I decide to take a shower. I know that Shi will make sure that the cleaning people won’t bother me, even if it means that she has to clean my bedroom herself. Shit, she about does that every day anyway.
When I open my eyes again, the checks are in front of me, the book laid out and waitin’.
“Are you sure it’s just the medication?” Juli asks.
“Yeah. Fucked up, hunh?”
“Yes,” she agrees, but there’s a smile on her face.
I pick up the pen and begin. It’s that time of the month when the bills are heavy. Mortgages, cars, insurances. Even quarterly taxes. Pain in the ass, all of it. That one person should have all this to deal with seems ridiculous to me. But I keep scrawling my signature on the bottoms of the checks, one after the other, until it’s time to turn the page and start again.
I do notice that certain payments are missing. I’m curious as to how Sarah may or may not have taken to knowing that I’m not paying for everything anymore. I wonder if she got the letter I sent, and if the return receipt is in the small pile of paperwork beside the checkbook. I even wonder if Juliette talked to Sarah about all of it, or just let it all happen, or what, but I’m not about to ask her after sayin’ that I don’t want her in the middle of the mess I’ve made with Sarah. I finish signing checks and leaf through the papers. Nothing interesting. Bank statements and account earnings and royalty receipts. The usual. A few interesting pieces of fan mail that Juliette feels I should look at and maybe respond to. I can do that later, or never. And there’s the receipt from the letter. I recognize the signature.
It was received on Saturday.
Still no phone call.
Sarah doesn’t give a shit. Seeing that signature, not gettin’ a call, I just know that she doesn’t give a shit anymore. I wonder if she ever did. I wonder if she ever loved me, or needed me, the way that I loved and needed her. Thinking that, I can still hear how stupid those words sound, even just inside my head. Of course she didn’t love me the way I loved her. She didn’t cheat on me. She was faithful. I wasn’t. I guess that’s the bottom line, that I couldn’t stay faithful, hell, I didn’t even WANT to stay faithful, if I’m gonna be honest. She loved me more. As pissed and frustrated as she could get me, she still loved me more. And no matter what happens, I’ll have to deal with that fact.
Doesn’t really change anything. I’ll just have to deal with it. Deal with it, or let it and her, go.
“What’s this?” There’s an envelope tucked in with the financial reports.
“Comps to a show on Thursday,” Juliette says. She gets up from her seat and empties her coffee cup into the sink before rinsing the cup and putting it into the dishwasher.
I pull the tickets out. It’s for the Viper Room, a club in LA. Thursday night, the most shit night of the week for club shows. I’m about to toss ‘em, and I notice the name on the ticket.
Sarah.
I look at Juli and she looks at me, then looks away for a minute before staring directly into my eyes.
“I bought them last week, and I was going to give them to you then. She doesn’t know. I thought I could talk you into going. Then we had that argument and I thought that I would just give them away. You don’t have to go. And I won’t be telling you about any more gigs or anything, because, well, I won’t know. I’m not going to be working for her, she can’t pay me. But I’m not going to necessarily stop talking to her, or being her friend.” The words just seem to spill outta her. “Go, don’t go, throw away the tickets or give them away, it’s up to you.”
She’s right. It’s up to me. I put the tickets into the pocket of my T-shirt.
Juliette gives me a kiss on the cheek before she picks up the checks and leaves for the day.
I’m so tired, and the pills on an empty stomach are making me nauseous. I don’t think I can eat anything now. No way. And the coffee is disgusting, too. I grab a bottle of water and head back to bed, meeting Shi on the way.
“Lay down,” she says. “I have to run some errands, but I’ll be back in a little while, there’s bread for…”
“Take your time. I’m tired. I won’t be awake any time soon. Don’t answer the phone if you’re around, let the machine pick it up. I don’t want to talk to anyone. No meeting.” I can’t keep my eyes open. I don’t want to think anymore.
“I’ll be back in a little while,” she says. And I know she will. She’s worried, I think, and I try and smile, ‘cause I know that I’m really gonna be okay, I’m just… out of it.
“I’m just tired. It’s the pills.”
“Go lay down, then.”
And she squeezes my arm, and she smiles, and it makes me feel better. Like Juliette’s kiss. A little kindness. A little, I don’t know, loyalty. A little concern. It goes a long way for me. A long way.
So does a little sleep.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
