She can’t leave me. She can’t. Not over something stupid like money. I’ve got plenty of it and she can have as much as she needs, as long as she stays with me. I’ve got no pride. I’ve paid to keep people around me before. I guess that’s somethin’ inside of me that’s still the same, that hasn’t changed at all.
At least Shi is the kind of person worth payin’ for. She’s not some hooker, and she’s not some girlfriend and she’s not some hanger on. She’s Siobhan, and she’s wonderful and she’s not fuckin’ allowed to leave.
“Alex, I’m not leaving,” she finally says. I know I’m lookin’ like a complete idiot. I don’t care. I’ve looked like worse.
“You gotta tell me, Shi, is everything okay?” I need to know because it doesn’t feel okay.
“Everything is fine.”
I don’t believe her. I should, but I don’t. She’s never lied to me, not that I know of. But I don’t believe her. She’s going to find something else to do, someone else to be with, and she’s gonna go and I’m gonna haveta start all over again with someone new who’ll never, ever, ever be as good at takin’ care of me as Shi is.
“Alex, everything is fine,” she repeats. And I look at her, ‘cause even though I’ve been lookin’ at her the whole time, I’ve been lookin’ at her through fuzzy eyes, you know, like, looking in a person’s direction but not really LOOKING.
So I look at her and she looks worried. I guess I would look worried too if someone was freakin’ out in front of me. Which I’m doing. There’s no goin’ back to tryin’ to be cool now, I’ve fucked that up. Doesn’t matter, I’m not a cool person anyway. And how could I ever look like that to her when she’s seen me walkin’ on the edges for a couple of months? When she’s seen me with glass in my foot, screamin’ at my ex, screamin’ at my PA, fallin’ apart ‘cause I can’t remember my meds, and bein’ a loser in general? Cool? More like fool.
“I’m sorry,” I say, but I don’t let go of her hand. I can’t. Okay, more like I don’t want to.
“It’s okay,” she tells me, but her face, her eyes, they’re sayin’ other things. Like this isn’t okay at all. Like I’m a jackass.
“I’m flippin’ out,” I tell her. I don’t know why, I guess ‘cause there’s no excuse for me actin’ this way.
“You’re not flipping out,” she says.
Lie. Lie, lie, lie. Siobhan, I’m flippin’ out, I know when I’m flippin’ out. I’m sittin’ here havin’ a panic attack and that’s flippin’ out, darlin’.
“Look, I got some problems,” I begin, but Shi puts up her hand, the one I’m not clutching, and I stop talking.
“Alex, take a breath,” she says. I can do that. I take a breath. I realize that I wasn’t breathing right. “Drink some water,” she says. I can do that, too. Then I feel her hand, the one I’m holding, and it turns, how I don’t know, and she’s holding my hand back now. “Alex, I’m not quitting my job. I’m not leaving. All right?”
I nod. She means it. I see that, it’s in her eyes.
“I don’t have another job lined up, I’m not looking for one,” she goes on. “I like it where I am. I like working for you. Honey, you’re easy to work for. You’re not demanding, you’re not a problem. I’ve had worse jobs that paid less, where I had to work harder. Not that working for you isn’t work, there’s work to do, but it’s not overwhelming me.”
Her hand is patting and stroking mine now. Feels good. Feels good to be touched, even just like this, I miss it, being touched. Being hugged. Being held. I took all that for granted for years and years and years. Even my mother, she used to let me sit next to her and just lean on her. I’ve always liked bein’ touched. Now I’m the only one touching me and that’s not even fun anymore, it’s nothing. I miss this. I don’t want her to stop.
“I’m sorry. I, I just don’t think I could go through havin’ to find someone else again, and...”
“And you don’t have to,” she tells me. “Alex, I think you’re having another medical episode. It probably doesn’t feel like it, but it looks like it from here.” She smiles at me. Beautiful smile. An understanding smile. “It’s going to pass.”
“You think so?” I ask. I never thought about that. Now that she’s said it, yeah, it does sort of feel like that. I got the tightness in my chest, a sure sign of anxiety. And I’m panicked, that’s for sure. It could be the meds.
Or not. It could be that I don’t like Shi goin’ off on her own. It could be that I’m thinkin’ in the back of my mind that she was probably somewhere around here last night with someone else. And that even in the back of my mind, whatever I’m keepin’ back there eventually comes out. It could even be that I was surprised and really taken off guard by this invitation to breakfast; that maybe there was more to this than breakfast.
That thought sparks a memory, a vague, distant memory of bad news over breakfast. Of my grandmother telling me that my dad was going away all mixed together with the smell of eggs and toast and syrup. Some I-Hop in Florida. A place I couldn’t find on a map, but I can find it in my head while I’m sittin’ here thinkin’ that Shi is about to drop an emotional bomb on me the same way. Maybe it’s that? Maybe it’s that all mixed up with the weird way Shi came home last night, or what I thought was weird about it, which may not be weird at all.
Oh, man, fuck my head. Fuck my confused, paranoid head.
“Yes, Alex, I think so.”
Shi seems so sure. She’s always so sure about things, that I believe her. I want to believe her. Believing her makes me calmer, takes some of the tension from me. I can relax my hand enough to actually feel Shi holding it.
“I fucked this up, didn’t I? I fucked today up and it’s not even ten o’clock.”
“You haven’t, uh, fucked anything up,” Shi says. Her nose goes pink.
And I laugh. A big laugh. Bursts of nervous laughter come out of my mouth and I can’t stop them, but Shi doesn’t seem to mind, and as long as she doesn’t mind, then I don’t care. I don’t care about anything.
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I’m disturbed by Alex’s behavior and I don’t want Alex to know that. I’m hoping that he’s so deep into whatever it is that’s making him crazy that he doesn’t notice. He’s given no indication that he notices anything. In fact, if I can make myself step back from what’s going on, because I really don’t understand it myself, I can see that the only thing that appears out of the ordinary is the way that Alex is holding my hand. He’s holding on so desperately that his arm is shaking.
Just from looking at that arm, at the way the muscles keep flexing and twitching, and the way I can see the sinews in his slim wrists shifting, you’d think that the grip that he had on my hand was superhuman. In fact, it’s a strong, tight grip, but it doesn’t hurt or even feel uncomfortable.
At least he’s laughing. He always laughs when I curse. And the laughter brings a loosening of his grip.
Now I wish I could bring Alex a little loosening of his perspective.
“I’m so sorry...” he starts, but I stop him again.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. Nothing’s changed. We’re going to have some breakfast and then we’re going to look at furniture. Then we’ll go home, relax, and I’ll cook something special for supper. If you’re real good, you can even come to the market with me.” That brings on another, more natural laugh. Alex is no fan of the market.
“You don’t have to make dinner for m...”
“Alex, I don’t HAVE to do a lot of things. I’m well aware that this is Saturday, and that, contractually, Saturday afternoons and evenings are mine to do with what I will. Sometimes I need to have time with Tish. Lately, Tish has put me on ignore in favor of spending time with her friends. Not a bad thing, just a fact of life and parenthood. So, if I’m around and you’re around and we’re both not engaged in our own pursuits, I see no reason for me to be cooking for one while I know, yes, I KNOW that you will not make anything for yourself no matter how much pre-cooking I’ve done for you, that you will pick up the phone and call for take out. You know what I’d do? I’d quit while I was ahead. I’d take the free meal, well, the free labor.”
Alex laughs, relaxes his grip on my hand, and I feel my own wound up emotions relax as well. Later, I’ll convince him to make a doctor’s appointment. He needs to get his medications looked into. From the little reading I’ve done I gather that not every combination of medications works well, and that it can take a certain amount of time to get the right mix down. And that as time goes by, as a patient gets ‘better’, or more balanced through therapy, that sometimes some medications are better done without.
Perhaps that’s it, or something just got unbalanced inside Alex, but the overreaction that he’s just had to nothing, to absolutely nothing, has jarred me back into a little more of the reality of this job.
It’s more than being a housekeeper. It’s bordering on being a caretaker. And it’s something that I want to talk to Juliette about, because if that’s the case, well, I just want it all down on paper. I can’t see it changing the job, the job’s the job, but I want the description altered so that we, Juliette, Alex, and I, and anyone else who has to know about it, are all on the same page.
I’m thinking all this over in my head as the waiter deposits our plates in front of us. It looks delicious, this breakfast that I haven’t cooked. It looks all the more tempting BECAUSE I haven’t cooked it. And it would be easier to eat if I could have the use of my hands back, because Alex is still holding onto one.
I smile at him and he smiles back. Then I feel the pad of his thumb running over the tops of my knuckles. It’s almost a shock, the recognition in that touch, because not twelve hours ago that same territory had been covered by another finger owned by another person. And there’s nothing any less personal in this touch as in the other, or in the way that Alex rests my hand back on the table and lets the tips of his fingers slide over my hand. The only differences are that Alex isn’t looking into my eyes as he does this, he’s staring a hole into the plate of waffles in front of him and seems unaware of what he’s done, and that this is Alex, not David.
“So, what are you takin’ me to look at anyway?” Alex asks, dragging me back from my thoughts and the sensation his fingers have left behind in their wake.
“Dining room furniture. And some chairs,” I say.
I retrieve my knife, find my fork, and eat my breakfast.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
