“Are you sure?”
“No, but you are and that’s good enough for me.” It is good enough for me. I sorta like the table for the dining room. It’s way different from the glass one that’s in there now. This one has glass, too, but it’s kind of lying in a wooden frame, and that frame has got all this copper around the edges and slivers of it inlaid in the wood. And through the glass there are all these wooden and metal rods runnin’ back and forth, holding the glass up. It’s cool, I like it, but I can’t ‘see’ it in the house.
Shi can ‘see’ it. She keeps tryin’ to describe it to me; how it’s gonna be placed in the room, the kind of rug she’s lookin’ for. Things like that.
“I think that one wall in the dining room should be copper clad, you know? With copper ceiling tiles instead of paint or wallpaper,” she says. “And we’ll either find just the right chairs, or have them made up; there are places that will make to spec. What do you think?”
“Sounds good.” I think she’s fucking brilliant. I love her ideas. I love the though of a lot of metal in the house. I like chrome, shit like that, but copper is real nice, too, and it’s orange, like the orange walls. It’s like Shi’s blending all the rooms together. I think that if she wanted to she could make a living doin’ this, and I’m not sayin’ a word about that. I don’t want to give her any ideas.
I hand a credit card to the salesperson and take a seat in some armchair that’s right there. We’ve been doin’ a lot of walking. Shi insisted. Said it was good to walk. I think it’s good to drive and valet park.
“Had enough?” she asks. It’s like a dare. I think she knows that.
“No, I’m good to go. What’s next?”
“Chairs. Not for the dining room, just some comfy chairs I found. And I thought you might like to browse a few pool tables.”
“I got one.”
“I know. But it’s not going to match the decor.”
“Hmm.” I don’t say anything else. The pool table was a ‘gift’ from Sarah, meaning that it was somethin’ she picked out and bought with my money, for me. It’s okay. I liked it at the time. Shi’s right, though, it’s not gonna go with the house. It’s too, I dunno, massive. And I don’t want to look at it anymore. Thinking about it reminds me of the rooms full of stuff off the kitchen. “Hey?”
“What?”
“No one ever came to pick up all the stuff in the, you know, in the rooms by the kitchen, did they?” I’m not lookin’ at Shi; I’m lookin’ at my fingers. I’m lookin’ at me pickin’ the skin off the sides of my fingers.
“No, now you know that I would have told you if they had. And I wasn’t going to bring that up right now, but since you have, you’re running out of storage. Moving the dining room table is going to be about the last large thing that can fit in there. If you decide on any other furniture adjustments, like a different pool table, then you’re going to have to clear those rooms out.”
“Shit.”
“Something along those lines, yes,” she says with a small smile.
“I guess I’m gonna have to get that stuff moved.”
“I guess you are.”
“You wouldn’t want to...”
“What? Move it load by load in the Jeep? No. Call a moving company and arrange to have it shipped to the location of your choice? Of course.”
“It’s all Sarah’s shit. You’d have to talk to Sarah.”
“Ah, well, no, YOU would have to talk to Sarah.”
The salesperson comes back for me to sign the receipt, and Shi talks to him about arranging a delivery time. Once everything is settled, it’s back out into the heat and the walkin’ tour of Malibu Shi is demanding today. I’m hoping that the Sarah topic is closed, but I get the feeling that it’s not.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“ARE you going to talk to Sarah?”
Ungh. That’s a question that needs a cigarette. I take out my pack and offer one to Shi, who accepts it, and a light. And through this whole little ritual, I still haven’t answered the question. Haven’t even made like I’ve heard it.
“I only ask,” Shi says, “because of the storage situation and if it would have any bearing on you having the dogs back.”
I nod and walk and smoke and think about what all this means to me. What it means is havin’ to talk to someone I don’t want to talk to; havin’ to see someone I don’t wanna see. But the longer I put this off, and I know that I’ve been puttin’ this off, the harder it gets to do it.
“I don’t know.” That’s an honest answer. As honest as I can be about it.
“Because if the dogs were to come back, I think that building them a kennel outside would be for the best. And if you don’t want to talk to Sarah about arranging to have her things returned to her, than maybe you should have them put into some kind of off site storage.”
“That might not be a bad idea,” I tell her. It would be an easy solution. I’d like to say that I don’t know if Sarah wants the stuff or not, because she hasn’t called about it. But I know that someone using her cell has been callin’ me, and it could be her and she could be callin’ about the stuff. Or not. So, while puttin’ her shit into storage would empty those rooms, she might want the stuff and gettin’ it to her would solve the whole thing.
“It’s none of my business, but are you avoiding her?” Shi asks.
“Yeah, I am,” I say. “You wanna grab some coffee?” There’s a Starbucks right up ahead. I want a frappe-somethin’, something cold, and I know that Shi likes her coffee.
“Sure.”
“Take a table. Whaddaya want?” I ask. She tells me to get her a triple espresso. “Hold this.” I give her my cigarette and go inside to get the drinks, and when I come out, Shi’s at a table under an umbrella and she’s found an ashtray somewhere.
“Thank you,” she says. Her drink is steamin’ hot when she pries the lid off of it. Mine’s full of ice cubes and I offer her some, which she takes. “And thank you again.”
“My pleasure.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes. We’re drinkin’, smokin’, watchin’ the traffic, and watchin’ the people go by. It’s Saturday, so it’s busy. Not crazy, but busy. And warm. Hot. The beaches are probably filled up already.
“Sarah’s been tryin’ to call me,” I say. “And I’ve just been ignoring it.”
Shi says nothing; she just sips her coffee and nods. Her face doesn’t say anything, either.
“I don’t even know if it’s her for sure. She’s let people use the cell before, you know? Call me. Fans.” I laugh, but it doesn’t come out like a laugh, it comes out like a snort. “It really was a fucked up thing for a while. I never knew who was gonna be on the line. So I got this other phone that was just for her to call me on, but she doesn’t use it. Anyway, I’ve been deleting the calls. I don’t know what she wants.”
“Maybe she wants her stuff.”
“Maybe.”
“Alex, I think you know that you’re going to have to talk to her one of these days. I wouldn’t presume to know what’s gone on between you and her, but as I understand it, it was a serious relationship. And even when they fall apart, if you’ve put anything into them, any time, you still have to deal with that person. I know you don’t have kids with her, but you have the dogs, and you still have all these things you’ve accumulated together. And that’s enough.”
“I don’t even know what to say to her any more,” I admit.
“Well, I think you know what NOT to say to her,” Shi says, and her lips twist into this silly smile.
“Ya know that’s it; I still get angry with her. And I have no right to really be angry with her ‘cause she’s angry with me. She’s supposed to be angry with me. But when she pulls attitude, it drives me nuts.”
“I think it’s up to you, though. Don’t you think so? I mean, if you admit you’ve done things that were wrong, and that she’s got the right to be mad at you, then don’t you have to swallow some of this?”
“Yeah, I guess I just have a problem with how much.”
“I suppose,” Shi says, and she shrugs. “It’s different for everyone, that ‘how much’ issue.” She takes a drag on her cigarette and looks off at nothing, like she’s thinkin’ hard. “Sometimes, even the person who seems to be, no, who IS the wronged party... wait.” She smiles. “All the time, not sometimes. All the time, even the person who’s not at fault, is at fault.”
“Hunh?”
“Yeah, I know, bear with me. Look, you did something very wrong in your relationship. Like my ex-husband did something very wrong in ours. But that doesn’t mean that somewhere along the way I didn’t play into that, that I didn’t have something to do with how everything turned out. Granted, I wasn’t the one having the affair, but now, now that it’s over between Errol and me, I got the chance to step back and see that I wasn’t the best wife. I made mistakes. I made assumptions. Not that what he did was right or good or the thing to do, but I’m not the one hundred percent wronged party. Do you see what I mean?”
“I think so,” I say. I think I do. “Like, I was bad, but Sarah had her moments, too.”
“Yes. And somewhere in all that you have to figure out when enough is enough, I guess. I can’t be completely mad at Errol, or hurt by it anymore. Sure, it’s humiliating to have someone you care for step out on you. Humiliating to find out that there’s been someone else that they’re sharing themselves with. And I don’t necessarily mean physically. I think it hurts more that they’re sharing themselves emotionally, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, there’s always going to be some hurt there, but I have to let it go or I can’t move on. And Errol has to let go of some of the guilt, or he can’t move on. It wrecked the relationship, but we can’t let it wreck our lives. And there’s Tish. Bad enough that she’s going to be flying back and forth to see her father, she certainly doesn’t need us being uncivil to each other.”
“So, I gotta let it go,” I say.
“Some of it, or you’re going to be expending a lot of energy on this. And you’re going to be all tensed up over phone calls and furniture and a lot of other things. You may not think you are, but it’s in the background all the time. I think once you get it over with, once you talk to her, and settle all these loose ends, that you won’t be thinking about them in a subconscious way.” Shi shrugs again. “It’s not that complicated. It’s just not easy.”
“So you and Errol, you’re all cool with how things turned out? You can talk?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘cool’, but we’re not at each other’s throats. I can’t waste the energy, and Errol was never that kind of person to be that confrontational. And we’ve got Tish to consider, and I’m glad that he and I are both in agreement about not putting Tish between us or using her in any way that might make her feel responsible for the break up. Errol and I can talk, I’m just not interested in his life anymore. I couldn’t speak for him.” She looks me in the eye and smiles a very small smile. “I never could, but I didn’t find that out until it was over.”
“Man, it’s too much to think about.”
“Well, yeah, all at once it is. But I’m sure you’ve thought about plenty. You just haven’t been ready to really cut the ties. Who knows, maybe you’re not the type to cut those kinds of ties. Lots of people aren’t.”
“No, I’m not. I cling,” I say, and I can’t even believe that I’m sayin’ this stuff here, outside under a striped umbrella with people all around and in broad daylight. I’m usually sayin’ this shit in a paneled room with a lot of toned down light and a big leather sofa.
“Maybe you have to learn to not cling, then.”
“Sounds easy.”
“Everything SOUNDS easy, but not much is.”
“Well, that’s a real positive thought.”
“I don’t mean to be negative, I’m just being realistic. We can sit here and talk about all this for hours and hours, but unless you, or I, or anybody, wants to change something about themselves it won’t happen. And changing things is hard. But in a lot of instances, and this is purely my opinion, I think that change is good.”
“Hell, you don’t even like to move,” I say, and right away wish I hadn’t ‘cause it sounds bad, but Shi laughs at me.
“Yes, I know, funny, isn’t it?” She crushes out her cigarette. “Want to go look at some chairs?”
“Sure.”
“Waffle irons, too?”
“Absolutely.”
“And then, ta da, the market.”
“No effin’ way,” I say, and we laugh as we get up from the table and move on down the street. No car. Feet. That’s a change.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
