33.
Becca
“Becca? Becca?”
I look up from the paper I’m doodling on only to realize that everyone in the conference room is staring at me. Charles, the redheaded, tired-looking marketing director here at the small advertising firm where I’d been working for the last two months, is standing next to the projector, a laser pointer in one hand, the other hand resting on his hip.
“Becca?” he prods again.
Clearing my throat, I set down my pen and smile. Shit! How long had he been calling my name?
“Ahh, yes,” I say, glancing as casually as I can at the projector screen as I slowly turn over the paper upon which I’d been hard at work sketching a monkey riding a dog. On the screen is a mockup of an ad featuring a mother and her child on a playground. The mother, all smiles and looking directly into the camera, has just given her little tyke a push on the swing. The child, too, is staring out at me. What kind of company was this for again? Life insurance? Yogurt? The newest model of some luxury sedan? For the life of me I couldn’t remember.
“Ahh, yes,” I repeat, clearing my throat as I search around for something to say. Everyone is waiting expectantly. “I think…hmm…well, I think it captures exactly what we’re going for, both in this ad and at this company. A beautiful mother playing with her beautiful child is an excellent way to display the family-friendliness we strive for. I can’t think of a better way to capture a clear and loving family dynamic.”
Satisfied, Charles continues on with his presentation. Letting out the breath I’ve been holding, I glance across the table at Janine, my favorite coworker. A hint of a smile on her lips, she raises an eyebrow. ‘Good job,’ she mouths.
The meeting comes to an end some ten minutes later. Thankfully, Charles doesn’t ask for my input again. Dismissed, I shuffle out of the conference room as quickly as I can. The last thing I want is to get caught in conversation. Even so, not five feet beyond the door, a hand grips my shoulder. Luck is on my side; the owner of this hand is Janine.
“Nice one,” she says, slipping her arm through mine and falling into step beside me. Tucked under her opposite elbow is a portfolio overflowing with more ads. “That was some quick thinking. What was it again? ‘A clear and loving family dynamic.’ It almost sounded like you were paying attention and not drawing cartoons.”
I smile wryly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jay. You know I only want what’s best for the company. I would never go to an important meeting and spend the entire time doodling.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I swear, sometimes it feels like Charles just pulls these ideas straight out of a fishbowl of commercials he saw the night before. A mother and child on a playground? Really? Talk about cliché!”
“Maybe he has a board he and the other directors toss darts at while they’re drinking that fancy scotch he’s always going on about.”
“Boy, doesn’t that sound like the life! Twenty-five years and we could be right there with them.”
“The hardest part of getting there would be not killing yourself first.”
“You said it, girl.”
I drop Janine off at her cubicle and continue on down to mine, stopping for a lukewarm cup of coffee—my third—from the communal kitchen along the way. Though it’s not yet eleven in the morning, I’m already exhausted and itching to go home.
Back at my desk, I sip coffee and peruse my inbox, my eyes, unable to help themselves, wandering down to the clock in the bottom right corner of the computer screen every ten seconds, time inching along.
I take my lunch break at 11:30, sneaking out before anyone has a chance to snag me for any of the innumerable, interminable meetings everyone here seemed to love. In the park down the street, I find a nice, shady bench, whereupon I spend the next hour and a half slowly consuming the salad I’d picked up on my way into the office this morning. While I eat, I observe a large group of mothers with their children playing some sort of tag-like game, several dogs circling the group like shepherds tending to a flock. It’s another gorgeous day in Portland, the sky achingly blue, the air perfectly warm, the trees and grass so vividly green one’s eyes hurt began to hurt just looking at them.
I get back to my desk sometime after one. Not a thing has changed in my absence, two of my fellow cubicle-dwellers not even having moved since last I saw them. They’re hunched over their desks, as still as wax statues, their eyes half-closed, their fingers hovering over their keyboards, looks of boredom and despair etched onto their faces.
This dreary atmosphere, coupled with the restlessness I’ve been feeling since rolling out of bed this morning, makes it impossible to stay the full day. Around three, my mind about ready to explode from boredom, I stealthily pack my shoulder bag, shut down my computer and tiptoe to the elevator.
As luck would have it, when the elevator doors slide open, Charles is inside talking to another of our marketing directors, a short, wide man named Mitchell.
“Hello, Becca,” Charles says as he slides past me, Mitchell giving a curt nod as he follows after.
“Hey, Charles.”
“Going somewhere?”
“Yep,” I say with my best nonchalant air. “I have that doctor’s appointment I was telling you about.” The lie comes surprisingly easy to my lips.
“Ahh, yes,” Charles says. He’s not paying the least bit attention but is leafing through several dozen photos inside a green folder. “Well, have fun.”
“Always do!” I call through the closing elevator doors.
Despite having spent the entire day dreaming of being back in bed, I don’t go straight home. The day is much too nice and I’m much too restless for that. Instead, I make my way to my favorite wine bar on the southeast side of the city. With a big back patio overlooking a well-kept garden, it’s the perfect place to pass the rest of a lazy afternoon.
A glass of white wine in hand, I settle into a low-slung chair in the back corner of the patio. Though I’m the only person here when I arrive, as the afternoon wears on, the sun leisurely sinking behind a row of massive oaks denoting the beginning of a park several blocks away, more and more people begin to filter in. Soon, every seat is filled with laughing, happy people relaxing after a long day at work.
I stay until a second glass of wine has disappeared down the hatch, whereupon I head home, my car left parked on the street as I navigate my way there on foot. Luckily, home is not so very far away. Fifteen minutes later when I arrive, an empty house greets me. With Grant at a conference in Phoenix and with the clock just now barely edging past five, I have several hours yet before Sophia returns from her studio across town.
After another glass of wine sipped on the back porch, my thoughts lazily drifting along as I watch the sky fade from blue to purple to black, I go to my room and crawl into bed.
Geez, I think as I’m lying there, the covers pulled up to my chin, my hands tucked under me, my eyelids heavy with the exhaustion of a day spent doing nothing. What are you doing to yourself? Are you really going to pretend that this is happiness, this little purgatory you’ve built for yourself? How many more days like this do you think you can take?
No answer forthcoming, the wine picks me up and carries me quickly off to sleep.
***
I’m awoken by Sophia arriving home from work, the crunch of her tires on the gravel driveway rousing me from my slumber.
“Ugh,” I groan as I roll over. I have a slight headache from the wine and my stomach is growling with hunger.
“Becca?” Sophia calls from the living room, the front door creaking open. “Are you home?”
“I’m in here!” I yell back. “In my bedroom!”
She comes in a moment later. When the door opens and bright light spills into the dark room, I gasp and pull a pillow over my face.
“Hey, girl,” my best friend says, as chipper as ever. “Just taking a little nap?”
“Mmm-hmm,” comes my muffled reply.
“How was work?”
“Terrible.” Tossing the pillow aside, I push myself up onto an elbow. “I was so restless today. I couldn’t even make it past three p.m.”
“You really should find something else. There’s no sense in doing such soul-crushing work.”
“Soul-crushing?” I snort. “You mean to tell me that convincing people to buy things they don’t need is soul-crushing?”
Sophia laughs. “Well, when you put it that way...Anyways, ready for dinner?”
“Most definitely. My stomach is eating itself.”
“Perfect. Then I’ll give you a few minutes to put on something a little nicer. Want a glass of wine before we go?”
“Come on, Soph. You know me, don’t you?”
“So that’s a yes?”
“That’s a hell yes.”
She’s back in a minute with two glasses of wine, though each glass is more akin to half a bottle seeing as they’re both filled to the brim. While I flutter about the room in search of a decent outfit and the accessories to go with it, Sophia sits on the edge of my bed and watches me.
“How was your day?” I ask, yawning as I slither into a tight pair of black jeans. “Sell anything?”
“I did, actually. For whatever reason, quite a few people came into the studio today. I sold three entire sets of dinnerware. It was so busy I didn’t even have time to work at the kiln.”
“That’s great news. With how much work you’ve put into that place, you definitely deserve some success. I’m so happy for you!”
“Thanks, babe. By the way, your ass looks fantastic in those jeans.”
“You’re going to make me blush if you’re not careful. What do you think? Dark blue blouse, or white blouse?”
“White blouse for sure.”
I’m ready five minutes later. Before heading out, we down the rest of our wine, cheers-ing before we chug.
“You know,” I say, a bit wobbly already as we head out to the street to a cab Sophia had called while I was dressing. No driving was a hard and fast rule of girls’ night out. “I think you’re right. I really do need to find something else. At the rate I’m going, I’m going to be a full-fledged alcoholic by the time I’m thirty.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Sophia says, her eyes gleaming. “You’ll be a full-fledged alcoholic no matter what you do.”
The restaurant where Sophia has reservations is one of the nicest in town, a new Peruvian joint that’s only been open a month. When we arrive, the place is bustling, the line out the door despite it still being relatively early. Even with a reservation, we have to wait nearly twenty minutes at the bar before a table finally opens up.
“Ooh,” Sophia says, nudging me with her elbow. “Three o’clock. That hottie is checking you out.”
“Don’t tell me you mean the guy with the gauges and the neck tattoo? He looks like he just crawled out of a prison thrift store.”
“Not into that?”
“Not really. I’m an all-American type of girl.”
“Well, I’m not. I’d let a man like that do whatever he wanted to—“
“Sophia! You’re engaged.”
With a girlish giggle, Sophia gives me a wink.
“Doesn’t mean a girl can’t window shop, does it?”
“Your table is ready, ma’am,” says a college-aged waiter at Sophia’s side. For a young kid, he’s rather attractive, his smile bright, his body trim, his shoulders wide, his hair close-cropped and neat. As we follow him from the bar to a table in the middle of the restaurant, Sophia looks back over her shoulder at me with a raised, approving eyebrow.
“Incorrigible!” I hiss. “Absolutely incorrigible!”
As soon as we’re seated, Sophia orders a bottle of wine.
“Don’t worry,” she says, preemptively brushing aside any objection I might make. “Dinner is on me tonight.”
“Sophia, I can’t let you do—”
“Please,” she dismisses with a wave of her hand. “Didn’t I tell you I had a great day at the studio? Besides, you look like you could use a pick-me-up.”
“You really are the best, you know that? First you let me move in with you and Grant. Then you let me overstay my welcome and don’t say anything. And now you’re taking me out to dinner. How am I ever going to repay you?”
“Really, don’t mention it.” Pulling a menu towards her, she cracks it open. “Oooh, everything sounds so good. Let’s get a bunch of appetizers to start. What do you think? I’m in the mood to eat.”
“I’m in.”
The waiter arrives with our bottle of wine. Pouring a fingerful into a glass, he hands it to Sophia. With an exaggerated air of sophistication, she swirls it, sniffs it and takes a sip. “Delectable,” she says with a slight British accent. “Absolutely delectable. We’ll take it, my good sir.”
Soon our table is overflowing with food, Sophia having ordered every appetizer on the menu.
“So,” she says, popping some sort of fried something or other into her mouth. “Tell me about this project you’ve been working so hard on.”
“What project?”
“Don’t be coy with me, missy. I’m talking about all of those paintings you’re always going to your room to work on at night.”
“How do you know about those?”
She shrugs. “I had to go in there a couple of nights ago to find that shirt you borrowed last week. They were out on your desk. Of course, I’m sorry I looked through them, but I couldn’t help myself. They’re really, really good, you know.”
“Thanks, I guess. Though I wasn’t planning on ever showing them to anyone.”
“And why not? They’re beautiful. All of Hawaii I’m guessing? My favorite was the one with the table out in the middle of the water. It just looked so romantic with the moon and the stars and—“
“They’re just doodles,” I interject. “Just something to do when I get tired of reading.”
Noting my discomfort but saying nothing, Sophia takes a deliberate sip of wine.
“Well,” she continues, “I don’t think they’re ‘just doodles’. I’ve been telling you for forever that you’re ridiculously talented. It’s a shame you hide such beauty from the world. You know, as I’ve said before, I have a friend—Caroline, that tall blonde chick I had over a month or so ago—who has a gallery here in town. She also has one in L.A. and another in New York. In Chelsea, I think. Anyways, she’s always looking for new artists to put on a show. If you want, I could—“
“I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“Didn’t you tell me once that you’d always dreamed of putting on a show?”
“Well, yeah. But that was way back in college. Besides, compared to people with formal training, I don’t think I—“
“What about them? You’re just as talented—more so actually—than most of the hacks I see slinging their shitty drawings to the world. So why not you?”
“I don’t know…” Taking a sip of my wine, I pretend to read through the menu the waiter has left on the table. “I’m not so sure about—“
“Well, I am. I hear you though. I won’t push. But as I said, Mika is always looking so if it’s something you’re interested in, just let me know.”
“Thanks, girl.”
“What can I say? I’m a great friend and your biggest fan.” Laughing, Sophia pours the rest of the bottle of wine into our glasses. As she does this, she catches the eye of the handsome waiter. Nodding, he sets off for another.
Dinner keeps moving right along. Even though we’ve ordered more than enough appetizers to feed a village, we each get an entrée anyways. By now, the wine has worked its magic, the both of us a little loose-lipped. For some fifteen minutes, we’ve been not-so-discreetly discussing the fashion choices of the other diners. There’s a woman two tables over wearing a hat and sunglasses, the use of which in the dim restaurant neither Sophia nor I can discern. Then too, she has on an extremely tight dress made, it seems, entirely of sequins. Across from her, her husband, his handlebar mustache gleaming with wax, is dressed just as oddly, primped to the nines in a black tuxedo straight out of the Roaring 20s, his formalness offset by a pair of neon-green sneakers. The two encapsulated perfectly what made me love Portland so much: the people were as weird as weird could be. And they weren’t even the strangest ones here!
We’re both laughing pretty hard, doing our best not to be noticed by the couple, when suddenly Sophia stops, clears her throat, and leans over the table to look at me with one beady eye, the other clamped shut.
“Okay,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper and assuming its serious tone. “Enough of the chitchat, Becks. I want to talk about Rich.”
My smile vanishes instantly. Oh boy. I should have known this was going to happen. A wily one my best friend was, cornering me like this. Had this been the entire point of dinner?
I don’t say anything as I take a large swallow of wine.
“Come on, Becca,” Sophia pushes, her eye flickering from one of mine to the other. “It’s obvious you’re still torn up about him.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And why not?” Sophia huffs, sitting back and crossing her arms. “You’re going to have to talk about it eventually.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Oh, yes you are, girl. I’m going to make you.”
For a moment, neither Sophia nor I say a thing. Finally, resigned, I sigh. It was useless to argue and I knew it. From the determined look she was giving me, I could tell my best friend wasn’t going to let me get away anytime soon.
“Good,” she says, grinning as she recognizes my tacit acquiescence. “Now tell me, have you talked to him?”
“Of course not.”
“But don’t you want to hear his side of things?”
“No. It’s pretty obvious what his side is.” Grabbing the wine bottle, I empty it into my glass. I might be cornered, but I’d be damned if I was going to do this while being anything other than hammered.
“You can’t really be sure unless you talk to him though, can you?”
“Look, Soph. I don’t have to talk to him to know that I already know the important parts. He was hiding things. His whole identity to start. And then there was Charlotte.”
“Did you tell him about Rob?”
“No. But that’s different.”
“How is that different?”
“I wasn’t still with Rob! Rob meant nothing to me after I met Rich.”
“You ever think that maybe it was the same for Rich and Charlotte? Which means that he was telling the truth when he said she found him somehow? I mean, what kind of self-loathing person would want to get back with someone who was telling everyone, least of all the media, all sorts of terrible things about him?”
“I don’t know. A demented person.”
“Exactly.”
We fall silent. Sophia’s staring at me intently. I can feel her looking but keep my eyes glued to my plate of half-eaten food.
“Listen, Becks,” she says, her tone softening. “I know it hurts. Of course it does. Even so, I still think you should consider talking to him, if only to hear his side. The way you first told me about him; the way you wrote about meeting him; hell, even the way you described him when you got back from your trip, everything already having fallen apart: I’ve never seen that from you before. Not with Rob. Not with Tom. Not even with Julio from Argentina, that hot guy you dated when you studied abroad junior year!
“So,” she continues. “Would it really hurt to try? You’d be no worse off than you are now. In fact, you might even be better. I know there’s still a part of you stuck on the ‘what if’s of it all. What if he was telling the truth? What if it wasn’t what you had thought? Wouldn’t it be better to know?”
Saying nothing, I push a piece of charred chicken from one side of my plate to the other.
“I’m just looking out for you girl. You know I just want what’s best for you. I know you’re hurting; I can’t imagine how much that must have sucked. I just felt the need to say something as your best friend and the love of your life.” Reaching across the table, she lifts my chin with a finger, my eyes meeting hers. She smiles and I can’t help but smile weakly back. “You know I’ll always love you no matter what you do. And you’re more than welcome to stay with Grant and I for the rest of forever as our adult child. You’re like my sister. You’re like my other half. As the Peruvians say: mi casa es tu casa.”
“Thanks, Soph.”
Dropping her finger from my chin, Sophia picks up the empty bottle of wine and shakes it.
“Hmm,” she says. “Think we have room for one more bottle?”
“Probably not.”
“Good. That sounds like a yes to me.”
Waving at the waiter, she holds up the bottle. As before, he nods and scurries off.
“One last question,” Sophia says once our glasses have been filled with fresh wine. “And then we can move on.”
“Okay. But just one more. That’s all I think I can handle.”
“Did you ever figure out how that picture you sent me got out?”
“Nope.”
“Hmm. Well, I asked Grant. He swears up and down he didn’t show it to anyone. At first I thought maybe a customer had seen my computer screen and had somehow recognized him, but then I remembered I hadn’t opened the email in the studio. I suppose it’ll have to forever remain a mystery.”
“You know,” I say, “that’s another thing that pisses me off. How could he just accuse me of sending that picture out? Does he really think I would do something like that for money or fame? Honestly, I think that’s what hurt the most, that he would just assume the worst about me. Couldn’t he have talked to me and gotten my side of things?”
Sophia only has to narrow her eyes for me to get her point.
“Dammit…” I grumble. “This is a pot and kettle thing, isn’t it?”
“Your words, not mine!” my best friend laughs. “Anyways, what say we have some dessert? I could use something sweet to soak up all this alcohol…”
***
We end up closing the place out. True to her word, Sophia snatches up the bill when it comes, refusing even to let me see the damage. We’re both so drunk that we have to cling to each other for dear life as we careen through the restaurant. Thankfully, a cab is just coming around the corner when we step outside. Hailing it, I tumble into the backseat, Sophia tumbling in after.
“Know what?” Sophia tells the driver, a portly man just now settling into old age. Leaning over his seat, she wraps her arms around him and plants a big, sloppy kiss on his stubbly cheek. “Take ush long way home. It’s beautiful night for straight there.”
Grinning, the driver sets off. Not ten seconds later, Sophia is passed out and snoring beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. Realizing this, I giggle and let my forehead fall against the cold window. We’re just now passing over the river. With the full moon directly overhead, it’s a wide ribbon of silver cutting the city in two. So bright is the night that Mount Hood, though wavering before my drunken eyes, is easily visible in the distance.
Ahh, I sigh. My beautiful, beautiful Portland.
For a while my inebriated thoughts freewheel around, dipping into various rooms of my mind, though soon enough they turn back to dinner. A delicious meal if ever there’d been one. So much wonderful food. Had those been bananas in the dessert? Truly a perfect night. Well, almost. If only Sophia hadn’t bombarded me with all that talk of Rich.
But maybe the girl is right. Maybe you should reach out to him. Though not now, obviously. You’re much too drunk for that. Mmm, you know what sounds good? Chocolate...
Hmm, but maybe it was just as she’d said. It was obvious I was still torn up about it, despite three months having passed. How many times since returning from Hawaii had I woken up in the middle of the night with his face fresh in my mind? And how many times had my heart begun to thrash when I’d heard his name tumble from the lips of my colleagues or a television in passing? Three months it had been and yet I was no closer to being ready to find someone new. Gah, Georges and Toms and Michaels just weren’t cutting it for me! How was it that he’d gotten so deep into my blood? We’d only known each other for a week!
Still, could I really forgive him for what had happened, for all that he had accused me of, for all of the terrible things he had said about me in front of the entire resort? Then again, hadn’t I done the same thing to him? Or was mine—not just accusing him but ignoring him and denying him a fair chance to explain—worse? And yet the man still had been willing to try, had still professed to care deeply for me…
Where did I even start, supposing I wanted to? I had no idea how to find him. As far as I knew, he wasn’t returning for another season of football. At least that was what all of the talking heads on the sports channels were saying. No one seemed to know where he was. Or at least no one had professed to have seen him recently. So even if I wanted to talk to him—not necessarily to get back together but just to hear his side of things—there was no way for me to do that.
Was it worth it though? Was it worth it to go digging through the trash? Or was the fact that there was trash a sign we weren’t meant to be? Wasn’t love supposed to be easy? If you had to jump through hoops just to make something work, especially something that had just begun...
Then again, maybe something being difficult was what made it worthwhile. What was that old proverb, that old kernel of wisdom? The hardest climbs make for the best views? Nothing ventured, nothing gained? Don’t shit where you eat? My drunk mind wasn’t firing right.
We’re pulling into our neighborhood now, the cab driver having ignored Sophia’s slurred directive and taken us straight home. Probably for the best considering she was snoring so loudly the windows were rattling. Ugh. I was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning. Too bad I had to go to work. Maybe Charles would get typhoid or something. Was typhoid still a thing?
We get to the house a few minutes later. After paying the driver, I set to rousing Sophia. It takes several minutes before I’m able to wake her up just enough to shove her out of the cab. Together, Sophia still asleep though her feet are moving, we stumble up the sidewalk to the front door. As the cab driver waits for us to get safely inside, I slowly work my key into the lock, the damn thing jumping from side to side. Finally getting the door open, I wave to the driver and drag Sophia into the house. Dumping her unceremoniously onto the couch, I stagger to my bedroom, bouncing from wall to wall like a pinball. All the while, my thoughts are still on Rich.
What was the right thing to do? Was it to call him? Or was it to just forget about it and keep moving forward? If it was truly meant to be, wouldn’t it work itself out?
What a silly thought. If something’s meant to be, it’s only because you make it happen.
I’m hopping back and forth on one foot in the center of my bedroom, struggling to work off my heels. My left foot freed from its fashionable prison, I collapse sideways onto the bed. As my fingers fumble with the strap of my right hell, my undulating gaze ventures over to my desk. Several of my paintings are stacked haphazardly on top of it, Sophia’s favorite foremost on the pile.
And what about what Sophia had told me earlier, about her friend with the galleries here and in Los Angeles and New York? Could I do really something like that? Were my drawings really good enough? Even if they weren’t, wasn’t it better to take the chance? After all, it was pretty damn apparent I was over the whole soul-crushing job thing. I was twenty-eight. Not so many more months from now I would be entering the final year of my twenties. Perhaps the time had come to take the chances I had always dreamed of taking but never had.
Three quarters of me is asleep now, the wine shutting down my brain synapse by synapse. In the sliver of me that’s still fighting off the darkness, I’m picturing myself standing before one of my paintings hanging in a museum somewhere. In this vision, I’m explaining to some faceless old man beside me the meaning and significance of my style. You see, I am saying, my nose turned up so high I’m practically looking at the ceiling, the juxtaposition of the white and black is meant to capture the contrast between what we think things to be and what they truly are…
I shudder, one arm slithering up the bed in search of a pillow. Did I really have the courage to expose myself like that? The prospect alone was making my armpits sweaty.
And yet…perhaps this was exactly the reason why I needed to do it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
After all, what, really, did I have to lose?