A Happy Catastrophe

“Elizabeth, it’s fine. I remember Tessa.” One night—no, two. He’s not proud of this. Never talked to her again. Just one of those things.

“You do. Well, good for you for not trying to deny it. Sexual intercourse is nothing to be ashamed of between consenting adults these days, so we’ll just go on with life, shall we? Although I will say, I was a little surprised. Her being so much older than you and all.”

“Yes,” he says and waits for her to get to the point. He does not want to get into defending an unwise testosterone-fueled decision he made when he was twenty-eight years old and full of the dickens at his first hometown art show. He thought he was a big deal back then. The former cheerleaders were smiling at him, for Christ’s sake. People who didn’t look at him twice back when he was a nerdy kid who didn’t do sports and just wanted to hang out in the art room were now circling around him, smiling and asking him questions. He had reached a level of coolness he could only have dreamed about when he’d been in high school there. And there was sophisticated Tessa, wearing a short black dress and stiletto heels. Looking out of place, and grateful to talk to him about his “process.”

Later, there was a hotel room, kissing in the elevator, and his surprise that a woman his sister’s age, a grown-up, would just invite him up to her room.

“So Tessa called me up out of the blue,” Elizabeth is saying. “Wanted to know if you were still in Brooklyn.” She stops talking.

“Okaaaay, so?” he says. His head may be starting to pound just the slightest bit.

“And I’m sorry, this is out of character for me, don’tcha know, but I got to talking about you, and when she said how she might look you up, I said that, well, you were involved with someone, and she said how of course you would be, you were so handsome and talented, and so before I knew it, I told her about th-the fire, and all the operations you’d had, and I’m afraid I went on some. And she wanted to know—well, she wanted to know how it all ended up. Were you okay? She wanted to know if you were, um, disfigured”—he has to close his eyes for a moment to ward off the way his stomach lurches at that word—“and if that had interfered with your ability to, you know, get along in life—and then I told her the truth, that you’d had a rough time, but you’d met someone anyway, because that’s just the kind of person you are, a survivor, because you are, Patrick. And she said you were a hero. And I said that you weren’t really. I don’t like that kind of talk. The hero talk.”

“You’re right. I’m not a hero,” he says. “I’m just living my life.” And I am currently banging my head against the wall. And my game shows are starting soon, and I need to stop talking about the past. “But why are you telling me all this?”

He can feel her debating how to break the news to him. “Well, I gave her some information. The name of Marnie’s store and your cell number and your address. I hope I didn’t do a bad thing,” she says in her flat, ironic voice. “Like, you know, maybe if Marnie is the jealous type and gets mad about your old . . . whatever showing up. But then I was thinking—and what do I know about love, so don’t pay any attention to anything I say—maybe if Marnie did get jealous, that might actually be a good thing since it could get you to step up and do what needs to be done and marry her.”

She lets out a bona fide cackle at this. He remembers now that his sister is an aficionado of romance novels. And apparently now she’s dreamed up a little romance novel of her own, starring him as a reluctant bridegroom; Marnie, his jealous live-in girlfriend; and Tessa, a siren, “the other woman,” blasting into town to shake up their world.

He rolls his eyes. When exactly did the world lose its collective mind?

“So please tell me I didn’t do something awful,” Elizabeth is saying. “Maybe she won’t even contact you. I couldn’t tell if she was hoping to start something up with you again, but I think I discouraged her from doing something embarrassing like that. Still, it would be amusing at least, wouldn’t it? You, with two women wooing you. Give you some stories to tell yourself in your old age.”

“Elizabeth,” he says, aware that he needs to cut this off before the conversation goes completely off the rails. “I’m sure it’ll be just fine. She probably won’t even call. I’ve got something burning in the oven, so I’ve got to go. Nice to talk to you!”

Bedford is looking at him, wagging his tail, when he hangs up, always up for a good story. Roy sniffs and leaves the room. He’s never cared much for Patrick’s romantic exploits.

CHAPTER SIX

MARNIE

I’m at work, but in between texting with the overly neurotic Patrick and waiting on customers, I have checked myself in the mirror about five times today, because it is possible that four days after the Great Condom Failure, I’m beginning to show some signs of pregnancy. I think my hair is beginning to look shinier and more lustrous, which the internet says happens to pregnant women. I also may have just the slightest glow to my skin. Just saying.

Anyway, I’m happy for the distraction when the Amazings come swanning in.

Usually they talk about their friends and all the problems everybody has: a guy they like named Mookie just lost his dad, and Justin doesn’t have the money to go to college. All of them seem to have something they’re recovering from. Their teenage lives are complicated, and hard. But today’s topic seems to be how many people it’s possible to fall in love with at one time. Ariana, their ringleader, who is wearing torn leggings and about four tank tops simultaneously along with multiple necklaces strung around her neck, is arguing that the number is infinite, depending on how big your heart is and how much “soul energy” you have. The one called Dahlia isn’t so sure. She has choppy purple hair and bangs that are only about one-eighth of an inch long, and she thinks you should pick one person and give everything you have to that person.

Kat looks at me over the top of her glasses. I hide a smile. It’s hard to explain how much I adore these conversations.

“No, no, no,” says Ariana. “It’s the opposite. There’s no one person for everyone. That’s a bunch of propaganda to keep women in their place. The truth is that the more love you give out, the more comes back to you, and then it just keeps going and going. So you can have lots of people in your life simultaneously, and people will just gravitate toward you because they feel you loving them.” She’s got huge blue, sea-glass eyes and wild curly yellow hair that I swear she dips in pink ink, which makes her seem even more sincerely wacky. I love hearing her talk. “People can tell, you know, how you really feel about them. I read something about it; it has to do with microscopic eye movements that we feel even if we can’t quite see them. It’s science.”

The quiet one with a shaved head, who is always partial to wearing camouflage and lace—Charmaine—laughs and says, “God, you’re so super ridiculous, Ariana. You get in so much trouble if you don’t just stick to one at a time! People get so mad at you if you do that.”

“Who cares if they’re mad?” says Ariana. “They need to let go of their expectations that everything is all about them. Anyway, that seems crazy getting mad about love. Love is like a physical place, an energy, and like, it’s open to everybody and it’s all unlimited, and you even have to work to push it away, to keep from being hit by love energy. Because it’s the way you’re meant to live. You give it all, and it all comes back.” She waves her hands in the air. Beautiful long, tanned arms with a tiny rose tattoo right near the wrist. How do you already have a tattoo by seventeen? I was barely allowed to get my ears pierced by then.