A short story.
“A widower takes audacious measures to overcome his personal guilt over his partner’s death.”
“Did she make you cry
– “Gold Dust Woman” by Stevie Nicks
Make you break down
And shatter your illusions of love?
And is it over now?
Do you know how?
Pick up the pieces and go home.”
*
That night, Trevor watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the next morning he called-in sick to work. Rachel Brosnahan. She looked just like her, only without the blond hair. He had watched the season from the beginning, and it was funny and painful in equal measure. And then there was the flashback, to when Midge did have blond hair, and it was like he was instantly-transported to his past. He couldn’t even pay attention to the show: he was so transfixed by this celebrity, this actress, out of his reach; a candle to his former flame. An imitation. As the show played, he reclined further in to the couch with his bottle of Wiser’s. He couldn’t remember the last time he touched his glass but he knew he was too-far-gone to reach for it now. From bottle to glass. He took a swig and let the TV carry on while his eyes darted around his living room of their own accord, looking for anything to rest on that wasn’t her. Why was he still watching? Because it was like a photograph he never took. A post he never saved. She was an idea, and then Rachel made her real again. It was coming up on ten years since Liz had died and try as he may there wasn’t any way to get around it. To relax. To take his mind off of her. Elizabeth Greer. Every show he turned to seemed to be a love story. His coffee table was strewn with artifacts from a life he knew before: trinkets from other girls that stood testament to missed opportunities; books he had stopped reading who knows how long ago, when his memory began its deadly choke-hold. That was the only way he was able to remember her now; her face, her manner: through the eyes of people paid to mock him and his affliction, as far as he was concerned. Rachel was beautiful in her own way but paled in comparison to Liz.
He thought of the parties she held at the townhouse her rich parents had rented for her and her entourage. He thought of the first night he was invited over. He was still a Freshman. So many people around, so many strangers. But Liz took his hand and led him upstairs and gave him the tour. She was so close that he could smell the shower on her from before the guests had arrived: the synergy of shampoo and damp hair. And then hours later, in the living room they had rigged-up as a dance floor – complete with aspiring DJ – as Liz danced just steps away from Trevor with her boyfriend at-the-time in-tow, as he held her, groped her; the biting of her lip as this other man’s grip tightened at the fingers and not the palms. The shampoo smell was fainter then but still lingered like a rocket, and as Liz looked up from her trance and into Trevor’s longing eyes there was a calling: an attraction. Nothing for her to hide behind now, in the clutches of her ecstasy; sweat beading from her brow and every place; the scent of flowers blooming by the ocean. It wasn’t the first time he had met her but it was the first time he knew she was the girl by whom all others would be measured. The DJ spun Sweet Caroline and the wave of people erupted into a sing-along, and it was then they were no longer strangers. The most beautiful night of his life. She broke up with her boyfriend soon after the party, and when a little time had passed the man found himself as the new target for her affection, just how it was meant to be. It was midnight now. The man let his YouTube playlist roll in the background while he hunched over his laptop piss-drunk and masturbated. Three hours before work. He wished he had this much to give when he was still seeing Liz. Before the accident, when he would have slit his wrists for her if it meant she would never leave him.
*
His job was terrible, but it gave him time to think: to work through his anger; his emotion. Angrily putting items on the shelves. It wasn’t even worth talking about. But he would fake a smile while his mind painted in broad-strokes the few positive anecdotes he could still recall. He used Rachel as tableau for Liz’s narrow, brown eyes that seldom allowed entry. The blond locks that fell naturally past her shoulders and had a mind of their own. There wasn’t a time he could recall she wasn’t wearing something that enunciated her physical attributes: tight, low-cut sweaters that left nothing to the imagination; stockings and sneakers; skirts. No make-up, hardly ever: her pale skin was flawless. If ever a girl said they were comfortable in clearly-uncomfortable clothing then Liz was at her apex: always approachable; always appealing; never complaining. She knew how to work a room. Yes, this was a girl who never cried. That was a side no one was ever lucky enough to see, outside of her own family. Even Trevor had a hard time becoming emotionally-connected to her. The thought of it made him stop working and catch his breath.
No one is perfect, are they? Does there exist the perfect girl? The balance between the physical and the emotional? There was something disassociative in the way that she spoke: well-guarded and vague. Never making a commitment. One time they went out for dinner together and there was an awkwardness he couldn’t shake. He had talked and talked and she sat across from him, politely listening, never lowering her guard. Unless there was no guard to begin with, and that is who she truly was. Trevor didn’t like thinking about that. Too definitive. So many had told him they were a bad fit: that she was ditsy and didn’t seem that intelligent. Yes, but look at how pretty she is! I’m sure the more we hang out the more she will open up to me. Yes, and then I could be what her ex-boyfriend wasn’t; what her own family couldn’t possibly be: a companion. A confidant. A lover next to him at night. And then he would know. At the dinner, when the bill came she insisted she should pay for her own but Trevor wasn’t having it. That’s not how this is supposed to work. On the bus ride home he courted her into a movie date that wasn’t meant to be: she died a few days later, without any pretense. It broke him. He was so close to getting through, to becoming more – to evolving – and now he was trapped: alone again like he was for all the years before. Sure, there were others he dated in the ten years since, but the vicious spiral of regret disconnected him from what he was building, to the ruin of a foundation he had poured before. With Liz, there was a mystery to be solved, but with the others there was no mystery; no spontaneity. Only misery: the misery of her death, and of being with the pretenders who staked to claim her throne.
But he was wrong, wasn’t he? There was another. At the same party, Trevor met Jenny: one of Liz’s friends. Not great friends, mind you. Liz had many friends, but Jenny was her polar-opposite: loud and unabashed, and opinionated. She would dominate a room when she entered it on presentation alone: dark, curly blue hair, and tattoos that ran the length of both arms to her back. She may not have been as physically-attractive, with hard eyes and a happy weight from a bad diet, but she attracted him with her ferocity and her reciprocated honesty. He told her about Liz: that he was still suffering. She said she understood: one of her ex-boyfriends died while they were seeing each-other, too. She went to Liz’s funeral, he stayed home, and she was OK with that. They opened up to one another. They moved-in together. He met her family. They fought, but as friends and lovers. Jenny was an open book, and for everything she told him and didn’t tell him, he always knew he could read between the lines of her tattoos and the creases of a world-weary weight on her face that she wasn’t going to change. Trevor thought he had moved on. One night, Jenny met him downtown for dinner, and arrived just as he was calling Liz’s old number to hear her answering machine. Who are you calling? No one. That’s suspicious. Well it isn’t any of your business anyway. On the walk they fought over his lack of commitment and by the time they got to the restaurant he told her he didn’t love her as much as she did him. She got up in-tears and ran away, and never came back. Trevor ordered and finished the date alone: too embarrassed and self-absorbed to leave, himself. He could hardly remember the others: only in flashes. Cassandra, who used him for support after her break-up, but never slept with him. Laura, who was a virgin. It was never about the sex, was it? Trevor heard Jenny had died too, of a fentanyl overdose. It was a long while since they last spoke, two or three different phone numbers later. Jenny had her own demons but to what extent, he must have been wrong. She never let him inside, to what brewed beneath the ink of her worry-lines. He had made assumptions. What was it about him that attracted the wounded birds? For them to confess everything, and yet nothing?
What are you doing? Get back to work! The man snapped out of his stupor. Ten years. When was he going to forget Liz? Was he ever going to forget her? Could he?
*
That night on a whim, he searched the directory for Liz’s last name and found it in the full-page ad of a Realtor in the rich side of town. Iona Greer. It took him a while: he wasn’t quite sure how Greer was spelt. But he found her. She was older, but had the same eyes and the same hair. Oh God, the hair. The blond was fading to white. He called the number.
Hello, North Shore Realty?
He hung up. His heart was racing. He took a drink from the bottle that called the coffee table home and called again.
Hello, who’s calling, please?
Hi, Mrs. Greer. I went to College with your daughter.
Can I help you?
Liz and I, well, we were dating.
At the time she died.
Hello?
I’m still here. Listen, maybe this isn’t something you want to discuss over the phone?
Would that be OK? If I came to see you?
Sure, why don’t you come by my office. Our address is in the phone book. Any time this week between three and five.
Thank you. He hung up. He couldn’t remember if he had told her his name. Did it matter? She had his phone number: she could call him whenever she wanted to, interrogate him, who are you? What did you mean to my daughter? The world, I hope. She meant the world to me. He took another drink. And another. And another. And then he cried.
*
It was strange walking into her mother’s office, never himself considering before of buying a home, owning one. Thinking about it now made him wonder about the family he never got to have. Could you imagine, him with a child? His parents couldn’t. Not now. Too much time had passed. His mother had let too many girls court her emotions, trick her in to thinking they were the one, only for another excuse from her son purge every hope. Not good enough. Not pleasant enough. Never enough. He heard the same parental guilt all the time, about how she had treated him: that maybe if she had let him be more independent, hadn’t doted on him so much, that he would have been able to find a nice girl to look after him, so he wasn’t so angry anymore. I don’t have time to date anymore, Mom. I’m busy. Busy with what? You only work part-time. What do you do all day? He shuddered to think, of all the days he had wasted over the years, drinking, keeping people at arm’s length, despondent at home on Saturday nights. Ten years. He was a different person back then. He had to have been! He couldn’t hardly recall the man that he was.
This house looked nice. The price didn’t – couldn’t – mean anything to him, but the house looked nice, with a twelve-foot hedge instead of a fence, to keep the strangers away. Excuse me, do you have an appointment?
I’m here to see Iona?
Hello. She came around the corner, with her variegated hair in a bun. She answered in a slight accent. Scottish, maybe? He’s with me, Lucy. Thanks.
How did you know it was me?
We don’t get many walk-ins. Why don’t we talk back here? She walked him down the hall and to a sparsely-dressed office with a desk separating two chairs.
Do you all share the offices?
Aye. I mostly work up at the front, but this is good for privacy.
I was worried. I thought you would be another of Bess’ junkie friends.
Bess?
Elizabeth.
I’m sorry, what’s your name?
Trevor.
Trevor. I’ve had lots of Bess’ friends coming out of the woodwork the last few years, but most of them were running in the old circles. I don’t have time for those eejits.
What did you want to tell me about my daughter, Trevor?
Well it’s been ten years, and, to be honest I’ve been thinking about her lately.
A lot.
You knew her well, obviously.
Yes, we dated.
I didn’t know she saw anyone after Chris.
Who’s Chris?
The roaster she was seeing. The last boy.
No.
No, no, no, she dumped him before we started dating.
We weren’t seeing each-other for very long before she passed. I can understand that she might not have mentioned me.
OK, that’s good. I’m sorry for making assumptions, Chris wasn’t a great guy. I never met him but they had a huge falling out.
Well, like I was saying, I’ve been thinking about her and, this is going to sound foolish,
I was thinking about the life we might have had together.
If she was still alive. And your daughter never really talked about you or, her life, and maybe that was because things were still so new and she was still guarded but,
she haunts me. She really does. And I’m not here to deceive you, or to make you upset by telling you these things but, I can’t hold them in anymore?
I had to tell someone.
Listen, don’t cry. My daughter touched many lives, when she was here. And the overdose was a shock to us all.
What?
The overdose. You didn’t know?
Well maybe not, you said it was new. And it has been ten years. We’ve all moved on now. I’m sorry I can’t do more for you. Maybe she might have mentioned you and I just can’t remember? She was so very popular.
That she was.
Especially with the boys. I don’t mind telling you, but there was one she told me, who was just relentless. Someone she had met at school, texting her constantly, messaging her, calling her. Even after she died. I kept her phone for a while, I didn’t know if the school would try to get in-touch, I didn’t know anything. And I would see the same number come up on her call-display every so often. I would have told him to get lost but I didn’t want to stir the pot. A real creep. Bess attracted that lot, too, unfortunately. She was a very pretty girl.
Yes.
She even told me this ladaidh showed up to one of her parties wearing a suit and sat in the corner all-night. Who does that? I don’t even know why he bothered, the way she spoke down about him. But listen to me, I’m being a blether. It’s just been so long.
Ten years.
Trevor nodded.
Strange the things you remember.
If it’s any consolation, the way I look at it is, it was Bess’ own choice to become an addict. To fall-in with the bad crowd, her friend Jenny and the rest of them. We could all see how it was affecting her, how disconnected she was becoming, not eating. She was so thin. Her father and I tried to get her help but she didn’t want it. It was her choice, and we’ve accepted it. And sometimes it’s hard but if that was her destiny then so be it. I don’t want to belittle the issue. And if you ask me, you have to find a way to move on and let her go. And whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye. What will be will be. I have to get back to work now. It was nice meeting you, Trevor. Good luck.
*
He had nothing to say. She had said it all, and it had all come back to him, in that empty office that was his confessional: the second party at the townhouse, when he sat quiet and alone and scared to have come, and only to see her; all of his unanswered messages; her flakiness; her exterior of steel. He found himself back on the couch. The bottle was empty: he had meant to pick one up on the way home but he didn’t. The television was off. He never did finish Rachel’s show. He opened his phone in the dim light of his living room and scrolled down to the Gs in his contacts. There it was: Elisabeth’s number, transferred from phone-to-phone; a shackle he refused to unlock. Would her mother still answer the phone? He hoped she wouldn’t. He hoped he would hit send, and hear her sweet cadence one more time: “Hi! You’ve reached Elisabeth’s phone! Please leave a message!” And then he would delete her number. He swore he would, like he swore a thousand times before. He called. A male voice answered the phone. Hello?
Hi…
Is this Elisabeth’s number?
No, you have the wrong number. Sorry.
Are you sure?
I’m sure. I’ve had this number for years now. No Elisabeth here.
OK thank you. But the voice had already hung up. The boy deleted the number. And then she was gone.
//jf 8.26.2020
theory of a daskeman 