Be Ready for the Lightning, page 12
“I was going to ask if you would, actually.”
“Dinner?”
Ted made a sound, and I took it as a yes. I hung up and went back to the testing booth.
Conrad finally called me back mid-afternoon. I asked if he was okay.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to see that. That’ll never happen again. Ever. And don’t worry about coming here. You don’t have to fix me up.”
For a second I didn’t say anything, and we both listened to the silence of me not offering, not insisting.
“Really,” he said, as if I had spoken. “I’m okay. Are you, though? I never, ever should have gotten into it like that in front of you. That guy just made me so crazy. And did you see his fucking shirt?”
“I saw it.”
“I hate that shit. Clothing with words on it should be illegal. I have a theory that the young guys walking around with those ha-ha-funny shirts, you know, Female Body Inspector, that kind of stuff, are the same guys who end up riding around on bicycles at fifty because of a DUI.”
“A theory I can’t disagree with.”
“So you’re not mad?”
I shook my head, and he said “Good,” even though he couldn’t see me.
“It’ll never happen again, losing it in front of you. Ever. I mean it.”
“Okay, Connie.” I told him I had to go, which was true, and I hung up. Amelia came into the break room, while I was standing there with the phone still in my hand.
“Everything okay?” she said. She’d already given me my holiday gift that year. Amelia never said Christmas, and her own solstice celebration involved a fire release, where she burned things she felt anchored her to the past year in an unhelpful way. My gift was a Himalayan salt lamp, which she told me would emit balancing ions. She had the unique and somewhat surprising ability, shared by so many Vancouver doctors, to combine a decade of scientific education with gently inoffensive New Age trendiness, but she meant it kindly. I’d already turned on the lamp a few times, only to find myself staring at it expectantly, as if a genie might pop out.
Amelia was warm, non-judgemental, easy to talk to. I looked at my phone.
“Everything’s fine.”
—
When I let myself in that night, Ted offered me a drink—soda water, even though he’d been drinking beer the night before. Something was wrong. I sat down in his armchair, and he sat down too, in the mismatched one beside it.
“He’s doing okay,” I said, “I talked to him this afternoon,” just as Ted said, “I don’t know how to start.”
And I suddenly became aware of my whole body, head to toe, a premonition of disaster.
“I don’t want to subject you to my life anymore,” he said. “It’s a mess. I’m a mess. And you’ve already got so much to deal with, with Conrad. I’ve already dragged you too far into more bullshit, and it’s not fair of me. You deserve better.”
It didn’t sound dickish and tragic coming from Ted, not yet, because he was not, in that particular moment, either of those things. Instead he was hopeful and clutching sincerely at the platitudes he was spouting. He was also, by then, a semi-functional alcoholic, who had once been a mostly functional alcoholic and was, presumably, on his way to functioning less and less.
The thought of losing Ted, not intermittently as I was used to, but permanently, on top of what had happened with Conrad, was too much to fully absorb. Instead, as I sat there on Ted’s armchair, him looking anxiously at me, the loss pierced me only at intervals, like mild heart attacks. It came and went. There were moments, as he spoke, where I thought I was fine.
Ted said, “My counsellor says you’re another drug for me, like alcohol. You’re so familiar, and you’re so forgiving, and you’re always there.”
The slippery aphoristic unfairness of that exploded in my head. I wanted to scream wordlessly, like an insane person. Instead I took half a breath, which was as much as I seemed to be able to get, and said, “But isn’t that really stupid? I mean, it’s got a nice symmetry to it and all that, but in terms of actual real life, isn’t it pretty much bullshit? That having someone love you, support you, is a bad thing?”
The counsellor was from a private clinic, where Ted had signed up for a two-week detox that would be followed by a long, vigorous, monk-like rehab process. It made me think of harsh scrub brushes and cold, overwhelming northern air, even though I knew that was not literally what he’d be doing. He had already had two sessions with the counsellor and would check into detox the following Monday. Apparently two sessions was enough to convince him I was part of the problem.
When Ted laughed, it wasn’t bitterly or ironically—it was a normal laugh, still charming. “I was going to tell you both last night,” he said. “But, you know. Everything is always so crazy with Conrad.” Then he stopped laughing and said, “I don’t want to lose you. I love you. You’re my best friend.”
“You’re my only friend now,” I said. This was more or less true; with Annie gone, still in California and increasingly out of touch, I wasn’t much in the business of friends. I had Conrad and his revolving door of girlfriends, and sometimes I had tea with Amelia after work, but that was about it. “Is this because I didn’t come over last night?”
“Of course not. Not at all,” said Ted. “Seeing him like that, though, again. It did make me think. Veda, I’m sorry. I think I have to try this. I can’t start off rehab by ignoring my therapist or lying to her. And I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing. I have to try.”
Inside me somewhere (even though I knew the make-up of the human body very well, I would have described it as in my lungs, because suddenly I couldn’t breathe), a pathetic voice keened with requests too deep and demanding and humiliating to give words to. But what I said aloud was, “Of course, I understand. I want you to be healthy. I want you to be happy. Whatever it takes.”
Ted put his arms around me and pressed his face into my hair. He kissed my ears and my closed eyes. And we said I love you and I love you too, and there were several false starts to my leaving Ted’s apartment, slowed down by more tears and kissing and then sex and then more declarations of love on all parts, but finally I was standing with my coat on by the door.
Instead of “Goodbye” or “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m so glad you understand,” as a way of signing off, and the relief in his voice was so palpable, that I felt a little splintering in my chest, a feeling that zinged down into my hands, and it took me a second to work out what it was. And just as I thought the word furious, I suddenly was. Furious with his relief, that soft, heavy tone of relief, that gratitude to me for making it easy.
I walked back into the kitchen, opened a cupboard and took out a plate. Once I had stopped by his place unannounced to find him sweeping up broken pieces of porcelain. “A friend of mine smashed them,” he said. “We had an argument and she was—” He’d stopped himself, and I had grimaced-smiled and held up the coffee I’d brought him.
Now I held a plate, one of the cheap ones he’d bought, after that girl, whoever she was, had broken the others. Ted was looking at me with a What’s going on? expression, and I held the plate out and let it drop. I didn’t even throw it, I just dropped it, and it broke on the floor but sort of held its shape, the pieces gently separated.
“What are you doing?” he said, and I took out another plate and dropped that one too.
Ted crossed his arms and leaned back a bit, but he didn’t stop me. Mechanically, I went through his seven plates, dropping them one by one. There was a dirty one in the sink, but I left that. The whole time my hands were vibrating.
When the cupboard was empty, he said, “Square now?”
—
I drove home wrapped in the kind of pain that impairs higher functioning, that makes you stupid. I thought that this would be a tall order indeed for The Wiping Away Thing. I reminded myself that this happened all the time, every day, and hadn’t Annie already gotten divorced, and that must have been harder, and my problems were not that bad compared to the many, many horrible possibilities in the world.
I didn’t want to call Annie. After the divorce, Annie’s comfort had lost its former I told you so quality. But even Annie’s kindness wouldn’t help, and that was more terrifying than not receiving the kindness at all. So I didn’t call anyone that night. I went home and crawled into bed. Because Ted and I had planned to go out for dinner and hadn’t, even with all the talking and the sex and the plate dropping, it was only ten o’clock.
I’d just switched off the lamp, when my cell phone, charging on my nightstand, rang. It was my mother, who never usually called that late. I said hi and asked her, maybe more harshly than I meant to, why she was calling.
“I just had a feeling,” said my mother, but then she stopped. “I haven’t heard from you. I wanted to know how work was going.”
The loss of Ted hit me now, all at once; it was a feeling of excision, as if the meat of my insides were being peeled apart, the way you can pull the filet out of a chicken breast. That feeling was something I tried to twist away from but found I couldn’t. There’s no more going home, went Ted’s song that was not about me.
I opened my mouth to tell my mother what happened, maybe even to start crying. What I said instead was “It’s fine. It’s good actually, thanks for asking. Other stuff has been kind of stressful lately, though. Ted and I split up.”
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.” When I didn’t respond, she said, “Are you okay? Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow. Your dad and I got some rice cakes today—there’s still some left.”
“Dad doesn’t like tteok.” I used the Korean word, to show her I knew it.
“He’s been a lot better lately. The other day, I made salad with arugula instead of romaine, and he liked it. And he eats my zucchini bread now—I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.” She cleared her throat. “But anyway, maybe you can come tomorrow? Or you could come on the weekend, maybe even stay over?”
“I’m feeling a little rundown. I think I just need to rest.” My phone felt so hot against my cheek, I worried there was something wrong with it. “But thanks, Mom.”
After we hung up, I took the little X-Acto knife I’d bought at the craft store out of drawer of my bedside table. I pulled the hem of my pyjama shorts up, exposing the white lines on my thighs. But it suddenly seemed pointless, and that was worse than the sting of a cut—the worry that it wouldn’t work anymore. That nothing might.
—
With Ted gone to detox, I didn’t have to worry about cracking and begging him to change his mind. There was just nothing to be done. No negotiation, no sneakiness, no concession could have an impact now. The finality of it should have made things easier, but for the first time in my life, I found myself craving a messy ending, drunk phone calls, naked emotion. And there was no one to call.
When he got back, he sent me text messages to say that rehab had gone well, and he was starting up teaching again, and he wasn’t going to be playing any shows for awhile, because the bars were a toxic environment and a trigger.
After that, the only time I saw Ted was when he and Conrad and I went out together, to movies or restaurants, where we all ordered sodas or ironic Shirley Temples in solidarity with Ted. Ted must have told Conrad something, because Connie didn’t ask me about the change in the situation. And Ted was still charming and nice to me; he didn’t ignore me during these group dinners, in fact, he treated me about the same as he always had, except his hand didn’t find my knee under the table.
I was trying The Wiping Away Thing and failing. It felt like I could wipe away my entire life and still not wipe away Ted, reprogramme myself to see him as just an old friend. I felt insubstantial, despite the slight fold of fat across my middle, acquired in the weeks following the night of broken plates, during long, cliché evenings of police shows and potato chips. I felt as if I were in danger of disappearing, floating away.
FOURTEEN
In the weeks after Ted got out of detox, every once in awhile, I would suddenly find myself staring through the glass at the client during a hearing test, as if they had been beamed in from outer space, with no memory of setting them up, taking a history, making small talk as I fitted the headphones and explained the procedure. It was like skipping a rock across a pond, only I was the rock. I worried I’d miss something, but no one else seemed to notice. I was doing more complicated testing now and consulting with Amelia about strategies for patients with more difficult conditions. It should have been harder, but instead it seemed to flow smoothly, like a river carrying me along.
At home I sometimes found myself in front of the computer, chatting with Annie, and I’d scroll back to see hundreds of words I’d written, whole conversations. A lot of it was banal affirmation, ritual banter. But sometimes I’d find something strange.
Sometimes I’d like to just bash my head against a wall, until I can’t think anything at all. I had typed one day. Reading that, I added, What I mean to say is, I hardly know where I am half the time these days.
Annie wrote, That’s how I felt after Howard. It’ll get better.
I wonder what it feels like, for Conrad. The fights, I mean. It must hurt so much. When I saw him getting strangled. What would that feel like?
I had put my hand on my neck and squeezed. My lips started tingling almost immediately. I let my hand fall away and looked at it, as though it had gone rogue on me.
—
On a grey winter day, I was sitting at a table with Conrad and Ted, the two of them talking about hockey, drinking beers that Ted had ordered and no one had commented on. It wasn’t even a restaurant we were in, it was a bar, and it had been Ted’s idea. So much for rehab.
His and Conrad’s low, male voices buzzed under a din of higher frequency noises—the clinking of glasses, scraping of chairs, the treble-heavy pop track I couldn’t identify.
“That’s the bastard that fucked up Jeff’s knee,” said a high voice, and I looked up and saw the girlfriend from the bar fight, which was over two months ago by then, the one whose boyfriend had strangled Conrad.
She was with another woman and two men, and the men looked at her and seemed to get some sign of confirmation, because one grabbed Ted and the other grabbed Conrad and pulled them to their feet, and just that fast, it was happening again, the grunting, the quiet soundtrack of fists and body-to-body grappling. I tried to wade in, waving my arms stupidly and saying “Stop it, stop it,” and Conrad yelled at me to get away.
Bar staff had run over and were trying to pull everyone apart, yelling at no one in particular to calm the fuck down. A girl bartender must have called the police, because she was shouting that they would be there in two minutes, and the girlfriend who had started it all let out a scream and smashed the bottle she was holding against a table. She misjudged and it broke high, leaving her holding just the neck. With the men dragged off to the side, I was standing alone with the girl and her female friend.
“You stupid bitch,” said the girl. As if I’d made her smash the bottle incorrectly. Then she swung at me, and my hands went up instinctively, and I was screaming, meaning to say, Help, help! but mostly saying, Oh my God, oh my God. The bottle made contact with my hand, opening a cut on the meaty part of my palm, and when I pressed my other hand over it, it felt hot and huge. The girl swung again, and it was like someone poured lava over the side of my head. It radiated and pulsed and so did my screaming, and then I was on the floor, and someone stepped on my leg, and something dripped into my mouth, metallic. My face was wet, and I couldn’t open one eye, and everything looked wrong.
Then someone was pulling me up and touching the side of my head, which felt like they were pressing a hot iron against it. Instead of screaming, I threw up, mostly on the person who was holding me and partly on the floor. I couldn’t see properly out of either eye and was so, so dizzy.
When I came to, I was lying down, my head still on fire. I was in the hospital, on a gurney. One eye was still closed and sticky, but I could see Conrad out of the other, and he said, “Someone threw a bottle—we didn’t see who,” to a man in patterned scrubs who was pushing me down a hallway.
“Veda,” called Conrad. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”
And then he was peeled away by another nurse, and my vision swam again and I let go.
—
When I woke up, my mother was sitting in a chair beside my bed.
“They had to shave part of your hair,” she said, and then, “How are you feeling?”
“What happened?” I put my hand up to the side of my head, gingerly. Both my eyes seemed to be operating fine. My head, though, was bandaged on one side, and it was hard to hear. I snapped my fingers beside the bandaged side, checking to see if I could hear the sound as expected, allowing for the gauze. It seemed all right, but it was hard to judge.
“You’re going to be okay. They said your hearing won’t be affected. You can test it yourself, once you’re healed. It was all external damage, so. But it—It will look different. You can get a prosthetic apparently, though it’s not all gone, so I’m not sure how that will work. You probably know about all this better than they do, really. Your father and I will pay for it, the prosthetic, if you want one. Or they said there might be a possibility of reconstruction, but they would have to take cartilage from your ribcage, and there would be skin grafts. I don’t know. It sounded like a lot.”
“A prosthetic what? Reconstruction? What the fuck?”
“Veda!” my mother chastised automatically, then said, “I’m sorry.”
It was my right ear, my external ear, which, as it turned out, had been mostly cut off by the broken bottle. They had stitched for hours but hadn’t been able to reattach it. My forehead and hand had been cut as well and stitched up. A shallower cut on my neck, at the end of the bottle’s arc, was taped closed.
“If we put vitamin E on the cuts, they probably won’t scar,” said my mother. “But your ear—” She didn’t elaborate. “The important thing is you’re going to be okay.”
