Holy fuck this is boring.
How many times can I tell the same stories? Yes, my father left when I was young, but whose doesn’t? And sure, my mom tried to control everything in his absence until I was desperate to get the hell out of Yonkers, to talk to strangers without her dragging me away like she thought I was about to be abducted. And then there were the teachers who said I didn’t live up to my potential, the reviewers who said I had no potential, the DJs and VJs and record execs who thought it was okay to grab my ass or my tits, the way I let them because I wanted what they had to offer and couldn’t see another way to get it.
And the drugs that made it all so much easier.
I mean, I knowEvelynisn’t bored. I know how to tell a story, put on a show. But it’s like performing the same songs over and over and over again. It gets to a point where it doesn’t matter how much fun it was to perform the first few times. You start to live for the unexpected moments—when some audience member crashes the stage or a band member forgets a chord and you have to improvise, change the set list, make up a new song and dance on the spot.
Take it from someone who’s taken every drug there is:Nothingin the world beats that high.
I can’t wait to get out of here and do it all over again. But I have to time my comeback exactly right if I’m going to emerge like a phoenix from the ashes, performing my brand-new song solo.
I just have to finish it first. In the meantime, I need to find smaller highs to get me through the day.
Which is why, halfway through therapy, I ask to use the bathroom, like I’m a first grader who needs permission from her teacher. And why I winkat Andrew, absently wiping the kitchen counter, on my way. And why I give him a blow job when I’m supposed to be peeing, even though I fucking hate giving blow jobs (maybethat’swhy my husband left?). Unexpected fellatio is the closest I can come to changing the set list.
“Everything all right?” Evelyn asks when I return. Andrew came fast, but I guess it still took longer than a normal bathroom break.
The sour taste of Andrew’s sweat lingers in my mouth. He hasn’t reappeared in the living room yet. He’s smart enough to stagger our departures and returns.
Now that I know about Evelyn’s drinking, I can see the telltale signs on her face: dark shadows beneath her eyes, puffiness around her nose. She has no idea I was studying the label of one of her fancy wine bottles on this very couch less than twelve hours ago. Her ignorance gives me another tiny high.
Evelyn’s hair is brushed into its usual tight, eyebrow-raising bun. I imagine each strand coming undone when she screams at her husband, or cries in her lawyer’s office, or sips from her secret stash. She’s wearing her usual uniform: crisp white blouse, smooth black pants. I imagine a pile of blouses twisted into a wrinkled heap at the foot of her bed, stained with burgundy and streaked mascara.
Evelyn lights an enormous candle on the coffee table between us. It gives off a scent of roses and vanilla, so sweet and so fake that I want to gag. Despite the fact that I’ve been sleeping and screwing in this cottage for days, this place doesn’t smell like anyone actuallyliveshere. They keep it too clean for it to fill up with the odors of food and laundry and sweat. Personally, I like a messy house. I hate the smell of floors that have just been scrubbed, dishes just rinsed. Homes shouldn’t be so neat; thereshouldbe scattered papers and mislaid clothes and chipped glasses in the sink. Anything else is so fake, like lipstick that doesn’t smudge, hair that doesn’t move in the breeze, hems that falljust soinstead of dragging across the floor.
“So you own this place, right?”
Evelyn looks surprised by the question. It’s the first time I’ve seen her startled.
She quickly regains her composure. “Yes,” she says evenly.
“Okay, but unless you’re some kind of billionaire, I’m guessing you couldn’t afford to buy all this land on your own. So like, you must own it with other people, right? Investors?”
“I don’t think you need the details of how I run my business.”
Herbusiness. “You started it with your husband, right?”
“Correct. We’re both psychotherapists. He’s an MD,” she adds, “a psychiatrist. And I have a PhD in social work.” Her voice drops on the last few syllables.
“It’s complicated, isn’t it, working with your spouse?”
I smile like I’m offering empathy instead of contempt. Evelyn thinks she knows better than me, but she doesn’t know I’m sleeping with a member of her staff. If she’d asked me, I’d have told her never go into business with the person you’re screwing, especially a man with more impressive credentials.
My life is such a shitshow that no one ever wants my opinion—which is completely ass-backward. I want to tell them all tolisten to me! Learn from my mistakes!My kid most of all. She thinks I don’t know that she struggles. She thinks I don’t have any of the answers.
I guess I have only myself to blame for that.
After midnight, the final verse of “Imposter Syndrome” tumbles out of me.
I used to think he’d be the one to bring me,
Build a house where I would be at home
I used to melt every time he’d sing to me
But he only left me alone
Take me, raise this, baby
