IT’S NOT AS THOUGH THE HEAVENS HAVE OPENED UPand doused me in utter ecstasy, but my first two weeks in Maine have given me hope that I can save myself. No one is telling me what to do or how I’m doing it wrong or that I’m hideous and useless and pathetic. No one is clinging to me out of narcissistic need. I’m trying to shake off years of damage, much of it from my family, but I also fault myself for not being stronger. Jay, for instance, and what I allowed him to do to me was sick.
I’m trying to build a new life for myself, one that I choose and I direct, but I’m so paralyzed that I hardly leave the house, except to restock food. I’m a little tired of sandwiches, but I’ll live. My apartment is still almost empty because I haven’t the slightest idea how to decorate it. I don’t know what I like, but I do know that I can’t stand the sight of anything that looks like something my mother might choose.
Every day, I sit in the rather barren living room with my laptop and work on my designs, occasionally hopping on store websites to browse clothes. I’ve nearly bought about a million items before deleting shopping carts. It’s just another example of how I haven’t the slightest clue of who I am outside of the push-and-pull relationship with my mother. And that makes me want to vomit. Designing for clients who hire me to create graphics, book covers, banners, and all that—that’s easy. I can do for others. When it comes to figuring out myself, I’m still rather lost.
I take a break to grab some coffee. I don’t care that it’s already seven. I don’t sleep well anyway. Caffeine is the least of my worries.
As I walk to the kitchen, I catch sight of myself in the old mirror hanging by a scraggly piece of twine. Something about my reflection is vile, but I can’t decide what. My hair and makeup are as they always are, and my navy dress and nylons are clean and orderly. Suddenly, I realize how fucking asinine it is that I am still dressing in these preposterous clothes that my mother expected and that I’m spending eons every morning on some stupid beauty routine that only makes me feel worse about myself. I can’t stand to look at myself any longer.
As I stir sugar into my coffee, I become more and more agitated. While still in the kitchen, I pull the dress over my head and yank down my nylons. I stuff them in the trash can, and then I grab scissors from a drawer and head for the bathroom.
The water pressure from the sink is not great, so it takes a while, but I soap up my face and scrub until I can barely breathe under all the water that I’m splashing over my skin. I go through a few cotton balls of makeup remover to get the last of the eyeliner and mascara off, and then I really examine myself as I am—without gobs of shit all over my face. Right now, a stranger is looking back at me, one I’m going to have to get to know. My fingers run over my lips, my eyes, my forehead as I trace my features and feel what it is to be me.
Section by section, I hold handfuls of hair out, and the scissors chop through them. All I care about is getting rid of the weight that has been dragging me down. Dyed auburn locks fall over the sink and the floor, and I don’t stop cutting until my hair is well above my chin. I run wet fingers through it and push it off my face. I start laughing with relief and exhilaration. This is better. My natural dark brown shows through at the roots, and I’m happy.
I dump my makeup bag into the waste bin, but then I think better of losing it all. I refuse to ever again be a slave to those products, but even I can’t argue with putting on a little something now and then. Only if I want, only if it’s fun for me.
After loading a trash bag with all my old clothes, I throw on one of Sam’s sleeveless T-shirts and a pair of his jeans. I have to roll the legs and the waist, so I can walk without tripping, and my bra is totally showing on the sides, but I am so beyond comfortable that I don’t mind how kooky I might look. It’s now become imperative that I buy some clothes that fit me, so I’m going to have to go shopping tomorrow. With glee, I decide I want ninety pairs of jeans. I don’t think I’ve worn jeans since I was a kid, and I plan to make up for that.
It’s after eight when I hear Sam’s truck rumble up to the house. I’ve barely seen him, but the sound stops me in my tracks every time he comes home. I’ve resisted my constant urge to race out of the house to catch sight of him. It’s not as though he’s given me the slightest indication that he wants any sort of friendship. Sometimes, I hear his music playing downstairs, and I’ll lie on the floor and press my ear to the wood, trying to hear what he listens to. Maybe then I can find out who he is, why he’s so angry.
I miss him, which is crazy and not based on reason, but I do.
The sound of his footsteps coming up the stairs is reassuring, and I wait to hear his front door slam. Instead, the footsteps continue, and then he knocks on my door. The second that I open it, he walks in with two large paper bags in his arms, and he goes right to the kitchen. I stand, dumbfounded, while he begins unpacking the contents onto my counter, and then he adds water to a large pot that he brought.
When I get to the kitchen, he’s got a burner going, and he is chopping an onion.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” Sam keeps chopping. “Do you want to open that wine for me?” His elbow juts out to a bottle by the stove.
The corkscrew shakes in my hand a bit, but I manage to get the cork out. I set down the bottle and stare at him until he looks at me.
“What?” he asks all innocently.
I keep staring.
“I’m cooking you things with shells. Steamed clams and mussels in a tomato-wine broth and then two lobsters.”
I bite my lip and try not to smile. Sam, however, gives in and shows me the first smile I’ve seen on him. It looks good.
I cross my arms. “What if I’ve already eaten dinner?”
“Have you?”
“Well, no,” I admit.
“Because you were too busy cutting your hair?”
Shit.Shit!I forgot. He probably thinks I look atrocious. “Are you making fun of me?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all. Short hair suits you. And…” His eyes travel over my face. “I like the new look. You don’t need all that makeup.”
“It wasn’t really me anyway.”
He smashes garlic with the side of the knife and then locates another good-sized pot under the counter. After a few minutes, he asks, “So, whatisyou?”
It’s a simple question really and one I should be able to answer without my head swirling as I struggle to find a response. The room grows fuzzy in front of me, and I feel my anxiety level climb. “I don’t know. I have no idea. I threw out all my clothes and don’t know what to buy. I can’t decorate the apartment because I don’t know what I like.” I can hear my voice rising along with my panicked diatribe. “I don’t even know if I’ll like what you’re cooking because I’ve only had stuffed clams once at some stupid goddamn social affair that my fucking insane mother made me go to, and I couldn’t even taste anything I was eating. I never taste anything. When I was out with my mother, she’d watch everything I ate. She often told me what I could and couldn’t eat, what I liked and what I didn’t. It was that way with everything—everything—until it got to where I truly had no idea what I liked and didn’t. What I felt. What I saw. Who I was. Then, the other night, when I had clam chowder for the first time at your parents’ inn, I actually got to really taste something and like it, all on my own. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but that was the first time I remember enjoying food, and it was probably a fluke. Something is wrong with me if I don’t know what I like, and what if you make this and—”
