Read The One That I Want Online
Authors: Allison Winn Scotch
The One That I Want (5 page)
I move to kiss him good night, that last flicker of a moment of our evening together, when I’m seized with a cramp in my foot. It shoots through me like a lit wick, before I can even think to grab on to something steady, exploding through my temples, and then,
blam
, it’s gone. Stars splay themselves on the back of my eyelids, and my gag reflex kicks in as I choke back suffocating air.
“You okay?”
I look down to see Tyler peering up at me, his eyes half-open from the disturbance.
I exhale through my mouth. “I’m fine. Just upset over a fight with Darcy.”
“What happened?” He sighs, his words slow with sleep.
I start to reply, but the open window has shut: he’s already gone, slipping back in his dream world, slipping out of consciousness entirely.
I pop three Aleve, yank my dress over my head, and fall into bed. The air conditioner whirls and hums as I try to temper my anger with Darcy and her ever-present immaturity. This begrudging, this I’m-so-stinking-pissed feeling is foreign, unfamiliar, and I want to let it go, but it’s stuck there, taffy in my bloodstream, emotional static cling. I consider calling Susie but know she has her own burdens to bear, and Luanne is working the night shift.
Just get over it, Tilly. You know she was just upset because it’s Mom’s birthday
. I run through a list of my prior grievances with her: how many times have I let her off the hook for bad behavior? I didn’t even realize I kept a list, but now, with my annoyance primed and ripe, the list, I conclude, is long.
My leg twitches restlessly, and I throw a pillow over my head, but shut-eye eludes me. I mull my prom to-dos and mentally flip
through my list of baby names, but still, sleep won’t come. That goddamn list of Ways Darcy Pisses Me Off is caught on replay, so I right myself, slide my worn plaid slippers over my feet, and pad to my bureau, crouching by the bottom drawer. It creaks when I wrestle it open. Over the years, the stacks of photos have toppled over into each other, so while they were once aligned precisely—delineated by high school, by pre–Mom’s death, by our wedding—now, they’re one amalgamation, the proof of the life I have lived.
I have taken the bulk of these pictures. Not all, but most. I discovered photography at twelve, at sleepaway camp, when we were mandated to attend all of the afternoon activities whether they interested us or not. And photography was certainly a
not
for me—not for
Silly Tilly
, that girl I haven’t thought of in years, who was better primed to flirt with boys in the dining hall or cannon-ball into the pool on the days when the temperature nearly melted us from the inside out.
Our bunk trudged to the photo hut and the counselor gave each of us our own camera and told us to explore the grounds, snapping at whatever grabbed our attention. We wandered into the woods, and I just snapped and snapped because I was really thinking about kissing Andy Mosely later after canteen and how to avoid the horror stories I’d heard about locking our braces. But then the instructor asked us to unspool our film, and in the near blackness of the camp’s darkroom, he demonstrated how we were able to turn those passing glimmers of moments into something concrete, something that would mark that second in time forever. And I was captivated—Andy Mosely and his braces flew right out of my brain. And soon, while my friends were working on their canoeing skills or lanyarding bracelets for the bunk, I could be found in that semidarkness, turning a blank paper into a piece of history.
Tonight, I scour the mess of photos, running my fingers over the chronology of my life, until I find the one I’m after.
It’s a black-and-white shot. I’d set the timer on the tripod and rushed back to our front porch, throwing myself next to Luanne and plastering a panicked smile across my face just before the click of the camera sounded. My father’s arm is casually thrown across my mother’s shoulders, and we, the trio of sisters, are sitting on the steps at their feet, though my body is somewhat disjointed from my rush to make it in time. The paint is slightly cracked on the frame of the porch, and an American flag falls limp in the background, waiting for a breeze to blow it to attention. But our cheeks are all flushed, and our eyes are all glowing, and together, the five of us, we are a family.
I feel the pinch of tears, and slowly one, then two, then three roll down my cheeks, where they nosedive onto the carpet. It was the last summer before my mother was diagnosed, before everything changed, before I started hoping that someone could freeze time and point us in a different direction. Before Darcy hardened herself, before we talked around each other, before I ever even thought to make a list of the times that I’d had to save her.
I rise gingerly to go back to bed, still clutching the photo and running my fingers over my father’s face, marveling at how much he’s aged, how poorly he’s withstood the damage that time can bring. And then I feel it again—there’s no mistaking it now, a cramp in my toe, then my leg, then upward as it whooshes through my heart and then my head, and I can’t free my mind from Ashley Simmons’ face and her knowing smirk and the sensation of her fingers interlocked with mine. And then, I am falling, falling, falling, unable to fight against the paralyzing pull of gravity. I hear a disconcerting crash, and then, it all goes black.
My dad has sidled up to the bar at Mickey Mantle’s, the sports bar off of Route 17, nestled in a strip mall between Applebee’s and a nail salon. I watch him from a corner, the air bursting with wafts of smoke from the patrons, who suck in their cigarettes, their lips pursed in concise cylinders. Rick Springfield’s
“Jessie’s Girl”
plays on the jukebox from the game room, and if I listen closely, I can hear the smack of two pool balls colliding
.
The black-leather-topped stools on either side of my father are empty, though a huddle of men are perched at the end of the countertop, their eyes glazed over as they nurse their longneck beers and stare at the extra-innings Angels-Cubs game that’s coming in via satellite from L.A
.
No one notices me, even though I’m the only woman in the vicinity barring Cindy Heller, who was three years ahead of me in high school and looks about two decades older. She got pregnant straight out of her senior year and now has three kids with two different dads, neither of whom have stuck around long enough for her to pin them down for child support. Her frown lines twitch as she makes her rounds with overflowing drinks, the occasional order of nachos
.
My dad raises his hand to signal for the bartender, and I see two shot glasses delivered in front of him. I scream for him when he reaches for one glass, then the other, and pours them down his throat as if they were water, as if they were air, as if he hasn’t been sober for nearly a decade, and as if the very poison he just knocked back hasn’t nearly killed him many times over. I scream again, but no one turns to
look at me, no one even seems to hear. I try to move toward him, to rip those shot glasses straight from his hands, toss them on the floor where they’ll shatter into tiny, penetrating shards, and haul him the hell out of here. But as I implore my brain to lift my legs, to thrust forward, I discover that I’m weighted down, paralyzed, and I can scream and scream and scream, and try to run and run and run, but I am both silent and frozen, invisible and helpless all at once
.
My father throws one final shot down his throat and then stands, grabbing hold of the mahogany bar to steady himself, and as the crowd in the corner salutes a run scored, my dad bobs and weaves himself to the exit. Before he wanders out into the warm starry night, he plunges his hand into his side pocket and pulls out his keys, triumphant, like a fisherman with his catch. I try to shout above the din, above the ruckus
, For the love of God, stop, Dad, stop,
but still, I am voiceless, so all I can do is watch my father stumble out of the bar and into the parking lot, where for a sliver of time until the door slams shut, I hope that he’ll be alright, even though I know, as well as I’ve ever known anything in my life, that nothing will be alright about this at all
.
“T
ill, Tilly, are you okay?” Someone is gently slapping my cheek, and I squint my eyes open to find Tyler hovering above. “Till, Jesus, are you okay?”
“Urf,” I say. My body aches, muscles sore and bent in ways they didn’t ask to be, and I slowly cast about for my bearings. I’m on the floor by the bureau, a lamp broken to my left. I run my fingers over my face and feel the pockmarks from a night spent pressed into the carpet.
Tyler slides his hands under my armpits and lifts me, effortlessly, to the bed. I want to stay like this forever, but he releases me against the pillows.
“Jesus, what happened? I just came in with your coffee.” He pauses and hands me a mug by the nightstand. “And found you like this.”
“I … I don’t know,” I say. “I had the weirdest dream. About my dad.”
“Lie down.” He cuts me off. “I’ll call Luanne.”
“Lulu’s a delivery nurse. She’s not exactly the cavalry,” I say, sucking down a long, necessary sip of caffeine. “Besides, I feel fine.
I don’t know. Maybe I just fell asleep there.” We both look at each other, wondering if either of us believes me.
“From the look of it, you fainted.”
“No. It wasn’t that.” I try not to think of my dream, with my father having tumbled down the black hole of his alcoholism, of his near-suicide spiral ten years back that could have come at a much higher price. No, my dad is in Puerto Vallarta with his girlfriend, a trip they’ve made the past three summers, drinking virgin margaritas, wearing ridiculous touristy sombreros and fanny packs.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he says.
“I am.” I nod. A memory of Ashley Simmons bolts through me.
“I’m giving you clarity.”
I shake my head again and toss the image free.
“You still want to do this barbecue? Because it would be totally fine if you canceled. We should probably cancel.”
“What? Yes, of course!” I tilt my head toward the window to check the weather, and a joint in my back—still angry from my night on the floor—pops loudly. I notice the sweat ring around his T-shirt, the pit stains under his arms. Tyler’s already been out for a run while I lay here splattered on the floor.
He turns toward the mirror, tugging his damp shirt over his hair in one smooth motion and sighing the tiniest of sighs that only his wife of a decade can detect. I know he’d rather not go. I know that he’s weary from making small talk with the same people he sees day in, day out. That he’ll perk up when the conversation turns to baseball, and that everyone will thump him on the back at the memory of his championship ring, but still, he’ll suck down his beer and wish that he were someplace where he didn’t have to justify himself to himself, because—as I have told him too many times of late—he’s the only one who feels let down with who he’s become. Everyone else thinks he is king of the world.
I linger in bed, watching him strip his sweaty clothes, tying a towel around his waist, when the phone rings—too early, too loud, and we both jump. The coffee spills on the white duvet, spreading like a pool of blood at a crime scene. Ty recovers before I do and takes one lone, giant stride toward the nightstand, and flips the receiver onto his naked shoulder.
Darcy
, I think, remembering our fight, how we left things.
Maybe she’s calling to apologize
. Until I realize the absurdity of that idea, because Darcy would never call to apologize. My anger breeds itself all over again.
How many times have I apologized to HER ass? Not this time! No, for once, not this time
.
“Hey, Timmy,” Tyler says, mouthing “Timmy Hernandez” to me, his brow furrowing.
“What?” I whisper, but he raises his index finger, telling me to hold on, my thoughts of my delinquent, stubborn sister evaporating.
“No, no, I understand,” he says to the phone. “Sure, yes, she’s right here. Hang on.” He passes the phone to me, covering the receiver with his palm. “It’s your father. They arrested him this morning when he plowed his car into a tree off Harbor Road.”
