Dirty Diana

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

—

I cross the parking lot in a daze, trying to calculate how badly I may have just fucked up. But when I shut the car door and close out everything around me, I’m ravenous. I drive to my favorite taco truck and order a burrito with everything they can fit in it. I eat behind the steering wheel, watching a steady stream of customers come and go. By the time I’m halfway through the burrito, it’s like a flip switches—I feel free. The next week stretches out in front of me with no commitments. I drive slowly through downtown, thinking I might stop in one of the galleries, or at the bookstore, but then I see the revival movie house is showing Stage Door and I buy myself an enormous bucket of popcorn and sit in the back. When I get home, I fall onto my bed feeling sick and excited and completely exhausted.

Two days later, I drive Alicia to the airport, speeding all the way so she doesn’t miss her flight.

At the curb, I hug her tight. She’s been my warm place for six years and I don’t want to say goodbye. “Who’s going to make me laugh like you?” I whisper into her hair.

“I guess you should just come.” She squeezes me back.

When we pull away, we’re both crying. I wipe salty tears from her cheeks. “You have to run. You’ll miss your plane.”

She waves away my concern and digs for something in her bottomless purse. A crumpled piece of notebook paper. “Hold on to this.”

I smooth it open and printed in Alicia’s small, careful handwriting is a list of coordinates.

38° 27' 51"N and 90° 51' 25"W

I look up at her grinning face, confused.

“It’s exactly halfway,” she announces. “Between Manhattan and Santa Fe. We can meet there, okay?” She kisses me quickly on the cheek. “And get this, the town is called The Diamonds. The Diamonds, Missouri.” At the airport’s revolving doors she calls over her shoulder, “Perfect for a couple of sparkling broads like us!” then disappears inside.

I spend the next morning scrounging boxes from two different liquor stores in town. I pack up my dishes, books, and all the bits of ephemera that I’ve collected since moving to Santa Fe. I tape up my paintings, a shoebox full of minicassettes I’ve recorded, and a stack of half-finished sketches.

By Friday, all that is left to do is to load everything else into my car and drive it to the Goodwill. Driving home I feel light enough to float away; only my seatbelt is holding me in place. When Jasper calls, I tell him I have a surprise for him and ask him to come straight to my place when he gets back to town.

—

Jasper arrives around ten o’clock Saturday evening. “Wow,” he says, looking around my empty apartment. “Going minimal?”

“You’re looking at a woman with no earthly possessions.” I’m sitting on the floor with a beer and a box of crackers I’m calling dinner. Pippi curls up in my lap and waits for her ears to be scratched.

I expect something like a round of applause or at least an admiring whistle. But Jasper looks serious. “What do you mean?”

“I donated it all. I gave my landlord notice. He made me pay for this month, but it’s okay.”

Jasper folds his hands and rests them on top of his head. “You didn’t tell Justine, did you?”

I refuse to acknowledge the look of total panic in Jasper’s eyes.

“Of course I told Justine. I can’t just disappear on her.”

“Oh, Diana.” He says this like I’d left the door open and Pippi has just run out into traffic.

A dead-weighted fear creeps into my belly, the terrible sense that he’s switched channels on me. “I had to tell Justine. We’re moving to Taos, remember?”

“I do remember. It’s just…”

No.

“We didn’t solidify anything…”

No.

“I had no idea you would act this quickly.”

Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.

“Did you quit the catering job too?”

I shut down in that moment. My face goes pale, I can feel it. My world is suddenly underwater. “There was no Taos…”

“No, of course there was. Is. No, I’d love to go to Taos with you. Someday.”

“So, let’s go—”

Jasper sits on the floor beside me. “My manager called. He got an offer for me, from the Hayworth in London. They want to show my work…You know he always said my stuff wouldn’t travel. And now they’re calling. I can’t say no.”

“You’re going to London?”

Jasper follows me into my empty kitchen where I dump the rest of my beer down the sink. I have never hated living in a studio more. I’m desperate for another room to walk into, a door to close and a place to be alone. My skin flushes, hot and cold at the same time. I think about my conversation with Justine. Waylaid.

“You can get your job back. Justine loves you. She knows she can’t live without you. And Barry will weep with joy. Right?”

I take a deep breath. On the exhale, I force the question I’m scared to ask. “Why did you ask me to move with you to Taos if you didn’t mean it?”

“I did mean it—when I said it. But I was fantasizing. You know. You’re a romantic, like me—that’s how we think, right? Thinking about what we could do someday. Together. I didn’t expect you to start packing.” He paces around the empty apartment like a trial attorney entering into evidence how crazy this all is.

The flush to my skin is humiliation. The sight of my packed duffel bag, sitting in the empty corner of my apartment, fills me with shame. I clear my throat and lift my chin. “That’s not how I remember the conversation,” I say quietly.

Pippi paws at Jasper’s leg until he picks her up. “My sister is happy to take care of Pippi while I’m in London. Her kids have been begging for a dog. And I just thought, with all your jobs, and now this book you’re putting together…” He looks at his feet. Our little family is dissolving before my eyes.

When I don’t say anything, he adds, “Would you like to stay with me tonight, since, you know, you don’t have any stuff?” I see the room through his eyes, bare and more than a little desperate. The strange sensation I’ve had for the past few months, like I’m running on a hamster wheel, trying to figure him out, melts away. It’s replaced by something achingly sad. He will never love me. The clarity of it settles into my bones.

He’s rocking back and forth on his heels, and I know he’s ready to go. I walk to the door and open it for him.

“Diana.” He hesitates. “Someday we’ll go to Taos, okay? I promise.”

I hug him, mostly so he won’t see my tears. Then I slip from his arms and close the door between us.

—

I’m waiting on the doorstep of Justine’s loft when Melodie shows up early the next morning. My heart is an exposed organ beating outside my chest, on display for the world to see. I can only imagine what I look like when Melodie sighs and says, “Oh, Diana.”

“Change of plans,” I tell her.

“Fuck.”

Melodie lets us in and goes immediately to the kitchen. She pours half her thermos of coffee into a mug for me and tears her chocolate croissant down the middle. One look at my face, and she can tell I don’t want to talk about it. We switch on the lights and sit down before Justine’s unfinished piece, both of us regarding it, and the hours of work stretched out before us. She taps her thermos against my mug in a gentle toast. “To getting this fucker done by Sunday?”

It gives us a week. A little over a week until Justine’s show and still so much work in front of us. I smile and take a sip. While Melodie picks out a Dolly Parton album from Justine’s collection, I shake some food into Henri’s tank and pray Justine will take pity on me.

Two hours into our work, we hear the door open. I hold my breath as Justine sweeps in. I hear her slip off her jacket and boots.

“You’re back.” Her voice is icy.

“The move was called off.”

“You mean Jasper called off the move.” She stands over me.

“I’m sorry I left you in the lurch.”

“We’re way behind now, Diana. We’ll never catch up.” But I can hear a softness creep into her voice.

“Justine, I’m so sorry. My work with you has been really meaningful to me.” I lay it on thick. “Really an honor. I’ll work all night if I have to. I’ll make up for the lost time, I promise.”

Her gaze lingers on my hands, then my face, before she sighs and turns on her heels. “Let’s see how you do today.”

I don’t stop working for the rest of the day. Justine leaves around four. Melodie leaves an hour later. “Sorry, Diana, I’m babysitting my niece tonight.” Then it’s nighttime and I’m alone and I know there’s no way I can do all the work that needs to be done with just my two hands. Maybe Justine is just setting me up. She knows I can’t finish this much embroidering by tomorrow and that will give her an excuse to fire me for good. She’ll think of it as my punishment for having quit. I fight the urge to just lie on the velvety couch and close my eyes. I want to finish this task, and I also want to avoid thinking about Jasper. How easy it would be to leave and drive to his house and take the small pieces of him on offer.

I sit up straighter and get back to work for another solid hour. Then I stand and stretch my legs, my back, and my fingers. I linger by Henri and watch him swim. My eyes get heavy and so I hop up and down on my toes to try and wake up.

I hear someone at the door, and think possibly Hannah has come to help.

Then I look through the peephole and see Jasper’s familiar outline. He’s holding two large cups of coffee. “Hey,” he says when I open the door. “Can I come in?”

“Okay.” After that, I don’t know what to say. I’m too afraid that if I speak, I’ll cry, and I do not want to cry anymore, so I turn my back to him and get to work. The whole time I feel his eyes on me. He sets the coffee down and pulls up a stool, close. He watches me thread the needle and then watches as I stitch even lines of sapphire blue across one of the panels. Jasper didn’t ask me to go with him to London. It doesn’t need to be discussed. I wonder when he’s leaving, but I don’t want to ask. When I sneak a peek at him out of the corner of my eye, I hate how my body responds. I fight the urge to reach for him, to pull us closer and remind him how good we make each other feel. I can feel his eyes on me and I wonder about all the things he’s thinking but not saying. I focus on the work.

Without saying anything, Jasper walks to the other side of the stretching rack and sits down in Melodie’s place.

“Where should I start?” he asks.

I look at him, confused, until I realize that he’s come here to help me finish the piece. He hadn’t been silently searching for the right thing to say, he’d been watching me work. Studying the motions and figuring out where to jump in.

Tears pool in my eyes. I can’t help it. I’m tired from sleeping on my bare apartment floor or maybe it’s from the exhaustion of his push and pull—just when I want to hate him, I love him; and when I want to love him, he’s not there to be loved. “You can start with that corner.” Jasper nods and gets started. He moves slowly but deliberately and handles the embroidering with no trouble. I put on a Neil Young album and we fall into the rhythm of Harvest Moon on repeat.

We work for hours, steadily making progress, until the sun splashes across the floor and we’ve finished all my section and Melodie’s. When our bodies are wrecked with exhaustion, Jasper walks over to where I am sitting on the floor. He kneels down, touching his lips to my forehead and kisses me softly, then whispers the words I had been longing to hear for the past several months, “I love you.”

After Jasper leaves, I look at The Map, now nearly finished, and I know in my heart my time in Santa Fe has come to an end. Everyone is gone and I am utterly spent.

—

At a red light, I cry so hard that I think the woman in the car next to me might get out to check on me. I give her a little wave and mouth I’m okay and the whole thing is so ridiculous that I’m laughing at myself by the time the light turns green.

He picks up on the third ring.

“Did I wake you?” I ask.

“I’m up,” Barry lies. “Or I should be. Too much karaoke last night. Oh my god, you were right, I invited Rod and he said yes and guess who has the voice of an angel?”

I laugh for what feels like the first time in days. “I’m sorry to call so early. I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”

“Where are you?” he asks.

“Outside your house.”

“Easy there, stalker.”

I laugh again.

“Don’t go anywhere, I’m coming down.”

When Barry comes outside, I’m standing on his front lawn. He pulls a baseball cap down low over his bedhead curls, then adjusts his hoodie like he’s on the staff of an English estate and the lord of the manor has just pulled up. He’s wearing his signature white platform sneakers, unlaced. His face falls when he sees my red, swollen eyes. He doesn’t need to ask, he just opens his arms and I fall into them.

“What a dick,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. “What a total, complete idiot.”

“He’s not that bad,” I say. Sniffling. “We tried?”

Barry looks somewhere over my left shoulder, like he wants to say more, but stops short. “What’s next?” he asks hopefully.

“I hear Dallas is all the rage.” I keep my voice light.

“Don’t let Jasper ruin Santa Fe for you.”

“It’s not just him. I’m done with Santa Fe.” Barry flinches. “I mean, I think Santa Fe is actually done with me. ” I laugh.

Barry shoves his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt. He doesn’t say anything for a long minute and instead makes a lap around my car. He peers through the open window at the odometer.

“How are your tires?”

When I don’t answer right away, he says, “Follow me.” He jumps in his van and I follow behind him in my car. He pulls in to a Shell station, and I pull in after him.

“Dallas is a long day’s drive,” Barry says. He tests the air in each of my tires and refills the water in my cooling tank, and when he thinks I’m not looking, stuffs two twenties in the glovebox.

“Barry.” I can’t pretend I didn’t see.

“Have one decent meal on the road. You’ll pay me back.”

“Thank you.” Before I hug him, I search the car for something to give him in return. I pull a box of my favorite charcoal pencils from a bag.

“What are these?”

“You can use them. To make stuff.”

Barry shakes his head. “I’m not an artist.”

“Just a muse?” I tease.

“Exactly.” His eyes light up. “Like Camille Claudel.”

“Okay, but she was a muse and an artist.”

Barry rolls his eyes. But with an arm around his shoulder, I point our bodies toward his catering van. “You make stuff every day.”

His eyes get glassy, like he might cry. Instead he holds up a finger “Wait! One more thing!” Barry rushes to the cooler in his van and comes back with a bag of cocktail weenies. “Don’t eat them cold.”

“Only Alicia would do such a thing.”

He hugs me tight. It would be nice to stay right here. “Don’t stop making stuff, okay?” he whispers into my hair.

“Never.” I kiss his cheek and get into the car. I know he’s watching as I drive away, but I don’t look in my rearview mirror until Santa Fe is miles behind me.