| RUNNING ON EMPTY BY TORRI |
CHAPTER 41 |
The penthouse was dark and quiet when Tea and Del walked in. So clean, it looked as if it had never been lived in. It hadn't really. It had been occupied, but Tea hadn't "lived" there, she doubted she could ever "live" anywhere again. The penthouse was a far cry from the openness of the Jamaican suite where she had spent the last week. In Jamaica, she could have opened the terrace doors and inhaled the salty sea air. If she opened her window, the only sounds she would hear would be the blaring of horns and the whir of sirens, and smelled the stench of stale polluted air. As she dropped her bags at the door, she let out a sigh of relief, a "glad to be home" exhalation.
She and Del hadn't spoken much since the incident at the bar. She had given up on trying to make him understand what her life had been like the past several months, and really, she didn't need to explain anything. It did hurt though, his disapproval of the decisions she had made with her life. She wasn't perfect like he was; she didn't have that innate ability to always "do the right thing." Never had. Even so, even in his ability to know instinctively what to do, he didn't walk in her shoes, Todd's shoes, or anyone else's so there was no possible way he could understand what they shared.
Despite their problems, the vacation had been good for her. It wasn't restful, nor was it peaceful, it just was. The stranger on the beach had made it all worthwhile. He said things that made sense in their own way, he opened her up and laid her out for her to examine. For the first time, she felt like someone really understood what it was like to be in her shoes. She couldn't mention to Del about her encounter, he would dismiss it as "some boy tryin' to get close to you." But it was so much more than that. He saw her soul, and spoke to it the way no one else had.
She stayed with the stranger that night, up on the highest point on the beach. Sat in silence for hours and watched the world beneath them. She thought about so many things that night, about her past, her present and the future that looked so bleak and blurry. She asked herself questions about what would make her happy, and sadly, she had no idea. All she knew was that the life she was leading was not it.
Del observed her as she looked around the penthouse. It was as if she was looking for something, but she didn't know quite what. Her face was a blank stare, the kind of stare when the body is there but the mind is in some far off place. Knowing her the way he did, he sensed it was more than Todd that was bothering her, but he didn't know what. He wanted to take her into his arms the way he used to, and make all her problems disappear, but she wouldn't let him get close enough. Instead, he made himself comfortable on the couch and waited for her to be the first to speak.
He flipped on the television while she picked up the phone to check her voice mail messages. As she listened, her facial expression changed from happiness, to sadness, to anger, to fear. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn there was the slightest hint of panic in her body language.
"I'll be right back, okay?" She didn't give him time to answer before she ran down the hall into her bedroom. Slamming the door behind her, she walked the "pace trail" she had worn into the parquet covered floor.
"What the hell is going on?" She asked herself, listening to her messages again.
There was a message from Todd who sounded so desperate and alone. There was another message from him, which sounded a little slurred and definitely more relaxed. Then came the messages from Viki. She was beside herself, stuttering and stammering, begging her to call back. Each message sounded more urgent, but all of them were left before she spoke to Todd from Jamaica.
Repeatedly she listened to them, debating whether or not to involve herself in whatever it was that was going on with him. There was a sense of responsibility she felt toward him would always feel toward him and a need to save him. Still, so many times he had gotten her to come back to him by playing that desperation card. But this was different. Viki was involved.
As much as she wanted, she couldn't let herself get involved in his shit again. It was too painful; the expense was far more than she was willing to pay. Yet there was that pull toward him; that need to save him, that need to be his everything. It would probably always be there, just as her love for him would always be there.
Todd was a manipulator. He cried "wolf" so many times, and was so good at the game, she couldn't tell when he was lying or being truthful. His phone calls could have been a part of his master plan to winning her back. But he didn't want her. In the past, he would have used that childlike voice he had mastered and whispered how much he loved her and begged her to give him another chance and given her a glimmer of hope through a kiss, a touch, a caress.
This is different though.
She couldn't go back to the way she was with him. She was weak, lost her common sense all for some pipe dream called "love." It all hurt too much. The only love that was worth something, that could last forever was that of her closest family, and even that was tested.
Love. What the fuck is that? They trick you into believing in that fucking "happily ever after" bullshit and when you finally believe it, everything falls apart. Love my ass.
"Great, now I'm even thinking like him," she whispered aloud.
*****
Tea's Penthouse Hours Later
The lights across the city lit the inside of her dark apartment. She preferred it dark like that. She felt hidden from the world when it was dark. She could pass a mirror and not see her pitiful reflection staring back at her. Darkness had its advantages.
She had fought the urge to go to Todd all day. Viki is there with him. Viki is there with him. She repeated it over and over to herself, hoping that at some point, the urge would go away. It didn't, and with each passing our, it only grew.
She and Del sat on the couch. He was turning the channels; she was staring blankly at the screen. Every now and then, he would steal a glance at her, and each time, she looked like the tears were going to spill over at any moment.
"You know something chica? I have never seen you look so sad. Talk to me. Even if you want to talk about him, talk to me." He put a comforting arm around her, touching her shoulder and giving it an affectionate squeeze. She looked as though she might break down, but he knew better than that.
"You ever feel like everything is crashing down on you at one time and you're going to drown?" She asked, still staring at the screen.
"All the time."
"How do you cope?"
"I cope by working harder," he answered honestly.
She didn't look at him, looked everywhere but at him. She used to throw herself into her work. Used to find something fulfilling about lawyering and winning, but even before she left for Jamaica, those feelings had started to change. Being a lawyer was becoming a job that she didn't like as much anymore. There was a time when all she wanted was to practice the law. Winning at all costs was everything to her, but now, winning meant nothing other than a "w." It wasn't enough. The clients that walked through her doors didn't offer her the same excitement, or thrill. They were guilty as hell of white-collar crimes and they always got away with it.
When Todd was her only client, he kept her challenged. Guilty as he usually was, she found loophole after loophole to bail him out of the most impossible of situations. That part of her life was missing, the challenge, the thrill, the sweetest of victories.
Cope. It was such an easy and simple word for something that was so life draining. People never just "coped," they lived with, they ignored; they never "coped." At least she didn't. She never dealt with anything, so coping was out of the question entirely.
Del was somewhat of a hero to her. The way he rolled with the punches and got right back up if life pushed him down. She wasn't wired like that. Didn't think she had his natural instincts for survival. There was not one single time, not once in her life, that she could remember his ever not being "okay." He smiled, walked with that cocky limp, said he was "cool," and let it go. She was a collector. Collected memories, thoughts, objects, feelings collected them and never let them go. Coveted them as if they were her badge of honor.
She fiddled with her necklace, twisting it around her index finger. Twisted until she cut off her circulation and it started to turn a dark shade of purple. Twisted until the tip became numb; choked it. And she didn't let it go, not until Del grasped her hand and snapped her out of her thought.
"I have never seen you like this. All fucked up you know you don't have a mission. You used to keep those beautiful brown eyes of yours on some invisible goal. Now, it's like you walk around all depressed and shit like you don't even want to be here."
She turned toward him and looked him straight in the eyes. "I don't have a mission anymore Del. I am depressed and 'shit' as you put it. I am all of those things, and you know what else? I don't want to be here."
Del reached behind her head and tried to pull her into an embrace. She pulled away.
"Is this all about Todd baby girl?"
"I don't know what it's about. I think he is a part of it, but there is so much more. I keep thinking about us, you know, the way we grew up, and I have so many questions."
"Like what?"
"Like what happened to Mami that day, before she left us? What caused her to leave her children with that son of a bitch? Why didn't she come back for us? Why does everything happen to me? Why can't I be happy? I mean everyone deserves that don't they?"
There were so many things that he had hidden from Tea when they were kids. There was no need for her to know why they argued so much. She needed to be protected from all of that, and he did the best he could. Years later, she still wanted the answers that only he could provide. He didn't know the whole truth himself, just the bits and pieces he was able to put together. He still felt that need to protect her at all costs, even if it meant hiding the truth from her.
He remembered her bouts with depression, and how he would visit Abuela for weeks at a time, anointing himself as Tea's "suicide guardian." Nobody had an inkling of how bad off she was a times nobody but him. As strong as she was, and always had been, every once and a while everything would build up inside her and she would battle to keep herself from completely sinking into a depression so deep, she could never get out.
He saw the signs in her as they sat on the couch. The quietness...the introversion...the intense focus on someplace other than where she was. It spelled disaster for her. So with a straight face, he lied. "I don't know what happened before she left. I don't know why she left and I have no idea why she never came back. Everything doesn't happen to you your life could be so much worse. Everyone deserves happiness and everyone gets a chance at it. You have to grab onto those chances and hang onto them as hard as you can. Even if happiness for you would be a life with Todd, grab onto it and hang onto it with everything you have."
*****
Todd's Apartment
Nighttime had descended upon Todd, without his even knowing it. He had been in bed for a couple of days, doing nothing. Viki had long since left, saying that she "refused to watch him give up on life without a fight." Not that she had given up on him, not by any means. She just decided to switch techniques.
He had argued with her at every turn he didn't want to eat he didn't want to get up he didn't want to see the "fucking sun." All he wanted was to be left alone, so after many hours of fighting, she left the apartment, but not the city. It was good enough for him, as long as he got his space.
There was the slightest bit of regret that he had chased her away. She dropped everything to care for him, yet he chased her away because it "cramped his style." A person could go mad spending hours alone, without communicating with anyone else, without seeing another face. He felt he might have gone mad the day he lost the two people he loved most Starr and Tea.
His phone had rang a time or two, but he swore he would only answer if it were Tea's number on the Caller I.D. She was the only person who could get through to him, the only person he really needed in his life besides Starr. Starr. Tears sprung to his eyes at the thought of her. He had slipped, forgetting to send her a care package.
Starr. His true "north," his guiding light, his "one true thing." Messed that up too. Never had he forgotten anything about her, or anything having to do with her, and it broke his heart to think of what he had become. The alcohol, the drugs, they took precedence over everything else in his life. They were the only things in his life. Starr. The promises he made to her, the promises he broke to her, the assurances he would be a better parent than his father and he lied.
He had abandoned her in a cowardly and hasty decision; he left her like his mother left him. Repeated the cycle. He tried to differentiate between the two kinds of abandonment his mother never contacted him after she left at least he sent Starr things. Still, a "thing" was just a "thing," it wasn't him.
He wondered if Blair would let him talk to her. Just once. It was his right as Starr's other parent to communicate with her, but there was Blair and her vicious need to make his life hell. He decided to take a risk and call.
His hands shook as he dialed the number to the Buchanan mansion. He crossed his fingers that anybody but Asa answered the phone he could deal with Max but not Asa. The old man always had it in for him, and it would give him no greater pleasure than to deprive him of a few words with Starr.
To his surprise, it was Starr's voice that spoke the very soft, "hello."
"Hey Shorty. It's daddy," he said cheerfully. Her voice had deepened since the last time he heard her. He closed his eyes and savored that sound.
"Daddy, where are you?"
"I'm a long way away. How ya doin'?" She sounded happy...the way children should sound. He thought that maybe he had done the right thing and left out of her life before he could destroy hers the way he did everyone else's that he came in contact with. She was still innocent.
"I miss you! Ooh, daddy, I saw Tee. She lives in Man-a-hat-ten. And I have my own room there too. All pink."
He remembered that room and all of its "Barbie" decorations. Remembered the scent of his child that was imbedded in the sheets. He remembered the picture that was on top of her nightstand. The one family picture that the three of them had taken. His wedding day the day he married Tea for real the day he was to make love to her the day he destroyed her. "Yeah?" He asked sadly.
"Yeah. Daddy, when are you coming home? I miss our old house with you, me and Tee."
"I miss it too Shorty, but I can't come home right now"
"You sound sad. Go stand on your head. Remember, remember when you used to tell me that when I frowned. You said a smile is just a frown turned upside down and you told me to go stand on my head."
He smiled at the memory of her sad face and flipping her upside down. Said he was going to make her smile. "I remember."
"You used to smile all the time when you saw Tee. Maybe you should get a picture and look at her."
"Maybe."
"Tee loves you daddy and I love you too."
Tears slipped down his face into a puddle on his sheets. "I love you Starr. No matter what I love you. Bye Shorty."
"Bye daddy."
He listened to the empty tone long after she had hung up. His two girls Tea and Starr the two people he swore he would never hurt the two people he hurt the most. It hit him again, how alone he was in his world.
That familiar urge to disappear into another world hit him. It hit him hard, and all he could do was let it. Let the cravings for alcohol reel him in again. His body eased toward the kitchen, to the cupboard where he had slid his "friends." He went to "Jack Daniels," cracked the seal and tipped the bottle upside down. The liquid poured from the corners of his mouth, down his chin, dripping onto his shirtless body. The only thing that mattered was how good it felt going down, how good it felt to have his head lighten.
There was nothing to stop him from backsliding. He didn't really want to stay sober, not if it meant being haunted by his memories. Not if it meant remembering at all. That other world was where he needed to be, where he could slip away from them.
It worked quickly. Soon, he was no longer in his small, cold apartment. He was in warmth, surrounded in it. Thought he was invincible. And when the bottle was empty, he cracked open another one, and was halfway finished when he thought he heard a faint knock on the door. He staggered toward the sound. Reaching for the doorknob, he fell against the wood and chuckled at his own clumsiness. He tried again but the knob slid between his fingers. Finally, he was able to grip it, and with a tug, the door flew open.
His heart leapt at the sight of her. He pinched himself to make sure it was reality that she was standing before him. Satisfied that she was really there, smiling at him, he allowed himself to smile back at her.
"Hi Todd."
