Bathwater Blues: A Novel Read online

  The air was chilly. She noted the sound of their footsteps as they crossed the parking lot back to their cars: loud, hollow, dreamlike. She saw their shadows before them, elongated across the pavement onto their waiting cars by the lamplight at their backs, hers horrifyingly tall and sickly thin. Like her mother. She wondered if she might be losing it. With her back to him then, she felt on the brink of tears. He didn’t want her. Carter didn’t want her. It felt impossible to believe anyone could. If there was ever a single evening to cement that notion, it was this one, she thought. What could she possibly offer?

  They stopped at the trunks of their cars and turned toward one another. Addie smiled as best she could and shrugged. Sam returned her smile, eyes squinted, as if he found her adorable, like a child.

  “It was very nice meeting you,” he said.

  I’m sure it was.

  He settled for a hug after all. He leaned in. Addie put her chin over his shoulder, and felt his arms around the middle of her back. She put her hands against him. Then they parted. He continued watching her, and she wondered what he saw—what might be wrong with her…

  Or maybe he lingered for something else.

  She began to speak and immediately wished she hadn’t, knew it was a mistake before she breathed the first word, but couldn’t stop herself. Lips moved involuntarily.

  “You could take me to your place,” she said. “I mean… if you’d like that.”

  His expression soured. Even shaded against the light, she saw his face wrinkle with pity. A hammer slammed inside her chest. Was he disgusted? He cocked his head toward her, brow raised.

  “Addie,” he began. His eyes lowered. Perhaps he couldn’t believe she’d be so dense as to think such a thing was possible after the atrocious date they’d shared. “Firstly, that’s not how I prefer to go about my relationships. Secondly, even if it was, I’m pretty damn sure you don’t really want that. You’re nervous, I get it. So am I. It was a good night. Let’s just go from there. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she replied, and realized she was sobbing. She covered her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know… I don’t know what I’m…”

  “Hey.” She felt his hand on her shoulder.

  “No.” She stepped away. She retreated between their cars, leaning against her own as she slid toward her door, facing Sam but unable to see him through the starry-wet light of the parking lot lamps. “I’m fine. I’ve just got a lot going on right now…” She plucked her keys out from her pocket and fumbled them into her door. “I really shouldn’t even be here. I shouldn’t be dating right now… I’m sorry. It was nice meeting you, too.”

  She got in the driver’s seat and locked herself inside without looking back. She couldn’t bear it. She thought she’d sit there until he left, but upon looking over her shoulder she saw him still standing at his trunk, watching her. What had she done? She didn’t think the date could have gone more terribly. Not only that, but she knew as bad as it’d been, she’d only made it worse—her insecurity, her lack of anything meaningful to say. It didn’t matter. It was over now.

  She started her car, put it in reverse. As she pulled out, she vaguely saw him still standing there. He was waiting for her to leave. She avoided eye contact. She put the car in drive and left the lot, pulled onto Main Street. She glanced into her rearview to see the pizzeria shrink into darkness and street light, and Sam with it.

  ✽✽✽

  She could have avoided all of it, the whole evening. She could have driven somewhere else, or not responded to his messages at all. Why had she? Thinking back, it didn’t seem like her at all, like a different girl. Some part of her had felt hopeful, she supposed. She felt none of that now. How naïve, how… sleazy. Behind Carter’s back. Her eyes welled again at the thought. Her mother was right, had been right all along. She hated to think it, but her mother knew her, the true Addie. She really was lucky to have him. Carter wasn’t perfect, but she was far from it herself. Carter was what she deserved, and she’d taken him for granted, reached for something better. But she could fix it. If she wanted him…

  But does he want me?

  She wiped tears out of her eyes, driving in a direction that felt aimless. Before she’d thought it through, she was pulling into Carter’s apartment parking lot.

  She parked the car and took a breather. She checked herself in the mirror of her sun visor. Her eyes were red, tired. That was okay. Carter liked her the way she was. Even if they only had sex again, she didn’t mind. It was what they had, what she could get. She had to accept that. Her love life wasn’t going to be like in the songs she so frequently listened to in the privacy of her bedroom. Those relationships were rare, ideal. Most people probably had something much more simplified, much more casual. Like Carter and his couch.

  She crossed the parking lot toward the building. The moon showed just above its looming rooftop in a sharp, milk-white crescent. The sky appeared starless otherwise. Kids shouted and giggled somewhere nearby, and a safe feeling of relief washed over her as she approached the doors. She wouldn’t tell him about her date—about Sam. She’d just crawl into him, nuzzle him, apologize for the other night, for being so needy…

  Wanting more time to erase the evidence of sadness from her eyes, she took the stairwell instead of the elevator. She climbed four flights. The relief began bubbling into anxiety when she stepped into the corridor and made her way toward apartment 97. She hoped he was home—that he’d let her in, take her in his arms, make love to her… or fuck her. Whichever. As long as he held her after. As long as she didn’t have to go home tonight.

  She knocked three times. Waited. When she didn’t hear footsteps coming to the door, she listened more closely, head against the door, and knocked again. She considered leaving. Suddenly the good feelings were slipping from her grasp, the comfort of familiarity. But she couldn’t go home. Not yet. Not tonight. She tried the door and found it unlocked, pushed it quietly in. Beyond the threshold there was only silence. She opened her mouth to call for him and stopped. Took a step inside. She pushed the door shut behind her, just barely leaving it cracked.

  The living room was quiet. The television was off. She crossed to the middle of the room and stood in front of the couch, where they often lay together, and saw there was a strange belt coiled on the center cushion. Not Carter’s.

  It felt as though she’d swallowed a bucket of ice.

  But there was Carter’s phone, sitting on the arm of the couch. She picked it up, pressed the power on the side. The phone illuminated acid-bright, and she was greeted with a locked screen requesting a code she didn’t know. Then she heard noises, the first in the apartment yet that weren’t her own. Voices. Wordless utterances. She lifted her gaze toward the hallway beyond the couch, toward the open bedroom doorway at its end.

  I should leave.

  She made her way around the couch, stepping carefully like a prowling cat, and took two steps down the hall. She paused, hand against the wall, listening.

  “Uh… ohhh…”

  Get out of here.

  She continued toward his bedroom. The hallway was dark and narrow. Her shoes scuffed ever so lightly across the floor. She couldn’t take deep enough breaths. She knew what waited—what she’d find. She knew there was nothing here for her, nothing but heartbreak and more disappointment. But her feet stepped one in front of the other, one in front of the other, until she stopped herself before his doorway. The corner of his bed was visible, a hand placed on its edge. The voice continued to gasp. Heavy breathing. The beating in Addie’s chest couldn’t take any more. Her heart threatened to come loose, to swing wildly against her ribs like a wrecking ball. She took another step and placed herself in the doorway.

  They were both naked. Carter lay on his back, legs dangling over the end of the bed, while another smooth, wet body kneeled on the floor between them: broad shoulders, a sinewy back, popping shoulder blades, sweat glistening down their spine to a narrow waist. Carter moaned, and placed his hand on the back of th
e other man’s head.

  “C-Carter?”

  Both men startled upright, turned to see her standing behind them. The other man was just a kid, Addie saw, like them. The terror on both their faces was enough to make her nearly burst out laughing had she not felt like crying instead. Carter grabbed the sheet next to him and threw it over his lap. The other boy remained as he was, glued to the spot.

  “Addie, what are you doing here?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought…”

  They both stared at her, drenched in sweat and fear, like she’d waltzed in with an open jacket of dynamite, threatening to blow the building if they didn’t stop blowing each other. She wished she’d come prepared for that.

  “What is he doing here?” she asked. “Why are you… why are you doing this?”

  “Addie, let me get dressed and we can talk.”

  “I’ll go,” the other boy said, and looked like he was prepared to cry himself, searching the floor for his clothes, holding his genitals while he did.

  “No,” Addie said. “I’ll go. I don’t want to talk, Carter.”

  She turned and started down the hall. She heard a ruckus coming from the bedroom behind her. Scrambling. Eventually, when she was nearly to the door, she heard footsteps slapping through the apartment toward her. She turned and saw Carter with the sheet wrapped around his waist.

  “Addie, stop.”

  “No,” she said. She hated that she was crying again. “I just want to leave. I just want to go.”

  “Let’s talk about this.”

  “There’s nothing to t-talk about.” She choked. Inhaled noisily. “You don’t really want to talk. You don’t give a shit about me.”

  “That’s not true. I’m just an idiot.”

  “No. I’m an idiot… I’m so fucking stupid.”

  She turned and hurried down the corridor, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. She tried to pull her face together, though her lip wouldn’t stop curling into a grimace. She took the elevator this time.

  Once back inside her car, she did scream. Howled. Bawled. She only quieted when she felt drool down her lip and was flushed with embarrassment. How could she be so torn up over someone who didn’t even like her? Someone she wasn’t even sure she liked…

  A knock came at the window and she jumped in her seat.

  The other boy. Young man. Whatever. He stood next to her door, hunched to see her inside. Addie rolled her window down.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  His eyes were as red as she thought hers might be. What he had to be sad about, she didn’t know. He was the one screwing her boyfriend.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and she could hear the lump in his throat. She hoped she didn’t sound as pathetic as he did. She also noticed how beautiful he was, for a boy, and hated him even more for that.

  “Fuck off.” She waved her hand at him dismissively. “You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

  She rolled her window back up, started her car. She wasn’t crying anymore, which was good. She felt something much different. Her fists, clenched to her steering wheel, begged to punch something now—throw something, shatter something, rip something. She thought she liked that better than being sad.

  When she looked again, the boy was gone.

  She left Carter’s apartment in a flurry of hand-over-hand motions on the steering wheel, missed the parking lot exit with half the car, tires thumping off the curb into the gutter, and sped off into the night once more, toward the last place on earth she ever wanted to be.

  Chapter Five

  The car door felt her fury as she slammed it shut. The lawn felt her fury as she dragged, kicked, and tore through the grass with her wild, dirty sneakers. She stomped up the porch and prepared to show the front door her fury as well by throwing it open like a surprise hurricane, announcing to her mother that tonight was not a night to be messed with… but found it locked instead. She stood, head down, fuming in anticlimax, and pounded her fist against the door as hard as her soft, dainty hands allowed.

  Footsteps shuffled to the door. Locks turned. The door opened and her bewildered mother stood in the gap. Addie stepped forward, shoulder angled inside, and slipped against her mother as she pushed her way in.

  “Why did you lock the door?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  “I didn’t know if you’d be coming home tonight…”

  Addie walked to the middle of the foyer and then spun on her heel.

  “Well I did.”

  She faced her mother in the dark, like they so often did, and watched as she closed the door with her back against it, hands held together between her breasts in a fearful sort of way, a confused sort of way.

  Her mother spoke in a gentler tone.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Addie, prepared for a blood brawl, arms rigid at her sides, balled up fists, a scowl to scare the masses… felt her anger give way like a broken dam. Her face crumpled. Her shoulders sagged.

  “What is it?” her mother asked, and stepped toward her, placing a caring hand to her bicep. “What happened? Did he… did he really dump you on your date?”

  Addie tried to speak as best she could through her grief-swollen throat.

  “I didn’t go on a date with Carter…” She snorted, wiped her running nose on her hand. “It was someone else…”

  “What?” The hand on her bicep fell away. “With who?”

  Addie took a deep breath and tried to speak more calmly.

  “I saw an old friend and… it doesn’t matter. He was too good for me, and the date was awful, and…” More tears. God, she hated the tears. “I felt terrible, and I went to Carter’s apartment and… and…” She paused. To catch her breath. To possibly let her mother say something. Her mother said nothing. “I caught him cheating on me with another guy. I didn’t even …”

  She wiped her eyes, tried to slow her hitching breaths. She looked at her mother, could barely make her out in the dark through her tear-smeary vision. She saw her shaking her head, eyebrows raised, mouth open disbelievingly. For a moment, Addie thought her mother might rage against the man she’d never met, that she might tell Addie he never deserved her, that she deserved better. For a moment, Addie believed her mother might take her in her arms and tell her everything was okay. There, there.

  “Sounds like karma, if I ever believed in such a thing.”

  A rising sob caught in Addie’s throat. Her eyes turned to cold, wind-swept deserts. They pierced her mother’s, searching them for something true: a lie. There was something deeper there. An intention Addie couldn’t understand. Maybe not a good one, but an excusable one. Something.

  “Why would you date another boy when you’re still dating Arthur?”

  “Carter,” Addie corrected.

  “What?”

  “His name is Carter, not Arthur. You don’t even know his name.”

  “Well, whatever. If you have the nerve to cheat, to ruin something good, then you got exactly what you had coming.”

  Addie shook her head violently. Her mother’s brain was… spilled, nonsensical, like marbles thrown in the sand, like she’d choose to believe anything as long as it cast her in a negative light, no matter how little sense it made.

  “You don’t even know him…” Her fists tightened again. It was coming back. The fury. “You know nothing about us, or our relationship. He was cheating on me regardless of my date, probably before I even… Why do you act like…” Every muscle in her body tensed, searching for some kind of release, no matter how violent. “…Why do you hate me so much?”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” her mother said, and swiped her hand at the air.

  She walked past Addie toward the kitchen and Addie turned with her, followed her, stepped on the back of her heel. Just as her mother made a sound, a tsk, Addie reached toward her. She threw her hand over her mother’s shoulder, spun her around like a department store mannequin.

  “What—”

  “
I asked you a question!” Addie growled, and drove her index finger into her mother’s chest. Her mother recoiled away, stunned.

  “Don’t you touch me!” she shouted. Teeth bared. “Get out. Get the hell out of my house.”

  “No.” Addie stood tall, fixed to the spot like a fence post, though her mother always stood taller. “Why do you hate me, I said. What have I done to make you think I’m so worthless?”

  “You think everything’s about you, don’t you?” Her mother popped her hip, hands on her waist. “People have bigger problems than you, you know. Hard as that is to grasp.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You walk around here, moping like some sad little shit, acting like the world revolves around you. Like the world owes you something. You come in here, crying to me, like some horrible tragedy’s befallen you. You know nothing about tragedy. So your boyfriend doesn’t like you. Boo-fuckin’-hoo. Some people have real problems. Some people have experienced real loss.”

  Muscles spring-loaded, blood running hot, Addie wanted to strike, a cobra at the end of her wrist.

  “You realize he was my dad, right? Do you hear what you’re saying? How… hypocritical you’re being? Talking about being self-centered, and you forget that I’ve experienced the exact same loss as you.”

  “No. Nuh, uh. Not even close. I loved that man—”

  “And I didn’t? HE WAS MY DAD!”

  “He was my husband long before that. It doesn’t measure up. Not in a million years. You were a spoiled brat. So selfish. He meant more to me than he ever will to you. You took him for granted like everything else. You haven’t changed one bit.”

  “You’re fucked up,” Addie said, and leaned in close. Her mother turned her face away and sneered, feeling Addie’s dragon breath against her cheek. Addie looked her over, seeking the answer to her delusion, to the misfires in her logic, when it finally came to her. “Is that it?” she asked, and stepped back. Her mother regarded her skeptically. “You think he loved me more than you.”