 I avoided Faye for the next few days. I couldn’t face her and deal with the amount of conflicted emotions running through my heart at a hundred miles an hour. My brother tried to be supportive, but he realized there was not much he could say or do. Everything’d gone to shit and no one could pick up the pieces. I just wanted to be left alone and suffer in peace.
But Faye didn’t take the hint.
I would avoid her, and she would insist. I would ignore her calls, and she would call my brother, my mom, her mom and anyone she knew who knew me. She even started calling Mike to leave messages with him because she knew I was babysitting baby Emily often. She would stop by my house now and then to see if I was there. Luckily I wasn’t spending much time at my place. I was investing every amount of energy I had into remodeling the apartment I bought from Mr. Greene.
I was going through a motion of feeling happy, and then feeling sad, and feeling happy again. It felt like my life was continuously spinning out of control with every situation that rose up.
Now, to better understand what happened a few months later in that bar, which I classify as the second and last time I physically hurt Faye, I thought it would be best to tell the other side of the story. What I’m about to tell you, I was not there when it happened. Faye was the one to tell me all of this when I was at the hospital.
Faye was growing more and more impatient with my indifference. I don’t know what she was expecting of me. You cannot drop a bomb like that hoping nothing will change. So when she needed advice, she went to the one person she knew would listen to her without judging her.
“I don’t know what to do, mom,” Faye said, walking from one side of the living room to the other while Mrs. Burton kept her eyes on her daughter. She was speaking fast, as if she needed to let it all out to make sense of it. “What do I do? I mean, let’s say Riley, for whatever crazy reason, forgives me. Let’s pretend that she has a heart big enough to forgive me for not only marrying her best friend, but also get impregnated WITH HIS CHILD!”
“Oh, honey, impregnated sounds so―”
“And then what?” Faye said, not letting Mrs. Burton finish the sentence. “Do I stay with Scott? Do I interrupt the pregnancy and run away with Riley? Do I keep the baby and hope Riley will receive both of us with opened arms? Do I interrupt the pregnancy and choose neither? Do I keep the baby and stay alone with it?”
“Darling―”
“And what if I keep the baby and I don’t love it? What if the baby doesn’t love me? What if they grow up to hate me and say ‘I hate you and I wish I’d never been born’, to which I reply ‘Well, nice because I fucking hate you, too. I never wanted you. You were just a mistake that your dad used to keep me tied to him’?”
“Honey!” Mrs. Burton shouted standing up and placing her hands on Faye’s shoulders. “Please, one bad possibility at a time, okay?”
Faye sighed and they both sat down on the sofa. With tears on her eyes, she asked, “Should I keep the baby?”
Mrs. Burton’s arms felt to her sides and for once, she seemed baffled. “I don’t know, honey. I can’t answer that question for you. I mean, to me, abortion wouldn’t even cross my mind, but this is you, not me. And if you really think you won’t be able to give that baby the love they’re going to need… then you should consider what would be best.”
“You were right, you know? This is all my fault,” Faye commented crying. “All of it. I should’ve left Scott a long time ago. Actually, scratch that, I should’ve never married him. I was so scared that I just took what I thought was the easy answer… and look at the mess I made. And now Riley won’t even… God, mom, what if she doesn’t forgive me? What if this is really the last straw?”
“Oh, baby…”
“I just… I’ve loved her since I’m ten, mom. I have no idea how to not be in love with her.”
“I think Riley has every right to not want to talk to you again, or to kick you out of her life if she wants to, it’s her life after all. But I know that girl. She is not resentful enough. Even if she decides she doesn’t want to be romantically involved with you anymore, I don’t think she’ll hate you forever. She still comes every now and then just to seat down with me and make sure I don’t feel alone. Why? Because we’re family.”
“I need to talk to her. Even if she decides to end it, she can’t not be a part of my life.”
“Have you tried calling her?”
Faye smiled at her mother’s naivety. “I leave twenty missed calls and three voice mails every single day. She deactivated her voice mail yesterday. I went looking for her at her place, at Mike and Louise’s, here, at the Irish pub. No one’s seen her. Connor says she gets home late every night. I think he knows where she is, but brother-sister loyalty doesn’t let him tell me.”
“Have you tried at the apartment?”
“What apartment?” Faye asked.
Mrs. Burton’s face turned into a grimace. “Oh, dear. She didn’t tell you? Her apartment. Well, my apartment, really.”
“What?”
“She bought the apartment on top of the bookstore and put it under my name. She’s being remodeling it.”
“She… she bought you an apartment.”
“Yes… I tried to say no but, I don’t have much choice.”
“So… the noises Connor and I’ve been hearing coming from upstairs…”
“That’s probably her.”
Faye went to the bookstore the next day but she didn’t enter the store, instead, she rang the intercom for the second floor. No one answered. Truth is, it wasn’t because I knew it was her and didn’t want to let her in, it was simply because I had removed the old intercom and bought a new one which I hadn’t yet installed. When I didn’t answer, she tried calling another apartment until someone else responded. She told them that she was with the remodeling team for the apartment on the second floor and she needed to deliver some materials. Next, she heard the buzz on the door announcing it was unlocked. As she walked up the stairs, she could hear a loud thud, in a perfect one-time tempo. She reached the top of the stairs and turned left on the apartment’s opened door, and saw me holding a sledge hammer; hitting the wall in front of me, which already had big holes on it.
“There you are,” she said. I couldn’t hear her the first time because I had Paramore blaring through the speakers. “Riley!”
I turned left to look at her. As soon as I saw her, I laid the sledge hammer down, walked up towards the speakers and lowered the volume. I crossed my arms and waited.
She licked her lips a few times, as if she didn’t know how to start the conversation that she so badly wanted to have. “Neighbors don’t bother you for the noise?”
“Walls are thick. I’ve been smashing the place up for weeks and you hadn’t noticed.”
“I did notice, just, didn’t pay attention to it. I thought the guy upstairs was making some repairs.”
“The guy upstairs would be me now.”
“Yes…”
“Also, they were kind of happy. The place stank and they’d complained to the landlord a couple of times already. Turned out something died behind the walls a long time ago. I would say it was a raccoon.”
“Oh,”
“Who told you? Was it your mom?”
She took a few of steps forward. “Yeah, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you but I couldn’t find you.”
I grabbed the sledge hammer again and said “That’s not a coincidence,” before taking a blow at the wall again.
She was shaken by the sound the wall made when jolted by the brunt of the sledge hammer. “What are you doing there?”
“I want to take this wall down to make an open kitchen. It makes spaces look bigger and less… claustrophobic.”
She stayed in complete silence for a few minutes before asking, “Why didn’t you tell me you’d bought this place?”
I stopped hitting the wall and sighed. “Because this place is not for you. I bought it for your mom. Of course I thought she’d come to live here with you, but that ship’s sailed now.”
“Riley… please let me explain―”
“Shut up.” I said with an anger I hadn’t felt in a long time. “You told me you were taking care of yourself.”
“I was! I don’t know how this happened!”
“Oh, you don’t?” I turned to her “Well, let me explain. When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they fuc―”
“Oh, fuck off! That is not what I mean. Yes, he stopped using condoms so I started taking birth control pills. This shouldn’t’ve happened.”
“Pills are 98% effective, and only if you take them every day without missing one. Miss, and they go down to eighty something.”
“You’re not getting what I’m saying. I didn’t miss a single pill, and believe me when I tell you, Scott and I don’t have enough sex to defy a 98%!”
“It doesn’t matter. It happened. And I can’t do this.”
“Riley… please, just let me―”
“I said no! Sleeping around on Scott? God knows he deserves it. He shouldn’t have messed with Mrs. Burton like a coward, that woman is sacred to me. But this? With a child in the middle? I don’t want to be that woman. I don’t want a little person to point at me and say ‘You are the reason my mommy and daddy are not together’.”
“That’s bullshit. Mommy and daddy are not together because mommy was unhappy and daddy didn’t give a shit. Because mommy didn’t love daddy. Jesus, Riley. I don’t even know if I’m going to keep the baby.”
“That’s your business. I’m out.”
“Riley, please…”
“No, Faye. No more of this. Scott makes you unhappy? Well, you make me unhappy. You make me so miserable and I cannot keep doing this. I can barely get up of my bed every morning, every second I feel like I’m one bad thing away from breaking and sometimes I wonder if what the Colonel did was not the right thing. So please… just leave me alone.”
“But I love you…” she whispered, in a defeated thread of voice.
I didn’t tell her, but she broke my heart when she said that. “You should know better than anyone, Faye, that it is not enough.”
As she gave up, or at least, as I thought she’d given up, her shoulders lowered, her eyes became watery and her hands began to tremble. “Okay… I’m… God, I’m so sorry.”
Then she left. When the door closed, I dropped on the floor and cried. Why is it that we love pretending we are stronger than we are? Who does that help? Not us, definitely not us.
But Faye was strong. I should’ve known she wasn’t going to give up so easily. It’s not who she is.
As she walked away from the bookstore, crying, she let all the pain out, she cried and cried while her feet took her away from me. But the part of her that was still Faye Burton wouldn’t let this go. So as she regained composure, she made a call.
“Hello?” he answered.
“Hey, Bill?”
“Hey! How is it going Faye-Faye?”
“Not too good. Actually, I need a favor.”
“Of course, babe. What is it?”
“Are in town?”
“No. Sorry, babe, I’m in Miami.”
“Are you still friends with the German guy? The one you told me used to be a chemist before he went into comedy?”
“Yeah, of course, why?”
“I need to make sure of something.”
After that, I didn’t hear from Faye in about a week. She stopped calling, texting and leaving voice mails. As hard as it was, I was ready to put a final end to it. On the other hand, Faye was busy with doctor visits, and tests and echograms. And a particular routine exam that Scott would blow out of proportion for his own benefit. You see, Faye was six weeks pregnant when the doctor suggested the exam. Next week, she had the echogram and blood tests done to make sure the baby was healthy. The nurse took her vitals including the blood pressure and listening to her heart and lungs.
“Please wait here and the doctor will be with you in just a moment,” the nurse said before exiting the room.
Faye sat down while Scott stood up on a corner. “This worries me.”
“He told me it was routine, just to make sure the baby is okay.”
Scott snorted but didn’t add to the conversation. The room fell into silence for the ten minutes it took the doctor to enter the room. As he came inside, he was carrying some papers, he smiled at them and said, “Hello there, how are you guys doing?”
“Great, so, what are the news?” Scott questioned sitting down next to Faye.
“I can see your husband is very nervous, Mrs. Keane,” the doctor said, taking his seat.
“Yes, he does that. It makes me… anxious.”
“Well, we’re gonna need to control that because the echo is back along with the blood work.”
Scott leaned forward. “And?”
“Everything seems okay,” the doctor began. Scott let out a huge sigh of relief. “Except for your pre-existing high blood pressure issues, Mrs. Keane.”
Faye felt her lungs letting out the air. Both she and Scott couldn’t give an answer immediately, but after a few seconds, she gathered the wits to ask, “Sorry, my what?”
“You have a pre-existing condition of high blood pressure. I’m sorry, is this news? I thought you were aware of that.”
“Of course not. How can I be aware of that?”
The doctor looked at the computer and added, “But it says here that you came in like three months ago on your annual checkup and Dr… Rose told you your blood pressure was a bit high.”
In case you are wondering, no. Faye never told me about that visit before she told me the whole story. She said it was a regular full physic exam that Barbara made her get to make sure Faye was healthy. That she’d developed the tradition ever since her dad passed away.
“Well, yeah but she said it was nothing to worry about,” Faye responded.
“And it wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t supposed to take better care of yourself. You see, when you came in three months ago, your blood pressure was 130/81. For a woman your age it should be 120/80. It was a bit high, but nothing too unusual. But just now, when the nurse took your blood pressure it was 142/84. Now, that is a problem.”
“But I’m twenty-six years old! I’m not saying I’m super athletic or don’t eat a burger every now and then, but overall I don’t lead an unhealthy lifestyle.”
“Yes, Mrs. Keane, but your family does have a medical background of high blood pressure. Didn’t your dad die of heart failure related to his persistent high blood pressure problem?”
Faye lips parted, feeling her mouth go dry. “Y―yes, he did. I should’ve taken better care of myself. I guess I forgot the doctor asked me to. I was busy…” Faye didn’t say it, but she’d been so busy taking care of me, that she’d forgotten to take care of herself.
“Wait, what are you saying, doctor?” Scott asked. “That they are in danger?”
“No! No, no, of course not. Not if Mrs. Keane takes care of herself. Her blood pressure is high, but not dangerously high. She has what we call chronic hypertension. Of course, we don’t want it to go untreated but she’s in no danger as of this moment. You also need to take into account that even the pregnancy itself could be causing her blood pressure to go even higher than it already was before the pregnancy since this is a first-time pregnancy.”
“So what do we do to keep it down?”
“I’ll prescribe some medication for it. But also, eating more fruits and vegetables, exercising. No smoking or drinking by no means, as you know. And also, try to keep stress levels down. We don’t want it to because a pregnancy problem.”
“So she shouldn’t be working?”
And there it was. Scott trying to cut himself the biggest slice of that cake. You might be thinking ‘Oh, but he’s just a future daddy and a husband caring about his wife and child.’ Give it a second.
The doctor turned to Faye and asked, “What do you do for a living, Mrs. Keane? Is it highly stressful?”
“Not at all. I work at a bookstore. It’s not heavy work, most of the time I’m just putting books in shelves and making receipts.”
“Then I don’t see why you should quit, unless you want to.”
“I don’t. I like my job. It makes me feel… safe.”
“Then that’s perfectly fine. Just take your pills and eat healthy. Everything should be fine.”
“But what if she has to carry a heavy box of books? Wouldn’t that be a problem?” Scott asked again.
“She’s seven weeks pregnant, Mr. Keane, she’s not crippled.” Faye couldn’t help but smile at that reply. “And like I said, a sedentary lifestyle is a bad idea for people with hypertension. She should stay active. And no stress.”
After that, the doctor followed up with some questions. Nausea, headaches, dizziness. All to make sure everything was fine, and just as he’d said, everything seemed okay a part from the blood pressure problem.
When they left the clinic, and were on their way to the car, Scott said, “I think you should quit.”
Faye stopped walking and said, “Sorry?”
“You heard the doctor, he said that you need to take better care of yourself.”
That was all Scott needed. A little leverage. With the type of relationship they had, Scott could’ve gotten Faye to quit long ago. She would’ve fought, but she would’ve given up in the end. But he didn’t do it because he knew how it looked on people’s eyes. He knew people who were familiar with Faye would know her well enough to understand that this wasn’t a decision she’d agreed with. That healthy girl who spends her days trapped in an apartment because her husband doesn’t let her work. Now the tables were turned. Now, he was just a worried daddy carrying for his family. The amount of bullshit people’s willing to believe. ‘He’s controlling her just because he cares. He’s so loving, so thoughtful.’
“Yes, I heard him. He said I should stay active.”
“He also said no stress, and your job is very stressful.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not! And how would you know? You have no idea what I do throughout the day! I love my job. I like the amount of things I get to do. I love spending time checking out the new books we’ve got and telling jokes with Connor all day.”
“And Riley?”
“What do you care about Riley?”
“You’re quitting. That’s it.”
“Fuck you,”
“Now, now, honey. Remember, no stress.”
Scott headed back for the car. Faye had to take huge chunks of air to calm herself down and stop her heart from beating faster.
“Calm down, Faye” she said to herself. “Calm down. There is a baby inside you that doesn’t need to know how much you hate their dad.”
The next day, while Connor was piling up books in the storage room, Scott came in with Faye to deliver her resignation letter. She didn’t have to, but it was Scott’s idea. He wanted to let me know that Faye had written that letter to make it look like it was her choice.
With the letter on his hands, Connor opened his eyes wide and asked Faye what that meant. He told her he thought she was happy, he thought things were going great, and that he needed her, he couldn’t do this alone while I was in a perpetual emotional roller-coaster. Some days I seemed composed, some others, I seemed at the edge of the abyss.
Faye began, “Believe me, Connor, this is not what I wan—”
“Faye’s pregnancy is delicate,” Scott jumped in to answer. “She needs rest and a ca—”
“Yo!” Connor interrupted him “When I’m talking to you, I’ll let you know, bitch. I’m asking Faye.”
“How did you talk to me?” Scott inquired with a thicker voice, pushing his chest up.
Connor was shorter than Scott, about three inches, but that didn’t make my little brother step back. “I said, ‘When I’m talking to you, I’ll let you know, bitch‘. What, don’t like it? What are you gonna do? You gonna buy my parent’s house and force me to take it back?”
Scott took a few steps forward ready to punch Connor and Connor stood exactly where he was ready to throw some punches himself, but Faye got between them and said, “Hey! No, no. It’s fine, okay?” she added trying to calm Scott down. “Listen Connor, it’s done. I hope things keep going as great as they have ’til now. I’ll e-mail you all the clients and the info so you can keep track of the things I’m… leaving half-way through, alright?”
Connor looked at Faye. After all, she was pregnant, and trying to stop a fight between two guys in the middle of a library with heavy shelves could not be a good idea.
“Alright. But you call me if something comes up, okay?”
Faye thanked him and grab Scott, who still had an aggressive expression on his face, so that they could leave. Connor later told me that before they exited the store, Faye turned to Connor and moved her lips to form the words ‘I’m sorry’.
“I’m telling you man, if that guy doesn’t already beat her, he’s about to,” Connor told me while he took a bite out of his burger.
We were seated on the floor of Mrs. Burton’s apartment. I had just laid down the wooden boards and the place looked a lot better. Not to bitch about carpets…. But carpets suck, and she had a history of allergies, so I couldn’t leave the old carpet unattended. Especially with the stains of god knows what kind of substances on almost every corner. So I had finished laying down the new floor and the apartment already looked a lot better. I had fixed the exposed faucet and the humidity issues. Also, the smell was gone. The place was already livable, but I wanted to remodel the kitchen, change the drawers, make it look a lot more modern.
It was close to nine PM and we were waiting for the window to dry up, since I had also replaced them. So we thought it was a good moment to talk, and Connor couldn’t help bring up his encounter with the Keanes
“I just don’t see Scott being capable of hitting her,” I said.
“This pregnancy is just yet another way in which he has power over her. Back when she wasn’t pregnant, he still knew that if Faye gathered the courage, she could still leave. Now… now he has her by the neck.”
“But do you know what he meant when he said her pregnancy was delicate?”
“I don’t know. It could be just some trick or something just ’cause he doesn’t want her spending any time near you.”
I sighed but I wasn’t convinced. So, against my better judgement, I called Faye the next day.
“Hello, Riley?” she said when she picked up. She was surprise of hearing my voice.
“Hey, how are you?”
“Fine, fine. I’m… I wasn’t expecting your call.”
“No, I know. I just heard that there was something wrong with the pregnancy. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I could hear her laugh warmly through the phone. “That’s so kind of you. Thank you. Yeah, everything is fine. I just have a bit of a high pressure problem, but the doctor said it wasn’t anything to worry about.”
“But you quit.”
“Yeah, but not because of that, though that’s the version Scott will tell everyone. In reality the doctor told me I should stay active and that there was no reason why I should quit. But Scott kept saying that I could stay active without a job, but that having one was stressful and the doctor did say I should avoid stress.”
“High blood pressure, like Dad?”
“Yeah. Apparently, it runs in the family. Both my grandad and my grandma had it, too.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t want you to. You have enough on your plate without having to care about my petty problems.”
“High blood pressure is not a petty problem.”
“Don’t be like Scott, Riley. He’s just using this to his advantage. That’s it. Anyway, I’m on my way to the gym. I should take advantage of the fact that I don’t have a belly yet and exercise before he forbids me from doing that, too.”
“Okay, it was… uh…”
“I know… I miss you.”
I swallowed the knot that’d form in my throat and asked, “You going to Mike’s birthday party next month?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, I’ll see you there then.”
“Sure.”
I tried to keep the conversation as relaxed as I could, but it was impossible, there was still an air between us, a certain tension in the air, a feeling that refused to go away, regardless of how much I wanted it to.
Truth was, I didn’t want to go to Mike’s birthday. The way I was feeling, last thing I wanted to do was to be surrounded by a group of loud people pretending I felt great, and laughing and drinking. But I couldn’t just say no either. Even if I had to pretend to be strong and happy, Mike had been a friend my whole life. Both him and Louise I could count on no matter what, so for their sake, I was going to the fucking party. Which as you can imagine, turned out to be a mistake. Back in those day, it seemed like everything I did was a mistake. Like I brought nothing but sadness to everywhere I went. Just like the Colonel said.
I walked out of the cab staring at the house. I crossed the front door with the bottle of champagne on one hand and a birthday card I purchased at the store a block away from mine. Music wasn’t loud because of Emily. It was one of those parties that we adults don’t have. The kind with just twenty guests, that starts at four and ends at nine, because Emily needs her good night sleep, and mommy and daddy don’t know what sleeping means anymore.
“Riley!” Mike called out raising his hand as he saw me.
He came to me and hugged me. “Happy birthday,” I said giving him the champagne bottle.
“Oh! Champagne. You know how much Louise loves this shit. Come on, come on. Let me introduce you to some friends from work.”
We walked back to the group Mike had been with right before he saw me and came to say hello. “Ry, this is Anthony, that one is Craig, and the lady over there is Sofia.”
I said hello very awkwardly, I had never seen any of these people but it was Mike’s birthday, so of course his friends would be there.
They kept talking about politics, a conversation in which I didn’t jump. I find today’s politics to be quite depressing to be honest. As they talked about health, and education and bans and refugees I saw Louise on the other side of the living room holding Emily. She was apparently introducing her daughter to a group of people who’d never met Emily. I apologized to Mike saying I was going to say hello to Louise.
“Yeah, yeah, sure. Have a drink, too. Enjoy yourself. We can party all we want… ’til eight.”
I smiled at the joke and approached Louise. As soon as Emily saw me, she stretched out her arms towards me. Louise turned to see whom, her very apathetic daughter, wanted to hug.
“Hey, my Captain Pirate!” I said taking Emily and holding her. Emily started laughing and putting her hands on my face. It’s just something she does for some reason. Probably to get a better grasp of me. I swear to God, if that kid doesn’t grow up to be a policewoman or something like that, I’ll be surprised.
“Hey, Riley” said Louise before leaning to kiss me on the cheek. “How are you doing?”
“Great.”
“Really? I thought you’d be trying to cut your veins opened with a block of cheese after finding out Faye is pregnant.”
“Jesus, Louise, did you really have to?”
“Well, I cannot say what happens when you put certain object to your temple and pull certain trigger in front of her, can I?”
“I think you just did. Also the vein cutting was really explicit.” I joked and she smiled. “Yeah, it’s… it’s not easy but…” I wanted to tell her the truth. That Faye’s pregnancy was yet another thing that made me miserable and that the pile kept getting higher. “I’m trying to stay positive.”
Is that really something people say when they don’t wanna tell you they’re sad? It doesn’t matter, that is what I remember saying.
“Yeah, well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want you to get— Oh, shoot,” she said staring past me.
I turned to see what she was looking at. Scott and Faye had just arrived. And the time we’d spend without seeing each other was catching up. In the four weeks that I hadn’t seen Faye, she gained weight. No, not the kind of weight that makes you feel better after a break up. I mean pregnant-weight. I mean, that little belly women start getting at the end of the first trimester and the beginning of the second. Which was weird, because she didn’t actually have a belly yet. But her body was changing nonetheless. Her breasts looked bigger. I should know, I spent a lot of time around them. Her waist looked somewhat wider and if I didn’t know she was pregnant, I would’ve just assumed she’d put on weight.
Unlucky for me. She still looked beautiful.
But what Louise seemed to be more uncomfortable with, was Scott being there. “Ry, if you don’t want Scott here, I can ask him to leave—”
“No! No, that won’t be necessary. I’m okay. He’s your friend.”
“No, he’s not! Scott hasn’t been a friend to us in a long time. You have.”
“Thanks, but still. It’s Mike’s birthday, I don’t think he’ll want that.”
“Mike doesn’t really like Scott these days.”
“Why?”
“You know Mike. He’s a little bit of a moralist and Scott is a bit of a… how to put it? Arrogant, entitled prick? Yeah, that sounds about right.”
I smiled. “Still, I don’t want to make things awkward on Mike. It’s his birthday, let’s all play friends.”
Louise guaranteed me that if I really wanted, she could ask Scott to leave. But they had invited him after all and kicking him out didn’t look like a clean move. As Louise went to her husband, I promised her I would keep Emily busy. that at least would give me something to focus on other than Faye and her perfect little family. So I took Emily to the table with drinks and while I examined the options I asked her what I could have.
“What do you think, little Captain? Do I want Diet Coke?” Emily started laughing. “No, you’re right. let’s be nasty tonight. Regular Coke it is.”
“Regular Coke is nasty? You must be getting old,” I heard a voice behind me.
I turned to find Scott with his arms crossed and a smile in his face. “I am,” I replied. “I’m attending an afternoon birthday party for a grown up man where the only alcohol is non-alcoholic beer.”
He kept smiling and replied. “Yeah, well. We’re not kids anymore are we. I mean look at us. Who could say we’d be here ten years ago?”
“Yeah, life has a way of telling you, ‘who gives a shit about your plans’.”
He laughed. “I know, But… I wouldn’t want it any other way. I got everything I ever dreamed of.”
“Good for you. Not many people can say that.”
“What can I say? I’m a lucky guy.”
“Sure you are.”
“You still haven’t congratulated me. You know. We are expecting a child.”
“No, I haven’t.” Scott waited for me to say the words, but waited in vain.
“Come on…”
“I said I haven’t, I never said I was going to.”
“Don’t be like that. I’m happy, man. Can’t we just be friends again?” His smile told me not only that he really wanted to be friend again, but also that there was a baby in the middle, so he no longer felt threatened by me.
“No, we cannot.”
“Why? Because of Faye?”
“No, Scott. Because I don’t like the person you are. This little parade of yours. Wearing your ten thousand dollar Rolex and your Louis Vuitton shoes. With your little Ralph Lauren polo and your expensive cologne. I don’t know who exactly it is that you are trying to impress, but this is not you. Or at least I thought it wasn’t, because my friend, my Scott, would look at you, and laugh.”
He swallowed that and answered, “I never took you for the envy-type, Riley.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, man. Because all I want in life, is a wife who doesn’t love me and a kid to keep her from divorcing me.”
I didn’t stay to hear what else he had to say. There was no point in it. And also, I didn’t want Emily to feel the emotional charge of a fight between Scott and I, so instead I placed her on the floor, on the little play area Mike and Louise made her on one corner of the house. The floor was covered in a foam mat because she was beginning to crawl, and a fence to stop her from going too far.
I pulled out a toy and she reached out for it immediately.
As Faye stood next to me, I stood up from the floor. “When you see her like this, you can almost forget she can wake the entire neighborhood up,” she commented.
“Oh no. She always makes sure I never forget that.”
“How have you been?”
“Fine. And you? And the pregnancy?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I still don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“You were perfectly clear to me in your actions. You stayed with Scott.”
“Riley… I want to be with you but I don’t know if I ca—”
“Don’t. just don’t do it anymore. No more excuses, no more lies. just leave it. I get we have to be able to be in each other’s presence and be civilized, but I am not ready to act like I’m okay with it.”
After saying that, I kneeled on the floor next to Emily to play with her, but Faye didn’t leave. When Louise came, she apologized for leaving me with Emily for so long, but she needed an arm break.
At that point of the night, I wanted to leave. Use the headache excuse and go home to get a good night sleep. Faye’s eyes were unyielding, she was not looking away and she was not leaving. I gazed up at Louise and said, “Well, I guess I should be going.”
“So soon?” Louise asked.
“Yeah, I’m getting a headache so I should really get going.”
“Oh, okay… Thanks for coming.”
Faye stood still, with her arms crossed and her eyes on me. No words said. I looked around looking for Mike to apologize and say goodbye to him as well, to my bad luck, he was on the sofa, talking to Scott.
I didn’t have much of a choice, I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to the birthday boy and, due to social standards, since he was with Scott, that meant I had to say goodbye to him, too. I walked up to them and leaned forward to hug Mike.
“You’re leaving?” Mike inquired.
“Yeah, sorry I’m getting a—”
“Oh, come on, you can’t leave. Mike and I were just talking about you.” Scott said.
I turned to Mike who shook his head slightly just to let me know that was not true.
“Really? What were you talking about?”
“Well, I wanted to ask you… how many push-ups can you do?”
Before I could open my mouth to say something, Louise sat next to Mike and replied, “You guys must be really bored if that’s what you are talking about.”
Faye sat on the arm chair next to her husband and stared at me.
“So, Riley, how many?” Scott asked wrapping his arm around Faye’s waist.
“I really gotta go,” was my answer.
“Don’t be boring, plus, I think apart from me and you, everyone else is pretty out of shape.”
Is it just me, or is everything Scott says a little bit offensive? “Hey, that’s not true!” Mike protested “I can do a whole push-up, all by myself.”
Louise kissed him. “Yes, you can, honey. You are super strong.”
“Why don’t we bet on it?” Scott insisted. He wasn’t letting the push up thing go, and I couldn’t understand why. I would later on, but that day, it seemed very random to me.
“A bet on what?” I asked.
“On who can make the most push-ups in a row.”
“God, Scott, I have to get going…”
“To do what? It’s barely six, and whatever it is you can do it later. Come on, let’s see if I can beat whatever they taught you in the army.”
I laughed. “At the end of my training I had to be able to climb a rope using only my arms. So no, you can’t.”
“Prove it. How many can you do?”
I am aware that I had fallen into his immaturity game, but something about his arrogance made it so unbearable to me. “What exactly do you mean by push-ups? Regular, diamond, explosive, handstand, planche.”
For a split second, I could see he wasn’t feeling arrogant anymore, but it didn’t last. “Whatever you want; regular, I guess.”
“I don’t know. Fifty, fifty-something. At least back when I was in the army.”
“In a row?” Louise asked opening her eyes like plates. “I look like a dying chicken every time I try to do one. One!”
“I bet I can do more than you,” Scott said.
“Of course you can, Scotty.” I replied.
“What, you think I can’t?”
Great, dick measurement time. My favorite party activity. I hope I don’t have to add the tangible sarcasm for you to get it. “Scott, you know what the army’s PFT is?”
“No.”
“It’s the Army’s Physical Fitness Test, and it is brutal. You have two minutes each to do push-ups, sit-ups and run two miles. Worse, you have to get it every six months, so believe me when I tell you, you can’t.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been home for a while now so, I’m pretty confident. Come on, prove me wrong.”
I felt about Scott what I feel about a kid who brags about something he’s never done, but gets offended when people call his BS. I was certainly not going to get him off my back without accepting. I also must admit, there was a morbid desire in me to prove I was better than him at something. Something he should be “biologically” better than me at. At least, I wouldn’t feel as bad for losing Faye to him…for about ten seconds.
“Fine, go on, give me a push-up.”
Scott rose from the sofa, dropped to the floor and did one push-up that, if I had to describe it, I would say it would make the Sergeant that trained me close his eyes in embarrassment.
“Uhm, that’s not how you do a push-up,” I said.
He kneeled and stared up at me. “What? What’s wrong with it?”
I knelled next to him, with my hands on my thighs. “Let me put it the way the Sergeant who trained me would,” I cleared my throat and continued “‘Listen to me, Brenan, and listen good ’cause I’m only gonna say this once! I ain’t got time for whiners of pussies so give me a push-up! A real one! Elbows in, chin forward and full range of motion! All the down, all the way up! I want your goddamn chest barely touching the goddamn floor and we are staying here until you fucking learn that, do you understand soldier?!”
“Sir, yes, sir!” Mike and Louise replied at the same time making us laugh.
I turned to Scott, “Come on, let’s do it together. All the way down, all the way up.”
As I placed my body weight on the tip of my feet and my hands, Scott assumed the same position and we went down, this time, doing it right. As I imagined, I could see in his face that this time, he was feeling it.
“Holy fuck!” He said as we kneeled up again.
I smiled. “You still sure you can do more than me?”
“Hell yeah,” he wasn’t sure. I could see it in his eyes, but that was not what mattered anymore. We were laughing, together, as friends, the four of us, like we hadn’t in a long time.
“Alright, we are about to find out who’s the badass master of the badasses,” Louise said “Ready, lady, gentleman? Go!”
As I went up and down on the floor, there was a familiar feeling growing in my stomach. A friendly competition between Scott and I. We used to have a lot of those when we were younger. He would win some, I would win some others. Or, occasionally, Faye would jump in and use both our asses to wipe the floor. As we reached twenty push-ups, I began to feel it, so I looked up at Faye. It’s just something that I do whenever I need some motivation. It is not conscious when I do it, but I am aware of it.
Faye had her eyes on me, that much I could pick up on. Louise leaned towards her, said something to her ear and then laughed. Faye immediately used her wrists to wipe her mouth. Knowing Louise, she said something like, “You’re salivating, baby.”
I kept going and by the thirtieth push-up, I could feel my muscles pumping and my skin beginning to burn, but Scott had broken form a long time ago and was going on out of pure stubbornness. He couldn’t go all the way down, so it wouldn’t be long before he dropped to the floor, I thought.
When I reached forty, Scott hadn’t been able to go down for about ten seconds, he just stayed there, with his arms stretched out, breathing deeply, droplets of sweat running down his cheeks. He had managed to reach thirty push-ups, but no more. As he regained a little of his strength he went down and up again, but as he tried to go down, his arms gave up and he hit the floor with a thud noise.
I kept going, knowing he had already quitted because I wanted to reach the fifty. Back in the day, fifty was as natural to me as waking up in the morning. It was the first thing I did after getting out of bed. I wanted to prove to myself that even with my bad arm, even without hard training, I could still push myself into reaching them.
I couldn’t. I reached forty-seven, then I dropped.
“Okay, okay,” Scott said, sitting on the floor. “I admit it, you beat me, happy?”
“By seventeen,” I answered sitting next to him.
“By seventeen,” he repeated.
“And you’re lucky I let you count those last ones, those were pathetic. Moving your neck doesn’t count as a rep, Scotty.”
He laughed and said, “Stop bullying me,” as he pushed me playfully.
“Hey, you were the one who wanted to compete.”
For a moment, for those few minutes, I saw in Scott my old best friend. The guy I could always count on. The guy who’d been a brother to me. But of course, it didn’t last long.
As I tried to stand on my feet, Faye extended her hand to me, to help me up. As I took it, Scott’s expression changed. It roughened up, like a dog’s when you touch his food.
He stood up on his own, as said, “Thanks for helping me, honey.”
Faye, a little confused by Scott, replied, “Riley tried to stand up first. And unlike you guys, I am not strong enough to lift you both at the same time.”
Scott didn’t say anything else, but that simple choice meant a lot more to him, than it did to me or to Faye. You see, in his head, Faye was right, she couldn’t help both of us get up, she could only help one, and consciously or not, she’d chosen me over him; a choice Scott had been fighting against his entire marriage.
As he dusted his pants and fixed his shirt, he said, “We should get going.”
Faye frowned, “I thought we’d stay until eight.”
“We won’t.”
“But you said—”
“Would you just shut up and do as I say?!” I am confident that even Scott was surprised at his tone of voice. He seemed to be much angrier that he himself thought.
“Hey, Scott, man, come on,” Mike intervened “Don’t talk to her like that.”
“Shut up, Mike!”
Hey!” Louise cut him off to defend her guy. “Don’t talk to him like that!”
“Look, how I talk to Faye is none of your business.”
I hated how he said that. As if Faye being his wife gave him the right to treat her however he saw fit. I straightened up and looked at Scott with a gaze he understood. The same one he’d given me when I showed up at Emily’s birth.
Foreseeing what was slowly building up, Faye jumped in and said, “Look, it’s fine guys, okay? We’re just gonna go…”
“Fine?” I asked “It’s fine that he treats you like that? What the hell is wrong with you? Back when we were together you wouldn’t even let me so much as raise my voice at you, let alone shut you up and ‘do as I say’.”
“Leave it, Riley,” Faye replied firmly.
“Yeah, why don’t you turn around and talk to him like that?”
Faye didn’t say anything to that, she didn’t move nor did she try to lock eyes with me.
Scott grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away with such roughness that Faye’s body shook like a rag doll.
“Argh!” she complained, “You’re hurting me Scott.”
“Good, maybe next time you’ll know better than to question me.”
As they left, I became convinced Connor was right, if Scott wasn’t already hitting Faye, he was about to begin.Â
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