Chapter 4: Part 4

“Oh, that’s for six months, right?”

 

Lucia flinched, and instinctively tucked her blue Narcotics Anonymous key tag into her palm.  The shock of being spotted as a recovering addict, though, was insignificant next to the immediate realization, as she turned slightly, that she recognized the woman who had sat beside her on the crowded bus as it trundled down Freemont.  Vivian’s girlfriend, the one with the smile, was looking at her with genuine warmth and compassion, and it hit her like a blow to the gut.

 

“The key tag?”

 

Lucia licked her lips and looked back down, slowly twisting her hand at the wrist to expose what she’d tried to hide.  Her voice was shaky when she said, “Yeah. ”

 

“That’s really impressive!”

 

“Thanks,” Lucia replied, even though saying so made her want to throw up.  "It’s eight months, really, but they don't have an eight month tag.  Gotta… gotta wait for nine."

 

The woman next to her was wearing mauve scrubs and very sensible shoes.  A nurse, Lucia thought.  Because of course.  Educated.  Softhearted.  Giving.

 

“My girlfriend had a problem for a while, but she’s doing really good too.”  The way that the nurse was staring into the space in front of her with a proud smile suggested a lot about how close they were.  Every word from her perfect little mouth was like a poison.

 

“Your girlfriend?”

 

The nurse nodded emphatically.  “It’s been about six months for us.”  She furrowed her brow briefly, and then smiled even more brilliantly.  “Oh my god, yeah.  It has been six months.  I’m Delia, by the way.”

 

“Lu...cy,” Lucia said, giving her a brief nod.  “Hi.”

 

“Pleased to meet you!”

 

It was morbid, masochistic, to continue the conversation.  “So, you’re a nurse?”

 

“Mhm!” she said, brightly.  Even her teeth were dazzling, and Lucia self-consciously compressed her lips just a little bit tighter.  “I work in the ICU at St. Vincent’s.  That’s actually where Vivian and I met.”

 

She should have been glad that Vivian had found someone that made her happy, but still; hearing Vivian’s name from her lips absolutely sucked.

 

“Oh, was she… visiting someone?” she asked, feigning ignorance.

 

“No!  She was the one in the coma!  Bad one too.  At first, the attending in intensive care was sure she’d have brain damage if she woke up at all.”

 

Lucia blinked, and licked her lips.  “You know, I’ve heard that some people who…”  She pointed at her head absently.  “...who suffer head wounds can, like, have their whole personality change.  Is that… is that real?”

 

“Technically, yes, that can and does happen, but that also assumes that, like, who we are is some kind of fixed entity when the truth is that we grow and change every day.  You’re not the same person you were eight months ago, right?” she asked, gesturing to Lucia’s palm.  “Yesterday?  This morning?  An hour ago?”

 

“Deep,” Lucia said.  It was getting harder keeping a straight expression in the face of Vivian’s girlfriend being simultaneously existentially-wise and medically-educated.  “Did that happen with your girlfriend?”

 

Delia uncrossed and recrossed her legs, and seemingly bought time to think by tucking a few stray hairs behind her ear.  She had extremely short hair, though, so none of it stayed tucked.  “You know, I didn’t know her before her accident, so I can’t say for sure, but what I can tell you is that whenever we’re around her family, I get a vibe from them.  Especially when we first started dating, it was like she was on thin ice, or her last second chance or something.  They never said anything that made it seem like she was acting out of character, but they also kind of treated her like they were meeting her for the first time while they were meeting me for the first time?  Something was off about their interactions.  That much, I can say for sure.”

 

Lucia couldn’t help but picture them together; Vivian, tall and lean with her new, terse disposition being complimented by this adorable, chatty, short-haired tornado.

 

“Oh my god,” Delia laughed.  “I’m so sorry.  I’m just going on and on about me and my—”

 

“No,” Lucia said.  “It’s-it’s fine.”

 

“I do this thing where I just, like, talk to everybody, and Vivian, you know, she’s always rolling her eyes at me, but I meet so many interesting people!  Lucy, was it?”

 

“Yeah!”

 

“Are you a musician?”

 

Lucia looked down at her guitar case and frowned.  It would have been better if Lucy was as little like Lucia as possible.  “I’m an assassin,” she said, feigning an excess of confidence.  “That’s where I keep my rifle.”

 

Even her laugh was bewitching.  “My girlfriend’s a musician!  Do you record?”

 

“No,” Lucia said.  “No, I—”

 

“Are you in any bands I might have seen?  We go to a lot of concerts.”

 

She shook her head.  “I used to be, but no.  Not in a while.  I think that part of my life is over.”

 

The bus hit a particularly hard bump, and Lucia looked up enough to realize that she’d missed her stop.  Her stomach tried to twist itself into a braid, and she reached into her purse for her phone.  Then she looked up at Delia, and made a bad decision.

 

“Sorry,” she said, focusing on her phone for a moment while she typed out a message to one of her students saying she’d been delayed in traffic and that she needed to cancel their lesson.  “I just need to let my girlfriend know that I’m, um, running a little late.”

 

Delia was giving her a look of quiet, approving solidarity, when she finally sent it, that made her feel like a complete fraud, which, of course, she was.  When she stood up, Lucia flinched.

 

“Are you getting off here too?”

 

The word ‘too’ made her blood run cold, and that worst instinct of hers, the one where she leaned into the worst of the pain, made a grab for the wheel.  Lucia arched back and stared out the window for a minute.  “Yeah, I, uh… I think so.  We just moved, and I’m still getting my bearings.  Is it this one?”

 

Delia grabbed her purse and stood, and Lucia got to her feet a second later.  It was, perhaps, the worst idea she’d ever had, which she knew because she was so fond of ranking things.

 

“Yeah.  I think this is it.”

 

“Cool!” Delia replied.  She was so pert, and upbeat, and happy, and trusting, and the list of positive characteristics that both applied to Delia and not herself made Lucia want to throw up.  How was she supposed to compete with that?

 

I can’t, she thought, bleakly.

 

Delia helpfully waited for her on the curb, as it took Lucia an extra second to get up the will to step off the bus.  Lucia looked back and forth, and shielded her eyes, until she spotted Delia taking a half step to her left.  “I’m this way,” she said.

 

“Me too!”  Delia beamed.  “I mean, technically, this is where Vivian lives.  I just… stay here more nights than not.”

 

She squinted as she looked around.  It was a nice part of town.  Vivian must have been doing well for herself.  Lucia said, “I know how that is.”

 

“We haven’t really had that talk yet.  Not really.  She cleared out some space for me, and was definitely hinting that I could move some of my stuff in, but I’ve been holding back a little.”

 

“You don’t seem like the holding back type,” Lucia said, surprising herself with her own insight.

 

Delia laughed and clapped her hands.  “What gave it away?”

 

Lucia went to war with her cheeks as she tried to force a smile, and said, “I must be a mind reader.”  She gave a pithy little chuckle, and drove the knife in deeper.  “So what’s making you hesitate?”

 

For the first time since they’d started talking, Delia seemed to recognize that she was talking to a stranger.  She gave Lucia a sideways look, but it dissipated almost as soon as it had appeared.  “When we first got together, I… I had this feeling like I was a rebound for her.  You know?”

 

Lucia did know.  “Do you still feel that way?  Six months later?”

 

“No,” she said, quickly, “no.  No.  … Sometimes.  I mean, Vivian is great.  She’s attentive, and caring, and she tips well at restaurants I don’t know why I love that so much but I do.”  Delia laughed, and shook her head.  “She says all the right things.  My parents like her.  My friends like her.  Hell, I even think I love her.”

 

“That’s good,” Lucia said, colorlessly.

 

The little brunette blinked and laughed.  “I love her.  Oh my god!”

 

There was a shift in the way Delia was walking, a slight lean to one side, and without missing a beat Lucia followed Delia around a corner like they’d walked this way together dozens of times.

 

“Are you gonna tell her?”

 

“The second I see her,” Delia said.  “I don’t know why I was holding back.  God, she’s, like, the perfect woman.”

 

Yes, she is, Lucia thought.  In the recesses of her brain, the dark places that didn’t contribute to her internal narrative, there were parts of her cheering on each bad decision, each lie, because this was what she deserved.

 

“And she loves me,” Delia continued.  “I know she does.  Oh my god!  Thank you!”

 

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She deserved to have it thrown in her face.  She deserved to drown in it.  She was garbage, and she would always be garbage.  Lucia was reduced to completely mechanical movements.  Breathing because her brain made her body do it.  One foot in front of the other.  Head down, eyes on the concrete right in front of her.

 

“I guess I just needed to talk it out a little!”

 

“No… no problem.”

 

“Oh!  Look!”

 

Time slowed.

 

“There she is!”

 

Lucia turned, following Delia’s pointing finger, and there she was.  In a green space beside an apartment building.  Vivian LeBlanc.  Smiling.  Vivian LeBlanc was smiling.  The last time she’d seen Vivian smiling had been as they went out the door for tacos a lifetime ago.

 

“Vivian!”

 

It took a second to register that she was playing soccer with her nieces, Tiffany and Ashley.  All three of them turned to look, and a part of Lucia died on the spot.

 

“Aunt Lucia!” the two girls called.  “Yaaay!!”

 

Everything blurred.  The girls ran up and hugged her.  They were asking her something, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been sick.  Why were they asking if she was better?  It didn’t make any sense.  Delia had been right next to her, but when Lucia looked up Delia was twenty yards away, standing next to Vivian.  Both of them were looking at her with unreadable expressions.  Talking about her.  Bad things, probably.  True things.  Things she deserved.  

 

She said something to the girls, something very appropriate.  Maybe that she missed them, or that it had been a long time, or that they’d grown.  Before she got much more than a sentence out, though, Delia was calling them for dinner, and the two girls waved and ran off.

 

She saw Vivian coming.  There was no running away, no escaping.  She turned and sat down on the curb, grabbed her hair in both hands, and rocked forward and back.  “I shouldn’t have come.  This was a mistake.  I shouldn’t have come.”

 

She expected a blow to the back of the head, or to be kicked in front of an oncoming car.  She expected screaming, and hatred, and everything she earned with her appalling behavior.  She expected to be walked away from and ignored.  She didn’t expect Vivian to sit down.

 

“I’d heard you were back in town,” Vivian said.  She wrapped her arms around her knees, and pulled them tight against her chest, or leaned forward until her chest was against her knees.  Lucia couldn’t tell the difference, and ultimately it didn’t matter.

 

“I shouldn’t have come.  I’m sorry.  Fuck.”

 

“This wasn’t a coincidence, Luc.  What are you doing here?”

 

A fearless moral inventory.  “I’ve been to your shows.”

 

Vivian drew a long, slow breath in through her nostrils.  “You’ve seen Delia come up on stage.”

 

“She just started talking to me on the bus,” Lucia said, voice picking up speed.  “I didn’t see her get on.  I didn’t know… but I…”

 

When she looked up, Vivian was giving her a very direct, very intense look.

 

“I recognized her.  I knew who she was, and I knew what I was doing when I… when I got off the bus.”  Deep breath.  “When I followed her.”

 

“Mmhm.”

 

“I pretended not to know.  Lied and told her my name was Lucy.  Made myself listen while she talked about how she feels about you, and what’s going on with you two.”

 

“What the fuck, Luc!”

 

“I know,” Lucia said, sadly.  “I know!”

 

Vivian’s pocket erupted with sound, and she got to her feet with extreme prejudice.  Lucia turned just enough to watch her ex move a few feet away, pull out her phone, and say, “You okay?  … Good, are you … What’d you tell them?  … Yeah, I know.  … She… Yeah.  That’s what she said.”  Vivian turned back slightly, and looked at Lucia over her shoulder.  “Mhm.  Babe, I don’t… Mhm.”  After this, she was quiet for a minute, just listening.  Standing very still.

 

Lucia shrank in on herself a little more with every passing second.

 

“You do?”

 

The knife twisted, wrenched with pitiless strength.  She was hearing Vivian’s new girlfriend tell Vivian that she loved her.  Lucia was present for that moment.  She didn’t know why she was crying; she’d brought all this on herself, willingly.

 

“Is it okay if I say it when I get upstairs?”

 

“Fuck,” Lucia groaned.

 

At that moment, she realized that her hands were empty, and she spun around.  Her guitar case was lying on its side five yards back, probably where she’d dropped it, and she jumped when Vivian sat back down beside her, looking down with a very serious expression.

 

Vivian said, “Delia said…”—She paused to clear her throat—“She thinks I need to talk to you.”

 

“You do?”

 

The black-haired woman glared sideways at her.  “She said she didn’t think you were doing anything malicious, and that you gave her some good advice.”

 

“I did?”

 

This time, Vivian stared at her with just short of open hostility, but it softened after a few seconds.  “This is fucked up, Luc.  What are you doing here?  Why are you coming to my shows?  What the...  Why didn’t you tell me you were back in town?”

 

Lucia swallowed hard.  “I… wanted to surprise you.  Came to one of your shows.  At Afterlife, months ago.  Was waiting backstage.  Had flowers.  Practiced my apology in front of the mirror.  Practiced it a lot.  Wanted to make it right.  And then…”

 

Vivian sniffed loudly, and Lucia whipped her head around.  Vivian was crying.  Wiping her nose.

 

“I’m sorry,” Lucia said.  “For today.  For leaving.  For—”

 

Vivian held up a hand, and that was enough to silence her.

 

“I Can’t Do This Right Now,” Vivian said, hoarsely.  “I-I-I… Fuck!”

 

“I should go,” Lucia said, dusting off her knees needlessly and pulling down on the bottoms of her pant legs.

 

“Can We…”  Vivian drove her palms into her eyes, and made a sound like something was being ripped out of her.  “Are you free on Friday?”

 

Lucia sniffled and nodded.

 

“Somewhere we can drink.  I’m gonna need a drink.”

 

“Russell’s,” Lucia said, quickly, and Vivian turned to stare at her through slitted eyes.  “Over on, um—”

 

“I know where Russell’s is,” Vivian said, coldly.  “I just played there.”

 

“I know.”  Lucia followed this up by averting her eyes, and nodding emphatically.

 

“Are you living over there now?  Is that… convenient for you?”

 

Lucia shook her head.  “No, but—”

 

Again, Vivian cut her off with a curt hand gesture.  “I gotta go.  Do you know how to get back to the bus?  Or… do you have someone you can call?”

 

Stan, her sponsor, was probably sitting down to dinner, she realized.  His daughter, who was nearly her own age, came over a lot to check on him.  If Lucia called, he’d answer, and he’d come, but she didn’t want to take him away from that.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I have someone I can call.”

 

Vivian slapped herself on both thighs, grunted, and stood up.  “Okay.”

 

“Okay,” she repeated.  “Friday.  What, um…”

 

“Seven.”

 

Vivian turned and walked away, and when she was too far to hear, Lucia softly replied, “I’ll be there.”  Then she turned around, picked up her guitar, and started back toward the bus.  She was going to end up being very early for her NA meeting later that night, but that was probably a good thing.

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