Chapter 28

I remember when I was new, bright eyed. I was in the MARB, waiting for some biology class I hated to start, sitting cross legged on the floor. You see, the MARB was built during the reign of President Wilkinson. The man who planted students to find people breaking the archaic honor code. He thought it innappropriate that students would be fraternizing between classes, so it is one of the few buildings on campus that was built with no benches, no chairs or tables. Just hallways. I remember listening absentmidedly to the strange conversations around me; the ones that would soon become mundane, common in this most uncommon of societies.

“We’ve only been dating for three weeks,but I know he’s the one. I know I want to marry him.”

“It was the first time I had smelled alcohol – how was I supposed to know what it is?”

And I noticed something different.

Silence.

There were two girls sitting facing each other, and their conversation had reached a lull. They had turned to their own particular tasks, one scribbling furiously in her University issued planner, the other opening some obscure textbook. And I remember feeling something I had hardly felt in my life; uncomfortable. They just sat there, not saying a word, silently acknowledging each other’s company, oblivious to the fact that their comfort was disquieting a nosy neighbor.

With Kathryn, there are no uncomfortable silences.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of silences. Kathryn doesn’t just talk for the sake of talking. She actually says things. So when there is silence, it is usually that her mind has moved on, or that I haven’t found the next mindless banter to throw out there.

With her, there is too much history. Its fascinating to see who she has become, because she is who she was when I first met her, 10 years ago. Slight and thin, Kathryn never follows fads or trends. She looks how she looks and she acts how she acts and she likes what she likes simply because she looks like that., acts as such, and likes those things. It has nothing to do with the fact that the pre-teen figure is all the rage, or that tan is the new red lipstick. She is herself, completely and totally. Blue eyes, dyed red hair, a birthmark where a dimple should be. She recently stopped wearing bras. Just because she wanted to.

She was there when Stooph almost left. She was a newlywed. Her husband, Jake, was the one who was joking around so much before we realized what had actually happened. Jake, for all intents and purposes, is the male version of me. He and drama have a high correlation, not necessarily causation. He is dramatic and overbearing and ridiculous, and has had a history as peppered as mine with experiences way beyond his maturity level. He is single minded to the point of recklessness, deciding what he wants and not stopping EVER until he gets it. At their rehearsal dinner, his mother was giving a toast. She seemed to think she was alone, reminiscing on how he was as a younger child, a teenager, and trying to reconcile that with the 22 year old groom sitting in front of her. She said he would get these moods, these…. things, where he would decide he wanted something, and he was relentless until he got it. He would make an excellent torturer. She became concerned, then progressively more worried until her stress reached a boiling point on the subject of Kathryn. You see, he met her and decided that she, someday, would belong to him. And he was relentless. First he tried to date her. Failed. Then, he decided to try to be her best friend. After about 4 months, he succeeded. At the end of that school year, as spring was stealing winter’s spotlight, they started to date. And they never stopped. Of course, he did what every young 19 year old mormon boy should do, he went on a mission. And the 2 years couldn’t have passed more slowly. Every time he got a chance, he would draw and think of Kathryn.

When I first met Jake, I hated him. Which makes it okay for me to think of people despising me when they meet me. It’s because the idea that someone like me or Jake exists in their world is too much for them at first. We’re caricatures, characters that only come out in comic books or tragic stories, people who things happen to. All the times you’ve sat in a movie, thinking “that never happens in real life”, let me just assure you…. It does. And Jake and I are the kind of people to which it happens. We are the tragic heroes and heroines, the heartwrenching victims and victors of stories, living life as a series of movie clips and sitcom episodes. We are the movers and shakers of our time, drawing attention to ourselves by simply existing.

Three years later, I can barely seperate the one from the other. Kathryn and Jake. Jake and Kathryn. Their identities have become one.

Chapter 27

I remember how quickly it turned cold. Overnight, It seemed. One day it was sweltering, the sun dripping all over the green roofs and cotton trees. It was a wet heat. The next morning when I woke up in the spare bed in the infirmary, it was gray and cold. In august. Vermont is an odd place.

It was a fluke and a random coincidence that I had even gotten that job; it all started when I met Maureen. It was during the time when I worked “veg prep”, on BYU campus. It was just as boring and monotonous as it sounds. We chopped vegetables and fruit for 3 hours every morning. We had to be there at 6:00 am. Some mornings, there was extra fruit. Some mornings, my boss would whip up some cream for us, so that we could have a treat. Pineapple, strawberries, grapes. Conversation in the morning would come in waves. Heaving itself from the depth of sleeplessness, of repetitive slicing and mixing. It would heave itself, exhausted and laborious, onto the floor, washing up memories and thoughts and laughter. Splashing up our pant legs. Sometimes, there was a lull. Sometimes the wave would be enormous and powerful.

The first day Maureen was there, I remember being annoyed by her. A pattern that hasn’t changed to this day, I assure you. And even now, she just appears places. But I digress. She was assigned to wash and destem the grapes. She confidently asked where everything was, and how to do it. Only at 6 in the morning would confidence and curiosity become annoying qualities. I soon learned that Maureen is many things in one. She is rebellion and quiet contrition stirred together. Marbled. Like one of those cheesecakes with chocolate and vanilla wrapped around each other, tendrils of taste. Sometimes you would get the vanilla, the obedience. Reciting what she had be told by blind instructors, living their lives in the upper left part of their brains rather than in the world itself. She would talk about the common things she wanted, the mediocrity she craved. Other times you would get the rebellion, the chocolate. That she had funded herself to go to south Africa, and had broken the rules and started a relationship with a Black south African. That she missed him. That they had to keep their relationship a secret. That she was from Vermont, and that there were very few mormons there. That she worked every summer at an all boys summer camp. On North Hero, in Lake Champlain, Vermont.

It seemed to bizarre and random. In high school, my government teacher had told us to ignore all the states that only had 3 electoral votes. By educative mandate, I had ignored Vermont for my entire life. And yet there it was, calling to me from across a nation, 3 time zones away. Calling to me from a rainbow of leaves, sweating out the summer.

The morning in Los Angeles was like most summer mornings in Los Angeles; perfect and brilliant. I heaved my army-issue duffel bags through security, my last name branded on each in permanent marker. I thought I had packed light. I remember seeing a businessman board the flight. I thought he was attractive. Three months later we rode the same plane back home.

All I remember about Newark was the storage containers. Rows and rows of metal rectangles, painted the colors of the rainbow. That is if someone had eaten and vomited it. Rows of rusty vomit colored containers. Who knows what was in them. I don’t think I even wondered. All I know is that I devoured a pizza and that the plane I took from Newark, NJ was the smallest, most adorable airplane I had ever seen. Two seats on one side, one on the other. I think it was called a shuttle. I thought the sky could rip it apart, the way it screamed and rattled in the air. I remember how majestic the clouds looked; purple, pink, orange and yellow, all swirled together. Rainbow sherbet.

When I landed, I realized that the Burlington airport is even smaller than the Salt Lake airport, I didn’t think that was possible. I was wrong. One of the first things Maureen said to me when she picked me up was “wow. I had no idea you were so high maintenance.” Because apparently 2 suitcases for 3 months was considered excessive. The truth is, that I could have been the most rustic person alive and would still have earned the nickname “princess”, just because I came from California.

Before we left BYU in april to go home, Maureen said goodbye to Tina and I. She hugged Tina and said “I’ll miss you.” She hugged me and said “I won’t miss you because I’m going to see you in 2 months.” I remember that hurt my feelings. Maureen ended up being a curse disguised as a blessing. I don’t wish to talk bad about her, and I’m sure she could condemn me as easily as I could her for the things that happened that summer. What I will say is this; it was all a giant misunderstanding that never got resolved. She thought I was morally debase and there for the wrong reasons. I thought she was a self righteous bitch. Neither is true.

I lived in a cabin called Windmill. It was on a hill, so the southern part of it was held up by cinderblocks. A stack of them. It had a main room and a small room with a doorless entrance. I lived there comfortably and happily. I made it my own, and I kept it tidy. Except for the yellow stain on the window where Liptack crushed a spider. Too many memories. They come back first as a trickle; a slight crack in the dam of my past. And the further I dig, the wider the crack becomes. Until it becomes a deluge. Drowning me in emotions, in visions, in stories.

There’s Rhett, supervising the laying of the carpet, a mini pitcher in his hand filled to the brim with fruit punch. His Australian accent turning everything rusty yellow. He had a hammock by his cabin. His cabin faced the lake. Next door to the arts and crafts building. Lindsey, hilarious and understanding, generous and kind. There’s Dean, towering above me, inviting us to his house. His mom made waffles for us in the morning. And there’s Gari.

The first week there, it rained cotton. I had never seen anything like it in my life. I couldn’t identify it at the time, but the air felt rich. Who knows with what. Emotion maybe. History. Turns out it was water. Humidity. I had never felt anything quite like it. And I fell in love with it. As a little girl, I would wish that I could have my own personal cloud, raining warm water on me. Keeping me wet and warm all the time. In Vermont, I discovered that the air could do that alone. That I didn’t need a cloud. Sitting in the game room off of the mess hall, I heard the lull of words, but all I could comprehend was the fluffy white rain, moving diagonally across the camp. It only lasted a week.

The second week, all the counselors came. At 19, I was about the average age. There were locals, who were born and bred in Vermont, as well as foreigners. Arthur, from france. Michael, from Germany. He was shy. Jorge from Venezuela, Juan from Colombia, James Peacock from England, Gari from Wales. All thrown together in the melting pot of Camp Abnaki. I wonder if this is what America was like back in the day; a savage mixing of cultures and foods and religions. Maybe that’s why Americans’ just ended up as an amplification of the rest of the world. There were meetings and meals and more flirting than I had encountered in a long time. You see, when you are one of 5 girls total at an isolated summer camp filled with 60 men so filled with hormones you can smell it and taste it, you get a lot of attention. Add the fact that I was blonde and new, and I became their shiny new toy/.

The summer was surreal. I cannot actually come up with any other adjectives, and as that one is fitting, I don’t see the point in trying. I felt like I was living in a dream; from summer thunderstorms to camper drama to late nights with the counselors, my life had become a movie. And just like any summer flick, this one had to climax in the oddest of ways.

It turns out that stress can violently and drastically affect your health. And as I became more and more stressed and felt more and more isolated, I realized that fact. A case of mere sore throat soon escalated to a pustule so large that I couldn’t swallow my own saliva. When I went to the doctor, he prescribed me a set of powerful antibiotics… powerful enough to make me violently ill. Add the acidic burning to the mix and it became a crisis.

Mostly I remember how everyone else seemed to think I was a probolem. How I stopped being a human being, and started becoming a liability. I remember standing in the kitchen, after almost everyone had left, and a familiar song came on the radio. Something I hadn’t expected, and something which surprised me as the lyrics poured balm into my stinging wounds.

When you find yourself in times of trouble

Mother Mary calls to me

Speaking words of wisdom:

Let it be.

I closed my eyes and let hot, bitter tears burn my face. Tricling down to my chin, pooling in the notch between my collarbones. I pushed the pain into my stomach, through my legs and out through my toes. When I boarded the plane a few days later, I never looked back.

Chapter 26

It’s called polarization. And it’s literally defined as a sharp division, as of a population or group, into opposing factions. It also explains a lot of the properties of water that are so fascinating. It’s how I live my life.

Until now I can honestly say that most of it has been by accident. I subconciously hate or love everything I encounter, from people to foods to situations to emotions. I even polarize musical instruments for Pete’s sake.

I love the cello. The vibrant, rich tones. Playing the cello has to be the most pleasurable physical experience I have ever encountered. It rests on you like no other instrument does, demanding to become a glossy, resonant limb. Playing it makes your soul mimic the vibrations of the tones you’re sweating out of that celestial wood. It makes heretofore unnoticed parts cry out in pleasure or recognition or despair, entering the instrument through the straining fingers and flowing out, amplified by the mirror image f-holes that flank the strings.

I hate the oboe. If I had any desire to hear something nasaly and irritating I would listen to a mediocre high school choir’s alto section. I’ll pass, thank you very much. I would happily destroy every oboe in the world with no regrets.

I love small quantities of perfectly spiced food. Scratch that – I love any quantity of perfectly spiced food.

I hate any quantities of bland food. I’d rather chew cardboard.

I love walking outside at night in the summer and feeling nothing but the pleasure of warmth kiss my skin. No excessive clothing., no wet unpleasantness, just…. Warm.

I hate feeling hungry. I wish I could explain that away with some traumatic experience, but all those who have known me for a significant number of years will tell you that I just hate to feel hungry. I also hate having to use the restroom and not being able to find one. Hence why I have performed my most basic of physical acts in as many places as you can think of. To name a few, in between cars in Chicago Illinois. Behind a dumpster in Provo, Utah. In the middle of the street. On top of a mountain. In a bucket in the backseat of a taxi. In countless gas stations across the western half of the united states. At squaw peak, the make out point for BYU students.

Mediocrity.

Normality.

Averageness.

This is what I crave. Some are born great, some earn greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Well, hate to break it too you folks, but the same goes for drama. Some are born overly dramatic. Some develop that trait over the years. And some of us, the lucky few (please note the sarcasm), have had DRAMA thrust upon us since the day we were born.

I am one of those people.

Do NOT call me dramatic. I am not dramatic. What happens with me is that unusual and sometimes disturbing circumstances place me in unusual and sometimes disturbing positions, and I react in a totally appropriate way. So NO, I am not dramatic. I simply react with the appropriate amount of drama to the life that has been thrust upon me.

Most of the time, it’s not really my choice. Most of the time, I just happen to be that 1 in 1000 chance. The fluke. The accident. The freak. The odds are against what happens to me in my daily life. From being bit by a seagull to becoming the hit part of a hit and run to the random places which I have desecrated with my urine, it has all been chance. I wonder what the numerical odds would actually be of my life, compounded into one highly entertaining but mildly screwed up statistic.

But I get ahead of myself.

Lets just put it this way. I am not a heroin in anyone’s life, including my own. So far in my life, I have made decisions based almost entirely on what others expect me to do. That’s why I chose my school, why I play instruments, why I have the job I do, and even why I have a particular hair color.

Anna says my moods are like the moon. They come in phases, she said. We sat across from each other, at the wooden table that soon she and Buck will share. We were dwarfed by the stacks of freshly printed invitations. As we folded the pearlized dreamcatchers, she explained in 30 seconds what it seems to have taken me a lifetime to understand. Sometimes, it’s a new moon. A sliver. Or a slice. Or a half-circle. Right now you’re in the full moon phase, where you get in these ‘I’m going to do something reckless just because I can’ rages.

Like leave armenia.

Or buy a cello.

Or take a secret trip to rexburg.

Count that one as a fluke as well. I took off on a random, savage trip to Rexburg, Id. A strange place to choose to “get away from it all”. And it turns out I was just jumping from one shit pool to the next. I went from swimming in my own emotional defacation into the overwhelming landfill that is marriage planning. Crossing the border from Utah into Idaho felt like cutting the puppet strings. Wandering off the stage and standing on my own two staggering feet. A foal in its first moments after birth. Except I wasn’t covered in all that slimy afterbirth crap.

In Idaho, there are certain parts where you only get 2 radio stations, and both of them are country. For the first time in my life, I rolled down my window, turned up the country and let the hot Idaho air seep into my lungs. My first free breaths in years. It was the first time in over 4 years that I was where I chose to be, in the moment I chose to be there. And it felt damn good.The vacation was, as they always are, less exciting and more mundane than I expected. But what made it so wonderful was that I was mundanely existing somewhere that I chose to be.

I had only ever done that one time before.

Chapter 25

Sound

He thoughtfully swallowed his steak. A dishtowel draped over his shoulder. He had sat complacently as estrogen fired across the table; teams had formed, the members suited up with verbal weapons of every kind, faces had flushed, and even Ginger, our trusty golden retriever, had turned away from the glistening, charbroiled flesh to the Gettysburg now erupting at the dinner table. In a moment of silence, he took his opportunity. He exhaled deeply from his nose, and the 5 emotionally volatile women at the table looked at him with the impatience and rage of starved harpies. Incredulous, as only women can be, at the perceived idiocy of men. As we heaved, hair being pushed from unsmiling faces, he began to speak.

I had a dream, he said calmly, as if he were talking to no one but himself. As if the tension in the room were not as dense and cold as ice cream. You’d have to use some serious muscle to remove any of it. I had a dream the other night that none of you had been born yet. That, as your father, I could choose whether each of you were going to grow up beautiful or intelligent. You couldn’t be both, you see. I thought long and hard. He took another bite of steak. Chewed and swallowed. By this point he had used a rather clever battle tactic; confuse the enemy. I know what I chose for each of you. At this point he stopped talking and looked at each of us. Said nothing.

Well?! Becca shrieked. The speed with which ambience can change is at least twice as fast as the speed at which a voice can change.

He looked up, startled, as if he had just remembered that we were there. He opened his mouth to speak, but as the first calculated sounds escape, Jennifer interrupted. I like being pretty, she said. She lifted her chin, tossing her heavy, waist-length blond hair over her shoulder and settling back into her chair. It seemed to melt the female silence, as we all broke into laughter. Everyone except dad. He continued cutting and chewing his meal, amused but obviously not finished with his discourse. As our claws retracted and our laughter died down, we all turned back to him. Patiently waiting this already calculated result, he considered us. I chose correctly, he said simply. Rebecca, you chose beauty as well. Debby and Leah, you chose your intellect, sacrificing physical beauty for an unobserved complexity of mind. As your lives progressed, he continued, you all became successful, important women. Jennifer and Rebecca, your beauty got you far in life. Took you places that you otherwise couldn’t have gone. Debby and Leah, your intellect, combined with hard work, placed you finally in powerful, respectable positions.

And then he stopped talking. Returned to his dinner, as if what he had said was not profound or life changing. As if it wouldn’t inspire years of contemplation, jealousy or sleepless nights. As if I wouldn’t wish, for years, for the dissolution of my intellect. Stupid people are happier with less. Mindless 18 year old brides, content with mediocrity because their limited brain powers can’t even comprehend anything more. Smiling in identical wedding dresses with identical husbands who will grow identical pot bellies as the years pass. Tract homes, average children, never knowing defeat or victory. Why does the mundane repulse me more than failure or despair?

Dye your hair. He was saying it as if it were scripture. As if he were allowing me in on a trade secret. Condensing and condescending his extensive knowledge into three little words. And stop being so effervescent. People can’t respect a ditz. And people can work for people they don’t respect. This was not an isolated incident; George had repeatedly called me into his office throughout our entire interaction. Usually under some pretense of official business or other. Class business. I wasn’t in any of his classes at the time. To be honest, I’ve only ever been in one of his classes. Ever. And yet he would call me into his office, or I would voluntarily wander into it, to hear personal criticisms, shrouded in the soft cloak of humor and stamped with the seal of advice.

How’s your dating life? Good. I have a date tonight. Don’t wear that weird skirt you’re wearing.

Whatever you’re doing with your hair, this crinkly look, I don’t like it. And I’m a boy. Boys don’t like it.

If I didn’t know you, I would think you were unstable and foolish. That’s what you sound like.

How old are you now? 23, George. All the boys are younger than you. You’re not going to find anyone.

Somehow I would leave his office convinced that he was correct. But as time passed, I would laugh at myself. Realize that he had taken me in again.

Dye your hair. I looked at him mockingly. What is the stereotype associated with blondes?

Words can be cotton. They can be sweat. They can be a spring blossom, or death’s hand, or a mountain. His words were lead. Poisoning my brain as he delicately poured in his carefully prepared lies. Warmed to a temperature of false security, scented with falsity.

It’s the sound of people’s voices; familiar or not. Just listening to his voice on the phone would stir emotions in me. It wasn’t soothing, or quiet, or deep. I just knew that he was the one choosing and uttering the sounds. But the singular vibrations of his voicebox, coming through his mouth, just… moved me. Senses are a decision. I let the vibrations of his voice resonate in my heart, my mind. And I let them turn me on. Not that it’s hard or anything.

Chapter 24

Sensual.

That’s what I am. That’s what we are, I told her. It’s different than sexual. Sexual is all appetite, greed, desperation. The hungry ravenously pouncing on a meal. Sensual is just the opposite – patient, appreciative, aware of everything. It just means we pay attention to our senses. It’s the reason I won’t eat a steak if it’s overcooked. The reason why something that hurts isn’t necessarily negative; rather, its educational.

Sight.

The color of a magnolia. Subtle, blushing. As your eye travels further and further from the base, the flower grows more swollen, pinker. As it moves further out into the polluted atmosphere, it responds by tainting its own purity, flushing deeper and deeper and cooler and cooler. Responding to the forced maturity that has been so brazenly thrust upon it by an early spring.

People went crazy, she said. There were bodies lying in the street, and the stink of them filled your nose. Buildings just collapsed, crushing not only the people in them, but those who desperately watched. Unforgiving concrete, tumbling in on itself, entombing mothers, daughters, husbands, wives, friends and lovers. The misery of the soviet union, defined by the drab, slab-like apartment buildings, dotting the land. Pockmarks on the pride of nations, misery without a foundation.

We lived in an apartment at the time, my 5 sisters and I with my parents. When the ground began to shake, my father was at work. I was trying to protect Alla, my little sister. Something fell off the wall and hit me on the back of my head. That’s why I can’t use my eyes properly. She stared from behind thick lenses, trying to help her eyes focus on the dreary world in which she lived. Black and white, grey and brown. It used to be as beautiful as Paris, she tells us.

Armenians have thousands of traditions. For valentine’s day, the women would cook salty biscuits, crusty and dry. They were supposed to absorb all the moisture in your mouth, and leave a strong aftertaste of salt. Without drinking anything, they would go to sleep. In their dreams, a man would bring them a glass of water. That man was to be their husband. I met women who married abusive, alcoholic, chauvinistic pigs simply because he was the man who brought the fateful glass of water in their unfortunate valentine’s dream.

Anna and I decided that to understand the people, we had to participate in their traditions. And I’ve come to the conclusion that our poorly contrived excuse to eat salty biscuits and dream about boys was actually a pretty legitimate way to immerse ourselves in the culture. All day we talked about how we would make the crusty spit-suckers, because you couldn’t make them in less than the precious hour we were given as “us time” every night. In the end we downed 3 pieces each of garlic bread, complete with butter, garlic, basil, and of course, piles of salt. So much of it didn’t ever dissolve. It was surprisingly delicious; warm comfort on one of the many cold nights.

6:30. The alarm goes off. We roll off our beds, already exhausted by just the thought of the day that awaits us, and routinely kneel and pray. The morning passed as usual; Anna got in the shower first, wearing sandals that flopped against her heels. They’re supposed to protect your feet from disease. The inches of accumulated filth the water had to pass through to reach our heads had grown usual, so much so that we prevented disease from below while being showered with it from above. The morning was mundane, common. She blow dried and straightened her hair, glossy and long. Separated her eyelashes with a needle. It always scared me when she did that. We even crawled back into our beds, trying to garner any warmth from the thick blankets as we explored holy writ. When it came time for us to study together, we each remembered the adventure of the night before.

In her dream, a tall, strong man had led her through a maze of her past, arriving finally at the drinking fountain of the church. She said his hands were big and strong, and that her own felt warm in his. We spoke of pasts, presents, and futures that would lead her to the handsome protector of her dreams. We giggled like schoolgirls and speculated, both of us avoiding the monotony of the day; we moved on to my dream.

I was relaxing on the beach in my dream, in a turquoise bikini with braided straps. I remember feeling warm and happy as the sun and I connected in an almost pagan way. I do not wonder that the Egyptians worshipped a sun-god. As I lay there, different men kept bringing me water. As the dream progressed, the beauty and size of the glasses increased. First, a humble Dixie cup. I refused that water without giving its bearer a second look. Next, there was a shaded glass, that was pink at the bottom and grew clearer until it was completely transparent around the rim. I don’t remember who carried that cup either. After, a tall bespectacled man came bearing a square glass with frosted sides. These I all refused with little, if any, consideration. Finally, a man came with a glass so ornate, so irresistible that I snatched it from him without a second glance. The cup was large enough to require both hands to grasp it. It was turquoise, bulbous, and had a long, thin stem attached to a cone-shaped base. There was sugar on the rim of the cup, pineapple cleaving to it in its last moments on God’s green earth. A pink umbrella floated to one side. As I snatched the cup from him, drinking and gulping and sloshing the life’s water down in my extreme thirst, I woke up. But not before I looked up and saw two jewels staring back at me.

The glimmer of hazel eyes. Brown encircled by green. One of those magical moments when you realize what the blind are craving. Those eyes were compassion, patience, love, desire, understanding, intelligence; everything I crave in a man. Everything I want in a companion.

Helen Keller once said “if, by some miracle, I were granted three seeing days, to be followed by a relapse into darkness…. I should want to see the people whose kindness and gentleness have made my life worth living.” At that moment, those hazel eyes became my deepest desire. Find someone who can look at me with the same intensity of feeling and clarity of judgment with which my dream eyes saw me.

I thought I had found it in Mike. That morning when I startled him, woke him up.

Pinks, oranges, yellows. Science can explain them by examining the way light scatters. Tell us why the sky burns the ocean every night. But science has yet to explain why people cross continents to stand and watch it. Why lovers swoon and children grow silent at the sight. Or why my heart burns with it every time.

Men are very responsive to sight. Something every woman learns very quickly. Sex sells. It may seem like a compliment, but “she has a great personality” is the kiss of death to any man’s interest. It means the sight of her is not worth mentioning before her personality. That it is inferior enough to be unmentionable. “She’s cute”, in the right tone of voice, means “not worth looking at.” Not worth anything.

another interjection

Chapters 22 and 23 are a set I haven't finished yet. So the next one will be 24.

Enjoy!

-V

Chapter 21

The major problem is that she got caught. He had the subtlest net of all; actually winning her heart.

Suddenly the images of the three of us were shattered. They survived Jodi’s wedding, since Tyler fit so perfectly into the freeze frame in my mind. He seamlessly wooed her and wed her and nestled into the ample folds of fabric in her life. It all happened when I was away. I don’t really know their story. What I do know is that their apartment is modest and warm, that they love each other dearly, and that she seems so peaceful.

I think this is the one I want, she said. She admired herself, her tiny form twisting in the gathered satin.

It was beautiful. Really stunning. It was strapless satin with the perfect gathers and twists to accent the smallness of her waist, the flawless lines of her arms. When she walked it slinked.

It’s funny, how girl’s minds work. We wrap so much of ourselves- our worth, our style, and our beauty- into one day. We think that if the bouquet is too small, the lights too bright, or our dress to cheap that it will somehow reflect on the future that we are just beginning. In reality, it should be the least stressful day of your life. When you get to promise yourself forever to the man who has captured your heart- or something like that. So why does it matter what food you serve, what music you play, or what dress you wear?

And yet it does.

She sauntered in and looked at Anna. Her face fell. She stood there looking concerned, as Anna blurted out you don’t like it!

No. I don’t.

She crumpled. Like one of those little pencil sharpeners they used to sell at the zoo. The ones with an elephant or a giraffe on top, and when you squeeze them, the animal tumbles into a heap. She crumpled as if someone had simultaneously removed all the bones in her body at one time. And as tears filled her eyes, blood filled the capillaries in her chest, arms, neck and face. Her skin grew splotchier and redder as the tears poured down her face. And I remembered.

Her eyes get bluer when she cries.

As she hung up the phone with her mom, I pulled her into my arms. I felt her tears, hot and bitter, as they trickled down my skin. Once someone’s tears roll down your chest, there is no turning back. Not that there was any option at this point anyway.

Like drug addicts sharing a needle, I said.

We were trying to put our friendship into words. One of those conversations that only happens when everyone else leaves, and the lateness of the hour and the exorbitantly high sugar content of the food you’ve eaten leaves everyone slightly delirious. It’s like when addicts are coming down from a high. It makes you think.

It’s not even worth it to say yes anymore. To handsome strangers with intriguing accents and persistence that could make a mosquito jealous. They used to be fascinating, something to experiment with and explore. They’d take me to dinner or out to a show. Driving. They’d take me to scenic views and pour honey into my hears. Eres tan bonita they’d say. Quiero besarte. What do you do once flirting becomes a bore and superficial conversations become itchy? Just sitting there listening to such moronic filth makes me feel like someone has poured thistles in my prom dress. I just want to leave the formality and get the pestering little buggers off of me.

What is it like to have a conversation with the man who will share your bed, your home, and your heart for the rest of your life?

No one ever understands. Buck, he is starting to get it. That when you marry one of us you get a package deal. You don’t just get one of us; you get us all.

They met over 3 years ago, as both were sworn to a level of chastity that only priests and nuns could understand. As they sweat and toiled over a new alphabet, they would talk. They would attract attention. They would be scolded for giving such singular attention to another.

Over the next 18 months, her hair would grow darker. Armenian winters will do that to you. He would lose a lot of weight. Armenian winters will do that too, if you let them. She would get sick and quiet and lose the alacrity that causes women to mimic her and men to follow her. She would conform to the image of what people thought sister missionaries should be; quiet, dignified gospel mules, carrying a message as the beasts of burden carry food and materials. Completely stifling the innate sparkle, the subtle sex appeal she was born with. At times they even convinced us that it was our fault for being born with such a bawdy hair color. At least they convinced me. I think she had an inner strength that made her know that being attractive is not a sin. She would obey complacently as they told us that wearing our hair down was inappropriate. Then they said it was hair dye or a hat. She wore a hat. I dyed mine. By that point I saw the color of my own hair as a curse, a problem, a source of all my stress. But not her.

Even when that man chased them on the railroad tracks, she knew it was not her fault. She knew that being beautiful is a gift. Even as other Sisters would say she craved that kind of attention. That she acted a certain way to earn it. She knew. More than I knew. Knew that it was, for lack of a more expressive word, crap. So as I cowered home, redheaded and dejected, she stood forward, beautiful, bold, and blonde, and declared to the jealous women that secretly craved to be her, and the men who silently stereotyped her that she was who she was. That god had made her that way. And that she wasn’t changing.

Who knew a hair color could say so much, huh?

She would be home for over a year before anything would happen. Men came and left, growing more and more entranced with her beauty of mind and heart as they grew more and more impatient with her passion for life and her indecisiveness, he waited.

And then he cast his net. Weaved of sparkling honesty, of boyish charm. Of controlled heat. Of trust, simple and pure. And as she swam along, he surrounded her. All the shimmering warmth of his embrace. They forgave each other and learned to love. Before she had realized what was going on, he had completely caught her. Offered her a tank in which to swim. A big, lovely tank. Where she would always have enough food and she would be protected from predators. Where she would never consider the miracle of other fish again. There are other fish in the sea, just not for her.

What are you doing, what is that, what are you doing?! She exclaimed, more and more frantic with every syllable.

I don’t know! He answered. Honesty.

Before we all expected, even before he expected, they had committed themselves to one another. She had voluntarily put the diamond on her hand, baffling the world and him with her consent.

And now he is starting to understand. He watches as she makes decisions, determined to please everyone else along with herself. What do you call the opposite of bridezilla? Bridemegalon? Bride Japanese tourist?

Skilled fisherman. Tyler and Buck. Gentle, skilled fisherman.