Self Care - Leigh Stein Page 0,9
thought, just to check. And then I’ll delete it again. If there’s wifi? Will there be wifi? I’d forgotten to ask Evan. Shit. By this point, I wasn’t even chasing a good high, just the dopamine jolt I’d get from knowing what people were saying behind my back, followed by the righteous indignation that they were all wrong.
“Almost there,” John said, reaching back with his right hand to squeeze my knee. It was startling how much gray there was in his hair at only forty-one. So much of the time we spent together was at home, in the evenings, in the yellow lamplight or in front of the indigo glow of our screens, pale human blobs eating takeout adjacent to each other on the couch. I hardly ever saw his face, and he hardly ever saw mine. Closing my eyes, I could picture him more clearly by recalling the images I’d committed to memory—the boyishness that attracted me to his dating profile years ago, his snub nose and full lips, the tiny space between his two front teeth that he tried to hide by never smiling. The ten-year age difference had never really bothered me because, irrationally, I kept thinking that as I got older, the gap would close. But I remained somehow the “girl” in girlfriend.
“Do you mind pulling over at that liquor store?” I asked.
Devin turned around in her seat. “I thought we talked about doing this cleanse together?”
“Is wine not a liquid?”
She sighed in a way to let me know she was now going to do her “breath work.” I calculated how many bottles of wine I’d need to get through the weekend. I could hide one or two in my tote bag, and carry the rest in a shopping bag. I could say I was leaving the best bottle for Evan’s parents as a gift. I could say, “I got enough for everyone,” even though I was the only one who drank.
* * *
...
The old house was dark and imposing from the road, elevated on a grassy plot bordered by a low stone wall, miles from the nearest village. Square windows wrapped around the brown-shingled exterior like the panes of a lantern. There was no light inside. The house and the garage and the barn were all on different levels, connected by uneven shale paths and obscured by shrubs and shadows, so it was hard to tell how big the house was, but it was at least two stories with an attic, the roof peaked and topped with a chimney. A single light had been left on for us, above the yellow front door.
We’d spent too long at Evan’s apartment and the daylight was fading around the edges, but our legs needed a stretch, so we walked around back. Tall evergreens surrounded and shaded the house, and the yard pitched downhill, becoming a large grassy meadow with a pond the color of slate. The grass was dead and straw-colored. A damp red hammock hung motionless between two barren trees. Behind us, a dark tarp dusted with snow covered the swimming pool. I took a deep breath of the crisp bitter air. It was like entering the setting from the gothic novels I loved as a little girl: orphan gets sent to bachelor uncle, mysteries ensue on his estate.
“Stand right there,” Devin said. I was on the front porch, pulling the key ring from my bag. She snapped a picture and narrated the caption aloud, “Hashtag Victorian . . . rest . . . cure . . . hashtag bae.”
I staggered into the dark entryway, putting my hand out to reach for anything that might be a light switch. Before my eyes could adjust to the dark, I banged my shin into the corner of something cold and sharp that clattered when I touched it.
“Fuck.”
From behind, John shined his iPhone flashlight at the floor near my feet. I’d walked into the fire poker stand. “Technology is our friend,” he said.
“You’re telling me!”
“Poor Maren,” Devin said. She proceeded to turn on all the lights and open the curtains.
Rolling up my pant leg, I was confronted with the fact that I had not shaved my legs since the Obama administration. My shin was scraped, but not bleeding. We were standing in the living room: a few wrought-iron floor lamps, a wood-beamed ceiling, a white wicker sofa with upholstered cushions patterned with strawberries, and a large brick hearth for cooking children in fairy tales. Evan’s taste was futuristic compared to