Whisper Gray

7.28.19

Hey E! Popping in to say hi. So couldn’t help but notice, last week marked a year ago that we met. Funny huh?!

A year ago July 19th. Oh I don’t know why I remember, just one of those weird things, haha. Oh well nothing is new but back to the 19th real quick, I just had to tell you this one thing…

Yea the day went by without so much as a stiff wind…no trees bent in horrific ways, no birds fell out of sky, I didn’t even have a headache. But

But there it was and Mercury is in retrograde and I can’t stop thinking of you and I wish you were here and I’m glad you’re gone and I can’t figure out how to get this goddamn art mailed to you. And I’m fine. I’m really fine, it’s only…now, this year, I don’t have a job like you didn’t have a job when we met last year. And you don’t have a job (again) but somehow that seems to signify to you that you’re winning at life. You sold all your things and you don’t have a job and you text me at 2am about all the possibilities and your dreams finally feeling within reach, and maybe it’s the universe and maybe it’s the murti of Shiva I brought back for you because that’s such powerful energy. And you’ve learned so many things things in the last year and changed so much and I was a huge part of that, and we met at just the right time, and hey, maybe could I help you with your taxes?

And I sold all my things and I don’t have a job but I own a condo and I’m redecorating and I’m looking at paint combinations and mood boards. And I’m doing online quizzes, trying at the age of 40 to find my decorating style (eclectic! Ok so I’m a goddamn mess of shapes and colors and textures and themes and shit, this is a nothing style!). And I answer your texts at 2:10am, because maybe one of these times you’ll say the thing I want to hear. That I meant something. That this year and this mess and these textures and shapes and colors were something. But you don’t. And so I say “hey sure, I can help you with that…”

But no I don’t want to help you with your finances, I don’t want to help you. Helping you is being a ghost. Not the kind that haunt but the kind that hangs around because it’s got no where else to be. The kind that hangs out in lobby of a condo building, turning a package pickup from the concierge into a languid conversation ranging from the rain to strained family relationships. Good ole Paul, he’s never let me down. And is too professional to ask why I’m so up for a chat these days. Or maybe he’s just lonely and will take a connection where he can get it. But also maybe he’s on the clock and the consummate professional, he’s doing a job but I live here and I’m just lonely and I will take a connection where I can get it.

Hey, remember when we went out by the river your last week in town? How do you find these hidden spots (and my weak insides start to give, just a little at this about you. Always a new place you haven’t shown anyone yet. This *thing* about you that makes you..A romantic? A wanderer? No just…) You wanted to try out your new camera in this landscape and I wanted to pretend we were something.

I drove you around town and I don’t know what the fuck for except… I didn’t have a job and it was something to do for a few hours. And it was somebody to be for a few hours. I wanted to come with some witty comment about how its just like 25 years ago, a younger me and you in our own different lives, just looking for ways to kill time with our hot summer fling on some country road. But I couldn’t escape the reality that adults don’t try to kill time, we only waste it and then regret it. And this is a highway and where the fuck are we going?

So that’s what we were then, two people wasting time together, on a summer afternoon. It looks completely different now in a different light. You needed a ride and I helped and now I’m a ghost.

I saw the pictures of the river on your profile and even a short video, impressive. Impressive how any evidence that you were with me were so quickly and completely scrubbed away. If I ever asked and you ever answered, you’d assure me that you didn’t notice, just the pics you happened to post and the video was a quick edit on the spot.

But no, it’s not that simple bc if it were, I wld be in this picture of the lock and that one of the river. If it were simple, maybe you would have caught the back of my hair as I was walking away to explore, leaving you alone because that’s what I do, leave people alone. You may have just caught my elbow as I picked wildflowers. That’s a romantic, wanderer thing to do…didn’t you notice? There must be a wayward shadow of me somewhere in all the footage you took. No? No. I’m not a shadow, I’m not even a whisper. A ghost

I wonder if you know what this is doing? You must, right? You must see how I keep looking for ways you’ve meticulously vanquished any evidence of me and hoping I stop finding them.

I’m getting desperate don’t you see? “If only I can get a look at those tax returns!” The irony is completely lost on you though, isn’t it? I need the tax returns, you tell me I wear a MAGA hat because I didn’t attend the Woman’s March, and now I’m FIRED and this can’t be reality.

No I don’t want to help you with your finances. But I will offer because I can’t deal with my own. And this is how I trick my mind and everyone around me. “Oh I can get that; let me help you with this! I don’t mind, really.”

No one has helped me in a while. That’s why my instincts kicked in and I almost killed us both the day you were helping me tear down my mirrored wall. I was desperately trying to stop the trajectory that was going to leave me with a half-demolished wall and a quart of paint. We did finish the wall though, I have before and after pictures and there you are. In the picture, look — two people are in a room together. Are in relationship together. Are in a bed together. Are fucking together.

No, no one has helped me since we demolished the wall. Promises of help turn into frustrated accusations. So now, I have half painted walls of Whisper Gray, a beautiful but unpopular color because, I’ve learned, it takes 6 different colors to make this shade of gray. All six to get the reflections just right. Most paints are a combination of two or four max except for the deepest hues of blue or green. I learned this when I realized how expensive the gallon was and knew I had caught the hardware store in an elaborate ruse to boost sales numbers. But no, no ruse, Whisper Gray is a premier product bought only by the most discerning of painters and the hefty price tag is a small price to pay for this level of finesse. But I’m not a painter or a romantic or a wanderer…I’m an unemployed person who just walked an extra block for the cheaper coffee and shit!

“shit!” I yell it too loudly but you didn’t seem to grasp the skewed expense to income ratio that was playing out.

“You cld’ve mentioned I’m buying the same paint as Oprah! Remember the whole I don’t have a job thing?” Still trying to salvage us. This can be funny, right? But you don’t understand the math or what Oprah has to do with anything and oh the price — Eh, these are problems of normal people and not artists and romantics and wanderers.

To you — “I thought it’s the color you wanted, you should love what you’re painting”

To me — Yea for almost $20 more/gallon I wld’ve picked a different fucking Gray. And I’m painting a wall.

But no turning back by then, I had already used two gallons of Whisper Gray and didn’t notice the exorbitant cost the day I bought it because I spent $200 at the hardware store on Things Humans Need In A Home like hardwood polish and color coded air filters. I managed to get this far without either of these but at that moment, in that aisle, I was sure these two things were the answer to my ills. I never polished my hardwood floors and I don’t change my filters enough and that’s why I’m 40 and unemployed and single and haven’t been to the gym in over a year and can’t yoga and am barely a recovering alcoholic. And it’s why I’m erased, edited out of pictures and people’s lives. Now, with the hardwood shining, and considerably less dust (allegedly), and gasp *gray walls* I won’t be as easy to forget! Except I’m a ghost and I’m Gray so it’s not in the forgetting because no one can see me.

Whisper Gray. Beautiful but unpopular because it takes six colors to get the shade just right. “Hey, this kind of unique beauty doesn’t come easy, but it’s worth it,” the paint guru at Ace Hardware, a Morgan Freeman lookalike, says to me with a wink and a sly smile. So what’s my move here — (1) “well thanks mister..” and shy away from the attention paid to little ole me? “And is there is any way there’s a discount on any of these sir?” Or (2) go militant and say “is that supposed to be flattery? I want to speak to the manager and No, you know exactly what I mean and…!” But I’m too tired and it’s too hot and I stopped caring eight “hey beautifuls” ago.

So let’s just move this along Red. It’s almost 5:30pm and my skin is already crawling with anxiety and sweat (and paint?) because the sidewalks are about to be crawling with well dressed employed 30-something year olds rushing to DownDog Yoga or Hair of the Dog for either quiet reflection or beers and I look like a painter but not the kind who wanders; I look like a painter rushing to his $8/hour gig to paint a fucking condo for some rich fuck and the boss pays him a sliver of what the job brings in but he does it because he’s hustling and will take the honest wage for honest work and his kid will go to college and he’s not afraid of a wall because even a river or an ocean didn’t stop the ones before him and he doesn’t have time to think more about it and keep moving, head down, finally got that 2nd job and that woman whose house he painted last week is looking for a couple of guys to clean out her garage and maybe yard work later this summer and if his wife cleans houses she needs a house keeper and the lady had no shame asking but she doesn’t seem like a rich fuck, just a woman who is looking to pay an honest wage for honest work and shit, Gloria is getting a small team together for all her house cleaning jobs, and this might be something so there’s no shame in yes to the offer but he needs to be there by 8 tonight to meet the lady’s husband, and he’s gotta get showered and out of these rags and into the white shirt Gloria picked because she thinks the black makes a bad first impression so he’ll hustle when he’s done with the paint job, no time for chatter after work today, plenty of time left in the day but he needs Morgan to stop making this lady uncomfortable and make the paint instead and he wonders if he should ask if she needs help carrying all this stuff to her car but he doesn’t want to be a guy who makes women uncomfortable so says nothing but smiles when she turns around for a second and she smiled back and seemed to see him. Hey, Stop for a breath. Huh, she saw him… But then he keeps moving. See I’m that kind of painter E and you’re an artist, get it? No, he doesn’t know, but hey, that new yoga studio…

But anyways now the paint is mixed and there’s no turning back and I’m positive this guy behind me, a professional painter, is laughing at my idiotic rich fuck paint and overpriced angled brushes. I turn and smile quickly hoping to convey “sorry this is wasting your time.. “ Ugh, he’s actually working and thinks I’m a bored fuck. I wish he could see me.

Now two weeks later that gallon sits unopened in my living room. Just a few walls left but I can’t bring myself to tarp up the living room and hoard the cats into the bedroom to finish. And when that’s done I have to tackle the trim but I can’t do that until I get new trim paint because I bought white trim paint but it’s not WHITE WHITE. There are eight shades of white that should be considered exclusively if a person is looking for WHITE WHITE, I unknowingly chose outside of the collection so, unless I want to be a failure in life, I have to go back and get the correct shade. All of this is exhausting and so I do nothing except wander around on decor websites looking for the right pieces of furniture and decor to fit my “style”. Where is the “just turned 40, never married, no prospects, no children I guess and got fired from my successful job and now I have no job, no family, no hobbies and I like the color blue” style option?

Whisper Gray looks different as the light changes throughout the day. The same wall looks remarkably blue one hour and then almost a pallid shade of ash the next. So I watch the light change the colors on my walls, fixating on when the sunlight hits spots of repairing paste I spackled carefully to repair holes when someone was around to see what a good job I’m doing. But I won’t tend to now when no one was here to see the show. What’s the point? Spots of shackling paste, so minor they could be shadows but I know they’re there and no one else is here. I was waiting to touch up those spots because it needed time to dry before I could sand it, causing a fight with my sister who came to “help”. She insisted it takes 30 mins tops to dry but fuck Sarah the fucking can says 24 hours! Oh she says, you’re right. I’m right. Now what?

So what I’m trying to say is — I’m fine, it’s just…the whole being a ghost in my own life thing and like, you. No big deal though. Yea get your paperwork over to me because your taxes will be so easy! And this really is a unique color and maybe I’ll blend right into these walls by the end of this.

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**** really struggled about whether to publish this. But I had to for me. Thanks to anyone who read. Love, Lola****