Violet & Argument
A Breakup, Ordinary — Part III
America has been conditioned to think of pasta as the never-ending pasta bowl and Olive Garden.
— Joe Bastianich
Saturday
The moment I pull up to my powder-blue home with its weed-ridden lawn and half-gravel, half-dirt driveway, I push through the door and by a ratty bathrobed and mopey-faced Daniel. I drop the boxes filled with gnocchi, pasta and garlic bread on the coffee table. I slam the door behind me once I make it to the bathroom.
I turn on the water to the sink. Yeah I know it doesn’t actually do anything, but it feels like the polite thing to do. I hang my head in my hands, my elbows on my knees. I can hear him pacing outside.
“Come on,” he yells at me through the door and the running water. “This isn’t fair. You can’t just lock yourself up in the bathroom every time we have a fight.”
I didn’t even know we were having a fight. He should add it to my calendar.
I mean I guess he’s in a mood and I did just rush by him. But in the three years of us two being together he doesn’t know that I can get sick. He’s not heard so much as a cough, sneeze or sniffle out of me. He’s under the impression that I’m one of those rare people with a Teflon-coated constitution. And for some profound and proud reason I refuse to admit I’m sick tonight, like all the other times I’ve actually been sick.
In my silence, Daniel grows angrier. “Listen, I know you’re upset. I’m sorry,” he says. This is the start of the fight. The forced apology. What he’s sorry about will miss the point.
I dig for my phone in the pocket of my jeans crumpled around my ankles. I send out a text, asking my best friend, Saz, for some backup. There’s silence from her end, as though she has a life outside of my life and problems.
I also dig for my cigarettes. The fan’s running. The water’s running. I might as well.
In a vacuum, the one I’m making right now with my silence, Daniel conjures up a reason. He’s at fault, but he didn’t do anything wrong. He won’t. Like most men in a relationship, he creates misunderstandings. That or he’s pretending to be one of those sad few men in the world who are unable to read minds. “I’m really sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry I picked Olive Garden. I didn’t realize it’d upset you like this. But you didn’t have to go to Mark’s just for that. It’s just, well… I wanted to go somewhere within our budget.”
I told him that Mark was late and that I’d have to drop Josie off at her dad’s. I light the cigarette. Its crisp, blue-gray smoke wafts up towards the vent fan. I take a puff and blow up, clouding the space, wishing for this to be over. The stomach cramping. The sweats. Daniel presuming I did this on purpose.
Did what, exactly? Date a loser seven years ago? No. Doesn’t matter. He’ll drag it all the way out until I’m back home with Josie on Sunday night, I guarantee it. And by the end of it, I’ll be apologizing for putting him through this. I might as well text Terry that the commentary will wait until next weekend. It’s what he expects anyway, which is why he’s getting on my ass about it a month in advance.
Damnit. I just wanted cuddles and garlic bread. Why’s that so hard?
I try not to be angry. Instead I opt for conversation. Because I’m not angry. “Are you serious? There’s like half a dozen of places that we could have gone to other than Olive Garden. There’s Ham’s. That’s well within our budget?”
His voice is muffled through the door, “Why Ham’s?”
“Because it’s where we went on our first date. You ordered the mystery meat and three, said you liked to live life dangerously.”
I hear something along the lines of, “I forgot about that.”
“Or, you could have waited until tomorrow and taken me to that Slavic lunch-only place in Osawa. You loved it, said it was like a goulash gulag. Oh! You know what place is awesome? You could have taken me to Disco Dog on Church Street. Only fucking place in the world where you have Bee Gees and brats. You could have picked anywhere else in the world that’s fun and stupid and kitschy and isn’t fucking Olive Garden.”
I take whatever mumbling he makes through the door as a, “What’s wrong with Olive Garden?”
“The last time we went, you drank 60 dollars’ worth of wine and told me we can’t get married because my handjobs are uninspiring.”
Okay. I lied. I am angry.
I wait for his response. There’s silence through the door. I savor the taste of tobacco. Beats that gross cotton candy vape juice Daniel keeps pushing on me.
“Are you sleeping with Mark?” he asks. His voice is small, meek, trepid.
I can’t be upset. Doubled over on the toilet, ashing my cigarette in the sink, I’m laughing. I’ve received some pretty absurd accusations before, but this one is light years ahead of them. “Like, I left Julia in the playground at Great Burger while I banged him in a handicap stall? Please, I’m classier than that. She’d be in a booth with the iPad and a dairy shake. You can’t leave kids unsupervised in the playground.”
“You think this is funny, don’t you? Why else would you be late?” I can hear his heavy footfalls pacing around. “You went to his house.”
Saz texts me back, What’s going on?
I tap out a reply: im being a bitch cuz daniels accusing me of sleepin w mark
Like had a sloppy threesome with him and his fiancee? Gross!!!
I send back, omg i should of said taht lol
Hah, give me 20 I’ll be there.
I put my phone down. I let the water pass over the cigarette and I drop it into the sink. I wipe, flush, refasten my jeans, brush my teeth, fix my hair while Daniel is yelling and cussing through the door. Words I’m not listening to.
Finally, I open the door. “Are you smoking again?” he asks me. “What about the vape I got you?”
“Daniel, that thing is like a military grade fog machine in pink. I hate it,” I say. “And I don’t want you to run out and grab some VCR-sized contraption next with portable speakers and a touch screen or whatever.” He probably wouldn’t anyway since he’s being all shades of asshole. But there’s that undeniable look of being wounded in his eyes. “We need to get out of own heads,” I say after a long pause. “I think… I think you should go before this gets out of hand.”
“It’s because he’s taller than you, isn’t it?”
I stare down Daniel, crossing my arms. “Is that what you want to do tonight? Break open that ridiculous cult of self-consciousness? Do you really want to go there, because the only person you’re putting down is yourself.”
“You could have just come back and got Saz to babysit Josie,” he says. “So why else would you drive all the way over there?”
“And what? Have Mark bitch at me because I’m ‘keeping him from his daughter’? Have her grumpy at me because she can’t see her dad? Babysit you with your overpriced red-wine migraine and pissy that my daughter is cockblocking you? It’s the circle of life.”
We’re in the hallway connecting both rooms and the bathroom. An archway into the living. Any other time the smell of garlic bread would be heavenly, but now it’s just rank.
“That’s unfair,” he says. “I said that like, once. And I said I was sorry.”
“Yeah, and then you littered the house with passive aggressive notes. Like you’re doing now.” I peel one off the wall, ‘magic eraser me :)’ he wrote on it. I walk into the kitchen and grab a ramekin from the cabinet. I fish out another cigarette. “Go ahead, write another note for me.”
“Oh come on. If I don’t remind you, you’ll do stuff like throw mee-maw’s cast iron back in the dishwasher. It strips the seasoning off and — ”
I grip the countertop, grinding my teeth from the stomach cramps. “That isn’t seasoning. That’s like 50 years of anti-segregationist grime.”
He cuts me off, “I was trying to make this weekend perfect so we didn’t have to worry about stuff and instead you want to sabotage it, like you sabotage everything.”
“And you couldn’t do it yourself? You have a part-time job and we’re finishing up season 4,” I say through a clenched jaw. It isn’t about the dishes. It isn’t about me hating Olive Garden. I mean I do hate Olive Garden. I’m just trying to keep everyone happy. “Like how I sabotaged our third date by talking about Mark? You went on about these other women you fucked, the psycho syndicate or whatever? And you told me if their tits were big or if they had gaps or innies and the shape of their asses, and you made me out to be the asshole because I talked about the guy I was with since I was sixteen?”
“That was different,” he shouts. “I can’t fix my height.”
“You want to whine about double standards?”
“Well, Mark has that new job and,” he starts to say.
“Yes and his child support payments have gone up and Josie has a new bed,” I say, feeling the painful lump in my gut pass for just a moment. “Why would I ruin their relationship? Mark and Brit, they’re perfectly awful for each other and if it weren’t for our daughter, he wouldn’t be in my life.”
He vapes angrily. The smell churns my stomach.
I pace around the kitchen. “Mark fucked me up bad, and it took years to get over it. You know I don’t get with anyone lightly. Yeah, I dated, groped on, made out with, hung out and crushed on and hell, there were people I wish noticed me. But I didn’t get with you because you noticed me. I thought you were the right kind of weird and kind. Thought, because it’s bullshit to tell your partner they need to fix their body to keep your dick hard. Like I’m some kind of collection of parts that can just be swapped out. I’m human. My tits don’t strangle me when I put on a corset and I get a chub rub, but that doesn’t make less of a person.” What started this argument? Oh right. I had to take a shit and that feeling is coming back again.
“I’m not saying there’s anything about you that needs to be fixed,” he says. His eyes are red and puffy. Mine are leaky. So’s my nose. It’s not a good look. “Look, I’m not one of your fanboys. I didn’t objectify my exes — ”
“You reduced them down to parts you could fuck. How’s that not objectifying them?”
“ — it’s just that you’re so awful about everything. You’re forgetful and it’s always other people’s fault. I try and be helpful and you push me away. Christ, you’re still holding onto the immature shit I said years ago. And when good things happen, you piss all over it. Like, am I just that miserable to be with, that you can’t see me as anything more than a neurotic mess of past mistakes?”
I sigh, stopping my pacing. “Right now? Yes. You’re being all pissy because I went above and beyond for someone that isn’t you. You’re acting like a brat.”
“You and him have something I don’t, a child. Can you blame me for being suspicious there isn’t more there?”
“So you accuse me of sleeping with him? How does that make sense?”
“Because you’re treating me like a fanboy. Tossing me aside when your daily attention quota is filled. But you know what? Unlike them, I’m not going to come crawling back for your autograph and the next season’s DVD.” He throws his arms up in the air, all Terry like.
I lock with his eyes. I get it, I think, what he’s circling the drain over. “So what? It’s not easy juggling being a full-time extrovert to promote my show and then turn around and play the stay at home mom.”
“Josie told me that Mark is still in love with you,” he says flatly.
“Oh, so my ex from seven years ago not letting go puts you at a disadvantage and I don’t know why but maybe it’s because you’re an asshole.”
Daniel’s face is red and splotchy. His hair is stringy around his scalp. Worry, stress, arguing. We’re never good at it. “Or maybe you’re just a bitch.”
I feel like we’ve both been in our own conversations, in our heads too much trying to get out old hooks from under our skin. “Daniel, please get out of my house. We’ll talk tomorrow. Or something.”
“You’re still fucking him, aren’t you?” We’ve come full circle, ladies and gentlemen. He grabs his phone, wallet from the table by the door. “It’d explain why you’re always so damn loose.”
He slams the door behind him and for a moment, I’m not seeing red. I shudder and bolt for the toilet again, this time from the other end.
Breakup, Ordinary returned with Violet & Coffee on Story of the Week@Medium.com.
