The Girl She Used to Be Read online

  Night falls as we drive directly west. The sun and stars have no meaning when I’m on the road—that is, en route to my new locale—because you can sit in the back of a car and eat junk food and do nothing equally over a twenty-four-hour period. Time only matters once you have your hotel room and the television becomes your best friend.

  It turns out point B is a small town in West Virginia, and though it feels like this is punishment for arguing with my protector, I know Sean had nothing to do with the logistics of the operation.

  Sean parks the car in the nearly abandoned parking lot of a skanky motel. He opens my door as I begin to collect my thoughts and my belonging (that’s right, not belongings—all I have is that green sweater from Jonathan; for now, it’s enough). As I reach over the seat, I notice two Sudoku puzzle books on top of my sweater. I slowly pick them up since I’m not sure they’re for me.

  “Oh,” Sean says, “I bought those for you awhile back. Thought you might like some math puzzles to work on in your, uh, free time.”

  I smile as I get out. “That’s sweet.” That, of course, is all it is; Sudoku is as much about math as crossword puzzles are about literature.

  This time, as Sean walks me to my room, we do not speak. He opens the door to my contrarily luxurious suite, hands me the key, mumbles something about seeing me in the morning. I close the door before he is finished.

  If you blindfolded me, I could not tell you if I was sitting on the bed in a motel room in Arkansas or Kentucky or New Mexico or West Virginia. The smell of the radiators, the squeaks of the mattresses, the sound of the couple arguing in the room to the left and the sound of the snoring marshal in the room to the right, the feel of the worn blanket that has likely been the canvas of a thousand sexual trysts and never washed, the frayed carpet under my bare feet, and the undeniable scent of mildew tucked away in the far corners of the room—all the same.

  I am tired of crying and I am tired of blaming and I am tired of Sean and what will end up being his cookie-cutter replacement. I am tired of being force-fed my life.

  I am tired of living, but what keeps me from dragging a blade across my wrist or diving off one of the crippled bridges that cross the polluted rivers my motel rooms predictably border is the idea of life—that somehow, someday, I will figure a way to experience what it is like to live in unfettered happiness, to bask in the freedom of security, and finally to understand the person I am supposed to be.

  I am tired of… dreaming about it.

  The digital clock on the nightstand reads 10:38 P.M. and I can’t help but think the night is young. Somewhere.

  I open the door to my motel room and walk away.

  I MEANDER TO THE ROAD THAT LED US TO THIS FORGOTTEN TOWN and walk as far to the side as possible. I walk for hours in one direction and I can feel the dirt building on my feet as the road dust collects on my sandals. Miles later, signs of life emerge with each step closer to West Virginia University. My journey ends at the fringe of the Monongahela River, where I climb up on a bridge and stare at dozens of college students milling about the campus and the city of Morgantown. I wonder what has all these kids so lively in these very early morning hours and I remember the season: final exams. If I hadn’t decided to take this journey to another neverland, I’d be preparing my students for exactly the same.

  A breeze washes over me and tugs at my hair and clothes; Jonathan’s gift prevents me from shivering.

  Something lures me toward the campus. It is a hopeful place, an entity bearing the happy sentiments of kids getting educations and starting careers and hanging degrees on their walls that bear their birth names. Instead of treading the collegiate sidewalks, I opt to move toward a bar on the edge of the campus. I reach into my pocket and remove everything in it: two unused tissues, a crumpled Post-it note reminding me to bring home the paperwork for the parent-teacher conferences that will be occurring tomorrow, and the change from my last trip to Starbucks: sixteen dollars and twenty-one cents.

  I gaze through the window of the bar and it seems the place is winding down. A few young couples are standing and reaching for coats while the rest shoot pool and watch reruns of the day’s sports highlights on a handful of outdated televisions.

  I walk in and glide to a stool at the bar, where I make myself comfortable under a bright Rolling Rock sign. The green light on my pallid skin makes me look like I belong in a morgue.

  The young girl behind the bar comes over and asks what she can get me, but her tone speaks of displeasure at having to start another tab so near to closing. I assure her I will not be here long. She returns with a Budweiser draft, ordered because it’s cheap—and can be easily nursed, if needed.

  I scan the room curiously and it appears every element of the town is here: the college jocks; the good-looking-yet-slightly-effeminate frat boys with their competing Greek letters; the townies—that is, the folks who probably once ruled this bar and refuse to relinquish to the students; and the stragglers, the lonely people, like me, sitting idle and waiting for someone to tell them to go be idle somewhere else.

  What I don’t see is any sign of a hit man, but how can I not imagine that danger lurks most gravely for me no matter my locale, that the Bovaros may already be aware of where I am, in this state, this town, this bar.

  I turn back to my glass of beer and sip. As the brew delivers internal warmth, I realize why people become alcoholics; booze is a true and responsive friend. I play with the condensation on the side of my glass as my stomach rumbles, and as I begin to feel the slightest effect of the alcohol, my thoughts turn to Jonathan. I must be exhausted because I think puzzling and inappropriate things, like the way his confidence is more substantial and intrinsic than any marshal I’ve known, the way his body fills out his clothes, and what it might be like to kiss him. It isn’t long before these ideas evolve to issues of concern for him. It occurs to me that, since he’s going to be returning home empty-handed, his life may be in danger.

  Three college guys in their early twenties glance my way and smile. Then they whisper, then they smile, then they nod, then they whisper, then they smile. Nothing good will come of this.

  I return to thinking of Jonathan and the alcohol breaks my anxiety and fear and really allows me to open. I figure it’s not only that Jonathan may be physically harmed by his tyrannical family, but that his feelings will be destroyed as well.

  The college guys get a little louder and I assume that it’s a loss of inhibitions that brings one of them in my direction. He keeps looking back at his friends and, based on how horrible I look and feel, and how dirty my hair and body are, there is a wager involved.

  Where’s a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos when you need one?

  He stands next to the bar for a few seconds, then slowly moves toward me. The way he keeps looking back at his friends—and their reactive laughter—would certainly bring any girl to her knees.

  Up until the very last seconds, I am preoccupied with thoughts of Jonathan, and I think I might need a second beer to sort it all out. The bartender glances at me and I nod, and she quickly replaces my glass with another dollar draft. I drink, hard.

  The college doofus—a real Tobey Maguire wanna-be, all short and small featured—stands right by my side and does not sit on the available stool, which tells me he is ready for quick flight. This will not have a happy ending.

  He offers me a napkin and a pen and says, “C-Can I have your autograph?”

  I roll my eyes in his direction. “Sorry?”

  “I was just wondering if I could get your autograph. I love your early work, especially ‘Rebel Yell’ and ‘Eyes Without a Face.’ ”

  His buddies laugh and somewhere deep inside I understand Jonathan’s proclivity for reactionary violence.

  I consider a retaliatory remark but I really just want him to go away. Alas, no one knows more than I that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

  “Billy Idol,” I say, patting him gently on the shoulder. “It’s sort of funny,
but since Billy is retro-cool, the humor attached to your punch line is diminished, so it’s probably not something I would suggest you use again should you ever come across a woman who weakly resembles the British rock star simply because she has short, stiff hair.

  “Now, on to more important things. You have a serious character flaw, and I can say this with certainty based on the surety of one or both of the following conclusions: One, you are viewed among your group as the weakest member, which is why you were targeted and so easily cajoled into coming over here and harassing some person you do not know and will never see again; or, two, you have a serious problem with insecurity and feel the need to prove yourself as a man to your buddies when you know deep down that you will never reach the bar they’ve set—or that society has set—for how to act as a real man in this demanding world. You may have some difficulty deciding which item it is, but I’m leaning toward both, with heavy emphasis on item two. You may be unsure of my comments right now, but they will be hammered home one day soon when you are with your girlfriend or wife and you are trying desperately to fulfill your sexual promise to your beloved—but your body will sputter and smoke and be unable to deliver the goods. You will, indeed, be amazed that you cannot produce the simple biological reaction that pretty much every other living, breathing man on this planet can produce within a few seconds of seeing his lover’s naked body. No, you, my dear friend, will stand there or sit there or lie there as limp as a horse’s tail, and I am sorry to say that you will remember my face and you will remember this conversation, and the truth, the essence of your very life, will come into focus and blind you in a permanent way as five simple words echo throughout your brain for the rest of your life: I am not a man.”

  My college friend stands with his mouth open and hands at his sides. It seems he’s about twenty or so words behind. When he finally catches up, he glances at his buddies, who are no longer laughing. He turns back to me and asks, “Are you a philosophy professor?”

  I chug a third of my beer, burp under my breath, and answer, “Worse. I teach math, which means I’m all about certainty, Noodle-boy.”

  I drop five bucks on the bar, walk toward the door, and wink at the other two college guys while whistling the tune to “White Wedding.” As I walk down the street, I glance back through the window and see the kid still standing at the bar, head down, hands in his pockets. His friends do not rise from their seats.

  My point has already been proven.

  The unexpected clarifying effect of the alcohol along with the fresh air brings everything to the edge of my mind and I try to seize the moment. I have no idea where I’m heading, but I’m in no shape to continue walking. I am ready to burn out. I have just over ten bucks on me and I am in desperate need of a shower and my feet and body are aching and I have nowhere to go and I think, “This is how you become homeless,” and I’m saddened that the streets I may have to live on are in wild, wonderful West Virginia, that of all places to end, it is going to be here.

  I find a twenty-four-hour coffee shop a block and a half from the bar and figure it’s the only way I’ll make it till daylight. I wander in and survey the room for fear of repeating the bar incident. The place is old and the floor creaks with each step. There is a long bar along the right wall even though no liquor is served here, and the place is empty but for the exception of seven over-caffeinated students typing with speed that hints of unreachable deadlines. I walk to the bar and order their version of a Marble Mocha Macchiato and hand over a third of my remaining life savings.

  I walk to a soft leather chair in the corner of the café and drop down and the leather deflates to the shape of my body. I nearly drift off to the gentle tinkling of plastic keys.

  The weight of depression sets in because I realize this current batch of misery is of my own doing. Things really weren’t that bad in Columbia, in retrospect. It was safe, suburban, upper middle class—in fact, the exact kind of place most young professionals aspire to call home, and it was handed to me, free of charge. My angst toward the feds had blinded me, allowed me to displace my boredom with a passive-aggressive infliction of punishment. And this is where my decisions have brought me: to a hopeless collapse. This is what rock bottom feels like. All of the fear and all of the insecurity and all of the sadness have got to stop and my only question now is, How is it going to end?

  To my knowledge, the only real pleasure I’ve experienced ever came from Jonathan. He is, in the strangest sense, the only true thing in my adult life, the only person who doesn’t require me to live a lie, my only chance at gaining a brief glimpse into what my real life might look like. The closest I can come to being myself, for better or for worse, is with him. He knows who I was and what happened to me. The fact that his father initiated the string of pain and misery in my life is beginning to matter less and less.

  If I’m going to flame out, I want it to be with Jonathan.

  I actually miss him.

  The beer overpowers the caffeine and I hear Billy singing “White Wedding” and his truths about fairness and safety and sureness and purity softly echo in my head as I fade.

  • • •

  I wake to a guy in a business suit turning the pages of his newspaper in a manner that suggests he wants me to get up.

  I rub my eyes and the sun is blasting through the window and I wince in pain. I glance around the room and the same students are pecking away but they have decelerated, spending equal time typing and twisting the kinks out of their necks.

  I reach for my half-rate Macchiato knockoff as though I had only dozed for a few minutes and take a loud sip to key in the other patrons that I am indeed a paying customer; I could easily be mistaken for a homeless person at this point.

  As clarity makes its way back, I reaffirm that there is only one way for all of this to end, and that is with Jonathan—and I am determined to find him.

  There is a phone by my chair as though some subliminal force pushed me to this particular seat as part of a grander plan. I stare at the phone like it’s a weapon of mass destruction.

  A weapon of self-destruction.

  I take another sip from my coffee drink (for no other reason than to rehydrate), then I pick up the receiver like I’m pulling the pin from a grenade.

  I call information for New York City and run through all the boroughs until I find out there is an unpublished listing for an Anthony and Sylvia Bovaro in Brooklyn. I return the phone to the cradle and think. There are benefits to having lived in anonymity for almost my entire life; I tend to think outside of the box because I have never been inside the box.

  I grab my coffee—my passport for staying in this café—and snag a pen from the bar and the last remaining computer. I try to Google Jonathan but it’s as if the guy never existed. As for Anthony Bovaro, the best I can get is an address for a post office box in Brooklyn.

  I grab the phone again and call New York information, requesting the toll-free number for the post office servicing this specific zip code. I look around the room to make sure no one is paying attention and I relax as they’re all buried in their overdue term papers and their inferior West Virginia news-papers.

  I dial the number and an older man leisurely answers.

  “Hey, you guys are on thin ice with my mail,” I say firmly, yet quiet enough that no one hears. “I want to talk to a supervisor.”

  “Ma’am, just relax. How can I help?”

  “You can start by making sure my mail goes to my post office box and not to a residence. My husband and I want privacy, which is why we got a box in the first place.”

  “Certainly, ma’am. You say your mail was sent to your house instead of your box?”

  “Worse, it was sent to my neighbors’ house—and we don’t want them knowing our, uh, business dealings.”

  “I understand. What’s your box number?”

  “Four ninety-one.” He pauses for too long, so I add, “Name is Bovaro.”

  He waits a few more seconds, then says, “Um, are you
Mrs. Bovaro?”

  “What do you think? Why don’t you just let me talk to your supervisor.”

  “No, ma’am, I’ll be happy to help you.”

  “For starters, I want to make sure you have our correct home address on our information card, so if there’s ever a problem again, the mail comes to our house and not our neighbors’. You have the Atlantic Street address?” I’m totally winging it now.

  “No, we have the address on Hicks Street.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. We haven’t been there for years. How did you not get our new address but manage to send our mail to our new neighbors? What kind of operation are you running down there?”

  “Ma’am, I—”

  “Listen, next time you guys have a problem I want a phone call, you hear me? You probably don’t even have our most recent number. What number are you showing for us?”

  “Um, we, um—718-555-4369?”

  Bingo. I scribble the number on my napkin and slam down the phone.

  I walk over to the barista, a college-aged coffee slinger who does not appear to be in the mood for anything other than nursing her hangover, and ask to use their phone.

  “Phone’s by the chair over there,” she mumbles, never making eye contact.

  “I know,” I say sweetly, “but I forgot my calling card number and my cell died this—”

  “Sorry,” she says and rubs her eyes.

  “It’s an emergency.”

  “Go call nine-one-one.”

  I grind my teeth as I reach in my pocket and ball up all of my money and put it on the bar. “This is it. This is my bribe. I can give you six dollars and change. So what do you say?”

  She looks at me, though she might be seeing double. She steadies herself on the edge of the bar and says, “Oh, what do I care,” and plops an outdated phone on the bar and the bell in the bottom dings loudly and all the patrons look our way. The barista stares at the money like she wants it to stop moving in circles, takes the five-dollar bill, and leaves the rest.