Page 60 of Torn
I grabbed the other bowl and some silverware. The house, predictably, had built-in speakers throughout.
Walt chose the radio—a Top 40 station out of Boston. As I began washing dishes, a song came on that made me cry and made me decide to wash everything by hand to give me more time to think.
The song was Tears for Fears “Mad World.” It had always been a song that made me melancholy, with its plaintive longing and minor chords. But tonight, those lyrics about being sad and dreams dying cut straight to my heart.
I plopped down on the marble floor, dishtowel in hand, and sobbed for several minutes. I wanted to go home, sort myself out.
Was being alone such a bad thing?
What had I been doing with my life up to this point? Chasing love through being a slut? I wasn’t in my twenties anymore. Had promiscuity ever worked for anyone in terms of finding love, real love? I’d always been sex-positive, but right now I felt like my whole “out” youth, I’d been trading sexual experience for my soul, my future.
Mad world, indeed.
I finished up the dishes and walked to the back door. The pool was a glowing oval from the underwater lighting. A bright, unnatural blue. There was a warm yellow light emanating from the pool house, and I thought of Walt inside, seated on the floor in the lotus position, eyes closed, concentrating on his breath.
I remembered trying to meditate a few times and how I could never calm my monkey mind for more than a few seconds.
Deciding against letting him know I was done with the dishes, I turned and headed up the stairs to bed.
I WOKEin the middle of the night, alone. A crescent moon shone down on me through the skylight. The room glowed with silver light. I glanced over at the empty pillow beside me and wondered if Walt had felt unwelcome, or if maybe he simply couldn’t sleep and was up raiding the refrigerator or something.
The pillow looked untouched. He’d never come to bed, at least not with me.
I turned on my back, realizing how odd it was that I’d gone from sleep to wakefulness in a heartbeat. My thoughts assured me that I was done with sleeping for tonight, so I tried to simply relax into the feather pillow beneath me and stare up at the twinkling constellations above. Here, without the light pollution of the city, the sky seemed crowded, a riot of sparkling diamonds.
I longed to talk to Boutros. He’d belittle me. Make fun of me. But in the end, he’d listen like no one else, other than my mother, could. In a left-handed way, he’d let me know that I was worthy of love. He’d remind me to protect my delicate dreamer’s heart and that even if I was a “girl of easy virtue,” I deserved to find a man who loved me. Even if I was forever going about it the wrong way.
Amazingly, with thoughts of my best friend plus the stars looking down on me, I did manage to fall back asleep that night. I dreamed of a side trip Boutros and I had made when we visited his hometown of Bath, the Glastonbury Tor. He’d wanted to go because he said the tower, and especially the land around it, was a source of powerful spiritual energy going back to King Arthur and having a connection with the Holy Grail. Beneath the tor ran St. Michael’s ley line, which Boutros called the “spiritual heart” of Britain. In the dream, I watched him lay across the green, green grass beneath the tor, arms outstretched, to connect with the site’s power. I stood back, only watching, afraid to embarrass myself.
MORNING FOUNDme in sun-warmed sheets—still alone. The space on the bed next to me had obviously not been disturbed during the night.
I got up and delayed going downstairs as much as I could. I took a long shower, conditioned my hair, shaved. Took my time figuring out what to wear.
When I came downstairs, I wasn’t surprised that Walt was waiting for me. There was no coffee made, no breakfast going. Perhaps I should simply take the day to somehow find my way back to Boston and then home to Chicago.
He sat in a pair of pale blue boxer shorts on the padded bench seat at the breakfast nook. The morning light shone down on him, making his long hair appear almost red. His skin looked luminous in this light.
But he wasn’t smiling. And a big part of me knew I’d brought on the despair I could read on his features.
As I entered the kitchen, he looked up and smiled. Granted, most of the time a smile represents happiness. Yet Walt looked stricken. I wanted to put my arms around him and offer comfort. Yeah, like an arsonist who arrives just in time to put out the fire.
Walt patted the seat next to him. “Ricky. Sit down. We need to talk.”
We. Need. To. Talk.
Those words are some of the most dreadful in the English language. I couldn’t think of a single time in my own life when they’d been followed by anything other than bad news, condemnation, judgment, or… an ending.
My head told me we were at the end of our road, but my heart, winsome fellow, needed to play it all the way out.
I sat close, my stomach churning. I looked over at Walt, flashing on our memories from England, the thrill of that first night in Brighton.
“Okay, spill it. What’s wrong?” he asked.
I went to my go-to default answer. “Nothing. Just still waking up.” I rubbed my eyes and then started to rise. “I should make us some coffee. Or do you want tea?” I didn’t know.
He took my hand and pulled me gently back down. “Come on. There’s something wrong. There’s been something wrong since you got here. I have eyes. I’m told I’m a sensitive person. I need to know, Ricky. What is it?”
I shook my head and tried to stop my lower lip from trembling. One thing my whole life I’d been totally shitty at was confrontation. And now I was being forced to play the conflict game—there was no way out. It made me nauseous.
