Loved - A Novel Read online

  There was Vince, the drummer, who I met at a cookout. He looked like he could have been Chase’s brother. He was several years younger and still in college. We went out a few times; he even introduced me to his dad, which I thought was nice, but then I lost interest.

  There was a little game that I played with the guys I met. In order to validate myself, I would do everything in my power to capture the attention of anyone who caught mine. We’d dance, kiss and maybe hang out once or twice. Then they would realize that we weren’t suited for each other, which I knew deep down, and they’d stop calling. Despite the fact that I didn’t have feelings for any of them, each rejection stung like a slap in the face.

  On the off chance that someone stayed interested in me, I would back off—out of boredom, maybe. Out of fear, probably. It doesn’t really matter why. None of them were right for me, and I wasn’t right for any of them. They just made me feel less alone for a little while. Each guy stamped the passport of my heart. “You’re worthy.” Stamp, “You’re enough.” “You have not failed completely.” Stamp, stamp.

  Ben from Sony kept calling too. He was on the Warped Tour for the summer so we got to know each other better over the phone. I think the distance made me feel safe, and not being able to rush things kept me from ruining it. Counting Crows were coming to town in August and he bought us tickets. The man knew the way straight to my heart—my black and blue heart.

  There was something different about him; maybe it was because he was only on the phone—therefore mysterious and less threatening—or maybe because he was so casual, friendly and seemingly normal. Most of the others were as dysfunctional as I was, and although Ben wasn’t perfect, he had his head fixed firmly on his shoulders.

  Ben returned from tour mid-July during a week that I was staying with the Jamison kids. He and I had built up a pretty significant amount of anticipation for getting to see each other so he came over to the house instead of waiting until I was done babysitting. He took us out for ice cream, then we all played cards. I was pleased that he just wanted to hang out and spend time getting to know me. It was already the healthiest relationship that I’d had in a long time.

  The Jamison’s returned while we were still playing cards. The sun was just sinking in the sky, casting a yellow-orange glow over the golf course behind the house. We left and he followed me back to my apartment, where Sophie was watching some pop culture game show on TV. We sat and watched with her for a while. I could feel the tension of sitting next to someone new and the excitement building between us as each team’s score rose higher on the show.

  Finally, Sophie handed us the remote and went to bed. I changed the channel to something not embarrassing but only mildly interesting. While Ben told me stories from the tour, I could only think about how different he was, physically, from other guys that I usually went for. For one, he was barely taller than me, and I would surely be looking straight into his eyes when I wore heels. Nevertheless, his stride was so confident that he gave the appearance of being taller than he was. He also had fair hair and was freckled; he did have a beard though, scoring one point for my type. His eyes were small but were a surprisingly pretty gray-blue.

  I was looking into his eyes as he talked, and suddenly I realized that he was holding my hand. When did that happen? How had I missed it? Did I mind? I decided that I didn’t, and we traced our fingers over each others’ palms as our quiet conversation continued. We talked about Sophie, about how long she and I had lived there, and about how she and her boyfriend had met. We talked about work and about the friends of mine that he liked, and those he thought seemed weird.

  He was just as easy to talk to in person—if not more so. I got the impression that I could say anything to him and he wouldn’t judge me or make me feel silly as many people would have done if I had shown them my true self. It was always a challenge for me to be able to relate to people once they knew what went on inside of me. Ben seemed like he could handle it.

  I looked down at his freckled hand, which was the same size as mine except that his palm was broader.

  “Ben,” I said, my tone letting on that the conversation was about to turn serious. I didn’t want to discourage him so soon, but I also cared enough about him to be up front about where I was emotionally.

  “What’s up?” he asked, sounding a little hesitant.

  “Well, I think you know a little bit about this,” I said, “but I just went through a really hard break-up.” The understatement of my lifetime.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah. So…it’s not that I’m not interested in you; I am. I just want you to know that I’m...” I chose my words carefully. Completely fucked up seemed a tad too dramatic. Or too honest. “I’m still...healing. I just, I need to take things slow.”

  “Ok,” he said. “I understand.” He stopped playing with my hand, but he still held it.

  He seemed slightly deflated, but I think he was relieved that I didn’t say “just friends.”

  Ben left a little while later and I got ready for bed, listening to music softly on my laptop. As I brushed my teeth, I thought about how eleven thirty seemed like a healthy bedtime. I wasn’t out late drinking. I wasn’t too sick to go out. As I put on my old high-school choir t-shirt and some boxer shorts, I thought about how easy it was holding Ben’s hand. I wondered what might come of this but just as soon as I considered it, I felt anxious and so I turned out the light and got under the covers and tried to think of anything else.

  Lori McKenna sang to me: “You could burn down this town if they made matches from fear.”

  I kept dreaming about Chad. I would dream that he kissed me or that I heard he was getting married. I prayed that he would begin to leave my thoughts, now that he was gone from my life. I prayed so hard that I would never see him again.

  Perhaps a change of scenery would help and the timing was right for it. Sophie’s boyfriend, Nate, was moving to Nashville from Pennsylvania to be with her and I knew they wanted to live together. I loved Sophie and was so thankful for her, but it was nice to be able to move out of that place. I didn’t want to have to stare at that same ceiling that covered me on those terrible nights. I didn’t want to hear the creak of the screen door and remember how I used to hope it would be Chad coming back. Plus, it was good to get away from Sophie, just for a little while, because she deserved to be happy with Nate and I knew I was a downer. Even the sight of her reminded me of what I had just been through. She didn’t need to share it with me any longer.

  The condo I’d bought wasn’t ready yet so I thought about what else I might look for in the meantime. In the six years that I’d lived on my own, I always had one roommate at a time, always a girl and always in an apartment. I set out to search for something different. I wanted a new experience. I heard about a friend of a friend who lived in a charming old neighborhood and was looking for roommates so I went to meet him and check the place out. The streets were quiet and big trees were scattered through green yards. Justin answered the door in jeans, a white V-neck t-shirt, a silver necklace and a big smile. He had just rented a room to a young musician named Astrud, and the room across the hall from hers had my name all over it, he said.

  The house was beautiful too. The living room had a huge picture window that perfectly framed the blooming magnolia tree in the front yard. The kitchen was gray and orange. We painted my room a pale rusty peach color that I had found in a European homes magazine. Justin taught me to “cut in” along the edges of the walls.

  He had a recording studio in the third bedroom on the main hall. His bedroom was the sunken den from across the kitchen and there were two bedrooms upstairs, which we used for storage.

  The house was just what I needed. There were always people around, all kinds of artists coming and going. Justin built a dining table out of two antique painted wooden doors with a sheet of glass over them; we threw dinner parties several nights a week. Justin didn’t believe in microwave ovens so I either had to learn to cook or starve. Now that
I had a daily appetite again, I chose to learn how to cook and Astrud taught me. I began to feel at home again, both in my surroundings and in my skin.

  September, 2006.

  One afternoon, Astrud and I were sitting in the kitchen. She was telling me about her music, about how she had been on some really big tours and how she was once offered a record deal.

  “Kimberly, it just got so hard,” she confided in me. “I was this teenager, plucked right out of high school and people were saying things to me like, ‘You want to be successful? Write these kinds of songs!’ and ‘You want to be famous? Lose fifteen pounds, then maybe.’ I was scared and frustrated. I love music but that’s not how it should be. So, I quit.” I could see the devastation in her eyes to see a dream realized and then fall apart with so much still ahead of her.

  “And now, I don’t know,” she continued in her melodic voice. “I want to keep playing but there are all of these bad feelings attached to it. I just, I don’t know what else to do with my life.”

  I could imagine her frustration, but I was also sad to see such talent remain hidden under the surface. Astrud was really quite good and she was only nineteen—too young to be so jaded. Then again, weren’t we all?

  Astrud hadn’t finished high school; she’d dropped out to go on tour. I told her about my high-school and my prom dress, and she told me about a dress she had that she wished she could have worn to her prom. Before we knew it, we were running down the long hallway; bare feet pounding on the dark wood floors, pulling our dresses out of our closets. Laughing at every chance, we put on the dresses, and then we opened a bottle of wine and sat down on the couch. Drinking, chatting and flipping through W Magazine, we both watched the sun go down.

  “I think you need to keep playing,” I told her after we’d been quiet for some time. “I know at first it might not feel right or like you’re getting anywhere, but you have to give some good feelings a change to replace the bad ones.”

  I heard my own advice, and I knew that I had to give Ben a little more of a chance. I wanted Astrud to play music again, and I should have the same positive hopes for myself.

  Astrud and Justin loved Ben. Most evenings, he would come over and hang out with us in the kitchen while we cooked. With candles lit and freshly picked flowers from the backyard in my favorite glass vase, we’d all sit at the table and eat together like a family. Then, we’d all take an evening walk through the neighborhood, admiring the old houses and the fragrant blossoms on the magnolia trees.

  The house on the corner had giant double front doors with metal circles that were held in lions’ mouths for doorknobs. There was a small Tudor, my favorite style of house, always the one spot of light and safety in dark fairy tales. However, my favorite house on the street was a white brick home with a sunroom to the side and striped curtains in the window. I imagined the house had a fireplace, original hardwoods floors and a grand piano.

  I wasn’t ready to stop taking my medication. Though the physical symptoms of my condition had mostly faded, the emotional ones were still there. I felt very alone, despite having people around me constantly. I couldn’t imagine very far into the future like I used to. If you had asked me before where I’d like to be in five years, I could have written you a twenty page essay in an hour. Recently, I didn’t even think more than a few days ahead of myself—perhaps because the plans that I had for my future had been ripped apart like a shack in a hurricane. Starting from scratch seemed like such an overwhelming task so instead I took a break from planning and dreaming. I focused on enjoying each day and that was enough for now.

  One night, Ben asked me if we were a couple. Even though we acted like it and even though I was glad for that, I said no.

  October, 2006.

  I thought about how the past can become so small. An entire day, 24 separate, heavy hours, becomes the size of a tiny brown leaf falling from a tree. Before you know it, a whole year is just a pile of dead leaves on the ground. The year or so I’d spent in love with Chad was starting to feel so long ago, swept away by the wind. I knew that this year would soon feel far away too.

  A rare urge came over me. I had been doing so well keeping Chad locked only in my dreams, if in my mind at all, that I decided I wanted to see his Myspace page. I had avoided it all along with incredible self-control, but now, a bit more levelheaded, I made the choice to look. Astrud and I drove up to Café Coco and sat on the porch. It had just rained and the streetlights shone in the puddles; the porch seats were damp.

  Astrud had never seen Chad before, and I wanted her there with me, partially because I knew that I might need her comfort but also because I wanted her to learn a little bit about the man who had turned me into the fragile thing that she was growing to know so well—the thing that she called, “Little Bird.”

  I signed into my Myspace account and typed in his name. There wasn’t much news, but there were some comments from his band mates and from the girls he used to throw in my face to make me jealous, and there was a blog entry with an update on his life. Astrud and I leaned in and read it together silently. The only part that I remember was the part that changed everything. It said he’d recently made a purchase that had cost more than his car.

  He bought her my ring.

  I looked at Astrud; this had been a mistake. We closed the computer and drove home. I think I talked the whole way back to the house about how I was “upset but okay.”

  “I knew this was coming,” I said.

  Just, maybe, not so soon.

  I don’t know if it was because he was a man or because he was older and wiser than me, but something about seeing Justin on the back porch strumming his guitar when we got home shook me out of my “I’m okay” mood. I announced the news to him, my voice, knees and hands all shaking at once. Justin put down the guitar and held out his arms. I collapsed against him and he held me as I snorted and slobbered all over his t-shirt; he held me tightly and he continued to hold me until I could breathe again.

  November, 2006.

  Nashville began to get attention from some high-end fashion stores, and when one of the new stores opened I was thrilled to get a great job offer from them. Oh, how fun it was to get to wear these kinds of clothes! I had just turned twenty-four but I still felt like I was playing dress up in my pencil skirts and tailored suit jackets. I would wear the black, brown and white wool poplin pencil skirt with brown boots. I wore the camel one that hugged my bottom perfectly with brown argyle knee socks and booties. I wore the black skirt with a little vest and my favorite black peep toe pumps that I had to kick off as soon as we locked the doors to clean the store.

  I had more trouble selling at the new store. The competition was fierce and the other sales associates had already established clientele. Every day, I felt like I was falling just short. I had clients stolen from under me, even though I helped them choose three thousand dollars worth of the most beautiful clothes that I’d ever seen, because they had a relationship with another stylist.

  That’s what we were called—stylists. I loved the title but I didn’t feel like I was being allowed to live up to the name with terms like “items-per-sale” and “dollars-per-hour” constantly shoved down my throat. Despite my trouble on the sales floor, I adored the management staff and wanted so badly to be one of them. Olivia, in particular, reminded me so much of myself. She had a little more in the quirky department and a little less in the well-organized section; however, we became fast friends who complemented each other well.

  Liv, as I took to calling her immediately, was taller than me and her hair was cut in a blonde bob with side swept bangs. She was always in the highest and most amazing shoes. She brought with her an arsenal of hilarious phrases like “I miss your face!” and “I can’t even take it right now!” and the almost-overuse of the word “cute.” Everything she said was accompanied by a smile that said, “You know you love me,” and a train of proverbial exclamation points.

  I loved her immensely.

  Before New Year’s
, I dyed my long hair from blonde to brown, which is the color that I always go to when I want to take life more seriously. It went with my new wardrobe and my new attitude. I went out with more eligible guys that I met while I was sober but none of them stuck. Astrud, Ben and I hung out a lot, but I stopped letting Ben kiss me. Neither of us had been able to commit after my original “no,” and we seemed to be better as friends. I dated the other guys in part to make him jealous, but I honestly was just trying to move forward in life, and then, just like that, life began to move forward with me.

  February, 2007.

  One day in February, I was helping one of Nashville’s best wardrobe stylists pull some clothes for one of her clients. Liv and I were the only girls on the sales floor and there weren’t any other customers in the store so I had a chance to talk to the stylist more than usual as she browsed.

  “I’d actually really like to get into styling,” I told her. “If you ever need help with anything, I’d love to get some experience.” I said it casually, but I felt like I was going out on a limb.

  The days of dressing my Barbies in the one-of-a-kind Barbie clothes that my grandmother’s friend had made had been flooding back to me lately, along with the living room fashion shows that I’d put on with Meredith.

  “Really! That’s great! I don’t usually need much help but there are some jobs that I pass on because of scheduling or budget. Give me your number, I’d be happy to pass some of those calls along to you.”

  It was a promise for more than I could have hoped. I was surprised when I got a call from her not even two weeks later.