Loved - A Novel Read online

  “I’m styling on Nashville Star and I could use an intern. I can’t pay you but it’s just two days a week. Are you interested?”

  Breathe. Don’t scream.

  “Yes!”

  “Can you start Wednesday?”

  “YES!”

  I didn’t want to lose my hours at the store so my manager scheduled me every day from Friday to Tuesday. I had Nashville Star dress rehearsals on Wednesdays and the live show was filmed on Thursdays. I helped her unpack the clothes, steam them, decide which outfit was right for each contestant and pack up everything again.

  When I had free time before or after a shift at the store, I met the contestants for fittings or helped by doing returns. Between both jobs, I had never worked so hard in all my life. I didn’t care one bit that I wasn’t being paid for the show. This was my foot in the door.

  One week I had to miss the show because Liv and I were going to New York for fashion week. We didn’t actually go to the fashion shows, though we did walk by the big white tent in Bryant Park. They televised the shows in the city so we watched some of our favorites from our hotel room at the Chelsea Inn.

  Oh, that Reem Acra dress is incredible!

  Phillip Lim has such vision for fall!

  The hotel was a little piece of heaven, where the rooms looked like your grandma’s house and every morning we got a complimentary coffee and pastries from the café downstairs. I sat in the window seat and watched the morning sea of people that were below while Liv messed with her hair and tried to wake up. Liv, the doll, was so not a morning person.

  This was the first time I’d been to New York since my teenage years when we saw Rent and Times Square and FAO Schwartz. This trip was completely different. We saw Prada and Bloomingdales and went to Cafeteria and La Petite Abielle.

  The stylist that I was interning for made good use of my trip by having me stop by a designer’s studio to pick out handmade leather pieces to bring back on loan. The designer made stuff for Sheryl Crow, Lenny Kravitz and designed the American flag corset and red leather pants that Britney Spears once wore on the cover of Rolling Stone.

  I lugged the heavy shopping bag of $8,000 worth of leather goods all the way back to Nashville, and I had a proud moment when one of the contestants wore a pair of pants that I had chosen on the show a few weeks later. I enjoyed playing an important role behind the scenes.

  The student intern on the show and I became the cool kids at lunch; our table filled up quickly with other members of the production team. I spent most of my time doing whatever was needed, even if it was running out to the mall last minute to get a contestant a thong because she showed up for the taping not wearing any underwear at all. By the end of the season, I was allowed on stage during commercial breaks to straighten one of the contestant’s top or lint roll a jacket.

  It was like summer camp—we were all so sad to see it end after the finale, but after that I started getting work on short films and music videos. Also, I heard a rumor that one of the managers at the boutique where I had done much better in sales had put in his two weeks notice. I called Taryn right away and told her that I wanted the job. She was willing to interview me, but she wanted me to know that there was another employee up for it; my only concern was that the other candidate was still with the company and I wasn’t. I knew that I had her beat in skill, and in the end, I got the job.

  I was so glad to leave the competitive sales atmosphere in which I was struggling. I would miss my new friends and the clothes, but I knew Liv and I would remain friends no matter what.

  The stylist that I’d been working with came in to the store often, and she asked me to assist her on a few projects that she had coming up. My professional life was falling gently into place while nothing in my romantic life had changed much. Ben had been in the audience at Nashville Star every single week, and I don’t think it’s because he liked the show that much.

  May, 2007.

  Astrud and I had moved out of the house and into our own apartment, where we’d met some new neighbors we were hanging out with. Phil and Zane had just moved in to the building across from ours. Phil, a thin guy with very short hair and narrow eyes, was a keyboard player from Maryland. Zane was a rocker from Manchester, England. He was not much taller than Ben with long, wild, curly dark hair and a constant 5 o’clock shadow; he wore Guns-N-Roses t-shirts with frayed vests and ripped jeans painted with American flag stripes.

  Phil and Zane were new to Nashville, having met each other while working on a cruise ship and decided to move together to pursue music individually. When we first met them, I thought Phil was cute, but as I got to know them, I became fascinated with Zane. Maybe it was the accent or the deep and tangled conversations in which we would find ourselves. However, I didn’t necessarily think of either of them romantically.

  I found myself more hung up on Ben than ever. I was sleeping in his yellow t-shirt every night. I was sleeping at his house sometimes too, after staying up late watching TV with him. We still weren’t kissing, though I knew we both wanted to. If he couldn’t commit to me, then I wasn’t willing to give him that.

  I guess holding out worked. I went to visit my parents, and the night I got back, Ben asked me to come over. I told him that I’d told my mom that I had feelings for him. I said it kind of nonchalantly, assuming of course that I was just there to watch TV, which is what we were doing as usual.

  “I like you, too,” he said.

  I didn’t take my eyes off Entourage.

  “Yes, as a good friend, of course,” I said.

  I was used to this.

  “While you were gone,” he said, “I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind being your boyfriend.”

  “What!?” Now I was paying attention.

  “Yeah, I mean like that would be okay with me. If you were still interested or whatever.”

  “Seriously? Are you sure about this?” I asked.

  “Yes. I told Jimmy,” he replied.

  Oh, well, if your best friend knows, it must be for real.

  “Wow. Okay. I mean, yes, I still want that.” I told him. “Yes!”

  Zane and I went out for Mexican food the next day. I talked of my new “boyfriend” and how I knew he would finally commit some day. Zane laughed at me; he didn’t really believe in monogamy, but he’d never been in love.

  The next night Sophie was singing background vocals at a bar we called Longshots. It was actually called “The Longshot,” but no one ever picked up on that. A girl that Sophie knew from school, Kellie, asked Sophie to sing with her band on Thursday nights. Ben, Astrud, and I went and sat at a high four top table. Longshots was a sports bar so there were flat screen TVs and sports team paraphernalia decorating the primary-blue walls.

  The band had already started by the time we arrived, and they were playing “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.” I ordered a Jack-and-diet and the warmth of the liquor was no match for my heart. I was on cloud nine. Ben held my hand. We all laughed and shouted over the band or sang along until they had played every song that they knew, and by then the bar was closing anyway.

  Now that he was my boyfriend, Ben took me on real dates. He dressed up and I dressed up and he brought me a dozen hot pink roses. He drove us to a fancy restaurant that I’d never been to before. The only difference in our relationship since we made it official was that I actually felt that he was holding back. I wasn’t staying at his house at all. I saw him less often and he was less physically affectionate. This was so unlike us.

  It must be because he wants to do this right, I thought, or maybe he’s scared.

  Always making excuses for a man’s shortcomings.

  Some days, Ben was proving to be a very good boyfriend. He would call to “check on me.” He was considerate, making sure that I knew when he had plans with the guys; he surprised me, but other times I felt like he was somewhere else completely—not holding my hand or showing up really late when we had plans to meet out somewhere.

  I tried to talk to him about
it.

  “I know,” he said. “I’ll do better.”

  But he didn’t. It got worse. On the Fourth of July, my favorite holiday, he told me that he’d meet me at the bar downtown instead of riding there with me. He came in late; he was already drunk and he made it clear that he had no interest in being there or being there with me.

  I didn’t complain at the karaoke bar later that week when he sat with the two friends that he’d brought and who I had never met before—somewhere else in the room. Zane sat on my lap and I pretended to be “squished” and made a comment about Ben being nearby.

  “He won’t care, it’s me,” Zane said in his incredible English accent.

  “He wouldn’t care anyway,” I said.

  I let him sit there and we shared each other’s drinks. I thought if I could make Ben jealous, he would snap out of it, but he didn’t.

  Then, one night, Zane and Phil came over. Phil left early while Zane and I sat on my bed talking. I loved talking with Zane; he was so smart and though his viewpoints on a lot of things were different from mine, we always respected the other, realizing that—in part—it was our differences that made our talks so interesting. As the talking wound down and we grew tired, we lay next to each other on top of the covers and whispered at a slower pace. Then, he kissed me.

  It didn’t surprise me that he did. It did surprise me how much I liked it. He kissed me again and I thought about Ben and I pushed him away and he left.

  But I thought about him all the next day and I knew that I wanted more of Zane. He sent me a text message that said he knew he should be sorry but he wasn’t. Sophie and I were shopping in Hillsboro Village and I hadn’t taken my sunglasses off. In and out of the shops, I didn’t take them off. I knew that if she took one glance into my eyes, they would scream, “I’m guilty!”

  He came over again after Sophie’s show at Longshots that Thursday. He left me with teeth marks imprinted on my arm.

  I knew this was not the way to fix things with Ben so I talked to him about how I was feeling unfulfilled in our relationship. He listened and texted me the next day, “I like you like a fat kid likes cake,” and then he took me to dinner with his parents.

  I didn’t know if it was enough, and I didn’t know if I could stay away from Zane. I was plagued by guilt. Honestly, I knew it was over with Ben. He had no interest in fixing our relationship and I was basically having an affair.

  Zane was over every night. Usually, he came to my window to see what I was doing. It was apparent that Ben was not making time for me since I was always home doing nothing. Zane and I would even kiss at the door when he left and I wondered if Ben would show up and catch us. Maybe I wanted him to—actually not maybe. Yes, I wanted him to. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I wanted him to pay more attention to me like Zane was.

  But I tended not to date men who ever showed up for me.

  Finally, I let Zane in. That’s when I knew it was really over with Ben. Even if I preferred to be with Ben, I knew that it wasn’t working so I was attempting to protect myself by making other plans. It didn’t feel like I was being protected though. It felt like I was making a mess.

  I needed to get away so I went and stayed at a friend’s house just outside of town. We smoked pot on the patio and I kept my cell phone off the whole weekend. I smoked very rarely and I’d never been that high. I hung out on the outdoor lounge for hours without moving, hovering somewhere above myself in the haze.

  On Sunday, I went back to Nashville and straight to Ben’s place in my white linen dress. I was still in a bit of a daze and much tanner from baking in the sun. I knew we had to talk about things but I had no idea what I was going to say. Before I could say anything at all, Ben broke up with me. I was hurt but not devastated. Maybe I was even a little relieved. I was more worried about losing my friend than anything else—as was he—but my heart weighed heavy in my chest. I’d loved him for a year. He saved me from myself when I was so broken, and now, after barely giving it a real shot, it was over. I slept on Sophie’s couch that night, afraid that the anxiety would return.

  I avoided Ben and kept seeing Zane. I needed space to grieve if there was going to be any hope of keeping a friendship with Ben. Then, Ben found out about Zane. He called me drunk in the middle of the night to announce that he knew, and then he came over to talk about it. He wasn’t angry, which was precisely the problem, but he was hurt and he had lost his trust in me. I understood and I deserved that.

  I told him that I needed some time to get over him. Despite my disrespectful actions, I really cared about him. I needed to be away from him until I was ready to be his friend again. Just his friend; I still believed that was possible.

  One day I got a text from Zane that he had spent the previous night in the hospital. He’d been having headaches lately that were becoming increasingly worse. It got so bad that Phil, his roommate, had taken him to the ER. They were waiting on test results but Zane said the doctors thought he had a brain tumor. I went to see him on my lunch break, then again after work, and again the next night. Phil was asleep on the cot in Zane’s tiny room. I lay on the bed next to Zane, his head in the nook of my shoulder, and I played with his long curly hair. He was wearing the silver bracelet that I’d brought him.

  It was a brain tumor, the doctors told him, and he made plans to go home to England to have his surgery. He was released from the hospital the next day, Friday, and would be leaving on Monday for England. Friday night, I went over to Phil and Zane’s for dinner and then Zane and I watched a movie and fell asleep on his bed—his head in my lap.

  I took Saturday off work to help Zane run errands; most of the errands were for him to tie up a few things but one stop was for me. I was checking out storage units. The condo that I had bought when I was with Chad was almost complete, and I didn’t know if I was moving into it or into another apartment of my own. I did know that I was ready to live alone. Metamorphosis was becoming a habit for me. When my heart was broken, I changed everything about myself and my scenery in order to mend it.

  After our errands, Zane and I watched movies all afternoon and dozed off for a little while. I was somewhere between asleep and awake when the balloon that he brought home from the hospital caught my eye as it danced in the draft from the fan and I watched it for a minute. As sleep began to overtake me, my half-open eyes caught a glimpse of a woman in his mirror.

  I think it was an angel.

  The butterfly in reverse here is me.

  Counting Crows

  August, 2007.

  The first week that Zane was gone I stayed in his room a few nights. There I was surrounded by his scent and his spirit. I loved that the DVDs were alphabetized and it included both Disney titles and live rock concerts. I loved the three pairs of cowboy boots that lined up in his closet.

  I knew better than to romanticize our relationship. Knowing myself, my imagination could easily take us from being close friends to being soul mates torn apart by a big ocean and a little tumor—all in a matter of days. I worked hard to remember what was real; we were friends. However, I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between Chase and Zane. Eyeliner, velvet, claiming an unconcern for the opinions of others and a battle with a sort of darkness that no one else could see. Even his room: Zane’s mattress was on the bare floor like in the apartment that I shared with Chase in my imaginations. He had essentially no furniture; a few books, DVDs, guitar, loud music.

  Somehow, I always end up in these rooms alone.

  Remember, I told myself, he’s not the guy in your dreams. He is a real person with needs and faults and you can love him, but you’re not right for each other.

  Even though I didn’t know what was right for me, I knew it wasn’t him.

  The condo that I’d bought, my would-have-been “home” with Chad, was almost completed and I couldn’t afford to live there. I talked with four mortgage brokers who all said that my credit was good but that I didn’t make enough to get approved for the loan on my own. I envi
sioned a man-behind-the-curtain scene at the bank and a loud voice saying that, “She might be responsible but she’s gone overboard with the credit cards and she makes squat!” The little man, on the other hand, in his striped button down shirt sat at a wooden desk and stared at all of my financial failures in one neat little folder.

  I should have been living in that condo, cozying up on the couch with my husband, rather than in this mess alone.

  Damn Chad.

  Damn him, damn him, damn him!

  September, 2007.

  In September I went home to Westville and stopped by Chase’s house to see his mom. I sat on the couch and talked with her and cried. The last time that I’d been there, I wouldn’t go into his room. I hadn’t been ready, but this time I was.

  “Spend as much time in there as you need, Kit, sweetheart,” she said. “And just let me know if there is anything you’d like to have.”

  I looked for his notes from me but couldn’t find them. He wouldn’t have gotten rid of them, would he? I did find some pictures of us that I didn’t have so I took them. I looked for his Stone Temple Pilots t-shirt, too, but didn’t find it.

  When I came back out, his mom handed me a small gray box that said “Shine” on the lid like the tattoo on the back of my neck that I’d gotten for him that August, on the anniversary of his death. As I was lifting the lid, I realized what I was about to see—a small packet of his ashes.

  She was giving me part of Chase, an actual part of him. I was unable to articulate how much that meant to me, but I hoped my tears showed it.

  November, 2007.

  I sold the condo and was free from the future Chad and I had planned, and I even got to keep the profit. I patted myself on the back for being smart enough to put only my name on the contract. Now I could decide for myself where I wanted to live, and I was ready to have my own place. Sure, it was more expensive to live without a roommate, but I needed my own space. I needed a place that I wouldn’t want to run away from, somewhere to spread my wings and to take care of myself. The property manager of a complex in the neighborhood where Kellie and Sophie lived showed me the most beautiful apartment that I’d ever seen.