By Darren Kaminsky
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Darren Kaminsky's novel, Sugar Spun Sisters, appears in serialized form every Monday right here on Me Three. The story follows the lives of five twenty-somethings living in Washington D.C. As far as the editors are currently aware, none of these characters work in politics.
Chapter Forty-Four
September 17
It was a dissolve. We spent the first 48 hours of Nell’s return in a constant state of tipsy welcoming. For the first four, it was all stories (recounted in my last entry) and after that, it was all bar bar bar, drink drink drink.
In the bub of Nell’s stories, it was easy to forget how curious I was about Dani in NYC and what they had done and how she was truly faring (and, of course, if she was spending time with other guys and whether or not I’d been cheated on yet. Please, if so, let it not be with the toast guy.) I was biding my time on that one, waiting, counting until Nell and I were alone to ask her all that and to get her to spill. Dani had once said -- accusingly (because most things with her are accusations) -- that Nell and Brenna and Jean were MY friends. Well, Nell was going to have a chance to prove it. Besides, none of this was paranoid of me, right? It’s not crazy to find out what’s going on, right?
Never having dated someone in another city before, I’m totally weirded out by it, totally fascinated by my reaction to it. Jean had said -- about long distance relationships -- that they have all the passion of unrequited love and, then, every so often you actually get to be with the person and it’s fifty times as intense as a regular relationship. Or, it’s like a relationship with all the boredom stripped away.
The person takes on mythological characteristics, suddenly that person is the PERFECT person, no one is as funny, nothing is as fun without them. In the person’s absence, life is half a life, the phantom zone.
And it was true. I liked Dani when she was here, but I’d forget to call her or resent having to call her or resent having to hang out with her when I’d rather have been hanging out with my friends or rather have been sitting in my room reading. Now, I can’t sit still to read. Now, sitting with my roommates, it’s like I’m with no one at all. All I can think of is her.
And everything we used to do together has a golden glow around it because I did it with her. It seems ridiculous. At the time, it was just life, normal everyday life. Now, when I remember it, it’s all golden glow and fireworks.
Tonight, I called her and we sat on the phone for 2 hours. I don’t even know what we talked about. I’m not even sure we did talk about anything. But, I told her that I missed her and that I loved her and that elicited some silence. Afterwards, she just said, “Really?” in a shocked voice. And I realized that I’d probably just made a mistake, that I shouldn’t have let her know how it has changed for me, that that could be used against me, that I was interesting for her when I was a challenge.
And yet our relationship is still wrong:
* Every conversation is about how much her parents are doing for her sisters and brother that they aren’t doing for her. Her parents are paying for her brother’s psychiatrist, for her brother’s pet monkey, for her brother’s apartment in Alphabet City; for one sister’s grad school; for the other sister’s new car (she got an Acura when she could have settled for a Toyota or Honda). Her siblings are in some constant landgrab with her parent’s money.
*Every conversation is about who she hates, who has wronged her, who isn’t worth her time, who has insulted her, who has given her the evil eye. And the list is long and getting longer.
*If I bring up my family or problems with my roommates, she changes the subject. She’s just not interested.
*Usually, the sexual experience of the person in the relationship who has the most is an issue of contention. Usually, the other person is jealous or feels that they can’t live up to the person with the longer record. But, she’s had somewhere between 3x and 5x the number of lovers I have had and yet she acts like it’s me who’s the big romeo and who’s more likely to get bored with her. I just wish she she kept score less.I worry that I’m self-destructive just for being into her. She flirts with men continually, is obsessed with how pretty she is, and at the same time is jealous of me. She is so convinced of how horrendous her own problems are. Each good moment is counter-balanced with arguments, jealousy, guilt and paranoia. And yet, I can’t make myself want anyone else.
Sometimes I think that the more difficult ones make more of an impact than the ones that it’s easy to get along with. You have to change for the difficult ones, make a role for them in your life.
September 19
Tonight, Nell’s friend Roger showed up from Peru. He’d been in 5 countries since and most recently Mexico City. He’s a very tall, very narrow guy with surfer hair and a scraggly beard. He’s the one from Nell’s story about having to hitch hike to Guatemala City and he told us his version of the story and that what Nell had to do to get to him is normal compared to what other people have done to get through borders without official sanction. And he’s serious about wanting to turn it into a sport. The only rules would be 1) no jet planes 2) no official entries into a country. You’d have to sneak in and you’d have to sneak in via car, donkey cart, propeller plane, rowboat, bicycle, foot, skateboard, pick-up truck or rollerblade, etc. It would be called Border Jumping. And it would serve their other purpose of showing that the borders or individual countries are arbitrary and absurd, based on lost battles, ancient bloodbaths, features of the natural landscape (which seem more reasonable to me) or, worst, just the whim of someone at a peace negotiation. “As long as everyone acts like they’re legitimate, then no one will question their legitimacy, and it should be questioned,” Roger said.
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Darren Kaminsky is a writer living in Brooklyn. He can be contacted at sugarspun @ bigbagoftricks dot com.
© 2005 Me Three
