C is for Cookie

Why? Why'd Stephanie do it?

What do I want? What do I need?

What am I willing to forgive? What can I live with?

What's my life going to look like in a year? In five? In ten?

Am I ever going to get married again? Why? Why not?

What the hell is this thing with Cookie?

What are my relationships with women going to look like, going forward?

Did my wife ever really have any respect for me? Or did she just lose it along the way?

Am I going to be okay?

This time, I wasn't ranting and raging. I felt oddly detached. I felt empowered, like I had choices. What Stephanie wanted didn't matter so much, and it bothered me how much it DIDN'T bother me.

I got a call from Jessie in the middle of the afternoon, while I'd lost time and was wallowing. She insisted on taking me out for Sushi. That was weird. I never ate sushi. Neither did she. I was buying, though. I'm her dad, that's what I'm for.

"Why sushi?" I asked. We arrived separately at the Ichiban, and she was already sitting at the bar.

"I wanted to take a page from my old man's playbook. How did you put it? I'm trying to break my old patterns, do something uncharacteristic. I learned that my mother is a cheater and wanna-be polygamist. My dad is in a state of crisis and it turns out that he's got Rizz. It's a whole different world now. I think we all need to snap out of our usual routines."

"Well then. Good thinking. Thank You. Er, domo arigato."

We got to our table. Actually, it was two seats at a long elevated table we shared with another party, but there was plenty of space between us. The menus were long pieces of paper on weird skinny clipboards, and we puzzled over them until we'd made a series of choices that we'd frankly crossed our fingers about. I didn't want anything with eel in it, which cut down our options pretty significantly, and Jessica wasn't fond of shrimp, which narrowed it down even more. I knew I liked miso soup and the salad with the ginger dressing, though.

"So," she said once we'd ordered. "You and Cookie Deathridge."

"No. I mean, yeah, but not like that. But also yes." I sighed. "I've never been a fan of people who say 'it's complicated.' That's a cop out. It's never complicated. You're either acting like a piece of shit or you're not. But now I see the appeal of it. It's still a cop out, but it's the easiest thing to say."

"The easiest. Okay. What's the correct thing to say?"

"Wow. Well, 'I don't know' comes to mind, but that's no better. The best thing is to take the bull by the horns and just say it. God. I'm shattered. I'm devastated. My world ended and I don't know which way is up right now. I happened to meet this crazy woman while I was bouncing off rock bottom, and she seems to want to make a project out of me for some reason. She's beautiful, of course, and I'm drawn to her emotionally. But she's right, I'm in no condition for a relationship. We all know that, and she seems opposed to such things in principle. But yes, stuff happened. I'm not going to pretend it was platonic. We didn't go all the way, but close enough. I'm also not going to say that it didn't mean anything, because it did. Kind of. But we aren't a couple. As far as I can tell, this is a stepping-stone kind of thing. A transition, or what do you call it, a rebound. I have to admit, it's all very strange to me."

She was nodding. "As long as you know that. I don't want to see you hurt. I mean, not any more than you already are. By this." She scrunched up her brow. "Heh. 'It's Complicated' really does seem to fit the bill, doesn't it?"

"Kind of. But it doesn't seem to have a lot of integrity."

"You've been listening to her. She's big on integrity. She talks about that in class all the time."

"She's been good for me, I think."

"I think so, too. She's a really neat person. Very popular on campus. But hey... 'Doctor Heartbreak,' remember? I don't think it would be a good idea to get hung up on her. She's right about you. You're not one for casual. You never...?"

She didn't finish.

"No, I never. I never... whatever it was you were going to say. Never did."

She laughed. It was sad.

"I was going to say 'You never cheated on mom, did you?' But I couldn't even say it. I couldn't even imagine it. I have a hard enough time believing what mom did."

"No. For the record, no, I never cheated on your mother. I would never have done that. I'm not going to pretend that I'm a perfect person. There are plenty of pretty women in the world, and I have eyes. I've noticed them, and had stray thoughts, but no. Nothing in the real world. I wouldn't. I couldn't."

She chuffed a bit. "But you just did."

"Kind of. I rounded a few bases with a sympathetic lady while my wife was off with her lover of two years making a mockery of our wedding vows and expecting me to just suck it up. Our marriage was over the minute she took up with that little shitweasel. I was just the last one to know about it."

"So it's over. You've decided."

"Yeah, I guess so. I've spent all day asking myself painful questions and not liking any of the answers." I shook my head and allowed myself a slow blink. "Okay, so there's no easy way to say any of this. Just stay with me for a minute. Remember that used car she fell in love with, that Mustang? She bought it without doing a pre-buy inspection. I griped about that, but she wouldn't be deterred. Well, it'd had one of its catalytic converters illegally chopped out. The other one got all backed up and blew a hole in the exhaust manifold. The engine compartment caught fire while she was on the interstate and you guys were in the back seat."

"Is that what happened? I remember that, just barely, but I never understood what was wrong with the car."

"Yeah. It was just irresponsible. And the living room set we got with the purple upholstery? Hideous. But of course my opinion didn't matter."

"I always liked it. It was unique."

"Well, as far as I'm concerned, you can have it when we split up the household. And her family always hated me. They tried to put on a good face and they're usually polite, but god, they just despise me, especially her mother."

"It's because they think you never truly gave your heart to Jesus."

"That should make them love me even more, right? According to Jesus. But they never listened to him. They listened to Jim Baker and Pat Robertson. They were always more about hating liberals and gay people than they were about loving their enemies and caring for strangers."

"I know."

"The point is that every big fight I ever had with your mother, and over the course of twenty-two years, we've had more than a few of them, every single time it was about me putting up resistance to something she wanted. And in the end, she always got her way, and I was brushed aside. Even if it turned out that I was right or that my concerns were valid. No, ESPECIALLY if I was right. She just had to steamroll past me no matter what. And like a fool, I put up with it. I can't help but think this has been my fault for letting her walk all over me all these years. She wanted to test me to my breaking point. Well, she found it."

The sushi arrived. We picked at it, tentatively, then tucked in. It was surprisingly good. I couldn't work with the chopsticks, so I committed the unpardonable sin of using my fingers. So sue me.

"It wasn't all bad. We had some good years. And we got the two of you out of it. I wouldn't trade that for anything. I'd do it all over again, as bad as it is right now, if I knew it meant that I'd get to be sitting here with you, today."

"Aw, daddy. That's sweet. I love you."

"I love you, too. You and your brother. More than anything."

We ate for a bit. The ones with the green stuff on top were spicy.

"Cookie's no longer at the Diamond Club," said Jessie. "She's either somewhere else or she's on a break from it."

"Really? How'd you know?"

"The guys at school went looking."

"Figures. Anyway, you know where she was last night. She wasn't working."

"Yeah, but they said nobody named Cookie works there."

"Well, she doesn't use her real name on stage. All the girls use fake names. She was 'Candi' on Thursday night. And the guy inside called her 'Cee.'"

"That makes sense. I wonder if it always starts with 'C.' 'Charlotte.' 'Chloe.' 'Chantelle.'"

"Carol.' 'Cheryl.' 'Cynthia.'"

"'Christine.' 'Chiffon.' 'Charlene.'"

"I'm running out of C-names. Um. 'Cha-Cha.'"

"Cha-Cha?"

"Like from Grease. Cha-Cha DiGregorio. 'The best dancer at Saint Bernadette's, with the worst reputation'."

"I could never understand how you remember stuff from old movies like that."

"Hey, it's not an old movie. Not like Casablanca or anything."

"It is! That was, what, twenty-five years before I was born?"

"Okay, I guess that counts as old for you."

"How old were you when it came out?"

"I don't know, I was a kid. Seven or so, I think."

"So you imprinted on it. Like a baby duck."

"Everybody did. It was huge."

"Apparently so. You're still weird, though, you know that, right?"

She wasn't wrong. I've got a trick memory, but it's highly specific. I can remember everything about books and movies and music decades after I've absorbed them. I can't remember what I had for lunch last week, who all my cousins are, or when I've got a doctor's appointment, but when it comes to fiction or pop culture, I'm a walking encyclopedia.

We spent the rest of the meal chattering away about safe topics, carefully avoiding the subjects of Stephanie and Cookie. It was precisely what I needed. I think my baby girl did, too. She needed to see me not being destroyed. At one point, we called Michael, because of course we did. He picked up on our mood and bravely put on a show of being his usual goofy, extroverted self.

***

I called Cookie that evening like I promised.

"So, sushi is a thing."

"Sushi? Yes, that is a thing. Why'd you say that?"

"Jessie took me out for it. I guess we're all trying to step out of the ruts we've carved in our lives."

"Well, good choice. Where'd you go?"

"The Ichiban off American boulevard."

"Ah. Okay, next time I'll take you to Kabuki. They have the good stuff."

"You're on."

"So. Have you thought about how tomorrow is going to go?"

"I've thought about little else. I've done a lot of moping and a lot of reflecting. And I've become fixated on and puzzled by a strange and mysterious other woman who's adopted me as a project of some kind. Which has been great."

"Thank you very much, kind sir. I assure you, she's not done with you yet."

"Well, I hope not. I'm a mess. I've got a long way to go."

"I'm patient. But we've got a good foundation to work with. Now then. Tomorrow?"

"Right. Well. She ambushed me with that note, and I was left alone to deal with the impact of what she did. I figure she should get the same. She'll find an empty house, and I'll leave her a note just like the one she left me. I won't be there for her to talk to, either. Let her rant and rave at herself while I'm incommunicado. It's only fair."

"Is that what you want?"

"She wants me to be waiting on her, so she can resume control of the situation and 'we can talk.' presumably 'like adults,' once my little temper tantrum is safely over with. Nope. Not gonna happen. I want to defy that expectation."

"Okay. That's your choice?"

"Is this one of those things where you make me say it three times?"

"Clever fellow. Yes."

"Then yes. This is my choice. I'm going to leave her a note, with her locked out of the house and her stuff in storage, and she does not get to keep me squirming under her thumb to talk to at her pleasure, having dissipated my entirely appropriate rage which she will doubtlessly call 'immature.' Three times and done."

"Okay then. You're choosing powerfully, and I can respect that and support you in it. Have you written the note?"

"In my head, a dozen times already. On paper, not so much."

"Well, when you do, just remember that brevity is the sole of wit. Less is more. Keep it under a page for maximum impact."

"Um. Didn't you write an entire book called..." I fumbled for a minute and found it by the sofa. 'The Iconography of Commodified Desire: subjectivity, objectification, and the intersections of race, gender, and class in the post-modern, post-feminist adult entertainment labor economy'?"

She nearly fell over laughing. "Guilty!" It took her a moment to contain herself. "Yes, okay, you got me. That was a lesson learned the hard way. Let me give you the inside scoop about academic writing. It's not meant to communicate ideas clearly. It's meant to show off how smart you are. The whole point of that kind of book is to give your colleagues something to argue about, so it helps if you obscure your reasoning. That also creates an automatic defense for the author, who will always be able to claim that their critics simply failed to understand what they wrote. God. To tell you the absolute truth, I only wrote one book. The second one is just the first one rewritten in plain language with a lot of spicy stories thrown in so people will read it. It outsold the first by like a hundred to one. People respect the academic version. It's a credential. But people have actually read, understood, and talked about Professor Slut."

"That... makes SO much sense."

"I'm working on another one. It'll be mostly case studies. I'm hoping to get rid of the Professor Slut moniker and become Doctor Heartbreak for real."

"Can't wait to read it."

"Be careful what you wish for. You might be in it."

"Hoo boy."

"In a good way."

"Thanks. I think."

"So what are you going to put in your note?"

"I'm going to make it a bookend to hers. I'll tell her that I'm not playing her game, and that she's got no business hanging the failure of our marriage on me. She broke it when she changed the rules without consulting me."

"That's appropriate. A very sad end. But at least there is symmetry."

A bell went off in my head. I must have gone silent.

"Dave?"

"Yeah. Sorry. I just thought of something."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. Fine. I, ah, like I said, I don't want to be here. In the house. I want to be out, somewhere else, doing god knows what with someone else. Are you busy tomorrow afternoon? And evening?"

"Come stay at my house. Pack a bag. You can be here for a few days."

"Thank you. That sounds perfect. I'll be over after work. I'll buy dinner."

"Not tomorrow. We're staying in and I'm cooking. Take me out on Tuesday, okay?"

"Okay. It's a date."

"Goody. Now I believe you've got some homework that's due tomorrow. Get to work on your note. If I had to guess, you'll write ten versions of it and tear nine of them up."

Shit. Just like Steph did. She was right. I said so.

"Probably. I'll get on it. And thank you. Thank you so much for everything. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Dave. I love you."

***

Stephanie,

Yes, I damn well do deserve better than this. You did take the coward's way, and you lied to me again, on top of that. You never meant to face me. You spent time planning it this way. You wanted to get my anger safely out of the way first, while you were out of reach, and then you'd try to manipulate me into agreeing with whatever you want, once you'd broken my spirit. Maybe I was a great husband. I certainly tried my best. You, however, are a shitty wife. If this is how you treat me, and this is how you treat our marriage, then you have no business being married to anyone. At all. Ever.

I'm not going to cooperate with your plans. I know this is probably painful for you, but this is something I need to do for me. You've made your choices in spite of our marriage, so now I'm making mine. I used our savings to pay off and cancel our joint credit cards. I've moved half our remaining money into my own new accounts, but haven't touched our retirement funds yet. I'm coming up with a plan for a fair division of marital assets. I've changed the locks to the house, so please don't try to get in without supervision. Jessica has some of your clothes and enough personal items for the next few days. The rest of your things are in a storage pod. Enclosed you'll find a key for the padlock and instructions for how to have the pod delivered.

I'm sure you'll say that I'm being immature and unreasonable. That my pride and rage are stupid male reactions. Your own sexual and emotional liberation is empowering and beautiful, while my expectations about our relationship are regressive and barbaric. You'll pin the failure of our marriage on me if I can't deal with your betrayal. No no no no no, Steph. You're the one who blew it. You killed our marriage when you changed its terms without consulting me, and like you said, it's been going on for a while. "Our" marriage ended when you decided I didn't deserve to know what was happening.

For the record, yes, I did notice, and no, it did not make things better. You might have been happier while perpetrating your cruelty, but I've been CORRECTLY jealous and suspicious the whole time. You disparaged and belittled me for it, even though you knew I was right. That's not how you treat a partner. That's not how to treat someone you love and respect. That's not even how you should treat a stranger. When you excluded me from your confidence, you stopped honoring me as your husband and treated me like a chump.

Looking back on things, we never really had a loving, mutually reciprocal partnership. Everything was all about you. I was willing to go along with you having your way because I loved you and wanted you to be happy. You were wrong to mistake my accommodation for weakness. The one good thing that came out of it was the kids. I don't know what you're planning to tell them, but I'd recommend the truth. If you don't, I will.

I don't care where you go, or what you do, or with who. That's your business. I don't own you. I don't control you. I can't stop you. But don't you dare feign surprise and indignation now that the door you've opened has swung the other way. We're estranged now. Sucks to be acted upon unilaterally and without discussion, doesn't it? I'll have my phone off, just like you did. Don't call or message me. Don't blame me for cutting off communications- you did it first, and it's not up to YOU to decide when WE talk. I'm not yours to manage, if you're not mine. I'll tell you when I'm ready to settle things. Preferably, we'll have our lawyers present.

Fuck You,

Dave.

***

I wasn't there when she got the note. I'd have loved to have seen her reaction, but I'm glad I didn't. Did I want her to be sad? Angry? Defiant? Resigned? I would have been mad at myself if I'd enjoyed the schadenfreude. I would have been mad at myself if I'd been sorrowful or regretful. I would have been mad at myself if I felt nothing. There was no reaction either one of us could have had that would have satisfied me at all. So I left it all to remain unknown.

She tried to blow up my phone. I turned it off. Jessica later told me that she called her in tears, claiming to be completely shocked, and wounded, wondering what I could be thinking to kick her out for no reason after twenty-two years. She declared that I must be having an affair or something... until my daughter showed up with her things and informed her that I'd shown her the handwritten letter she left on the table. Steph was 'flabbergasted,' that was the word Jessie used. She just opened and closed her mouth a dozen times without saying a word. Then she collected the bags and boxes Jessie had brought her, and left.

I didn't take the afternoon off. I left work at my usual time and went straight to Cookie's place. It was a third-floor walkup apartment in a very old stone town house not far from the university. Layers and layers of glossy latex paint had been glopped over fixtures and trim that were probably a hundred years old. The floor creaked here and there. Gentle patterns of tawny stains were on the ceiling from where the roof had leaked once or twice in the past decades. Colorful threadbare carpets and tapestries framed walls and walls of books nestled in shelves that had clearly come from thrift stores. Some of the shelves were just sagging pine boards propped up with cinder blocks and old milk crates. A battered component stereo sat on an old hand-painted end table towards one edge of the living room, and half-burned candles stood around in mismatched brass candlesticks and the necks of old bottles, next to well-used incense burners. The place smelled of patchouli, sandalwood, and, from the kitchen, garlic and olives and tomatoes.