Hope Idiotic | Part 25
Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.
LOU HAD JUST FALLEN ASLEEP IN HIS OLD BED IN HIS OLD BEDROOM. Chuck gladly took the guestroom while Lou was home. And it felt good to be home. It was just shy of four-thirty in the morning when his cell phone began lighting up and ringing and vibrating on his nightstand. Michelle was calling.
His stomach did a lap around the other organs as he looked at her photo come to life on his caller I.D. He silenced the phone. He rolled away from it and started to drift back to sleep. She called again. He ignored it. Again she called, and again he ignored it.
Then, a different ringtone. A text message. He picked up the phone and flipped it open.
Please pick up.
She called again. Silenced. He shoved the phone under his pillow to muffle any more disturbances. What the fuck could she possibly want? he drowsily thought.
Maybe you already deleted my number from ur phone. Its Michelle. Pls pick up Lou.
He hated when adults used text shorthand. Another text came in while he was reading the last one.
I understand if you never want to speak to me again. But please talk to me. Pls don’t let it be like this. We can’t end this way. Please. Pls pick up.
Couldn’t there at least be some goddamn consistency in how she spelled? he thought. Then another one.
Please.
The phone rang again. Michelle’s pixilated face was smiling at him. He remembered taking that photo. It was during his fist autumn in Chicago. She was late for work because they screwed around after waking up. As she was running out the door, he pleaded with her to just hold still for one second. He told her how cute she looked. She was wearing her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She thought she looked scummy. He pleaded again. She turned, whipping her head around and smiling at him from over her shoulder. He liked that picture of her. Seeing it come through on the I.D. used to give him butterflies. That morning it gave him dead moths.
He watched her photo change to the message: MISSED CALL. The voicemail notification dinged a few moments later. “Goddammit,” he said. He played it back.
“Lou. It’s Michelle. It’s me…” She was sobbing almost uncontrollably. “Please call me back. I heard you’re back in Vegas at a job interview. Great. Please call me back. I have to talk to you. Ple—”
It sounded like she let the phone fall from her face as she began what he could only assume was another wave of chest-heaving crying fits. Jesus Christ, he thought. She doesn’t even sound human. And how the fuck does she know I’m in Vegas? Eric must have mentioned it to his parents. They still lived in Vegas and were best friends with Lynn and Barry. And there were no secrets between Michelle and her parents. And clearly there’s weren’t any between Eric and his either because he told Eric not to say anything. The phone rang again. Michelle’s picture. That smile. That ponytail. That morning when the storm of the last two-and-a-half years was still somewhere beyond the horizon far from the reach of radar. The phone rang. He flipped it open.
“Goddammit, what!?”
“Lou?”
“It’s four-thirty in the morning.”
“It’s six-thirty. Oh, the time difference.” She was still sobbing.
“What do you want, Michelle?”
There was quiet on the other end of the line. A sniff, a whimper. Then she bawled out, “I’m sorry!”
He knew that everyone wants to be loved; to serve an honorable purpose and, at some point in their lives, want to have someone tell them that they’re sorry.
Lou shot straight up in bed. What did she just say? Am I drunk? Dreaming? Am I being punked? he thought. Lou could only recall one instance in their entire relationship—including their friendship before they dated—in which Michelle apologized outright like that. It was back in college, and it was for hardly anything worth apologizing. She got really drunk at a boyfriend’s frat house, fell in the pool, got into a fight with the boyfriend and called Lou for a rescue. They spent the night in his bed like a brother sharing space with his sister. The following morning she apologized with shame in her voice. This apology on the phone was something else entirely. And he needed to know more.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“That’s a lot to be sorry for.”
Again, there was quiet. Some more sniffling, then, a deep breath and she wailed, “I’m selfish! I don’t want to be. But I am. And I’m too hard on people. I’ve been too hard on you. I know you’re trying. I know this has been hard for you—the job, your parents, trying to find your way in a new city. And you spend so much of your time keeping it together for me. Because you’re always there for me, and I’m spoiled, and I shouldn’t blame you when you come undone because you’re trying so hard. And I’m sorry about Pop. And I’m sorry I’m not nicer. I love you. I love you so much that I think I’ve always loved you. You’re the perfect man for me because you love me so much, and I just didn’t appreciate that—and I’m so, so, so sorry.”
No matter how different people might be from each other, Lou knew that there are certain things that every person wants. He knew that everyone wants to be loved; to serve an honorable purpose and, at some point in their lives, want to have someone tell them that they’re sorry. Not even an hour ago, Lou was sure that he didn’t need an apology. But when Michelle gave him one, the truth revealed that that was exactly what he wanted more than anything else in the world. More than a job, more than Pop to live forever, more than an unbroken home.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” was all he could say, however.
“I miss your hands and your lips and running my fingers through your hair and your fingers doing that thing you do with my forehead to make my headaches go away—”
“It’s just squeezing the pressure points in your temples.”
“But it’s the way you do it. I miss the way we make love. I just… I just haven’t said enough nice things about you lately, and I owe you that. And I owe you a happy birthday, too.”
“So what am I supposed to do with all of this?”
“Forgive me.”
“It’s not that easy. I’ve had a great week away from you. Away from all of the shit. And if I forgive you, that means I have to go back and face it all again. And I have to keep fighting a losing battle. I don’t like that plan. I like the plan I have now.”
“And what’s that?”
“To come back to Vegas. Get back to work. Start where I left off and get my goddamn life back on track.”
“Maybe I can move back there.”
“You don’t want that. We’ve talked about that. And frankly, Michelle, right now, I don’t want you in my life.”
She wailed.
“You told me you didn’t love me. You just admitted that you spent the last two years not making anything any easier on me. You just took and took from me and gave little back.”
“I know,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry.”
“How do I know that you really are? How do I know that you’re not just sad because breakups suck? And where does all of this self-awareness come from? Suddenly, you’re filled with apathy and introspection.”
“I talked to my mom. She told me how horrible I can be. That I’ve always been this way. That I stab people emotionally when something doesn’t go exactly my way.”
“She called you horrible?”
“In so many words, yes.”
“Jesus. And she’s still alive?”
“Not funny.”
“Because she’s right. But you don’t just stab, Michelle. You stab deep, then twist the knife so the would opens up, and then you get furious when the blood gets all over the place.”
“I know. I’ve done that to you.”
“How can I trust you?”
“We have to trust each other.”
“I mean things are really fucked up right now. And I feel I’d be walking back into a world of disrepair if I came back to you.”
“It will be different. We can go to counseling.”
“Is that what you really want? Because I’ll do couples counseling, if you want.”
Her voice became clear and certain, like the tears were gone. “Well, I don’t really want it on my medical records that I went to therapy. You have to claim some sort of mental illness, and I just can’t have that mark against me. Not in my career.”
“So, you’d put your career before our relationship. That’s the line. You’ll do anything for love, but you won’t do that? Christ, I’m talking to Meat Loaf here.”
“If we put it on your insurance…”
“My insurance. My COBRA insurance that is already stretched to the limit of visits because of the two shrinks I’m already seeing. You’re the one with amazing insurance. You’re always talking about how wonderful your insurance is. But yeah, let’s dump more financial responsibility on the unemployed, penniless guy so you can save face.”
“Lou, that’s not what I meant.” She began crying again. “Do you think we even need counseling?”
“You brought it up. And based on what you just said to me, we need a lot more than counseling.” They talked in circles for a little more than an hour and a half. Whatever calm he felt before the phone call and vindication he felt after her apology, all of it was replaced with anger. His hands were hot and shaking with fury. “Michelle. I have to go. I need to get some sleep.”
“But, Lou—”
“Later. I’ll call you later. I have a lot to think about.”
He hung up. He plugged his phone back in and put it to rest on the nightstand. He rolled over and looked at the other half of his bed. He imagined the times Michelle was there. It reminded him of the hope that the idea of her gave him. He thought of all the things she just said to him. He considered the tone in her voice. He replayed the conversation over in his head in search of signs of legitimacy. Would things be different if he went back? He noticed his hands were still shaking. Typical. Michelle built something up only to wreck it all in the end. No. Things wouldn’t be different.
✶
HE MANAGED TO GET A COUPLE OF HOURS OF SLEEP. Chuck was nearly finished cleaning the pool when Lou got out of bed and went downstairs. Lou told him about the Michelle phone call. He was shocked.
“Don’t go,” Chuck told him. “Don’t do it.”
“I won’t,” Lou said.
Then Lou got a text message from Mark. The Balcony wants our show. We open in September. Congrats. You’re a playwright now.
“Fuck,” Lou said.
“What?” asked Chuck.
“I have to go back.”
“What did I just say?”
“The play I wrote with my buddy Mark. It got picked up. It actually got picked up. We open in September. I have to go back and do this.”
“What about the job out here?”
“Can I telecommute?”
“I doubt it. And what about Michelle?”
“I guess I have to put some actual thought into that now. I told her I would call her later. I wasn’t going to. But now… fuck.”
“Fuck.”
“All right. I’m gonna go buy a plane ticket. You can get your bedroom back.”
“I’d rather you have it.”
Lou laughed. “Me, too.”