This Is Not a Love Song: A Novel

Precious Things

When I first met Chase, in the park, that cold day in early February more than two years ago now, I knew something was different. And it wasn’t just because we are two people with artistic temperaments. There was a chemical that was released in the air that day, just as Jung had once proposed in his musings about how humans interact, and I was changed. Forever. It’s difficult once a chemical has entered your bloodstream to separate it, to remove it completely, and I don’t necessarily want to anyway. Sometimes I feel like I’m standing over the sink with a broken egg in my hand, trying to let the egg white drip into the bowl and desperately holding on to the yolk as it slips through my fingers. I have no control over the science of emotion or attachment. Or love.

I think one of society’s biggest misconceptions is the perception of control. That we have complete control over anything. Playing God in such an extreme way is frowned upon in medical communities, and in scientific experimentation. Everything is either a percentage-based guess or complete theory. Nothing is absolute. But it seems to be considered completely normal to try to control love and hate and other messy emotions down to the last detail. What you eat, the air you breathe, the place you call home, these are all external factors. Fairly controllable in some way. But love and hate and attachment and sadness and missing, all these things are internal. And I’m not sure if anything internal can or should be open for anyone’s control. Of course, you can attempt to control your physical reaction to these things, but once you get inside someone’s head, it’s beyond explanation. Beyond control.

It reminds me of my friend Delia’s obsession with cleanliness. And symmetry. I can’t get over how her emotional life has, from day one, been in disarray, but she is so intent, so consumed with making sure everything in her physical space is pristine. She cleans and then cleans again. She showers a few times daily. Every item in her house has a place, and is in direct relation to another item somewhere else. There are no haphazardly placed knickknacks. Dust and unopened mail do not exist. I think she is making up for things. Making up for the fact that emotionally she has never really felt like she had any control.

I am twenty-six years old. I am a freelance writer sometimes. My parents are fairly well off, although I never ask them for a dime, and my grandmother was extremely well off, and so sometimes I choose to live off the installments of the trust fund she left for me when writing assignments are few and far between. I am fortunate in this, although the money she left was never a great amount, and I am admittedly very, very bad with money. I don’t spend a lot at once. But I spend often. It’s the small things that add up and soon become a huge, unbelievable amount every month when I receive my bank statement. Like life. It’s the small things that add up and create the large problems. I believe I have the ability to control my spending, but it seems like I just choose not to.

At first when Chase started leaving on trips, he was gone a week, maybe two. I missed him terribly, but tried very hard to control any feelings of resentment. I wanted him to find peace. As the time he was away sometimes got longer, and my resentment became stronger, I fought and tried to control everything else in my life. I tried pretending it didn’t matter. I tried pretending he might not even be the person I would end up with forever anyway. I tried to pretend I didn’t care all that much. I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. But after a while, control is futile. What you really feel emerges from the depths, and you’re left with pent-up anger, and the most intense and frightening feeling of having absolutely no control over yourself or anything in your life. When he left his note, when he finally left for good, this is what I was left with. A complete lack of control. Staring me in the face. And the very real feeling that these chemicals that reacted when we met were mixed up in me, and I had no idea how to use them, or to separate them again into two. I have become a mutant of some sort, part Julia and part of what Chase gave to me, and nothing feels natural. I feel uneasy in my own skin.

1

Pictures of You

May 12, 2004

Delia?

Yeah?

He’s gone.

Chase?

Uh-huh.

Are you crying?

Yeah.

Okay.

He left a note. Said he had to find something.

He’s done this a million times before, Julia. I wouldn’t get too worried.

No, I don’t think he’s coming back this time.

Why?

Because he usually tells me when he’s leaving. He left a note. Like a Dear John letter.

A what?

Dear John letter.

Wasn’t that some awful sitcom in the late eighties?

What?

"Dear John.You know, with that guy fromTaxi in it."

Delia, he’s gone.

Okay, he’s gone. What are you going to do? Find him?

I don’t know where to look.

Well, let’s see, you still have a million postcards and letters from the million other times he has done this. Look through those. Think about it. I’m sure you can figure it out.

What if he doesn’t want me to find him?

Have you ever looked for him?

No.

Then how would you know?

Because if he had wanted me to come, he would have invited me.

If I followed that line of reasoning, Julia, I wouldn’t have been to half of the parties I’ve been to.

Well, I’m not crashing Chase’s mid-twenties crisis.

Why not?

It seems…rude.

"Oh my God. Chase just left you a note and may never come back with no real explanation andyou are worried about being rude?"

What will I do if I do find him, Delia? Beg him to come home?

"Yeah, I guess you don’t really want to pull aNot Without My Daughter move."

So what then?

So lie around and be miserable for a while. Get a bottle of wine. Remember the good times, Julia.

Are you being sarcastic, D?

Jesus, Julia, I just got off work and I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry. I really am.

He’s gone. All I’ve got are those stupid letters and memories.

Exactly. And just like every time he leaves, I know you, and I know that you will scavenge through them for some new hidden meaning. So go get them out and do it. Get it over with.

I don’t like my life, Delia.

I don’t like mine, either.

Is it because of this?

I don’t think so. It’s a lot more than guy troubles. I know mine is, anyway, and I have a sneaking suspicion yours is about more than that, too.

Oh. That makes it worse, doesn’t it?

Yeah, or better. Look on the bright side. Chase isn’t totally responsible for your misery.

Not exactly a ray of hope, there.

I gotta go. Go buy some ice cream. Rent some girly movie. I think that’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s the rule.

Thanks, D.

Uh-huh. ’Bye.

2

Father of Mine

May 9, 2002

So…

So, to make a long story short…

Too late.

You’re doing it again, Chase.

Doing what?

That annoying thing you do that I hate and you know I hate it, and so you do it more frequently around me.

Julia, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Quoting movies.

What?

"Clue.You just used a line from the movieClue."

I did?

It’s not charming or cute, so knock it off.

I really have no idea what you’re suggesting, but…

Chase, you know this. When Tim Curry is running around explaining the murders away and everyone is following him around this castle and he just keeps going on and on and he says that line about a million times and you know this because you saw the movie.

Julia…you’re delusional.

Don’t start with me.

Okay, so what you’re saying is if it’s been said in a movie before, it automatically belongs to that piece of film and would be sacrilege to utter in everyday conversation.

I hate this.

You hate what?

When I start a fight and you end up being right.

We’re fighting?

Yep.

So let’s stop.

Too late.

Ha-ha.

Chase, you’re irrepressible.

I have a confession.

Go ahead, my son.

"I was quoting fromClue."

Chase, you son of a bitch.

Leave my mother out of this.

You bastard.

Not funny, either.

Oh, you’re so touchy about it.

Sorry. Guess I never got over the whole illegitimate thing.

Oh, poor baby.

Julia is a heartless wench.

Oh, please. Consider yourself lucky.

Oh, now this should be rich.

Well, your dad is out there somewhere, and he could be anybody. He could be Mick Jagger or somebody really cool like that.

Yeah, or he could be the Unabomber.

True.

You make my mother sound like a slut.

You said it. Not me.

Well, I think she has it narrowed down to a few hundred guys, and I’m pretty certain that Mick Jagger is not one of them.

Damn. Paternity suits can prove to be profitable.

I don’t want anything from the asshole.

Chase, you are such a case. It’s not his fault you were born.

I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

Okay, but…

Don’t.

Just two more words.

Go ahead.

Chase Jagger.

Funny.

3

Stop Me If You Think

You’ve Heard This One Before

May 13, 2004

Dear Chase,

There’s a problem. A little glitch in my whole plan. Not that there ever really was one, but if I had a plan as to how my life should be going, how it would be going if everything was perfect, this aspect would not be included in it. Certainly not. Okay, out with it, then, hmm? Here goes. I think I could like girls. A lot. Maybe too much. Seriously.

I know, I know. With all that has happened, that just cannot be an option, right? There’s no way I could be a dyke. No way. I paint my fingernails and I am not at all attracted to those girls who dress like chubby, ugly boys. I wear pink dresses and I actually dress only for other men when I go out. I refuse to buy tampons at the grocery unless there is a girl working the checkout because it’s just too icky for a guy to check me out and bag me when my list of items purchased includes a huge box of extra-plus-super-deluxe-absorbency pink deodorant tampons and a Lean Cuisine and some Good & Plentys. There are just some things the woman bagging my groceries understands better about my body than a fourteen-year-old pimply faced Marilyn Manson fan should. Even with those kind of guys I’m self-conscious. So what gives?

You know, I don’t even like Melissa Etheridge, and with the exception of that song, Leviticus: Faggot, Me’Shell Ndegeocello gets on my nerves. But that song is about being gay and that must mean I relate all too well to it, right? Actually I just think the bass line is really funky. Really. But you know me and you know that I am just so not gay. I am so housewifey and codependent and I exude the whole abuse-me chick thing so well that it just screams for some macho guy to use me and then ditch me for no good reason, and you should know this better than anyone. You of all people should know about that part of me.

I was shopping. Grocery shopping. It was Cool Whip and toaster waffles and frozen strawberries, because once I get an idea in my head, or a craving for some sort of feeling or taste or sight or sound, there is no stopping me, and Cool Whip is as universally American as French fries and flipping the bird, so I had to get the Cool Whip. I had my cart full of my favorite white trash food and some bleach, because I always forget to keep track of my whole womanly monthly cycle thing, and I always seem to wear white undergarments at the most inappropriate times, and she was buying turkey. The deli counter guy was asking her how she wanted it sliced and she said, Thin, very thin, and I was deciding if I really wanted vanilla yogurt or not when I saw her.

She had blonde hair and it was sort of wavy and I have no idea whether she was even a natural blonde or not, and I really didn’t care. I also have a prejudice against people who watch the meat they’re buying being sliced, because it’s sort of barbaric to me, but not nearly as disgusting as naming which body part you want of whatever animal you’re eating, like, Pass me a leg.

Even with all of this against her, she looked good in her boot-cut faded Levi’s and heather gray T-shirt and Nikes, like she wasn’t trying, because she didn’t have to. She didn’t need to impress anyone. It wasn’t important to her. She had no makeup on, but she had some color in her face, maybe the sort of color that comes from jogging in the park every once in a while, because she didn’t look like a fitness junkie type, but she looked well, as opposed to maybe underfed or overexposed or just too much of something. She looked at me. No, she watched me. I don’t know if it was because she thought she knew me, but I would hesitate to assume that I drew her attention because she felt as I did, that she was studying me for the reason I had studied her, because I have a grudge against myself in all areas, and would never assume that anyone would have any of the intensely neurotic feelings I possess in my everyday life. Maybe she has a prejudice against people who eat Cool Whip. Who knows?

So, I continued my grocery shopping, my pursuit of all the right foods to make me forget that I am completely mental when my hormones get the best of me, and we crossed paths. Paper towel section. My cart was in the way. Blocking the whole aisle. I’m always doing that. So I said, Excuse me (because I’m clumsy and Southern and polite all at once, which means that I cannot escape a grocery store without saying excuse me at least thirty times), and she said, No problem at all! No problem at all. If she had said it differently, it would have been sarcastic. Rude. Bitchy. But she said it sort of bubbly and sunshiny and it instantly disarmed me. I picked up my overpriced paper towels (you know how I can’t stand those cheap ones that feel like tissue paper and I know that I’ll go broke one day from buying the ritzy kind that feel like dishtowels, but sometimes you gotta live it up, right?), and I moved on.

I thought about her comment. Her voice. That one little passing remark got me thinking. She sounded different when she spoke to the deli meat cutter guy. She sounded like she was just talking about turkey. Cutting turkey thin. Uninterested in anything but how he sliced her turkey. But with me, I don’t know. I imagined it was something else altogether. When she told me it was no problem, no problemat all, maybe she meant that it was a pleasure to have me in her way because she had meant to say something to me near the dairy section, but you know how cold those dairy cases get, and being physically uncomfortable and emotionally uncomfortable at the same time just never works. So maybe she was glad she got the chance to be…polite? Well, after all, that’s all it was. Being polite. I still couldn’t help it. As yet another complexion-challenged boy in his teens scanned my pricey paper towels, I saw her pass by and we looked at each other again. I could have cared less what this checkout boy thought of my bleach selection or my two big tubs of Cool Whip. I was thinking about a polite honey blonde.

No sexual thoughts. Just total interest in her as a person. Maybe that’s just because I’m a female. Sounds sexist, but true. Maybe when women are attracted to other women, they don’t immediately think cheesy summer blockbuster movie sex scenes. They think about companionship. And they think about the good things, the attractive traits the other woman has. Maybe it’s a case of developing an admiration for the other woman first and foremost. Maybe. I’m not experienced with this whole thing anyway.

Maybe I’m just lonely. Maybe I just want a friend. She seemed like she was nice and maybe I just want someone to be nice to me, to relate to me, and not be a guy. I know I get along better with guys, but I want so badly to feel some sort of connection to my own gender, and maybe this is my way of seeking that out. I didn’t feel like she was trying to make our exchange a competition, like I usually do around other women. We were just…there…in the paper towel section and I was in the way and she didn’t mind and she didn’t cop an attitude and I was so grateful for that and we could have been best friends, long-lost friends right there in the aisle. It could happen.

Am I in denial? It’s just that guys make such amazing friends, and, at the same time, such shitty friends. They are so much better at being upfront and to the point, and you never have to worry about them gossiping behind your back because heterosexual guys just don’t gossip, and they will tell you, in so many words, that your hair looks like shit if it does. Of course, if you are at all attractive, or they have had even the tiniest drop of liquor, all these attributes go out the window, because they get all sexual on you, and it messes everything else up. It’s never the same. Guys are great friends until their dicks get involved. Then it’s all about putting that appendage somewhere very near to you as soon as possible. The friendship means nothing. Tomorrow? Who cares. And don’t you dare think it’s anything more than that. They are not in love with you, and they do not want to take the friendship to another level. They want sex. So maybe I was lonely, or maybe I’m gay. That’s a big jump, isn’t it?

Here is where the plan, the master plan of my life, gets foggy. I have no desire to map out a destiny of dinner parties and diaper changes and midnight breast feedings and kinky marital sex and carpools and Carly Simon songs, but I did have some sort of a plan and being gay was not included. That just screws everything up completely.

I mean, I like guys. You know this. I’m attracted to men. I love watching them shave, the way they look in button-down shirts, the fact that they don’t carry purses, their bigger shoulders, big clumsy bare feet, and their ability to not care about the way they look when they wake up. I like their sense of adventure, and their willingness to take a chance and hit on a girl who might be way out of their league. That takes guts. I love the way they want anything to