Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

Shawn is lurking in the lobby when the elevator delivers me to the bottom floor.

“Hey,” I croak. “What are you doing here?”

“Raina said you’d be here.”

“Oh,” I say. Then: “Is everything okay?” Then, “I really need some fresh air.” I walk through the revolving door and out into the night without looking back to see if he’s following.

He is there though, right by me.

“I…well…I guess the thing is…”

“What?” I snap, exhausted.

“I don’t really know how to say this…”

“Oh my God!” I bark. “Are you here to break up with me after already breaking up with me? Will it never end?”

A woman strides by walking her poodle and meets my eyes, and then, as she passes, says over her shoulder: “Asshole. Don’t let him give you shit! Men are pricks!”

Shawn watches her head down the street and round the corner, then turns back to me and says:

“Anyhoo…”

“Anyhoo?”

He drops his chin. “Sorry. Nicky taught me that. I’m just nervous.”

“Look,” I say. “I’m having a pretty terrible evening, so if you’re here to tell me that you’re, like, getting back together with Erica Stoppard because she’s, like, way more spontaneous than I am or, like, does triathlons on Sundays, then please, just….just do it. I can’t take another incoming disaster.”

He tilts his head and furrows his brow, like he didn’t know I had that in me. Then he says: “Wow, I didn’t know you had that in you.”

And I exhale because I guess it’s nice to know that I can still read my husband, even if he’s about to massacre me right outside my father’s Park Avenue apartment building.

His face softens. “I broke up with Erica, for the record. She was too…I don’t know. Like, we always had to be doing something — golfing, happy hour, fricking bowling. Bowling happy hour. It was exhausting. Like, what’s wrong with a Saturday night on the couch watching Starz?”

In my old life, a Saturday night on the couch watching Starz was my idea of heaven. Now, I wasn’t so sure. I’d caught a ball at Safeco Field. I’d leapt off the Brooklyn Bridge and felt a little bit like I could fly. But still, I purse my lips and say: “I guess nothing. Nothing is wrong with Starz on Saturday. Though I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you went looking for, isn’t it? All excitement and fireworks and jazz hands?”

“I don’t really know what jazz hands are. But anyway. I actually came here to ask you out on a date.”

“A date?”

“Yes…the type of thing that two people go on when they like each other and maybe have a few drinks and if they mutually agree upon their attraction, they might hook up at the end of the night.”

“Oh,” I say, forgetting all about my dad. I burp into the back of my hand. “Sorry. It’s my stomach.”

He shrugs like he’s seen it before. Which, of course, he has.

I mull it over. “Okay. I guess we can go on a date.”

“I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm,” he says.

“Well, Shawn. That’s life. Sometimes, you take what you can get.”

He squints. “Is that, like, a quote from your dad’s book?”

“No,” I say, already on my way. “But it might be one from mine.”

In yesterday’s text, Vanessa said to call, but it’s 94 degrees out now, and I might actually die of heat stroke if I don’t seek shelter after a four-mile run.

“Are you kidding me? What’s with that?” She gestures to the taupe ribbon pinned to my tank top when I let myself in. “You’re doing that now too?”

I situate myself in front of her air conditioner, my shirt billowing in the artificial breeze.

“It’s a thing. About responsibility. Or conviction. Whatever,” I mutter. “Besides, Ollie’s helping me get in shape…you’re the one who told me to do it in the first place.”

“I did. Because you’re going to need it.”

“If it’s a marathon, I’m out.”

“It’s not a marathon.” She opens a box of chocolate chip cookies and offers me one, which turns out to be more of a bribe. Or maybe a peace offering for what comes next. “The producers want you for Dare You! . ”

I emit sharp staccato laughter until I realize she’s not kidding.

“No way.”

“It’s part of the contract.”

“I can’t do it.”

“You won’t do it.”

And I think of a million reasons why this is true: death, public embarrassment, broken limbs, further humiliation (a reality show!) of my father.

“I think my dad will cut me out if I do it,” I say quietly, shifting from the air conditioner to her couch.

“Out of his will?”

“Out of his life.”

“Oh please.” Vanessa rolls her eyes.

“Stop belittling me!”

“Stop belittling yourself!” she snaps.

“It’s fucking hard.” My tears mount without warning like they do nearly all the time now. “My life! It’s fucking hard! Why don’t you get that?”

“You’re life’s not so hard,” she says simply before she exits to her bedroom. “But until you get that, it always will be.”

I let myself out of Vanessa’s and jog back to Raina’s apartment, though it’s foolish in the suffocating late-July air. But I need to indulge my urge to flee, to race as far away from whatever wreckage I have made, and on to whatever new wreckage awaits.

Maybe that’s my master plan , I think, as I turn north up Fifth Avenue, my feet pounding, my thighs on fire, a cramp needling my belly. Maybe these tables of contents, these self-help books filled with ideas and advice and what-have-you can’t do anything to throw me off course. (Which would mean my dad was right.) Maybe I’m just a tornado moving from one disaster site to the next. Wreckage. My life’s plan is wreckage.

I’m drenched all over again by the time I throw myself into Raina’s elevator. The fabric of my top sticks to my skin, my hair is matted with sweat, my cheeks are the color of a fire engine. Frankie, the doorman, just points at my taupe ribbon and says:

“You tell your brother that the government can’t bring him down! Rise up!” He pumps his fist like Halle Berry did.

“Rise up,” I say weakly and move both hands to my heart in prayer.

Theo is sitting in the kitchen reading something on his iPad. I hesitate in the flicker of a moment and debate running the other way, making a getaway before he even realizes that I’m there, but instead, I exhale and steel my nerve. And then I say:

“Do you plan to just randomly show up when I’m looking my worst? Though to be fair, I managed almost four miles. And it is 94 degrees out. So I’m sort of kicking ass.”

He glances up and gives me a tight grin and says:

“Hey. I didn’t think you’d be here. Sorry. I’ll go.” He stands abruptly.

“You don’t have to go.”

“I’m not here for you, in case you were worried. Raina’s on her way, Ollie’s in the shower. Gloria let me in.”

I say: “It’s really not a problem.” (It seems to be some sort of problem!)

He says: “I heard Shawn’s back in town. I mean, I figured because you didn’t answer my texts.”

I say: “Oh.” Then: “He is.” Then: “I don’t know.”

Theo’s phone vibrates in his pocket, and he snaps it to his ear and wanders into the living room, discussing deal points and strategy and angles and persuasiveness. I eavesdrop for a minute and hope that he’ll return, but then I hear Ollie’s voice somewhere else in the apartment and a door closes, and then it’s just me.

I tilt my torso ninety degrees and rest my head on the cool granite counter and look at everything from a new perspective. Life looks different from down here. The lights force you into a squint, the angles are more jarring. This is what everything looks like as a kid, I suppose. But this is also a little bit how the world still looks to me. Some people never get over their childhood. I think of Nicky and say a quiet prayer that he’s not one of them. Why can’t I wish that very same thing for myself?