The Transformation Of Amy Lunaro: Chapter Fourteen. {fiction}
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Amy stood in the kitchen having coffee in one of James’ old cotton t-shirts, so big that it fell to her knees, and the sleeves came to her elbows.
There was such a comfort to clothes that ballooned you; she felt so tiny and safe in them.
It was the t-shirt of one of James’ opening bands that was way too metal for her taste. Amy remembered trying to watch them from side stage next to James, and even with earplugs she felt her brain about to hemorrhage through her ears.
“Why does it have to be so loud?” she’d mouthed, cupping her ears in pain.
“If it wasn’t so loud, it wouldn’t be metal,” he’d screamed.
She’d left to check out the wine bar across the street from the venue. He’d kissed her on her forehead as she left. She realized she’d taken all those tender forehead kisses for granted. She hadn’t known there was a timer on them.
She was finally realizing there was a timer on everything.
Amy and James had acquired hundreds of t-shirts of his tour mates over the years, they were their easy autopilot wardrobe — tour shirts over jeans, accessorized with sunglasses and an eternal hangover.
She knew she should throw all these shirts out. She highly doubted he had anything left of hers. It felt as if he had bleached and Brillo-ed her out of her life, like someone covering a murder scene. Erased all evidence of her. I watch too many crime shows, she thought.
But she just couldn’t bring herself to toss everything. If Amy closed her eyes, which she did, and sniffed hard enough into the fabric, which she did, she could smell their old life. She could be in their old life.
She opened her eyes. A kitchen on an island off Maine. Alone. With a beautiful farmer coming in half an hour to take her to a Yoga class. If you had told her six months ago that this would be happening, she would have called you crazy.
This is happening, she thought, which was something she was beginning to whisper to herself to acclimate to her ever-changing reality. This, right now, is happening.
She had that feeling when you don’t just think something is going to happen, you know it, but you don’t know how or exactly what. She stood in this quiet place before change, she felt like she was in the space between movie scenes. So this is what moving on feels like, she thought.
To move on, you have to make a move. And going to the Farmer’s Market and saying Yes to Jack was the move.
And she knew moving on was what she was supposed to do, and she knew there was no logical reason to wait. But it was bittersweet. It felt like taking something beloved off of life-support, even something that had no chance of living again. Something nothing could save but a miracle.
He had left the hospital long ago, but she had sat by their comatose love and held vigil.
It was clear the hope stored in the back cupboard of her heart wasn’t going to bring James back.
She missed many things about James. She missed his playful King of the Jungle bravado. His silliness. Everything had been a game, life was full of joy and surprise. He was a deep thinker and deep player who loved art and wordplay and creation in a myriad of forms.
She missed her playmate. She missed her best friend.
Did we have to lose things, to realize how much we loved them? Was that just the way life worked? How precious things become when we lose them.
She felt the instinct she had been honing, alive and talking within her. There was a close-off when it said No, and an opening when it urged Yes. There was dread with something dark on the horizon, and there were butterflies with something new and life changing was near.
But this morning she couldn’t discern if she felt butterflies or dread. She felt she had a cloudy connection to herself. Like she couldn’t quite make out the picture on the internal TV screen, or hear the words coming through the inner phone.
But something was going to happen today.
She could only stomach half of her coffee. It might be that she might kiss someone who wasn’t James. Either way, she was thinking about dating again. She was going to have to try out… new people.
With new personalities and new senses of humor and new ways at looking at the world and new ways of kissing and new families and new friends. New worlds.
It had taken her so long to find James. And she had finally found the one that fit. Did she really have to get back in the game? She thought of When Harry Met Sally, of Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher sitting up in bed.
“Tell me I’ll never have to be out there again.”
“You’ll never have to be out there again.”
She had asked James to say the lines with her once. She had said Carrie’s line casually as they walked, but he, he had done it with the usual way he did everything, full on, full in, staring into her eyes, clasping her hands over his heart, kneeling on a busy Manhattan street until she laughed and cried “Get up!”
He had an O Captain My Captain Robin Williams on the desktop way of delivering himself to the world. It was all his stage. Every corner of it.
“Amy Lunaro,” he had shouted, “You will never have to be out there again.”
She put her coffee down on the counter. Liar, she whispered, and walked into the bedroom.
She finished her outfit with sweats, she had never been to Yoga and didn’t have any of those fancy pants or halter tops women wore.
Then she stood in the bathroom mirror squishing the flesh of her face up with the heels of her hands, wishing things would fight gravity a little harder.
Grav-ity, she thought, the pull to the grave.
She applied concealer, mascara, blush and some light lipliner. Then she scoured the bottom of the makeup bag, but she had run through all its tricks. She looked in the mirror at the face that stared back at her. She still only partially recognized herself. But it would have to do. She would have to do.
She sat out on the back porch watching the cold grey ocean sprawled out to forever until she heard wheels on the gravel driveway.
Jack was here.
She could hear Leanne. “Follow that barf feeling,” she had said. “Follow the butterflies. It means you’re leaving your comfort zone and that’s the only place life happens.”
This is happening, she thought. Whatever this is. She didn’t feel ready. She didn’t feel beautiful. But Danny was right, if you waited until you felt perfect you’d never leave the house.
So she rose from the recliner and walked out to meet him. He stood on the porch in well-tailored light brown sweatpants and a grey tank top that revealed arms that were comic book hero carved. He held a white coffee cup and wore an easy confident smile.
She, on the other hand, felt like she was being punked. Like Ashton Kutcher would show up with a camera in the bushes, or a bucket of pig’s blood would fall on her head.
“Hi,” she said.
“Morning,” he said. He passed her the coffee. “Ran by Al’s for you.”
“That’s so nice,” she said, almost astonished, “that was so nice of you to do.”
“Well, that’s what we do, right? We do nice things for each other.”
“Yes,” she said. That made sense. She had been used to love as drama, not friendly gestures. This felt mature. “I suppose you’re right.”
She feigned a sip despite a resistant stomach. Straight black. No cream. She preferred buckets of cream.
“Thanks,” she smiled up at him.
He held the door of his old black truck for her, the bed was piled with bags of mulch and a bale of hay.
“Excuse the… farm,” he said.
As they pulled onto the main road he thumbed through his iPod and selected a twangy song full of banjo and melancholy.
“Know these guys?” He asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m out of the game. Who are they?” Her mind danced back to when it was a job to know bands. What a funny living it had been. She had done it because she didn’t feel there was anything else she could do in life, but listen to music and write about it.
“Friends of mine,” he said. He fell quiet, just tapping his leg to the music and watching the road. Amy wanted to fill in all the empty space with bumbling, tap-dancing monkey words, but thought of Danny.
“It’s okay to be a mystery.” She decided she wouldn’t entertain. She chose discomfort over comfort. She breathed into the quiet and pretended to sip the black coffee.
She thought again about being a music journalist. Do we choose our livings or do our livings choose us? And what happens when you don’t feel called to a calling anymore? And why is it called a living when most people feel so dead in their jobs, and their jobs leave so little time for true living?
Shouldn’t making a good living mean making a good life?
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“What we’re always thinking about, I guess,” she shrugged. “Life.”
“I’m not always thinking about life,” he said.
“Oh, I thought everyone was.”
“I could tell that about you,” he said. “You’re a thinker. You seem… lost in thought.”
“I guess so,” she said.
“That’s okay,” he said. She hadn’t thought it wasn’t. She felt sort of awkward and suddenly alone, next to him. But just then he reached over to where her hands were in her lap, and he closed his right hand over her left wrist, his finger tips resting on her thigh.
She got distracted by the warmth of his broad calloused hand easily encircling her entire wrist. The feeling of being held. She sighed loudly, despite herself. You don’t realize how tightly you are holding yourself until someone holds you.
“I’m more of a do-er,” he said.
Clearly, she thought. She hoped he couldn’t feel her shake. Her body always gave her away. It talked so loud.
They ambled into the harbor and Jack pulled up to a tiny shingled shack with a hand-painted driftwood sign that read: Release Yoga.
“I’ve never done this,” she said.
“You’ll feel like you’ve done it forever,” he said, climbing out of the truck.
“It’s like sex,” he said through the open window. “The body just knows.”
She blushed.
“It’s true,” he said, as if he’d never been wrong, about anything.
She reached down for her purse, and before she knew it, he had opened her door for her. She stepped out into the sand parking lot and looked up at a group of four sleekly pulled together women who all looked slightly younger than her.
They wore skin-tight patterned Yoga pants and brightly colored bras, and they stared at her, slack-jawed.
“Heyyy Jack,” cooed the tall one with Kennedy teeth and a lustrous wave of brown hair. You could hang coats off her collar bones. The other girls were looking Amy up and down like a zoo animal. When Amy caught their eyes, their heads snatched back down to their iPhones.
“Hey Amanda,” he nodded at their ring leader. “Ladies,” he gave the group a brief wave.
“I wish I could just walk around in sweat pants and not care,” Amanda said to her friends, who snickered as they stole glances at Jack.
Amy’s stomach fell. She was back in freshman year, being stonewalled by the senior girls on the hockey team. She was back at Rolling Stone, being boxed out by the other assistants. Back being death-glared and ignored by the women back stage. Leaving the house sucks, she thought.
“Didn’t see you at Luke’s last night,” said Amanda. “We missed you.”
Amy was doing her best to make eye smiling contact with Amanda, but Amanda only stared right at Jack like Amy was wearing an invisible cloak.
Amy wished.
Any minute now Jack will introduce me.
Any minute now Amanda will introduce herself to me.
Any minute now…
But Jack just said, “Couldn’t make it,” and put a hand on Amy’s back, ushering her past the girls.
“Oh. Well, Josh is having a barbecue tonight…” said Amanda, turning with him as he walked, refusing to be rebuffed. “I can pick you up.”
“Dinner plans,” he said.
“Come on,” he whispered in Amy’s ear. “Let’s get a space.”
They crossed into the small sunny studio and she looked at him, big-eyed. “Um,” she said, jutting her neck out a bit, incredulous.
“What?” he asked.
“Did I just meet… well ‘meet’ is a stretch because I think technically someone has to speak to you for you to meet them… is that the island’s Regina George?”
“What?” he asked.
“Never mind,” she said.
“I have a little sister, I get the reference. They just have to get used to you,” he said.
“To be human?” she asked.
“People here, they kinda wanna make sure you earn your place here.”
She tensed up. Her inner child threw a tantrum. She crossed her arms over her body. Well, I don’t even know how long I’m going to be here so, she thought. The last time she’d felt this way Leanne had said. “Oh, so nice of your four-year-old self to come out and play.”
“What, like I have to pledge? Get hazed? Are they the Freemasons?” she asked Jack.
He didn’t laugh. His eyes were blank. She was noticing he didn’t seem to get her… jokes.
“We’re all pretty close,” he shrugged.
“Like how close?”
He was quiet.
“Like dated? Did you date her?”
“Let’s get you on a mat,” he said.
This is an ongoing series from a forthcoming fiction novel by Sarah Durham Wilson of DOITGIRL.
Tune in weekly for the next chapter in ‘The Transformation of Amy Lunaro’.
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