ATLANTA, Zoe had dinner with Mickey and her family at a new trendy restaurant downtown that served Mexican-Korean fusion food.
Mickey and her father joked around with the waiter. Or half-joked, really. They tried to convince him that the restaurant would do even better if they started carrying Joker Jenson products.
Mickey was quite charming, just like Zoe's father.
The waiter seemed to enjoy the attention. The three men laughed together.
Zoe, her mother, and Taylor sat quietly watching.
Taylor was very skinny now. She kept losing weight. Did she still eat?
Well, obviously yes. She was still alive. And she wasn’t a skeleton. She didn’t look like a public service warning for eating disorders. She looked like the people you’d see on TV or magazine covers.
It was impressive.
Zoe was pretty sure that she herself could stand to lose a pound or two.
But not tonight. She could start watching herself tomorrow.
Or the day after.
Maybe next month.
The waiter left.
Mickey and her father talked among themselves—work stuff; and then they moved on to movies.
"So…" Zoe said to Taylor and her mom."What's up with you two?"
"Not much." Taylor said. "You?"
"Not much." Ah…great conversation here.
Then her mother saved the day by bringing up the TV issue. They talked about the neighbors who killed themselves and afterward appeared on TV; then they talked about how there had been various interruptions in the past couple of weeks on Modern Family, The Voice, and The Big Bang Theory.
I don't watch TV alone anymore," her mother said.
Zoe realized she hadn’t watched TV much lately either. She hadn't noticed. Was it because she was busy? Was she scared of interrupting-ghosts but didn't realize it?
The women continued to talk among themselves, while the two guys talked to each other. Well, really their mother did most of the talking. For the most part, Zoe and Taylor just listened and responded.
***
The food came.
Zoe loved her kimchi taco and was halfway finished with it when she noticed that all Taylor had ordered was a small plate of kimchi. That was a bit off (not the kimchi, but her sister's eating habits). Maybe she should worry?
Suddenly, Zoe felt stressed. Scared.
Mickey must have noticed Zoe staring at the kimchi, because he then said to Taylor: "That's all you ordered? Do you not eat?"
"I eat," Taylor said.
"She's very disciplined," their father said.
"Maybe too disciplined?" Zoe said."You should eat more."
"I'm fine," Taylor said–not really in a defensive way. She sounded almost apologetic, like she didn’t want to worry Zoe.
"I say we drop it," their father said. "If Taylor's happy with her diet, it's not up to us to interfere. This family doesn't believe in interfering."
What the hell? Zoe couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This coming from a man who was constantly giving her advice…what he called "fatherly guidance".
"Besides," their father continued.. "Thin is very in."
Mickey nodded. "True. Very true."
No one said anything for a while. They went back to eating. Every so often, Zoe snuck a glance at Taylor. Her sister ate very slowly, cutting up each piece of cabbage into tiny pieces. Then she slowly put them into her mouth and chewed way too many times.
***
After dinner, Mickey drove Zoe back to her apartment.
She invited him in. Not because she wanted to be with him but because she felt this was expected of her.
He declined. Why?
Because he was supposed to meet with her father.
A Business thing?
No, they were going to play some pool together.
Zoe felt tempted to ask. "Are you dating me or my dad?"
She refrained from doing so.
He kissed her on the forehead.
She left his car and went into her building.
Later, she sat on the couch and stared across at the TV. Should she turn it on?
Maybe. Why be scared of the EB's? Most of them were perfectly harmless.
She'd watch TV. It was very unlikely her show would be interrupted anyway. Despite what her mother said, the interruptions weren't commonplace.
She turned on the TV. She flipped through some channels.
Nothing looked interesting.
She looked at her DVR. She hadn’t recorded anything lately, but there might be something old that was good.
There was her brother-in-law's TV show. She could watch that.
The thing was, she felt a bit like she was betraying her brother when she did that. She assumed, even though Arthur supported Bernard's career, he must be quite envious.
Well…she'd feel better watching Bernard's show when Arthur was successful as well.
Would he ever be successful?
Zoe hoped so.
In the meantime…. She found an old episode of Friends. It was a Thanksgiving one. It felt quite strange to be watching it in the middle of June.
Zoe gave the show half her attention. Most of her mind dwelled on Taylor. She worried about her. Yet she also worried that she was overreacting.
Maybe her dad was right. Maybe it was just a case of Taylor being very disciplined. Maybe she was envious of that discipline? So instead of supporting her sister, she's turned it into a problem.
As Rachel, Monica and the others sat down to eat, Zoe decided she'd take a wait and see approach.
***
For some reason, Zoe sent Mickey a text before going to sleep. G'night! I hope you're having fun.
She waited for a response. After a few minutes, she gave up, put the phone on the table, and turned off the light.
Why was she bothered by the fact he wasn’t texting her back? Why did she care? Did she even like him?
Zoe had suspected that she didn’t actually like him but now did some serious second-guessing. If she didn’t like him, why would she care if he texted or not? Why would she be bothered by the fact that he went out with her dad instead of spending the evening with her. And why was she still with him in the first place?
Arthur had been right, the other day, when he said she didn't have to like Mickey just because their dad did. The fact was, their dad had a way of getting you to do what he wanted.
He never used brute force. He never threatened. He just–
What the hell did he do?
It was almost like he cast a spell. The spell made you second guess your own choices, and it made you feel that if you didn’t do what he suggested, you'd fail miserably and be very regretful.
Yeah. That was it. Exactly.
Zoe did some major self-psychoanalysis and realized she was scared that if she didn’t follow her father's dream of her marrying Mickey and making Mickey-Zoe babies, she'd end up a lonely, pathetic spinster. It was like her father had managed to convince her that Mickey was her only chance.
With that thought (but no plans on how to make things better for herself,) Zoe fell asleep.
***
Zoe dreamed.
She was at her parent's house.
Taylor had gained all her weight back and ate a birthday cake with her hands.
Their father yelled at Taylor. Disgusted.
Their mother chased a turkey around the kitchen.
Arthur and Bernard talked to Mickey.
Arthur laughed with Mickey.
Zoe didn’t like that her brother was getting along with Mickey and told him this.
Mickey and Arthur both yelled at her.
Bernard started dancing. Zoe watched.
She heard a knock on the door. "Is anyone going to get that?" she asked.
"Can't you see I'm busy?" her mother answered
"I do enough around here," their father said. "It's time you put yourself to good use."
Zoe walked down the hall.
She came to the door and opened it.
She gasped
It was her boyfriend.
He was back.
***
Zoe woke up late Saturday morning feeling absolutely jubilant. She sang a made up song in the shower and danced in there as well...as much as it was possible to dance in the shower.
She also danced and sang as she made herself breakfast. She felt like Mary Poppins.
Or maybe Maria von Trapp.
One of those Julie Andrews characters....
After getting clean and eating, she checked the messages on her phone.
Mickey apologized for not getting back to her last night.
Zoe didn’t care and felt no urge to respond to his message.
There was a text from her father. He had bought the new iPad. Did Zoe want his old one? She did.
Maybe.
She'd write to him later.
Suddenly, she realized some of her earlier happiness had faded. It didn’t take her long to figure out why. There was no message from him.
The boyfriend.
It seemed she might have been hoping he was real—that he'd text her or send an email. Had fun last night. I'm glad we can talk in real life now.
Real life. Well, that term might be a bit inappropriate for the circumstance.
Zoe realized she hadn’t checked her email yet. Usually, she did that before her shower, but today she forgot. Maybe? Could there be?
There was not.
Zoe's bubble of glee bursted into a cold melancholy.
It could all be in her head.
She pushed that thought out of her head and thought back to the dream. She didn’t remember everything. Some of it was unclear. A lot of it frustrated her.
There were things that should have happened, but her dream self hadn't come through for her.
For example, she never asked him where the hell he had been all these years. She never asked him why he had returned. They just gave each other huge hugs. They kissed.
She had said, "Please take me away from them."
"Who?"
"My family."
He had smiled.
Then, the next thing she knew, they were in a forest. They found a cottage, and he had made her some toast with raspberry jam.
Other stuff happened.
Maybe?
She couldn’t remember.
Then they had sex.
It was so much better than the sex she had with Mickey.
She really needed to break up with Mickey.
***
Zoe spent the rest of the day and evening going back and forth like a child pulling petals from a daisy.
He's real. He's a ghost, and we'll soon be FaceTiming each other.
He's not real. He's just a figment of my imagination. I'm mildly insane. Or very insane.
Both theories left her with doubts. The thing was; if he was a ghost, why did he come into her dreams instead of using the Internet? From what she had heard from a woman at work, it took a lot of energy to appear in someone's dreams.
Maybe the woman was wrong?
As for it being a figment of her imagination; why then did her imagination fail her for all those years? Why did it deprive her of such a pleasure? And now why had it returned?
Did something trigger it?
Was it something she ate?
Maybe Kimchi?
But Zoe had eaten Kimchi other times in the last five years and…no dreams.
Did something happen to trigger it?
Maybe worrying about Taylor? That idea worked if one was going for a I-refuse-to-believe-in-anything-magical mentality. Besides that, it made little sense.
Continue to Chapter Seventeen
Go Back to Chapter Fifteen
No comments:
Post a Comment