5 Because I Have Nothing to Say

5

because i have nothing to say

Alexander

For a moment, I wondered how long my prison sentence would be if I backed over her in the parking lot of the divorce mediator’s office. Kevin always liked me more. Maybe he would testify in my defense. Say it was in response to the years of Dani’s berating, emasculating bullshit.

When I pulled into the driveway of our house, I knocked around the idea of a world without Danielle. Somehow, it still seemed unbearable even though I despise her. I mean, I literally cannot stand her.

I walked into the kitchen to make a sandwich and immediately felt I was doing something wrong even though I was alone in my own house. There will be crumbs on the counter. I’ll use the wrong cheese. I’ll spoil some imaginary meal I will never actually eat.

My phone buzzed with a call from Kevin, the mediator.

“Hey, buddy. I have Dani here. You guys had an appointment. You know she’s crying— ”

“I am not crying because of him,” I could hear Dani say in the background. “I’m crying because my foot hurts!”

“She said you ran over her foot, Alex.”

“Nonstop drama. I didn’t run over her foot. Listen, I feel like Dani and I should only communicate via email or something. It’s just too volatile.”

“Alex, would you mind if I put you on speaker? We can address the bullet points here and just call it a day. I’ll mediate. That’s my job.”

“Fine, whatever,” I said with a mouth full of turkey and lettuce.

Kevin put the phone on speaker, so I did the same on my iPhone. I was sitting at the kitchen bar eating my sandwich, fully intent on listening, abiding, and pleasantly arriving at some conclusions or agreements with Danielle. I guess I will never learn.

“So guys, I have to say, this is our fourth meeting and I still have not gathered all the information I’ll need to put a plan together. I’m still waiting on those documents, Alex. And Dani, I need you to fill out the schedule form and let us know what your workday will look like.”

Before I could even respond, Danielle started in. “Alex, we can hear you chewing over the speakerphone. Can you postpone your lunch, or mute your phone when you’re not talking?”

I threw the sandwich across the kitchen. I mean, I really chucked it hard against the Shaker cabinets. I couldn’t help myself. Little bits of shredded lettuce went all over the counter and floor and I had no intention of cleaning it up.

“I’m done with the sandwich,” I said calmly. “Kevin, I’ll have my assistant drop off the insurance docs later today.”

“Who the hell is your assistant?” Dani blurted out.

“It’s Jenna, Dani. You know that.”

“Jenna is not an assistant and she’d vomit knowing you called her that. Jenna is a supervisor. She runs your entire clinic and she has more schooling than you in her big toe.”

“Are you done, Danielle?” I said. “And is this you mediating, Kevin?”

I could hear muffled talking before Kevin took me off speaker and came onto the line.

“Let’s reschedule. Tempers are flaring and I’m not sure we’ll get much accomplished today,” he said.

“You just need to mediate, Kevin. That’s the idea.”

“Dani stormed out. She’s gone. And for propriety, I don’t think we should talk any further.”

“So are you billing us?” I asked.

“Alex, this is my time too,” he said.

“Dani—”

“You left, Alex. You drove away.”

“I’ll call you back. This is still our hour.” I hung up the phone and immediately called Danielle.

“What?” is how she answered the phone.

“Are you coming straight home? We need to have a discussion since mediation was completely pointless.”

She stayed quiet for several moments. I could hear her breathing heavily. “I’m in an Uber. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up.

I looked around to see what I could do to avoid being yelled at when she got home. I cleaned up the sandwich, wiped down the counter, and got the mail. Despite my desire to stand up to her, it’s not worth enduring five minutes of her wrath.

She used to be my best friend, my confidant, my cheerleader, my teacher, my lover. Now it’s like she was my tyrannical boss.

I heard the familiar clacking of her heels as she walked down the long hall from the front door to the kitchen. “Alex!” she yelled .

“I’m in the kitchen,” I said.

She hesitated in the doorway of the kitchen for a moment. I saw her eyes dart around the room. Looking for something, I imagine. Something to complain about. I was standing, relaxed against the kitchen sink, my feet crossed at the ankles and arms crossed over my chest.

We glared at each other.

“I didn’t run over your foot,” I said.

“When you decided to gun-it in reverse, nearly running me over, I stumbled back and rolled my ankle. Would you like to see how swollen it is?”

“Why don’t you take your shoes off?”

Silence.

Danielle is not a malicious liar, at least not that I can tell. She actually prides herself on being morally sound, a do-gooder. However, she is a habitual exaggerator. There’s a difference. Her melodrama makes her stories sometimes appear unlikely, which, to people who don’t know her, makes her seem erratic or unstable. Danielle is the most stable person I know. She’s just emotional and has a flair for telling a story. Her emotions are exhausting to me now after so many years. She’s just… a lot. Not high-maintenance, just a walking broken tooth, exposed nerves, sensitive to even the slightest breeze. Your mere existence in a room, shifting the air, can aggravate her. If you blink for one second longer than you normally do, she will instantaneously come up with three scenarios for why your blink was unusual, and most of them have to do with her being personally attacked.

Ironically, despite Dani being so hypersensitive, she has no problem serving her own assaults up to me on a platter of sarcasm and snark, sometimes blatant cruelty. But…the majority of the time, when it comes to other people, her exaggerations and energy are completely appropriate and will turn an otherwise boring conversation or activity into a theatrical presentation. Her friends welcome this side of her. It breathes air into a room. Sometimes, calling her a liar is all I have to match her quick-wittedness. It’s the one thing I know for a fact that she’s insecure about.

“Are you just going to stand there and stare, Dani?”

“My shoes aren’t the problem.”

“So you told lies to the mediator thinking it would help us? You were basically accusing me of trying to kill you?”

“Who’s telling lies now?”

She was unwavering. Stoic. This is how I knew she was really pissed.

“All I’m saying is, when you dishonestly say or even just insinuate that I’m trying to hurt you to our divorce mediator, it doesn’t look good.”

She blinked, then set her purse down on the counter and walked to the refrigerator as I watched. She took a half-empty bottle of chardonnay out of the door, popped the cork out with her teeth, and drank directly from the bottle.

“It’s two in the afternoon. Are you not picking the boys up?”

She turned on her heels. Daggers! Slowly and deliberately she said, “Are you not picking up the boys?”

“I’m saying it because you always pick them up.”

“Yeah, I do!” she sneered. “Maybe you can today. How about that?”

“You’re so bitter, Dani.”

“So obtuse, Alex. We’re getting divorced because we are both bitter. Resentment has festered like a plague.”

“How poetic. You deliver your word diarrhea with such great panache that it sounds like a Broadway musical. Panache, there’s a word for you, smarty-pants. ”

“We can no longer fake it till we make it. There is nothing funny about this situation.” That’s when the waterworks began. Her face scrunched up, tears rolled down her cheeks. I couldn’t help but smile. It was a knee-jerk reaction. “You’re smiling? You condescending, fucking ego-monster. Look at you. Nothing. Emotionless, heartless vessel,” she said.

I laughed out loud even though I knew things were escalating for Dani. By this point, she was sobbing. She shook her head, tears pouring from her eyes.

“We didn’t make it,” she said, barely able to speak. And that’s when I actually…finally…felt a modicum of sadness. I could see the despair on her face, yet I still didn’t react. “We didn’t fucking make it, Alex!” she cried and then stormed out of the kitchen with the bottle in hand.

“Does this mean I’m picking up the boys?” I said to the empty kitchen.

I liked to end arguments with moronic statements like that because that’s the way she makes me feel. Like a moron.