Lucy is Homely
Lucy is homely.
Lucy is homely, by her own admission, of course. As she will tell you more often than is appropriate, as others have mentioned to her more times than can be presumed decent. She's plain, not a beauty queen, but not aesthetically displeasing. "I know I'm not the hottest fox in the hen house". It's one of many strange analogies Lucy uses to describe herself. Lucy is chalkful of these odd phrases and idioms and many other tiny quirks, you'd miss if you blinked too fast. At another point in life, our relationship would be different. We would just dance to Haim and Beyonce, do drugs in the park, play volleyball on the pier, all the things we loved before but can't quite connect to anymore.
We find ourselves here at a Wednesday meditation class in Prospect Heights. We always enter as if we're strangers, carrying on some sort of secret affair. We sit on opposite sides of the classroom, Lucy next to the monstera, me, by the large window. We inhale and exhale out, both of us releasing control to the dull chime of the Tibetan Singing Bowl as we drift off into our shaky states of consciousness. The instructor begins. I close my eyes and for the next 45 minutes, I try to forget Lucy and myself.
She leaves first. I always trail behind her, catching her half a block later. I ask how she's doing and she gives me a sheepish smile. "Jim?" I ask. She changes the subject to something innocuous and we continue walking together. We make it to the jazz bar we've been to many times over. We walk through dimly lit room, weaving through the rows to grab a table at the back, something close enough to hear the band and far enough to hear ourselves.
As we settle in, we order our drinks and I start one of my weekly suburban dad diatribes. This time it's about the jazz bars I've been to. "Andy's in Chicago is nice, but nothing beats Cleopatra's Needle. If it wasn't for that damn gentrification, she'd be here shining like the crown jewel of New York City jazz". Cleopatra's was a small, no-frills jazz bar, wedged between a Greek restaurant and pizza place on the 94th and Broadway. While it lacked the bells and whistles of a more hoity toity jazz establishment, it had this communal feeling about it. It belonged to the neighborhood. More importantly, It was a place that understood jazz. Jazz is about togetherness, musicians and audience all at once collaborating, adding improvised sound to the space in support of each other. She humors my puritanical rants, a small grin sneaks on her lips as she leans down to sip her gin and tonic. The blue light catches on her uncertain eyes. I can tell there's something playing on her mind. I wince my eyes at her. " We're back together.. Jim and I". Jorgia, the alto sax player starts to play a riff on Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered . I sigh heavy. At this point, I'm the latter two.
Jim is an asshole, the kind of man who is outwardly nice to you to only go home to talk about how stupid he found some arbitrary trait about you. His friends would call him funny, charming, perceptive. But yet, somehow he was unable to uncenter himself enough to notice how much he was always eclipsing Lucy. In group, Lucy told us how often he'd walk through rooms as if she wasn't even there, as if he'd forgotten about her. And in the moment when he'd remembered she is existed, he'd just sling his arm around her, sliding his body onto hers as if she was a worn-in piece of furniture.
When he cheated the second time, it was with a co-worker of his, some small brunette named Jana, who'd lived a few blocks away from him. Jim and Jana had carpooled back home a few times before. And one night, evidently the car just hadn't made it past Jana's house. In group, Lucy had told us how she'd found out, seeing the text from Jana come in as she played Wordle on Jim's phone. Lucy, silly, had refused to pay the "oppressive" cost of the New York Times game subscription but happily took advantage of Jim's subscription especially on nights when she had trouble sleeping. Lucy had just gotten the Wordle and went to set his phone aside for the night when she saw the text come up : "1:23 AM- Thanks for the ride... " She lay there shocked, still, as the intuition made its way through her body, settling in a pit at the bottom of her stomach. She knew, as all women do. Her heart raced and her mind darted in every single direction. She had decided that it was too late to wake him up. And so she lay there all night, sleepless, paralyzed by the sting of betrayal throbbing in her chest. Jim slept peacefully beside her.
When she confronted him the next morning, he called her insecure, unconfident, clingy, obsessive. Two weeks later, she followed Jim and Jana home on their way back from work. Lucy stayed in the car parked across the street watching through the window as Jana made her way up the stairs, Jim following a few footsteps behind her. And when his hand sneakily made it's way towards Jana's lower back, Lucy rolled down the window and called out Jim's name. He turned around from the doorway to look back at her, surprised, eyes shifting as he tried to formulate a lie to explain his hand and foot placement. Later that night, he called Lucy crazy.
I look down at my bottoming out Old-fashion, contemplating whether or not more bourbon would help the situation. The jazz singer's voice dances in my ear, thick and smoky as she sings "Men are not a new sensation. I've done pretty well I think". Lucy scans my face waiting for a reaction. She glances down at my hands, tapping along in the EFT pattern I'd learned to calm my nervous system . "Lucy, why are you going back? And please don't say the words he's changed. It's been barely two months…" Lucy stops me "I hear you. But he's been reading all these books The Will to Change , All About Love. He's unpacking his toxic masculinity. He's learning." I swear these words are crack cocaine for the girls. The tempo starts to pick up and I glance around the room, noticing it's filled up quite a bit since we'd first gotten there. I meet Lucy's eyes. She swirls her straw in the drink, hitting the ice around the glass as the piano solo begins. What feels like hours pass between us as I take time to find a way to react.
In our women's group, we talk about accountability, keeping each other safe, leaning outward for support and providing it without judgment. I am sucking back the words I want to say, trying to figure out how to meet the hopefulness in her voice. I know where she's been. The apologies, the promises of change echo so loudly in my head that I begin to feel anxious. We all know where she's been. There's not a woman in that group that hasn't said some variation of Lucy's words :
"He's changed."
" He said he was changing" "He's working on himself"
"He's in therapy now"
"He got a new therapist"
"He's been reading the (Insert Book written by the Gottman Institute, Marianne Williamson, or bell hooks)
They say these words proudly, as the rest of us sit back graciously listening, casually holding our breaths. We're all waiting for the inevitable moment - where the woman will eventually trail off to say, either in that meeting or the one a few weeks later,
"I guess he didn't".
"He did it again"
"He hurt me again"
My eyes glance up to meet her. "Lucy it's only been a few weeks. He's just lonely and he knows you still love him." It comes out sharper than I mean it to. I quickly backpedal trying to clean up my clumsy delivery.
"In every story you've ever told me about him, you never talk about him being nice to you. He's not nice to you Lucy. He's never nice to you Lucy. He's abu.."
The waitress interrupts us to ask if we'd like another round. Lucy orders another gin and tonic. I tell the waitress I'm still deciding. She asks me if I want something sweet or more on the sour side. I contemplate asking her if she has anything that will allow me to evaporate from this room and magically be transported to an island in the Pacific. After another second, I settle on another Old-Fashioned.
Lucy begins to speak, but I cut her off, feeling the urge to belabor the point.
"He's nicest when he wants something. And I'm afraid that the thing he wants isn't you, it's just your company. I think he just wants someone around, someone other than his own miserable self-hating self.
And you, you're wonderful. You aren't just someone. You should be wanted."
Lucy snaps back, with a tone that makes me unsure if she's trying to convince me or herself - "He does want me. He loves me. I know it's hard to explain but I believe him. I believe in him. I know he's changing."
The piano solo is over and I reach my hands to instinctually clap, but off-beat, a little unsteady from the boldness of her declaration.
Lucy is homely, brown slightly reddish hair mid-shoulder length, outdated dorky glasses, awkwardly cut bangs grazing her forehead. Jim was strong, burly, confident and conventionally attractive. He's everything she thought she'd never get. She'd been waiting on him to notice her for years, as he cycled through a barrage of women attracted to his charisma and intellect. But with her, he had settled down. He'd picked her. He'd picked her. And there's something unexplainably intoxicating about being chosen by someone who never makes up his mind.
She wouldn't just let him go. She'd miss meditation class next week as she'd find herself busy replaying a familiar tune.
Peace, then disruption
Abuse, apology
You're pathetic. You're weak.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
Hope for a change,
back to the same,
Start again and repeat this time more slowly.
Manipulation
Then lying,
Then hurting,
Then crying,
Then depression
Rounds out the lesson and here she'd be back in Group with all of us
on Mondays
at 7,
Then meditation class
on Wednesdays Nights
in Prospect Heights
With me.
And after, she'd be sitting across from me at some other bar, wondering how he could hurt her again, wondering why he could never seem to stop, asking what evil thing inside of him had gotten loose and destroyed the good man that she knew ?
"I know you're worried, but I promise I know how to protect myself and I'll know when to leave this time." Lucy says assuredly.
The song is ending. The drumsticks are lightly brushing on the high hat. I flash her a smile and she looks back at me swirling the ice in her new glass.
"I'm here for you if you need me."
She grabs my hand and says " Thanks for always being peachy to me."
I roll my eyes at her and she laughs. We talk about something mundane, the eyebrows on the bass player. I start some debate about the place of guitar in jazz music.
She missed group the next week and the two weeks after. On the third week, Jim had told her ."She's pathetic and weak". She sat on my bedroom floor crying for 3 hours. I caught her eyes bewildered and hurt by an all-too familiar pain. I cover the mirror so she doesn't see herself this way.
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