CHAPTER FOUR
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. (Albert Einstein)
Having prepared the evening’s sedation, Gareth lightly raps on the bedroom door. “Peanut? Sweety? How are you doing?” he asks, slowly opening the door and gasping when he sees Plenty standing frozen in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection, donned in her wedding accoutrement, her eyes puffed and red, her face a cadaverous shade of macabre.
Plenty doesn’t notice Gareth standing in the doorway, his mouth and eyes gaping wide. She has blocked everything out but her reflection. All that she can hear is a whooshing sound in her ears. She feels out-of-body eerie as she senses herself floating above this mirage, looking down, watching herself go through the motions of breathing, wondering why this poor, pathetic creature isn’t moving. Who is she? Why is she dressed like this? Why does she look so dejected and pointless?
Knowing that Plenty desperately needs saving from herself before she morphs into some sad and wretched character staring in her own Greek tragedy, Gareth shakes himself out of his stupor—trying to quickly recover from the image before him. Coming up behind her, he gently takes her shoulders and turns her away from her pathetic reflection, guiding her to the bed and sitting her down.
“Peanut, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t torture yourself,” he says as he rubs her back. “Come on, let’s get you out of this costume and into your comfy robe and fuzzy slippers.”
Plenty nods and sniffs, her chin trembling as she slowly reaches up and pulls the hat from her head, then sullenly looking down lets it drop to the floor.
Reaching down and picking up the symbolic head joy, Gareth carelessly tosses it on the bed as he focuses his attention on the disheveled disaster in front of him. “You look like the High Priestess of Gloom in this,” he says while standing Plenty up and helping her out of her dress and into her robe. “That’s better,” he clucks as he finishes wrapping her in downy comfort and leads her out of the tomblike room.
Like a zombie, Plenty follows, clutching her dress and trailing it behind her like a child dragging a limp rag-doll.
Not bothering to attempt taking the now wrinkled and tear stained dress from her hands—she seems to be clutching on to it as if it were a security blanket—Gareth plunks Plenty down on the sofa and watches as she mindlessly caresses the piece of couture that has instantly become a symbolic rag, a tattered and tainted scrap of material, never to be cherished, but only forsaken, while he pours the champagne. “Here,” he says, handing her a glass, “let’s get pissed.”
Still feeling like a lodger in the State of Limbo, Plenty unconsciously reaches out, taking the glass of champers and downing it in one gulp as Gareth continues to pour, glass after glass, until bottle one becomes a dead soldier and bottle two is uncorked. This is the temporary cure that his poor peanut needs.
And he’s right, because Plenty’s senses are beginning to numb as a feeling of lightness washes through her. She slumps over on to Gareth’s side, and with a natural reflex his protective arm wraps securely around her. “You poor old trout,” he mutters, kissing the top of her head while she nods in agreement and sighs as a single rogue tear trickles down her cheek.
“This is a nightmare of monumental proportions,” she declares when she finally speaks. “Why does it feel like everything I touch turns to big brown steaming lumps of smelly SHITE, instead of gold? My life is a constant SNAFU: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.”
Hugging her even tighter, Gareth coos lovingly, “You’re pathetic.”
“I’m a fart in the butt crack of life. I’m a ridiculous idiot, a nincompoop, a boob, a … a dufus …”
“Hey, hey – that’s my best mate you’re berating,” Gareth gently scolds.
“And she feels like a fool’s fool, a … an oafish maladroit, completely gauche. Oh let’s face it, I’ll never find anyone. I mean, who in their right mind is ever going to put up with my cloddish self? Except you, of course. You love me just as I am, warts and all,” she says, looking lovingly up at her Sparky with wet, blood shot eyes.
“Well, someone has to. It appears that I have been assigned the task, the dirty deed. It’s my lot in life, the burden that I must bear,” he quips melodramatically, and they both giggle, thus dissipating some of the funky air that has settled into their stratosphere.
“Oh, Sparky, why do I keep falling in love with totally inappropriate, emotionally unavailable men? He who shall no longer be named being no exception to the Plenty-tragic-romance rule,” Plenty sighs. “I mean, I’m sick. I have an incurable illness called brainfart-itus syndrome, manifesting itself within lack-of-self-control cells when long bouts of self-pity and aloneness exist, cells that are located in my irrational and foolish cranium maximus. I mean, what was I thinking? I was in way over my head with someone like him. Am I crazy?”
“Yup, you’re absolutely masochistically delusional and tragic,” Gareth laughs, “but, at least you haven’t lost your self-deprecating sense of humor in your turbulent emotional state.”
“Yeah, well, it’s all I have left in my tragic tale of what is and what might have been. They’re a real tearjerker, these harsh realities of my sad and tragic existence … real pot boilers.”
“Now, don’t be a drama queen,” Gareth cheekily scolds, “that’s my job. I’m the director in charge of Find-a-crisis, Create-a-drama, and don’t you forget it!”
“Can you believe he jilted me on a Post-it, of all things?!” Plenty continues, the alcohol having stirred up a feisty spark. “Has my life become a sitcom? I can picture it now, everyone standing around the water cooler every Monday morning discussing the latest comically ironic fiasco that is my existence as I go forth into a spiraling meltdown in each episode, thus making their lives seem sunny and perfect in comparison. I am the quintessential definition of dysfunction.”
“Well, at least it was a pretty pink Post-it. I’ve always felt that the right color makes even the direst state of affairs pop! It’s crucial,” Gareth teases.
“Oh sure, that’s all you care about – color coordination,” Plenty says, looking up and putting on her best pouty face. “You don’t care.” Then her plump, pouty lips turn up into a smirk, because she knows that of all the people in the universe, Gareth so cares … would lay down his life for her.
“Nope, don’t give a toss,” Gareth says drolly as he pours the last drops of bottle number two, gets up, stretches and goes into the kitchen to fetch number three.
“But, ouch. It hurts. Very, very ouch,” Plenty shouts while she reaches for one of Gareth’s Silk Cuts, lighting it and taking a long drag, coughing and gagging as she exhales—Plenty only ever smokes when she’s shit-faced drunk, or in this case shit-faced drunk and devastated. Giving up, she stubs the cig out and curls up into a ball in the corner of the sofa. “John was the cat … no … lion and I was the meek, submissive little mouse that he was batting around, toying with until he ate me up and spit out my pitiful remains,” she continues to lament.
By now Gareth has come back with a fresh bottle of comatose inducing liquid, and as he stands facing Plenty he shakes his head at the pathetic and wretched sight before him, curled up in fetal style as he uncorks the bottle and pours another round.
Plenty looks up at him, her face red from choking on his Silk Cut, her nose raw from blowing, her eyes morose and bloodshot, and her face a pasty shade of white. “I know. I’m a demented tosser. I feel as if I’m past my sell-by-date; old, ancient, archaic, beyond the edge of logic.” She sits up, making room for Gareth, then plops her legs on his lap when he sits down. “I can’t believe I was so blind. That I didn’t see this coming. How could I not see that I was just some temporary rebound thing to him … I meant nothing to him. And when did I become deaf … I mean, there always was a tone to his words that sounded so rehearsed and hollow, how did I not hear that then? How did this happen? When did this happen? Why did this happen? Did you see this coming?”
Gareth nods his head.
“That figures. Sam probably did too. I’m the only one who was clueless,” Plenty says, thumping her forehead with the palm of her hand. Then, looking at Gareth with brows knitted and eyes squinting in a questioning manner, she asks the trillion quid question, “Why didn’t you say something? You’re meant to be my friend, my best and closest confidant, my significant other … my plus one … and you didn’t warn me about any of this? All of this could have been prevented … if …” Her lips roll out into a piteous pout with the last comment as Gareth rolls his eyes to the ceiling.
“Blimey,” he says as he leans forward and faces her, saying matter-of-factly, “From my vast experience, old darling, I have learned that when one is in the throes of a feverish love, one becomes deaf, dumb and blind to the voices of reason. Hence why I kept my big, juicy gob shut for a change. You. Would. Not. Have. Listened. All I could do was be there for you and support you in whatever you were doing – even though I couldn’t stand the git.”
As Plenty listens, deep down inside, she knows that he’s right. She wouldn’t have listened to any advice or warnings, even from him. She had to learn, yet another lesson, the hard and painful way. And now she wonders if it’s possible for her to ever get it right.
A poor me sigh flutters from her mouth as she sprawls back into the sofa and the back of her hand rests on her forehead in manner of Dame Woebegone. “He diddled with my emotions,” she suddenly spews forth in a torrent of angst. “Played with my heart. Used me, leaving me a raw, festering bundle of uncertainty … a … a vacuous black hole of nothingness.”
Gareth gives her a “You’re doing my head in” look and says, “Hello, bitter party of one … Blimey! Wuthering Heights wasn’t this heartrendingly tragic, or lamentable. Puuhleeeze, spare me the theatrics.”
Hoisting herself up, Plenty leans forward and rests her head in her hands, looking every inch the spurned damsel while Gareth continues, “I know, men can be such beasts … sometimes. Oh, Peanut, listen to your Gareth, John was just a plot point in your life, not worthy of a chapter. This is just a temporary catastrophic setback. This too shall pass. Do you hear me?”
Plenty nods her head reluctantly and starts to cry – again.
“Oh, Bu, it’ll be all right. Come here,” Gareth says, pulling Plenty over and cradling her in his arms. “Now, stop. Shush. You’re my family, and I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I’m here for you. Don’t let him take the best of you. He isn’t worth losing sleep over, or spending thoughts on … never was.”
A doleful smile niggles at the corners of her mouth as Plenty straightens up, blows her nose, guzzles her champagne and holds the glass out for a refill. “You’re right, of course … you’re right. Ugh, I’m a total clod when it comes to men, aren’t I? A total addle-brained bovine. Dysfunction is alive and well, and living in the land of Plenty! Oh, well,” she heaves, “it’s okay, I would have been a crap wife, anyway. Now this will be my dirty little secret. Oh, Sparky, why can’t I get my act together? I mean, I really do have a brain in my head. I’m not a total half-wit. I did graduate summa cum laude in English Literature, so why do I flounder? Am I in the throes of a pre-pre-mid-life crises? Should I find the meaning of my life in a Deepak Chopra guide to life’s fulfillment, enlightenment and completeness? Should I be questioning the meaning of life … like, who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Where have I been? Should I abandon my materialistic existence and search for the higher meaning? I mean, I’m thirty-five and all I feel is mixed up and confused. How sad and pathetic is that? I haven’t accomplished what I set out to do. I have yet to pen the great literary novel to end all great literary novels. I’ve had writers block for ten years. I’m a sodding poncy tosspot!” Finishing her diatribe, Plenty heaves another sigh and donning her best poor-me pouty face, says, “I don’t know. Maybe I should just admit failure, accept defeat, pack it all in, lock myself away and listen to sad FM, easy listening muzak for the over 30’s for the remainder of my days until I take up residence in the big retirement village in the sky.”
“Yes, Miss Havisham,” Gareth sputters as he rolls his eyes at her self-critical mauling while at the same time smiling upon hearing the nickname that Plenty had given him years ago.
After knowing Gareth for about a nanosecond, Plenty started calling him Sparky because he was always so upbeat, so glimmery and beaming, air-kissing everyone in sight, leaving a flurry of exhilaration in his wake, he absolutely sparkled … still does. It’s nearly impossible to be down when you’re around him. The pet name stuck and he loves it.
“Well, I am a Miss Havisham. I’ve been jilted, so now I will make it my life-long mission to denounce love,” Plenty pouts, needing much more tea and sympathy than she thinks she’s getting – her bruised ego is starving for it. “This was utterly soul destroying, y’know. Completely, from top to bottom, mortally degrading and deflating, and I am mortally wounded.”
“Peanut, you are a lunatic – farting bonkers. You’re a very deep and brooding intellectual, you just haven’t found your muse, yet … or your Sir Spot-on. Enough said.”
“But, at this point I don’t think I ever will. I’ll never get my act together. I feel so tatty, every waking moment,” Plenty groans. “I’m just a big, fat loser.” She makes an “L” with her left thumb and index finger, placing it on her forehead.
“Well, you could lose a stone or two, and you are a walking fashion disaster—urbane and sophisticated you’re not. Always remember, my pixie one, cigarettes don’t kill people, bad fashion does. But you’re in well manicured hands, so not to worry. I’ll take care of the tat. Your fairy-god-stylist will never let you down. A tweak here, a refinement there and voilà, le fabuleux. And, you are not a loser,” Gareth reassures. He loves his little peanut so and hates to see her in such a self-loathing frame of mind. He doesn’t want to see her putting up shells. She needs to keep what little romantic optimism she might still have intact, that is if it hasn’t already been buried deep under piles of hot, mucky excrement, becoming impossible to ever retrieve from the dung heap.
That beastly, shite, git, wanker John, Gareth screams to himself with a sudden testosterone-fueled volcanic fury, he’s not worthy of the ground she walks on and I hope he rots in hell – pompous arse. How dare he do this to my peanut. If I ever see him again I’ll piss on him. I want to cut his balls off and give them back as cufflinks.
What would I do without my Sparky? Plenty sighs. He’s my rock, my safety net. The one and only good thing that’s ever happened in my life. The only one who’s loved me for me – as I am, at face value.
“Why does my life always go so squiffy?” Plenty asks rhetorically, breaking into their reflective silences. “Just when I think I’ve got it right, it all seems to go completely and irrevocably pear shaped, in every aspect of my life … my career … my love life … my looks … not exactly lucky in the gene pool draw, was I?” Suddenly she laughs wryly, “In a parallel universe there’s another me walking around and I’m a willowy, statuesque, wanton sex goddess, who is number one on the New York Times best seller list and has mankind fawning all over her … I mean, me,” which makes Gareth laugh spontaneously, nearly spitting out the champagne that he just took a sip of.
“But, seriously,” Plenty continues, “I don’t want to become a member of the wrinkly brigade having accomplished nothing in my life – a big, fat, corpulent zero.”
“Enough shoulda-woulda-coulda angst! Drama, drama, drama. Stop wallowing in self-pity. Fester, fester, fester. Your brain is going to get all pruney if you don’t stop. You are divine. Cute as a button, and don’t you ever forget it. Listen, I love you more than my Louis Vuitton luggage, but you really are getting on my last gay nerve,” Gareth chides, getting worked up and frustrated. “Really, why is it that you couldn’t see the cracked veneer of John-the-Wanker, that was oozing with flaws, but when it comes to your exquisite little self all you can see are grotesque blemishes and ulcerating scabs that you can’t stop picking at?”
“I don’t know!” Plenty says, insecurely hugging her knees into herself and resting her chin on them as her eyes blink rapidly. “Sorry? Oh … shit. I don’t know. Ugh! Every time I take off, I fly up my own butt, don’t I? I mean, for feck’s sake, I was jilted with a Post-it! Could he not have been more cavalier about it?”
“STOP!!! This is not your fault. You! Did! Nothing! Wrong!” Gareth stresses while delicately tapping her brow with his index finger. “John’s an emotional fuckwit and you can do so much better than him. Why would you want to settle? You have so much to give. You just need to find someone who will give you the warm, tender love that you so deserve. Someone who will see you for who you really are: kind … warm … affectionate … intelligent. Someone like – me! Only straight, of course,” he points out, bluntly putting the truth of the matter in Plenty’s face. “You are well rid of him. He could never give you what you need. He never got you, and never would. He’d never have seen or appreciated the real you, nor did he. You would have lived a life of sheer misery if you’d married him. Andrew Lloyd Webber would have written a new musical in your honor: ‘La Femme en Les Misérablè’, starring you!” Then affecting a professorial voice he says, “Repeat this until you whisper it in your sleep, ‘Marriage with John, Mr. Oh-so-wrong, would have been tantamount to a prison sentence, or a death sentence.’”
Something in what Gareth is saying slowly begins to seep into Plenty’s innate senses as she relaxes, leans her head back and soaks in his wise words. He’s right – again. And it’s true, she and John would never have made it past year one in the Kingdom of Matrimony, and in her heart of hearts she knows it – besides, all that domesticity, settling down, being grown up, doing laundry, marriage claptrap … well, whatever possessed her to think that it’s for her. Why, it threatened the very fabric of her freedom. Really, her, a smug married – of all things! But the distasteful thought of John canoodling with his ex-troll right under her little turned-up nose just won’t go away, and it makes her blood boil, whipping her into a frenzy.
Suddenly she sits bolt upright, looks at Gareth and spits with animosity, “He cheated on me! How very dare he! How dare he humiliate me, and degrade and demean me – and mock my feelings for him. How dare he toss me aside like a used toy that a child is bored with – like … as if … I have no feelings … no heart … no soul. I hope he and that trollop … that … that harpy burn in hell. I hope she cheats on him and he finds her screwing the balls off some Adonis in their marital bed!”
“That’s right,” Gareth says, egging her on, “get mad.”
“Vile – vile – vile!” she spews some more.
Then, because curiosity always gets the better of him, Gareth asks, “Did you ever meet her?” which causes Plenty to stop her diatribe in mid-spew and look at Gareth with a befuddled expression, the question having frozen her in her tracks as she instantly deflates like a popped balloon, and curling up into a little ball, she leans against him and mumbles, “No. But I’ve seen pictures of her,” afraid that if she says it too loud the strumpet will take on a solid shape and manifest itself into reality and not remain a vaporous, inane object, but, in fact, will materialize into the diabolical entity that has just ripped her fantasy of a happy ever after ending to shreds, “and she’s gorgeous – runway-model stunning.”
“Ouch,” Gareth winces, sorry that his hunger for nosiness has won out over common-sense and discretion. He can feel Plenty sinking into herself, again, and right when he thought he was making progress with her self-esteem. Stupid!
“Yeah, ouch,” Plenty sighs, hugging into Gareth even deeper, dissolving back into fetal position. Then, looking up at him with a flicker of buoyancy in her eyes, she says, “But she looks as shallow as he is – empty eyes – a phony smile – an artificial shell disguising itself as a human being – bogus and fake. They deserve each other.”
“Well, you’re not shallow, my little peanut,” Gareth says, kissing the top of her head and hugging her, “and you are too good for him. He didn’t deserve you. You really are so much better off without him. You’ll see.”
“Yeah,” Plenty heaves and shudders. “He blows, doesn’t he?”
“Well, not me – but, in general? – yeah, he does,” Gareth agrees. “He’s a big, bad cad.”
A tiny smirk of self-satisfaction crosses Plenty’s lips as she thinks, with a spark of confidence, I’ll be all right. I have my Sparky … my protector and defender. He always makes me feel special, and he loves me unconditionally, beyond question … as I do him. I just need to find a straight Gareth. Someone who will get me and love me as I am … that’s all!
Breaking into what appear to be reflective thoughts before her emotions take another nosedive and crash, Gareth seizes the opportunity to do the subject changing thingy, “I cannot believe that I’m about to say this, but this is more drama than even I can take. You need to move on and quickly. You absolutely need to get away from here. Your life needs a new injection of life!”
And chewing on what he’s saying, Plenty couldn’t agree more. As usual Gareth is spot on. “I know. My life has become a predictable plot point, hasn’t it? Chock-a-block with unfunny situations and boring, clichéd characters, and if that’s my future, all that I have to look forward to, then count me out.”
Perfect, Gareth thinks, now I can plant some seeds in that little germinating noggin of hers. “I think that it’s time to reinvent your squeaky wheel, Bubbala.”
But just as she is about to ask how, the phone rings, making them jump a mile out of their fuzzy slippers. A look of panic strikes Plenty’s face. Uh, oh…
“I’ll get it,” Gareth says, getting up and crossing the room, hoping that this train of thought he has her riding on doesn’t derail. “Hello? … Oh, hi … Fab, you’re a peach … Okay … Her emotions have been riding a tidal wave, but she’s getting better by the champagne injected minute … Cheers, luv … I will … Talk to you tomorrow, kiss, kiss; chow.”
“Who was that?”
“Sam, asking how you are, and telling me that what I asked her to do earlier was done.”
“About tomorrow?”
“Yes, Peanut. All has been taken care of,” Gareth informs as he starts clearing away spent bottles and empty glasses. “Are you hungry, because I’m famished. That last bottle of bubbly is getting to me. How about a pizza?”
“You know me, I never turn down food. And, yes, I’m hungry.” Plenty never says no to a lovely slice of comfort food, especially one that has her name on it, Häagen-Dazs should have been her middle name. No matter what catastrophic disaster of ruinous proportions has or is whipping up a storm in her life, and her stomach, the one thing she never loses is her appetite. She has never been A. too busy, B. too excited, C. too distressed or D. too sick to eat. “You know where my takeaway menus are.”
“Where the pots and pans should be,” Gareth laughs, going into the kitchen to riffle through the plethora of menus that Plenty has, finding a restaurant from the North End that delivers. “On its way,” he informs, coming back into the living room, having put in the pizza order with a Tiramisu chaser for afters, and handing Plenty a large gin and tonic. “Here, I switched our poison. Cheers, Sweety, to a new beginning – a fresh start.” (Clink, clink)
“So, what is my fresh start, then? This ‘reinvention’ of me?” Plenty asks, picking the last subject back up, feeling lightheaded from all the booze, but better about her situation. John is a first-class wanker and she knows it. Oh, the pain will continue to flare-up from time to time, like waves of nausea washing through her heart and her pride—and a chapter in her life that she will not easily forget—but the initial shock is now a distant and numb jolt, a thunderstorm now rumbling far away, slowly dissipating into thin air. She’s with her Sparky—her abode of the heart, her support, her cheer and her comfort in this deranged, schizophrenic, loony world—so all is well.
“Well,” Gareth begins, relieved that the shifted mood is still intact, and having already formulated a plan, hoping that Plenty will agree, “In my high, exalted, informed and unassailable opinion, I think you should live this quasi life of yours elsewhere. Put your big girl panties on, pack your bags and your pea sized brain and come back to London with me.” And with each utterance Gareth’s voice rises in an excited crescendo. “Call it quits here and flee this near fatal accident!”
As he rattles on, Plenty begins to breathe a mental sigh of relief. He’s right, it’s time for her to cut her losses and move on, away from this place and all its painful reminders of her failures, and quickly, or risk turning into a demented romantic atheist with no hope for a date with destiny, tottering into antiquity in manner of half-wit, becoming frightfully mundane and emotionally blocked forever, unable to write another word for the remainder of her life … quelle nightmare … quelle horreur!
She loves London, and the thought of always having her Sparky nearby is very tempting.
When her six months at London University had come to an end and she’d had to return to Boston to finish her degree it had broken both her and Gareth’s heart. She had never felt so close to one human being, and she had fallen in love with London, those six months had been the best and happiest times of her life.
But one thing or another had happened in Plenty’s life, and even though Gareth kept pleading with her over the years to move to London, she hadn’t—the thought of moving to another continent … well, it had daunted her into inaction.
But now, it feels as if destiny is calling her, like the mythical mermaids singing their unearthly siren songs, telling her that it’s time, telling her to go with the flow – luring her. So before those brute bullies Anxiety, Fear and Doubt wrestle her to the floor, she decides to turn a deaf ear to them and go with the moment, with a little nudge from Gareth, her Lorelei. But it isn’t a shipwreck she’s headed to, that has already happened. This is the defining moment where she will pick up the fragments and rubble, and salvage this wreckage called her life. She’d listened to her instincts more than fifteen years ago, moving in with Gareth, and that had been the best decision of her life … it’s time to repeat the past … to come full circle.
But first, a little tit-for-tat winding up is due Gareth. Plenty dons her best faux Nervous Nelly expression and, “Hmmm, stay here and wallow in self-pity or go to London with you and get my confidence back … what to do, what to do … thinking, thinking … I don’t know, the words scary and daunting come to mind…” Then, seeing Gareth’s face drop ten stories, she puts him out of his misery (her soft heart just can’t torment her Sparky), announcing emphatically, “Okay. I’ll do it!”
Gareth’s mouth drops to the floor, in a good way this time (he’s not used to anyone taking the mickey, especially Plenty, that’s his domain), yes he had hoped, but in reality never imagined that she would actually say, “yes”. “Holy-Judy-Garland-Wizzard-of-Oz! Really? Truly? You will?” he rambles, agog with animated elation. “Oh, Peanut, good times!”
