Figure
Chapter I: Departures
Author's Note: I very seriously doubt if I really captured Maureen in this, but I tried. Next chapter won't come for a while as I'm off to camp.
"I can't find my way in
I try again and again
I'm on the outside of love
Always under or above
Must be a different viewTo be a me with a you
Of course I'll be all right
I just had a bad night—
I know the last page so well I can't read the first."
--Inside of Love, Nada Surf
"Maureen, I can't take much more of this."
Joanne was lecturing in her courtroom voice, the one she reserved for an argumentive client or a particularly important trial. She was in her persuasive lawyer stance as well—arms folded across her chest, feet planted firmly on the floor, and eyes boring into those of her girlfriend's.
"Is it because I flirted with the girl with the red feather boa?" Maureen feigned innocence, smiling coyly. Usually that was the best way to go.
Joanne simply glared at her. "There was more than one girl." The lawyer sighed. "Maureen, why do you do this? Are you unsatisfied with me? With us?"
"Pookie, no, I—" Maureen didn't know why she was like this. "Isn't this what you love, though?" She asked weakly, feeling the firm ground she usually stood on in arguments such as this slipping away from her. Was Joanne angry enough to leave her?
"You think I love you when you're flirting with other people? Maureen, even you are smarter than that."
Maureen looked away, lips falling into their familiar pout. "I mean—isn't this the part of me that you love? The wild, the crazy… the spontaneous part?" If you don't love that part, is there really anything left of me to love?
Joanne raised a slim eyebrow at her. "The part that needs to have at least five girls or guys drooling over her at any given time?" The woman shook her head, but smiled. "Well…maybe a little."
She leaned over the table and kissed Maureen on the forehead. Maureen took note, from outside her body, of how soft her lips were.
Later that night, Joanne didn't forget to whisper an "I love you" before they went to sleep, even though she hadn't forgotten their fight. Maureen didn't answer but ran a hand through Joanne's hair.
Joanne never forgot to say I love you. She watched sappy old movies with Maureen and made popcorn, not the microwave type but the real kind. No matter how busy she was, she always tried to take Maureen out to lunch at least two or three times a week.
Maureen had never before understood how one person "deserved" or didn't deserve someone else. If you love each other, that's enough, right? But now she understood that she didn't deserve Joanne. Just like she hadn't deserved Mark, who used to be able to watch her for hours behind his camera as she talked to the camera (and him) for hours about herself.
It was always about herself, wasn't it?
Maureen tried to ignore the thought, to tell herself that it wasn't true. But she had never really been comfortable with lying, especially to herself, and she knew that it was true.
She tossed and turned and didn't sleep at all that night.
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"Mark? Don't screeeeeen, it's Maureeeeen." It was early the next morning and Maureen was exhausted but still sounded cheery.
"Maureen? Why are you up at this hour?"
"Did you like my rhyme?" Maureen couldn't help asking, smiling to herself.
"What— Oh…screen, Maureen. I get it, exceedingly clever." Mark was unfailing cynical in the mornings.
"Anyway, is it okay if I come over? Is Roger there?"
"He's asleep so it's fine, what's up?"
"I'm bored, I just wanna talk." Maureen tried hard to sound offhand.
"Well, come on over then, I guess." Was she imagining it, or was there a slightly nervous quaver in Mark's voice?
Maureen hung up the phone and glanced at the kitchen table. Joanne had left a note on it, since she'd left very early for some lawyer's meeting.
Honeybear, it said. I think we need to finish up our talk from last night.
I'll pick up dinner from the Thai place. Love you,
Joanne.
Maureen didn't want to talk. Why couldn't things just be simple? She sighed. Because the real question was, why couldn't she just be satisfied with Joanne for once?
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"Why can't I just be satisfied with Joanne for once?"
Mark seemed to be paying more attention to his tea than to her. He stirred it once, added in a little more milk, and then sipped it carefully, blowing on it a few times.
"Marky!"
He seemed to wilt and collapse in on himself a little bit, eroding before her. "Maybe you two just need some time apart?"
"No… Marky, no. You know I hate being alone, and I—" Maureen stopped, for Mark had pushed his chair back from the table rather violently and stood up, staring at her.
"I'm sorry, Maureen. I can't do this."
"Do…do what?" Maureen's eyes opened wide and she looked innocently at him.
Mark wildly kneaded his hands together and then briefly put his face in his hands. He straightened up, and she recognized the look on his face. She remembered while they were dating, the times he wore that expression were the times she loved him the most. It was the look that announced he had thrown down his camera and was about to say something he believed was deeply important. He was about to be part of or say something that really mattered. She tensed instinctively, waiting for the bomb to drop.
"I'm still in love with you, Maureen." There was the briefest of pauses between that statement and his next, a pause where Maureen found time to reel and then catch herself, grabbing tightly onto the edge of the table. "I'm still in love with you, and I can't sit around and give you advice about your girlfriend. I just can't do it, and I'm sorry." He took another, longer pause. "I think it's best if I just don't see you for a while, okay? I just want some time to get over you, because," He faltered for a moment, "It's hard."
"Marky…" Maureen tried to keep her voice soft and understanding, but she had no idea what to say. Communication isn't my strong point. At least the talking kind. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know, I—"
Mark wasn't looking at her. She stumbled in her attempt to run out the door. She'd fucked up, she knew it. "I'll just go, I think."
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"And then he said he didn't want to see me for a while. To get over me." Maureen finished, staring into her coffee cup as if she could find the meaning to life in its depths.
"If he really loves me, then why is he leaving me?" She asked the man sitting opposite her plaintively.
"Maureen, honey…" Collins smiled warmly at her. "You've got a lot to learn about love."
"What?" Maureen was taken aback. "Collins, you're crazy! This is Maureen Johnson you're talking to, I know lots about love. I had and have Mark, Joanne…and countless others on the side and in between, of course." She gave him a big grin.
Collins shrugged. "If that's what you think love is."
Maureen sagged a little. Why must everyone be so cryptic all the time? "Well, you had it with Angel, didn't you? The real thing, the true thing, and all that?"
Collins nodded, a faraway smile on his face.
"So tell me what it is."
"That, my dear Mo, is something you must figure out for yourself." Collins stood up. "I've got a class in a few minutes, so I'm sorry to say I'm going to have to leave your excellent company, my dear."
"Collins! Wait, hold on!" Maureen dragged him back through the door. "But, I haven't been myself lately, and it's freaking me out, and I just wish I knew what it really felt like, so maybe you could tell me so I could just figure things out! And then I could choose between Joanne and Mark, or maybe I won't have to choose, and I wouldn't be all worried like I am now, and—"
Collins gently shook his head at her. "This is one knot you've got to untangle yourself, Maureen. But I'll give you one word of advice—be careful. You're lucky to have what you have, and you don't want to lose it."
"COLLINS!" Maureen yelled at his retreating back as he left, stomping her foot loudly on the floor. "Fuck." She pouted rather childishly to herself. Be careful of what?
And again, if he really loves me, then why is he leaving me?
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"I think we need some time apart."
Maureen took deep breaths, tried to steady herself, failed, and then dropped her head on the kitchen counter with a loud clunk. She couldn't keep her voice from wavering, climbing octaves all over the place.
"WHY?" Her voice cracked in the middle of the word, though it was muffled since her mouth was pressed into the cool stone of the counter.
"I love you, Maureen." The words hung in the air for a moment. Maureen took another shaky breath before Joanne continued. "But I'm not sure if you return those feelings, so I'm compromising. I'll give you time to figure things out, and if you want to stay with me, I'll stay with you. But that's with no cheating, no flirting. And if you don't," Joanne looked sad for a moment, but the fair and firm lawyer in her prevailed, "I'll try and move on."
She picked up her neatly packed suitcase. "You can stay here, since I'll be staying with some friends."
She was almost out the door when she was hit by a swiftly moving avalanche with wild and curly hair. Maureen nearly mauled Joanne as she forced her away from the doorway, screaming at the top of her lungs.
"Why? I don't want to figure things out I want someone and that's you and I don't want you to leave me please please please cause Mark already left me and I can't take it this isn't what love should be like I just need to find out what it is and then I won't need to cheat anymore I promise and oh if you really love me then why would you ever leave me?"
This was all said very fast and at top volume but the last statement was decipherable enough and Joanne sighed. "Love isn't doing what the other person wants, honeybear. It's doing what the other person needs."
She kissed Maureen quickly and then was gone, leaving a deeply upset woman behind her, who kicked the door offhandedly, hurt her foot, and crawled over to the couch to sulk and wonder.
Need, want, it's the same thing, right? Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. She massaged her foot and groaned quietly. I think I know what I need.
Maureen put on her favorite shirt and a pair of shockingly red leather pants, grabbed her purse and went out. Realization flooded her as she stepped outside—it was goddamn January, and here she was without a coat.
She almost went back inside to get it but the lure of the night and the ice was too much and she walked on down the street, the cold freezing her in that most peculiar way that made all of her senses briefly acute and the air in her lungs burn like fire. It felt wonderful.
She sat down at the bar and ordered a few beers, chatted up some guys, some girls, but then Screw it, I'm single and I'm all alone and I'll admit it I'm fucking scared—cause nobody wants me she progressed quickly to vodka and accepted a joint that one of the guys passed to her furtively.
Maureen didn't usually like weed but tonight was a special occasion. She went home with some guy and then found some girl in another bar that she liked and then made friends with some band and smoked some more and went home with them and then before she knew it two days had passed and she felt like she was failing but at least she knew that people still wanted her.
But she was beginning to understand that they didn't need her. And I wish I didn't.