Page 7 of Alone With You in the Ether

the narrator:Foreshadowing, baby!

Aldo exhaled the taste of burning, the film of it coating his tongue, and then put out the smoldering end of the joint. He had as much of a buzz as he needed, and sleep felt pointless for the night.

Aldo disliked the sensation of being asleep. It felt something very close to being dead, which was an uncomplicated and therefore troubling state of being. He wondered if bees felt that way when their wings stopped beating. Though, he wondered if they ever did. He wondered what a bee would do if it knew its life’s work was contributing to the ecosystems of fancy toasts. Would that be enough to compel it to stop?

Doubtful.

Aldo made his way back to his apartment and fell onto his bed, staring up at the track lighting overhead. He alternated between opening one eye, then the other. He could read, maybe. He could watch a movie. He could do anything, really, if he wanted.

11,400 beats per minute was really something.

He closed his eyes and let his mind wander, settling into the buzz of his thoughts.

“So, Charlotte—”

Regan fought the urge to flinch and ultimately managed it, opting instead to tuck one ankle behind the other and angle herself slightly away, facing the window. She itched to cross her legs—to fold in on herself entirely—but some habits couldn’t be unlearned, and her mother had taken her social cues from Queen Elizabeth: no legs crossed. Regan suspected she would have also been forced to wear pantyhose, too, if anyone had ever bothered to make it in her skin tone.

“How are your moods lately?” the doctor asked. She was a nice enough woman; well-intentioned, at least. She had a comforting, matronly air to her and the sort of bosom Regan imagined grandchildren nesting into. “You mentioned during our last session that you sometimes feel restless.”

Regan knew enough about the practices of clinical psychology to recognize that ‘restlessness’ in this particular space was code for ‘mania,’ which was in turn code for ‘falling into her old ways’—at least, if her mother were here to translate.

“I’m fine,” Regan said, which wasn’t code for anything.

In fact, shewasfine. She had enjoyed her walk here from the Art Institute, passing Grant Park as she aimed herself towards Streeterville. The streets were buzzing with people, which was why she liked it. It felt very alive and full of possibility, unlike this particular room.

Regan often opted to take a meandering path on her way to her bi-weekly appointments, passing contemplatively by all the doors she might have entered while the shops were closing and the restaurants were starting to fill. She had been thinking about what she might want to eat that evening—pasta sounded good, but then again pasta always sounded good, and either way prosecco sounded better—and whether or not she’d make it to yoga in the morning when she’d suddenly recalled that she had yet to check her phone.

The narrator, a beloved kindergarten teacher: Regan’s consistent unreachability was once a carefully honed practice that had gradually become a habit. When Regan was younger, she had coveted the prospect of a call or a text; it meant, primarily, attention. It meant that she had filled the vacancy of someone else’s thoughts. Then, after a while, she began to understand that there was power in devaluing her worth to others. She started to place limits on herself; she wouldn’t check her phone for ten minutes. Then for twenty. Eventually she’d space hours between, making a point to direct her thoughts elsewhere. If others were forced to wait for her time, she thought, then she would not have to owe so much of herself to them. Now, Regan is so very talented at being completely unreliable that people have started to call it a weakness. She takes some pride in their misconceptions; it means people can always be fooled.

“How are things with your boyfriend?” asked her psychiatrist.

On Regan’s phone had been the expected dick pic from Marc; he was wearing the white Calvins that Regan had bought for him some weeks after they’d moved in together.

the narrator: Marc Waite and Charlotte Regan met at a bar about a year and a half ago, back when Regan was planning a gallery opening with a friend. She’d selected the venue, determined the artists and the pieces, and then she’d met Marc. He’d been going down on her in the bathroom of the Hancock Signature Room—in Regan’s opinion, the best view of the city was from the women’s restroom on the 95th floor—when she received a voicemail from her father listing the ways that her subject of choice,The Fraught Lies of Beauty, was inappropriate for someone who had only narrowly avoided federal prison for white collar crime. “There’s candor, Charlotte, and then there’s hubris,” he’d ranted into her voicemail. She had not actually listened to the message until close to three days later.

“What’s your boyfriend’s name? Marcus?”

“Marc,” Regan said, which he preferred. “He’s fine.”

Which he was, generally speaking. He was something-something hedge funds. He didn’t ask for very much from Regan, which was ideal, because she didn’t typically give very much. If they tired of each other, they simply didn’t speak. They were good at occupying each other’s spaces. She often thought of him as an accessory that matched with everything; some sort of magical mood ring that adapted to whatever persona she had currently filled. When she wanted silence, he was silent. When she wanted to talk, he was generally apt to listen. When she wanted sex, which she often did, he was easily persuaded. Eventually she would marry him, and then everything she was would vanish into his name. She’d attend parties as Mrs. Marcus Waite, and no one would ever have to know a thing about her. She could shrug him on like some kind of cloak of invisibility and vanish entirely from sight.

Not that he wanted her to. If there was one thing Regan would willingly say about herself, it was that she was an ornament, a novelty, a party trick. She was the center of attention when she wished to be, quick-witted and charming and impeccably dressed, but those types of girls grew dull when there were no eccentricities or blemishes. The world loved to take a beautiful woman and exclaim at the charm of her single imperfection; Marilyn Monroe’s mole, or Audrey Hepburn’s malnutrition. It was the same reason Marc took no issue with Regan’s past. He didn’t mind that she had once required reinvention; she doubted he’d take an interest in her if he couldn’t elevate himself with her flaws.

“You’ve been getting along lately, then?”

“Yes,” Regan said. “We’re fine.”

They always got along, because getting along required the least of their energy. Marc would consider a fight to be a poor use of his time. He liked to smile at Regan when she argued, preferring to let her tire herself out.

“And your family?” the psychiatrist asked.

Regan’s phone had contained two voicemails: one from her psychiatrist asking if she could come to her session an hour earlier (she hadn’t received it and had come at her usually scheduled time, it was fine, nobody died), and one from her sister, earlier that evening.

“I know you won’t get this for like, a month,” Madeline said, “but Mom and Dad want you home for their anniversary party. Just let me know if you’re bringing someone, okay? Seriously, that’s all I need. Just text me back a number. One or two, but zero is not acceptable. And don’t just send me a cryptic series of gifs again, it’s not as funny as you think. Are you going to wear that wrap dress you just bought? Because I was going t- ah, hang on, Carissa wants to speak to you.” A pause. “Honey, you can’t tell me you want to speak to Auntie Charlotte and then refuse.” Another pause. “Sweetheart, please, Mommy is very tired right now and you’re going to lose your good behavior stickers. Do you want to talk to Auntie Charlotte or not?” A long pause, and then a shrill giggle. A sigh, “Okay, fine, whatever. Carissa misses you. Though, I can’t believe I have to say this, but please do not buy her more chewing gum, that peanut butter trick only does so much. God, she’s just like you as a kid, I swear. Alright, bye Char.”

Regan thought about Carissa Easton, who was probably wearing a lace headband, perhaps with bows, and a velvet dress whose washing instructions demanded dry cleaning; not simply ‘dry clean,’ which was simply the best method, but ‘dry cleanonly,’ which was the exclusive method, and which was a distinction that Madeline Easton, nèe Regan, would know.

the narrator: In reality, Carissa was not much like Regan. Her mother adored her, for one thing, and she was an only child, or at least a future oldest child. Carissa would be more like Madeline one day, which was precisely why Regan made a point to send her chewing gum.

---