Love and the Phantom Queen of Suburbia

Who's Gonna Drive You Home?

Trigger Warning: Brief Mention of a Car Accident

Before I met my eventual baby-daddy, who later became an estranged, then excommunicated, ex-husband, there was you, with your vintage muscle cars and butterfly knife. You could whip the knife around so fast, the blades blurred. It was the bane of every pizza delivery box, as you'd use them for target practice. You also had an old but effective stereo that said "Loudness" instead of "Volume."

For years after we parted ways, I would drive down the street we used to take to the apartment you shared with your roommate, and reminisce. It's still one of my favorite roads in the city, even in its mild state of disrepair. I avoid it in the winter when the roads are bad, since I was also once in a collision there, when the other driver slipped out of their lane and hit me, while "Eye of the Tiger" played. Even at that, the location holds more good memories than bad.

At one point, someone at work had begun discussing the characters from the movie Grease and which one of them each of us might be. You and I were Kenickie and Rizzo, according to popular vote. There was even a couple with our names specifically in Dazed and Confused, as someone else had observed. I had hoped all that made us meant to be; you had other ideas. I'm okay with that now, but I still treasure one of the moments where it felt like something almost happened, or could have.

I had gone out to eat with my mom. The restaurant had white butcher paper spread over the tables in lieu of tablecloths, and a cup of crayons in a variety of colors as the centerpiece, so you could draw at the table while you waited for your food. Our server (who I vaguely remember as hot) said it was a shame to cover up my drawing with my plate when the food came. He carefully helped me tear it free once he'd cleared the table, so I could take it home.

I brought it to your place that night. We spent what felt like hours, but maybe wasn't, kissing-close beside one another on your living room couch, examining it from every possible angle. We found shapes within its abstract design with each turn and new perspective. I don't remember if I let you keep it, though I know you really wanted it. I made you plenty of pieces of artwork after, including one you and I both kind of hated. HA!

You even commissioned a painting from me, of an alien or skeleton of some kind, holding its hand up as though to say to the viewer, "Halt! Who goes there?" That was, in fact, the title of the painting. I only charged you for materials, since no one had ever expressed interest in purchasing my art before.

My college roommate begged me to give her one of my oil pastel drawings of a red-haired goddess, but I think I declined, since I loved it, too. Now, I rather wish I'd bestowed it to her, since I believe it got lost in the various moves I've made since California, unless I pasted it into my massive Cali journal. I'll have to check at some point. You might be interested to know I've since been featured in gallery shows and have had my creative writing and visual art reproduced in various literary magazines. Encouragement and support like yours certainly paved the way for me to pursue those goals.

I'll admit one of my elusive great loves reminded me a little of you. He had his own charm, definitely, but that hint of nostalgia for you was a factor, too. Maybe I'll never know if you and I would have worked as a couple. I know you didn't think so, since I was an "open book," as you described me, and you weren't. Time eventually taught me to conceal and protect myself to a degree. I think it's a balancing act, like so many things in this life. Writing and seeking to publish these letters feels very open-book, I suppose, but I'm still being somewhat selective as to what I share and what I choose to omit.

I wonder if you or anyone else I've written about will ever read the passages about them, apart of course from the one I wrote to my long-distance bestie and the quote I shared with her, tonight. If you do ever read this, I hope it makes you smile. Thank you for all the rides home, for all the trips through drive-thru for whatever I craved, without me ever once paying you back (I tried, and you refused). Thank you for a late-night trip to the twenty-four-hour grocery store for snacks, probably the most overtly domestic thing we ever did together. You're still the only one I've ever completed a complex crossword puzzle with, without cheating, because our respective knowledge bases complemented each other so effectively we knew all the answers. I hope you've found that kind of balance with someone else, or something just as marvelous.