Milk, Cookies and Aliens
August 11, 2007
We didn’t stop then. Not even a baby and a wife could put a damper on our depravity, it seemed. There was just something about me and Taylor; we could never deny each other anything. He would do anything for me – the perfect big brother, or a perversion thereof. And I was the starstruck little brother who thought my big brother hung the moon.
We were doomed from the beginning, I guess. Cursed by genetics to love each other so much more, in so many more ways, than we were supposed to.
I didn’t see Taylor and Natalie’s marriage coming at all. Only a little more than a year before that, we finally let ourselves act on the feelings we didn’t know the other shared. Oh, we were always too close to each other. But something about the trials of trying to record that album, trying to hold the band together… somehow, that drew us closer together. Dangerously close. Until we crossed the final boundary.
But I wasn’t enough for Taylor. What I didn’t realize was that he wasn’t just clinging to me. He needed affection everywhere he could get it – from Natalie, from Michelle, from Alex, from childhood friends he foolishly let fall in love with him. A total, foolish accident forced him to choose Natalie, and only Natalie.
At least, for a few months.
He came running back to me, eventually. But he was never only mine. Natalie knew he wasn’t only hers, either. She accepted it more readily than I did. She was willing to let him stray a little, as long as he came back to her at the end of the day – or, as it were, the end of the tour.
I couldn’t accept that, but I had to. I would have been a hypocrite not to, since I had Kate. She didn’t know it, but she was the one I fell back on it when Taylor let me down, as he always did.
Well, scratch that. She did know.
Somewhere along the way, in this year I don’t remember, Kate has found out. I can imagine a million horrible scenarios of how that truth was finally revealed to her, each one worse than the last. Since the story Isaac told me involved a car accident and not a violent murder mid-coitus, I’m willing to accept that Kate probably didn’t walk in on us. Anyway, in that scenario, I would be dead too.
Oh, god.
Maybe I am dead.
I have to admit, there’s a logic to that. Because my idea of hell is mostly definitely a world without Taylor. And that’s the world I’ve found myself thrown into. I don’t even have my music to turn to, because, let’s face it – I can’t make music without him. Sure, I’ve written a few songs without his assistance, but it isn’t the same. Without him singing, playing, or just standing in the room smiling at me as I stumble to play the song myself, the songs would have no life. No meaning.
So that’s it, then. I’m destined to a life without meaning. Without Taylor.
Unless I can change it. But how?
I fell into bed last night with the hope – I’m too far gone for prayer, really – that when I woke, everything would be right again. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t help wishing for it. Of course the world didn’t right itself overnight. That would be too easy.
Now, I’ve spent the entire day walking aimlessly around a house that I still don’t quite know my way around. Why did we decide to buy such a big house anyway? I guess Kate was hoping for a big family like Natalie and Taylor had. So much for that. I don’t even know where she’s living now. Clearly she’s too disgusted with me to wait around here for the divorce to be final.
Anyway, I think I’m wearing grooves into the carpet with all my pacing and still I have no answers. I keep thinking that it must have been some traumatic event that sent me forward in time, because that’s how it always works in books and movies. But it was my wedding. How could that be traumatic? Besides the obvious. I’d say Taylor’s wedding was infinitely more damaging to my fragile little mind. It’s not like I ended up with my pants down on a cobblestone driveway this time.
What if it isn’t the world that can’t be trusted, though? What if it’s my mind? What if something did happen that I’ve forgotten? I just can’t wrap my head around any of this. I don’t expect Kate to be any more forthcoming than she already has been. She stormed out of the house so quickly yesterday that it hardly seemed she had been here at all. I don’t know what Natalie knows. She certainly didn’t seem thrilled with my phone call, and there’s no doubt Kate has told her. But five years of marriage should have prepared her for something like this – okay, maybe not with his own brother. Still, it’s not like Taylor was ever faithful in any sense of the word.
But I was. Granted, I was faithful to both Taylor and Kate, in totally different ways. Now I don’t have either of them.
So that leaves me with Ike. Who obviously knows that something is wrong, too. And he knows, to some degree, that my mind has betrayed me. He’s still speaking to me, and fairly civilly, so maybe I can pry some information out of him. I don’t know what I’m expecting, really, but maybe he’ll tell me something I’ve missed that will help trigger some realization. Something to bring Taylor back.
I pace the house a few more times, planning the conversation in my head. Once I’ve decided it’s definitely the right thing to do, I pick up the phone and dial Isaac’s cell number. He’s not glued to his cell like Taylor, but I trust him to answer it if he hears my ringtone. I hope.
After a few rings, he does. “Zac? What now?”
That’s not a very nice greeting. I don’t know why I expected better.
“Look, Ike,” I begin, the entire conversation I had planned evaporating into thin air. “I need to talk to you again. Soon. Where can we talk?”
“I don’t know what more I can tell you. You didn’t make any sense yesterday,” he replies.
Of course he’s going to make this difficult. It’s is Ike, after all. “I’m going to make less sense today, but I still need you to do this for me. Please?”
He sighs and I can practically hear his internal struggle. Finally, his tiny little brotherly streak wins. “Okay. I’m going to mom and dad’s later to check on them. We can talk in the studio.”
“Do they… do they know?”
“No. You can thank me for that later.”
“I’d tell you I could kiss you, but… well. You know what I mean.”
He actually lets out a small chuckle. “I think I know what you mean. Just be there later and keep your mouth shut and away from mine. I’ll tell mom to expect you, but you probably shouldn’t stick around for dinner or anything. Let’s not make this more difficult than it needs to be.”
It takes us a few more minutes to devise a plan. It feels like the kind of covert stuff I used to engage in with Taylor, but I don’t dare tell Isaac that. He’ll jump the gun and start thinking I’m trying to make him my Taylor replacement. I don’t need him thinking that.
The plan should work, though. He’ll text me if Mom decides to cook a big family dinner, which she’s quite likely to decide the very second he turns up on the doorstep. Doesn’t matter that the family will never be fully together again; if someone turns up at her house, Diana Hanson isn’t letting them leave without an extra thousand calories or so. Especially if that person happens to be one of her “baby boys.” So, Ike is going to text me whenever it’s safe to show up and not have to deal with the whole sit down and say grace shebang. I’ll turn up saying I want in the studio for something, anything, and act surprised about dinner. But I’ll probably still grab dessert – I didn’t mention that part to Ike – before we slip out to the studio to talk over this… whatever it is.
I think it’s a good plan, but I still spend the rest of the day on edge. My nerves feel completely raw, and that’s not just a metaphor. It feels like someone has actually poured salt on my insides. Everything aches from the inside out and I know there’s only one thing that can stop that ache. He’s the only one who ever could fix all those strange feelings that plagued me.
I take the longest, most thorough shower of my life that afternoon. A nearly empty drawer turned up one of those loofah things that I can only assume Kate mistakenly left behind, and I use it for all it’s worth. If I can scrub myself completely, all the way through my skin and into the sickness underneath it, maybe I’ll be okay. I remember doing the same thing the first time I realized what I felt for Taylor. His body pressed up against mine on the piano bench and all my hairs stood on end. I couldn’t focus on anything but the feel of him, the smell of him – clove cigarettes and strawberry shampoo.
That shower didn’t help and likewise, neither does this one. It just leaves me with raw, stinging skin to match my raw, stinging heart.
I pace a few more grooves into the carpet while I wait for Isaac’s text. He sends the first one from the driveway of his house, just to give me a time frame. He promises the next one within an hour, but it ends up being more like two. I can only imagine the feast mom has laid out for him and whichever other children happen to be around. In fact, I bet she’s done more cooking since Taylor died than ever before in her life. If homemade apple pies could bring back her golden boy, she’d probably have ten or twenty Taylors walking around by now.
Maybe out of ten or twenty Taylors, there would be one who wouldn’t stray from me. But I doubt it. And that thought is further proof that my mind is definitely betraying me. I want to believe it’s the world and time itself gone wrong, but what proof of that do I have? That’s science fiction. This is reality.
Finally Isaac texts again. Mom has shooed everyone away from the table so she can clean up, but the multiple desserts she had waiting are still warm. It should be safe for me to show up, but I still have no idea what to expect. The whole drive there, I can’t help wondering how I’m going to fool my entire family. Someone is going to realize that something is just not right with me.
This can’t work. But it has to. So I keep driving and soon enough, I’m punching in the gate’s security code and pulling my car into the old familiar driveway. Something about the gravel crunching beneath my car’s wheels transports me back to when I lived there – thankfully, only in my memory, not literally. I don’t need to go through my awkward teenage years again, thank you very much.
It really hasn’t even been that long since we all moved out. First to the apartment in New York and now back here… all to our own little houses. Not like I remember any of that anyway. But I do remember this house, for the whole five or six years I lived in it. It’s the longest we stayed in a single house, I guess. It’s the big, expensive proof that the three of us did something right with our music, if not with anything else in our lives.
And there I go being all angsty again. I was hoping for just the regular sort of nostalgia, but I had to ruin it. Maybe Mom will greet me at the door with one of her famous pies and make everything better. Somehow I doubt it. As I make my way up the steps, it occurs to me that I don’t know if Ike told them to expect me or if I’m going to be a total surprise.
My money’s on surprise.
I don’t bother with the fancy doorbell. I don’t need to scare the wits out of everyone inside. Instead, I just knock nice and loud. The house may be big, but I’m a drummer. I can make enough noise to attract attention, and let them know it’s only me, at the same time. Sure enough, before I can raise my hand to knock a second time, the door is flung open.
It’s Mom, and she looks like she’s seen a ghost. Well, that answers the question of how often I’ve visited in the last year. That doesn’t sound like me. I mean, the woman cooks. How could I not show up at least once or twice a week?
“Hey, Mom.”
It’s not much of a greeting, but it seems to be enough. She sweeps me into her arms and hugs me until I think I might burst. Then she shoves me away and does that thing moms do – the stare down. “Are you doing okay? You look thin. I’ve barely seen you since the funeral…”
Since I don’t know how long ago that was, I have no clue how apologetic to be. I try to look sheepish and remorseful and stuff my hands in my pockets awkwardly. “I’m fine, mom. I just came by to get some… sheet music I think I left in the studio.”
“Oh, you’re not writing again, are you?” She eyes me suspiciously, clearly not entirely buying my reason for stopping by. She knows as well as anyone that with Taylor gone, the band can’t go on. We always said we’d never play again if one of us left the band, but I didn’t imagine one of us leaving this way.
“No, I’m not writing. I just want to store all that stuff away. Get it out of my mind.”
She seems to understand that a little better, and she finally steps aside to let me in the house. “Well, you’re going to have a little snack first, aren’t you? You look so thin.”
I’m certain that I don’t, in fact, look thin. Maybe a little thinner that I remember being the year before, and definitely more… beardy. But not thin enough to cause concern to anyone other than a doting mother. So of course I follow her to the kitchen, ready to accept whatever food she throws my way.
I can’t help letting out a sigh of relief when I see that the only other person in the kitchen is Ike. I can hear voices and a television somewhere in the house, so I know we’re not the only people home, but it’s looking like I can escape without an entire family meeting. That’s exactly what I was hoping to avoid, at least until I start to feel a little bit normal. As if that’s every going to happen.
Mom thrusts a plate of assorted cookies in my hand and before I can object, she’s pouring me a glass of milk to wash them down. Ike offers me a sympathetic shrug and holds up his own half-empty glass.
“Now, are you sure you’re eating well? I can give you some leftovers to take home. I know it’s got to be rough, not having… well, having to cook for yourself. I never did teach you boys well enough when it comes to cooking. Seems there was just never enough time.”
I can tell Mom’s off on one of her classic rambles. Of course this one is different, though. There’s always that bittersweet nostalgia to the way she talks about “her boys,” but now it’s got an edge to it. Because one of her boys is gone. I don’t think I can stand around and listen to this.
“Mom, we’re gonna go on out to the studio now. I’ve gotta get those guitars I was planning to sell.”
Ike to the rescue. Again, I think I could kiss him for saving my ass, if that wouldn’t result in him immediately kicking said ass. So I just shoot him a look and give Mom one more hug and a thanks for the cookies.
Neither one of us says a word until we’re inside the studio. It’s got that same musty, unused scent and feeling as our office. It’s stifling and I want to suggest we go somewhere else, but I can’t think of a single place. So I just sit down on the couch and dig in to my cookies, waiting for Ike to take the lead. Which he does.
“Okay. What the hell is up with you?” He’s staring down at me with his arms crossed. I think he ought to patent that stare. It’s the same one he always uses when we’re arguing over anything and he’s determined to get his way.
“You really wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
He rolls his eyes and flops down into a chair. “I thought that’s why we were here. So I’m just gonna sit here until you figure out how to make me believe it.”
I happen to think that eating an entire plate of chocolate chip, peanut butter and oatmeal was a better idea than actually thinking. Who needs thinking? Thinking is what’s been driving me crazy all day. But once the last cookie is gone, Isaac is still there, staring at me. Waiting.
I drink the last of the milk, then clear my throat. “Okay. You know how I was having that memory problem? It’s worse than I let on.”
“How much worse?”
“Two nights ago, I went to bed and it was my wedding night. That’s not some weird metaphor. It was literally wedding night. It was June 3, 2006. And now, it obviously isn’t. Whatever happened between then and now, is not in my brain. To me, it never happened.”
“You know what? It was stupid of me to come here expecting sense from you. It made more sense when I found out you and Taylor were – nope, I still can’t say it.”
He stands up and throws his hands in the air like he’s done with me. He paces around the room, shaking his head. I think he’s going to leave, but he doesn’t. He just keeps pacing. He does want to make sense of this, I can see it all over his face.
“In love,” I say.
He turns and raises and eyebrow. “What?”
“In love. That’s what me and Taylor were.” My voice is barely a whisper when I say it.
I’ve never said those words aloud before, never admitted them to anyone. Sure, I told Taylor I loved him probably a million times. But he never heard it the way I wanted him to hear it.
Isaac sits down in the chair again, looking like he’s defeated. “Okay. That’s all kinds of wrong. You’re not stupid, so I know you know that. We can deal with all that later. Right now, will you just explain to me why the hell – how the hell – you have forgotten an entire year.”
“I haven’t forgotten it. It didn’t happen to me. I. Wasn’t. Here.”
“Then where were you?”
I sigh. “I don’t fucking know. All I know is that I got married, went to bed, and woke up here. I didn’t bump my head and get amnesia or anything like that. I’m just… not in the right timeline or something.”
“Life isn’t a science fiction novel, Zac. These things don’t just happen.”
“Apparently they do.”
“Unfortunately I’m not an alien with a telephone box. So I don’t know how you expect me to help you.”
“Tell me what I’ve missed,” I demand. “Tell me what happened. Maybe there’s a solution in there somewhere. At the very least, I’ll be able to go on seeming like less of an idiot for not knowing.”
“Always happy to help you look like less of an idiot,” Isaac replied with half a smile. “Okay. Where should I start?”
“Taylor. Start with Taylor.”