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Binary Language
Violet
Why are you here?
What are you doing on this coast, in my town? What are you doing on my voice mail? Why are you here? Why did you call?
Well, I'm not going to call you back and ask you.
Yes, I am.
No, I'm not.
I haven't thought about you in a long time. I don't have sappy moments where
I sit and think, "If I'd only stayed with so-and-so." I'm not that girl.
And if I do have moments like that, you're not in them. You broke my heart.
I met you a week before Christmas in 1983, when I was a graduate student and
you were a dropout. You were working for Apple Computers, which didn't
exactly make you a geek back then. It made you a renegade, at least to me.
I've always liked 'em smart.
It was at the Catholic Church near campus. Saint Catherine's had this thing
they did every year, where you could come and make gingerbread houses for a
homeless shelter. You helped me make a nativity scene out of graham crackers
and gumdrops. You got frosting all over your arms and in your hair, which
was as long as mine. You were beautiful.
You told me I could call you Aragorn. I had just read The Lord of the Rings,
and I laughed at you, and you admitted your real name was Scott. I told you
my name. You repeated it, like you liked the way it felt in your mouth. I
thought that was sexy.
I hate when people do that now. C.J. is so much easier to live with.
You gave me a ride home. You gave me your phone number. I hadn't ever made
the first phone call of a relationship before -- I guess I was living a
sheltered life. But you were sweet on the phone, and I met you for dinner
after the holidays.
I talked a little about my political science classes. You tried to tell me
about binary language. You found it amazing -- how ones and zeros could
translate to images and ideas, how much you could build with tiny pieces of
code. I wasn't sure I understood, but I liked listening to you talk about
things you knew so well. And I liked your voice.
There wasn't a goodnight kiss, and I was sure we were never going to see each
other again, but I was walking out of a class one day and there you were,
standing under a tree. You didn't have my address, so you'd gone into the
school's files and looked up my schedule. It would've been a little scary,
if I'd had more sense, but for some reason I thought it was sweet. And you
pushed your hair out of your eyes and smiled at me, and I leaned forward and
kissed you for the first time.
Why did you have to make me remember this?
I don't want to think about how we used to go back to your apartment, how
we'd be in bed together, and your roommate would come home and we'd be
holding our breath and trying not to laugh. You made me laugh all the time
at first. We never talked about politics. You told me stories all the time
about the guys you worked with. I was still going to school, and some nights
you'd come over to my room and play with my hair while I was trying to work
on a paper. And eventually I wouldn't be able to stand it, and I'd turn
around and pull you down and kiss you, and then -- God, you made me crazy,
and I moved in with you in the summer.
That summer, when I moved in with you, was the best three months I'd ever had
in my life. That summer I tried bleaching my hair myself, and it came out
orange and magenta but you said I was beautiful anyway, and you made me
believe it. I think I could have believed you if you'd told me the earth
revolved around the moon. I was working as an intern at Condé Nast and I
hated it, and you were working at Apple and you loved it. So we'd come home
and you'd talk about your day and I would try to forget mine. There would be
wine, and you smoked pot now and then, which always bothered me a little, but
I never said so. You told me you loved me one morning, just as I was getting
out of the shower, and I was so surprised I twisted my ankle and skidded across the bathroom floor and fell down against the wall. It hurt like crazy,
but I was fine. You loved me. It was such a good year.
I finished my master's in the spring of 1984 -- a year early, but I'd been in
school all my life and I was just so glad to be free. I started full-time at
the stupid magazine company. I still hated it, but it was experience in a
major media outlet and it gave good résumé. I was twenty-three years old
when I took you home to meet my mother. She didn't like you. My dad called
you a hippie, because of the hair. They hoped I wasn't serious about you.
But I was serious as hell. We were good together, I thought. Good for a
long time. You were smart and creative and so much fun, and I loved you so
much.
That was the year you stopped wearing t-shirts and ripped jeans to work. It started to be button-downs and khakis. You took me to a party or two at work. I liked that. I liked being your girlfriend, being on your arm. It was
another good year, even though my job was frustrating and Mom called me every
Sunday night to tell me about some high school classmate of mine who was
doing things right, when I was screwing up.
In August of 1985, you quit your job -- maybe. First you told me you quit,
and then you kept me up all night ranting about how they were bastards and
how they'd given up on what they believed in and sold you out. Sometime
around two a.m., it occurred to me that they'd probably fired you. That
autumn, you sat around the house sulking. I'd never seen you act bitter
before. It made me nervous. And I really got nervous when the rent was due
at the end of the month.
Suddenly things weren't so perfect anymore. But I made allowances. I told
myself you needed time. I took a weekend job waitressing, which is about the
most ridiculous thing in the world for someone like me who's a klutz in
extremis. I'd come home sticky and exhausted and miserable, and you'd be
stoned on the couch watching a test pattern on television. I just didn't
know what to do with you, or myself. And when we made love that winter, it
was too physical, too lonely. We'd been such good friends before that, and
we were acting like strangers.
I'm not tearing up. I'm not.
Things were tight. I had to cancel my credit cards to keep the bills from
getting out of control. Then, in February, I got the call. I'd been sending
out résumés like a woman possessed, even to places I didn't really want to
work. And Oscar Tanner offered me a job. It wasn't a big deal -- his PR
firm was just starting out. But it paid all right, and I'd heard he
encouraged his employees to do political volunteer work, which, secretly, I'd
always wished I had time to try. It was in Los Angeles. We were still in
Berkeley. But I wanted it.
So I sat down to dinner and I tried to tell you. And you started to yell.
You'd never yelled at me, not like that, not so flat out, closed-minded, and
cruel. You said I was disloyal. You said I was wasting my time. You said I
was selfish. That was the kicker, the thing that got me started yelling
back. I had barely ever raised my voice to you before. I told you how I
wanted to break into politics, how I felt like I was throwing myself away,
how I was a big clumsy girl carrying trays of drinks and food on Saturday
nights and I had a graduate degree, for crying out loud. You weren't doing
anything but lying around and dwelling on your problems. And I wanted to go
for something new. I wanted Los Angeles, and I wanted you to come with me.
You didn't hear a damn word I said that night, Scott. Looking back on it
now, I don't think you ever did. I was always listening to you, loving to
hear what you said, but you never thought the things I cared about were
important. You loved working in binary code, but you never wanted to get out
of the ones and zeroes and into the language I could speak. You never
listened.
So you finished taking your anger out on me, and you stormed out of our
place. I locked the door and sat on the couch reading all night, waiting to
hear you come back. Then I got up and paced around and cried a little and
waited some more. Then I fell asleep. Then I got up and went to work. I
got home, and you were waiting by the door. You pushed your hair out of your
eyes, and I could tell you'd been crying too.
You told me you'd gotten drunk and slept with Michelle, who had been my
roommate for two years. You told me it made you face your conscience. You
said you only screamed at me because you were afraid, and you just wanted me
to stay. You told me you loved me.
I loved you too. I loved you no matter what you did, no matter how ugly you
acted. Love was stronger than my anger. Love was stronger than your
stupidity. But I guess love wasn't stronger than Los Angeles. I told you I
was going. And you didn't stop yelling at me for the next two weeks, while I
packed my things and divided what was mine. It was all over.
I missed you like hell when I got there. I wanted to go home to you so many
times. You ruined the rest of that decade for me. I didn't get all the way
over you until I was almost thirty, and I moved in with another wrong man.
You made me happy. You made me laugh. You made me sacrifice for you. You
made me put up with things I wouldn't tolerate now. You made me stronger.
You made me feel good. You made me feel horrible. Now you've made me miss
you again. You never really knew me. I knew you too well. I want my
twenties back. I wonder what my life would have been like if we'd stayed
together. I wish you hadn't called me. I wish I'd never met you -- no, I
don't wish that. But I wish you hadn't called. I can't talk to you.
I'd like to know if you cut your hair, if you got a job with Intel and struck
it rich, if you married a petite blonde and had seven children, if you still
have the same good taste in wine. But I'll never find out. If I called,
you'd tell me all the things I want to hear about, but that's not good
enough. Because you never listened to me then, and I don't think you would
now.
I won't call. I won't.
I won't ever be that girl again.
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