Member-only story
“Hey, Terry, it’s Jim. Gimme a call when you get this; got an opportunity for you that I think you’ll finally say yes to — gimme a call.” Jim, publicist and manager ‘to the stars’, as he often said; big on affirmations and what they could bring — ‘will bring’, as he always said to me, being a good friend and keeping me on track, at least in his mind. After the breakup with Tiffany, I lay in bed for six months, a blank notebook — and more telling — empty whiskey bottles and full ashtrays often acting as my companion, hugging one or the other to sleep. Jim, my good friend since a chance meeting during a trip to the grocery store with Janelle, who insisted upon my address after I picked up the phone, cussing me for ten minutes as she drove to find me; was a burly and balding, smiling and joke telling married man, father of four.
I engaged in a torrid, however brief affair with his sister-in-law; a therapist named Gabrielle, and all he asked was that I not hurt her enough that he wouldn’t be able to invite me to the house anymore for summertime barbecues and holiday gatherings — simply shook his head when Gabrielle called him crying when I disappeared and changed my number. She emailed; she came over and knocked on the door; sometimes sitting outside for hours, leaving notes on my car. I’d become good at ghosting, rather leaving a situation before it left me. A good woman who reminded myself too much of…
