This is PART TWO. If you are here and haven’t read PART ONE, GO HERE FIRST
“A child in a curious phase
A man with sullen ways
Oh, I know very well how I got my name
You think you were my first love
You think you were my first love, but you’re wrong
You were the only one
Who’s come and gone”
-Morrissey
“Helena, I think I just want to sell the house,” Penny said, holding me tightly and crying into my shoulder. “Let’s just sell the house and get a place that’s just yours and mine.”
After everything that had happened in the past two and a half years — from Penny’s parents — my sister and brother-in-law — dying, to Adam moving in, to the whole thing with Paul — I was inclined to agree with her.
“A fresh start,” I agreed, wiping tears from my own eyes, and looking around at the house that had been left to Penny in her parents’ wills. “Are you sure?”
Penny nodded, and I held her tightly.
Two months later, we were moving into the third floor of a gorgeous Victorian, a place we both immediately loved, and could imagine us staying for some time.
copyright Michael Halsband
As I was hanging up a poster Adam had given me, I had a rare moment of breakdowniness (it’s a word, trust me) and Penny came to my aid, as she is wont to do.
“I miss him,” I said, emotionally exhausted.
“Me, too,” Penny agreed. “I miss them both.”
————–
Paul had only meant to stay for a few days, but being around Adam seemed to be incredibly therapeutic for him. A few days turned into a few weeks, and as Adam was spending so much time with me, that meant that Paul was hanging out, too. Adam’s place was a loft studio the size of a broom closet, so that meant that the two of them were hanging out at our place — that is, mine and Penny’s.
Penny was still grieving terribly — we both were — and having them around was at first difficult, but then Penny started coming out of her shell, and started talking and laughing again. When Paul finally had to go back to Vancouver, she was devastated. He was an instantly likable guy, and he’d quickly become the big brother Penny never had. I knew I was going to miss him, too.
So when he called up a couple of months later and said that he was thinking of moving out to Toronto — that he needed a change — it just made sense that he’d come and stay with us. Adam got rid of his apartment and moved in with us officially, and when Paul arrived, he took an empty downstairs bedroom. We had more than enough room, and having them around made a big lonely house less empty; less lonely.
Our house never wanted for laughter. Paul got a job as a waiter at an Italian restaurant and was constantly bringing home the most amazing pasta for us. Adam worked extra gigs and painted, claiming a corner of the basement as his studio space. I’d sneak home in the middle of the day to make love, distracting him in the nicest possible way from his artistic endeavours. Penny was applying to universities — she’d deferred her acceptance when her parents died, but too much time had passed and her deadlines lapsed. But she’d started showing an interest in life again since the boys moved in, and I was hopeful that we’d be able to get through this.
There was only one small problem with the whole situation — as much as I loved Adam, I couldn’t help but be developing feelings for Paul. He was attractive, and funny, and he was always around. He lived with us, and as much as I’d love to say that I didn’t have naughty thoughts about him, darlings, that would be less than honest. I mean, I’d very much like to tell you that I never once fantasized about Paul instead of Adam whilst in the throes of self-abuse in the bath, but then again, that, too, would be less than 100 percent truthful, darlings, and if there’s one thing I am not, it’s a liar. And so I won’t tell you that I once came in late and, finding him asleep on the couch, sat down beside him and stroked his handsome, exquisitely featured face, stroking his magnificent jawline with one lustful finger. I won’t tell you that I buried my face in his hair and breathed in his scent. Further, I’ll conveniently neglect to mention that when he stirred, I ran in guilty terror up to bed, where I immediately jumped on Adam and gave him the fuck of his life.
But we both know who I was fucking, darlings — let’s not kid ourselves.
After that, things started to get a little weird between Adam and I — or maybe it started before that, and I just hadn’t noticed. It was just little things. I’d make excuses to avoid him, and he didn’t really object. I’d start pushing it — like I was testing him; trying to piss him off — and nothing really bothered him. It was like he didn’t mind; didn’t even care, really. He was never mean or upset about it when I didn’t come to bed when invited — I stayed up watching a lot of television, because Paul was watching television. I enjoyed his company, I liked hearing him talk, I just liked being around him.
I couldn’t keep up the emotional charade — I knew that I was going to have to say something to Adam. It wasn’t fair to him — if I had these feelings for Paul, then it wasn’t fair to either of us. I wasn’t going to let anything happen between Paul and I — I had made that decision — but I at least had to be honest with Adam. I owed him that.
Making a decision to do something feels wonderful, darlings — it really does. You pat yourself on the back and feel really good about yourself as a human being, just for having thought about doing the right thing. But thinking about doing something and actually doing it are two different things, and so while I thought about telling Adam about the way I was feeling about Paul, three months went by, and Adam and I were both miserable, though neither of us could say why.
Until Paul got hit by a car, and everything changed.
It was November, I remember, because it was the beginning of the end — the end that came so fast that it left us all whip-lashed and traumatized. One minute we were all living a strange sort of domesticity, sharing a roof together, eating meals together — a patchwork family, that, like any family, had its problems, but functioned nonetheless. The next minute we were gathered around Paul’s hospital bed, each of us questioning if we knew each other at all.
When I arrived at the hospital, Adam was already there. Paul was unconscious but stable, and was hooked up to a breathing tube. One of his lungs had collapsed, he had broken some ribs and one arm, and had a concussion, but he was going to be okay. You wouldn’t know that from the scene I walked in on.
Adam was holding Paul’s hand, and had his head to his friend’s forehead, weeping so hard he was hyperventilating. He kept saying how scared he was, how he thought he’d lost him, and how he never got to tell him how much he meant to him. Just on a frantic, terrified loop.
I stood outside the room, watching this; giving Adam his privacy. There were tears in my own eyes, but I knew to wait my turn. Those boys had known each other since they were practically babies.
I watched Adam stroke Paul’s hair lovingly, looking at him with fear and worry. And then I watched, as Adam bent down and kissed Paul, at first nervously, and then more firmly, full on the mouth.
I inhaled sharply in surprise, and Adam turned to see me in the doorway and hung his head.
“Come on in, Helena,” he said quietly. “Come see him if you want.”
I froze, unable to move. I felt like such a fool for not seeing it before, and I felt like an idiot for being there then and interrupting him.
“I’m going to leave now,” Adam said, sounding exhausted and all cried out. “I’ll meet you down in the cafeteria. We can grab a coffee and talk. We… we have a lot to talk about.”
I stared at him, not knowing what to say. I forced my feet to take a couple of steps forward.
“Does he…?” I asked, motioning toward the bed where Paul lay oblivious to the conversation.
“No,” Adam said, shaking his head sadly. “And if for some reason he wakes up, please don’t say anything.”
I nodded. I could give him that.
———————-
I sat across from Adam, unable to catch my breath. I waited for him to talk, but he could hardly meet my eyes. I just wanted to understand.
“But… but…” I stammered, trying to think of what to say. “But you’re not gay.”
Adam looked up at me and laughed. Laughed until he started turning red in the face and I was sure he was going to pass out. I couldn’t help but laugh with him — and there was a degree of relief in the laughter, as if we had both been holding something in for months.
“Well, that’s a relief,” he finally said. “It’s a good thing I’m not gay, because then all these feelings I’m having would be really strange. They must just be figments of my imagination.”
He smiled sadly at me, eager for understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness. And here I thought that I’d be begging the same from him.
I wish I could tell you that I used that opportunity to confess what I’d been feeling myself, darlings. I’d certainly come across as a much better person if I could tell you that I used that moment to break the tension by saying something like “Well, I don’t blame you, darling — I’ve been wanting to get my hands on him for months now,” but sadly, that would also entail the telling of tall tales, and as has been previously established and well-documented, darlings, I am no teller of tall tales. I may have been accused of being not exactly the most reliable narrator from time to time, and I admit to the occasional bit of revisionist history in order to direct my narrative in the direction I’d like it to go — but outright lies?
Moving right along, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I stood up, I walked around the table, stood Adam up and gave him a great big hug, holding him and telling him that I loved him. If I could play the hero in this scenario, I would. I certainly didn’t want the role of the faithless hussy set to step out on her man. And I didn’t really relish the role of competition for Paul’s affections. Would that make me the other woman, or the other man?
“You should tell him,” I said, holding him tight. “He needs to know.”
“You don’t think that’s going to confuse the hell out of him?” Adam asked. “We’ve known each other for nearly our whole lives.”
“Adam,” I said, looking him in the face. “Don’t you think maybe he already knows?”
Adam gave a bit of a sick moaning laugh.
“Helena, I didn’t even know,” he said. “I didn’t think it was possible. I’ve only ever been with girls, and it’s not like I don’t enjoy that.”
“You certainly seemed to be enjoying yourself,” I agreed with a smile.
“But having Paul around this past year, seeing him every day… I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear this.”
I knew what it was to have feelings for someone you’re not supposed to have feelings for.
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I meant what I said. I do love you, Adam, and I want you to be happy.”
He looked at me and began to cry again, more gently this time.
“Then when I saw him in the hospital bed, and thought that he might have died — well I knew then what love was. I knew that I loved him, and not in the way I thought I did, and I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop feeling it.”
“You can’t help who you love, Adam,” I said, and held him again.
————-
When we returned to Paul’s room, we found Penny sitting by his side, holding his hand. He’d woken up and was weakly laughing at something Penny had said. We must have looked a fright, because he looked up at us and coughed in alarm.
“Jeez, you guys,” he wheezed, “who died?”
Adam smiled and let out a relieved sigh.
I motioned for Penny, giving her the universal sign for “Hey, let’s leave these two alone, they really need to talk about some life-changing things, and hey, do you want to maybe get a bagel? On the way in I smelled the intoxicating smell of fresh bagels from this bakery we passed and I just realized I haven’t eaten anything practically all day, and I’m starving. Also, I could go for a coffee.”
You know that sign, right?
Penny looked at me with a blank stare, and so I had to resort to words.
“Hey Penny, let’s go grab a coffee? What do you say?”
“Are you going to make me cry, too?” She asked, nodding her head toward Adam, whose eyes were all puffy and red.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room.
————
The next time I spoke to Adam, he was nearly catatonic with grief. Penny and I had gone out for dinner, and when we arrived home, we heard Adam making sick noises from the bathroom. He was throwing up, but not just vomit — in between bouts of actual physical sickness, he was wailing and howling — the most awful sounds of loss and misery I’ve ever been unfortunate enough to hear.
I tried to talk to him, to tell him I was sorry that things didn’t go the way he wanted them to; that Paul would come around; that the important thing was that he had been honest, and that his feelings were out in the open. I lied to him and told him that everything was going to be all right.
When Paul got out of the hospital, he packed his things and moved back to Vancouver, hardly saying a word to any of us before he left.
Adam moved out a week later, and Penny wouldn’t stop crying for days. We were losing our family all over again.
———-
“What do you think?” I asked, positioning the poster of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat over our new fireplace.
Penny nodded, and went to say something, but was interrupted by the doorbell.
When she returned, she had Adam in tow, carrying a canvas with four strange, beautiful figures painted on it.
He presented to me awkwardly, and gave me a kiss on my cheek.
“I call it Home,” he said. “It’s for the two of you, really. The time we all spent together, it was…”
“It was the best,” Penny said, and glared at the both of us. “And you ruined it. Both of you.”
Penny stormed off to her room to sulk.
“She’ll come around,” I said sadly.
“I’ve heard that before,” he replied.
“Have you heard from him at all?”
He shook his head and wiped a tear away.
“No, but I’ve got good news.”
“Yeah?” I asked, welcoming some good news.
“Yeah, I’m going to have a show of my art,” he said, excited.
“That’s great, Adam,” I said. “I’m really happy for you.”
“And what about you, Helena?”" He pried. “When are you going to start writing again? You have so much to say.”
“Yes, but no one’s listening,” I sighed. “We’ve been through this before.”
I’d told Adam all about my forays into writing, how I’d even tried showing my writing around, but I couldn’t get anyone interested. Or else, the people reading my stuff were friends and family, whose objectivity couldn’t be trusted.
“Besides,” I said, “I”m all out of stories. I’m done. Which is fine. These pills the doctor gave me pretty much kill any creativity I might have had anyway.”
“Oh, I think you have plenty of stories to tell,” he laughed. “Why don’t you tell our story?”
I looked at him with tears in my eyes, and shook my head.
“I’m not ready to tell that story yet,” I replied. “I’m not strong enough. All the stories I need to tell, they’re too much — I don’t know if I have the strength to tell them.”
And then Adam looked at me and told me what I needed to do.
“Hide,” he said. “Hide behind someone stronger than you are. Use that sharp wit of yours and dream up someone stronger than you to tell those stories. Someone who’s you, but amplified to the nearly unbelievable — someone bold and sassy and so completely you, but without the fear and reservations. Someone with a fuck you attitude and a killer smile, who borders on caricature but has feet planted firmly in reality.”
“And what’s this fantasy girl’s name?” I demanded to know.
“Helena,” he replied without hesitation. “My fantasy girl’s called Helena.”
I pulled away from him, realizing for the first time that I had actually been hurt by the whole situation.
“Don’t,” I said. “Please don’t do that.”
“Sorry,” he said, “but it’s true. I never felt about any woman the way I did you. I’m sorry we weren’t better suited for each other.”
“I know,” I admitted. “Everything just went to hell in a handbasket once Paul moved in.”
I may or may not have phrased it exactly liked that, darlings, but let’s just for the sake of narrative assume that I did.
“Don’t be angry with him,” Adam pleaded. “It’s not his fault.”
“I know,” I admitted again, wanting so badly to be angry at someone but not finding it in me.
We shared an awkward silence, gave each other a hug, and said good-bye.
—————–
The next couple of weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Adam had said, about re-inventing myself as someone else — a character I could hide behind, pouring as much, or as little of myself into her as I wanted.
One day in early March, Penny came home and threw a new CD at me.
“Hey, Helena, I was just at Starbucks and saw this — did you know there was a new Bowie album?”
“What?” I said, excited. “No way!”
Penny and I both shared an unnaturally overenthusiastic love for David Bowie. His music had practically been the cradle songs of Penny’s earliest years. She’d been ostracized by her little classmates, who just didn’t get it when she’d say things like bully for you; chilly for me, or Ooh baby, just you shut your mouth.
The new album, The Next Day, became the soundtrack to my life for the next week or so, and I thought I finally had the catalyst to my creativity.
I’d spoken to my doctor about coming off of the medication I’d been on — the medication that had been turning me into a zombie — and over the past weeks I’d been weaning myself off of them. The emotional turmoil was intense, and I hope to never go through that kind of withdrawal ever again.
One day after eavesdropping on conversations at Starbucks (careful what you say in public, you never know when I might be listening), I came home and started thinking about what this imaginary persona I’d begun to conceive of might have to say about what I’d heard.
I wrote something up, pouring all my sarcasm and quasi-harmless misanthropy into it, and showed it to Penny.
She shrugged, and said it was not bad, but it was missing something. I asked her what she thought it was missing, and she struck a pose.
“Why, me, of course. Everything is better with a little bit of me in it.”
I laughed at her boldness, and realized that it’s exactly what I needed. I needed to borrow a little of Penny’s brashness.
“Okay,” I said, playing along. “And what shall I call myself?”
The answer sat right in front of us, and we didn’t even know it.
“What if you just change your last name — I dunno — take grandma’s last name or something?”
“Helena Hann?” I asked, shaking my head dubiously. “Sounds awful. Why not Helena Hann-Job, it can be a whole other type of blog.”
“Oh dear,” Penny smirked. “Oh! Oh! I know! What about Helena Mauvaise? It’s French, it’s a bad pun — it’s perfect!”
“Helena Mauvaise… you mean, like haleine mauvaise – French for bad breath? What, should I invent an imaginary boyfriend named Hal I. Tosis?”
We both considered it for a moment… I mean, actually considered it for a moment, darlings. I came this close to being your favourite dilettante, Helena Mauvaise.
“Did you know that one of Andy Warhol’s Factory Girls was named Helena Handbasket?” Penny asked, searching the name Helena on Google. “Look, I found a picture.”
And there she was. Bored looking, fuzzy and out of focus, smoking a cigarette and projecting an image that said she didn’t give a flying rat’s ass. (Later I would discover that “Helena Handbasket” was actually a transvestite, but the less said about that right now the better).
“That’s perfect,” I said, unable to take my eyes off the screen.
“Yeah, but it’s been done,” Penny said. “You’re, like, nearly forty years too late.”
I stared at the picture of Warhol and Basquiat, and smiled.
I ran to my laptop and typed: Being the Memoirs of Helena Hann-Basquiat, Dilettante.
Penny, looking over my shoulder, smiled.
“Yup,” she said. “That’ll work.”
“Should I post that story?” I asked.
“Sure,” she shrugged. “Whatever you like. It’s a start. I still say you need to work me in somehow. You’re ever so dull without me, darling.”
She affected a very aristocratic tone, part posh British and part Cruella De Vil. I loved it immediately.
“I’m taking that!” I declared, and she gave me a blank stare.
“Why, whatever are you talking about, darling?”
————–
A week went by and I hadn’t written anything else. I was beginning to think Penny was right — that first post was missing something.
Then I got a notice in my email about a once in a lifetime concert opportunity. A band you’ve never heard of (and really, that’s your loss) was playing one of my favourite albums beginning to end. I wasn’t going to let the fact that it was a seven hour drive away dissuade me from seeing them.
“Penny!” I yelled, excited beyond belief. “We’re going to Montreal! Grab your coat!”
———-
(Note from your favourite dilettante: Montreal is the setting for the first real story featuring the Countess Penelope of Arcadia and myself — where we encountered the Couche-Tarde and the Jumping Asians — if you’ve never read it, well, you’re missing out.)
