When he does not call back after I slam the phone, I follow up with a text immortalizing all my delilah babble in SMS purgatory. No reply. The vacation starts in Club Dead, flying the unfriendly skies. Day one, with all the raw emotions acerbated by militant reactions, is usually the most turbulent.
After torturing my best friend Wendy with what to do, I decide to save her sanity since I will be needing it in the days to come. I’m all alone with my anger which will later mature into sinister sadness. Survival begins now.
I figure that he will always be like this now and forever and that I will have to accept it. I’ll forgive him, I tell myself, once he texts me back to say that he will change. No such luck. Insanity creeps in like a fungus.
Snap, crackle and pop. That is the general life cycle of a Rice Krispie and a delilah. When something’s bugging me, it’s almost predictable where it will end: Me, alone in my couch with my chihuahua without his daddy figuring out what DVD to watch.
What DVD to watch is critical. I don’t want to watch something we enjoyed together, because it will remind me of the cold void at his side of the couch. I don’t also want something he hated because it will make me miss him complaining. A celluloid Switzerland choice would be something I never saw ever or something I saw before him with some other bastard.
Dumb and Dumber becomes my first pick. I first saw it with my brother Tito and listened to its soundtrack throughout high school. However, what if it’s too dumb and my mind starts wandering and I start thinking about him again? I opt for a more complex choice, Raise the Red Lantern, which I saw with someone forgettable but then I decide to chuck it fearing the stress from feuding wives and concubines. I settle for To Catch a Thief, great Hitchcock-lite with Grace Kelly outfits to keep my mind on my wardrobe where it is at its happiest.
Bruno my chihuahua starts fidgeting and despite the clever banter between Kelly and Grant, I start thinking of him again. There’s no fooling Bruno and me that dad is definitely missed. I know that it will be this way for a while. That I will have brunch this Sunday without his steak and eggs keeping my Oeuff Philippe company at Lumiere.
It’s two a.m. and I decide that I will not drink for this sad season. Not because of change and maturity from the whole experience, but because I’m dead scared to drink and dial him. I have a simple formula. When I feel like seeing and kissing him, I’ll have cheeseburger with fries. When I feel like telling him something I’ll have a chocolate bar. When I feel like calling him I’ll call Pizza Hut instead and order Pepsi – regular! Nothing like carbs and sugar to keep me company.
When Kelly kisses Grant, I realize that I’ll have to kiss this awful day goodbye too. I put on my sleep mask and play William Orbit, music I plan to play at my funeral. This is a painful moment as I start hearing myself go hysterical as I play sound bites from the night that was on him in the rolodex of my mind. My voice gets louder and louder as his gets softer and softer. This serves as the equation of domestic strife. I reread my tabloids and realize that I cannot. It’s all about love and divorce (Jlo and Marc Anthony, Trista and Ryan et al), common themes to my sleeplessness. I remind myself to subscribe to National Geographic tomorrow.
By some miracle I fall asleep only to have his image pop in my head the moment I peel off my eye mask when I wake up. I immediately make plans with my Red Cross buddies making sure every hour of the day is covered. Leaving me no time to leaf through our album and weep my eyes to a shriveled edamame. I imagine that he’s planning drinking sprees and cheering to my absence. I get angry and I proceed to delete our songs in my iPod and listen to Kylie nonstop, anthems of my carefree single days. I also peel off all our neoprints (I know I’m baduy). Day two shouldn’t be that bad once I have my cheeseburger for breakfast. After all this I will be a single mother to a carb fetus and perhaps be more charitable with my intransigent ways.