Page 67 of Dirty Diana
“Well then, what was that?”
“It was an attempt. An attempt to…try something different. Just like you were trying to do.”
We both look to Miriam, but her expression is blank. She jots a note in her book.
“It didn’t go well,” Oliver adds.
“Which part?” I interrupt. “You going to a strip club or me trying to go with you?”
“Where is all this even coming from? You go from avoiding sex with me to Girls Gone Wild.”
“That’s so unfair. You’re the one lying about going to strip clubs!”
“I’m not cheating on you. It’s just an escape. And you’re so far away. I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Can you articulate how Diana feels different?” Miriam chimes in like we’re discussing flavors of ice cream.
“The old Diana would never have done that. Tried to kiss someone in front of me.” I suddenly feel like I’m in therapy with Oliver’s father. “Can’t we just go back to the way things were?”
It’s the only question today that I know the answer to. “No,” I say. There’s no going back to the way things were. Because there are no “old Diana” or “old Oliver” versions of either of us. They don’t exist. There are only ever our perceptions of each other. And Oliver’s imageof me has shifted. Maybe the lenses we see each other through got cloudier or sharper, I’m not sure which. Maybe a slant of light has changed and that’s enough.
The room is quiet and still, and when I turn to Oliver, he does something that I don’t expect. Tears well in his eyes and his voice begins to tremble. “I just…don’t know how to make her happy anymore. Like we’re in quicksand. And we keep sinking and we’re trying all these ideas to keep above it and none of them are working. They just make us sink farther. And faster.”
This is the first thing to come up in therapy that we’ve actually agreed on. But what else can we do but try to keep our heads above the sand? What’s the other option? Divorce? We love each other. I could never do that to Emmy. Maybe the story of our marriage that we tell ourselves isn’t true anymore, but couldn’t it be revised? What if there’s a way to shed our old story and let a new one emerge. An even better one. I didn’t do all this, live here and work this job and pay for this house, and fit into this life, so that we would just let it burn.
“So what do you suggest we try?” I’m asking the room, hoping someone has a better idea.
“Maybe we don’t try. Maybe we acknowledge we’re in quicksand. And there’s no getting out of it.”
Chapter 21
—
Do not cry on the sidelines of your daughter’s soccer game. Do not cry donotcry.
It’s almost noon and the day is bright and hot. The opposite of crying weather.Do not cry.All around me, parents chat happily to one another and cheer on their kids. Oliver and I have barely spoken since yesterday’s therapy session, silently passing each other in the halls of our house, afraid we will say something we’ll regret. Somethingelsewe’ll regret. Whatever this new path we’re on is, it’s scary and unsettling, nothing like the warm safety of mediocrity. I miss it, suddenly. Feeling nothing.
In front of me, a woman slides her hand into the back pocket of her husband’s Levi’s, easy. In my head, I hear Jenna’s voice from months ago, telling me about how unnerving it was to see Raleigh,post-breakup, crying on the soccer game sidelines. “Maybe she just shouldn’t come?” Jenna had suggested. I look around today, and Raleigh isn’t here. The sun beats down on the back of my neck so I angle my body toward Oliver’s. As I do, he turns away. He offers everyone near us a drink from our cooler.
Everything is fine,I tell myself. The game is only an hour long.
But everything is not fine. And now here I am, standing on the sidelines, biting my bottom lip in an attempt not to cry.
“Emmy!” Oliver claps his hands. “Look alive!” Oliver laughs as Emmy turns a crooked cartwheel then picks a wedgie.
Her coach shouts at her to pay attention—“The ball, Emmy, the ball!”—but now Emmy is kneeling in the grass, distracted by a roly-poly. Usually in moments like these, I would look over at Oliver and we would laugh together. Our horrible little soccer player, surrounded by a sea of kids and parents who are seriously out to win. I reach for his hand and he buries it deep in his pocket.
I lower my big black sunglasses as the tears start falling. I turn on my heels and head straight for the car. Safer to cry there.
I keep walking. I notice Oliver doesn’t call out to me. Just feet from the car, I drop my key fob on the ground. “Shit.”
“Diana?” Liam stands behind L’Wren’s Range Rover, unloading canvas L.L.Bean bags full of halftime snacks. “Are you okay?”
That’s all it takes. I think of Raleigh again—this time in that orange volunteer vest, begging me not to be nice to her or the dam will break. In the glow of Liam’s genuine concern, the tears fall faster.
“Oh, shit, Diana. Here…” He opens L’Wren’s passenger door. “Get inside before the soccer moms smell weakness.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t even know why I’m crying like this. I’m fine.” I try to laugh but it comes out more like a strangled hiccup.
