Page 14 of Dirty Diana
Emmy climbs onto my back and covers my eyes with hands that smell like butter. “No peeking!”
They lead me upstairs, stopping at the door to the overflow room. Emmy removes her hands and I open my eyes.
The room has been cleaned. It’s nearly empty. No baby swings piled on the thick carpet, no more plastic storage bins marked for donation. It’s not a room full of junk anymore. And it’s not a work space either. It’s a guest room, the way the house’s layout always intended it to be. Oliver has even pulled our old bed from the garage and hung my painting of bluebonnets above it.
“No sheets on the bed yet or anything like that,” he says.
“Wow.” My heart plunges toward my stomach.
“My mom took Emmy most of the day, but she did ride with me to the Goodwill.”
“Two times,” Emmy says.
I try to swallow my rising panic. The plastic bins. I stuffed that old shoebox full of minicassettes into one of those bins. I never got it back out. All those interviews. “You took everything?”
“All of it,” Oliver says proudly. He scratches his arm, looks around. “Except for the air mattress.” He opens the closet. “That seems in good shape still.”
My throat is closing with rage. “Oliver.” What do I say? “My stuff…”
Oliver looks confused. “Are you upset?”
“You should have asked me—”
“We’ve been trying to get rid of this junk forever.”
“No, I know. But maybe there was something we wanted to save. I haven’t checked in so long—”
I want to scream at him, but I shut down.It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault.My level of upset takes my own breath away. I can’t look at him, I can’t speak. But how is he supposed to know what those tapes mean to me? I’ve never played him a single one. I think of how I shoved the shoebox so carelessly into a bin, and now all the cassettes are gone. Hours of interviews and stories from years ago that I’ll never be able to replicate.
“Diana,” Oliver says and puts an arm that might be made of lead around my shoulders. I could topple backward. “All that stuff is off to a better home.”
My smile is obviously pained. He has no idea that he threw out years of my life—years of other women’s stories. Oliver looks hurt and confused. Of course he can’t understand what he’s thrown out. “Diana, I don’t even know what I did wrong here.”
Over his shoulder I see that Emmy is studying us, her fingers twisting in the hem of her pajama shirt. I smile at her. “Let’s go brush teeth, okay, bear?”
“I haven’t had dessert yet!”
“Diana,” Oliver says, softer this time. “What’s going on?”
I try to sound bright. “You know me and old junk. I get nostalgic.”
Oliver wrinkles his forehead and looks like he wants to say something more, but he lets me go.
—
“Damn, Diana. Try taking a little heat off that serve. Give a girl a chance.” L’Wren is laughing but I can tell she means it. She hates to lose,and I just beat her in straight sets. I should probably have let her win the last one, but it’s my birthday and it feels good to push myself to total exhaustion. I think about reminding her that it’s my birthday just so she doesn’t realize later and feel bad, but that seems even weirder? I’m forty-one. This birthday should float quietly by.
We’re zipping up our rackets and heading to our cars in the parking lot of Rockgate’s public park. This is where we spend most weekends—either at the playground or the tennis courts or the town pool. Some mornings, Emmy and I stop here before school so she can watch for the deer that graze on wild strawberries at the park’s edges.
“I’ll buy you a lemonade at the snack bar? I have an hour before Emmy’s swim class.”
“You owe me something stronger than lemonade to make up for whipping my ass. Seriously, Diana, how many lessons a week do you take?”
“Just two,” I say. I don’t add that one of those lessons is two hours long. I never thought I was a competitive person but tennis brings it out in me.
L’Wren’s phone starts ringing. “Liam?” she says. “I can’t come pick you up, I have an appointment…. Yes, a hair appointment.”
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
