Triptych Interviews
Bree
Saturday, August 13 (After Chapter 15 of Triptych)
aroslav: Welcome. Come on in.
BREE: Where’s the camera?
aroslav: What?
BREE: Are we going to talk first or do I just get undressed and diddle myself?
aroslav: Bree?
BREE: I’m not doing sex unless you’re paying me full scale.
aroslav: This isn’t a porn audition.
BREE: Looks like it. You at a desk with a computer and me on a sofa opposite.
aroslav: I’m just keeping notes on the computer. You didn’t really think I was auditioning you for a video, did you? Don’t you know what kind of a scam that is?
[Silence]
aroslav: Okay, let’s move on. We’re interviewing Tony’s friends to find a little about what makes them tick.
BREE: Tony said I was a friend?
aroslav: Do you want the direct quote? He said, “You haven’t talked to anyone from SCU. Why don’t you interview my friend, Bree?”
[Silence. A tear streaks down one cheek.]
BREE: I’ve been so terrible to him and his girlfriends. I can’t believe he called me a friend.
aroslav: Maybe we can talk about that this morning. You had a pretty rough night last night.
BREE: Yeah. Can we start with something easy? I could just take off my clothes.
aroslav: That would make it very hard for me. To conduct the interview. Just please give me your full name, age, and birthday.
BREE: Brianna Lynn Jacobson, age 21. My birthday was June 21, the longest day of the year. My dad reminds me of that at every birthday. This year it was my golden birthday—21 on the 21st.
aroslav: Did you have a big celebration?
BREE: Me, myself, and I had our first legal drink. That’s three drinks. Then we each had another. Then I went home and puked. All alone.
aroslav: Your father...?
BREE: Out of town. We “celebrated” the next weekend. He bought me my first legal drink and then I went home and puked.
aroslav: I’m seeing a pattern here.
BREE: Except that I only had one drink. The weekend before I was sick for two days. Not like a hangover, either. My skin got all blotchy, I had migraines, my nose was stuffy, and I felt faint. Alcohol intolerance, the doctor said. Genetic, but it doesn’t always show up right away. I guess my drinking days are done already.
aroslav: There are worse things.
BREE: Yeah. Living with yourself. Ask me something else, please.
aroslav: So, you’re a year ahead of Tony in college, right?
BREE: Technically two years, but I’ll only graduate one year ahead.
aroslav: Tell me about that.
BREE: When I got out of high school I left home. I enrolled at Arizona State in Tempe. I flunked out. I did nothing but party from the day I left home until the day they threw me out of the dorm. My alcohol intolerance was probably part of what was affecting me more than other kids. I was blacked out a lot. Usually woke up with a sore cunt. Dad...
[Long pause]
aroslav: Take your time.
[Tears]
BREE: He looked so disappointed in me. That’s all I ever do is disappoint people. He put me in rehab for the summer and when I got out I found out I was enrolled at SCU. He’s on the faculty there, so I guess he pulled some strings. But he watched me like a hawk. It was like being in high school again. He checked my homework every night, okayed who I went out with, what I wore, and what time I had to be home. He wouldn’t let me get a driver’s license and he didn’t even give me the code to the security alarm, so I couldn’t just leave and come back when I wanted to.
aroslav: That sounds pretty harsh.
BREE: I got all A’s in my classes. I guess in a way I got my confidence back, too. By the end of the year, he was looking at my homework, but really didn’t comment on it much. My second year at SCU he lightened up a bit and suggested I try out to be a cheerleader. I thought it would please him if I did well. Our relationship improved, but he still looks at me as if he’s disappointed in me.
aroslav: Shit. I’m sorry, Bree.
BREE: ’Sokay. That’s just the way I feel most of the time.
aroslav: All the rumors about your behavior and the way you...well you kind of threw yourself at Tony...
BREE: The rumors all come from the reputation I had coming back from AZU. Don’t ask me how people found out. Before I knew it, my reputation was that I’d slept all the football players on the team.
aroslav: Had you?
BREE: Only the varsity. Asshole. No. And the one I did sleep with didn’t help my reputation any. I mostly didn’t go out with anyone else until I met Tony. I guess I didn’t go out with him either.
aroslav: Tony seems to bring out the predator in you.
BREE: What a kind way to say slut. I wanted to...I just don’t know how...Shit!
Tony is the first guy I’ve ever known that didn’t just want to get in my pants as soon as possible. He’s never made a pass at me—even when I was standing in front of him naked. He’s always been kind...almost always. And I don’t know how to deal with that. And my dad adores him. He’s so proud of Tony. I just wish...
[Blows nose]
Do you know what happened last night? I made an ass of myself. I called him and Kate names. I asked him what was wrong with me and he...
I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. And I deserved it. I saw what a stupid whore I looked like throwing myself at him. I could have died. I wanted to die.
And then he came back and talked to me. He apologized. Fucking hell! He apologized to me!
And you know Kate? She called me this afternoon. After what I called her and how I treated her date. She walked me to my room last night and made sure I brushed my teeth and was in bed. Then, she called me today to see if I was all right. She invited me to go out for a Coke next week. Why can’t I be nice like that? I am such a shit I don’t want to live anymore.
aroslav: Whoa! Bree, are you telling me you’re suicidal.
BREE: All I’d have to do is drink a pint of whiskey. Probably wouldn’t take that much. I didn’t even need a drink last night to make a mess of things.
aroslav: Bree, why are things so bad for you? What happened?
BREE: My mom. She died.
aroslav: When did that happen?
BREE: When I was 16. I should be over it by now, right? I should just grow up.
aroslav: How’d it happen?
BREE: She died in childbirth—isn’t that the shit? Who dies in childbirth these days? Why was she even pregnant? She had me. I wasn’t enough for her.
aroslav: You know that having another child isn’t something people do because they’re disappointed in the one they’ve got. Tell me about it.
BREE: It was a surprise. Mom thought she was going through menopause. The doctor told her she was pregnant. They’d never abort a child, even though the doctor told her it was risky. Everything seemed to be going fine. She was healthy as a horse. I was even adjusting to the idea of having a little rugrat around the house. I’d only be there a couple more years.
Mom always kind of held me together through adolescence. She’d explain what was happening to my body. She taught me how to wear makeup that didn’t look like I was just covering up my freckles. She taught me how to style my red mop of hair. She helped me choose flattering clothes when my boobs started to grow. And she kept Dad and me from killing each other. I guess I got on his nerves even back then. He certainly got all over mine.
Then all of a sudden she was dead.
She was a fitness instructor at the Y. Absolutely perfect health. She was leading a class and went into premature labor in the middle of the class. There was blood and water on the floor of the exercise room and she had a heart attack right there and died. By the time the ambulance got there, the baby was dead, too.
aroslav: That seems so bizarre. Death in childbirth is so rare.
BREE: Mothers are dying in childbirth in the United States at a higher rate now than any time in the past four decades. I dug up everything I could about it, the whole time asking, “Why? Why? Why?” And the answer was that nobody knows.
aroslav: It must have been a terrible blow for both you and your dad.
BREE: Without mom there, I didn’t know what to do. I started getting wild, going to parties, getting drunk. Sometimes drugs. And sex. Without mom there to buffer us, Dad and I were yelling at each other all the time. I got out of here as quickly as I could and went to Arizona.
aroslav: Tempe is a lot different than Seattle.
BREE: Hot kitty litter as far as the eye can see. I had no idea how fast a redhead could get sunburned.
aroslav: Your dad seems like a nice person. Can’t you work things out with him?
BREE: I try. He tries. We work together on recruiting trips and usually we get along. I just feel like I’m always being compared to the bright young talent that we recruit and found wanting. I so want to get my life together.
aroslav: Maybe you should move out on your own again. You’ve learned a lot.
BREE: I can’t leave him all alone. I did that once. It wasn’t just me that went off the deep end that year. Dad was in pretty bad shape, too. As much as we irritate each other, we need each other.
aroslav: So what are your plans?
BREE: Talk. That’s what Tony said to do. That’s what Kate said this afternoon. I’ll try to talk to him without getting wigged out. Tell him how I feel.
aroslav: Listen.
BREE: What?
aroslav: No. When you talk, listen. From what you’ve said, he’s got as much on the line as you do. He never really figured out how to be a parent without your mom there.
BREE: Okay.
aroslav: Bree? Get some counseling. You don’t have to go through all this alone.
BREE: Yeah. That’s what Tony and Kate said, too. Um...Do you mind if I ask you a question?
aroslav: Not the usual way an interview’s done, but go ahead.
BREE: Why does it suddenly seem natural to refer to Tony and Kate? I just got used to Tony and Melody and Lissa. They aren’t breaking up are they?
aroslav: Don’t get your hopes up.
BREE: I’m not! It would be terrible. Melody hates me. I understand that. I deserve that. Lissa just rolls her eyes when I’m being a...whatever. But with Tony, they’re perfect. I really don’t want anything to happen to them.
aroslav: I’ll put you on my list of fans. But let’s get back to you. What are your plans this year?
BREE: I’ve kind of floated around with my education. Lots of exercise science and physiology. I’m really thinking hard about entering the physical therapy program. I could be in school a long time. You have to have a master’s minimum and it looks like they’ll be requiring physical therapists to actually have a doctorate soon. But I like the way the body works.
Sometimes I stand in front of my mirror naked...yeah, savor that image...and I just look at how my muscles work and how one bone is connected to another. If I have an ache, I try to identify exactly what muscle is sore or if it is in an organ or skin or bone. The nervous system is an amazing complex of message centers that interrelate to each other. Why does a certain touch cause pleasure while a seemingly identical touch can cause pain?
Only the ache I’m feeling right now—I can’t find it when I look in the mirror. If I could just see it, maybe I could fix it.
I’m going to take Human Anatomy this fall and possibly double my major in exercise science and pre-physical therapy. I figure the racquetball team will give me my own little group of specimens to watch and practice on.
aroslav: How’d you happen to be at the party last night?
BREE: The cheerleaders decided to help raise funds for Tent City when it comes to SCU this fall. I got involved before I decided not to cheer this year and they let me stay on the committee. That’s why I was at that party last night in the first place. Might have known that Tony would be involved with it already.
But I’m just going to try to be a better person. I don’t like who I am very much.
aroslav: I have a feeling we’re going to hear good things about you in the future, Bree.
BREE: Thank you, doctor. You’ve been very helpful.
aroslav: Bree, I’m not a therapist. Get help.
BREE: I will.
[Looks around]
BREE: Want to do that video now? Do you want me over here on the sofa or standing up?
[Silence]
[Laughter]
BREE: Gotcha! See ya!
aroslav: Later, Bree.
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