Saint Nobody

Breaking Camp

57 Breaking Camp For two whole years, we shared a home. Weekends, it drew the kind of crowd we’d taken months to cultivate. The house bulged with faux Eurotrash, my night-club flotsam, and K.’s law-school friends: the playwright’s son too chic to go to class, our favorite rock band, streetcar poets, a clone of Patsy Cline—stage-name, Xanna Don’t. And in the midst of this brave company our comrades (Boston’s Finest) called at four, requesting we turn down the Gershwin. Such comfy debauchery—we loved to play the sleek doyennes running to the door with kisses for each guest. Exchanging smiles above the Gauloise smoke, we acted close as sisters with our entourage around. When I moved out, she had already left for Europe. Alone, I lit the grill, corralled the usual suspects for my send-off bash. Warmed by sangria, I welcomed everyone: my new best friend, her Irish bartender, the mad Greek poet bearing chunks of lamb, the black-clad Cambridge crowd, my officemates, and one surprise guest—I didn’t dare invite him— the too-hip man K. was hoping to marry. Next morning, scattered, I waited for my folks to bring the wagon. Packing, I played her records, taped my favorites, sold furniture to friends, sorted our mingled belongings. I never knew 58 we had so many closets, so much stuff. I left unwanted things to clutter up her life: china her mother bought, old chukka boots, a sloppy painting in a fake gilt frame (gift of the artist, my ex-boyfriend’s mom), an antique marriage manual (another ex, the one K. thought was dumb). Wild, deliberate, I thought those jagged edges should be hers to cauterize, that I could somehow force her to tidy up the mess we’d made of us. ...