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“Roxy”
Let me paint you a picture. Imagine a girl; not the most beautiful girl in the world, this isn't that kind of story. Picture someone who you know, a good looking lass, but no supermodel. This girl has dark, wavy hair, and skin that suggests immigration somewhere in her family's past. She's no stunner, but has an exotic, bluesy quality that draws you to her. She has big eyes, but they are always half-closed, heavy-lidded. She might be sucking on a lollipop, but more likely has her lips wrapped around a shot glass. Picture this girl clearly, and you have Roxy, the star of this little show.
If you are in your twenties, then by now you will have met a Roxy. The bad girl, the wild one. She'll drink you under the table and then maybe lift something from your wallet to buy the next round. She can talk to anyone and everyone, about whatever the hell she likes – usually, whatever comes into her head. She might piss off some people, or even intimidate them with her personal questions and overly familiar behaviour. So, now you have a fairly good idea, I want you to imagine that this girl disappears. Just vanishes into thin air one autumn.
Roxy's sudden absence wasn’t a total shock, not in itself. She’d been known to drop off the radar for a few days, maybe staying in a hostel to spend time with some interesting backpackers she met, or shacking up, madly in love with some new bloke. It wasn’t that she intentionally kept us in the dark, she would just forget to call anyone, and after a while we stopped worrying about her. She was the kind of girl who could take care of herself. She always came back, see, and each time she had a new story for us. She always came back, until the day she didn’t.
After a full week had passed, we began to worry. Roxy was always back by then, having gotten over whatever fad had kept her away from us. The last time any of us saw her was Saturday night, at a party, and by the time the next Saturday had come around, her family called the police.
There are maybe a few things you should know about Roxy and her folks, before we continue. She doesn’t get on exceptionally well with her father, mainly because her hell-raising antics drove him crazy when she was in her teens. And likewise with her mother, except Mrs. Day feels compelled to keep trying to play peacemaker between her husband and daughter, meaning she is both and ally and an enemy of both in these family rows.
Rox moved out of the house when she was eighteen, and after that, her tempestuous relationship with her parents calmed down a bit. They were just as aware as the rest of us that their girl was a force of nature, and that if she wanted to go off for days on end without notifying anybody, there wasn’t a damned thing any of us could do to stop her. That’s the reason they waited the full week to call in her disappearance. It wasn’t that they didn’t care about her. They just knew her pretty well.
The police weren’t exceptionally helpful, especially after they learned that Rox was prone to going AWOL, but they promised to keep an eye out for her, or copper words to that effect. I can’t tell you how strange it was, when I first acknowledged the possibility that she might not come back, that any day she wouldn’t try and play Beethoven’s “V for Victory” on my doorbell then barge in with a bottle under one arm and a new scandal under the other. Other people felt the loss too, I know they did. Roxy was the kind of person that was definitely noticed by their absence; she left a lack of noise, a lack of colour. So for the next three and a half months, we had to go on without her. And then, one night in winter, she managed to change our lives yet again.
It was Christmas Eve. I was spending it at Eli and Grant’s place, sharing a case of wine with the only couple I know. Somehow, I would never have thought that two gay men who copped off one night at a club would end up being the perfect pair. Then again, stranger things will have happened by the time I finish telling you this story.
So I was stretched out on one sofa, my two friends were sat together on the other. The coffee table was slowly collecting empty bottles. In the past, I’ve never been much of a wine drinker, preferring beer or spirits – party drinks. But this was definitely something I could get used to. My face had a warm glow to it, as did my belly, and I could feel my eyelids beginning to droop, despite the good company.
I was about to tell the young lovers that I needed to go home and get some sleep if I planned to drive to my mother’s house tomorrow in time for Christmas lunch, a feast that I wouldn’t ever dream of missing, but the words never made it out of my mouth, because my phone started to buzz inside my jeans. I answered it, and at first I didn’t recognize the voice saying my name, over and over.
“Speaking,” I said, nonplussed.
“Oh, thank goodness I reached you!” It was a woman talking, and the more she spoke, the more familiar she sounded.
“Roxy… is that you?”
“No, this is her mother. But that’s why I’m calling. You gave me this number months ago, do you remember, and I just knew that I had to get in touch…”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Day, what exactly are you talking about?”
“She’s come home. She finally came back to us.”
My wine buzz evaporated, and I felt wide awake at once. The conversation went on for a minute or two more, and the second I hung up the phone I was making my excuses to Grant and Eli.
I drunk-drove over to the Day house, a terrible idea on Christmas Eve when the police were on the lookout for holiday drunks. Somehow I managed to make the twenty mile run without being pulled over, or giving into the temptation of speeding.
According to the mother, things went a little bit like this: Mr. and Mrs. Day had left the house early in that morning to visit various relatives. After a long day of driving around and forcing polite conversation, they made their way home, both ready to fall into bed, and wake up to do it all again the next day. But upon arriving at their house, the same house they’ve shared since their shotgun wedding twenty three years ago, who should they find sitting on the front step? Why, our Roxy, of course – although, from what little I could gather, she wasn’t entirely ours anymore.
Hours later, when Mrs. Day finally called me and I flew over, I sensed the difference right away. To an unfamiliar eye it might not have been obvious, but I had known Roxy since before I even knew myself, and I could instantly tell that something wasn’t right. Her hair had been cut into an unflattering bob, and she was wearing jeans and a simple woolly jumper. Not so strange, for anyone else, but for our girl? Where were the flowing locks and scarves, the jangling bracelets and hoop earrings, the miniskirt and leather boots? This was someone new, someone unadorned. I’d seen Roxy without all of her glamour before, but her personality had still shone through. When I went into that house on Christmas Eve and saw my friend for the first time in months, there wasn’t a great deal to recognize.
There were other changes, too; less visible but more profound. This new Roxy didn’t drink, smoke or take drugs, she talked and acted in a far more reserved manner, and most importantly, the new Rox had found religion.
She didn’t mention which particular church or denomination, or even where this had occurred. The long and short of it was, she’d renounced her sinful ways, and had come home now to spend some time with her family.
For a while, I didn’t buy it. I figured by the end of Christmas Day she would be drunk as a skunk and coming onto one of the dinner guests, but I was wrong. I didn’t actually witness the Day family’s Christmas dinner (I went to my parents house, as planned), but I heard later from Roxy's mother that it had been “wonderful”. I imagine she was so relieved to have her daughter home again, she was willing to overlook Roxy's unlikely behaviour for the time being.
Apparently, Rox had even said a lengthy “Grace” before the meal commenced. And what she unwrapped her Christmas gift (Mrs. Day had bought one and put it under the tree, “just in case”), her eyes had filled up and she hugged both of her parents at the same time, one arm stretched around each of them, like she used to when she was little.
I hadn’t had much of a chance to speak to her on Christmas Eve, just long enough to learn the bare essentials before Roxy claimed she was exhausted and her mother ever so politely showed me out. So I called their house on Boxing Day, wondering it she’d had enough time to catch up with her parents. The next afternoon we met in one of our favourite cafés. Taking care to respect her new views, I forwent a glass of something in favour of a coffee. I didn’t know what to make of this abstinence – should I treat her like a recovering alcoholic and keep temptation at bay by not drinking around her? Or was she deliberately testing herself by coming to see me, her former partner in crime?
It was almost enough to make you believe in UFOs. Rox vanished off the face of the earth for what felt like forever, and then when she finally resurfaced, she was a different person. Trust her to take the time to reinvent herself... I just never would have imagined this result.
That day in the bistro, she was already sat waiting in a table by the window when I arrived – the first time she had ever been early in all the years I'd known her. Somehow, this unnerved me more than all the other stuff. I hesitated for a second before ordering my coffee, then sat and stared for a moment, unabashed, drinking her in.
“I've missed you, babe,” I said, smiling. She smiled back, not the wide open grin that I'd pictured in my head most days since she vanished, and not the crooked little Mona Lisa smirk that she sometimes made. This was a close mouthed, tight lipped polite smile. “Where were you?” I asked, knowing that she probably wouldn't tell me but desperate to know anyway. To her credit, she surprised me.
“Devon.”
“The West Country?”
“Among other places. I'll tell it all to you someday, but I don't feel like it just this minute, if it's alright. I wore myself out coming back, explaining everything to Mum.”
“So you told her why you went away?”
“I told her everything. And don't even think about going round there, asking questions,” she smiled at me, looking right through the plan that had just that second popped into me head, “because Mum's not telling anyone. She's always been good with that sort of thing, you know – it's not her secret to tell, kind of thing.”
“She's being awfully gracious, considering what you put her through,” I said, suddenly filled with self-righteous irritation. “Do you not think you owe a few other people an explanation, besides your mother? Like, oh I don't know, me? Your best friend?”
She gave me a look that suggested I'd gone too far, but at the time I didn't care.
“I suppose this is a fine way of doing things in your world,” I continued, “fucking off into the great unknown for a couple of months, then coming back just to play games with us.”
“It's not like that at all, I promise,” Rox said. “It's just that I had a lot to learn, before I could come back. About myself, about the world...”
“About God?”
“Well, yes...”
“It's great news, Rox, honestly, this little conversion of yours. But I'll tell you what; if you get tired of the act, call me. I'd love to see my old friend again.” I stood up and left the café, leaving her behind, lost for words – something that in the past would never have happened.
I don't know what came over me that afternoon; I was just so angry, furious even, that she thought she could come back and act as if she hadn't put us through Hell... and I was even angrier that her mother was so willing to swallow whatever story Roxy had told her. It wasn't that I didn't believe her when she said that she'd changed. I mean, anything is possible, right? It was the self-centred attitude that she'd always flaunted, and was now driving me crazy, because she genuinely didn't think she needed to be held accountable for anything. Maybe her new religion said it was alright, to treat the people who love you like dirt, just so long as you did a bit of praying and laid off the booze.
I didn't see or hear from Roxy until after the New Year, but that isn't to say I hadn't been thinking about her. At times I was racked by guilt, ashamed of myself for biting her head off when she had agreed to meet me. Then I would be furious at myself for feeling guilty, when I'd done nothing wrong. That was Roxy's trick – she charmed people into thinking she could do no wrong. By the end of a conversation, she could have turned anybody round to her way of thinking. If she ever decided to start preaching this new gospel or whatever it was that she'd discovered, I was sure she'd find a few converts.
I seemed to be the only one who wasn't ecstatic to have Roxy back in the fold, nobody else minded looking over the rather obvious and worrying differences. For instance, now she wanted to be called Roxanne, not Roxy or Rox. “Get your Rox off” was what we used to shout in clubs or bars, a greeting to our favourite girl. No more.
So as I said, me and Rox didn't see each other until the first weekend in January. She knocked on my door on the Saturday afternoon, and I agreed to go for a walk with her. She was wearing gloves, the left of which she took off after a little while, the better to show me her engagement ring. At first I didn't take it in. I thought maybe this was some new kind of joke, a prank that involved vanishing for months and then reappearing with a pretend fiancé, but that wasn't it at all. “Roxanne” was in love.
“His name's Samuel,” she told me, “he's a great man.”
“Is he the reason behind your recent turnaround?”
“Partly. It was mainly my decision – this was something I'd needed to do for a long time, but I didn't have the courage or strength to go through with it until I met Samuel.”
“So he's pretty religious, then.”
“He's very spiritual, yes. He helped me so much, I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay him after everything he did for me.”
“You're marrying him, I'd say that puts you on equal ground.”
Rox gave me a funny look, as if I'd just made a pun that she didn't quite understand. Then she carried on talking.
“This whole religion thing, it's not as weird as you think. I'm not going to start preaching my beliefs to all and sundry, that's not what we're about at all.”
The way she said “we” made me uncomfortable – like she was no longer just a girl, but part of some group consciousness. I inwardly tried to shrug off that ridiculous science fiction idea, but it lingered.
“What does your mum think, about you getting engaged so quickly?”
“Well, she obviously has her concerns. But Samuel is coming to visit soon; he wanted to come with me when I first got here at Christmas, but I told him that Mum and Dad might get a bit overwhelmed. So he stayed put, back in Devon. He spent Christmas Day volunteering at a local shelter, isn't that just the best?”
Admittedly, I found it hard to resent somebody I had never met, especially when that certain somebody spent the biggest holiday of the year helping the homeless, or battered women. Maybe I'd got this all wrong... maybe nothing was as creepy as I thought.
“When's the wedding?” I asked, forcing a smile, hoping she wouldn't see through it like she usually could. From the look she gave me, I knew that she didn't believe my fake sincerity. But there was something else, too – as soon as I asked about a date, her whole face seemed to fall, to droop, but only for a second. Then that serene, Mother Mary Full Of Grace smile was back and whatever had made her sad was tucked safely away, hidden behind her saintly new mask.
“Soon,” she said, and that was her only response. I guessed that perhaps not everyone would be getting an invitation, maybe not even me. And I went back on what I had decided just a few moments earlier – this was definitely as creepy as I first thought.
When I hugged her as we parted that afternoon, I could feel her almost flinch against my touch – was close physical contact another no-no? Roxy was usually the most tactile person, reveling in rough-housing and tender embraces all the same. As I walked away that day, I couldn't help feeling that more and more of her was slipping away.
One thing about Roxy: it was always very easy to tell when she was depressed. She'd get into her parents record collection and go crazy with the volume... on Monday when I let myself into her house, I was treated to the spectacle of Roxanne lying on the Persian carpet in the living room, staring at the ceiling, mouthing the words to a deafening “Union City Blue”. When she'd had to finally drop out of uni, it had been “Sympathy for the Devil”. It made me smile to see her there, even though something was evidently on her mind. It made me happy to know that some things would never change, that there was a sliver of the old Rox still in there somewhere.
“What's up, honey bear?” She leapt up off the floor at the sound of my voice, even though I was barely audible over Blondie. She crossed the living room to the stereo and the music stopped abruptly. She looked like she'd been crying.
“What's wrong?” I asked again. For a moment I thought she'd gone deaf on account of Debby Harry, but then she spoke.
“I can't stay here.”
“No problem,” I smiled. “Get a few of your things, you can spend some time at my place. It'll be just like old times.”
“That's not what I meant. I can't stay here.”
By here, I knew she meant anywhere in town. But she didn't look too happy about it.
“Why, Rox?” I caught myself on the second bounce, verbally speaking; “Roxanne?”
“I only came back to explain myself, and to make things right with Mum and Dad before...”
“Before what? Before going away for good?”
She looked at me, and I knew I'd hit the spot. She was leaving us again.
“Where will you go?”
“Back to Devon, with Samuel. He told me that I ought to come back here one last time, to say goodbye, before we start a proper life together.”
“But surely he didn't mean forever... you'll visit, won't you? This isn't the last time we'll be seeing you, Rox. Why the tears?”
Another meaningful look, and I had it.
“Samuel doesn't want you coming back, ever, does he?”
She shook her head, then nodded.
“That's bullshit, Roxy, you can come back any time you like. Having a husband isn't the same as having a master. You've always done whatever you want, why stop now?”
“My selfish behaviour has caused all sorts of damage, that's why,” she said, but even as the words came out, it didn't sound like her. “Samuel's thrown me a lifeline, and I'm getting out. Something that maybe a few others could try.” She meant me. My sympathy went flying out the window.
“You can stop acting so high and mighty now, Rox – you eat and shit just like the rest of us. So you've cleaned up your act a bit, congratufuckinglations.”
“That's exactly why I can't stay here. Nobody here understands my beliefs, there's no respect. I need to be somewhere righteous.”
“Righteous? Bloody hell, you're already talking like him.”
“He hasn't brainwashed me, no matter how much you might want to think that. This is my own choice, a choice I should have made a long time ago.”
“Well that's fantastic, darling,” I kissed her on the cheek, forcibly, a hard goodbye. “Best of luck in Devon.” I walked out of the house before I had the chance to break down and beg her to stay, or failing that, put my hand through a wall.
I tried to put her out of my mind after that, but it was far from easy. It was maybe two days later that Grant called me, enraged.
“I know she's a friend of yours,” he said, “I mean, we were really fond of her too... but she's gone too far with this new shit of hers. She nearly reduced Eli to tears with some of the crap she was coming out with.”
“Grant, what are you on about?”
“She came round to tell us she was leaving again, and she wanted to say goodbye. But she couldn't leave it there; she had to tell us that she would pray for both of our souls, seeing as how we obviously don't care about getting into Heaven, living in sin and such...”
“Oh, for God's sake... she's anti-gay now?”
“She's anti-sane now, that's what she is. Eli and I have been nothing but good to her, because we know how much she means to you. She and Eli used to be great friends, before she fucked off that last time.”
“I know, Grant, I know. God, I'm sorry. I don't know what's got into her, I honestly don't. And I almost don't care anymore.”
For the first time in the conversation, I heard Grant laugh.
“We both know that's not true, friend,” he said. “I can't think of anything that could break that girl's hold on you.”
He was right, of course. I thanked him, hung up, and got in my car to once again make the drive over to the Days' house, hoping (but not praying) that I wasn't too late. When I arrived, Rox and Samuel were standing outside, most likely having just bade farewell to her parents. I slammed my car door to get their attention. Barely nodding to Samuel, I focused on my friend.
“Can we go for a walk?”
Rox looked to Samuel, and I was disgusted to realise that she was silently asking him for permission. He assented, and I led Roxy off down the street, talking all the time, giving her every reason I could think off not to go. She didn't say a word the whole time. I ran out of breath, ran out of things to say, and that was when I noticed that Samuel had followed us, was now twenty yards or so behind us, and continuing to approach.
“Please, Rox, come back – for real, this time.”
She looked truly torn. I could almost see the cartoon angel and devil on her shoulders, pulling her in opposite directions like a moral tug of war.
“Roxanne,” Samuel's voice grew gruffer, “come here now.”
“Are you going to let him talk to you that way?” I asked, knowing that the old Rox would never allow it. “You're going to just forget who you are and let him stamp his own image onto you? Is that what love is, Rox?”
“Ignore him, darling,” Samuel was trying hard to keep his temper under control, but I knew that if I pushed him far enough, he might crack – and I might get one final chance at saving Roxy.
“No, listen to me,” I said, trying desperately to hold her gaze. Her eyes were tearing up as I spoke. “You remember the first time we met? You wandered into the library, completely hungover, you didn't even know where you were... you practically fell into me and nothing's ever been the same since. You change every life you touch, Rox, and you saved mine. This man, he's spouting shit if he expects anyone to believe that friendship is bad for the soul.”
“It's not friendship I'm against,” Samuel looked at me and for a second I was actually worried he might rush over and hit me. “It's people like you, with your sex and your drugs, you think you can do whatever you want to your body, to other people, and God's just going to turn a blind eye... it doesn't work like that.”
“I don't think God's turning a blind eye, in fact I don't think anything about God full stop.”
“And that's exactly why you're poisonous to Roxanne – for years, people like you and those sodomites have been filling her head with all sorts of rubbish.”
“It's more like the other way around. Sorry to inform you, Samuel, but my friend is as much a deviant as anyone else in this town of ours, maybe even more so.”
“Which is why we're leaving and never coming back. Roxanne, come on!” At this point, he reached over and physically grabbed her arm, yanking her in his direction. Something in the air changed, like the flick of a switch, and I saw something in Roxy's eyes come back to life.
“Don't stand for this shit, babe,” I said, and before I knew it she had pulled away from Samuel's grasp and, holy shit, she actually punched him, right in the mouth. I nearly jumped for joy at the sight; our girl was here again, shushing the noises coming from Samuel's righteous, bloodied mouth.
“That's enough out of you,” she said, breathless from the exertion – it looked like she'd put all of the strength from her petite form into that smacker. She pulled off the engagement ring and handed it to Samuel, who was wide-eyed in shock and indignant fury at being struck by his fiancée. He took the ring from her in silence, and after nearly a full minute of nothing but meaningful staring between the two of them, he walked away.
Unfortunately, that's all bullshit. That's the way I'd love for this story to end, with Samuel out of the picture and Roxy back in the fold, where she belongs. But that's not what really happened. The conversation went pretty much the same as I just described it, right up until the moment when Samuel took Roxy's arm. In reality, she just let him lead her away, like she was nothing more than an animal. That's probably how he saw their union – a shepherd and his lost little lamb. The image makes me feel slightly sick.
She's out there somewhere. Sometimes I think that maybe she'll come back one day for good, but I can't see that happening, not really. She's gone, and once again we have to find a way of getting by without her.
So there we are. That's the story. Not a particularly good one, I'll admit, but it's a true one. A story about my friend Roxy. Not Roxanne Day, but Rox – the girl who'd do anything. The girl who is slowly but surely dying inside the body of a woman who might look just like her, but speaks with somebody else's words in her mouth.
I could never bring myself to say goodbye to Roxy, it would hurt too much. That's the point of writing all this down, I suppose – I can't bring her back, and I can't let her go, all I can do is keep a tiny piece of her on paper. I don't think I've described her well enough, words alone aren't enough. But it will have to do.
On another note, the gay couple are recycled characters - see my earlier story, "Eli's Breakfast", to see their one night stand. That particular piece didn't end particularly happily, so I decided they should be together in this story. I sincerely hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. x
PS: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc, etc... :)
