by Anne Panning
I shared a room with Janet, who stood in the open doorway and said, “Oh, okay,” and walked out. I stiffened. Matthew whispered that in the big scheme of things, it shouldn’t matter. “I mean, when you get old and ready to die, what will be more important? Your first big orgasm or your bitchy roommate Janet?” His armpit hair gave off a slightly ripe odor. He did not believe in deodorant.
“I heard that!” Janet shouted from the tiny galley kitchen. I remember the sound of them all discussing what to do about us, but Matthew was focused, tender, tracing my jaw line with his calloused finger.
“You,” he said, hot skin radiating, “are amazing.”
That night I made him sleep in his car, even though it was cold. He said he liked to park down by the Mississippi River and listen to the radio. I guessed he would drink himself to sleep. Still, I was desperate to fit in with the girls and spent that night eating popcorn and watching “The Lawrence Welk Show,” which they, for some reason, enjoyed mocking for entertainment.
My mother called just as I was dozing off next to Janet on the couch. “Nor, it’s Ma,” she said. “Your dad’s leaving me. In fact, he’s already gone.” My parents owned a bakery, Rolling in Dough, and as my mother had long been predicting, the early morning hours and lack of sleep would eventually kill them. “Can you come home?” she said. I remember her voice sounded as if she’d been smoking, though she’d never touched a cigarette. “Please?” I was her only child. I told her to wait, that Matthew had the car but would be coming around soon.
“That Matthew,” she said. “He’s a keeper.”
“Yeah.” We agreed to arrange details later, then hung up.
My body still pulsed with a deep mystery inside. I knew Matthew would be back after my roommates had gone to sleep, and sure enough, around midnight, I heard a snowball smack my window. At the door, his eyes were bright, his thinning hair matted to one side, the pattern of the vinyl car seat woven firmly to his cheek.
“Do you want to try it again?” he asked, meaning sex. “We should see if it works again.” He pulled me close to him; his heartbeat pounded under my ear.
“Shh,” I said. “They’re all asleep.” I ran my fingers over his soft corduroy coat.
“We could do it in the kitchen,” he said. “Right here.” I let him lift me up and carry me to the counter. It was covered with empty cereal bowls and coffee mugs. I remember the streetlights seeped in through the blinds and made our bodies looked striped. He kissed my neck just below the ear.
“But my mother,” I said. “My father—”
I remember it did work again, and this time, it was difficult to be quiet. A cookie sheet crashed to the floor, and both of us froze, waiting for my roommates to come running.
Later, we slipped out the door quietly and drove to my parents’ small house an hour away. “We could just keep driving,” Matthew said. He braked for the single stoplight in the center of town; it flashed red at the late hour. “We could run away and never come back.” The blinker glowed green onto his face.
I shook my head no, but the way Matthew smiled at me in the dark, I could tell he was already gone.
* * *
After my parents divorced, I proceeded cautiously with Matthew, scared of disaster. On weekends I went home and helped my mother bake early morning muffins: orange and peach and blueberry. Matthew drove me there, though he had traded his Toyota for a used motorcycle. I remember my hair flying out the back of the helmet like tentacles in the wind. Matthew laid it on thick with my mother. When she came home exhausted from a long day’s work, Matthew massaged her shoulders, asked her probing questions about her life, made her tea in mugs he’d hand-thrown himself.
Little by little, he started going too far, though. He asked if he could borrow her car, then didn’t return it until early the next morning. He brought over sacks of clothing and began doing laundry there regularly. When my mother discovered money missing from her wallet after we’d visited, even she began to suspect the worst. What she didn’t know but what I did was the crystal methadone habit Matthew was falling prey to. During the week, when I was studying for my classes, Matthew would come over harried and frantic, running his hands through his hair. I had been talked into a premed major by my advisor and had no time for his antics. I was serious and driven, hopped up on coffee but committed to the study of cell division and anatomy. At that point, I preferred the human body from the distance of books over the actual up-close version.
I remember Matthew wore the same dirty black jeans for days; he did not believe in underwear. Unlike most junkies, he’d gained weight instead of lost it and started letting his hair go “native.” I remember the thin blond strands looked more like fuzzy snarls than dread locks. He wore sunglasses indoors because the light hurt his eyes. One night he stood in front of me, dropped his pants, and threatened to urinate all over my room if I didn’t just this once drop what I was doing and go take a motorcycle ride with him.
“You’re insane,” I told him. It was raining and after midnight.
“You’ve lost your spirit,” he said. “They’ve taught it right out of you! Man, what a waste.”
“What a waste you!” I barbed him right back. “At least I have a life! At least I’m not like you, Mr. I-Can’t-Deal-with-the-Mundane-Ordinary-Life-So-I-Think-I’ll-Just-Mooch-Off-of-Others-and-Snort-Meth-and-Get-Fat!” There was silence then, followed by a quick movement I couldn’t at first identify. I remember seeing his worn leather book bag fly across the room, but I had no idea it was heading right for me. It hit me in the face. It knocked me to the floor.
I scrambled up to my feet. “I am a smart woman!” I said. “One hit. That’s all it takes. Just one hit.” I remember my cheek throbbing where the buckles had broken the skin. I could feel my own warm pulse rise to the surface, and then I saw the blood. “Some women would take this but I won’t,” I said. I stormed around the room, pumped on adrenaline. “I can’t believe this. Just go! I never want to see you again! Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?”
“I didn’t hit you.” His penis hung between his pale legs like a dead bird. It reminded me of the ducks my father used to shoot and carry by their necks as if they were made of rubber.
“Excuse me?” I remember, despite the physical pain, a deep sensation of loss. He’d made it impossible for me to be with him now and forever. “Did the bag hit me on its own?”
He shook his head. His eyes were all pupil and artificially bright.
“Semantics,” I remember saying. “You know what you did.”
He reached for the door. My roommates were around; I remember hearing the whir of the blender making margaritas over the sound of televised sports. They laughed and puréed and clinked glasses. Suddenly, I had become older, more jaded, less innocent than them.
When Matthew turned to leave, I could tell he was going to say something else, so I said, “Go. Now.” But he talked over me.
“You know you’ll never stop,” he said. “Either of us—we can’t. I mean, it’s not possible, right?” His eyes, so deep set and blue, looked pinched. The attraction was like a magnet, pulling me against my will.
“What did I just say?” We stood mere inches from each other so that I could smell his worn, woolly sweater the color of yams; he always wore clothing in warm, tropical colors, thrifted from the Goodwill. I remember all I had was a tissue to hold against my bloody cheek. He reached out to touch it, but I recoiled. “What did I say? Don’t touch me. Just go.”
“No one will ever love you as much as me,” he said. “That I can promise you.” I scoffed at the cliché.
“Well,” I said, “just look what that much love does.” My heart beat hot and tight when he finally left. I could hardly swallow. “Bye, Matt!” I heard my roommates say in chorus; they had no idea.
I sunk to the carpet, thinking: “Smart, you’re smart. You have to be smart.” I picked up my anatomy textbook and looked up the cheekbone, the zygomatic bone, which was starting to swell.
The next day a hastily written note was shoved into our apartment mailbox. It was loose leaf notebook paper, folded in sixes. I read it right in the vestibule before anyone could see.
Norah,
This will sound crazy, but I want you to marry me. It’s the only way. The world will tear us apart otherwise. What we have only comes along once. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. That’s why it’s so hard. I don’t even need to think about it. Do you? You’re the single best thing in an otherwise piss-ass world. When I look in your eyes, I see madness. And light.
Love,
M.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t see how.
* * *
The day I graduated from college, I cut off all my hair. I remember how free and skinny my neck felt without the weight. My mother and father both came to the ceremony with their respective new spouses. Within a year, each had managed a romantic turnaround and slap-dash wedding. Neither new spouse seemed sure how to act around me other than smile hard and grip my hand tight like an aunt or uncle. I was, amazingly enough, selected to be valedictorian because of my seamless 4.0 GPA, and with that honor came an obligatory speech in the gymnasium. I had been accepted to medical school in Lincoln, Nebraska; I had secured funding for the first year. My new boyfriend, Walt, had also been accepted there, and we’d found an apartment near campus that we’d leased in both our names.
My speech was perfunctorily optimistic, though peppered with pithy quotes from artists and poets. An old Chinese proverb: “Live each day as if your hair is on fire.” St. Augustine: “We are restless hearts, for earth is not our true home.” There were others. My general thesis was that we are all given only one life; you get one chance, so make it count. I remember Walt, who’d read the rough draft, thought I was being fatalistic. He believed that we were given many chances and that life was nothing if not a learning curve. I argued no; you get one chance.
As I was concluding my speech, I saw Matthew slip in and lean against the back wall. I literally lost my breath, then I lost my place. I remember seeing the big leather book bag, the book bag, slung crosswise over his chest. I was too far away to see his facial expression, but I noted he wore a faded jean jacket I’d never seen before and looked taller, less manic, from a distance. I cut the speech short. I could just hear him cringing at all my gung-ho platitudes imploring my classmates to be better citizens, make safer communities, seek bigger challenges. My ankles felt watery and without bone as I stepped down to my seat. Polite applause masked my coughing fit. I could barely control it.
My parents and their new spouses took Walt and me out for hamburgers and malts at a 1950s-themed restaurant with too much chrome and neon. It felt more like a triple date than a celebratory, life-marking dinner. Walt asked and answered all the right questions. You could already see the doctor in him. He was hoping to specialize in pediatric medicine; the way he nodded at my father, ate French fries with his fork, and pushed up his eyeglasses with two fingers made his calm bedside manner apparent. My mother got up twice to use the ladies’ room. I could tell by the way she raised her eyebrows that she wanted me to come gossip with her about my father’s new wife. I stayed put.
As I drained my strawberry malt, I saw Matthew again. He was paying for a meal at the counter and buying gum, so it was impossible to know if he’d been there first or if he’d followed us. My straw sucked loud emptiness and the whole room stared. He nodded at me. I made sure my parents didn’t see him. I nodded back, just a little. Every fiber of my being wanted to rush up and throw myself against him. At our table, Walt tried paying for the meal like a gentleman, even though he was broke. My father threw down three twenties. My mother asked if I was all right. I said I was.
By the time my parents paid and left a tip, Matthew was gone. I was despondent. I excused myself to the restroom and found a note wedged between the door frame. It was folded up like a little diamond.
Norah,
You’re the smartest, after all. Didn’t I always tell you? I’m going to work the strawberry fields in upstate New York this summer. I’ll be living in a tent, sleeping under the stars by Lake Ontario. I know you’re all set to become a doc and all, but you’re only given one life, right? Want to come?
Love,
me
PS I still stand behind my claim that no one will ever love you as much ... esp. this bozo. Nor, are you for real with him?
PPS No, I’m not stalking you. If you’re around tonight, so am I.
PPPS Your hair!
I found him that night standing outside the library. It’s where we used to meet to walk along the river when I was done studying. I remember how sweet the air felt. It was mid-May; little trees were just struggling back to life after a long winter. I could feel the soft air against my bare legs under the skirt I wore. Matthew had a car again, this time a huge late-sixties Oldsmobile. It was truly large enough to serve as a small apartment.
A great distance sat between us in the big front seat. When he turned a corner heavy, I slid closer to him by force of gravity and smooth vinyl. His right arm wrapped around my shoulder. Down by the river, our headlights cut through the darkness. The moon spilled silky light on the water. I looked at Matthew to gauge his thinking. He’d snipped the dread locks off and had hair now as short as mine. His hairline had receded. I remember his skin, usually so pink and full of fury, looked milk white in the light. “You and me,” I remember him saying. I didn’t know what he meant, but I nodded.
We sat on the big warm hood of his car, our backs flat against the windshield. We took off our shoes. “You know,” I said, “I’m a person who not only talks the talk, but I walk the walk.”
“Meaning?” He uncorked a bottle of wine between his legs. There were no glasses, so we sipped and shared.
“Meaning we’re only given one life,” I said. I was quoting my own valedictorian speech. The wine was sweeter than I liked, and cold red.
“So ...”
“So don’t you get it? I’m coming with you this summer,” I said. “Strawberries.”
Matthew stood on the car and bellered like a madman.
“But only for the summer,” I was quick to add. “I’m not giving up med school. Don’t even think it.”
“Who, me?” Some birds lighted on the water and made it look like ink. They settled in, adjusting, then went silent. Above us, traffic streamed along the Washington Avenue bridge, and from below, I remember the lights—red, white, green—looked festive, like Christmas. I’d utterly abandoned Walt with lies, and felt a momentary rush of guilt.
“So, you wanna wrestle?” Matthew placed a hand over my heart. That he was still using our euphemism after all this time unnerved me.
“I don’t know,” I said.
I remember the oddest feeling then, as if I were cheating on myself. I was breaking my own rules, the rules of smart women.
I did let him hold my hand. “Tell me about Kenya,” I said. “You can say it in Swahili if you want.” I felt him nod in the dark.
I remember the sound of his words in the quiet May night. Each sentence sounded like little music. Each little story I already knew in English. “Say the one about your mom baking cakes in leaves,” I said. My head lay back against the cool glass. “Or the one where your dad made a swimming pool for everyone in your back yard. Wasn’t it out of tires?”
He talked and talked. He was happy to tell. I, on the other hand, needed to listen to take back some of what I’d lost.
That night we slept in the car like vagrants—me in the front, him in the back. In the morning, a family of ducks waddled around the car, waking us. Somehow I knew, rubbing my eyes against the bright sun, that Walt was no longer a contender.
* * *
My mother tried to talk me out of what she called some “dangerous choices.” I was temporarily living with her and my new stepfather, Victor, a landscape architect. They hadn’t even been married a year, and he’d ripped out all her shaggy forsythia and holly and replaced them with tiny geometric he
dges that looked like blocks. I remember I spent a lot of time in my old bedroom reading magazines, waiting for Matthew to give word we were ready to go. I’d never been to New York before, and although I knew we were heading upstate, I couldn’t quell the excitement of heading to the Big Apple.
“Norah,” my mother began one rainy Saturday in late June. I remember she leaned against my doorway and tilted her head in a way that suggested tenderness. “You really don’t have to go through with this,” she said. I remember how elegantly her toenails were polished. Her bare feet grazed the carpet. “I mean, I don’t want to interfere here, but I think you need to remember this is the boyfriend who hit you once. And you know what they say....”
I had regrettably told her about the book bag incident way back when, and now it was coming back to haunt me. I almost said, “He didn’t actually hit me,” but managed to stop myself. I remember the odd mix of sun and rain outside the window; the sky glowed pink yellow like an old bruise and seemed to radiate heat through the raindrops. “I know what I’m doing,” I told her. “It’s just a summer adventure.” I smoothed the white eyelet comforter I’d had since sixth grade. “Life’s going to get serious soon enough. I’ve got to explore while I’ve got the groove.”
My mother picked up a piece of lint from my floor. “That’s not you talking,” she said, prim. “That’s him.” She put the lint piece in her pocket. The phone rang, thankfully, and since Victor didn’t believe in answering, we heard the machine pick up. It was Matthew. “Be ready tonight,” he said, not indicating any specific time. “I’ll swing by.”
My mother sighed. I punched my pillow down and lay back. I remember thinking: we create ourselves by our choices. It was something I’d read somewhere that had stayed with me.