Lorraine nods. “I do,” she says, the words swallowed up by the room.
“Alright, Ms. Bloom, I’m going to take a minute to read this over.” The judge is holding her papers in his hand and they watch him read. He regards the paper with such indifference that Nessa feels sick to her stomach. Then he puts it down.
“Ms. Bloom, you’ve been married to Mr. Wright for sixteen years?”
“We’ve been together for sixteen years. Married for ten.”
“And how long has the verbal abuse that you mention here been going on?”
Lorraine tilts her head. “I guess from the beginning,” she says.
Nessa is ashamed. She never considered it verbal abuse before, though now she wonders what she thought all that yelling and fighting was.
The judge nods. “And why now? What made you decide to come get this order today?”
Lorraine pauses.
Next to Nessa, Tanya is on the edge of the bench, her back so straight, it’s as though she’s trying to stand up without actually doing so.
“Lately it’s been getting worse,” Lorraine says.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Well. He’s quicker to get angry. He loses his temper over the smallest things.”
“And the incident with the cat,” the judge says. “When did this happen?”
“About a month ago.”
“So why did you wait to come in until today?”
“I—I had to take some time to think about it.”
Tanya exhales.
“Ms. Bloom, do you feel scared of Mr. Wright?”
For a full thirty seconds Lorraine is silent. Then she nods her head, and it becomes clear that her mother is trying not to cry. “Yes,” she says, this time louder. “I do.”
The judge nods. “Well, I am not going to grant this order today. From what I can see, it’s not an emergency. What I will do is set a hearing for next Monday so that Mr. Wright can have a chance to talk, too. At this point I need more time and more information to make a decision. Mr. Wright will be served over the weekend and the hearing will be set for Monday, April twenty-fourth, at ten a.m. Make sure you show up, Ms. Bloom, otherwise the matter will be dropped.”
Lorraine nods.
“Okay,” he says. “Thank you.”
Nessa and Tanya look at each other. They’ve always had the ability to feel identical feelings, but this—this feeling is unlike any they’ve ever experienced. Nessa has the strange sense then that Tanya knows where she was earlier today; that she’s been thinking about him, too.
Lorraine is walking toward them. She looks blank. Nessa can’t tell if she’s trying to soothe them with her face—I’m okay, girls—or if her face has nothing to do with them at all.
* * *
—
THEY DRIVE TO THE ARLINGTON DINER for lunch. While Lorraine is in the bathroom, Tanya turns to Nessa, businesslike. “I don’t trust Jesse not to lash out when he gets served. I think we should leave this weekend.”
“Seriously?”
“This is a vulnerable time. When he realizes she’s applying for this order and leaving him, he’s going to freak.”
“But what’s he going to think if we all just disappear?”
“I don’t care what he thinks. I just don’t want to be around him, and I don’t want Mom to be around him. We have to convince her to include the emergency room visit on her affidavit. She has to do that.”
“Tanya.”
“What?”
“I went to Dan’s house today.”
Something passes over Tanya’s face then, like a net. For a moment she looks stuck, unable to move, to change expression. But then it lifts, and Nessa sees that her sister is furious. “What the fuck, Nessa.”
“Tanya, I think we should press charges. You were fourteen, how could he not see that you were—”
“Shut up, Nessa.” Tanya’s voice is low and clipped, but there’s something hysterical in her eyes—a childlike terror. “Mom’s coming back. Just stop talking, okay?”
“Okay.” She’d been wrong; Tanya had not been thinking about Dan at all. She wants to reach over and hug her sister, but she sees that Tanya does not want to be touched.
Lorraine slides into the booth and Tanya rearranges her facial features to look calm and unruffled, then puts one hand firmly on Lorraine’s wrist. “Mom, we’re going away this weekend.”
Lorraine smiles sourly. “Somewhere tropical?”
“No,” Tanya says. “Somewhere safe.”
This was not supposed to be a weekend about Dan. But everywhere Tanya goes, she can smell him. He’s there on her clothes, on her hands, in the smells of food cooking. As she and Nessa pack to go to Vermont, where they’ve decided to take Lorraine for the weekend, Tanya buries her nose in each of her shirts. Initially, there’s the scent of her detergent and their apartment in New York, and there’s also the slightly more stale smell of her suitcase, but underneath she can detect it—the smoky, meaty stink of him.
“This is disgusting,” she says into her French Connection sweater.
“What?” Nessa says.
“My clothes reek. I hope the bed-and-breakfast has laundry.”
Nessa doesn’t respond.
They’re alone in their bedroom. They haven’t really spoken since the thing Nessa said in the diner. It’s the closest they’ve ever come to talking about what happened. It had been so surprising to hear Nessa say his name—so surprising and, at the same time, disturbingly normal. But more than that, it had felt mean for Nessa to whip it out like that—crude, almost—without warning Tanya first. That something as small as a name—three harmless letters—has that kind of effect on her, horrifies Tanya.
“You’re not allowed to say that,” she’d wanted to scream. But that would have been absurd.
So, they’re running away, as though this might solve their problems. Tanya understands that nothing is as simple as throwing a sheet over it and pretending it’s not there. But she also knows that her mother is more likely to go back to Jesse if she sees him before the hearing. And then there’s the fact that Tanya can’t stand the smell of her own house; that each time she walks up and down the stairs, a feeling of dread builds like heavy grit in her stomach. It’s not the Wild Thing exactly, because no one is chasing her; rather, it’s the memory of being chased, of being stuck, and that’s how Tanya feels—like she’s stuck inside her own mind, encased in her own body. All she wants to do is move.
She wants to get away from Arlington, with its troves of Dunkin’ Donuts and gas stations and car dealerships and white-steepled churches. She doesn’t want to clean out this messy house, sort all the junk into piles—keep, throw away, donate. She doesn’t want to walk the dog up and down Winter Street, or do all the old things they used to do “one last time.” She doesn’t feel nostalgic for this place the way her sister and mother do. The smallness and whiteness of Boston’s inner suburbs, the way everyone is stuck in their ways. Especially the men—the macho men, the arrogant men. The strong silent types who drink themselves into oblivion every night but still insist they don’t have feelings. The self-important intellectuals—I’m getting my PhD . . . in Cambridge? The beat of silence, as they wait for the inevitable follow-up questions so they can launch into their autobiography.
Oh, men like this exist everywhere. New York is swarming with misogynists, some who call themselves feminists, others more straightforward about it. But home is where Tanya feels it most acutely. It’s where she feels smallest. She’s reminded of what it felt like, growing up with a mother who divorced one asshole but quickly found herself another, smiling all the while, as if she was the luckiest woman alive.
II.
2001
Nessa was in the car when it happened. There was the blare of a horn, one long continuous blast. The impact—the tightness of her seat be
lt across her chest—metal scraping metal, her mother’s scream.
“Shit, shit, fuck,” Lorraine cried, as they pulled over behind the car they had just slammed into. A man burst from the driver’s seat, yelling. It was dark outside and on the shoulder of the road he looked frightening, illuminated by Lorraine’s headlights. He was coming toward them, spittle spraying from his mouth.
“Should I get out, too?” Nessa asked as Lorraine opened the car door, but her mother didn’t respond.
“I’m sorry,” Lorraine said breathlessly to the man. “I’m so, so sorry.” She was crying already, clutching her jacket close to her.
The man threw up his hands. “Did you not see me?”
Lorraine shook her head. “I didn’t. I don’t know what happened. Are you hurt?”
“No.” He rubbed his jaw. “Are you?”
“I’m alright,” she said.
“Well, that’s good.” His voice had become softer.
Nessa watched as they walked over to the front of their car and knelt, and then over to the side of his. When they stood, the man disappeared into his car for a minute and came out with a pen and a piece of paper, which he gave to Lorraine. Her mother took them and began to write, using the hood of their car as a surface. Nessa watched the man watch her mother write. He was handsome.
Lorraine finished writing and when she glanced back at the man, she tucked her hair behind her ear. He smiled at her, and Nessa felt her own stomach dive. His smile transformed his face from something cold and perfect into something urgent and enchanting.
Lorraine handed him the paper and then, unbelievably, the man pulled her mother in for a hug. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. A minute later, when Lorraine climbed back into the car, she began to laugh.
“What?” Nessa asked. Her hands were still shaking from the crash.
“He wants to take me out to dinner,” Lorraine said, shaking her head in disbelief. She was shining.
* * *
—
WATCHING HER MOTHER fall in love with Jesse was like watching a movie. Nessa was on the outside looking in, though neither one of them seemed to know she was paying any attention.
Lorraine became happy and distracted, a permanent smile etched into her cheeks. She hardly ate, those first months, but she made elaborate dinners for Nessa and Tanya, listening to music while she cooked. She cleaned the house compulsively. She sang. When her daughters spoke to her, she nodded along, but she wasn’t really listening.
When Lorraine wasn’t spending time with Jesse she was talking about him on the phone to her friends. Her voice and her eyes changed when she spoke about Jesse. Nessa could feel how bored she was, looking at anybody’s face whose wasn’t his.
Jesse was the manager of an Italian restaurant in North Cambridge called Angelo’s and those first months he brought them take-out containers of chicken parm and breaded mozzarella sticks and Lorraine would swoon. It annoyed Nessa how happy the food made her mother, but it annoyed her even more that Lorraine barely ate any of it. Nessa didn’t like eating Jesse’s food in front of Lorraine, but usually she’d sneak down to the kitchen to eat it on her own after everyone had gone to bed. The food from Angelo’s was good.
Nessa didn’t want to like Jesse, but she did. The first time they met he said, “Nessa, I owe you an apology. I really do. For yelling like an asshole. When your mom told me you were in the car when that happened, oh my God, Nessa, I wanted to die.” He shook his head. “I was such a jerk. I really was. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, stunned. No adult had ever spoken to her like that.
“It’s not, though. I’m going to make it up to you, okay? I don’t know how, but I’m going to make it up to you. I promise.”
Nessa shrugged. Then she waited. Weeks passed and nothing happened. She never brought it up with him again, but she began to live with Jesse’s promise like a stone deep inside her pocket. Something cool and smooth to hold, to pass absentmindedly between her fingers, something to keep tight in the center of her palm.
* * *
—
ONE DAY AFTER SCHOOL, Nessa found Jesse watching TV, the volume turned up higher than they ever had it. He was the only one home.
“Hi,” she said.
He looked over his shoulder. “Hey there.” He reached for the remote and turned it down.
Nessa shrugged her backpack off and dropped it to the floor, then wandered into the kitchen to wade through their messy fridge.
“Nessa,” Jesse called from the living room. “Come here a sec.”
Nessa walked back into the living room.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like her?” Jesse nodded toward the television screen, where two men were yelling back and forth at each other across a parking lot. “Hold on,” he said. “She’ll be back.”
Several moments later a woman appeared on the screen. “There,” he said. The actress that he was referring to was so pretty that Nessa wondered if he was making fun of her.
“No.”
He shrugged. “Something about the eyes.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Looks a little like your mom, too.”
Nessa studied the woman’s face. “I guess so,” Nessa said. She sat down on the arm of the chair.
“Have you seen this movie before?” Jesse asked.
She shook her head.
“It’s good. You’d like it.”
“What’s it about?”
“Those two guys are friends. They just robbed a bank together. The taller one is pissed because his buddy, Vic, slept with his girlfriend. Vic had no idea that’s who she was, though.”
“That’s why they’re yelling at each other?”
“Yup.”
“And the girlfriend is the lady who kind of looks like me?”
“Right. Michelle. She knew exactly who Vic was,” he said. “She’s gorgeous but a bitch. The pretty ones always are.”
Nessa blushed, wondering if Jesse had just called her gorgeous, or a bitch, or both. She watched, waiting for the actress to come back on the screen.
The front door opened then, and Lorraine’s voice rang out. “Hi, honey!”
“Hi!” Nessa and Jesse called back at the same time. Jesse grinned at Nessa. “You’re definitely the honey she means,” he said.
Lorraine appeared in the living room with grocery bags in her arms.
“Babe,” Jesse said, jumping up. “You should’ve left them for me.”
“There’s more in the car.” She eased the bags onto the floor and flexed her fingers. “Thanks. Take the keys.”
Jesse took the keys from her and kissed her mother on the side of her smile. “I missed you,” he said, in a voice Nessa wasn’t supposed to hear, and she realized then that she was jealous.
* * *
—
LATER THAT WEEK on the school computers Nessa found the actress from the movie on the internet. She scrolled through photo after photo, trying to locate herself in the beautiful woman’s face. On the TV screen that day—through Jesse’s eyes—she’d started to see the resemblance. Now it felt like a cruel joke. She looked nothing like that woman.
“Looking at porn?”
Nessa spun around in her seat, her face hot.
It was Tommy McKenzie, a loudmouth kid in her grade—taller than most boys, with a shock of orange hair and teeth that always looked like they needed to be brushed. He was grinning, looking over her shoulder at the computer screen filled with images of the actress.
“I didn’t know you were a lesbo,” Tommy said, his voice too loud for the library.
Quickly, Nessa x-ed out the browser window. “I’m not. I was looking up a movie I watched with my mom’s boyfriend.” She could feel her blush all the way up in her skull.
“Sure, lesbo,” he said, giving
her another perverse smile, before leaving her alone at the computer.
* * *
—
THAT NIGHT WHEN NESSA touched herself, she thought about the actress. In her fantasy, she was the actress, and she was beautiful and untouchable and she was a bitch. She was allowed to be a bitch because she was beautiful. Nessa understood that a boy like Tommy McKenzie would never have spoken to her that way in the library if she really was pretty. He would have been too scared to talk to her. He might have a crush on her. At the very least, he would be attracted to her.
Nessa had no idea what that felt like—to have a boy like her. She imagined it was the kind of feeling that made everything else bearable about life, worth living for.
They’re an hour outside of Arlington, heading toward Vermont, when Lorraine cries out, “Shit!” and slaps a hand down hard on the dashboard.
“What?” Tanya yells back, startled.
“Sally,” Lorraine says. “We have to go back for Sally.”
Inwardly, Tanya curses. She is shocked that her mother is actually going along with her plan. She’d expected Lorraine to protest, but Lorraine had agreed almost instantly when Tanya suggested driving out of state for the weekend. Nessa had suggested Bennington, where an ex-boyfriend of hers had gone to school, a small college town three hours from Boston, out of the way enough that Jesse would never think to look for them there.
“Mom,” Tanya says. “We’re almost halfway there.”
Lorraine shakes her head. “We have to go back.”
“Sally will be fine for a weekend.”
“But, Tee,” Nessa says from the backseat. “What about what he did to that cat?”
Tanya throws Nessa a death glare in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to take the dog anyway,” Tanya says. “That might provoke him. Right now we need to maintain a safe distance until Monday.”
Something Wild Page 10