The Paper Wasp

by Lauren Acampora

  Finally, I left the house in disgust. I wasn’t in the mood for the Rhizome, for the babies. Instead, I traveled up and down PCH. I descended the stairs to El Matador beach and huddled in a rock cave, listening to the soft cursing of the waves.

  Then, on Monday morning, you were awake before me, waiting downstairs. You smiled warmly as I descended.

  “I’m so glad to see you this morning,” you said. “I want to show you something.”

  You held out your left hand, and I saw the ring. My eyes registered harlequin colors: blue, red, green, in a bright gold setting. A small Saturnalia. It took a moment for my brain to transcend the visual delight and grasp the darker message.

  “Sapphire, ruby, emerald, diamond.” You indicated each stone with a fingernail.

  I said nothing. It wasn’t necessarily an engagement ring, I told myself. It could be a high-end bauble you’d bought at the Rhizome gift shop.

  You replaced the ring and your eyes flashed. “Raf changed his mind about the baby. He said that he tried, but he couldn’t live without me. He’s going to commit completely and be a good husband and father. He’s finally ready.”

  “What?” I couldn’t blunt the blade in my voice.

  You pulled back your hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away. It happened so fast, I didn’t have a chance.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “Abby, I’m sorry. I know it’s unexpected.” Beneath your whine was something thorny I didn’t want to touch. “It’s as much as a surprise to me as it is to you, believe me.”

  “Right. Of course,” I said and felt a pain like a branding iron in my chest.

  “But it’s such a relief. I’m so happy. I hope you’ll be happy for me.”

  I wanted to rush out of the room. It was torture to stand there in your kitchen, in the onslaught of what was happening. It was like a bad scene in a movie. I forced myself to stay in place, to remain upright, and I felt as if I were reading a scripted line as I answered, “I’m happy if you want me to be.”

  “Well, I hope so.” You stared uncertainly at me. “Anyway, please don’t tell anyone about it. Raf and I are planning to keep it secret from the press, so it’s just between you and me for now, okay? Some people announce these things right away, but Polly says that’s a mistake. It’s better to sit on this kind of news until the timing is optimal.”

  I snorted. “Who would I tell?”

  You stared and blinked at me, your long foolish eyelashes like a horse’s. “Well, just don’t say anything.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was give you an engagement gift, but I knew that I had no choice. I wouldn’t have wanted to purchase anything, even if I’d had the money to do so. Instead, I pasted together a collage of old photographs that I’d brought from Michigan, pictures of the two of us as children. It was more a tribute to our friendship than a celebration of your betrothal. I wanted to put it in front of you and make you consider what you were rejecting.

  I found you outside by the pool on a wooden lounge chair. “Go get your bathing suit and come back,” you instructed. I’d become accustomed to commands like this, delivered nonchalantly. Of course I’d do what you asked, like a dutiful assistant. You had no reason to think that I wouldn’t.

  I changed into the nautical two-piece from the Rhizome and tied a sarong high around my waist to cover the scar. I dragged another chaise next to yours, and we were quiet for a while beside the pool. It was a pristine day, windless. On the water’s surface, I saw a flickering apparition of two little girls playing “shark,” splashing and flipping like snappers. Those girls were beached now, their grown bodies the size of marlins.

  I stole glances at you in your crocheted bikini. Your midriff was a milky slab with a tidy divot of navel, no sign of the intruder inside. You wore the big black sunglasses, and wooden hoops in your ears. Your toes were capped with opaline nails like seashells, and your hair was swept up in a loose twist. My own hair lay like a skunk pelt on my neck as I weighed down the chaise beside you. It should have been the most natural thing in the world, to lie beside an old friend, to stare together at the bare blue sky. The rest of the world was shut out, denied access to this confidential moment.

  On the little table beside you was the thermos. I considered asking for a sip of whatever was inside, just to make you squirm. I knew you were drinking. There were wine bottles missing from the last case I’d brought home. But I wasn’t here for a confrontation.

  I waited a long time before breaking the silence. “I brought a little something for you.”

  You rose up from your chaise and took the package. “What is it?”

  “Just a memento.”

  You pushed the sunglasses onto your head and ripped the wrapping paper, fashioned from aluminum foil I’d taken from your kitchen.

  “Oh my God, this is so great.” You ran your finger over the photo collage and laughed. There were pictures of us at your house, dressed as kittens, with eyeliner whiskers and cat-ear headbands. There were pictures of each of us jumping into your pool, suspended in midair. “Look at this! I can’t believe that was us,” you said.

  “There’s a card, too. But you don’t have to open it now.”

  You tore open the envelope and pulled out the generically baroque card that said “On Your Engagement” in gold cursive text. I’d chosen it for its elegance, but it now struck me as grandmotherly. I watched your eyes scan the stanzas I’d written inside, a poem by Emily Brontë:

  Love is like the wild rose-briar,

  Friendship like the holly-tree—

  The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms

  But which will bloom most constantly?

  The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,

  Its summer blossoms scent the air;

  Yet wait till winter comes again

  And who will call the wild-briar fair?

  Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now

  And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,

  That when December blights thy brow

  He still may leave thy garland green.

  After struggling with the appropriate degree of endearment for the sign-off, I’d settled for: Your constant friend, Abby. Now you closed the card and looked at the watercolor roses on the front.

  “This is really sweet. Thank you.” The tone of your voice had dropped a register, gone strangely dull. You held the card and collage a moment longer, then rested them on the stone patio beside your chair. You pulled your sunglasses down.

  Of all the moments you disappointed me, I return to this one most often. For some reason, it stings the most. The truth is that I’d nurtured the hope that Brontë’s words, like an incantation, might finally jolt you from your trance, that you’d awaken and look at me in appreciation, take my hand, and revert to the old Elise. This was my last chance to rescue you, to bring us both back to our childhood garden. But, as you dropped my gift to the ground and pulled your sunglasses down, I understood that you were gone. I saw that you’d never return to me fully, that we’d forever remain on parallel tracks, never to mesh again, no matter how I twisted and swerved. At that moment, the cold fact began to penetrate.

  “So, I still haven’t told you about Raf’s proposal,” you said quietly and took a sip from the thermos.

  “No, you haven’t.” I said after a moment.

  “Well,” you sighed, adjusting yourself in the chair. “He surprised me while I was in the bath, under the stingrays. You were out that day, I guess. He came in without knocking, like he does, and sat down on the toilet in his clothes. He just sat there for a minute, and then he gave this whole speech about not being able to live without me, all the stuff I told you. Then he pulled the ring out of his pocket and handed it to me in the bathtub.” You stopped talking. After a long moment, you said, “I didn’t really think about it until later. I was too distracted by the ring, you know? Those incredible colors. And I was so relieved that Raf had come back. When I looked at him he was just beautiful. And all th
ese prenatal hormones were flooding through me, I guess, and I was a little delirious. He said, ‘Is that a yes?’ And I got out of the bath, dripping wet, and kissed him. I didn’t even really think about it until later. It took a while for the glow to wear off and to realize he proposed to me on the toilet.”

  I couldn’t tell if your eyes, beneath the sunglasses, were open or closed. You put a forearm over your face, showing the pale bowl of your underarm.

  “Anyway, the wedding’s going to be soon. Probably in just a few weeks. Raf wants it to be very small, intimate. Intimo, as he says.”

  “How small?”

  You turned to me, and I saw my warped reflection in your sunglasses. “Just family, basically. It’s going to be in Buenos Aires, at the church he went to as a kid, which is really tiny. It’ll be at the end of August, which is good because it’s still winter there and not so hot.”

  You lifted your sunglasses and looked at me for a long moment. “Listen,” you said. “You’re coming, of course. I don’t know about the ceremony itself, but you’re coming to Argentina.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t need to be there,” I began.

  “No, you’re coming.” You replaced your sunglasses, turned back to the sky.

  We were silent for a few minutes among the gossiping birds. I closed my eyes and conjured Michigan, your backyard pool. I remembered your mother, how she took pride in nice things, like the hand-painted tray with peacock feathers that she’d set on the poolside table. I remembered how she’d ask me to make sure you put on sunscreen. You were so fair; you’d burn quickly.

  “The timing’s actually pretty good,” you were saying. “Filming will be done in two weeks, and then after the honeymoon Raf will move in.”

  A pause, a breath. I didn’t speak.

  “It’s obvious, I know, but I thought I should give you some official notice.”

  How casually you struck me with brass knuckles. I don’t know where I found the strength to prop myself on an elbow to look at you. As I did, the fat on my stomach folded inward, rolling over the top of the sarong. You lay flat on the chaise. The photo collage rested on the patio stone where you’d put it with the ripped aluminum foil. The sunlight volleyed off the surface of the pool in glittering pixels. All at once, I had a vision of the Rhizome, the grand staircase leading to the second story, the tight interlocking pattern of the carpet. In the vision, I saw myself traversing the carpet, ascending the staircase.

  “I’ll need your help planning the wedding, of course.”

  “Intimo.“

  “Right.”

  You turned away from me so that your sunglasses reflected the sky again. Your exposed abdomen rose and fell with each breath. You hadn’t used sunscreen and were already beginning to burn.

  I felt no guilt about skipping the laundry on Tuesday and going with Paul to the children’s shelter. I no longer felt any deep obligation to you. You could do your own laundry.

  The shelter wasn’t the bleak penitentiary I’d pictured, but a yellow building with a Spanish tile roof and flowering courtyard. We waited in a conference room, cool and spare but for a vase of gerbera daisies on the table. A woman came into the room with a girl trailing behind her. The girl was broad faced with a tight slot for a mouth. She wouldn’t meet our eyes.

  “This is Yolanda,” the woman said in a loud, slow voice, touching the girl’s shoulder. “She has agreed to talk to you. You may ask questions, and I will translate.”

  The girl’s hair was long and dark, parted in the middle, and she wore a sleeveless pink shirt with ruffles at the shoulders. There was a crater in her upper arm where she must have received some vaccination. I couldn’t remember how old Paul had said Yolanda was, and it was impossible to tell—she seemed both child and adult—but I knew she was the one who’d been raped. She sat stiffly, eyes fixed on the vase of red daisies.

  This was the moment, I understood, to ask the compassionate questions that would earn her trust and draw her out. This was the moment to form a feminine bond that would prompt this girl to divulge the details of her ordeal, to itemize the exact methodology of her violation. As I looked at her, a film played in my imagination—the knives and guns, the rotten teeth and pubic hair—and my body went cold.

  Paul looked at me, raised an eyebrow. “Go ahead,” he whispered.

  “Hello,” I said quickly. “My name is Abby.”

  The translator echoed this in melodious Spanish, lending a false grace to my words. “Buenos días, me llamo Abby.”

  “Thank you for agreeing to talk with us,” I said.

  “Gracias por aceptar conversar nosotros.”

  “We are interested—we hope you will share with us, your journey to this place.”

  “Esperamos que nos cuente su viaje aquí.”

  The girl raised her eyes from the flower vase, then, and looked at me. My face turned to rubber in her gaze. I couldn’t bring myself to smile. The air-conditioning in the room was suddenly intolerable, and I began to quake uncontrollably.

  I turned to Paul. “I can’t do this.”

  The children swarmed my dreams that night. I found them in the white house on the hill, in a cold dark room, huddled beneath a blanket. Yolanda was among them, naked, trying to cover herself. In the dream, I tried to join them beneath the blanket, but they pushed me away. A little boy hissed and said, “Vete, bruja.” Through the loose curtain between sleep and waking, I saw the Perren photograph on the wall, but it was different, three-dimensional. As I stared at it, black insects, hard-bodied beetles or cockroaches, emerged from the gash in the woman’s face and skittered over the print and onto the wall. I pulled away, slammed against the headboard. The insects swarmed onto the bed, and I screamed.

  I didn’t answer Paul’s phone calls. He left a dozen messages that I failed to acknowledge, but he was undeterred and left a dozen more. Finally, I sent him a short note that said simply: I’m sorry, I need to figure some things out right now. He replied: I’ll be here when you’re ready.

  I lay in bed and thought about Paul. I thought of the polyester shirts, the saggy black trousers, the stiff belt. I remembered the layered, greasy hair, the stained teeth and untrimmed fingernails. He was savagely valiant. Any ounce of him was better than me. When I’d turned to him at the conference table in fear and pleading, he’d understood, and taken me gently away. He hadn’t scolded or shamed me. He’d simply returned to the room and questioned the poor girl himself.

  XIII.

  I DREAMED about you and Shelby. In the dreams, you were together in a swamp, dipping your babies in the muck. I was in the forest watching, my feet heavy, unable to move. The babies were purple-faced, screaming, as you let them go. You sat down together on the wet ground as your babies sank. I lunged forward from the trees, just in time to clutch the nearer child from the quagmire. I felt her chest palpitate against mine. Then the scene shifted and I was in a shabby room with baby bottles on the floor. There was a snarling animal somewhere in the room, and I had the sense of racing against time as I searched for a bag that contained supplies I needed, something for the baby. The snarling grew closer as I found the bag next to the door, a soiled white purse with drooping fringes like a pony’s mane. In the dream, I lifted the purse and sprinted through the door as the animal pounced behind me.

  My first alarm rang at dawn. I slipped back into sleep, and again I was in Ann Arbor, walking barefoot in the snow. I saw the movie theater and restaurants, shuttered and darkened. On the bridge, the car headlights were narrowed tiger eyes. A force hit me like a wave, and I catapulted forward. My arms shot to the sides. Swan dives from the pier into Lake Michigan. August sunshine. The warning sign posted there, with photographs of the boys who’d died from jumping. In the dream, I hung in the air for a moment. I saw the picture of an open eye spray-painted on the concrete abutment. I saw the surface of the Huron River, glassed with ice. Then I was in the water, plunging to the bottom of the river, where the green darkened to black. No color, light, or shape. A blockage in my
ears, a terrifying solidity inside my skull. Utter silence, darkness. This was death. I jolted upright in bed.

  When my second alarm rang, I turned it off. I was exhausted, as if I hadn’t slept at all. I didn’t want to leave the bed. I didn’t want to see you. I lay under the satin duvet, staring at the woman in the Perren photograph, reading a global truth in the nature of her lesion. A condition of permeability. I came to believe it was a portrait of me.

  You finally knocked. Through the door, you asked if I was okay. I put false vigor into my voice from my tangle of bedsheets. “I’m okay, just overslept.” I waited for you to ask if you could come in, but you didn’t. Instead, you spoke through the door again. “Are you sick?” I detected a note of impatience in your voice, a note of authority. I still worked for you, after all. “No,” I piped back. “I’ll be out soon.” I heard your footsteps retreat and closed my eyes.

  Once I’d spilled out of bed, I had only enough energy to rinse myself in the shower. After that, I trudged down the stairs, one step at a time, and sat in the kitchen. There, on the table in front of me, lay the new issue of GQ. Rafael was on the cover, in a fitted white T-shirt and jeans, astride a polo pony. I picked up the magazine and ran my fingers over the glossy surface, to be sure it was real, that I was awake. Rafael stared back from atop the pony. He was naturally regal, his bloodline refined over centuries. This brazen beauty was unfair, this chiseled face the product of generations of plundering. I felt queasy as I opened the magazine to read the interview. He spoke about his acting work, his hopes of becoming a director, and the screenplay he’d allegedly been writing. There was only one question about his relationship with you, and his response was disingenuously self-deprecating. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve her. I’m incredibly lucky to have found a woman saintly, or crazy, enough to put up with me.