Nobody, Somebody, Anybody

by Kelly McClorey

  “But I thought you broke up.”

  “I guess we both just needed a little time to ourselves. Finally I called her and we had a long conversation, hashed everything out.”

  “But you were happy you broke up. You said you were better off, remember?”

  “That’s just what I was trying to tell myself. We love each other, that’s what it comes down to. And we’ve already come this far, put so much into it. We owe it to ourselves to at least try.”

  “Maybe you just feel obligated to follow through now, after all the time and effort you put in. You don’t want to disappoint her, I can understand that. But, I mean, take a step back and think for a second. All she’s done these past few months is make you miserable. You said yourself it’s always all about her, she’s selfish and demanding, and couldn’t care less about your feelings. And if she’s like that now, just imagine how she’ll be after you’re actually married.”

  “Come on, Amy.”

  “I’m serious. It’s not too late to change your mind. You could just not show up, or you could show up and hand her a ticket for the next flight back.”

  He hoisted himself up to the top stair, knees angled toward my face. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as though he’d suddenly come down with a migraine. “Look, I get why you would say that. And it’s my fault, I know. I should never have brought you to the wedding, it wasn’t a fair thing to do. And I’m sorry for that. Irina was right, all along. I should’ve listened to her. I shouldn’t have let us spend so much time together. Yes, I vent sometimes, but I love her, I really do, and she actually wants to be with me. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you because you’ve never been in love like this, but one day it will.”

  I turned my head, physically repulsed. I’d never realized how unbelievably vain and obtuse he could be. “It’s not about any of that. I’m only trying to look out for your best interest. To keep you from making a huge mistake.” When he didn’t respond, I knew I had to recalibrate. I needed to put my feelings aside and get strategic, before it was too late. “But no, you’re right, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. I guess I’m just in shock a little. But you know your relationship best. And if you’ve made up your mind, I’ll support you. I’ll help however I can. I’m actually excited to meet her, despite—everything. We can just start fresh, clean slate. I’m sure I’ll like her, once I actually get to know her. Maybe I can stop by after work. Or next week maybe, if you want a few days by yourselves.”

  “Well, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” He adjusted his position on the stair, adjusted it again. “I was thinking it would probably be better if you didn’t come by. It would probably be a good idea if you started looking for another apartment. I don’t want to leave you homeless or anything, just whenever you’re able to find one. We already have a lot stacked against us as it is, and you know how jealous she can be. It will just be one less issue we have to deal with. You can understand that, right?”

  “You don’t have to worry about me saying anything. I can forget the wedding ever happened. It’s already forgotten, out of my mind, woosht.” I flicked my hand as if casting off the memory. “We’re just friends, I get that. That’s all I want too, honestly. Once we all hang out together, she’ll see there’s no reason to be jealous.”

  He stroked the back of his head. I could see a damp spot on the armpit of his shirt. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but sometimes, I don’t know. The way your mind works and stuff, it’s just different from mine. So I’d just feel better this way—”

  His words embedded themselves in my chest and pulsed like a second heart. I stared out at the dark street, praying the bicycle would blow itself up.

  “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, it’s just that you know she’s already been giving me a hard time about you, and the whole living situation. If she ever found out about the wedding, she’d freak out. She’d never forgive me.”

  “I thought honesty was so important to you.”

  He sighed into his hand. If he wanted to marry Irina, I could deal with that—I’d never truly wanted to take her place anyway, I didn’t love Gary, I wasn’t even attracted to him. But to abandon me outright, to relegate me back to a stranger and force me to move to some terrifying new place where I knew no one and had to start all over, when he was the one who had invited me in, asked for my help, brought me to the wedding, kissed me—that idea made me wild. “Maybe I will tell her, then. She deserves to know.”

  “You know that’s not your place.” He put his hands on his thighs and stood up. “This wasn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my night, getting threatened. I’ve got a million things I need to be doing right now, but I took time out of that to talk to you, out of respect.” He went to his front door. “So I’m hoping that once you cool off, you’ll decide to show me the same respect.”

  I jumped to my feet, my whole body shaking. “She’s just using you, can’t you see that? She’s basically a mail-order bride!”

  “Oh my god, is that what you think? I need to get out of here.” His hand trembled on the doorknob. “We met on a dating site, for your information. Everyone’s on them now.”

  “No, you didn’t.” My body stiffened. I felt a vicious, evil spirit enter me; I barely recognized my own voice. “You paid Sincere Romance for a ten-day tour, Odessa, Nikolaev, and Kherson.” I pleaded with myself to shut up, but I was too far gone now, completely deranged, pain exploding through my body, though with some pleasure mixed in it too—the dumb, delicious look on his face—I wanted to squash him and any good feeling he’d ever had. “And they said ‘Don’t take her shopping’ and ‘Don’t let her make arrangements for the date’ and ‘Be selfish, have fun, don’t walk away with any regrets.’ Now, that’s pretty fucked up. Any normal person would say that’s pretty fucked up.”

  “What? Where did you get that? I don’t believe this.” He thudded across the porch and I cringed, afraid he was going to hit me, then wishing he would. It wouldn’t matter anyway, everything was lost now, and for good this time. Then he turned and said to himself, “This is insane, right? How do . . . You know what, no. I don’t want to know. Don’t say another word. I just need you out. Yes, tomorrow, you’re out. You and all your stuff. Are you hearing me? Don’t let me see you again. I’ll call the police if I have to.”

  Just before he opened the door, there was a peculiar stillness, and for a moment I thought we might agree to laugh—the whole thing felt rather absurd. Still, I would’ve begged—I had it in me to try anything then, even something degrading or manipulative—but he saved me the effort by slamming the door and locking me out there alone.

  I stood, paralyzed and blank, for I don’t know how long. Then I went to the door and pounded with my fists. “It’s not like I actually care about you, you know!” I hoped the neighbors would hear, the entire town. “I was having sex with someone else, just an hour ago. Someone a million times better than you!” I pounded and pounded. It was silent on the other side.

  I sat back down on the steps. The roof dripped. The bicycle bowed its head, feigning innocence. I placed two fingers on the tender part of my wrist. With psychogenic shock, blood pressure can drop so rapidly that you may not be able to detect a pulse. Inside me, capillaries were dilating, blood was draining from my brain, and any moment now I would faint. When Gary discovered me out here unconscious, what would he do? Hack me into pieces and throw them in a junkyard? Or maybe the sight of my helpless body would prompt him to review everything that had happened and to realize that I was actually on his side, as I had always been, I was only trying to protect him and to preserve what little was left of his dignity.

  The fainting refused to happen. The cat surfaced in the bushes. Mashpee, that was the name Gary had landed on when we were together in his car, not even a week ago. I got up and started after her, yearning to bury my hand in her warm fur, but she darted out of my reach and disappeared.

 
Up in my apartment, I hunched over my EMS Monthly magazine. I needed to feel my hands physically overpower something, kill its very essence. I mutilated the pages one by one, ripping and slashing with my fingers, even chewing on some of the scraps and swallowing. I hunted for more. My crumpled new dress, where I’d hurled it to the floor Saturday night. When I sank my face into it, I tasted smoke, barbecue sauce, insect repellent, marijuana, and above all, body odor—both mine and his. I tore it along the seams, then tore each piece again and again until there was nothing but tatters.

  Nothing but tatters—that would be the state of Gary’s life by this time tomorrow. How long would he wait at the airport? It might take four, five hours, even longer, maybe until someone notified the authorities about a suspicious man loitering, for him to finally see that he’d been stood up, to finally toss out his tacky bouquet and hobble back to the garage to discover just how much he owed for parking. Driving home, he would have to face that he’d been robbed and tricked and would never hear from Irina again—at least she’d spare him from having to go on with the charade any longer—and that he had no one, especially me, to offer any condolences. Yet at this moment he was still downstairs, feeling like a hero. He believed he had two women fighting over him—he was even more deluded than the rest of us, and they weren’t placebo-type delusions but the destructive, lethal type. Deep down in his gut he knew it too. That was the real reason he’d befriended me and told me things he hadn’t told anyone at work. I was the only one cowardly enough to go along with it, not to question him—so cowardly I was even willing to sacrifice my own future and everything I’d worked for. And now I would be homeless on top of it.

  To keep from crying, I glared at my face in the bathroom mirror. This was a trick I’d developed as a child, since crying made my face look silly and melodramatic, and when I caught a glimpse of it, I had to laugh, I could no longer take the matter so seriously. But it didn’t work this time. Taking a shower was the opposite kind of trick—it fostered self-indulgence and wallowing. I took a shower.

  Behind the shelter of the curtain, under the thrumming spray of water, I mourned and wailed and spoke to myself: “You will always be a stranger, that is your destiny.” If my own mother couldn’t understand me, how could I expect anyone else to?

  When I’d worn myself out, I toweled off and tried to will myself to sleep. It made me sick to think that Gary was so close, just on the other side of the wall, and yet so much farther away than when he was only my landlord, before I’d ever started reading his mail. Outside, a car whisked over the wet road, something threatening in the sound of it: it seemed to be rushing right at me. I braced myself for a collision, yielded, even welcomed it, but it never came. Lying in the dark with my arms over my face, I could still detect a hint of bleach and artificial citrus on my freshly washed skin. Over the course of this summer I really had absorbed a portion of the world’s dust, and some chemicals must’ve come along with it. It seemed that this job was intent on sticking with me.

  Another car passed on the wet road, and this one sounded like a voice whispering, Shhh, shhh. “Shhh, shhh,” I whispered back. That was how my mother used to comfort me when I was still small enough to seek it. She would place an electric heating pad on my belly, stroke my hair, saying “Shh, shh” and “There, there.” Shh, shh, there, there—as though she’d looked up the word comfort in a manual and was following procedure. But now I understood it, because now I had things I wanted to express and didn’t always know how. I would’ve read that manual if it existed. And now I also understood that no matter what she had said or done, it would never have been enough, since there is no comfort another person can offer that is wholly satisfying. “Where shall I find God?” Florence Nightingale once asked herself, and her answer? “In myself.” In myself. In myself. Even so, if my mother were still here, I would invite her over and turn off all the lights—that was the only way we could ever have difficult conversations—and then I’d tell her everything I ever wanted to say. I’d stroke her hair and whisper Shh, shh, and There, there until my fingers went numb and I’d used up all the breath inside me, and even though it wouldn’t be perfect or wholly satisfying, it would be something.

  Twelve

  At dawn, I looked out the window with some expectation, as though a major catastrophe might have transformed the world while I’d been lying in bed praying for sleep. There was no trace of Gary’s car or the bicycle. So I lugged myself back to the clubhouse the same way I always had, one sore foot after the other, and eventually discovered that I’d arrived and was standing over a toilet with my cleaning caddy. I must’ve turned on the television because the low drone of voices filtered in from the bedroom, though I couldn’t make out what they said. I found my backpack next to me on the tile floor, so overstuffed it wouldn’t close all the way. I only vaguely remembered packing it. Inside I found my laptop, my toothbrush, my deodorant, a few pairs of socks and underwear, a change of clothes, and the Ziploc bag I kept under my bed with all my personal documents: tax and loan records, bank account information, passport, social security card. Everything I would take if I were never planning to return. But hidden under all that, a layer of useless trash. The blue pants and the shirt with the patch, the pathetic congratulations letter and certification card, the key to an apartment where I was no longer welcome. I picked up the key and squeezed, digging the serrated edge into my palm, then released. It plonked into the water and sank to the bottom of the toilet bowl. I held the letter and card in my hands. Now I could see them for what they were: a couple of flimsy, illegal forgeries. As I pitched them into the toilet, I had a feeling of déjà vu, as though a part of me had always known it was going to end this way. Of course this part of me had known and yet done nothing to prevent it—I was never willing to save myself from a moment of shame.

  I flushed. Good, I thought. I’m free. I looked down at the empty bowl, half hoping they would pop back up. But no, this was the way it should be. If a person couldn’t manage to hold on to a single friend or a place to live, who could trust her to preserve the finest traditions of her calling? Who would believe she even had a calling in the first place, or that she would ever do anything worthwhile like save a life? Only she would have the idiotic idea to try to placebo herself—ha. You had to laugh.

  Then something caught my eye, a flicker of movement at the bottom of the toilet. The corner of the card. It waved there in the water, taunting me. I grabbed my toilet brush and thrust it into the bowl, stabbing and grinding like mad. I needed more. I added a mountain of powdered bleach, whipped and beat it into a thick paste. I blindly pulled bottles from my caddy and let the contents flow out, listening for the slosh of toilet water and then chucking them behind me. A dense, chalky puddle formed. The way it simmered and frothed, I thought of a witch’s brew. The toilet was my cauldron. I eyed my uniform on the floor. I wadded up the shirt with the arm patch at the center, twisted the pants around it as tightly as I could. I dropped the bundle in. I dumped more and more cleaning liquids on top, plowing the brush into the middle and churning it all up. I could sense the potency building. When I paused and gazed into it, an image materialized. Florence Nightingale, but with a monstrous face. She was angling her lantern toward the dark throat of the toilet, as though beckoning me there.

  The room began to blur. I was surrounded by a kind of fog that stung my eyes. I rubbed their sockets. I was dizzy, my senses drifting away from me, sight, smell, touch. “My name is Amy,” I said. “I’m here to help you.” I tried to stab the brush into the bowl, my arms weak and wavering. Is the water brackish? Did it come from rocky heights? Administer oxygen by non-rebreather mask. The thoracic spine. The pack-strap carry. All of the above. My eyes were on fire and my organs writhed inside me. I staggered into the side of the tub. Tachycardia, tachypnea. Prehospital blood transfusion. Don’t take her shopping. Turn them into, into bananas. Bananas. Then a monkey. Shh, shh. There, there. I managed to suck in a burst of air, then choked on it, coughing into my hand and shudd
ering. I looked at my hand and saw blood.

  * * *

  When my eyes opened again, I was splayed out in a bright room. For a moment I thought I was in the supermarket deli, trapped inside the display case—I’d been reincarnated as a bowl of Swedish meatballs. A woman’s face appeared, full of freckles. I noticed a cloudy tube running into my arm. “You’re all right,” she said. “You’re in the hospital. You had a little incident at work. Do you remember that? I’m Jeanine. I’m going to take your vitals.”

  I blinked, swallowed. My mouth tasted like vomit. She wrapped my other arm in a vest. It pinched. She was taking my blood pressure. I watched her move through a haze. Her scrubs had a pattern, dog bones and paw prints.

  “Amy, you’re awake.” I discovered Doug standing at the foot of my bed. I wanted to tuck into the fetal position, I felt so powerless and exposed. “I just have to step out and take this call. But I’ll be back. Take extra good care of her.”

  “Thank God, we were so worried.” Another voice traveled from across the room—Roula. Seated in a chair in my hospital room as though she were a welcome guest and not my most hateful enemy. The violation sent flames through every part of my body, converging at my throat.

  The nurse moved an object across my forehead. “Do you remember what happened?”

  “Mm.” I swallowed again.

  “It was an accident?”

  I nodded.

  “So were you aware of the dangers of mixing bleach and ammonia? Two common household cleaners. It should really be one of the first things you learn, in your line of work.”

  “I—I was just trying to clean,” I said feebly.

  “Well, we all have forgetful moments,” the nurse said. “But this is nothing to take lightly.”

  “It can be fatal,” Roula said, because her presence here wasn’t enough; she had to diminish me any way she could.