Falling Under

by Danielle Younge-Ullman

  That’s one problem.

  Hugo and I, we could be happy. Maybe we would be happy. But happiness is dangerous, is treacherous, and one day I would lose him. I would pull out my soul and serve it to him and then he would be gone, murdered, kidnapped, felled by cancer, a heart attack. I see it: five in the morning, me answering the doorbell, police on the doorstep, Pollock or a baby in my arms, and then the news that Hugo is gone. Gone forever and my heart gone too.

  I see it, I can’t help seeing it. And that’s another problem. I cannot trust him, but worst of all, I cannot trust myself.

  That’s a real problem.

  Hugo is looking at me, his gaze open.

  Terrifying.

  What was the question?

  “What’s the problem?”

  Right. I can hardly breathe.

  “Uh...”

  “Are you all right?” he asks.

  “Um...”

  I’m dizzy, ill.

  “Hey, it’s just dinner,” he says. “Or coffee. People do it all the time.”

  “I know, but...”

  “Okay, okay, I’m not some creep who can’t take no for an answer.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “You know what, though?” he says. “I’m here a lot. I’ll probably be here every night this week, so...”

  “Right.”

  “So we could do this again, just casual.”

  “Mm,” I say.

  “Just you helping me pass the time while I train Pollock.”

  “Maybe,” I find myself saying.

  I can’t manage “no thanks” but I can say “maybe”? I’ve got to find Bernadette and get out of here.

  “Um, it was nice to meet you, Hugo.”

  Miraculously, Bernadette shows up at this exact moment. One look at me and she is all concern.

  “You all right?”

  “Fine.”

  She glares at Hugo, who throws his hands up in a gesture of innocence.

  “Let’s go,” she says, and pulls me by the arm.

  I look over my shoulder one last time, but Hugo has receded into the crowd.

  Outside we hustle toward the car.

  “What did he say to you?” Bernadette asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “Hello! You look like you’re going to cry and your skin is pasty. What happened?”

  I open the passenger door and get into the car.

  Bernadette grips the keys and stares at me.

  I sigh.

  “All right. He asked me to dinner.”

  “And?”

  “Said he liked me.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it.”

  “Oh,” she says. “That’s heinous.”

  “Bee, don’t.”

  “What?”

  “You know.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” she says.

  “But you know I can’t...I mean, I’m not...” I reach my fingers up to massage my temples. “Plus, I offered to go home with him,” I confess.

  “Before or after he asked you out?”

  “Before.”

  “Ah ha! You like him.” She starts the car. “Mara?”

  I look out the window.

  “Mara, listen, you’ve got to get over this.”

  We drive to my house in silence. We disagree on certain issues. And some things are not meant to be gotten over.

  Chapter 5

  In second grade, Clarissa Samuel un-invites you to her birthday party at Ontario Place even though she’s already invited the whole class and your mom has already called her mom to say you’re coming.

  You tell Clarissa that amusement parks are for babies anyway and you bite your lip and make it bleed so you can go to the nurse. No way are you going to cry in front of Clarissa Samuel.

  Instead of going to the nurse, you dash into the girls’ bathroom and lock yourself in a stall. You squeeze your eyes shut and grit your teeth. You will stop crying.

  Stop, stop, stop. You are tougher than this.

  At recess, Clarissa and her friends start a chant.

  “Mara i-is ba-ad, Mara’s got no da-ad...”

  Arm in arm, they march around the playground.

  You can’t be the only girl in the world with divorced parents, but that’s how they act. That’s how it feels.

  “Mara’s got no da-ad, no-o da-ad!”

  No dad? You can’t stand it, can’t bear it, can’t just swallow it.

  You will kill her, you will crush her, you will rip her hair out and...

  You must have flown, because you land right on top of her. You land on her and kick and punch and holler.

  “I do so have a dad! I have a dad! You shut your mouth! I have a dad, I have a dad, I do so have a dad! You liar, you’re such a liar, take it back!”

  She hoofs you in the stomach and her friends pull at your arms, but you scratch her face and punch her in the nose and scream and scream.

  There is blood on both of you by the time they separate you and drag you to the infirmary. You’re hurt—your stomach aches and your knee is skinned.

  You’re also in trouble.

  Clarissa has a broken nose and needs stitches on her elbow. Everyone says she did nothing wrong, they say you started it.

  Liars. They’re all liars. They just want to go to Ontario Place.

  The principal calls Mom, but she can’t leave work.

  Dad doesn’t pick up his phone and you don’t know the number of the restaurant where he works, and anyway he probably wouldn’t come. You wish he would, because then you could show him to everybody.

  The nurse fixes you up with Band-Aids and stinging red stuff and tells you that real ladies don’t fight. You don’t care much about being a real lady, but you’re in enough trouble already, so you don’t say so.

  You stay in the infirmary for a long time, and the principal tells you to write a letter to Clarissa saying you are sorry. You grip the pencil, stare at the paper. Nothing comes out at first. Then you write:

  Dear Clarissa,

  Mrs. Sedgwick says i have to say sorry to you but your shud say sorry to me too for saying i dont have a dad. i have a dad and his name is HENRY and he is a very nice dad. i dont think it is good to say that to someone just because you have lots of friends and cloths. and that is why i got mad and had a fight with you

  MARA LINDSEY FOSTER

  Ps. i also have a Mom in case you wonderd and her name is CAROL so dont say i dont have a Mom too

  Ps again. i heard Ontario Place stinks and has lots of seeguls pooping. I hop they poop on you.

  You know it’s not the letter they want, and you’re not sure about some of the words. You’re about to cross out the part about the seagulls pooping when the nurse comes back and takes the letter from you.

  She leads you to Principal Sedgwick’s office and makes you sit in the foyer. You’re in bigger trouble now, because poop is a bad word and everybody thinks Clarissa is such a perfect girl, so nobody except you would like to see birds pooping on her.

  Your knee is going to have a big, gross scab. But if you stay awake late enough, Mommy will be home and you can show it to her and maybe she will rub the back of your neck with her hand and say “poor baby” and kiss it better. Maybe she will. Maybe you could get into more fights and then Mommy will feel sad and kiss you and let you come to work with her instead of sending you to school.

  You hear a sound like laughing and then voices behind the principal’s door. Someone says your name, and then they stop laughing. You hear the words “broken home.”

  “You have to understand, she’s from a broken home.”

  “Shh.”

  The nurse comes out and checks your Band-Aids one more time, then Principal Sedgwick brings you into her office.

  “Mara, are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you...Are things okay at home?”

  You look at your shoes. “Yes, fine.”

  For the rest of the day you hear the words �
��broken home” in your head. You start to worry. When you get to your house, you stand in front of it and look for cracks. There are none. You take out your key and go inside. You check the walls, turn on all the lights and the water, inspect the ceilings. Nothing.

  You sit at the kitchen table and think about the house. With all the fighting and breaking of doors off their hinges, and Mommy and Daddy hating each other, you’re surprised something isn’t broken. Then you think of Mommy telling you what a shitty life it is and Daddy downtown on his couch, staring into space.

  Suddenly you understand what the broken part is. There is a crack in your house, a crack from top to bottom. And it runs straight through the middle of you.

  ***

  6 a.m.: showered, dressed, caffeinated, etc.

  Acrylics ready. Butt on chair. Blank canvas.

  Yuck.

  I’ve looked at a blank canvas hundreds of times, so my stomach shouldn’t be in knots. All I have to do is choose: circles, squares, or rectangles? It’s not like the future of the world hinges on my choice.

  Right. Exactly.

  I shut my eyes and see what comes. A happy face with big sweet eyes, and corkscrew curls springing from its head. Hugo.

  I open my eyes to banish the image, but it won’t go. It winks.

  “Get lost, I don’t do faces.” I haven’t done any kind of portrait since my last Life Drawing class in school, actually. And besides, last night is better forgotten. Much better.

  I blink a few times and imagine a square. Perfect. Large, symmetrical, clean.

  I begin. And if I’m painting over possibility, too bad. Squares calm me. Shapes with logic, with beginnings, middles, and ends, soothe me. They numb my mind.

  4 p.m.: check nonexistent voice mail.

  5 p.m.: eat.

  6 p.m.: pace.

  7 p.m.: stare into space.

  9 p.m.: ache to see Hugo again.

  10 p.m.: put on coat.

  10:01: take off coat.

  10:30: get ready for bed. Stare into darkness. Think of Erik, Lucas, and why I can’t go out with Hugo.

  3 a.m.: dream of being in a plane that is about to crash. Wake sweating, tears on cheeks. Carefully, carefully, breathe in and out. Four counts in, eight counts out. Banish nightmare. Breathe in, breathe out. Insert logic. Four in, eight out.

  Sleep.

  6 a.m.: work.

  7 a.m.: groggy, grumpy, thirsty.

  11 a.m.: daydream.

  In the evening I leave another message for Sal, who hasn’t come by yet to pick up the new paintings.

  I call Bernadette and find her still at work.

  “What’s up?” I say.

  She groans, and I can imagine her rolling her eyes.

  “At the moment, I’m shaving off Bianca Lacey’s shoulder blade.”

  “Hunh?”

  “For the Ice Shade promo package,” she says. “The shot is perfect, she looks beautiful, but freaking Mitchell sent it back because her shoulder blade looks too sharp, so I’m shaving it.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Of course,” she says. “We do it all the time. Usually I’d send it back to the art department, but we’re behind.”

  “Want to come over when you’re done?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  ***

  “Argh,” Bernadette grunts as she walks in the door with take-out Ethiopian food. “Someone save me from this damn business wear!”

  She passes me the food, tosses her coat on the bench by the door, and kicks her heels off with more energy than is strictly necessary. I’m guessing she’s not in the best mood.

  “Fuck,” she says and stomps to the kitchen with her oversized purse in hand.

  Uh huh. “What’s wrong?”

  “I hate my life,” she says, and plops down on a chair.

  “Ah.”

  “The traffic sucks, this frigging skirt is...” she unbuttons the skirt and wriggles it off, “digging into me, cost me a fortune, and I feel like a whale and a corporate drone at the same time.” She digs in her purse and pulls out her Kiss My Ass sweatpants and Riot Grrl T-shirt.

  “And I didn’t make it to my lunchtime yoga class.” She pulls on the sweats and T-shirt, presumably her version of yoga wear.

  “That’s better,” she says, and then crumples her work clothes and shoves them into the bulging purse where they are likely to be stained, stabbed, or ripped by the paraphernalia that she lugs around. “But I do hate my life.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “You mentioned that.”

  “I brought wine, I hope that’s okay.”

  “Of course.”

  She passes me the bottle, and I open it, pour her a glass, and set the food out on the kitchen table. Bernadette gulps her wine. I rip off a piece of injera bread, start on the lentils, and wait for her to mellow.

  “Not only did I digitally shave off a woman’s back today, but I helped launch a completely useless product and sat in a meeting where an ad campaign was rejected because the model looks too ‘dykey.’ And it would be bad enough if I’d just said nothing, but what I actually did was agree.”

  “Why would they be so...I thought you told me your coworkers knew.”

  She looks down at her lap. “Actually, only a few know,” she mumbles. “You know I’d never lie about it, but I’ve stopped volunteering the information.”

  “Whoa,” I say. “This is news to me. I don’t get it.”

  “Well, you never know when one of the higher-ups, you know the old-boys-club types, will decide to hold something like that against you. And then there are guys like Mitchell who find out and then want to share locker-room talk.”

  “Eew.”

  “Yeah. He comes into my office and tells me what he did with some girl the night before, asks me questions like why don’t some women like anal sex and how do we decide who pays for dinner on the first date.”

  “Eww. Mitchell is a cave man.”

  “Just one of the many delights of my work life.”

  “Maybe you should quit.”

  “Hello!” she says, and throws her hands up. “Student loan? Car payments? Rent?”

  “Sure,” I say. “I know.”

  After dinner, we decide to watch a DVD, and I let her choose. We wind up watching Pet Sematary for the eleventh time, and for the eleventh time I will have nightmares.

  When she leaves, the house is far too empty.

  I turn on all the lights, the radio, the TV, and pace. Monsters in every corner. I can’t escape my own head, can’t stand to be with myself, won’t be able to sleep.

  Again.

  Erik answers on the first ring.

  I decide to call a cab so I don’t have to drive at night. Parking will be impossible to find anyway.

  Of course the Taxi driver nearly sends me into a panic. He’s uncommunicative, unfriendly to the point of hostile. He probably hates his job, hates Toronto, hates women. And maybe he’s not a real taxi driver, doesn’t even have a driver’s license, has somebody stuffed in his trunk, is high on crack or painkillers, plans to take us to the Scarborough Bluffs and drive right off the edge...!

  Maybe next time I’ll drive myself. If there is a next time.

  Twenty minutes later I stand outside Erik’s door and take a minute to compose myself. I knock and he opens. I look at him and the ride over is forgotten. Long, powerful legs, wide shoulders, and dark eyes that seem to know all the sad ugly secrets of the universe. I could stare at him for hours. Forever.

  “Let me guess,” he says. “You’ve baked me cookies and are here to declare your undying love.”

  “Funny,” I say.

  “Hysterical,” he says, but he doesn’t laugh.

  I look away.

  “I didn’t expect you again so soon,” he says. “You must need it bad.”

  Ah, that’s better. I look back up at him and smile. “Up yours.”

  “Well, if that’s what you want.”

  I laugh, let my coat slide off me. He takes two stri
des forward, closing the distance between us, and soon his lips are burning mine. When our mouths part, we are breathing fast. I bring my teeth to his lower lip and bite, just hard enough to make him flinch.

  “Bitch,” he says, softly.

  “Cocksucking motherfucker,” I say.

  He laughs.

  My hands go to the buttons of his shirt and he presses his hips to mine.

  “Careful,” he says. “I might decide to be nice.”

  He brings his fingertips to my cheek, and trails them down, passing my jaw line, then my neck, my collarbone. My mouth hovers centimeters from his and then I shove him back. He slams into the doorframe and grunts in pain.

  “Go ahead and try,” I say.

  His hand whips out, grabs my hair, and this time I am trapped before he puts his lips on mine.

  He slides down me, lifts my sweater just far enough for his tongue and teeth to find the skin of my belly. My eyes close and I shudder.

  Suddenly I’m airborne over Erik’s shoulder, then flying backward and down, onto his bed. He crawls on top of me, his shirt half open, and slides his hands up over my sweater.

  “Take this off,” he says.

  “Make me.”

  I buck my hips and we tumble. Off the bed, we kiss and swear and yank at each other’s clothing. Face down, shirtless, moaning, I feel the floor, cold against my hot skin. He strips my jeans off and I roll to my back, naked but for the bra around my waist. I tug at his shirt and the fabric rips.

  “You’re rough on my wardrobe.” He tosses the shirt aside and stares at me. “Rough on my everything.”

  “What?”

  He looks away, but not before I see something in his eyes. Something I don’t want to see. It’s only a moment, a flash, and then his usual look is back and we can both pretend I imagined the other.

  “Nothing. Forget it,” he says.

  I’ll certainly try.

  He pulls the shirt off, throws it on the floor behind him and stands up. I watch his hands. They move to his belt buckle, and then the belt, thick, black, and leather, comes free of its loops. I swallow, then slide my eyes up his body and settle on his face. He keeps hold of the belt, unbuttons his pants, slides them down, and steps out of them.