Vacuum in the Dark

by Jen Beagin

Clare looked stricken. She couldn’t understand.

  “The Brazilian guy? Next door?” Mona said. “He came over last night. You guys were asleep.” She left her plate and retched into the sink.

  Clare covered her mouth and left the kitchen, and Mona heard the bedroom door open and close. She turned on the faucet and closed her eyes. She wished herself back into the house she grew up in, and imagined she was rubbing Forky’s little belly, and Spoon was licking her entire face. When she opened her eyes, hot tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Clare called her into the living room, where she and Frank were sitting on the couch. Frank’s hair was messed up and he looked lost.

  “Tell us what happened,” Frank said. “The whole truth.”

  “Well, I was asleep and then I heard someone pounding on the door and it was him, Chaz. So, I let him in and . . .” She shrugged. “He was drunk. I don’t think he knew what he was doing. I think he thought I was someone else. Someone named Linda.”

  Frank looked at her with interest. “Why do you think that?”

  “That’s what he kept calling me. Linda. Leenda.”

  “ ‘Linda’ means ‘pretty,’ knucklehead.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, okay, but I still don’t think he knew who I was.”

  “Oh, he knew,” Clare said with a shaky voice. “He knew.”

  “Did you, uh, say no?” Frank asked. “I mean, did he force himself on you?”

  “I felt bad for him. He wasn’t mean about it or anything. He just humped me like a dog and then left.”

  They were all silent for a minute. She remembered asking if she could go visit her dogs. In Idaho.

  “No, honey, you can’t,” Clare said miserably.

  * * *

  MONA SNAPPED THE LOCKET SHUT and put it in with the other items, forcing herself not to look at anything too closely. As a reward, she took herself to the liquor store and dropped twenty dollars on a bottle of red and a can of Pringles. On the way back, she peeked into Frank’s living room window. What she saw surprised her: there they were, sitting across from each other at the dining room table with actual cards in their hands.

  She slunk away, gripped by a weird sadness that it took three glasses of wine to shake. Now she was tipsy. She felt the urge to snoop—not in Clare’s apartment, but perhaps upstairs. It seemed urgent that she know whether Brian, Bacon, and Bud were still alive. The tenants were each assigned their own parking space so it was easy to see who was home. She looked out the window. The space for the apartment above was empty.

  She crept up the stairs on all fours, tried the knob, and then entered using her old technique, by flinging the door open. Confidence was key. If someone happened to be sitting on the couch, she’d play dingbat. Oh God, wrong floor! These apartments all look the same!

  But no one was home and she was alone. Brian was long gone, but a guy still lived here—she could tell by the size of the television. Other giveaways: bad overhead lighting, not enough lamps, no full-length mirror. He owned a compass.

  He used his bed as a desk, so they had that in common. She liked a man who slept with books. His journal was waiting patiently for her on his nightstand. Please don’t be a dream journal, she thought. She opened it to the middle and looked at the dates. The journal was ten years old, but she didn’t care.

  Phnom Penh, Cambodia

  Last night I got drunk in the tourist section of town, at a bar called the Friendly Lounge. The place was filled with douchebags from every nation. I sat on one of the couches and sucked down three gin and tonics. The jet lag was extreme. A woman squeezed in next to me on the couch. She was sitting on my bad side, but I could see her shoes, and was happy to see they weren’t Birkenstocks.

  “They should rename this bar Shithead International,” I said after a minute.

  She gave me a blank look. I asked if she spoke English and she said of course. She was half French, half something else. Her first and last names rhymed, so I was worried she had shit for brains, but she turned out to be smart and high on MDMA.

  “Your eye reminds me of a Magritte painting,” she said. “Is it a birthmark?”

  I told her I was stabbed with a steak knife.

  “Who stabbed you?” she asked, with a bored expression on her face.

  “My pet hamster,” I said.

  She didn’t like that. I told her she shouldn’t ask such personal questions of a stranger.

  “I thought we were getting to know each other,” she said, and shrugged.

  We kept talking and our knees touched. An hour or so later, she invited herself back to my hotel. She spent what seemed like a very long time with my balls in her mouth. I wasn’t completely into it, but I didn’t know what to say, or how to stop her. I was reminded again that I’m not cut out for casual sex. I figured the French thing to do would be to light a cigarette and act nonchalant, which is what I did. But, as I don’t smoke, I doubt I looked French. She made a big show of wetting one of her fingers and inserting it in my ass.

  “Tickle, tickle,” she said.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “You really are regressing,” Terry said suddenly. “You weren’t kidding about that.”

  “Jesus, Terry,” Mona said. “Where have you been for the last twelve hours?”

  “Close the journal,” Terry said firmly.

  “It’s pretty good actually,” Mona said. “Shockingly.”

  “Don’t push it,” Terry snapped. “Get out of there right now or I’m calling the cops.”

  Terry hated Mona’s snooping, which was strange considering how nosy she had to be for a living.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Twenty-six,” she said.

  She didn’t ask me how old I was. She was too busy treating my dick like a ballet barre.

  “It’s attached, you know,” I said. “To the rest of me.”

  “You’re pretty drunk,” she said.

  I told her I wasn’t into strange pussy.

  “What really happened to your eye?” she asked.

  “I warned you,” Terry said. “I’m on the phone with the police right now. ‘Yes, hello, I’d like to report a break-in—’ ”

  “Fine,” Mona said, and closed the journal.

  She went back downstairs and killed the bottle of red in Clare’s bed. It occurred to her that part of her had wanted to be caught. Perhaps this desire was what motivated her to snoop in the first place. On the surface, snooping was about discovering the truth about others, but perhaps it was also about being discovered?

  Clare’s landline rang. Mona, convinced it was the police, answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hello?” she said tentatively.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Clare asked.

  “Do you know the guy upstairs?”

  “He’s too old for you, honey,” Clare said. “What are you doing?”

  “Contemplating.”

  Silence. “What are you, uh, contemplating?” Clare asked nervously.

  “What to do with my life.”

  “Well, what are you good at, hon?”

  “Vacuuming,” she said truthfully.

  She listened for background noise—Frank’s voice, the television, the birds. For the first time in years she heard nothing.

  “What else you good at, hon?”

  Mona stared at the glitter on the textured ceiling. “Listening, I guess. People seem to tell me things about themselves. You don’t know how many times I’ve heard the phrase ‘I’ve never told anyone this, but . . .’ ”

  “Maybe you should become a therapist,” Clare suggested.

  “I cleaned house for one recently,” Mona said.

  “And slept with her husband,” Terry reminded her.

  “I’m definitely fucked up enough to be a therapist,” Mona said to both Clare and Terry.

  “But is there something that brings you joy, that makes you feel really alive and good about yourself?” Clare asked.

  “I’ve always want
ed to be an artist,” Mona said. “But I suffer from imposter syndrome.”

  “What’s that?” Clare asked.

  “A fear of being exposed as a fraud.”

  Clare didn’t say anything. Neither did Terry.

  “Ideally, I’d like to remain an outsider artist—self-taught, I mean. I’ve been working on a photography project for many years now. I even put a portfolio together.”

  “It’s a shame you buried it in your backyard,” Terry said.

  “Anyway,” Mona said, “I’m secretly hoping it’s a masterpiece, but I’ll probably be dead by the time—”

  “Come over, Mona,” Clare interrupted. “We’ll teach you rummy. It’ll be fun.”

  “Honestly, I’d rather go to the movies,” Mona said after a few seconds.

  Clare groaned. “Frank can’t sit in those seats. Hurts his back.”

  “Well, he doesn’t have to come.”

  Clare sighed, twice.

  “It’s a movie, Clare, not bungee jumping,” Mona said. “I promise you won’t get hurt.”

  “He—he’ll feel left out,” she stammered. “Besides, he made your favorite dessert of all time and it came out perfect.”

  * * *

  THEY ATE RICE PUDDING WITH raisins in front of the television. “I don’t care what anyone says,” Clare announced at one point. “I love pudding.”

  “No one’s arguing with you,” Frank said.

  Later, while Mona was rinsing dishes in the kitchen, she heard a choking sound coming from the next room. She turned off the faucet and tiptoed a few steps into the dining area, thinking one of the birds was having an episode, but their cages were covered and they were quiet. Clare was in the bathroom and Frank was alone on the couch, watching television. His cheeks and neck were glistening with what she thought must be sweat—he never opened the windows—but then his face crumpled and he let out a little sob. That’s when she knew he hadn’t seen her. His eyes were riveted to the television. She glanced at the screen, expecting to see a dog bleeding all over the place, or someone wasting away on their deathbed. But it was only Whoopi Goldberg dressed as a nun and leading a choir of black teenagers. The final scene of Sister Act 2. The choir was clapping and singing “Oh Happy Day” and Whoopi was beaming with pride, and then one of the kids belted out a solo and brought the house down, and the camera panned to the uptight white people in the audience, and they were all bowled over and misty eyed. And so was Frank, apparently.

  She quietly backed away into the kitchen, waiting for the movie to end. A few minutes later, he blew his nose and changed the channel.

  * * *

  “HE ALWAYS CRIES DURING SAPPY movies,” Clare said the next morning. “But if you say anything about it, he just says he has dirt in his eye.”

  It was eight A.M. Clare had shown up an hour ago and asked Mona if she wanted to go to the swap meet in Gardena with her and Frank. Mona declined. Now Clare was fresh out of the shower and resting her foot on the edge of the bed, aggressively applying Good-bye Cellulite cream to the back of her thigh. The cream was dense, lardlike. Clare practically beat it into her skin. When she switched thighs, Mona caught a glimpse of her nether region: completely shaved but for that hard-to-reach place at the top of the wishbone. A wild little tuft. It reminded Mona of the hair inside an old man’s ear.

  “Or a spider?” Terry offered.

  “Why not ear hair?” Mona asked.

  “A spider is kinder,” Terry said.

  “Both are disturbing,” Mona said.

  “What’s that look on your face?” Clare suddenly asked.

  “What look,” Mona said. “I have a look?”

  “You look . . . repulsed,” Clare said.

  “I’m constipated,” Mona said.

  “You were staring at my you-know-what.” She removed the towel from her head and wrapped it around her body. “I saw you.” She began opening dresser drawers and slamming them shut, pretending to look for something.

  “What’s happening?” Terry whispered.

  “The demon’s back,” Mona murmured to Terry, “demanding food.”

  “But you told me you liked feeding the demon,” Terry said.

  “It was different back then,” Mona said. “I was a kid and there were donuts involved. I’m actually terrified of the demon.”

  “Your lips are moving,” Clare said. “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing,” Mona said quickly.

  “You’re like a drunk trying to act sober,” Clare said. “If you have something to say, just say it.”

  “Why do you shave it like that?”

  “Like what?” Clare asked.

  “Backpedal,” Terry advised.

  “At your age, I mean,” Mona said.

  “I’m only fifty-one,” Clare said in a shaky voice.

  Mona thought of Takoda. How jarring it was when he lifted his wings. Birds were supposed to have feathers. Mothers were supposed to have . . . bushes.

  “You’re saying it looks stupid, right?” Clare sniffed. “You think I’m disgusting.”

  “Smooth it over,” Terry said. “Right now. She’s going to start crying in five, four, three—”

  “Smooth it over how?” Mona asked.

  “Show her your own fucked-up bush,” Terry suggested.

  Mona’s bush resembled a defective martini glass. She flashed it at Clare and smiled. “Cheers!” Mona said.

  Clare laughed and let the towel drop.

  “Phew,” Terry said.

  Clare removed a dark purple blouse from her closet and then stood in front of the mirror and buttoned it. She slipped into a denim skirt and pulled on a pair of calf-high suede boots with multiple layers of beaded trim.

  “Hey,” Mona said. “Let’s go get donuts like old times.”

  “Donuts?” Clare snorted. “I haven’t eaten a donut in thirteen years. Do I look okay? Frank bought me these boots for Christmas.”

  “You look like you’re going to a pow-wow,” Mona said. “And you forgot to put on underwear.”

  “I didn’t forget,” Clare said, and smiled. She tossed her hair forward, mussed it with her fingers, and then flipped it back. After putting on lipstick, she sprayed herself with Opium while checking her backside in the mirror.

  “You’ve been married for over a decade, but you act like it’s your third date.”

  “I still get butterflies.” She sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs, absentmindedly fingered a bead on her boot. “How did that guy die? The one you were with in Massachusetts. You mentioned him in your letter.”

  Mona thought of the leather jacket she’d splurged on just before she met Mr. Disgusting. After wearing it for a week, she decided to take it back—too big, too brown. The saleswoman turned the pockets inside out and a bunch of cookie crumbs fell onto the counter. “You’ve worn this jacket,” the woman said with a bitchy look on her face. “You can’t return it.” Mona remembered feeling like a degenerate. She also remembered feeling affection for the crumbs.

  Now Clare wanted Mona to empty her pockets, but Mona didn’t want Mr. Disgusting to fall out. Her favorite crumb.

  “Freak accident,” Mona said, and cleared her throat. “Involving some machinery. At a job site. He was a carpenter.”

  Clare covered her mouth with her hand. “Jesus, Mona,” she said through her fingers. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “It was over two years ago,” Mona said, and stared at the dust on the lampshade.

  “Did you go to the funeral?”

  “Of course.” She closed her eyes and invented it: Heavy casket, light drizzle, muddy grass, a procession of sodden crackheads and junkies without umbrellas. Music at the grave site. Bagpipes? No. Someone playing guitar and singing. What? A Leonard Cohen song, she supposed. “It was really depressing.”

  “I don’t know if I ever told you this, but my first boyfriend died in a freak accident. His name was Mahmud. He was Arab and spoke eight languages—that was part of his appeal. He was also
a fifth-degree black belt in judo. Anyway, I was so naïve, I believed him when he said butt sex was normal after you were married.”

  “You have told me that story, actually,” Mona said. “More than once.”

  “But your dad turned out to be the bigger pervert. I think it was genetic in his case. He seemed pretty normal when we first met, but then he lost his arm, and so I think the trauma triggered it.” She frowned. “You know, like schizophrenia.”

  Trauma. In the loony bin, she’d talked at length about her parents’ trauma, because her shrink had been a psychotherapist and because Freud, Elektra, repression, etc., but her shrink had only wanted to hear about Mona, weirdly. Mona told the shrink a few incest stories, and mentioned Chaz, and the time one of her father’s friends put his hand in her underpants. As it turned out, according to the shrink, Mona’s real trauma was feeling unwanted and passed over. Abandoned. Given up on. That’s why she razored geometric patterns on her arms and legs. “That’s all?” Mona had asked, disappointed. And her shrink had said, “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Did I ever tell you that your dad ate an entire cupcake covered in ants?” Clare asked.

  “Only about nine hundred times.”

  “This was after he’d taken Thorazine,” Clare said. “For fun.”

  Clare thought this anecdote explained everything about Mona’s father.

  “Did he have phantom limb syndrome, by any chance?” Mona asked.

  “Is that when you feel the arm that isn’t there?”

  “Yeah, but it’s usually really painful. The phantom limb feels shorter than the real one and like it’s in a painful position—bent backward, or something. The pain can go on for years and years, long after the limb is gone.”

  “Well, if your father had it, he probably didn’t even know,” Clare said. “He snorted a lot of cocaine.”

  “You know, I felt like I had a phantom limb in high school,” Mona mused.

  Clare tilted her head slightly. “But you never lost a limb, honey.”

  You, Mona thought. You were my limb.

  * * *

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, SHE WAS sitting next to Clare in the ER waiting room at Kindred Hospital. Apparently, Frank had suffered some kind of attack at El Pollo Loco. Severe chest pain, profuse sweating, nausea. The paramedics came and everything. Now he was in with the doctor. They were giving him an EKG.