Snapped

by Pamela Klaffke

  Even Genevieve was a DON’T. Ted started dating her in secret. Ted and I were twenty-six, Gen was twenty-one, a French ex—teen pop star who wore jacquard silk dresses in jewel tones and got her picture in the party pages of local tabloids for raising money for sick kids and stray dogs. I found out they were dating after spotting a picture of them together at a benefit. I guilted Ted into bringing her around at the next possible opportunity. She smiled when I took her picture. Ted was ashen and looked as if he may throw up. He begged me not to run Gen’s picture as a DON’T, but I did, despite the smile, because purple jacquard silk on a twenty-one-year-old has-been pop star was too good and the DOs and DON’Ts were my domain.

  Unlike the McGill girls, Genevieve did not slink away. In fact, she was waiting for me outside the office the day the magazine came out. She tossed it at me and yelled at me in French. She cried and said she was in love with Ted and that she hated me, though with her accented English it sounded like she ated me. I started to laugh and she picked the magazine off the ground and threw it at me again. Then she started to laugh and we ended up at the dive bar down the street shooting pool and doing shots and talking about Ted and the guy I was seeing at the time who talked to me like he was my shrink.

  Aaron—the pseudo-shrink guy—was the one who said my issue with old people came from not growing up with any living grandparents or other assorted old people around and from my mother’s obsession with face creams and telling people we were sisters. And all of this manifested in my choice of career, a suggestion I argued with him on to the point of denying him sex because, I said, I didn’t choose my career, it was just there. It’s always a mistake to tell a man anything about your mother, especially if your mother isn’t someone you talk to.

  I’m not comfortable around old people. I’m not comfortable around babies, either—or cats or anyone who listens exclusively to hip-hop. I’m not comfortable at funerals, but I’m here, in a church, sitting in the back and counting down the hymns and psalms listed in the program. When the priest requests that we stand and sing, I catch a glimpse of Esther in the front row and lip-synch my way through the hymn.

  Everyone at the service is old. Many of the ladies wear hats and I’m glad to see I was not alone in my decision to wear gloves, although I suspect the proper rules of etiquette may dictate that I take them off indoors. I can’t make a definitive assessment about this because several of the old ladies have taken theirs off, but not all. I leave them on knowing that the service will eventually be over and then the old people will get touchy.

  There’s more singing and praying and then people talk about Lila and a chorus of sniffles rises up from the pews. I wish Jack were with me, tall and handsome in a black suit, or Eva or Gen or Ted or even Rockabilly Ben. I’m maudlin now and convinced I’m the loneliest girl in the world. I sacrifice myself to self-pity and join the chorus of sniffles. My vintage black satin clutch wiggles beside me. My phone is on vibrate and is in a state of arrest.

  I don’t go to the burial. I tell Esther I have some urgent work to attend to, by which I mean I need a drink and to check my voice mail and buy the sympathy card I forgot to get yesterday. I promise her I’ll see her at the reception, which of course I will because it’s at her and Lila’s apartment—Esther’s apartment now, I guess. “I’ll see you soon, dear. I’m so pleased you came,” Esther says. She touches my gloved hand and I barely flinch.

  I opt for vodka over wine—as a legitimate mourner, drinking hard liquor midday is permitted if not required.

  I peel off my gloves and dial up my voice mail. I have fourteen new messages: first Eva in a panic saying Ted wants to talk to me now; then Ted saying he wants to talk to me now; Ted again; Genevieve cursing, How could you?; Ted; Ted; Ted; Eva again; a filthy message from Jack describing what he wants me to do to him when we get to his place tomorrow. I replay this one three times and save it. There’s another message from Ted and another and another, then Eva and finally the shoe repair guy informing me that the boots I took in to be resoled are ready for pickup.

  I order another vodka and suck it back before calling Eva.

  “Oh my gosh, Sara, Ted’s really, really mad about the DON’Ts.”

  “He’ll get over it,” I say, buoyed by the vodka hitting my system.

  “Is that her?” I can hear Ted in the background. “Give me the phone. Sara? What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “Fucking relax, Ted. It’s funny.”

  “It is not fucking funny, Sara, it’s embarrassing.”

  “Oh, please. No one can even tell who they are—they can’t be readily identified.”

  “That’s hardly the point. These are our friends.”

  “Your friends,” I correct him.

  “Yes, my friends, Sara. You should have run this by me. Gen is devastated. She won’t even go to the market she’s so afraid she might run in to someone.”

  “Oh, fuck me, Ted.” I’m getting riled and people are looking at me. I cup my hand over the mouthpiece. “We used to do shit like this all the time.”

  “Yeah, about a million years ago! And this isn’t the same thing at all.”

  “It’s exactly the same.”

  “No, Sara, you’re exactly the same—the rest of us have grown up.”

  “Fuck you, Ted.” I press the end button on my phone and turn it off. I order a double. Ted’s words swim through the vodka. I push my sunglasses onto my face but the tears stream down past the frames. The waitress approaches me and asks if I’m okay. “I just came from a funeral,” I say.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says and leaves me to drink in peace.

  People are leaving by the time I make it to Lila’s reception. I try to slink in unnoticed, but Esther waves and walks across the room to greet me. She takes both my hands in hers and I shrivel into myself. I must have forgotten the gloves at the bar and I still don’t have a sympathy card. Esther escorts me to the kitchen, where I load up a plate with deviled eggs and pieces of quartered tuna sandwiches on white bread. I wolf down the tuna first thinking that if I eat enough I may die of mercury poisoning. This is a serious concern according to Gen, who read an article about it or saw something on TV and once said I had a death wish after she watched me eat eight pieces of yellowtail sashimi and Gen’s one of the grown-ups so she would know these things. My eyes well again with tears. Esther pours me a scotch and steers me into the living room. I sit on the sofa across from a high-end entertainment center that seems out of place against the flowery wallpaper. There are three remotes sitting atop the television and I wonder if I could inconspicuously grab them and take them to the bathroom and empty out the batteries and swallow them and all their mercury goodness to speed up the process I’ve started with the tuna.

  Esther pats my knee. I’m crying again. “Lila had a lovely life, dear,” she says and offers me a monogrammed cloth handkerchief.

  I wipe my dripping nose. I dab at my eyes and mascara stains the white material. “Thanks.”

  I stare at the handkerchief balled up in my hand, unsure of where to put it or what to do. “You can keep it,” Esther says. “I have boxes of them.”

  I change my mind about the battery swallowing—it wouldn’t be fair to Esther to die in her bathroom on the day of her best friend’s funeral.

  “Now you just stay put, dear.” Esther pats my knee again. “I’ll get you another drink and just holler if you need anything else. Things will wind down soon and we’ll have a chance to talk.”

  I do as I’m told and as the guests leave I begin to notice the wonderland of the apartment. Much of the wall space is covered with framed black-and-white photographs and signed fashion illustrations, though from where I sit I can’t see by whom. There are two columns of bookshelves, cabinets filled with ancient Barbies and porcelain curios. An enormous oval mirror in a baroque gold gilt frame hangs in the small foyer. I’m sitting on the couch on the far wall directly facing it. I catch bits of my reflection poking out around t
he others, who are standing and talking in the middle of the room. Finally it’s just me staring back at myself. Esther calls my name from the kitchen and asks if I like cognac. I like everything. “On occasion,” I say in my best polite grown-up voice.

  “Well, dear, this is certainly an occasion,” Esther says. “Follow me.”

  She’s carrying an expensive-looking bottle and two glasses. I trail her into a bedroom off the living room. It’s Lila’s room. I sip the cognac and Esther motions to me to take a seat on the bed. The room is big with a wall of built-in shelving that stretches to the ceiling. There are magazines, hundreds of them, probably thousands. Esther steps on a footstool and reaches up, pulling down a stack of large-format magazines. Each are tucked into plastic sleeves. “Lila spent a week last year fitting every one of them into these bags—some kind of special plastic, so they won’t deteriorate.” Esther shakes her head but her smile is wide. “I told her she was crazy, but she wasn’t hearing any of it.” She hands me the pile of magazines and I can’t help but squeal. I set my cognac on the bedside table and sort through the stack, making sure I’m seeing what I think I am.

  “Those were her favorites,” Esther says. “I’ll admit they are quite pretty.”

  I count them off in my head—all twelve issues of Flair magazine. I have three beat-up copies I paid too much for at a shop in New York, but these are pristine, their die-cut covers sharp and perfectly preserved. These are not simply magazines or collectibles, but art. Fashion designers and artists and writers scour vintage ephemera stores and haunt online auction sites for copies of Flair. Completing your Flair collection is a rite of passage for all the stylish style-makers.

  “From what I understand there were only a dozen issues published,” Esther says.

  I run my hand over the cover of the Paris theme issue from April 1950. I don’t dare remove it from the special plastic.

  “Go on,” Esther says. “Open them up. Let’s have a look.”

  “We shouldn’t,” I say.

  Esther laughs. “Why not? Lila’s not going to rise from the dead and strike us down. Besides, they’re yours—and anything else in here you find to your liking.”

  I scan the shelves—it’s all to my liking. “I couldn’t,” I say. I’d need to get Eva to help me load it all in her car. It would take at least three trips. I could rent a van for a day. I try to calculate how much it’s all worth. I wish I could bang these thoughts out of my mind on the heavy wooden headboard without causing a scene.

  I wonder if magazines are insurable and it strikes me that I am a woman who preys on grieving old ladies. I’m a Crime Stoppers reenactment in the making. I’m an evil Poe raven feasting on a spilled basket of onion rings to-go outside a highway truck stop. I’m a bitch and a fraud. I’m a terrible friend and a fucked-up baby who wants her gums rubbed with gallons of whiskey to put her to sleep. I’m crying on a dead woman’s bed.

  I find the monogrammed handkerchief Esther gave me earlier. It’s hardened with salt and snot and it’s rough on my eyes.

  “Sara, dear, what is it?”

  “It’s…it’s nothing—everything.” I have reached full blubber. I bury my face in my hands but I can’t breathe. I inhale as deeply as I can through my nose. Mucous floods my throat and I start to choke and cough. Esther picks a box of disposable tissues off Lila’s dresser. No more monogrammed hankies for me. I clear my throat and a lump forces its way into my mouth. It’s viscous—not liquid, not solid and it’s tender like an organ. There is no delicate way to do this and the viscous organ lump has filled my mouth to the point that there’s no room to speak. I pull several tissues from the square floral box and cover my lips. I open my mouth and the lump oozes out past my teeth. I resist the urge to look at the thing, to find some science store on the way home and stop to buy a microscope and a lab coat and goggles and spend hours marveling at the lump like it’s the world’s fattest man making a guest appearance at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum on the Embarcadero in San Francisco. I quickly ball the lump up in the tissues and drop it onto my lap.

  I tell Esther everything, about Ted and Gen and their baby and their Wonderful Friends, about Eva and Parrot Girl and Beefy Cartoon Pants Man. I tell her about Jack and about Rockabilly Ben—there’s not much to say about him, but I find myself liking to say his name.

  My insides are raw, I can feel them red and knotted and angry, and the blood is thick and can only seep slowly from the wounds I can’t see. The pain is strangling, not at my neck, but all over. My mouth is surprisingly loose. It’s the only way to release the pain, untangle the knots, and I’ve lost any control, any filters, and my thoughts push out of my mouth in such heavy heaves words trip on my breath. I may be making no sense. I may be speaking tenth-grade Spanish or reciting bits of a particularly hilarious story Ted and I came across in Penthouse Forum shortly after we’d taken Snap weekly and there were never enough hours and it was endless fun thinking of ways to stay alert as we worked through the night.

  We’d read this piece over and over to each other and would stay awake every time, always laughing, as it involved a threesome with a double-amputee. She was literally spinning on my dick like a record on a turntable. I know the whole story by heart and so does Ted, or he did back when he was fun. I hope I’m not saying things like that to Esther but I could be. I know I’ve told her about Zeitgeist and Precious Finger and the fucking and the fries and mayo. I know I’ve said fuck me and fuck Ted and fuck Gen and even fuck baby Olivier, for which, if it was ever in question, I am without a doubt going to hell if sometime soon I start to believe in God and Satan and heaven and hell and die of unnatural causes because I don’t think it’s natural not to have a soul. I say this and Esther assures me I do, but she doesn’t know me. She tells me it’s going to be all right again and again. It’s a hypnotic mantra and I almost believe her until the tears come again.

  I refuse to have my body confront me a second time with a viscous phlegm ball so I shut my eyes tight until the tears have squeezed out. When I open them again and I look Esther straight in the eyes, which is hard since I’m drunk and my eyes are puffy slits, and unfocused, I tell her I’ve made my career by mocking people. I tell her I have no conscience—how can I? I’ve been doing this for more than fifteen years. It’s not a skill, it’s a personality trait. Esther isn’t buying it and continues to speak so softly and calmly and slowly in a way that sounds like she actually cares so it makes me want to smother her with her dead friend’s pillow, right there on the bed. She doesn’t understand, I can’t put it any plainer.

  I tell Esther I’m a bitch and a brat, a hypercritical, judgmental fuck, void of empathy or sympathy. I tell her how it’s all been a fluke, a lucky break so undeserved. I do nothing good, I feel nothing good and sometimes just nothing at all. If I had to choose between Jack and my fuchsia swivel chair, I’d pick the chair. Esther’s still sitting beside me, still telling me it’s going to be all right.

  I tell her I don’t care who’s a DO and who’s a DON’T—I expect this to shock her, my biggest reveal—but the moment I say it aloud I want to crawl out of the room, down the steps and into the night. I’ll travel through alleyways and low-traffic side streets, I’ll forage behind Dumpsters and befriend raccoons. I’ll learn their ways and their customs. A young girl will find me and coax me to her backyard, where she’ll feed me berries from the trees and leftover steak she smuggles out of the house. We’ll be secret friends and I’ll never have to talk because she’ll think I’m a raccoon. But this will not have a happy ending. The girl will grow up and she’ll tell someone—a boyfriend—about me and he’ll tell someone else and soon there’s a documentary crew and a book deal and a reporter from Vanity Fair living with me in the corner of the girl’s backyard. It’s no longer quiet and I have no choice but to speak just to tell them to all to shut up. Then the girl figures out that I’m not a raccoon and we’re no longer friends.

  “It wouldn’t be any easier to be a raccoon,” I say. I’m past the po
int of caring what Esther, or anyone, thinks. She laughs and curls an arm around my shoulder. She’s surprisingly strong. I want to push her arm off, ask her what the hell she wants from me, pull her Montreal red hair out of her head in clumps until her scalp is patchy and bleeding. I shirk away from her. Esther drops her arm and I glare into nothing.

  She sighs and pours me another cognac. “You remind me so much of Lila.”

  Mignonne

  I wake up fully dressed in Lila’s bed. My eyes are sealed with a thick layer of crust and it hurts to open them. I’ve cried and then slept with my contacts in. I look at the clock on the bedside table. It’s not digital and it takes me a moment to remember how to tell time. It’s ten—no, eleven. My flight is in an hour. I have to go. I have to go now.

  Esther is puttering in the kitchen. There’s a place set at the table, but there’s no time to eat or chat or play tea party. “I have to go,” I say.

  “Now, don’t you go rushing off, dear. Take your time. There’s a bottle of aspirin in the medicine cupboard.”

  “You don’t understand. I have to be at the airport—I’m flying to Toronto in an hour.”

  “Oh, my. That is going to be tight. We’d better get a move on. I’ll drive you.”

  “I need to go home—my things…”

  “No time for that. You hop in the shower and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  My hair is loose and wet. My eyes sting and I have no makeup except lipstick in my black satin clutch. Esther knocks on the bathroom door. She turns the handle and extends her arm inside. She holds out a dress on a hanger. “This should fit,” she says and clicks the door shut.

  I don’t have time to consider the dress. It’s black and shiny cotton and miraculously, it fits. It’s sleeveless but I try not to think about that. I know it’s Lila’s and do my best to block that out, too. It’s a short flight. I have a few things at Jack’s; anything else I can pick up at the Snap store on Queen Street.