Snapped

by Pamela Klaffke

  Esther hands me a short beaded cardigan—the kind Eva wears—and I shrug it on over the dress, relieved that my wobbly upper arms are covered. I force my feet into the pair of pointy snakeskin heels Esther has laid out. They’re a half size too big, but I can walk and they don’t pinch my toes. Two brown leather suitcases and a matching carry-on bag stand in the entrance. “Take these,” Esther says. A corner of the cardigan is folded into my neck. Esther pulls it out. “That’s better. Now you are dressed to travel.”

  Esther speeds to the airport. I take my sunglasses out of my black clutch and check my wallet for cash. There’s no time for drawn-out thank-yous and goodbyes. Esther pops the trunk of her old Mercedes and I haul the luggage out. The heavier suitcase causes me to stand lopsided. I promise to call when I’m back. She tells me to take care of myself, that a nice warm cup of tea will be waiting upon my return. She wishes me a safe flight and I rush through the sliding doors.

  I am the person on the plane whom the other passengers hate. I’m last on and breathless and even though there’s ten minutes before scheduled takeoff time, I sense they’re a hostile bunch who blame me for not getting them there faster.

  The flight isn’t packed. There’s an empty seat between me and a bald man in a suit. He’s scowling at the financial section of the newspaper. There will be no small talk.

  Once the seat belt sign pings off I unzip the brown leather carry-on Esther packed and start rooting through it. There’s a makeup bag with an unopened jar of a pricey Swiss wrinkles-away face cream, a stick of creamy concealer—a cheap drugstore brand—and a red Chanel lipstick that’s never been used. There’s a mirrored compact with a translucent pressed powder by a cult beauty brand from Sweden, a pot of rouge, Maybelline mascara and a miniature spritzer of Jean Paul Gaultier eau de toilette. I release the tray from the back of the seat in front of me and spread out the tubes and bottles. I hold the compact mirror in one hand and start work on my face. I swear I can feel the expensive Swiss face cream repairing my haggard skin, and the cheap concealer is a miracle—how could I not have known about this?

  Satisfied that I look somewhat presentable, or at least not so gruesome as to frighten Jack at the airport, I replace the makeup, clip the tray back into place and dig back into the brown leather carry-on.

  Esther has packed a pink suede pencil case with pens, multicolored fine-tip markers and a package of ultralight cigarettes. There’s a worn, illustrated copy of Alice in Wonderland and a two-week-old issue of Us Weekly that I read at my desk on a particularly uninspired day. But it’s four thick notebooks that take up most of the space and weigh the bag down. I wrestle them out. The pages of the first notebook are unlined and crammed with sketches and notes, photographs and newspaper clippings. The second is the same, as is the third. The fourth is blank. I return to the first and open it to a random page. There’s a sepia-toned photo of a woman in a beautifully tailored black dress with a jagged neckline sitting on a stiff-backed chair. Her dark hair is up. She looks to be in her late twenties but it’s hard to tell. She doesn’t like the photographer or perhaps having her photo taken at all. I know this look from my work. She’s smiling but her eyes are pensive if not a bit sad and that gives everything about her away.

  Beneath the photo in a swirly hand is written Portrait of a Lady Undone, 1958. I look closer—it must be Lila, but what the caption means is a mystery, nothing else on the page offers so much as a hint, not the drawings of black dresses, not the ad for fine uncultured pearls, nor the detailed recipe for Hungarian mushroom soup.

  “What the hell is all this stuff?”

  “I have no idea,” I say. I’ve laid the two brown leather suitcases out on Jack’s bed and am unpacking. I hang up three black cotton dresses, all different from the one I’m wearing. There’s a fancier dress, too, the one from the photo in the notebook with the jagged neckline. It’s creased from packing so I dart to the bathroom and hang it on the hook on the back of the door. I pull the shower curtain closed and blast the hot water—the steam will lift the wrinkles out. I find a strand of pearls in a velvet box. I can tell by the clasp that they’re very old; the color and the way they’re knotted makes me think they’re real. In another velvet box there’s a gold necklace with a red jewel cut in the shape of a teardrop. There are earrings to match—the kind that you fasten to the earlobes by screwing them on. Maybe it’s time to rethink not wearing jewelry. There’s a black lightweight suit with a sleeveless shell, cropped jacket and a choice of pencil skirt or wide-legged sailor-style pants. There’s a shoulder bag and an evening bag, a pair of patent ballet flats and low-heeled sandals. At the bottom of the second suitcase are the twelve issues of Flair. No wonder it was so heavy.

  I’m going to have to figure out what to do about my glasses. Jack wears a prescription slightly lesser in strength and has about ten pairs so I can make do that way if I have to. I have a duplicate set of toiletries here—shampoo, body cream, contact lens solution, that milky facial cleanser from France I like. All the things that take up too much space and weigh down your carry-on when you’re off to visit your long-distance boyfriend. But I’m going to have to nip out and buy underwear. Jack can come along—he’ll like that.

  “She just gave you all that stuff? That’s kinda weird. Are you sure she’s, you know, okay, up here?” Jack taps his head.

  “She’s not sick or anything—I don’t think so.” It hadn’t occurred to me that Esther might be actually demented or senile and that’s why she’s giving a stranger her dead friend’s things, but I can’t think about that right now because I have to think about shopping.

  We’re walking to a lingerie store in Yorkville, which means uncomfortable lacy thongs and embellished super-lift bras for the next two weeks. I won’t complain. Jack says he’s buying and he’s bounding along Bloor Street like a puppy. He talks like he can’t get the words out fast enough, telling me about the drama of the music video he shot last week and the technical challenges of the one he’s booked to shoot starting Monday. “There’s a lot of prep,” he says and I take this to mean that he’s not going to be around much for the next week. I’m not disappointed. I don’t really care.

  Jack picks out bras and thongs and I try them on. Everything is red or black or red-and-black and it’s all either totally sheer or lace. He keeps asking how I’m doing in the dressing room and I know he wants me to invite him to take a look. The curt Russian saleswoman is monitoring us with a strict eye. There is nothing I can do about this and wouldn’t even if I could. The thought of standing in tarty lingerie under white lights with Jack trying to fuck me in front of a three-way mirror makes me recoil, and recoiling does nothing for my jiggly stomach. I’ll let Jack think that denying him a peek is part of our game. It’s the same every time. I put him off and put him off and I let him believe it’s all part of some sexy control game. I don’t tell him that a little shopping, a pint or two at the bar, snacks and a glass of wine at his place is what I’m going to need before I’m ready to let him on me or in me. He’ll do everything I say and I’ll still keep my bra on and insist the lights are out.

  We finish shopping, have drinks, then drinks and snacks. I think of Rockabilly Ben the whole time Jack is fucking me. This makes me feel guilty and slutty but it also makes it hot. I remind myself that thinking of Rockabilly Ben while Jack’s cock is inside me is in no way a violation of our unconventional relationship rules and promptly grant myself absolution and permission for another glass of wine. Jack, however, has other ideas. He arranges himself so we’re facing each other, noses almost touching.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he says. His voice is slow and syrupy. This is my cue to flee, but I’m wearing only a bra. And I can’t leave Lila’s stuff behind, especially if Esther does turn out to be demented and her old-people friends hunt me down at night wearing masks and cloaks and carrying torches and demanding the return of Lila’s things. I close my eyes and hope I look dreamy, not stressed. Men always do this. They say they’re cool, they’re great with
the perma-casual unconventional long-distance relationship. They don’t want to get married, they don’t want to have kids. And then they do, then it’s all let’s-take-it-to-the-next-level and I’m forced to play the villain, the soulless girl with the frozen heart.

  “I’ve been thinking that we should do something together—a project. I’ve been e-mailing with Ted about maybe working with you guys on some videos or an online show.”

  Get me some Cosmo and some Glamour magazines. Tear out the pages that purport to tell readers what he’s thinking and wrap me up tight. Blindfold me, gag me, douse me with gasoline. Invite Jack and Ted and every ex-boyfriend I’ve had. Invite Eva and Esther and Rockabilly Ben. I insist—I demand—that Gen bring the baby and her Wonderful Friends. Let Parrot Girl light the first match. “You’ve been e-mailing with Ted?”

  “We’ve been bouncing some ideas back and forth. Oh—I had a couple messages from him this morning. He said to tell you he wants you to call him.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Of course he does,” Jack says. He kisses me. My eyes are still closed. My sarcasm has gone undetected. “So you’ll think about it?”

  “What?”

  “Working together?”

  “Yeah, sure. I guess I could give it some thought.”

  “Awesome. What time is it?”

  I open my eyes and glance at the clock. “Five to six.”

  “Shit. We’d better get moving.”

  “Are we going somewhere?”

  “Dinner.”

  I shower and change into the Lila dress with the jagged neckline. I take out my contacts and borrow Jack’s glasses, a pair with chunky black plastic frames. The glasses are wide on the bridge of my nose and keep slipping down. If I keep my head tilted the smallest bit up they’ll stay put. And I’ll have to remember not to squint.

  I use Lila’s makeup and wear the pearls. As I’m stuffing toilet paper into the toes of the patent ballet flats to prevent the shoes from flapping when I walk I realize my birth control pills are in my medicine cabinet at home next to the economy-size bottle of Advil.

  I drop the toilet seat cover and sit. I could call Eva and have her courier the pills to me overnight. I could find a clinic in the morning and get some more. I could ask Jack to wear condoms for the next two weeks or fuss with sponges and spermicide or not fuck him at all. I could absolutely not give a shit because I’m thirty-nine years old and as anyone who’s caught even a moment of a daytime talk show knows, I’m most likely a barren crone.

  I choose to absolutely not give a shit and if by some preposterous fluke I do get pregnant, I’ll carry the mutant two-headed, harelipped baby with Down’s syndrome and no hands, then drop it off at Jack’s. Maybe he can e-mail Ted for parenting advice or make a video for the sappy French ballad Genevieve will write in honor of my fluke, abandoned, mutant baby.

  I’m in no mood for this dinner and Jack is vague about the details. I sit in the taxi with my arms crossed. I press my body against the door and look out the window, away from Jack. I’m resentful for the imaginary pregnancy that’s his fault and huffy because I will forever have to shoulder the guilt of not having the strength or humanity to raise the mutant baby myself.

  We jerk-and-stop through traffic to a loft somewhere way down Queen Street West. “It’s just a group of creative couples who get together for dinner once a month.”

  “Creative couples? Sounds fun.” I’ll bet they’re those people who talk about how they don’t watch TV and then after two drinks you overhear them lamenting the cancellation of Everybody Loves Raymond.

  “It really does, doesn’t it?” Again, my sarcasm moves through Jack unnoticed. “I’ve wanted to go for ages—it’s an awesome networking opportunity, but it’s couples only.”

  “Creative couples.”

  “Exactly.”

  A woman with long curly hair greets us. She hugs Jack and he hands her a bottle of wine. “This must be the famous Sara B.,” she says. She looks at my hair. She looks at my dress and shoes. She smiles and I know I’ve passed her entrance exam. “I’m Michelle,” she says. I shake her hand. “I was delighted when Jack said you two would be able to make it.” A man with a shaved head and slim black jeans approaches. He puts his arm around Michelle’s waist. “Dave, you know Jack. And this is his artner, Sara B. Sara’s one of the founders of Snap—right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m Dave.” He shakes my hand.

  Michelle gives me a tour of the loft. She’s a sculptor, Dave’s a painter, they have two kids who are staying at Michelle’s sister’s house overnight. I don’t care. I recognize Dave’s work—he’s good and his pieces are expensive. He shows in New York. The creative couples are gathered on angular sofas and around the island kitchen. I count ten people, twelve including Jack and myself. Michelle points to each person like she’s a first-grade teacher doing roll call. “That’s Susie and her artner, Charles. That’s Steven and over there—that’s his artner, Geoff. That’s Carol—I think I saw her artner, Travis, sneak off to the bathroom. And that’s Rachel and her artner, Paul. Rachel’s writing a story for Toronto Citylife about our dinners.”

  I stare at Michelle. “I’m sorry?”

  “Rachel’s writing a story for Toronto Citylife about our dinners.” Michelle speaks slower this time.

  “No. I got that. Artner?”

  Michelle laughs. “It’s clever, isn’t it? Julia and Ryan came up with it—they’re in L.A. this week. If you’re here next month you’ll meet them.”

  I am somewhat stunned by my hangover, by Ted and Genevieve’s anger, by Esther, by the suitcases full of a dead woman’s things and by my imaginary mutant baby. But I am clear about this: I will not be here next month, I will not be meeting Julia and Ryan, I am not anyone’s artner.

  There is no meat at dinner. I haven’t touched the mock salt-and-pepper squid or the mock Szechwan beef but am confident in the fact that the only thing worse than an artner dinner is a vegan artner dinner cooked by a woman who truly believes that tofu tastes like meat and says so.

  “The first time I made this sweet-and-sour tofu pork—this is so funny—Dave spit it out on the plate. He was convinced that it was real meat. Can you imagine! But it is very authentic, isn’t it?”

  The artners agree. I push a soggy piece of fake meat something-or-other around on my plate. Jack frowns at me from across the table—artners do not sit together at artner dinners, they’re separated to achieve maximum social networking potential as I learned from Michelle when I mistakenly tried to take a seat beside Jack.

  Jack points to my full plate indicating he wants me to eat. Fuck you. I mouth the words at him. The social networking at the table has reached a fever pitch. Someone makes a toast to tofu chef Michelle. I raise my glass along with the others but would like nothing more than to bind each pair of artners together with ropes of messy animal intestines that they have to gnaw through to escape then slap their smug faces with slabs of raw veal until they cry. I’ll hook up one of Jack’s video cameras, maybe a webcam or two, and lock them in the loft indefinitely with no food but the slapping veal. After days, a week at the longest, they’ll give in to the inevitable and cook up the veal, but it’s maggoty and rank so they fight over what to do next even though they all know what they’ll have to do. I’ll get Jack to stream the video live to the Snap Web site and everyone on earth will watch as the captive vegetarian artners turn cannibal, dismembering each other piece by piece—it’s Michelle’s arm for lunch, Steven’s left leg for dinner. And soon they’re limbless, just a pile of talking torsos huddled together in a puddle of urine and sticky feces. People will watch, the artners will die and someone will sue us for something. Jack will blame himself and I’ll be there to remind him, as I bounce on my knee our mutant baby who, it turned out, I couldn’t give up, that he was the one so keen on us working together, on Snap having an online show.

  I wander around the loft after dinner looking at art and pictures, guzzling wine and avoidin
g Rachel the writer, who is asking people questions and taking notes while her artner, Paul, scampers about taking photographs of everyone with a vintage Polaroid Land Camera. Eventually, Rachel and Paul catch me coming out of the bathroom and pounce.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about tonight, Sara? Your initial impressions of the artners concept since you’re a newbie, how these get-togethers can benefit both your personal and professional life—that sort of thing. And maybe Paul could get a picture?” Rachel has a piece of tofu stuck between her front teeth. She stands poised with her pen ready.

  “Do you have to use my real name?” I ask.

  Rachel seems taken aback by this. “I’d like to—I’m using everyone else’s.”

  I lean in close to Rachel. My voice is hushed. “It’s just that this night has been such a moving experience. I’m at a critical juncture in my life and, well, I shouldn’t be telling you this, not unless you promise not to use my real name—”

  Rachel’s eyes flicker with excitement. A confession is second only to swag on the official list of journalist turn-ons. “Sure, anything you want.”

  “I don’t want to be a downer, but I’ve been having a tough time lately and this artners thing is what I need to get my life back on track. The camaraderie, the conversation, the networking opportunities—I don’t feel so alone anymore. I mean, I was going to kill myself tonight, but then Jack brought me here and now I feel so connected, not just to Jack, but to the whole artners community.”

  “That’s pretty powerful stuff,” Rachel says, closing her notepad. She wishes me luck on my journey and Paul moves in to take my picture.

  I bring my hand up to my face. “I really don’t like having my picture taken.” This is not a lie. “Here. Let me see that.” I hold out my hand and Paul reluctantly surrenders his camera. I hold it at arm’s length and point it at my face. I stare into the lens and press the shutter button. The camera whirs and spits the photo out. I thank Paul and give him back his camera. I tuck the Polaroid in Lila’s evening bag and from across the room announce to Jack that we’re leaving.