Looker

by Laura Sims

  *

  Bernardo comes to the next class looking dejected, and noticeably less intense. He hardly meets my eyes. I feel generosity toward him swell inside me, and give his downcast face a particularly warm smile. His eyes flutter up and hold mine.

  Tonight is our poetry workshop, the first of only two we’ll have. I ask everyone to get out their original poems and pass copies around. The room fills with the productive sound of paper shuffling overlaid with light, anxious chatter. “Mine sucks,” Simon says loudly, and it’s probably true. As far as I know, they will all “suck,” but I’ll have to take each one as seriously as a masterwork.

  It always seems like a fun idea, when I’m in the class-planning phase, to add a day or two of workshop to the syllabus. Give students the chance to be creative, let them see what it’s like to be on the “other side.” The difficulty comes when I have to try out the other side, too, and act like a teaching poet, one who knows how to gently, professionally, confidently critique student poems—even atrocious ones. I don’t know what I’m doing! I want to shout. Sure, I studied the greats, but I only took one lousy poetry workshop in grad school! When I open my mouth to speak, there’s a voice in my head going, Horseshit horseshit horseshit, at the words that eventually sputter out.

  But not tonight. Tonight the words come flowing out of me like I’m the actress in Working Class, standing at the helm—or the whiteboard—of class, leading her underprivileged students to enlightenment and gainful employment one transcendent word at a time. Of course, they don’t have frills like poetry workshop in Working Class. Still: tonight I somehow know the perfect thing to say at every turn.

  “Joanne, your line breaks aren’t moving the poem forward. There’s a narrative here—a really compelling one—but it’s weighed down by those overlong lines.”

  “Don’t be afraid to use three-syllable words like this, Devon. But use them sparingly. You’ve broken the rhythm here, it was moving right along but here it breaks. Don’t sacrifice sound for ten-dollar words!” (Appreciative laughter from students.)

  I lead them around by their noses, offer them insights like bread and wine. I’m the expert, the scholar, the tough-but-warm mentor. They are mine tonight, these students, every one. Even Bernardo has raised his eyes to join in the communal glow. His poem is up next. He must not have sent his around earlier—now the copies pass from hand to hand.

  First I see Mary’s eyebrows go up. Then Joanne’s. Then: there’s a roomful of raised eyebrows. Eyes glued to the page before each of them.

  Dear Ms. X, it reads. All I can do is scan and catch words. After class. Warm thigh. Mine. Lips. Gasp. Tangled. Divine. I clear my throat. “Bernardo, could you read this aloud please?” I say, trying so hard to sound calm and controlled that I veer into something like an imitation of an English schoolmarm.

  I must be the color of a red sheet. A hot sweaty red satin bedsheet.

  “Dear Ms. X,” Bernardo starts in his husky voice. Then he looks up. Looks right at me and recites. “Last night after class, when your warm thigh pressed / against mine / when our lips touched the rims / of our glasses at just the same time / I felt an internal gasp / as did you, and later / our arms and legs tangled, breaths mingled, souls touched . . . / and it was divine.”

  After a beat I clear my throat and say, “Thank you, Bernardo. Everyone, take three minutes to make notes on the poem.” I lean over the desk, pen in hand. All business on the outside—all chaos and heat and sinking wreckage within.

  It’s dead silent as everyone bends their heads to read. I can’t do anything but stare at the wall clock and watch the second hand move. It moves, and moves, and moves past the two-minute mark. On to the three-minute mark. And beyond. People start to shift, rustle their papers. Joanne clears her throat as if to say, Professor?

  Why in god’s name can’t I channel the actress’s “Professor T” from Working Class now? I see her pacing back and forth, lecturing and fielding sporadic questions, as teachers always do in movies. But Professor T never had to contend with one of her students writing a sex poem about her. Of course, Professor T would never have gone to the bar with Bernardo in the first place.

  Finally, I look down at the page. Crinkle my brow as if reading so deeply and critically that I cannot be disturbed. It’s a god-awful poem—at least there’s that. I stare hard at the words. Nearly grunt at one of the clumsiest line breaks and something trips, or slips, into place inside me. Oh, Bernardo. You shouldn’t have crossed me. I almost scribble that down on the page as my ultimate note but instead I write: Good attempt at erotic poetry. You should read some Pablo Neruda, Sharon Olds, Audre Lorde, and Sappho for superior examples. I’ve become crisp and businesslike. My cheeks have cooled to ash.

  When I glance up, I see them all staring at me. Pens down. Waiting. I start to feel myself slipping again. “Well,” I start shakily. “It’s a good—a nice erotic poem.” Bernardo’s lips twitch into a half smirk. He’s got me. I’m going down. The thought sends something scrambling in me—little fingernails gaining foothold in the crumbling brick of an old well—and I rally. “I appreciate the use of slant rhyme, but even though it’s not exact, it becomes overwhelming. It makes the poem singsongy, not sexual, not a poem about two aroused adults.” Oh how the words come tumbling out! How I wish I could kiss each one as it leaves my lips! There’s a love poem for you. “What do the rest of you think? Any ideas for how to improve this first draft?”

  My eyes flit over Bernardo’s face. He’s stunned, I can tell, and looks to his fellow students for help. The fool—he expects them to come to the aid of his sad little poem. They don’t. They tear it apart like dogs would a carcass. They’ve been waiting for this. It’s what I’ve told them not to do, never to do, in a workshop. This tearing and splitting and patching together. But tonight I let them at it.

  When we finish, the marked-up drafts pile up on Bernardo’s desk like broken limbs and bullet wounds after a battle. It seems almost superfluous to continue, but I move on quickly to the next student poem, and the one after that. It’s my duty, after all.

  I stop in front of the actress’s house after class: the husband slouches at the table in sweats, eating yogurt; the actress is nowhere in sight. Is she reading upstairs? Asleep with the baby? There’s someone at the stove, cleaning up—the cook? I feel certain I’ve had more excitement tonight than they have, and the thought warms me, lights me up. Little star, glowing bright, I think, smiling to myself.

  *

  I hear nothing from Nathan. He’s given up! Victory warms my feet in the form of Cat, who drapes herself over the foot of my bed at night. She follows me when I get up to pee in the middle of the night, and then leaps into my lap while I sit on the toilet. She never did this before. Cat kneads the tops of my thighs with her delicate paws and then settles down, purring contentedly. I pull her close and rub my face against the back of her head. How sweet she is, how tender! Why did it take me so long to appreciate her? She’s a darling, my Cat.

  My phone rings so seldom now that it startles me when it does. I’m curled in a corner of the couch early the next morning with a coffee mug, still feeling satisfied about how I handled last night’s class, when the phone jumps to life. I jump with it. And don’t answer—of course. I just look at the screen. It says: Unknown Number. Hmph. Not Nathan, then. Whew. I let it shimmy and shake on the table beside me until it ends, then wait to see if there’s a message. There is.

  “This is Sandy Hodder of Platz, Hodder, and Wright. I’m calling on behalf of my client, Nathan Fielding. He has initiated divorce proceedings and would like to set up a meeting with you and your attorney next week to discuss the division of your property and belongings—including the cat.”

  She says the last part wryly, like she’s holding back a laugh. Like she can’t believe the shit her clients get into with their pathetic ex-spouses. Suddenly, Cat yowls and leaps from the couch. I’d been rubbing her softly, but then I must have clutched. Clutched her fur and pulled. Though I don’t
remember doing it.

  My hands are shaking—I’ve had to set my coffee mug down. The awful dread that filled my stomach in the early days after Nathan left settles inside me once again. Divorce. The finality of it, delivered via an absolute stranger, a lawyer, quietly mocking me for clinging to my ex-husband’s cat. Would the actress allow herself to be treated this way? Never. Before long I’m sobbing, leaking snot, letting it all come out. I’d thought the whole Nathan ordeal was over, that I’d won—what a fool I’ve been.

  When I’m able to lift myself creakily from the couch, still sniffling but mostly composed, I do the only thing I know to do anymore: I walk. Sure enough, just as I leave my house in my splotchy-faced, bleary-eyed state, the actress walks by. Fresh from the masseuse, or the spa, or a fancy breakfast somewhere, her face glowing with comfort, satisfaction, and health, dressed in a dove-gray linen jumpsuit that would look ridiculous on anyone else—on her it looks divine. She is divine. As she passes by she gives me a tight smile. I can smell the perfume she wears—just the right amount, not the old-lady-on-the-train fragrance cloud that makes you gag. This scent makes me lift my nose in the air and turn my head after her like a dog. No one could ever not know she’s a star. One of the golden ones. My mouth fills with saliva, or saliva mixed with something else, something viscous. I lean my head down to spit. It lands right on a pile of dog shit. Looking down, I feel nausea rise to the back of my throat. I feel like I just leaned down and licked the turds, instead of spitting on them from a distance. I feel like they’ve been shoved down my throat.

  Without realizing it, I’ve headed for the park. I haven’t been here in ages, and as soon as I pass through the archway that marks the entrance, I remember why. It’s early enough that the central meadows are free of older children playing soccer or baseball and flying kites, but . . . the babies are out. The mothers and babies, the nannies and babies (mostly the nannies and babies): babies everywhere. Mewling in strollers, stretching chubby arms toward their caretakers, crawling on the filthy rubberized ground of the toddler playground. I try not to look. I try not to see their plump hands grasping chalk, try to shut out their small cries of delight, try not to watch the mother nursing her babe on the bench, in the shade.

  I imagined heaviness in my breasts, the heaviness of milk, when I thought I was pregnant once. Months and months ago. My period was a few days late and I convinced myself—or almost convinced myself—that the blue veins I could see through the skin of my breasts were darkening, that my nipples were enlarging as all the guides said they would, that when I cupped my breasts in my hands they felt heavy and milk-filled. What animal pleasure! What idiocy! I’d stand and stare in the mirror at those veins, checking the spider veins on my thighs, even, for a sign that they, too, were changing. I thought, Finally, it’s happening, I’m going to push a child’s head against my breasts and feel it pull down on my nipple to feed. At last!

  And then I started to bleed. I hadn’t told Nathan that time, thank god. There’d been other close calls, other failures, and each time was like punching him in the face. I loved him, so I couldn’t bear to see him hurt. Or maybe I couldn’t bear to remind him it was all because of me—my wreck of a body. It didn’t matter, ultimately, what I did or didn’t tell him—he figured it out.

  I stare at the nursing woman. At the plump curve of her breast rising over the babe’s head as it pulls and sucks, drawing the milk down into its little body to grow bigger and stronger. I’ve seen it happen! I’ve watched the children on our block grow from seedlings to squirts to full-grown people. It amazes me. And yet I feel repulsed, too. If I could suckle a child myself, would I feel the same? Maternally virtuous, like I was growing a future citizen of the nation, but simultaneously disgusted and trapped, clamoring to be free from the leech at my breast?

  *

  I return home, exhausted and emptied out. Fitting my key in the lock, a wave of absolute terror washes over me: this is where my phone and computer live. This is how all the poisonous others reach me, infect me, ruin my days. But what can I do? Camp out in the hall with Cat? Take over the first-floor entryway? Winter is coming. It’s not even practical. I sigh, turn the key, and go in.

  Despite that initial jolt of fear, I head straight for my phone and laptop as soon as I’m through the door. This is why I’m easily polluted. Nothing new on the phone, but there’s a message from Bernardo in my inbox, with the subject heading in all caps: POEM REVISION. I stare at it in the list of new e-mails, willing it to go away. I could always just select it and hit Delete, but I can’t. I can’t not read this e-mail.

  Hi Professor, thought I’d revise my poem after the comments I received in workshop. Thanks for any feedback on this. Bernardo.

  I’m grimacing as I scan the lines.

  Dear Ms. X, Last night after class, / when your wet hot tongue / singed mine, when your wet hot / tongue touched my cock, / I sighed. But later I / gasped, feeling all of you / all the way inside, slipping / in and out of that deep, dark place / where the two of us lie. It was / and is / divine.

  What is Bernardo doing? What is he thinking? Playing with his fate in my class—no, in school—in this way? What a fool! I try to hold on to the anger, but the images start to take shape. Dammit. I push Cat off the bed rudely, like I used to do, ignoring her yowl, and work myself to orgasm as quickly as I can.

  Dear Bernardo, This is quite a rewrite. I don’t think it addresses your classmates’ concerns that the poem is “purple”—that was the word Joanne used, I believe. It seems to have grown more purple yet in the revision process, and more graphic. Erotic poetry doesn’t have to be graphic, you know; it can be more powerful when the lines and images are subtle, suggestive, rather than overtly sexual. You may want to set this one aside. I’ll let you turn in a different one for a grade, if you like.

  I was only able to write the message after I’d washed my hands and splashed cool water on my face and neck. By then my heart had relaxed back to its normal pace, and I could pretend that the poem had nothing to do with me, nothing to do with the night Bernardo and I went to the bar, that it was just the ordinary nuisance of a bad student poem. This piece of trash has nothing to do with me—nothing at all! Just as I’m letting those words sink in, the doorbell sounds. I press the button and hear Mrs. H say, without any preamble, “Can I ask you something?” Oh god.

  Instead of buzzing her in and making her struggle up the stairs, which would be gratifying but would also allow her to glimpse the inside of my apartment, I walk down and open the front door. I’ve pasted a smile on my face. “What’s up, Mrs. H?” I ask. She doesn’t smile back. She’s wearing some sort of blue-and-yellow-striped muumuu that hurts my eyes to look at. Can’t she see how the bright colors clash with her faded old skin? “You haven’t responded to the block party e-mails,” she says. “Can you help with setup this year? I know you’re alone, but . . .” Her eyes flit beyond me, to the dim hall. There’s nothing to see there—just the common staircase and the cracked floor tiles—but still I shift a little to block her view. “Of course I am! I’ll come down at what, nine a.m.?” I ask in my cheerful voice. “Eight thirty,” she says. “Sharp.” She’s already turning away. That’s all she wanted, but I feel a sudden urge for more. “Mrs. H,” I call after her. “Do you think the weather will be good?” As if she—or anyone—could know this far in advance. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “We’ll have it rain or shine. Always do.” Then she walks slowly down the stoop, one step at a time, sideways, clutching the rail, and toddles back to her house.

  Mrs. H has given me something new to think about: the block party. I latch onto it and don’t let my mind wander into other, more troubling areas. The party is still two and a half weeks away, but it isn’t too early to get organized. This year it feels even more potentially momentous than ever before: I will talk to the actress, befriend her, utterly charm her. I sit down at the kitchen table to make a list: one small watermelon, 1 lb. orzo, fresh basil, feta cheese, case of beer
, good bread? It seems inadequate, especially compared to the exotic dishes the actress will bring: Wilted escarole and quinoa. Apple-cider-braised root vegetables. Farro salad with dried cherries and hazelnuts.

  The words alone galvanize me. I soon find myself standing in front of the glass case at City Pantry, staring at a selection of vibrant and healthy foods I barely recognize. I could shop here for the block party, too. Not now, of course, but on the morning of. I could break with tradition and splurge, and then she and I would hold up our bags, point and laugh. Instant conversation starter. Worth it, for the giant hole in my paycheck? While I’m pondering the pros and cons, the clerk waits behind the case, looking expectantly at me. After a while he clears his throat. I keep staring, lost in all the colors and descriptions, unable to speak, to say, I’m just looking, politely. Eventually he wanders off, though I can still feel his eyes on me. Crushed new potatoes with extra virgin olive oil. Chickpea and couscous salad with chermoula. All of it fifteen dollars per pound. At the end of what feels like an hour, I turn and walk out.

  After coming back from City Pantry, I pause for a moment on the stoop. It’s nice out. Warm but with a cool breeze, so I sit on the top step to smoke. No one I know comes by; it’s like I’m invisible up here, lifted above the street, apart from the flow of the city but still part of its fabric. I realize, somewhere in the back of my mind, that the actress could come by, but I don’t long for it to happen the way I usually do. Maybe it’s the relative nearness of the block party. I want to save up and see her there, in full view, with full access at last. My troubles with Nathan and Bernardo seem far away now, minuscule and harmless, like objects seen through a telescope, though not pretty like stars. Breathing the delicious smoke in and out, I feel as if I’ve always been here and always will be.

  But when I return upstairs, I instantly succumb to that constant, subconscious itch: I check my e-mail, pretending to myself that I want to review the details of the block party setup. Bernardo hasn’t responded. I sag against the back of my chair, partly relieved, partly annoyed. I have to keep myself from poking him with another e-mail—a desperate move. In order to maintain the upper hand, I cannot be desperate. I must be cool, professorial.