“Don’t stop now,” I said.
“If the sex isn’t there, it’s hard for a relationship to work. It’s possible for it to work. Kids, that’s one thing that keeps people together.” She said that part sadly, maybe wishing on a star for a second. “I don’t think your husband went about it the right way, although I don’t even know what the right way would necessarily be in that kind of situation. But if he felt incomplete, he had the right to try and fix it.”
“So what are you saying?” I said.
“I’m saying maybe you weren’t as whole as you think you were,” she said gently.
“MOONIE, please, don’t make me do this by myself,” said my husband.
“But I do not want you to do it,” I said. I spoke softly. I had been crying that morning, but I did not want him to know. But I could not muster up my full voice, the full version of me.
“A wife should support her husband in his decisions,” he said.
“A wife should be allowed to be a part of making those decisions,” I said.
“I want to be a whole man,” he said. “Help me be whole.” He spread his hands out in my lap, palms up, and he waited for me to put my palms flat on his, two parts making up a whole. I did it. I could not figure out how to stop it all from happening.
So I went with him, through the tall mirror doors. I kept waiting for them to work like fun house mirrors. There would be some whacked-out version of me looking back, my belly scrunched up like a bag of trash, or my arms long like a piece of taffy. But there I was, just me, in my short skirt, and puffy vest over my tank top, and my short little legs, and my long hair, so long and straight and blond, hanging all over me, down past my shoulders, almost to my waist. I was covered in hair. And there was my husband, his hand in mine, only a little bit taller than me, dark denim shirt bound up at the cuffs, pants hanging over his same scuffed work boots he had had forever, brown hair shooting up at the ends. There were those lines in his forehead from working outside in the sun for so long. I loved them. They could look worried or hypnotized or laughing depending on what channel he had clicked on at that moment. And there was the perfect peach of his cheeks, like something ripe and juicy that showed up at the end of summer at the farmer’s market over at the True Value parking lot. He never stopped talking or thinking or moving except when he was watching TV. And even then there was this energy that rippled through him, through those wrinkles in his forehead, like he was a snake charmer. He had enough energy for the both of us.
In the lobby we stopped and stood in front of a giant portrait of Rio DeCarlo, her arms waving high in the air, as if to say, “Welcome to my world!”
“She looks so pretty,” said my husband. I had to admit the version of her hanging on the wall was much nicer than the version of her on that reality show, although she still had that same pencil-thin nose, the round nostrils popping out like two tiny fists.
We followed a sign toward admissions, and walked through the shined and buffed interior. I felt like I was inside the engine of a brand-new car. We passed a bunch of people in long medical coats, but all different colors, hot pinks and purples and aquas, and they all had different patches on the upper arms. The doctors—their coats said “Doc” on the sleeve—were the only ones who wore coats that were white, so white it made me think of those teeth-brightener commercials, those sticky strips that you slip on your teeth at night. (My mother got me some once and I kept gagging every time I put them in, so I gave them to my sister instead.) Everyone who worked there sped by us in their bright coats and gave us nods and smiles, occasionally a wave. A lot of people had the same smiles, I noticed. Their teeth looked like a strip of squares of the peppermint gum I liked to chew. One person after the other, their lips would go up, and there would be those same damn teeth.
The people sitting in the admissions area all looked like they could be my neighbors. They looked totally normal, is what I am trying to say. Not like they were broken, or even that they were crazy and trying to fix things that did not need to be fixed. It made me feel a little bit better about my husband, like maybe he was not alone, and it was not so strange that he wanted to do this to himself.
“WELL, OF COURSE THEY’RE NORMAL, sweetheart,” said Valka. “Just because someone wants to get a little work done does not mean they are a complete freak.”
“I did not mean you were a freak. I knew when I was saying it you were going to think I was judging again. I am not judging you.” I swore. “I am trying to explain to you who I was, how I was thinking. What that time was like for me. I know more now. I am learning new things every day. But I want you to know why. Why I was so crazy.”
“Okay, okay.” She shushed me. “I understand.”
I thought maybe she did not, but it was the best I could do.
I SAT DOWN while Thomas checked in with the front desk, crossed my legs, crossed my arms, squeezed myself up into a little ball. I would be very quiet here, I decided. I would disappear. I felt like an intruder. Like I should not know who these people were, and what was wrong with them. And yet I could not help but look around me and try to imagine how they could be fixed.
Across from me were three girls, not much older than my sister, all reading celebrity magazines. Two of them had nice blond hair, though I thought neither was a natural blond like myself, and were dressed like me, denim skirt, tank top, flip-flops. The one on the right had short curly hair that clung to her face, and big blue bulgy eyes that were lined with bright blue mascara. The other girl was just a little mouse of a thing. She had all of her parts, but it was like she was waiting for someone to inflate them all, she was so thin. I could see the bones and veins through her skin.
They were surrounding another girl who had dramatic brown hair; it was long and feathered and had beautiful golden highlights, they almost dripped off her head. She must be from the city, I thought. Her clothes were a little bit nicer than her friends’ even though it was basically the same outfit. She was just a little bit more put together. The shirt had been dyed gorgeous red and orange, and there were tiny rhinestones sewn across the top of it. And she had matching red bracelets and a thin gold chain with a diamond hanging from the end around her neck, all of which glowed against her golden tan skin. She was holding a glossy magazine, and her two friends were peering over her shoulder and pointing. They chatted like birds in the trees right before sunset.
“I want hers,” said the girl on the left.
“No, hers,” said the girl on the right.
The girl in the middle flipped the page impatiently. “These are the ones,” she said, and she pointed. “Just that little scoop up,” she said. She leaned in close and peered greedily. “God, her bikini top hangs so perfectly.”
“She’s hot,” said the girl on the left.
“So hot,” said the girl on the right.
Chatter, chatter, I thought. There are some people who could talk all day and never say a thing.
My husband returned with a huge stack of papers attached to a clipboard, and I wondered if they were multiple choice or essay questions. You can never get away from schoolwork in your life. They are always going to get you. He sighed as he looked at it, and said, “It’s like they want your life story.” I gave him a little smirk out of the side of my mouth, and part of me hoped he saw it, and part of me hoped he did not.
Next to me was a girl, different from the girls across from us, even though she, too, had the same outfit, and also had long blond hair. Hers was parted in the middle and fell down below her shoulders, almost to her elbows. It was a pale, pale blond, as if the sun had been bleaching it for years. And her top was the color of an army tank, and it hung loosely around her. There were sprouts of dusty brown hair peeking out from her armpits. Her denim skirt had little drawings all over it in black ink. Little animals, birds mainly, and crazy swirls. I wondered what was wrong with her that could be fixed here, and I looked at her face, but she did not look any different from anyone else, personal grooming problems aside.
The girl turned to her and stuck her tongue out and then slowly, deliberately, pulled her hands up to her hair and pulled it back behind her ears. When she faced forward, I could see the full effect of her act: holy mama, were those big ears. They started by her mouth and went up almost near her eyebrows. The girl had pierced them at least a dozen times, with hoops of all different sizes and crazy stones with little symbols all over them. I bet her mother hated that. But if you are going to have big ears, might as well do it up. A minute later I realized I was still looking at her ears. I could not stop myself. I wanted to tell her that I liked them, that if she was here to fix them, she was headed on the wrong path, that she was already going the right way, that she should get more earrings. I wanted to free her. Free her ears.
Thomas flipped another page and shook his writing hand, stretched and squeezed his fingers. I put my head on his shoulder and tried to take a peek at what he was writing, but Thomas covered it up with his forearm.
“There’s magazines on a table up near the front desk,” he said. “All the kinds you like.”
“There is not one thing about you I don’t know,” I said, but I got up anyway, straightened out my skirt, and walked toward the front desk. It was a strange feeling knowing I was probably the only person in the room who did not want to change something about themselves, on the outside anyway. And yet I did not feel superior in the slightest. I knew I was not perfect. I could write a long list of things about myself that could probably be fixed. But even if I fixed them all, another list would probably crop up in no time at all. And where would it end? How would I know when I was all fixed?
“WELL, THAT’S THE TRUTH,” said Valka. “You could keep on fixing forever.”
I PASSED A MAN with a gigantic nose—there was a hook and then a bump. His face was long and narrow and he had a sour look to him, spoiled and pinched. There was a man with gigantic folds of flesh around his chest, the rest of his body skinny and waiting for the top half to catch up. A woman with bright red hair in short spikes in sunglasses, ripples of lines waving out from around her narrow lips, which were dry and wrinkled. The aisle before the magazine rack I passed an older woman with a red scar down the side of her face, little digits of darkness around the edges. A slash mark, I thought. After that I stopped looking and kept my head down till I got to the magazine rack. I could no longer bear witness to these human frailties.
I walked back to my husband and said, “I’m going to sit in the car.” My voice was husky and dark. As much as I loved him, what he was doing did not feel right to me. I just could not be a part of it. He did not look up at first; he finished the last line of what he was writing. Finally he turned up his head and nodded, then threw himself back into his confession.
In the car I stretched out in the backseat and crossed my hands together over my belly. I pretended I was a corpse. I pretended I could feel nothing inside and nothing outside and all that was left was my soul, waiting to be released somewhere. I tried to imagine flying above Omaha and looking down at the Helping Hands Center, and then over the highway back to our hometown. I would probably just head back and hover over our farm for eternity. If I died right now, I would haunt my husband for the rest of his life.
On the way home, Thomas talked, and I listened. He talked about the prick of a needle into his skin. It only hurts for a few seconds. And then you are out. I started to feel a lurch of heat in my stomach. He talked of inches, and injections, and insertions. I wrapped my right hand around the handle on the car door and pressed my left hand to my stomach. He told me about the recovery process. How many days he would sleep, how many pills he would take. How long it would take to heal. The unwrapping of a bandage like a gift under a Christmas tree. How his penis would suddenly be normal. How he would be whole. I told him to pull over, I told him I was going to be sick, I told him, “Now, now, now!” I fell out of the car and hunched over on the ground and my skirt rode up high around my thighs and a truck drove by and honked at the revelation of my flesh while I heaved onto the gravel.
“YOU CAN’T JUDGE THE MAN for wanting to fix himself,” said Valka. She aimed her hand into the shape of a gun and poked her right breast. It moved only slightly. “I mean, they are perfect now.” She smiled. She loved those breasts of hers just like they were the ones she was born with. There was probably no real difference in the end except for some plastic. “But it should have been something you wanted, too.” I was not sure if she was saying that because she believed it, or if she was just trying to be supportive.
“Marriage is about togetherness,” I said.
“That’s right,” said Valka. “Two people making decisions out of love. Not one person out of ego.” She sat up in bed. “Let’s think about luck. And let’s think positive. We should toast to togetherness.” She rolled out of bed and swaggered over to the minibar and rustled around in it until she found a half bottle of champagne. “May I?” she said.
“Sure, I got a hundred and seventy-four thousand left anyway.”
“That’s a long ways to go,” she said, and popped the cork.
14.
One month after our first visit to the Helping Hands Center I sat in its waiting room, legs clamped together, ankles crossed, sweatshirt wrapped around me to keep me warm. Right then my husband was going under, someone was shooting him up, or sliding a gas mask over his mouth, and telling him to breathe, to trust and to breathe. I did not trust them, but I trusted him. That he knew what he was doing, that he was going to be all right when it was over. Elective surgery, that is what the paperwork said. It sounded like he was running for office, but really it meant he was choosing it, choosing to let them put him to sleep right then.
There had been times in the past when I wondered what he was thinking as he slept. I wished I could peek inside Thomas’s head. I would write down all his dreams and keep them forever, read them when I missed him, or wanted to understand him better. Going under, underneath, that is where the truth lay.
“I ALWAYS HATED GOING UNDER,” said Valka. “And then all of a sudden I liked it. Because anything was better than my life awake.” She finished her glass of champagne. Mine lay untouched. I was thinking.
I REMEMBER THE ONLY TIME I went under, the beginning and end of it anyway. I was fourteen years old. I did not talk much then, not because I was sullen or shy, but because I did not have much to say. It was like my insides were not fully formed yet. It was the summer before my freshman year started, and I still rode around on a bicycle with a banana seat with thin shreds of pink glittery streamers tied to the handlebars. They blew in the wind, along with my long blond hair. It was even longer than it is now, long enough that if I stretched my body at a right angle, I could sit on it. My mother hated when I did that. She thought I looked unruly. She swore she would take me to the beauty shop before school started, and I remember it was the first time I hated her.
I was not the kind of girl to hate anyone, especially my mother, but I was having a bad summer. I had all these extra responsibilities, for starters. My mother had gotten a new job doing ad sales for a radio station in Lincoln, and she was working long hours, longer even with the commute. She did not need to work—my father’s drugstore was still doing okay then.
But off she went every morning, lipstick, jacket, skirt, her hair done up nice in a little twist. Her heels would echo on the driveway in the quiet of the morning. I would wave goodbye from the front stoop and silently pray the car would not start, but it always did.
So I was stuck with taking care of Jenny, who had just turned six years old. From seven to seven, she was in my care, and I did not feel like being careful. It was not that I was wishing for danger. I just did not want the responsibility for someone else, especially not a whiny little baby, which Jenny was. She was just terrible when she was younger, or at least that was how I remembered her that summer. I had to walk her to the pool in my old red wagon, dragging her and all her toys. Otherwise she would fall and cry every five minutes, or lose a toy, or lag behind so far sometimes I would be a block away before I even knew she was gone. Sometimes we would leave the red wagon at home and I would give her a piggyback the entire way, and that was when we were closest. She sang made-up songs in my ear and I liked the feel of her hot breath on the back of my neck. Her tiny fingers tenderly clutching my neck. Then at the pool I had to watch her while she was swimming, her flopping around in her floaties. She would splash and laugh and flirt with everyone. I could not take my eyes off her for a second. She was my precious cargo, and secretly she gave me fresh hope for the future. Even then I knew my mother was so sour, and yet she had created this sweet, bubbly creature. From a pile of dirt grows beautiful wildflowers. Nobody knows where they come from; still, there they are. But if you had asked me that summer how I was doing, I would have moaned up to the heavens about how bored I was. Because all day long, all I did was watch Jenny.
And there were other things happening back at home that made life unpleasant. Dinner was always quiet now, except for the sound of Jenny clacking her silverware and chattering away about nothing in particular. My parents never joined me out back anymore to look at the stars on the summer nights. I began to forget which constellations were which without my dad reminding me as he stood behind me. I missed his hands squeezing my shoulders, the slim strands of hair near his knuckles glittering under the light of the bug zapper on the back porch. We could see so far off into the distance; we were only a quarter mile from where the farms started, where there was practically no light at all.
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