We All Love the Beautiful Girls

by Joanne Proulx

  She has come to the office with the intent of emailing David, the lawyer she should have called Monday if she’d been in any state to follow through on Stanley’s advice. Instead, she gives the stack of papers a push. They spill sluggishly across the desk: with a few adjustments it could be the cover shot for an article on the risks associated with equity partnerships, the myriad ways one man can rip another man off.

  She watches two squirrels spiral around the trunk of the maple like frenzied wind-up toys. Male or female, young or old, in a game of chase or in a frantic mating ritual, Mia doesn’t know. The squirrels bounce into the tree’s snowy branches, disappear in a puff of white. Only one emerges. Body stretched and claws extended, it leaps three feet of sky onto an electrical wire and scurries away down the street—a scoundrel, a survivor, a high-wire escape artist.

  Mia stands up quickly; she can no longer bear the cold.

  In the hallway, she absently opens the linen closet and is overcome by the stacks of sheets and towels. In Finn’s room, she folds a crumpled pair of jeans into a neat denim packet and sets them on the bed. Picks a sock from the floor, and then, without really thinking, makes a fist and stretches it onto her hand. Her knuckles bump across the toe. Three black bars of an Adidas logo stripe her palm. Although she’s alone in the house, she kicks closed the bedroom door.

  She shakes out the jeans, then refolds them. Pinches the waist between her breast and her socked forearm. The empty legs dangle down limply. With her good hand, she draws the waist across itself, then brings the legs up in a loopy fold and tosses the pants back onto the bed. She wouldn’t get hired at Abercrombie, but it’s not too bad a job.

  In Finn’s bathroom, Mia opens the top drawer of the vanity: toothbrushes, toothpaste, a container of dental floss—impossible—a nail clipper—also impossible—and a comb. She takes a toothbrush and balances it on the lip of the sink. Unscrews the toothpaste cap with her teeth. Spits it onto the counter. When she tries to squeeze a minty blue slug onto the bristles, the toothbrush tips into the sink.

  Hard. She yanks off the sock. Everything’s going to be hard.

  —

  MICHAEL DRIVES BLINDLY through the city trying to calm himself down. Another night at the hospital, another night of bandage changes and dopey smiles, another night of trying to talk to his out-of-it son. Michael asking questions, Finn barely giving answers, more an interrogation than a conversation. On autopilot, Michael startles the Jeep to a stop at a red light without a clear recollection of how he’d arrived at that particular intersection—farther from, not closer to, home. He ends up in the downtown core, where half the buildings he passes are ones he brought into the Conrad Group. The office tower at 300 Slater with its leaky tar and gravel roof. The beer store on Hunter that continually got tagged with graffiti. The apartment at 101 Somerset, where tenants on the fourth floor rented two adjoining apartments then knocked through the wall and started a grow-op. When he’d opened the door for the police, the walls had been running with water, and they’d been nearly knocked flat by the smell of the weed, which he’d joked about harvesting for himself and Peter.

  Heading east on Somerset, Michael passes under the ornate Oriental arch and, easing off the gas, glides the Jeep slowly past the Mekong. With its darkened windows, muted decor and the old hand-painted sign replaced by a trendy black awning, it’s a little classier than the rest of the joints in Chinatown. He and Peter did a lot of business over the Mekong’s spring rolls and pot stickers and too too many Tsingtaos. Michael thought getting sloshed on Friday afternoons, flirting with their waitress, letting things slide sideways for a while was one of the perks of being your own boss. Jesus. What an asshole.

  He U-turns away from the Conrad offices where he’d inadvertently been headed. His front bumper crunches into a snow-bank, he throws the Jeep into reverse and fishtails back into his lane. He doesn’t even want to think about that office tonight. What a sucker he’s been. A sap. There were two messages from Peter on his cell this morning, asking what, if anything, he and Helen could do to help out. He’d sounded nervous in both of them, probably wondering why a week on—has it been a week? It feels like ten—his old friend hasn’t called him back.

  Michael swings into a residential neighbourhood, but there the snow-narrowed streets and the red brick houses remind him of his home and his street and how he’d jogged so slowly along it last Friday night while his son lay freezing to death in the Kellys’ backyard.

  He arrived at the hospital with a blood alcohol level of .18. They’d found THC as well—so much for Mia’s claim that Finn didn’t do drugs. My god, what had he been thinking? And where was Eli? Or Frankie? Or any of his other friends? Had no one, no one, been watching out for him? They’re all so connected, with their texts and their tweets and their stories, did everyone just take the fucking night off?

  Behind the wheel, Michael slips into a complete reboot of the hours Finn was missing. He’s done it a hundred times, sitting in the orange vinyl hospital chair by the window, splicing minutes and diverting time. The doctors estimated the duration of Finn’s exposure at approximately two hours. Michael can make them never happen. Stanley doesn’t come over and fuck up their life. He and Mia don’t argue. He does not fall asleep. Mia waits up for Finn as usual, and they start the search an hour earlier. Flesh does not freeze solid in sixty minutes. Hands do not die.

  So one hour. If he’d turned right at the end of the street rather than left, skipped the bagel shop and headed straight to the Kelly house, that would have saved another fifteen, twenty minutes. If the front door had been locked and he’d been forced around back, if he hadn’t taken so goddamn long looking around the house, if he hadn’t stumbled over Jess, if, if, if.

  Michael shudders behind the wheel. He is both a fool and a failure. His business with Peter is finished. Finn’s hand is never coming back.

  —

  MIA IS JUST out of the tub when Michael walks into the bathroom. It isn’t even nine o’clock. When she asks why he’s back so early, he tells her curtly that Finn had fallen asleep so he came home for some rest. Since Finn’s been in hospital, neither of them has slept more than a couple of consecutive hours, and most of those have been in the flattened visitor’s chair. They’re both exhausted, although, at the moment, Michael seems edgy, his energy dark, leaning back against the counter, gripping its marble lip.

  Mia doesn’t even try to engage him in conversation. She lifts one foot onto the tub and begins rubbing down her thighs. She takes her time, alert to the heaviness of his stare, then the sudden shift as he pushes himself away from the vanity. Still, the last thing she’s expecting is for him to yank away her towel, shove her against the wall and force his knee up between her legs.

  “Michael,” she warns.

  He drops the towel to the floor and leans heavily against her, so she is pressed up against the wall. She doesn’t struggle. Sex between them is rarely gentle, but Michael has never hurt her.

  “You do what I want,” he says, and her heart jumps.

  When he pins her arms, she twists from his grip and slaps him.

  They end up on the floor, Mia scrambling backwards, crab-crawling along the tile, trying to get away, playing at trying to get away, before Michael grabs her ankle and yanks her into place beneath him. Expended, she falls still and waits for him to push into her, she is expecting it, bracing for it, wanting it, the fierce thrust, the stabbing penetration, but for a long few seconds, he lies motionless on top of her, making her feel the full weight of his body, the threat of his cock hard against her leg.

  The nurse unwinds the bandages.

  And the surgeon, the axe-man, leans in and takes a look. He flips my arm around a bit, flexes my elbow, pokes at what’s left of my skin. Smiles. So I figure he likes what he sees.

  I glance down. I do not like what I see. What I see is a fucking shock.

  Healing well, the doctor says. He rattles the chart from the bottom of the bed. Starts scratching away with a pen. Incision is
closing up nicely. The flaps—both palmar and dorsal—and thus the skin coverage wasn’t what we wanted, it’s not a clean closure to be sure, but we saved the wrist and that was our goal. We were also able to attach the wrist flexors and extensors to the remaining carpal bones, which will enhance your motor strength. By preserving the full forearm length, you’ll have a nice long lever arm to lift the terminal device, which is excellent. If we have to, we can do a graft in the future, but from what I’ve seen today, I don’t think that will be necessary. Which is again excellent.

  He bangs the chart back into the cage at the end of the bed.

  You’re young. He smiles, a mouthful of yellow country teeth. And the young heal quickly.

  His gloves come off with a rubbery snap. Jocelyn, re-dress the residual limb and we’ll give the prosthesis a go.

  The nurse hustles over, clattering a cart behind her. All the usual gear on top—bottle of sterilized water, gauze, silver antibacterial stuff they cut with scissors and press onto my oozing spots, tweezers they use to torture off my dying skin.

  While the nurse does her thing, the doctor squats down beside the cart and starts laying the stuff from the lower shelf on the bed.

  A lace-up plastic sleeve. About the length of a forearm. A cable contraption bondage thing, black, some sort of Velcro harness. A two-pronged hook…like something you’d dig in the garden with. Or wear on Halloween.

  The doctor shows me how the harness connects to the cable, how the cable attaches to the hook, how the hook attaches to the plastic sleeve. He seems excited as he slips two rubber bands around the metal claws and talks lateral pinch and prehensile tension. He pulls the cable. The claws open around a disposable cup on the bedside table. He releases the cable. The rubber bands snap the claws closed. The cup collapses with a plasticky crunch.

  Ah, well, he says, you get the idea.

  I try to breathe as the nurse pulls a cotton stocking cap over the blunt, bandaged end of my arm. As the doctor laces the sleeve onto my forearm.

  How does that feel? he asks. Is that good?

  He finally stops and takes a look at me.

  This is a temporary terminal device, he says. It’s not cosmetic. It’s simply to get you used to…Studies show the earlier the prosthesis is introduced, the less psychological distress is observed. The earlier the better. Normally we would have fit you with a temporary socket in the operating room immediately following the amputation, but given the extent of the surrounding tissue damage…Well, we’ve already talked about that.

  He picks up the hook and hisses at the nurse. Parents?

  Father was here briefly this morning, she whispers. His mother’s coming this afternoon.

  Great. Has the psychologist been in?

  I don’t know. I’m not sure.

  Well find out.

  Nurse gone, the doctor fits the hook onto the sleeve. It butts up against my sewn-up flesh, my sawed-off bones. I drop the arm. The claws stab into the mattress.

  For now, the doctor says, just operate the cable with your left hand to get the feel of it. Tomorrow we’ll attach it to the shoulder harness and let your back muscles do the work.

  The doctor holds out the cable. Finally just sets it on the bed.

  —

  MIA COULD LIE DOWN on the settee at the front of the studio, but instead she stretches out on the floor. She’s still wearing her hat and scarf, but the red-and-black-checked lumberjack coat she’s had since she was pregnant with Finn is pillowed under her head. Soft northern light streams through the front windows, and overhead a chandelier glitters—one of a pair she scavenged from a restaurant renovation. Beneath her the hardwood is sun-warm and buttery smooth, polished soft over the years by troops of pink-slippered feet. Before Mia, the studio—a ten-minute walk up Main, close to the canal in the increasingly hipster part of Old Aberdeen—was home to Miss Stacey’s School of Dance. If Mia had been able to carry another child to term, if she’d been lucky enough to have a daughter, she might have taken classes here.

  Her leather backpack, heavy with Stanley’s unwelcome gifts, sits next to her camera on the high wooden table that runs almost half the length of the room. In the laundromat on the ground floor, the washers and dryers are going, and the air in the studio is moist and smells deliciously of soap. She inhales deeply and closes her eyes. The hardwood thrums with a gentle energy, a low-frequency vibration that shivers through the building and her body on the floor.

  You do what I want. Good god. Mia wonders what had been going on in Michael’s head right then. Forcing his knee between her thighs. Pinning her to the wall. His hands tight around her wrists. She can’t pretend she wasn’t into it. Slapping him felt good, damn it. For a sliver of an hour, she didn’t have to be calm or sensible or in charge. No one’s mother. No one’s wife. No real risk of harm. One word and it would have ended. But there was release in the fight, relief in the submission. And something else. Excitement. A flicker of the primal. When Michael lay so still and heavy upon her, Mia had understood that beyond the moment, the man overpowering her was capable of overpowering others. There was strange comfort in that.

  The telephone rings into the room. Mia turns her head, watches the light pulse on the black rotary phone. Except for her camera equipment and her iMac, everything in the studio is retro, which is exactly what she’d wanted. Not just a studio but a retreat. Not just a retreat but a retreat into a simpler time.

  The ringing stops and the answering machine clicks on. “Mia?” She waits, breath held, upon the floor. She can feel Helen waiting, too.

  “Mia? Gosh. Where are you? I’ve tried your cell a dozen times, left messages at the house. I dropped Frankie off at the hospital, oh, I don’t know, a half-hour ago. We weren’t even sure they’d let us in, but we didn’t have any trouble. Anyway, Finn looked good. Better than I expected. He seemed happy to see us. A little upset, maybe, I don’t know.” Helen sounds confused, almost desperate, her voice an octave too high. “Can you please get in touch? I know it’s a tough time, but I really want to talk to you. You know Peter and I will do whatever we can to help out. Just let us know what you need. Listen,” she says, “I’m going to come by the house. If you’re not there I’ll leave the casserole on the porch. It’s the chicken one with the mushrooms that you like. I also have wine and a baguette. I figure you need a little TLC, but everything should be fine on the porch. Except the grapes. I could use the key in the frog if it’s not completely buried. I’ll put everything in the fridge. Geez, I wish you’d call me or answer your cell. Did you lose it again? Maybe you’re home. Sleeping. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m coming by. Okay? If you’re not at the house, I’ll check the studio. Mia? I love you. Can you please call when you—”

  The long beep of the machine finally cuts her off. Mia lies unmoving on the floor until a poorly balanced load in one of the washers downstairs turns the thrum in the floorboards into a quake. As she stands, her body feels brittle and inelastic, like a fruit dried too long in the sun.

  Before she empties the papers from her backpack, she checks the door to make sure it’s locked. Makes a mental note to remove the key from the belly of the ceramic frog they keep on the windowsill by the back door of the house. Then she erases Helen’s message from the answering machine, and before she can falter, calls her lawyer friend David.

  His secretary puts her straight through. He’s happy to hear from her, and no, no, he’s never too busy for her.

  She explains what’s happened with Peter.

  “Bastard,” he says. “Not surprised.”

  She tells him about Finn losing his hand.

  “Wow. Poor kid. That’s a drag.” He says he’ll swing by on his way home and pick up the paperwork, read it over tonight, off the clock. He tells her not to worry, he’ll take care of everything, and she is suddenly crying on the phone, relieved and overwhelmed and exhausted and sad for them all.

  “Heyyyy. Miiiia.” Crying wasn’t allowed at the bank. “Let me worry about this crap with Peter. I’ve
seen it a thousand times. It’s what I do, all right? You just worry about Finn.”

  She manages to snuffle up an embarrassed thank-you, and the phone is already halfway down when she hears a faint “Mia!” and presses the receiver back to her ear.

  “You know”—David’s voice is tricky—“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a crier.”

  “Oh, fuck off.” She has to laugh.

  “Ah, there’s the girl I know,” he says. “Hang in there. I’ll call soon.”

  —

  AVOIDING THE ELEVATOR, a habit he’s picked up at the hospital, Michael jogs three flights of stairs and pushes through the heavy metal fire door. He woke up feeling rested and surprisingly clearheaded. He’s going to do this quickly, get in and get out as fast as he can.

  Sandy, the red-headed receptionist, looks up from her computer as Michael yanks open the glass door to their suite of offices. Poised and welcoming, her face drops as Michael blows by, and in their cubicles, the property managers fall silent. His admin, Bev, is already standing up—she’s seen him, everyone’s seen him—but she remains behind her desk as he strides across the room.

  Bev’s worked for him for fifteen years. She thinks she knows him almost as well as his wife; she’s said as much. Their eyes catch long enough for him to know that she feels his gravitas, the hard, reduced scope of him, and that she’s staying behind her desk for a reason.

  Michael orders her to get him a box and slams his office door. He jerks open the top drawer of his file cabinet and digs out a handful of folders, flips through them quickly, before either stacking them on his desk or dropping them to the floor. Unanswered phones jangle, the entire staff on hold. They look uneasily from Michael’s office to Peter’s. He knows they know Finn lost his hand in a stupid, drunken accident. They’re probably expecting Peter to get in there and talk to him. Probably can’t understand why he’s not.