Even after her voice ceased and her mouth settled into a mildly coquettish grin, I continued to watch her.
“Tell me something personal,” she said. “I just told you about my father.”
“He seems like a good man,” I said.
Vanessa smiled at my comment. “Now you,” she persisted.
“My father ruined himself with discontent,” I said. “So I don’t really have any good stories about him.”
“Then tell me a bad one,” she said sincerely, almost as if she were asking permission to collect me in her arms and protect me.
“From his phone bill,” I began, looking briefly at the wineglass, then back up to her waiting gaze, “I learned that out of the blue he called a few people he’d gone to school with or worked with, and even a couple of his old girl friends, and he just told them all that he was sorry. For what, I don’t know exactly. He apologized for things most of these people had forgotten about. Also, he sold all the tools and equipment in the garage in order to pay off his credit card debt. Sometime around dawn, because he’d set his alarm clock to get up really early, he spread a bunch of cardboard on the kitchen floor, so he wouldn’t make a mess, and he lay down and shot himself in the head—but it took him quite a few days to die. In the meantime, he was a crippled madman, always at the heightened pitch of terror. That’s my worst story.”
Vanessa reached across the table to hold my hand.
“I’m sorry I made you tell me that,” she said.
“It’s okay.”
“You don’t think I’m rude?”
“No.”
“I’ve never met anyone without at least one sad story to tell. It’s good to remember that. It keeps you more patient and kind, I think.”
“You’re very kind,” I said.
Vanessa’s fingers tightened upon my hand.
“Finish your wine, and I’ll take you home.” She turned in her seat to glance back into the living room. “Besides, I think they’d be happy to get some privacy.”
“I feel bad about having you drive me. I can walk. It’s not far,” I said because I had no intention of going back to my apartment, despite my father’s letter and the possibility that my mother had sent me a present in the mail. I had already checked the train schedule and planned my escape route, figuring that I could sleep throughout the night as I traveled.
“You can’t walk in this weather,” Vanessa said.
“I feel bad about you driving,” I said again, not to mention that my apartment was in the wrong direction.
“I can’t blame you for the snow. It’s been a bad season.”
I nodded, deciding not to refuse her offer a third time. I’d just have a longer walk. As we drank our wine, I knew that there was no way I could ask this woman to come with me. After all, we had just met, and she was still trying to get to know me. Nevertheless, for two consecutive nights, in the middle of the week in a cold December, Vanessa Somerset was the closest I’d ever come to a real relationship. That’s my best story.
“We talked about too many sad things tonight,” she said. “Next time, we’ll focus on the positive stuff.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
She swallowed the last of her wine and got to her feet. Together, we put on our shoes and coats and then bid the happy couple goodbye. Seeing Connie sprawled atop her boyfriend, I now understood that he had been right: She would crack before the cock crowed.
So Vanessa and I left her apartment, abandoning the warm gurgle of her radiators; the crisp delicacy of glass and polished wood; the thin, gray-black streams of smoke twisting out of the gutted hulls of vanilla candles; the lingering smell of garlic slices over the baked pink fish; the recumbent lovers on the couch; the senseless, exuberant chatter emitted from the television speakers; and further on, in a darker room, the high, plump mattress, the clean, white linen, and the nighttime promise of comfort and sleep.
But none of these details mattered: our descent down the dingy staircase; the rush of wintry weather at the opening of the front door; the brisk, lighthearted sound that burred from Vanessa’s lips; her arm slipping through mine, upon the first snowy step; her shoulder leaning against me as we crossed the street; and her separation from me in order to clear the back window with a swipe of her forearm, before she scrambled into the car.
And then, as the engine turned and the windshield wipers arced through the snow, she spoke again: “Next time, I’ll make you tell me a good story, so get prepared. Start planning ahead.”
“Okay,” I said.
Slowly rolling forward, the car’s tires crunched over the fresh snow, while the falling flakes eased silently through the beams of the headlights.
“But you know what they say,” Vanessa said. “Whatever doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.”
“And the opposite?” I asked.
“What’s the opposite?” She glanced at me, smiling, as though she anticipated a joke.
“Whatever doesn’t sustain us only makes us weaker.”
“That sounds reasonable.” She laughed, perhaps because she had been ready to laugh.
As she slowed the car to a stop at a traffic light, the loose wine bottle rolled along the back floorboard, bumping against the bottom of Vanessa’s seat.
“What’s that?” she asked, so I reached between our seats and found the bottle, which made her as happy as if I’d just pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
“Imagine that,” she said. “That’s yours. You take it home.”
“You can have it. I bought it for you. It’s the Santa Margherita.”
Looking at me, Vanessa pushed up her glasses with her thumb.
“And gnomes and elves steal her eggs,” she said. “What made her believe that?”
“Superstition.”
“I think you drank too much wine.” She turned her head back toward the road as the car started forward again. Then nodding, she added, “Me too.”
When she approached my narrow street, she announced the turn, by saying, “Left turn.”
I looked out the window at the sidewalk that I’d traversed numerous times and had hoped never to traverse again, at the faces of buildings—some of their windows lighted, some dark, some decorated in the holiday spirit with Christmas trees blinking behind the panes—then at a street light reaching its arm above the road, at the falling snow passing through its dim yellow glow, and finally, at last, at the alley beside my building into which the snow coated strip faded from silver to blue into the dark.
“We’re here,” Vanessa said.
“Yes,” I nodded, feeling a portion of my vitality shrivel up a little, just at the sight of my old home. I wanted her to drive us away.
As promptly as always, my landlord had already cleared off the sidewalk and steps.
“Guess what I just realized,” Vanessa said, killing the headlights and leaning her left forearm on the steering wheel. “I’ve got your hat at my place.”
But I was distracted by the world outside my window as a tinge of apprehension tightened my nerves.
“I’ll keep it for you,” she added. “I won’t sell it.”
Her expression became more serious, and her gloved hand slowly rose and arrested itself in the air, as if she’d intended to touch my face.
“I hate that bruise,” she said. “I bet I could make it look better with a little makeup.”
I tapped one finger on the glass. “It was those steps.”
“Enough falling down. That’s my new rule for you.” She smiled at me, her raised hand now lowering to my arm. “I hope you enjoyed coming over. I’m sorry if Connie is such a chatterbox.”
“She was fine.”
“I’m not much of a fan of her boyfriend sleeping over all of the time. I know her mother wouldn’t like it. Besides, the walls are pretty thin.”
I nodded, remembering the bawdy pun of Connie cracking before the cock crowed.
Vanessa removed her hand from my arm. She turned her eyes away from my face and for a momen
t fixed them on the dashboard.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m intruding in my own home. I got to start making some rules. For one, nothing in the bathroom or on the couch.”
“That’s not too bad,” I said. “I always feel like an intruder.”
She brightened a little and looked at me again, as though I’d intended my comment to amuse her.
“I thought you were going to tell me that they’re young and I ought to expect it,” she said.
“No,” I said.
“Well, you’re not an intruder,” she said. “You seem very connected.”
Even though I nodded, I felt an urge to disabuse her of her misconception. Yet we fell silent for an instant, suspended and paused, with her eyes searching my face. She touched my arm again.
“It’s kind of stupid to talk in the car,” she said. “We’ll freeze. It’s too cold to sit here.”
“I agree with you,” I responded, mildly surprised by Vanessa’s gentle but abrupt turn in the conversation. However, I wasn’t offended. Perhaps parting with her now would have been for the best. I had a long walk ahead of me. But her next action revealed to me that what she’d implied was far different from what I’d heard: Rather than bid me goodbye for the evening, she turned off the engine and opened her door. Evidently, I’d just invited her into my apartment.
“Don’t forget your wine,” she said.
And while my brain suddenly scrambled in a panic to reclaim and correct the previous moment, I found myself getting out into the snow and watching Vanessa walk around the front of the car and step up onto the sidewalk, where I was standing and, as she undoubtedly assumed, waiting for her. Once again, she slipped her arm under mine, so I could escort her. I can’t say which one of us shut my car door, but it shook loose a gray, slushy clump from the wheel-well, and as a sheet of snow began to creep from the roof onto the windshield, I felt Vanessa tug me gently into motion by the forearm.
“I’ll protect you on the stairs,” she said.
“Thank you,” I replied, though my mind was now rushing ahead of us, past the mail gathered on the floor, then into the corridor with the dust smoldering on the radiators, and farther ahead, into my apartment, where unknown men on official business had recently poked and rummaged. I was afraid not only of what we might find but also of what monster might be waiting for us.
Yet I managed my keys well enough to let us into the building, and as we moved through the hall, Vanessa was saying something about not interrupting the young lovers, and then laughing about how I’d just left my clothes in her car; I was always forgetting my things. Approaching my apartment door, I was strangely eager about hurrying inside, in fear of lingering vulnerably in the hall. But Vanessa didn’t seem to notice my agitation, for she was still laughing as my door swung open, and the part of my mind that had rushed ahead and feverishly searched all the rooms to make sure everything was in order, now sped back around to greet us at the door.
When I turned on the light, nothing scurried away to hide or leaped out to bludgeon me.
In fact, despite the decades that had seemed to elapse since the previous day, everything appeared unchanged.
Even so, I remained alert with apprehension. I crept forward, slowly surveying the items in the room.
Although Vanessa continued to talk happily, her voice sounded thin and meaningless. I was aware of her stepping around me and slipping off her coat, her movements as swift and nonchalant as always, yet now like a shadow skirting past my shoulder.
She was asking me something, and I wanted to turn and give her my attention, but my eyes were still searching for some sign that my home had been investigated.
“Sure,” I responded because Vanessa wanted a bottle opener.
As I started toward the kitchen, I realized—calmly, almost as a matter-of-fact—that the little illuminated clock on the VCR was nearly three hours behind. Then, in the kitchen, I noticed that the teapot was on the front burner of the stove, rather than the back right one, and all the chairs were pushed in around the table.
When I returned to the main room, Vanessa was sitting on the couch, peeling the seal off of the bottle top.
“You have a guy’s apartment,” she said.
I set two glasses on the coffee table and handed her the opener.
Looking briefly around, she added, “It could use a female’s touch.”
“I’ve got no style,” I confessed, which made her smile, as though I were flirting with her.
“Your ex- didn’t leave anything behind.”
“I cleaned out every trace of her,” I said.
As she held the bottle in her lap and twisted the corkscrew, she kept her head up and her eyes on me, her black-rimmed glasses perched midway down her nose. The cork popped free. Still without looking at her hands, she set down the bottle opener, with the cork impaled upon it, and picked up a glass.
“You going to take off your coat?” she asked.
I turned aside and began to unfasten the buttons, conscious of her gaze. Rather than hang up my overcoat, I draped it over the back of a chair, where Vanessa had deposited her things.
Just then, I noticed that although my monitor and all my computer accessories remained on the desk against the wall, the computer itself was missing.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, my voice faltering a little. “I’m just a bit anxious about moving out of here.”
“Yeah, I remember you mentioning that. Here.” She held up a glass of wine. “You’re not moving tonight. Try to relax,” she added, sliding over to make room for me.
“I’d like to go tonight,” I said, sitting down.
“Well, don’t run away on me. Let me know where you go.”
“Would you come with me?” I abruptly asked.
“I might visit you as long as you don’t move too far away.” She laughed and sipped her wine.
“Do you like your clothing store?”
“I like that it’s mine. Besides, I’ve got to do something.”
She shifted slightly, moving herself closer to me.
“I think a person needs to make a major change occasionally,” I said.
“Me too.”
Even though I discerned something mildly insipid and sluggish in her smile, I felt an urge to persuade her to flee with me. I suspected that she might have been using the wine—both this night and night before—to take the edge off the awkwardness. Perhaps in the future, if she felt more comfortable with me, she would drink less.
“Sometimes, a person needs to lift herself up and head in a new direction,” I ventured. “Otherwise, you might find yourself caught in a rut or repeating the same mistakes over again.”
“Absolutely,” she said, eager to nod, her knee now bumping against my leg. “You can’t live life without an occasional risk.”
“That’s what I’m doing now,” I said, referring to my imminent flight from the city and all the horrors it contained. But, of course, she didn’t know about my problems, so she most likely assumed that I was talking about our budding relationship, which, for her, was the occasional risk.
“That’s good,” she said.
Her knee steadily touched my thigh.
“But you always make the same mistakes,” she said. “You think that you’re heading in the opposite direction, but you end up in the same pile of shit that you just left behind.” As I watched her nod her head in agreement with her own observation, I imagined that she was remembering some particular occurrence in her own life.
“Not always,” I said.
“Well, you’ve got to hope.”
“So, risks are bad?” I asked.
“No, you’ve got to take them.” She slid closer and leaned against my arm.
We slipped into a moment of silence and drank our wine. While I was somewhat alarmed by Vanessa’s unexpected intimacy, she simply seemed to be relaxing against me, with her head resting upon my shoulder. After a while, I thought she might fall asleep. From my sea
t on the couch, I began to inspect my apartment. The remote control was on top of the television, instead of beside the couch where I ordinarily kept it. Nothing else seemed disturbed, even though I suspected that all my drawers and cabinets had been opened. I wondered about the nightstand that had once carefully concealed behind its back panel, in a secret crevice, my character study and the bizarre photographs of W. McTeal exposing his hard, bare, rotund belly and his sleepy penis, in attitudes that often appeared confused or indifferent, and in pregnant postures mostly of full-frontal birth or penetrable submission, knees on the mattress and ass to the camera. But I had burned everything, so even if the investigators had discovered my hiding place, they could’ve scarcely guessed what it’d once housed.
Several paces from the front door, the religious poem “Footprints” was still framed upon the wall, with my father’s letter safely inside.
From my seat, I quietly searched everything a second time
As Vanessa breathed, I felt her body gently press against me and then ease, press and ease, her rhythm so constant and soothing that I imagined myself—perhaps somewhere in the future, in a different city, in a different room, and on a different couch—being able to fall asleep next to her. Just as I began to wonder if she were awake, she raised her glass to her lips.
In the silence, I could hear the sounds of the building. The floor overhead creaked beneath someone’s footsteps, a television played through the wall, and the wind gathering in the alley outside my window found its passage obstructed and, thus, moaned its way up the walls, into the cracks and hollows of the stonework. But these details didn’t matter.
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