by Nina Lemay
Someone bumps into me and nearly sends me flying. “Watch where you’re going, bitch!”
As he walks away, I dumbly stare at his back until it’s lost in the crowd. I wave my arms, trying to catch a cab, but there’s not nearly enough of them and just as one stops, a group of drunk girls in short dresses steal it from under my nose, laughing like hyenas.
I’m left on the sidewalk, shivering, and suddenly I realize I’m not going anywhere. This is the end of the line. Even if I had the strength… there’s nowhere to go.
I give in and let the current take me. Sinking to the dirty asphalt, I curl up, pull my legs up to my chest, and rest my forehead on my knees. People pass me, some scream and holler and whistle. Someone kicks my duffel bag and sends it flying under the wheels of the passing cars.
“Hey!” a girl’s voice yells, followed by some loud and layered obscenities in French. I see a pair of legs in skinny jeans and high-heeled shoes dart out onto the road, where the girl grabs my duffel. The heels clack closer to me and stop inches away.
It’s Maryse.
“What the fuck,” she says, sitting down next to me. “Bébé. They threw you out?”
“Yeah,” I snarl. “So what? Why do you care? I stole your customer.”
“You didn’t steal my customer,” she says with a chuckle. “Assholes will be assholes, right?”
A strangled giggle escapes from me.
“Let me see,” she commands, then reaches out and grabs my chin without waiting for permission. She tilts my face to get a look at my lip. “It’s not that bad, chérie. It’ll swell up for a day or two and then it’ll be fine… he didn’t chip your tooth, did he?”
I shake my head.
“In a couple of days you can go back to work just fine, slather a little concealer on it—”
“I’m not going back to work. I just got fired.”
Maryse howls with laughter. “So what? Go to another club. I always said this isn’t the place for you, honey. You can do much better.”
“I don’t want to go to another club.”
“Well, then, what are you gonna do? Flip burgers?” She claps me on the back, like it’s the most ridiculous thing ever. “Seriously. Is it about that teacher of yours?”
I blink at her, and only then clue in that she’s not talking about Leary.
“It’s over,” I say simply.
She shrugs. “And if you want my opinion, good riddance.”
“You don’t even know him,” I point out.
“I don’t need to know him,” she says, waving her hand in the air. “I already know the type.”
“That’s not fair.” I don’t know how to tell her that this time I’m the one who fucked up. That would mean telling her, a near-stranger, things I haven’t even figured out how to put into words.
“Oh yeah? Well, is it fair to you? That he thinks he has you all figured out just because of your job? He doesn’t really know you, and he’s made up his mind about you, but that’s okay, because he’s a man and you’re a stripper.” She fumbles in her tiny purse for a cigarette, finds an empty pack and throws it aside in frustration.
“Well, I am.”
“My point is,” she rolls her eyes slightly, blinking the sparse snowflakes off her false lashes, “you can’t let other people tell you who you are.”
“Maybe that’s life,” I say, staring at the crack in the pavement between my feet. “Maybe it is fucking shitty and unfair, or maybe everyone else is right and I deserve the worst that can happen to me.”
I brace myself for another torrent of life wisdom punctuated with French swear words, but to my surprise, she stays quiet.
The sobs overtake me silently, first one or two and then a storm, a sea. Maryse pulls me close in a hug, bathing me in the smell of pot, tobacco and body spray, strangely comforting. I cry and I cry like I’m trying to drown the world in my tears.
It’s Maryse who takes me home. She flags down a cab in five seconds and practically drags me into the back seat. She makes me tell her my address and then pays the cabbie when the car pulls up to my building.
I obey her commands like a mindless puppet. She opens the door, peels my clothes off my semi-conscious body and forces me into the half-full, lukewarm bath where the scrubs me raw with a washcloth and half a bottle of shower gel.
“Never go to bed without showering after work,” she says as she bustles around the bathroom looking for a clean towel. “It’s full of germs. The last thing you need right now is MRSA, am I right?” She lets out a laugh at her own joke. I can’t even bring myself to give a wan smile.
Then she towels me off and tucks me into bed, with a bag of frozen peas to press to my lip. The icy touch wakes me up a little.
“Why are you doing all this?” I ask hoarsely through the fog.
She half-smiles and gives a shrug. “Because no one else is going to.”
I wonder if this is what friendship is like, and slowly start to understand. I never really had friends, but I could learn… couldn’t I?
Nothing is set in stone.
I start to drift away as warmth slowly returns to my limbs and the pain fades.
I’m barely awake when she gets up and slips out of the apartment, turning off the light and letting the lock click shut behind her.
I spend the next twenty-four hours in bed, on my back, my hands folded on my chest with the blanket pulled over my head. In a coma.
In my weird half-awake, semi-conscious state, one dream bleeds into another: my first boyfriend back home, my first semester at Mackay, the first night I stripped and the man who paid me $20 for my panties and I gave them to him, stupidly. Later, Maryse told me I should have asked for a hundred. The first time I took off my thong on stage, exposed and exhilarated. The night I danced for Emmanuel, my fingers intertwining with his as I read the letters on his knuckles.
The nightclub. Quebec City, the open window with the billowing curtain.
Leary.
Leary’s face morphing into the face of the guy who punched me and back, like bad CGI.
I wake up and I see white. Nothing but pure white, glowing and torturous on my retinas. I squint and squirm and realize it’s the bed sheet over my face.
I throw it off me and sit up, then amble to the bathroom.
My lip has un-swelled, almost normal except for a red mark of dried blood in the corner of my mouth. My bare face looks back at me from the mirror; I take in my whole reflection, my concave stomach, my collarbone, my nipples, my naked truth.
When I come out, the first thing I notice is the camera sitting on the counter in its leather case. I pick it up, my weak arms trembling with its weight. Sliding to the floor, I lean my forehead on the case and breathe in its metal-and-leather scent.
It’s the only proof I have that it all really happened, that I didn’t dream it or imagine it. Emmanuel, Quebec City, the moments of beauty and bitterness. It was mine, even if I lost it forever. And no one can take that away from me. I will always have it, always, etched on my mind like light and shadow on a photo film.
And that’s when I just know. It clicks in my head. I won’t let the world tell me who I am.
I will tell it first.
I shower, wash my hair, shave my legs. And I dive headfirst into my work.
My term project for the Traditional Photography class.
Less than two weeks later, I’m sitting in the program coordinator’s office. It turns out that the woman is real, despite all rumors and speculation to the contrary; by some miracle, I got an appointment with her the day after I called, in person.
So here I am. I’d even made some effort to look presentable: I’m wearing jeans that fit and have no holes in them, and a grey sweater that’s actually polyester, but looks almost classy. And the only jewelry is my bracelet from Quebec City, peeking chastely from beneath my sleeve.
She’s across the desk from me and between us sits my portfolio, a huge black folder with my photos behind plastic covers. She peers at each
one attentively through her stylish green-framed glasses. Her hair is cut short and bleached platinum, with a matching green streak. I think I like her.
“What can I say, Hannah,” she says as she turns the page. “This is powerful stuff. Very powerful. I love what you’re doing and I hope you continue in the same vein.” She looks up at me. “Is this a series?”
“More like an installation,” I say.
“But I can’t magically fix everything for you, no matter how much I love this. You didn’t hand in crucial assignments for your other classes, and you already missed a final.”
“I have valid reasons,” I say, willing my voice not to tremble.
“I understand.” Her look turns grave. She takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. “And I want to help. But those are very serious allegations. You’ll need some kind of—”
“Proof,” I say. “I know.”
“Well?”
“For now… can you just let me set this up? At the end-of-term exhibit?”
“For sure. But keep in mind, you’ll be on academic probation at best…”
“That’s okay.”
She gives me a doubtful look. “If those allegations are true…”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say.
Leary was the easy part.
I showed up in his office first thing on a Monday morning. He was hunched over his desk, grading a stack of exam booklets—maybe even the same final I’d missed. He didn’t even look up at first, oblivious to the soft sound of my steps, until I raised my hand and rapped on the open door with my knuckles.
His head snapped up, the look of surprise quickly fleeing, replaced by his usual heavy-lidded, lazy look. “Hannah. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I bet you didn’t.”
“You missed the final.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Why don’t you close the door so we can talk.”
“I prefer it if the door’s open. Wouldn’t want you assaulting me again.”
I said the words in a loud, chipper voice that made him throw a dodgy glance at the hallway above my head. But he got himself back under control remarkably fast. Too fast.
“How can you say something like that? I’m your professor.”
I mentally cursed him with every word Maryse taught me.
“Hannah, I know what this is about,” he said with a saccharine smile.
“I don’t think you do.”
“You realize I can’t pass you—you missed the final, and your grades were not up to par. As much as I’d like to pass you, I’m afraid it’s not ethical, even despite—”
I knew what he was going to say, the bastard. So I cut him off.
“You took those photos of me,” I said. “In the club. And you gave them to Audrey.”
The syrupy smile faded. “I did as we agreed, didn’t I?” He lowered his voice to a murmur. I took a few steps closer to his desk. Not for the reason he thought. “I didn’t out you. Or your little affair.”
“But you sicced Audrey on me,” I said. “From the very beginning. You gave her my address so she could set up that fake account, so she could burglarize my apartment. You got her to bring you whatever she could find to incriminate me so you could blackmail me.”
“Is that what you think happened here?” he sounded hurt to the bottom of his very soul. “Blackmail?”
“That’s what they call it when you force someone to have sex with you under threat of revealing their secrets, yes. Among other things.”
He threw another glance over my shoulder at the open door. His face was starting to turn red, beads of sweat popping on his forehead. “You ungrateful little bitch. I took you in.”
“Because you thought I’d be easy prey.”
“Oh, give me a break.” He was getting agitated, twitchy. “You did it to yourself. No one forced you. You take off your clothes for hundreds of men a week, for a few crumpled bills stuck in your G-string, and you deny me a little relief? Me, who’s done everything for you? You spread your legs for one teacher but not another?”
“I wonder if the police would see it the same way. Or the school board,” I bluffed, but I looked him straight in the eye as I said it, with a little confident smile on my lips. And he bought it. I could see that he bought it hook, line and sinker. I’m good at lying, with my words, my face, my body. My job has taught me that at least.
“Please,” he snorted. “Yeah, go ahead and tell whoever you want. No one’s going to believe you.”
“I don’t care if anyone believes me. As long as everyone hears me. And trust me, everyone will hear me, from here to Minnesota.”
“You’re nothing but a stupid, dirty whore,” he snarled. My heart did a little leap of joy in my chest. I already had what I came here for, but this was just the cherry on the sundae. “You think anyone even cares what you have to say? Dirty, lying slut. You flash your tits and your pussy to everyone with a twenty, what do you expect? You think the police will care that someone actually got his money’s worth out of you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. My smile was widening, purely genuine now. This was perfect. I couldn’t have asked for better. “As for whether anyone will listen to what I have to say, we’ll see. And soon.”
“Go ahead,” he snarled. “Tell whoever you want, you think I give a shit?”
“That’s entirely up to you,” I said. “I’m going to go now. I already have what I came here for.”
I turned on my heel and walked out of the office, into the hallway. A couple of students passed me by, followed me with bewildered looks. I reached into my sweatshirt’s front pocket and turned off the voice recorder.
Because Leary isn’t the only one who knows how to use a cell phone.
Modern technology, it turns out, has its advantages.
The exhibit is on a Friday, the last official day of the semester, in the big auditorium of the art building. They’d set up a maze of cream-colored screens, like office cubicles, and everyone gets their wall with clip-on lamps above each display bathing it in pure, bright white light. At first, I’m a little overwhelmed by it all. I walk through the displays of the other photography classes like I haven’t already seen it all less than an hour ago when I came in to set up my installation. Now, with people crowded everywhere, browsing and chattering and nibbling on canapés off cheap paper plates, it all looks completely different.
As I pass by a refreshments table, I find myself wishing they had something stronger than store-brand grape juice. My insides are in a knot and the very thought of eating anything makes me queasy.
People don’t notice me, not really. I’m dressed to blend in, in the same jeans and sweater I wore to see the program coordinator. With my hair pulled back in a bun, faded to a dark blond, I don’t attract attention.
Finally, I reach our part of the display, and my heart starts to hammer even though I spent an hour bracing myself for this. I thought I was ready to bump into Emmanuel any moment, but turns out I’m anything but. I look around, but so far, I don’t see him anywhere.
Someone did do the unmade beds thing, and it’s pretty popular—at least with the other dudes from the department, crowded in front of it, talking in hushed voices and chuckling. Probably trying to guess which bed belongs to whom. Typically classy.
My stomach twists with a fresh surge of anxiety. If this is how people react to the sight of a girl’s rumpled sheets, how will they take to my display?
I move on to the next cubicle, and practically collide with Audrey. When she sees me, her face goes white as a bedsheet. I get ready for a barrage of insults and disdainful little double entendres, but her painted lips drop open and not a word comes out. On her face, hatred, terror and dismay flicker in rapid succession.
I walk right past her, without so much as acknowledging her with a nod.
And then I get it.
People are gathered in front of my display, a real crowd, three or four people thick. There’s the others from Emmanuel’s class, b
ut mostly it’s students I’ve never met before, and one or two teachers. They’re gaping at the display in silence, faces slack.
They hate it.
Any moment I expect the bubble to pop, all of them to erupt in laughter simultaneously, look at the stupid whore who thinks she can make art. But it doesn’t happen.
My glance travels from one face to another. Two girls from my class, those who were the most vicious in commenting on Audrey’s post, are blinking at the photos, looking disoriented. One of them lowers her gaze to her shoes. Another girl is tapping the skin under her eye discreetly, swiping a tear off her lower lashes.
My gaze follows all of theirs to the photos I know by heart, but at the same time I’m rediscovering them anew every time I look at them—kind of like the lines on the palm of my hand.
The top one: lipstick letters on a mirror, with a blurry reflection of me with Emmanuel’s camera. LA CONFESSION.
Below: a strip club before opening time, empty tables, empty stage, all the blinking rows of neons beckoning to no one, melancholy in black and white. A pair of used and abused stripper heels, scuffed up, the sole peeling away and a strap broken, showing the network of white thread underneath once-shiny black vinyl. Remains of a line of coke on a changing room counter, amidst lipstick tubes and crumpled wet wipes.
A girl sitting cross-legged on the same counter, under the mirror with its row of light bulbs. Fishnet stockings and a glittery bikini top, but her face is cut off just above her lips. She’s leaning over a French-language biology textbook, tapping the page with the eraser tip of her pencil. Two more faceless girls, giggling over the screen of a cellphone, their legs curled up under them.
A girl facing the camera, her body stark and whitewashed by the harsh lights, with the dark shape of a man in a chair right behind her, his hands like shadows on her hips and stomach.
A girl upside down on a pole, shot from below, in a whirlwind of flowing hair and stage lights, half contortionist, half angel. The impossible arch of a girl’s back on a pole, a perfect half-moon curve.