Tart

by Jody Gehrman

  Clay looks sincerely stunned. I might as well have slapped him.

  “Claudia,” Rose says softly, her voice full of apology. She’s finally getting the picture—late as usual.

  I reach into my wallet and pull out a twenty. “Here. This should cover it. I’m going to take off.”

  “Wait—I’ll go with—” Rose stammers.

  “No. You guys are having fun. Stay.” I get up and quickly dash out the door, eager to get away before the tears start up for real. I can already feel them stinging at the back of my eyes. That’s a humiliation I just can’t stomach tonight.

  I’ve turned the corner and am halfway down the block when Clay catches up. “Hey,” he says. I keep walking. He falls in step next to me. “Can we talk?”

  “Not right now.” I sniff and will the tears to hold off for two more minutes.

  “Claudia. Please. Will you talk to me?”

  “About what?” I’m walking faster. The tears are in my voice now, and I’m dangerously close to losing it.

  “About—you know what.”

  I turn and face him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I already explained the situation with—”

  “Leaving out some very pertinent details.”

  “Okay. You’re right.” He looks a little sheepish. “I should have told you. I just didn’t want to make things worse.”

  “Oh, but why not? You’re so good at that.”

  “Claudia, be fair—”

  “Fair? None of this is fair.” I stand there with my hands on my hips, glaring at him. He looks away. “I really like you, Clay.”

  “I like you, too. A lot.”

  I butt in before he can say more. “Still, this is ridiculous. I may not be the most mature person on the planet, but I think I can do better than this. I mean this whole thing just feels—juvenile. You know?”

  “You’re so quick to assume the worst,” he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

  “Then prove me wrong. Maybe then I’ll stop assuming.” And with that I stride off down the street, letting the tears fall at last.

  I’m halfway through my second mason jar of merlot and I’m smoking a stale, hand-rolled cigarette in the bathtub when Rosemarie arrives. After pounding for several minutes on the door, calling out my name and getting no response, she figures out the door’s not locked, lets herself into my apartment and proceeds to follow the scent of cigarette smoke. I can hear Rex close behind her, his toenails clicking on my hardwood floor. When she finds me, she shakes her head, puts the lid down on the toilet and takes a seat. Rex collapses at her feet. Together, they stare at me for a long minute with mournful expressions, taking in the pathetic spectacle. Last I checked, my skin was all splotchy-red and my smeared mascara had turned me into Joan Jett circa 1980.

  “It’s a good thing this turned out to be your apartment. I hate stalking strangers.”

  I finish my merlot and pour myself some more.

  “Mind if I get a glass?” she asks.

  “Sure. Help yourself.”

  She disappears for a minute. I can hear her banging around in the kitchen, discovering Medea, making a fuss over her, telling her how pretty she is and would she like some milky-wilky? “All right if I give your cat a treat?” she calls.

  “Okay,” I answer, knowing I haven’t answered loudly enough.

  “Claudia? Mind if I give your kitty a—”

  “Fine,” I yell, my voice coming out raw and belligerent, like some boozy old hag. Rex frowns at me. There’s silence for a moment in the kitchen, followed by some quiet murmuring, some cat-spoiling via milk and maybe even tuna. She comes back holding a Mickey Mouse cup, which she fills with wine before resuming her position on the toilet seat.

  “Did Clay tell you where I live?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She takes a swig and fixes her eyes on my face. “Come on, Claudia. I didn’t know he was the guy you—” I give her a look of warning “—well, I didn’t. You acted like he was the last person you wanted to see.”

  “He was. He is.”

  “But why? I thought you said you were in love with him.”

  “I was being…sarcastic. Or something. I don’t know.”

  “No, you weren’t,” she says, reaching over and taking the cigarette from my fingers. She smokes it like a joint, a tight-lipped toke, then hands it back. “I didn’t know you two were involved, or I would never have—”

  “We’re not involved. He’s married.”

  “He’s separated.”

  “His wife lives like three feet from him. It’s complicated.” I drink more wine and take a long drag from my cigarette, which tastes perfectly disgusting.

  “He’s married to that bitch we saw today?”

  “She’s not a bitch,” I say. Rose just raises her eyebrows at me. “Even if she is, we shouldn’t call her that. I feel guilty enough as it is.”

  “Okay,” she says. “He’s married to the personality-challenged whore we had the pleasure of bickering with this afternoon?”

  I smirk but try to maintain my scolding tone. “Well, your stupid dog did jump all over her.”

  “Is it his fault she was taunting him with that smelly paper sack?” She reaches down and pets his matted braids.

  “She’ll probably sue me. That’s the second time I ruined one of her perfect little outfits.”

  Rose hugs her knees in like a little girl and looks gleeful. “What happened the other time?”

  “I spilled coffee on her—that white blouse looked like a mechanic’s rag.”

  She’s giggling hysterically. “I wish I could’ve seen her face,” she squeals happily.

  I can’t help laughing a little, too. “No you don’t. It was terrifying.”

  “She doesn’t deserve a guy like Clay, anyway,” she says. “I bet she tricked him into marrying her.”

  “Oh, come on. She’s probably really wonderful.”

  “Claudia. Give me a break.”

  “She’s smart,” I say weakly. “She teaches…Noh.”

  “No?” She giggles. “What the hell is no?”

  “It’s like…Japanese. You know…”

  “No,” she cries, getting totally silly now. “I don’t know no.”

  “Well, she teaches it. And…puppets.”

  “Oh, great.” Rose practically howls. “Puppets. Obviously she’s a genius.” When she finally calms down a little, she says, “Look, he’s not going to stay with her. He’s way too cool for someone like that.”

  “You liked him?” I can feel my smile fading a little.

  “Are you kidding? He’s so sexy.”

  “He is?” I’m torn; half of me swells with an irrational pride—he is sexy, see? The other half of me goes all hot and sticky with jealousy. “So you…really got along, didn’t you?”

  “Claudia,” she says firmly. “I didn’t know, all right? As soon as I figured it out, I backed off. Really. I’d never do that to you.”

  “It’s not like he’s mine or anything.”

  “You like him. That’s all I need to know.”

  “But he liked you, didn’t he?” I stare into the bath, trying to sound amiable. “He seemed to, anyway. He sure was flirting with you.”

  “Don’t. He was only being polite because I’m your cousin. As soon as you left, he was beside himself. He’s into you—I’m sure he is.”

  “Ooh, shit,” I say, pouring us both more wine. “Shit shit shit shit shit.”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, what? It’s catastrophic. He’s married.”

  “No problem,” she says, fingering her Mickey Mouse cup. “They’ll get divorced, you’ll have a little surfer baby and get free records for the rest of your life. It’s awesome. A Santa Cruz fairy tale.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Medea noses her way through the cracked-open door, slinks over to the toilet and deftly leaps into Rosie’s lap. “Hey, speaking of Santa Cruz,” she says, stroking Medea with one hand absently. “I’ve got s
omething I want to ask you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, just… I was wondering. How you would feel…?” She pauses, looks up at me, then back down at Medea.

  “What? How would I feel about what?”

  She leans over, takes the bottle and adds a little more to both of our glasses. “It’s probably not the best time to bring it up. You’ve had a hard night.”

  “Rose. Come on. What is it?”

  “It’s just…” She reaches under Medea’s chin and strokes her there, sending her into a purring frenzy. “I guess things aren’t going so great for me in Arcata. I was staying with a guy who—well—he kind of died.”

  “Died?”

  “Yeah.” She nods.

  “How?”

  She shrugs. “They think he OD’d. Not really clear if he meant to or not.”

  “Oh, my God. What was he on?”

  “Um, they found a lot of shit in his system—sleeping pills, lots of booze, some heroin. But that’s a really long story.” She looks up at the ceiling. “The point is, I just don’t think I can go back there. You know? All my friends there are so…highstrung.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, trying not to sound shocked or anything. Christ, he died? Did she find the body? I restrain myself from this morbid line of questioning.

  “I need to be around good people right now. People who love me.”

  “Of course you do, Rose.”

  For the second time this evening, I see tears sparkling in her eyes. “You’re all the family I’ve got left, Claudia.”

  I reach over and put a damp, wrinkled hand on her knee. Medea bites gently at my knuckles. “I’m so glad you came to see me, Rose.”

  She smiles slightly, licks her lips. “Well, here’s the thing. I’m not just visiting. I was hoping I could…move in.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I would like to know what heinous crimes I committed during my years as a student to deserve Ralene Tippets now. At the moment she’s gazing at me over her pink glasses with a pained expression, as if I alone am responsible for her ill-fated outfit of lavender polyester, her bony figure, her undoubtedly fat, cheap-domestic-beer-drinking husband, and her dismal deficit of talent.

  “I just don’t see how tongue twisters are going to help me perform,” she pouts.

  “Your body is your instrument, Ralene. You have to get your mouth open and loose. It’s like warming up your car before you drive.”

  “That’s a mixed metaphor if I ever heard one.”

  “Let’s keep going, everyone. Topeka Topeka Topeka Topeka Topeka. Wee-wa, Wee-wa, Wee-wa, Wee-wa—good. Use both your lips. Le-le-le-le-le-le-le-le-le-laaaa.”

  “I can’t work like this.” Ralene throws up her hands and stomps away from our circle. The rest of us continue. Rule number one, Ralene: do not be a prima donna before anyone gives a shit.

  For the first few weeks of the semester, Ralene’s resistance to virtually everything we did in class caused me considerable discomfort. I would frequently wake in the wee hours, already hyperventilating about the ninety minutes I would soon be forced to spend in her presence. I had nightmares about those huge pink glasses and watery gray eyes following me wherever I went, her long, bony neck swiveling, like a cast member from The Exorcist.

  Now that we’ve reached the coveted week seven, the end of the quarter is in sight, and I’ve started feeling more frivolous about everything. Ralene Tippets? Ha. I eat middle-aged women in lavender pantsuits for breakfast. The fantasy of winter break, filled with weeks of Ralene-less hours, has begun to intoxicate me. I long to get up in the morning and not even give the woman a thought. I dream of relaxed, mocha-studded breakfasts when the vision of her wicked-witch eyebrows doesn’t turn the caffeine and French toast into a civil war. Teaching is incredibly bad for one’s digestive tract. I won’t get into the details; suffice it to say I’m considerably more explosive since I became an academic, and Ralene Tippets has everything to do with it.

  Aside from Ralene’s typical warm-up tantrum, the hour and a half passes uneventfully. The students divide into their scene groups and rehearse, some of them belting out each line furiously, the others whispering in voices so tiny and meek, they sound like throat-cancer survivors. I come around and offer tactful pointers like, “Jesus Christ, Misty, the audience isn’t deaf—tone it down a little. Jason, is this charades? I can’t even hear you, and I’m standing close enough to feel your spit.”

  It’s my last class on Thursday, so week seven is effectively over. As I’m getting ready to head to my office, I congratulate myself for all I’ve adjusted to in the last two months: Ralene, a door with my name on it, prolonged celibacy, Monica Parker’s subtle but relentless attacks, Rosemarie’s hair clogging the shower, Rex filling my apartment with the powerful scent of himself. It’s an impressive list. “Grace under pressure” is an apt cliché for my performance these weeks. Well, okay, medicating myself heavily with vodka tonics at night and keeping a pillow in my office for emergency silent screams is not the dictionary definition of grace, but both help me keep up appearances.

  “Hi, Claudia.”

  I look up from stuffing my sweater into my bag and see Miranda, my favorite student and the primary reason teaching hasn’t rendered me a vegetable thus far.

  “Miranda. Hey, what’s up?”

  She tugs at the straps of her backpack, her stance wide, one foot toying with her skateboard, rolling it back and forth, back and forth. Her dark violet hair looks freshly colored, a nest of purple, Betty Boop curls. She’s extremely pretty, though she goes to great pains to throw people off the scent with a rigorous series of piercings, lurid dye jobs, and a theatrical, tongue-in-cheek wardrobe. One day she wore a mechanic’s jumpsuit with a name tag that read “Al.” Another afternoon she skated to class in a slightly torn, lacy vintage slip, vinyl knee-high boots and a feather boa. She rarely smiles, and from the dark circles under her eyes, I’d guess her life hasn’t been a picnic, but when she does flash her toothy grin, it’s like winning the lottery.

  “I heard you were taking scripts,” she says, pausing in her constant fiddling with her tongue piercing long enough to get this out. She’s got on a bright red T-shirt that says Suck my Dick across the chest, and a pair of piss-yellow satin bell-bottoms.

  “You’re going to choose one for winter quarter, right?”

  I’m scheduled to direct a new play in a few months, a “world premiere,” if you will, and I’ve got a growing pile of submissions, all of them destined for the recycling bin.

  “Yeah, I am. Got something for me?”

  She nods, digs in her backpack and produces a tattered plastic binder with papers sticking out of it randomly. As she offers it to me, it slips from her hand and the pages explode everywhere. “Shit,” she mumbles.

  “Mmm, well, you might want to work on presentation a bit,” I say. “No one wants to have to hunt for page 103, you know?”

  She scrambles around to gather the pages and I make some attempt to help. Just then Ralene marches over, lips pursed in her customary I-have-something-to-say-you-don’t-want-to-hear look. I swear she goes home and complains to her fat husband that I’m a juvenile delinquent and she’s got to keep me from corrupting every youth I encounter with radical dogma. She could have dropped at any point, but she relishes her self-appointed obligation to educate me on how to educate.

  “Claudia, listen,” she hisses in a half conspiratorial, half accusing tone. “I think you should know there are some very—” she looks at the ceiling, searching for the right word “—inappropriate developments in your class. You may have missed them, but I find it all intensely—” again, she looks upward, as if checking in with God for the right euphemism “—disturbing.”

  Although my instincts tell me to run screaming from this conversation, I just glance at Miranda with a “hold on one second” look and turn back to face Ralene. “Okay, enlighten me. What seems to be the problem?” Since I started this job, I frequently give myself the creeps by blurting out sublim
inally stored teacherly remarks I never even knew were in my vocabulary. This particular phrasing is courtesy of Mr. Clemens, a high school civics teacher I despised, whose memory I managed to suppress until this moment.

  “It’s about Benjamin,” she says. “He has no boundaries.”

  Ben Crow is this absolutely beautiful twentysomething fireman with a body that makes you embarrassed to look at. He’s half Cherokee, half Abercrombie & Fitch model. I do have to agree with Ralene, in a way; his sex appeal is—particularly in my current celibate state—disturbing.

  “What sort of boundaries are we talking about, here?”

  “Emotional boundaries, Claudia. Psychic boundaries,” she says, clutching at her blouse, “physical boundaries—every kind of boundary there is. He crosses them.” Her painted eyebrows wriggle toward each other with concern. “It’s definitely inappropriate.”

  I asked Ben and Ralene to work on a scene from The Glass Menagerie for their end-of-quarter projects. I figured a mother-son thing could work well between them, age-wise, and I knew that Ben, being slightly older than most of my students and patient as a monk, would be the least likely to freak out and drop the class at the prospect of being ordered around by Ralene. I was right; he’s been an absolute prince, putting up with her antics with such good-natured generosity, I frequently wanted to hug him. Never mind that “hugging” is the only G-rated item on the long list of things I’d like to do to him, if only I weren’t his professor.

  “From what I see, you two have been working together very productively,” I hear myself saying. Suddenly I remember Miranda, and turn to her, grateful that her presence will give me an excuse to cut this conversation off sooner rather than later. “Miranda, I’m sorry—can you wait just two more minutes?” She nods, and I face Ralene with a let’s-make-this-quick expression. “Are you saying he makes you uncomfortable?”

  She snorts. “Very.”