I trawled for cribs on Craigslist, white cribs, pink cribs, cribs with children that didn’t exist anymore, that had grown past the length of a child’s mattress and now slept in beds with cartoon-patterned sheets.
My ankles swelled, and Nathan and I started playing a game where we would poke at my flesh and count how many seconds it took for the skin to return to normal.
—You’re like one of those memory foam pillows, he said.
—So are you, I said. At least I have a reason.
—Shouldn’t you be getting checkups and ultrasounds and stuff? he said.
—I do, I said. I go when you’re at work.
—That must be expensive.
—It’s not bad with the co-pay.
—How much is your co-pay?
I made up a number, and he was satisfied.
We watched an infomercial for a stain remover. Someone poured red wine over a piece of lace, then dropped it in a clear basin of liquid, and we watched, transfixed, as the stain disappeared and the camera panned over a crowd of women applauding in ecstasy.
—About the baby, he said.
You and I were all ears.
—Have you considered a better place to live?
—Oh yeah, I said. I’ll be out before the birth. Don’t worry.
—I’m not saying you have to—
—I’ve already made plans, I said. It’s all in the works.
—I’m really not saying—
—It’s fine, I said. It’s really not a big deal.
When he fell asleep I drove to the store and ate an entire container of whipped vanilla frosting.
Week Thirty-Six
I ordered a crib from Amazon, finally. One reviewer wrote, This crib changed my life. I wanted to ask her, how? And if the crib changed her life, what sort of impact did the baby have?
Week Thirty-Seven
During one fortune-telling phone call, a woman with stomach cancer asked me how long she had left to live. She wanted to know if she needed to renew her husband’s AAA membership now, or if she could wait. She was worried he’d forget and then he’d wind up, eight months later, with a flat tire and no one to call for help.
—He won’t get a flat tire, I assured her. He’ll be very careful on the highway, especially after you’re gone.
—He might get preoccupied, she said. He might miss me so much he’ll drive off into a ditch.
—He won’t drive into a ditch, I said.
—But when will I die?
—I don’t know.
—It’s your job to know! she said.
—September fourteenth, I said.
She was satisfied.
Week Thirty-Eight
The belly had been the first transformation. The breasts were heavy with milk now. The ankles, hands, and face were waterlogged. Who knew where my organs had been pushed. My stomach felt like it was where my heart had once been, and I couldn’t inhale all the way, not even when I yawned. The transfiguration had already felt completely monstrous, so it didn’t feel particularly unusual when, on an afternoon in mid-June, my water broke and I began to grow new necks, first one, then two, five fresh necks, all hewn from the original neck in long stalks, and then some heads sprouted from them, my faces in different expressions of disgust and regret and shame.
Contractions began.
I locked myself in the bathroom and ran the tub. I put my faces under the spout and drank in shifts, one mouth to the next. We all had something to say, we all agreed with what was said, and finally I had built-in sisters, finally I had some women to love who were my own.
Some hours passed. We had plenty of time. We crooned at one another. A surge came and went and we would congratulate each other on our incredible fortitude. We needed no one.
Nathan came home from work and pounded on the door.
—Are you in labor? he called, and I said with six forked tongues: open the door and I will show you.
He didn’t open the door.
—Which hospital are you supposed to be at? Do you have a bag packed? Isn’t this too early?
—Come to me, my six heads hissed. I have a problem and you are my answer.
The belly was covered in dark scales now. They shimmered in the shower and dulled out of water. We picked strands of kelp out of our wet hair and tossed them into the toilet bowl.
I heard the apartment door open, then close.
The heads commiserated.
—You’re doing your best, said one.
—Nobody understands the pressure you’re under.
—This little one is so lucky to have you.
—Everyone loves you. You are so loved.
—Adored, really.
—There is no need to be ashamed.
Our faces were salty. We kissed cheeks and leaned our heads against one another, like flowers in a vase.
Another surge began, deeper this time.
We heard the front door open. On the other side, Nathan and the Hispanic woman were speaking over one another.
—Should I call 9-1-1? he asked her.
—No! My heads shouted in unison.
—¿Cuánto tiempo ha estado así? the woman said.
We heard the drill going at the hinges on the bathroom door.
—No need for this! The heads shouted. It’s fine!
The door was gone, and the woman entered. Her two children sat on our living room couch. One watched in awe; the other was engrossed in a Game Boy. The woman knelt before the belly. We felt like a queen. Nathan was pale.
—Nathan, we said, do you remember when we first met? Our first night?
He couldn’t speak.
—Do you remember?
—I remember, he whispered. You were so beautiful.
—It was raining, we said.
—Yes, he said. Lightning illuminated your face. You looked otherworldly.
—Tell us we’re pretty.
—You’re stunning, he said.
The necks were bigger now, so strong they could have reached around his body and crushed him, squeezed his floppy abdomen until he divided in two. He was pale and salty and waiting to be consumed by us, standing still, even, as if he knew that he had to be sacrificed.
—Es la hora, the woman said.
We bore down.
You pulled away, covered in brine, skin glinting, gasping at the forced plunge into this world that you were not ready to love. You were wound in a mainsheet and you started to cry. The children in the living room were unimpressed. Maybe they were lashed to the mast. Maybe their ears were plugged with wax.
—I can’t believe she’s here, Nathan said.
I waited for the slither of placenta. You were laid on my chest. Six heads crooned. Our baby, we whispered, our baby. You did such a good job, what a girl. When you wailed there were no tears and we thought, that’s our girl, don’t waste your tears on this.
The woman was in awe.
—Ella tiene ojos como una serpiente, she said.
—I know, we said. Isn’t she beautiful?
You were quiet, your pupils enormous, and when you yawned we could see the glittering of thousands of tiny teeth.
What’s her name? Nathan asked.
—Mona, we said.
He stepped forward and held out a hand. Your little face went still when you saw him. You curled a fist tightly around his thumb, then squeezed.
18
Louder, Dirtier, More Fun
-CHORUS-
May 2009
In the distance only steeples are able to burst out of the trees, and farther on, the hills are always gray, as if they’d run out of ink. Janelle and Lisa lie on the roof of their house with their arms flat at their sides, legs straight, both in shorts, with little paper cups over their nipples because even the tiny strands of a bikini top could leave tan lines. Janelle has tanning oil, and soon they will shine and smell like daiquiris.
If one were watching them with an aerial view, angel or apparition, they would witness the strange s
cowl in Janelle’s mouth and maybe, if the watcher was truly absorbed, they would see the edgy little twitches of her right hand. Meanwhile Lisa is lax and nearly asleep.
Perhaps the watcher would be aware of how astoundingly, achingly alive these two are, even in repose. Inside of both girls skeins of rosy, functional cells are aligned, pushing themselves through the colossal effort of living. There are no malingering issues in their limbs or organs. Deep inside of both of them, the eggs of future people are lined up like strings of microscopic pearls. All of it is both paltry and transfixing.
The cells in Lisa’s body are shrinking away a blister on her heel, and her toenails have to be cut weekly so she won’t suffer on pointe. Hip bones push under her shorts like two parallel shark fins underwater. All of Lisa’s body parts are sharp: chin, and elbows, and earlobes forming sylphlike slants. Except for her cheeks, which are puffy.
Janelle’s pale hair is gleaming in the sun. Her lips are so red they look as if they’d been sucked. Even the thin discs of her kneecaps are flawless to the watcher, if the watcher was, say, disembodied and no longer in possession of their own kneecaps.
The watcher could spend eons analyzing the details of things taken for granted and now lost. The watcher could easily envy the perfection of the living and forget the more exasperating fragments: the feeling of wet jeans, or what it’s like to have a head cold, or the way an arm can wake up a sleeper in a horrible prickle if slept on at the wrong angle. That is why, even if it’s an intrusive violation, it is necessary for the watcher to look into the skull of its subjects and listen. It’s not unlike viewing a soap opera in another language: at first there is a lot of staring at the curves of bodies and the hyperbolic expressions, but eventually the plot takes over, and the watcher sets the remote down and forgets about their own place in time.
So:
Lisa had come up here to get high on the roof and watch the treetops execute their tiny shivers until she fell asleep. Janelle had come up thinking she could hear Wes better next door. The trees are fully leafed now; they cut out the sound and she can’t hear him from her bedroom anymore.
—I hate this time of year, Janelle says. It gives me allergies.
—You’re crazy, Lisa says, barely moving her lips.
—It’s just so unnecessary, Janelle says. Why go home and forget everything for three months only to come back and do it all over again?
—At least you get to come back, Lisa says.
Lisa is graduating this month. She has already accepted a job as a customer care professional at a car insurance company. She is not fully sure what the title means but it pays $33,000 and her major in modern dance hasn’t panned out the way she’d hoped. Maybe she can dance at night. Join an amateur group and keep auditioning. Being discovered would have been nicer in college, sure, but this is what she has now.
—What’s your earliest memory of this house? Janelle asks her.
It’s sort of like asking a grandparent what their childhood was like, but in condensed time. Lisa can impart some sort of interesting tidbit about hazing four years ago and Janelle can share it with future pledge classes, embellished, so she can demonstrate how easy they have it now.
—There were more of us, Lisa says.
—Was initiation the same?
—No, Lisa says. It was louder. It was dirtier. It was more fun.
—Margot really screwed us, Janelle says.
She hopes she’s said it to the right sister. Half of the house would be offended.
—She did, Lisa agrees. The new pledge class . . .
She never finishes the sentence. She dozes off. Janelle moves her hand off of her belly so she won’t get a weird tan line and listens again for Wes. If she sits up and squints, she thinks she can see him down in the parking lot talking to the little whore.
• • •
—It’s because of Grant, isn’t it? Wes says.
—This isn’t about Grant, Stella says.
It is absolutely about Grant. Stella can’t get over him. She can’t be in the same house as him. She wants to cut herself off from every stubbly, creepy guy at his brotherhood. Start fresh, and maybe meet a nice man at her internship this summer.
—I thought we had fun, Wes says.
—We did have fun, Stella insists. And I really want us to be friends. I know that’s a thing that people say, but I really do.
There is no way that she can offer this to him without sounding banal and insincere, but she is no longer willing to try trusting this guy. She thinks he’s just hard up all of the time and he calls her when he needs to get laid. It’s been a year of this. She’s tired of it, and tired of sleeping with him and waiting to love him and never really managing it.
Wes has never been rejected in his life and can’t fathom that it’s happening to him now, on a beautiful day, with a girl who can’t get over Grant, who is two inches shorter than he is, and who doesn’t like the taste of Hennessy.
—He’s a weird guy, Wes says. He and his mom are a little too close, if you know what I’m saying.
Stella looks at him with abject pity.
—Don’t throw your brother under the bus, she says.
—Don’t give advice when I’m not asking for it.
She wants this to end nicely but doesn’t know how it will.
—I’m sorry, she says.
—You know, Wes says, you’re only going to be hot for a few more years, max. You haven’t got a lot of time.
—Thanks for the tip, Stella says. She’s near tears now. He wishes she’d get angry. It’s not fair. He watches her cross the parking lot and disappear into the house. Now that he knows he can’t fuck her again he wants her, savagely, in a way that he’s never wanted someone, almost like he loves her. He wants to yank her by the hair and call her exquisite. Bash her head against the rocks. Curl all of her toes.
• • •
—Wake up, Janelle says. She taps Lisa’s foot with her own.
—Mm, Lisa says.
—I think Wes just dumped Stella, she says.
—Mm, Lisa says again.
—Fucking finally, Janelle says. What a mattress surfer.
Lisa is not interested. She rolls onto her belly. She looks striking, clean-lined, with a curve at her waist and strong shoulders, her elbows bent like the arms of a cartoon cactus. Others may look down at her from above and remember what it meant to feel healthy and unburdened.
—Word of advice, Lisa says. You need to let go of Wes. It looks desperate. You’re like one boiled pet rabbit away from being a bad movie.
—Why do I do this? Janelle asks. Why do I let him hurt me?
—A part of you has to like it.
—It can’t be love, then.
—I dunno, Lisa says. Love has to have a little bit of pain involved.
—Or shame.
—Sure, Lisa says.
• • •
Over by the Dumpster, Ruby hurls tattered posters of Audrey Hepburn into the trash. Audrey’s limpid, childish eyes are peering at her from their new post. She’s holding one of those cigarette extension thingies from Back in the Day. Ruby wonders if Audrey Hepburn is still alive. She wonders if Audrey Hepburn ever got fat. She wonders if Audrey Hepburn ever suffered a strange, quiet humiliation inflicted by the cruelty of others, perhaps equivalent to a group of collegiate men calling her Butterball.
• • •
Eva and Shannon are splitting a cigarette down on the back patio. A catbird chitters in the brush, looking for grubs and coming up with nothing. Shannon is taking over Eva’s position as pledge mistress. Both of them think she’ll be terrible at it.
—Are you going to miss initiating sisters? Shannon asks.
—God, no, Eva says. Somehow we managed to pick even bigger pussies every year.
—The new ones aren’t so bad, Shannon offers. I like that Pancake girl.
It’s obnoxious, Eva thinks, that Shannon caught her in the hall and is now bumming this cigarette off of her and forcing her t
o talk. The tobacco tax is going up and it’s not cheap to share anymore.
• • •
Elina and Jennifer are packing their cars.
—You need to put your backseat down, Elina advises. You can fit more that way.
—It’s broken, Jennifer says.
—Have you ever really tried?
—Yeah, Jennifer says. I fishbowled with Boz and we hooked up in the backseat this winter.
—Sounds nice, Elina says.
It did sound nice. It sounded especially nice because Jennifer left out the part where he pulled out and came on her face, which she hated, and how cold the leather was on her naked back, and how she’d just finished her period a few hours earlier so she kept worrying that she wasn’t really and truly done.
• • •
Marcia trips onto the back patio while Eva and Shannon are still smoking.
—Have you guys seen my shoes? I can’t find my shoes, she says.
She wobbles around the patio, and it is easy to remember what it felt like to be drunk. The memory of the feeling is enviable.
—You didn’t bring them out here, her sisters say.
—I did! she insists. I did!
Marcia walks into the ivy and pulls down her pants.
—Bathroom’s inside, Eva says.
But they can hear her piss falling on the leaves.
—Hey! Janelle calls from the roof. Get your shit together!
—I’m trying, Marcia says. She’s laughing at herself in the ivy.
—God, Eva says. She hands her cigarette to Shannon and follows Marcia into the brush. She yanks her upward and pulls up her pants.
—Go inside, Eva says.
Marcia obeys Eva at all times, even when she’s sloppy.
The gesture reminds Shannon of Eva during initiation: her cold hands, the way she’d push sisters through the door.
—Before you initiated me I thought you were going to lock me in a coffin or make me walk on hot coals or something.
Eva exhales through her nose.
—Do you wish we’d done that instead?
—Sometimes, she says. The real thing is so goofy.
—I’m not going to miss eating ashes, Eva says.
Sorority Page 18