by Leah Stewart
He bent to kiss my forehead, and then my mouth, so that he came away with a little fake blood on his cheek. “All you’ve got to do,” he said, “is be totally still.”
“Got it.”
“You look beautiful,” he said.
Beautiful? I was covered in fake blood. It was matted in my hair. But beautiful, okay, sure, why not. It was nice to know I made for a beautiful dead girl. Rajiv moved away, and after a moment I heard him call, “Action!”
I was lying there with my eyes closed, so I couldn’t see Rajiv’s actor friend Paul stumble down the road from the car. I could hear his frantic footsteps, I could hear him calling my name. “Sarah! Sarah!” Such desperation in the sound. And then it struck me—it was my actual name. Why had Rajiv used my actual name? If I was going to be somebody else, couldn’t I be somebody named Penelope, or Camille? Paul said, “Sarah?” like he’d suddenly spotted me, and then he came running. I felt him drop to his knees beside me and touch my face; he touched me more and more frantically, he shook me a little, and I managed to stay limp as a doll. All the while he said my name, over and over, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, and then finally he began to scream. “No!” he screamed. “No!”
I started to laugh. I felt the laugh coming, and I tried to repress it. I’m dead, I told myself, I’m dead, and it’s not funny. I kept my mouth pressed tight, but I couldn’t keep the laughter from vibrating through my body, I couldn’t keep the breath from snickering out my nose. Paul let go of me. “I guess we have to do that again,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said. I pushed myself up on my elbows. “Sorry about that.”
“That’s OK,” Rajiv said. “It happens. Just take a deep breath and tell me when you’re ready and we’ll try it again.”
I took a breath. I’m dead, I thought. I’m dead, I’m dead. “I’m ready,” I said. And it all happened again, the running, the touching, the Sarah Sarah Sarah, and then the “No! No!” and as if on cue the laughter returned.
“Come on now, Sarah,” Rajiv said. “Dead people don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing,” I said. “I’m not making a sound.”
“Your whole body is shaking,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but I was laughing even as I said it. I looked at Paul and thought about his shrieking, “No! No!” and I laughed until tears came into my eyes.
“Let’s take a break,” Rajiv said, and Paul went stalking off, muttering something that I was certain was not complimentary to me. Rajiv offered me his hand, pulled me to my feet. “He’s a little bit of a diva,” Rajiv said.
We leaned against the bumper of his car, and he offered me a bottle of water. “Laughter’s not an unusual reaction,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “I’ve watched the outtakes on DVDs.”
He nodded. He watched the sunset broadcasting its undeniable beauty, beams of light streaming out from behind distant trees, and I knew he was thinking that we were soon to lose that perfect light, and I wondered if he would say so out loud. I didn’t think he would. How long would we have to be together before he would say something like that out loud?
“Can I just ask you something?” I asked. “If I’m your dream girl, why do you want to kill me?”
“What do you mean?” he said, and when I heard the bristle in his voice, I knew I’d sounded accusatory where I’d told myself I only meant to tease.
“Well, this is the second film now that’s been somehow about me, right? And for some reason I’m dead again.”
“What are you talking about? You’re not dead in the other film.”
“There’s that image of the woman with the handkerchief—it’s very Camille, very Moulin Rouge. She sure looks dead, or close to it.”
“That’s not supposed to be real. That’s one of the images that represents his feelings about her.”
“His feeling that she’s dead?”
“His feeling that she’s unattainable.”
“And then she disappears.”
“Right. She’s unattainable.”
“Well, I’m attainable. I’m standing right here. So how come you’re killing me off?”
“I think you’re taking this a little too literally.” He sighed. “I told you that film was bad.”
I wanted to push it, I really did. But I looked at his face and saw a mixture of worry and impatience and apology and irritation at my lack of understanding. This was a look I recognized, a look anybody who’s been in a longtime relationship will recognize, but it was the first time I’d seen it on Rajiv’s face. As soon as I did, I wanted to erase it. If I wanted to be looked at like that, I could go back to Nathan. Nathan and I could look at each other like that until the cows came home. But not Rajiv—Rajiv looked at me with longing. That was what he did. “You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“I want you to get what I’m doing.”
“I do,” I said. “I do.” I looked him in the eye. I tried to project sincerity, and gradually that expression faded off his face. He kissed me. “If you keep doing that,” I said, “the blood’s going to be all over you.”
“It’s hard to resist.” He touched my cheek. “Are you sure you’re okay with all of this?”
“I’m positive. I promise I’ll stay dead this time.”
And I did. I lay there like a stone while my pretend husband screamed my name, and I thought about my real husband. Not about what he’d do if he found me, a bloodied corpse, at the side of the road, because I figured he’d pretty much do what this guy was doing now, the screaming and the crying and so on. I thought about how much Nathan would appreciate this story, the story of what was happening here, how he’d understand exactly why I found the whole thing strange and disturbing and funny at once, how he’d point out nuances of meaning I hadn’t even noticed. I really wished I could tell it to him.
All that wistful longing blinked off like a light when I walked into Helen’s living room and saw him sitting there. He was sitting there. Nathan. He’d gotten one of his severe haircuts since I’d seen him last, and as always the sight of his hair close-cropped and curl-less, the sight of his ears, was a shock, on top of the shock of seeing him here. His cheeks were shiny, as though freshly shaved. He was wearing my favorite shirt. He stood up when I came in. He almost, but not quite, smiled at me. He had one of Helen’s iced lattes in his hand. Without meaning to I shot her a look full of accusation, and how could she know it wasn’t because I blamed her for Nathan’s presence but because she’d given him something to drink?
“I’ve been trying to call you,” she said.
“My cell phone was off,” I said.
“I left you a message,” she said.
“I haven’t turned it back on.” I was looking at Helen, but still I could see Nathan looming in the corner of my eye. He didn’t vanish when I looked away. I hadn’t, after all, conjured him. “What are you doing here?” I said, and Helen looked puzzled, but then I turned my gaze to Nathan. I looked him in the eye before I looked away.
“Mr. Dodson,” he said. “He died.”
“What?” I said, or maybe I said, “He died?” because we always do that, we always repeat the unwanted phrase, we always ask for confirmation, we can’t quite believe it, and we hope that in the moment before we admit, yes, we understood the first time, and no, we didn’t really need to hear it said again, that the news will disappear, it will not, after all, have been said. I cheated on you. He died. What did you say? What?
Just a month ago—or two? Had it been two?—I’d come upon Mr. Dodson putting up No Trespassing signs along his fence. “I’ve been wanting to warn you,” he said when he saw me. “Some no-good types moved into the house on the corner. The Keeters. My wife’s cousins. Caught them skulking around, looking in my shed.”
“You think they wanted to steal something?”
“I know it.” He shook his head. “My wife’s cousins,” he said again, as though somehow Mrs. Dodson’s relationship to them made her responsible for their skulking way
s. The Keeters. It sounded more like a designation for a species of redneck than a name. “Don’t get married,” Mr. Dodson said. Then he grinned at me. “Too late!”
Nathan was still talking, something about the funeral. I caught the words bright moment, angel, important to them, and I understood he wanted to take my children to the funeral, I understood he was here because he wanted us to go back home. I knew it was me he wanted and not just the children. I’d known that the instant I’d seen the haircut, the shirt, the shave. Only moments had passed since I’d come in the house and closed the door behind me. I could still conjure the sensation of the doorknob in my hand. I took a few steps, reached for the door, and I was outside again, letting the last few minutes vanish with a satisfying click.
Helen had put two metal pinwheels in the rock bed around the front yard’s tree, and the wind was just high enough to spin them in a start-and-stop, halfhearted way. They spun. They stopped. They spun. Nathan came outside. “Was this necessary?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he asked. I didn’t answer. He knew what I meant. “They really want Binx at the funeral,” he said. “I didn’t want to argue about it over the phone.” I waited for him to add something aggrieved like, “I’m sorry it’s such a blow to see me,” but he surprised me. He said in a voice that was wistful and naked, “I thought maybe if you actually saw me, you’d decide to come home.”
I looked at him. Did actually seeing him make me want to go home? His sideburns were uneven, and really, now that I looked at him more closely, a little long, given the severity of the rest of the cut. “Where’d you get your hair cut?”
“Great Clips.”
“The one by the Harris Teeter?”
“No, the one on North Duke.”
“What were you doing in Durham?”
“Talking to Gail about the possibility of picking up a class or two.”
“A class?”
“I’ve been looking for work,” he said. His expression when he said this—it reminded me of Mattie’s when she handed me a drawing she’d done at school, shyly, hopefully certain of my approval.
“I guess I may have made that a necessity,” I said.
“Have you been wanting to quit?” he asked. “Should I have known that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t really know it.”
“But maybe I should have.”
“How could you if I didn’t?”
“Maybe you didn’t think about whether you wanted to quit because you didn’t think you could. And maybe I didn’t think about it because I didn’t want to, because your working made my not working possible.”
“Wow,” I said. “I thought my working was changing my values and generally destroying my soul.”
“I’m sorry about all that,” he said. “I was being a prick.”
“I didn’t quit, anyway. I’ve been calling in sick this whole time, though I don’t know if they really believe me anymore.”
“It’d be a pain to replace you.”
“Well, yes. That’s true.”
“I didn’t mean anything by that,” he said.
I surveyed the yard. “Moonlight on pinwheels,” I said.
And he said, as he always did, “Are you writing a poem?”
“All the time,” I said.
“Have you and Helen been staying up every night getting stoned and talking about all the possible uses of the word the?”
“No. We haven’t done that once. I have to admit I miss it. I miss feeling like that was important. The word the.”
“It’s still important.”
“I miss feeling like it was the only thing. I miss being able to feel like that. And you know what else? I only just realized I miss it.” I sighed. “Should I even be talking about such things, such trivial things? Given what’s going on in our lives? In the world?”
“I don’t know. Since you left, I haven’t written a word.”
What was I supposed to say to that? Good? Sorry? “Did you miss me?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “It’s been awful without you.”
“No, I mean, before all this. Did you miss me talking about the word the? Did you miss that me?” I looked at him. He looked back, his face a picture of uncertainty. He wanted to say yes, I was almost sure of it, and that would have been the truth. He had missed the older version of me, maybe the older version of himself, and maybe that’s what part of this had been about, but if he said that, would I think he was being cravenly self-justifying? Would I get upset? And after all, he’d loved me all this time, hadn’t he, as wife, breadwinner, mother of his children. It just hadn’t been the same. And sometimes we miss the old days, enough that we try to get them back. Sometimes we all do.
“I want you to come home.” He stepped closer. “We could all drive back for the funeral. We could all drive back together. Please…just come home.”
I looked away, back at the pinwheels, which spun and stopped like they were signaling something.
“Or,” Nathan said, “I’ve got a return ticket, and I could take Binx back on my lap.”
“What about feeding him?”
“I can give him formula.”
“But then I’d have to stop nursing altogether. I didn’t bring the pump.”
“Doesn’t Helen have one?”
“She gave it away. She’s not breast-feeding anymore.”
“Well, you could buy one.”
“They cost like $200, Nathan. I may not have a job anymore.”
Now it was his turn to sigh. I wondered if he was more frustrated because of life’s complications or because I was diminishing his dramatic gesture with my petty, practical concerns. “If we all go back together,” he said, “problem solved.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. For a moment nobody spoke. “I need to think about it.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“My flight’s in two days.”
“I guess I need to think about it for two days.” And what to do with those two days, besides think? Once again, once again, it was up to me. I knew if I told him to go to a hotel he would go, he would take himself away to a bare and standard room in his bare and standard rental car. No doubt he’d brought a book to read. And if I said he should stay here, he would sleep on the couch if I told him to, he would sleep in the bed with me if I let him. What power someone else’s transgression, someone else’s longing for forgiveness, gives you. And what would happen if I told him what I had done?
“My husband is here,” I said into the phone. I said “my husband,” not “Nathan,” although of course Rajiv knew his name. The important thing in this scenario was not his identity but his role: he was my husband, and Rajiv was my lover, my other man. I was Anna Karenina, I was Madame Bovary, I was hunched over on the toilet whispering into my cell phone, which was tragic only in the way characters on shows about rich and bitchy teens use the word.
A silence so unnervingly long that I thought I’d lost the connection. “Rajiv?”
“I knew this would happen.”
“You knew what would happen?”
“Do you know that I’m thirty-three years old and I’ve never managed a lasting relationship? What does that say about me?”
I hadn’t known he was thirty-three years old. How funny. I hadn’t known how old he was, or that he was slightly younger than I. Why did that come as such a surprise? “Your Jesus year,” I said.
Inhalation. Exhalation. “What?”
“That’s what some people say about the year you’re thirty-three.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s how old Jesus was when he was crucified.”
“Why would you say that to me?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“But why would you say that to me?”
“It was just a non sequitur. That’s how my mind works sometimes.”
“I guess you’re going to go back to your life
now,” he said.
“Why do you assume that? You think I’m a dog, he calls me and I come?”
“No, I—”
“And what do you mean, ‘my life’? What has this been?”
“Don’t go back with him.”
“Rajiv…”
“Stay here with me.”
“With you.”
“Yes. Stay. You and the kids can move in with me.”
I tried to picture that. His house had a second bedroom, currently his study. The kids would have to share it. That was doable, but how would he feel, really, to have the space he used for his work given over to someone else’s kids? And what about his beloved coffee table, shiny and sharp-edged and made of skull-crushing stone? What about the alphabetized DVDs on racks that looked strikingly like fun ladders to climb? If we moved in with Rajiv, so many of his things would have to go. “What are the schools like?” I asked.
“What?”
“What are the schools like?”
“I have no fucking idea, Sarah,” he said, and though the words were angry his tone was sad. “Is that really what you want to talk about right now?”
There was an echo to this conversation, and after a moment I realized what it was. Me and Nathan, Mr. Dodson, the mailbox, all our accumulated grievances. “Maybe I’m more conventional than you thought,” I said.
“You’re not,” he said. “Just don’t go back with him. Even if you don’t stay with me. Don’t go back with him.”
I closed my eyes. Nathan was asleep in my bed, on his usual side. I wasn’t going to say so. I wasn’t going to say that it had seemed to me it didn’t much matter whether he slept there or not, since I’d been keeping to my own side anyway, that empty half still undisturbed in the morning, the bed already half made.
“He hurt you,” Rajiv said. “I would never do that to you.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said.
“I mean it.”
“I know you do. It’s just, that’s easy to say, isn’t it, at the beginning when everything’s going well. Why would you ever think you would cheat on me when I’m, you know, looking at you like I look at you? What would happen if we were actually together as long as Nathan and I have been?”