by Lisa Taddeo
—He was trying to get off.
—But I was never that way. I’d done so many questionable things in my life, but I was prudish in these respects. You know?
—I can see that about you. You’re a little girl in many ways.
—I told Vic the best part was kissing, and the way he held me while we did, and the way we moved against each other. And he laid down a fifty-dollar bill and said, Awesome. Have a great afternoon, kid. Let me know what he says. I’ve gotta get back to the office. I know you don’t like to walk back with me anymore, your morals and such. So I’ll leave you to it.
And I said, I can feel it, he’s not gonna respond, and I’m going to feel like an asshole. And Vic said, He’ll come, trust me. And if he doesn’t, like I said, it’s not because he doesn’t want to. I thanked him for being a good friend, in a very strange way. And he said, Okay, catch you in a bit. He’ll come. Just wish I was the one getting that note. And, seriously, of course. Look, I love you. I really do. Sometimes I think you don’t get that.
—And then, Alice said, he went to jerk off in the office bathroom.
—But you don’t understand, I said, there was something more. There was love there. He loved me.
—That’s not love. That’s abuse.
—He finished my project for me. I had that big project, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t concentrate on it because of Big Sky, who, as you know, did show up that night, and after he left, I was wounded all over again, and Vic did it for me that week. He’d been there, he’d listened about all the other boys, all the other men. I didn’t tell you everything.
—So you’d been telling him about other men you were with.
—Yes, a doorman, for example, that I slipped my room number to in San Francisco.
—That’s hot, Alice said.
The way a woman could make you feel sensual was utterly different than a way a man could. Especially a beautiful woman. I looked at her big nose, at her big white teeth. Her ferocious eyebrows and her nude fat lips. It was a mystery where the striking beauty came from. It came from everything at once, and although it was hard to put my finger on, I didn’t for a moment doubt it. Unlike my own, which I’d been doubting in mirrors my whole life.
—And the young kid, Jack, I said.
—So he suffered, listening about all these men.
I nodded, feeling for the first time that I’d been unfairly blaming myself.
—But he didn’t have to, you understand.
—We worked together. Should he have fired me?
—No! He should have sucked it up, that he was married with a family and that a young woman who lost her own family might be looking for something that replicated that. And that just because you wanted connection, someone to make you feel protected, that didn’t mean you wanted someone to chain you up. To emotionally jail you. Joan, this man took advantage of a sad young woman. Joan?
—But the truth is I kept going back to him and back to him. Every time I was hurt by some little thing, every time I needed help with my work. Every time some fucking little boy hurt me. I felt loved by him. I needed that so badly. But this time it was different. The way I felt for Big Sky, Vic could tell I was blown away. Vic saw it and it killed him. Plus, Big Sky was a man, he wasn’t some kid. He had more money than Vic. He was powerful.
—But these games he was playing! Asking you about the size of another man’s dick? After we returned to Italy, I worked as a waitress at this café on La Dogana beach in Maremma. Every day this bald man with one of those cartoon guts came in. Every day he ordered the linguine con vongole. They made it the best there. And every day this man, Carlo, would ask for extra parsley, but he wanted me to sprinkle it on top right there in front of him. Some days he was my only lunch table. He didn’t act untoward with me, unless you can count him wanting the parsley sprinkled tableside, and the way he would watch my hands. I used to apply clear polish every other day because I was conscious of Carlo watching my fingers. Joan, do you understand? There are rapes, and then there are the rapes we allow to happen, the ones we shower and get ready for. But that doesn’t mean the man does nothing.
—It’s a finer line than that, I said. I wasn’t innocent. Don’t forget, I’d slept with Vic, I’d even tried to get off. I could never come with him. But I tried. I exhausted myself trying. I told him I cared for him. More than once.
—And then one day you didn’t and he wouldn’t lay off of you. He stuck around. You didn’t force him to. Not only did he stick around, he suctioned himself on like a fucking octopus!
—But I lied to him. And all he wanted was the truth. He didn’t want half-truths. And I would lie. I could have just said, I love this man, this married man. Now fuck off, please.
—And it should be your responsibility to talk to someone that way? You don’t think he knew you didn’t love him? Didn’t want him around?
—But it would have been honest. In the beginning I would see him everywhere, as though he were a man I loved. Probably he felt real love from me. Of course, I was confusing it with a fatherly love I’d been looking for. But to change suddenly. To start to talk to him about other men. I didn’t believe him that he wanted to hear these things. But he also didn’t want me to lie. I was confused, but still I was never doing right by him. I sent him into a pit of despair. And at home he had this wife and this son with problems.
—Oh, fuck his problems! You lied because if you told the truth, he’d make you feel terrible. In his own little ways. And you are saying that you changed suddenly? What about the ways he must have changed? Going from a man who reminded you of your father to a man who made you feel like a slut, like a bad, bad girl. He scared you, the way men scare women, into submission. He could have fired you, and you needed the job! You’re still under the spell of him. And Big Sky. You need to come out from there. Where is Vic now? Where is this bloodsucker?
—That’s the part.
Alice poured us both some more wine and raised her eyebrows in curiosity. At the very least, I didn’t feel boring.
—A little over a month ago, just before I came here, Big Sky got in touch with me after a very long time. I was so happy. I cried for a day. I went to a Turkish bath. I buttered every inch of my skin. I had everything plucked, tinted. We met for dinner at this Italian restaurant in the Village. I can’t tell you how delirious I was. I didn’t tell Vic, I didn’t tell anyone. In fact, Vic asked me if I’d heard from Big Sky lately. He acted like it had just popped into his mind. Of course, I realized later he’d been reading my email, he knew my security question, having to do with my mother’s maiden name, because he had all my employment information. And my email was always saying that my password had to be changed. So I knew he was reading my email. At home with his wife, sitting there and clicking away like a teenage sociopath. So he must have known. He must have followed me. I had a hunch that he waited outside my apartment. Once I saw him and he played it off, said he’d been in the area and was going to ring me up. Other times I felt his energy. I would turn around quickly in the street, expecting to find him there. I started to wait longer and longer to reply to his messages. One time he texted and then, when I didn’t reply for over an hour, he called me. I shoved my phone in my bag and roamed the streets. I finally wrote back: You don’t have to follow up a text with a call. It’s obsessive. I’ll reply when I see it. What’s up? And he wrote, I was calling because I saw you I saw you on the street. I wrote back, Why didn’t you call my name? But I was frightened. The streets of Manhattan are the most naked places. If there’s someone you want to see, that person lights up, they glow. I know you don’t want to be seen with me at certain times, in certain spots. I was respecting your boundaries. God, how I hated myself. That I allowed people like him to feel they owned pieces of me.
—Joan, Jesus. It keeps getting worse.
—This night in question, I wore a very pretty green wool dress, long-sleeved, wifely, you could say. I felt aware of everything. When I saw Big Sky at the table, I was happy bu
t I was also ready. After all that time I felt strong. He told me I looked beautiful. I could see in his eyes, he had that fear about him, when a man hasn’t seen you in a long time and worries he no longer has his thumb over you. That was the look he had, and I savored it. We ordered fried zucchini blossoms and a bottle of expensive wine. His hair was long and I loved it but I didn’t say anything. I was clever and restrained. He spoke vaguely of some problems in his marriage. By the time our entrées arrived, I felt like he was feeling all the things for me I’d always wanted him to feel. God, I felt so happy. And then Vic walked in. I saw him come in, I saw him the whole time, and I knew I wasn’t seeing things. I told you how he hated that I lied to him, that he once said that was the worst part. And there I was with the man whose existence in my life had almost killed him. And Vic thought it had been put to bed and likely he thought there was still a chance for me and him. That one day I’d grow older and Vic would be there for me. And sometimes I thought that, too, that eventually I’d be too tired, too wrinkled. A woman like me can’t exist past a certain age. And Vic must have dreamed about that day. He’d get us a condo in Sayulita with white stucco and a little Jacuzzi on the balcony and he’d buy me high-cut bikinis and we’d eat plantains and just live out our days. But I think seeing me there with Big Sky, seeing me wearing a wonderful dress, looking more beautiful than I’d ever looked with him, I think it was a concentration of every raw hurt he’d ever felt at my hands. I could see his face melt from the inside.
And he pulled out a gun. I was barely shocked to see it because I could feel it, I’d been feeling it for years. I didn’t close my eyes. I felt I should die, anyway, it would make sense. I thought of the imminent freedom. A woman at another table screamed and Big Sky turned to look behind himself. But then something switched again in Vic’s eyes and I thought he would point it at Big Sky and in that moment I felt I didn’t care about anything, about anyone. I figured how natural it was for my life to go this way the first night I felt happiness. The screams around us were muted. Everyone was frozen, waiters with two bowls of pasta on each arm. And then Vic turned the gun on himself and it went off and his face blew through itself onto the wall behind him.
—Oh, Jesus Christ!
—That’s the reason I left New York, I said.
I wanted to tell her that it was to see her. I wanted to know what only she could tell me. The thing I didn’t expect was that telling her about me would force me to look at myself, at the way I craved the love of men who would never love me. At the way I could not abide women who needed me. At the way I destroyed some while allowing others to destroy me. I felt sick with myself and, at the same time, unburdened. I thought I’d been honest with myself. But I hadn’t. I’d been telling myself ghost stories my whole life.
Alice rose and hugged me. All afternoon we’d been performing the little acts that women must perform when they come together after high school. The extreme politeness of gesture. The focus on being both feminine and its opposite. And with this embrace it was no different. We were trying to exude kindness without being overly effusive. I wished she would never let go.
—There’s more, I said. She let go of me and sat back down. I told her about Vic’s wife, Mary, and his daughter, Eleanor, who was apparently on her way to find me. I showed her the text messages, the latest one, its crazed length, its capital letters.
—No, Joan, Alice said in a tone of what I believe was genuine anger. No, she said. This is enough of this.
I laughed, trying to make light of the absurdity.
—From beyond the grave, he finds me.
—Is this crazy girl thinking she’s going to kill you? This is insane.
—Maybe she has a point.
—Oh, no. She doesn’t. Her father is—was—a bloodsucker, and that’s that. She needs to learn from that and move along.
—I don’t know. I think maybe she’s justified. You think she wants to kill me?
—Clearly she comes from a line of sociopaths. You haven’t spoken to the mother since that text?
—No.
—Nothing will come of it. It’s so stupid. Shall I pick you up tomorrow? We can go to Cold Spring Tavern, flirt with Harley men, and get food poisoning. You need to put this ridiculousness out of your head.
I used the bathroom as she began clearing the plates. I tried to help but she refused. I hated when people didn’t refuse, when they gave you something to do. Julienne these carrots.
The bathroom was tiny and there was mold in almost every line of caulk. There was a Tasmanian Devil mud flap, the kind you see on an eighteen-wheeler, on the floor of the tub. I pressed a piece of toilet paper to my forehead and nose to blot the oil.
—Sorry for the heavy afternoon, I said before I left. She ruffled my hair. I kept my hand pressed to the same spot on my scalp the whole way home.
18
BACK IN THE CANYON I showered off the wine. A breeze blew in the scent of honeysuckle. When it wasn’t unbearably hot in Topanga, the mountain air was reviving and the color of the falling night was extravagant with tangerines and purples.
It felt wonderful, leaving her house. Every time I left a man’s house after a long afternoon, or if he had been the one to leave mine, the evening was tainted. I would wander the blocks of Manhattan, stopping in certain bars and eating raw meat—carpaccio or tartare. Martini Mondays with Big Sky were devil dark. On Martini Mondays he would come at five and leave before seven. My chest would be cool with perspiration. Glasses of pilsner in the sink. I’d leave my apartment just after he did, like it was on fire. I couldn’t bear to be in it after night fell. He would eat takeout on the Upper West Side, sating the hunger that came from beer on an empty stomach and fervent fucking on my leather couch. His wife had these incredible teeth and I would picture her jaw opening for a triangle of steaming pizza. Laughter and the baby and Coca-Cola. Meanwhile I would sit on a stool in a dim bar and make the tartare last for an hour.
In hindsight, it was obvious. Talking to Alice made me realize the thing that I would end up doing was inevitable. Every single man in my life staked the path to murder. I’m not supposed to feel this, but I do: I don’t think the act was vile. I think it was necessary. You can decide that for yourself. I will never lie to you. You are the only person to whom I will never lie.
Before going to bed, I stepped outside to get some air, to walk around the mounds of dry earth. I was happy. I should have known I didn’t deserve it.
I saw Lenny in an unlikely place, walking toward Kevin’s house, down the ravine with the bluestem scratching at his old ankles. I figured he was having an episode and I called out to him.
More rapidly than I would have thought possible, Lenny made his way up the hill.
—I’m terrifically happy to see you, Joan.
—Are you?
—I’m having the clearest of days, the clearest I’ve had in a very long time. I suppose I’m trying to coax the clarity into hanging around by offering a sacrifice unto the universe. The drugs I have to take turn the funhouse mirror of my mind’s eye into a pane of glass, and it’s sublime. But even better, even more sublime, is this: right before the dosages are due, I’m able to make out a different scene in the funhouse mirror. It’s only available to me once every several days, nothing to do with providence but, rather, something in the timing of the drug interactions, the wearing off of one joined with the peaking of another; it would take me, I venture, longer than I have left to live to figure the timing enough to replicate it. But in that sliver of time, I can see even clearer than twenty-twenty. I can see the whole past with flawless vision. Better than hindsight, because it’s as though I am reliving it. I can see things like a god. The clarity is so perfect that it transcends the pain. I imagine this is what dying is like.
—Would you like to come inside?
—I would love that, he said.
I made us tea and we sat at my kitchen table. Lenny slurped his tea and clasped his hands and breathed in deeply.
—There
are things, he said, all the accumulated bits of a lifetime, they come back to you suddenly, when you have clarity, some peace because something you dread is no longer there. You know the way you listen to the cleaning ladies of a hotel, the network of them, talking loudly to one another, and to the maintenance man? They are all cousins, related, all of them roasting pigs on the weekend, buying kegs of beer with their crumpled dollar bills. They’re loud and raucous around each other, but then, when they knock on your door, they are suddenly quiet. Housekeeping, they say, in a certain tone.
I nodded hatefully. For one month I had been a housekeeper in a hotel, not a fine hotel but a decent one with both an indoor pool and an outdoor pool. I took naps or read books in the unused affair rooms. They smelled of paint and funerals. I was so young then. I didn’t mind the married men looking at me in my black uniform, the starched hem falling at my knees.
—Oh, Joan! I can’t explain it well enough, I fear. The reasons for everything come to me in those moments of hyper-clarity. I can understand the lives of those housekeepers. I never thought of them enough. But somewhere I ingested their souls. I wouldn’t be human if I hadn’t. Perhaps a better way to tell it is the smell of grass. You know, of course, the smell of cut grass. But when was the last time you truly smelled it? I believe the smell of grass exists more as a trope after the age of twelve. Between twelve and thirty, I’d venture you never smell it. Then suddenly you are thirty, forty, and you think, Ah, cut grass!
I was bored. He was an old racist who thought he was progressive. But I wanted what he had. I wondered if he would leave it to me. His money. His plates. His watch. Even if he would, I couldn’t wait that long. The easiest thing would be to take it when he was out of his gourd and I was Lenore. But he would know it was me when he came out of it. I was sure of it. In any case, that was the last night I would feel sorry for the old man. After that evening, I would want to kill him.
—And that’s the thing I want to tell you, Joan. That’s the thing that became clear to me early this morning. One of the visions. I am, in fact, worse than damaged.