Give Me Your Answer True

by Suanne Laqueur

  One snowy Sunday evening Daisy walked with John over the Brooklyn Bridge. She kept stopping and looking back to Manhattan, charmed at how the falling snow softened the skyline into dreamy, sparkling shadows.

  “It’s like living in a snow globe,” she said. “I always wanted to when I was little. I made my mother take one apart once, so I could see. And I was crushed to discover no magic was in there, no little people living in the tiny house.”

  John took her gloved hand in his. “I wish I’d known you when you were little.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled straight ahead, flakes collecting along the ribs of his wool watch cap and sticking in his lashes. “You could’ve been the girl I knew since kindergarten,” he said. “I could’ve cut my teeth crushing on you. Maybe gotten a head start on all those other guys.”

  “What other guys,” she said, laughing.

  On the Brooklyn side they found a diner and ordered omelets and cheese fries. They passed plates and ketchup, talking around mouthfuls. Daisy watched John eat. Watched how his fingers worked a fork or wrapped around his coffee cup. Noticed the tendons in his neck flexing as he chewed. The skin was smooth across his collarbones beneath the opening of a Henley T-shirt, inviting the caress of fingertips. The dimple winked in and out of his cheek and she was struck with an impulse to kiss it.

  I’m attracted to him.

  Chewing on the revelation, she toyed with the idea of asking him to come home with her. She hadn’t had sex in over two years. She’d never had sex with anyone but Erik. David was a five-minute grapple. Only Erik knew her body, where to put his mouth and slide his fingers and how she liked to be kissed. Only his hands unbuttoning or unzipping her clothes, pushing them off. Only his body on top of hers in the night. Or beneath hers. Or behind hers.

  I don’t know how to make love with anyone else.

  Jesus, what if I suck in bed?

  “You look thoughtful,” John said, wiping his mouth and smiling at her, his dimple appearing, smoothing, then appearing again. She imagined his face in her hands, tilted up to meet her mouth. Imagined her fingers taking hold of his shirt and drawing it up his back and over his head. His skin over his muscles and bones, his body in her hands.

  Maybe I can let go now. Maybe it’s time to let go.

  Begin again.

  She put down her cup, feeling a little afraid. She hadn’t quite given herself permission to want this yet. A roaring was in her ears. A Doppler rush of rumbling sound, coming closer.

  “I was just—” she said, but then a shattering of glass.

  (The center window of the lighting booth melts away in pieces. Then the one next to it. Then the next. Winking, twinkling slivers and shards imploding and exploding. Up on her elbow, twisted around she watches the last window disintegrate and she falls back, her arm unfolding to reach where Erik is in the booth. The booth with its shot out windows and the black-clad man in the aisle raising the gun again.)

  “—hurt? Dais? Dais…”

  The scrape of chairs. The clang and clatter of falling dishes and silverware, just as it sounded in her kitchen at Jay Street. Daisy drew herself into a ball under the table, threaded her hair tight through her hands and pulled it hard. She curled and pulled and she screamed and screamed.

  (Erik Erik Erik Erik Erik Erik Erik Erik.)

  “Daisy.” John had her by the wrists, pushing against the pulling, holding her still. “Sweep some of this glass away. Let me get her out of here.”

  “Do we need an ambulance?”

  “I don’t see blood,” John said. “Just let me get her out. Daisy. Daisy, come on, it’s all right. Come here.”

  She shied from his hands, twisting away from the past.

  (Fat peppering cracks echo through her head. Will is on the floor, his shirt red with blood and the blood starting to spread around him. She pushes up on her elbow—she can still make her upper body work. She twists and looks back to where Erik was. The black-clad man in the aisle raising his arm and the glass is breaking.)

  The staff cleared a path, stepping on dishes and shards. Daisy was split open, eviscerated onto the cold hard floor of her kitchen, down in the blood again with the broken crockery and flung cutlery. The veins on Will’s arms popping as he bear-hugged Erik. Erik kicking and writhing, his boots scraping on the floor as Will pulled him out, dragged him out of the house, letting the door slam. And Daisy never saw him again.

  (The windows explode, one by one. Erik is gone. She can’t see him.)

  Now Daisy kicked and writhed as John pulled her out from under the table, pulled her into his grip, murmuring to her all the while. “Come on, it’s all right. Don’t be afraid. Are you hurt?”

  (Her legs are gone. The windows are gone. Erik is gone.)

  “Sit down, honey,” John said, getting Daisy off the floor and into a chair. He pulled a chair and sat, too, facing her, his hands on her upper arms. “Are you hurt? Did you get cut?”

  “The glass,” she whispered. Her brain was a whirling snowstorm of sharp-edged snowflakes.

  (Erik Erik Erik.)

  “It was a snowplow,” the proprietor of the diner said, wringing his fat hands. “It threw all the snow against the front of the building.”

  “It was the window, Dais,” John said. “The window broke.”

  “He shot the glass,” she said. “He shot the glass out…”

  John seemed to rear back a little, his eyebrows drawn down. His hands tightened on her arms and then softened. He leaned back in and his face fell into a calm understanding.

  “I see,” he said. His hands slid on either side of her face and he held her forehead to his.

  “He shot the glass,” Daisy said, weeping.

  John nodded. “I know. I know what happened, Dais. I know.”

  He put his arms around her, held her tight. His hand pressed the back of her head. He gathered up all her trembling, shattered pieces and put them in his pockets.

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “THIS IS US, DAIS,” John said.

  She lifted up her head, startled from a thin sleep.

  “It’s our stop. Come on, honey.”

  Her feet stumbled and skittered on the snow-covered subway steps. She was so tired.

  “Almost there,” John said. “You can do it.”

  Her shaking hands dropped her keys twice. Finally he opened the door of her apartment himself and bolted it behind them. She shivered as he unbuttoned her coat, drew it off her and hung it away. She wanted her bed.

  “Go,” John said. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  But instead he brought a glass of water. “You don’t have any tea,” he said.

  The mattress sagged as he sat and pulled the covers up to Daisy’s chin. “You’re not allowed to have tea, are you?” he said softly. “I bet you don’t eat Swedish Fish anymore, either. Anything and everything that reminds you of him, you’re not allowed to want or have.”

  “It hurts too much,” she said.

  “Go to sleep.”

  He stayed by her side until she did.

  In her dreams she stood at the window of the lighting booth, gazing not at the theater but on snow-shrouded streets. New York in an ermine coat. A snow princess, gentle and clean.

  I always wanted to live in a snow globe.

  The faraway sound of a single gunshot.

  Breaking glass.

  Snow and blood.

  Another gun went off, followed by the baying moan of a wolf. Paw prints appeared in the snow.

  She put her hands over her ears, trying to block out the shots and the shattering and the howling. Her heart pounded against her eardrums. An ominous throbbing cadence.

  She opened her eyes and sat up. As her heart quieted, the silence of the apartment pressed on her ears. Through it emerged another repetitive noise, thin and metallic. Slowly she looked at her night table, John’s watch set by the lamp. Deliberately arranged, like a calling card. She set her fingers on it.

  Don’t leave him ther
e. Don’t leave him alone.

  Don’t you fuck this up again.

  On cushioned feet she went out to the living room and perched on the edge of the couch. Fully clothed, John slept with one arm thrown over his head, profile outlined against his bicep. Daisy laid her hand on his chest. Felt the steady beat of his life. The implacable rise and fall of his ribs.

  “John,” she whispered, feeling his name in her mouth.

  The whites of his eyes glowed in the dimness as he looked up at her. She slid her hand up to his throat, out over his shoulder and down his arm, curling her fingers around his.

  His smile unfolded. “Hey,” he said softly.

  She stood up and back. He swung his feet to the floor, followed her back to her bed. There, she curled into his arms, pressed her face to his chest. His hand moved along the length of her hair. He held her like a lover and she let him, feeling his long slow breaths and the underlying patience beneath his touch.

  He tilted her chin up. His kiss felt good. Not Erik’s, but nothing and nobody ever would. John’s mouth was soft. His tongue tasted of snow, of a man’s desire and a boy’s hope.

  “Go to sleep,” he said. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

  Daisy relaxed her fingers. She let go.

  And she believed him.

  SHE BEGAN TO COURT HAPPINESS and found it a coy, elusive lover. Her tentative joy was studded with the sharp edges of broken glass and her dreams began to twinkle with it.

  She went from the black cavern of oppressive nothingness to a hall of mirrors and windows. In dreams she beat her head and hands against the panes. Beat and beat and beat until the glass broke and the blood spattered, and then another transparent wall appeared.

  Sometimes she was in the theater of Mallory Hall, approaching the lighting booth. Either walking up the aisle like a normal human or descending from the ceiling like an international spy. But always, Erik was in the booth, looking through the glass. Sometimes straight through her, his face pinched with hatred. Other times, he looked right at her with the same hatred as she pounded her fists bloody against the booth windows. The glass didn’t break. Not until Erik, his cognac-colored eyes murderous, put out a single finger, touched it to the pane and made it explode.

  To the sound of breaking glass, Daisy would wake up, soaked with sweat and gasping. Sometimes she screamed into the night, even as her lower belly contracted down in waves of wicked pleasure.

  A strange compulsion wove its way into her days. She trailed her fingertips over windows and mirrors. She stared countless minutes at a water glass before finally filling it. At restaurants she stroked tumblers and goblets as if they were human limbs. Smooth, pretty glass. Prettier when it was cracked and shattered and flung across the ground in a glittering mess. Whenever she came across a mosaic of broken glass on the sidewalk or street, she halted in her tracks, gazing as though transfixed by a work of art.

  John squired her around Manhattan which, in early December, was full of romance: ice skating at Rockefeller Center beneath the mammoth Christmas tree. The decorated store windows. The season spectacular at Radio City and Balanchine’s Nutcracker at the New York State Theater. They went up to the Bronx to see the train show at the Botanical Gardens and down to the Village for a staged reading of A Christmas Carol.

  I have a new boyfriend, Daisy thought, trying it on for size.

  “I met someone,” she told her mother. “Met again, actually.”

  “I’m kind of seeing John,” she told Lucky.

  “Kind of?” Lucky said, smiling. “What, you have one eye closed?”

  “This is my girlfriend, Daisy,” John said, introducing her to his brother.

  I told you he’d make a nice prince someday, Will wrote from Germany.

  She often got the feeling they were acting in a play. This jacket didn’t quite fit her. It was worst when she and John went out with Lucky and her boyfriend, Ed. Their relationship struck Daisy as bizarre. They lived to argue about everything and treated it as a huge joke. And then they argued about how funny it was or wasn’t. Ed got sullen if the other three talked about Lancaster. He often made rude cracks about John being a dancer, which gave Lucky a legitimate excuse to light into him.

  The double-dates were either jaw-achingly boring or excruciatingly awkward. Even lunch dates alone with Lucky felt artificial and forced to Daisy. As they talked about Ed and John, elephants named Erik and Will lounged beneath the table.

  She and John hadn’t made love yet. He stayed over a few nights a week and in her bed they took it slow, kissing and touching like teenagers. When she plummeted out of glassy nightmares, his soothing hands and voice caught her. He coaxed her to tell him about the dreams but she was embarrassed. She clung to him, hungry for physical contact, but every time she thought she was ready for sex, anxiety took hold of her and shook her senseless.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, trembling and nauseous. On more than one occasion, she sent John home so she could throw up in peace.

  “Stop apologizing,” he said. “If I were only interested in getting laid, I’d be gone by now.”

  “I feel so stupid.”

  “Then let me stay,” he said against her head, his arms a strong circle around her. “Don’t be alone and stupid. Be stupid in company, it’s much nicer.”

  SHE WONDERED IF ERIK had found someone else. The breath left her lungs in a gasp of despair and she was certain he had a new girlfriend. Daisy saw her: a California blonde, healthy and athletic. Patty. Debbie. Beth.

  Cynthia.

  She played basketball in high school, maybe even ran track. She was getting her master’s in education because she loved kids—she’d be that sunny first-grade teacher everyone wanted. Or she’d be the cool, high school drama club advisor. Erik would bring her coffee at rehearsal and help her kids build sets. She was smart, outgoing and cool. She was ten kinds of fun.

  She had pretty feet.

  Daisy clutched the edge of her kitchen counter, shoulders heaving in a jealous rage over this girl’s feet. Smooth-heeled and flawless, the nails perfectly shaped and painted red. No, pink. Pale pink. Beautiful pristine feet. Erik was holding them in his lap, marveling that a woman’s toenails could be so enticing.

  “My ex-girlfriend,” he was saying. “That dancer chick I told you about, the one who fucked me over? Man, her feet were ugly. They didn’t even look human.”

  And that blonde bitch—Tori? Liz? Ashley?—was smiling at him, holding out her suntanned, muscular arms, pulling Erik down on her. Wrapping legs around his waist and resting those pretty feet on the small of his back. She had him now. She had his body and his mouth and she was a balm for all the damage Daisy had caused. She was sliding an expert hand between their bodies, unzipping Erik’s jeans, intent on making him forget. Perhaps he’d already forgotten. He was kissing this girl and sliding his hands up her shirt like he didn’t remember anything. Daisy saw the inside of his left wrist, a blurred pink network of scar tissue where a daisy had been tattooed.

  He got rid of me.

  He cut me out.

  The sound of breaking glass shattered the vision. Daisy looked down into the sink and the wine bottle she had smashed against the steel. She picked up one of the green shards, wet with red wine and glistening with promise. Her head swelled, her body expanded. She was going to explode. If only she could forget the way Erik did. If only she could laser him out of her memory. Cut him out of her skin.

  She pressed the point of the glass into the rope of scar tissue on the inside of her calf. Tears sprang to her eyes and she bit down hard on her lower lip. Her skin resisted but finally she drew blood. Four round rubies bubbled up to the surface and then ran together. She let her breath out, panting as the drops converged into one thin river, then forked and branched down her calf to her ankle. She blinked hard, looking around the apartment. Everything seemed clearer. Brighter. Sharply outlined and focused. The breath she pulled through her nose was clean and bracing. She felt full of a tingling energy. This was the an
swer all along. So simple.

  And so stupid. The Met’s wardrobe mistress clucked her tongue in irritation at the hunk of gauze beneath Daisy’s tights. It was too conspicuous. She didn’t think it through.

  After that, she cut herself where it couldn’t be seen. A ritual developed. She lit a candle and passed the shard of green glass through the flame, charring it black and wiping it clean with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Pass. Wipe. Pass. Wipe.

  Then she cut.

  Staying away from her arms and legs and any skin visible in a leotard, she first made lines between every rib. Then radiated them out to her waist and toward the small of her back. She didn’t ruthlessly slash, but concentrated on making the cuts pretty and came to admire her skill in drawing the precise amount of blood she wanted. The cuts stung like hell when she got sweaty. In partnering class when John held her waist or supported her back in a lift, the gashes screamed in a near ecstatic release.

  She started to worship the patterned, punishing web of lines girdling her body, holding her in place as it let out the dark, one slice at a time. One anxious night, she was careless and leaned too hard on the glass. Alarmed at the amount of blood, she seized the cotton ball to staunch it. The sting of the alcohol made her cry out. It burned like fire, crawling up her side like a swarm of red ants, a hundred bee stings.

  It felt good.

  The alcohol, decanted into a pretty bottle with a cork, took its place with the glass. Soon a second little bottle with vodka joined it. A small tub of menthol, anti-itch lotion. A wooden box of salt was a satisfying metaphor. Lemon juice made her cry for ten minutes straight. Night after night, she cut and rubbed anything that stung into her wounds.

  Then she could sleep.

  THE STARS ALIGNED to give Daisy and John the same night off. She invited him to dinner and choreographed a feast: two Cornish hens each, with roasted Brussels sprouts and red grapes lashed with truffle oil. John wrinkled his nose, saying he didn’t like sprouts. Halfway through the meal, they were dueling with forks over the bowl, fighting to the death for the last caramelized leaves. They killed a bottle of wine and opened another. John twisted a candle into the empty bottle’s neck and lit it while Daisy stacked dishes and began melting squares of bittersweet chocolate for fondue.