World Enough

by Clea Simon

  It was a feasible angle, but the truth was, as the new year began, she’d already begun to look ahead of the ’zine. To look to her own future. If the compilation took off and the Whirled Shakers were willing, well, she wanted something really prime to offer the Dot. The weekly actually paid. They were the big league.

  Tara turned down Thayer and felt her rear tires skid out slightly. Winter sucked, especially in the city, where any fresh snow soon turned black with soot. At least, she reasoned as she fishtailed up the narrow street, it kept the tourists home. Up ahead, she recognized Phil’s van and the little Fiat that Katie somehow kept running. The burned-out hulk that served as a street marker was there as well, and Tara slipped ahead of it and parked, close enough to step onto the broken curb and avoid the slushy muck below.

  Min was already drunk by the time Tara mounted the stairs. Tara heard her before she saw her, that hyena bark of a laugh topping the noise of the crowd and the stereo both. She followed it across the open space, to find her friend over by the sink. The loft didn’t have a real kitchen, although some previous resident had rigged up a small electric stove and a full-sized refrigerator that looked like it hailed from the Eisenhower administration. The fridge was probably on the fritz again, Tara noted, because the sink had been filled with ice, a motley assortment of beers and a jug of wine poking through. A knife lying on the sideboard had already mauled two limes. The tequila bottle lying next to them was nearly empty.

  ‘Tara!’ Min turned toward her, wild-eyed. She was slouched against a pimply blond boy, her move throwing her deeper under his arm. ‘Have you met Billy? Billy’s the best.’

  ‘Hey.’ The boy raised his beer, a broad grin on his spotted face. He looked eighteen, at the most. ‘Marge was telling me about you.’

  ‘It’s Min.’ Beer in hand, Min pushed at the boy’s chest and left her hand there, steadying herself. ‘And I have not. Silly.’

  ‘Uh, hi.’ Tara looked around. ‘Is Frank here?’

  ‘Frank who?’ Min nearly shouting.

  That was ominous. Ever since Neela had begun spending more time with Chris, Min and Frank had become an item again – kind of. Tara knew her friend was hoping for more. Hoping for some kind of acknowledgment. She also knew that the stress of the status quo – late-night booty calls as well as Frank’s drinking – was taking its toll. Min was drunk or high more often than not these days, which probably explained why she’d ended up pregnant back in November. At least, Tara hoped it was a mistake, rather than some crude effort to trap her man. At any rate, Min had terminated it, with a few curses but no tears that Tara had seen. Not when she’d accompanied her friend to the clinic. Frank had paid for the procedure, at least. He’d done that much, although it had been Tara who sat with her that night, feeding her Advil and Scotch.

  Frank hadn’t come around since, though, as Min had admitted late one night the week before. Whether that was due to some latent attack of conscience or because of the requisite month of abstinence following the procedure, Tara didn’t want to speculate.

  This, though, was something different.

  ‘Hey, Min, want to get some air?’ Tara didn’t like the look of this boy: raw, crude, and way too young. Didn’t like the way he smiled, more of a sneer really, as he pulled her friend closer.

  ‘I don’t want air.’ She nuzzled the boy’s neck.

  ‘Come on.’ Tara reached for Min’s arm, only to have the boy pull her closer.

  ‘Lady’s made up her mind,’ he said, one hand sinking to cradle her ass. ‘She’s old enough for sure.’

  ‘Fuck off.’ Tara didn’t know where that came from. Neither did the boy, apparently. He straightened up and began to laugh.

  ‘Your dyke lover’s jealous, baby.’ This to Min as he began to unbutton her jeans. To Tara, he was more direct. ‘Fuck off, bitch.’

  ‘Fuck yourself.’ Min pushed him away. Tara would’ve liked to think that her friend was coming to her senses or even to her defense. More likely, she knew, Min had simply crossed the line, her easygoing drunk turning mean.

  ‘Crazy bitch.’ The pimply youth glared at Tara and back at Min and stalked off.

  ‘Good riddance,’ Tara muttered as she watched him go, ready to intervene if Min went after him. Her friend was looking pale, however. Sweating more than even the crowded room merited. ‘You OK?’ Tara reached for her arm to steady her.

  ‘Fuck you.’ Min pulled away and stumbled off. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘Let her go.’ Phil, from the Whirled Shakers, had come up behind Tara. Put a hand on her shoulder. ‘She’s been like this since she got here. Maybe she’ll puke or pass out finally.’

  ‘I don’t know …’ Tara, unsure whether to follow, watched her friend lurch through the crowd.

  ‘She’ll be OK,’ Phil interrupted, drawing her back. ‘There’s too many people here for her to do a Spinal Tap. Besides, we’re about to play.’

  Tara turned from the muscular singer, but Min had already disappeared – into the crowd or one of the few other rooms that had been carved out of the industrial space. With any luck, she’d have managed to get into the bathroom. Phil was right; Min would be a lot better without the belly full of whatever she had ingested. Besides, Tara told herself, she was here on assignment – if not for the Dot, not yet, then for Underground Sound. She had to look out for herself.

  Grabbing a beer, Tara made her way to the front of the room. Phil and the band had already set up, their makeshift stage a mess of jury-rigged chords.

  ‘Thanks for coming tonight.’ Phil spoke into the mike as one of his band mates turned off the music and fiddled with the PA. ‘As you know, we’ve been working on a new recording for a while now, a follow up to our hit single. But before we preview the new song, we’re going to give you what you really want to hear. So without futher ado, here it is: “I love you, baby, and that ain’t no crime!”.’

  The stage was only a corner of the room. The crowd more friends than fans, and more sloshed than sober. Phil didn’t care. He grabbed that mike stand and swung it, nearly decking Joey, who was reaching forward to untangle the wires. It was a rough start, but Joey quickly scrambled back behind his set. Grabbing his sticks, he beat out the time. ‘One, two, three, four!’ And they were off.

  ‘If we had world enough, world enough and time …’

  Phil was singing his heart out, but Tara couldn’t get into it. Some of that was the sound. The loft wasn’t made for music, and the band’s makeshift set up didn’t have the punch of the Oakie’s soundboard or even the Casbah’s, with its booming overkill. More than that, though, she couldn’t stop thinking about Min. As the crowd around her began to dance, she craned around, concerned, looking for her friend.

  ‘Hey, Gina!’ Tara shouted, unsure if she could be heard. ‘You see Min?’

  ‘’Ain’t no crime! No crime!’ Gina took Tara’s hand. Tried to draw her into the dancing.

  ‘Min!’ Tara yelled in her ear and got bonked in the nose as the other woman began to pogo.

  ‘No crime!’ The oblivious woman bounced off. Tara retreated in disgust, pausing briefly to fish an ice cube out of the sink – the remaining cans were bobbing by then – and heading into the hallway. She held it to her nose, but then let it drop, adding to the slop on the floor. If she could find Min, she’d make her leave. Take them both to IHOP, if her friend was up for it. Get some food into her. Or just home to her place, until her friend had slept it off.

  The first room was a bust. The small bedroom, partitioned off the hall with unpainted plasterboard, was full. But even though there was a sleepy call for her to close the door, Tara took her time. Stared at the bodies lying on the futon, slumped on the floor. The sticky-sweet hash smoke coiled and slid in the draft from the open door, but Tara knew there was more at work here. Still, no Min. She shut the door behind her and moved on.

  The bathroom was no go. ‘I have to pee!’ A leather-clad woman with spiked hair was banging on the door, one hand grabbing her crotch.
‘Open up!’

  ‘You know who’s in there?’ Tara asked the next woman in line, a chubby girl leaning against the wall.

  ‘One of the guys from the Exiles.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Guess he and his girlfriend made up again.’

  A gust of cold air made Tara turn. At the end of the hallway, that scrawny bartender from the Rat had opened a window. He leaned on the sash as he pissed into the alley.

  ‘Man, I envy guys sometimes,’ the chubby girl said. Tara nodded in agreement, but there was no time to talk. The open window made her nervous. Min had been so dark lately. Frank. The abortion. Hurrying back up the hall, she eyed the front room. The Whirled Shakers had moved onto the new song. The room was packed and throbbing. Hanging by the wall, she worked her way up to the door. The loft was a fire hazard but, right then, she feared worse.

  ‘Min!’ She started calling as soon as she got outside. It must have been fifteen degrees out. Colder. The loft was three stories up. ‘Min?’

  She found her one floor down. Saw her crumpled in the corner of the landing and almost cried with relief. ‘Min!’ She ran to embrace her friend. Who hadn’t jumped. Who hadn’t, it seemed, OD’d.

  But Min was bleeding. Her pink leather jacket, crumpled in her lap, was slick with blood and as Min fussed with it – reaching for a pocket, for a sleeve – the blood smeared on her hands. Spread to her face.

  ‘Min, what the fuck?’ Tara grabbed her friend’s hands, tried to make her stand. ‘Did that bastard hurt you? What happened?’

  As she pulled Min to her, she heard the clatter. The wood-handled knife, the one by the limes, fell to the floor. That was when she saw Min’s arms. She’d turned back the cuffs of her shirt to make four cuts across the underside. All were red, one was leaking blood. It dripped on Tara’s boots.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Tara didn’t wait for an answer. Pulled her own jacket off and bunched it against the wound. Looked around for something better. ‘I’m going to get you to a hospital.’

  ‘No, no hospital.’ Min shook her head, woozy but awake. ‘I can’t – no hospital.’

  ‘The hell you can’t. Hold this.’ Pressing her friend’s hand onto the balled-up leather, Tara pulled her shirt over her head. It was soft – flannel – and as Min absently dropped the jacket, Tara took her arm and wrapped the shirt around it, binding it tight to stop the bleeding.

  ‘No, really.’ Min shook her off. Started to pull back. To reach for her own jacket. ‘I – school. I have – shit. Shit on me. I can’t.’

  Tara got it. ‘What are you on, Min?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I didn’t – didn’t have the nerve.’ Min licked her lips and looked up at her friend. Her eyes seemed focused, but Tara couldn’t be sure. Those cuts.

  ‘Honest,’ Min sniffed. ‘It was stupid. Really. I didn’t – I drank too much is all. Look, the bleeding’s probably stopped.’ She held up her arm. Tara couldn’t see through the makeshift tourniquet. Then again, no blood had seeped through.

  ‘Min.’ Tara couldn’t find the words.

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’ Her friend managed a smile. It was weak, but the effort gave Tara hope. ‘Look, let’s go to my place and I’ll show you how to fix me up. Nursing 101. If you think I should go to the ER after that, I’ll go.’

  It was a plan, and Tara nodded acquiescence. Min wobbled a bit but made it down the last two flights and over to Tara’s car without help. Tara kept one eye on her, though, as she drove.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her friend’s voice was little more than breath. ‘I didn’t mean to – not like that.’

  A movement caught Tara’s eye and she glanced over to see her friend gathering up her jacket. Fiddling with the door handle.

  ‘No!’ she yelled, hitting the brakes hard. The car squealed to a stop as the passenger door swung open, and she reached for her friend, getting a handful of the pink leather Min had wadded in her lap. With surprising strength, Min jerked it free, nearly falling out the open door as she did. And as Tara slammed the car into park, Min’s body convulsed and she doubled over, spewing vomit onto the street. Reaching for her friend, Tara held her shoulders as she heaved, until finally nothing was left, and she could draw her friend back into the car.

  ‘Thanks.’ Min’s voice was barely a whisper. She raised one hand to wipe her mouth. Tara waited, unsure what to do. Reached into the street to retrieve her friend’s pink leather.

  ‘I’m OK now.’ Min’s voice was clear, if soft. She took the jacket, dirty now, and folded it into her lap. ‘Just tired.’

  ‘You pass out on me …’ The threat was clear.

  ‘Just drive, Tara.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Please, just drive.’

  An hour later, Tara was breathing easier. Min did in fact show her how to apply a butterfly bandage, which she used to close the deeper of the cuts. That Min could demonstrate this, as much as her willingness to be bandaged, seemed major.

  ‘If I’d been serious,’ said Min, beginning to sound more like herself again, ‘I’d have done something else. Something that wouldn’t hurt. I’d just float away …’

  She stopped there. Tara stared at her friend, too alarmed to ask.

  Min avoided her gaze. Stared, instead, at the chair, where her jacket – blood drying brown on the pink leather – lay crumpled. As if a silly fashion statement – ‘ironic’, indeed – held the answer. As if that thin leather armor could protect her from pain. ‘Besides, if I’d meant it, I’d have sliced up the arm,’ she said at last, looking down. Drawing her finger along the vein to illustrate. ‘See?’

  ‘Great.’ Tara slumped back on the sofa, exhaustion taking hold. She dozed, she must have. When she opened her eyes, Min was gone. ‘Min?’ Panic rising in her throat.

  ‘In here.’

  The voice, from the bathroom, sounded normal. Sounded like Min. And anger began to replace the fear, the fatigue. Tara turned on her friend, barking at the door. ‘What the fuck were you thinking of, anyway?’

  ‘Hang on.’ The sound of running water. ‘I’m sorry about your shirt, Tara. If I can’t get it clean …’

  Her voice died out, and Tara jumped up. Pushed the door wide to find her friend leaning over the sink. The tap running cold. ‘Don’t worry about the shirt,’ she said, reaching to turn the water off. Min’s head was hanging down, but Tara didn’t think she saw the flannel, or the water turned red. A drop broke the surface. Min was crying.

  ‘Min, what happened?’ Tara’s fury dissipated as quickly as that drop. She put an arm around her friend, waiting. She didn’t – couldn’t – understand.

  ‘Frank.’ The one word, sobbed, explained everything. But Min wasn’t done. ‘He’s proposed. He wants Neela to marry him.’

  ‘But …’ Tara shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Neela’s with Chris now.’ It wasn’t the answer Min would want. Then again, it was the one she’d been living with – making a life around – for months by then.

  ‘He doesn’t … he doesn’t care.’ Min began weeping in earnest, her body heaving for breath. ‘I’d do anything for him. Anything.’ She broke off, unable to talk. ‘He wants … he wants to marry her.’

  It still wasn’t making sense, and as Min’s sobs grew more violent, Tara realized there was more to come. ‘Min? Honey?’ She held her friend as her body shook.

  ‘She’s pregnant.’ Min heaved out the words. The ones that hurt her most. ‘She’s pregnant, Tara. And she’s going to keep the baby.’

  FIFTEEN

  She calls Min while she waits. There’s no one else, really, who will understand. Not that her old friend is particularly sympathetic.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Min sounds busy. Tara shouldn’t have called. But she can’t shake the fear that her call, the pending interview, is what pushed Neela to try to take her own life. ‘She’d do herself in because of City?’

  ‘Well, it had to dredge up a lot of old stuff.’ Tara isn’t trying to justify herself – or inflate the importance of the glossy monthly. She feels culpable.
‘And I know we’d end up talking about Frank. Frank and Chris both.’

  She bites her lip. It was wrong to call the widow so soon. To get her thinking about her relationship with her husband. About how badly she treated him, back when things were still new.

  ‘Oh, come on. She’d have loved it. Those were her glory days.’ Silence. Tara can’t argue. ‘Besides,’ Min picks up again, ‘it was only a matter of time.’ Tara can hear the rasp of smoke in her voice.

  ‘Min.’ Tara closes her eyes. Her head has begun to throb.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Min has the grace to sound embarrassed. ‘But that girl was always looking for oblivion, one way or the other.’

  ‘She’s not …’ Tara stops herself. Not a girl, she had been going to say. Not the golden dancer, the wild child. Not anymore. ‘Not an addict,’ she says finally.

  ‘Abstinence is the flip side of addiction.’ Min sounds like one of the posters on the waiting room wall. Mika has gone in to be with Neela, leaving Tara out here, alone. Middle of the day on a Sunday, and the ER is quiet. Even the TV, high in its wall mount, is set on mute. Then again, in a suburban hospital like this, maybe it’s always quiet.

  ‘Oh, come on.’ It’s been a stressful morning. Stressful weekend, come to think of it, and Tara is in no mood. ‘Her husband was the one in AA.’ She speaks without thinking – without considering. Husband is one of those words for Min. ‘I mean, she was just supporting Frank.’

  It won’t help. She knows that. Tries another tack. ‘And, I mean, we were all a bit wild, back in the day.’

  Does Min even remember that night? Could she have been drunk or high enough that she didn’t even recall the blood, the way they talked until dawn. The fact that she had had to wear long sleeves to her nursing classes for almost a month? Min nearly got kicked out of the program, Tara recalls, though that might have been more about the drugs than the suicide attempt. Something had gone missing, she remembers. Someone had pointed to Min.

  ‘A lot of fuss over very little,’ Min had said at the time – Tara had been worried – and nothing was ever proved. As if that would make it right.