The Gulf

by Belle Boggs

  “What else do you talk about? That can’t be all.”

  “Well,” Eric said, running one hand through his appealingly scruffy hair. “She’s a marketing strategist, and she has ideas for my career.”

  “Your career,” Marianne said. “Like, maybe your next book should be choose-your-own-adventure, or—no—maybe you need to write Jesus into the next one. Definitely.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Eric, are you really saying you are going to take career advice from a Christian diploma mill creator? Seriously? Advice about writing?”

  Eric stood, in a hurt but dignified way, and made for the door. “She’s a fan of my work, if you want to know. She had a copy of Copper Creek. She’s read it. She had ideas for finding other people to read it, studio people, and isn’t that the point? Getting other people to read your work?”

  Marianne thought. It had been so long since she’d published a poem or even sent out any submissions that she wasn’t sure why she’d written them or why she kept writing them. This was something they’d never agreed on—the point and purpose of writing, the end goal—and she’d always assumed it was because for Eric, he might actually make a living from his books. But maybe the difference was bigger than that. “I don’t know,” she said. But Eric was gone, and through the hedge Marianne could see that Tom was gone, too, leaving the enormous gray shark raft spinning slowly in the pool.

  There was little to learn from the manuscripts, each neatly enclosed in a large manila envelope, bearing postmarks from towns in Florida but also Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Virginia, even California, and promising new variations on crazy or needy. How did she have so many more to read? How was it that time again?

  And what did Eric mean when he said he thought she wasn’t interested in marriage or a family? Did it not occur to him that maybe she had not met the right person at the right time in her life? That she had things to do first, before she thought of that?

  Did he not realize that it had always been her plan, in fact, to marry him?

  Marianne took a stack of grubby manuscripts to Davonte’s room. Somewhere she’d read that distasteful tasks were better accomplished in company. And it was also true, at least in a superficial, gold record, number-one-hit-song way, that Davonte knew something about heartbreak. That was the subject of half the songs on his first album—heartbroken pleas to be taken seriously by the woman he loved. Her favorite song on that album, “Don’t It Hurt?,” was addressed to a lover after a long break in their relationship, about both people feeling that they had wasted their best years apart.

  He did not answer the door to gentle knocking, did not respond to polite calls of “Donald? Hello?” Marianne thought of leaving him be, catching up with him at dinner, but remembered that she had to go out to pick up more frozen dinners for him, and also some new running-shoe laces that were stretchy, but not too stretchy, and not in any girly colors. She pounded harder.

  “Davonte! Davonte Gold! Open up!”

  Calling him by his stage name was the best way, Marianne had found, to get a response from Davonte. It triggered some kind of Pavlovian response in him, some need to perform and be recognized for that performance. She heard the loud television muted or turned off, the sound of his feet hitting the carpet, footsteps padding to the door, then nothing. Presumably he was peeping at her through the tiny eyehole, deciding whether to let her in or not. Finally the door opened, just a crack. She could smell incense and marijuana.

  “What’s up?”

  “Davonte, I’m in a bad way,” Marianne said, holding the manuscripts against her chest. “Please let me in.”

  He opened the door just wide enough for her to squeeze through. Marianne was surprised by the tidiness of his room—his suitcase stood empty on the luggage rack, his shirts all hung up in the open closet, his shorts and pants clipped neatly behind them. On the vanity, she saw that his toiletries were lined up. The just-muted television showed vigilant meerkats on the lookout for danger.

  She flopped on the double bed closest to the bathroom and sink, setting the pages on the nightstand. Both beds had already been made up, even though she knew the maid had not been by today. Davonte told her that his life coach had encouraged him to do things that reminded him of a certain time in his life, before things had gotten so messed up for him. This included making his own bed—his mother would not abide an unmade bed in her house—but not doing his own food or sundries shopping. “You know you’re not supposed to smoke in here.”

  “You can’t burn incense?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I was about to go for a run. You want to come running with me?”

  “Ugh, no,” said Marianne. “I only run when something is chasing me.”

  “You want me to chase you?”

  “Even then, I don’t run very fast. I want to ask you about something.” Marianne drew a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, hoping the room might provide a subtle contact high. “Do you think I am obviously someone who does not want normal, wholesome things?”

  Davonte backed slowly toward the door. “I don’t really know you that well, Marianne. I can tell you that I am moving more in the direction of normal things myself, and it’s a hard road. But running helps, and so does eating a starvation-level diet. It makes you too tired to want those other things, as fine as those other things might be at the time you are having them. Coach says what you need to do is picture yourself after the food binge, after the partying, after intercourse. He says you need to put yourself in that shame place first.”

  “No,” said Marianne. “I’m not giving you some kind of sexual signal here. I’m asking if you think it seems like I don’t want to get married and have a family.”

  Davonte sat on the other bed. Marianne hoped he looked slightly disappointed, but it was hard to tell. His tightly braided cornrows gave his face an earnest, youthful look, and it was easy to read whatever emotion you might seek there. “How am I supposed to know if you want that?”

  “Eric said he thought I didn’t. But he never asked me!”

  “I’m sorry, Marianne,” Davonte said. “But I just woke up from my siesta. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He found the remote and unmuted the television, then turned the sound way down. The British narrator was talking about the way meerkats care for their young. “They’re called kittens. I love that,” he said. “I want one.”

  “I thought you wanted a parrot. To keep yourself from cussing.”

  “Yeah, a meerkat and a green parrot. And a fox. I heard you could tame foxes, keep ’em in a little crate like a dog.” He lay back on his neatly arranged pillows, scuffed off his shoes.

  “Davonte, can I ask you something?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you want to get married? Have a family?”

  “All things in good time, Marianne,” he said, drawing one knee to his chest, then the other, in a deep stretch. “But I think I told you that I don’t like you that way, or at least I tried to indicate it.”

  “Not to me, damn it.”

  “Well, then, yes, I suppose. It’s kind of hard to picture at this point in my life,” he said, sitting up and gesturing at the room. “In fact, it is very hard to picture. I don’t think I could take care of a fox right now, as a matter of fact.” He lay back again, pillowing his hands behind his head.

  “I don’t think you could either.”

  Davonte began doing some kind of ab move, lifting his legs and holding them straight in the air, then lowering them down to the bed. “But because I am a man, and internationally famous, I don’t have to worry about it. I’m lucky I’m not already divorced,” he said, steadily raising and lowering his legs. “This is called a pike crunch, Marianne. If you’re not gonna go jogging, you might as well do some abdominal work.”

  “My abs are naturally good,” said Marianne. “Not like yours used to be, but they’re pretty good.”

  “If your abs are already naturally good,” Davonte said, “there’
s no reason they can’t be great. That’s what your man Eric says about my book. It’s a good story, and because of who I am I can probably publish it, but why not make it great? Why not win an award? That’s the same thing as your abs. They could probably be in one of those yogurt commercials for middle-aged white ladies, but why not try for Sports Illustrated?”

  Marianne lifted her shirt and looked at her pale, reasonably flat stomach. “You think my abs could be in Sports Illustrated?”

  “I said they could be in a yogurt commercial,” said Davonte. He changed his move to one that crisscrossed the legs. “This is called a scissors crunch.”

  Marianne began scissoring her legs and found that the exercise quickly became difficult. “So, you think it isn’t important to worry about getting married right away?”

  “Not for me,” he said. “I’m a man. But if you want to get married, and you want some kind of regular marriage, with kids and all that, you have to hustle a little.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How old are you?”

  She blushed, then lied: “Thirty-two.” She corrected herself: “Thirty-four.”

  “My mom had me when she was twenty-two. You could be my mom.”

  “You’re not twelve, Davonte. No matter how helpless you act.” Marianne was still scissoring.

  “But I could be.” Marianne wondered if he was still high. “Imagine me, a twelve-year-old you have to take to tae kwon do, to school, to soccer practice. You have to feed me macaroni and cheese on a special plate, with a special spoon, and you have to make me do my homework every night. Is that what you want?”

  “How is that any different—”

  “Every night. Every day. Eighteen years.”

  Marianne thought about it. Taking care of other people was certainly annoying and time-consuming, as the past two weeks had demonstrated. “Not really.”

  “See, but it is what our man Eric wants. He already knows he wants it. He’s always wanted it. This is a reverse crunch.” He began a new move, thrusting his hips toward the ceiling.

  “So, you’re saying we’re not meant to be together anyway.”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m just saying you don’t want the same things.”

  “What about that woman? Regina Somers?”

  Davonte whistled, still thrusting. “She’s kind of hot, if you like white women.”

  “Ugh,” Marianne said. She could not bring herself to do the new move and instead continued scissoring. “Why does everyone keep saying that? What makes her so hot?”

  “Do you really want me to tell you?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Eric is going on a date with her. I guess you were there for the first sparks. Maybe you can sing at their wedding.”

  “I don’t do weddings, Marianne,” Davonte said.

  “I always thought we were meant to be. Like, when I first met Eric, he was this earnest guy from North Carolina, and we were around all these bullshitters—excuse me—these privileged writers, and we were the ones who saw through it.”

  Davonte went back to crunches. She wasn’t sure if he was paying attention, but continued: “Not that I wanted to marry him or anything, not right away.”

  “Right,” Davonte said. He wasn’t crunching anymore, but was hugging his knees to his chest. “That would be the normal, wholesome stuff?”

  “Maybe I do want those things,” Marianne said.

  Davonte was sitting up again, lacing up his shoes. “Let me ask you this,” he said. “How long do you think you have to decide?”

  As if to prove his point, Davonte did not wait for her to answer. The door closed neatly behind him, and Marianne could hear gravel crunching softly as he jogged away, toward the beach.

  Marianne got up to follow him, but found that her legs and abdominal muscles were very sore. Next to the dresser, sitting on the floor beside an endless line of fluorescently soled Nike sneakers, she found, as if it were just another mode of transport, a small pipe, a bag of weed, and some rolling papers. On television, the meerkats were still standing at attention, their short arms resting at their sides, and Marianne felt as if they were keeping watch for her as she rolled a joint, somewhat inexpertly, and lit it with a Bic lighter she found in one of his shoes.

  She lay down again, toking Davonte Gold’s very strong weed, and reached out to feel the surface of the satiny bedspread with her exquisitely sensitive fingertips. It had been quilted in a diamond pattern with a strong thread that looked like fishing line, and Marianne wondered how this bedspread, which was the same as the bedspreads in all the other rooms, had been chosen, and how long ago that was, and how often it had been washed. It was a bedspread that had been made to last a very long time, and she suddenly appreciated its sturdy ugliness. Marianne lay still and concentrated on feeling its deep seams beneath her legs, her back, her shoulders. On the ceiling was a stain that no one had bothered to spackle or paint over. It looked like a bear slumped over a trash can it was eating from. Marianne could see its black bear mouth and black bear nose.

  How long did she have, if she wanted the things Eric had so rashly and unfairly accused her of not wanting? Two years? Five? Seven—a very, very generous seven years? Certainly if she turned forty and continued to live alone in underfurnished apartments or semiabandoned converted motel rooms, she would have a harder time finding someone who would pledge his troth to her. That was a long time from now, and also a short time. It would be here any minute! Marianne thought, and she smoked the joint down to her fingers. How terrible it was, and how soon. She had known men, on the other hand, who amassed very few goods or skills or real estate and nevertheless managed to marry and procreate long after they were forty. Eric could restart his career a half dozen more times, could lose his hair and get paunchy, and someone would still find it feasible to start a life with him.

  Let’s say she decided tomorrow, forgave Eric for being a man, professed her love to him, married him, moved back with him to Charlotte. Perhaps the school where he’d worked would hire him again, and maybe they’d also hire Marianne. Maybe even the house that Eric had owned and somewhat fixed up would be back on the market, and with their two jobs they could qualify for a mortgage and buy it again. Maybe he still had the mixer she’d given him. Maybe she’d bake him a cake, take walks with him through their leafy neighborhood, wave to the neighbors, get a dog from the pound. She tried to picture the child they would have, after suitable time practicing with the scruffy obedient dog; she pictured a hairless baby dressed in yellow. She would have to give up poetry in order to take care of the baby—at least for a while—but it would reappear in her life in other forms: the poetry of a washer and dryer in the house, the ordinary, honest poetry of garage door openers and chrome mixers and public television. The poetry of bedtimes and bath times and Play-Doh smells, of Mother Goose and Goodnight Moon.

  But perhaps it was too late already, and her suitability as a partner and mother had already expired, like the planet’s chances of surviving global warming. Nothing else to do but sit and wait for the end, stockpile stores of food and ammunition, figure out how to live off the grid. She’d grow her hair longer and grayer, drink gin and tonics that were all gin and no tonic, spend so much time alone that she lost all sense of appropriate party conversation. She’d stop being invited out other than on the holidays, when she would wear the same tatty clothes she wore now, except it would be many years from now. And unless she somehow (soon!) won the Yale Younger Poets prize or another prestigious and unlikely award, she would not even have Lorraine’s opportunities, to fly around the country, filling in or teaching in disreputable programs like this one, collecting a steady accumulation of Delta miles.

  Her best option—her only option—was here. The Genesis Inspirational Writing Ranch, the world’s first and only low-residency Christian writing school, home of Eric, home of Marianne, home of the ugly bear list.

  Part

  Three

  12

  In the last year of her mother’s
life, when Marianne was seventeen and Ruth was five, Theresa Stuart’s line changed. She’d given up painting entirely—the smell of linseed oil and turpentine made her nausea worse—and an illustration style that had been exuberant, detailed, sprawling became spare, as if the line itself were conscious of a finite amount of ink or energy. The line was more fluid, but it took up less space. No more cross-hatching or stippling, those skills her Art I and II students applied clumsily to glass bottles and pewter Confederate-themed belt buckles and deceptively hard to draw deer antlers. Instead she set the pen (never now the erasable, impermanent pencil) on smooth paper and did not pick it up again until the small scene was complete. A lamp on an occasional table. A silver teaspoon resting on a napkin. A mason jar on the kitchen counter. It didn’t take much, she told her students, to get your point across. Look how a single line becomes something recognizable—a hand, a sleeping cat, a face.

  Marianne’s father thought Theresa should stop teaching entirely, as it was never, after all, her life’s true goal or purpose. But it’s hard to reconnect with your true goal and purpose after drifting so far away from it—especially when you have only so much time left, maybe six or eight months, maybe a year. She kept her advanced afternoon class, Art IV, a small group of serious students, mostly girls, which included Marianne, not a talented artist but a talented something, Theresa was always reassuring her. She spent mornings in appointments or chemotherapy, but could be home in time to rest, change, and head to the elementary school, where she took lunch to Ruth and sat with her while she ate it.

  It was in chemotherapy that she developed the new style of drawing, which began with a one-handed sketch of an IV infusion pole. The first time she had cancer she’d been pregnant, and she hadn’t had chemo then—she’d had the cancer cut out. They watched and waited, then the cancer returned, like a stick the doctors didn’t realize was boomerang-shaped, and now she knew the IV pole well, knew waiting rooms, pathology reports, the smarting port. She knew recipes for several marijuana-infused baked goods.