Learned that lesson, Garth thinks to himself. Elegant is sexy. Trampy is for teenage girls and nightclub transvestites.
Without trying it on, Garth can see this gown will be fitted at the waist but the seams on either side of the midsection will draw the eye vertically for a slimming effect. It has an asymmetrical hemline, starting at the left knee and plunging to the right ankle.
Garth lays the dress flat on the bed and runs his fingertips over it to smooth the fabric flat. He turns his attention to the shoes. They are a mesmerizing black, a black so pure and smooth that he feels he could almost fall weightless into them. They have enclosed toes because Garth does not like the look of his toes. They are too workman and look like a bunch of hairy-knuckled clubs. The shoes are a strappy number, which will accentuate his ankles. Of all things, Garth feels he has beautiful ankles. He thinks there are too few manufacturers that make strappy numbers in men’s size twelve, so he had Floria find a pair through her connections in the industry.
Nobody knows Garth’s secret. He has held it close because it’s hard to put into words. The drapes are always drawn across the windows, and the door is always locked, and at the end of each night, his gowns and shoes are always returned to their hiding place, hanging on hooks behind his clean work clothes. Garth knows what people would think of him. He reads the newspapers and hears the television preachers. He hears the guys talking at the construction site and always thinks, It isn’t that simple. But it seems his needs are always summarized into bigoted sound bites and superficial judgments.
And so Garth hides and has felt a ravenous loneliness fester inside him for years. Nobody has ever met the real Garth, the one out of his overalls and hard hat. Sometimes he sinks so low, he cries for very little reason. There’s one insurance commercial that gets him every time; the husband dies and doesn’t even have coverage to pay for the funeral cost. Garth has always wallowed in his secrecy and has never once argued the innocence of what he needs, how the perversion most people see is only a mass affliction of past ideals.
Garth has only ever wanted to feel pretty. He doesn’t want to be a woman nor does he care to impersonate one. He just wants to feel beautiful like one. Even as a kid, he didn’t regret being born a boy nor did he regret later growing into a man. He has always been happy with his penis, just not always what it’s attached to. He has suffered body-image issues, thinking that he could always be slimmer and taller and curved in different places. Over time, Garth has grown to accept his body hair and muscular arms. He is even fine with his thick facial hair and how he grows a five o’clock shadow by eleven in the morning whenever he shaves. He has never resented not being a woman and has never resented women because he is a man. No, he admires them for their grace. Their beauty and strength are so much subtler than his that, at times, his admiration turns to self-consciousness.
Garth bustles into the bathroom. He strips and trims. He showers and powders. He watches his blurry body jiggle in the steamy bathroom mirror as he brushes his teeth. The glum loneliness that he felt in the stairwell has begun to lift because this evening, he is going to do something to change it. No longer will he cry at that insurance commercial.
He’s positively charged with the possibility of effecting this change.
Loneliness is a symptom of the cowardly and meek. Garth rallies and then spits a gob of toothpaste into the sink. His aim is off, and half of the minty spout hits the faucet with a flat splat.
But no more, he thinks. I will soon be revealed.
33
In Which the Tripod Petunia Delilah Finally Reaches Apartment 805 and Realizes She Has No Plan B
The boy isn’t that heavy, Petunia Delilah thinks and glances back at him. Good thing he’s just a little guy.
She has him grasped by one ankle and drags him behind her. He slides and stops, keeping pace with Petunia Delilah’s staggering gait. He lies on his back, his limp arms trail above his head, and his hair stands on end. A halo of fine strands floats in the air from the static buildup. The boy’s other leg, the one not in Petunia Delilah’s grasp, flops out to one side, bent at the knee and again at the waist. It’s kept in check by the wall. The whole posture makes the boy look like a rag doll freeze-framed, falling from a great height.
Petunia Delilah grimaces and grits her teeth with her purpose. That and a weak contraction tweak her body for several seconds so she has to concentrate on letting it pass.
The leg between her legs twitches. Mere minutes ago, this was a cause for tears and panic. Now, her perception of this extra limb has changed. She doesn’t stop to marvel how her thoughts have shifted so quickly and completely from utter fear of her predicament to drive for survival through her sheer force of will. They will all get through this. She will make it happen.
Alive and kicking, she thinks. That’s a good sign. Keep it up, baby.
Kimmy’s voice pops into her mind. “Giving a natural birth to your baby is a beautiful experience,” it chirps. “Women have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years without modern medicine. It’s a wonderful milestone for your body, something you won’t want to miss the full experience of because you’re sedated and all whooped up on opioids. It’s a blessing from nature. It’s a marvel, the body unified by a single cause, working wholly in such a beautiful act. Your mind can overcome any discomfort with the right training and focus.” Then she adds a perky “Thoughts become things.”
“I’ll punch you in the throat,” Petunia Delilah murmurs to the hallway. “Next time I see you, Kimmy, that’s what I’ll do,” she grumbles as she huffs and sweats the few remaining painful and exhausting steps to Apartment 804’s door.
Thoughts become things.
A peculiar feeling crosses her mind, one urging her to leave the door and move on to the next one. The first thing she notices is the number four is missing from the door. In its absence, there are two screw holes and a darker patch of paint in the ghostly shape of a four. The doorjamb near the handle is gouged and splintered, like someone forced it open at some point. There’s a tarry black smear on the door handle and plenty of scratches in the paint around it.
A cough sounds from inside, and a chemical smell grows stronger as she approaches. It’s a sharp, acidic smell that makes her wince. There’s a grinding drone of some toneless, beat-heavy dance music.
She raises her arm to knock on the door, but another phlegmy cough from inside stays it in midair. She stands, arm raised and knuckles a few inches from the wood. There’s something off about the place. The battered door, the missing number, the smell, the sickly hacking coming from inside, all foster a feeling that Apartment 804 is best left alone.
There’s another racking cough from behind the door and a loud thump. It sounds closer than the previous ones. As if whoever is in there has moved closer to the door. A shadow forms in the light coming through the crack at the bottom of the door.
Petunia Delilah lets her arm drop. She averts her eyes from the spy hole and takes a small, shuffling step backward. She bumps into the kid on the floor and stops still.
“Come on, little unconscious kid,” Petunia Delilah says quietly to the boy on the floor. “I don’t think this is the one to help us.”
She moves on, breathing heavily, the sound of it rasping in her ears.
One foot, the other foot, then back to the first one. Steps last for miles, and seconds take painful hours.
Apartment 805. It’s not too far away. It has to be this next one, Petunia Delilah thinks, because I don’t think I can make it to 806.
Thoughts become things.
The boy gets heavier with each step. He seems to gain weight, and the floor he slides across becomes tackier, holding him a little more persistently with every step she takes. Her legs burn with the effort, and her back seizes with pain. She can’t think of a time when she felt more spent. Exhaustion begs her to lie down next to the boy and rest for a few minutes, but she knows she won’t get up again if she complies. Her baby would die and maybe she would too.<
br />
Even so, Petunia Delilah feels like laughing. As she approaches Apartment 805, she hears the familiar strains of “Help Me, Rhonda” coming through the door. A course of elation works its way through her tired body. She leans beside the door and rests a hand on her knee, bending forward to relieve the pain tugging at her back.
Someone’s home, she thinks giddily and looks at the boy for a moment. I can smell food cooking. Finally, someone who can help.
“I found us help, little unconscious kid,” she tells him and knocks on the door. “Everything will be okay now. With a little luck, this person will have some fucking ice cream sandwiches for both of us when this is all over.”
There’s no answer.
The song plays on.
Petunia Delilah waits a moment, catching her breath. Maybe whoever’s there didn’t hear the knock over the sounds of the Beach Boys.
She pounds on the door again, with more force. It rattles in the frame.
“I need help,” she tells the door. Her voice comes out cracked and strained. “Please, I need help. I’m having a baby and there’s this kid who collapsed and he needs help too. Please open the door,” she pleads. “Please.”
Sweat trickles down the bridge of her nose, pools into a trembling drop, which then falls to the carpet. She knows she has no energy left to make it to the next apartment. It has to be this door or nothing. There is no plan B.
Petunia Delilah focuses on the dark, wet dot on the carpet for a moment and strains to hear anything apart from the Beach Boys, anything that might confirm someone is there on the other side of the door. She doesn’t hear anything. It’s possible someone left the music on, but it’s unlikely that someone left something baking in the oven unattended.
Anger boils up in her. She knows someone is there. There has to be.
Why won’t you help us? she thinks. Then she resolves: You are going to help us.
“I know someone is in there,” she shouts and swings her fist against the door as hard as she can. It jumps against the frame. “I can hear your music and I can smell your fucking baking now help me.”
Petunia Delilah hits the door again.
I’m coming through this door one way or another, she thinks.
“I can’t” comes a reply, mousy and barely audible.
Petunia Delilah looks at the spy hole.
You’re fucking kidding me, she thinks.
“What?” she snaps and then checks her aggression, calming it with a deep breath. “Could you please open the door? I need help. My name’s Petunia Delilah and I’m having a baby and there’s this passed-out kid I found down the hall.”
“I can’t.” The voice is small behind the door. “I want to help you, but I really can’t. I can’t open the door. It’s this … thing I have. It’s hard to explain.”
34
In Which Claire the Shut-In Comes to Terms with Losing Her Job at the PartyBox and Is Then Disrupted by an Urgent Pounding on Her Door
“That’s just great,” Claire says and clicks Gabby’s email closed.
She empties the wineglass, slams the monitor of the laptop shut for good measure, and then drums her fingers on top of it.
One of the problems with being aggressively introverted is that the job market is quite limited. There aren’t so many work-from-home jobs for a middle-aged woman with a college diploma in Theoretical Human Anatomy with a minor in Managerial Accounting for Non-Accountants. The last time she looked, this was it. The PartyBox. She was happy to sign on with Gabby and her burgeoning business, and now this: outsourced and unemployed.
Claire inhales the aromas floating around the apartment, once so comforting and now seemingly a bit less substantial. The quiche will be amazing and the night will be quiet, she thinks. She’s looking forward to watching the news with a steaming slice and forgetting all about the PartyBox. Then, once the anchorman says good evening, she’ll close the curtains as the sun goes down. She’s looking forward to having a shower, putting on a clean housecoat, curling up under the tassel of her reading lamp, and putting a dent in the new copy of To Kill a Mockingbird that arrived in the mail the other day. She had disposed of her old copy because she was sure it was the cause of the musty smell her apartment had acquired after she read the last word. It’s her fifth new copy because that smell seems to pervade her apartment every time she finishes it.
She can’t wait to forget the strange phone call and the PartyBox and just read until she drifts off to sleep.
Tomorrow is for starting the job search, she thinks. Tomorrow is for replying to the email and getting the number for the placement company Gabby offered.
Tomorrow is for worry, but tonight, she resolves, is for tonight.
She turns on the oven light and checks on her creation again. Seventeen minutes left according to the stove timer, counting the time backward even though time has continued its unidirectional march forward. Claire guesses it’s a matter of perspective. The top of the quiche is starting to brown, and tiny bubbles rise through the mixture slowly, getting caught in the newly gelatinous texture. She nods, dons a pair of yellow rubber gloves from a package, and does the dishes. Then she puts the mixing bowl and cutlery in the dishwasher, adds the detergent, dumps in a cup of white vinegar, and turns it on. She sprays down the counters again with a mild bleach solution followed by a disinfectant wipe pulled from a single sheet package. Then, another. Then a final wipe with the paper towel and it’s good until the following morning.
Claire pulls one glove off, turning it inside out as it slides from her hand. She revels in the smooth feeling from the delicate frosting of powder that lines the inside. To her it’s like the finest silk against her skin. Then she bundles the glove, the disinfectant wipes, and their packages in the other hand and pulls that glove off, inside out, making a satisfying, tidy, and entirely sanitary bundle of refuse. She drops the bolus into the garbage can and rubs her hands together.
Tomorrow is for worry, but tonight, she thinks, is for tonight.
She stands, the apartment quiet save for the occasional arrhythmic tick from the oven.
It’s too quiet for a Friday afternoon, she thinks.
If she strains, she can hear the neighbor in the next apartment over. She thinks she recognizes the song playing but then becomes unsure when the beat takes an unexpected turn. The occasional horn bleats from outside, down on Roxy, but it only sounds once in a while.
She glances at the countertop radio and flicks it on. “Help Me, Rhonda” pours out of the speakers. Claire feels warmth start to spread through her again. She can’t tell whether it’s the wine—how much did I have anyway?—or the routine of a wonderful Friday night, the quiche and the music and the aromas filling her apartment.
She looks around, considers closing the blinds early, then decides against it. The sunlight is lovely. She dances. Her hips sway and her steps twirl her through the kitchen and into the living room. She raises her arms above her head and sways her body and spins it around, her legs and hips corkscrewing elegantly. She smiles and she sings, dancing her way through the warm smells of the quiche baking, and forgets all the day. She feels safe and at peace.
Tonight is for tonight.
There’s an urgent pounding on the apartment door. Claire jumps at the noise and then freezes in midtwirl. She waits, staring at the door, her heart thrumming and her mind trying to convince her, logically, that she hadn’t heard a thing.
The pounding sounds again.
What is it? Claire’s heart skips into a panicked rhythm to match it. Is it the man from the front door coming to get me? Her body tenses. Her pulse rushes in her ears. Did he manage to get into the building?
“I need help.” A woman’s voice on the other side of the door. It’s hoarse and strained and all too close. “Please, I need help. I’m having a baby and there’s this kid who collapsed and he needs help too. Please open the door. Please.”
Perhaps if I stay still and quiet they will go away, Claire thinks. She slowly lowers her arm
s and takes a creeping step in the direction of the door.
Cheerily, “Help me, Rhonda. Help, help me, Rhonda.”
“I know someone is in there,” the voice comes. There is a single bang from the door. It jumps against the frame. “I can hear your music and I can smell your fucking baking now help me.”
Claire crosses her apartment on tiptoes, her arms held out defensively in front of her. Even the sound of her clothes moving seems too loud. Her hands are the first things to reach the door, her fingertips touching the cool paint. Claire leans in and sees a fish-eye forehead through the peephole. Claire jumps back a step. Another thump on the door unleashes a shock wave through the wood and into her palms.
“I can’t,” she says, wanting her voice to be strong, but it’s weak and trembling. She steps up to the door again and peers through the peephole. A woman looks directly at her. They stare each other in the eye. Claire wants to shy away but doesn’t. The woman looks a mess: shambolic hair, glistening forehead, and a bright-red shiny face. The woman also looks honest and kind, a face that would be transparent, unable to be devious in any way even if she was to try.
“What?” she says. Claire watches her lips move in keeping with her voice but more entrancing. Her face falls and her shoulders slump. “Could you please open the door? I need help. My name’s Petunia Delilah and I’m having a baby and there’s this passed-out kid I found down the hall.”
“I can’t,” Claire says again. This time her voice finds a bit more strength. “I want to help you, but I really can’t. I can’t open the door. It’s this … thing I have. It’s hard to explain.”
Fishbowl: A Novel Page 15