The Innocent

by Candice Raquel Lee

  “You know what I mean. He’ll leave you.”

  “Don’t worry. He loves me. He told me so. And I believe him.”

  “I do,” Cristien whispered. I didn’t want him to think that he had to defend himself like this.

  “Of course he’s going to tell you he loves you. They all say that,” my mother snapped.

  Cristien threw his arms up in the air. He got up and started pacing his living room.

  That was it. That was all I could take. “See you Friday.”

  “Aliyah?”

  “I’m tired. I’ve been studying too hard. I need rest.”

  “All right,” she said, doubtfully.

  I straightened up. “Oh, and you don’t have to pick me up at the bus stop this Friday. Cristien will be dropping me off at the house.”

  “Cristien?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He’s not Jewish, and I don’t care. Take that! “Good night.”

  “Oy, Gott in himmel!” she said before I hung up.

  Cristien came back to me. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Yes. And she’s going to choke on my ring.”

  The next day, Cristien drove me home. I left the dorm for what would be my last time as a single young woman. I saw the little old lady wrapped up in a blanket walking by. The same one I had seen the first night we had met.

  “What a beautiful couple,” she said.

  Cristien was tugging at his wallet while I grabbed all the bills I had and pressed them into the old woman’s hand. I might never see her again. It was the first time I had touched her soft dark hand. She met my gaze, and I saw a bright white light flow from her eyes and smiling mouth before she turned and wandered away.

  “Did you see that?” I asked Cristien.

  “Yes, it’s a shame,” he said.

  I got in the car beside him, then turned in my seat as he drove away to watch the old woman and my dorm fade from my view. We left Manhattan and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.

  We went from skyscrapers, crowded skylines, and busy streets to rows of squat houses, squat stores with some trees dotting the cement-scape and busy streets. Brooklyn was the shorter, more homely cousin of Manhattan. Anyway, I was scared shitless all the way home.

  “You think I should ask your mother for your hand in marriage?” Cristien joked.

  “Only if you want her to cut it off and give it to you.”

  “Oddly, I wouldn’t put it past her,” he said, and we drove on in silence.

  My mother was putting out the garbage when I came home. How romantic. Cristien parked in front of our house. She did not even glance up at us, so I knew she saw us. I got out.

  “Hey, Ima,” I said, opening the front gate.

  “Hello.”

  “I have something I want to show you,” I told her.

  “Do you?” she glanced over her shoulder with an arched brow.

  I put out my hand. The ring caught the sunlight, amplified it a thousand times, then stone-cold blinded her. She blinked incredulously, and then she started to gush. She pulled the ring closer to examine it. I was lucky she didn’t get a jeweler’s glass.

  “It’s real?” she asked me.

  “Yes.” I said, and when she looked like she still didn’t believe me, I added, “It cuts glass.”

  “Where is he?” she cried out. “Where is my son-in-law?”

  He stepped out the car and introduced himself. She met Cristien and immediately loved him more than she ever loved me. She called him her son and invited him in. She led him up the steps to our house. She made him sit on our dumpy paisley couch, the one near the drafty bow window. I sat next to him though I was uninvited.

  When he walked in, I could see every wall crack and curl of peeling beige paint. The maroon carpet than ran up the stairs looked tattered. The walls were dingy, the blue curtains threadbare, and there were dead bugs in the ceiling light.

  I was suddenly embarrassed by my poverty. Then my mother put out a lazy-susan with a selection of mixed nuts and hard candies for him. All I prayed was that a roach would not appear. Then Cristien winked at me when she turned her back. He was actually happy. I guess that was why I loved him.

  Later after he “left,” she told me that the ring must cost over a year’s salary. He was serious. I was glad she finally thought so. She told me she couldn’t wait to plan for the wedding after graduation. I just smiled and retired to my room. Cristien was there under my dingy floral covers. He had fixed my shelves and put all the books back in alphabetical order.

  On Saturday, I got my birth certificate ready. Cristien had packed the white dress for the wedding. I put it on. My mother looked surprised when I came down for breakfast.

  “Cristien bought it for me,” I told her.

  “I got married in something like that,” she said.

  “Really?” I coughed, jumping when the knock I had been waiting for sounded at our front door.

  Cristien had left early before the sun rose. He arrived at my house at nine with a sleepy Lance. They strode into the house. Lance was in the middle of a yawn when he stopped dead at the sight of my mother. I saw him change all kinds of shades of red. He quickly put on a pair of sunglasses and hid his face under his hand. Still, my mother stared at him, blinking in wonder. Cristien looked from one to the other dumbfounded. It was up to me.

  “Ima, this is Lance,” I said, quickly, swallowing most of my words. “He’s Cristien’s best friend.”

  “Oh,” she stammered, “Nice to meet you.”

  Lance coughed and altered his voice as he said, “Yeah. Same here.”

  They shook hands, and my mother blushed at his touch. Blushed! Then she turned and left the living room without another word and walked to the kitchen. I turned to Lance.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me?” I asked him.

  He thought about it a moment.

  “No,” he said and ran out the door.

  I charged after him, but Cristien stopped me, grabbing me by the arms and holding me back.

  “Later, in the car,” he whispered. “Your mom is back.”

  She looked pale and confused.

  “What are you looking for, mom?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, glancing away and blushing again. “I was wondering where Cristien’s young friend had gone to. He reminds me of someone I used to know. What did you say his name was again?”

  “Oh, Mom,” I laughed, trying to change the subject. “He’s too young for you.”

  “What are you implying, Aliyah?” my mother asked, archly.

  “Nothing.” Great! I was going to have to take a bullet for that coward too?

  “Don’t be rude, Aliyah,” my mother snapped.

  “I’m sure she was just joking,” Cristien said, trying to save me.

  “I was talking to my daughter,” she snapped. Cristien stiffened.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “May we have your permission to go now?”

  “Now you’re being belligerent,” she frowned.

  I looked back to see the shock on Cristien’s face. I kept calm. I always had to be extra careful with my mom when there were people around. She needed to know she was queen of the world and well respected. She was shooting volleys at me to teach Cristien his place.

  “I’m really sorry.” I said, making my eyes big and sad. I didn’t have to fake the sad part too much.

  “Well, go then if you are in such a hurry you can’t be respectful.”

  “You know I didn’t mean anything,” I groveled, so I could leave and get married and never come back here again.

  “We have reser . . .” Cristien started saying.

  I elbowed him in the ribs. One more word from him, and we’d be buried in so much shit we’d never get out of here.

  “He was clearing his throat,” I told her. We stood uncomfortably for a while. Then my mother decided she had gotten her pound of flesh.

  “Okay, Aliyah, why don’t you go?”

  “Thanks,” I told her. “Bye.”
We ran for the door.

  “When is he bringing you back?” my mother called after us.

  “I thought he would drop me off at the dorm. I have to study.” I was almost over the threshold.

  “Call me when you get back.”

  “Sure.”

  “Have fun.”

  “Goodbye,” I said, leaving.

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Wyndham,” Cristien said, following.

  “Call me, Ilene or Ms. Rheingold. I go by my maiden name now.”

  He nodded and kept going.

  When we were out the door and near the car he said, “I’m surprised you didn’t run away with the circus or marry the first man you saw with her on your back all the time. How do you take it?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged, “I’m used to her psychopathic way of saying I love you.” Then I spied Lance. I pointed a finger at him. He cringed in the back of the car.

  “You?!” I accused, getting into the front seat. “Do you have something to tell me?” I turned around, so I could look Lance in the eye.

  He looked to Cristien for help, but my soon-to-be-husband faced forward and started driving.

  “No,” he lied, his blue-gray eyes avoiding mine.

  “Nothing?” I asked. “You and my mother shared a magical moment back there and you have nothing to say?”

  “Hey, honey,” Cristien said seriously. “You shouldn’t talk to your father that way.”

  I ignored his burst of laughter, reached back to choke Lance, but he slid out of the way. “You better say something!” You had better tell me this is a big mistake.

  “Who’s your daddy?” Cristien said, between guffaws.

  “Hey,” Lance yelled. “You’re laughing by yourself, dude. This isn’t funny.”

  “It isn’t,” I echoed.

  Cristien looked from me to Lance, a crooked smile on his lips. Then he said slowly, “You know, you two look so much alike when you’re angry.”

  I balled my fist. I wanted to sock him so bad, right in the arm, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I just threatened to do it really well.

  Cristien leaned away, “I’m not the one who slept with your mother.”

  “Hey!” I cried. “No more jokes!”

  “It’s not what you think,” Lance tried to explain.

  “Then what is it?” I asked him, hoping he would tell me definitively that he was not my father or open his arms to me, weep and beg my forgiveness like I fantasized my father would do.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “She looks kind of familiar, but I don’t know.”

  Well, there was nothing definitive about that. It was horrifically non-committal, not at all reassuring and a little hurtful. “You two connected in the middle of my living room, and you don’t know?”

  “She looked familiar. That’s all. Besides, a lot of time has passed, a lot of water under the bridge, if you know what I mean. Ask Cristien. He’s got more water and bridges than anybody. He’s freaking Venice.”

  “Lance, leave me out of this,” Cristien warned. “Don’t try to use me to save yourself. Fess up, you’re her papa.”

  “Oh shut up, Cristien,” we said at the same time and with the same tone. The same look of horror crossed both our faces. I sat in my seat and faced forward.

  “She looks like a lot of people,” Lance went on in a panicked voice. It sounded like he was mostly trying to convince himself. Lance babbled on inaudibly for a few more minutes, until I cut him off. This was too much to deal with. We had to get the marriage license and then have a wedding. I did not need this.

  “Forget it,” I said. “Everybody forget it. This conversation never happened.”

  I pulled down the visor and glared at Lance through the mirror. He stared at me like he was seeing a ghost or a reflection. I felt like yelling, “So, you’re the reason my life is like this? Why I have wings? Why I’m not normal? You’re the reason everything in my life was so wrong? Why I wasn’t like other kids? Why they made fun of me? Why I was so different? Why I didn’t have anyone to send a card to on Father’s Day? Why I had a hole in my life the size of you?”

  Oh, God! The longer I thought about it the worse my life seemed. It was like I was staring down a black hole of rage and agony that had always been so far away before but kept getting closer and closer now and threatening to swallow me alive. Lance was my father? Why? Why couldn’t I have a normal dad? Why did he have fly into my life?

  I tried to erase the picture of him with my mother. I tried to eradicate him from my life and with him all the pain and loss, but oddly as he disappeared, so did I. Without him, I wouldn’t be me. I wouldn’t have these hands, this face, these eyes, this skin, this life with Cristien. I wouldn’t be Alexa. And I had really begun liking being Alexa recently.

  I realized then that I wasn’t willing to give up all I was just to be angry with Lance. I couldn’t erase him from my life, but something would have to be done about him. I had to pick my battles, and there would be a battle one day with Lance. I knew that was inevitable and that it would hurt like hell. I really didn’t want to go there today or for a few years. So, for now, I would just ignore him, pretend I didn’t believe any of it, that it was a ridiculous mistake. He was nothing to me. Lance and I were strangers and that was probably for the best. I flipped up the visor again.

  “Forget it!” I demanded, staring ahead at the street and traffic. “Just forget it. Okay?”

  Nobody said anything. I sighed and put my hot cheek against the cool window.

  “Okay,” Cristien finally agreed, but I could still hear the mirth in his voice, “But I don’t think your mother’s going to forget.”

  Ugg! This was the worst time possible for Cristien to grow a sense of humor. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Suddenly Lance reached forward and slapped him in the back of the head, hard.

  “Ouch,” Cristien laughed.

  “Good,” I said. I was glad it hurt. Maybe he would stop.

  “Sticking up for your little girl already. How sweet,” Cristien joked.

  “Enough, please,” I begged, starting to get really upset. I felt like I was going to cry.

  “Sorry,” he told me, touching my hand. “I’ll stop. I owed him from before. You’re his kryptonite now, and I couldn’t help it, but I promise. I’ll stop now. I will.”

  He zipped his mouth and tried very hard not to smile.

  What a horrible day, I thought. I didn’t want to get married now.

  “Cristien, maybe we should do this another day,” I sighed, watching the city going by. It was no longer as beautiful. The streets were dirty, the buildings dark with soot, and the crowds cold and brutal.

  “Why?” he cried horrified.

  Then it was Lance’s turn to laugh. A low chuckle came from the back, “Hoisted by your own petard, dude.”

  Oh great. That was my saying. Yet another knife in my heart.

  “You,” Cristien said to Lance, “no talking.” Then he turned to me, “and you—what are you talking about?”

  “I just don’t feel very bride-y right now.”

  “We can’t do it another day,” he said, sounding panicked, “I . . . I can’t tell you why. We just can’t.”

  “What does it matter anyway? It’s not like marriage is sacred or anything. It can’t keep an incubus out. Nothing can,” I said. “They just rape you.”

  “Hey!” Lance cried, sitting upright. “It wasn’t rape. It was never rape. Rape doesn’t get us what we need. A girl has to want to, you know, enjoy herself. They call us to them. If they don’t, we don’t come. We aren’t attracted to them.”

  “Are you saying my mother wanted you?” I raged, turning on him.

  Lance slumped and looked away. He was right, but I dared him to say it. My mother wanted him. She did. Of course, she wanted Lance. Who wouldn’t want a beautiful attentive lover who could do it all night instead of the loser she married? There is nothing worse than the day you find out that your parents are fallible mortals just like everyone
else. It kills your childhood. Growing up was terrible. The truth was terrible. Today was one of the worst days of my life.

  “Alexa,” Cristien said, turning to me. His voice was conciliatory, but I would not be conciliated.

  “No,” I sighed, “marriage means nothing. I don’t know if it ever did. Originally, it was a contract to assure that a woman would be able to care for herself if her husband took her most saleable item, her virginity, and left her. I learned that in Yeshiva. It’s no guarantee of happiness or fidelity or anything else. Who cares? Let’s go home and do it.”

  “No,” Cristien said, facing forward. His hands turned white as he gripped the steering wheel.

  “I’m telling you, I trust you. No more conditions. I don’t need to marry you. I know you love me, and I love you. So, let’s knock boots.”

  “Now you say this to me? Now?” he cried, his face full of disbelief. “Where was this a month ago?” Then he shook himself, struggling to get control, “No. I want to marry you. I want this moment which I believed would never come.” His expression allowed no contradiction. “I want to celebrate with my friend, who may not be my friend after this, my love for you. That’s why I wanted your mother to come too. I know better than anyone how governments fail, countries disappear, things on paper mean nothing. I simply want to shout from the highest roof how happy I am to have found you. And that’s why we’re getting married today.”

  A smile came over my lips at his words. My sad heart felt better. We were celebrating our love, shouting it from the roofs. I guess that was what marriage should really be about. I let Cristien take my hand. I held on hard as I glanced out of the window again and happily watched all the beautiful people, streets and buildings slowly passing us by. We were getting married today, and that was all that mattered.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Leaving Manhattan

  The license was waiting for us at City Hall. It was dated the day before. We didn’t even have to stand on line. Lance walked up to the desk and smiled at the woman, and she handed it over. I didn’t want to know how we got such quick service, but I could guess since Lance was involved. Cristien hurried us back to the car.

  “Wait. I thought you could have a civil marriage performed here too,” I said as he got into his seat.