by Edan Lepucki
“You watched it?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. We’re going to watch it—you and me.”
“We are? Why do I have to?”
“You don’t want to?”
“It’s not that—it’s just, he didn’t choose to share it with us.”
“Please, S,” she said. “I can’t watch it alone.”
She was already tapping the screen, and then it was playing. I leaned forward until my head touched Lady’s. She smelled like jasmine.
It was a film, not a video, and it was blurry for the first few seconds. When the image came into focus, the surface was still grainy the way film is, with what looked like strands of black hair popping onto the screen and disappearing just as fast. Seth had shot it in color, but the colors were drained and milky. There was Seth, standing outside in a crowd of college students who were probably headed to class or the student union. He stood still, but they moved all around him, texting, laughing, sucking down the campus coffee–kiosk equivalent of a Frappuccino. The film was silent.
“That’s SMC,” Lady murmured.
“Seth goes there, right?” I said, and she nodded.
“This is a Super-8 film,” I said after a moment. The image pulsed and slowed, then sped up, old-timey-like.
“Cool,” Lady said.
“Yeah.” I didn’t tell her that every asshole film guy gets into Super-8 before switching to digital.
The camera zoomed to Seth’s face and he began moving his mouth.
“Oh my God,” Lady said.
“He’s messing with you,” I said.
She looked away from the screen. “With me?”
“You, as in the viewer,” I said.
“How do you know?” she said. “You lied, you have seen this!”
“I haven’t, I swear.” I nodded at the screen. “Look at his mouth.”
I was right, it opened and closed like a ventriloquist’s, mouthing the words. He was a dead fish. “He doesn’t know how to use his tongue,” Lady said.
Sound cut in suddenly. A man’s voice was saying, “Hello! I’m Seth!” Then, a woman’s voice: “Hey! I’m Seth, wanna hang out?” Another man, this one with a Midwestern accent: “Can you believe that class? Bor-ing!”
The chatter continued, the voices changing. Seth kept flapping his mouth. The people moved around him, occasionally glancing at the camera and whoever was filming.
The film cut out midsentence. The end.
“Super-8 can be tricky,” I said. “It’s hard to tell when the film runs out.”
Lady closed the iPad. “How do you know that?”
“Art history,” I reminded her. “Also, my ex, Everett? He was an artist, remember? He sometimes shot film.”
“It’s tragic how much we pick up from the men we sleep with.”
I blushed.
“What did you think of it?” I asked.
“Why didn’t he show it to me?”
“No idea. Seems harmless. Pretty typical freshman-year art.”
“Ouch,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s good to be brought back to reality, to be reminded that my kid is mediocre, just another dickhead college kid.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“Don’t look so upset. I’m kidding. Sort of.”
“What you said—that his tongue doesn’t work—”
“That’s not totally true. He can eat, so obviously it functions, but even people with selective mutism can have trouble with some sounds. And unlike those people, Seth doesn’t talk to anyone. Ever. Or so I assume, right?” She paused. “How did you know he was messing with the viewer?”
I couldn’t tell her Seth had pulled that same trick on me. “Because Seth’s always goofing off. He’s making a movie about his disability because he knows the teacher will give him an A for it. Art teachers eat that shit up. But he can’t help but make it a little tricky.”
“You think he did it for the teacher? You don’t think he wanted to make a movie about himself?”
“That wasn’t about himself, Lady. That was about everyone else. The assumptions they put on him.”
She thought about this for a moment. “His Twitter is never about how he can’t talk.”
“See? It’s not interesting to him.”
“Kit thinks the video shows how badly he wants to speak.”
“As my professors used to say, that’s a valid interpretation. The film’s not juvenile then, because you can read it a couple of ways.”
She smirked. “You’re different when you talk about art, you know that, right?”
She’d caught me as Esther Shapiro and I was surprised by the pride I felt.
“How come Kit’s photos bother you so much?” I asked.
The question itself was too much, it bugged her. She lay back on the pillows behind her, and a second later sat up again, all squirmy.
“In general, you mean?” she asked. “Or the ones of Seth?”
“I guess both.” Now it was my turn to lean back on the pillows. I slid onto my side and propped my head on my elbows. We looked like actresses in an ad for feminine itching.
“Kit treats the people she photographs as objects, as her property.”
“And Seth belongs to you,” I said.
She didn’t deny it. “At the time, I didn’t know how it would feel to be in a famous artist’s photo. I don’t want Seth to experience that. It was traumatic to be in Kit’s work. It wasn’t me in that photograph.”
“You’re right, it wasn’t. It was a photo of you,” I said.
“You get it.”
“But isn’t that also what makes portraiture so powerful? You can’t help but wonder what they didn’t capture.” I sat up. “Would you feel differently if you had been painted instead of photographed?”
She raised her eyebrows like this was a stupid question. “You do landscapes,” she said. “Sunsets don’t talk back. And they’re not sexy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The pictures of Seth—he looks…”
“Are they sexual?” I asked. “Holy shit!”
“No, no, but someone might see them that way.”
“And someone might also be turned on by a sunset. That’s not my problem.”
“It’s never the artist’s problem,” she said. “Unless you’re a writer. Not that I’m that either. Fuck. I need to write my horrible book.” She grabbed the iPad. “I better wipe my fingerprints off this before I return it.”
I followed her down the hall toward Seth’s room. I felt panicked in that way you do when you’re having fun but you know it’s coming to an end. It had been days since I’d had a conversation with someone.
“So you’re going off to write today?” I said.
“Yep.” She didn’t turn around.
I was thinking how to ask my next question. Katherine Mary was right at the edge of me like tears smarting my eyes.
“Did Seth kiss that girl, you think? The one whose mom freaked out?”
She turned around.
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry. I doubt you want to think about your son with a girl, but I guess I’m just wondering about the tongue thing again.”
She didn’t answer, just wrinkled her nose and pushed open Seth’s door. I followed. The smell of his body was like a hand across my nose and mouth.
“I never thought about it,” Lady finally said. “Seth’s kissing, I mean.”
“Bullshit.”
“His dad wasn’t big on kissing.”
“What’s his dad’s name?” I asked.
“Mark. Why?”
I tried not to betray anything. “No reason. Mark didn’t show affection?” I asked.
“Oh, who cares. When Seth was Devin’s age—when he was twice Dev’s age, three times—Seth was a marathon snuggler.” She smiled. “It’s one reason why he wasn’t diagnosed with anything beyond the mutism. He can show affection to the people he loves.”
“He has to love them?”
She shrugged me off. “He can communicate.”
“That’s great,” I said blandly.
Lady looked triumphant. “Gestures are language too,” she said.
“I know.”
“Seth is basically normal.”
“So what if he isn’t?” I asked.
“He is.”
I waited.
“Thanks for watching that film with me,” she said finally. “I’ve been…fucked up.”
“I can tell.” When she didn’t answer I said, “Anyway, thanks for chatting. I miss having conversations.”
Lady raised an eyebrow and, for a second, it seemed she understood what I’d been up to. I held my breath, waiting for what she’d say next.
She stepped toward me like she might hit me, but then her arms were around my back, and we were hugging. I put my head on her shoulder like I did with my mom.
“I know,” she said.
“You do?”
She rubbed my back and squeezed tighter. “Toddlers aren’t the best conversationalists, are they?”
42.
Since sundown I’d been chasing my beer with whiskey, using a tiny disposable Solo shot glass for the occasion. That’s what my mom did when she had a problem she couldn’t solve. “A beer chaser is a young man’s drink,” she told me once, as if this made any sense at all. The beer made me feel bloated but carefree and the whiskey pulled me in the opposite direction where all I could think about was Seth and what Lady would do if she found out. I’d never see her again.
I wanted to cry. Brown liquor was dangerous.
I was sketching Girl Gang (Mother No. 4), barely caring. On my next morning off I planned to go to the beach to stage Lady’s photo. That’s what mattered to me. I needed a white sky and it wasn’t the right time of year for it.
“Fuck,” I said to no one.
It was past midnight and there’d been no word from Seth. What if he never came back? I took a gulp of beer and belched, and startled, Peter Rabbit scurried across his pen. Someone knocked at the door.
“Come in,” I said.
Once Seth was inside the Cottage he checked to see how much was left in the bottle. Then he leaned forward to smell my breath, which was no doubt hoppy with an undercurrent of gasoline.
“Very drunk,” I said.
Even now, I couldn’t help but expect a reply—I was just as bad as the dumbasses he had made that film for.
“I wish I would stop waiting for you to answer,” I said. “It makes me hate myself.” I sighed. “But what can I do? I’m a stupid speaking person. Is there any solution to self-hatred?”
He frowned. He touched his fingers to his forehead and then pushed them away and upward.
“What’s that mean?”
He did it again, and then gestured for me to copy him.
“Are you teaching me how to say ‘love yourself’?”
He took out his phone.
It means I dont know
“That’s useful,” I said.
He smiled so guilelessly that I almost said how much I’d missed him.
I remembered what Lady had said about Kit’s photos, how someone would think they were sexy. But Seth was so skinny and hairy, with that big beak nose, and the black fuzz between his eyebrows. He was strange-looking. No one—not even Kit—would be able to capture his you-had-to-be-there appeal. That’s what I liked about him. He wasn’t a photograph.
I’m not a metaphor.
My head was fizzy from the beer, my limbs floppy from the whiskey, and already I could see what would come next, my hair in my face and there were his lips and hip bones like half-pipes and everything would be warm and slippery and here was an abandon I had always been too afraid to meet. Katherine Mary must’ve felt this many times; some dangers are worth it.
Except Seth didn’t pull me onto the bed. Instead he showed me his phone. Always his phone. There were search results for Marco Green. Oh.
“Did you find him?” I asked. “There’s a lot here.”
He shook his head, and I wasn’t sure if that meant that he hadn’t found his dad, or that he disagreed with me.
“You think he’s this soccer player? Or maybe this insurance salesman in Topeka.”
Seth took the phone back. He was scrolling and flipping to the next page. Scrolling again. He tapped the screen a few times and turned it to me, his face triumphant.
It was a Twitter profile.
“You think this is him?” I asked.
The photo was too small for me to tell either way, and Seth wouldn’t let me hold the phone. He pulled away to tap on @MarcoGreen71’s followers. He was practically panting like a dog. What is it, Lassie?, I thought—or no, that was a Katherine Mary joke, stupid and mean.
When he turned the screen back to me, I saw what he was so excited about.
@muffinbuffin41, 6 followers.
“Is that your mom’s Twitter?” I asked.
I took the phone and read the most recent tweets.
Aren’t all mothers loose women? (Unless you had a c-section.)
I laughed.
I miss my baby when he’s asleep or with The Sitter.
I read that one aloud. “Wow, she gave me a title. ‘The Sitter.’ You think that one’s about Devin or you?”
Seth rolled his eyes.
I’m afraid I’m a bad mother.
Oh, poor Lady.
Seth took the phone back, clearly impatient. He tapped back to Marco Green and handed it to me.
“He owns his own business,” I said. “That’s cool.”
I closed the page and gave him the phone. “Are you going to contact him?”
He signed, I don’t know.
“What are you waiting for?”
Seth didn’t respond.
“You’re afraid,” I said.
He still didn’t respond.
“You want your mom to be the one to tell you about him?” I waited. “Seth? Hello? You could write something down. Or fuck, just sign, I don’t even care if I can’t understand.”
I followed him outside, but I didn’t call out as he crossed the yard and slipped into the darkness of the Manse, leaving me alone to be eaten by coyotes and perfumed by skunks. The winds had picked up in that last few minutes and a wood scrap was shipwrecked in the pool, probably blown in from a random construction site.
“That’s me, lost and floating away,” I said, or Katherine Mary did. The Hills howled and a garage or back door or car door rumbled like a drum, like my hangover come morning.
As I stepped back into the Cottage, my phone rang. My dad. I wondered if something had happened; he never called after ten thirty, which was when he and Maria put their phones in their dove-gray Heath bowl and didn’t touch them again until the next morning. He called it “Steve and Maria, Unplugged.”
I picked up. “What’s wrong?”
“Esther, honey? Did I wake you?” I knew right away that he was fine.
“Are you trying to catch me unawares?” I asked. “You knew I’d pick up at this hour.”
“What? Not at all. Maria and I were just leaving a party, one of her colleagues is moving to another firm. I’m so tired, but the fresh air feels great and I just wanted to hear your voice. It’s been—what?—at least two weeks since we’ve spoken.”
It had been longer and both of us knew it.
“That’s got to be a personal record for us,” he said.
“You’re lucky I’m not asleep.”
“Doesn’t sound like it. In fact, you sound wired. And kind of mad. Maybe? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. What happened to Steve and Maria, Unplugged?”
He chuckled and I waited as he repeated what I’d said to Maria, who also laughed.
“I just love Oakland,” he was saying to me now. “So vibrant, you know what I mean? There are a lot of young people living here. First Fridays and all that!”
“I’m not moving back up there.”
“Speaking of art
,” he said. “You up to any of that, Waterbug?”
“Whatever Mom told you, it’s not true.”
“I haven’t spoken to Kathy in ages. Why?”
“I—”
“Hang on,” he said. A moment later he returned, “Maria says she hopes you’re painting again.”
“That’s just because she hated my Tevas project.”
“I will neither confirm nor deny such rumors.”
We both laughed.
“I’m painting a little, yeah,” I said.
“You are?” I could tell by his voice that my answer had genuinely surprised him. “I still love the one you did of the shore at Stinson,” he said. “It’s hanging in the breakfast nook now. I moved it from the hallway.”
“I’m not doing landscapes,” I said. Uh-oh, this was the alcohol talking. The urge to confess. “I’m trying portraits,” I said. “Of people.”
“Wow. That’s terrific.” I heard him relay this news to Maria, but I couldn’t make out her response. “If you ever need someone to model,” he said, “I’d love to sit for you. Come up one weekend just for that. You know how good I am at not fidgeting.”
“Thanks, Dad, but I’m painting only mothers.”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Sorry. I’m here,” he said. “I suppose I should be thrilled that you’re not painting fathers. Or talking about me in therapy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
He didn’t laugh.
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” I said. “Of my subject matter? Seriously? Dad.”
I could hear Maria saying something—the words weren’t clear but her concern was. I pictured her putting her hand on my dad’s arm and saying, “Steven? Steven?”
“I was always there for you,” he said.
“And you aren’t anymore?” I asked.
“Gotta go, Waterbug. Love you.”
“Steven Shapiro,” I said sternly.
If he were Katherine Mary Fowler, he would have called me a cunt rag and hung up. Instead he sighed and said, “Stop disappearing, okay?”
“I’m not disappearing,” I said.
“We haven’t talked in weeks. And you return every fourth or so text. Did you get my email, with the video of me and Maria taking that trapeze lesson? You didn’t write back.”
“I got it,” I said. “Looks like it was a lot of fun.”