Scissors, Paper, Stone

by Martha K. Davis

  “The woman wasn’t unwilling,” Neil says. He says it extra patiently, like he’s getting tired of this conversation.

  “She wasn’t willing,” Min counters. “That’s the point. Why would anyone want to fuck someone who isn’t interested?”

  “You’re feisty,” Neil says, grinning like he’s delighted. He leans forward and rests his arms on the table. “Maybe he thought she’d like it.” His eyes never leave Min’s face. In the dim candlelight, I notice how the golden hue of her skin makes her look darker than him. I feel sick.

  Min pushes her chair back with a scraping sound and stands up. “I don’t have to take this shit,” she tells him. “Excuse me,” she says to Olivia. I realize I’ve forgotten about Olivia. Without even glancing at me, Min walks out of the room.

  I panic, watching her leave. Where is she going? Doesn’t she understand the position she’s putting me in? I would never walk out like this, if we were with her friends or whatever, leaving her to apologize. No matter how unhappy I was, I just wouldn’t.

  I look back at Neil and Olivia, more alone than I ever could be out there in the empty desert. Olivia looks upset, which makes me feel terrible. Neil’s still watching the door Min left by, his mouth curling. “She’s something,” he says to me. “She’s got cheek.”

  The front door slams shut. All of a sudden I hate Neil. I wish I had taken Min’s side. I want to say something withering, but I have no idea what it would be. I am still his guest. He’s still my father’s friend. I look down at my empty pudding bowl.

  “So, Laura, what are your plans now that you’re out in the real world?” Neil asks. Olivia looks over at me like she’s also interested in hearing the answer.

  At first I think he means this trip across the country, then realize he’s talking about after college. “Well, I’m thinking of teaching PE. Maybe at a girls’ high school, like a boarding school or something. I was on the varsity soccer and basketball teams at Kenyon. And I’ve taken a lot of classes.”

  “Oh? What kinds of classes?” Olivia asks. I look at the two of them, sitting at the dinner table talking to me like they’re a normal married couple taking a healthy interest in their friend’s daughter’s future and her companion hasn’t just fled the house, offended. I can’t wait to get out of here.

  “Physiology, education classes, motivational psychology, that kind of thing.”

  “And do you have a boyfriend?” she asks.

  I freeze. What do I say? The love of my life is wandering around outside, and I don’t even know how to find her. “No, no boyfriend. Not right now,” I answer. I can’t look at Neil at all.

  “How are your parents?” he asks. His voice is concerned, fatherly.

  “They’re fine,” I say, still not catching his eye. “Just the same.” My father still has affairs with his students, I silently add. It makes perfect sense to me that he and Neil are friends.

  Neil stands up and stretches, pushing his chest forward and his raised arms back. In his law office he must be used to being the one to end the meeting, standing up and ushering his clients to the door. Olivia begins to clear the table. In the candlelight her face is less severe, just older, tired.

  “I guess I’ll go upstairs now,” I say, rising. “We’re pretty beat from driving. Thanks for this great dinner.” Olivia nods, half-smiling, and disappears into the kitchen.

  Neil takes my hand, covering it with both of his. “We’ve enjoyed having you,” he tells me. I look up at his boyish smile, his dark blue eyes behind his glasses. His gaze is riveting. I start to pull my hand away. Neil holds on. “I’ll leave the front door unlocked for your, ah . . . friend,” he says. Then he lets me go.

  About an hour later I’m sitting hunched on one of the beds, still dressed, when I hear the door open. I jump up and meet her as she walks in. She looks exhausted.

  “Where have you been?” I whisper, pissed off again. I’ve been watching the clock, worrying about her. She goes over to the closest bed and curls up on top of it. Immediately my anger is gone. I get on the bed with her, snuggling up against her back, my knees behind her knees. She turns over and lets me put my arms around her. A breeze comes in the screen window behind me.

  It is still so new to be holding her, and I am very aware of her slight body and the way her hands feel resting on me. Thin strips of moonlight between the blinds reflect onto the wall. We look at each other. She’s so beautiful. I feel a little shock, like pain, near my heart.

  “Where did you go?” I ask, gently this time.

  “Just around. This town is dead. I felt like a freak.”

  “We’ll leave in the morning,” I promise her. I realize part of me was afraid she might hitch a ride back to San Francisco. I touch the side of her neck, stroking just under her hairline.

  “Laura,” Min says, but she doesn’t finish.

  I stop caressing her. She’s never hesitant. “What?”

  “Why did you flirt with him?”

  “I wasn’t flirting with him!”

  “You were. You were attracted to him.”

  We are so close I can feel her breath on my face. I want to look away. I remember getting out of the car, how his hands around mine made me feel wanted. I couldn’t stop grinning up at him. “Well, yeah, so? He’s kind of cute for his age, so what? Nothing was going to happen.” Doesn’t she know I’m committed to her for the long haul?

  She just looks at me. After a little while she says, “I knew you didn’t want them to know about us. I was trying to be the way you wanted me to be. He’s your family’s friend.”

  I close my eyes, feeling horrible. I should have trusted Min more. But I did. I trusted her not to leave the table in the middle of dinner.

  “He knew anyway,” I tell her.

  “That was obvious.”

  I open my eyes. It was? But I ask, “Do you think he saw us in the window when he was grilling the steak?” I felt so powerful, secretly watching him. Now I feel ashamed. I’ve been acting like a child, wanting all the attention. I say, “Min, you know, I don’t hate men now just because we’re together.”

  “Are we together?” she asks, like she doesn’t know.

  I look into her eyes, inches away. She’s not kidding. My heart clutches. I’m afraid I might cry. “Aren’t we?” I ask. “You were just upset that I liked Neil.”

  “I would be upset anyway. He’s a creep. The fact is, you’ve got the world’s worst taste in men.” She smiles like it’s a joke, but I’m hurt. I stop myself from saying something mean about her love life.

  Min turns over onto her back. “I’m not sure what we are, Laura. You’re my best friend. And now we’ve slept together. I don’t know what that makes us.”

  “It makes us lovers. Doesn’t it?” I put my hand on her flat stomach, underneath her shirt. Her skin is very warm. Almost absently, she moves her hand onto my arm, rubbing it lightly.

  “For now.”

  “What do you mean, for now?” I’m getting angry again. “What do you think is going to happen?”

  “We’ll get back to San Francisco. We’ll go back to our different lives.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “For one thing, you’ve never been in an open relationship. I’m still seeing Madeleine. And, by the way—”

  “Well, isn’t Madeleine leaving for New York in a couple of weeks? You don’t even like her.” I can’t believe Min would want to be involved with anyone else now that she’s with me.

  “We’ll see what happens, Laura. I haven’t been thinking about her.”

  “You don’t miss her at all?”

  “Why would I?”

  Hearing that, I feel relieved. I decide it’s not important to define our relationship tonight. Lying next to her, I’m starting to feel like I did in our tent, overwhelmed with longing. If I can let what’s happening between us take its course, I know that everything will work out. It has to. I slide my palm up to her breast and rub her nipple gently, back and forth. The soft
skin crinkles into a tight little ball. Min closes her eyes. She rolls toward me again to kiss me.

  After we’ve taken off our clothes, I tell her, “I’d like to do for you what you did for me last night.” She is licking the side of my neck, long, slow strokes like a cat. They make me shiver. What I’m really doing is reminding her that I’ve never gone down on a woman before. I don’t know what to do.

  “Laura-lee,” she whispers and lies back. I’m hoping that she’s already so excited that whatever I do will feel good to her. I’ve known Min for over ten years. I’m very aware that this is her body, and that makes it harder. Once I’m down between her bent legs, I part her pubic hair and close my eyes. Hearing her moan, I stay where I am and keep doing what I’m doing. Last night I was completely silent, when I had the entire empty state of Nevada to make noise in. Down the hall from Neil and Olivia, Min’s not afraid of being overheard. Listening to her, my fear starts to go too. I don’t realize she has come until she sits up, reaching down to pull me up against her.

  Lying on top of her, I am smiling, my face pushing against the side of her head. I feel giddy with success. I kiss her cheek near her ear. My lips come away wet. Another tear lands on my nose. I pull my head back, bring my hand from around her to wipe her face. Her eyes are squeezed closed. Putting my head down again, I hold her as tightly as I can. Maybe she didn’t have an orgasm after all.

  I wait as long as I can stand, then ask, “What’s wrong?” I’m afraid she’ll tell me I was doing it wrong. I know I can’t compare to her other lovers.

  Min swallows. “I’m so tired of having to answer those questions, hear those fucking lectures about ‘my’ country. As though I should know Korea’s whole history, even take responsibility for it. I don’t care about Korea. I was only born there.”

  “You’re thinking of Neil’s story,” I say. “And the father and son at the Dairy Queen?” I add, because they are on my mind.

  I feel her swallow again. “You have no idea how exhausting it is to carry your race around with you all the time, like a banner that people feel free to comment on. Or use for their own twisted reasons. It never goes away. You just don’t know.”

  I bring my head up so I can see her face. “No,” I say quietly, “I don’t.” I realize it is the first true thing I have said this evening. “I don’t know what it’s like, Min, but I want to. I wish there was something I could do to make it easier for you.”

  “Just keep holding me.”

  I tighten my arms around her. We lie on this stranger’s bed, our two damp bodies pressed together. I wish I could go ahead in the world and clear the way before her. I think of the drive ahead of us, the states we will cross. As we near the East Coast, they will become more familiar to me as they grow more alien to Min. I think of Neil, and my blurting out, “She’s Korean.” If I can’t make it easier for Min, at least I can try not to make it more difficult. I close my eyes. I inhale the clean scent of her hair.

  “I love you so much, Min,” I whisper.

  I can’t believe how much I love her.

  Neither one of us sleeps very well. We get up early and decide to have breakfast on the road. The large house is silent as we carry our knapsacks down the carpeted stairs to the front door. Outside, the pale morning light is a little chilly. We throw our bags in the back of the car and look around us. Down the street, all the lawns are mowed. If there are children living here, their bicycles and toys have been brought inside. The houses are ugly, just because they are meant to look the same. A little regretful, I remember Brigham Young’s Beehive House, the Tabernacle. I doubt I will ever come here again.

  Min and I half-smile at each other, then turn to go back in the house to write Neil and Olivia a note thanking them for our stay. Olivia is standing in front of the open door in a light blue bathrobe, a pair of slippers on her feet.

  “We didn’t want to wake you,” I say, my voice hushed in the still morning air. “We decided to get a lot of driving done today.”

  “Won’t you have a cup of coffee at least?” she asks. I can’t tell if she’s being polite or if she really wants us to stay. I actually think she’d like the company.

  I look at Min, tempted. She shakes her head. “No, we can’t,” she tells Olivia. I immediately want to apologize or at least soften Min’s words with an explanation. But I step back. Min has said it. We’re leaving.

  Olivia nods and holds out both her hands to Min, who takes and squeezes them a long time, then lets them go. Olivia turns to me. “Please give my love to both your parents when you talk to them next,” she says, hugging me. Smiling, I say I will. I don’t mention Neil. I want to ask her why she stays with him, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

  I hand Min the car keys, and we get in. I roll down my window to let out the stale air. Pulling out of the semicircular driveway, we wave to Olivia standing in front of her massive white house and drive away.

  Hours later, we reach Yellowstone National Park. Much of it has been ravaged by a recent forest fire. On either side, we pass acres of black tree trunks sticking up into the sky, burnt free of leaves and branches. We decide to park and get out to take a walking tour of the hot springs. There are boardwalks and a railing to keep people from getting too close. The pools of bubbling water are beautiful and eerie, like jewels and like scabs both. We get whiffs of sulfur with the breeze. Steam floats off the surfaces. The flat ground surrounding the springs is crusted with minerals and small rocks. This could be the surface of the moon. The crowds push us along.

  We get back in the car and keep driving north. Further down the road, the traffic slows. We wait in our idling car, wondering if there’s been an accident up ahead. After a while, a man in a car going the other way tells us that a buffalo has gotten onto the road. As we drove in, I read to Min from the AAA guidebook about the bison. In this area, the national park is all that’s left of the plains that used to be their home. The book said usually they stay away from the roads that wind through it. We wait some more, sweating in the baking heat.

  The traffic is stop and go. Finally we see the buffalo up ahead, between the two lanes of stopped cars. Once it lumbers into sight, neither Min nor I say anything. I’ve seen the buffaloes in the paddocks at Golden Gate Park, but they’ve been far away. I’m amazed at how big this one is. It has heavy matted fur and a massive head. I love the hump on its back and the brown fur tufting down to its ankles like pants. I’ve never seen such a strange animal up close before. People are getting out of their cars to take pictures. They stand in front of it. They follow it. It doesn’t stop walking. They touch its shaggy hide as though it is not huge and wild but something they own. It is approaching our car. I’m afraid to look into its black, tired eyes, of what mute helplessness I’ll see there.

  CHAPTER 10

  Min

  Fall 1985

  I CLOSE THE DOOR TO the bedroom softly behind me, leaving my mother half-asleep on the table. I am in a tranquil state too: slowed down, satisfied. Today I worked on her pectoral muscles for the first time. I rested my palm on her sternum between her breasts, and her chest rose with her indrawn breath. When she released it, her whole body settled differently, as though relieved.

  Humming, I wash my hands at the kitchen sink, then scrub at the oil bottle. I slowly become aware of the tune. It’s a Joan Armatrading song: “I’m Lucky.” I glance at the clock on the wall and begin setting the table. It’s later than I thought.

  The massage room door squeaks open. I listen to my mother’s footsteps in the hall, the bathroom door closing. I lay forks on top of the folded paper napkins. I sing the words out loud, surprised that I remember them so well. Before long I hear the spray of falling water.

  As I gather glasses from the cupboard, I can hear children playing, their voices loud with laughter, in someone’s yard down the block. In the city alone there must be hundreds of people in their kitchens preparing midday meals, hundreds more in the streets on their way to spend time with family or friends. The showe
r water turns off. The apartment is silent except for the ticking of the clock. It is the silence of in-between time, the moment before everything starts off at a different pace, turning in another direction.

  The downstairs door buzzer startles me. I close the cupboards and drawers and meet my mother in the hall clutching an oil-scented sheet to her chest, her hair wrapped in a towel.

  “Don’t let anyone in,” she says, “I’m naked.” Her shoulders slope away from her body as if ashamed. Without her glasses her eyes are squinting, half-blind.

  “Go get dressed,” I say, covering her shoulder with my hand as I squeeze by her. We move to the separate ends of the hall.

  Downstairs, I open the front door, and there is Laura, haloed by surprisingly bright daylight on the street behind her. She steps up onto the doorjamb. I put my hands on either side of her face and start to kiss her. My eyes close at the taste of her mouth. I can never keep them open when I am touching someone in a way I want more of. She puts a hand on my side; in the other she is carrying something that bumps between us. I stroke the soft skin of her cheek. My tongue skims over her teeth, enters her wet mouth again, finds her tongue. Then she pulls her head away before the kiss has ended and steps back out of the entryway, out of my reach. Annoyed, I think she must be afraid that someone on the street might see her kissing another woman.

  “Look, Min,” she says excitedly, turning her head slightly to the side.

  Then I see it. “Oh my god, you cut your hair.”

  It’s gone. All her beautiful blonde hair that streamed down to her waist has disappeared. Laura’s hair has been chopped bluntly at the back of her neck. She has it pulled back from her wide forehead and held in place by a brown velvet hairband. I loved her hair. The summer after tenth grade, I used to fantasize about Laura sweeping it across my body. I love to run my hand down the silky length of it when we’re lying in bed. Now there’s nothing left. She’s gone and made herself into someone else. I feel breathless. Confused.