You Made Your Bed

by Cornelia Goddin

  I’m alone. Three whole days to myself. I’m feeling a mixture of glee and sorrow, to be honest. It’s uncomfortable. I take some big breaths and let them out slowly, making my lips into a tight circle, my exhale noisy.

  Look, I’m aware that I let my feelings run the show. I know that about myself at least. Last month, in an effort to keep my brand spankin’ new marriage from ending up in a dumpster, I started seeing a therapist for the very first time. Yeah, I know—with a family as messed up as the Crowes, you’d expect us to have trooped through plenty of shrinks’ offices, right? But Gordon, he’s not a therapy kind of guy. Thinks it’s an admission of weakness.

  Which it is, and that’s the whole point right there, getting at the things we’re most scared of in ourselves, and not pushing them down out of sight. Does that sound right? Obviously, I’m new at this.

  And to be honest, it’s not only my marriage I’m worried about. I’m clinging to my teaching job by a thread, and sometimes it can feel like, well, like I’m sitting in the back seat of a car with a blindfold on, the car’s flying down twisty roads way too fast, and I just want to get out and walk on my own two feet. Or—way worse—like I’m stumbling through my life numb to everything, unable to feel anything at all.

  Ms. Sandie Shearer charges a cool $275 a session. Fifty minutes with a middle-aged woman who, so far anyway, is all business.

  I’ve made it a life goal to make her laugh. We’ll see.

  Still not sure about Anne-Marie’s accent, not that I care. To be on the safe side, for tonight’s date I avoided French and made a reservation at an Italian place, new and blazing hot. When you want to impress a woman, that’s where you go, not to last year’s trendy spot. Duh.

  Perfetto, it’s called. Tiny little building, looks like a remodeled garage. So few covers you wonder how they can possibly make a profit until you see the prices. Inside, it’s super cozy, intimate, perfect.

  “Want a cocktail? Or do you want to go straight to wine?” I ask, reaching out to touch her hand.

  She draws her hand back and gives me a look I can’t interpret. “How about a Lillet?”

  I nod and give the order to a young server with a blank expression. I lean back in my chair and gaze upon Anne-Marie, the exquisite Anne-Marie. I regret that she is sitting and therefore I see less of her than I usually do.

  “So,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  Well, no big surprise, it’s awkward. Too many topics we can’t or shouldn’t venture toward. I want to ask her if she has other ambitions besides being a barista but that’s obviously rude, even though I honestly wouldn’t judge her either way. She shifts her feet, tucking them under her chair so any ideas I might have about a little ironic footsie are shut down for the moment.

  “Check out our neighbors,” she says with a little smile, inclining her head in their direction.

  Two tables away are an older man, probably mid-fifties, with a much younger woman. I’d peg her at twenty-fiveish. We watch him order drinks and then turn to her, saying something we can’t quite hear. The restaurant is tiny and their table is not far away, but the thick rugs muffle most of their words. The server is back in a flash with their drinks, and they clink their glasses together and sip.

  “Okay, let’s play,” says Anne-Marie. “Daughter, girlfriend, or second wife?”

  I laugh, though something about this game strikes me as not all that funny. I look over at the couple, searching for clues. “Daughter,” I say, based on nothing.

  “No way. Just wait, he’s got her drinking that cosmopolitan, and he’ll be pushing wine on her next. Definitely trying to slip her the sausage.”

  “You think? Well, she is hot.”

  Quickly Anne-Marie looks at me, I hope out of jealousy.

  “But not my type,” I add.

  “Really.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way. It’s such a minefield trying to talk about stuff like this these days. But that woman is a bimbo.” I hold up my palms. “I don’t mean that in a sexist way. I’m just sayin’.”

  Anne-Marie rolls her eyes. “And ‘bimbo’…you mean hot and dumb?”

  “More or less. Is there a French word for that?”

  Her mouth drops open and too late, I realize what I’ve said. The last thing I wanted to do was call her out on not being French. Wake up, Crowe! I can’t seem to get my footing tonight.

  “Pouffe,” says Anne-Marie.

  I don’t speak French, she could be lying through her pretty white teeth. “Pouffe,” I repeat. “That sounds…both insulting and gorgeous at the same time.”

  “French can be elegant that way,” she says.

  Why in the world are we talking about vocabulary? It’s like I’m out to dinner with a cousin I barely know, or somebody new at work. Not like I am out with the cute barista who likes to show me her tits. I’m trying to act like I’m having a good time, but inside my head I’m on a loop of What’s going wrong? What should I do? This sucks so bad.

  And then some worse thoughts come crowding in: I shouldn’t be taking another woman to this kind of dinner while my wife is out of town. I shouldn’t be spending all my energy trying to get this woman-who-is-not-my-wife into bed.

  Gordon would tell me not to be a goddamn Boy Scout. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.

  I blame Sandie Shearer, my therapist. She has yet to tell me what to do, even once. Yet still? I feel her disapproval aimed at me, as though if I turn around quickly enough I’ll catch a glimpse of her image looming up behind me like she’s on a giant movie screen, slowly shaking her head at me.

  I feel some sharp pangs at the idea of Rebecca, how she trusts me, and yet here I am. It’s like a razor-thin blade going in between my second and third ribs.

  The young woman two tables over is giving her order to the server, and she raises her voice enough that we can hear perfectly. “I’ll have the minestrone,” she says, and I flinch at her pronunciation, which was “MINE-strone,” as in coal mine plus rhymes with “bone,” two syllables.

  “See what I mean,” murmurs Anne-Marie.

  “What.”

  “You kidding me? If she were his daughter, he’d have corrected her, possibly mocked her. Instead he said nothing. You think he doesn’t know how to pronounce ‘minestrone’? Wearing a suit like that, a tie like that?”

  “Okay, mind reader, she’s not his daughter. How about someone he’s thinking about hiring?”

  “This look like that kind of restaurant to you? This is a place to bring someone you’re in love with, or someone you want to fuck. Those are the only choices you’ve got.”

  Anne-Marie is smoking hot, but I did not know she was this smart. It’s exhilarating and scary.

  “Maybe she’s his trainer at the gym,” I say.

  “You are so, so bad at this,” she laughs. I look at her mouth. I want to lean across the table and kiss her. I want to feel her body relent.

  We order, we stagger through some more awkward conversation, the food comes. Usually I eat like a teenager, but tonight I can’t seem to muster up an appetite for anything but Anne-Marie. I’m not getting anywhere with her tonight, that’s clear enough. It’s going to be a long campaign. Maybe longer than the three days I have, I realize with a kind of panic.

  Two days left. When I dropped Anne-Marie off last night, she let me kiss her but didn’t ask me in. And the kiss was only about a three out of ten, if I’m honest. Over way too quickly and she was holding back. I didn’t push it. I know how to be patient—seriously, sometimes I love being patient—it’s deliciously excruciating, it makes my nostrils flare like I’m hunting game that could kill me. But Jesus, there are limits.

  This thing with her, it’s not even my usual MO, you know? It’s turned into an old-fashioned chase, when normally I go for the quick satisfactions of an anonymous fuck in a park or a parking lot. California is nice that way. I guess you could call me selfish or whatever, because yeah, I do want it all—the wife, the side-chick, plus the babes in the
park too. I want all the love there is.

  After leaving Anne-Marie, I was so charged up that I went to a bar and screwed a girl in the women’s bathroom before heading home. At the time it felt like I’d scored some points against Anne-Marie that would push me closer to victory, but in the clearer light of morning, my reasoning seems hard to pin down. Much less where my wife fits on the scoreboard.

  I’ve got half a hangover from that bar stop last night, so I’m heading out for a run. The least I can do is keep myself looking halfway decent. A guy with the kind of ambitions I have—I mean sleeping with as many hot women as I possibly can on my short time on Earth—has to be lean to have any chance at all. I go to the gym three times a week to add some muscle mass, though I don’t go crazy with that. I’m not aiming to be Schwarzenegger, more like David Beckham or something. Like my body’s all ripped from being a soccer star, yeah sure.

  I’m really into gear. Sometimes I think about taking up rock-climbing or ice-climbing and winter camping, just because the gear options are so tasty. See these running shoes? They’re barefoot shoes—I can tear up the trail and it feels practically like wearing nothing, except the thin soles protect my feet from sharp rocks. I love the idea of being able to feel everything. If the ground is cold, I feel it. If it’s hard, or pebbly, I can feel it. I’m really into sensation, even when it’s uncomfortable.

  I put on a shirt that’s nice and tight across my chest and made out of some high-tech fabric that wicks away sweat, and running shorts made of the same stuff. I guzzle water and then spring down the stairs, lock the door, and head down the street. It’s amazing to be single again, even if only for two more days. Amazing to leave the house without any kind of negotiation about chores that need doing, or getting together with certain friends of hers I can’t stand, nothing on the horizon but what I want to do. No pressure to keep my lies straight, you know? I love Rebecca. But ask any married man and he will tell you—he wants to have some time all to himself once in a while. No one looking over his shoulder. Like three whole days, now two.

  Lately I’ve been feeling really unsettled, antsy. Like I can’t just veg on the sofa and watch movies anymore, I gotta keep moving, keep searching for that electricity. There’s this sort of gross image I can’t let go of—it’s like I’ve got some massive boils percolating inside my head, and if I sit still and relax, they’re going to rupture. And if that happens, God knows what kind of poison they’re going to spew all over the place.

  Slowly, warming up, I jog through the nabe. It’s sort of hilarious—the houses on my street are little bungalows, nothing at all fancy, but of course they go for a million at least. We’d never be able to afford living here without Gordon’s wind at my back.

  Gordon likes wind. When Caroline and I were kids, for a few years we spent vacations on sailboats. I’m thinking of one year in particular, I was around nine and Caroline eleven. The boat had a professional crew but Gordon wore a captain’s hat that even at ten I thought was ridiculous. Mummy spent most of the time below deck drinking rum, Caroline was reading a million books and working on her tan, and I was restless as all hell. It wasn’t like I was going to learn how to sail, not at that age on a boat that size. You can only play so many games of backgammon before you want to shoot yourself. I wanted to run and climb, but all there was to do was lounge around on deck and try to stay out of the way.

  “I wish the mast had a crow’s nest,” I said to Gordon, who was standing at the wheel, squinting into the bright blue distance.

  “No pirates,” he said.

  “How do you know? I bet there are pirates somewhere.”

  “Somewhere, yes. But not here. The danger to us here is hurricanes, not one-legged men with patches over one eye.”

  I sighed. I wanted pirates. I wanted action. I wanted to be anywhere but on that stupid boat, trapped with my family.

  “Caroline,” said my father, using the voice he only used with her, “put on a shirt. Your skin is going to get scorched at this time of day.”

  My sister rolled over onto her belly and her top slipped down for a second. I saw her little breasts, just starting to sprout. She looked up at Gordon and I wondered if she was finally going to go against something he said. I knew—because she talked about it incessantly—how important getting a tan was to her. But Caroline always does what Gordon says, and that day it was no different. After a few moments of looking at him, her bravado fell away and she sat up and put on the long-sleeved shirt, a boy’s button-down from Brooks Brothers, if I remember correctly.

  The sailor standing next to Gordon looked a little disappointed. I saw him staring at Caroline during that whole trip, staring like he wanted to slip her into a bun, spread her with mustard, and chow down.

  I was only nine, but in some families you learn to pay attention to things early. Your survival depends on it.

  5

  Caroline

  After leaving the shoe store, I cut over to Fifth so I won’t be tempted by any more window-shopping. The streets are still almost bare. Everyone looks annoyed, which is not unusual here in the city.

  They don’t call it the monkey house anymore. Now it’s the Tropic Zone, which I don’t know, maybe I’m oversensitive or horribly judgmental—well, of course I am both of those things, times a hundred—but Tropic Zone sounds utterly pedantic to me, or like the title of a bad movie. The Monkey House is ten thousand times better. In my opinion.

  Happily, for once, there’s not a throng of schoolchildren crowding the zoo. The central courtyard is nearly empty, though I expect the monkey house will be something of a draw in this weather since it’s so warm in there. When I enter, the blast of moist heat is a shock and for a moment I think I’ve made a mistake, I can’t breathe, but I start down the wooden plank path and look around at the leafy tropical plantings, and my body starts to acclimate. A toucan sits on a branch two arms-lengths from me, and I consider his heavy-looking beak for a moment, wondering if it feels like a burden or his special thing that sets him apart. But birds are not really up my alley. I want to watch the mammals, the monkeys that look two degrees away from being human but are capable of insane feats of gymnastics, flying through the trees.

  Should I slip into the bathroom and have a quick bump first? I visited my old friend Dr. Feelgood just yesterday afternoon, and I reach into my coat pocket and fondle the little topped-up vial of cocaine. I like to refrain from indulgence until later in the day, generally, but on the other hand, the squawking inside my head is getting really tiresome.

  Are you wondering—when I mention the noise of the jeerlings, are you wondering if I hear voices? Like am I diagnosable, a schizophrenic? A resounding yes to the first question and no to the second. And please, you’re telling me you don’t hear voices? There’s not a soft voice whispering to you, barely audible, listing, for example, the myriad ways you have failed, starting back in grade school; the moments you lacked courage; your multiple, unforgivable embarrassments…sweet nothings of that nature?

  I grant that not everyone’s interior conversation concerns killing family members. That is, perhaps, a smidgen out of the ordinary. But only because I might be closer to acting on it than your average person. People want to kill other people all the time, but they lack what my tennis coach used to call ‘follow-through.’ They don’t have the stomach for doing what needs to be done. Also—if you are shaking your head about my drug use, please understand that cocaine, for the most part, is a helpful way to sharpen my thinking and dull my anxiety all at once. It quiets the shrieking, though not perhaps entirely reliably.

  I run my fingers around the top of the vial, considering. I can taste it, can feel the delicious drip down the back of my throat.

  But I decide no. Let’s give the monkeys a try first.

  Here at the Central Park Zoo, at the moment, it looks like all they’ve got are some black and white-ruffed lemurs. I do enjoy an orangutan or a gorilla, but I’ll accept the lemur. I go marching along the path looking out for one. I see fla
mingos, a large toad, several snakes. Eventually I catch a flashing black movement up high, and see a lemur zipping around up there, obviously enjoying himself. I move around on the platform, shamelessly wedging myself between people and pushing to get up to the railing for the best view.

  He’s a strange-looking fellow, with yellow eyes and white fur spiking out from his neck rather like the frill Elizabeth I wears in most of her portraits. He flings himself up into the branches of the tree the zoo people have managed to grow here (it is most certainly not native to New York) and sails through the air as though falling has never once occurred to him.

  The crowd is mesmerized. We gasp in unison when he grasps a branch at the last possible moment. We feel tender when he sits next to another lemur and they pick things off each other’s scalps and eat whatever it is.

  For a long stretch of minutes as I watch the acrobatic lemurs and breathe in the artificially humidified air that smells like a stable, the jeerlings are quiet, and all is well.

  6

  Wilson

  “I’m just curious about why you spell your name with an i-e rather than a y,” I say, making some primo high-quality eye contact with Ms. Sandie Shearer.

  She looks right back at me. I think I see the very faintest whisper of a smile but it evaporates. “Nice try,” she says.

  She’s got this no-nonsense hairstyle, cut close to her head like Judi Dench. No makeup. Big fan of corduroy.

  We sit for a long time in silence. It’s some fucking expensive quiet, is what I’m thinking. I steal a glance at the clock but she’s looking right at me so it’s not much of a theft.

  “So your encounter with the woman in the bathroom…how did you feel about that later on?” she asks, looking out of the window. I’m giving her eye contact a deserved low rating at the moment.