by Lauren Fox
“And?”
“It was definitely fried fish,” he says. “It was pretty gross, actually. I shouldn’t take ‘All you can eat’ as a challenge.”
I laugh. The wind is coming in from the lake. A few clouds blow quickly across the sky. There is an empty park to our left, the choppy water to our right. The word “clandestine” pops into my head, stays there.
“How was Madison?” he asks.
“We just walked around. And ate.” I think about “we.” “Seems like there used to be more to do there, when I was in college. There was always a protest or a boycott or a sit-in, and it was all brand-new and it felt really crucial.” I think about the kiss-in—it was almost ten years ago—and look away from David, toward the lake. “Now the students look like toddlers to me, and State Street feels like a moving walkway between fast-food joints and chain shoe stores.”
“Emily!” David says, surprised. “So cynical for someone so young!”
“Is it?” I ask. I hadn’t meant it to be. I like how he says my name.
“No, I know what you mean. For me it’s not so much that things mattered more ten years ago, but more like I thought I could actually have an effect….” His sentence drifts off.
I nod. “That’s it exactly!” I give a little embarrassed laugh. I feel overexposed. I’m letting him see too much of me. I’m flashing my emotional underwear. But I keep going. “I used to think getting involved in politics, protesting, working on campaigns…I used to think it all made a difference. I don’t know about that anymore.” Our hands are so close, almost brushing, hanging there at the end of our arms, bony pendulums. I swallow, take a breath. “But even talking about it feels indulgent. Existential angst is so 1990s!”
I look up at him, nervous; I wait for him to shrug, nod, tell me I’m a genius, tell me I’m an idiot.
And then he takes my hand. He takes my hand in his, laces his fingers through mine. He holds on firmly, but not too tightly. His palm is warm, his fingers smooth against mine.
Is this separate from my life? Can I wrap it up in a package? Is this person me? We keep moving. I don’t let go.
We walk, holding hands. My legs are gummy. What if I see someone I know? But there’s no one around. David tells me a story about the newspaper, about how his colleagues revolted against the editor in chief two years ago and ousted the guy, about his conflicted loyalties, because this man was a horrible editor, but also his friend. Every molecule in my body has been rearranged. My heart has surreptitiously migrated to my right hand.
I tell him about my job at Male Reproduction, about my bosses and how I organize my schedule so that I only have to work with the nice one. I tell him more about my family, my sister in Minneapolis, my mom and dad here in Milwaukee. This is the hand I promised to Kevin, the heart.
“I rented the movie you were telling me about,” I say as we pass a cluster of deserted stone benches and almost-bare trees. “Wild Strawberries.” What I don’t say is, “And I felt like I was inside your head, I wanted to become an expert on Ingmar Bergman just to know you better, and if you had told me that dung beetles were your passion, I would develop a voracious interest in disgusting bugs.”
David gives my hand a little squeeze. “Did you? What did you think?” He’s pleased, flattered. We talk about old movies for a while. I know nothing about the subject, but David acts like my every question is a perfect diamond; he holds each one up to the sun, examines its brilliance.
We make our way slowly down the path, reach the place where it forks off, and turn around. Our conversation has settled into a quiet rhythm, less forced than before we touched. Now that we’re connected physically, we let silent currents flow comfortably between us. I’m aware of the sound of the water splashing up against the side of the concrete barrier, of the clean, almost imperceptible scent of the wind.
By the time we’re back at the War Memorial, I know three things: that I would like to stay here with David Keller all day; that it’s time to go, because you should always leave a party while everyone’s still having fun; that he will kiss me. What I don’t know is whether I will kiss him.
He pulls me toward a bench, the same one that he sat on earlier as he waited for me. We sit close, lean against each other, the padding of coats between us. The temperature has dropped, even in the hour or so that we’ve been out here, and my eyes are teary and wet from the wind. I wipe them with the back of my hand, clear my throat, turn my whole body to face him. His cheeks are red. “I should probably go,” I say.
He mirrors my movement, rotates himself toward me. “Okay,” he says softly. He leans nearer to me, slowly.
Is this what it feels like, just before a first kiss? I can’t remember. It’s not like riding a bike. I’m tense, perched on the edge of a cliff, terrified. I never thought I’d have another first kiss. I thought that my first kiss with Kevin, nine years ago, would be my last first kiss. That was the agreement, anyway. My teeth are chattering a little bit. My body’s trembling from the inside out. I want this. I don’t want this.
David is so close to me now I can see the shadow across his jawline, the slight circles under his eyes. His face is beautiful, dark and strong. His nose is a little bit crooked. I glance down. His hands are resting on his thighs. What a strange thing, a body, with its dangling limbs, its movable parts.
“Hey,” he says, his voice low, this last second before a kiss. I can feel his breath on my face. It smells sweet, a faint remnant of chocolate. I look into his eyes.
And then my body takes over, acts of its own volition, ignores the hope in my heart, or maybe listens carefully to it; I don’t know. I jump up as if I’ve been shocked, in the split second before it’s too late. While my brain valiantly tries to register what I’ve just done, and not done, I find that I am standing, looking down at David. I feel outsized, gigantic.
“Oh! Okay, well.” My ridiculous voice is thin and shaky. “I really should go. Bye!” I turn and leave in a sudden swoop, before David has the chance to digest this, before he can call me back. I’m walking fast and I don’t turn around, but I imagine him there, baffled, still leaning forward, mouth slightly open in confusion. I’m halfway up the hill. I can see my little red Toyota, a long half block away. I hate myself. I’ve never felt quite like this. I am a hideous, pungent concoction of guilt, shame, embarrassment, and desire. I’m hot with it, this terrible new potion coursing through my veins. Betrayal changes a person physically. This is a different me, racing to my car, heading toward home. I have held the hand of, almost kissed, lusted after a man who is not Kevin. Not to mention, I’ve lied to David and to Kevin both. What I have done has transformed me, like alchemy, only backward: whatever there was in me that was precious metal is now nothing but common elements, gravel, straw.
“I NEED A FAVOR,” MEG SAYS. IT ’S THURSDAY NIGHT, and Steve has late office hours, so we’re sprawled out on their enormous overstuffed sofa, passing cartons of Chinese food back and forth, watching TV. I haven’t told Meg about the other day.
“Name it,” I say, my mouth full of tofu and pea pods. This is the first time I’ve been hungry in two days.
She chews, swallows. “I want to go back to work. I want to sub. But…” She pauses. “Actually, this is a big favor. But I don’t know how else—I really—”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Whatever you need me to do.”
“I need you to come with me. Just for a day or two. It sounds nuts, I know, even to me, but I need to get out of the house, I want to work, but I’m not ready to do it on my own, to be in front of a classroom by myself. I’ve already gotten permission from Judy.” Meg is friends with the principal of her school. “And I’ll pay you!” she says, perking up.
“I wouldn’t take money from you.”
“Of course you would. You’d be my aide, and it wouldn’t be easy, so of course you’d take money.” She holds out her hand and I pass her the container of cashew chicken. “It’s not even going to be art classes, necessarily. I said I’d be availa
ble to substitute for anyone, any grade. It could be third-grade math or fifth-grade history. But, the thing is, I need you.”
“When?” I ask. I’m not chomping at the bit to spend a few days with Meg helping her teach subtraction to fidgeting eight-year-olds, or scraping washable paint out from under my fingernails at the end of the day, but I’ll do it. I’d do it even if I didn’t feel secretly guilty for karmically causing her miscarriage.
“Anytime starting next week?”
“Okay. It’ll be fun!” I say feebly.
I considered telling Kevin. I thought about coming clean. The term is apt: after my walk with David, I felt as if my body were covered in a grimy coat of sawdust, a light ash created by the friction of attraction sawing back and forth against guilt. I came home. Kevin was at work. I closed the door to my study and thought about confessing, washing away my sins. I began sorting through the books and papers strewn all over my desk: year-old fashion and health magazines that I thought I might want to write for; catalogues; receipts; scribbled, unintelligible notes to myself (what did “tragic beans, not hateful” mean?); junk mail I’d never bothered opening.
But then I thought, Why hurt Kevin? I made a “discard” pile on the floor and started randomly flinging things into it, creating chaos: at least the old, messy arrangement had made sense. Why cause him pain, when I’m the one who screwed up, I’m the one who should face the consequences, not Kevin? I stopped looking at what I was throwing out. Anything more than six months old was history. I stacked up enough papers and magazines to fill two brown paper bags. The top of my desk was visible. I began to gather up the mess; the room started to look neater, more organized. I knew I wouldn’t tell him. This was my fault, not his. Kevin was innocent.
Innocent and intolerable. Everything he does: not just how he’s been ceaselessly pressuring me lately, but the way he chews his food with an excess of lip-smacking; how he hogs the bed, inching over to me, pawing at me in the night; his habit of rubbing his hands together like a lecherous old man when he’s nervous or excited. Even the color of his eyelashes irritates me, so pale they’re almost invisible. Everything about him sets my teeth on edge. Passionless, uptight, blond-eyelashed Kevin—he’s the anti-David.
On Friday night, we go over to my parents’ house for dinner. Kevin and I drive silently through the city and then out of it, into the suburbs that open up before us. On a crisp, darkening night like this, it always strikes me that Milwaukee’s suburbs were farmland just a few years ago, the subdivisions were cornfields, cows grazed in pastures that are now libraries and gas stations…and that what seems enduring may be momentary, fragile, and subject to change. As we approach Jupiter’s Palace of Cheese, its lights glowing orange in the autumn dusk, I want to casually reach over and rest my hand on Kevin’s shoulder; I want to say to him, “Let’s stop here. Why don’t we go in and have a look around, maybe pick something up for my parents?,” as if this is something we do all the time, a part of our comfortable routine. It would be a relief, to do this with Kevin. It would put the planets back in line. But the words get stuck in my throat, and Kevin’s eyes are resolutely on the road ahead, and so we keep driving.
We pull into the driveway of the house I grew up in, a 1950s ranch with beige painted trim. It’s a small, flat house with a carport, a sunken living room, a rec room, an electric can opener—all the space-age accoutrements. The three outside lights over the garage, the carport, and the front door all blaze, marking our trail and making this the brightest spot on the block.
“Is there a connection between ranch-style houses and ranch-style salad dressing?” I ask Kevin as we walk up the path. He looks at me, raises one eyebrow, an expression I’ve seen him practice in front of the mirror.
My mother stands waiting for us at the door, wearing a flowered apron over her clothes, although I doubt she did anything more culinarily taxing than heating up frozen stuffed chicken breasts. She is like an older, shorter, bustier, eyeshadowed me. Her frizzy hair is pinned back with little spangly barrettes that look like ones I wore when I was ten, and probably are. She wears lots of jewelry—big gold button earrings, bracelets, sparkly rings—at all times. She favors loose, tunic-style, silky blouses with sequins on them. “Erica Marchese had twins,” she says by way of greeting, giving first me, then Kevin a perfumey kiss on the cheek. “She named them Chloe and Zoe, however.” I went to grade school with Erica Marchese, although I haven’t seen her in about twenty years. But my mother keeps her finger on the pulse of her thriving, procreating suburban community.
“Chloe and Zoe, huh?” I say, humoring her, even though I don’t care. Bright light and the murmur of voices fill the front hallway and spread throughout the entire house. My parents have a habit of leaving electrical appliances on—televisions, radios, lamps. It always seems like there’s more going on here than there actually is.
“I bought you some underwear, sweetie,” my mom stage-whispers to me. “And some darling earrings. They’re on your bed. See if you like them.”
I take Kevin’s heavy leather coat and carry it along with mine into my old bedroom, which has been preserved as a shrine to me. If I ever wanted to move back in, if I ever wanted to move back to 1992, there’s a room in Bay Point, Wisconsin, six-and-a-half miles north of downtown Milwaukee, waiting to oblige me. My one trophy, which I received for being an integral part of the 1990 Bay Point High School debating team, holds pride of place on my yellow bureau. The pink polka-dotted bedspread I picked out to match the light purple carpeting still covers my little twin bed. I enjoyed pastels in the late ’80s. The color scheme in here is accidental Easter egg. Every time I walk through the door of this room, I am overcome with the feeling of both safety and suffocation.
“Hiya, sweetheart,” my dad says, emerging from the wood-paneled den, where he’s likely been watching public television and/or reading about the history of aspirin or of tree-trimming or of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency for the past four or five hours. He stands in the doorway to my room, scratching his bald head. He’s wearing one of Heather’s old sweatshirts, which pulls tightly across his belly, and a pair of light brown polyester slacks that were perhaps in fashion circa 1973. Black dress socks complete the picture. My dad, a retired high school social studies teacher, spends his time reading educational nonfiction or watching PBS. He’s a gentle man who seems to inhabit a different planet from the rest of us, near to ours but not quite intersecting, one where the pursuit of facts and knowledge provides infinitely more sustenance than food and oxygen. He blinks a lot, as if natural light surprises him. He has the habit of wandering off in the middle of a conversation to look up a word in the dictionary or to page through an encyclopedia in search of a historical reference. Naturally, he and Kevin get along famously.
Kevin is in the kitchen, helping my mother set the table. I don’t know this for sure, but since things unfold in the same manner every time we’re here, I’d bet on it. I hear the clink of silverware and glasses, the low sound of Kevin’s voice pitched against my mom’s high titter. I wish I could close my bedroom door and read a book for the rest of the night instead of eating dinner with my parents and Kevin. Containing my turmoil has been exhausting. I feel like I’ve been holding a lid over a boiling pot for three days. I just want to lie down.
“Hi, Dad.” I walk over and hug him.
“Very interesting show on channel thirty-six about the brain,” he says, as if we were in the middle of a conversation and had been interrupted just a few minutes ago. “For one thing, the human head weighs between ten and twelve pounds. I had no idea.” He blinks, smiles at me as if he’s giving me a gift. “I’ll tell your mother the next time she says I need to lose weight,” he whispers conspiratorially. “I’m not ten pounds overweight. It’s just my head!”
I don’t quite understand my dad, most of the time.
“Come,” he says, taking my arm. “To the mess hall!”
“Oh, hello, Leonard,” my mom says showily as we walk into the kitchen. “Nice to se
e you.” She hates that my father prefers to spend his free time alone. She’s a butterfly, colorfully flitting from lunch date to social engagement to shopping trip with friends, requiring only companionship; he’s a strange, myopic, solitary bookworm. They’re polar opposites, Barbara and Len Ross, and it amazes me not that they’re still married, but that they ever fell in love in the first place. Watching their psychological contortions and battles embarrasses me, feels like spying on them as they tussle in bed. I wish they would keep it to themselves.
“Kevin, my good man,” my dad says, ignoring my mom, possibly not noticing her tone. He and Kevin shake hands mock-formally, as they’ve been doing for nine years.
“Sir!” Kevin says. The table is set properly, the precooked chicken breasts are cooling—they’ll be cold when we eat them—while my mom fiddles with a fruit salad made solely of brownish sliced apples and canned mandarin oranges. “How’s everything going?” Kevin asks.
“Everything is going swimmingly,” my father says. “Just swimmingly.” This is the same script we always follow. I could film it, and then next time just send the video.
I ask my mom if there’s anything I can do to help her, a calculated strategy Heather and I perfected when we were teenagers to coincide with the moment when she’s just finished and doesn’t need help.
“Are there napkins on the table? Glasses?” There are. “Then everybody, just sit down,” she commands. We do.
My mom pays no attention to my dad or to Kevin, whose sin is that he really likes my dad, and turns to me. “Did I tell you about Stephanie Wagner’s baby shower?” She nibbles on an apple slice, wipes her mouth daintily. “Well,” she begins, already deliciously outraged, before I have the chance to respond. “Mrs. Wagner, who really had nothing to do with the planning of this shower—it was given by Mrs. Sheffield and Mrs. Gold—decided that she wanted to help. But you know what that means for Mrs. Wagner. She just wanted to get her fingers into the pie.” These are women I’ve known my whole life, but in the lingua franca of these suburban ladies, referring to them by their first names would be sacrilegious. My mother continues with a story having something to do with place settings, where one of the main characters is the Jordan almonds. Somebody is adamantly insisting on, or flat-out rejecting, these party nuts. I don’t know. I stopped listening somewhere around the words “baby shower.” And my mother, perceptive though she is, is just a sucker for a captive audience, so I nod and nod, and occasionally gasp, which keeps her happy.