by Roxane Gay
They slept entwined for three days. Lionel’s skin grew clammy and gray. His eyes hollowed. He began to smell like soil and salt wind. When Micheline woke, she whispered, “Turn and look at me.” Lionel slowly turned and stared at Micheline, his eyes wide open, unblinking. She gasped at his appearance, how his body had changed. She said, “Touch me,” and Lionel reached for her with a heavy hand, pawing at her until she said, “Touch me gently.” She said, “Sit up.” Lionel slowly sat up, listing from side to side until Micheline steadied him. She kissed Lionel’s thinned lips, his fingertips. His cold body filled her with a sadness she could hardly bear. She said, “Smile,” and his lips stretched tightly into something that resembled what she knew of a smile. Micheline thought about the second silk sachet, the one hidden beneath her pillow between the pages of her Bible, the sachet with a powder containing the power to make Lionel the man he once was—tall, vibrant, the greatest son of L’Ouverture, a man who filled the air with the bass of a deep drum when he walked. She made herself forget about that power; instead, she would always remember that man. She pressed her hand against the sharpness of Lionel’s cheekbone. She said, “Love me.”
Sweet on the Tongue
My grandmother, eighty-seven, has changed the name of the nurse’s aide who tends to her. She didn’t like the woman’s real name, said it tasted strange in her mouth. She calls the aide Maria so now we all call the nurse’s aide Maria, too. Maria tells me this story when I meet her while visiting my grandmother, who lives with my aunt, next door to another aunt and down the street from more aunts and a few uncles. When we meet, I tell her I already know everything there is to know about her. Information travels at alarming speed through the intricate gossip network of our family. She says, “I could say the same.” The way she looks at me makes me uncomfortable. She looks at me the way a man might.
I’m visiting because my grandmother told my mother she didn’t want to die without seeing her youngest granddaughter one last time. She makes such pronouncements with regularity. She has been dying for nearly twenty years but no one lives forever.
Maria has a big ass. My grandmother tells Maria this regularly. She has reached that age where she lacks tact. Despite my grandmother’s concern about the size of Maria’s ass and her unwillingness to call Maria by her given name, they get along quite well. Maria treats my grandmother like her own. She brushes my grandmother’s thin, silver hair each night before bed. They love to argue about the shows they watch. They talk about the islands where they were born, the warmth of suns they once knew.
On the first night, my grandmother falls asleep watching the evening news. News of war exhausts her. Maria and I smoke in the small backyard, leaning against a brick wall. My grandmother was not incorrect in her evaluation of Maria’s ass but Maria is attractive, not much older than me, dark brown skin, white teeth, soft sweet-smelling skin.
I ask for her real name and she waves a hand limply. “Just call me Maria.”
Her accent is familiar. The evening is cold, a cold to which our island skin is not accustomed; it hurts to breathe too deeply. When Maria exhales, I inhale.
“Do you like this kind of work?” I ask.
Maria shrugs, ashes her cigarette. I can no longer see the edges of her face. She steps closer, leans in until I can feel her breasts against mine. “Do you like your kind of work?”
My cheeks warm.
We fall into a routine over the next several days. When Maria is ready to smoke, she taps my shoulder, lets her fingers rest too long, and I follow her outside. She asks about my life. I can see my family’s fingers on her questions. I am vague in my replies.
On Friday, Maria gathers her things while the night nurse, a far less congenial woman, settles in front of the television next to my aunt who is half asleep, her lower lip hanging wetly. Maria nods toward the front door and I follow. On the stoop she says, “I cook,” and I say, “I eat.” She presses a tightly folded piece of paper into the palm of my hand.
Maria’s address is written in block letters and numbers, even her sixes and nines. When I arrive, my fingertips are numb. Maria has changed from scrubs into a denim skirt and a red silk camisole. I stand awkwardly in the hallway, my hands tucked into my armpits.
“You don’t have to feed me. This isn’t part of your job.”
Maria cocks her head. She walks away and I follow dumbly. The apartment is small but clean. The walls are heavy with pictures, many of them black-and-white. We walk down a long hallway to the kitchen, where the air is thick and hot. My pores open hungrily.
“Can I do anything to help?” Maria arches an eyebrow but shakes her head. She points to an empty chair and I sit, shrugging out of my jacket.
I do not visit my family often. Already I am exhausted—so many of them, so demanding, pulling me into meaty embraces and age-old, petty squabbles. I live in Los Angeles in a large loft apartment with a man, Campbell, who works a great deal. He is an agent. He takes care of a select group of clients, all of them stupidly famous. He makes them a stupid amount of money, so he makes a stupid amount of money. We are married and our marriage is complicated but good, better than good. When he proposed he said he understood me. He said all he would ever ask of me is to love him. I do. I don’t do anything in the way of compensated work even though I have several degrees that make my lifestyle seem ridiculous at best. Five days a week, I volunteer at a clinic where the people think me far better than I am. Sometimes, Campbell comes home late and I hand him a gin and tonic. We talk about his day. I ask him if he wants a break, if he wants me to help him shoulder the burden of our life together. He squeezes my shoulder and kisses me and takes a long sip of his drink and kisses me again. He says he wants to take care of me.
I met Campbell in the emergency room. He was harried, typing furiously on his phone while standing next to one of his clients, a tabloid bad boy actor who lay on his side, moaning softly. When the actor rolled onto his back, I could see the large bump on his forehead, and next to it, a deep laceration. He reeked of booze. It had been a long shift, full of crazy. The last thing I wanted to deal with was a drunken actor. You’ve treated one, you’ve treated them all. I snapped on a pair of gloves and began examining my patient. He made a lewd comment and I slapped his wrist. Three nurses hovered, tittering nervously. I looked up, glaring, but they couldn’t help themselves. I finally had to tell them I didn’t need their help and closed the curtain. Campbell looked up. He had gray eyes. I thought, I’ve never seen a black man with gray eyes before, but then he opened his mouth.
“Look, Doc,” he said. “If possible, I’d like you to just patch him up, get some fluids in him, and we’ll be on our way. No records, no charts.”
My eyes narrowed. “Doc? That’s not how hospitals work.”
Campbell came around to my side of the bed. He was very tall. He looked down. I held his gaze. He squeezed my arm. “Just play ball, sister. You know how it works in this town.”
I pulled my arm free. “I’m not your sister. I’m not from this town. I’m afraid I have no idea how it works.”
The actor started braying.
Hours later, I was at the nurses’ station, paperwork, always so much paperwork. I was tired and ready to go home, ready to change out of my scrubs, ready for a long, hot shower. I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up, and saw Campbell staring at me. I stood, ready with sharp words.
He held his hands up. “I come in peace. I offer truce.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Your client will be here overnight, at least, but he’s off my service. Visiting hours start at ten.” I turned to return to my paperwork.
Campbell leaned against the desk, crossing his ankles. “So,” he said. “What will it take to see you out of scrubs?”
I didn’t look up. “Nothing you could possibly offer.”
He exhaled loudly, and started walking away but he muttered something under his breath. It wasn’t nice.
“I heard that,” I shouted after him.
Weeks lat
er, I was on an overnight shift, two in the morning, quiet, sitting in the residents’ lounge. I had forgotten about the bad boy actor and his agent. I studied the container of yogurt in my hand, long expired. I ate it anyway, knowing the worst of what could happen. Campbell entered and I looked up, spoon in my mouth.
“You can’t be in here,” I said, after I swallowed.
“If I can’t see you out of scrubs, I will console myself by seeing you in scrubs.”
I tried not to appear flustered. “Your client has long been released. I can’t imagine what more I can do for you.”
Campbell handed me his card. “You can go out with me.”
I held the card up to the light. “Is this supposed to be an incentive?” I tossed the card back toward his chest and he caught it, laughing.
“What is with you?”
“I am a humorless resident who works ninety hours a week.”
“What do you do during the other seventy-eight hours of the week?”
“I sleep, alone.”
Campbell nodded, rubbing his chin, then sat down on the couch, crossing his long legs. “This presents a challenge. If you work ninety hours a week and sleep for the other seventy-eight, that doesn’t leave room for much.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you want. Am I supposed to throw myself at you now?”
He patted the empty space next to him. “That would be a start.”
I moved to a chair on the other side of the room. “Let’s say I went out with you. You’d wine and dine me, maybe take me to a fancy movie premiere, introduce me to shiny people in magazines. We’d sleep together. I’d be deeply unsatisfied. We might go at it a few times more, and then you’d grow bored because I have a brain. We’d be right back where we started. Let’s don’t and say we did.”
Campbell was leaning forward now, his elbows on his knees. “Your anger is fascinating.”
“Why do men always assume women are angry when they are honest? I’m not angry.”
He stood. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” He disappeared.
His visits became so frequent they grew into a source of amusement in the ER. My coworkers took bets on how long it would take for me to agree to go out with Campbell. I called him a stalker. He told me I was adorable. I said he was a condescending asshole. He agreed, genially. A month passed. For two days, he didn’t show up. I spent my entire shift snapping at the nurses, unable to soothe the line of frustration running through me. The next day, when Campbell did show up, I gave him a colder shoulder than usual.
“You missed me, didn’t you?” he asked.
I was in the lounge studying an X-ray, a broken leg I would set shortly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He took the X-ray from me. “The nurses tell me you’ve been very short-tempered since we last saw each other.”
“Only a man with your arrogance could think that had anything to do with you.”
His smile widened. “So it’s true.”
I grabbed my X-ray back, and accidentally cut myself on the edge. I winced, jumping around as I sucked on the cut.
“Let me see that, you big baby,” Campbell said.
I extended my arm, reluctantly. He held my wrist gently, twisting it from side to side to study my finger. He disappeared for a moment and when he returned, he had a Band-Aid, which he applied. He kissed my fingertip and said, “I was out of town on business, film festival, Utah.”
As I studied his handiwork, he said, “You should see me for a follow-up. Dinner. Away from here.”
I nodded absently. “Sure.”
He pumped his fist over his head and I realized what I had just done. The chief resident won the pool at forty-seven days.
On our first date, we sat in a bistro in downtown LA. I studied Campbell’s hairline, graying in that terribly appealing way men enjoy. He is older than me by a decade, was married and divorced by the time we met. He started talking about his marriage. I leaned across the table and pressed two fingers against his lips. “Let’s not do that. Let’s not sit here and tell each other everything there is to know about who we once loved. I am tired of listening to men talk about their regrets.”
Campbell’s eyes widened and he burst out laughing. “What the fuck?”
“Do you really want to know about the last man or three I slept with or loved?”
He leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “No,” he finally said. “I really don’t.”
“The night just got way better, didn’t it?”
Before he could answer, the waiter interrupted, pen at the ready for our order, and Campbell didn’t stop staring at me as he told the waiter he wanted the clams.
After a lazy meal and a movie, he walked me to my door and stood real close. “I must admit you’ve thrown me off my game.”
“Good,” I said. I leaned in and bit his lower lip then let myself into my house. I had not realized we were holding hands.
On our second date Campbell told me he had someone he wanted me to meet. We pulled up to The Palm and the valet greeted Campbell by name, said his usual table was ready. As Campbell held the door for me, he brushed his hand against the small of my back. We were escorted to a table at the center of the room—a room filled with the thin, beautiful people who typically populate Los Angeles. Some were more recognizable than others. Many of the women shared the same face. At our table, a gorgeous woman was already seated. As I sank into my chair, I recognized her as a movie star having a very good year or at least that’s what People told me. During lulls in the hospital, I often sat in the waiting room reading the magazines abandoned there. It was the only way I knew anything about anything. She extended a long, willowy arm.
“Your hands are ridiculously soft,” I said.
She grinned. “The blood of virgins is the best moisturizer.”
I pretended to make a note on the tablecloth. “I will keep that in mind.”
Campbell cleared his throat. “Therese, this is Melinda, a dear friend and client. Melinda, Therese. A new friend but not a client.”
We nodded and I buried my head in the menu, a large, leather affair. Campbell looked at me over the top of his menu. “Everything is good here.”
“If I ate meat, I’m sure it would be.”
He looked so uncomfortable, I almost felt sorry for him.
“Dear God. You’re a vegetarian.”
“If you had been paying attention, you might know that.”
His voice lowered. “I am paying attention.”
Suddenly his phone rang. He raised a finger in the air, and stepped away from the table to answer the call.
Melinda set her menu down. “He wasn’t kidding. You are different.”
“Some say.”
“You know he invited me here to impress you.”
I nodded.
“Is it working?”
“Not even a little.”
A waiter delivered a bottle of chilled champagne to the table. After he poured, Melinda and I raised our glasses and smiled.
Maria says everyone is so proud to have a doctor in the family as she sets a plate in front of me—chicken in sauce, rice and peas. I don’t tell her I’m a vegetarian. The skin of the meat glistens. I swallow my nausea and pull my hair into a ponytail.
We are silent as we eat. The meat is salty and tender, breaking apart against my teeth. When we finish, I take the plates to the sink, wash them.
“I volunteer instead of working at a practice or hospital,” I say.
Maria laughs. “A doctor is a doctor is a doctor.”
We take a bottle of Merlot into the living room. The more wine we drink, the more her accent thickens. Mine does, too.
“Why did you become a doctor?” she asks.
When you’re willing to give over so much of your life to a single, impossible pursuit, the questions are inevitable. I tell Maria the truth.
We sit so close our thighs touch. I am dizzy, my mouth empty but full.
“You
r grandmother says you haven’t been home since …”
I shake my head. “Don’t.”
Maria sighs. “It must have been horrible.”
I twist my wedding rings back and forth and think about my husband, how when we’re sitting together, he doesn’t force me to talk. I worry I am too quiet for him. He says I speak when I need. I speak when it matters.
“Your family wishes you would talk,” Maria says.
I pour myself another glass of wine, drink it quickly, and refill my glass again. “I’m sure they talk enough without me. Is this why you asked me here?” Maria shakes her head, her lips turning down slightly, but I am not convinced. “I do not mean to upset you. I just wanted you to know I know.”
I laugh coarsely, and tip my wineglass toward her. “What do you think you know?”
Home is an island in the Caribbean. Some call it a jewel. Everyone who leaves the place calls it home though few of us actually want to be there, not the way it is now. I used to return regularly, often with my mother, holding her hand as the plane descended from the clouds so fast it felt like we would fall into the blue salt of the water. A narrow curve of land would suddenly appear, and the plane would reach for the ground as everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
My father never left the island. He says it is too much to ask a man to leave the only home he has ever known. My parents see each other when they want. They are still married though my father also has a young girlfriend, Roseline, with whom he has two young boys who call my mother and their mother mama. Somehow, it works. My mother has a boyfriend too, but he is age appropriate. My father owns a small architecture firm, does reasonably well for himself. As a father, he does reasonably well by his children. We are close.