“Stop smiling like an idiot and tell me that you’re in there!” Ruth wiped her tears with her sleeve and grabbed her core, shaking it, interrupting the detailed rendering. “I need to know!”
Caridad recalculated, holding the incomplete image of Cary across many minds, like lines on paper. She would continue this work at another time — the project seemed important somehow — but a new, more immediate response emerged.
Slowly, she raised her core’s hand and brushed Ruth’s bangs out of her blue eyes. They crackled with anticipation. The move felt strange and familiar to Caridad. She watched herself watching herself and, when she was sure that her answer was the correct one, she pulled Ruth in with almost gravitational force and kissed her in the mouth.
DIFFICULT AT PARTIES
Carmen Maria Machado
K. Tempest Bradford writes: “Carmen Maria Machado’s stories build and build until they surround and ensnare, and at the end you’re always glad to be all tangled up.” Machado is a fiction writer, critic, and essayist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, and the author of the forthcoming collection Her Body and Other Parties. As to why she writes speculative fiction, she writes: “From my earliest years, the currency of my Cuban grandfather’s communication with me was storytelling. Every tale about his life - from his poverty growing up in Santa Clara to his immigration and McCarthy-era deportation and return, his military service, and his life in DC with his wife and children - was told through a lens of humor and hyperbole.” In “Difficult at Parties” a woman discovers that, in the aftermath of a sexual assault, she has taken on some strange new powers.
Afterward, there is no kind of quiet like the one that is in my head.
Paul brings me home from the hospital in his ancient Volvo. The heater is busted and it’s January, so there’s a fleece blanket wedged at the foot of the passenger seat. My body radiates pain, is dense with it. He buckles my seatbelt, and his hands are shaking. He lifts the blanket and sets it down on my legs. He’s done this before, tucking it around my thighs while I make jokes about being a kid getting ready for bed. Now he is cautious, fearful.
Stop, I say, and do it myself.
It is a Tuesday. I think it is a Tuesday. Condensation on the inside of the car has frozen into ice. The snow that I can see is dirty, a dark yellow line carved into a space near the curb. The wind rattles the broken door handle. Across the way, a teenage girl shouts to her friend three unintelligible syllables. Tuesday is speaking to me, in Tuesday’s voice. Open up, it says. Open up.
Paul reaches for the ignition. Around the hole there are long scratches in the plastic where, in his rush to get me, the key had missed its destination over and over again.
The engine struggles a little, like it doesn’t want to wake up.
The first night back in my house, he stands in the doorway of the bedroom with his wide shoulders hunched inward and asks me where I want him to sleep.
With me, I say, as if it’s a ridiculous question. It is a ridiculous question. Lock the door, I tell him, and get into bed.
The door is locked.
Lock it again.
He leaves, and I can hear the stifled jerks of a doorknob being tested. He comes back into the bedroom, flips back the covers, buries himself next to me.
I dream of Tuesday. I dream of it from start-to-finish.
When the thin light of morning stretches across the bed, Paul is sleeping in the recliner in the corner of the room. What are you doing? I ask, pushing the quilt off my body. Why are you there?
He tilts his head up. Around his eye, a smoky-dark bruise is forming.
You were screaming, he says. You were screaming, and I tried to hold you, and you elbowed me in the face.
This is the first time I actually cry.
I am ready, I tell my black-and-blue reflection. Friday.
I draw a bath. The water gushes too-hot from the spotted faucet. I peel my pajamas away from my body and they fall like sloughed skin to the tiled floor. A halo of flesh gathers around my ankles; I half-expect to look down and see the cage of my ribs, the wet balloons of my lungs.
Steam rises from the bath. Somewhere in this room I am remembering a small version of myself, sitting in a hotel hot tub and holding my arms rigid against my torso, rolling around the churning water. I’m a carrot! I’m a carrot! I shriek at a woman, who might be my mother. I’m a carrot! Add some salt! Add some peas! And from her lounge chair she reaches toward me with her hand contorted as if around a handle, the very caricature of a chef with a slotted spoon.
I add a fat dollop of bubble bath.
I slip my foot into the water. There is a second of brilliant heat that slides straight through me, like steel wire through a block of wet clay. I gasp but do not pause. A second foot, less pain. Hands on the sides, I lower myself down. The water hurts, and it is good. The chemicals in the bubble bath burn, and they are better.
I run my toes along the faucet, whispering things to myself in a low voice, lifting up my breasts with both hands to see how high they can sit; I catch my reflection in the sweaty curve of the stainless steel, tilt my head. On the far side of the tub, I can see the tiny slivers of red polish that have receded from the edges of my toenails, crescent moons ebbing into nothing. I feel buoyant, weightless. The water goes too high and begins to threaten the lip of the tub. I turn the faucet off. In the absence of the roar of rushing water, the bathroom echoes unpleasantly.
I hear the front door open. I tense, until I hear the rattle of keys on the hallway table. Paul comes into the bathroom.
Hey, he says.
Hey, I say. You had a meeting.
What?
You had a meeting. You’re wearing a dress shirt.
He looks down at himself. Yes, he says, slowly, as if the choice of his shirt has not occurred to him before this moment. Actually, he says, I went and looked at some houses on the other side of town.
I don’t want to move, I tell him.
You should find another place. He says this with force, as if he has spent his entire day building up to this sentence.
I shouldn’t do anything, I say, I don’t want to move.
I think it’s a bad idea to stay. I can help you find a new apartment.
I wind a hand into my hair and pull it away from my skull in a wet sheet. A bad idea for who?
We stare at each other. My other arm is crossed over my chest; I release it.
Unplug the tub for me? I ask.
He kneels in the cold puddle on the tile next to the tub. He unbuttons the sleeve at his wrist and begins to roll it up in a neat, tight coil. He reaches past my legs, into the water still thick with bubbles, down to the bottom. Suds catch on the roll of fabric around his upper arm. I can feel the syncopated drumming of his fingers as he fumbles for the beaded chain, weaves it around them, pulls.
There is a low pop. A lazy bubble of air breaks the water’s surface. He withdraws, and his hand brushes my skin for a moment. I jump, and then he jumps.
My face is level with his shins when he stands; there are wet circles on the knees of his dress pants.
You’re spending a lot of time away from your place, I say. I don’t want you to feel like you have to spend every night here.
He frowns. It doesn’t bother me, he says. I want to help. He vanishes into the hallway.
I sit there until all of the water drains, until the last milky swirl disappears down the silver mouth and I feel a strange shiver that starts deep within me, worryingly. A spine should not be so afraid. The receding bubbles leave strange, white striations on my skin, like the tide-scarred sand at the beach’s edge. I feel heavy.
Weeks pass. The officer who’d taken my statement in the hospital calls to say they might have me come in to identify someone. Her voice is generous, too loud. Later, she leaves a clipped message on the answering machine, telling me it’
s not necessary. The wrong person, not the right one.
Maybe he left the state, Paul says.
I stay away from myself. Paul stays away, too. I don’t know who is more afraid, me or him.
We should try something, I say one morning. About this. I gesture to the space in front of me.
He looks up from an egg. Yes, he says.
We lay out suggestions on a hot pink post-it note that is too small for many solutions.
I place an order for a DVD from a company that advertises adult films for loving couples. It arrives in a plain brown box, neatly placed on the corner of the cement stoop in front of my apartment. When I pick it up, the box is lighter than I expect. I tuck it under my arm and grope the doorknob for a minute. The new deadbolt sticks.
I put the box on the kitchen table. Paul calls. I’m coming over soon, he says. His voice always sounds immediate, present, even when he’s speaking over the phone. Did you get the —
Yeah, I say. It’s here.
It will take him at least fifteen minutes to get to this side of town. I go to the box, which is sitting quietly where I’ve left it. I pull a perforated tab marked pull, and the cardboard opens like a book. I remove the plastic case: shiny, wrapped in cellophane. I tear open the corner of the wrapping with my teeth, wincing at its high squeak.
The number of limbs tangled on the front cover doesn’t appear to match the number of faces. I count, twice, and confirm that there is one extra elbow and one extra leg. I open the case. The disc smells brand new and doesn’t snap easily from its plastic knob. The shiny side gleams like an oil slick, and reflects my face strangely, as if someone has reached out and smeared it. I set it down in the DVD player’s open tray.
There’s no menu; the movie plays automatically. I kneel down on the carpet in front of the television, lean my chin into my hand, and watch. The camera is steady. The woman on the video looks a little like me — the same mouth, anyway. She is talking shyly to a man on her left, a built man who has probably not always been so — he seems to be straining out of his shirt, which is too small for his new muscles. They are having a conversation — a conversation about — I cannot make out any of the individual pieces of the conversation. He touches her leg. She takes the tab of her zipper and slides it down. There is nothing underneath.
Past the obligatory blowjobs, past the mouth-that-looks-like-mine straining, past perfunctory cunnilingus, they are talking again.
the last time, I told him, I told, fuck, they can see my —
I can’t hold this down, I can’t hold this down, I can’t —
I sit up. Their mouths are not moving. Well, their mouths are moving, but the words dropping from those mouths are expected. Baby. Fuck. Yeah. God. Underneath, something else is moving. A stream running beneath the ice. A voiceover. Or, I guess, a voiceunder.
if he tells me again, if he says to me that it’s not okay, I should just —
two more years, maybe, only two, maybe just one if I keep going —
The voices — no, not voices, the sounds, soft and muted and rising and falling in volume — blend together; weave around each other, disparate syllables ringing out. I don’t know where the voices are coming from — a commentary track? Without taking my eyes off the screen, I reach for the remote control and press the pause button.
They freeze. She is staring at him. He is looking somewhere out of the frame. Her hand is pressed down on her abdomen, hard. The swelling knoll of her stomach is vanishing beneath her palm.
I un-pause it.
okay, so I had a baby, this isn’t the first time that’s —
and if it’s only a year, then maybe I can follow —
I pause it again. The woman is now frozen on her back. Her partner stands between her legs, casually, like he’s about to ask her a question, his cock curved to the left against his abdomen. Her hand is still pushed into her stomach.
I stare at the screen for a long time.
When Paul knocks, I jump.
I let him in and hug him. He is panting and his shirt is damp with sweat. I can taste the salt in my mouth as I press my face against his chest. He kisses me, and I can sense his eyes flickering the screen. You okay? I ask.
I was running, he says. I had to park a few blocks away. How are you? How was class?
I didn’t go. I don’t feel well, I say, turning off the television.
He looks concerned.
I feel sick, I tell him.
He asks me if I am soup-sick or sprite-sick. I tell him soup-sick. He goes into the kitchen and I lie down on the couch. In the sharply focused dark I can hear the thunk of the cupboard door striking the cabinet next to it, the dry sliding of cans being sorted through, the sloshing of liquid, the tap of a pot on a burner, the metallic clink of him using the wrong spoon to stir. When he brings it out to me, chicken broth hovering precariously at the top of the bowl, napkin resting beneath it, I thank him. He warns me that it’s hot. I sip it too quickly, and bite down on the spoon in shock. Vibrations resonate through my skull, and I burn my mouth.
His friends invite us to a housewarming party for their new home out in the country. I don’t want to go, I tell him, the pale blue light from the television making shadows on my face as three men intertwine with each other, each mouth full.
I’m worried that you’re spending too much time in the house, he says. It’ll be mostly women.
What?
At the party. It’ll be mostly women. All people that I know. Good people.
I wear my turquoise dress with black stockings underneath and take a small aloe plant as a gift. In my car, we speed out of the dim lights of our small town and onto a country road. Paul uses one hand to steer, and rests the other on my leg. The moon is full and illuminates the miles of glittering snow that stretch in every direction, the sloped barn roofs and narrow silos with icicles as thick as my arm hanging from their outcroppings, the herd of rectangular and unmoving cows huddled near the entrance to a hayloft. We drive in straight lines, and turn at right angles. I hold the plant protectively against my body, and when the car makes a sudden left some of the sandy soil spills out onto my dress. I pinch it from the fabric and drop it back into the pot, brushing a few crumbs of dirt off the thick, fleshy leaves. When I look up again, I see that we are moving toward a large, illuminated building.
So this is a new house? I ask, my head pressed against the passenger window.
Yeah, he said. They just bought it, oh I don’t know, about a month ago. I haven’t been there yet, but I hear it’s really nice.
We pull next to a row of parked cars, in front of a renovated, turn-of-the-century farmhouse that glows with the lights inside.
It looks so homey, says Paul, stepping out and rubbing his gloveless hands together.
The windows are draped with gauzy curtains, and a creamy honey color throbs from within. The house looks like it is on fire.
The hosts open the door; they are beautiful and have gleaming teeth. I have seen this before. I have not seen them before.
Jane, says the dark-haired one. Jill, says the red-headed one. And that’s not a joke! They laugh. Paul laughs. It’s so nice to meet you, Jane says to me. I hold the small aloe plant toward her. She smiles again, so deeply that her dimples look carved into her face, and takes it. Paul looks pleased, and then leans over and scratches the ears of a large white cat with a smooshed face that is rubbing against his legs.
We’ve made a coatroom out of the bedroom, Jill says. Paul reaches for my coat. I slip it off and hand it to him, and he vanishes up the stairs.
A man in the hallway with buzzed hair and pale skin is holding an ancient camcorder on his shoulder. It is gigantic and the color of tar. He swings it toward me, an eye.
Tell me your name, he says.
I try to pull away, out of its view, but I cannot shrink tightly enough against the wall.
Why is that here? I ask, trying to keep panic out of my voice.
Your name, he repeats, tipping the camera towards me.
Oh Jesus, Gabe, leave her alone, says Jill, pushing him away. She takes my arm and pulls me along. Sorry about that. There’s always some retro-loving jackass at parties. And he’s ours.
Jane comes up on the other side of me and laughs down a scale. Paul, she says, where’d you go?
He reappears. Onward, he says, sounding giddy.
They ask us if we want the tour. We wander from the living room to a wide-open kitchen, shiny with brass and steel. They tap each shiny appliance in turn: dishwasher. Refrigerator. Gas stove. Separate oven. Second oven. There is a door toward the back with an ornate, bronze-colored knob. I reach for it, but Jane grabs my shoulder. Stop, she says, careful.
That room is being renovated, says Jill. There’s no floor. You could go in there, but you’d go straight down to the cellar. She clasps the knob with her manicured hand, and turns it. The door opens, and yes, the no-floor yawns at me.
That would be terrible, says Jane.
The camera follows me around. I stand near Paul for a while, awkwardly smoothing my dress. He seems anxious, so I move, a satellite released from orbit. Away from him, I feel strange, purposeless. I do not know these people, and they do not know me. I stand near the hors d’oeuvres table, and eat one shrimp — meaty, swimming in cocktail sauce — tucking the stiff tail into my palm. Another one, then a third, the tails filling up my hand. I swallow a glass of red wine without tasting it. I refill, and drain another. I swirl a cracker in something dark green. I look up. In the corner of the room, the single eye of the camera is fixed on me. I turn toward the table.
The cat saunters over and paws playfully at a hunk of pita bread in my hands. When I pull it away, she swipes at me and takes a chunk out of my finger. I swear and suck at the wound. In my mouth, I can taste hummus and copper. I’m so sorry, says Jill, who swans up as if she has been waiting offstage for the cue of my blood. He does that to strangers sometimes, he really needs anxiety medication or something. Bad pussycat! Jane touches Jill’s arm lightly and asks her to come and help clean up a spill, and they both vanish.
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