I let her stammer and walk. Worked hard at ignoring this pull to get up, to put my arms around her. Ignored wanting to stop her. Soon enough she stopped herself. She hadn’t actually looked at me so far and now when she did I looked away, then realized in an instant how that would look to her.
She came and sat down beside me, and I felt her hand on the back of my neck, her fingers in my hair. I felt her trying to soothe me and then she said, “I’m so sorry,” and still I didn’t tell her. Didn’t say a word about Ingrid or Ingrid’s husband.
The next day she and I went back to the woods. We sat in the leaves, propped against that log there and I listened while she said, “I don’t understand it,” and “It doesn’t makes sense.” I listened while she said these things over and over, and only once did she look at me in a way that required an answer.
What could I say to her? I kept my head down and of course she took that as disappointment. She pulled me closer to her and I held on to her and she apologized over and over until I was nearly crying. Not for me, but for her. I couldn’t risk it, though. I couldn’t risk telling her because that seemed to equal losing her, though this way I seemed to be losing her anyway.
Two more weeks like this and then everything changed. She and I came back from one of our walkabouts. Came back to find Gail standing at the door and waving. And as we got closer, she said, “Come on. Come on, hurry,” which confused me because it seemed to me we were on the early side.
Beth said, “What is it?”
“I’ve got to take her over. She’s got a visitor.”
I started backing up. Beth felt this, I think, because she tightened her hand on my arm and this steadied me a little.
I don’t know what my face looked like but Beth took one look and said to Gail, “Let me take her. You’re about to go home. You don’t want to get held up here.”
Then Gail was looking at me too. Seemed not sure what to do or to say. I tried to smile at her but I felt sick and so I wasn’t sure how it came off. I was caught. I figured it’d be Ingrid’s husband, and so I wanted Gail bringing me. But in the time it took to think this much Beth and I were already walking over to the main building.
We stopped at the desk and the woman there pointed us to a room at the end of the hall. The door was ajar, but you couldn’t see in. By now I’d gone on automatic. I’d flicked some switch somewhere inside me that would let me get through this, would get me through anything, and so I thought I was prepared and I guess I was, except not for Ingrid.
As we pushed open the door I saw her standing by the window, one that didn’t have a grate on it. She turned toward me and I felt like I ran to her but instead I was standing stock still with Beth nudging me. Beth closed the door behind us and stood leaning back against it. She’d let go after pushing me. Ingrid had made some progress partway to me but then she’d stopped. It was up to me to close the distance remaining.
I found my feet and began walking. And when I got close enough I held out my hand and she pulled me against her. Then she was kissing me and I was kissing her back, all the time feeling Beth behind me, watching.
Still, I couldn’t stop this. My coat was open and Ingrid had her hands underneath it and then under my shirt. I had my hands on her, too, but just holding on, trying to keep my balance while really I was falling into her.
She had her hand on my stomach. Had my pants already partway open. This made me glad for the bulk of my coat, which was no longer Gail’s but one Beth had brought me. By now I had both my hands cradling Ingrid’s neck. I couldn’t get my tongue far enough into her mouth. I couldn’t help myself and then she’d gotten her hand into my underwear and my knees went loose and I opened my legs and sank against her. Felt her hand inside me and then I heard the door slam.
I don’t know if that alone straightened me up. Or if it was knowing that with Beth gone, someone else would be in here and fast. I staggered away, buttoning my coat because my pants seemed too intricate to manage and then someone else was already there. I recognized the guard, and him me. He smirked, looked us both up and down and then plopped into a chair.
This didn’t leave much for me and Ingrid to do except talk. But soon enough it became clear that this had been the point all along. That what had come before was merely the warm-up to some kind of favor.
“He found me,” she said.
And, now, since we weren’t touching, I had my bearings. “No kidding,” I said. “Me, too.”
I saw her expression change but then change back again. “I’m going back to him,” she said. “I already have. He doesn’t know I came here. He doesn’t know I know where you are. I had to tell him things. I had to say you put me up to leaving. You did in a way. You know this.”
She looked at me when she said it. I looked at my guard. He was licking the corner of his mouth. Then he ran his finger there, along his moustache and down his chin, through the rest of his beard. I found myself rubbing my cheek and then quickly looking away from him and back to her and then down at the floor.
“Look, I think he’ll let up on you. I think so. Now I’m back I think maybe he’ll forget about you.”
Now I was the one wanting to storm out slamming the door. Instead I sat down on a couch. One that faced the chair this guard was sitting in. And it was good that I did because my head had fogged and my feet hurt and I felt suddenly very tired.
I wasn’t sure what she was asking of me. I wasn’t at all sure why she’d come and, without quite realizing it, I asked her. I said, “Ingrid, why are you here?”
“I didn’t want you to think I deserted you.”
I began laughing. I couldn’t help it.
She became flustered. She said, “Really I haven’t known very long. I only got back three months ago.”
Her saying this snapped me back. I’d no idea how long I’d been here but I suppose I’d been telling myself it’d only been a few weeks. Hearing otherwise fucked with me deeply. My face began to tremble. I could feel it and I guess she could see it because she said, “I’ve got to leave. I’ve stayed too long already.”
She came over to me on her way to the door. My hand was resting on my knee and she put hers over it. I felt it brush across and then she hurried to the door.
My guard let me sit there until we’d both heard the end of her footsteps. Then he gave a long low whistle and got up. He pulled me by the arm and took me back. And later that night he was the one visiting me.
Twelve
I figured that’d be the last I’d see of Beth. I figured I might even land back in the lockbox. Instead she came the next day as if nothing had happened. Or, almost. We walked out to our same place in the woods but without talking or touching and this let me know she wasn’t going to pretend it away.
Even once we sat down, though, she waited a while. Waited as if she expected me to just start telling her. I suppose this would’ve been the normal thing to do. And I suppose I had no reason left not to, had nothing to lose now.
Still, out of habit, I made her ask and what she asked first was, “Who is she?”
I didn’t know how to explain easily and so I had trouble starting – didn’t know quite where to start until it seemed best to be blunt.
“Her husband was a regular for a while. He took me home to her and I stayed a few days. And then a few weeks. It became very complicated.”
I’d been staring at the leaves and now I picked one up and pulled it apart.
Beth didn’t say anything and so I figured I hadn’t said enough. But while I was trying to come up with more but stay along the same lines she said, “Are you in love with her?”
This took me aback. Both because she asked and because I’d never thought about it in this way. I felt like saying “not after yesterday,” but that seemed flip and hurtful – not the best thing to say.
Not saying it left me dumb and this probably left her assuming my answer and not the one I expected she wanted to hear. The answer she wanted? I feared I’d just now happened on to it. Had on
ly just realized, or even considered it. And it seemed it would’ve been okay to tell her, tell her what she wanted to hear, if only she hadn’t needed to hear it.
So I worked on deciding she didn’t want me to say it. Did this so I’d be able to. But somehow, once I’d convinced myself I was wrong after all; that she didn’t want me to tell her I loved her instead of Ingrid. Once I’d accomplished this, it made the telling even less likely instead of possible.
All this left my head swimming. It made me want to get up and walk around. As if higher altitude would clear things a little. As if getting a little further away from Beth would. But getting up wasn’t possible. The physical motion involved wasn’t. And so instead I sat there looking at my hands, at the spine of another leaf I’d dismantled.
Beth didn’t ask me again and after a while it could be like she’d never asked in the first place, but not quite. She put her arm around me and for a moment I thought she was going to kiss me except both of us at the last minute seemed to move away from this and not toward it.
I lit a cigarette and this changed things again. Got her back to talking. Asking more questions but along a different track and so everything eased some.
“How long did you stay with them?” This was her first question.
“I don’t know,” I said. “A month, maybe two. Or maybe it was only weeks, I’m not sure.”
She looked like she didn’t understand how I couldn’t know. She looked like that was what she would ask more about but instead she asked, “Why, why did you stay?”
“Money,” I said, though if Ingrid saw the lie in this Beth no doubt would too. I told myself she hadn’t seen me with them, only with Ingrid. Told myself maybe this made a difference. Whether it did or not, Beth let this one by.
“What did you do?” she said next.
This pissed me off, so I said, “What do you think I did? I fucked them and they fucked me. Pretty thoroughly.”
I could practically feel her trying to be patient, trying to hold her temper.
“No, I mean …” But she stopped here as if that had been what she meant after all. That she’d needed to know for sure, hear me say it.
She got up, which was not something she’d done before, and it left me sitting there alone so I lit another cigarette. She ran her fingers through her hair. Pushed it out of her eyes, though it hadn’t been there to begin with, and I found myself looking at her differently.
Or maybe I was just noticing how I always looked at her. Then I was getting up too and we were walking back, though it was still quite early.
Since I’d gotten moved out of the hole and into this room, Beth didn’t usually linger. We had more of an audience here. Today, though, when she started to leave, I stopped her. Had a surge of bad feeling and wanted to help her.
“He’s the one put me in here,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“He had me picked up. Made sure they put me here. Her husband.”
She looked uncomprehending. Like this didn’t make sense at all and so I felt stupid for telling her. Figured now she’d think I was paranoid or something. Once they get you in a place like this people don’t believe you so easy. But then I guess that’s a big part of the point – making sure you’re walking uphill with each thing you say.
I could see this as good news though. My lack of credibility might make the things Ingrid said possible. Maybe her husband would move on. Maybe he only needed to be able to say I’d been here, not keep me here for ever.
As I passed this idea back and forth, Beth just stood there. Stood there with this dull look on her face and I couldn’t tell what, if anything, was going on behind it.
She’d taken my arm but I hadn’t really realized it. I’d been too lost in my own head and only felt her now because she wobbled a little. I found myself taking her hand to steady her, leading her over to sit on the bed, but once we were there she recovered herself and said, “No, wait. You’ve reminded me of something. I’ve got to go and take care of something.”
I watched her go, wondering what she could possibly mean. What it might mean for me. Whether I should worry or hope. All of this pummeled me – the things I’d told her and wished I hadn’t. But mostly it was that deadened urgency she’d had as she hurried away, rushing in some stumbling trance. And me? I was left there picking myself up. Left to consider more immediate things like would I be let alone tonight? And left knowing the chances against it since I was still the freshest thing going.
The next day Beth started jittery and kept that way. She hurried us out. Seemed all the while to be looking over her shoulder. Even once we were in the woods she still spoke in whispers. “My husband is in the DA’s office. I’m going to get you out.”
“You are or he is?”
I asked this meanly, my own sharpness surprising me and the cause of it tweaking me worse.
I knew she was married. Knew it all along. She wore a ring for chrissakes. But somehow so long as she didn’t mention him I didn’t care. It was like he didn’t exist or didn’t matter. But her saying this had me picturing someone she went home to. Someone I might soon be beholden to. No, I didn’t think so. I didn’t think that’d work real well.
“He’s going to try and find out what happened.”
“I told you what happened. You think your husband can go against this guy? He bought your husband’s boss years ago and now somehow … Tell me, by magic?”
I’d hurt her. That was clear. I only now realized I hadn’t wanted to.
She looked at her hands when she spoke next. She said, “I don’t know. He said he’d look into it. See what he could do.”
I found myself digging dirt with my heel. Making a trench through the leaves. I chewed my tongue to keep from crying because it’d come to me that my upset wasn’t really about her husband. It was about the chance she was offering. I realized it when I thought about the night before. That same bitch sitting by the door, and that same guy on top of me, and me trying to decide was he fucking me senseless or had I been there all along?
I believed if I stayed here much longer I’d go senseless for ever. Walk around speechless or with one or two favorite phrases. Wind up in that state without the aid of anyone cutting my brain or pumping anything into it. I had those constant reminders pacing the floor. All day I’d watch them because what else was there to look at?
Beth had come to be all of that – the what else. I struggled with myself, finally got so far as, “Do you think …?”
“Yes,” was what she said. And then we didn’t talk so much but just sat there and I found myself wanting all kinds of things from her. Things I couldn’t quite put words to. Or wouldn’t put words to because it all seemed too blunt for that and maybe too big. I leaned against her and she held my hand in both of hers. And this seemed like something I could count on, if that had ever been something I’d known how to do.
Thirteen
She did get me out and it didn’t even take very long. The way she explained it, her husband worked it underground, slid it by. No big fuss, which was the smart way to play it, except it left me wondering what would happen if Ingrid’s husband found out. Wondering how he hadn’t already. Though this I could chalk up to his moving on. To my never holding anyone’s notice for very long.
I worked at not worrying. And then at not thinking about it at all, and soon enough I stopped. I had other things occupying me – this new stupid job very much like the old stupid one and trying hard not to do anything afterwards, trying just to go home.
Going home was easier because I had my own place now. A small apartment Beth had helped me find. My view was a pharmacy and I liked watching the neon sign flashing DRUGS in fancy pink script all night long. It kept me company.
Beth did too. Part of the deal with my getting out was I’d see her. They’d made her part of the package. Stamped her right on my ticket. So here I was with this new life, which wasn’t different enough from the old one.
*
Anyway, he
r office wasn’t far from where I was living. Close enough you could walk it, though I had my car back. Beth’s husband had had his hand in this too. Apparently the thing had sat in that parking lot piling tickets until finally they’d towed it. I sure didn’t have the money to bail it, so they wangled it, which way I never did get clear. I understood clearly about the favors, though. And, being me, already I worried about payback time. I wasn’t keen on owing so much to a couple. I mean, look where I ended up when the couple owed me.
I kept pushing these things to the back of my brain. If I’d let myself think too much about any of them, or all of them, I wouldn’t have made it to work in the mornings. And I sure wouldn’t have made it to Beth’s office afterwards.
That’s how it had begun to line up – most every day now I saw her. Though how or when it had turned to that often, I’d been unaware. It seemed almost like something someone else had decided and not her. Except it was her.
Sometimes I got there as the other people were leaving – the people she worked with, the shrinks and all. Usually I’d wait this little time out in my car because I hated how they looked at me. The way their friendliness gave away everything going on underneath it. Sometimes I sat there so long she’d have to come get me. And when she did, I liked how she put her arm around me while we walked in together.
But once we were in her office, it always took me a while to sit down. I’d kind of wander around, though it wasn’t a big enough room to keep that going for long. She’d ask me how work had been and we’d start out talking small like that for a bit. Then finally I’d sit down when I thought she might not notice I hadn’t been sitting all along.
I sat in this chair opposite her. She didn’t have a couch. This was probably a good thing because, after all, if you’re having trouble sitting, how much more trouble are you going to have lying down?
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