Guestbook

by Leanne Shapton

  I stood still and looked at you from behind a very thin tree. You would not have seen me anyway, but still I put the tree between us, and I watched you outside my building leaning on the mailbox and my overnight bag was in my hand and I was not sure what it would be like where I was sleeping, I had never been to Princeton anyway but there you were. And presumably upstairs there our son was.

  Then a black car drove up and you waved to the driver and got in the backseat.

  I stood on the sidewalk and was suddenly not there, in your mind, in his mind, in my own mind. I was of no minds. I had lost part of my own mind but not in the crazy way, more in the blank, not-knowing way, like, BLANK.

  Not knowing why you were leaving our son but knowing he was up there in my apartment and not knowing why I was leaving I mean really why. I mean. It was a white lie and I was going toward it. When you question why you are going are you really going?

  I was transparent; not wearing lipstick, carrying an overnight bag, some watercolors, some brushes, my computer and pills. I felt myself fade out, then I stepped out from behind the tree and started walking again. I faded back in.

  WHO IS THIS WHO IS COMING?

  ÊTRE CHEZ SOI

  LAMENT: I don’t feel at home at your place / Your daughter lives here / You need a new mattress / You’re out of Listerine / Your ice cubes smell funny / Can you get me a towel? / You don’t have any salt, do you? / I stacked the dishes in the sink / I think I’m allergic to your couch / Your sofa cushions smell / Your neighborhood is all rich people.

  You never stay at my place / I hate my apartment / I love my apartment / The tub’s a little dirty / Glad you stayed / I’ll do the dishes, I guess / No, I’ll do them / I think you should go home.

  A children’s birthday party, riverside, on an autumn day. The wind picks up as the light falls. The kids run in circles on the grass, the air and exertion making their cheeks pink and cold. The sky is overcast. The mothers pack up what is left of the fried chicken, the boxes of organic juice, the bucket of wine coolers.

  On the walk home, with every step, she says to him, “I hate you.”

  I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. It gushes from her, leaves her breathless and puzzled. She holds her daughter’s hand while her daughter holds a lollipop from the loot bag in the other. The night before, she’d cried quietly in the backseat of a car, repeating: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. Then vomited violently in the sink and the toilet before bed.

  She wants to be in her room, before dinner, with her mother cooking downstairs. The smell of meat browning, the sound of the refrigerator opening and shutting, the cold closing darkness at her window behind an orange wool curtain.

  The sunset strikes the highest windows of a building while a bus sighs.

  Suddenly: an aboveground swimming pool covered in plastic solar sheeting on a warm, overcast summer day. She’s at her father’s sister’s house. She loved that house. It was nothing special. A split-level semi, but it was a life like in the books and ads. There was wall-to-wall carpet in blue whorls, and whipped cream from a can, and butterscotch sauce. In the winter an ice rink was shoveled into a rectangle at the elementary school down the block. They’d skate on a Sunday night. Skate in the half-dark before supper and in the dark after supper. The house would be lit by strings of blue Christmas lights. Then her cousins moved. An East Indian family moved in. The father hanged himself in an upstairs bedroom.

  THE NECKLACE WAS EXACTLY AS SHE’D IMAGINED IT. She looked adorable, adorable. Adorable in exactly the way she wanted to be. She would wear it when Katharine came over. When Katharine came over she would be wearing it, and she’d put some wine on ice in that ice bucket she found last weekend, and put out some cheese and crackers, and she’d just be wearing it with a dress and an apron as Katharine was just stopping by, just popping by in the afternoon, and she’d just bung the wine in some ice and fling some cheese on the table and that would be that.

  THREE OF THE GUESTS HAD BROUGHT FLOWERS, all roses. The thorns hadn’t been removed on the yellow, the most beautiful, ones.

  Three of the guests stayed late. One of them offered to do the dishes. No, no, I love doing dishes. The other two smoked and talked at the windowsill. The host, who ran a lecture series, could not decide if he was a guest or a host. He chose guest.

  The next week was his birthday and he was staying with friends. That night, after dinner, his hosts brought a birthday cake to the table. On it were the numbers 4 and 3. In that order. He was shocked. That’s a wake-up call! He laughed aloud, then blew out the candles.

  As he lay on a bed in the guest room he told himself he wanted children, a relationship, a job he liked, stability, roots. He pulled the duvet up around his chin. He preferred being a guest.

  The yellow flowers wilted and died, and he kept the dried flowers on the table, thinking dried flowers were still beautiful, but they never really are, are they? Still, he did not throw them away. They made him feel loved. They were dead, though.

  His last girlfriend had not loved roses. She liked ranunculus, anenomes, tulips, and poppies. He had loved her but she was difficult to please. She had adored him for all the qualities she herself had once possessed. He felt her doing this, but he did not protest. She had children, a job she liked, stability, roots.

  And he had adored her for the qualities he felt he possessed. She was fun, he told his friends, she liked the same things, same music, they were so compatible. He’d never loved someone like this. He liked how he looked, to her.

  One morning, as he was standing in the bathroom, he saw her pick up her phone and put it down again. She turned to him and told him she liked sleeping with him. He liked sleeping with her too, but he did not tell her. Slowly he grew jealous, possessive, suspicious. If she could see things in him, then she must see them in everyone.

  Then, one day, he stopped wanting her qualities. He resented her qualities. He resented the fucking ranunculus. Roses were beautiful. He did not feel like himself anymore. There was too much pressure to be himself, and when he was alone and not inhabiting her qualities, he felt guilty. He suggested a break. She was angry and sad. She looked at him across the table then, and she saw him as she had the first night they met. He looked at her as she took back the qualities that she had lent him, one by one. Blood came into her cheeks. Until she was herself again. Until he was himself again.

  THE CHILD HAD CRIED, Don’t leave, Mommy. I don’t want you to go.

  Her mother shushed her and gently smoothed her brow.

  I’m here.

  She looked at her phone. Twenty minutes late. Restaurant ten minutes away.

  Don’t go, Mom, Mommy. Promise me you won’t go? Tell the sitter to go home.

  She rubbed the child’s back in slow circles.

  I’m here, love, try to sleep, I’ll stay with you.

  The child lay on her stomach and closed her eyes. Soon she slept. Her mother stepped into the hall, left the door ajar, applied lipstick in the hall mirror, and turned to the sitter.

  If she wakes, just say, Shh, shh, as though you were me, and soothe her without talking. Otherwise I’ll be ten minutes away if she needs me.

  WHEN SHE WORKED AT THE NEWSPAPER, she had to do a story on corporal punishment. She ordered paddles, whips, canes, and rulers from various sex-supply websites. These items arrived at the office wrapped in plain brown paper. She sent them to the art department to be photographed, and a day later they were returned to her desk.

  She put the ruler in a coffee cup along with her markers and pencils, put the other items in a drawer. The cane was too long, so she hung it over her desk partition alongside an umbrella and forgot about it.

  She told her boyfriend about this one night, over spaghetti. She saw his eyes narrow and sensed something pass between them. She felt suddenly older.

  Then her boyfriend told a story, about remembering her before they dated,
when she had come to his office with a few other editors. He said when he felt lonely, working late, he’d think back to that day and how happy he’d been to see her. You had a blue-and-white-striped sweater on, he said. But she did not own a blue-and-white-striped sweater, it was her coworker Gina who had worn that. She twirled spaghetti on her fork and decided not to correct him.

  SINFOROSA

  I was home, visiting my parents for the weekend with my daughter, Alice. My parents were happy to see her and gave Alice toys to play with that I’d never seen before—old dolls and plastic baskets. When I asked where they had come from, my father said they had found them in the free area at the dump. After lunch one day, as Alice played in the living room, my mother told me a ghost story.

  My mother’s father had died in a mining accident when she was eight. Her aunt Sinforosa, his sister, told her the story. Sinforosa said that on the night my mother’s father died, he came to her and slept beside her. My mother said this in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone, with a firm look in her eyes. She told me that as children, her father and his sisters had all slept together on the floor, under the blankets. Sinforosa had told my mother that she knew it was her brother because of his feet. “I know his feet,” she had said. He had come back to her, to them as children.

  I asked my mother if she had ever seen his ghost. She said she had not. But once, she said, she was visited by the ghost of a teacher. He was her favorite teacher, and he had a smell of soap. She was a favorite of his too, and at school he paid special attention to her. The night he died, she said, she woke up and her bedroom smelled strongly of him, of his soap. She knew he was saying goodbye, she said, as she picked at the tablecloth.

  THE COUPLE

  He had a reputation.

  He fell in love. Over and over again, in love. He cried a lot.

  Thank you, he’d say, when he ended things.

  She was an only child. Never pretty.

  She spoke in bon mots.

  He was easily seduced. Could she save him?

  Power.

  Presentation.

  He was a man who lacked true tenderness. Acted tenderness. She was a woman who lacked true charisma. Acted charisma.

  No matter what they did.

  No matter how many parties and stories.

  Something was off.

  Three syllables.

  Sounds like.

  Royalty.

  THE DREAM III

  The cellar.

  The icehouse, where bodies were kept until the ground thawed.

  The table plan.

  CHRYSANTHEMUM, CARNATION, ANEMONE, FOXGLOVE

  LIVING WITHOUT what the photo does not give back. What you don’t see. What you don’t get to see. Think about what you don’t get to see.

  Remember what you don’t get to see.

  The never, but ever-fixed. The latency of the latent image.

  It is there in the dark. It was there. It is still there.

  CAUSETH SATH

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my family: Bob and Lorna Shapton, Derek Shapton, Kristin Sjaarda, Pamela Baguley, Joyce Atkinson, and Tomasina Truman. Thank you, Richard McGuire, John Geiger, Kristin Gore, Jessamyn Hatcher, Lisa Naftolin, Michael Schmelling, Mark Wallinger, Adam Thirlwell, Brendan Canning, Kim Temple, Jessica Johnson, Ken Whyte, Sara Angel, David Shipley, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Maile Meloy, Aria Sloss, Rachel Comey, Ceridwen Morris, Rivka Galchen, Dede Gardner, Jerry Schwartz, Friederike Schilbach, Christopher Wahl, Chris Bollen, Gaby Wood, Judith Clark, Emily McDonnell, Juman Malouf, Monique Bureau, John Wray, Christoph Amend, Carla Gilders. To Sarah Chalfant and Luke Ingram in London, Rebecca Nagel and Andrew Wylie in New York.

  Thank you to Riverhead Books: Becky Saletan, Anna Jardine, and Helen Yentus. Especially to Claire Vaccaro for patience and design. Many thanks to Teddy Blanks for work on the cover and Kate Ryan for photo research.

  Thank you to my geists: Sandeep Salter, Carson Salter, Jon Drennan, Milah Libin, Christine Coulson, Holly Carter, Christopher Noey, Steven Estok, Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn, Christine Muhlke, Christian Zaschke, Gabrielle Bell, Peter Mendelsund, Ruby Mendelsund, Maggie Parham, Jim Parsons, Michael Portnoy, Oliver Helden, Cynthia Barton, Ben Metcalf, Batsheva Hay, Maya Singer, John Derian, Liana Finck, Carolyn Kormann, Sarah McNally, Jasper McNally Jackson, Jeff Eugenides, Frank Barkow, Nick Kulish, Yelena Akhtiorskaya, Laura Ferrara, David Gilbert, Victoire Bourgois, Lucas Wittmann, Brendan Francis Newnam, Adelaide Docx, Gwen Smith, Joseph Medeiros, K. Todd Freeman, Paul Graham, Olga Yatskevich, Chris Johanson, Reed Birney. Enormous gratitude for friendship, grace, and skill to Paul Marlow, Gus Powell, Jason Fulford, and Jason Logan.

  Special thanks to Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Taryn Simon, and Niklas Maak, for being early readers, supporters, and note-givers, and to John Jeremiah Sullivan, for close reading. Thank you, James Truman, for the days.

  PHOTO AND ART CREDITS

  “S as in Sam,” “The Dream,” “I Will Draw a Diagram of Her Movements,” “Christmas Eve,” “Peele House,” “The Dream II,” “Natura Morta,” “Over the Wall,” “Georgehythe Place,” “Lago,” “New Jersey Transit,” “Être chez Soi,” “The Dream III”: All images collection of Leanne Shapton

  “Eidolon”: All paintings from Tadzio series © Leanne Shapton

  “Billy Byron”: All images collection of the author, except: 1: All © Tomasina Truman. 2: Lisa F. Young / Alamy Stock Photo. 3: Christopher Wahl. 4: Frank Molter / Alamy Stock Photo. 5: Jonny White / Alamy Stock Photo. 6 Action Plus Sports Images / Alamy Stock Photo. 7: Juergen Hasenkopf / Alamy Stock Photo. 8: dpa picture alliance archive / Alamy Stock Photo. 9: Emiliano Rodriguez / Alamy Stock Photo. 10: Action Plus Sports Images / Alamy Stock Photo. 11: Storms Media Group / Alamy Stock Photo. 12: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo. 13: Christopher Wahl. 14: (top left) John Fryer / Alamy Stock Photo; (center left) ITAR-TASS News Agency / Alamy Stock Photo; (top right) PjrSport / Alamy Stock Photo. 15: Malcolm Park editorial / Alamy Stock Photo

  “At the Foot of the Bed”: All photos from Bed series © Leanne Shapton

  “Quesadilla”: All photos from Figure series © Leanne Shapton

  “Gymnopédies”: All images from Floor Plan series © Leanne Shapton

  “Middle Distance”: All photos from Mirror series © Leanne Shapton

  “A Geist”: Photos © Gus Powell and © Jason Fulford

  “Sirena de Gali”: All images collection of or © Leanne Shapton, except: 16: Alan Wilson / Alamy Stock Photo. 17, 18: Cameron Kirkwood, Private Collection

  “Eqalussuaq”: All images collection of Leanne Shapton, except: 19 (top), 20: WaterFrame / Alamy Stock Photo

  “The Iceberg as Viewed by Eyewitnesses”: All paintings from Iceberg series © Leanne Shapton. Other images: 21: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo. 22: Drawing of iceberg by Titanic survivor George Rheims. 23: nsf / Alamy Stock Photo

  “Who Is This Who Is Coming?”: All photos from Sheet series © Leanne Shapton

  “The Couple”: All photos from Queen Alexandra’s Christmas Gift Book series © Leanne Shapton

  “Chrysanthemum, Carnation, Anemone, Foxglove”: All paintings from Still Life series © Leanne Shapton

  “Causeth Sath”: All paintings from Bay Moon series © Leanne Shapton

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Leanne Shapton is an artist and author of several books, including Swimming Studies (winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography), Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, and a coauthor of the New York Times-bestselling Women in Clothes. She is also the cofounder of J&L Books, a nonprofit publisher of art and photography books. She lives in New York City.

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