Recycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  “I have to go,” she says. “I’ll be back around eight.”

  “You have class until eight?”

  “I’m studying with some people,” she says. “I have a big test on Monday.”

  “What people?” I say. “What test? How do you test fashion?”

  Ramie just looks at me.

  “I’m not spying,” I say. “I’m just … curious.”

  “You have no idea what I do,” she says. “No idea at all, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The test is on eighteenth-century textiles. The people are students in my class. And you test fashion the same way you test any academic subject.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Do you want to chaperone us?”

  Truthfully? Yes.

  But I don’t admit to this. Nor do I admit to being as ignorant about her studies as she thinks I am. I mean, I listen when she tells me about her schoolwork. I just don’t absorb it all. You’d have to have memory stores even bigger than my own to absorb it all. She talks about it a lot. Is forgetting a few things here and there such a crime?

  Maybe it’s not a crime. But all of a sudden the fact that I distrusted her does feel like a crime. And the way she’s looking at me, as if I were a cop or a spy, makes me wonder if that’s what I’ve become.

  “I guess I’ll see you tonight,” I say. I turn to go.

  “Wait,” she says.

  I stop walking but keep my eyes on the sidewalk.

  “Look at me,” she says.

  But how can I look at her when I know she’s right? I am a spy. I’ve been spying on Ramie all my life. Ever since I woke up, I’ve spent most of my time scouring Jillspace for memories of her. Only now there’s so little to recall. Now there are long swaths of time where Jill doesn’t even know where Ramie is.

  “What’s happening to us?” she says.

  “I miss you,” I say. “The summer was so amazing, and now I hardly see you anymore. I know I shouldn’t scrounge through Jillspace for memories of you. I know that makes me a creep and a spy, but mal, Rames, it’s all I have.”

  She smiles. “You said mal.”

  “What?”

  “You never say mal.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sometimes …” She takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I wish …” She stops herself.

  “What?” I say. “You wish what?”

  She stares at me, an unnameable fear darkening her eyes.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  Ramie looks down. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “What I want is impossible anyway.”

  I step close to her. “Nothing’s impossible.” I find myself linking pinkies with her. She looks at our hands and smiles. Then she looks up at me.

  “I want more,” she says.

  “More what?”

  She bites her lip. “More of you,” she says.

  I put my forehead to hers. “Rames,” I say. “You have no idea how much I want that.”

  “I feel guilty just thinking this,” she says. “I love Jill too, you know.”

  I pull back and look at her. “She knows,” I say. “And she won’t remember this conversation anyway.”

  This doesn’t comfort her. Nor do I fully believe it. Jill remembers more and more of my life all the time. She may very well remember this conversation.

  “I guess some things are impossible,” I say.

  Ramie nods, then brings her lips very gently to mine. Our pinkies are still linked. “When I’m through with school,” she says, “I’ll never work when you’re around.”

  “Promise?”

  She nods.

  “And we’ll have sex all day?”

  She nods again.

  I pull her close so that our bodies are touching. Then I bring my lips to her ear. “Come home with me now.”

  She squirms away. “I can’t. I have to go to class.”

  I groan painfully.

  “Don’t,” she says. “I really need to focus. School’s a lot harder than I thought it would be, and there’s this teacher’s assistant who’s recruiting for junior stylist assistants. I think she likes me, so I sort of need to impress her.”

  “Nerd.”

  She hits me playfully. “Spy,” she says. “Come on. Walk with me.”

  We head down the sidewalk, pinkies still linked.

  “Maybe I’ll just study at home tonight,” she says.

  “Good idea.”

  “But you can’t be molesting me the whole time.”

  “Can you study naked?”

  She laughs. “All right. But you have to go out and get pizza. From the good place.”

  “With the mean lady?”

  “Yes.”

  Ramie stops in front of a glass-fronted building with a wide bank of marble steps. “Please don’t be jealous, Jack. You know you don’t have to.” She swings our arms out playfully. “You’re my one and only.”

  “I am?”

  She nods. “There’s no one else like you,” she says. “No one in the world.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “Hey.” She whacks me on the shoulder. “We fight pretty well.”

  “Dude,” I say. “I was going easy on you.”

  “Liar.” She tugs herself free from my grip and heads up the steps to the building. On the top step, she turns around and smiles at me.

  I have loved that smile for as long as I can remember. It is the most radiant object in the universe. Brighter than the moon on a cloudless night. Hotter than the sun at noon. I spent all summer learning its contours and nuances. I could draw it from memory if I knew how to draw.

  But there’s something unfamiliar about it now, a dimming in the eyes, a knowingness. That’s the thing about Ramie. Just when you think you have her figured out, she does something to confound you.

  I even love that about her.

  “They trade girls?” I ask.

  At the kitchen counter, Ramie pulls the peppermint tea bags from two mugs while yawning ferociously. “Yup.”

  “And keep track on a chart?” I ask.

  Ramie nods grimly, then brings the mugs over to the coffee table and sits next to me on the couch.

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “Are you deeply sure?”

  Ramie nods, then grabs my stocking foot and squeezes it. “Don’t worry,” she says. “You don’t need a man to be happy.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  It’s Wednesday. Ramie doesn’t have class until one o’clock, and my temp agency’s getting back to me about a gig at some law firm. That means, for the morning at least, I am free to wallow in the mystery of how Ian could be such a good kisser and so gross at the same time.

  “You know what?” Ramie says. “I wish you could meet him.”

  “Who, Ian?”

  “No, Jack,” she says. “I wish you could know him like I do.”

  “No thanks.”

  She laughs. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she says.

  And here we begin the monthly ritual I call Oh My God I Can’t Believe How Amazing and Wonderful Jack Is.

  “Did I ever tell you,” she says, “that Jack pushed Ian up against a chain-link fence?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he did.”

  “Why?” I say.

  She turns her whole body toward me, like she’s about to tell me a ghost story. “He claims he was filled with mindless rage,” she says. “Like an animal or something. But I think it was in defense of the female sex. You know, because of the girl-trading? He’s deeply a feminist.”

  I look at her doubtfully.

  “What?” she says. “Boys can be feminists.”

  “Boys are gross.”

  “Jill,” she says. “You know you don’t believe that.”

  “I should,” I say.

  Ramie stares dreamily over the lip of her cup. “When I first met him, he was so different from you. I mean polar opposites.”

  “Who, Ian?” I say.


  “No, Jack.”

  I sigh. “Ramie, can we please not do this today? Can we have one day where we don’t do this, and can that be today?”

  “Do what?”

  “What we always do,” I say. “Namely, you rambling on and on about how amazing and wonderful Jack is while I suppress the gag reflex.”

  Ramie stares at me in silence for a second, then takes a sip of scalding tea. “Why are you so resistant to him? You have a lot in common, you know. More and more all the time, in fact.”

  “That’s doubtful.”

  “You see?” she says. “You are resistant. He’s resistant to you too. You even have that in common.”

  “So we are doing this today,” I say. “Okay, fine. Let’s just spend the rest of our lives talking about Jack Jack Jack!”

  “I’m just trying to help,” she says. “You know I’m involved in this too.”

  “Uh, really? Gee, Rames, thanks for reminding me. I think a quarter of a nanosecond passed when I wasn’t hyperaware of the all-consuming pervitude of my existence. I think, in fact, the usual everyday pervitude of my existence was temporarily set aside to make room for a new pervitude involving a girl-trader who felt me up last week. But if you want to return to the usual everyday pervitude, fine.”

  “This is exactly what I’m talking about,” she says. “It’s like you need to believe that Jack is this disgusting interloper in your life. When, in fact, he’s—”

  “Amazing and wonderful?” I say.

  “Mal,” she says. “Sometimes you can be so obtuse.” She turns her body away and slumps over her mug of tea.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Look it up,” she says. “And while you’re at it, look up selfish too.”

  “Selfish?” I say.

  “Yes,” she says. “Characterized by a total lack of concern for other people’s feelings.”

  “I’m selfish?” I say. “Ramie, I gave up Tommy Knutson for Jack.”

  Ramie glances at me over the wispy steam from her mug, but she keeps her body turned away.

  “I should be driving to San Francisco right now,” I say. “But instead, I’m working as a stupid temp secretary so Jack can be with you. So don’t try to guilt me out about how unfair it is for poor Jack, who only has four days per—”

  All of a sudden the faintest outline of a memory slips across the border between Jack’s life and my own.

  A discussion of time.

  “What’s wrong?” Ramie says.

  I stare into the calm surface of my peppermint tea.

  Ramie and Jack were standing outside that FIT building. It was cold, and Jack was being partially strangled by my green bag.

  I turn to Ramie. “I want more.”

  “More what?” she says. “More tea?”

  “More of you,” I say.

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what you said to me. I mean to him. You want more of him and less of me.”

  “I never said that,” she says.

  “I feel guilty just thinking this,” I say.

  “Why?” she says.

  “No, dumbass. That’s what you said. You feel guilty because you want less of me and more of Jack.”

  “That’s not what I said!”

  I put my cup down and stand up. “You did say it, Ramie. I remember it.”

  “But that’s not what I meant.”

  I back away. “I know what you meant.”

  “Jill!” She gets up and follows me.

  I keep backing away. “I know exactly what you meant!” I turn and run into my room, then slam the door and lock it.

  In all the time I’ve been coping with Jack and Ramie’s relationship, it never occurred to me that she’d choose him over me. She’s my BFF. I thought that meant something. I back away from the door and sit on the edge of my bed. Ramie casts a moving shadow under the door as she paces back and forth in front of it.

  “Jill,” she says. “Just open the door.”

  But why should I? She’ll only try to argue her way out of it. She’ll use her powers of persuasion to convince me that I’m being unreasonable. But I’m not being unreasonable. I know what I remember.

  Stewing in my anger, I stare at her shadow beneath the door. But after a while the back-and-forth motion of her shadow becomes more compelling. I find it impossible to look away. It lulls me into an unwilling calm, dulling my anger until my breathing becomes quiet and rhythmic.

  “Why won’t you listen to me?” she says.

  Even her voice is fading now, along with all the details of hard reality. As I slip uncontrollably into the meditative state, I can no longer hold on to the anger. Before I know it, my eyes are closed.

  “Jill?” she says.

  But I’m only dimly aware of her. The black dot appears in the center of my forehead, then slowly balloons until it surrounds me completely. With no will to resist, I surrender.

  The anger is gone now, and I’m floating in a weightless void, held there by the blackness itself.

  It is a moment of perfect peace.

  Then an image flickers to life. Manhattan. That sidewalk near FIT. I can feel the cold against Jack’s skin. I feel his sadness, his hunger.

  Ramie is looking at us with eyes full of longing. “I want more of you,” she says.

  Their foreheads touch. It’s warm and smooth, and I can feel Jack’s love for her as a physical entity, something that resides in the body as much as the mind. It’s different from the way I loved Tommy Knutson. Simpler, steadier. There is no hesitation or doubt. But something about it hurts.

  There’s never enough of it.

  Suddenly everything goes black. The image and the feelings disappear.

  I find myself staring at my bedroom door, Ramie’s shadow passing underneath. Back and forth. Back and forth. I try to ride the lulling motion back into the meditative state. I close my eyes and lie down on the bed. I think of the heat where their foreheads touched, the smooth connection of skin on skin. All I want is to feel that love again. There was such honesty to it, such physicality. But all I get is the black dot. For twenty deep breaths I lie there silently repeating the words I am Jack McTeague, hoping it will guide me back into his world.

  But the black dot yields nothing else. That simple, white-hot love is just a memory. Eventually the rhythmic creaking of Ramie’s footsteps outside my room consumes all of my attention.

  “You don’t understand,” she says, her voice muffled behind the door.

  But I do understand. I understand more clearly than I ever have. Of course Ramie wants more of Jack and less of me. Who wouldn’t want to bathe in the heat of that love? Ramie is the whole world to Jack. She’s the owner of his soul. What do I give her that compares with that? Half the rent?

  I sit up suddenly and face the mirror, my jagged hair poking out all over the place. I look ridiculous. I’m not amazing and wonderful. I’m just a girl with stupid hair. I’m no force of raw animal passion. I’ve never pushed anyone up against a chain-link fence in defense of the female sex. I’ve never defended anything. My only contribution to the world is a pile of spreadsheets.

  I should lock myself in this room and let Jack take over. It’s not as if the world would miss me. Let someone else type spreadsheets.

  In fact, let Jack type spreadsheets for a while. Yeah. That’s right. Let Jack pay half the rent.

  I turn and face the closed door. “Hey, you know what?” I say.

  “What?” Ramie’s muffled voice says.

  “Maybe Jack can afford to be amazing and wonderful because he has no other responsibilities. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Jill,” she says. “Just open the door.”

  “I bet he wouldn’t be so amazing if he had to work as a temp secretary. I bet he wouldn’t be so wonderful if someone broke his heart.”

  “Ji—i—ill,” she whines. “Open the stupid door.” I can hear her slide down it and slump onto the floor.

  “Do you think he’d still be amazing and wonderf
ul if he found out his new crush was a girl-trader? Because I don’t think he would. I think he’d track Ian down and do something not very amazing or wonderful at all.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she says.

  “In fact, when you really stop and think about it,” I say. “Jack’s had it easy.”

  “Easy?” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “He’s never had to work. He’s never had to take the SATs. He didn’t even have to go through childhood. And childhood’s no picnic, you know.”

  “I know,” she says. “Childhood can be hard.”

  “Not if you’re Jack McTeague, it isn’t. If you’re Jack McTeague, you get to skip all of that. You just appear one day, stalk someone else’s BFF for a while, then wake up in an apartment someone else is paying for.”

  “That’s a bit of a simplification,” she says, her voice still muffled.

  “Still,” I say. “How come he gets to have a relationship and I don’t? How come he never gets dumped for the sake of a stupid road trip? How come he never makes out with guys who turn out to be girl-traders?”

  “Jill,” she says. “You’re becoming a complainer.”

  “What!”

  I look in the mirror, and lo and behold, two scowl lines have appeared right between my eyebrows! I rub at them with my thumb.

  “And you know,” Ramie says, “Jack’s the one who told me about the chart. You should be thanking him.”

  I freeze with my thumb between my eyebrows as a fresh thought occurs to me. I jump off the bed and jerk the door open, causing Ramie to tumble across the threshold. “Did you actually see this alleged chart?” I ask.

  Ramie looks up at me and shakes her head.

  “Because I didn’t see any chart when I mined Jack’s memories.”

  “What?” She stands up. “How much can you remember?”

  “Some!” I say. “And I don’t remember a chart. So all we have is Jack’s word.”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “To keep you away from Sasha? He knows you were flirting with him.”

  “I was not flirting with Sasha,” she says. “I was being a good wingman.”

  “Right,” I say. I walk back into my room and sift through the pile of clothes on my dresser.

  “What are you doing?” she says.

  I throw on some jeans and the red pouffy blouse, which is wrinkled, but it’s the only clean top I can find. I tuck my jagged hair into the wig and secure it with a few hairpins.