Recycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  “What are you?” he says.

  It’s not the question that hurts, it’s the way he asks it. Less than a whisper, it slips out like a hiss, as if even to ask is to touch shame. A brand-new shame. An uncontemplated shame.

  “I … I don’t know what I am,” I say. “But I know how I feel.” I reach for his hand.

  He pulls it away sharply.

  “Ian,” I say. “That night, before this happened, do you remember how you felt?”

  Ian’s breathing intensifies. He’s remembering now. I can see it on his face. He’s thinking of the way he touched me before he knew.

  “It doesn’t have to change,” I say. “We can still …”

  His eyes flick to the exit. “Why are you doing this?” he says. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I thought you’d want to know the truth,” I say.

  His head shakes in tiny little moves, just like my mother’s when she doesn’t want to accept something.

  “Maybe it’s too much to absorb right now,” I tell him. “Do you want to take some time to think about it?”

  “Okay,” he says too quickly.

  “Why don’t I call you later,” I say.

  He nods aggressively, his eyes flicking to the exit.

  “Like tomorrow?” I say.

  “Okay.” He stands up.

  I put my coat on as slowly as possible to give him time to stop me from leaving.

  “So I’ll call you?” I say.

  He nods, but he doesn’t move. When I finally get my coat on, he reels back, as if terrified that I might kiss him goodbye.

  I don’t.

  That walk to the exit through the dense, chattering crowd is the loneliest walk of my life.

  Once outside, I peer through the steamy window and see him walking back to the bar. Someone waves to him and he waves back. When Joel notices Ian at the bar, he looks around for me.

  I want to wave at Joel, to let him know I’m okay. But instead, I pull my coat tightly against the cold and run all the way home.

  “Whoa,” is what Ramie says when I call her that night to relay the whole conversation.

  She has to whisper because she’s crashing on someone’s floor in London and doesn’t want to wake her four other flatmates.

  “Did I do the right thing?” I ask her.

  She takes a second to think about it, but eventually says, “Yes. Defo. And it’s his problem if he can’t handle it.”

  “You don’t think he can handle it?”

  When she doesn’t answer right away, I realize I may have made a grave error.

  “No one’s ever going to be able to handle it,” I say. “Are they?”

  “Don’t say that,” she says. “I can handle it. Daria can handle it. Tommy can handle it.”

  But that’s a pretty short list. Will it always be so?

  “Give him some time,” Ramie says. “You never know. People can surprise you.”

  •

  But when I call Ian the next day, he doesn’t answer.

  Two days later he still hasn’t returned my call.

  I guess Ramie’s right. People can surprise you.

  Late one night, nineteen days into my phase, as I’m lying in bed, I feel a faint rumbling from within. It could be all the popcorn and ginger ale I had for dinner, but there’s a chance it’s Jack waking up. I wish I could talk to him. It’s strange, isn’t it, that the only person in the world who could understand what I’m going through is a person I’ll never meet.

  Undoubtedly, Jack will find it laughably naïve that I ever thought Ian could handle our secret. In retrospect, it seems absurd to me. I guess that was the Stupid part of the Reckless and Stupid combo. But the funny thing is, I have no regrets. That moment was the first time in my life that I ever felt better than my circumstances. Not in control of them—that’s a mad delusion—but not controlled by them either. No matter what life throws at me (and believe me, it throws some nasty stuff), I know I can handle it with dignity. My circumstances might determine what I am, but they don’t determine who I am.

  What I take from the whole episode (and Jack, I hope you remember this because you need to learn it too) is that you can’t control how other people behave. No matter how much you need them, they are driven by forces beyond your control. All you can do is be brave.

  But as soon as I think this, I sit up in bed and turn on the poodle lamp.

  Have I been brave?

  I mean truly brave?

  Sure, I revealed my darkest secret, but only to a guy I’m not in love with. When you think about it, all I risked losing was a guy I’m not in love with.

  How brave is that?

  I get out of bed and find my cell phone on the dresser. If I’m going to be brave, I should be brave where it counts.

  I turn on the phone, then sit on the edge of my bed with it. Within my short list of phone numbers is the even smaller subset of people who can handle my secret. I’ve been lying to one of them for far too long.

  That’s not brave.

  I find the letters TK and press the call button. My heart beats faster with every ring. I can do this, I tell myself. I just have to be brave.

  But after four rings, Tommy’s voice mail picks up. “Hi, it’s Tommy. Leave a message.”

  When I hear the beep, my breath leaves me. For a moment I fear that I am not up to the task. But when my breath returns, I summon my voice and say loud and clear what, in the past, I could only whisper.

  “I love you.”

  It’s been on the tip of my tongue for a long time.

  I hang up, kill the poodle lamp, and lie down. Whether or not Tommy returns my call is something I can’t cope with tonight. It’s been a hard few days. In fact, it’s been a hard few months.

  But in those dizzy few seconds before slipping into oblivion, I feel certain that I’ve done the right thing, no matter the consequences. I have avoided the precipice. I’m sure of it.

  That night, and that night alone, I sleep the dreamless sleep of the brave.

  All right, I have a confession to make.

  In my attempts to distinguish myself from Jill, I may have judged her unfairly. I’ve called her naïve, deluded, manipulative, and all kinds of nasty things, and taken great pleasure in doing so. It’s not that I was wrong. She can be all of those things. But it’s only part of the story. If I’m completely honest with myself, I have to admit I’ve always sort of admired her. Never more so than now.

  It’s easy to forget that Jill has borne the brunt of our condition by virtue of the fact that she’s the one who’s been out there in the world posing as “normal.” After all that’s happened, I think it’s safe to say that she’s anything but. In fact, in some surprising ways she’s extraordinary.

  And if Ian Larson can’t appreciate that, then screw him.

  “Right, Mannequin?”

  Mannequin just smiles, but I’m sure she agrees. She knows a jerk when she sees one.

  I’ve been sitting on Ramie’s floor all morning, leaning against the doorjamb while scrolling backward and forward through Jilltime. I have a lot to think about, and Mannequin has been both wise and supportive. She’s such an unlikely optimist too. I love that about her.

  “But, Jack,” she says. “Are you just going to sit there all day? Aren’t you going to get up and do something?”

  “Eh,” I say. “I’d rather sit here and wait for Tommy Knutson to call.”

  I’m a little concerned he hasn’t already. It took a lot of guts for Jill to leave that message. He better not fail her.

  “Maybe his cell phone is broken again,” Mannequin says.

  I hope that’s the case. I couldn’t bear it if he rejected Jill right now. I’d have to head westward to kill him.

  “Anyway,” Mannequin says, “I hope you’re not using Tommy Knutson as a distraction.”

  “From what?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” she says. “From Ramie, of course.”

  “Well, jeeze, Mannequin, don’t psyc
hoanalyze me.”

  “Don’t make it so easy, then.”

  I guess we’ve moved on to the tough love phase of our relationship.

  “All right, all right,” I say. “I’ve been a dick. I know. That ultimatum was a big mistake. I should have had faith. I should have embraced the beautiful mystery of Ramie’s intangible motives.”

  “Well put.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Jilltime is a treasure trove of useful insights re: moi being stupid about Ramie. And I do appreciate the way she dropped them in there for me to find. She’s a smart girl. Possibly smarter than I am, and I touch genius from time to time. I’m beginning to see that if Jill and I were to combine the best of each other’s traits, we’d be pretty amazing. Amazing and Wonderful, actually. We’d be almost superhuman.

  There’s something to aim for.

  “Jack,” Mannequin says. “You’re stalling.”

  She’s right. The funny thing is, I’m not even sure why. I know I have to call Ramie eventually, but I can’t bring myself to do it yet. There’s a certain peacefulness in sitting on the floor, not knowing what to do or how to do it. It’s as if the mean, hungry world outside has ceased to exist and there’s just me, Mannequin, and Ramie’s fading scent. That’s enough for now.

  While I’m leaning against the doorjamb, slowly rolling my head back and forth to stretch out my cramping neck, I see something white slide across the living-room floor with a quiet whish. It’s the first moving thing I’ve seen since I woke up. I stand up and grab it.

  It’s a small flyer advertising a launch party for Natalie’s magazine, Life Before the Apocalypse.

  I can just hear Natalie’s footsteps out in the hall, quietly descending the stairs, followed by the careful opening and closing of her door. According to the flyer, the party is tonight.

  For a moment I conjure a fanciful image of myself laughing and sipping a cocktail with Natalie and her magazine friends. I picture flowing fountains of champagne and elegantly dressed people making sharp, witty comments about stuff.

  Then I realize Natalie probably intended this invitation for Jill, not me. After our last meeting, I doubt Natalie ever wants to see my face again.

  “Hey, Mannequin?” I call out.

  “What?”

  I sit down on the couch and look at Natalie’s flyer. “Would it be wrong to show up at Natalie’s party?”

  “Tough call,” she says. “It’s not like she wrote Jill’s name on the flyer, right?”

  It’s true. But I’m not sure I can face Natalie after what’s happened between us. I’m still ashamed of what I did.

  “Hey, Jack?” Mannequin says. “Why don’t you warm up for your apology to Ramie by apologizing to Natalie first?”

  “Huh?”

  “Think about it,” she says.

  I lean back on the couch to consider Mannequin’s proposal. It seems ridiculous at first. But then I recall that this is precisely what Jill did. She got brave and confessional with Larson, then rode the confidence boost from that all the way to a love confession to Tommy Knutson.

  “Wow, Mannequin. You and Jill are geniuses.”

  “Duh,” she says.

  I get up, get dressed, head downstairs, and knock on Natalie’s door before I have time to chicken out.

  While I’m trying to calm myself down with deep breaths, I hear Natalie creep up to the door and turn the metal cover of the peephole. There is a long pause, where she is obviously, after seeing my face, weighing the possibility of pretending she’s not home. But after a few seconds she turns the locks and opens the door.

  She doesn’t say anything, and neither do I at first. Suddenly, I’m sorry seems inadequate.

  After a few awkward seconds I drop to my knees and take her hand in mine. “Forgive me,” I say. “I was a jerk.”

  She says nothing, but she doesn’t pull her hand away.

  “It wasn’t you,” I say. “You were so beautiful, and I really did want you that day. It was just all this Ramie stuff. It’s messing me up. I know that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have walked out on you like that. And I shouldn’t have left it this long without apologizing, but—”

  “Did you join a twelve-step program?” Natalie says. She extracts her hand from mine and wipes it on her jeans.

  I look up at her. “What do you mean?”

  She stares at me with that confused look she gets when I’ve said something very ignorant. She does this with Jill too.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” I ask.

  “Were you raised in a secluded religious compound?”

  I stand up. “Not quite. Natalie, I know what I did was wrong and cruel and—”

  “Whoa, calm down. Jeeze. Are we talking about the same thing here? Are you referring to our very brief almost hookup?”

  I nod.

  “That’s it?” she says. “That’s what you’re apologizing for?”

  “Well, yeah,” I say.

  “But that was, like, nothing.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. “It was monstrous. I seduced you and tried to play basketball off of you. And then—”

  “Okay. Okay. I get it. I was there.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” I say. “You were generous and kind to me, and I’m really sorry.”

  She cocks her head to the side as she examines me. “You’re so cute.”

  “No I’m not,” I say. “I’m a user of girls. I’m …” I drop my head. “I don’t even know what I am anymore. I talk to a mannequin.”

  “I see.”

  I look up. “Natalie, she talks back.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “They usually do.”

  “What?”

  “Did you get my flyer?” she asks. “Are you coming to the party? I need a lot of people to come. Young people. To prove how hip and unsafe the magazine is.”

  “You really want me there?”

  “Of course,” she says. “You’re a contributor. You have to come. But—” She steps back a little and looks me up and down. “Do you own any other clothes besides jeans and T-shirts?”

  I look down at my shirt. “Why?” I say. “Is there a dress code?”

  “The dress code is no chumps. Why don’t you go buy yourself an outfit or something? God, you and your sister. It’s like you both want to blend into the scenery or something. Is that a twins thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are we good now?” she says. “Because I’ve got a million things today. Promise you’ll come to the party.”

  “So you forgive me, then?”

  “Jack,” she says with an exasperated sigh. “I wasn’t even mad at you. I really have to go. Come to the party.”

  She closes the door and I hear her thumping off into her apartment.

  Forgiveness shouldn’t be that easy.

  When I return upstairs to ask Mannequin if it’s true that I dress like a chump, she can’t say. She spends most of her life naked. I suppose it is somewhat limiting to wear only jeans and T-shirts. It’s not a trait you’d expect to find in the boyfriend of a brilliant up-and-coming fashion designer. Maybe if I took more of an interest in clothes, I wouldn’t have accidentally insulted Ramie’s profession. I make a mental note of this. When I do finally apologize for the ultimatum, it will make for a nice bonus apology. I think Ramie will admire that a lot.

  In the meantime, I have to figure out what to wear to Natalie’s party. Yes, I’ve decided to go. And no, it’s not because I’m stalling on my apology to Ramie. I’m just waiting for the confidence boost to arrive.

  I know nothing about men’s clothes. Even when I mine everything Jill knows, I come up empty. On the subject of men’s clothes all she and Ramie have are a few opinions about pleats, which I consider an unacceptable gap for two people who profess to be fashion conscious. Men are half the world.

  Since my closet has nothing but a few exact copies of what I’m already wearing, I decide to take Natalie’s advice and get myself an outfit.

 
I head to Beacon’s Closet, which was the sight of Jill’s transformation from a bland girl who was “hostile to color” into the brightly colored babe she has become. I mean, uber-sophisticated vamp or whatever.

  The place smells like old sneakers to me, and all the racks are jammed so close together you have to squeeze between them. Everything’s organized by color, and I spend about ten minutes leafing through the dark blue rack before I realize they’re all girls’ shirts.

  Glancing around, I spot a scrawny little guy with an ironic pompadour heading into another section. He seems to know what he’s doing, so I follow him around and pick up shirts similar to the ones he picks up, but slightly larger. They’re all variations on plaid. Once I’ve amassed seven, I take them to the dressing-room area in the back, where this short girl with oversize glasses folds clothes on a table. She looks up, leafs through my pile, and hands me a plastic number 7.

  “Last one on the right’s free,” she says.

  She has a cute smile.

  Once in the dressing room, I decide very quickly that I do not like plaid. I’m not a lumberjack. And what’s with all the cowboy lines around the pockets? I return all seven shirts to the girl with the big glasses and go back to the men’s section for some more.

  When I take the new batch to her, she leafs through them again and says, “Yeah, I think these are better. Good luck!”

  “Thanks.”

  I think she’s flirting with me.

  Most of the shirts are awful—itchy, too tight, and ugly to boot. But eventually I try on this shiny silver number that looks sort of old-fashioned and gangsterish. When I go out to look at myself in the big mirror, the girl looks up from her folding chores and nods approvingly.

  “Sweet,” she says. “Hey, hold on.” She turns her back to me and digs through a pile of clothes on her folding table, then comes toward me with a white scarf.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “Trust me,” she says. “I know it’s kind of strange, but …” She steps right up to me and ties the thing around my neck.

  “Are you a fashion student or something?” For a second I fear this girl might know Ramie.

  But she shakes her head. “Art history,” she says. “I just like to play.”

  Ramie liked to play too, but only with Jill. When it came to fashion, she took no interest in me at all. Maybe that’s why I always tuned her out when she talked about it. I knew it had nothing to do with me.