by T. Gertler
He slept, his thin lips together, his large body folded around the seat. He coughed once, sat up, and went back to sleep. A curl dropped on his cheek.
She drove through green country and saw barns and closed gas stations and stone fences and a dead skunk flattened on the road. A curdled red mass had spilled out of the skunk. White and black fur stirred in the wind. She saw brick houses with vegetable plots, a parade of sunflowers, a calf nursing. The cow had a yellow tag clipped to its ear.
When she saw a sign for a yarn outlet in the next town, she said, “Good morning.”
He yawned.
“We passed the yarn sign.”
“Turn left up ahead,” he said. The road climbed. More cows, a sign for a garage sale. “Right.” The road bumped. Trees pressed in on it, then thinned out again. There were no houses. A stream behind trees caught daylight. Another deer crossing. She knew where to stop because the road ended in front of a wooden house with part of a sun deck hugging it.
She turned off the ignition. She heard the far-off whoosh of cars on the highway. She heard a couple of birds talking.
“Are you going to let go of the steering wheel?” he asked.
—
She stood behind another man opening another door with another set of keys. She could lie down in the grass and cry. While he opened windows in the living room, she admired a fat brown sofa, a red afghan, a rush-seated rocking chair, blue-stenciled pottery, a polished lopsided table with a white porcelain drawer pull.
“Is the table yours?” she asked.
“Everything’s Bonnie’s. I installed this for her.” A stained-glass panel of a monk was set into a window. “She bought it when they tore down a church. And I bought her that.” It was a wooden candlestick carved in a braided pattern.
“So if I like this place, it’s Bonnie I like, not you.”
“Want to put that down?”
She held on to her manuscript. There was no place that was hers. She didn’t belong anywhere. “I’d like to go to the train station.” As she said it, she realized she was wearing his shirt.
“All right,” he said slowly. “But it’s a long drive again. I’d like to eat something first.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sure there’s herb tea. Maybe there’s something good in the freezer.”
She put her manuscript on the polished table and went with him to the kitchen.
—
The room he’d shared with Bonnie was at the end of the upstairs hall. Next to it was Bonnie’s study, with files he’d built in and an electric typewriter, and next to the study was the second bedroom. A window overlooked trees and glimpses of a stream.
He gave her flowered sheets, a pillowcase, and a striped blanket. “Regulation L. L. Bean,” he said. He kept a set of flowered sheets, a pillowcase, and a plaid blanket for himself. “We can sleep till around three. There’s a five o’clock train. The bathroom’s over there.”
She heard his bedroom door close. She closed hers. She made the bed, took off her shoes and her jeans. Dirty, she hid between clean sheets and slept.
—
She bought a notebook with Mickey Mouse on the cover because it was on sale and the plain notebooks weren’t. She bought typing paper, three felt-tip pens, a gray sweatshirt, a sale package of six different color bikini underpants printed with ROCK LIVES, a blue tee shirt and a red one, two beige bras, a package of six pairs of white and navy tube socks, a pair of white sneakers, a natural canvas shoulder bag, a box of sanitary pads, allergy capsules, hand lotion, soap, shampoo, deodorant, three disposable razors, a comb, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, toothpaste, unwaxed dental floss, makeup base, blusher, gray-lavender eye shadow, gray eyeliner, black mascara, and a blue and brown nylon duffel bag to carry it all in. At the checkout counter the cashier, a girl with bitten bright red nails, rang up the shampoo twice and, hunching into her aqua smock, had to void the transaction and start over.
The mall stayed open till eight. At seven-thirty, as they were driving through the parking lot toward the market, she said, “I forgot to get a nightgown.”
“I’ll lend you something,” he said. “We still have to get food.” He glanced at her. “A tee shirt or something. Completely clean. Speaking of which, I know it’s not your fault, but at close range you’ve got a charcoal kind of aroma.”
She folded her arms across her chest. The rolled sleeves of his plaid shirt slid along her arms. “Then don’t get too close,” she said.
Sept. 14, 1980
Dear Mother & Dad,
I’m somewhere else, as you can see from the postmark. But it’s not a permanent address where you can reach me. All the years I lived in New York, I wanted to stay in New England in the fall to watch the leaves change color. Guess I’m in the right place this year.
Love,
Dina
—
When he erased something, the table shook. The pepper mill shook. The mug of coffee became dangerous. She was writing the name Ned and got “Nel.”
“Trouble with Paula?” she asked.
“I can’t figure out what to call her husband. I don’t want Harold and all I can think of is Glen and I don’t want Glen.”
“How about Howard?”
“No, I don’t want that.”
“You can name him after Howard Ritchie.”
“You name a character after Howard.”
“My characters already have names. How about Roger?”
“I’m going to type.”
He left her alone in the kitchen. After she finished a sentence, she decided to do the dishes. Out the window above the sink a meadow invited walking. She put down the dish sponge and went back to the table. A paragraph and two crossed-out sentences later, she heard him at the top of the stairs.
“Okay, it’s Roger. But don’t expect any credit.”
Oct. 10, 1980
Dear Mother & Dad,
A publishing house gave me a contract for a novel. And gave me money too. When it finally happened, I think you could have heard my screams all the way to California. From where I’m sitting, I can see a tree—an oak? an elm? I’m sure it’s not a palm—that’s got some genuinely scarlet leaves. Hope you’re both okay.
Love,
Dina
She was brushing her teeth when he came in.
“Morning,” he said. “It’s beautiful out.” In the bathroom mirror she saw the front of his secondhand varsity sweater. He touched her neck with cold fingers.
She spit toothpaste into the sink. “Don’t do that.”
“You look cute.”
“I’m not cute.” Her hair frizzed with static electricity. She had on one of his tee shirts for a nightgown and over it one of his flannel shirts for a robe. A pair of tube socks wrinkled at her ankles.
She shuffled to her room, socks flapping. He stood in the doorway, smiling.
“What is it?” she asked.
He bent down and kissed her mouth lightly. She said oh. She didn’t move away, and he kissed her again. “I don’t think we should do this,” she said. When he kissed her again, she kissed back hard. “We shouldn’t.”
He put his hands at her waist. He was measuring her for a belt. He stroked her rib cage, her back, her breasts.
“Not fair.” She reached up to his shoulders to push him away.
Another kiss, the flannel shirt being pulled over her head. She took off the tee shirt. They were his anyway. She kicked off her socks.
The clothes he was wearing went too, interrupted by kisses. He took off his blue briefs.
“Wait,” she said.
“What?”
“That.”
“I figure if a baby can fit getting out of you, I can fit getting inside.”
“Maybe, but that’s like saying you can pour stuff easily through the wrong end of a funnel.” She sat on her bed, shivering.
“Scared?” he asked.
“Cold.”
They got under the covers together. “I’ll hold you,” he
said.
His tongue lashed a nipple. “Please,” she might have said. She turned to water. He traveled down her under covers. Her legs rose on his shoulders, the covers fell away. “Please.” He breakfasted on her, he fared, he gulped. He braced her thighs apart and drank her noisily. She shook with pleasure, called out, “No,” then “Please,” then “No.” She tried to watch herself and couldn’t. “Please please please.”
He swallowed. “Please what?”
“Please fuck me.” A moment later she murmured to his neck, “We could’ve been friends.” Another moment and “Wait.”
“What?”
“I don’t have anything. Birth control.”
“I won’t come inside you.”
“It’s not the safest.”
“Should we stop?”
“No. But don’t.”
Her bed dipped. The room he’d given her contracted. “Please” and “Yes,” she said, and he said oh. The bed walked across the room. The bureau stopped it. The bed skipped in place, the sheets untucked, the morning sped. He said her name. Her high renunciation fell. “Vincent,” she answered, she met him crashing, she held him far from home.
—
They kissed. Lying beneath him, covered by his skin, she bit his freckled shoulder.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “It hurts.”
The skin wasn’t red, didn’t have teeth imprints. She kissed the shoulder, bit it again.
“Don’t.” He pulled his shoulder away.
A snapping turtle, she came after him. He pressed her down firmly on the bed. She wriggled loose and nipped his arm. He held her shoulders to the bed. She struggled to get free. When she was satisfied that she couldn’t get free, she struggled harder.
“Promise you won’t bite,” he said.
She lay still. “I promise.”
He let go of her, watching for any sudden moves. She stayed motionless. Her face showed a glimmer of remorse. When he relaxed above her, she bit his shoulder again.
“Stop it.” He fastened her to a sheet. She launched herself and escaped from beneath him. She had the advantage of weakness; he wouldn’t use his full strength against her. She trusted in that. They wrestled, kneeling on a striped blanket. She bit his hand.
He caught her and kept her away with long arms. Her hair swung from side to side as she nipped near his wrists. “Stop,” he said. She bit air, hoping to hurt it. Again and again she snapped her jaws. She ate air. With a quick move of one arm he dropped her to his thigh and pressed his cock against her neck, against her cheek. He was pushing his cock into her biting mouth. “Oh,” she said. She became all mouth, no teeth. Her mouth had no room for crying. Head bent, her hands quiet at his thighs, she suckled.
Nov. 15, 1980
Dear Mother & Dad,
I didn’t vote, so I’m not supposed to complain about the results, but I couldn’t vote because I don’t know where I live. Can you register by giving your address as “in transit”? I’m still here for a while. You both sounded great last week. I’ll call again soon. I wish you wouldn’t be so offended about not having my number.
Love,
Dina
Nov. 15, 1980
Dear Cal,
Glad you like the new pages. Sometimes I worry that Ned seems more selfish than necessary. There’s a woman down the road I’m going to put in the book. She sells apple cider and claims it cures everything from impetigo to “real bad cavities.” We’re about the same age, but she’s got three kids and knows secret things about dried chervil. She wants me to tell her about safe stops on the IRT.
Dina
The woman with the mink scarf held up her cigarette. Obediently he clicked his lighter. She had long gray hair and thick penciled black eyebrows. A rhinestone Santa pin winked from her scarf—at least he thought they were rhinestones. A man with part of a face passed. Howard pulled up the collar of his turtleneck and edged through the crowd at the bar for more wine.
He stationed himself in a corner of the gallery, next to two black and white blowups of a girl’s profile. In the Before picture her nose had two steps leading up or down. She could have balanced a pearl between them. The nose in the After picture had been planed smooth. A sesame seed would have rolled down it. He missed the old nose. “That’s my daughter,” the black-browed woman said, smiling because she’d trapped him. He searched clumps of conversations around them until he saw the familiar faces of a man and a woman. Relieved, he shot his arm out toward them. “There,” he said, “that’s my wife.”
—
Something about her seemed familiar. “We’ve never really met properly,” she said. “That time you carried Howard home—I never got to thank you.”
Newman found her shyness pretty. If she decided to burn down the gallery, he wouldn’t mind. “One shouldn’t be thanked for friendship,” he said. Taking her arm, he guided her past two women and a man who each had the same remarkably perfect nose. He thought of writing an essay on the boredom of perfection. He held her arm loosely; any pressure might undo her. “Have you met my wife?”
Clare extended a large capable hand to Suzanne. “It’s good to see you.” He enjoyed Clare’s new strength. It was a circumstance he could test himself against.
“I love the show. I love your pictures, really,” Suzanne said. “I wish I could do something like this.”
“Everybody can do something. The trick is to find out what it is.” Clare’s other, better husband, the slight Dr. Max Linker, intoned this and patted Clare’s hand. His open navy jacket had cat hairs on it.
Newman wished he’d invited Steve, to back him up. “At the risk of sounding like an elitist, which I am, I must disagree with you.”
“I’m speaking of art in the therapeutic sense,” Dr. Linker said. He blinked his eyes twice.
“Do you know Dr. Frances Cohen? She talks about that.” Suzanne slid a ruby heart along a gold chain at her neck. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
“I know of Dr. Cohen’s work. She has a fine reputation,” Dr. Linker reassured her.
“Dr. Cohen says art is anger made bountiful. Or beautiful. I think I said bountiful because of Thanksgiving. I think it’s beautiful she says, not bountiful,” Suzanne said.
“A perfectly natural confusion,” Dr. Linker said.
“I love it, dear. I’m going to buy a Before and an After. Harry says I can.” Sheila Dunne in fur touched Clare’s cheek with hers and kissed the air. Perfume filtered through the group. “Now, tell me, which ones are yours?”
—
He would give Clare a copy of his list of women. He would describe each woman to her. He would demand that she imagine what his life was like. He would ask the other photographer of vanity and disease, that Bea in a tense jumpsuit across the room, to immortalize his cock. He would invite Clare to select her favorites from Bea’s shots for a new exhibition. He would show the shots, fig-leaved, on TV as a preview of a new book.
—
“Matty here is going to be a film director,” Howard told Newman. To Matty he said, “Mr. Sykes’s wife took some of the pictures.”
“A director. What made you decide on that?” Newman asked the girl.
She put her hands in the pockets of her corduroy pants.
“Mr. Sykes is talking to you,” Howard said.
She looked up at Newman. “I don’t want to be a director. I want to be a doctor.”
“A respectable profession,” Newman said.
“Like Mommy’s doctor, Dr. Cohen.”
“I’d feel very confident with you for my doctor. I hope you’ll remember I’m a family friend and you won’t charge me too much.”
“Daddy says Dr. Cohen charges a lot of money.”
“I’m sure she’s helping your mother,” Newman said.
“What happened to being a director or a sculptor?” Howard asked Matty.
The girl’s gaze was his own. His own face, smaller and younger, was stubborn. “I can change my mind, can’t I?”
“I d
on’t want to embarrass you in front of Mr. Sykes, but your manners are—” He stopped because Matty had walked away.
Newman said, “She’s delightful.”
“She’s rude.”
Beneath enlarged black and white eye bags, Matty put her arms around Suzanne’s skirt.
“You’re lucky to have them both,” Newman said.
“I’m so lucky that two insurance companies may sue me to recover payments for the Karatasi. I’m so lucky I’m supporting Dr. Cohen so five times a week Suzanne can tell her what a bastard I am. And now my daughter’s going to be a shrink. I’m so lucky, I’m going crazy.”
“Did that husband of Dina’s ever bother you again?”
“No. Have you heard from her?”
“No.”
“Me either. I wonder when her book’s coming out.”
“Ah yes, your debut.”
“Yours too.”
“Naked to the world.”
“I hope not.”
“Are you going to try and stop it?”
“Don’t you know Dr. Cohen says art is burdensome?”
“I think it’s ‘Art is anger that’s beautiful.’ ”
“Whatever. Who am I to stop that?”
—
“That’s Leslie,” Clare said. Near the punch bowl one of Newman’s sons was talking to a girl with a repaired harelip. “And that’s Will.” The other son sat unhappily at the gallery reception desk and read a catalogue.
“They must be proud of you,” Howard said.
“A little. I don’t think Newman is, though.”
The blond hair piled on her head crowned her with clouds. Her monumental body invited climbing, like Annapurna shrouded in mist.
“I’d be proud of Suzanne if she did something like this.”
“Maybe she will.”
He could try to persuade her to go with him to the gallery office and lock the door—if the gallery had an office. There would be a sofa or a deep-pile rug. And a heater. They would hear the others outside the door, muffled voices discussing Arbus and cropping. He would put out his cigarette in a hand-carved alabaster ashtray and wipe at the dried corners of his mouth. All that he desired was for her to remember him. Bowing, he would introduce himself: I am a lover. Curtsying, she would whisper in response: And I am waiting to be loved.