I found Suriya back outside, exchanging the blanket wrapped around her waist for a loose pair of pants. She turned around and saw me as she was pulling up her pants. Suriya never wore underwear. “First thing any of us ever saw,” she said, gesturing to her bush.
I cringed and looked at the ground. Suriya laughed at my modesty, or the modesty I wished she had. “It’s safe to look now. You’re safe from Oedipus or Electra or Doctor Freud,” she said. “At least I can still put a smile on your face. Come on.” She led me to an old trailer hidden behind the main house. Inside, a bed took up most of the space. A hole was drilled into the ceiling for the smokestack of a tiny wood stove. Her hovel smelled of mildew. Suriya pulled out a box from underneath the bed, lit an oil lamp, and put on glasses. She looked much older now.
“Someone who used to live here knew Eden when she was a kid. Well, you know, not a kid, but younger. Years ago, when she was living on that farm. He helped out around here sometimes too. He was a doctor who did a lot of community work. Gave us a deal. We could pay him in chicken eggs. He might know where she’s been. But you’ll have to find him yourself.” She took a large envelope out of the box and dumped its contents on the bed quilt. She picked through business cards and scraps of paper. “He gave me his card last time he was here. Was years ago. I kept it. You never know when you might need a doctor friend. Here.” She handed me a business card. Dr. Marshall Westmoreland, it said. Other than his grand southern name, it only had an email address. “He’s on the Internet,” Suriya said. “I guess that’s the place to be.”
Suriya offered to share her bunk with me. I told her I had driven The Camper and could sleep in there. “That old girl’s still running?” She cackled. “It’s getting cold. I got a wood stove in here, what do you have?” she asked. “A sleeping bag,” I said. “Well, if you get too cold, you can sleep on the floor in the big room. Why don’t you just do that? Save me the worry of finding you a Popsicle in the morning and sick as a dog.”
I carried my sleeping bag inside. A small group of young communards had spread bedrolls near a large iron wood stove. I hesitated to join them. I dropped my things in the far corner. A girl saw me and shuffled over in thick hand-knit socks. “Come over with us,” she said. “It’s warmer.” I said I was okay, but she told me that the bathroom was right on the other side of my wall and I would be up all night listening to the plumbing. She was so nice about it. She was so friendly. She said, “My name is Penny.” She was cradling her pregnant belly, which I hadn’t noticed at first. I felt bashful, but I rolled up my sleeping bag and followed her across the room.
The group was sitting on their blankets, looking at the fire. “We really should shut the stove door,” a guy said. “Oh, not yet,” Penny said. “I like to watch it. It calms me down.” “What are you worried about?” I asked. “Oh,” she said, “many things. All the tomorrows. All the yesterdays. All the things that happened to me or could happen to me. All the things I can’t erase or control.” She smiled and glanced over at me, wanting me to like her. “Everything, really,” she said. Her round cheeks were swollen and pinked from being too close to the heat. I could see it was work for her to maintain her pleasant hippie balance. She was terrified of something. She asked me how long I was staying. “Just tonight,” I said. “Oh,” she said and looked down at her quilt, disappointed. She slid her index finger under a loose thread. “I hope you come back sometime,” she said, weaving her finger further into her blanket. I said I would, that I came to visit Suriya. “Oh, I love Suriya,” she said, excited again. Relieved. “Suriya said she would stay for the birth and be my doula. I love Suriya.”
I fished the business card Suriya had given me out of my pocket, but I couldn’t get any signal on my phone. I asked Penny if they had an Internet connection here. “Oh, yes,” she said. “This is a good time to use it, when everyone’s asleep.” She got to her feet and led me through the warren of rooms to a dark office that housed mismatched, jury-rigged PCs. They were all somewhat out of date, probably salvaged from the dumpster of a local government office after it finally got the funds to upgrade. A solitary guy sat in the dark in front of a screen. He had studious wire-rim glasses and a shaved head and wore a tie-dyed T-shirt. He spun around in his scavenged office chair to welcome us. “We do indexing here,” Penny said. “To bring in some money. Especially off season. It’s boring,” she said. “But some people like it. He’ll help you if you need it,” Penny said, and she shuffled away.
I found Marshall Westmoreland’s bio on the website of a small rural hospital. Marshall was a surgeon. After he graduated from medical school he worked for a charity that sent doctors into war zones. He did time in Bosnia and Rwanda and a part of Asia I couldn’t quite place. He had published a magazine article about his experiences. Then at some point he dropped out of the adventure game and became a country doctor in an idyllic mountainside community off the Blue Ridge Parkway known for its hot springs.
I wrote him a message asking if he had heard from Eden recently. I said I was her sister and needed to get in touch with her. He wrote back almost immediately and said, I’m sorry, I don’t know the person to whom you are referring. I responded that Suriya had given me his name. Terribly sorry, he wrote. I’m afraid it’s not ringing any bells.
“Fuck,” I mumbled to myself. I kept trying: Eden was Suriya’s daughter. Eden was from Charlottesville. She had gone to a boarding school in Pennsylvania where she lived with her teacher Eric, I wrote, suddenly remembering the whole Dad punching incident, and later they all lived on a communal farm.
Oh, yes, Eric! Eric Piper! he replied. Now there’s a genealogical connection I remember well, metaphorically speaking. I asked if I could meet him tomorrow to ask a few questions. Tomorrow is fine. You’re a journalist? I decided to be vague. I said I was a writer. He said to call him when I got to town and wished me a good night.
I made my way back to the indoor campout. Penny had positioned herself next to my sleeping bag. When I lay down she spooned around me and nuzzled her forehead into the nape of my neck. If I turned around, she would want me to kiss her. She would want me to stay. She draped her calf over my shins. On the far side of the room, a couple trickled across the floor, hand in hand, and climbed up into the loft over the bathroom, and I could hear them begin to have muffled sex.
I woke up early and slipped out.
9
My sophomore year in New York, I didn’t go home for Christmas break. My dorm had emptied out almost completely except for me and Jamie, who never went home and didn’t speak to his parents. His college education was being financed by his great-aunt, who was a semifamous stage actress in Dublin. “I come from a theater dynasty,” Jamie liked to say, even though it appeared to skip generations and be a dynasty of only two.
It was freezing outside and I didn’t have a real winter coat, only a thick Icelandic sweater that I had taken from my mother and Eden’s old leather jacket. I had a ski hat I had found abandoned in a classroom. I was underdressed for bitter January. Classes hadn’t started back up yet from winter break and the cafeteria was closed. I didn’t have any money from my work-study job and I was broke. I spent a lot of my time in the library, where there was a snack machine that was easy to reach into if there was anything left in stock on the lower rows. I figured out when the man came to restock it and waited until he was done. Sometimes he took pity on me and handed me packets of peanut butter crackers for free.
When I got bored at the library I would hang out in the lounge of the dance department. I could usually find Jamie there. Even though it was winter break, the dancers still reported to the studios, working by themselves or in small groups. I liked being around them. I liked their seriousness.
I saw a sign tacked on the bulletin board. Looking for models, it said. Dancers or similar body types. Professional artist with gallery representation. Good pay. And just so you’d believe him, his flyer included a drawing of a dancer sitting on a stool, Degas style. I thought it was corny, but I thou
ght I could fake it. I called him and made an appointment. “Why don’t we try a session and see if we like each other,” he said. “I’ll pay you for it. Bring your dance clothes, tights and things.”
When I buzzed his Upper East Side apartment intercom and gave my name, he paused and then said, “No, I don’t think we said we were to meet today.” “Oh,” I said, “I’m pretty sure we did.” “Well,” he said. He seemed to think it over. “Just come in,” and he buzzed the door open.
He lived in a building with low ceilings that must’ve felt modern in the fifties, but now felt claustrophobic and sterile. It smelled of cats. He said, “I think we’ve gotten the dates mixed up. I have an appointment with a friend. I have to leave in less than an hour. But why don’t we . . .” He looked nervously at the kitchen clock. “Why don’t we do just twenty minutes or so. I really can’t do more than that today. This will be our trial session, only briefer.”
I said it was okay. I assumed he would pay me half, but I didn’t say anything. I put my bag and jacket and sweater on the couch. He asked what I brought to wear. I showed him that I was wearing a tank top under a worn-out long-sleeved shirt. It used to be a turtleneck, but I had cut the neck off when the seam ripped. I said I was wearing tights under my jeans because it was so cold. He didn’t say anything at first. He was holding a pencil that he twittered anxiously. I wasn’t what he expected or wanted. He wanted a girl with long hair swept up in a bun with a few loose strands dangling down her neck. A girl wearing a leotard and a see-through skirt. I could tell because he had his chalk and pastel drawings framed all over the apartment. I unbuckled my pants and pulled off my jeans. He crossed the room and sat behind a drafting table and looked at me. I draped my jeans over my backpack on the couch.
“Why don’t you take one of the stools there.” He pointed to stools around a breakfast bar. I moved one to the center of the room and sat on it with one foot hitched up on a rung. “That’s good,” he said. He made some sketches. I tried to be still.
He flipped his pad over. “Could you twist a little?” he asked. “And turn your head.” He was frustrated with his work. He went through several pages on his pad. Then he asked me to take off my top. “Both of them?” I asked. “I think so,” he said.
He was an old guy. I had dubbed him harmless. Weak. Sure, he had “gallery representation,” but the gallery was probably out on Long Island, run by a friend of his as a retirement hobby. And this is what suburban retirees like to buy: romantic pictures of young dancers in repose. I pulled my shirts off over my head and tossed them on the couch. I wasn’t wearing a bra.
I think he was staring at me, but his desk was in front of the window and sunlight blared in, making it hard for me not to squint. He got up, went over to a chest of drawers, and pulled out a piece of sheer pink fabric. It unfurled and its wavy edge brushed the floor. He brought it over to me, and I could see that it was a gauzy wraparound dancer’s skirt. The kind the uptight girls in Jamie’s ballet class sometimes wore. As if wearing a leotard and tights weren’t enough to represent their femininity, they had to put on a little skirt, too. The old guy floated it over my bare shoulders and adjusted it around my neck like a cape. He let go of the ties. Then he said, “Look, you’re a big girl. If I do something you don’t like, you let me know.” I think I said okay. He studied me. He picked up one of the ties and moved it to fall over my nipple. The other one was hanging in front of my sternum. He brushed it across my other breast so it disappeared in the fold of my armpit.
He went back to his desk and drew a little while longer. After ten minutes he replaced his chalks and pastels into a case and said, “I’m afraid that’s all I have time for today.” I pulled the skirt off of me and put my clothes back on. He said, “You can change in the bathroom if you want.” But I said, “It’s fine.” I was already done.
I put on my jacket and my hat and picked up my bag. He was puttering around in the kitchen. I waited by the door. “I’ll be in touch,” he said. “Again, sorry we didn’t have much time.” I thought, He is going to stiff me. I should’ve gone to the bathroom and stolen something. Toothpaste or Tylenol or something I could use. I glanced around the apartment wondering what else would be worth stealing. A few books, maybe. He had some coffee-table books I could sell at the Strand. But what was I going to do? Grab them and run out? He’d follow me down to the lobby and say, “Stop that girl. She took something from my apartment.” It would be easier for me to take a few cans of food and shove them in my bag. Clean him out of some dry goods. I would have to wait for him to go into the other room. But he was standing in front of me, about to open the front door. He handed me a folded ten-dollar bill. Then he opened the door and I dutifully walked into the hallway.
I pushed the button for the elevator. I unfolded the money, thinking maybe there was another bill inside, but there wasn’t. Still, in terms of time worked, it wasn’t that bad for a college student. I had thought getting naked would get you more money, but maybe it didn’t.
I wandered downtown. I didn’t want to spend the money to take the subway. Every now and then I would duck into a store to get warm. I would rifle around clothing racks pretending to be looking for a certain size until a salesperson asked if I needed help. Then I would leave, but not too quickly. I wasn’t going to steal anything, but if I left too quickly they would think I was a thief. So I would take my time moving toward the door. Or sometimes I would pretend to look at my watch and act like I was late.
I walked for over an hour. I crossed Times Square and went down Seventh Avenue on the West Side. I stopped outside a gay and lesbian bookstore that had a HELP WANTED sign in the window.
I didn’t ask about the job at first. I walked around looking at books, pulling a few off the shelves and reading the back covers. After a while I went up to the cash register and asked about the job. Noreen was working there. Noreen was five years older than me. She was already in grad school to become a social worker. She seemed to take pity on me. I said I was a student and had never worked in a bookstore before. But I had a work-study job in a dean’s office. She asked if I would have enough time to do both. “I think so,” I said. She must’ve thought I was lying. I looked like a homeless queer kid even though I didn’t know I was queer yet, exactly. I thought I might be, but I hadn’t had sex with a girl yet. I had slept with a few boys my senior year in high school and my first semester of college, and then I became uninterested. Jamie accused me of being a dyke for hanging out in the dance lounge where the girls were not shy about changing their clothes in public. He said, “Why don’t you try it sometime? Then you can see if you like it or not.” I asked, “Are people like food?” And Jamie said, “Yes. You see what tastes good.” And then he laughed his big bellowy laugh. You wondered how such a big laugh could come out of his skinny body.
I could’ve shown Noreen my college ID. That would’ve made me more hirable. But she didn’t ask to see it. She let me fill out an application form and said she would give it to the manager when she got in. “They’ll call you,” she said. They never did.
I didn’t see Noreen again until six years later at a party. I recognized her right away from the bookstore but didn’t say anything. It was a dinner party for my old girlfriend Lana, who technically wasn’t my girlfriend—we just slept together. Lana was also sleeping with a guy, Max, but she didn’t want anyone to know about it. “It just happened,” she told me. “I don’t know what it is.” In my coven of lesbian friends, Max was our pet straight male friend, the kind of straight male friend who double-majored in women’s studies and fine art. We would have dubbed him as creepy, but he had an amazing girlfriend and we were all hot for her. Her name was Kate, and she came from old money. Kate had amazing clothes, amazing boots. She smoked. She told us she had been shipped off to a Swiss boarding school as a teenager. She ran away and lived in Istanbul for months before anyone figured it out. “It was my own fault,” she said. “I ran out of money and asked my dad’s ex-wife to wire me some, and she turned me in
to my parents.”
“It just happened” was how I was sleeping with Lana too. She was designing the postcards for one of my plays, so I was hanging out at her apartment. The first night we had sex, Max buzzed the intercom as I was getting dressed. I chatted with him when he came upstairs. I talked for an inordinate amount of time, something I usually don’t do. I didn’t want to leave, because if I left, I knew what would happen next. Lana’s eyes were wild and bright, like the situation of having us both there was turning her on. She wanted to see what we would do. I stopped sleeping with Lana later that summer when she went to a crafters’ workshop in Maine. I agreed to cat-sit for her while she was away. When she came back in August, she dumped everyone she had been sleeping with in New York and announced she had fallen in love with her glass-blowing instructor and was moving to Northampton.
Noreen came to Lana’s going-away dinner. She came with Kate; Max was mysteriously absent. It was sort of odd that Noreen would be invited to a going-away dinner for someone she didn’t know. But as we were leaving to go to a bar afterward, Lana threw her arms around Noreen and said, “It’s so great that you’re here. This is such good energy to have a new person here as I’m starting on a new journey.” I rolled my eyes when Lana said that and Noreen saw me do it. Noreen was a little stoned. She smiled at Lana and said, “It’s good you’re leaving.”
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