You're Not You

by Michelle Wildgen

  “I read somewhere that you should wait to plant till after a dogwood blooms,” I said. “That’s how you know the frost is over.”

  Kate nodded. A week ago we’d tried to plan for her garden, which I had promised to plant this year, but the day we sat down to make lists had been so cold, the sun so watery, that we’d looked at each other and sighed, as hopelessly as if we wanted to plant a mango tree.

  Kate was wearing a crimson knit cap with a brim that hid her face. She had to look up to me for me to understand her, and when she did I saw her cheeks bore a mottled red stain from the chill. Her eyes were teary and pink-rimmed. I reached down and wiped away the moisture that had seeped from one corner.

  “Are you too cold?” I asked her. “We can go. There’s not much here. I’m sorry I made you come with me.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t make me,” she said. I shook my head once and she repeated it for me. “Let’s at least go all the way around.”

  So we kept going, watching the farmers pile their folding tables with what little they had. We’d arrived as soon as it opened, at seven, because we were already up. I had gotten into bed at three thirty after coming home from Mark’s house, and just before five I had woken to the sound of Kate wheezing, her breath sounding as though it were catching on splinters. I went in to her room and sat on the edge of the bed. I had turned her from her stomach to her side, taken her hand, and watched her face, switching on a lamp even though she squinted against it. She looked down at her hand, the finger above the emergency button, held away from it. “Did you press it?” I asked, and she shook her head vigorously, looked pointedly at it, trembling, until I offered to move it away from her hand. Her chest rose and fell in jerks, the cords in her throat leaping and going slack with each gasp. She fell from wheezing into coughing, a low liquid cough, and I sat her up against the headboard, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, forgetting the bruise until she winced.

  “Let me call a doctor, just to be safe,” I kept saying, but she shook her head as she coughed, her eyes screwed shut. I replaced the blanket as it fell off her shoulders. Finally, the slack ribbon of her mouth closed and she took a cautious swallow and a slow breath. We looked at each other. She looked as wan as I had ever seen her in the light from the bedside table, her eyes swollen and damp-lashed, skin pale as her nightgown.

  Neither of us could get back to sleep, so we turned on the television in her bedroom and flipped through cable until six, when she said, Just fuck it, let’s go. Still exhausted as I drove to the capitol, I had practically sideswiped a construction barrel. The swerve had jostled Kate against her seatbelt, and my own locked tight around me, leaving me exhausted and panicky at the same time, my sluggish heart shocked into a gallop. It wasn’t until we got to the market that I began to calm down.

  We paused to look at planks of green onion and some jarred cherries from last year. The honey and beeswax vendors were there at least, and the guy who sold eggs, but there seemed to be long spaces between the tables. Everyone had their hoods up to shield their faces from the wind. The sky was clouding over, and what I thought might have been a cigarette ash in the wind turned out to be a stray snowflake. It landed on Kate’s red hat and melted into the knit. The shawl I’d put over her hand had fallen off, and her fingers were curled like a crab claw, the skin purplish and crinkled.

  “Listen,” I said, depressed and, suddenly, faintly frantic. “I’ll make you something tonight. You can go crazy and really eat something, for once, right?” I was tucking the blanket in tight around her hands, looking up at her face. She was watching me, looking amused and drained. If she made a joke now I couldn’t handle it. If she made a joke I’d have to walk away and leave her to keep from throwing down the mesh bag so that the eggs broke and the frozen butter cracked. “I’ll make something that won’t give you a coughing fit,” I told her. “Lobster bisque. Beef soup. Eggs and truffle oil.”

  Kate tipped her head forward to clear her throat. The momentum of moving her head overtook her; her chin dropped toward her chest. Her hat slipped off her head and into her lap. When I righted her, easing her head back upright with a finger beneath her chin and replacing the hat, she said, “That’s nice of you. But let’s just head home. I need that nap now.”

  FOR DINNER THAT NIGHT, Simone and I had tagliatelle with lemon and cream sauce. I’d found a little fresh tarragon in the fridge and stirred it in at the end. I wasn’t really in the mood for something so heavy, but it seemed rich and silky and I hoped Kate would agree to a taste of the sauce. She let me touch a spoon filmed with the sauce to her tongue, but that was about it.

  Kate looked much better than she had that morning. When we’d gotten back from the market I’d put her to bed and she was still sleeping when Simone arrived and I left for an appointment to fix the window on the Honda. Kate had pointed out I couldn’t very well drive around with a plastic bag taped up around the hole, but the stereo just seemed like too much to deal with right then. I was driving the short routes again, trying to enjoy silence instead.

  “Somebody already bought them the KitchenAid, the upright mixer,” Simone was saying now.

  Simone slurped a little on a noodle and patted her mouth delicately. I was struck anew by how lovely her manners were. She and Hillary both ate slowly and neatly, knife in their left hand, fork in their right. I was always switching hands to cut things, which in comparison was inelegant, at best. I’d begun to suspect they knew each other from finishing school.

  Kate murmured something and Simone watched her and then said, “They don’t cook? Why’d they register for it then, to hock it?”

  “Who’s getting married?”

  Simone glanced at Kate for permission and then answered, “Kate’s nephew. From the religious side.”

  I smiled into my water glass. “Have fun.”

  Simone twirled a thread of pasta around the tines of her fork. “It’s on the eleventh. That’s your Saturday. I checked.” Kate laughed.

  “Shit.”

  “How about the goose down comforter?” Kate said. “That’s pointless extravagance. No one needs a goose down comforter.”

  We watched her, both briefly perplexed over deciphering “extravagance,” then agreed.

  “Of course,” I said, “they might need a good set of knives.”

  “True,” Kate said. “Okay, I’ll be practical.”

  “I’ll order them before I go,” said Simone.

  “I can do it; it’s my turn after dinner,” I said.

  “Oh, we were looking at the registry site before; it’s just as easy if I take care of it.”

  Since I had switched to nights, Simone seemed to have discovered a well of efficiency which, Kate told me, was truly impressive. The nutrition shakes were always fully stocked, the wine rack piled with bottles for guests, dry cleaning picked up, and library books dropped off on time. It wasn’t unusual for me to find the daily ration of pills already crushed and labeled in individual plastic tubs. Apparently Simone had also turned into a bulldog of a fund-raiser, and a few weeks earlier I had come home to find her apologizing profusely to Ted the wheelchair distributor for accidentally elbowing him in the temple when he tried to lift Kate without asking.

  Nice work, I said to her that day. We were waiting for Kate to finish in the bathroom. Simone said, You can’t believe how nice that is to hear. Especially since I was such a jackass when I started here.

  No, you weren’t, I said, and I meant it. Why had I been so hard on her at first?

  Now she finished the last of her pasta and turned back to us with a pleased sigh. “Fantastic, Bec. Thanks. What’re you guys going to do tonight?” she asked. “Hang out? Go to a movie?”

  “We should get back to travel plans,” I said brightly. “You did all that research and it’s just sitting there.”

  Kate was gazing past me. “We should,” she said. “I’ll get to it.” She flashed a smile but it was unfocused, offhand, and more in the direction of the window than me.


  eighteen

  I REALLY HAVE TO get my stereo fixed,” I said. I fiddled with the radio in Kate’s car. “My car is just silent. It’s so quiet I can hear every weird noise it makes but I’d rather just not know what’s set up house inside my engine.”

  “It’s been over a month,” Kate scolded. “I thought you loved that stereo. You were insane about it when you bought it.”

  “I know,” I said, “but it was over so fast. It’s like I had a little stereo interlude and now it’s finished. You look good in that dress, by the way. It shows off your hair.”

  We were on our way to her nephew’s wedding. The dress was bright blue silk, its neckline draped over the shelf of her clavicle and loosely around her midriff. The skirt fluttered over her knees. She had a silver choker looped around her neck, and a pair of sterling earrings that dangled by her jaw. My concession to the fine weather was a bright scarlet pedicure. I kept glancing down at my feet in their sandals and admiring them.

  My only complaint was that we’d missed the market today. I’d even called Jill to see if I could persuade her and Tim to go and buy me a few things, but he’d answered her phone so groggily that I knew it was a lost cause and hung up. Plus I felt a little odd talking to Tim. What had developed with his best friend and me was a little less romantic than what they—or she, in any case—had had in mind when they introduced me to him.

  Mark had called a few days after I’d been over there the first time. I went to his apartment carrying a DVD we didn’t watch. Instead it played like a soundtrack as I straddled him on the couch, holding on to the rough tweed upholstery, his hands hooked over my shoulders and pulling me down against him. His furniture was still college furniture, hand-me-downs he hadn’t replaced yet. His patched brown couch, the twin mattress that sagged in the middle and engulfed us as we moved on it. The third time I went over I borrowed a bottle of wine from Kate’s stash and brought that with me. He didn’t even have wineglasses. We’d had to cadge an opener from the neighbor and drink pinot from juice glasses. The arrangement was a teenager’s, pretending to go to a movie when I was heading out to have sex. I hadn’t exactly hidden the wine I took, but I left when Kate and Simone were in the bathroom. I told Kate I was meeting up with friends. I didn’t want to flaunt it, but if she had seen me come home she would have known in a heartbeat. Maybe she knew anyway. She probably didn’t have to see me coming in with my hair a mess and my shirt untucked and my face rubbed clean of the little makeup I left with. And anyway I wanted it to be secret. I wanted it to be purposeful and neat, like a shot of whisky.

  As we drove farther into the country, the air smelled better, of cut grass and drying rain. There were dogwoods and lilacs blooming in front of houses, frothy sprays climbing up against the siding and blocking windows. My parents had dogwood and lilac, and I missed the fragrance of them, so strong you’d think it must be fake. I slowed the car and rolled my window farther down to breathe it in.

  THE WEDDING WAS IN a tiny church, a plain white wooden structure with a cross perched at its apex. As Kate and I made our way to our aisle seat, however, I was struck by how beautiful the building was from the inside: It was simple and unadorned, filled with light through the tall windows, a plain blue cloth over the altar.

  People kept coming by and leaning down to kiss Kate, who grinned up at them, her eyes sparkling, while I translated, keeping a festive smile on the whole time. There were so many that by the time the service began I was glad for the rest.

  The flower girl was about five. She scattered the petals solemnly, careful to distribute an even layer. At our row, she paused for a long, interested look at Kate, so taken she dropped her handful of petals in a clump. A bridesmaid nudged her.

  Up at the altar, Kate’s nephew looked even younger than I did. He was tall and gangly, a red smatter of razor burn along his jawline. As the pastor talked about the various duties of marriage, the rich and poor and sickness and health, he lifted his shoulders slightly and took a visible breath.

  The couple lit a candle, and as they turned away the bride’s skirt jostled the table, and the candle wobbled and fell, the flame lengthening as the pillar tilted. The whole church gasped and leaned forward, but the groom was already catching it. Still, just before he did I was tensed to move, figuring I could get Kate straight out the door before a fire took over. People would just have to get out of the way. I had it all planned in an instant. But then the candle stopped in the groom’s hand. The flame had licked over the bride’s satin bodice just once, harmless as a raindrop, before he righted it. There was an audible sigh throughout the congregation, followed by nervous laughter. Kate and I looked at each other, debating whether to smile with relief, but then turned back to the ceremony.

  LATER, THE FLOWER GIRL summoned her nerve, slipping in beside us as we left the reception. She stared up at me, trying to figure out who I was.

  She’d been in the background the whole day, darting around people and peering over at us, but I’d been too busy to care. I hadn’t done one of these family gatherings with Kate, and they were killing. It wasn’t only the sheer numbers of people who came over to catch up; it was the conversation: the minutiae of every life trotted out, the jobs and divorces and school choices and sciatica. The conversation was really no worse than any other family gathering; it was only boring to me, since I knew no one. Kate obviously enjoyed hearing every detail. The family also seemed to be reproducing with genuine concentration and purpose, and baby after baby was lifted up and had their round faces pressed against Kate’s cheek, their startled eyes meeting mine as I smiled at the mothers. I saw Kate close her eyes briefly and breathe deeply, and I realized it must have felt delicious to her, the pure sensual pleasure of a baby: the rounded weight of them, the silky skin pressed against her cheek, the scent of powder and milk rising out of their hair.

  By the time we began heading toward the car, I was exhausted. Luckily, the flower girl had a lot to say. She told us about her dress and what she planned to put in the basket that had held the flower petals (some pretty rocks, possibly a dried flower from her crown). She took every opportunity to gaze searchingly into Kate’s eyes. It was clear that everything about Kate enthralled her: the strangeness of her thin blue dress and slender arms against the motorized black chair, the way Kate had to work for speech each time she said something, with a dip of her chin to swallow and carefully delineated lip movements so I could understand her and translate.

  “What’s your name?” the flower girl asked. Her eyes darted back and forth between Kate and me as Kate told her and I repeated it. We were at the car now. She nodded, then ducked behind me and peeked out at Kate. She balanced herself against my hip and said, almost sighing romantically at the end, “I love you.”

  I expected Kate to say something funny and maybe slightly admonishing. Or perhaps I only wanted her to; the bride’s niece embarrassed me. My grandmother had a habit of expressing too much pleasure in the company of people of other races, people in wheelchairs, et cetera, and this felt similar. (There’s a group of Chinese people over there, she’d murmur conspiratorially, of a table eating serenely a few feet away in The Dumpling House, just laughing and talking and having as good a time as you can imagine.) I’d had about enough of it for one day. Kate gave her a smile, a genuine grin, and said, “Thank you.”

  I thought it was nice of her not to let on that she understood that the attraction was the chair, the person who walks beside you everywhere you go. And I supposed I should cut the kid some slack. Affliction fascinates children—my friends and I used to feign fainting spells or close our eyes and pretend to be blind, swiping about with an umbrella we used as a cane.

  Anyway, the girl was still clutching my dress, her knuckles digging into my hip, and as I detached myself I glanced down at the top of her head: Her part had gone crooked, and the flowers in her hair had started to wilt around their wires. Thinking, from her view, of the unmitigated pleasure everyone took in the babies—who were tedious, really, hadn�
�t even considered the uses of a flower basket—I felt a flash of sympathy for her.

  As we drove away, the flower girl stood, waving, at the end of the driveway. I beeped the horn at her and glanced over at Kate. I had arranged her hands so they crossed demurely in her lap, her legs and feet set neatly before her. She turned to me, keeping her head against the headrest for support. As she looked up at me, her head tilted and chin lowered, her posture seemed faintly flirtatious, but it was only a trick of perspective. She waited till we were at a stop sign so I could look straight at her lips, which still bore the rose-colored lipstick I’d painted on them a few hours before.

  She swallowed carefully, then lowered her chin so she could speak again. “Maybe I should have said ‘I love you too,’ ” she mused. “But I just had no idea who that little girl was.”

  FOR THE REST OF the drive Kate was quiet. I concentrated on the smooth empty roads, and Kate looked out her window at the fields. Soon the outermost subdivisions would show up on each side of the road, big brown-and-white signs with pictures of pheasants and ducks, faux–English manor names.

  “I can’t believe that candle didn’t even catch her skirt,” I said.

  Kate shook her head. “I still have the impulse to reach out,” she said. “I thought I actually did, for a sec.”

  I had looked at her as it happened, seen her eyes widen and her chin jerk forward as the candle fell.

  We passed the first huge subdivision on the western edge of Madison. A couple years before it had been farmland, and now it was all big houses rearing up on flat fields. The BMW’s headlights flashed across a deer on the side of the road, pale brown bulk and a smear of scarlet on the concrete.

  “Slow down a little,” Kate said. I slowed down to fifty. “They start watching for speeders around here.” We were quiet for a few moments, listening to Mozart on the radio.