Hey, I said. You know who has good quiche?
Buck shrugged.
I’ll take you, if you’re up for a walk.
He was. I led the way across the street.
* * *
On the trek across town to the bus, I stared at my sneakers and the sidewalk and the street. For a moment or two, I’d forget about Buck’s sore. Then I’d look up and there it’d be, passionately purple in the light of a chicken joint. I looked away. It put the exhibition, my marriage, my olive jar into rather harsh perspective, that sore.
* * *
Many blocks went by in silence. I wished I could have called upon the self-help author for help. She always knew just what to say. Near the top of the park, people spilled in and out of restaurants and bars and supermarkets, filling the streets. Buck and I sat on a bench at the bus stop by the minty glow of a toothpaste ad. When the M4 arrived, I dipped my card twice. Buck took a handicap seat in the front, and I sat directly across. I announced, to no one in particular: I’m expecting, you know. The bus stopped and started around the north end of the park, turned down Museum Mile. Out the window, on the slick and gleaming street, the monoliths passed in granite bursts. Banners unfurled across the entrances, announcing exhibitions. American Quilts and Textile Arts. I wondered if Misha might like to go. The man next to me was filling in the crossword, and I watched him complete four empty squares. D-O-J-O. He erased, thought, traced the letters again. Buck’s chin fell to his chest. When our stop arrived, I tugged gently at his sleeve. Almost there, I said. He reached for his cane, still half in a dream.
* * *
We left the bright of the bus for the dark of the night. On the street, Buck raised his eyes, no longer afraid to meet anyone’s gaze. We passed the hotels, wine bars, brassy shops wholly devoted to one accessory apiece: bags, shoes, watches. Diners spun pasta onto forks. Buck cupped his hand at the window of a basement bar. An elderly gentleman looked up from a plate of crab claws, startled. Hey, I said. Just a few more blocks.
* * *
The streets grew emptier, the brownstones solemn and serene. Then came the high-rises, the medical offices: the hospital rose before us like a theater in its flash of lights. I hadn’t told Buck where we were going. Now the complex made a great roadblock against the river and the sky. He froze, refusing to take another step. I tried to be matter-of-fact. They have fantastic food, I said. His wound was ruby and frantic in the glow of a passing ambulance. A whole fleet of emergency vehicles passed as I cajoled him in the dark. We were too close, I reasoned, for him to turn back. Please, I said. Recalling the self-help author’s words about the power of touch, I placed a palm on his arm. Buck jerked away in reflexive disgust. I promise, I said. I have a friend who works here. I come all the time, just to eat. He scowled, face twisting around his sore. With despair he looked back down the long blocks we had walked. Finally, he agreed.
4
Hospitals are one of the few places you can trust never to close. Emergency rooms, subways, laundromats: they keep the old adage alive. Buck and I moved through the sliding doors, past the security guards. The slippery lobby was dotted with tented yellow caution signs, and doctors darted between. The marble floors met glass walls overlooking stony gardens. The coffee shop was closed, the grate drawn and locked. I watched a custodian wheel a tub of trash into an elevator. I turned to Buck. This way, I said.
* * *
The cafeteria was deserted. Visiting hours were nearly over, and attendants were clearing the buffet. I took two trays and gave one to Buck. What ensued was a feast. We loaded casseroles, sandwiches, little pastries on paper plates. To my great relief, there really was quiche, and I was glad to see I hadn’t lied. I recited Yvette’s account number from memory, then wandered through the empty rows of tables to a remote seat. Hunched on low stools, we silently devoured trays of Hamburger Helper, dinner rolls, and spinach, creamed, washed it down with coffee dispensed hot and black and automatic from the machine. Buck ate two slices of quiche Lorraine, and I had a slice myself. As we sank into dessert, the last of the visitors wandered through the aisles, looking for the exit, for popsicles, for juice. A small boy in pajamas stared at Buck with open wonder. He tugged his mother’s arm. She glanced at us, then hurried along.
Shh, she said. It isn’t nice to stare.
* * *
Departing whispers echoed on the linoleum. Cookware clanged distantly in an industrial sink. Our table was a plundered village of crumpled napkins and soiled plates. Buck peeled the foil from a thimble of cream and tipped it into his cup. I felt my eyes droop. The cafeteria was soporific, the air thickly layered with the salty scent of food. I felt I could lie across it, as in the Dead Sea, and go straight to sleep. I lowered my lids. When I looked up again, Buck was staring at my unfinished slice of chocolate cake. I pushed it across the table toward him, then rested my chin in my hands and watched him eat. Across the room, reflected in the opaque window glass, Buck’s face was vague and dignified, but when I turned back to the man as he was, the reality of the rot could not be denied. He ran the edge of his fork around the saucer, scooping crumbs. Buck, I said. Have you really seen someone about your nose? His face shuttered, like a house in a storm. He sank his fork into a cold mound of macaroni and brought his shoulders toward his tray. I lowered my chin so that we were eye to eye. Have you? He mumbled. He was afraid, he said, that there was nothing the doctors could do. I nodded. Maybe, I said. But would knowing that leave you any worse off than you are now?
* * *
At the buffet, a cafeteria worker appeared and began loading Styrofoam saucers of cake into a tub. Buck watched him longingly. I went across the room and took another slice. He ate delicately, saving the frieze of frosting for last. Then he folded a napkin and dabbed carefully at his lips, so as not to dab his wound. His face was a grandfather clock, wide and open with a dark torque at the center, wound to the hour of neglect.
I hate hospitals, he said.
* * *
We passed the ER, the main entrance, arrived at the visitors’ desk, where I told the woman at the reception that I was here to see a friend. She looked at me skeptically, glanced at my thumb. I was tired of these receptionists. It was as if they’d banded together to blacklist me from the use of public space. I gave her Yvette’s name. Ring her up, I said. Send a page. The receptionist made her calls. Then—and all too reluctantly, I thought—a machine printed out two passes of hunting-season-orange. Place it here, I said to Buck, peeling away the sticker-back to one and securing the badge to my breast. He did the same. The neon competed for attention with the ravage of his face.
At the elevator bank, staggered lights blinked on and off in simple patterns, illuminating progress on floors above. The carriage slid open, and we got in. It was a Shabbat elevator out of order, because though it was not Saturday, it stopped on every floor before finally depositing us onto Yvette’s ward. Buck tucked his chin into the collar of his coat, suddenly self-conscious. The halls were tracked with fluorescent lights. Red alarms blinked above recovery rooms, where soap opera scores mingled with the chirping of equipment. Buck and I pressed flat against the wall to let a stretcher pass. I punched a button and two glass doors sighed open royally, leading to post-op, where patients walked prescribed laps around the halls, trailing dollies. Buck and I joined, caboose to the moribund procession. Then we found Yvette. She was at the nurses’ station, delivering instructions at the change of shift. Her hands were lost in the pockets of her scrubs and her eyes were rimmed with red. She saw us and stuttered. I motioned to Buck, who’d fallen behind, shuffling his uneven steps and leaning on his cane. After the briefest hesitation, Yvette set her shock aside. Her face was blank. I tried to make mine the same. I said, We have a favor to ask. Yvette held up a hand. She didn’t want to know. It was better to schedule the surgery first, then ask what insurance he had.
* * *
So much red tape keeps people apart. I waited with Buck on the ward to receive the paperwork. I was prepared to wait
until morning. I wasn’t sure if Misha would return, and I still couldn’t stand to face the vacant bed. Then a social worker came by, administering rules and regulations. She notched the clipboard in her elbow.
I’m afraid you’ll need to go.
I looked at Buck, then back to her.
Are you sure?
Are you family?
I shook my head.
You should have been gone hours ago.
* * *
I gathered my coat. From the nearest room, I could hear the steady sighs of a breathing machine. I said to Buck, I’ll see you soon. Then I walked slowly toward the automatic doors. The social worker’s questions followed me down the hall. Occupation? Any family at all? Current place of residence? I turned. She was imposing in the fluorescent lights, pen poised. Buck was on the bench, looking at his hands, as if he might find the answers in his palms. The social worker leaned in.
What did you say?
He whispered.
What?
She scribbled something, repeated it out loud:
Precariously housed.
* * *
I took the long trip back through the night. At home, I hung my keys on the hook. Everything was still. I listened for a rustling behind the stove. Not even the roach was home.
I sat at the credenza. By the holiday lights. The notes. Poetry Reading @ 6. Presentation: Tomorrow! Groceries: rutabaga (?) yogurt onions knives. The screen saver glowed. I loaded a CD into my Discman and turned the volume up as loud as it would go. Disquiet sifted through the headphones, the opening bars to Brahms. They were a comfort to me now. I opened my email. There was the self-help author’s name, in bold. A belated response to my anonymous request:
Dear Reader,
Thank you for your note. Can I ask, when you say you almost killed your husband, do you mean literally, or metaphorically? This seems to me the only distinction that matters. Anyway, I hope this helps.
S.
I searched for metaphors. None applied. I read the message again. I wished she’d taken my advice: Address us desperate people clearly, declaratively, avoid ambiguity at all costs.
* * *
I put my head in my hands and waited for sleep. I thought of going across the hall to Claire’s, or downstairs to the self-help author’s, to ask her in person what she meant. But there was nothing either of them could do. I reached for the phone. The line expired at the tone of the answering machine. Hello, you’ve reached Insta-Ad. I recorded a stretch of silence. A few nervy notes of Brahms. The machine had perfect female pitch. If you are satisfied with your message … I dialed two to delete.
* * *
Misha’s bucket and wand stood by the door. I brought them into the kitchenette, for company. The equipment made a solemn still life in the corner. I regretted never having gone with Misha to search the Rockaways. I suppose I always was a landlocked woman, terrified at heart. At this juncture, however, I would have liked nothing more than to walk with him along the beach as the waves came crashing in, brimmed with violent froth. I imagined the mist, the chill, the vast navy of the ocean, twin wands hovering over the shore. The world was trash. There was never enough. Lower Manhattan was built upon it, we shipped whole landfills out to sea, on barges bellowing mighty horns. And yet how much remained for us to sift, to sort. The ghosts of shampoo bottles alighted on the shore. One could drown in all this trash. Misha and I walked for miles along the sands of my mind and in the end found nothing at all. Still I couldn’t bring myself to stop. We were already so far along.
* * *
I navigated back to the search bar and typed in my own name. It was days since I’d checked in on my doppelgängers. There was the librarian. The porn star. The links had aged to deep claret, but there was also a new result, bright blue, that I’d never tried. I clicked. There was my name below the headline, The Real Woman Behind The Exhibition of Persephone Q. A picture of Persephone herself. I took a long look. Then I left her alone. She slept for all of us, it seemed. Meanwhile, the porn star was out there, sowing pleasure. The librarian, forgiving fees. The tilt of the earth, I thought, was sensitive to the indulgence in six pomegranate seeds. I reached for my keys and stood for a long while at the air shaft, looking up. It had no messages for me. Then I locked the door, stepped into the night.
* * *
Misha was outside, sitting on the steps.
You work of art, he said.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessi Jezewska Stevens was born in 1990 in Lake Placid, New York, and grew up in Indianapolis. She holds a BA in mathematics from Middlebury College and an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Tin House, the Los Angeles Review of Books, 4Columns, the Harper’s Magazine blog, Guernica, BOMB, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn. You can sign up for email updates here.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Two
Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
120 Broadway, New York 10271
Copyright © 2020 by Jessi Jezewska Stevens
All rights reserved
First edition, 2020
E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-72092-6
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The Exhibition of Persephone Q Page 18