by Mia Mckenzie
“That he’s a dick. A penis walking on two legs. He’s even bald.”
The therapist’s bangle bracelets probably jangled as she tilted her head to one side and stared at me.
I probably conceded that he wasn’t an actual penis, just a raging asshole. By which I would have meant “a terrible person who treats his kids like shit.”
“When you say ‘like shit’…”
“When I was seven, he hit me in the head with a shoe, five times, ’cause I didn’t clean up my room. My mom just stood there.”
The therapist probably looked at me sympathetically, maybe even put a hand on my shoulder. I probably cried. Or maybe not. Maybe I refused to cry. That sounds like me.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, but it’s not my old shrink, it’s Vicky.
“Hey, kid,” I say, working to keep my voice from cracking. “How was therapy?”
“Therapeutic,” she says, giggling.
* * *
—
There’s a very good hoagie shop on the way to the bus stop, so Vicky and I stop there to get dinner for later. Our bus is arriving as we’re coming out of the hoagie shop and we have to run to catch it. It’s nearing rush hour, so there aren’t many seats, but we manage to snag a couple by the back door. I hate sitting in the back of the bus on principle, because Rosa Parks, but it’s better than standing up, so.
I’m supposed to take Vicky home and stay over tonight so I can take her to school tomorrow morning while Faye is having surgery. I haven’t seen Faye since the day of the June’s incident and, now that we’re en route to their house, I start to feel anxious. What if Nick is there and I have to watch them belonging with each other again? Ugh.
“Is Nick going to be at your house?” I ask Vicky.
“I doubt it,” she says, “since they broke up.”
Wait. Whut? “Faye and Nick broke up?”
“Yeah. Like a few days ago.”
“She told you this?”
“Yeah. And I heard some of it, too. Some crying.”
“Faye was crying?”
“Uncle Nick was crying.”
Oh, really? “So, she broke up with him?”
“Probably,” Vicky says. “That’s what it sounded like.”
In this moment, I experience a number of feelings: curiosity about what led to this breakup; happiness for Faye to be rid of Nick; and also—as Viva predicted—a little unease at the thought of Faye being suddenly single. I don’t have time to sort out these feelings, though, because Vicky is staring at me like she’s trying to see into me again.
“You don’t like like Aunt Faye, do you?” she asks.
With some effort, I feign shock. “What? No! Of course not. Ew. What? No!” Etc.
She chews her lip.
“But…just for the sake of argument,” I say, “…hypothetically…what if I did? Would that be bad?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“Cuz you’re mine. I didn’t find you just to give you to Aunt Faye.”
Find me? Give me?
“You know I’m not a stray dog, right?” I ask, annoyed.
“Sorry. You know what I mean.”
“I sort of don’t, though.”
She shrugs. “Well, since you don’t like like her, it doesn’t matter anyway, right?”
“Yeah. Right. It doesn’t matter.”
The bus sighs and lurches as it moves. Vicky leans her head on my shoulder, slips her hand into mine. My annoyance quickly gives way to a vibration under my ribs, like I felt that first day in the hot dog shop when she laughed.
We sit like this for a while, the movement of the bus jostling us gently from side to side. I feel something weird. Something like contentment. Maybe even happiness, whatever that is. It’s nice. For about twenty seconds. Then the bus stops again, opens its doors, and Tasha gets on.
Motherfucking.
Tasha.
I watch her put money into the money thingamajig, then start making her way farther into the crowded bus. She doesn’t notice me; the bus lurches forward and she grabs a pole for stability.
I feel suddenly nauseated. I take a deep breath but the stale air inside the bus doesn’t help. At all. Seriously, never take a deep breath on a city bus.
“What’s wrong?” Vicky asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
We ride for a few more stops before I realize I’m staring a hole into the back of Tasha’s head, silently willing her to turn around and see me. I don’t know what I hope will happen if she does. Maybe I think if she sees me with the kid, she’ll realize she was wrong about me and that I’m plenty good at relationships. Or, even if I’m not, that I’m trying, that I’m not a total lost cause.
But she doesn’t turn around.
I cough.
She doesn’t turn around.
I clear my throat loudly, like your uncle who smokes five packs of Newports a day.
She still doesn’t turn around.
Vicky reaches over me and pulls the cord for our stop, then bounces toward the rear doors. I follow her, and now I’m standing like two feet behind Tasha. I could reach out and grab her. But that would be weird, right? Instead, I pretend to be jostled by the motion of the bus and “accidentally” bump my shoulder into her back. She turns, frowning.
“Oh. Tasha. I didn’t see you.”
She knows I’m lying. I can tell by the look she gives me. I should have expected as much, considering she’s known me since second grade and has witnessed me lying in a hundred different situations, from being caught skipping school to missing curfew to telling my sixth-grade boyfriend that yes, I did indeed want to touch his penis but that I simply couldn’t, on account of my devotion to Christ.
“I think you probably did see me,” she says. “If you have something to say to me, say it. I’m too old for this bullshit, Skye. We both are.”
Well, shit. When did everybody become so damn direct? I don’t even know how to respond. I open my mouth and nothing comes out. For a few seconds, I stand there gaping at her. Then I feel a familiar lump swelling in my throat.
Oh, no.
OH, GOD, NO.
I quickly clench my butthole tight and start frantically considering what other orifices I might be able to squeeze shut to hold back the tears. But then I stop. Because I realize
holding in tears all the time is exhausting;
it’s been exhausting for a really long time; and
I can’t do it. Like, I can no longer muster the energy to not cry.
So, if coming apart on this bus is what’s about to happen? I’M JUST GOING TO LET IT.
But it doesn’t happen. Because this is when I hear Vicky call my name, and when I look, I see she’s already off the bus, peering up at me from the sidewalk, as the doors begin to close.
Why me, Jesus?
I make a quick move to get off, thrusting my arm out in front of me. I’m holding my jacket in my hand and the door closes on it. It’s half in and half out as the bus sighs and starts to pull away from the curb. Vicky just looks at me, confused, through the closed doors.
“I’ll meet you at the next stop!” I shout. She probably can’t even hear me.
So, now I’m standing there, clutching my jacket as it flaps against the outside of the bus, pretending I don’t notice everybody is staring at me.
“Her jacket stuck in the door!” I hear somebody yell.
Then somebody else says, “Hey, bus driver! This lady’s jacket is stuck in the door!”
The bus driver looks concerned. He quickly pulls over in the middle of the block and opens the doors, rushing back to make sure I’m not hurt. Just kidding! This is Philly. He doesn’t even glance in the rearview to see what’s going on!
It takes fifty-seven-
million years to get to the next corner. It’s the longest fifty-seven-million years of my life. During these fifty-seven mega-annum, I think about myself at eighteen, in my dorm room, listening to Tasha’s messages and making marks on a chalkboard. I feel sorry for my younger self. But also annoyed. It was college. I could have been at a party. I could have been having a life. Instead of setting Tasha up to fail at friendship.
When the bus finally reaches the next stop, when it finally pulls to the curb, when the doors finally open and my jacket is dislodged, I want to run away screaming from the scene. But, somehow, I muster the composure to say to Tasha, “I’m sorry I tested you. I don’t think I really knew I was doing it. Or, maybe I knew but I didn’t know why.”
Her eyes soften a little and I realize she’s probably been waiting a long time for this apology. “Do you know why now?” she asks.
A dude behind me sucks his teeth, annoyed. “Yo, you getting off the bus or not, sis?”
I can see Vicky skipping up the street toward the bus. I look at Tasha. There’s really nothing I can say, in this half-second, that will give me back twenty years of missed connection with this person I once loved so much. So, I hop off the bus. The annoyed dude and some other people get off behind me and then the doors close and the bus pulls away.
27
That night, I’m lying awake in Faye’s guest bedroom, staring up at the ceiling for hours, thinking about all the tests I’ve given over the years, and all the people who failed them; not just friends, like Tasha, but also every girlfriend who ever got close enough to trip the alarm in my crazy-lady brain. DANGER! YOU CAN’T COUNT ON ANYONE! EVACUATE RELATIONSHIP IMMEDIATELY! I could give you a list of all those people and how many weeks or days or just hours it took me to get on a plane and put a city or a country or even a continent between myself and them. But it’s a long list and it’s already three in the morning.
I get up to pee.
On my way back to bed, I notice that the door of Faye’s room, at the other end of the hallway, is ajar, and there’s a light on inside, even though there’s still three hours before she needs to leave for the hospital. I knock softly. I hear a shuffling movement, and then Faye appears.
“Skye,” she says, buttoning the top buttons of her pajama shirt.
“I saw your light on. I just wanted to check everything’s alright? Sorry if I—”
“It’s okay,” she says. “Come in.”
I’ve never been inside Faye’s bedroom before. I’ve peeked in a couple of times, to satisfy my curiosity, and to see if there were any interesting sex toys lying around, which there weren’t.
“How are you feeling?” I ask her.
“I’m fine.” She sits down at the end of the bed. “I mean, I’ve been fine, all this time, knowing the surgery was coming. And I still am fine. Probably.”
“But?”
“But suddenly, I’m feeling really attached to these breasts.”
“Well, that’s—”
“Don’t make a joke.”
“I wasn’t going to!” I was going to.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
I sit down next to her on the bed.
She chews her bottom lip for a moment, the way Vicky does. Then she says, “Losing my breasts was very hard. Harder than I’d ever imagined it would be. I know breasts don’t make us women. But when parts of you are cut away, it’s hard to feel whole.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I get that.”
“But I did feel whole again. Eventually. And relieved. But now…” She sighs. “It’s strange to have those same fears again this time. I didn’t expect it. It doesn’t really make sense to have them. These aren’t my real breasts any more or less than the next ones will be. But it still feels like a loss.”
Question: Do you have any idea how difficult it is to listen to someone talk this much about their breasts and not look at said breasts? I’m trying so hard to keep my eyes on her face. But every time she says the word “breasts,” my eyes drop there.
“These aren’t my real breasts,” she says again, “but they’ve been with me through quite a bit, this last decade and a half. I feel like I should have thrown them a going-away party or something.”
“That would have been amazing.” My eyes once again drift downward against my will. I drag them back up.
“Anyway,” Faye says, shrugging. “It’s very late. I guess I should try to stop thinking about it and get some sleep.”
“I’m sorry you lost your first boobs,” I blurt out. Which: ugh. Why was I even born with vocal cords? “I mean…sorry about the cancer.” Which is only maybe twenty to thirty percent better than SORRY ABOUT YOUR FIRST BOOBS. “I mean…”
“I know what you mean,” she says.
“I’m sorry about Cynthia’s cancer, too. I’m sorry she died.” Then I say the thing I’ve been thinking since I first heard about the new tits: “I’m glad you didn’t die.”
Faye reaches out and takes one of my hands in both of hers. She looks pensive, and a teensy bit sad.
You know what would be the worst possible moment for my gaze to drift downward again? THIS MOMENT, FAM! But guess what? That’s exactly what my gaze does. And in the fraction of a second before I can pull it back up, I hear Faye say, “My eyes are up here, Skye.”
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
“I’m so sorry!” I say, wondering if I should kill myself by belt-hanging or a clean gunshot to the face.
She smiles. “I’m just messing with you. It’s probably not possible to talk this much about someone’s breasts and not look at them.”
“Oh, thank God.” I won’t have to commit the suicide now.
Then she says: “Do you want to see them?”
Do I what the what now?
“Do you…want me to see them?”
She nods. “It’s not a going-away party. But I think I’d like them to at least be looked at one last time. I was looking before you knocked, but it’s not really the same, you know?”
“Sure,” I reply, nodding.
“You can say no,” she tells me, “if it feels inappropriate.”
I know what you’re thinking. But it’s not like I haven’t looked at my friends’ breasts before. Women and girls undress in front of one another all the time and it’s not sexy or weird. Plus, this seems to mean something to Faye and I want to be a comfort to her if I can be, that’s all. I’M BEING A GOOD FRIEND, OKAY?
“I’m happy to help.”
Faye smiles, and her dark eyes twinkle. She takes a deep breath. And starts to unbutton her top.
I don’t think I can adequately describe my excitement. I don’t even breathe as her buttons come undone. When she opens her top, and her breasts are exposed, I am almost light-headed with longing for her. This is when I realize this was a bad idea. Because now I want to touch her. But I’m not sure she wants that, and I don’t want to ask and potentially turn this moment of super-platonic breast-appreciation into something awkward. So, I ignore the wetness in my panties.
It occurs to me that I should say something. Something like, these are great or excellent rack, friend. But I understand that it’s not my opinion of her breasts that she wants, so I shut up and just…sit there. Staring. At her breasts. For like two entire minutes. They are two of the very best minutes of my entire wasted life.
She
has
a
tiny
mole
near
her
right
nipple
that
I
would
murder
you
over
if
I
had
to.
As it turns out, two is the precise number of minutes of her bare breasts that
I can take without having a full-strength orgasm where I sit, so then I reach over and start buttoning her top, slowly, feeling her eyes on me the entire time.
When I finally look up at her, there are tears in the corners of her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Thanks, Skye.” Her raspy voice is almost a whisper.
“You’re welcome, Faye,” I say, smiling, too.
28
After I drop Vicky off at school, I get a text from Angie that Faye’s surgery went perfectly well, and that Angie is taking her home after an hour of recovery at the hospital. “I planned to be with Faye all day,” Angie tells me. “I took the day off work. But my father just called, in a state, so I need to go and take care of some things in Germantown. Can you come look after Faye for a couple of hours? She doesn’t need much. She’ll probably just sleep.”
When I turn onto Faye’s street, I hear a siren—not the wailing kind, but the woop-woop you hear when a cop car pulls you over—coming from up the block. A cop car is stopping in front of Reverend Seymour’s. I watch two cops get out. Without thinking, I start walking toward them.
When I get near Reverend Seymour’s house, I linger by some bushes and watch the cops as they head for the basement door. I can hear church music coming from the piano, which is unexpected because there’s usually no service on Monday afternoons.
One of the cops, the bigger, meatier one of the two, knocks on the basement door. Then he and the skinnier cop both walk to the front of the house and start looking around. For what, I don’t know. They don’t seem to notice me. I take out my phone and start recording, just as Reverend Seymour comes out of the basement and walks around to the front of the house. She’s dressed in a white kaftan and she’s carrying her Bible. The music is still playing, the sounds of praise song filling the air. With all that, plus her kind smile and calm demeanor, she looks absolutely saintly. I see her notice me, giving me an almost imperceptible nod, and then she greets the cops. “Good afternoon, officers,” she says. “How can I help you?”
“We got a complaint about the noise,” the skinny cop says, “from one of your neighbors.”