A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That Read online

  “I don’t want to remember,” Claire said.

  Angela was telling me that she’d have opted for the reconstruction herself. “I think it’s important to stay whole,” she said.

  “Even with the leeches?” I asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “Not me,” Claire said.

  “I saw a television show recently where a man lost his ear,” Angela began. “And this beautiful doctor—my, he was gorgeous, a prince—anyway, this doctor put the ear on ice—or was it already on ice? Either way,” she said, “they saved the ear like you’d save a trout or something. Then he sewed it back on. It’s amazing what they can do these days.”

  “I missed that one,” I said.

  “Well, it was like what’s happening with your mom,” Angela continued. “They used leeches to get the blood going. They’re hungry fuckers, that’s for sure. They starve them to get them ready. I read about it in Time.”

  “It’s cruel,” Claire said, shaking her head. “We’re all the goddess’s creatures.”

  Angela rolled her eyes. “Creatures?”

  “Yes, and we all have a place in this world.”

  “Right now, their place is at my mother’s breast.”

  “We’re talking about leeches, here, Claire,” Angela said. She pulled my empty shot glass her way and balanced it on top of the others, making a precarious ladder.

  Claire, huffing and sighing, removed the shot glass. She looked at Angela, who was then smiling and waving across the bar at the cigar guy. I picked up my beer and took a big swallow.

  “What do they do with them once they’re fed?” Claire asked.

  “I think they toss them into a bin to die, or they die on their own. I don’t remember that part of the article.” Angela paused. She looked around the bar. “Not even one attractive man in here.”

  “What about the cigar guy?” I asked.

  “He’s not attractive,” Angela said.

  “Well, then, why—”

  “Because he likes me, Rachel—because he likes what he sees, at least.”

  Claire shuddered. “I’d hate those leeches on me,” she said, changing the subject or not changing it at all. “I’d hate—” she began, but Angela cut her off.

  “I’d do what your mom did,” Angela said. “I’d choose surgery, even with the leeches. I mean, what’s the alternative—walking around without a nose or ear or breast?”

  “For my nose or ear, yes,” Claire said. “For my finger, of course, but for a breast, no way.”

  “What’s the difference?” Angela wanted to know.

  “If a body part that’s basically just flesh and fat turns on you, if it’s sick, who wants it?”

  “You can say that now,” Angela said, “because you’re a lesbian.”

  “I’m not a lesbian. I have a girlfriend, but I’m not a lesbian,” Claire said.

  “In my book, you’re a lesbian, Claire. You can call yourself bi or whatever, but to me—”

  Claire interrupted her. “What does my sexual preference have to do with any of this anyway?”

  “Back in high school, you would have chosen the reconstruction—when you were straight or pretending to be.”

  “I wasn’t pretending.”

  “Come on you two, don’t fight,” I said.

  “We’re not fighting, we’re discussing,” Angela said.

  “It’s okay, Rachel,” Claire said.

  “Now that you’re with women, Claire, you don’t have to look as good. You don’t have to worry about pleasing men,” Angela said.

  I laughed.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Claire said, looking at me.

  I stopped laughing. I wasn’t about to get in the middle of this.

  “It’s not ridiculous,” Angela argued. “Listen, men get pleasure visually, from seeing. Everyone knows this—you know this, Claire. And you’d admit it if you were honest.”

  “Claire’s honest,” I tried.

  “I’m honest,” Claire said. “And lesbians want to look good for their partners. You don’t know anything about it.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t a lesbian,” Angela said.

  Claire shook her head.

  “It’s not about vanity, it’s about a man’s judgment. It’s why you lesbians get to be fat, it’s why gay men live at the gym. Not that you’re fat, Claire, you’re fine. I’m talking about a majority here. Think of your new girlfriend. What’s her name—Leona, Lora?”

  “Lora,” I said. “She’s very nice.”

  “That’s right, Lora. I’m sure she is nice, sweet as can be, heart of gold and all of that, but I bet little Lora’s ass is as big as mine—and I bet she doesn’t have to worry about her ass because she’s nice, because you, Claire, don’t care one way or another about her ass. If it spread from one end of this bar to the other, I bet you wouldn’t complain.” Angela picked up her beer and finished it off. She exhaled heavily. “I want another,” she said. “You, Rachel?”

  “Just water.”

  Angela swung her legs out of the booth and stood. “What if I bring you one last beer and you nurse it for the rest of the night?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Angela turned, leaving us alone. “She’s nuts,” Claire said. “I can’t believe what comes out of her mouth.”

  “She likes to talk.”

  Claire leaned across the booth. “I wouldn’t have the reconstruction even if I was straight. I’m not judging your mother or anything, I just wouldn’t have it myself.”

  “Who knows, Claire. I wanted my mom to wait another year because I’m afraid of the cancer coming back.”

  “I’m not judging her,” she said again.

  “I want my breasts,” I said. “I’m scared of them, but I’d want them back if they took them from me. I don’t know what I would do—what choices I’d make.”

  “You’d get on with things, Rachel, that’s what you’d do. You wouldn’t worry about the cosmetic side of all of this when your survival was at stake. I know you, Rachel.” She paused. She looked around the bar. “Did you see that guy’s lips, those cracks?”

  I nodded.

  “He freaked me out.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, is the size of someone’s ass so important?”

  “My mom thinks all three of our asses are big.”

  “Your ass isn’t big,” Claire said. “You’re in proportion.” She was quiet a minute. “Wait, your mom said my ass was big?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m a size five—what’s she talking about?”

  “She says that our asses are big compared to the rest of us. She calls us shapely.”

  Claire smiled. “Your mom’s a funny one,” she said. “And anyway, you don’t have to kiss someone’s ass. You kiss their lips. And Angela’s new friend, his lips are gross. Lora’s lips are soft.”

  “Good point,” I said, laughing.

  “That guy had skin hanging from his lips, and he thought he was okay, just fine, and it was—Angela doesn’t care what his lips look like. She’s just happy that he likes the way she looks. He’s a dry-lipped beast,” Claire said, laughing, and then the two of us were laughing, drunk and silly, and couldn’t stop.

  I pointed over at Angela, who had just turned from the cigar guy’s table and was heading back to the booth with drinks. Claire caught her breath. “She’s right, you know. Angela’s right. I hate it when she’s right,” she said.

  “Who’s right?” Angela said, putting the beers in the middle of the table, two more shots of tequila, and a napkinful of lime.

  Claire was quiet.

  “Let’s drink,” Angela said. She climbed into the booth, and then raised the shot glass in the air. “Let’s toast.”

  I reached for mine.

  “Don’t be mad at me, Claire.” Angela was talking to the back of Claire’s head because Claire had twisted around and was now facing the bar. “You like that bartender? Her name is Stephanie. She likes men and women. Mostly
women, I think. I could introduce you to her. Want me to?”

  Claire ignored her.

  “Okay, be mad at me, but be mad later. Let’s cheers to Rachel,” Angela said, bringing the shot glass to her mouth.

  I joined her.

  “To Elizabeth,” Angela said. “To Rachel’s mother, mother of us all, mother of all God’s creatures, and, and—”

  “And?” I said.

  “And to her breast-saving leeches,” she continued.

  I nodded.

  “And mostly, certainly, always, to survival—to whatever the fuck it takes,” Angela concluded, smiling.

  Claire picked up her beer.

  The three of us toasted, glasses clinking, then leaned our heads back and swallowed.

  9.

  Angela had offered to spend the night at my mother’s apartment so I wouldn’t wake up alone. Moments ago, she had slipped out of Ruby’s Room’s back door with my spare key, a naughty smile on her face, and the man with the dry lips on her arm. I told her to go ahead and take my room, that I’d sleep in my mother’s bed. Claire, after a ridiculous amount of reassurance, after I had promised to take a cab and ignore last call, finally called Lora to pick her up.

  I left the booth and moved to the bar. Now, it was last call and I didn’t ignore it but ordered one more beer. It was one-thirty bar time, which gave me twenty minutes or so. Adam Anderson, whom I hadn’t seen in years and hadn’t missed, was sitting next to me, drinking a cup of coffee.

  In the late eighties, when I was a student, he taught anatomy and biology part-time at the university. He wasn’t my instructor. I didn’t meet him in a class, but at a poetry reading—one of his own. Ten years ago it was his abortion I’d had when the two of us didn’t like each other enough to chance the combination of genes. Now he was full-time, a professor, he said. He was surprised that I was teaching on campus myself now, in the building right next to his—and even more surprised that I hadn’t stopped by to say hello.

  “You work there, right across the way,” he said, grabbing his chin. “I remember when you—”

  “Don’t remember, Adam,” I said.

  He laughed, nervously. “Okay,” he said.

  “It’s not a good idea,” I said.

  “Well, anyway, you look good, Rachel. You’re a better-looking woman than you were a girl.”

  “And that’s a compliment?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You grew into your looks, your face.”

  I looked at him, puzzled.

  “You grew into your features, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Features, huh?”

  “That’s right. You look good, okay? I like the way you look now. You’ve grown up, and I—”

  “We never liked each other,” I interrupted. I didn’t look at him, but stared straight ahead at the wall. It was blank, the wall, and I remembered when pictures of huge-breasted women hung on Ruby’s walls, creamy women, naked against black felt. I wondered who convinced the owner, Mac, to change his décor. I wondered if Mac had found someone, fallen in love. I wondered what Adam would do if I moved back to the booth, if he’d follow me or let me go.

  “No,” he said, “maybe we didn’t.” He picked up his cocktail napkin and began ripping it into tiny pieces.

  I stayed on the barstool. I shook my head. “I thought I liked you,” I said, “but I didn’t know anything.”

  “You knew some things,” he said.

  “I didn’t know—”

  “Do you like me now?” he interrupted.

  I finished my beer in one long swallow. “I don’t think so.”

  “We’re different, that’s all.”

  “No,” I said, feeling the beer, feeling bold. “You were a real fucker, that’s what it was.” I turned on the stool and faced him.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “And I didn’t know how to be—” I began, and then stopped myself, realizing I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

  “Be what?” He let out an awkward laugh. He paused. He lifted the coffee cup and looked inside. “There’s no cream. Goddamn, she forgot the cream. I can’t drink this shit black,” he said. “Stephanie,” he called. “Hey, Steph.”

  “What?” the bartender turned from two men she’d been serving or flirting with. She set the bottle of vodka down. I heard it smack the counter. She wiped her hands on her apron and looked at Adam, then at me. I thought I saw Stephanie wink my way, but couldn’t be sure; anything at all could have been happening. “What now, Adam?” she said.

  “I need some fat in this coffee,” he said.

  “Fine,” she said, reaching behind the bar. She was pouring the cream into Adam’s cup and he was still talking. “Make it white, Steph,” he said. “You know I like it white,” he said.

  The bar lights did their late night flashing, and patrons began to grumble and gather their jackets. Adam was smiling, and I was still trying to finish that sentence in my head. I looked at his dark, thick eyebrows, his green or blue eyes, and was trying to finish that impossible sentence.

  “You want a ride home?” he asked.

  10.

  Fellatio was one part of a whole, I believed—a piece of a more complicated act, one scene from a full-length play that required two energetic thespians. I’d never been generous or gracious or confident or stupid enough to give a man a blow job in a car or empty movie theater, to give him just that on a freeway, to offer up my mouth—the way Angela claimed to—at a stop sign or before breakfast. A hand was one thing, I’d decided long ago, but a mouth was something else altogether.

  Still, years ago, in a parking garage outside a Huntington Beach nightclub, in Adam’s car, I did just that. He’d wanted to take me home, his or mine, it didn’t matter, he said. Neither of us knew then that I was pregnant, that he’d drop me off in front of a clinic in two week’s time, that he’d stuff crumpled dollar bills into my hand for a cab home before speeding away, and that the check he’d mail to me for the procedure would bounce. Neither of us knew, and I looked good, really good, he’d said. Had I lost weight? Did I like his new car? Was I letting my hair grow out?

  “Out of what?” I asked.

  “It was a bob, wasn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t a bob.”

  “Yes, it was,” he said, emphatically. “Few weeks ago it was all one length, to your chin.” He cut into his own chin with the side of his hand, demonstrating.

  “It was someone else, Adam. I haven’t changed my hair,” I said.

  “Hair grows. It’s growing, that’s all.”

  “Okay,” I said, giving up.

  “You look good,” he said again.

  I was surprised at myself, and he was more so, when I unzipped his pants and held him in my hand, right there, in the car, in the garage. “Tinted windows,” I said. “A showy man like you with tinted windows—why? You hiding something?”

  When he started to answer, I stopped him with a finger to my lips. “Shh,” I said. “Don’t talk, Adam. We’ve said enough. We say too much. A pair like us should shut the hell up,” I whispered.

  He was nodding and breathing heavily. With my free hand I released the emergency brake. I put my chin in his lap and didn’t even flinch when I heard shoes outside clip the concrete, a woman’s laugh, a man’s voice, a car door just feet away opening and closing, the engine turning over, again and again, until finally, the car screeched off. I had this to do, only this. I was determined, eager; it was as if I’d been born or starved with just that meal in mind. I held my lips inches from him, touched him until he stood right up. All that blood, I remember thinking, he’s jammed now, stuffed with it.

  11.

  Moments earlier at Ruby’s Room I felt okay or thought I did, but now in Adam’s car my head spun. I was quiet until he turned down my street. I believed his red leather interior only added to my queasiness. “It’s red in here,” I said. “Everything, Adam—the seats, the steering wheel. It’s garish. What were you thinking? When you bought this car, what was
on your mind?”

  “Not you,” he said, obviously insulted.

  I laughed. “Apparently not.”

  I asked him to drop me off in front of my mother’s building. He wanted to come up. He wanted to talk. “I feel sick,” I told him. “When I’m sick like this, it’s hard to be polite. I’m sorry about your car, the way it looks—I mean, I’m sorry about what I said.” I opened the door and stepped out.

  He asked for my number, but I didn’t think he wanted it and I didn’t want to give it to him. Not tonight. Not ever. At one time I would have written my number, somewhere, anywhere—on the back of his hand if he’d allowed it. I would have written down my number before he even asked. “No, Adam,” I said, closing the door, leaning down to see him one last time. He looked stunned, mouth hanging open.

  “I thought I remembered you,” he said.

  I shrugged. “Sorry,” I said.

  He leaned toward the passenger window. “We’re old friends. What’s wrong with having a conversation with an old friend? Can’t I get your number?”

  “We’re not friends,” I said.

  “Not even a number, Rachel?” he tried again.

  “No,” I said, “not even that.”

  12.

  I found Angela’s tights in the hall. I poked my head in and saw her bra hanging on a lampshade, one black cup visible, the other hidden, wrapped over the lightbulb, dimming the room. I knew Angela thought it was exciting, a night like this, that in the morning over toast, she’d be full of animated details, but now she was alone in my bed, a woman wrapped in a sheet, a woman who’d been touched and left—in less than two hours.

  I went to my friend and covered her with the blanket. Angela’s cheeks were moist. She was glistening. I could almost feel it. His scent—that cigar he’d been holding between his lips at Ruby’s—was still there, clinging to Angela’s skin. “I’ll smoke this puppy when I get out of here,” he had said. “I’m a man with patience,” he told the three of us. I thought about that man, generous with the shots of tequila and compliments. He’d liked Angela’s profile, her teeth, her dark hair and eyes, her laugh. He’d introduced himself as “Big Brad, the sober one—ten years this July,” but still the shots kept coming. I remembered his puffy face and dry lips, his red nose, his grin as he sat across the bar from us, lifting his glass of water in the air. I remembered him pointing that unlit cigar in Angela’s direction and winking.