A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That Read online

  Like right then, I was there, but I wasn’t, standing at the kitchen counter, wrapped like a mummy, making coffee for Rex. I wanted it strong. It was one of the steps I was going to take, drinking one cup of strong coffee instead of four cups of regular. I’d save time, and perhaps with a little less caffeine I wouldn’t be edgy and impatient. The men I met might have a better chance.

  While I was scooping the fifth tablespoon of beans from the can, it occurred to me that I hadn’t learned one damn thing in seventeen years of fucking. Since that first wrong boy on the bathroom tile took my new nipple between his teeth. I was worried even then about being unlovely, unloved, and on that black-and-white floor of his, everything was slick and cold. Within minutes of my first kiss I was stripped like a squid and knew he didn’t care whether I was Carol from third period or Christine from sixth or bad Brittany who didn’t even go to school anymore, and something inside me hardened, turned into a chunk of cement.

  A girl becomes a comma like that, with wrong boy after wrong boy; she becomes a pause, something quick before the real thing. Even now, I am certain that the light coming from his parents’ room was a warning that the sincere lovers of the world existed elsewhere, not where I was, and that it would always be like that, the light on the other side not seeping in enough to illuminate his thin cheeks or the stubble I felt with a curious teenage palm.

  We couldn’t see each other in that bathroom, and now, making coffee for a man I barely knew in my ailing mother’s kitchen, I realized that I was stirred by darkness, bars and rooms and clubs, by movie theaters where my date’s hand might rest on my thigh without responsibility, without complete admission—without light. And a man who was traveling interested me because he was traveling. I imagined Rex’s plane waiting for him right now, the tunnel he’d move through as easily as he moved through me. He’d pull his bags behind him, and the tunnel would fill with people walking too slowly or too quickly, but no one—here’s the thing—no one would match his exact stride. The flight staff would look like mannequins, would sound robotic, saying, Hello, how are you? and then one starched blonde would point her ridiculously long nail in the direction of his seat before he had the chance to answer, before he had the chance to even wonder how he was.

  When the plane landed he’d be across the world from me, and we’d both be relieved. No chance of him interrupting me during a class. No chance of me having to explain who he was, what I was doing, to my students. No chance of me showing up at his studio, where he’d surely be annoyed. Where he’d answer the door with a paintbrush between his teeth, rubbing his palms on his jeans. What are you doing here? he’d mumble through the brush. I mean, really, just what do you think you’re doing? There’d be spots of yellow, green, and blue paint on his T-shirt, splattered everywhere, on his walls, chairs, and doors, on his chin and forehead, those full lips, so that he’d look like just one more painted thing, a piece of furniture or art equipment, but with a face.

  Sometimes I went with my mother to the radiation clinic and my imagination worked in another way. I kept my sunglasses on and tried not to look at people. I tried not to smell the Chinese noodles the receptionist was eating. I tried not to notice the few noodles hanging out of the girl’s mouth. I tried not to hear the slurp as she brought the noodles inside.

  I picked up that kids’ magazine Highlights and followed the path to the defined words: delusion, destruction, feline, reiterate, problematic. I pretended I wasn’t thirty, but younger, that my mother wasn’t ill at all, that I was there for someone else, someone I loved less—a pushy friend, my slowest cousin, a dull and needy neighbor, and that’s about the time my mother would come bouncing out of the double doors, all smiles and bright wig.

  When the doctor came out of surgery six weeks ago, I asked him what the cancer looked like, what color it was. He tugged on a bushy eyebrow and looked at me. “What?” he said. “Why?”

  Four years ago, when he took my mother’s first breast and a dozen nodes, I was twenty-six and fell to the floor after he spit out her prognosis. I was a panting heap, wiping my nose with the hem of my skirt. I was drooling and sobbing, an animal. This last time I was someone else, new, in Italian shoes and silk blouse. I looked directly at him. I was curious, wanted to see, wanted a color, a shape, a texture to the disease. “What color is it?” I said again.

  “I remember,” he said, nodding. “You’re the writer, aren’t you? Your mother is very proud—” he began.

  “Fine,” I said, cutting him off. “I just want to know what color it is.”

  “It’s gray,” he said.

  “Light gray?”

  He scowled.

  “Pencil lead or lighter?”

  “Just gray.”

  “Cloudy-day gray or like metal?”

  “Jesus,” he said, tugging on that eyebrow one last time. “Are you okay?”

  2.

  Rex had interviewed me just four days earlier about my first book of poems. He sat in the leather chair by the window. I sat on the couch. It was tense, sexy. He had me read my poems into a microphone. Rex drank a diet cola, crossed and uncrossed his legs, nodded while I read. From his body language and the small sounds he made in between poems, I knew he preferred the ones that mentioned parts of my body. Even when those poems dealt with cancer and fear, knives and cuts and fate, I sensed they turned him on. It was on his face, his excitement, and at the end of the reading I looked up from my book and caught it.

  He blushed then, his already pinkish face going pinker, and looked out the window at the ocean and bike path below. “Would you look at that?” he said. “Bike riding in December. Half naked in the dead of winter. Families bobbing by in boats. The sun out, not one cloud. Some life you got here, Rachel. Some great life.”

  “If weather was enough.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Sometimes it gets monotonous,” I tried.

  “You don’t like the sun?”

  “I like the sun, it’s not that.”

  “What then?”

  “Sometimes I want to be surprised.”

  “Surprised?”

  “I want to wake up and not know what sort of day it’s going to be.”

  “I don’t think you know how lucky you are.” He was grinning, shaking his head.

  “My friend Angela has allergies,” I offered. “She lives here because of her job, but the weather is killing her. She’s got welts and hives—they won’t go away.”

  He wasn’t listening. He was standing at the window with his glasses on now. He was pressed up against the window, watching. “People on skates,” he said.

  “Rollerblades,” I corrected him.

  “Rollerblades, huh? You do that, Rachel? You skate on those things?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I pointed at the red bike in the corner.

  “Very good, then.” He leaned forward, hitting the button on the recorder.

  I got up from the couch and went to the bike. I rang the little metal bell for him with my thumb. I was thinking about the weather, the envy coming at California from other lands, and I was thinking about my friend Angela, how in early November the hives completely covered the left side of her body, one arm, one leg, one breast, half her neck, one cheek. I was thinking about a few years ago when her lips swelled to ten times their normal size. Her doctor blamed Angela’s allergies on the weather, the climate and moisture, the mold and thriving dust mites. I was ringing the bell and thinking about that.

  “Wonderful,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Bells are terrific.”

  I nodded.

  “When do you ring it? I mean, on what occasion might you ring it like you are now?”

  I looked down at my finger, which was still going at the bell. I wrapped my hand around the handlebars to keep myself from ringing. “When a kid doesn’t know he’s a kid, when he thinks he’s a bike.”

  “I don’t understand.” He cocked his head like a puppy. />
  “One time I was riding by and a couple of little boys were playing jacks. Remember jacks?” I said. “Right on the bike path, two little boys in shorts, sitting there, playing jacks. I rang the bell that morning. My bell made those two jump.”

  “What else?” he said.

  “I rode over a jack and popped a tire. It was awful. Those boys pissed me off.”

  He was nodding, leaning toward me. I wanted to lean forward too, but felt my body tilting backward, away from Rex. “The bell is like a horn, a warning,” I said, suddenly nervous, stating the obvious.

  “Of course. Yes,” he said.

  He kissed my cheek before he left, quickly, awkward in his boots, moving a piece of hair away from his eyes. When the door closed behind him I went to the phone. I called Angela, who had lived in London for a year, with questions.

  “How are your hives?” I asked first.

  “Everywhere.”

  “Is the lotion helping at all?”

  “I keep scratching it off,” she said.

  “What are you going to do, Ang?”

  “I’m going to get my shot, and maybe I’ll move to the desert, somewhere hot and dry. I look awful.”

  “What about your job?”

  “I can’t work like this anyway. I’d scare the kids.”

  “Is it on your face?”

  “At my jawline,” she said. She paused. “Enough about my allergies,” she said. “What’s going on with you?”

  “That journalist-artist guy just left,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, how was your interview?”

  “He kissed my cheek.”

  “He kissed you?”

  “Just my cheek.”

  “Still.”

  “Do they kiss strangers there? In London, I mean.”

  “Never,” she said. “They’re cold.”

  “Not even on the cheek? It was just a peck,” I explained. “He leaned down and then—”

  “Look,” she interrupted, “you’re lucky if a Brit kisses you after he fucks you—before he fucks you, for that matter. You’re lucky if he pats you on the back the morning after, that’s how removed and distant they are. You think American men are distant? Goddamn, good luck with this one.”

  “It was probably nothing,” I said.

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing to me.”

  “He’s a friendly guy, that’s all. He’s here for a short while, and he wants to make friends.”

  “Right,” Angela said, sarcastically.

  “Friendly,” I repeated.

  “I should know. I fucked a whole bunch of them.”

  “I remember the stories, Angela.”

  “They were cute.”

  “I know.”

  “Icy and seductive at the same time.”

  “I’m sure it was meaningless. The kiss,” I said.

  “And then there’s that whole thing about land and territory, ownership and war. It’s all about jealousy, rage. We hate each other and are curious as hell.” She was talking more to herself now than to me. “I remember one,” she continued, “tall, big, hair to his shoulders, and a pierced tongue. Do you know what a skillful man can do with a little gold stud in his mouth?”

  “I should go.”

  “A pierced tongue,” she repeated. “I’m telling you, Rachel, there’s nothing quite like it. A pierced nipple on a guy is worthless—all about ego. I mean, how’s he going to make you shake with a decorated nipple? A tongue, though, is something else altogether. A man who pierces his tongue is a generous king,” she said, emphatically.

  “I have to go.”

  “Imagine the pain.”

  “I’m imagining.”

  “The sacrifice,” she continued.

  “I have to go,” I tried again.

  “How’s your mom? Still upbeat? Still cheerful?” she wanted to know.

  Angela was convinced that my mother was in denial, that her smile and good mood was a front, and had suggested to me more than once that I intervene, help her open up and discuss her fears and anger. When I asked my mom about the smiling, the shopping, the continuing to teach through the chemo, she said that Angela was well-meaning but still young, that her hives were one thing, but illness was something else altogether. She looked at me hard and said, “I understand a thing or two about time, and I’m not going to waste it on worry.” She’d leave that to me. I did it well, she said. I was an expert.

  And she wouldn’t waste time in long lines, either, especially in department stores. She’d look at the line, then at me, and I’d shake my head no, Don’t you dare, let’s just wait, and she’d nod yes, and she’d grin, and sometimes she’d even wink, and then she’d start reaching for her wig, and when her hand went up, I’d dart across the store and hide behind a rack of jackets, pretending not to know her.

  Sometimes, the people in line were especially stubborn and didn’t respond to her lifting the wig up and revealing her smooth forehead, so she’d pull it off completely. She’d stand there, holding the wig at her hip, head shiny, and lean in. She’d whisper that she had cancer, that it had metastasized, and no, she wasn’t in a lot of pain yet, but the pain was probably coming, and she didn’t have a lot of time, would they mind so much if she moved to the front, she only had this one sweater to buy or this bra or this pretty watch.

  On the way home, she’d confide, “I don’t know why people let me cut in front of them. It really doesn’t hurt. When is it supposed to hurt, Rachel?”

  And I’d look at my mother’s face and try to see it, what it was, what was happening, and my mother would say, “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going anywhere just yet.” And I’d try not to, but it was a hard thing to do, trying not to see what was right there in front of me.

  3.

  The next night at Ruby’s Room I offered Rex up excuses, though he was leaving the country in a matter of days and it wasn’t necessary. He didn’t think a woman like me, whom he called smart and daring, should be alone. “Why are you still single?” he asked.

  “My mom has been sick for four years and she needs all of me,” I said. What I should have said was, My mom has been sick for four years and I need all of her.

  “Come on.”

  “It’s true. I can’t think about anyone but her, about what she’s in, and everyone else is small compared to that.”

  “What about when you’re at work?”

  “When I’m writing, it’s all about her, and when I’m teaching—well, I try to be there for them.”

  “What about when you’re in bed with someone?”

  “It’s probably about her too.” I looked at his face, tried to gauge how far I could go. “That’s when I’m most aware of what’s happening to her, to both of us.”

  “You’re going to need someone when she goes.” He stopped. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not my place …”

  I lifted the cider to my lips, then looked away from him, toward the bar. I recognized one of my best students, Ella Bloom, sitting with a young man in a white lab coat. She was stirring a short drink and shaking her head no. She looked angry. The young man was leaning toward Ella, his hand on her knee.

  “She’s a good writer,” I said, gesturing toward the bar with my chin.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I mean, she’s a student now, my student, but her poems are strange and wonderful. She writes about young girls a lot. This last poem was about bats, though.”

  Rex shuddered. “My least favorite creatures on the planet,” he said.

  I wanted to kiss him then, wanted to tell him I liked him, wanted to promise to always protect him from bats, but we weren’t there yet, and I didn’t know if we were even on our way. “Remember her name—Ella Bloom,” I told him. “Maybe one day you’ll be coming back here to interview her.” I looked at Rex and wondered how many times he’d visit California.

  “It’s possible.”

  “She’s newly married. I guess that’s
her husband there. You think he’s a doctor?”

  “Too young.”

  “You’re probably right.” When I turned to look at them again, Ella and her husband had risen from their stools and were making their way toward us. The anger seemed to have disappeared from her face. “Jack, Dr. Spark. Dr. Spark, Jack,” she said, smiling.

  “Hi, Jack,” I said. “I’m Rachel. And this is Rex. He’s visiting from London.”

  “Outside London. I live on a farm in Hampshire,” Rex corrected me, leaning over to shake hands with Jack.

  “I was just telling Rex here about your poems, Ella. That last one floored me.” I turned to Rex. “The one about bats.”

  Rex grimaced so that only I could see.

  Ella’s husband looked at her. “You don’t show me those poems,” he said.

  Ella shrugged. “They’re not finished yet,” she told him.

  “They’re my bats,” Jack said. “I study them, I mean.”

  “Awful,” Rex said.

  “What was that?” Jack leaned closer to Rex.

  “Awesome. I said that’s awesome.” Rex winked at me. There was a long pause.

  “Why don’t you join us?” I finally said.

  Ella’s husband shook his head. “I’ve got to be at the lab early tomorrow. And then after work we’ve got Christmas shopping to do, right, Ella?”

  Ella nodded.

  “Your bats are waiting,” Rex said.

  “That’s right, waiting. You could say that.” Jack was smiling, sly, like he had a secret.

  “Jack works with dead bats,” Ella offered.

  “Alive or dead, bats freak me out,” Rex confessed.

  “They’ve got a bad rap,” Jack said. “They’re actually quite docile—nothing to be afraid of. They’re more afraid of you than you should be of them.”

  “Rabies is pretty fuckin’ scary,” Rex said. “Where I’m from, there’s lots of …”

  The cider was hitting me hard, and though I didn’t want to be impolite, I really had to pee, so I stood up. “You guys talk,” I said. “I’ll be right back, okay?” Rex squeezed my hand, mouthed okay, and I told Ella and her husband that it was good to see them and excused myself. I made my way across one room and into the other. I stepped around a dancing circle of young women and the gawking men surrounding them. I spotted Adam, a former boyfriend, standing at the pool table, chalking his stick, so I picked up my pace. I had safely reached the bathroom door when I was surprised to hear Ella’s voice in my ear. She was shouting above the music, something bluesy I didn’t know the name of. “I like your class,” she said.