A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That Page 4

  “You scared me,” I said. “I didn’t know you were behind me.” My bladder was pounding as I held the doorknob.

  “I’m not following you,” she said, and then laughed. “Well, I guess I am. I mean, I guess I did. I wanted to tell you that your class is everything to me.”

  “Good. I’m happy you’re in there.” I glanced over at Adam, who was leaning down now, moving the stick back and forth between his fingers. I heard him break, the triangle of balls rolling apart. “Look, Ella, why don’t you two stay and have a drink with us—I’ve really got to pee, though. Wait right here.”

  She shook her head. “We’re in a fight.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He’s sorry,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling bad for Ella, but also wanting to avoid Adam’s seeing me there, and more, feeling as if I was about to burst. I didn’t know what to say next, but it didn’t matter because her eyes had welled up and she cut me off.

  “I’ve got to go. We’ve got to go,” she said, her eyes spilling over.

  “Wait,” I said, reaching out to grab her hand, but she’d already turned around and was rushing away from me.

  When I returned from the bathroom, Rex was alone at the booth, talking into his recorder. He clicked it off, stuck it in his bag, and made room for me. There were two shots at the table, one in front of my glass and one in front of his. “What’s this?” I asked, sitting down.

  “A treat.” He was grinning. I knew we’d both be drunk very soon. And what the hell. I thought of poor Ella’s teary eyes and lifted the shot to my mouth. Rex did the same. “They seem like good people, your student and her boyfriend, but they left rather quickly,” he said after we’d downed them.

  “Husband,” I said.

  “A little young for that.”

  “For what?”

  “For making up their minds already, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s a big decision.”

  “Either way,” I said, “I don’t like him.”

  “You just met him, Rachel.” He was surprised and maybe a little defensive. I got a sense of what our arguments might be like if he lived here and we fell in love. “You’re right,” I said.

  “You can’t judge a guy in a couple minutes,” he continued.

  “You’re right,” I said again. And then I couldn’t stop myself, “Come on, Rex, didn’t the bat-guy freak you out?”

  He shook his head.

  “Just a little bit? Just a tiny little bit?” I held two barely separated fingers between our faces.

  He held my fingers, my whole hand, and brought it down to the table, leaving his hand on top of mine. “It’s not the people who work with bats or who study them, it’s the bats themselves that scare all fuck out of me.”

  “It’s charming,” I said, “that you’re afraid of them and unafraid to let me know you’re afraid. I like that.” I was feeling the shot already and letting the words tumble from my mouth.

  “Listen, Rachel,” he said. “I felt like we were on a first date yesterday.” His voice was soft. “I haven’t felt like that, interviewing poets. It’s work, you know. You ask them questions; they tell you what you want to hear. It wasn’t like that with you.”

  “I didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear?”

  He smiled.

  “What part didn’t you like?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I finished the cider with one long swallow and set the glass down. I smiled back at him. Rex looked at my smile, my mouth, then at the glass. “I’m still thirsty,” he said. “You?”

  “Didn’t you say earlier that I was daring?”

  He returned from the bar with cider and dark beer and wanted to talk. There were parts of his life back home he wanted me to know about. He mentioned his new girlfriend, his fourteen-year-old daughter who was just now beginning to hate him, who brooded and got tattoos, who pierced her lip and chin and forehead; and his baby boy, Blake—what words he knew, how the boy clung to Rex’s shoulder when it rained. He talked about the farm, how he met his new girlfriend, how she was their nearest neighbor, acres and acres away, what fate was, how he didn’t know she was a redhead until she removed her funny hat.

  I was the kind of woman a man could do that with; he could be honest about whom he loved, that he didn’t love me, and still I might let him in. Rex was perceptive. He knew this, I could tell—it was in his gestures. While he talked about his life there, his farm, his girlfriend, he leaned closer and closer to me, hand on my knee, on my thigh. And while he talked about his life there, I listened and moved closer to him as well, letting his hand move up my leg. Still, I pictured the baby, Blake, with horribly pink skin, riding a fat gray pig like a horse. I pictured the girlfriend’s red hair spilling out over her thin shoulders when she removed that silly hat, and said, “I’m not capable of much.”

  He stared into his black beer, the blackest beer I’d ever seen. He smiled with a closed mouth. I looked away and spotted Adam, whom I’d almost forgotten about, leaving by the back door with a woman, and was relieved. Things became blurry then, and I was scooting one of my fingers into the thigh holes Rex had made in his Levi’s. “They’re bloody expensive where I’m from. I need to buy some while I’m here,” he said, and I wanted to nibble those jeans right off of him, right there in the booth, with Brenda Lee or a voice just like hers coming from the speakers behind us, with smoke and dust and cinnamon wafting toward us from the bar, and hot little Christmas lights that kept falling off the edge of the booth, making a tangled mess in my hair.

  There was an old woman, a grumpy regular I recognized, leaning against the jukebox. She stumbled over and sat down on the stool Ella had been sitting on. I thought about young Ella and her young husband and wondered if they’d patch things up tonight or if what was happening between them was bigger than just one evening. I wondered if she’d write poems about her troubles or if she’d come by my office to tell me more.

  “Check her out,” Rex said. The grumpy regular wore a lopsided wig and too much blush, a bitter orange smeared across her lips. She was screaming that her drink wasn’t strong enough. “I can’t fucking feel it,” she said, tugging at the wig with both hands. “I need to feel something, damn it. Easy on the orange this time, hard on the rum.” She pounded her fist on the bar. “Give a girl what she wants, would you?” she said, loud enough for us to hear.

  “It doesn’t matter how much she drinks, she’ll never feel it ,” Rex said, leaning into me, gently beginning to untangle the lights from my hair. “She’s immune to it. And her wig doesn’t fit.”

  I wanted to tell him about my mother, how she owned a dozen wigs. Red and brown and blonde and black. An unusually thick wig. One made of human hair that didn’t wear well, that fell in thin strands across her face after a day outside. I wanted to tell Rex about the synthetic ones, how superior they are, about the two my mother bought in Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard that promised to make her look famous, like Cher or Dolly Parton, and the one that hung down her back, and another that framed her cheeks and fell just below her chin. I wanted to tell him how sometimes, if my mom was in a rush or being picky, trying to match her hair with her dress, she’d scatter the wigs around the apartment. First I’d see several naked Styrofoam heads in my mother’s room, on a pillow or on her desk, maybe a couple of heads in the living room, on the coffee table, or face down on the couch. And then, throughout the day, I’d find them—a wig on top of the television, another on a bookshelf, smashed between the dictionary and antique clock, one hanging from a hook next to the spare keys.

  I wanted to tell him how one late night I accidentally sat on the Dolly Parton, how I pulled it from behind my back, screaming. I wanted to tell him how funny my mother thought this was, how she fell into my arms laughing.

  I wanted to tell him how in the right light an unexpected wig looks like a little dog, asleep.

  I wanted to tell him, but I knew from past experi
ence that stories about my mother’s illness, even ones meant to amuse, made people cringe and move away from me. So I let him talk about the farm, the miles and miles of dirt and feed, the wide-open spaces, all that air. He was telling me that the clouds at home were thick and heavy and black, how sometimes he was convinced that standing on just the right chair or ladder he would be able to touch one. He lifted the beer to his mouth and finished it off. He licked those lips of his again. He gave up on the lights a moment, set them on the ledge behind my head, so that they were still with me, but not as intricately. I could move, but still with an irritating sense of being attached to something.

  “Do you like animals?” he asked, picking up the lights again.

  I was trying not to panic, but the lights were warm against my scalp and the fake holly was sharp. “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “That’s too bad,” he told me. “They’re wonderful. She needs a pet.” He jutted his chin in the old woman’s direction, since now both hands were occupied, busy in my hair.

  “She comes here all the time. And she has a pet,” I continued. “Her moody poodle is probably outside right now chained to a streetlight.”

  “Moody poodle, huh?”

  “Yes, the dog’s moody.”

  “That’s great,” he said. “I like that. Moody poodle,” he repeated.

  “That dog’s a beast,” I told him. “It snaps at anything that breathes. I hate that damn dog.”

  “Most people like animals,” he said.

  “Maybe some of them are just pretending.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “They want to communicate compassion,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “It’s true—think about a girl leaning down to pet a kitten and what that gesture does to your heart. Maybe it’s the heart people are after.”

  “She likes the kitten ,” he disagreed.

  “Maybe the girl wants you to notice her heart, so she’s pretending to have something inside it.”

  “Sometimes gestures are genuine.”

  “Sometimes” I said.

  “I don’t want you to think that because I have a girlfriend at home, I don’t like you,” he said, suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Even though I got a girlfriend—” he began.

  “A girlfriend isn’t a wife. She’s not your wife, right?”

  “She’s not my wife.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  “I like her, though. I want you to know that. I don’t want to lie to you, Rachel.”

  “You don’t even live here.”

  “I know. I’m just saying that even though I have a woman at home, my gestures here with you are genuine. I like you and—”

  “Look, Rex,” I interrupted, “I’m not thinking about it, about her.”

  “Because sometimes you accept your lot in life, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Good,” I said, not knowing exactly what it was he meant. “Whatever, Rex. I’m not thinking about your lot.”

  “And sometimes you’re lucky enough …” He stopped then, was quiet a moment, working hard at the lights. “There,” he said finally, “you’re free.”

  “Great.” I was exasperated. I tossed my hair because I could.

  He kissed me then, his tongue inside my mouth. He tasted bitter from the beer, sweet and spicy from the schnapps, and my lips began to tingle. When the kiss ended, he took my face in his hands. “What happened when she followed you to the bathroom? Did the bat-guy hurt your student?” he wanted to know.

  “She left me there,” I said. “She was crying and I didn’t go after her. I should have gone after her,” I told him, leaning into him, leaning in for one more kiss.

  4.

  Yes, a condom might have saved my life, but latex over a particular penis made it any penis, and the act of wearing one was, at this particular time, like pantyhose over a face, every pore or wrinkle or distinct characteristic smoothed over until he was anyone or everyone—pizza man or Southerner, any man who came before him.

  I fucked Rex once without protection because of flesh.

  I fucked him without concern for my cycle or eggs or safety.

  It was the night as much as anything. It was the particular darkness, my mother’s heavy breath in the next room, the damn waves again and again, the sea moving into my bedroom and sheets, and it was Rex and all I wanted to see and feel that was his.

  I risked everything—pregnancy and illness—because of skin.

  “Let’s not wake her” I said.

  “You’re over thirty and you live with your mum.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “She’s sick,” I reminded him. “Piece by piece.”

  “Piece by piece, what’s that mean?”

  “Like a turkey.” I made a carving motion with an extended index finger.

  “That’s gruesome.” He shook his head.

  “Leg, thigh, breast.”

  “Stop it, Rachel.”

  “Neck,” I continued.

  “Don’t,” he pleaded.

  “Hip,” I said, quietly, almost to myself.

  “You shouldn’t talk about it, about her, like that. Are you drunk? Is that what’s wrong with you?”

  I laughed. “There’s plenty wrong with me.”

  “Like what?”

  “The list is long.”

  “Anything I can catch?”

  “No,” I told him. “I’m drunk, that’s what’s wrong with me, Rex. Too much cider, no dinner.”

  “I’m sorry about your mum. Come here.” He was sitting on the edge of the bed in just his white briefs. He had a decent body, a natural body, the body of a man that didn’t exercise—a bit of belly fell over the elastic. He curled his finger. “Come here,” he said again.

  I moved toward him.

  “Let’s not talk.” He put his hands out. “Let me touch those hips of yours. Let’s not say a word,” he said.

  Neither of us mentioned a condom. It was the first time I’d been unsafe in years; it was the first time I didn’t insist. I could have blamed it on the cider, but I’d been drunk and naked plenty of times and still pulled one from my bag or bra or drawer. I could have blamed it on his accent or the fact that they’d recently found a chunk of cancer in my mother’s shoulder, but several of my men had accents, and they’d been finding gray chunk after gray chunk for the last two years, yet I’d always been cautious.

  Lately I was bold, keeping a handful of condoms in a candy dish on my nightstand. And I was slick and skillful too, positioning myself on top of whoever he was, and while he was busy with my breasts, I’d reach down and pluck one up. When he was really going, mouth and hands at once, I’d lift the foil package to my mouth and rip it open with my teeth. “Here,” I’d say then, “if you want me, dress it up.” And he’d be surprised, but hard already and agreeable, and what was most amazing to me was that he wouldn’t even have noticed my preparation. He wouldn’t even have seen me. He’d be staring at the condom as if it was magic, as if it appeared out of nowhere, as if I pulled it from behind his ear or out of a hat, so focused he’d have been with his whole face, every bit of him, mashed against my torso.

  One of them was stubborn and did refuse. I’d met him at Angela’s birthday party in September. I was sitting with my friend Claire at the dining room table when he walked up. He introduced himself as Johnny. He was from Argentina or Colombia—I couldn’t remember which—and mispronounced my name, butchered it, in fact, like he did the sloppy hogs back home. His English wasn’t perfect, but early in the evening he’d tried hard, wanting to communicate. He looked determined, face scrunched up, lips tight, fingers rubbing together, reaching for words.

  Angela winked at me, pulled on Claire’s sleeve, and when that didn’t work, bent down and whispered something in Claire’s ear. “Oh,” Claire said, springing from her chair, leaving the two of us alone at the table.

  I looked down at my lap and caught myself twiddling my thu
mbs. It was ridiculous, something I didn’t know I did. I stopped myself mid-twiddle and made a plan in my head about how I might hold my body in the future. I thought about deliberate movement, gesture. I crossed my legs. I looked into Johnny’s eyes for several tense seconds before turning away.

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his palms together; he was struggling with nouns and verbs and adjectives, and I was charmed or horny or drunk on champagne, leaning forward myself, nodding, patient.

  Meat was important for his family’s survival, Johnny wanted me to know. He killed those animals without guilt or shame, in front of his two small nieces, younger brother, and sometimes in front of their friends. He didn’t understand what he called California “vegenarians”—people who didn’t eat meat. Was I one of them? he wanted to know.

  I pointed at the chicken wing that sat in front of me on a paper plate. “No,” I told him.

  Angela’s half-eaten birthday cake sat in the middle of the table, as did a dozen empty beer bottles, several unopened bottles of wine, and messy plates. Standing on one of the plates was a plastic fork, balanced on its end in the thick, creamy frosting, its lipstick-stained prongs straight up, nearly pointing at my face.

  “Is that yours?” he said, looking at the fork.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why would I stick my fork—” I began.

  He pointed at the lipstick on the prongs, then at my own lips.

  “Not even close.” I backed up, smiling.

  “I think yes.”

  “That’s bright pink,” I insisted. “I’m not wearing pink. I never wear pink. Do I look like a woman who would wear bright pink?” I said, catching myself, immediately regretting the coy question.