A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That Read online

  Sometimes, at closing, Sarah wore her white jacket, but more often than not the jacket hung on a chair beside her. Then, with her cocky posture and attitude, her full, high breasts would make themselves known in a sweater or T-shirt or low-cut blouse. Often the little radio to her right was turned down low, blues or jazz coming from it. Sometimes, she ate peanuts from a glass dish. Sometimes, a candy bar, still in its wrapper, half eaten, sat by her side. Maybe a can of soda.

  Ella wanted to believe that her husband, at least those first few afternoons, deliberately avoided the view; she saw him in her mind’s eye holding the magazine in front of his face for protection. She told herself that from across the room he couldn’t hear the music and that the smell of peanuts wafting from Sarah’s space must have turned him off. Unfortunately, this vision of a reluctant, loyal Jack was most likely optimism on Ella’s part. More likely the blues or jazz crooning from the little radio and the sight of Sarah working and lifting things to her mouth was immediately too much for him, and the clinic filled with tension and innuendo. Most likely Jack peered over the pages of that magazine, rapt.

  Ella imagined that every so often Sarah looked up at her husband from the day’s business and smiled. She imagined that Jack returned the smile and did a little something with his eyes. She understood that a man and a woman smiling like that through September and October and November were probably making mutual plans, plans that ripened with every grin.

  This was the clinic hallway. This was the dirty floor, which would later be mopped with the harshest cleanser. To the left was the locked cabinet full of blood. Vials lined up like spices, needles and cotton balls, ointment and swabs. On the wall hung a stethoscope, a clipboard, and a bad picture of a sunflower. On the counter a roll of condoms and a rubber breast. It was one of Ella’s many jobs to teach the girls to find the cancer. It’s like a little stone, a tiny rock, it’s like a pea made out of lead. “Here, right here,” she said, letting the pads of her fingertips point out what one day might threaten them both.

  This was where Ella took off the yellow gloves and let them drop into a bin before moving, hip first, through the double doors. This was the first Monday in December, the day she found peanuts on the floor, the radio full of static, the day she found Jack and Sarah kissing. Sarah, her coworker, who was supposed to be punching numbers, placing her hand inside her husband’s black jeans and counting, Ella was sure, his balls. And this was Sarah becoming the number-two woman in Jack’s life and inching her way toward number one, and even Ella understood that simple subtraction.

  2.

  “We’re young,” Jack said later. They were sitting in his car outside the clinic, and Ella was crying into her hands. It was ninety degrees outside, and though they were standing still, going nowhere, Jack had the engine running and the air-conditioning on. “Turn it off,” Ella said, rolling down the window.

  “I’m hot,” he said weakly.

  She looked at the clinic’s awning above them. “We’re in the shade, Jack,” she said. “Roll down your window and turn off the car.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Two teenagers, a girl and a boy, entered the fast food restaurant to their left, her first, him sheepishly behind. The girl was scowling, throwing up her hands in apparent frustration. “Come on,” the boy said. “Wait up,” he begged.

  It seemed to Ella that everyone was fighting.

  “We’re twenty-five,” Jack said, stating the obvious. “We’re young,” he said softly.

  “How many times has this happened?” she wanted to know.

  “This is the first.”

  “Must be exciting.”

  “No.”

  “Tell the truth, Jack. It’s exciting and you know it. You’re at the beginning of something—imagine the possibilities.”

  “Ella, please.”

  “If this isn’t exciting, what the hell is? Is marriage exciting? Is sitting and staring at the same woman every single morning for the rest of your life exciting? What were we thinking, getting married like that?”

  “About love, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “We were thinking about love, Ella.”

  “I should have figured this out,” she said. “Who listens to Billie Holiday while they add up the day’s Pap numbers? Who listens to that while she’s figuring out how much money the day’s herpes cases brought in?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “Her posture and tits—what an idiot I am,” she continued. “You’ve been picking me up for months now, flipping through magazines you don’t give a damn about, waiting when you hate to wait.”

  “I wait.”

  “You don’t wait well.”

  “What’s waiting well?”

  “Someone who sits or stands patiently. Someone who doesn’t have to be occupied or entertained. He doesn’t stare at the bitch in the white coat—or without her white coat—that’s someone who waits well.”

  “Stop it, Ella.”

  She picked up her purse from the floor and searched for tissue. She blew her nose, then stuffed the tissue in the tiny ashtray, which she knew would irritate him. It bloomed out like a white flower. “When do you wait, Jack? Huh? Huh? Answer me.” She slapped her thighs with her palms. “When?” she said again.

  He stared at the tissue, reached over to stuff it farther inside or pull it out, but seeing her face, changed his mind mid-reach. She stared at his hand, full of indecision, hanging in the air a second before returning to his side. She wondered how much indecision, if any, he’d felt that afternoon before rising from the couch and making his way to Sarah.

  “At the movies,” he said. “I wait in lines.”

  “You fidget and squirm and cuss under your breath—that’s not waiting.”

  “At the grocery store,” he continued.

  “How long does it take you to decide which line is the shortest? How long do you stand there staring, watching the checkers to see which one works the fastest before you decide which line is the best bet?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “You stand and stare, surveying the situation like a grocery store critic or something.”

  “Point taken,” he said.

  But she wasn’t finished. “You don’t wait well,” she said, “and you were trying to fuck some goddamn stranger.”

  “Ella, no—”

  “Let me ask you this,” she said, “who made the first move? Did Sarah ask you to come up to the front to help her with something? Did she act helpless or pretend she couldn’t add? Because that’s her thing, adding. She never read a book in her life, I’m sure, but she’s got that adding thing down.” She looked at him hard. “What I want to know, Jack, is why you got up from that couch. And what those steps were like for you.”

  “There was a problem with the calculator and I—”

  “What a joke,” she said.

  “I helped her—”

  “You helped her, that’s right.”

  “It was a mistake,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you just stay at the lab with your bats?”

  “I wanted to be there when you finished.”

  “September, October, and November.” Ella counted the months on her fingers and shook her head.

  “I wanted to give you a ride home,” he said.

  She looked him up and down, and suddenly he was all evidence. His hair, always short, had grown out, and she noticed the blond curls resting on his collar. The green shirt was new, too, a different look for him, and it matched his green eyes, making them stand out in his face. And the black jeans—he’d lost two inches in his waist, gone from 36s to 34s in the last three months. What was she thinking when she’d asked the salesclerk to ring those up? That he was slimming down for her?

  He tapped his knuckles on the steering wheel. He squirmed in the seat. “Don’t stare at me,” he said. “I feel badly enough as it is.”

  “Bad,” she said. “You should feel bad.” Still, she kept staring. His new goatee d
id little to cover his weak chin, and she was glad about that. Let him keep that shit on his face forever, she thought.

  They sat without saying anything for a good five minutes. “When I was a kid,” he said finally, “I always fought with my dad in the car, my mom too. We’d be taking a road trip or even going to the corner store for milk, and boom, a nasty argument. Now I know why.”

  Ella didn’t respond. She turned away from him and stared out the window at the parking lot, at the black asphalt, not saying a word. She wondered how hot the asphalt was, if it was hot enough to fry an egg. She imagined what it would be like to walk on the asphalt in bare feet, wondered how long she could take it.

  “Because there’s nowhere to go,” he continued.

  “You’re trapped, Jack,” she said to the window.

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  She turned and looked at him.

  “I don’t know what I mean, Ella.”

  “I know what you mean. You mean that one person is sitting right beside another person, in close proximity, and there’s not a lot you can do about it. But that’s only when the car’s moving, Jack. That’s about speed, the freeway, danger.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “And we’re not on the freeway. We’re not even on our way to the corner store for milk. Go ahead, unlock the door. Step outside, Jack. We’re sitting still,” she reminded him.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Go,” she repeated.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “The goatee looks stupid, you know? You don’t look like a guy who’d have a goatee.”

  “I’ll shave it for you,” he said.

  “Not for me—don’t do anything for me.”

  “If you don’t like it …”

  “It doesn’t look right on your face.”

  “Okay—it’s gone. Tonight I’ll get rid of it.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “I’m going to take the bus home,” she told him.

  He leaned toward her. He wrapped his hand around hers and around the handle too, and they stayed there like that, his body almost horizontal, at an angle in front of her, for a good few minutes. Finally, he pried her hand away and placed it, with his, in her lap. “No,” he said softly.

  She didn’t move or struggle. Instead, she let his hand rest on her hand—and she let both of them rest in her lap.

  The teenagers, arm in arm now, came out of the restaurant. The boy was smiling, holding a fat, white bag of food. There was a ridiculous skip in his step.

  “We’re young,” Jack said again.

  “And married,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, “that too.”

  3.

  The Monday before she caught Jack and Sarah kissing, Ella spent the evening with her husband watching a documentary he brought home from his work about the Livingstone’s Fruit bat. The film was meant to awaken her curiosity. He wanted to entice her into coming to his lab for a visit. It was something she avoided, seeing him with the bats, up close in that environment. I’m too tired, she’d say. Another day, she’d insist. I’ve got an exam to study for, all this paperwork from the clinic to look over.

  It was dusk, and Jack was crouched down on the living room rug in front of the TV and VCR in just his boxers, rewinding the tape. His back was broad and smooth and tan. “I want you to come to the lab this week,” he said over his shoulder. “I want you to pick a day and give me one hour. Just one hour, Ella.”

  “It’s a busy week. I’ve got a final on Thursday,” she said.

  “I’ve been there a year already.”

  “Has it been that long?”

  “I want you to meet people—and the bats too,” he said, turning, smiling at her.

  “They’re dead, Jack.”

  He scowled playfully, then returned to the tape. “I want you to meet the dead bats, then,” he said.

  “We’ll see.”

  “I’ve been to your work.” He pushed the start button, then jumped up and moved to the couch. They sat side by side with a bowl of popcorn between them, watching the film. The lights were off. A vanilla candle was burning on the coffee table. Because there was only one beer left in the refrigerator, they passed the bottle back and forth.

  Ella avoided the lab itself, but she loved the facts and was learning them: the bats were endangered, they were mostly black with spots of golden fur, their wingspans could reach up to five or six feet. Males and females looked alike.

  As their name implied, they liked fruit—no blood for them, just papaya, pineapple, figs, and avocados. It made them seem nicer somehow, more considerate than other bat species that were out in the night sucking on sleeping goats and cows.

  The Livingstone’s wings were actually five distinct fingers covered by thin skin. There was a thumb, which had a fingernail and was used mainly to grip branches, leaves, and fruit. Jack swore to Ella that the bats used their thumbs to hold on to their loved ones. Ella looked down at her own hands, her own fingers, and thought about knuckles, fingertips, and nail polish. She twisted her wedding ring and moved closer to her husband.

  “Bats are shy,” he said. “And sweet. The rumors aren’t true. These here, they don’t even want blood.”

  “I still don’t think I can love them,” Ella said.

  “You don’t have to love them,” he said. “It would be nice if you were just more interested in what I do.”

  “I am interested,” she said.

  “You want to learn things from far away,” he said. “You don’t want to see them for yourself.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “I work at a family planning clinic. I see things up close all the time. Ever see gonorrhea on a slide?”

  “No,” he said, “but I like to have faces to go with the names you talk about.”

  “You work with bats, Jack—not people.”

  “I wish you’d take more of an interest in my work, that’s all.”

  “I know,” she said. “And I’m trying. I’m watching this film with you, aren’t I?”

  He reached into the bowl for a handful of popcorn. “If you want, I’ll bring home the film about the Hammerheads in Africa. They’re like bar whores.”

  Ella smiled.

  “They’re wild,” Jack said, chewing and talking at once. “The horny males come from miles around to one specific place, looking for females.”

  “Like going to Ruby’s Room,” she said.

  Jack nodded. “Then the males do a little wing dance,” he said, doing a shimmy and shake on the couch himself.

  She laughed. “What about the females?” she wanted to know.

  “They fly around, checking out the dudes. When the female finds a guy whose dancing turns her on, the two of them make friends.”

  “Like Ruby’s Room,” she said again.

  “Then the females go off alone to have their babies.”

  “Like the girls at the clinic.”

  He kissed her quickly on the lips before turning back to the screen, where a Livingstone’s was spreading out his wings. “Look at that,” Jack said. “Would you look at that?”

  “I’m looking,” she said.

  “Amazing,” Jack said. “Just look at his thumb.”

  In bed later, Ella wanted to talk about Georgia Carter. “What’s with you and this girl?” Jack wanted to know.

  Ella shrugged.

  “She gets to you—I can see it in your face,” he said.

  “You smell like butter and beer,” she said, teasing. “That goatee of yours sops up everything.”

  “You like it though, right? You think it looks good, don’t you?” Jack tugged on the goatee and looked at her for approval.

  “It looks fine, Jack, but I do sort of miss your face.”

  “My face is right here,” he said.

  “Your whole face.”

  He propped a couple pillows against the headboard and leaned back. He folded his hands on his bare stomach. “What’s wi
th Georgia now?” Jack asked, giving in.

  “She’s pregnant,” Ella said. “And says it’s immaculate.”

  He laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” she said.

  “It’s sort of funny, Ella,” he said.

  “It’s not—she looks right at me and says the most ridiculous things.”

  “She doesn’t expect you to believe that.”

  “I think she might believe it herself.”

  “Then she’s crazy.”

  “She’s not crazy.”

  “Well, she’s a liar, then.”

  “How can I help her if she lies to me?”

  “You can’t.”

  “How can I tell her how to protect herself if she denies that there’s a partner?”

  “Or partners”

  She put her cheek on his chest, and then her palm. She touched the few dark hairs and one tiny mole.

  “You can’t help all of them,” he said, stroking her hair.

  “Her mother left—moved to another state. Her brother’s off at college. And there’s something wrong with her father,” she said.

  “You think he touches her?”

  “No, no, it’s not that,” Ella said. “He has some sort of brain injury or illness, like early Alzheimer’s.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen, almost seventeen.”

  “Old enough to know what she’s doing.”

  Ella shook her head into Jack’s chest. “I wish I’d met her years ago. When she was twelve or thirteen, I could have helped her.”

  “Who knows,” he said.

  “I could have,” she insisted. “Girls like that have to begin somewhere, Jack. Maybe she loved a boy at school, gave it up to him, and he dumped her. Maybe he didn’t like her at all, just wanted to get into her pants.”

  “So she moved on to the whole football team?” His voice was sarcastic.

  “Yes, Jack—so she moved on.”

  “Maybe this Georgia’s a free spirit—or plain horny. Some girls are just hornier than others,” he said. “You suggest she play safe. That’s all you can do.”

  “There’s something about her.”

  “There’s something about you,” he said, lifting Ella’s chin, his lips coming down to meet hers.