Looker

by Laura Sims

  Mrs. H looks from one to the other of us. Like she can see what’s left of our shared life: the sadly deflating balloon between him and me. It’s not all the way flat, but it’s on its way there. I can hear the air hissing out, loooooooooooooosing.

  Nathan says brightly, “Good to see you, Mrs. H. Take care.” What he means is: Get moving, old lady. She does. I’d forgotten how nice it is to have a man around for occasions like this—to end awkward conversations, slam the door, or give old ladies the boot without feeling some inconvenient pang of conscience. As much as I despise Mrs. H, I can’t help being polite to her, backing slowly away from her, or is that someone else I’m thinking of? My old self? Or someone else entirely? A calmer, kinder, happier person, the woman Nathan thinks he will find, now that I’m out of the way.

  After Mrs. H has left, the scene belongs to us again: to Nathan and me. Like the first time we met. On a packed train. We were pressed awkwardly against one another by the bodies around us. Our clothes and skin were damp from the warm city rain outside. We smiled at each other. Or: he smiled and I smiled back. Then the bodies pulled away from us, out of the doors, but we stayed where we were. Straphanging. Lolling our heads. He said, “Where are you heading?” And that was the start.

  Or: we met at school. I made eyes at him in poetry class. We were college sweethearts. Held hands on campus, marched side by side for political causes, carried homemade signs with our passively held strident beliefs. NO WAR. NO NUKES. PRO-CHOICE. TAKE BACK THE NIGHT. After the first time we made love, I stole his jeans and wore them with the waist rolled down. We talked nonstop over steaming cups of coffee at the local diner. We were serious, earnest, impassioned, ready to Change The World. He lay under blankets on his bed, recovering from the flu, while I read Donne’s sonnets out loud. He said, “Stop it, you’re making me sicker.” We tipped our heads back in the rain and laughed openmouthed. We got drunk and went streaking. We fucked as quietly as we could in his dorm room, right across from his sleeping roommate. We were young and dumb and madly in love!

  Or: we met on the street. Two junkies looking for a fix. Or he ran a lemonade stand in our neighborhood, when we were kids; I paid twenty-five cents for a cup of Crystal Light and eternal love. Or we went Shakespeare and star-crossed—eloped, got married in the dark back room of a neighborhood church, surrounded by rapidly melting candles. When things went sour, he killed himself, and when I woke up I killed myself, too. It all sounds exceedingly better than what I actually got. Here it is, what I got, right fat in front of me.

  “Hello,” he says, waving his hand in front of my face. “You there?” Then he lifts his shapely, strong hands in the air to say, What the fuck? “What are we going to do about this?” he asks. “What?” I ask. Still lost in our fantasy origin stories, none of which are true: we met at a mutual friend’s housewarming party in grad school, drunkenly hooked up, and went on predictably from there.

  Nathan opens his mouth and there’s more buzzing. He stands there buzzing like a bee. He’s a giant bee, my soon-to-be-ex-husband, hands on his hips (do bees have hips?), buzzing angrily. It goes on for a while. I have no idea what he’s said by the time he finishes and buzzes away. When he finally disappears up the block, swinging his arms forcefully the way he does, I collect my grocery bags and climb the steps to my house.

  I was always able to see Nathan coming from far away, regardless of how many other brown-haired handsome-men-of-a-certain-age-with-black-glasses were on the street at the same time. His walk was so distinctive—with his jaunty step and arm-swinging—that I could pick him out instantly. I’d feel a little pang of joy in my chest: here was Nathan, on his way home to me. And now? There goes Nathan, farther and farther away.

  Back upstairs I feel like I’ve run a marathon, though I only stood there for a handful of minutes, listening to something that sounded, at times, like the sea. Cat winds around my legs, meowing quietly. I pick her up, crush her to me, rub my face on the back of her head. How she purrs! When I drop her, she lands on her feet, just as she should. Perfect. I will never give her up.

  *

  Even days after Nathan’s surprise attack, I feel like everything inside me has scattered. In class, I grasp at words and ideas and nothing comes, nothing coheres. I keep pacing, as if that alone will prove my energy, focus, and authority, but my students watch me like I might be deranged. Bernardo in particular tracks my movements with his dark eyes. I’m trying to talk about John Donne’s “Batter my heart, three-person’d God,” but all that comes out of my mouth is trash. Finally, I give up and tell them the poem is smut, even though I don’t really mean it. “It’s perverse, this speaker’s lust for God,” I say. “His desire to be ‘ravished’ by God. Do you know what ‘ravished’ means?” Know-It-All Joanne raises her hand. “It means raped,” she says flatly. The class stirs. Devon says, “Why does he want God to rape him?” Quiet titters around him. “I’m serious,” he says, frowning. Joanne sighs. When she raises her hand again, I consider not calling on her for a moment, but in the end I do. There can be no ignoring of students in a class of seven. “Why is John Donne’s poem smut when Emily Dickinson’s poems aren’t?” she asks, with that frown on her face. I’m reduced almost to tears at the thought of Dickinson as smut, and . . . who is Joanne to ask me anything at all? But who am I, when it comes down to it? I’m not the actress. I’m nobody, who are you?—ha! “It’s totally different,” I say curtly. I see the look in Joanne’s eyes, like she’s heard the scary tone in my voice and won’t push me. Not tonight. Devon keeps his mouth shut, too, though I’m sure he still wants an answer to his question. I simply don’t have it in me to give him one.

  Bernardo lingers after class. He seems different—even more intense than usual. He comes right to the edge of my desk and reaches out to lightly touch my arm. The first time anyone in the class has touched me. “Are you all right?” I look up at him and say, “No, I’m not.” When he suggests going for a drink, I think he’s surprised when I say, “Okay.”

  *

  In the morning I go for a long, rambling walk. Past storefronts and restaurants hoisting up their metal shields for the day. Past derelicts begging for change. Past the elderly, walking their elderly dogs. Past children secured to a rope, herded along by frazzled, frowning caretakers. Past strollers, past couples of all kinds carrying out successful adult relationships right here on the street, even despite the relentless passage of time and the crushing baggage of work and . . . life. Last night I nearly fucked my student, or: last night I nearly let my student fuck me.

  Ravish me, he whispered up close in my ear at the bar. I could feel his smile in the tiny hairs on my earlobe, and all through the hairlike filigrees of every nerve in my body.

  When we left the bar, we stood under the streetlamp, blinking. There I was, with my bleached-out face, my faded lipstick, red-veined dry eyes, and the graying part in my hair I haven’t bothered to color in weeks. Bernardo, by contrast, looked tender and young, his face full of color like a succulent fruit. He kept his dark eyes fixed on mine. I took a step back, away from him and out of the glaring light. “Professor—” he said, even though he’d been using my first name at the bar. He stepped toward me. I felt the magnetized pull of his body but at the last moment tore myself away. Silence behind me as I walked quickly into the darkness. I imagined him posing under the streetlamp, staring sulkily after me.

  I am sick to death of men. Buzzing, angry men. Hot liquid men. Men wanting sex. Men wanting to touch and be touched. Men wanting to drain you of every last ounce of energy you’ve reserved for getting through the days. Men under streetlamps, men on my stoop. Men fucking someone against my very gate. Men leaving their refuse everywhere: inside, outside, all over the world. Until the world fills up and spills over as it may soon do: The End.

  It’s the actress who calms me, of course. Wearing a pink silken robe cinched tightly at the waist, she walks through the dark house turning on one light after another. Each bulb illuminates the soft hills and hollows o
f her face. THERE IS SOMEONE IN YOUR HOUSE, I want to tell her, but I relish the suspense of it, relish knowing something she, even she, doesn’t know, feeling all the more achingly how beautiful she is, how bare her long, curved neck is, until the man steps out of the shadows behind her and I scream.

  It’s a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream that goes on and on. I have no desire to stop it—it scrapes all the crud out of me from the bottom up. Cat rears back, preparing to hiss. If anyone lived below me, they would come pounding at the door, they would call the police. But no one is there. So I let the scream go on, even after the black-gloved hand clamps over the actress’s mouth and her green eyes go wide and glittery.

  I wake the next morning refreshed, as if the scream has fully cleansed me. I didn’t fuck Bernardo, after all—I only almost did. I thought about it. And who wouldn’t? I’m human, after all.

  *

  My nerves return just in time for the next class. As I push open the door, I tell myself: It was nothing. I’ve done nothing wrong. And besides, I’m the grown-up, I’m in charge. The lights are too bright. The students sit in clumps, chattering. They lower their voices when I enter the room. Bernardo sits apart from the others, his legs spread wide. He’s wearing frayed jeans and a long-sleeved white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Loose collar. Dark eyes. The hint of a smile. Beneath it I can see the pain of rejection, and his beauty paired with this new vulnerability takes my breath away. My teacher-mask slips, but I push it on firmly, take a deep breath, turn to the board and write: SYLVIA PLATH: 1932–1963.

  I clear my throat. “All right, everyone, you should have read ‘Ariel,’ ‘Lady Lazarus,’ and ‘Fever 103°,’ right?” My voice is steady. Professorial. Projecting just loudly enough. I feel a surge of confidence, the way Plath must have felt when these poems came pouring out of her onto the page. Pre-head-in-oven Plath. “Choose one of the poems and write a response. Focus on at least two of the poetic elements we’ve been discussing this semester—rhyme, meter, imagery, metaphor, line breaks, metonymy, alliteration—and how they combine to convey what you see as the poem’s theme, or one of the poem’s themes. I’ll give you twenty minutes.” That was fine. I breathe in deeply through my nose—not looking at Bernardo—and out through my mouth as I was taught to do in yoga. I’ll have them share their work with a small group, and then discuss as a class. The night will proceed smoothly. I’m in control. I can win.

  Circling the room, I try not to stare too closely at Bernardo, who sits quiet and pensive, staring at his blank paper with pen in hand. His lush skin seems to be steaming under the lights. How does he manage to stay quiet and seated, wearing that skin? How have I managed to teach him for all these weeks without marching over to straddle his lap? Shhhhh, calm down. Walk away. Look at the wall. Or at Joanne, scratching away at her Plath response. She must be in heaven, letting out the fury I can sense simmering inside her all the time.

  After Simon has asked me Stupid Question Number Thirty-Two about Plath, after Joanne has given me countless stern looks and one sisterly nod during our discussion of the suicidal imagery in “Ariel,” after Chloe has waved, friendly and shy as always, and closed the door politely behind her: Bernardo stays. I make a show of fussing with my papers. The Bernardo I thought I knew, the class clown, joking and earnest and sweet, teasing me about Diet Cokes and wedding rings, is long gone—replaced by this silently demanding Heathcliff-esque presence. He sits there, legs spread, frowning moodily, leaning his head on his hand while I pack my bag. When he sees I’m done and ready to leave, he comes to life, sliding around the arm of his desk to stand in my way like a petulant boy. I look at his lean, muscular arms, his firm chest. Not a petulant boy: a smoldering, petulant man.

  But this is a farce. A single woman’s fantasy. A scene from Outlander or Fifty Shades of Grey—or even Finely Tuned, the actress’s indie romance about a piano teacher whose much younger pupil seduces her. This isn’t real—it cannot be real. I push him gently aside (my fingers don’t burn when they touch his arm—a miracle!) and step to the door, trembling all over but hoping he can’t see it. If he were real, wouldn’t he speak? Say, “Hey, Professor, wait,” or something equally disarming? But he’s silent behind me, and doesn’t come after me. Was he there at all? When I look behind me before stepping into the elevator, all I see is the empty hall.

  I’ve done it. I’ve turned the page. There’s a plain white sheet before me now. Unblemished. Untouched. In this one small region of my life, I’m starting anew. Back home, I breathe my relief right into Cat’s hovering face. She blinks once and licks my nose.

  *

  I walk briskly into class the next week wearing low heels, black pants, a pale gray silk blouse, and a dark gray suit jacket, with a simple silver locket clasped around my neck: respectable middle-aged women’s armor. My outfit mirrors the one the actress wore to teach in every single scene of Working Class, in which she inspired tough but tenderhearted community college students to be their best selves—but I doubt my students will catch the reference. It helps me feel powerful and steady, though. I arrange my things on the desk, and begin: “Let’s look at Wanda Coleman’s American Sonnets in your course packet. Look at number ten first. Read it over to yourselves, then jot down some ideas about why you think Coleman would use the sonnet form to write about the legacy of slavery in this country. Consider what we’ve learned about sonnets in your answer—their technical features, history, and the key practitioners of the form—and then discuss what you’ve written with a partner, or in a small group.” I’m peering around the room, letting my eyes rest sternly but fleetingly on each student: Chloe, James, Mary, Joanne, Simon, Devon . . . everyone but Bernardo is here.

  He strides in late. Saunters to his desk. Saunter, saunter, saunter. I’m in the midst of responding to James’s comment about Coleman’s use of enjambment when Bernardo finds the desk with the creaky chair and sits down noisily in it. I don’t look. His eyes are on me, weighing me down, but I don’t look. And don’t look and don’t look until finally, I force myself to look. I hold his eyes for a moment without interrupting the flow of my talk. I let my eyes wander casually away from his. I gesture excitedly with my hands. I laugh, and the students laugh with me. I lead them to the brilliant conclusion that Coleman subverts the historically white, Western sonnet by using it to write about slavery and also by flouting conventions of the form. They’re with me! All of them, that is, except for Bernardo: the black hole whose gravitational field I’ve just escaped. But do black holes resent the planets and space debris that spin out of reach? Bernardo certainly seems to. He sits there, emanating dark matter, pulling at me with his liquid eyes. I don’t care. I resist.

  After class, he lingers again. He sits there, silent and insolent, while I gather my bags and ignore him. “You look thirsty, Professor,” he says at last. I can almost hear his saucy grin. I don’t respond. I am thirsty. I pick up my bottled water, open the cap, tip my head all the way back, and swallow it down. I show him the soft pale white of my throat. Set the drained bottle down on my desk with a thunk. That’s that. He sits there looking stunned as I exit.

  I could tap dance down the street. But I don’t. I’m a pulsing, strutting power field funneled into the quiet figure of a woman walking home from work, alone and virtuous.

  Mrs. H stops me as I pass her gate. It’s late for her—it takes me by surprise to see her haunting the stoop at this hour. “The block party’s coming soon,” she says by way of greeting. “October fifteenth.” “Yes, I got the e-mail,” I say. She gives me a nod. “You going?” I’m sweating in my actress-inspired teacher clothes. I want to go home and take them off, then jump in the shower. Of course I’m going, old lady, what else do I have to do? “Yes,” I say, starting to move away. “Alone?” she asks, trying to hold my eyes. The power I felt just a moment ago, striding along after my victorious performance in class, starts to shrivel. “Yes,” I say, defeated. She nods and smiles widely, satisfied.

  When I get home, I call
to Cat but she doesn’t come. I peel open a can of her favorite food—liver and chicken hearts—and still she doesn’t come. I check all the rooms and get down on my hands and knees to look under the bed, the dresser, the couch. My heart starts beating hard—“Cat!” I call frantically. “Caaaatttt!” I wail. I stand in the middle of the living room, sweaty and wild-eyed, imagining Nathan sneaking in here somehow to grab Cat. That bastard! Panic turns to rage. I rustle through my teaching bag for my phone. Bastard. I’ll get him for this. Then I hear a tiny mew from the extra room.

  When I step inside, I see the shiny bike I stole and the box full of screenplays I practically yanked from my neighbor’s grasp. This is my walk-in showcase of trophies, of triumphs. But it also holds remnants of the old, imagined life I once dreamed I’d have, the one whose aura pricks me like the tiny needles I used to use for IVF prep. I push through the tickling pain to find Cat in a wardrobe stuffed with old linens. “Oh, Cat,” I say. “Cat.” Rubbing my face against hers as she purrs. She had gotten herself wedged in the back of the wardrobe somehow. Oh, Cat. I take her to the kitchen and watch her feast.

  There is no door to that room, so I seal it off with duct tape to make a kind of wall. But I still know it’s there—and so does Cat. She stands where the doorway used to be and meows. I scoot her away gently with my foot, but she always comes back to the spot. She sits down, slowly, like a tired queen, and gives herself a postprandial bath.

  I’ve found an old curtain to hang over the taped-up doorway. Cat watches me warily as I bang the hanging fabric in place with hammer and nails. When I’m done, she sniffs at it, then ducks right under and sits in the dark space between it and the tape wall. I can just see her white paws below the hem of the curtain, and sometimes the black tip of her twitching tail.