Small Silent Things

by Robin Page

“She needs to get laid,” Theresa says, kind of smirky. “Her husband’s out of town.”

  “Ooh la-la,” Missy says.

  “Believe me,” Jocelyn says, “that is not my problem. Conrad is back.”

  They all laugh.

  She feels aware of Kate. She is slightly embarrassed. Does Kate wonder about her sex life?

  “I hate when my routine gets screwed, that’s all,” Jocelyn says.

  “Wanna have lunch?” Maud asks. “Wanna screw it up some more?”

  “I will,” Theresa says, happily.

  “Let’s go to Maestros,” Missy says.

  “I can’t,” Jocelyn says. “I have to go to the grocery store, make something for dinner tonight.” She knows to keep the pending talk with Kate a secret.

  “Food, sex, and quiet,” Maud says. “That’s all a man needs.”

  “Secret to a long and happy marriage,” Erica says, tittering.

  “Yep,” Theresa says.

  Jocelyn says goodbye to all the women, watches them walk out together. She purposefully takes a while getting her stuff together. She fills her water bottle. She folds her towel. Kate hasn’t said a nontennis word to her. The rain is a steady drizzle, warm and light, like the start of a summer rain when she was a kid. The wind picks up.

  “Wanna help me put the balls away?” Kate says. She covers the balls in her cart with her jacket. “We could talk in the shed? We should really talk. It’s weird now, right?”

  Jocelyn feels incredibly nervous. She is like an adolescent again. “Yes. For a minute. Not in the shed though.” The fantasy fills her head again. “I have to head home soon.”

  “In a big race to get that dinner going?” Kate asks, lightly, teasing her.

  “Don’t tease. I’m so pissed it’s raining.”

  “We need rain. We’re having a drought. This is like the driest year in LA history.”

  “Yes. Yes. Blah. Blah. Blah.”

  “Wow,” Kate says. “Maud is right. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this grumpy before.”

  “Yeah . . . well . . . it’s not as if we’re friends,” Jocelyn says. There is the edge of anger there. She doesn’t know why. Why is she angry with Kate? Her nerves are at the surface.

  Kate lifts her tennis bag, sets it in the cart. There is just a pause, a stutter before they go.

  “I’m glad we’re going to talk,” Kate says. “It’s driving me crazy.” Step, step, step, the cart is moving. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

  Jocelyn’s stomach flips. She worries about talking, worries about not talking, but says: “I’ll wait for you in my car.”

  “Okay,” Kate says.

  They head toward the gate, side by side, in the rain. They seem to fill the huge space of court 3. Their elbows touch, their hips graze, as if they cannot get around one another. There is plenty of room for two as they go through the gate, but they bump into each other anyway. Kate nudges her.

  “Excuse you,” she says, and they are children with crushes again. Jocelyn feels herself redden. She nudges her back. Conrad is elsewhere. Maybe I can just have this thing, she thinks. As something small and private.

  “My car’s blue. It’s a—”

  “I know what you drive,” Kate says. “Wait for me two seconds while I put this away. We’ll go together. If someone sees us, we’re allowed to be friends.”

  Jocelyn waits and then watches Kate exit the ball shed. As she steps out, she looks up at the sky as if to feel the water on her cheeks. Kate is tall—maybe five nine or five ten. Jocelyn notices this for the first time. She has the flat stomach of an athlete. The drizzle is thickening into a heavy rain and Kate’s skin looks lush, the texture of a soft, smooth mushroom. She changes her tennis glasses for sunglasses that are much more stylish. She is lovely.

  “We better run,” Kate says. “It’s really starting now.”

  THEY RUN LIKE SPRINTERS TO THE CAR.

  “I’m going to beat you,” Kate says, and Jocelyn is ten again, running as hard as she can. They laugh. She tries her best, pushing Kate back when she gains on her. She has a memory of running in the apartment when she was a kid. Gladys passed out on the floor of the bathroom. A game among the siblings. Their kingdom until their mother woke up. She catches herself smiling, but then there is a bruised cheek, impact against the rail of a table leg. Gladys screaming at them, because they’ve woken her up. The extension cord snapping, folded over for pain. Every scar on her body pings. She wonders if the memory is right. Whose cheek was bruised? Who hit whom? And then it leaves.

  The rain is a deluge by the time they get to the car. Jocelyn hops in, unlocks the passenger side for Kate a few seconds later. Kate’s body lands like an avalanche in the front seat. She is soaked from head to toe. There are droplets on her forearms, the curve of her collarbone is like the rounded edge of a rolling pin. She is glistening. Her blonde hair is stringy, and the darker roots show. The large braided bun has come loose and hangs, a rope down to her breasts. Jocelyn wants to undo it, wants to watch the hair cling and vine. They are both breathing hard.

  “I won,” Jocelyn says.

  “You didn’t unlock my door,” Kate says. “That’s not exactly fair.”

  “Who knew the rules?”

  “You’re a cheater,” Kate says, but she’s smiling. It’s all in fun.

  Jocelyn can see the swell of Kate’s breasts beneath the white tank. The rain has made it see-through. She tries not to notice. She forces her concentration on the rainstorm, which feels biblical—the end of days, as if the whole world has been turned upside down. Would she want to be here with this woman in her last hours, talking in the front seat of the car, or fucking, moving her back and forth like a wave on her lap?

  She considers turning on the cab light. It feels dark, not like night, but more like the gloaming. She can’t see out, because of the pelting rain. No one can see in. It’s like the automat when she was young. She has a brief vision of Kate above her. She wants to hold her arms and hands back. Keep her mouth inches away. Look at her.

  “It’s crazy isn’t it?” Kate says.

  “It will stop in a minute.” Jocelyn says,

  “What? You’re like a meteorologist now?”

  Jocelyn rolls her eyes, but she likes the teasing. “No,” she says. “It just rained a lot when I was a kid.”

  As soon as she says it, she wants to retrieve it. Anonymity. Two separate spaces. Twenty-four hours in a hotel room. That’s what she wants.

  “Where’d you grow up?” Kate asks.

  “Let’s not do that, okay?” Jocelyn says. She tries to make her voice light, a joke even. She watches the streaming water.

  “Do what? Ask questions?”

  Jocelyn tries again but doesn’t know how to say what she wants to say. She feels trapped with Kate in the front seat of the car suddenly, but knows if Kate leaves, she will want her back. The fierceness of the storm is claustrophobic. She has to hang on. The storm will wear itself out. It feels relentless now though.

  “Nothing,” Jocelyn says. “Never mind.”

  “God we’re nervous,” Kate says. “It’s pathetic.”

  “It’s not like I have a lot of experience with this,” Jocelyn says.

  “Yeah, well. I don’t either.”

  Courage, Jocelyn thinks. Be brave.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Jocelyn asks. Innocence in her voice. Can they ignore it?

  “I don’t know,” Kate says, pretending ignorance. “The other day would be a good place to start.” A smirk. Her head lowers. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Me either,” Jocelyn says.

  They are both looking straight ahead. No interaction. Jocelyn thinks it makes it easier to go on. She can feel a rivulet of sweat slide down her arm, another between her breasts.

  “I want to see you,” Kate says. “I think, anyway.”

  “Yeah. Me too . . . I think,” Jocelyn says. Her voice is wavy. “Look,” she says. “I have a daughter.” It feels like a
violation to say it. She doesn’t want Lucy in this space, but she has to say it. Nothing but the present from here on, she thinks. “I wouldn’t want anyone to know. I mean if we did.”

  “I have a son,” Kate says.

  “You do?” Shock inside her. “Really?”

  “Don’t look so amazed, Jocelyn. Lesbians have children. God, you’re annoying right now.”

  Jocelyn smiles a little. She supposes she is. It takes her a minute, but then she says it: “I think I would like it, but I would want it to be . . .”

  “What?” Kate asks.

  “I just think when we start, we start. When we stop, we stop. Nothing serious. Just between us. No matter what.”

  “Have we started?”

  “Maybe,” Jocelyn says, not sure if she’s committed.

  “Okay.”

  Jocelyn feels herself panic with the decisive word, as if she is crossing a physical line. She senses that on the other side there will be a difference—a staining will be left. She and Conrad are the only pure thing she has had in her life. Conrad and Lucy, anyway. There is the tap of sorrow—a finger pressed slowly and firmly into a bruise. Confusion.

  “God, you look so down all of a sudden,” Kate says. “Don’t be so serious. Don’t worry about it. We don’t have to.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to stalk you or get crazy or fall in love with you or anything,” Kate says.

  Jocelyn allows herself a laugh. It relaxes her. “You might fall in love. You never know.”

  “You’re not my type.”

  “Oh, I think I’m your favorite.”

  A degree of lightness. Kate takes her hand. “All right, you little egotist. I think we both want this. Whatever it is. But you seem sort of unhappy right now. I don’t want an unhappy girl. You can have more time, and if you don’t want to, we’ll go back to where we were before. No biggie. There are other girls, you know.”

  Jocelyn waits for a minute and then just goes for it. “I don’t need more time,” she says. “I’m just afraid.”

  The sentiment is so simple, and yet she feels as if she might cry. She is embarrassed by her fear.

  “It’s not going to be serious, Jocelyn. We’re otherwise engaged. Both of us. Don’t worry. You’ll—”

  Jocelyn interrupts, feels the importance of defining what she wants. “Let’s not do that thing where it’s deeper. I don’t want that. No history, no nothing. Just physical. Let’s pretend we barely know each other.”

  “We do barely know each other.”

  Jocelyn grabs Kate’s hand. They look at each other. She thinks they will kiss, but then they don’t. Jocelyn reaches out, gives in to the urge to touch Kate. She cups her breast, feels the soft skin of her thigh just below the tennis skirt. She turns her body toward her. She can hear her breath, can feel herself relax into her decision. The car is small. There isn’t going to be much room.

  “You are so weird,” Kate says. “You are the strangest person I’ve ever met. No falling in love. No talking even.” She is pretend-serious now. “I promise—” she lifts her hand as if swearing in court “—I don’t really even want to talk. What I want to do with you has nothing to do with talking.” Kate grasps either side of Jocelyn’s tennis shirt, lifts it gently, puts her hands on her waist. “You’re not that great anyway.” Smugness is there. Kate is as coy as a schoolgirl.

  Jocelyn leans in. She kisses her. They touch through clothes. Pawing and petting like high schoolers. The rain keeps falling. Jocelyn thinks, When the rain stops I will stop. She kisses Kate’s neck, her collarbone, her breasts through her tank and then through the lacy bra, which is pink and surprising. The rain keeps going. Jocelyn keeps kissing. The car is cramped, but manageable.

  Kate slides the passenger seat back, and they both laugh. Still nervous, but intent. Jocelyn pulls Kate’s skirt down, kisses her belly, her thighs, her knees. She works her way back up and kisses through panties. The light is dim in the car, but bright enough to show the building lust on Kate’s face. Kate adjusts her whole body, opens her legs, holds Jocelyn’s head gently at first and then more fiercely. Jocelyn teases her, licks her, breathes. Kate moves the panties aside. Jocelyn watches her. Sees her eyes close, her hands trying to push her back down again.

  I want to make you beg, she thinks. I want you to think of me while you are with your wife.

  Jocelyn kisses again. She hears Kate’s desperate breath. Say please, she thinks. Jocelyn begins, feels fingers in her hair, pulling, the sigh and sound. Kate grows hectic, desperate. And then there are the swiveling twitches of giving in.

  2

  LATER, WHEN SHE IS AT HOME AND LUCY IS PLAYING WITH HER FIGURINES, Jocelyn can’t stop thinking about what has happened with Kate. When we stop, we stop, is what she’d said, what they’d agreed to, but she is not sure if that is true. So many things in her life have refused to end, refused to go away.

  She feels herself redden as she thinks about the kiss and the car and the rain. She is thinking about rope, its texture—nylon or cotton, which will feel like what? How can she bring it? Tether. I will tie her to a chair. I will tether her to the bed. What bed? Hotels don’t have those kinds of beds. Will we be at a hotel? She thinks of Kate’s neck and wrists, kisses on raw skin. Making it better. A long-sleeved shirt, zipped up to here, so the tennis ladies don’t see. The abraded skin. She is giddy, going too far.

  Conrad is cooking dinner, whistling as he cooks. She wonders what the next time will be like when she sees Kate. Will Kate want her or ignore her? How do you act when it is just sex, just physical, no past, no future? It’s been a lifetime since that was all she wanted. She and Conrad deal with all the extras, the miscellaneous nonsense: bills, tuition, deep fryers, death, and dinner.

  Lucy brings her a little plastic Jasmine figurine as if to remind her of what is real.

  “She’s so pretty, Mama. She’s my favorite. Would you like her?”

  Jocelyn looks at the little doll. Even here in their lovely condominium, with her husband cooking for them, and her daughter vying for her attention, she can’t stop thinking about the car, the woman. I would like her. She is pretty. I would like to have her. There is the vision again that has to do with possession and control, freedom for herself, but Kate on a shelf, and even, she realizes, a luxurious lack of memory.

  “Would you, Mama?” Lucy insists. Jocelyn comes out of her daze. “Would you like her?”

  “I want you to have her,” Jocelyn says. “Mommies want their girls to have the best things in life.”

  Lucy kisses the tiny figurine. Jocelyn watches the sea outside her window and watches her daughter too. There is so much light in the child. This is what she needs to keep intact. Can she do this and the other thing with Kate?

  “Do you love me the most in the whole world?” Lucy asks.

  “Yes,” Jocelyn says. It is a conversation they have all the time.

  “More than Papa?”

  They both look toward the kitchen—spies engaged in some espionage against the whistling chef.

  “I’d sell Papa down the river to keep you safe any day,” Jocelyn says.

  “What river?” Lucy asks.

  “It’s just an expression, my sunshine,” Jocelyn says, and draws the girl up to see her more closely.

  As she looks at her daughter it becomes clear that there is nothing in Lucy that is like her. The girl has might. She’s less sensitive. She is confident and sure. Mr. Baird crosses Jocelyn’s mind, but the girl is even safe from him tonight. It is a good thing that she lacks her mother’s qualities.

  Her daughter giggles with the squeezing. “What river, Mama? I want to know.”

  “The Ohio, then,” Jocelyn says, and is brought back like a sinking elevator into darkness.

  Part II

  Sometimes love does not have the most honorable beginnings, and the endings, the endings will break you in half. It’s everything in between that we live for.

  —ANN PATCHETT

 
Chapter Twelve

  Claudette

  1

  NOW THAT SHE IS HAVING A BABY, THE BOX IS SOMETHING SHE THINKS about all the time. Her stomach grows. The heartbeat in the doctor’s office is loud and fast. She is sick for most of it. Unable to eat anything but citrus. She drinks water, grape juice. She tries, but then throws up the prenatal vitamins the doctor gives to her. They are as large as almonds, impossible to get down. She has lost twenty pounds so far.

  She cannot understand how the baby grows while she thins. A tapeworm, a leech, some other parasite seems more durable than a baby. She cannot sleep, because of worry. If her mother were alive, she would ask her, Will this baby live? If her father were alive, he would bring her ginger, a cool washcloth. He would place his hand on the small balloon of her belly and try to feel the spastic kicks and punches, but they are both dead now, an accident, a young girl, sorrowing for a boy. A young girl crossing the center line on the Tobin Bridge in her car after sending a suicide text message. Her parents’ car lifts, is suspended in air, zero gravity, and then hits the water. What are the chances? Such a busy bridge. More than a million cars drive across it yearly. She has looked the number up.

  The girl driver is uninjured and later indicted. She is given fifteen short years (a child, they say), but has left Claudette without a family, unless, of course, she counts the man in the magazine. I am a child too, Claudette wants to scream at the sentencing. Before this girl, I belonged to someone. The war, the sorrowing girl—both strangers with long arms. They have pruned her family members away as gardeners prune fruit.

  She is in her third trimester, but still hasn’t heard from the man in the magazine. She has been waiting seven weeks and three days for him to respond. She has the sense that someone is following her, maybe him, but she isn’t sure. He must think she’s a crank. Has he hired someone?

  On the day she sends the letter, she doubts herself. Her hand trembles above a blue metal mailbox. The handle burns when she touches it, the white heat of the sun is trapped inside. The mailbox seems to exhale hot breath when she opens it. And as if the letter were glued to her fingertips, she has trouble releasing it from her grasp. As soon as she drops the letter, she wants it back. But it is irretrievable, as so many other things are. She walks away from the mailbox in a daze. Concrete disappears out from under her, and she is toppling down the stairs. She falls, one step after another like a toy she remembers from childhood—a Slinky on the carpeted stairs, Christmas morning, the family farm in Newton. She thinks the baby is lost. She sits at the bottom of the stairs and cries.