Wilder

by Andrew Simonet

  “Oh god.” I shook my head.

  “Is it too much? I’m sorry.” She went back to the phone. “Gotta go, Mrs. Bug. Your son is mad now, and we all know what happens when he gets mad, people end up in hospital. I’ll talk to you later!”

  What?!

  I stared at the stove, unable to come up with a response.

  “Bit too far?” she said. “I’m too much, aren’t I?”

  Yes. No. Didn’t matter.

  “Do you want to see my tits? Would that help?”

  That made me laugh.

  “Ta-da!” She lifted up her shirt. “Come here, you dirty boy.”

  Twenty minutes later, we got up from the kitchen floor and ate very overcooked ravioli.

  TWELVE

  Meili talked on the phone long into the night. I slept on the couch, intending to get up and ask what she was learning. But my belly was full, I had just had the most amazing sex of my life, and when was the last time I’d slept? Occasionally the phone rang, and every time, I thought: Manny’s gonna be mad.

  At some incredibly late hour, I stumbled into the bedroom and passed out.

  I woke in the morning with my arm under Meili’s head. She grimaced and rolled away.

  The kitchen was bright and messy. Meili had made macaroni and cheese and eaten a lot of ice cream. The table had papers on it, phone numbers, Chinese characters, some circled with question marks. I was relieved that Meili seemed to be a slob. Less pressure.

  I happily cleaned. I washed Meili’s dishes, took out the trash, stacked up her papers, threw out the old phone cards, wiped out the refrigerator, and chipped some dried barbecue sauce off the counter.

  At eleven, I put on music, boiled water for tea, and toasted two English muffins. I didn’t have any butter, so I put on cream cheese from two takeout packets I found in the refrigerator door. They smelled fine.

  I brought Meili breakfast in bed, or rather, breakfast on mattress, since I didn’t have a bed.

  “Morning, sunshine. It’s tea time.”

  She sat up, face puffy, eyes squinting in the sunlight. I remembered Manny said I should cover the windows.

  She was off balance, unsure. She sat against the wall and looked around, not seeing anything.

  “Are you OK?” I asked, laying the plate down beside her.

  She nodded but didn’t smile. I’d never seen her this off. I’d seen her pissed, distant, exasperated, trashed, but never frightened, always solidly where she was. Now, she was floating.

  I handed her the tea. She took a sip and grimaced. “No sugar,” she said, not to me, not to anyone.

  “I’ll get some,” I said, hoping she hadn’t used it all last night.

  I came back with four sugar packets, and Meili was lying down, face in the pillow. She was … hiccupping? Every few seconds, her back trembled like a cough.

  I put my hand on her shoulder, and she recoiled. “Is everything alright?” I asked, maybe the stupidest thing I’d ever said.

  I wanted her to say: “Yeah, everything’s fucking peachy cause I’m hiding out here and I have no idea what’s going to happen,” etc., etc.

  Instead, she said, “Leave me alone.” It was quick, cold, purely instructional.

  I went to curl in next to her. I wanted to hold her while she cried. But she lifted her head and barked, “Leave me alone!”

  There was an animal fear in her voice, a survival instinct that didn’t know me or care to know me.

  I walked out as she went back to the pillow, the tiny convulsions faster now.

  I poured a glass of milk and sat at the kitchen table. Meili occasionally let out a sob I could hear through the wall. I sat there, heart pounding, dizzy with the feeling that this was so wrong. I should be in there, I should hold her. She should want me to.

  Of all the messed-up things I’d been through that year, this was the hardest. People fought, people hated, people let each other down, people left. Little bodies got burned in fires. I could live with all of that. But not this. This gutted me. This beautiful person, this person I adored, was crying, and I desperately wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t.

  I didn’t want to live in a world where that happened.

  If I knew how to cry, I would have been bawling. Instead, I put my head on the table and tried to think about other things. We needed more groceries. We could take Manny’s car and do a real shop. Another wail. Shit. Meili was still in there sobbing, and it was still ripping my heart out. I walked out, didn’t close the door, didn’t tell her I was leaving.

  Past the car, past the shed, through the row of trees, and into the soggy field behind my house. A farmer hayed it twice a year, and in between the grass would get tall, and I used to hide in it: sometimes a game with my friends, sometimes not a game. When I was ten, my mom grabbed me, and we ran back into the field and lay there for almost an hour because some people were looking for her. I remember thinking: when I get big, I’m not gonna hide. I’m gonna protect her.

  The field was stubby, still waking up from winter. I hadn’t been out there in a couple years, but I knew exactly where I was going. Out in the second field, a diagonal square off the main field, were the Rocks, three boulders too heavy to move, so farmers had planted around them for generations. As I walked up to the Rocks, my racing heart slowed a bit. Geese nibbled the picked-over grass by the edge of the woods, too far away to notice me.

  Big Rock was dome-shaped and steep. Kids needed a boost or a lot of momentum to get up on it. There was one solid grip up top, but you had to know about it, because you couldn’t see it from the ground. Tall as I was, getting up wasn’t that hard, but I still took a few steps back to get speed.

  Big Rock was warm. It was always warm if the sun was out, even in the middle of winter. My friend Gary and I used to take off our coats and sweaters and lay down shirtless on cold days, convincing ourselves that it was totally warm as we got goose bumps and chills. I took off my shirt and lay back, adjusting to find the right surface.

  I never did things like this anymore. Like Brandt Hill. Riding there with Meili was the first time I’d been there since … when?

  Meili. Dammit. That thought clenched my breathing. Why couldn’t I comfort her?

  And why couldn’t I let it go?

  And behind that, lurking as always, the original question: Why am I so messed up?

  * * *

  When I got back to the house, Meili was on the back stoop, drinking tea and smoking. She barely looked at me.

  “Where’ve you been?” she asked.

  “A walk.”

  She nodded. There was a long silence, and then she moved to one side. “D’you want to go in?”

  “No,” I said.

  She kept smoking as if she was alone, but she was self-conscious, toking more quickly.

  “Whot?” she said at last, squinting up at me.

  “You OK?”

  “Yeah,” she said quickly. “No. ’Course not. Whatever. Doesn’t matter.” She looked down at the grass. “I just really don’t like waking up in a place I don’t know. I hate it. Really hate it.” She stubbed out her cigarette in a beer can that was used for exactly that. “And yesterday was hard. It was all a bit much.” Sex with me? Getting arrested? Talking to Jia? I hoped it wasn’t sex with me. “I talked to a bunch of people I hadn’t spoken to in forever, and it was so good. Mostly, like, so fucking good. But also, you know, they’ve changed, they’ve moved on. I’m this memory to them. It was awful. And then I learned some fucked-up things, really fucked-up. Like, I can’t even get into it, it’s so bad.”

  I sat and wrapped my arm around her. She tilted her head toward me briefly but then reached for her tobacco.

  “What are we doing?” she said, shaking her head.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said.

  “No, don’t,” she said quickly. “I can’t bear it. I lit’rally can’t bear it.”

&nbs
p; “No, it’s not like that. It’s good,” I said, pulling her over toward me. “I know this is a crazy time, and insane things are happening, and more are about to happen. But, for me,” I said, not exactly sure where I was going, “I’m happy to be here with you. I’m happy to be in my house. I hate my house. I hate this town. I hate ninety percent of what my life is. And I am so happy to be here with you.” A strange thing happened while I was saying all this: I felt a stirring in my crotch. I was getting emotionally turned on. A love boner. Is there such a thing?

  “You little softy,” she said, leaning over. “Wait’ll I tell people. Then you’ll really get your arse kicked.”

  “Seriously, I’ve never felt this good at home. Come on, it’s a messed-up time, but it’s nice here, right? Together?”

  “Yeah, Bug. ’Course it is. I’m sorry, I…” She let out a long exhale. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry for my sorry-ass self,” she said, clenching her face up. “I am not going to fucking cry again. But, yeah, it’s great. You’re an absolute doll. I got tea, I got cigarettes, I got a cute little maid cooking and cleaning, it’s brilliant. Seriously. It’s just not my moment. Sorry.” She covered her face in her hands and leaned over. “Aaaaaaah. God.” She stood up suddenly. “Sh’we go inside?”

  She moved out of the way of the screen door but didn’t go through. She turned toward me, face down, and stepped in to hug me. I held the screen door open for a while, but when she slid her warm hand under my shirt and up my back, I wrapped both arms around her.

  We stood there pretty much forever.

  * * *

  “Are you gonna tell me?” I asked.

  We had been quiet for a while. Meili had papers spread out on the kitchen table, copying names and phone numbers into a notebook she’d found in my room. I was frying eggs for both of us.

  “Tell you what?” she said, scribbling away.

  “What you found out,” I said.

  “God. You really want to know?”

  “I’m involved. I need to know.”

  “You don’t have to be involved. Seriously. This is not your mess, and you—”

  “Meili. Come on.”

  “I need to say that, OK? I need you to hear it, because I can’t expect—”

  “Consider it heard,” I said.

  “OK. Well. Short version is: Manny’s not telling me everything.” She pulled out a rolling paper, her last one. “Fair enough, no surprise there. I’ve known fuckall about what’s been going on for a while. But what he’s not telling me is massive.”

  Silence. I flipped the eggs and took them off the heat.

  “Maybe I could go home and be with my dad.” She lit her cigarette.

  I plopped the eggs on the English muffins and sprinkled salt and pepper. I was a pretty good cook.

  I carried the plates over. Meili carefully extinguished her cigarette, rested it in the ashtray for later.

  “This looks fantastic, Bug. Thank you.”

  “What you’re saying is interesting, but I still have no idea what’s going on.”

  She laughed, her mouth full of egg. “’S true, isn’t it? God, it’s so weird talking about it. I have to say, it feels completely wrong. I never talk about it. Obviously. And it’s been so long, I can’t imagine how to explain it all.”

  “How about I ask questions?”

  “Yeah, great. Ask.” She dug into her eggs. I loved watching Meili eat. She was undelicate, enthusiastic, and a bit loud.

  “Where’s your father?”

  “Oh god!” She covered her mouth. “It’s so wrong. It feels so wrong to talk about. It’s OK, though, right? Is it? Yeah, it’s OK.” She cleared her throat and sat up straight. “My father is in protective custody in Hong Kong.” She looked at me like she might burst out laughing. “Or he was anyway.”

  “Why is he in custody?”

  “For his own protection,” she said. I rolled my eyes. “You know all about that, don’t you? He’s a witness in a large corruption case involving high-ranking people. He’s also a defendant, but he made a deal. Until the case is finished, he’s basically been hiding.”

  “Which is why you’re also hiding.”

  “Exactly. The people who don’t want Dad to testify could come after me to get to him. At least, that’s what he was afraid of a year ago. Especially after the fire.”

  “So what did you find out?” I said.

  “Well, the case is resolved, at least my dad’s bit. Two different people said it was settled.”

  “Which means you can go home?”

  “Presumably. Somebody might could come after him out of revenge. But it’s too late to, like, prevent him from testifying.”

  “That’s big.”

  “Massive. And it’s a big deal knowing when the case is over, and you can never tell from the media because it’s China, and the official story has, like, zero to do with the real story.”

  “That’s good news, right?” I asked.

  She took her last bite and, as she chewed, picked up her half-smoked cigarette. “Yes, but. Thing is.” She lit the cigarette. “I probably could have gone home six months ago. Once my dad testifies, it all changes and protective custody ends and so on. I could have gone back in, like, November. Skipped Unionville altogether.”

  “That would have been sad.”

  “Not for me. No offense.”

  Offense definitely taken.

  She picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue. “But Manny never told me. Why?” She took a deep breath. “And what else is he not telling me?”

  “Where is Manny?”

  “Whenever he has to deal with things,” she said, putting those words in quotes, “he goes quite far away. Paranoia and all that, doesn’t want to be found. But now, I’m thinking, is there another reason he goes away?”

  “It’s understandable why he—”

  “Actually, it’s not. It’s not fucking understandable. He’s lied to me for six months? Longer, maybe? He keeps me in the dark, scaring the shit out of me so I don’t communicate with anyone. That is so fucked up. And now he’ll drag me away to some other crap town, when I don’t even need to be hiding.”

  “Maybe you don’t, but—”

  She cut me off. “Look, if it was a few days, and he’s gotta figure things out? OK, fine. This is six months, at least. Are you fucking kidding me?” She rubbed her temples.

  “Can you trust these people you’re talking to?”

  “Exactly what Manny would say. Don’t trust anyone. I’m sick of it. I’m making the decisions now. I’ve always been told, like, I make bad decisions. Tough shit. I’ll make bad decisions and live with it.”

  She stacked our plates and forks and scraped the table crumbs into her hand.

  “You don’t have to go anywhere,” I said.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You don’t have to go with Manny or back to Hong Kong. You could wait it out.”

  “Here, you mean?” I nodded. “In our little love nest?” I nodded. “Aren’t you sweet? That’s a delightful offer, and it could never work, but thank you, Bug. Much appreciated.”

  I probably should have let that go. “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean about what?”

  “What do you mean it couldn’t work?” I said.

  “Come on, Bug. This is sweet, but it’s not real.”

  “Feels real to me.”

  “Well, you believe in fairy tales. I don’t.”

  “What do you believe in?”

  She looked at me, deciding if it was a question worth answering. “Barely tolerable situations that occasionally get much worse for reasons beyond your control.”

  “So cynical.”

  “Piss off. I’m just saying, things aren’t fixable, are they? They weren’t going along great till someone screwed them up. It’s not like that.” She looked out the window, then back. “It’s a lot of damaged, self-interested, occasionally well-meaning people doing the best they can in the
moment. That’s what we’ve got. There’s not some, like, better world we could live in if we just tried harder. Sorry, too American for me.”

  “So no point in doing anything.”

  “No, you have to survive. Not insignificant, that. And, yeah, there’s nice things. Music. Fags. Cute boys.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Come on, if I stayed on here, we’d hate each other. This is great—I mean it, it’s fucking great—but only because it’s about to end. If the end weren’t in sight, we’d resent the hell out of it. And each other.” She started clearing the table.

  “You would.”

  “You would, too, though. I’m a lot of fun at arm’s length. I’m not cute up close. Swear to god I’m not.”

  “I don’t like cute,” I said. “That’s why I like you so much.”

  “Sarcasm. See, I am influencing you. But you should know, it’s best to tease someone about things that matter quite a lot but not all that much, right? So, like, I can take the piss out of you for being a delinquent, but probably not for having a drunk mum. And probably not for, like, burning that little boy, right?”

  “Probably not. Though you definitely have.”

  “Being cute is not a good one for me. Being obnoxious? Pain in the arse? Smelly, even? All great. But if you don’t think I’m fucking gorgeous, keep it to your stupid self. And your drunk-ass mum, too.”

  I laughed and cringed. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Probably not, no. And don’t fucking feed my self-esteem. That’s even more horrid.”

  I knelt down in front of her. “I’m gonna tell you.”

  “Oh, Christ, don’t.”

  “If you took everyone—”

  “Please, no!”

  “If you took everyone in the world and lined them up by how attracted I am to them.” Meili looked straight up at the ceiling. “It would be Meili. Then a huge gap.” I ran my finger across her lips, her beautiful lips, puffy from our aggressive kissing and other things. “And then everyone else.” She clenched her mouth. “I am desperately, helplessly, maniacally attracted to you.”

  She closed her eyes, and her mouth stretched into a half grin, half grimace.