by Sheila Heti
“Oh no,” whispered the mother in such a light, airy voice. She was so slight; not like a bird, more like a feather.
“I’ll just go,” she said, hesitating a little, obviously wanting to stay, but leaving anyway.
Eleanor returned to the gift. She unfolded the paper, which was red with blue-and-yellow boats, and opened the box, first glancing away, then looking down into it. Lying at the bottom was a beanie with a visor. It was made up of six colored wedges leading down from a button—purple, green, yellow. It was way too small for her head.
She put the lid back on the box and placed it down beside the chair, then started up the stairs to bed. She had no idea why he had given her such a ridiculous and inappropriate gift. It didn’t even make her laugh.
THE ACCIDENT
THERE WAS AN accident on the street yesterday. Seven cars piled up one after another, pressing into the backs of each other. When I saw it (people tell me) I put my hands to my face and I screamed. Then I passed out. As it turns out, quite a number of people who were on the street saw fit to help me—and not the people scrunched in those cars. Could be because I’m beautiful.
I have been told that I’m beautiful ever since the world first saw my face. I have considered this something of a charming feature of my personality, partly because it means that whatever else slips away, whatever else I am incapable of, I still have one thing most people don’t: beauty.
When I came to, the first thing I saw was the face of a moustached man. He was wearing a hat and looking down concerned into my eyes. I blinked up at him and he lifted his face in pure joy. “She’s all right!” The small crowd that had gathered about me cheered, and I was helped to my feet by another man and a lady who was older and dressed quite nicely. The lady then proceeded to brush off my suit as I stood there dazed, blinking at the world around me.
“It sure is a lucky thing you didn’t hit your head when you fell,” said the man with the moustache. “You could have been bleeding all through your pretty hair.”
I didn’t know what to say. How to thank such kind-hearted people? However I was in no condition to be polite, so I just walked away. At dinner that night, my husband told me that it was just lucky that there are kind people in this world willing to help a stranger like me.
“What’s lucky, Tom,” I said, “is that I’m beautiful. Those people wouldn’t have helped me if I wasn’t so beautiful.”
“Not true,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re just a lucky gal to have fallen into the care of such nice people. Someone,” he winked, “was looking out for you.”
“Yes, the men in the street.”
He furrowed his brow. Then he let me have the best portion of the meat, and I smiled because he is such a generous man, at times.
MR. JONES’S FIRST OUTING
FOR THE PAST seven years Mr. Jones had been taking care of his wife who had long been sick and ended up dying. When he reentered the society of his friends and enemies he knew nothing of the world—or of what had changed and what had stayed the same—but when he saw Fritz sitting in a bar sipping some gin, he couldn’t help but say, “Fritz,” and so the new times became like the old.
“Come over and sit with me, you poor bugger,” said Fritz.
So Mr. Jones sat with Fritz, and Fritz put down his drink and looked into his friend’s eyes and said, “Most respectfully, man, can we talk about something else now?”
“Oh yes, of course,” replied Mr. Jones, and he looked down shamefully into his milk.
“Good. Y’know I was buying a comic the other day, see,” but just as Fritz was getting to the good part a hag and a young woman came up to their table and stood there waiting. The young woman was tall and her breasts pressed out; she had a fine body that appealed to men. Knowing this, the hag said calmly, “Can we sit down with you? My cousin here doesn’t know anyone.”
“Well…” said Fritz, who didn’t like meeting new people.
“But of course,” said Mr. Jones, and he hurriedly arranged the chairs so that the doll sat in one and he sat down beside her. The girl looked around, all bright-eyed, and Mr. Jones asked her profession.
“Me?” she chirped.
“She’s my friend,” said the hag, smiling till her gums showed.
“I’m her friend,” nodded the girl, and everyone could tell she was no more smart than a crash test dummy.
“I suppose you want to talk about events in the world,” sighed Fritz, with difficulty.
“No. We want to see if we can become your friends,” said the hag.
“I don’t know if that would be possible today,” said Fritz. He hated talking to new people. One never knew how one was being evaluated.
Turning to Mr. Jones, the old hag’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She sputtered, “We heard about your horrible life and how your wife died, and truly we wanted to come over and give our compassion and support, if necessary.”
“Oh, thank you,” blushed Mr. Jones, looking down and all around.
“You looked like such a nice man, and I said to Janie, ‘Come now dear, we have to go over and tell that man he’s a real hero’—a real hero, that’s what you are.” She looked hopefully into Mr. Jones’s eyes and saw him avert them gently.
“Well, thank you for saying that, but I loved my wife—love my wife—loved my wife—and there’s nothing heroic about love.”
The hag shrugged and, bending her head in close to the table, said in a confidential tone, “She loves me too, and do you think she’d stick around if my toes were curling up?”
The dollish young woman continued to smile.
“No, it’s true,” said the hag, shaking her head. “She’d be off to Timbuktu with her stupid little friends. I’m a lot of fun while I’m still kicking, but my days are numbered. I know it for a fact. I’ve even got the number.” Sitting back in her chair she pulled her chin into her neck and searched around in her pocket, pulling out a ratty piece of paper. “Ah. A hundred and eighteen.”
“What?” chirped the doll.
“Nothing. Go back to your ginger ale.” Then in a petty voice, “You see? You think she could nurse me back to health, or even put me to die properly? Impossible! When we go home she sits in front of the TV. When we go out she stares ahead as if we never left! I know you two think it is madness, but once in a while she’s a very good lover, and that makes up for all the rest. Her friends are terrible people, though. They have no morality and look at me as though I should have put the peas in the pot years ago! When we all know it isn’t true. Right? Right? You know. You were a nurse.”
Mr. Jones nodded.
“So anyway,” said the hag, leaning back, as the dollish young woman continued to smile. Her teeth shone brightly but she was no longer so appealing to the men, now that they had spoken in confidence with the hag.
“So…” said Fritz. “How much longer are you going to stay at this table for?”
Mr. Jones said quickly, “My friend is shy and people he doesn’t know make him nervous.”
“No reason to be nervous,” said the hag. “If you knew us you’d see that there’s nothing to be intimidated by, and far from being better than you, we’re actually less or the same.”
“Is it true?” asked Fritz suddenly, and Mr. Jones felt disgusted with the turn in the conversation. Was this the sort of tedious insecurity the world had come to?
“Don’t you realize that in general about people?” said the hag. “We’re nothing! Not at all! Not a thing!”
“But I always assume,” continued Fritz, with interest, “that people are better than me, and are judging me with a divine right.”
“Let’s go,” said the hag swiftly, and she rushed the young woman deep into the smoky bar.
“Wait!” cried Fritz, standing up.
Mr. Jones turned to look at his friend, whose face was now red and desperate. “I don’t know if it solves anything,” said Mr. Jones, choosing his words carefully. “After all, you never know what she might have meant. One c
an never know. And even if you do know, it might not even be true.”
“Oh, go back to your apartment!” spat Fritz, and he twisted his body and ran off with his drink in his hand after the hag and the doll.
Now Mr. Jones was all alone. He should never have gone out if this was the sort of behavior one encountered in the world. He missed the past; the quiet nothingness of lying in bed next to his dying wife, stroking her wet hair as she breathed with difficulty, and opened her eyes somewhat, every few days. Those were gentle times; how the light came through the window, how he barely slept at all, and how she lived with pain.
A FEW ADVENTURES OF THE YOUNG FORNICATOR
THE LANDLORD HAD been seeking rent from the young fornicator for two weeks now. Every time he knocked on the door there would be sounds, then no sounds. The landlord was furious and his wife slapped him. This caused the landlord to prowl the yard, the floor of the young fornicator, and the main lobby. Still the fornicator managed to elude him, and the landlord’s wife yelled at him for things relating to their life together and to the building and to their daughter Beth’s birthday.
IT WAS THE young fornicator’s day off and he lay in his bed with a girl. Her hair was long and she was twisting it around her finger, when suddenly he stood and went to look out the window and began to tell this story:
“I’ve seen the landlord’s daughter before, but she’s always had this vapid expression, so naturally I thought she was a little stupid. But then I was in the park one day and she was sitting on a bench, when this math genius of a kid with lots of allergies went up to her.”
“Where are you going with this?” the girl demanded, alert and possessive at the suggestion of another woman.
“I don’t know,” the fornicator said. Somewhere in the telling the story had gotten lost. He did not know where it had gone. The girl insisted they fool around some more and so they did, but he was no longer so engaged; his mind was on the landlord’s daughter.
BETH WAS STANDING on the corner in the hot sun waiting for the bus, and she had been waiting a long time. There was sweat under her arms. The young fornicator came from down the street. He mumbled out a hello and sat on the back of a bench and watched her. She recognized him from her father’s building but she did not respond. She was dating three boys from her college already.
The young fornicator cleared his throat, then asked a simple question.
“What?” she said, irritated. He spoke so quietly!
“Nothing,” he replied.
This did not impress her and she spat out, “Today is my birthday and my father forgot to get me a cake. What a jerk! Do you know what this means to me? I was expecting a nice blue one: blue icing on the outside with chocolate on the inside! Such a jerk.”
The young fornicator did not know what to say. The bus came and Beth got on. He walked back to his apartment where he found a friend of his mother’s lying in his bed. He went and stood at the open window and lit a cigarette. She looked at him with red eyes.
“I suppose you only think of me as your mother’s friend. Is that why you won’t sleep with me? I’m young still!” His mother’s friend burst into fresh sobs and buried her head in the pillow, heaving.
He blew out smoke. Sure. Why not? Let the landlord collect his rent. Within a quarter of an hour he had shuffled the old woman out of there and had sat upon his couch awaiting the landlord’s knock. The knock came and he opened the door and there was the landlord with fury on his face and a frying pan quivering in his hand.
“I want my rent! Where have you been since the first?”
The young fornicator invited the landlord in and made him stand by the window as he rifled through his coat pocket trying to find his wallet. As he approached the landlord with the money, the sudden bright light of the sun beamed down upon the landlord, and in that instant the landlord looked so much like his daughter that the fornicator felt the pull.
“Give it to me,” the landlord said. The young man allowed the bills to be snatched from his hand, and saw, over the landlord’s shoulder, young Beth coming up the driveway. She was carrying in her hand a bag, and in the bag was a box, and in the box was a chocolate cake with shiny blue icing.
WHAT CHANGED
AFTER ALL, THEY were a man and a woman. There was no reason for them not to fall in love.
When the man fell, the woman fell, and when the woman fell, the man fell. It is hard to say now who fell first.
As they were falling, other things happened in other places, but where they were it was just he for she and she for he, and that very night they went out for pasta.
They could barely order, which irritated the waitress, but it was only because they were so much in love, and so leaning over the table, and so fondling each other’s hands, and so fondling each other’s arms, and so staring into each other’s eyes, and so smiling dopily.
They were doped. Or they were falling in love.
He said, “Come away with me this weekend. I must have you and only you and no one else around.”
And she said, “Oh that’s a fantastic idea. Let’s do it.”
And so their attention shifted from each other’s face and hands on to where they would go, where they would stay, how they would get there, what he had to clear up first, what she’d tell her family.
That night they kissed passionately on the front porch of her parents’ house, but she went inside alone. And she thought of him when he was not there, and he thought of her when she was not there as well.
When the weekend came he picked her up in his car and they drove east down the highway, and she giggled and laughed, and he just laughed, and she squirmed in her seat and tried to touch his body, and their bags were in the back, and the sun was out, and the windows were open, and she sang songs that were playing on the radio, and she was so joyful and he was damn happy.
They made a stop to get some lunch and kissed each other’s lips and tongues right outside the restaurant. She kept her eyes open to see who was looking, and he kept his hands on her.
Back in the car she felt sleepy, so they stopped again to get her a coffee so she would not fall asleep, so they would not miss a moment of their weekend together.
When they arrived at the place where they were headed, she sat in the car and looked around while he got a key from the concierge, and he picked up the luggage, and she carried the fragile wine bottles. Together they hiked down a path through the trees and she said to him, “Have you been here before?”
And he said, “No. My brother told me about it.”
And she was happy, and he felt okay too, and though the lie was unnecessary, it made things better.
That night they got drunk and did all those things, and in the morning they got up and did all those things. As he was cooking breakfast with the groceries they had brought, she called out from the bed, “I think we’ll never fight. I could never see fighting with you.”
And he called back over his shoulder, “You could never make me mad.”
She wiggled gleefully into the covers, and he felt a loving rise at her high and musical voice.
In the afternoon they went for a swim, and, swimming, he tried to pull off her bathing suit, but she coquettishly swam away, batting her arms and legs at him. She called out, “Keep away, you madman! I’m being raped by a madman!”
And while this initially jarred him, he quickly relaxed and decided he liked her impetuous, thoughtless ways.
In the evening he made a fire, and everything was perfect and had been going perfectly, and she lay back in his arms and thought, “It’s picture perfect. It’s just like we’re in a movie.” And she said to him, “Doesn’t it feel like we’re in a movie? In some made-up fantasy land?”
And he said, “Mmmm,” and kissed the top of her head, and it was even more like a movie, like everything she had seen and heard about love, and she was involved, and it was with him.
She said, “I wish this weekend would never end.”
And when she said that, i
n a way, it made his arms just clutch her tighter, and her face withdrew into thinking about Monday, and the ride home, which would be worse, and he felt her thinking, and he started thinking too.
She tried to brush it off, to cover it up, as if she hadn’t said it, as if it wasn’t true at all, that of course they would be at that cabin forever, and she said to him, to make it all better, “Truly, it’s like a dream.”
But it wasn’t like a dream. Not really. And they got drunk and did all that and fell asleep, and when they woke in the morning she felt crummy and he grew irritated.
Because he had to pack their bags and clean everything up while she lay in bed just watching him. She had said, “Just let me watch you. I just want to watch you.”
And he had said, “Well, you’re watching me,” in a joking sort of way, but he did not want to be watched. He wanted to be helped.
And she flopped back into the pillows, into the covers, and she said, “I wish we could stay forever.” And she said, “You take the first shower. I can’t get up.”
So he did.
And while she was in her shower he opened the door and stood there watching, but she cried, “Get out!” And though she was joking, sort of, she really did need her privacy in the mornings, especially in the bathroom, so he left to pack the car.
“One last swim?” he asked when she emerged, drying her hair with a towel.
And she said, “No, the water will be too cold.”
She said, “I’ll make you breakfast. Sit down.”
And she made them cereal with bananas cut into it, and she apologized, laughing, saying, “I don’t know how to cook.” Yesterday he had made her gourmet omelettes with salad and juice and had squeezed the oranges with his own bare hands, but she just opened the box and poured in the milk. But the bananas were a nice gourmet touch.
He said, “It’s one o’clock.”
And she said, “I never want to leave.”
