“You have a girlfriend,” I said.
“Damn.” Lea laughed.
After a while, Lea told me she had to leave for work.
She touched the inside of my wrist, which made me shiver. She took a pen and wrote down her phone number. “You can call me if you need anything.”
“You are so nice,” I said.
I was not going to call her. Those boxes under the table, which she had carried to the café, I was not going to take those with me either.
“You see,” Judy had said.
I did not see.
It didn’t seem to matter.
I liked the way my day had turned out.
DIEGO WAS OUT ON A date.
It felt familiar, the realization that Diego was not available to me. I sat at Diego’s kitchen table. I ate from a bowl of salted nuts. Cashews, pecans, almonds. He had good food in his apartment. I cracked open a beer. I turned on his stereo. Finally, I called Hans.
“I haven’t heard from you all day,” Hans said.
I took a drink from my beer. I knew that I was supposed to call him and so I called him. Already I wished that I hadn’t. He could have at least pretended not to be upset with me.
“I was worried about you.”
“I have been busy all day,” I said. “I went to Judy’s funeral.”
“Was it sad?”
“Was it sad?”
I was not sure. Already, it felt like a long time ago. I thought funerals, by definition, were sad, and therefore it was a dumb question. I realized that I wanted to take a bath. Diego had a nice bathtub, Jacuzzi jets on the sides of the tub. Diego’s life was an advertisement for getting a good job. He lived in a gorgeous condo in a new building in a neighborhood called SOMA, an area I barely knew existed when I lived in San Francisco, which was actually not far from my mechanic. Diego had a stainless steel refrigerator, two bedrooms, white walls, modern appliances, modern furniture, high ceilings, a view of the bay. It was clean. Probably he had a maid.
“I mean, no, the funeral itself wasn’t sad. It took place in this beautiful barn and Judy had nice friends, people from the office came and other painters she knew. They said wonderful things about her. It made me wish I hadn’t lost touch with her. That part was sad. I feel bad about that. Falling out of touch with Judy.”
In the act of saying these words, I felt sad again. Why was Judy talking to me, giving me unwanted advice? When I was a terrible person. Hans would agree with this, too. For going away. For not calling. For what I had done this afternoon. I stared at Diego’s refrigerator. It was silly, but one day, I knew, in my lifetime, I wanted a refrigerator just like that. I realized that there was silence on the phone line. Neither of us was talking. I was supposed to offer Hans something. I was not sure.
“She left me her red car,” I said.
“The one she crashed in?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s pretty messed up but the mechanic says he can fix it.”
“So you are going to get her car,” Hans said.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I never liked the car and she died in it. How could I drive a car that Judy died in? The mechanic said he would sell it for me.”
“Are you going to trust the mechanic?”
“He was wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt,” I said. I realized that Judy had not trusted him either. But I did. And I trusted my instincts. I did not feel bad about what happened with Lea. I was supposed to feel bad about Lea.
“That doesn’t mean you can trust him.”
“I thought you trusted Deadheads.”
“Don’t make fun of me, Leah.”
“I’m not,” I said, though I guess I was. I drank another sip of beer. Soon, I would need another one. “Anyway, I don’t want the car. Judy died in it, and I got a bad feeling just sitting in it, but the mechanic says he can sell it for me.”
“We could use the money.”
I regretted telling Hans about the car, about the possibility of selling it. This was something Judy had left me, but if the money from the car went into our joint account, it would be absorbed, get spent on rent and food and beer. It would not be mine. Judy had left the car to me. I had not told him about the money. I did not know, still, how much money. If that part was real.
“I wrote some new scenes today,” Hans said. “And a review for the website. I was wondering if you could read them.”
I closed my eyes, nodding. The last thing I wanted to do was go over new work by Hans. Our writing process was different. I didn’t want a reader until I was far along in a project, done with a draft. Hans wanted constant eyes and ears.
“I can read it tomorrow,” I said.
“I am really jazzed about these pages,” Hans said. “I think I was feeling shitty about your leaving, so I tried to figure out what would make me feel better. And that was writing. Do you think you can read the scenes tonight? I’m excited about them. What else do you have to do?”
Somehow, without noticing, I had wandered into Diego’s living room. I looked at the gleaming candlestick holders on Diego’s mantelpiece. They were ostentatious. I could imagine an attractive salesgirl, like the one in Macy’s, urging him to by them.
“I’ll read it tomorrow,” I said.
“I emailed you the file hours ago.”
I had not checked my email all day, which was unlike me. At home, I spent too much of my day sitting in front of a computer. “I haven’t checked my email,” I said. Email at least would be better than talking to Hans. “I’ll do it now.”
“I love you,” Hans told me.
I nodded.
The silence was long. It was heavy.
“I love you, too,” I said.
I hung up the phone.
I blamed Judy for this constant state of irritation I felt toward Hans. My unwillingness to talk to him, to think about him even. The repugnance I felt. I had not felt this way until her death.
“That is total bullshit,” Judy said. “Maybe it has something to do with his choking you. How about that?”
Just like that, tears welled in my eyes. I was crying again. So what? Were there rules against that? I touched my neck, gently caressed the soft skin. It wasn’t bruised. No imprint. Lea, she had kissed me there. Judy knew. I thought that nobody knew. I did not want anybody to know.
“I am giving you a road map,” Judy said. “I am giving you a car and an adventure. You do this. You do it for me and you do it for yourself.”
I nodded. Maybe I was ready to listen to Judy. I did not think so.
Back when I was in grad school, I would question all the decisions I made: Should I take this class? Eat fish for dinner? Rent this apartment? I knew without asking what Judy would think and hearing her voice had been helpful. But once I stopped returning her emails, after I had gotten married, her voice went away, too. It occurred to me that she had been helpful.
A road map.
I let the words sink in.
I wandered Diego’s apartment. I found the whiskey in a liquor cabinet stocked as if for a party. I did not want to finish my beer. It was not what I wanted. I poured a drink into a nice heavy glass and got two perfect ice cubes from the ice maker. I took half of a hydrocodone I found in his medicine cabinet. This would be the definition of a perfect night for Hans and me. A drink, a pain pill, take-in sushi, an episode of Six Feet Under. For Hans, this perfect night would end with sex, but so many times, I would pass out in the middle of the episode.
“Are you sleeping?” Hans would ask, and I would say no, because I actually wasn’t. My eyes were closed, but I could hear still Lauren Ambrose’s voice, complaining about something. I did not have to actually see her, actually watch the show. It was enough to listen. I always thought I would like to be friends with Lauren Ambrose.
It was odd to be alone in Diego’s apartment. I wandered back into his living room with the idea that I would look at the books on his bookshelf. He had no bookshelves. He had no books. On closer inspection, I found a travel guide to Paris
. Paris. I had been to Paris once, with Hans, for a long weekend. It had been a wonderful trip. Until I met Hans, I had never been to Europe. I had not backpacked Europe during college. We went to Venice together. We kissed in a gondola.
“You see,” I said to Judy.
She did not answer.
She was dead.
Judy.
I ran water for a bath.
DIEGO SEEMED MILDLY ANNOYED WITH me.
“You know one way to end a date fast?” he asked.
His hands were under my armpits and he was gently lifting me from his wonderfully fancy bathtub. When I was standing up, balanced on my own two feet, he dried me off with a white fluffy towel.
“This is a gorgeous towel,” I said.
“It’s called a bath sheet,” Diego said.
When I was dry, I lifted my arms and slid into the men’s T-shirt he handed me.
“You are a Giants fan,” I observed.
“You root for the home team,” Diego said.
I remembered that he had asked me a question.
“How do you end a date fast?” I asked him.
“Bring home a woman. She goes into the bathroom, to get ready, if you know what I mean, and she finds a naked woman passed out in your bathtub.”
“I was passed out?”
“Maybe a little bit.” Diego laughed. “You know you can drown that way?”
“But I feel so happy right now,” I said.
I leaned forward and kissed Diego. He returned my kiss. The only way to make any progress with Diego was to be in a state of intoxication. It was so easy really; I was essentially naked, wearing only Diego’s T-shirt.
“I have always wanted you,” I said.
“I know that,” Diego answered.
I reached into his pants for his penis and it was already hard. It was smooth in my hand, long, different than the other penises I had known.
He did not match my declaration of longing. But he seemed entertained by me, which was a good thing. I felt like this was as close as I would ever come. Without clothes, without inhibition. Without guilt, even. There in his bathroom, Diego let me stroke his penis. I pulled on it gently. I was too tired to remain standing. I got down on my knees. I licked the tip of his penis. Diego moaned. I knew from years of experience, from Hans, and Daniel, from my Republican boyfriend in high school whose name I could not remember. This was what a man wanted.
“Oh, Leah,” Diego said.
This was what I had not been able to do for the other Lea. I wish I had. I wondered if it would take a long time, because I was starting to feel cold, uncomfortable, on his tiled bathroom floor. I realized too late that what I wanted, in fact, was for Diego to make love to me. I sensed that would not happen. I did not want to be gently rejected. Not now. I remembered that other time, so many years ago. How much it had hurt, though I had pretended not to care.
So, I sucked Diego. I cupped his balls with my fingers. Diego pulled my hair. He came in my mouth, without warning, and I swallowed.
DIEGO WAS GONE WHEN I woke up the next morning, not in his bed, but in the guest room. The guest room, actually, was quite lovely. He had done the coffee preparation in advance, too, with a note that said: Push me.
Somehow, I doubted Diego had any knowledge of Alice in Wonderland. I pushed the button and waited. The coffee was good. I did not know if I had a hangover, if it was jet lag, or if the fuzzy state of my head was simply the fuzzy state of my head. Honestly, I often woke up unclear.
Coffee in hand, I checked my email. The mechanic had written, asking me to call him right away. I hated that: “right away,” how demanding that sounded, and I decided that he could wait until later. My mother wrote, asking if I wanted to meet for lunch later in the week. I would have to respond, tell her where I was. There were four emails from Hans. Too many emails. He had emailed a scene to read, just like he had told me. A movie review to edit. I couldn’t remember what I had told him the night before. I probably told him that I would read these things, but I didn’t want to. I wasn’t on vacation, exactly, but I was off duty. I had work today. My part-time telecommuting job. I should do that and get it out of the way. I wanted to hang a sign around my neck: Off Duty.
Off duty.
That could maybe help explain the day before, Lea on her futon on Castro Street, Diego on the tiled floor of his bathroom. I was in San Francisco. Therefore, it did not count. Off duty. I drank my coffee. I would have to go to Judy’s niece’s bat mitzvah next, because what else could I do? I would follow the wishes of a dead friend. I did not remember the date. I would have to reread her letter.
“Damned straight,” Judy said.
“Go away,” I said, and then immediately regretted it.
The vigor was too much first thing in the morning. I was getting sick of Judy commenting on my thoughts, and never when I expected her to. Voices. I could call these voices, but schizophrenics heard voices and I did not feel crazy. Maybe I was projecting: this was what Judy would say. Anyway, I had to remember that she was trying to be helpful. She had always wanted to look out for me. It was selfish to think that she had died in order to save me. Judy had died because she had wanted to die. Somehow, she knew that other car was coming. She had wanted to be done with life, but maybe, maybe she wanted to save me, too. Maybe she had thought, Hey, this is worth a shot. She wrote me a letter.
Was I worth a shot?
I didn’t think so.
I wasn’t sure.
I poured myself more coffee. I read Hans’s scene. I read it right on the screen without bothering to print it out. Using track changes, I fixed sentences, sometimes flat out rewriting them, not concerned about making them sound like his voice. I wrote some new sentences. I was beginning to feel attached to his book, to feel like it was my book. Usually, he would delete my sentences anyway. “This sounds too Leah,” he would say. Anyway, it was not my book. I would write it differently. I would not write that book. I emailed him back the edited file. Boom. I felt as if I had bought myself some time.
I did not read his review. That was too much. I simply hit reply, wrote: “This is great.” I hoped there were no typos.
I did not write my mother after all. Even though I knew I should. I felt restless, wanted to be away from the computer.
“What now?” I said to the empty room.
The fog had lifted. Sunlight was pouring in from the window. It was a beautiful day. Like a gift. I didn’t need Judy to answer me. I had lived in San Francisco for years. I knew what to do.
THE SEA LIONS WERE STILL there, still taking over Pier 39, still putting on a wonderful show for the tourists. For me. Come on, they were there for me. I gazed at them, filled with love, filled with longing.
“Oh my god, I have missed you,” I told the sea lions.
In New York, I sometimes went to the Central Park Zoo, just for the sea lions. They had three sea lions in a clear glass tank, where you could watch them swim underwater. It was a wonderful spot, but it was not the same.
I leaned on the railing and I watched them. I wanted to say that the sea lions had missed me, too, but that was going too far. The sea lions climbed on one another, jockeying for position. The sea lions slept. Slick and black and shiny from the water, they rolled over each other, and then slid into the water, coming up onto another dock, only to sleep some more. They made wonderful noises, honking loudly at one another.
I grinned at them.
They would not tell me what to do, my beloved sea lions, because they did not care about me, they did not love me, and that was also fine. They were sea lions. I was trying to figure it out. Love. Maybe it was all about love. The other Lea, for instance, who lived in my room, she did not love me. I knew where she lived, but that was not the point. She had a girlfriend. She had told me that because she wanted to keep on having a girlfriend.
Diego did not love me. Of course, he would let me give him a blowjob. I was drunk and stoned and probably so was he. What was wrong with that? He had been on a date earli
er that night. He did not bring me into his bedroom. He was amused by me, he always had been. I wondered why it wasn’t more. Maybe it was because he knew we weren’t right for each other. We weren’t. Though I would give it a try if he let me. I would.
But Hans, Hans loved me. Hans loved me and Hans wanted me to come home. Hans wanted me, body and soul, and the idea of it was enough to make me want to cry. Why had we started dating each other in graduate school? Could I remember? I remember being lonely when I started graduate school. The UPS man delivering my boxes had asked me why I left San Francisco and I had no good answer. Why was it that I had found someone to love me and I felt like I was being strangled?
I stared at the sea lions.
I was glad they had taken over this pier.
My mother loved me.
Look at what Judy had accomplished in dying. She had gotten me back to San Francisco. So many nights, lying in bed, Hans snoring, listening to him snore and to the car alarm across the street that invariably went off every night, I used to wonder if I would ever make it back.
It felt good to be back.
“You are welcome,” Judy said.
EVENTUALLY, I LEFT THE PIER and walked up Columbus Avenue. It was a steep hill, and I took big breaths, as if to fill my lungs with San Francisco air.
I got a cappuccino and a slice of Sicilian pizza at an Italian café across from City Lights Books. I sat at a table outside. I felt like myself, not in an expensive funeral dress, but my own clothes again, a cotton skirt and a black T-shirt, no makeup, my long hair back in a ponytail. This didn’t feel like a bad thing, being me. It seemed within the realm of reason that I could actually choose to like myself. I realized that I never wanted to go home.
“I am sorry,” I said, wondering if Hans could hear me, knowing that he would not forgive me. It was just a thought, not even an actual idea. I wished that I had not had it. Because I had to go home. I had a plane ticket. I would have to go back.
“No, you don’t,” Judy said.
What did she know?
I shook my head. I had no answer.
“Fight with me, why don’t you?” she said. “I mean it. Give me what you’ve got.”
The Red Car Page 8
