by Jana Casale
Leda’s hands were shaking as she typed. She didn’t want Anne to think she was happy. Anne had had sex with strangers before. She’d always act like it was some funny thing. She’d say things like, “I totally had sex last night.” And, “Remember that hot guy I mentioned? I totally had sex with him.” Leda would go along with it, but she knew Anne well enough to know it wasn’t so funny. It wasn’t so totally. On one occasion Anne started crying and confessed that she bled all over the bed midway through.
“I don’t know,” she said through sobs, “he must have just ripped my skin or something. It was just awful, and he hasn’t called.”
Leda talked to her for three hours that night, reassuring her that he’d call, that she was skinny and looked good naked. The next day when Leda texted her asking how she was, Anne acted happy. She acted as if everything was okay, and she never mentioned the bloody sex ever again.
Leda didn’t want to text about the sex she had with Alex. She wanted to call Anne and explain it all to her. To explain the high five, as if somehow that would make her feel better. She knew that it would. She texted back:
“Can I call you?”
Anne: “Can I call you in an hour? I’m still with Luke and we’re going to get bagels.”
Anne: “Actually maybe two hours?”
Leda stared at the flat message on her phone. She wanted to ignore it or to write something like: “No! I’m not a whore like you, Anne! Call me now!” But she just said: “Sure! No worries!”
She walked the rest of the way home checking her phone, hoping that Alex would message her on Facebook or something. It was completely irrational, but she didn’t care.
When she got home, the apartment seemed emptier and more lonely than ever before. The auburn bookshelves were still there as always. Her disheveled bedsheets looked accusatory in their two-day-old misshape. She watered the plant as if that was something she did daily. For some unknown reason she felt bad going straight to her computer. It was as if her room and all her things would judge her, see her for her pathetic self, or maybe it was her need to hold on to the momentary hope that he had left her a message when she knew that it was really just her and the plant all along.
She sat down and checked her Facebook page. No messages. No friend request. Nothing. She tracked him down immediately even though she didn’t know his last name. He was friends with Kate. His page was private so she couldn’t see anything but his profile picture. It was of him standing on a surfboard with his arms in the air in what must have been a surf shop or something to that effect. His face was nearly indistinguishable, as he had sunglasses on and the picture was a little bit out of focus. For whatever reason it infuriated her. There he was, distant and smudged, just laughing it up in some surf shop.
She Googled him. There was a soccer team he’d been a part of in middle school and a bike race he did in college. There wasn’t much else. She clicked through his Instagram account, but he’d only posted a few pictures of a vacation to Montana. A cliff. Some mountains. A rusted bicycle. She scrolled through the pictures again. With little else left to do, she did a Google image search. A lot of “Alexes” appeared. Some were the famous “Alexes” you’d expect, and some were regular-people “Alexes” and some were naked porn “Alexes.” She clicked on one of the naked ones. His face was fat and meaty and his body was muscular in the expected way. He was holding his grotesquely large penis. She thought back to the sex, her Alex, and the way he was stilted and having to change condoms. She thought of her belly fat and cellulite. An image of herself in an unfortunate pair of khaki shorts flashed through her mind. It seemed plausible that her current angst could be understood by the width of her thighs. Maybe I really am gross, she thought, and then Anne called her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Anne said. “So what happened?”
“Well, I talked to him for a long time, and he was like really funny. I don’t know, then he just invited me over to have sex, and then we just did, but now I’m, like, freaking out, and I don’t even know why.”
“Why are you freaking out?”
“I don’t know! I just want to hear from him and I don’t know why.” Her voice started to crack over the phone.
“Did you give him your number?”
“No, I wanted him to ask. I did find him on Facebook.” She didn’t feel it necessary to elaborate on the rest of her search. “His page is really private. I don’t want to friend him first though. I just want him to initiate things.”
“You could go to his house and pretend you forgot something, and then give him your number.”
“I’ll look crazy if I do that.”
“Well, I went to a guy’s house once and pretended I left something. It was this guy I knew from, like, mutual friends. He was, like, kind of nerdy, but, like, sweet and funny and we went on this really cute date where we got fondue, and I had just broken up with Adam so I was really on the rebound, and so we ended up having sex. And the thing was that all night long he was all, ‘Oh my god you’re so pretty. I really want to see you again. We should totally hang out.’ And so I really thought I’d hear from him. And then three days passed, and I didn’t get a text. I didn’t get a ‘Did you get home safe?’ Nothing. And then, like, randomly he friended me on Facebook so I sent him a message, which he ignored, so then I sent him another message and said I left something at his house and wanted to come get it, and so then I went to his house and knocked on the door, and I know he was home ’cause his car was there, but he didn’t answer. So then I got home and there was this long Facebook message that was him saying all this stuff about how he usually doesn’t have random hookups, and that he felt really weird about it, especially ’cause we didn’t use a condom. But it’s like, who writes that? He made me feel, like, totally slutty, like I’m just having all these random hookups and not using condoms or whatever. So then I wrote him this nasty message back saying he was bad in bed, which was kind of mean, but I really felt like he deserved it ’cause I cried for, like, two days over that. And I mean why did I deserve to cry? And why did he say all that stuff about wanting to see me when he really didn’t mean any of it? I mean why? I also told him he’d better find my bra.”
“But you didn’t really lose your bra.”
“No, but I didn’t want to seem like I was lying.”
“I just hate myself for this. I hate myself for caring about any of this. I have a paper that I should be working on, and instead I’m worrying about this idiot.”
“Yeah, but don’t beat yourself up, Led. It’s not your fault.”
Leda looked out her bedroom window. It was still bright out, but it was getting later. She could swear she smelled the cedar windowpane and the dust from behind the computer.
“It isn’t my fault, but I know I can’t stop it, and that’s what I hate.”
The girls talked for a little while longer. Anne mentioned a fight she had with Luke regarding his reluctance to make their relationship Facebook-official.
“He says, ‘Why does it matter?’ but he clearly just doesn’t want people to know,” she said.
She told Leda that she’d leave Luke if he wouldn’t really commit to her, but Leda knew better. She’d heard Anne on so many occasions suffer through such atrocities, and it never really changed. Sometimes she’d be with a guy who treated her better; other times she’d be with a guy who’d treated her worse. The selfishness of the men never wavered, and she was always caught at the mercy of someone else’s whim.
Leda heard Anne say: “Luke is just a very sensitive person,” and promised herself, I will never be like Anne. I will never do something this destructive to myself again.
After she got off the phone, she checked Facebook for the seventh time. She refreshed the page three times after that just to be sure, and between each refresh she went back to his profile. Then she decided to run a bath to take her mind off of it. She played
Miles Davis’s “Blue in Green” on repeat and stayed in the water until she became dizzy from the steam. After that she ate a cheese and avocado sandwich. The bread was pretty stale, so she heated it in the microwave beforehand.
As the light in her apartment darkened into the familiar evening sable, she sat illuminated by her computer screen in the same haze that could not be amended by a bath or a sandwich or Miles Davis. She clicked between Facebook and her e-mail, as it was the only contact information she had listed on her profile. As she clicked between the two, in her lap was Balzac’s Old Goriot. You shall sound the depths of feminine corruption, and measure the immensity of the miserable vanity of men, she read, then refreshed the page. But if you have any real feeling, hide it like a treasure; never let it be suspected or you will be lost. You would no longer be the executioner then but the victim. If you ever fall in love, guard your secret well! And she refreshed the page.
It was late, and she didn’t receive many new e-mails, but she still hoped. At around eleven she got one from an animal rights group with the subject line: “Skinned Alive.” Against her better judgment she clicked the accompanying video. It was about the fur trade. In the video she watched as they ripped the skins off live raccoons. One image would haunt her forever and ever, even as the skin on her own hands became callused and loose with age, even as she was too old to remember most things, she’d think of it. The raccoon was tied to a board or a tree by its tail. There was a lady standing beside it pulling and pulling the skin off of its body inch by inch, as if it weren’t a living being. The animal struggled and fought a futile fight. It did not know that there was no hope. Leda watched that raccoon fighting against its own death. And after that she could not sleep. When she blinked she saw it every time, and there were so many blinks that night. So many little deaths in her eyes. She thought of Alex too. And in between it all she was alone in her apartment.
CHAPTER 13
Remembering
“I just think that she comes across as super needy and obsessive, and I just think that it’s, like, well, why did she sleep with him? I mean, she couldn’t have really thought that a hookup with some random guy was really going to turn into anything real,” Pinched Bralette said.
“I have to agree with that. I think most people who have random hookups don’t really think it will last,” a short, self-indulgent boy named Hunter said.
She didn’t have it in her to listen to the group today. She took notes as best she could, unsure of anything that she felt, or what time it was, or whether there really was anything beyond her breathing in that moment. The voices of the people around her were clear and distinguishably their own. She wrote “Everyone has a voice that is their own” on her paper and underlined it twice as they complained about the first line of the story.
She thought of a ballet class she’d taken as a child. The instructor, Madeline, had lined the class of six-year-old girls up in a tight little row. Leda had a vivid memory of herself looking down at her leotard and her little ballet shoes. She’d tap the toe of her ballet slipper against the linoleum because she loved the sound of it. After lining them up Madeline handed out a different animal hand puppet to each girl. The girls were meant to dance with the puppets on their hands. Leda wanted the horse or the cat puppet; she’d have settled happily for the dog or peacock; the only one she didn’t want was the dinosaur. Just not the dinosaur. Please, anything but the dinosaur. She got the dinosaur. When Madeline handed it to her, pulling it taut over her little hand, she didn’t complain. She’d learned the dance instructor had little affection for children or things they desired. She’d once sent home a little girl who cried over not getting the pink streamer.
After the puppets were in place, each child was instructed to take a leap over a small beanbag marker on the floor. Leda liked the little beanbag. She wanted to hold it in her palm and feel its weight, but she couldn’t, so she just stood there with her dinosaur, tapping occasionally against the floor. She waited in line to take her leap. The girl in front of her, a dark-haired girl with bony shoulders and a white leotard, skimmed the edge of the beanbag with her foot as she landed, and Leda thought that she could do it better, that she could leap over it and not touch it at all. She got as far a running start as she could and leapt with all her childhood might, believing in her beanbag-leaping abilities, believing that she and this dinosaur were really dancing. Her mom took a picture of her in her midair euphoria and hung it up in a pink frame on her bedroom wall across from her bed. Every time she’d look at it she’d think of the dinosaur, and that it wasn’t what she really wanted. She was leaping over the beanbag, though, and so really it was a good day, and this she would remember too.
“I don’t like the whole thing about her hands being like the ocean or the water or whatever it is. I mean, what does that mean?” Hunter said.
No one ever questions songs, she thought. No one ever questions what songs mean, you just listen to it, and you love it. Fuck you all. She sang her favorite line of “Oblivion” over and over in her head. It’s my point of view. It’s my point of view.
Her phone vibrated in her bag. She looked down at it quickly; a girl she used to know from middle school had messaged her on Facebook. What could she be messaging me about? What is it that is keeping me from screaming right now?
The class continued in the way that it did. There was apparently so much wrong with her story, so much wrong with her. She thought of herself then, going to law school. Becoming a real estate agent. Something far away and tangible. She thought of herself in a gray pencil skirt saying, “Objection!” or “There’s one and a half baths.” I’d look good in a pencil skirt, she thought. Years later she’d order one from Nordstrom, but when she tried it on she’d think it made her look hippy. It didn’t, not at all. She looked long and lean in it, and when she pulled her hair back, standing sideways, looking at her reflection in the mirror, she looked maybe the most beautiful she had ever looked. Despite her intention of sending it right back, she’d neglect to return it and would find it months later buried in a hall closet, creased in a plastic bag. She’d donate it to charity. “It’s brand-new. Somebody should get some use out of it,” she’d say as she handed it over. As if “brand-new” could mean something in this context, she’d think.
As the class began to wind down, she checked the clock and promised herself ice cream at home. In a half hour you’ll have ice cream. Patricia pulled herself forward in the way she always did when she was about to speak, slow and level like a great ship. Here we go, Leda thought. Now she is going to tell me why I suck. I know I suck. Let’s go home and have ice cream and be a lawyer.
“Thank you, class, I appreciate everyone’s comments on this very interesting piece that Leda has turned in. I’d like to start off first by saying that I don’t, for the most part, really agree with anyone’s comments. I think this is what I would describe as an honest piece. This retelling of a bad one-night stand is vulnerable and painful, and, quite frankly, brave. And while I appreciate Abby’s point that the heroine comes across as needy, or obsessive, or dependent on a man, I’d say that that is what is sort of genius about this. Now it is debatable whether or not the character succeeds here, but I’d hesitate to call her a failure. And the story itself is far from a failure.” Patricia leaned toward Leda, handing off her notes. “And if I had a crystal ball, I’d say this story will be published.”
Suddenly it was as if air had been pumped back into her lungs. She felt like her body was rising, as if she were leaping far above the class and their comments, not touching them even along the edges. It was the absolute most fearless she could ever feel.
She wanted to thank Patricia as she left the class, but she didn’t know what to say so instead she just smiled. Patricia smiled back and started walking out with her.
“I do really think that story is quite an accomplishment, and you need to send it out to publications. Have you been sending any of your work out?” she sa
id.
“No, I mean, I really haven’t. I’ve always felt that my stuff lacks a certain polish.”
Patricia shook her head, steady as a ship. “It’s easy to always question and to never feel quite ready, but you are ready, and you should be sending your stuff out.”
Leda tried to keep pace with Patricia’s step. Her walk was heavy and long. Something about her that could have been deduced from the way she spoke, and the thinness of her lips.
“It’s so encouraging to hear you say that. It’s just so easy to get discouraged.”
“Don’t be.” Patricia turned toward the elevator. “Are you going this way?” she asked.
“No, I have another class on this floor.”
“Well, if you ever want to stop by my office for a chat, please feel free.”
“Thank you. I’ll definitely do that sometime,” Leda said.
“Great. Well, you have a good night.”
“Bye.”
As Leda walked away she regretted not saying “Thanks, you too,” after Patricia had said “have a good night,” but the thought was little disruption to what she would consider to be one of the best conversations of her life. She’d relive it years down the line, remembering it as Patricia having told her she was a great writer. She’d forget the long, heavy walk and feeling sorry about saying “Bye” instead of “Thanks, you too.” She would remember the way Patricia said: “Don’t be.” And she’d remember how when she got home she immediately sent off a story to The New Yorker even though she knew it wouldn’t get published.
“It’s more symbolic than anything,” she’d have said if someone asked her why she submitted it, but of course no one ever did. She was alone as she sent it, she was alone in her “Bye,” she was alone eating the bowl of cookie dough ice cream and how sweet it was.
