The Animal Girl

by John Fulton

  And then he appeared one afternoon during a storm, the sort of downpour, immediate and powerful, accompanied by lightning and an eerie purple darkening of the sky, that happened only this time of year. The streetlights flickered on in the sudden dark, and the trees bent in the wind. Phosphorescent flashes lit the sky, and thunderclaps rattled the windows of Evelyn’s house. She had poured herself a glass of chardonnay and was sitting out on her screened-in porch, the air fresh with the smell of rain, to watch the streets flood and ropes of water fall from her gutters when she saw him, a tall, lumbering man running through the storm, and called out to him. “Please,” she said, holding her screen door open, “come in.” He stopped for a moment and looked through the downpour in her direction. “It’s Evelyn,” she said.

  Soon he was standing on her porch, dripping puddles onto her tile floor. “I got caught in this,” he said. His shirt was plastered over his bony shoulders. His beard dripped, and Evelyn could see the fragile shape of his skull, its slight dorsal rise, through his matted hair. He wore a tool belt, a hammer and screwdrivers holstered at his sides. “I was on my way home from helping a friend.” He shook his arms, and water came running off him.

  “I haven’t seen you anywhere,” Evelyn said.

  He smiled. “I should go.” He seemed pleased to see her, even if he was trying to escape.

  “Stay right there,” Evelyn demanded. She came back with a stack of towels, an extra-large T-shirt she sometimes slept in, and a bathrobe. “You should get out of those clothes. I’ll pop them in the dryer, and in a few minutes you’ll be as good as new.”

  “I really should …”

  “I’m not going to let you go out in that.” Evelyn thrust the towel into his hand and turned around. The thunder clapped, and the lights of the house flickered off and on again.

  “This is a bit funny,” he said.

  “Tell me when it’s safe to look.”

  “Not yet,” he said. She heard the racket of the tool belt come off, then his zipper, followed by the watery flop of his pants hitting the floor. She laughed at the thought of a man undressing in her house.

  “OK,” he said.

  When she faced him again, he stood in her peach-colored robe, his thick shoulders pulling at the terrycloth and too much pale thigh showing. At the bottom fringe of her robe, a half-inch of damp, baby-blue boxer shorts peeked out. “Lovely,” she said. “Nice and leggy.”

  As a joke, he fastened his tool belt around the robe, and they both laughed. She put her house slippers down and he stepped into them, though only half of his pale feet fit inside. He was so good-natured, so willing, that she felt she could ask him just about anything then. “You said you liked to fix things,” she said. She walked him through her kitchen and into the garage, where she showed him the damage she’d done a few weeks earlier with her Subaru. “I sort of hit the side of the garage. I popped the clutch. It was very stupid of me.”

  He surveyed the damage, the smashed clapboards, the splintered two-by-fours, and the garage-door track so badly bent that the door closed only halfway. He nodded, seeming to understand what was needed. “I think we could do some of this now,” he said, looking around the garage at the odd assortment of old tools and wood scraps left behind by the previous owner.

  Soon Evelyn was watching this man, in her robe and house slippers, swing his hammer at the side of her garage with an expertise she found attractive. Wood splintered as he pried it away. The rain fell more gently now, drumming the roof above them. He measured a two-by-four that had leaned against the wall of Evelyn’s garage for years, marked it with a pencil, laid it over a wooden horse—another item Evelyn had never used—and began sawing it.

  In the kitchen an hour later, she watched him drink down the glass of water she’d just handed him. Outside, the rain had settled into a drizzle and the beaded windows cast mottled shadows across the floor. When he stepped toward her to return the empty glass, they stood so close that Evelyn took in the smells of rain and wood on him. She leaned in and kissed his cheek, then his lips, after which he said, “Oh,” in a breezy, startled voice. She’d been about to retreat when she felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder. In a flurry of pecks that missed her mouth and fell over her chin and cheeks, he began kissing her. He was trembling, and to calm him Evelyn held him close.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why would you apologize?” Evelyn asked.

  “I’m not good at this, not good at all.”

  “Of course you are,” Evelyn said, wanting above all to encourage him, though clearly he wasn’t good at it. She began kissing him gently now and felt his breathing grow steadier, his wide upper body rising and falling against her, as he began to return her kisses. She wouldn’t dare put her hand down and open his robe, but she wanted to. And when, in the next moment, she changed her mind only to find the thick leather of his tool belt in her way, she laughed. “I’ve never dealt with one of these before.”

  “I don’t think we should …” He stepped away from her.

  “I’m being pushy,” she said. “I told you I could be pushy.”

  Russell tightened his robe. “I need to tell you about my wife.”

  “Oh,” Evelyn said.

  “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t even know you,” she said, suddenly angry, “and you’re standing in my kitchen, you’re wearing my robe, you’re kissing me and telling me you’re married.”

  Russell looked down, and Evelyn noticed his huge feet again, their long, pale, tendon-streaked boniness crushing her little slippers. “I don’t quite know how to explain this. I haven’t had to until now.”

  “But you’re married.”

  “Are my clothes ready? I’d like to put on my clothes.” He looked helpless, grasping at Evelyn’s too-small peach-colored robe for cover.

  “All right,” Evelyn said. She pulled his clothes out of the dryer and left him to dress in the kitchen while she sat on the porch. The rain had given way to a white haze. When he stepped through the screen door, he looked larger in his own clothes. His thick hair was a mess where she’d run her hands only moments before, and despite her best efforts, she found the boyish unkemptness of him attractive.

  “You were going to tell me something,” Evelyn said.

  He sat down and put his hands on the table. “I’m not used to talking about this.” He smiled briefly, as if to say, “Oh, well,” as if to surrender. “My daughter, Tessa, and I have had a tragedy. My wife had an accident. We all had an accident, but she was hurt badly. We weren’t. We were fine. She’s been in a persistent … she’s been unresponsive … in a vegetative state for almost three years.”

  Evelyn felt her throat tighten. “Oh,” she said. She should have offered condolences. But she didn’t feel sorry for him. She felt surprised, disoriented, and, as usual, she said exactly the wrong thing. “Couldn’t she still come out of it? Couldn’t she wake up?”

  He shook his head. “It’s more or less impossible. As far as the doctors can tell, her brain stem is alive. The rest is gone. She’s there, but she’s not there. We took her off a respirator some time back and assumed she would go. But she didn’t. I’m recovering. Tessa is too. Fortunately, my daughter was young when it happened, too young to remember everything. But it’s been slow for me, and I’m not sure I’m ready yet. I’m not sure that this”—he looked at her and smiled—“is a good idea.”

  Evelyn could see that he had rehearsed this speech. He’d said it to himself in an empty room, in front of a mirror. Or he’d just imagined himself saying the words as he’d worked on her garage. All the same, she felt stung by how quickly her anger had been countered by his careful hesitation. “Of course,” she said. “I understand.”

  He stood and pushed his chair in. “You know,” he said, “I’ve been purposely avoiding you all week. I’ve stayed out of the café. I’ve made sure not to walk down your street. And I’ve tried not to think about you. It hasn’t been easy.”

  Evely
n smiled. “Thank you for saying so.” She stood up and they shook hands.

  After he left, Evelyn walked into the kitchen and saw his tool belt on the counter next to her robe, which he’d folded carefully, and the thought that she’d see him again soon pleased her.

  Two days later, Russell came for his tools and ended up staying to work on her garage. “I’d like to finish the job for you,” he said. With a crowbar, he ripped out more damaged clapboards. She brought him a beer while he worked and felt an unanticipated moment of pleasure in opening it and handing it to him: He wanted to be in her home, drinking her beer. She was so used to quiet afternoons, sitting out on the porch or in the living room. And now a man was here, determined to do her a favor.

  At the same time, his particular situation was weird, unsettling. When she’d told the story to her business partner, Heidi, her friend first expressed sympathy for him. “That’s tragic,” she’d said. Heidi had a husband and two young boys and couldn’t imagine the suffering her family would endure were she in such a condition. “But it’s sort of freaky, isn’t it?” she said, pushing her wire glasses up. Heidi was a plump woman with short, mousy blond hair and wide hips, and Evelyn had always felt tinges of jealousy that her business partner, so obviously unbeautiful, should have a husband and family while Evelyn remained alone. All the same, the thought that Heidi gave voice to then had occurred to Evelyn, too. “I mean, it really is freaky. She could wake up years from now and he’d have a wife again.”

  “She can’t wake up,” Evelyn said. “He said it was impossible.”

  “But it is possible, isn’t it? I mean, she’s alive.”

  “Maybe,” Evelyn had said.

  As Russell worked on her garage and Evelyn retreated inside, where she kept herself busy by cleaning the already clean counters and reorganizing the already tidy cupboards, she couldn’t stop herself from contemplating the morbid possibility her friend had entertained. Nonetheless, the noise he made all afternoon, the hammering and sawing, reminded her of the pleasant fact that a man was in her house, and she hummed as she performed her unnecessary cleaning. “You need anything?” she yelled from the kitchen.

  The racket from his work stopped. “I’m fine,” he answered.

  An hour after he’d begun, he walked into the kitchen, sweaty, a blond stain of sawdust in his beard. “We’re going to have to take a trip to the lumberyard,” he said. “We need a few pieces of wood.”

  When Evelyn offered to drive, he shook his head. “I try to avoid cars whenever possible. I’ll carry the wood back, of course. We just need two pieces.”

  “That’s how it happened, then,” she said, announcing what she had gleaned from his hesitation. “It was in a car.”

  He nodded. “Yes, that’s how it happened. In any case, I like to walk. I walk wherever I can, which is just about everywhere in this town.”

  There was a lumberyard off South Division, about a twenty-minute walk from Evelyn’s place. Though it was early evening, the sky was clear and the sun was still high and would be, it seemed, for hours more. Home from school, children screamed and shouted from the backyards of the small Victorian houses Russell and Evelyn passed. An old woman dressed all in white and wearing a wide-brimmed, floppy straw hat cut enormous lilac blossoms from a bush and placed them in a bucket. A fat yellow lab ran past them followed by a slim girl jogging in short shorts. At the curb opposite them, a mother was taking her little girl’s hand and instructing her to look both ways when Evelyn felt Russell’s hand sweep over hers and take hold, then fasten on to her so securely that she understood he was walking her across the street. When they reached the other side, he didn’t let go. “Is this OK?” she asked.

  “I think so,” he said.

  People on porches waved as they strolled by, and Evelyn felt the pleasant sensation of being seen with this man, of being mistaken for his middle-aged wife of many years. At each intersection, his grip tightened. He made them stop as he looked both ways and did not relax his grip until they had reached the opposite curb. “You’re afraid,” Evelyn said. “You’re afraid of crossing the street.”

  “No,” he said a little defensively. “I’m just cautious. I’m used to walking with Tessa. It’s probably become a reflex.”

  A monarch butterfly the size of Evelyn’s palm flitted in front of them and was gone. “What does Tessa do when you’re not home?”

  “She goes to her grandmother’s. She lives about a block away.”

  “Your mother?” Evelyn asked.

  He shook his head. “Jenny’s mother. She’s been great. She’s been a large part of our lives.”

  “Wonderful,” Evelyn said, though in truth hearing his wife’s name conjured that strange woman to life, made her seem youthful and girlish, as Evelyn imagined a typical “Jenny” to be. It was once again, as Heidi had said, freaky.

  At the lumberyard, they strolled beneath a fiberglass overhang among large flats of cut wood. The bleat of a forklift backing up startled Evelyn, but Russell was happy here and no more capable of hiding it than a kid. He brushed his hand over the boards and lectured Evelyn about oak and mahogany and kiln-baked pine. Though the former were stronger, harder woods, the pine, he explained, would hold up just fine and was far more affordable. “This is very solid stuff. No knots,” he said, rapping his knuckles over a plank.

  On the trip back, Russell offered to take both planks, but Evelyn insisted on doing her part. The two-by-four that she carried was taller than she but surprisingly light. As they walked past yards and gardens with their strange cargo, people noticed them and nodded. One man stopped working, leaned on his shovel, and tipped his baseball cap at her.

  “We’re building,” Evelyn replied.

  The fact that Russell seemed to be repairing her garage more slowly than necessary was, Evelyn thought, a good sign. They took two more trips to the lumberyard, buying another piece of wood and some new clapboard. He would come by a few times a week to continue the project. At work, Evelyn and Heidi had just finished redesigning a local news station’s weather page, “Weather Watch Five,” and were just beginning work on a Web site for a family-owned photo shop on State Street. Over lunch, Heidi prodded Evelyn for details about Russell. “Have you kissed again? Has anything happened?”

  “He’s rebuilding my garage,” Evelyn said.

  “That’s something,” Heidi said. “That’s romantic in a way.”

  “We hold hands,” Evelyn said.

  “One step at a time,” Heidi teased. And then, in a tone of illicit fascination, she asked, “Any more news about the wife?”

  “No. We don’t talk about her.”

  They didn’t talk about her, but Evelyn felt the strange presence of this woman whenever she and Russell spent time together. She was the reason Russell’s hand tightened on hers whenever they crossed the street. She was the reason they walked and didn’t drive. She was the reason he kept his distance, working out in the garage, clearly wanting to spend time around Evelyn but not with her. And though Evelyn had never seen this woman, had only vaguely imagined her as a figure made gorgeous by years of sleep, by the pervasive stillness of a hospital room—the sheets, the walls, the frozen block of sunlight issuing through a single window—she was the reason Evelyn finally led Russell, smelling of sweat and paint after a long afternoon of work, from the kitchen, where he’d been guzzling his second or third glass of water, to the living room and sat down with him on the couch. “I’ll get paint on the cushions,” he said nervously.

  She pressed her open hand into his, the width of his palm dwarfing her own. His size, the clumsy scale of him—she’d seen him nearly trip over his own long legs a few days before in the garage—continued to strike her with an amazed tenderness, a feeling that threatened to break her open. She touched his thumb, gloved to the first knuckle in the radiant yellow—Pale Orchid, it was called—that he’d been painting with. “It’s dry,” she said.

  “The garage is almost done.”

  “I’ll be gentle. I won�
��t bite.” She kissed him now, neither quickly nor slowly, but with precision, on the cheek, and after a short pause he smiled and kissed her back, also on the cheek. “See,” she said. He nodded. “One more,” she added, kissing him lightly on the lips, without passion, and though his large hand was trembling in hers, he once again returned her kiss with the same deliberateness.

  “That’s nice,” she said. Again she kissed him and he kissed her, and now they began giggling, returning one simple kiss after another with a metronomic gracelessness, their lips meeting and parting and meeting and parting, that gradually gave way to earnest, reckless, blustering kisses, long and deep and finally, it seemed, too much for Russell, who pushed Evelyn away, sat up on the couch, and gasped for air, as if he’d been drowning. “I’m sorry,” he said. And, of course, this woman whom Evelyn had never met and never would meet was the reason he stood up from the couch then and hurried home.