Man V. Nature: Stories

by Cook, Diane

  He had told Meredith about her. But how much? Not everything, since they were still together. Right? Couldn’t be everything, because she was laughing. Right? How much did married people talk about?

  Meredith waved her hand. “But I get it. I stalked him too!” She nodded vehemently, her eyes wide and girl-talky. “I did!” she squealed. “I finagled an invite to a party he was at. I wouldn’t let him talk to any other women. Oh, did I flirt! I was shameless,” she insisted. “Those eyes.” Now they were married, and had a beautiful daughter. “And,” she said, patting her flat belly, “another on the way.” She put her finger to her lips. “Shh. Secret.”

  Janet was flustered. Obsession did pay off. Just not for her. Meredith was the magician. She slumped. “I wasn’t following you,” she lied morosely.

  Meredith waved her hand. “Oh, pooh, I don’t know why I thought that. I let silly lounge gossip get the better of me.”

  What had she heard? Could be any number of things. Janet winced. Since when did she care?

  “You know,” Meredith said, “the teachers here, they’re so prim. I couldn’t tell them that story. But I think we’re probably similar.” She was smiling at Janet in such a genuine way, with the openness, the small-scale arousal that comes from meeting someone just like you. “We should hang out.”

  Janet stood and moved things around on her desk, cycloning them into a shape. She should go home with Meredith Santana, cozy herself into the couch with wine, laugh like best girlfriends, and be there when Dave walked in. She should cross the room to him, squeeze his surprised hand, and say, “I loved your work,” or “I still need my meteorologist,” and play it off like it’s what any cheeky at-home watcher would say, wink at Meredith, make her laugh, get her on her side. She could make Meredith love her so that Dave cracked. She knew she could. Her mind screamed, Do it! Wreck it! Ruin it all! She tasted bile. “I’m late,” she sputtered and threw a stapler into her bag.

  Meredith glanced at the school clock. It was still thirty minutes before the next period. “For what?”

  Janet shook her head. “I’m just too late.” She left.

  Sitting in the car in front of her town house, Janet scolded herself. She’d let a moment pass. Since when was what she wanted not part of the plan? She let the tears come. She’d succumbed to this new era of sentimentality and weakness, in which possibility was dead and buried and there were actually some things you just don’t do.

  Though she knew Meredith was a temporary fill-in who, most likely, would not return after summer, Janet arranged a transfer to the high school in the next town over. With her awards she easily convinced them to make room for her on the faculty. Her female students wept. Some promised to transfer. But she said, “Stay put, do well, don’t get pregnant. For me.” The teachers in the lounge peppered her with questions that feigned concern. Is everything all right? Family emergency? Hidden secret? As a last gasp at insult, she just smiled and said she wanted something better for herself. Still, they offered her cookies more readily than they ever had before. Meredith, oblivious, genuinely wished her luck, her hand absentmindedly protecting the growing Santana in her belly.

  In her new school, Janet ran through the single men, and some of the married ones, finally settling on a well-built phys ed teacher who had no idea that he should have striven for more. He didn’t mind her gray hairs that popped up here, there. Her older breasts weren’t as pert, but he still thought she was sexy when she bounced astride him, and this had an effect on her; it filled her with a terrible feeling of gratitude. The phys ed teacher was a solid lover, and she inched down closer to his level. The sex ranged from fine to good, more tender than wild or frightening. It was nothing like with Dave Santana, but she’d known, during those too-brief encounters, that would likely be the case. She was at her best with electrifying men.

  She and the phys ed teacher settled into something surprisingly monogamous, though they remained unmarried. Eventually they forgot why they’d wanted to hide their relationship at school and began timing their lunch break to sit at the same table. They spent nights at each other’s house, each stashing their belongings in an emptied drawer of the other’s dresser. She met his aunt. She’d never met a lover’s aunt before. Occasionally they drove to school together. But neither mentioned wanting more. Janet dreaded that conversation, but also couldn’t help wondering why it never came.

  A little girl shrieked at a man in the diner, horrified in the way children often are; big tears for small problems. Janet cupped her ears dramatically, scowled in their direction. But then, the slump of the man’s shoulders, the squatness of his neck, the beige; she knew it was Dave without even seeing his face. And if there were any doubt, his likeness marred the towheaded little girl with long curling pigtails; beyond the raging tantrum lay that same blankness. Janet’s stomach flipped.

  She slid out of her booth and sidled up to him and his daughter.

  The girl regarded her warily when Janet drew a line down Dave’s back with her finger, playfully accusing, “I know you.”

  Dave’s back arched away from her finger instinctively. He turned and for a second—she saw it in his eyes—wondered who she was.

  “It’s the hair,” she said, fluffing the ends of her now shorter bob, mildly flustered. The girl’s big eyes darted from Janet to Dave and back, narrowing into slits. Dave’s own eyes narrowed, remembering.

  “Janet.” He adjusted his windbreaker. “Well,” he said curtly.

  “I miss you on TV, Dave,” she growled. His mildness made her feel predatory. She wanted to drop to her knees, suck him in front of the entire dinner crowd.

  “Well, you know I haven’t been on television for some time, Janet.” Being with the phys ed teacher, she’d gotten used to a certain standard of the male form that Dave had never possessed. But he was trimmer than the last time she’d seen him, looked a little more rugged—was that a tan?—a little more ready for anything.

  “You look good, Dave,” she flirted, and waited for him to respond in kind. He did not.

  “You know, Dave, I miss you other places too.”

  He bent down and fidgeted with his daughter’s backpack. The girl wiggled away from him.

  Janet tried a new tactic. “You know, Dave, I met your wife a couple years ago.”

  “No, you didn’t,” he said, flashing anger, certain he had kept his worlds apart.

  She had always liked being someone’s secret, but it was clear being known held more power. “Yes. I did. She was a nurse in my school.”

  His face tightened with ugly anxiety. A face, she realized, he’d made often, when reporting on the nicest, balmiest weather or all those nor’easters, while being seduced, when he came. She pictured the face in some confessional moment with his wife. But no. He would never. Would he?

  “Don’t worry,” she said, disgusting herself by backing down.

  The cashier called his name. “Stay there, Hannah,” he barked.

  “Hannah,” Janet cooed. “That’s a good girl’s name. Are you a good girl?”

  Hannah shook her head and pouted.

  “You know, Hannah, the last time I saw you, you were in your mommy’s belly. And how old are you now?”

  “Five,” the girl said, her eyes big and wet.

  Janet nodded, bored by the information, and smoothed her own hair, let her hand trail down her body to rest on her hip, hoping Dave would notice. But it was the girl who watched. She mimicked the move.

  How adorable, Janet thought. She reached out and fondled one of the girl’s pigtails, silky like a dog’s ear. She coiled it around her finger and gave it a sharp tug. The girl winced and then stared at her with a mysterious smile. If I were a man, Janet mused, I’d insist on a paternity test.

  “You remind me of me,” she whispered to the girl.

  Hannah curtsied, then said, “You’re ugly.”

  Janet clapped, delighted. She tugged both pigtails, and the girl succumbed to the move, the tension on her scalp pleasurable. It too
k Janet’s breath away.

  Dave returned, swatted at Janet’s hand. “Please stop touching my daughter’s hair.”

  “If you insist,” she said, and reached for his hair instead.

  “Janet. Please.” He ducked her. “It’s not a good time,” he muttered, ushering the girl to the door.

  What could that mean? She felt giddy. Dave’s got a problem? “I’ll always be there for you. And I know you know where to find me,” she called, and he paused, just briefly. She could see a tension—the good kind, she thought—pulse down his back. From his stuttered step, Janet thrillingly anticipated the ruin of everything. She wanted him to scold her again. Then half smile in the way she liked. She would know that he couldn’t forget, was haunted by her in the same way she was by him. Maybe he’d ended up with what he really wanted, but there had been moments when Janet had clouded the picture. And she could do it again. She’d just done it. He would think of her tonight. She knew it. Then strangely, shamefully, she wanted to take it back. Her offer felt false, and yet she’d said it. Was that what she really wanted? More of that? Or did she want something new? She hated all this dry thinking. In a daze, Janet shuffled over to the window.

  Dave unlocked his car, and his little girl lifted the back door handle, needing all her strength to pull it open. The girl climbed into the car seat, and Dave buckled her in, tenderly now that they were alone.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a child who was just like her. It would be a place to put what Janet knew. All of it. And children bring other, unexpected things. Certain perks. Maybe Meredith and Dave hadn’t fallen quickly in love, as much as their lust begat a baby that began their family. Janet hadn’t considered lapsing on birth control to get Dave’s attention. She’d assumed what life had to offer wouldn’t require compromises. And a child had always felt like the biggest compromise. But the strings attached didn’t have to be bad strings, did they? Strings might have secured a good life. Strings might have tied her to Dave. If she’d played this wrong, she could make up for it easily enough, couldn’t she? Whenever Dave showed up at her door, hat in hand. If he showed.

  Or.

  Maybe she could secure that life tonight, when her phys ed teacher arrived with wine and a roast chicken from the supermarket.

  Or maybe they could just talk about it.

  You can always change your mind, Janet thought with an ache as she watched that little Santana girl turn toward her. Behind the car window, she made what looked like a kissing face and wiggled it all around. Janet blushed and blew a childish kiss back. But then the girl pinched her nose, and Janet could see that in reality there had been no affection; the girl had been making a scrunched, sour, taunting face all along. You stink, was what she meant.

  FLOTSAM

  “Linda means ‘beautiful’ in Spanish,” the man in her bed whispers.

  “My name is Lydia,” she whispers back.

  In the morning he is sitting on her kitchen counter drinking a beer, his ankle crossed over his knee, his belt buckle still dangling, his mustache glistening from some unknown wetness.

  “I thought you’d be gone,” says Lydia.

  “I mean to be.” He gulps the last of the beer and walks past her, pinching her ass on the way out.

  While folding laundry, she finds a tiny blue sock that isn’t hers and wonders if the man left it accidentally and it shrank in the wash, or if he left it and his feet (or at least one of them) are amazingly petite. She can’t remember his feet. His name might have been Raul.

  The next week, she finds a small red mitten in with her whites, the wool felted from the hot water wash. It could have shrunk, she thinks, remembering the particular style of Doug, with his crisped shiny hair, his colorful thigh tattoo. It could be a fashion statement. But it is late May; the time for wool mittens is over.

  Next, a small pumpkin-colored T-shirt appears in the dryer, Billy stitched in blue thread across the tiny chest. The neck is so small she cannot get her head through. Could it have shrunk too?

  “Is this yours?” She holds it up for the man eating a Pop-Tart at her table, who studies the shirt from his chair.

  “No,” he says finally. “My name is John.”

  On her bed, she lays out a small empty child with the clothes from weeks of laundry. Little Billy’s orange T-shirt, the blue sock and the mitten on the right, a pink ruffled girl’s sock for the left foot. A pair of blue jean overalls, from Sears, size L, 3 to 5 years. A corduroy jacket—the most recent find—with patches from Disney World and Lionel Trains sewn on with mismatched thread.

  The variations in size give the empty child a disfigured look.

  She fingers the T-shirt material, and it is too soft. The lack of friction irritates her, like rubbing two chalk-covered fingers together. She picks up the jacket. Who sews patches onto clothing anymore? Who plays with trains? She picks at the thread and the patch loosens from the fabric. The exposed corduroy looks brand new and is soft like velvet.

  She’s hoping Frank will stay the night, but it would be bad for him to see this.

  She gathers the clothes into a black plastic bag, intending to throw it away, but instead places it in the corner of the kitchen nearest to the laundry room. That night, she hustles Frank straight to her bedroom. “You sure know what you want,” he says as she’s flipping open his belt.

  She sorts a frilly robin’s-egg-blue girl’s dress from a load of towels and storms into the kitchen, where Cal is standing in front of the open refrigerator.

  “Don’t you have anything stronger than milk?” he asks.

  She throws the dress at him, and it lands quietly at his feet. “You planted this in my dryer.”

  He picks up the dress. “No, hon, it’s not my size.” He smirks, holding the dress against his bare chest. He begins to waltz with it. “La da dee,” he hums. The hem caresses his navel, and the top just covers his left pec.

  “This isn’t a game,” she says, folding her arms and gazing out the window sternly like she’s seen in movies when women put their foot down about something. “Get out.”

  She waits until his car revs down the street before sitting down to eat the toast points she carefully cut the way he likes, dipping them in jam and chewing them with disgust. She doubts Cal will be back. She’s only known him for a few weeks, but she will miss him. She spits a chewed toast point onto the plate.

  For a while she keeps her laundry to a minimum, wearing the same underwear for days to avoid finding some unwanted article of clothing in with her delicates. But now she is washing every towel she uses, every bra and pair of socks and jeans, every blouse she wears each day. Just to see. And each day some tiny article of clothing emerges with her clean clothes. The pale blue turtleneck with a sleepy turtle stitched on the front. The little T-shirt with the grass stain on the sleeve. The sweater emblazoned with a rainbow. Striped athletic socks. Superhero underwear. Clothes belonging to children named Patrick, Anna, Ned, Stacy, Jack, Heather.

  The bag is stretched to the point of bursting, and she can’t keep her eyes off it.

  Her dad pours her another glass of wine and then wiggles the bottle in front of her face. He likes to bring nice wine when he comes for dinner.

  She licks the corner of her napkin, absently reaches up to wipe away the wine he dribbled down his chin.

  “Want me to take the garbage out?” he asks, following her gaze to the trash bag in the corner.

  She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I’ll do it.” She picks up the bag and drags it upstairs, nestling it into the corner of her room where the dog bed used to sit, cozy between two curtained windows.

  He’s reaching across the table, cutting her steak, when she returns. She pushes the plate closer to him, and he helps himself.

  “I’m thinking of getting an alarm system,” she announces, though she hasn’t been.

  “Why?”

  “The neighborhood is going down the toilet.”

  He looks out the window, expecting to see some crime in pro
gress. Across the street, the neighbors still have Christmas lights in their evergreen shrubs, though it is summer. He takes this as a sign and nods in agreement.

  That night she watches the bag in the corner. When car headlights sweep across it, and the neighbor’s Christmas lights blink on the shiny black plastic, the bag looks as if it’s squirming.

  Cal is back to test the waters. Afterward he palms the sweat from his hairless chest, wipes it on the sheet beneath them, and points to the bag.

  “What’s in that?”

  “Children’s clothing.”

  “Lydia,” he groans, “I thought we were on the same page.”

  “We are.”

  “So you’re just collecting kids’ clothes for fun?”

  “No.”

  “Are you opening a store?”

  “I’m not.”

  “So it’s junk?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Then get rid of it.”

  She nestles into him for warmth. It’s good he’s here.

  “I will.”

  Early in the morning, when it is still dark and Cal is gently whimpering beneath a dream, she wrestles the bag down the stairs, then into the backseat of her car. It is surprisingly heavy and unwieldy, and her muscles shake under the strain.

  In the rearview mirror she watches the bag. It sits tall and blank against the tan upholstery. She almost hits an old lady crossing the road. When she slams the brakes, the bag thumps against the back of her seat.

  At the bridge over the big rushing river, she again wrestles the bag. She rests it on the cold metal railing, and it balances there, the wind seeming to hold it up from all sides. Then she barely touches the bag and it goes over the rail.

  When the bag lands, the water closes in, submerging it. Then it bursts through the surface again like it’s gasping for air. The light twinkles all over it, and she’s surprised by how pretty it looks, like something special being showcased in a store window. She wonders if she should have kept it.