Severance

by Ling Ma

  We’re not supposed to be here. Let’s go. Let’s just go. Something feels wrong. I kept saying this, repeating the same sentences in different variations, just repeating, repeating.

  Calm down, Janelle said, rubbing my shoulder. We’ll get the weed, we’ll go.

  We shouldn’t be stalking our own homes.

  Ten minutes, Janelle said, handing me the glass of water. I shook my head, waving it away.

  It’s not that, I said. It’s something else, it feels wrong. It feels wrong that we’re stalking our former, old … I mean, would you go back?

  I trailed off when I saw Evan. He had emerged, red-faced and panting, from the hallway. His expression was unreadable, but on cue, by some unspoken understanding, Janelle dropped everything and followed him. I also followed, from the kitchenette down the wood-paneled hallway, tripping on pizza boxes that littered the carpets, passing closed doors.

  Ashley’s room looked as if it belonged to a different house, so tidy and orderly. Though small: it was a little candy box, no larger than a walk-in closet. That the room existed as she’d said, that the walls were in fact painted a carnation pink, comforted me. On the pink walls, costume jewelry, bracelets and necklaces, hung from nails, from largest to smallest. The bed was a cornucopia of stuffed animals, also arranged from largest to smallest. Cluttering the floor were shoe boxes that Evan and Ashley must’ve searched through, the shoes now mismatched and tossed all over the floor; grimy New Balances, outdated Candie’s platforms, scuffed heels in a range of colors.

  Ashley was going through her shallow closet, engrossed in the seemingly endless array of dresses in all colors and fabrics, satins and tulles and canvases. Wearing only shoes and underwear, she replaced one dress on the hanger and lifted a black dress off the next hanger. She put it on. Turning around, she modeled in front of the full-length mirror. Her neutral expression registered no opinion on her outfit, neither pleasure nor displeasure, but her body went through all the motions of posing. She sucked in her stomach. She pushed out her ass. She puckered her lips into duck face.

  I looked away. There was something unbearably private about this, watching her rehearse her sexuality, informed by the most obvious movies and women’s magazines, with embarrassingly practiced fluency.

  The posing went on for a while. At some point she winked at herself, her eyes blank but her features contorted to willfully suggest playfulness. Then, after a certain number of poses, she took the dress off, placed it back on its original hanger, and reached for the next dress in the closet.

  Janelle made her no-nonsense approach. Assssssshley, she hissed. We don’t have time for this.

  Evan tried to explain. She won’t—

  I don’t care. She yanked the dress out of Ashley’s hands. Undeterred, Ashley took another dress out of the closet, and Janelle snatched it out of her reach again. It seemed that there was a methodical way Ashley was choosing the dresses. She was going in the order from which they hung in her closet, left to right. The next dress Ashley selected was an electric-blue bandage dress, and this time Janelle didn’t stop her. She was starting to figure it out.

  The dress was too tight on Ashley, and as she squeezed her body through, the stitching on the sides began to rip.

  Janelle stood in front of the mirror, blocking the reflection. Ashley, she said loudly, enunciating, you can take as many of these dresses as you want. Just come with us, please. She grabbed Ashley’s shoulders. Snap out of it. We need to go.

  Janelle, I said.

  Janelle, Evan said, a little louder. Janelle! I already tried that.

  She turned to Evan. How did this happen?

  We were trying to find the weed under her bed, Evan explained. It was stashed in one of those shoe boxes but she didn’t remember which one. When we were opening up the boxes, she also started trying on some shoes.

  So? Janelle said accusingly.

  Well, then she started trying on old clothes. Evan gestured toward Ashley. Just like what you see now. I told her that we didn’t have time but she said she wanted to take a few things. She said it was her only chance, and I was too busy going through the shoe boxes to notice.

  Did you find the weed? I asked.

  Well, I found this. From his back pocket, Evan handed me a Ziploc bag. It was barely anything, just a tiny nugget riddled with twigs and seeds. The plastic of the bag was warm and moist from his pocket. You could make one joint, if that even.

  Evan turned to Janelle, continued speaking. And she was just lost in this thing. I tried to snap her out of it. I even said we could come back and do a real stalk on this place in the morning, with Bob and everyone. It was like she couldn’t hear me.

  We all looked at Ashley.

  The next dress that she tried on was the biggest of them all. Reaching in the back of the closet, she brought out what looked like a prom dress, in the style of Jessica McClintock, a beaded, jeweled white bodice anchored by a ridiculously fluffy tulle skirt, a dinner-bell silhouette. Her hair caught in the zipper as she zipped herself up in it, but she didn’t flinch, and the strands of hair stayed stuck in the zipper.

  It’s almost light out, Evan said. They’re going to wake up any moment and find us missing. Look, I say, let’s go get Bob. We’ll come back here with everyone, and we’ll get Ashley. We’ll figure this out.

  Janelle raised her eyes and looked straight ahead in the mirror, at Evan, sizing up his reflection, his manners. When she spoke, it was cold and quiet. And what, we tell Bob that Ashley is maybe fevered? Bob is just going to leave her here—or worse.

  He took a breath. I don’t know what to do, Janelle.

  Well, we can’t just leave her here. She paused for a moment, studying Ashley. You know what, guys, we’re going to carry her. Evan, help me. She was already attempting to hoist one of Ashley’s arms over her shoulder, but it slid off.

  Help me, Janelle repeated, grabbing Ashley again by the arm. Candace, hold the flashlight.

  With Janelle and Evan on either side of Ashley, buffered by an unwieldy cloud of tulle, they managed to hoist her successfully. I followed behind them, holding up the flashlight to light their way, still clutching the weed in my other hand, down the hallway through the kitchenette. Ashley’s head was rolled back.

  I looked at her eyes, upside down. They were open but unfocused. They didn’t register me. The pupils didn’t move. The closest approximation for this gaze is when someone is looking at their computer screen, or checking their phone.

  Then she sneezed. She sneezed all over my face, and I clutched my mouth. I ran into the kitchen and splashed cold water on my face—an instinctive reaction.

  Candace, Janelle hissed. We need your help.

  They had carried Ashley as far as the living room when, suddenly, her arms and legs went slack. Her whole body went slack, in fact, and it was all Evan could do to slide her down to the floor gracefully. They set her down carefully on her back.

  Ashley’s eyes were now closed, as if she were in a deep slumber. She lay absolutely still, a sleeping beauty, the soft, submissive center of some fairy tale, a piece of linty candy left on the floor in her princess dress. Janelle and Evan argued about what to do, but we just stood there helplessly.

  She opened her eyes. She opened her mouth.

  It took me a second to understand that there was sound coming out of Ashley’s mouth. It was a sound of pain, but resigned; flattened into monotony. I had never heard anything like it before. The closest approximation is a hum, but stronger and fresher; sticky and electric and rhythmic like a pestilence of parched cicadas on the deepest summer night. It is a sound that you can feel, that enters your body like bass pumping from an SUV on the street below, outside the window. The SUV is waiting at the red stoplight. The track is Rihanna, and it was the only thing I’d heard that weekend. It was a few nights after Jonathan had left. Summer nights in my Bushwick studio, when it was so hot with no air-conditioning, and I’d put cold water on dishrags and stick them leechlike all across my body. Across my legs
and thighs, my forehead. I’d put ice in a Ziploc bag and stuff it in my pillowcase before I went to sleep. All the lights were off, and I just lay there, trying to pass the hours before I had to get up and go to work, which was impossible when the night was so loud. My neighbor’s electric air conditioner, the bass pumping from other people’s cars. They were all converging together to say one thing: You are alone. You are alone. You are alone. You are truly and really alone.

  Such a sound is mesmerizing. It comes into your body. Your breath syncs up with its rhythm. You can feel cells struggling, breaking down, or otherwise proliferating with overcompensating energy, engaging in mitosis and dividing and dividing. Stop, I wanted to say to my body, just stop it. Stop. The feeling of these cells overreacting is one of pins and needles, like what happens when your foot falls asleep, except all over my entire body. It started in the back of my head, then spread from there. The pins and needles pulsated, squeezed me like a fist, performed the Heimlich, issued lashings of pain, masticated me, palpitated me, pummeling me with crashing waves of nausea. My body was falling asleep. I needed to wake it up, I needed to wake my body up.

  I ran through the living room, out the front door, onto Ashley’s street, and when I reached the end of that street, I ran onto the main drag, past its vacant storefronts and fast-food joints, retracing, not consciously, the route that Ashley had led us down. I just ran. I was just running. I was running back to where I came from. I was running clean into the night, except that it wasn’t night anymore. It was almost morning. Light was breaking over the horizon, just barely. I could hear the sound of birds chirping, trees swaying. Ashley’s town that I was running down was filled with shaggy, overgrown trees. I slowed down at the exit ramp, heart exploding.

  Candace!

  It was Evan, following behind me, red-faced, panting.

  Where’s Janelle? I asked, when I had regained my breath.

  She’s— He gulped, still panting. She’s still behind.

  We can’t go back, I said.

  I know.

  We can’t go back, I said again, as if we were arguing.

  I know, he repeated.

  We kept running, even though no one was chasing us. The sky was lightening so quickly. On the freeway, pines and bare branches brushed against us noncommittally. Everywhere we ran, we were touched. We couldn’t not be touched, even if we preferred it that way. The world just felt unbelievably full and dense, bursting.

  Running and running, we returned to camp, where Bob was waiting.

  11

  After the shark fin dinner party, all the tenants in our East Village building, including Jane and me, received notice that our leases would not be renewed; our apartments were being converted into single-family condos. In less than six months, they would be knocking down walls, installing dishwashers and marble countertops. We were given the option to buy our units, but they were going for millions. Jane decided to move in with her boyfriend, a trader who lived in Murray Hill. Most everyone else was moving to the boroughs, outer Brooklyn or Queens.

  In the last few weeks of living in the apartment, I spent most of my free time at home. With Jane out at her boyfriend’s most weekends, I had the whole place to myself. Rarely did I go on long, meandering walks like I used to. It was either office or home, home or office. My habits on the weekends were sedentary. I did some household chores, ate sandwiches, watched TV, read books and magazines, tunneling deeper in solitude. I didn’t see anyone, not Jane or Steven or any of my college friends. I’d once read about how animals go off by themselves into the forest to rest for several days or weeks, without moving.

  Occasionally I saw Jonathan, in the form of casual, inadvertent encounters. He would come up to return a misplaced piece of mail addressed to me, or ask to borrow eggs, or to bring me a bottle of iced tea, unbidden, from the corner bodega. After each neighborly act, we’d smoke a cigarette out on the fire escape, circling around each other. Twenty minutes would pass, at which point he would politely excuse himself and tromp downstairs. He seemed to respect my space. He seemed to intuit the threshold of my ability to be social. He never asked me out, never asked me to do things with him. Except once.

  One Saturday morning, I was sitting by the window, reading, when I heard his voice. Hey.

  I glanced out at the fire escape and saw Jonathan, halfway up the stairs.

  Hey, I said, and opened the window to let him in.

  How’s that going for you? he asked, gesturing toward my book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs.

  It’s kind of amazing. You actually recommended this one, I said. Sometimes, while I was away at work, he’d stick Post-it notes of book or movie recommendations on my windowpane. He said it was because it was too cumbersome to text on his flip phone.

  It’s kind of timely, considering we’re getting priced out. He paused. I actually came up here to ask you something. What are your moving plans?

  I’m moving to Bushwick.

  I meant, how are you moving?

  I haven’t really figured that out yet. It’s not until the end of the month though, right? So I’ll probably figure out something last minute.

  I rented a U-Haul. And I’m moving to Greenpoint, which is pretty close to Bushwick. I can help you move.

  Oh, that’s okay.

  No, seriously. I don’t have a lot of stuff. I bet all of our belongings can fit into one van and we can just make one trip.

  I hesitated. Are you sure?

  Yeah, it’s not a problem at all. He said this so casually that I knew he was serious. It’s a date. With that, he stood up and descended.

  *

  Weeks later, I waited for Jonathan outside the Spectra office. As I glimpsed the U-Haul coming down the street, I couldn’t help feeling nervous and excited.

  Jonathan opened the door for me, looking very much like a nervous prom date. It’s my first time driving in New York, he explained. Let me apologize in advance for any really bad driving you’re going to witness.

  I’ve never driven in New York before either, I said, you don’t have to worry. I have zero expectations. Just don’t, you know, kill us.

  I fiddled around with the air vents, I adjusted the window, I turned on the radio to something from the eighties, skittish guitar and a deep male voice.

  Hey, Joy Division, Jonathan said. I love this song.

  He made a wrong turn and, suddenly, we were caught in Times Square. There was a traffic jam, and it was like being ensnared in the center of a spiderweb. Horns trumpeted and cabbies yelled, angry, belligerent. Maybe there had been an accident. I could smell exhaust and hot dogs and candied nuts. I could feel the aggressive blasts of air-conditioning from all the stores and theaters. Ian Curtis crooned, in his heavy voice, about how love was going to tear everyone apart. Suspended in that chaos, he was so calm, gently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the radio, as if we had all the time in the world. I reclined in my seat. The track ended, a new one played, and then another. “Sweet Dreams,” “Tainted Love,” “I’m on Fire,” “99 Luftballoons.”

  The radio trilled, It’s Eighties Night!

  The sun was setting, and as the sky dimmed, the billboards and advertisements and flagship stores around us gradually became brighter, unnoticeable at first and then completely blindsiding us in their brilliance as the traffic began to move and we crawled, inch by inch, out of Times Square. An entire office building sat vacant, leased out as a supporting platform for billboards. It was a dream space, a collision of brand worlds, floating in a vacuum. Sitting in the passenger’s seat, with that hypnotic red Coca-Cola sign winking at us, I knew that I was going to be with Jonathan.

  We drove back to our apartment building, loaded up the van with my belongings and furnishings, and drove to Bushwick. As it turned out, he had already moved his things into Greenpoint earlier that day, so we just had my stuff to move. We shared the weight of the mattress and boxes of books up the three flights of stairs. It took several trips, and my effor
ts fell off as his doubled. He took most of the heavy boxes, as I dragged my feet carrying a small ficus or a handful of smaller boxes.

  In my new studio, we took a break. There was nothing to drink, so we opened the boxes of mismatched dishes and had some tap water. The former tenant had left ice in the freezer.

  We crawled out onto the fire escape. My new neighborhood spread out before us: single-family row houses, the pizza joint that sold knuckle-hard garlic knots, some factories, a Gold’s Gym in a converted warehouse, and pretty much nothing else. The neighborhood was still quiet, not yet gentrified despite people like me taking up residence. Nothing was open twenty-four hours, and you could still hear the buzzing of streetlights.

  Next to me, Jonathan lit up cigarettes for us. He studied me. You know, you told me you studied art, but I never asked you about your work.

  I take photographs sometimes, I said, at first reticently. I don’t do as much anymore. Back in college, my honors project was this landscape series on postindustrial towns in the Rust Belt. I’d go to those old steel towns, like Braddock and Youngstown.

  Will you show me?

  I took out my MacBook and clicked around until I found the folder. It took me a while. They were color shots of decaying steel mills, Saturday nights at polka halls, bocce games in the back of Italian restaurants. Looking at them again, I remembered how engrossed I was in that project. I used to drive by myself from campus after class on Fridays and spend whole weekends in those towns.

  He studied the images. These are really good.

  The photos were printed large-scale, Thomas Struth dimensions, I explained, warming up. At our department show, someone actually bought one, the father of one of my classmates. I heard he’s an oil tycoon. It’s weird to think that my photo is hanging in his dining room, somewhere in Texas.

  That’s not surprising. It all ends up in these upper echelons of the rich, Jonathan said, scrolling through the images until he reached the end. Do you have any other work you can show me?