She Is Me

by Cathleen Schine

  Who says I am a lesbian, anyway? she thought. Well, I do, I guess. But, people have fantasies. So what if all my fantasies are about Daisy Piperno? So what if I’m attracted to Daisy? Wolfishly, obsessively, sexually attracted to Daisy. It’s not like I want to live with her. It’s not like I long to adopt a Chinese orphan girl with her. I don’t want to move to Northampton or go to k.d. lang concerts. I just want to sleep with Daisy. And hear her voice. And sit beside her. And touch her hand. And sleep with her. Again and again.

  Which kind of makes me a lesbian.

  Well, Greta thought, Northampton is beautiful, especially in the spring. To be fair.

  Four women and three men in a swimming pool. They are very drunk. They have been drinking a disgusting concoction called a Negroni, prepared by one of the men. He is a boy, in fact. Or nearly. Look at him, in his baggy surfer swim trunks. There is no hair on his chest. His chest is smooth and rippling with muscles. He is staring at me, Elizabeth thought.

  It was the boy’s birthday. Josh’s best friend, Tim, was twenty-six.

  “Happy birthday!” They all toasted him.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes. It’s only Tim, she told herself. The boy next door. She let her body sink until her head was submerged. She floated in a sitting position. He’s young and drunk.

  She sputtered to the surface. She didn’t see Tim in the water, but her mother was splashing Tim’s mother, Laurie. That was good. Then her mother splashed her father. That was better. Splash away, Greta. Elizabeth tried to relax in the water, telling herself that her mother’s splashing was a sign of health. Then she wondered if the pool was full of germs that might infiltrate her mother’s weakened body. She wondered if her mother wouldn’t be better off asleep on the sofa beneath the crocheted afghan. She wondered if splashing was a sign not of health but of hubris. Greta turned just then and splashed Elizabeth.

  “Mo-om,” she said.

  “Don’t whine, Elizabeth. It’s only water!” Greta said and reached out to ruffle Elizabeth’s wet hair. Elizabeth sat on the steps and crossed her arms. Her mother was ridiculous.

  Brett was away, in Washington again. He would have understood that her mother could have cancer, be brave, and still be annoying. Greta was so giddy. It struck Elizabeth as unseemly.

  Elizabeth put her elbows on her knees. Her chin was in the water. Would Brett understand that Tim had a crush on her? She watched as Daisy Piperno splashed Tim, who had leaped into the pool and was now floating on his back. He opened one eye. It was level with Daisy’s bikini top. Tim reached out as if to pull on the strap and Daisy dove away. He laughed. Then, catching Elizabeth’s eye, he stopped laughing.

  “Elizabeth . . .” he said.

  A beach ball hit Elizabeth on the head. She heard her brother laughing. She heard herself laugh, too.

  “I have hair!” her mother cried.

  “To Greta’s hair!” said Tony. He was out of the pool, pouring out another of Tim’s disgusting and potent Negronis. Elizabeth eyed him suspiciously. To have an affair while your wife is undergoing chemotherapy was very low. Her father was an honorable man. He couldn’t be having an affair. There he was toasting his wife’s hair. Could you bring yourself to toast your wife’s hair if you were having an adulterous affair?

  Emma Bovary could have. She would have found a way to think about it that somehow made her both the victim and the heroine. Did her father see himself as the victim and the hero? Sometimes Elizabeth thought of herself as the victim and the hero, so why not Tony? He was closer to the real victim and the real hero. He was closer to Greta.

  Everyone raised a glass to Greta’s hair.

  Elizabeth stared at the silky dark hair under Tim’s arm as he held his glass aloft. She looked at his armpit. I am fickle even in my adulterous fantasies, she thought. I have betrayed Volfmann. She realized she was drunk. She had rarely gotten drunk when she lived in New York. What a waste. It was so easy to get home in New York. Now that she was always driving, she was always getting drunk. Tim has a crush on me, she thought. He always has. He said so. She envied Tim his carefree life. A life free of the shadow of maternal death. What a self-important bore I have become, she thought.

  I’ve got a crush on you, she sang softly.

  Sugar pie, Daisy sang, just beside her.

  Daisy, Daisy, Daisy. Daisy was everywhere. Elizabeth let herself bump down the steps and back down beneath the water. She opened her eyes. She saw two hands touch, two fingertips just brush each other. Like the Sistine Chapel, she thought. Like God and Adam. But who was God and who was Adam down here? In the Bernards’ swimming pool? By the light of the silvery moon?

  She came to the surface and watched Tim push her brother into the pool. Josh was sturdy and square. Tim was lean and long waisted. Tim could be my brother, except that he’s not sturdy and square. He’s shimmering, a thousand drops of water clinging to his skin, to his long legs. Tim jumped wildly into the pool, dove beneath the surface, and pulled her underwater. How many times had long legs led to adultery? she wondered as she struggled up, gasping when she hit the surface. Too many times. Long legs were never reason enough to betray the man you love.

  She wondered if she did love Brett. She had loved him once. She had grown used to him, too, which was a kind of love. But now, somehow, she wasn’t used to him anymore. It was as if they had just met, as if a stranger slept in her bed and peed in her toilet. He hadn’t changed. They hadn’t grown apart. She had simply lost the gift of being used to him.

  She wondered what kind of legs Volfmann had. Bandy legs, probably. She wished suddenly that Volfmann was there with his bandy legs. He would tell her what to do. He would say, “I want adultery!” And she would say, “What about the child? I have a child! Think of the child!” And he would say, “Happiness! Passion! Intoxication!” And she would say, “Adultery is okay in the movies. But this is real life. People get hurt.” And he would turn purple and bang his fist on the desk and say, “How would you know? How would you know about happiness, passion, or intoxication? Adultery may be tragedy, but your life is farce.”

  “Happiness, passion, intoxication,” Elizabeth said, softly, sitting by the pool drinking a Negroni.

  “I don’t know about happy or passionate,” her father said, sitting beside her on the chaise. “But you are definitely intoxicated.” He put a towel around her shoulders.

  “Look at Mom,” she said. “She looks happy.”

  Greta was floating on her back. Daisy held her hands and pulled her gently around the pool.

  “You’re intoxicated. She’s happy. Does that make me passionate?”

  I hope not, Elizabeth thought.

  He began to pace along the edge of the pool, first in one direction, then the other, wet footprints on top of wet footprints.

  “Daddy, what’s wrong?”

  He laughed.

  Greta watched them. She stood in the pool, conscious of Daisy near her, of Daisy’s body. What were they saying? They both looked so miserable. She could still feel Daisy’s hands holding hers in the water. Tony gave a short, bitter laugh. Elizabeth’s expression was taut. There was panic in her face. The air was cold and made Greta shiver. She heard the sound of someone climbing out of the pool. She knew it was Daisy. She turned her head and watched Daisy walk toward the pile of towels. Greta looked over at her husband, who now stopped pacing and looked back at her. Did he know? Sometimes she thought he knew. She wanted to run into his arms and beg his forgiveness. I don’t mean it, she would say. At least, I don’t mean to mean it.

  Tony held a towel for her. Elizabeth was also holding a towel for her. She saw Daisy. Daisy was watching them as they held their towels for her. Greta dove underwater. Where it was quiet. Where it was safe.

  Elizabeth was, as her father had said, intoxicated.

  “Tell your mother,” Tony was saying, turning to go inside.

  Tell her what? Elizabeth wondered. That you’re running away? She’ll see that for herself. She took a swig of her drink, hoping to be
come more intoxicated.

  “I want to watch the ball game,” he said. “I’ll check on Harry. Tell your mother.”

  He didn’t want Greta to worry. That was a good sign. Maybe Elizabeth was wrong. He wasn’t having an affair at all. He was a considerate husband who didn’t want his wife to worry and a loving father who wanted to lend a hand to his intoxicated daughter by being a devoted grandfather and checking on his sleeping grandson. That made much more sense than having an affair.

  When Greta climbed out of the pool, Elizabeth stood up unsteadily, wrapped her mother in the towel, and wished she could wrap both her parents up and hold them safe and sound, and together.

  “Daddy went to watch baseball.”

  Greta nodded.

  “He said to tell you.”

  Her mother pulled on a sweatshirt.

  “Daddy wanted me to make sure to tell you,” Elizabeth repeated. “So you wouldn’t worry.”

  “Worry?” Greta asked. She looked out from the hood of the sweatshirt, her lips a little blue, but her face radiant.

  Tim was suddenly beside Elizabeth. He put his hand on her arm. It was warm. Or perhaps her arm was cold.

  “Happy birthday,” she said.

  “I’m a big boy now.”

  Elizabeth looked down at his hand on her arm.

  “You’re freezing,” he said.

  “Here,” Daisy said. She had just picked up her own sweatshirt from a chair. She threw it to Elizabeth.

  A familiar scent, Daisy’s soap or perfume, something faint and feminine, washed over Elizabeth as she put on the sweatshirt. Elizabeth hadn’t realized she was cold, but now she felt the warmth of the garment with relief. She watched the people around her and saw their mouths move.

  “Tizzie’s blottoed,” she heard Josh say.

  They blurred slightly, all of them, as if they were still underwater, or waltzing in a ballroom, around and around.

  I won’t dance, she sang softly. Don’t ask me . . .

  Josh and Tim deposited her on the guest-room bed beside Harry. She watched them go with half-closed eyes.

  I won’t dance, she sang, in a whisper. Monsieur, with you . . .

  Greta lived in a tunnel, a trance, a cloud, a cave. The metaphors came and went. Each day she forced the blur of life into focus. She didn’t want to miss any of it. Each day she tried to soften the outlines of Daisy’s hands, which were small and delicate and just a bit plump, of her lips, which were large and delicate and a bit more than a bit plump. She tried to muffle the sound of Daisy’s voice. But what she wanted to mute filled the air instead, and what she tried to lose in the shadows stood out clear and pure.

  I’m tired of myself, she thought.

  She was filled with a pity so tender and so true that it sickened her, for it was self-pity.

  “You never complain,” Tony said, full of admiration.

  “I’m miserable,” she said. “How’s that?” Tony grimaced, almost as if he’d been hit. “I’m miserable and I’m rude, too,” Greta said. “Sorry.”

  The phone rang and Elizabeth answered it. “Hi, Grandma.” She glanced at Greta.

  Poor Elizabeth, Greta thought.

  “Mommy’s sleeping,” Elizabeth said.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Greta said. She grabbed the phone.

  “It was a white lie,” Elizabeth said.

  “Mama?” Greta said. “I’m up. How are you? I miss your gorgeous face.”

  “White lies are okay,” Elizabeth said.

  “Your grandmother would approve, anyway,” Tony said.

  “Did you get the robe?” Greta was saying.

  “Does that mean you don’t approve? What am I supposed to say? I don’t know when she wants to talk to Grandma.”

  “Relax,” Tony said.

  “You can put it right in the washing machine,” Greta said. “Can you believe it? Silk!”

  “That’s all you can say,” Elizabeth said. “Relax, relax, relax.”

  “Don’t worry,” Greta was saying into the phone.

  “I don’t want to relax,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t relax. How can you relax?”

  “I’m really fine, Mama,” Greta said. “I just don’t want to give you a germ. We can’t have you full of germs right now, can we? You have enough to contend with.”

  “You’re not the only one under pressure, Elizabeth,” Tony said. “Okay?”

  Greta shushed them both.

  “How do you feel today?” she asked Lotte. “Status quo?”

  “Same old status quo,” Elizabeth muttered.

  After she hung up, Greta went into the kitchen.

  “You all right?” Elizabeth asked, following.

  Greta nodded and took a glass of ice tea into her room. She closed the door. She waited until she heard Tony’s car leave. She waited until she heard Elizabeth and Josh dive into the pool.

  “I want to see you,” Greta said.

  “I want to see you,” she said again, repeating the words slowly, carefully, as if she were reading them.

  She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “I want to see you,” she said into the phone.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  “Greta,” she said.

  “Oh, status quo,” she said.

  “I want to see you,” she said again. And her heart pounded. “I really do.”

  Greta drove to the restaurant. She turned the air-conditioning up high. She wore sunglasses. The road seemed unfamiliar. The sky seemed unfamiliar. There was a sudden thump on the passenger window.

  She got out of the car and saw the gull, stunned, but alive. She watched it totter, then fly off.

  I am driving to my doom, she thought. I can read the seagull entrails. I am driving to my doom.

  She got back in the car.

  I’m driving to my doom. She smiled, hearing the words light and rhythmic and silly as a song. I’m driving to my doom! Doom, doom! She roared through a red light.

  INT. HOTEL LOBBY— DAY

  Very posh and stylized. Leo’s credit card doesn’t go through. Barbie pretends not to notice. He fishes out another, which works. She is looking at the lobby, turning in a circle.

  BARBIE

  Perfect . . . Perfect, perfect, perfect!

  INT. HOTEL ROOM— A FEW MINUTES LATER

  Barbie and Leo face each other. “I’ve Got a Crush on You” plays in the background.

  LEO

  I can’t believe you’re really here! Are you really here?

  FLASH BACK TO Barbie as a schoolgirl, leaning her head out the window to feel the wild wind in her hair.

  FLASH FORWARD TO Barbie now. She’s frightened. This is momentous for her. This is what she has lived in hope of, what she has despaired of ever finding. She reaches into her bag and takes something out, holds it in her closed fist.

  BARBIE (cont.)

  I’m here, you’re here . . .

  She opens her hand slowly, reverently . . .

  EXTREME CLOSE-UP of A PILL . . .

  CUT TO Barbie’s excited face.

  BARBIE

  Ecstasy.

  The pain had come back and Lotte refused to get out of bed. At lunchtime, Kougi tried to entice her with bits of food, but even the rice pudding she had taught him to make did not tempt her. Her jaw was red and swollen when she looked in the mirror she kept by the bed. She combed her hair and tried to put on lipstick, but her mouth was twisted by the surgery, by the tumor.

  “Cockeyed pirate,” she said out loud.

  Her face was distorted and discolored. Inside, her jaw was the site of a thousand deaths, a thousand hammers, a thousand axes, a spreading poison of a thousand twisted, ugly cells. The rotten cancer was spreading. Disgusted, she dropped her mirror onto the carpet.

  “Dirty bastards,” she said into her pillow.

  She called Greta, but Josh answered and told her Greta was out. Out? She could go out? She couldn’t come to see her sick mother, but she could go out?

  Kougi dabbed at
her cheek with a sterile pad. Something was oozing from the red sore on her face and he swabbed it and changed her pillowcase. She lowered her head onto the clean case and thought that even the tall bastard with the flashlight on his head, top man, world famous, was not helping her, the dirty hypocrite, but then again he wanted to see her, had called her just yesterday, taken the time from his busy schedule to call her in person, but then she would expect no less, and he had asked her to come into the office. She would go, of course. Such a handsome bastard. And did she have anything else to do? She snorted. Hah! What an idea! Where the hell else was she going?

  She whimpered in pain, hoping Kougi would rush in, bathe her head with a cool cloth, which did absolutely nothing, but was something to take her mind off her troubles. Kougi did not hear her, though, and her whimpers turned to moans. She forgot all about Kougi. Stabbing pain. Was this what it was like to be stabbed? Over and over?

  Lotte asked God to help her. She asked God to let her die. She asked God to let her live. She promised God she would go to the big-shot doctor.

  “That’s my social life now,” she said to Kougi when he brought her some soup. “Why pretend?”

  “Heaviness is the root of lightness,” Kougi said. He put the television on for her. They often watched CNBC together. “Serenity,” he added, counting out her pills, “is the master of restlessness.”

  Lotte smiled. Kougi always knew what to say.

  “Therefore the Sage, traveling all day, does not part with the baggage wagon,” Kougi said.

  “Oy,” Lotte said. “A baggage wagon, yet.”

  The bar was just off the beach. The solemnity of the dark room caught Greta off guard after the sunlight, the rush of bright air during the drive. Were all bars dark? She sat in a booth facing the door. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and the room was still dim. She drummed her fingers on the table, wishing she had a cigarette.