Going in Circles

by Pamela Ribon

  “Hey, guess what, I just quit,” I tell Jonathan as I head straight to my desk and open a drawer. I drop pens and Post-It notes into my purse.

  Jonathan’s quickly on his feet. “What? No! If this is about me and the car, I promise it’s never going to—”

  “Don’t. It’s okay.” I open the filing cabinet and hand him all my untossed paper wads. “I can’t stay here anymore. I hate the job, Petra hates me, and all this personal stuff is wrapped up in my private stuff. Things with you got weird and sad. I just need something else.”

  Jonathan looks devastated. “What made you do this?”

  I toss one last wad of paper at Jonathan’s head. He doesn’t even flinch as it bounces off his forehead.

  “I got angry,” I say. “Keep in touch.”

  Francesca meets me in the hall, breathless. “I just heard. We have to celebrate.”

  “We sure do. Where do you want to go?”

  She smiles. “Do you have a passport?”

  39.

  It’s rather remarkable how quickly you can be on a flight to Mexico.

  “God damn,” Francesca says as she kicks off her shoes. I’ve never seen someone so happy sitting in the middle seat. “I knew we’d run away together someday.” She beams.

  It’s not a long flight, and it’s not for a very long time. I’m unemployed, so theoretically I could stay in Mexico for as long as I wanted, but Francesca only had four vacation days left. We used our combined miles to buy our tickets, and the resort is some kind of hookup through Jacob. Basically, we’re only paying for food and suntan lotion, which means we can afford about three days total. Besides, we both have Rumble practice next week that we can’t miss. This is just an escape, not a solution.

  Francesca hands me a piece of paper. “This is your next certificate,” she says. “But to earn this one, there’s a time limit.”

  It says: MAKE A DECISION.

  “I just did that,” I say.

  “Not that one. The decision. You have from now until we leave Mexico.”

  As the plane takes off, I think about how she’s right. This needs to be done, and it can’t wait any longer. It’s going to hurt if I decide right now, and I know it’ll still hurt whether I decide in ten minutes or ten years.

  But for now I’m going to stare out the window and watch the world from a safe distance as it continues to shrink behind me.

  • • •

  By the afternoon we are both flattened on our lawn chairs, having been silent for hours. Francesca stretches her arms up high. Through the space between her bony wrists, the sun is piercing. It gives her a glow, like she’s all-powerful, summoning the spirit of the sun. She looks like an angel, a hero.

  She turns to me, glowing in a fuzzy ring of sun, and declares, “We need more margaritas.”

  My hero.

  During our stay in Cabo San Lucas, Francesca’s in charge of the important things, like ordering food, reapplying sunscreen, and buying more magazines. Any questions asked by the staff are directed toward her. I am simply here to be as small as possible, a human in hibernation. I am to sleep, drink, eat, and reset my internal clock.

  A funny thing has happened. Since setting foot on this land, taking my first sip of ice-cold beer that cost roughly the change in my pocket, and feeling the warmth of the sun on my eyelids—I haven’t felt like moping. I can still feel the sting of a million teardrops just under my skin, but I can’t seem to get this smile off my face.

  The margaritas arrive. Francesca pulls herself over onto her elbows to sip from her oversize green straw. Her sunglasses are almost as big as her face, and I see myself reflected in them. I’m distorted in her lenses—all giant knees and tiny head. But I can still make out my little smile.

  “Hola, señorita,” Francesca says, almost a whisper. “You were asleep there for a while. You might want to smear on some more sunscreen.”

  I drop white goop along my shins as I look out toward the endless blue water before me. I can hear music piped in from somewhere near the swim-up bar. Harmless adult contemporary. Back home this music would be irritating, but here it’s the perfect melody to accompany the show just to my left: a small group of sunburned and smiling guests engaging in water aerobics. They bob and smile, bob and smile, far away from their own problems, enjoying the easiest exercise on the planet.

  “Francesca, guess what?”

  “What?”

  I hold up the bottle. “Sunscreen. Petra’s party. My wish collage came true.”

  She nods, pursing her lips. “And my heart and lungs appear to still be doing their jobs. Maybe we shouldn’t have been such jerks. Let’s call Petra and apologize.”

  “We should wish-collage a bag of money.”

  Later we wander down to the shore, walking past the remnants of a Zen garden in the sand. There’s an empty bed on the beach, the white sheets of its canopy flapping in the wind. Every vision is like a dream. I hear nothing but the surf, the breeze, and the occasional strains of adult contemporary, which is quickly becoming my favorite sound in the world.

  Francesca fiddles with her tiny digital camera. “Stand in the water,” she says. “You look like you’re on the edge of the earth.”

  I pose, one hip jutted to the side, like a pinup model. I know I’m covered in bruises and abrasions, but I’ve never felt so comfortable in a bikini. I cannot seem to get anxious about the things that normally get me neurotic. I just am. Right here. Everything is perfect. The Buddhists would be so proud.

  “Señoritas! Peligroso! Peligroso!”

  A man is running toward us from the resort. He is shouting, waving his arms madly. I know very little Spanish, but this word—peligroso—I recognize.

  Danger.

  I jump forward, out of the water, toward the sand, grabbing Francesca by the arm to drag her with me.

  The man catches up to us, his neck bulging against the stiff collar of his white uniform. “Peligroso,” he says again, pointing at the water, at the shore, then back at us. “No-no, señoritas. No-no!”

  He points at a nearby sign, one that we somehow had breezed right past in our excitement to plant our feet firmly in the waves. It tells us that the undertow where we’re standing is dangerous, and the surf is extremely unpredictable. Another minute or so and we could have been dragged into the Sea of Cortez.

  “Gracias, señor.”

  I wonder how many times a day that man has to save giggling white women from accidentally drowning themselves while trying to snap a photo.

  We’re walking quietly back to the resort when Francesca bumps into my arm. “I barely recognize you,” she says. “This smile on your face.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” I tell her, “because you’ve never known me to be this way. But before you met me, I was a really happy person. This is more like who I really am.”

  She puts out her hand. “Well, then, it’s nice to meet you.”

  That night, the world around us somehow turned even quieter, Francesca and I sit on the porch, staring at the stars. My skin feels tight from a day’s worth of sun baking, and the breeze rushing along my shoulders soothes me into a deep calm.

  “Thank you for doing this for me.”

  “No thanks necessary. I’d been planning this for a while.” I see her catch herself, then turn her focus to her drink.

  “A while?”

  I hear the slight clink of her empty beer bottle finding the cement of the porch. “I don’t understand why you always let him have so much power over you.” She chews on her thumbnail, looking me over. “I’m going to ask you something I’ve been wanting to ask for a while. I’m not asking to be nosy, and I don’t want to piss you off.”

  “What is it?”

  “What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Her thumb pops out of her mouth with a wet smack. “You don’t have to tell me. But know that I know that’s bullshit.”

  It’s so quiet for so long after that I’m surprised to hear my voice fi
nally cutting through the space between us, almost in a whisper. “If I tell you, it becomes real.”

  She looks at me, eyes filled with tears. “Hey,” she says. “If you don’t tell me, I’m afraid it’s going to kill you.”

  40.

  I’ve never told anyone this, and I honestly never thought I would. I thought it could be my secret, that I could remove it from the story of Matthew and me.

  One night after we’d been married, I was working on my miniatures, everything spread out on the kitchen table. Matthew was out drinking with friends. He was later than he’d said he’d be, but I had gone past the point of being upset. Fully thrown into my work, I was in that zone where everything else disappears, and I live inside the place I’m creating. Things aren’t small in my hands; they are becoming what I see around me. I am sitting in the chair I’m making. I’m leaning against the wall I’m painting. Not that the small stuff is big. Rather, I’m small. I’m so tiny nobody could find me.

  I was working late because I’d had a showing coming up. My first big showing had been the month before, where I’d been a part of a “New Faces” exhibit. I’d brought three of my pieces—the Laundromat, my mother’s dining room, and the Disneyland strip club. (It’s Donald Duck spinning on the pole, since he doesn’t wear pants.) Despite my nerves, the pieces were received exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that they caught the eye of the owner of a gallery down on Wilshire where I really wanted to show my things. There was something about that gallery, its location near the museums, its tiny, inviting white cube of a room. Whenever I saw it, all I wanted was to see my name painted there, right at the entrance. I had always assumed it was nothing more than a pipe dream. But now it was possible. The owner had come right up to me at the showing, handed me his card, and said he’d like to see the rest of my pieces.

  He also slid his hand around my waist and said I was gorgeous. In front of my husband. My brand new husband who was still getting used to all the changes in our lives—the house, the marriage, my career.

  Even before he saw this man’s arm around my waist, Matthew hated everything about him, from his faux-hawk to the way the guy’s jeans were frayed around the ankles. Honestly, it was enough for Matthew that the guy’s name was Book. “That’s not a real name, Charlotte,” Matthew kept saying as we had gotten ready for the showing that night. “Maybe his name is Bookman or Booker or something, but not ‘Book.’ No way.”

  I think the real reason Matthew got hung up on the name was because Book got Matthew’s wrong.

  We were standing there, the three of us, this stranger’s arm snaked around my waist, when Book said to Matthew, “And you must be the husband.”

  “I am,” Matthew said, bristling. I was silently hoping Matthew could understand that it wasn’t like I wanted someone named Book to be touching me, but he was a gallery owner so sometimes I might have to do things like that.

  Book never stopped smiling, which was when I noticed one of his teeth was capped in gold. He tilted his head back to look down at Matthew as he said, “You must be so proud, Mr. Goodman.”

  Matthew rolled one of his shoulders, as if he was physically clicking himself past the first few things he wanted to say. “My last name is Price. Goodman is her name,” Matthew said, pointing at me. “She kept it.” And then added, “For now.”

  For now? He said it like he was the one in charge of it, like he was in charge of me. Now I was the one clicking a shoulder, lowering my head. But Matthew didn’t see that.

  Book’s penciled eyebrows rose to the very fringe of his faux-hawk. “Well,” he said as he started pulling my arm, dragging me away. “For now I just need to tell your wife something over here,” Book said. “It’s very important, and will just take a second. I promise not to ruin this honeymoon.”

  I looked back at Matthew, who raised a hand in acquiescence.

  As I followed this man with an object for a name, he shouted over his shoulder, “Thanks for releasing her.”

  “That wasn’t funny,” I said to Book as soon as he stopped pulling me.

  “Yes, it was. He got all manly with you. It’s very Promise Keeper, 1998. It’s cute.”

  By the time I rejoined Matthew’s side, the damage had already been done. I knew he wanted his wife to have looked Book right in the face and said, “I am married to this man. Now take your hand off my ass and apologize to my husband.”

  And I knew, partially, that he was right. I shouldn’t have been so casual in front of Matthew. But I hoped we had an understanding that dealing with certain types of people means sometimes dealing with uncomfortable, inappropriate situations.

  I’d certainly sat through a hundred catatonically boring functions for his law firm where one drunk woman after another thought she was being supercasual as she flirted with him.

  “I bet you’re suuuuch a good husband,” she’d slur, before turning to me to ask: “He is, isn’t he? He’s a good husband, I just know it.”

  After the showing, back at home and in my pajamas after Matthew had finished his crossword and gone to bed, I flipped through the guest book people had signed. Friends wrote about how proud they were, how exciting it was to go to an art opening and see my name on the wall. My parents wrote that they loved me, and my mother said she was so glad I wore lipstick because it made me even prettier.

  I wondered if Matthew had written something. What would he say to his brand-new wife at her first showing? I flipped through the few pages, giddy with anticipation, until I saw his familiar handwriting.

  MATTHEW WAS HERE.

  It broke my heart. He had tagged my guest book like a kid with a can of spray paint. Had he written that for others to see, or had it been for himself? Regardless, it had nothing to do with me. It wasn’t for me. He wanted to see his own name.

  Soon after that, I found myself having to interact more and more with Book. First it was phone calls and emails, but after he said it was impossible for him to communicate with written words (which made his moniker even more baffling), I met him for lunches. Sometimes dinners. Matthew was working all kinds of long hours at the time, and then would stay out with his friends anyway, so I wasn’t missing anything by spending time with Book.

  But then we sometimes went across the street to the Contemporary Museum, or down the street to a bar. I wasn’t attracted to Book in a romantic way—I mean, the dude’s name was Book, after all—but it was nice to have someone to talk to about the things Matthew didn’t care about.

  I tried talking to Matthew about it, but he would get uncomfortable, huffing and puffing, rearranging any object within arm’s reach.

  “Maybe you should keep it all separate from me,” he said. “That’s probably for the best. It’s your little hobby and I’m glad you have something to do that makes you happy, but I don’t want to hear stories about all these assholes. It really drives me nuts. I don’t know how you can stand it.”

  We stopped talking about it, and because of that Matthew never told me how he truly felt about everything, until that night he came home late and drunk.

  First, he forbade me to see Book ever again. He said there were plenty of other galleries out there, and I didn’t need this one. That he’d buy me a gallery, if it meant that much to me to have my things shown. That I was making a fool out of him, that I was making him feel like a cuckold. That was the word he used. Cuckold. As if I were having a ye olde affaire.

  I accused him of feeling threatened that I might find success, that I might become more than just his wife, that I might have my own world, my own identity. That made him angry, and he said I was just making excuses for my behavior.

  “I would never be that kind of person, Charlotte. And fuck you for trying to make me one. You just want to be a victim, but the truth is you’re selfish.”

  I didn’t recognize the people fighting. We didn’t sound like us. These weren’t our problems.

  I think too much changed for both of us too quickly. We didn’t know how to handle all of it. We didn’t try
to figure out how to be homeowners and a married couple. I didn’t adjust well to the pressures of balancing a day job and my artistic one. Matthew didn’t want to communicate, but would rather have had things somehow just fix themselves with time. Instead of either of us being strong enough to admit where we were flailing and feeling incompetent, we both got aggressively independent. We took care of ourselves, and then took our frustrations out on each other.

  If only I’d stopped long enough to tell Matthew that I didn’t love anything as much as I loved him, and if only he’d found a way to tell me he felt he’d been taken advantage of, we might have learned how to handle a problem together.

  But we didn’t, and what happened next didn’t just affect that night, it started a series of questions that drove us apart, and would continue to destroy the fabric of us over the next year.

  It wasn’t how we yelled at each other. It wasn’t how we called each other names, or made accusations and judgments on each other’s motives and character. We could have come back from all the words, I think.

  But I said something that hurt Matthew enough that he raised a fist. He inhaled sharply just after he did it, staring at his hand, as if he had no idea what it was doing up by his head. He stumbled, and pulled his arm away.

  He didn’t hit me. He punched the table, right through one of my miniatures.

  “Stop it!” I pushed him away from the table, and started moving my things.

  “Don’t be dramatic,” he said. “It was an accident.”

  “I don’t think so. You’re drunk, and you’re pissed at me.”

  “Charlotte, if I wanted to break them, I’d just do it.”

  And then he did. He grabbed a tiny playground piece, and threw it against the wall. I still remember the sound of all the pieces skittering across the hardwood floor.

  He went for another one. An apartment building, my hipster dollhouse, a project I’d spent three months on.

  “No!” I screamed, jumping at him as if he was a bully holding my schoolbooks over my head.