You Don't Love Me Yet

by Jonathan Lethem

  The band’s secret genius was also Lucinda’s, hiding in plain sight. It was Bedwin she loved, the answer to the question she’d only just formed. Wasn’t he, after all, the true author of ‘Monster Eyes,’ before it had been poisoned by her with the complainer’s lyrics? Bedwin lurked patiently, waiting to be recognized. If he watched her for a hundred or more times she’d reveal fragments he could painstakingly trace and study. Unlike Fritz Lang’s film, she’d never be the same twice. In Bedwin she’d never inspire monster eyes, no. Someone so helpless could never discard her. As she kissed Bedwin and laughed and pulled him nearer to her she realized she’d be to him as Carl had been to her: enlivening, total, incomprehensible. Only she’d never abandon him, never quit her new life.

  “Oh, wow, gosh, Lucinda,” Bedwin breathed, from behind his panting return of her kisses, unwilling to stop but needing to register amazement.

  “Yes, it’s crazy, it’s good.”

  “Wow, but I had no idea you felt—”

  “I know, it’s incredible we didn’t think of it sooner.”

  “I guess—”

  “Don’t guess, there’s nothing to guess.” Lucinda covered him, tipped him. Bedwin’s legs wriggled from beneath him and he and Lucinda fell enlaced, to occupy the oasis of carpet in Bedwin’s vault, his snail shell. The film played in the background, urgent pensive voices under the soundtrack, We weren’t meant to be happy…it’s always too late, isn’t it? If only we’d been luckier, if something had happened to him in the yards… Lucinda invaded Bedwin’s T-shirt, palmed the knob of bone over his heart, the sprouts of hair defending his largish nipples. He licked and snuffled against her neck, supporting himself on his elbows, his fingertips gentle at her waist. She tugged her own blouse free.

  “Lucinda?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sleeping with Carl?”

  “I was, but I’m not anymore.”

  “Oh. Can I ask you something else?”

  “Yes, Bedwin, anything.”

  “Did Carl really write the lyrics to ‘Monster Eyes’ and those other songs?”

  “Yes, Bedwin, he did. I mean, the parts that you didn’t write or I didn’t write.”

  “What parts did you write?”

  “Just some of ‘Monster Eyes,’ I guess. Not the others. That was all you and Carl.”

  Bedwin’s breath came in ragged shudders as Lucinda’s hand ranged to his belly.

  “Is it okay?”

  “Yes,” he managed. “It’s just strange.”

  “This, you mean? Or collaborating with Carl?”

  “Both.”

  She tried to smother his doubts on either subject, clambering so her unbound breasts swam onto his chest, whirling her tongue at his ear. She tore at the fly buttons of his jeans, which gave way easily.

  “Luce—”

  “Bed.”

  “Oh—”

  She might have expected he’d be reticent, soft and afraid in his underwear, needing to be teased or beguiled. Instead he sprang into her palm, too ready, and all at once jetted soggily across her wrist.

  “Oh, Bedwin,” she said, astonished.

  “Sorry.”

  “No, don’t be sorry.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “There are ways—”

  “No, not that. I mean I can’t help being sorry.”

  Blue ghosts swam through the room. Lucinda blotted her wrist against Bedwin’s shirt. He sighed his remorseful satisfaction, his spidery hands still idling at her waist. Lucinda lingered so early in her arc of arousal that any chance of reciprocity felt absurd. Bedwin stood as much chance of locating her desire now as of expertly piloting a steam shovel or minesweeper. She kissed the top of his head. He groped for his glasses, which were crushed beneath her hip. As he replaced them on his face he turned from her.

  “I didn’t know I meant anything to you,” he said simply.

  “Oh, Bedwin.”

  “I miss a lot of things. Stuff goes over my head.”

  “You’re the smartest—”

  “Listen to me. I’m shy. I’m not stupid. I can’t meet people’s eyes. I don’t know if you understand what that’s like. There’s a whole world going on around me, I’m aware of that. It’s not because I don’t want to look at you, Lucinda. It’s that I don’t want to be seen. I’m afraid of what you’ll see inside me. I’m ashamed, like you’ll look in my eyes and see some kind of foul matter, something messed up.”

  “You’re a beautiful man, Bedwin.” Even as she spoke she understood they could never be together, that she’d come to him drunk on shame herself, reeling from the complainer’s rejection. She saw Bedwin whole and real at last. Beautiful, in his way, he wasn’t hers, had never been.

  “I know there’s a price for looking away,” he said. “Everyone else is making stuff happen with their eyes. Connections, transactions. I don’t know if you can understand how angry I feel sometimes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. I just didn’t know that you could see me. You always seemed a little, uh, frantic. I hope you don’t mind my saying that.”

  “It’s okay. I probably am frantic.”

  They were silent again, Bedwin straightening himself, rotating his head as if to shake water from his ear. Then he abruptly plunged to kiss her breasts, still bared in the blue gloom.

  “Oh, Bedwin, no.”

  “What?”

  “Just not now.”

  “Okay. Lucinda?”

  “Yes?”

  “What are we going to tell Denise?”

  “What do you mean, tell Denise?”

  “You know.”

  A horror fell on her at his words. She had every idea what Bedwin was talking about, all at once.

  “I thought she just liked feeding you a lot of root beer and baloney sandwiches,” she said.

  “Ginger ale, Lucinda.” A tone of hurt entered Bedwin’s voice, as though this distinction was the world. Perhaps for him it was. It was just the sort of thing Denise would observe and attend to. Lucinda considered how a whole life, two lives, could be comprised of such gestures.

  “Was there anything else between you?”

  “Not technically, no.”

  “What do you mean, technically?”

  “I mean, I guess I just always felt there was an understanding that we were sort of heading in a certain direction. There was you and Matthew—I mean, not anymore, I guess. But you can see how it seemed. The two very attractive and sort of flighty people had gotten together and the two somewhat more, uh, quiet and serious ones—”

  “No, no, Bedwin—”

  “Well, of course not now that we’re, um—”

  “No, Bedwin,” she wailed. “Two people can’t just drift toward each other so slowly, like glaciers, like continents, it’s not fair to their friends—”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I have to go, Bedwin.”

  “I love you, Lucinda.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said, though it was only what she’d told herself an hour earlier, less. “You don’t, you don’t.”

  For the second time that night she fled.

  no complaints, no telephones, no band, no friends, no zoo, no kangaroo, no driving wildly to any other person’s apartment, not even her own, none except that one to which he might return. No clothes, either, her garments were a false skin. She shed them as she moved across the floor to the bed, scattered them one by one until she pushed through his green curtain nude. No conversation this time, no false confrontations. She never wanted to know who Susan Ming was, should never have asked in the first place. She would only exist here in the complainer’s bed until he returned.

  He would. And find her. As he’d found her before, on the telephone, naked of anything but delight in him, expecting nothing. She’d return to that state. Had, in fact. And so waited, in the vast dark. Alone, consoled by the green cur
tain drawn around the smaller arena of the bed. The room was seamless to sound, a perfect rehearsal space, as it happened. Maybe all that had occurred to this point was only a kind of rehearsal. A demo tape. The band, her friends, her life. Now what mattered could begin. It was often this way, life consisted of a series of false beginnings, bluff declarations of arrival to destinations not even glimpsed. Seemingly permanent arrangements dissolved, stories piled up, exes amassed like old grievances. Always humorous in retrospect how important they’d seemed at the time. The little fiasco with Bedwin, for instance, already a legendary moment, rapidly receding into the past. Lucinda Hoekke was twenty-nine years old.

  Spread on his comforter she made the attempt again to touch herself, inventorying what he’d had under his hands, what he’d nudged and lapped with his lips and tongue and blunt warm penis, all that she’d bared to him, now bared to the air and her own cool dry hands. What she’d given him was enough for anyone. She only had to have it ready here and not let the clutter of language rise up between the complainer and what she offered him—herself. She left herself unfiddled, unorgasmed, only triggered, tuned aware. In the perfect silence and the imperfect dark, night-lit clouds passing in pale drawn reflection on the white ceiling. She waited, closed her eyes, limbs buzzing with readiness. Parted lips. Imagined him returned. Soon enough snored.

  The voices came to her, what seemed just instants later, in a dream of the loft flooded with orange sunlight, toasting her brain through shuttered eyelids. She basked in this light without opening her eyes, smiled and arched her back, kept from breaking the spell of her half slumber, not sure why the dream should please her so much as it did. It involved two people she adored, two members of Monster Eyes, her band.

  “I appreciate your making the time to meet with me on such short notice.”

  “Sure, buddy, why wouldn’t I?”

  “This sort of thing is extremely difficult for me.”

  “Do you want something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Sorry, this place is a wreck. I’ve got to get someone in here to clean it up.”

  “I don’t mind. It was very generous of you to let us rehearse here all those times.”

  “Cripes, Bedwin. I was in the band then, remember? Quit thanking me for everything, you’re making me nervous. It’s like the buildup to some kind of accusation.”

  “I don’t blame you for anything.”

  “That’s a relief. I’m going to make some coffee. This is pretty early by my lights. Sure you don’t want any?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve been up for hours. Anyway, I’m awfully sensitive to caffeine.”

  “Me too, why else drink it? Pull up a chair, tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “I need to talk to you about the songs.”

  “What about them?”

  “Now that we’re not working together, I figured we should address the, uh, situation of our sort of semi-voluntary collaboration, so we can find some way to resolve things and move forward.”

  “This was your idea, or someone put you up to it?”

  “Mine and Denise’s.”

  “What about the rest of the band?”

  “Actually, there is no more band.”

  “That was sudden.”

  “It happened last night.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s not going to be possible for the band to go on from this point. I can’t explain any better than that.”

  “Fair enough. I don’t need an explanation. What’s the scheme with the songs?”

  In this uncannily exact and extensive dream Lucinda now heard the whirling racket of coffee beans in a miniature grinder, the tap-tap of the grind being emptied into the espresso machine’s strainer.

  “Denise and I may continue with our musical project under another name. Several of the songs I’d like to go on playing. As I told you, I find this very awkward.”

  “I get it. This is like a divorce settlement. What I can’t understand is why Denise didn’t come too.”

  “She’s a little upset about this whole thing. Anyway, as I understand it the songs belong to you and me, no one else.”

  “I guess that’s right.”

  “I don’t want you to feel that Denise and I want nothing more to do with you from here on, but I think it’s important that I leave here today with this matter clarified one way or the other between us, so that no other, uh, parties will be able to, uh, exploit any ambiguities, if you know what I mean.”

  “It’s a fascinating problem. Really, you could slice it a dozen different ways.”

  “You should probably tell me what you have in mind.”

  “For instance, we could just divvy them up, you get some, I get some. Or we could split them down the middle, lyrics and music. Take out what we came in with, right? Only, what good does that do anyone? Maybe we should split them the other way, you take the words, me the tunes. That way we’ve each got what we didn’t have before. You’re good at music, you can write new melodies. I can easily think up some more slogans for your songs. Let a thousand flowers bloom.”

  “That’s an odd thought.”

  “Or there’s the option of a nihilistic conflagration. We can declare the songs dead to either one of us.”

  “However awkward, this collaboration represents a significant chapter in my creative life.”

  “Well, that sinks it, then, I’d say. You sure you don’t want some of this coffee? It came out perfect.”

  “If you had some orange juice, I’d have that.”

  “Better yet, I’ve got a bag of oranges, we’ll squeeze some. Just let me wash off a chopping block. What a sty. You want some toast or something?”

  “Sure. What do you mean ‘that sinks it’?”

  “Well, despite collaborating on those songs, Bedwin, you’re looking at someone without a creative life, let alone one with significant chapters. The whole line of thinking is pretty exotic to me.”

  “So you’re going to keep the songs just because you’ve never created anything of value to anyone before?”

  “You don’t pull any punches, do you? Here, hand me that pitcher.”

  “It’s full of crushed limes.”

  “Maybe give it a quick rinse.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound hostile.” Water ran, dishes clanked, the toaster’s coils clicked: the two were making breakfast together. “You have to excuse me, I’m no good at this kind of thing. I just can’t help wondering what value the songs have to you.”

  “That’s the point I was trying to make.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You should help yourself. Take them outright, no charge.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. If they mean that much to you. Truth is, I was never so into music in the first place. You know, I’ve got some bacon and eggs in here, it really wouldn’t be hard to put together a little fry-up.”

  “That sounds good, actually.”

  “Nobody doesn’t like a fry-up.”

  Now the dream had become richly olfactory, and following on the scent of coffee and toast came fumes of sizzling bacon grease and butter.

  “So if you were to, say, hear the song ‘Monster Eyes’ on the radio, even if it became, say, hugely popular and a sort of contemporary classic, you’d have no problem with that, we could expect nothing in the way of regrets or recriminations from you at any point in the future?”

  “Nope.”

  “There’s nothing you want in return?”

  “Well, I was wondering if you and Denise already had a singer in mind.” There was an interval of silence before he spoke again. “Just kidding.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I’m curious—who’s handling the vocals?”

  “Denise says I have a very expressive voice, I just have to trust it.”

  “That’s great. Here, pass me that pepper. Actually, if you would, just keep this from sticking. That’s the way, move it gently from the edges of the pan.”

&
nbsp; “I’m not much of a cook.”

  “It’s coming along nicely. I like my eggs wet, in fact.”

  Their talk was punctuated by the clank of silverware now, and by the sighs and smacks of hearty chewing. Lucinda idled, naked and unseen behind the green curtain, still in reverie. So long as she remained silent and selfless the two players were essentially as she preferred them: benign, enchanted, fond.

  “I just realized I recognize those clothes on the floor.”

  “I do apologize for the mess.”

  “No, but I mean specifically those are Lucinda’s clothes.”

  “She left a lot of stuff lying around here. She pretty much moved in for a while. But you knew that.”

  “But what I’m trying to say is those are specifically exactly the clothes Lucinda wore last night, quite late last night in fact. I happen to be absolutely certain.”

  “You could be right.”

  “She’s awful.”

  “She’s just a mixed-up person, Bedwin.”

  “You’re entitled to your opinion, but I think Lucinda is a genuinely reprehensible person.”

  “That’s why it’s no go with the band, huh?”

  “I never want to see her again. I can’t even stand to look at those clothes.”

  “We’ll just throw them in the garbage, then. Have to get this whole place swept out, but it’s a start.”

  “There’s more, over there. Her underwear.”

  “Holy smoke, it’s everywhere, you’re right.”

  “Should we light it on fire?”

  “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Just push it down in there with the eggshells.”

  “Ugh, okay, there.”

  No dream. Lucinda’s sick eyes opened to the blaze of day to which she lay bare, her lips and nipples and the microscopic hairs of her stomach and thighs alive to tiny breezes, her breath cinched in anxiety. She might pull the bedspread to cover herself or insert her body within the layers of sheet but feared rustling, giving herself away to what now seemed enemies. Bedwin and the complainer clanked plates in trickling water, noises that made proof she was alive and only a few feet from the kitchen where the two had been eating and talking.