White Lines

by Jennifer Banash

  “So,” Christoph says, coughing once and looking away briefly before his eyes return to my face. “I would like to take you to Florent tonight—when I’m done here.”

  Florent is a diner in the Meatpacking District that’s open 24/7 and is usually filled with an assortment of night owls who generally resemble the cast of a Fellini film, or the long-term residents of a maximum-security mental ward. Take your pick.

  “You mean tomorrow morning?” I quip, raising one eyebrow. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Whenever I get insanely panicky, I fall into joke mode. I’m sure it’s horribly annoying, but Christoph doesn’t seem irritated. He looks down at me with something not unlike interest, his eyes so light, they are almost colorless. A pack of club kids I don’t recognize push past, wearing what look like birdcages on their heavily teased and lacquered hair, their spacey, blissed-out expressions a clear indicator that they’re probably on the new drug, Special K, which I have never tried. From the way these kids are falling all over each other like a pack of uncoordinated toddlers, I have no plans to, either. Their movements widen the space between Christoph and me, their shouts and giggles reverberating over the insistent drone of the music so that I can barely think. I feel dislocated, as if I’ve just landed on some alien planet, and Christoph is still staring at me, waiting for an answer.

  My throat is as dry as paper, and to my own amazement I can hear myself saying yes the way I say yes to coke, to staying out until five a.m. on a school night, to the tide that pulls at me again and again, sucking me into the soft, wet sand. I am thankful for the loudness of the music enveloping us, because my voice sounds more like a croak than anything resembling the sounds produced by an actual living being. Christoph leans toward me, trying to hear over the crowd that closes in on us, the heat, the din, the light that bathes our bodies in a red-and-blue haze, light that feels almost holy as I say it again, sounding more sure than I know I will ever feel about anything at all.

  SIXTEEN

  I SIT ACROSS FROM CHRISTOPH, stirring cream into my coffee, the inky-black surface lightening to a pale mocha. Outside, the four a.m. sky is still pitch black, and birds have begun nestling in the trees, waiting for daylight. It is totally out of character for Christoph to leave the club so early in the evening, but when he appeared at my side, I hesitated only for a moment, stopping at the bar where Alexa was leaning across the polished wooden surface, trading kisses with Ethan. As we approached, her eyes swept over Christoph, missing nothing.

  “You OK?” I asked as she pulled away from Ethan, crossing one long leg over the other.

  “Totally,” she said with a smile, her teeth glowing phosphorescent. Her hair fell across her eyes, obscuring them, a curtain falling after a performance, and she turned back around, lighting a cigarette.

  My spoon scrapes against the porcelain cup as I spin it round and round in an attempt to calm my nerves, even though after the coke I’ve done tonight, coffee is the last thing I need. I stare into the dark liquid to avoid Christoph’s eyes, how they seem to take in everything—my inexperience, the chipped silver polish on my bitten nails. Finally, I look up. One hand rests beneath his chin, his own untouched cup on the red paper place mat in front of him.

  “You look nervous,” Christoph says slowly, as lazily as if we’re on a beach somewhere, hot sun shining down on our half-naked bodies, a glass of rum punch in one hand.

  “Well,” I say, aware that I’m stammering a little, “I guess I am.”

  I die a little inside when I realize that my cheeks are probably bright red. Could I seem any more like a stupid high school girl? And if that’s what I am, why is he here? Why are you? the little voice inside my brain pipes up. Why are you here? Alexa’s voice trickles through my mind like water, the half smile in her voice: Why do you do anything that’s bad for you? I’m afraid to know the answer to that question, so I push it out of my mind, erase it before it can take root, sinking its black tentacles into the spongy mass of my brain.

  “Do I make you nervous?” he asks, reaching out and placing one hand over mine.

  I’m aware that I’ve stopped breathing. When his fingers grasp my own, the warmth of his hand is as comforting as a basin of warm water, his touch quietly seductive. Not right exactly, but not altogether wrong either. Christoph is the last person on the planet who should be having this effect on me, but at the touch of his skin, a heat runs through my body, a dry wind, and I realize all at once just how lonely I’ve been these past few months. All my life, really.

  He squeezes my hand for a quick moment and releases it, smiling as he picks up his coffee and takes a sip, his eyes never leaving my face.

  “Maybe,” I manage to squeak out, feeling like all the air in the room has suddenly been sucked out by a giant vacuum while I wasn’t looking. Maybe? Saying Christoph maybe makes me nervous is like saying that coke makes me just a bit antsy. I’m so on edge that my heart is ready to make its eminent exit through my mouth.

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  I watch the hostess walk behind the counter, her hair falling down from her carefully constructed bouffant, the skin over her cheeks stretched shiny and taut as plastic wrap.

  “Maybe because you’re my boss?” It comes out as a question, my voice raised at the end of the sentence. I look out the plate-glass window behind his head and at the rain that has started to fall lightly on the pavement, the sidewalks slick. Across the street, graffiti covers the brick façade of an apartment building, the bright yellow letters rising out of the dark: REAGANOMIKS SUX.

  “What if I wasn’t?” Christoph asks, jolting me back to the moment.

  “Wasn’t what?”

  “Your boss.”

  I manage a half smile, every beat of my heart strained. “Are you firing me?”

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  Now Christoph smiles, his teeth slightly crooked, and leans back in his chair and loosens his ponytail until his hair falls around his face.

  “You like working at the club, don’t you.”

  He sounds like he cares, like he actually wants to know, so I lean forward on my elbows, my jacket creaking like an old chair as I rest my weight on my arms.

  “I think I have trouble dealing with reality.”

  As soon as the words leave my lips, I realize just how true they are. Why I’m saying this to Christoph right now in the early morning in this greasy diner is really anyone’s guess. I feel the blood rush to my face as I speak as the tension that forms in the space between us deepens and stretches taut.

  “What do you mean?” he wonders aloud, the crease between his eyes more prominent. “Isn’t this reality?” He gestures to the room before us with one hand, the punks with blue and pink Mohawks sitting at a table in the corner, the chains on their boots jangling, the pack of gays from the nearby drag bar dressed in mesh tank tops and ripped jeans, and I begin to fear the dawn that will sneak up in the sky, streaking the room with the first flush of blue light as the sun moves higher, eradicating the cool freshness of early morning.

  “This? Not really. It’s still dark out, for one thing.” I reach for my coffee cup and wrap my hands around it protectively, grateful to have something to fidget with. “The club kind of exists in its own alternate universe, you know? It doesn’t really have anything to do with the daily routine of school, subway, homework . . .” I concentrate on the music moving scratchily through the speakers overhead, some grating Muzak version of Hall and Oates’s “Private Eyes” among frantic handclaps and a syrupy orchestration, afraid that I’ve said too much.

  “What about your family? What do they think of you spending your nights in some grimy nightclub?”

  “Isn’t it a little late for you to be concerned now?” I ask sarcastically, taking a sip of coffee. As soon as the hot liquid hits the back of my throat, I wish I could spit it out, my tongue coated in an oily bitterness. Christoph laughs, and his face relaxes. “Besides,” I add, “I don’t live at home anyway, so my parents don’t have mu
ch to say about it.”

  “Good to know,” Christoph says lightly, reaching into his pocket and throwing a five-dollar bill on the table. At the sight of the money, my heart plummets. He’s obviously bored with me if he wants to get out of here so quickly. What I don’t understand is why I actually care. It’s not like I wanted to hang out with Christoph all night. In fact, the very idea fills me with a kind of terror I’ve previously only read about in Stephen King novels. All at once, I’m sweating, my temples damp, and I reach up and smooth my hair back with my fingertips, trying to compose myself. What if he tried to touch me somewhere a lot more . . . friendly? Or, God forbid, kiss me? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, my inner voice interjects, annoying me. He held your hand and you didn’t exactly run for the door, now, did you? Still, there is a huge difference between someone holding your hand across the table, and placing their lips over your own, your breath mingling together until your mouth opens, willingly or not.

  “I have to be up in a few hours.” Christoph smiles apologetically. “I have a meeting with some investors. But I would like to take you to dinner some night soon if you’re free.”

  “Dinner?” I am dumbfounded. I can’t imagine sitting across from Christoph at a table, ingesting actual food and making small talk at the same time. My brain might explode from the strain of having to cut my food into proper bites while not spilling any on the tablecloth or myself, and at the same time trying to impress him with my witty repartee.

  “Yes, you know—that activity people engage in when they are hungry.” Christoph’s slight accent is like the sound of stones skipping on a lake, the music of rippling water.

  “Umm . . . ,” I stammer, hoping for time.

  “You do eat. Don’t you?”

  “Sometimes,” I finally answer. “Rarely, if I’m being truthful. But I might be willing to make an exception this one time.”

  “How wonderful of you,” Christoph answers, his blue eyes flashing with amusement. “Have you been to Chaos yet?”

  Chaos is a new club that opened a few weeks ago. I went to the opening-night party but left early to try to study for a history exam that I ended up barely passing anyway. Sometimes I have no idea why I even bother. I should just drop out of school and be done with it, but Sara would probably hunt me down and kill me. The best thing about Chaos is the rooftop terrace and dance floor, but it opens only after three a.m. It’s full of Eurotrash zombies and models who shop for their structured, all-black ensembles exclusively at stores like Armani or Charivari, who think living dangerously is being out past midnight on a Thursday. Needless to say, it’s not really my scene.

  “I was there for the opening, but I didn’t know they served food.”

  “They don’t, normally. I’ve arranged for a private table on the roof. I was hoping you’d be free a week from today—next Saturday.”

  “I work on Saturday,” I answer automatically, knowing the moment the words fall from my lips just how totally absurd they are. Christoph owns the club, so Christoph can do as he likes with everything he presides over—including me. Especially me. Looking at his face, at how casually he’s suggested this evening, I wonder for the first time if that’s all it is to him, if he’s summoned me forth with the same arrogance with which one might order a fine meal, snapping his fingers for champagne and knowing that it will appear, the bottle beaded with moisture, the silver bucket shining and packed with ice. I imagine myself spread out on a platter, edible flowers strewn through my hair as a waiter hands Christoph a carving knife. I know that I am much like Christoph’s red Ferrari, like all his women parading in and out of the club swathed in tight black dresses: an object to be won and collected. That I am as different from these women as is imaginable is not important, nor is the fact that I’m only seventeen. The fact remains that if Christoph wants me in this way, even if I am one of many, it must mean that I am something of value—at least to one person in the world.

  It occurs to me that Christoph, in some strange way, reminds me of my mother. The same imperiousness and certainty of worth, of absolute rightness. Entitlement.

  This is mine, and this and this and this . . .

  “What’s your favorite food?” Christoph asks, pulling on a tan leather jacket, the highly glossed patina shining under the fluorescent light.

  “Pizza,” I blurt out without thinking, but also knowing there’s nothing I can really do to sabotage this date, to keep it from happening. Most likely I will be sitting on that rooftop next Saturday stumbling through an atrocious amount of small talk and trying not to spill wine down the front of my dress. There is a look of desire in his eyes, brimming there, the space between us as electrically charged as the air before a thunderstorm, the smell of ozone in the air, a yellowed sulfur. Still, even though I know I have the power to cut this whole scenario off before it really has time to begin, I’m frozen in place, my hands clutching the sides of my chair.

  When I nod my assent almost imperceptibly, with only the slightest move of my head, Christoph smiles slowly, and I wonder in that moment if there was really any choice at all.

  * * * *

  THE APARTMENT IS HUSHED AND QUIET, and I turn fitfully in my sleep, the bed a prison, trapping me in dreams that make me shake upon waking. My teeth chatter like a mouthful of old bones, like I’ve been grinding them down to gravel all night long. In my dream, the door opens and my mother steps inside, her body clothed in a black peignoir, her toenails painted a brilliant red that shines against the white carpet as she pads purposefully to my side, my eyes opening groggily at the sliver of light from the hallway. The smell of her perfume fills my nose with its harsh and acrid scent. Jean Patou, I can almost hear her say conspiratorially in my ear. Jean Patou 1000.

  I’ve gotten your report card, she hisses, holding up the offending yellow slip of paper so that it floats in front of my face. It won’t do, Caitlin. It won’t do at all. At this point in the dream I begin to toss in my bed. Sometimes I yell out, as if by screaming I can somehow alter the trajectory of events, wake myself into the present. The stiff paper drops to the floor, and my blood thuds in my ears as my mother’s other hand comes out from behind her back, the blade of an ax glinting in the streams of fractured light filtering in through the open door.

  Put your head in my lap, Caitlin, she croons, her voice more soothing than chamomile. Put your head in my lap. Almost against my will, I move silently, tears running down my cheeks without sound. I feel the warmth of her thighs under my face, her flesh burning like ice through the thin fabric. Her free hand runs through my hair softly, gently as the ax swings down.

  SEVENTEEN

  I SIT UP IN BED, gasping for breath, the air closing in around me like a cloak I can’t shrug off. The clock ticks insistently on the bedside table, alerting me to the fact that it’s 6:59 in the morning, and that I have been asleep for approximately one hour. The dream is always the same, waking me in the early morning hours unfailingly, no matter how many drinks I consume or pills I throw down my throat. I push my hair from my face with a damp palm and realize I am thirsty, so thirsty, it is as if I’m on a sand dune, the ground hot and arid beneath me, the unrelenting sunlight battering my body.

  I reach over to the bedside table, knocking the clock to the floor with a sharp clattering sound that sets my teeth on edge, and feel around until my hands close around a glass of water that’s probably been there at least two days, maybe more. I chug it down, wincing at the stale, dead taste in my mouth.

  I reach for the phone, the room swimming before my eyes. Even in the dimness of the room, my practiced fingers move clairvoyant over the keypad. When I hear Sara’s voice in my ear as if through a veil of hazy smoke and gravel, my panic begins to recede. I manage to spit out the words dream, again, scared, now, help into her waiting ears, and the relief I feel when she tells me to just come over is so intense that tears squeeze out from the corners of my eyelids and begin their slow descent. The early winter sky outside the window is a leaky ballpoint pen, stars obscured be
hind patchy clouds that glow opaquely in the light of the moon that’s fading away.

  When the cab pulls up in front of her building, Sara is waiting in the lobby, slouched in a huge black leather armchair, watching the revolving glass doors with sleepy eyes. She’s wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of pink pajama pants with giant martini glasses embossed on the fabric in black ink, her feet obscured by furry slippers. Her hair is a mass of tangled blond curls that look like they’re trying to make a run for the Canadian border. At the familiar sight of her, I feel my heart begin to stop the bizarre skipping and stopping thing it always does after the dream ends and I awaken, the hard muscle of my heart bumping clumsily against my ribs.

  “You OK?” she says as I get closer, taking in the black leggings I pulled on hastily and the thin white T-shirt that covers my torso, my skin scattered with goose bumps in the morning chill. Her brow crinkles with concern, her eyes damp pools, and at that moment my gratefulness is so huge that I want to pull her body to me and hang on for dear life.

  “Better now,” I say as she stands up, placing an arm around my shoulders, which I realize now are shaking. “Better here.”

  I know that I sound completely unhinged bordering on unintelligible, but I also know that Sara has seen me like this before more times than she can probably count, and that I don’t need to be more embarrassed than I already am. There’s something about the dream that always paralyzes me, throwing an icy blanket over my soul and squeezing it with dead fingers. I guess some might call this a panic attack, but all I know is that if this is just panic, then I have no idea what I’d do if there was a real emergency. Probably curl up in a ball and hyperventilate until I die.

  We ride up seventeen floors in the elevator, my head light, and slip silently into the apartment. Sara’s left the door open a crack so she doesn’t have to ring the bell to get back in with me, and I follow the familiar terrain of the long hallway as we pad softly down the carpet to her bedroom, my hands holding on to the walls for support. Once inside, I feel the last remaining traces of fear begin to slide away as I look around at the room I know as well as the lines crossing my own palms: the broken Betamax that Sara got for her eleventh birthday thrown in a corner, a VCR and TV set up along one wall, the posters lining the fuchsia walls, the Cure, Bauhaus, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, the Sisters of Mercy, the motley crew of tattered teddy bears and fuzzy, dilapidated penguins strewn atop a queen-sized mattress on the gray carpeted floor. The large windows that overlook Park Avenue are shrouded in swirls of heavy black material that makes the room seem cavelike, despite the early morning light threatening to streak the sky and belie the impending rain. I would know this room if I were blindfolded—the cloying purple scent of the Aussie Sprunch spray Sara liberally applies each morning, the smoky incense that smells of green tea and cedar that she buys in bulk on the narrow streets of Chinatown, and the scent of Sara herself, a dark musk mixed with the cleanness of lemons and the psychedelic haze of patchouli. An old New Order tape plays softly on the red boom box on top of the dresser. The track is “Your Silent Face.”