by Dana Spiotta
Now Michael started to eat very slowly.
“Where do you think you’ll go to graduate school?” Sheila asked. Michael stared at his fork as if it had suddenly become an object of mysterious function.
“Are you going to go to film school?” Dennis said. They all looked at Michael, who was cautiously pressing the tines of the fork into a baby carrot. He glanced up at the adults looking expectantly at him. There was an awkward pause.
“There’s this place in New Mexico.”
“A film school?” Jack said skeptically.
Michael grasped his fork tightly and stared at his fist.
“It’s this valley. And this guy put these stainless-steel rods, four hundred of them, equidistant, precise, in a field out in this valley.” Michael gave up on the fork and started to smile but still didn’t look up. Jack sort of laughed uneasily.
“So the delineated space, this grid, is exactly a mile long and a kilometer wide. Four hundred rods out there to attract lightning. Just for its own sake. That’s the idea, anyway.” Michael stopped smiling. “And it’s there, right now, this very moment, these hundreds of precisely aligned, perfectly spaced lightning rods in a field in a valley about two hundred miles south of Albuquerque, New Mexico.” There was a pause as everyone nodded at Michael and then went back to eating. Jack asked if anyone wanted more wine, and conversation resumed in a different direction and Mina continued to watch Michael, waiting for him to say something to her or glance her way.
He wore a look of extreme concentration. He gamely grasped the fork once again, lifting it with a mechanical deliberateness, then closed his mouth on it, following with a labored and protracted swallow. Slowly the fork went down again to the plate, and then the long way back to his mouth. Eating hadbecome too conscious for him to accomplish, although he seemed determined to continue. She again tried to catch his eye. Later we will both laugh about this, right? He continued to eat even more slowly. He finally dropped the fork and stood up. He excused himself and left the room. Not a glance or a wink or an eye roll in her direction. No one seemed to give much notice to his abrupt exit. They accepted it as standard moody teenaged behavior. They shrugged and commented faintly about Michael “doing his own thing” and “letting him work it out.”
Mina heard the revving of his Alfa Romeo. Michael peeled out of the driveway, leaving her with the pod people, all alone.
Hours later, he woke her with a tap on the arm. She had fallen asleep still in her clothes, on top of the bedspread, lights on. Michael was sitting on her bed.
“Jesus, are you OK?” she said.
“No, I’m Michael,” he said, giggling.
“You’re, you’re like so fucking crazy, Michael.”
He looked a little wild-eyed but recovered; in fact, he glowed with an aloof, distracted sort of amusement.
“I thought you were like splayed across Sunset Boulevard.”
“Like, like, like yeah?” he said, giggling some more.
“What?” Mina asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Am I, like, crazy? No, I’m, like, OK, a nearly perfect facsimile of OK but not actually OK. ButlikeOK.”
“Stop it.” “
Likestop it, or really stop it?”
“Fuck, Michael.”
“I’ve been thinking, Mina, that a person could speak only using the wordslike, yeah, yah,and perhapsas ifand communicate purely by inflection and gesture. You know, like,” and he nodded and then he shrugged.
“Stop it.”
“It’s Zen language, minimal, pure, all reduced to context and intonation. Hyperbolic emphasis. All complications of meaning reduced to these porous words, as meaningful or as meaningless as you choose. Erasing language, pure inflection. Pure speech. So nonspecific it encompasses everything, sort of, like, profound, you know? We could call it “like” speaking.”
“Are you OK?”
“Like, yeah.” Michael raised the inflection on the last part ofyeahas if to say, That is obvious.Soobvious.
“I screwed up, Mina,” Ashlee said. She was twenty-two and astoundingly tan.
“What do you mean?” Mina flicked on the reservation computer.
“I mean I entered the wrong information for Mrs. Bradley last night.”
“Is that a real tan? Or is that one of those self-bronzers?”
“I entered someone else’s information, and it was supposed to be no fish, but we used a fish stock, and she’s allergic to—”
“Mrs. Bradley? You mean Dale Bradley’s second wife? You don’t mean that Mrs. Bradley, do you?”
“She called. She had to go to the hospital. Mr. Bradley wants to talk to you. He’s in the lounge downstairs. The Room.”
Mina smiled grimly and looked at the video monitor of the lounge. Mr. Bradley.
“It’s a real tan. I mean, I got it at a tanning salon.”
“Ashlee, tell him I’m not here. Or, wait. No, here’s what you do. You go downstairs to Mr. Bradley. You tell him you screwed up and you start to cry. Maybe you even lean on him a little because you are so upset. You tell him you screwed upand you beg him not to tell me because I’ll fire you and you really, really need this job. Think, I don’t know, think of Sharon Tate inValley of the Dolls—beautiful and helpless.”
Ashlee nodded.
“And Ashlee — use your tan. That’s very bold, a real tan. Very bold.”
“But Mina?”
“What?”
Ashlee looked very upset.
“What?”
“I don’t know who Sharon Tate is.”
Mina smiled. “That’s perfect, Ashlee. Perfect, spot-on. Now go down there.”
The phone buzzed.
“It’s me.”
“Hi.” Mina watched Ashlee on the video monitor. She looked great. Extremely tan.
“Mina.”
“I can’t come over this afternoon.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I think I’m going crazy.”
“Tomorrow. Sunday.”
“Uh, Christ, I can’t. I have to meet with Lorene — not possible.”
“Are you wearing a skirt? Or are you wearing pants?”
“No.”
“Just tell me and I’ll let you go. Are you alone?”
“I’m watching Ashlee kiss a customer on the video monitor. Ashlee with twoe’s and noy,Max.”
There was a long Max silence.
“Max?”
More silence. Mina sighed. “How about tomorrow noon?”
“Yep.”
Mr. Bradley had his arm around Ashlee. His hand moved to her tiny waist. Her body was shaking with sobs. Max hung up the phone and Mina waited for the dial tone. Max wasn’t able to disconnect and she listened to the repeated clicks as he pressed the cradle button again and again to hang up. At last, she heard the dial tone.
Lorene sat at her kitchen table, still in her kimono at noon. She kept staring at the mail she had from yesterday. A white envelope with no return address and familiar handwriting was tucked among bills and magazines. It was Michael’s handwriting. Inside was a card with a picture of the Chrysler Building. It read: Left the hospital and am going to visit Mom in New York. Be there until end September. I’ll be in touch. I’m sorry it’s been so long. I hope you are all right.
She did some calculations strung together by weather systems, riots, disasters, and shoe styles. It was three years since he’d contacted her. Nothing since the one time she saw him in the hospital. Theonetime he had reluctantly agreed to let her visit him.
She had found him surrounded by papers — tacked to the wall, in stacks on the floor. He had been busy compiling lists, it seemed. For unknown purposes.
Lorene wore a pale peach crepe de chine day dress that had been altered with strips of peek-a-boo peach lace inserted at bias-cut angles. Underneath she wore a deep auburn silk sheath slip, and under the slip, nothing at all, save some very sheer flesh-colored stockings that stopped midthigh. The stockings were held in place by embroidered garters, tiny peach
flowers on beige, the elastic kind of garter that just circled each thigh around the top band of the stocking. It was all, she realized as she entered the room, far too precious, far too much. She cringed in the doorway — a mistake. Couldn’t she have just been simple and sober for once? He sat on a single tightly and grayly made-up institutional bed, looking thin and tender in a fresh white T-shirt and drawstring pants. He had the air of incarceration. He was engrossed in the papers he held, and it took him a full minute to notice her standing in the doorway. He stared at her, took her in, and she wished with all her heart she had worn underwear.
He smiled. “Is this a dream?” he said. His voice was deeper than she remembered. This comforted her in a way.
“Hi, Michael,” she said. He sat, so thin that it seemed as he leaned forward that his arms might buckle, and then, of course, there was Michael’s face. Having not seen him for so long, she could no longer visualize his face. Her memory of it was Cubist, thought of in pieces. She remembered his nose and his dark eyes. His mouth too, but the sum was beyond her. And now here he was, the present apparition, and she looked at him quickly before she had to look away. It was always painful to look at someone she hadn’t seen in a while, the way time is inescapably written on a face. She looked again. It was Michael, yes, but, God, oh, God. He was much more angular, of course. It jarred her. Only a couple of years (actually four) had passed since she’d last seen him, yet she still remembered him as perpetually seventeen, the summer she first met him. No one was younger than Michael at seventeen, no one had more grace in his animation. His confident glide through the world writ all over his smooth cheeks and in his large eyes. He was, at twenty-six, no longer young. His hair was cropped veryshort, chopped, actually, tight against his head. His new angles made his dark eyes larger than ever, and there was tension in his mouth. His lips were thinner and straighter. He was still handsome, but in a dusty, sad, desperate way that only men can wear as handsome, so distant from “cute,” so far from the young man she remembered.
“You are still my most beautiful Lorene,” he said, slightly too loud, and he smiled again. His teeth were bigger than she remembered, but recognizable, not that far off, almost OK. She knew she should approach him, hug him or touch him. But she just stood. She took off her sunglasses.
In addition to the bed, the room had a wood chair and a desk. The chair faced the bed. There was a computer on top of the desk, and a small window above the computer. The opposite wall was stacked with books. The afternoon light from the window was the only illumination, but even in its dust-filled haziness, it was stark enough, and she found her way to the chair, sat, crossed her legs at the ankles and tucked them under the chair. He leaned in toward her from the bed, elbows on knees, and lit a cigarette. He did not stop looking at her, or smiling at her. After a minute, he stopped smiling and pushed his papers aside. He looked at the room, and back at her, and put the sheet he was writing on facedown on a stack on the floor.
“I’m so tired, Lorene. All the time.”
“Me, too,” she said, pulling her own cigarettes out of her purse. He reached for his matches and leaned forward to light her cigarette. She put her hand on his match-holding hand— it was shaking. She steadied it as she inhaled. The touch, instantly over, shocked her. She was suddenly ready to cry.
“You gave me this purse,” she said. He looked at the black leather square-framed bag she was holding.
“A vintage knockoff of the Hermès bag that was designed for Grace Kelly,” she said. He smiled, staring at it.
“Don’t you remember?”
“Yes. A knockoff.” He looked at her. “Same old Lorene. You’re sweet to carry it today.”
“I use it a lot. I love my Kelly bag,” she said. She emphasized the word love too much, she heard emotion in her own voice, and the sound of it upset her. She was starting to cry, and she had to try not to.
“I’m so glad you came. I’m sorry I couldn’t see you sooner. I’ve had a very tough—”
“I know,” she said, stopping him. “I know.” She smoked, and looked at her cigarette and felt him watching her, and felt herself falling again, miraculously, into deeply wanting him. So many times she longed to feel these long-remembered feelings, and now it was frightening, wanting him again. But she did. They sat smoking for what seemed like hours, but it wasn’t even the duration of one cigarette. He put his out and moved up from the bed. He went to the door and turned the lock.
“They let you—” and she stopped.
“Yeah, I’m allowed to lock my door. They have a key, of course, but I do get to lock the door. It’s funny; one is supposed to recover from irrational paranoia in a place of limitless intrusion. Maybe it’s to give you a sane context — he’s not crazy if we supply a reason for his paranoia by keeping him under constant surveillance,” Michael said, laughing. He stood by the door, then took a few steps toward her. She sat frozen, not looking at him.
“It’s OK to laugh about it, Lorene,” he said.
“But, God, no—” she said, and looked at him.
“What?”
“I’m confused,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re telling me,” and he laughed again. She laughed and then resumed crying.
“I’ve made you cry already,” he said. He stood in front of her and then knelt on the floor by her legs. He put his hand behind one of her feet and started to remove her shoe. He placed it to one side, and then he gently removed the other, placing it neatly by the first one. She put her hand on his head and softly rubbed his hair. He closed his eyes at her touch and then rested his head on her peach crepe-covered knee. He had one hand on her ankle, and as he rested his head against her, he held her ankle lightly with his circled fingers. She stroked his hair, and his ear, and felt a minute release of a subaudible sigh. A body sigh. She was unsure if it was Michael’s sigh or her own. She opened her legs a little. Michael lifted his head and stared up at her. Lorene looked at him, slowly pulling her skirt up, over the tops of her knees. He knelt between her thighs, still encircling her ankle with his hand. He looked at her legs and slid his hand up from her ankle, moving both hands now slowly along her thighs until his thumbs rested on the bare flesh above her stockings. She sat very still. He closed his eyes, and she felt the tiny touch of his thumbs on her skin. He inched forward and she edged toward him on the hard wood chair until her hips were at his waist and their faces were inches from each other. He lifted his hands and put them on either side of her face, holding her for a moment. It was all so slow and silent. She wanted to kiss him, but she waited until he leaned close and kissed her. It wasn’t what she expected, a tentative, initiating kiss, but a deep, hard kiss, a sudden long, intimate kiss, and she opened her mouth as he pressed into her. He tasted metallic, foreign. Then the foreignness faded away. She closed her eyesand felt the room slip away in this opened-mouth intimacy. They were somewhere else, some world of bodies and touch, of thought-effacing pleasure. She only had one conscious thought, lasting a second — when he moved his hand from her face to under her skirt and between her legs — just that thank God she was completely wet and longing for him, and then the thought was gone. His mouth was hungry and unrelenting, but his hand was gentle and coaxing, and when he stopped kissing her and got up, pulling her to her feet and over to his bed, she stopped him and stood apart from him for a moment. She looked at him as she unzipped her dress. He stood by the bed, watching her. She pulled the slip off, over her head, losing sight of him for a moment, but still feeling his gaze on her belly and breasts as she made herself naked. He stood waiting as she bent and removed each stocking. Her gestures weren’t slow or urgent, just plain and necessary. When she finished she approached him and lifted his T-shirt. He undid his drawstring pants and sat on the bed pulling them off until he too was naked. She felt suddenly fearful as he put his hands on her waist and then moved them up to the sides of her breasts.
“Michael,” she said, pulling back, embarrassed. Her breasts were bigger than the last time he saw her,
an unremovable costume, surgically altered in the now old-fashioned way, with tiny visible scars under each. She leaned back from him, tearing again, ashamed.
“Lorene, scars don’t scare me,” he said, and that must have been true because he had many, many tiny crescent scars on his arms and chest. He reached for her again, and leaned to kiss her nipples and her tiny belly. She was then back, falling under his touch, and kissing his body. Their touching became more urgent and heated. She was finding familiar places in hisbody — the way his shoulders felt, the muscles in his arm as he stroked her between her thighs. He had not forgotten how she was to be got at, gently but firmly and steadily, sideways almost, until she felt her body reach an almost impossible edge, and he slowed his touch even more, elongating the moment until she felt a sheet of horizontal pleasure slide out to the farthest points of her body and then resolve in a deep shudder. She lingered in it, shaking through her climax, and he kept pressing her gently, even more minutely, more tiny-ly until from somewhere far off another wave of shudders came, until she was crying from it. Her tears flowed and he kissed her longer and harder.
After they had stopped, as they lay entwined, she still cried softly.
“It’s OK, Lori,” he said, and he let her cry on his chest. She didn’t resist, and she couldn’t stop, it was a long-coming release.
“I remember when I used to be able to make you laugh,” he said. She started to smile then, but still she was crying.
“You do make me laugh. I remember that, too.”
“Lorene—” he said, and she took some breaths and calmed down.
“Lorene.”
“What, Michael?” and she looked up at him, his face in profile. He just closed his eyes, smiling slightly, shaking his head.
“What, what are you going to tell me now? That you’re crazy? That you can’t function? That your obsessions overwhelm reality, that you can’t bear the world, or me, or anything but your own four walls in this hospital?”
