Parallel Play

by Thomas Rayfiel

  “Jesus Christ, you kissed a girl!” I said.

  That's when I looked out the window and saw it was snowing.

  Chapter Six

  The flyers appeared overnight. There must have been at least fifty, tacked or taped to every surface, wrapped halfway around light poles, plastered to the back of WALK/DONT WALK signs, crowding out announcements on community bulletin boards:

  MISSING CHILDREN

  The pictures were terrible. There was another baby next to Alex, but cut off, half a face, a mitten, an arm. Ian was on a rug, in just diapers, dwarfed by furniture, his eyes bright red. It was strange, seeing them apart, with different backgrounds, in photos taken at different times. They were such a pair. I knew which was which now, or thought I did, even though they hadn't been around in so long.

  At first it made no sense. Ian and Alex weren't missing. They were with Marjorie. And the number it said to call “with information” was in Manhattan. Marjorie lived in Brooklyn. By the third sign, I began looking for her, imagining I might be able to spot her just outside the camera's range, where the Plexiglas of the bus shelter began, or in the wooden planks of the bin used to disguise a restaurant's garbage cans. Then I realized it was Sherman, of course, taking the pictures, on one of his weekends with the kids, and the phone number must be for his new place, the apartment he had moved into.

  But why?

  I removed one carefully, trying not to rip the edges, and held it in front of me as I walked.

  Missing children?

  I crumpled it into a ball. It was about the divorce, of course. About custody. I turned, meaning to go back and get the other two I'd seen, do the same to them, then stopped and instead looked around to see if anyone was watching. I felt guilt by association, as if I had broken the law just by taking down a piece of paper, and fear, that it could be used against me as evidence. Evidence of what, though? That I knew a woman who had run off with her kids? That I was helping her, by watering her plants and feeding her cat?

  I didn't have Ann. Harvey had her for the day again. He insisted.

  If they wanted to take her away from me, declare me an Unfit Mother, fine. I walked on, imagining I was half Marjorie, half myself, combining our situations, meeting society's disapproval with my head held high. It was perfect, in a way. Mindy was a pediatrician. Medical school sweethearts, this ready-made baby, a birth mother who kept saying how much she didn't love her child. Had I said that? It seized me, the panic of that possibility. Had I ever said, out loud, that I didn't love Ann?

  By now, I knew better than to use my free day trying to have a “good time.” Instead I assigned myself a million chores. I'd even made a list. First was Clean Rest of Apartment, but I knew I wasn't really going to do that. Not yet. Just writing it down left me exhausted. Second was Exercise, which was another joke, something Harvey had been hounding me to do. Join a gym. Then there were small things, ten or fifteen, that didn't seem so bad individually, but put together added up to an overwhelming case of paralysis.

  MISSING CHILDREN

  The signs were everywhere. I had to get away. Each one of them was an accusation, a threat, a prediction. They began to look slightly different, even though I knew they were all the same. If I put them all together, in some sort of order, they would tell a story, which was impossible, wasn't it? I walked faster, picked my way through shoveled paths, broke the surface of the frozen-over slush, felt my face freeze into a mask.

  There was something else I had meant to put on my To Do list, something important—the entire reason, in fact, that I had gone out—but I couldn't remember what. It haunted me. Which was so typical. Some looming omission that made everything else pointless and trivial.

  Grace would come to us individually. That's how it was always put at the Colony. You would be surprised. Surprise was an important element. If you tried making Salvation happen, you were in control and, of course, control was the last thing Grace implied. It was all about giving up. Giving yourself over. Service and Bible Study were preparation so that, when the moment came, you would be ready to receive. You wouldn't let it flash by Most people's minds were flabby we were taught. Ours had to be kept in “peak spiritual condition.” I smiled, thinking that was the kind of gym I should be looking for. Except it wouldn't be a gym, of course. And it wouldn't be a church either. What would it be?

  By this time, I had trudged past the unofficial end of the neighborhood. There were no more signs for Marjorie's children. Or for Personal Fitness Instructor. Or to Learn Portuguese from a Native Brazilian. Row houses instead of brownstones stretched away at each corner. Their fronts were shingle or cheap siding. They had spindly metal banisters and wooden steps, not stoops of poured cement. A few blocks later, I stopped in front of an empty store window. All it displayed were dustballs, a take-out coffee cup lying on its side, and a pair of scissors. I squinted beyond the emptiness and saw fabric. It was a sewing supply store. I couldn't remember walking by it before. It would have been easy to miss. There was no sign overhead. The door had that old-fashioned handle you gripped with four fingers and pressed with your thumb. I stepped inside. A bell barely tinkled.

  “Hello?” I called.

  It had been a long time since I walked between rows piled high with bolts of cloth. I used to know all the stores on the Lower East Side. My specialty was remnants, finding a way to coax the last thread of fabric from what was essentially just a scrap. That's how I made my money, what little I did, not from labor. I worked more hours than I charged for. I couldn't let go.

  Remembering, I walked deeper into the silence.

  Bolts were the ultimate luxury. All that pattern unfolding in wide sections, going on forever. I pulled one out, just to feel the weight of it, the texture and smell. I slid the material back in and took out another. They stacked so high, like books in a library, shutting out what weak winter light shone through the bare window. Of all the stores I'd found, this felt the oldest. The air was soft and undisturbed; the floor was ancient. There was a unity of purpose modern places didn't believe in, nothing but fabric from floor to ceiling, except at the cash register, where the ripping station waited, the smooth worn board marked off in inches and feet, with cheap accessories hung on the wall behind, buttons, elastic, needles, thread.

  I felt the familiar urge to work again. To make something. But what?

  “You can go screw yourself!” a man's voice shouted.

  I jumped and looked behind me. There was still no one, just the silent rows, with all those white rectangles, the stiff core each bolt of cloth was carefully wound around, sticking out at slightly different lengths, the sawed-off ends of bones. The sound was coming from the back room, past a curtain.

  “That is not what I said…. No. No, you listen to me.”

  Someone was on the phone. It was the other end of the conversation. It was the man speaking to the woman Alison and I had overheard at the bar.

  I reached down and dug my fingers into the nearest pile.

  “See, you twist everything,” he complained. “All I meant was—”

  I tried connecting his anger to her soft, reasonable pleading, and then thought, Eve, wait a minute, you're going nuts.

  “Look, we can't do this anymore.”

  Is this how people really talk? I wondered. When you only heard one half of a conversation, it came across not as an exchange of information or ideas or feelings but two solitary prisoners slugging away at their own tired obsessions.

  “I don't give a shit!” he screamed.

  I tried concentrating on the hundreds of bolts, on the soft light. I wanted to drown out what I was hearing. It was so ugly. But I couldn't leave. It would make the bell tinkle again. It would alert the man back there to my presence. He would know I existed and I didn't want that. I wanted to stay invisible, surrounded by yards and yards of whole cloth, a still perfectly unformed person. Then I saw a piece of fabric neatly folded into a square. It lay at the end of the counter, right next to the door.

  “All r
ight.” He laughed in a cynical way. Nothing mattered anymore. “Whatever you say.”

  My hands clutched at my chest, where Ann would have been if I had her in the Snugli. I was more alone now, with her taken away, than I had ever been before she existed.

  “See you tonight.”

  His voice had changed. Something was happening but I couldn't understand what. The unseen Hand had turned the knob again. Everything shifted.

  “Yeah. OK. Hey …”

  He started telling her something he'd forgotten, not wanting to say goodbye. He was affectionate. Loving. That horrified me more than the fighting. It had become your typical marriage talk, what Harvey and I did on the phone every afternoon at one. I was wrong. It wasn't some horrible fight, a hopeless relationship. It was an ongoing thing. It was just … life. Just the irritation of constant contact.

  I made my way to the door, drawing in my shoulders. Suddenly, I wanted out just as badly as, a moment before, I had wanted in. The square of fabric was hanging slightly over the edge of the counter, waiting to be picked up, trying to escape. Take me with you, it said. Without thinking, I grabbed it, rescued it, stuffed it into my coat pocket. Then I pushed down on the little metal tongue and pulled back the thick plate glass just enough to squeeze through. The bell made one strangled clink.

  “Hold on a sec, someone's here.”

  I tore the door open the rest of the way and left, hurrying down the sidewalk, terrified at what I had just done. My ears were straining to hear the door open, the bell ring, waiting for him to yell, “Stop, thief!” But how could he know it was me, as long as I didn't run?

  Act normal, I told myself, fighting the urge to look back. Act normal. Act normal. Act normal.

  • • •

  “Why?” Harvey asked that evening, when I tried describing what happened. “Why did you do that?”

  I had never seen him so annoyed. It seemed out of proportion to what I had said. I thought he would find it funny.

  “Never mind.”

  Well, not funny. I decided to tell him because I was tired of keeping things from him. I missed his ability to comfort me. That's what I needed, comfort. But this time all he did was frown and look around the restaurant as if someone might be listening.

  “I mean you go into a place, a guy's talking on the phone, you listen to his private conversation, then grab something that doesn't belong to you, and take off. What's that about, Eve?”

  “I have no idea. Can I have some more wine?”

  “Your glass is still full.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” I picked it up and drank about half.

  “Wait. Shouldn't we toast?”

  “Oops. Sorry again.”

  He raised his glass. “Happy anniversary.”

  “Happy anniversary,” I toasted solemnly and drank the rest. “Now can I have some more wine?”

  That, of course, was what I'd meant to put on my list: Buy Anniversary Present.

  I'd remembered, as recently as the night before. I'd known about it right up until the actual day. The fact that I'd forgotten, I took as a bad omen. Did that mean I wished it had never happened? Not that our wedding had been a particularly memorable event. I was four months pregnant. Harvey was deep into his residency. We'd had to grab witnesses from the other couples waiting at City Hall.

  He must have known I'd forgotten. It was definitely a hostile act that he hadn't managed to mention it, in passing, that morning, so I could have at least acted like I knew. Instead he treated it as a surprise, with roses waiting for me, and a babysitter, our first, all lined up.

  “I'm sorry it's been so rough for you. This year.”

  “Don't be silly.” I was determined to make the evening work, even though we'd gotten off to a bad start. “I like rough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don't know. You keep asking that: What? What do I mean? I don't know what I mean until I say it. And then it's too late. Then I have to figure it out the same as you. I mean, do you consciously think about what you're going to express and then translate it into words, that come out of your mouth?”

  He thought about it. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “Oh.”

  It was a beautiful restaurant. I had never seen so many fresh flowers. If I had known we were going out, I could have thought about what to wear, instead of having to grab the first, most deeply inappropriate thing I could come up with, changing out of that at the last minute into something just as bad but wrong in the other direction, too prissy and formal, then taking half of that off, while he was already standing at the door looking at his watch, and ending up wearing an absurd mixture of the two.

  “You look good,” he said.

  “I need a haircut.”

  We held hands on the soft white tablecloth.

  “I guess what I was trying to say,” I sighed, “is that when things are rough, at least you know you're alive. Who wants things to be easy? Then you're just sliding along. You have to have a little resistance, a little texture to your life. So you can feel it happening.”

  “Still, it's been a difficult year for you.”

  Why was he so into getting me to admit how miserable I was?

  The whole ride in, I had been wondering what I should say. That I ordered a present but it hadn't arrived yet? Or tell the truth, that I couldn't find anything? That he was impossible to buy for? That every attempt I'd made at accomplishing anything these past few months had been a dismal failure? I even imagined a third scenario of getting up, sneaking out of the restaurant, trying to find a store, any store still open at night, and—

  “It's not over yet,” I said.

  “What isn't?”

  “The year.”

  “Well.” He looked confused. “Yes, it is. That's why we're here. Because it's been a year.”

  “Oh. Right. I was thinking of something else.”

  “Of what?”

  “Never mind.”

  In my mind, the year he was talking about was the year we hadn't had sex. The anniversary of our wedding, what was that? Just some artificial date. It's not like anything had happened. Suddenly, I knew what I should give him: me. Wrapped up with a ribbon and a bow, if necessary. It must have been in the back of my head before I consciously realized it, because, looking down, I saw that I was very conveniently dressed like a prostitute. I stopped—the idea physically arrested me—and smiled down into my wineglass.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  I found his foot, under the table.

  “She's only sixteen.” He was talking about the babysitter. “But her mother said she's taken care of small children before. She has the number of the restaurant, just in case anything happens.”

  “I'm sure she'll be fine.”

  I wanted to reach across and ruffle not just his hair but his whole face, chase the worry from it. I loved its worn quality, so broken in, the expressions that passed over it, his eyes, his mouth, so human and caring. A wave of love lifted me out of my chair.

  But he didn't feel any of this. He didn't even seem to notice my foot. He was troubled, gearing himself up for a big announcement.

  “There's something you should know.”

  “No, there isn't.”

  I sensed immediately that this was wrong. What could he have to tell me?

  “Yes. There is.”

  “I really don't like knowing things.”

  “It's important, Eve. It's something that's been on my mind for a long time.”

  I tried to figure out, from his tortured look, what was coming.

  “Something's been happening. Something's been going on that you weren't aware of.”

  Then it hit me.

  Oh God, he was going to tell me about Mindy Whatever it was that existed between them. He was going to blow it in that earnest, disastrous way of his. Get everything out in the open. Just when I was beginning to feel so good about us again. What he didn't get was how I didn't want to know. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted this wh
ole time in our lives to be a set of dirty clothes we would now slip out of, leave heaped on the ground, and walk away from. I wanted our relationship to be based solely on what happened from this moment forward.

  “I haven't been entirely truthful with you.”

  To stop him, I'd worked my stockinged foot out of my shoe and twined it halfway up his leg.

  Just shut up, I tried to convey, pressing against his inner thigh. Don't tell me another thing.

  “The more I think about it, the more I see it's the cause of all the problems we've been having lately. Why we haven't been able to really talk the way we used to. And it's my fault.” He shook his head. “It's why I got in such a bad mood with you a minute ago. I feel so responsible for what you've been going through. Your unhappiness.”

  “I'm not unhappy, I—”

  “Then, to cover it up, I get guilty and angry.”

  Do I have to actually make you come with my big toe? I tried threatening. Is that what it's going to take to head off this train wreck of a confession you seem headed for? Because I'll do it. I'll do anything not to hear—

  “Eve.”

  He stopped my foot with his hand. His fingers closed over the inside of the arch and squeezed. It was just like that first time, in the clinic. Tears welled in my eyes.

  “Stop it!” I said. “I know about you and her, OK? And it doesn't matter. I mean, I don't want to know how far it went. I just hope she wasn't charging us, that's all. If she got to have sex with you, in return for all those stupid baby checkups, that's fine, I guess. It's like the barter system. That should have been enough, though. She shouldn't have been paid too. In addition.”

  I didn't know what I was saying. It barely made sense, although I trusted the emotion behind it, but mostly what it did was stop him from talking. If this horrible topic was going to come up for discussion, despite all my efforts, I wanted it at least to be on my terms. I didn't want to be told. I wanted to show him I knew all along.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Will you stop saying What? Everything I say, you say, What? What? What? Like I'm … I don't know … unintelligibibibble.”