Remind Me Again What Happened

by Joanna Luloff

  It is only now that I think about what our leaving must have felt like to her. I was selfish then too, I suppose, but it seemed natural that Claire and I would eventually have to leave, set up our own house, now that we were married. And Rachel always seemed so solitary, somehow, even when we were all together. When the Burlington job came through, everything moved so quickly. Claire didn’t want to leave the city, but she insisted that we could make it work. She could always commute back and forth every now and then, which would give her an excuse to see Rachel. She was keeping her job with the AP and we knew that she’d be going on assignment from time to time, but she hoped that she’d have more time to work on longer pieces. She’d query magazines. There were stories to be found in Vermont; there were stories to be found everywhere, she insisted. But looking back, I think she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince me.

  And what about Rachel? Looking back now, it seems obvious that she was trying to ignore our leaving. When Claire and I were in the throes of packing, she made sure to leave the house on some errand. As the month when we’d be moving north approached, she stayed later at work. She slept in boyfriends’ apartments and might return for breakfast or a quick shower in the mornings. When we bought our car, a used Subaru with its dependable four-wheel drive, Rachel scoffed. “I’ve already lost you,” she said. “You’ve become mountain people.” I remember that Claire had put her hands on Rachel’s shoulders then and looked her directly in her eyes. None of us had been doing that lately, really looking at one another, and I felt myself squirming.

  “No one is lost to anyone. We are still a family.” Claire tried to pull Rachel into a hug, but I could sense her lifelessness in Claire’s arms. Rachel, for one, refused to participate in the fantasy Claire and I were cobbling together. If I think about it now, I can admit how angry she must have been with us. We were abandoning her; there was no other way to see it.

  She had dutifully come to our “wedding,” a quick exchange of paperwork and vows in front of a justice of the peace who moonlighted as a taxidermist. He wore his hair in a thin, graying ponytail and wore one emerald earring in his left ear. His face was leathery; the skin crumpled into folds as he smiled, and he smiled a lot and slapped his thigh and exclaimed how much he loved his job, getting to meet such happy young people just starting out in their lives together. The man’s lair—there was no other way to describe it—was filled with animals, stuffed and glassy eyed. They were our witnesses, along with Rachel and Bernard, who stopped coming around just a few weeks later. Rachel never talked about his sudden absence. When Rachel got quiet, I had learned not to press. She kept her secrets coiled up within her.

  We had celebrated with a decadent dinner in Harvard Square, drinking fancy cocktails at a restaurant splotched with bright colors and a sense of exuberant decadence. I was drunk by the second course, and so completely unmoored by stupid happiness. I think I must have caught everyone by surprise as I lifted Claire up off her seat and made her spin around the room with me in a clumsy waltz. Bernard whispered something to the bartender, who led the whole restaurant in a toast to our marriage and future. Rachel watched all of this from our table, tucked into the corner. She had looked so small sitting there. She lifted her glass and drank to us. Before too long, she was drunk too. I remember it as a happy night, but something lingers in my memory, just at the corners. If I could pinpoint it, this hesitancy I feel all these years later when I think about it, perhaps I could identify the warning signs of what would inevitably go wrong with all of us. I try to picture Rachel there, her expression: Did she really look happy or was she just pretending? What might this former Rachel have been wishing to say to us there and then? Where did Bernard go? Why had she gone so silent and distant? It took many years to feel at all linked to Rachel again. When we began sending those postcards. Those little scribbles of other people’s words were more than we’d said to one another in many, many months. For all Claire’s secrets, it is only lately that I’ve been realizing that Rachel has just as many.

  Tonight I cleaned the dishes and put away the leftovers, realizing I wouldn’t want to touch them tomorrow or the next day, though I won’t protest when Rachel insists on putting them together for me to take to work. When I walked into the living room, Claire was already asleep, the TV flickering with its sound muted. Rachel had a pencil in her mouth, frowning over the latest chapters of a high school textbook. I reached out my hand to Rachel. “It’s been a long day,” I said. “Why don’t you put away your work?”

  Rachel kept the pencil in her mouth and mumbled, “Just a few minutes more.”

  But I grabbed the pencil out of her mouth, soggy with her spit, and tossed it onto the table. “How about some cards? Scrabble? Something mindless?” So we retreated into the kitchen and poured out some red wine and I found an old deck of playing cards and a cribbage board and we sat across from each other, quiet in the suddenly calm house.

  After a few rounds of play, Rachel had pegged and pegged her way ahead of me, scoring triple runs and combinations of fives and face cards, and I was staring a skunk in the face. Rachel’s eyes were wide and taunting; I often forget how competitive she is. She kicked me a few times under the table. We were both trying terribly hard to keep silent so we wouldn’t wake up Claire, but when Rachel turned up a Jack and later revealed three fives in her hand and another Jack, she leapt up from the table, almost overturning our wine. At this point we were both giggling; something in us had turned giddy. I put my hand over her mouth as she struggled through her laughter. “Okay, okay,” I said. “How about we head upstairs and you give me a rematch?”

  Rachel nodded and left her shoes under the table as we gathered up the cards and the wine and tiptoed through the living room. I ask myself now, would I take it back? When Rachel placed her hand on the small of my back, pushing me up the stairs, my body had warmed and I leaned back into her touch. When she poured out our wine and smirked at me from across the bed, only the cribbage board between us, of course I saw what would come next. I would win the next hand or two and squeeze Rachel’s ankle. She would come back with some double runs and wink at me. “Don’t think you’re going to beat me, Charlie.” But I did win the next game and we poured out more wine and then there was the rubber match and I lost my concentration. My head was buzzing with sleeplessness and wine and the sudden proximity of Rachel’s body on my bed.

  She touched my cheek and then flattened her palm against my forehead and closed her eyes. She pressed her own face against her hand and I felt her hair graze my neck and shoulders. She smelled of wine and lavender and detergent and chocolate. I was surprised by how familiar her body felt alongside me. I often forget there was a time when she would let me crawl into her bed, how her body warmed my cold feet and hands during the winter months when I first arrived in Boston. I placed my hand against her neck and felt her pulse racing under my fingers. She took a deep breath and sighed. For a moment, I thought I saw a shadow cross the doorway, but by then, Rachel had kicked the cribbage board out of our way and she fell on top of me. She looked down with a sad smile. “Oh, Charlie,” she whispered. “Do you remember me?”

  Rachel

  Was it always my intention that Charlie and I sleep together? If I admit to wanting him, if I was out to sabotage things from the outset, then I would have to admit that I had been planning this all along, and then I might really start hating myself. These are my best friends. I have admitted that I am a dangerous person, but I would never have believed I was quite that vindictive. I love Charlie and I love Claire just as I have always loved them. But perhaps there was a part of me that was savoring the inevitability of my own leaving. This time, I would be the one leaving them alone. Alone and frightened, unsure of one another.

  The truth is that Charlie and I had drunk too much wine and we were both exhausted and filled with worry. Claire had not been herself, and we had been trying to be so careful around her. There had been mutual relief in our laughter, and we clung to e
ach other for comfort and for a sense of normalcy. I can rationalize all of this. But when I touched Charlie’s face, it was like watching the actions of a stranger. I am doing this, I heard my mind saying. I am touching him and I can see in his eyes that he will kiss me. The door is open and Claire is asleep downstairs, but she could discover us at any moment. We know this, but it will not concern us. We are too far gone.

  Charlie is older, his skin a bit rougher and his eyes more tired, but I remember the curves of his face and I remember the hesitations in his touch and I wonder if I am as familiar to him as he is to me. As in our earliest flirtations, I am the one to touch him first. I am the one to press my body into his and whisper his name. But I have changed. I no longer wait for things to come to me.

  Afterward, when we were lying on their bed, I couldn’t help myself. I had a terrible desire to harm him in some way. Here it was again—all this love and anger and desire and resentment churning inside me, the better me competing with the meaner me. He was calm and gazing up at the ceiling, and the window was cracked open a bit and I could hear the sounds of branches rubbing together just outside. Everything was still and peaceful and I wanted so very much to disrupt this undeserved moment of quietness.

  Charlie walked to the bathroom, and for a moment the slant of light crossed my body and I felt exposed. My skin was pale, it always has been, but lately it’s grown splotchy and translucent. I can see the blue of my veins pushing up from under the surface and I am never unaware of pulsing underneath.

  Charlie, just before he shifted out of bed and toward the bathroom, told me that I had calmed him. He didn’t think it was possible, he said, but I had done it. I got him to think of something else for a while. In fact, he said, you helped me think of nothing. I was sure he didn’t mean anything cruel by this, but his words had twisted me up in anger. I wanted a fight. If I couldn’t have one with Claire, I could have one with Charlie.

  When he returned, Charlie brought me a glass of water and placed it on my chest gently and leaned over to give me a kiss on the forehead. A friendly, kind kiss, but one that might have been offered as a means to erase what had just happened. Charlie is a coward, just as I’ve been a coward. And then I started it; I couldn’t help myself. “Claire thinks you’ve been having an affair with Sophie,” I said without looking at him.

  “She what?” Charlie leaned up on his elbow. He had put his pajama bottoms on, flannel and plaid. I felt bad for him for a moment, bad for what I was about to do.

  “Claire thinks you and Sophie are sleeping together. She has set up traps to try to expose the two of you, but she feels thwarted.”

  “Well, that’s absurd.” Charlie turned onto his back. He wasn’t looking at me any longer, which made this all the easier for me. “She’s the one; she’s the one who—”

  “Oh, please, Charlie.” I turned to him. “You just slept with me, didn’t you? It’s not an impossible thing to believe. And Sophie is quite lovely and obviously thinks a great deal of you.”

  “Are you telling me that you think I’ve been having an affair with Sophie too?” Charlie continued to face the ceiling.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. But if I were to guess, I think you talked yourself out of having an affair with Sophie so you could keep all your righteous judgment.”

  I could hear Charlie breathing beside me. He was angry and hurt and it would have taken so little to reach out my hand and apologize, reassure him that I believed him. Instead I said, “I suppose sleeping with me is a slightly different case, though, since we have a past and we have always loved each other in our ways.”

  “I don’t understand why you are so angry with me, Rachel.” He finally turned his body back toward me. “Do you want me to apologize for sleeping with you? Would you like me to take the blame for that? Perhaps you’d like me to walk downstairs, wake Claire, and tell her that we are both very and truly sorry for fucking each other while she was sleeping on the couch. We can all come clean!” Charlie began to raise his voice and I felt a wave of exhilaration race through me. “And perhaps this might jog her memory a little and she can cry in relief and say, Thank God! We’re even! I have been keeping my little secrets too! Let me get the picture I’ve been keeping in the folds of my book on the desk. Do you remember this man, Charlie? You met him once, on one of your visits.”

  I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. My entire body was shaking and I could tell that Charlie wanted to hit me, slap me across the face, but instead he punched the mattress several times and repeated, several times, “Please shut up, Rachel. Please shut up. Please.”

  Eventually, I felt myself calm and managed to say, “I’m sorry,” and quieted Charlie’s fists. I sat up, naked in their bed, my arms crossed against my chest. Charlie wouldn’t look at me, but I needed him to see me here, see the two of us here and acknowledge what we had done. “We all have our secrets, Charlie.” I touched his forehead, now damp, and he flinched. “It’s always been easier to blame Claire. I’ve done it for years.”

  Charlie was as still as stone. Perhaps he wanted me to keep just as still and quiet as he was, but I kept on talking. I told him that I blamed Claire for taking him away, even though it was his job and his sense of their future that took them north and away from our home. I blamed Claire for the distance that had grown between us. I blamed Claire for lying to him and forcing me to keep her secrets. I blamed Claire for forcing me to keep my own secrets.

  But I could have easily blamed you, Charlie, for taking a job that would bring Claire to a place far too quiet and unexceptional for the kind of stories she wanted to pursue. I could have blamed you, Charlie, for falling in love with Claire and having such an easy time of it, walking away from me. I could have blamed you, Charlie, for not trying harder to pound on my door and shake the truth out of me that weekend when you returned and I had just gotten back from the hospital, yes, the hospital, Charlie. I lied to you about that. I could have blamed you, Charlie, for knowing about Michael and just letting things go on as usual, for your cowardice and your moral high ground and righteousness. I could have blamed you, Charlie, for those postcards you sent that made me think about you more than I wanted to, for making me think about the things I have never told you and knew I never would because I am a coward too. It was my secret to keep, but Claire made it seem as if it were ours, all of ours, so really it is my fault.

  I wonder sometimes, Charlie, how you would have reacted to the news if I had told you from the start. Would you have said that we could keep it, that we could have a go at it, make a little family? Why is it that you and Claire never talked about having children, Charlie? It is something I never could ask either of you. Again, I assumed this was Claire’s choice, her career was more important than motherhood; she was away too much and didn’t want to give up her travels, her passport, her stories. You see, I blamed Claire on your behalf for this too, but for all I know, you never wanted to have children either, Charlie.

  Or would you have left it all up to me with your typical politeness disguised as care? Would you have held my hand on the way to the hospital and on the way home? Would you have crawled into bed with me and brushed the hair out of my eyes the way you did whenever I got sad? Would you have stayed with me and been patient with me, and then it would have been Claire, only Claire, who would have left? It was always going to be Claire who left, Charlie. We could both see that, even all those years ago. I don’t think it was ever any of our intentions to hurt one another, Charlie, but look at what we’ve done. You have always trusted me, but I am the one who has now perhaps hurt you the most. I must never have trusted you, Charlie. Otherwise, I would have told you all of this a long time ago.

  Forgive me, my dear Charlie. I am a dangerous person, but I love you, and I love Claire. Tomorrow I will pack my bags and say good-bye. I will never tell Claire any of this; as you now know, I am very good at keeping my secrets. Maybe one of these days, you can get Claire a train ticket and let her stay with me awhile in Boston. I think it might d
o both of you some good. You don’t see it, but she feels trapped in this house; it is no longer filled with her life. Perhaps you can forgive her a little bit too and let her breathe some, no matter what the doctors say. If not, I believe you will lose her all over again.

  Claire

  It was all surprisingly easy. Charlie had gone back to work, and Rachel had quite suddenly packed her bags and headed home, and the house was mine again. Charlie had asked me not to go on any wanders until he got home, which was fine with me. Most of what I needed to do I could do from the computer or over the phone. My passport was still valid, good for another three years even. Susan was handling the details of my visa; she would arrange the flight and she had rented a room for me for the first month of my stay in Pondicherry, and we would see how things went from there. I had pitched her my story ideas about Auroville. I read from my fragmented notes and mustered some strength in my voice, which I hoped would project whatever confidence people were used to me possessing.

  Susan had called my ideas “promising”—I have this word underlined several times in my notebook—and said she would get back to me. She was concerned. Was I really well enough to travel? Was I really up for being on my own again so soon? You know, Claire, she had said, the hospitals where you are going. . . . But I interrupted her and told her I wouldn’t stand for being treated like an invalid. I laughed a lot during those first conversations and stuck to the facts. My meds are keeping me stable and I can set up a three-month prescription with my doctor. There was a new controversy brewing about the way the children were being treated at Auroville. With my contacts, I would be able to get her a good feature. I told her I could simultaneously write a travel piece on Tamil Nadu. Oh, what the hell, she said. If you want to do it, let’s do it. Over the years, Susan has become one of my closest allies. I knew she would help me.