I opened my mouth to answer, but she waved her finger in my face. “And don’t you dare say Barry—he doesn’t count.”
Well, I couldn’t remember, that was the thing. Sex with Barry was fierce and angry and intense, but it certainly wasn’t deep. It didn’t startle my soul. Afterward I sometimes sat in front of the refrigerator and ate whatever was handy: cheese slices or lettuce dipped in mustard or Jell-O scooped up with my hands. I wasn’t hungry but I had to eat. I ached inside. And the few men I’ve seen since my divorce have been insipid and vague. Sex with them was like watching a rerun, everything dulled and lacking in surprise or wonder. Right after I left Barry, when I still felt adventurous and brave, I had an affair with the Mighty Muffler man. When I dropped the car off I told the young man (and he was young, sweet Jesus, barely legal) that I didn’t care what he did, to just fix the goddamned thing. I was crying by then, and Dave (his name stitched across his pocket in blue letters) patted my head as if I were a dog.
“There, there,” he murmured, offering me a soiled rag pulled from his pants. “We’ll have her ready by five.”
What is it about a sad woman that melts a particular kind of man’s heart? When I picked up the car, Dave slipped me his phone number. I swore I wouldn’t call but two nights later I broke down and did just that. We went at it on the couch, the dishwasher turned on to drown our sounds. Afterward, I cried again, but Dave didn’t mind. He had grown up in a family of sisters, so he was used to a woman’s tears.
“Baby,” he said, kissing my forehead. “Poor sweet baby.”
But he was just a kid, barely out of high school. When he invited me over to play video games with a bunch of his buddies, I knew I had to cut the cord. Still, he was such a nice, tender man. Boy. Man-boy. I still have his Midas shirt tucked in my dresser drawer. Sometimes I take it out and trace his name over and over, the curve of the D, the jut of the V, the clever jaunt of the E.
I didn’t love him. I was too raw and hurt at the time. But I needed to believe that someone loved me. And he did, I think, his fingers lingering against my skin as if learning the shape of my cells. He was the last one, almost three years ago. He was the last one that filled me up.
Letter #4
Ms. Carlita Richards
202 W. Hillcrest Drive, #22
Anchorage, AK 99503
Dear Ms. Carlita Richards:
We are returning check number *****756 due to insufficient funds.
But don’t worry! We here at Just You Sex Toys understand the complexities faced by today’s women. We are therefore holding Order #8594, for one Shady Lady Pleasure Ridged 5-Speed G-Spot Vibrator in playful pink, until Dec. 1.
Thank you for shopping at Just You Sex Toys. We are pleased to help you on your quest toward sexual fulfillment.
Sincerely,
Margaret M. Millerson
Senior Account Manager
Just You Sex Toys
Friday, Nov. 4
Barry stormed over, just as I was starting dinner.
“Hold it!” he yelled from the living room. “Jay-Jay Jiggers, go tell your mama to move away from that stove right this minute.”
Jay-Jay charged in from the living room.
“Dad-says-move-from-that-stove-right-this-minute.”
I wiped my hands with the dish towel as Barry slumped into the kitchen carrying a large plastic grocery bag.
“Nippy died.” He slammed the bag on the counter. “Thought I’d cook up some lasagna. Kind of a tribute.”
Barry cooks when he’s troubled. He cooks when he’s depressed or sad, worried or afraid. Basically, he cooks all the time. Except when he’s happy. Then he bakes.
“Who’s Nipper?”
“Nippy,” Barry said. “With a y, not e-r.”
“As if it matters,” I snapped.
He sighed and tore open a box of noodles. “Got any butter? Forgot mine.”
“Yeah.”
“Butter,” he stressed. “Not margarine.”
“I said yes.”
“Don’t gotta yell.” He slumped against the counter. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“How’d it happen?” I still had no idea who in the hell Nippy was.
“I was driving home from work during that dim-dark time when it ain’t light but ain’t dark? A couple blocks from the house, right where the road curves, this darkish shape runs right out in the road. ‘Whoa,’ I thought. ‘Some skinny dude with long legs.’”
“That was Nippy?”
“No.” Barry was irritated at the interruption. “Not a dude. A moose.”
“Ohhhhh.”
“Crossing the road with his mama. Right in the crosswalk like they knew what they was doing. Light was even green. Then this lady in an SUV comes barreling around the corner and smacks right into him: Ka-bam!”
He stopped chopping onions and wiped his eyes.
“Nippy didn’t have a chance. Been watching him and his mama hanging out in the yard. Left some lettuce one night.”
“But I thought—”
“I know, I know.” Barry waved his knife. “It’s illegal feeding wildlife. But they was so skinny. Darned near broke my heart. Reminded me of the kid who sat behind me in second grade. Hummed under his breath and about drove me crazy, but then one day he moved and darned if I didn’t miss all that humming.”
He covered the noodles with tomato sauce while I washed the dishes littering the sink.
“Sandee coming over?” he asked hopefully. Barry has a bit of a crush on Sandee. “Got enough for four, maybe five if nobody hogs.”
“Working.”
“Shit.”
After Barry slid the lasagna into the oven, we all sat in the living room and watched a movie about talking ants as the smell of garlic and onions seeped through the air.
“How’s the job?” I asked Barry.
“Shhhh,” Jay-Jay warned. “This is the good part.”
“Banquets are about killing me,” Barry said, as he scratched his armpit.
“You’re ruining it,” Jay-Jay cried. “You guys have to shut up during the good parts.”
I didn’t bother disciplining him for saying shut up. I got up and walked through the kitchen and down the hallway to my bedroom, which is at the back of the trailer. The reassuring thud of Killer’s feet followed. I shut the door, stripped down to my underwear, and stared at myself in the mirror. My skin was pasty, my bra straps fraying, my Hanes underpants grayish from too many washings. My stomach, which was rounded but not fat, looked especially lonely. No one had touched it in so long, or at least touched it with gentleness, with adoration. I crawled into the closet and shut the door, the hems of my shirts fluttering my face. A moment later I crawled back out, grabbed the phone, and punched in Francisco’s number, counting the rings: three, four, five. On six, the answering machine clicked on, but I didn’t wait around to leave a message. I hung up quietly, as if to erase the call from my mind because really, what could a man like that see in a woman like me?
When I finally straggled back to the living room, fully clothed again, the movie was over and Barry and Jay-Jay were setting plates over a blanket spread over the floor. They hadn’t even noticed I was gone.
“A picnic,” Jay-Jay said excitedly. “Except we don’t have any potato salad. Or pickles. Or ham sandwiches. Or…”
I sat down and forked warm noodles into my mouth, a spicy tomato sauce shivering against my tongue. The lasagna was superb: rich and comforting and lingering in my chest like a hug. Jay-Jay told a story about a kid who had thrown up during gym, and Barry told about the mess one of the prep cooks made when he dropped two dozen eggs on the floor.
“Your turn, Mom,” Jay-Jay said. They both looked expectantly at me; I didn’t know what to say. All of my stories were bleak.
“Sandee thinks Randall is still living in Vegas,” I finally said. Barry leaned forward and scratched his foot. “She thinks he was married before and that’s why he left, you know. He was living dual lives.”
“Parallel lives,” Jay-Jay said excitedly. “It’s physics, see? Particles exist in more than one place at a time.”
“Don’t see how that’s possible,” Barry grunted.
“You can’t explain it,” Jay-Jay said. “You’ve just got to trust it, that’s what Mr. Short says. If you try and understand this stuff, you’ll go crazy.”
One of these days Jay-Jay will look around his shabby life and wonder what cruel twist of fate stuck him with two such silly and insignificant parents. Maybe he’ll hate us. Or worse yet, pity us. He’ll pat our dense heads like beloved but stupid pets.
“Oh, wow, look, Dad,” Jay-Jay screamed as he ran toward the window. “It’s snowing.”
They stood at the window together, Barry’s stocky body next to Jay-Jay’s slim grace. Jay-Jay takes after Barry; there’s no denying the way their bodies resemble each other, how when one shifts, the other instinctively leans forward. Watching them almost broke my heart. I remembered camping at Destruction Bay in the Yukon years ago, the waves wild, the autumn night wicked with wind as Barry and I lay in our sleeping bags staring up at the sky. Just as we were about to close our eyes and drift off to sleep, we were hit with the most magnificent display of northern lights I’ve ever seen. It began subtly, a vague streak across the sky, followed by a whitish yellow that soon deepened to green. The colors zigzagged here and there, brightening and then retreating, and just when we were sure they were gone for good, they reappeared, swaying and expanding above us, a phosphorus green that picked up pinks and oranges, lilacs and reds. Before long the colors had deepened to a crimson so rich and true it reminded me of our grade school auditorium curtains shimmering and swaying as they opened for school assemblies.
Barry and I lay on the ground and watched. I was newly pregnant with Jay-Jay at the time, my stomach just beginning to puff. I don’t know which one of us started, but we were soon shouting at the sky, singing at the top of our voices, “This little northern light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”
Singing until we were hoarse and even then we couldn’t stop. We stood up, kicked off our shoes, and danced barefoot over that cold ground as the colors swayed above us.
“Honey-muffin,” Barry cried, lifting me up and twirling me around. He used to call me food names back then: baby buns, sweetie peach, cakey-bakey. We kissed, and the sky was brilliant and Jay-Jay was a fish swimming in my belly.
Message on my answering machine
when I got back from Costco
“Hello? Anyone home? This is Francisco, Francisco Freebird, and this number was on my caller ID. I guess you called? I don’t know who you are but if you still need to catch me, give me a holler at 555-4289. And hey to you, Jay-Jay. Whoever you are, you sound like a mature young man.”
I listened three times before hitting the Delete button. I didn’t dare leave the message on the machine; it would be a temptation, like the apple hanging on the tree. Eve couldn’t resist, and I doubt I could, either. All evening, as Jay-Jay chattered on about last year’s Halloween costumes and I folded laundry and watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, I thought about that apple hanging from a tree, golden yellow with a hint of peach and green, the kind of apple that might be hanging in one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings: sensual and erotic and looking more like a breast than a piece of fruit. I saw green happy leaves swaying in the background, I saw myself running in a gauzy summer dress, my feet bare, my hair floating out behind me as I reached out to pluck that perfect apple off that perfect tree. But I didn’t call him back.
Sunday, Nov. 6
I spent the evening sanding down the penis on a dirty doll order. It seemed a shame to make it smaller when all over the country men were shelling out thousands of dollars to make theirs larger. But an order is an order and I desperately needed the money so I buckled down, and by the time I finished, G.I. Joe’s dick stuck up in a permanent hard-on that looked like nothing more than a crease in his pants. I folded him in bubble wrap, boxed him up, and addressed the label. Tomorrow morning, the FedEx man would stop by and pick him up, and from the looks of the FedEx man’s pants, he’ll never have to worry about his hard-on not being noticed. His is thick and large and makes such a nice bulge that I want to reach out and pet it—it seems rude to not acknowledge it.
To distract myself from such thoughts I got out my paints and mixed yellow pearl with golden bronze, trying for that unearthly tint of the time right before dusk, when the sun colors the horizon with a yellow-spotted aura. I was struggling with my Woman Running with a Box, No. 3 painting, which had somehow evolved into a series. Each piece appeared identical to the previous one until I leaned closer; then differences became apparent. The box was smaller and shabbier, and the woman was slowly unraveling. Her hair fell out of its knot, her dress sagged. She was still running but she looked out of breath; her purse had opened, and a trail of belongings spread out behind her: hairpins and tissues, car keys and cell phone, an address book and an opened compact, the broken mirror reflecting the light so that a shadow glared off her lower back.
I had no idea what this meant. Who was this woman and why was she running? More importantly, why was she unraveling? And what was in the box? I began evening out the woman’s ear when someone banged on the door. Killer rushed forward, her toenails skidding on the linoleum.
“Open up, it’s me!” Laurel cried.
I hurriedly placed my painting on the farthest kitchen chair and opened the door. Laurel leaned against the frame, snow stuck in her hair, which was no longer red but back to its usual glossy brown.
“I’m stuck,” she said, tromping across the floor without taking off her damp boots.
“I’ll get my shoes,” I started, but she held up her hand.
“Not in the snow. I’m stuck in life.” She laughed bitterly.
Her lips were chapped, her nail polish chipped. She was slowly coming undone. Was she—oh!—was she the woman from my painting?
“Do you have a white box?” I leaned toward her. “About this big? Tied with ribbon?”
She looked at me as if I were mad. “Hank said he loved me,” she said in a weary tone, as she eased herself down into one of the kitchen chairs. “He said I was the one.”
“Which one?” I was still trying to imagine her with a white box.
“The one, Carla. You know, like in songs and movies.” She let out another harsh laugh and fiddled with the T-shirt overflowing from the laundry basket.
“And that’s bad?”
“Well, it’s not good. He’s married. He’s a public figure, almost a celebrity.”
“I wouldn’t quite say that. I mean, it’s not like…”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” She squared her shoulders and suddenly looked like herself again.
“It’s late. I don’t want to start.”
“Start what?” Laurel challenged, and that was when I realized why she was here. She wanted a fight. She needed to unload her conscience before going home so that she wouldn’t say too much, reveal in her tone or mannerism that Junior’s supposedly devoted wife of fifteen years was stepping out with the TV weatherman.
“So that’s the way it’s gonna be, huh?” My tone was tough, the voice I used at work when I had to cut off a customer from the bar.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She flounced prissily in the chair. “You’re just jealous,” she murmured.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing. I just said… Okay, this is for your own good, Carla. I just said you were probably jealous. Not about Hank, because I don’t think he’s exactly your type, but—”
“No, he’s not,” I interrupted.
“You just can’t stand to see me happy, can you? You want everyone to be as miserable as you.” She lifted up her voice. “‘Oh, I’m just a single mother who lives in a trailer, please feel sorry for me.’ Just because you can’t get your life together doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer.”
“You’re married,” I hissed. “You
took vows. And now you’re running around like, I don’t know. Look at you!”
“Like you can talk.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just keep your mouth shut, you hear me? You have no right to talk about Hank and Junior that way, not when…I think I’m going to be sick,” she gasped, running for the bathroom and throwing up in the middle of the hallway.
“Sorry,” she sobbed, crouching down in front of her mess. “I couldn’t make it, I just couldn’t make it in time.”
“You’re drunk,” I hissed. “You shouldn’t have driven over here.”
I helped her to the bathroom and sat her down on the closed toilet seat. Then I wiped her face off with a warm washcloth, gently, gently.
“Three months ago I was happy.” Laurel’s voice was low and toneless. “Not happy, but content. Now it’s as if my eyes have become magnifying glasses. Everything Junior does is enlarged. Even his footsteps are too loud. He walks on his heels, slams around the house. He practically echoes. How could I have not noticed before?”
“I’ll fix the couch up and you can stay over,” I said. “Need a shower first?”
Laurel shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t want to wash off Hank’s smell.” She buried her face in her arms. “I’m an awful person, Carla. A terrible, terrible person.”
“No, you’re not.” I patted her shoulder awkwardly. “You’re just on overload. You’ve had too much to drink, and—”
“I only had orange juice, not even half a glass.” She pulled a towel over her head. “Jay-Jay can’t hear us, can he?”
I shook my head. “He’s been asleep for hours.”
“I couldn’t bear for Jay-Jay to think his aunt was a slut.”
“You’re not a slut.” I pushed Laurel toward the living room, making sure neither one of us stepped in her pile of throw-up, and then situated her in the shedding lounger and started making up the couch. “You’re just, well, you’re confused, that’s all. You’re looking out for yourself. Men do it all the time and no one thinks twice. But women are supposed to put everyone else before them, and if they don’t…” I ran out of steam. “Would you like some water? Milk?”
Dolls Behaving Badly Page 7
