You're Not You

by Michelle Wildgen

  Kate looked bemused. “French women are supposed to know everything.”

  “I know. Sex secrets and how to tie a scarf, right?”

  Kate laughed. “Are you up on those?”

  I flushed. “Hardly. I just read it somewhere. Something about a tea that, uh . . .” I trailed off. Why had I brought this up? Kate was looking at me expectantly. “It supposedly perfumes . . . how to put this? The nether regions.”

  She chuckled. “Very delicately put. What attention to detail,” she said. “You know what it is about French women?” I watched her speak, nodding and repeating. “The stereotype, anyway. Competence. At everything. You’d think it’d be more mysterious than that.”

  At Kate’s suggestion I dipped a green bean in the olive oil before I whisked it into the vinaigrette. It seemed to me I tasted the olive oil all through my head: I felt its sheen on my lower lip and a peppery hit in the back of my throat and my nostrils. It tasted rich and warm and dark, dark green.

  At the end of the afternoon, shortly before people were supposed to arrive, she told me to arrange everything on big enameled plates. I had nothing like them at home, where all our dishes were secondhand china painted with tiny chive blossoms and petrified ducks. These were rich, saturated colors, and just to amuse myself I arranged by contrast: radishes and carrots on a blue plate, roasted eggplant and basil on a platter the color of a sunflower, the goat cheese in a bright cherry bowl. I put out wineglasses I’d found in the cupboard in the dining room. I heard myself humming.

  “What else do you need?” I asked, looking around the kitchen. “What about drinks?”

  She thought for a second and then slumped in exasperation. “I forgot ice.”

  “Oh, well, no big deal. I can just run out and get it, unless you want to come along.”

  I got the keys from their polished wooden bowl on the table near the front door. The bowl sat at the feet of the naked girl, who was still where Evan had moved her, far enough away from the spider plant that a tendril only curled over her shoulder. She looked rather nice, for such a Barbie doll. I flicked the vine off her shoulder and went out for ice.

  When I came back Evan’s car was in the garage and Kate wasn’t in the kitchen. As I loaded the bags of ice into a big copper tub near the door to the deck I heard his voice from the back of the house. I couldn’t hear Kate from here and didn’t expect to—I had been unable to hear her from a foot away in the crowded market—but I could hear Evan laughing, the fast tempo of his words. The music we’d put on had been turned up, the food on the table glistening in the late afternoon sun. I ate another green bean dipped in olive oil and headed back toward the bedroom, wiping my mouth and then calling hello as I went.

  They were in the bathroom, the makeup kit spread out on the counter next to two glasses of cold pink wine. Evan was leaning back against the counter, Kate facing him so I could see her profile in the mirror. She’d been laughing about something hard enough that Evan was wiping a tear away from the corner of each of her eyes. They were still grinning about something as I came in.

  “Hey, Bec,” Evan said. “Sorry, we got a little slap-happy for a second.” Kate, still grinning, cast her eyes meaningfully at the wine.

  “For me?” I asked. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of myself, face pale and shiny, my dark hair diffused by the light from the window, a hand laid coquettishly to my breast. In the course of the day I’d forgotten how bad off I’d been that morning. I felt a lot better, but I wasn’t looking very good. My eyes peered, tiny and rabbity, out of a white face, circles beneath them.

  “Thanks. You know, I can give the makeup a shot if you want to relax, Evan.” Evan had moved behind Kate and was twisting her hair into a ponytail.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I’m strangely in the mood to do it tonight.” As he spoke his hand traced the curve of Kate’s neck and up her jawline to her ear. She leaned her head slightly into the cup of his palm, her eyes closing slowly and luxuriously, like a cat’s.

  “You’re on till about six, right?” Evan said.

  “Do you need me later?” I asked. I had been planning to go home and sleep in penance for the night before. “Because I can stay if you want; it’s no problem.”

  “You could meet some of our friends,” Kate said. “You’ll see a lot of them, so . . .”

  I drank some of the wine, expecting it to be sweet and fizzy. At the Italian restaurant we had served white zinfandel with a spritz of soda. But the wine was stony and light and there was no sweetness in it. It was such a surprise that I stood there, holding a pool of it on my tongue, and didn’t answer. When I looked back up Evan was doing Kate’s eyebrows.

  “Like it?” he asked, smiling at me. “It’s nice with tomatoes.”

  “It’s really good,” I said. “And I can stay awhile.” I settled myself on the bathroom counter and watched them finish up the makeup. When it was done Kate’s eyes were darkened again, her mouth red and shiny. Evan removed the band from her hair. As she let her head fall back, Kate said, “Bec, would you mind grabbing the silver beaded hoops?”

  Her jewelry box was on top of the dresser, with diamond studs and gold and silver hoops in compartments on the top, and below it a clutch of small velvet drawstring bags. I found the hoops and went back toward the bathroom, my wine in one hand and the earrings clicking in my palms, and caught a glimpse of Evan bending down to kiss her, one hand splayed against the pale skin of her neck, the top of his head showing the thinness of his light hair. How had I ever searched for Liam in Evan’s face and gestures? Evan straightened up, glancing over at me and smiling as easily as if I’d seen him shaking someone’s hand. How odd that I knew as much as I did about him—how he’d kiss, where he’d touch you. I flushed, imagining a hand on my neck, the laundered smell of a clean white shirt.

  WHEN PEOPLE BEGAN ARRIVING, I stayed out on the deck with Kate. I loitered just behind and to the right of her until she told me she found it difficult to talk to me from there. I stepped beside her. At least I knew I looked better than I had that morning. I had borrowed Kate’s lipstick and taken my hair down, using some of her serum to smooth it.

  She introduced me to each couple as they came through the kitchen and out onto the deck, exclaiming over the food. They must have been familiar with the caregiver routine—they introduced themselves to me right after kissing Kate on the cheek. A tall, black-haired woman with big silver earrings nodded toward the laden table and said, “That’s you, right?” The wine I had had while we were getting ready must have had an effect; I found myself blushing when I agreed. The table did look beautiful. It had a look of vivid, cheerful excess. The whole deck seemed pretty and crowded, the light the syrupy yellow that falls at the end of the afternoon in summertime.

  I forgot the names of most of their friends as soon as they were introduced, suspecting it might be weeks before I could get them straight. They were mostly couples in their thirties and early forties, wearing jeans or khakis. The women wore bright knit tops that showed their gleaming shoulders, except for one redhead in a crisp linen blouse and a chunky turquoise necklace.

  I stayed near Kate. The redhead in the linen shirt bent down to kiss her cheek. I glanced at Kate, who flicked her eyes toward the bar we’d set up on one table.

  “Would you like a drink?” I asked the woman. “There’s beer and wine on the picnic table.” She turned to look at me, lifting her eyebrows until she figured out who I might be. “I’m Bec,” I added. “I’m helping Kate.”

  She held out a hand. “Nancy.” She brushed her bangs off her face and glanced down at Kate and then back at me. “I think I will. Anyone else?” We shook our heads. Kate said something to me, glancing at Nancy to show it concerned her.

  “Oh. She says to try the goat cheese,” I added. “It’s that herby kind I guess you like.” Nancy smiled and headed off to the bar. Kate and I spoke to the next couple to arrive, and again I acted as a sort of shadow hostess, glancing at her for cues.

  Some of the frien
ds could understand her better than I could, and others glanced at me for help. Even the ones who understood her must have realized that translating was part of what I had to practice, and they waited, sipping their drinks or chewing salad, as Kate spoke and I watched and repeated it. It was a little like reading aloud. They watched Kate, then me as I repeated her words. I tried to match the tone she used, so I didn’t sound monotonous, but that felt odder still. I was reminded of my one acting experience, when I’d had a single line (“Yes! Truly, Lucy, what must Senator Gladwell think?”) that had rung out of me like a proclamation instead of welling up naturally the way the better actors’ lines did.

  Someone lit a joint, the peppery smell mixing with the petroleumand-lemon scent of the citronella candles. People were scattered around the chairs, balancing plates of food on their knees and talking loudly. Kate was at the round glass-topped table near the door, and I seated myself in the empty chair next to her. All around her conversation was going on. Kate watched a woman with cropped white-blond hair saying, “This bulldog was the most repulsive animal I’ve ever seen. I’d rather get a Komodo dragon.” Kate laughed, then shifted her attention to the woman’s husband, a good-looking bearded black guy. He was defending the bulldog, whose name was Posy.

  How many other caregivers had her friends met at parties like this over the past couple years? At first there probably weren’t any except for a few hours in the daytime. Then there’d be someone lurking in the background in the evening; then closer and closer, edging into conversations and occasionally repeating dialogue and explanations. Now, I’d guess, someone was always there.

  Evan walked past, pausing between me and Kate. “How’s everything?” he asked. He had rolled his sleeves up and was holding a bottle of water. He looked at me. “Any questions?” I shook my head, smiling. He kissed the top of Kate’s head and moved on.

  Kate began to speak, glancing from me to the group at large. The effect was instantaneous: As soon as she began to talk they quieted and watched, waiting for me to repeat it. It was the same each time she said something, and it was admirable in a way, how quickly they perked up, but it was tiring, too, even for me, and soon Kate went back to listening, a small grin fixed on her lips.

  I ENDED UP STAYING the whole time. Each time I thought I should go, someone would draw me into a conversation and next thing I knew I was eating another cracker with smoked trout and telling them all about myself: the town I grew up in, my parents, my major, waitressing.

  They began to clear out around midnight, and we stood near the door, saying good-bye, Kate being kissed and me shaking hands, Evan hugging people good-bye. After the last few I retreated and began clearing up cups, waiting to be dismissed but not wanting to ask just yet. I left Kate and Evan in the living room and went out to the back porch, slowly stacking the last of the naked enamel dishes that gleamed with oil and bore hardened white smears of goat cheese. It was peaceful on the porch, the breeze cooling off my face and the music still playing softly, and I took my time, finally blowing out the molten candles as I went back in.

  Kate and Evan weren’t in the kitchen. I went slowly through to the living room, suddenly aware that it was dark and quiet and twelve thirty in the morning in someone else’s home. Then their voices, mainly Evan’s, drifted out to me from the bedroom. I headed down the hall, trying to walk loudly.

  “Look. We agreed on this,” Evan was saying. The door to their room was open. “We made the compromise, so can we please just leave it alone?” I stopped in the hall and stood there. I knew I should say something, or make a noise, but I didn’t want him to know I’d heard him this way, his voice so pleading and uneven. Kate’s was an undifferentiated murmur, rising at the end. I pictured Kate sitting there, the narrow plane of her shoulders, her feet and hands still stubbornly where I’d laid them as we got ready for the party. I took a heavy step in the hallway and called out, “Well, I should be heading out.” Then I stepped into the doorway.

  The room was half-dark. Only the bedside lamp was on, casting a wan oval of light on the pillowcase. They both turned to look at me. Evan was standing by the side of the bed, holding a checkbook in one hand. He ran the other hand through his hair when he saw me. Kate looked over her shoulder. A blush crept up my neck. I hadn’t much considered the room before except as a place where I worked, but it struck me now how intimate it was to come upon a couple in their bedroom. I pictured him on top of her in the bed, her unable to move. Maybe they found some compromise, somehow. Or maybe they had just given up.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said, pushing the image out of my head. I touched the light switch on the wall. “Do you want some light?”

  They both looked around the dim room, startled, as though they had been in here since the sun had set and hadn’t even noticed. Kate swallowed and said, “Please.”

  I hit the light, illuminating the wide blue bed. Kate turned her chair away from Evan and toward me. She gave me a brilliant smile, her eyes squinting against the light. Evan passed a hand over his eyes. Their faces were flushed.

  “Thank you so much for staying,” Kate said. She tilted her head back toward Evan. “Evan’s just writing out your check.” Evan had been staring out the window, and at the mention of the checkbook he started and bent over the nightstand to write it out.

  “I’m giving you a little extra since you stayed on short notice,” he said as he wrote. “And for such a wonderful job cooking.” He signed the check with a flourish and tore it out. He wouldn’t look at Kate.

  I took it from him and looked at her. “Do you need any help getting to bed?” She shook her head. “Okay then.” I felt uncomfortable leaving, though I couldn’t have explained it to them. I had no pretext for staying. So what if they had argued? People always fought after parties; you either had sex, hashed over who you thought was going to have sex, or told him how he’d pissed you off. My last two relationships had broken up in the aftermath of the best parties I’d ever been to, the biggest, noisiest, and most high-spirited. Sometimes I felt I had to find some way of continuing the intensity of the evening and then it backfired on me: The resentments came out, or it turned out he’d been in a closet with some girl while I thought he was in the bathroom.

  “I’ll see you Tuesday,” I said.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Evan said. “It’s late.”

  As we passed the kitchen he said, “There’s wine left. Did you get a chance to try the sauvignon blanc?” He opened the fridge, reached down to the bottom shelf, and handed me a bottle.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said.

  “You didn’t have to stay,” he pointed out. I conceded the point and thanked him. He held the front door open for me and looked out to see where my car was. Then he waited as I walked down the driveway. It touched me, that caution and attention. Or maybe I just wanted to sympathize with him after hearing him that way. I hated hearing a tremble in a man’s voice, especially since after that morning I knew how it felt to have Kate looking at you with that uncompromising gaze. It made me pity him. Maybe he’d known that, hence the extra money and the wine. When I got to my car I waved and I saw his silhouette wave back. I got in, setting the bottle on the passenger seat, and watched the porch light flash off.

  five

  TOO BARE,” SAID KATE.

  “If you say so.” I hung the dress, which had spaghetti straps and a low-dipping neckline, back on the rack. In the mirror I saw the saleswoman watching us from behind the cash register.

  “Trust me,” said Kate. “I couldn’t even wear a strapless bra with that. You know me pretty well by now, but I’ll avoid making you tape my breasts if I can.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She grinned. I held a blue sleeveless turtleneck beneath Kate’s chin and we considered it. A tiny, trim woman in her fifties strode past us to another rack. As she caught a glimpse of me pushing Kate’s hair off her shoulders, she turned. Still holding a dress to her collarbone, the woman said to me: “It’s so kind of you to help yo
ur friend.” She gave us both a smile.

  “Mmm, thanks,” I murmured. “I’m in it for the money.”

  The woman looked perplexed, though her smile remained. “Oh, I see. Well, still.” She started to say something else but then turned away toward the rack. Kate lowered her face a bit but I could still see her grinning.

  In these first two months we’d settled into a schedule of four days a week. I arrived in the mornings to find Kate dressed but not made-up, her hair still damp from the shower. I gave her two cans of the nutritional shakes, some water, then rinsed the funnel and tube and wiped her side with a paper towel. Then we sat at the kitchen table to read a list of tasks in Evan’s scratchy handwriting, which slanted up at the ends, the lines drifting toward the edges of the page.

  I so rarely saw her outside her chair that for a long time I tended to forget she ever left it. Then I walked in one day to find her stretched out on the couch, her legs crossed at the ankles. She turned her head to look at me and for one irrational moment I knew that she was, suddenly, inexplicably, well. I could imagine her sitting up, swinging her feet to the floor, and striding my way so clearly that when she did not move I wondered what was wrong. It was the casualness of the posture that gave me that sensation, the arm resting on her abdomen, one leg tucked over the other.

  Everyone has those dreams, the type in which the man who’s just dumped you comes back, and you’re laughing and sweet together again, but then you wake up and all that sweetness falls away. He’s still gone; he’s still moved on to a fashion design student. That was kind of what it felt like when that second ended and I went over to help Kate to her wheelchair. Later, Kate told me Evan crossed her feet so one leg didn’t fall off the edge of the cushion.

  To Liam I speculated that her illness had made them closer. Perhaps when you faced death, I had decided, immediate or eventual, you put aside the really silly differences. They dealt with what was truly important, or so I felt it must be. When I mentioned this one afternoon in my room, his face grew rather still, as it always did when he was pausing before disagreeing with me. That pause had irritated me, as though he had to be sure I could bear to be contradicted. At moments like this I felt the age difference between us, and with some strange satisfaction I thought that he and his wife would never make it through anything really difficult. What paltry problem had driven him to me?