Jessica Z

by Shawn Klomparens

  “What?” Josh asks.

  “Mm, nothing,” I say, and roll onto my back, still with the quilt around me. “So, is this a hookup?”

  “That’s kind of an undergrad way of putting it, isn’t it?”

  “Is it, though?”

  “I don’t think so. Do you?”

  “Remains to be seen,” I say.

  “I’d like it not to be.” He leans toward me and we kiss again. “Do you have to work tomorrow?” he asks.

  “What, are you trying to get me to leave?”

  “No, no,” he says. “I want you to stay. I was just wondering about your job.”

  “They are surprisingly flexible. But if my boss wants to can me, I’ve got another offer.”

  “It’s good to have options, I guess.”

  Isn’t it?

  “So, tell me about Iowa,” I say. My hand is on Josh’s chest, and I’m sort of fixated on the way he feels different and new. Less hair. Bony ribs. I should stop making comparisons to the one other male body I’ve become so familiar with, but I can’t.

  “Ohio,” Josh says. “Beautiful Ohio. It’s very flat. There are many suburbs. Many malls.”

  “It’s like that Pretenders song.”

  “Yes, we had to learn that song in school. All kids in Ohio do. Fourth grade. No, I’m kidding. You aren’t gullible, are you?”

  “I’d like to think I’m not so easily fooled,” I say, and now I’m feeling very, very sleepy. My body is trained, I think, to fall into post-orgasmic slumber. “Do things blow up in Ohio?”

  “What?”

  “Like buses. Malls. Do the bombers go there?” My eyelids are sliding shut, and I can’t stop them.

  “God no,” Josh says, and he gives a sort of laugh. “No one rides the bus there anyway. And this is how pathetic that place is, a friend of mine sent me this thing from the paper in Columbus. It was an article about the top-ten potential terror targets there, almost hopeful, basically an invitation to blow stuff up. It’s like, ‘Hello terrorists? Would you please blow up the state capitol building to give us a little validation here?’ So pathetic.”

  “It is, kind of.”

  “Those assholes deserve to explode, just for being so stupid.” There’s an iciness to the way he says it that makes me open my eyes.

  “That’s a little harsh, Josh.”

  “No, I don’t want that to happen. My folks are there, my sister, my nephews. Well, maybe it could happen to my brother-in-law, that wouldn’t be such a loss. I’m kidding. Kidding. People need to wake up, though. It’s coming. For real.”

  My eyes have closed again, and waking up is the farthest thing from my world right now. “I’m sorry, Josh,” I mumble. “I’m so tired all of a sudden.”

  “It’s alright,” he says. “You sleep. Sleep well.”

  11

  The crosstown is full when I catch it the next morning, and I end up having to stand for the whole lurching ride back to my neighborhood. I overhear people talking about something happening last night, something blowing up, and I look over some woman’s shoulder at the newspaper she’s reading and see that a car bomb went off at the Dallas–Fort Worth airport. Only one person was killed, apparently; the thing went off too soon, not even close to the terminal, and it isn’t clear if security stopped the guy or if he just went off prematurely.

  In either event, I’m glad it didn’t happen here. We’ve had enough stress. And maybe it’s a little selfish of me, but I don’t think I could handle another call from Mom.

  I never ride this line, and I accidentally get off one stop before I should, leaving me with a three-block walk to get to my apartment. Shit. The walk will give me enough time to call Katie, though, so I power up the phone and speed-dial.

  She answers quickly. “Jess, where were you? I tried to call a million times last night.”

  “I was…busy?”

  “You stayed with the artist guy.”

  “I did.”

  “All night?”

  “I’m on my way home right now.”

  “Jessica!”

  “I know.” I’m blushing.

  “Did you?”

  “Not everything.”

  “But something.”

  “Something. You were right about something. Very right.”

  “Wait, which something?”

  For some reason I can’t bring myself to say it out loud, so I make an embarrassingly stupid lip-smacking noise.

  “No! Jessica! Are you serious?”

  “Serious.”

  “Did you reciprocate?”

  “This morning, yes.” It wasn’t really any sort of quid pro quo; I just felt like doing it. So I went down on him, he enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, and that was that.

  “You vixen.”

  “I’m bad.”

  “No. What about Patrick?”

  “God, Katie, you had to say that.”

  “But what are you going to do?”

  I sigh and sidestep the legs of a panhandler who growls something at me as I go by. “Okay, he’s seeing Gretchen, or almost seeing her, so I have some justification here.”

  “Right. Good.”

  “And he’s at work now, so I won’t have to see him until tonight. I mean…” Why should I feel guilty? “I’ll talk to him tonight.”

  “Things are over,” Katie says, in that buck-up way that makes me love her so much. “Moving on to something new, right?”

  “Right, yes. Thank you.”

  “So it was good?”

  “What was good?”

  “You know what.”

  “It was very good.”

  “Big ‘O’?”

  “Katie, you’re making me blush and I’m walking by homeless people. Stop it.”

  “I told you so.”

  She’s doing this to make me smile, and it’s working. “I know you did. Now stop.”

  “Love you, Jess.”

  “Love you too, K. Bye bye.”

  I keep smiling as I walk past the MacGyver store, and even on past Joe’s apartment. No lights are on in his living room, but I can see the glow from his computer’s screen saver at his desk. And as I start down the hill I look up at my own place, see that I left the blinds open, see the pane in my bay window that’s still cracked, and then I see something that makes me gasp.

  Just above my place, Patrick is standing in his own window, looking out. He lifts his hand and waves, but he’s not smiling.

  I’m not either, anymore. I lift my hand and let it drop, and look straight ahead to the door of our building and wish I had an umbrella or something that I could hide under to get away from his stare. I dig for my keys as I’m going up the front steps, but Patrick buzzes me in before I even have them in my hand. I wait for a moment in the entryway.

  Should I go up and talk to him?

  No. Not yet. I run up—like, run up—the stairs to my door, and I’m inside my apartment with the door closed behind me in record time. The phone rings, and I’m so sure it’s Patrick I don’t check the ID; maybe I shouldn’t be picking this up?

  “Hello?” I say, sort of feebly.

  “Jessica, where were you last night?” It’s Gretchen. “Was your phone off? I tried to call—”

  Jesus. “Hey, Gretchen, this might not be—”

  “Were you with Josh?”

  “—the best time for me to talk.” My answering machine is flashing the number eleven, and as I take note of this I hear footsteps coming down outside my door.

  “Will you call me later? I’ve got—” There’s a slow knock at my door.

  “Yes, later. Bye.”

  I take a long breath and go to the door, then another breath as I open it. Patrick is standing there, shoulders slouched, looking miserable. He knows.

  “Hi,” I say, and I try to smile.

  “Hi.”

  “Come in?”

  He walks in but doesn’t sit down. I want to hug him, but I don’t; I want to tell him it’s his fault, but I don’t do that, either. Ma
ybe it’s my fault. Maybe it’s no one’s fault.

  “I heard you went to that class that Josh did.” The way he says it makes me feel suddenly less sympathetic.

  “Yes?”

  “Gretchen told me.”

  “Okay.”

  “You didn’t come home last night.”

  “I know.”

  “I was worried.”

  Right, just try to play that card. “Well,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “Did you spend the night with him?”

  “I did.” I cross my arms and take a step closer to him.

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Excuse me? Are you kidding me? Are you seriously asking me this?”

  “I just want to know.”

  I could say no, tell him nothing really happened, and he’d believe me and feel better. But now I’m angry, and I don’t want him to feel better.

  “It’s none of your goddamn business,” I say, and now my hands are on my hips. “Are you maybe missing the irony of this? That your girlfriend or whatever she is—”

  “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s not anything.”

  “—whom I’m supposed to be all buddy-buddy with now, tells you that I am doing something with someone, and you get weird about it? I’m supposed to be happy that Pat is fucking Gretchen, and then when I’m with someone, you come down here and get all weird and jealous? Am I missing something here?”

  “I’m not fucking Gretchen, nothing has happened—”

  “That’s not the point!” I’m shaking, and I hate how my voice gets so shrill when I’m mad.

  “This isn’t the way things are supposed to be.”

  “Oh? Really? I’ll tell you how things are supposed to be, then.” Maybe I’m acting a little over the top here, but I’m going with it. “I’ll tell you how things are. Patrick is leaving my apartment. That’s how it is. Get out. That’s the way things are supposed to be. Out.”

  “Wait, Jessica.”

  “Get out!” I yell, and Patrick steps to the still-open door, looking shocked. “Wait,” I say.

  “What?” His eyebrows lift just a little hopefully.

  Just like Katie said, it’s over. Keep telling yourself this. Keep telling it to yourself, and maybe it will come true.

  “Give me my key.”

  “Come on, Jess.”

  “I said give me my key.” He takes his keys from his pocket and works mine off the ring, and then he looks at me and sets the key on the little bureau by my door.

  “I want my key, then,” he says, not very convincingly.

  “Fine. Here.” I grab the key and fob from my dresser and throw it at him, thinking I’ll hit him with it, but it goes past his head and right through the door and clatters out on the steps.

  “You throw like such a girl,” Patrick says, and the way he says it makes it sound like the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

  “Just leave. Please.” He’d better, before I lose my nerve.

  Patrick shakes his head and pulls the door shut, and it’s a long moment before I hear him go back up the stairs.

  12

  By the beginning of summer, I’ve developed a new workday routine for the mornings that I’m home:

  Get up.

  Turn on computer to start (slow, slow, slow) boot up.

  Make coffee.

  Return to computer, check e-mail.

  The first message that comes through this morning is from Gretchen, linking to the latest mock-up of the golf resort Web site. My first task, as her new little helper, has been to write copy for the entire site. I have a love/hate relationship with Web copy—it’s so easy to write (lower standards), but it’s also so tedious (a lot of filler). It’s all billable time, though, and the golf people pay us very, very well and offer lots of praise, so we’re both happy about it.

  The second e-mail is from Mike, my former boss, for whom I am now managing the Cippoletti project as a consultant. Somehow, with guidance from Gretchen, I’ve managed to arrange a deal where I work fewer hours and with less stress, and I end up making more money.

  So I sit at my desk and listen to the early-day sounds from the street below, and I write Web copy in my robe and sweats.

  There is no friendly coffee in the mornings anymore. Patrick does not come by. In fact, Patrick and I have not spoken since the key-throwing incident, just over one month ago. I thought it would last for maybe a week before one of us cracked, but then a week became two, and then two became three. And three became habit and so on and so on, until we got so good at avoiding each other that things just stayed that way.

  Today there are no sounds from above. Either Patrick is being very quiet, or he didn’t come home last night. I’ll never know for sure, because Gretchen and I have come to an unspoken pact whereby intimate encounters with one Patrick McAvoy will never be discussed.

  It’s our own rule. She understands it, I understand it, we don’t talk about it, and that is that.

  On some days, working at home, I will motivate myself enough to rise from my chair and walk the block and a half to Tommie’s Coffee Shop for something to get me going. Most days, though, like today, I just make a big pot of my so-so supermarket blend and that works well enough. I do still have one of Pat’s giant mugs, and the old chipped thing with painted-on flowers has become his surrogate.

  My task today in golf land is to write a bio piece on one of the course designers, a former pro who also, I’ve learned from my Googling, shares a name with a food writer in Portland and an orthodontist somewhere in Florida. I’ve never held a golf club in my life, but I’ve put myself through virtual golf boot camp so I can write with at least the illusion of authority. These golf people seem unnaturally obsessed. They dress kind of funny too, and it’s become a running joke for Gretchen and I to e-mail the most ridiculous golfing pictures back and forth to each other. Sometimes she adds hysterical captions. She never puts them on PitchBitch, though. We can’t threaten the gravy train.

  A chat window from my sister pops up as I work. Her little icon, now, is a sailboat. “Are you still there?” is the message in the box.

  “Still here,” I type back.

  “I thought you were leaving for…Nevada? New Mexico?”

  “Nevada. Not ’til tomorrow.”

  “And artist guy needs what?”

  “Artist guy needs slabs of rock for his new printmaking thing. Which, apparently, I am now going to be a part of.”

  “Nevada and slabs of rock go together how?”

  “There’s some special quarry there. I thought you knew everything about rocks, anyway, Ms. Geologist? And aren’t you working or something?”

  “Working, yes. Also: bored. Summer session gang is dutifully taking its first exam while I pretend to monitor. Are you working? Or should I say, ‘consulting’?”

  “Fully consulting. Trying to. I need to be disciplined, K. Seriously.”

  “I won’t bug you. Bye. Call me before you go to Nevada.”

  Josh and I, in Patrick’s absence, have become a something. There have been more dinners, more drawings, more nights spent over. Lately, many nights spent over. And, even though I have no recollection of us explicitly discussing it, I’ve somehow agreed to become the subject of his next big project.

  The something that we’ve become has never been openly discussed, either. It’s comfortable, being together, but uncomfortable too, because it never seems real. For a while, at the beginning, the lack of definition was easy to justify: I liked the feeling of getting back at Patrick somehow. It didn’t take long, though, to begin to feel less like I was the one doing the manipulating, and more like the one who was being pulled along.

  Josh is a force of will, and I’ve just been going along. Any decision to be made is done so—regardless of my input—by him. We will dine out, or we will dine in. We will have sex, or we will sleep.

  We will have more sex. This I know. On this subject, Josh and I are of the same mind.

  It’s funny to think how follo
wing along can become a habit. I suppose there’s a comfort in not needing to find your way. So I keep following.

  One thing I do avoid is any sort of political discussion with Josh. He can talk, and talk, about the oppression of the lower classes, disenfranchisement of minorities, U.S. imperialism in Latin America and beyond, or any other of a multitude of leftist arguments. It’s not that I disagree with what he’s saying—he often makes a lot of sense—it’s more that I’ve learned anything I have to contribute will be, more or less, ignored. It’s not such a loss. I don’t care so much about politics anyway, and there are better things to do than argue.

  There is comfort and art, good food and great sex. Politics are avoided. This is, in summation, my relationship with Josh. Things could be worse.

  Katie’s online status switches to “Away,” and I close the chat window so I can get back to work. Her message has reminded me, though, that I still need to get my things together for this little road trip Josh and I will be taking. He’s told me we’ll be “camping,” so I suppose I should take my backpack? I’m not even sure where my backpack is.

  I’m also not sure just what I’m getting myself into.

  13

  Nevada, on the return from our rock-gathering mission, is beginning to feel like it may be the biggest state in the Union, and I’m so happy I’m not the one driving through it. It took us two days of travel to get to the quarry, and after we got up this morning Josh went in and hunted through the rocks while I stayed back and read a book in our borrowed pickup. We loaded up the slabs and started back home almost four hours ago, and the sign we just passed says another 187 miles of dry mountains and sagebrush to the border. The truck is moving a little more slowly than it did on the way out—Josh got almost a thousand pounds of this special limestone for his new project—and every one of these hills turns into a crawl going up and a rush coming down.

  I’ve gotten out of having to drive the entire trip; I don’t know how to operate a stick and I’d be way too terrified about the pop-up camper we’re towing, anyway. Neither of us is insured, and I don’t even know the guy at the Academy who loaned Josh the truck and little trailer. I’ve decided that he can deal with the moral burden of being an uninsured driver, and that seems to suit him just fine.