Jessica Z

by Shawn Klomparens

  The air moves again, and the blinds make their shivering noise. We take more steps, through the doorway into his room, then he bumps backward into his bed and sits.

  “Ha,” he says, more verbal punctuation than laugh. “Ha.” Patrick looks up at me and his hands, inside my shirt, are resting on my waist, thumbs at the bottom of my ribs.

  “Do you want to stay?” he whispers. “You can stay if you want.”

  I lean forward, and my cheek brushes against his own as I bring my lips to his ear.

  “I—” I take a breath, “I don’t think I should.”

  “I’m not that drunk.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Let’s forget the rule, okay?”

  “That’s not it, either.”

  “What is it, then?”

  I straighten up, and take his hands from my waist and hold them in my own.

  “I’m tired,” I say. “You’re tired. I have to work in the morning—”

  “Which work?” he says, a little more alertly. “Ad work or art work?” This is something I don’t even want to get close to touching.

  “Work work. I have to be up early.”

  “That never stopped you before,” he says, and I can see his smile in the darkness. He lies back into his pillow and pulls his legs up onto the bed, holding my hands the entire time. “You should stay.”

  “No, Pat. I should go home and go to bed. And you should go to sleep.”

  He just looks at me for a moment, and there might be a little smile on his face, but I can’t be sure in the dark. “You’re right. You should probably go.”

  “Wait,” I say. “Wait. I know what you’re trying to do here.” It would be so easy, and there would be so little remorse. Well, I can tell myself that now. “I could stay. I mean, we could just rest.” I’d like to smile too; part of me wishes I could, but I feel weary and confused.

  “Right,” he says. “Rest. Rest.”

  “Hold on a second,” I say. “I’ll be back.”

  “You’re going?”

  “Just to the bathroom.”

  I go back through his apartment, past the still-open door and the glow from the hall, and I don’t turn on the light when I go through the kitchen and into his bathroom. I see myself, my silhouette, in the mirror, and I stand there and think what I should do and what I could do, and above all what I’d like to do.

  It would be very, very easy.

  I could just not think about it after; and there would be very little remorse.

  It would be very easy.

  So I go back to the room, and see that Pat has pulled his covers over himself; his still-clothed leg sticks out from the side of the bed and his mouth is wide open and each heavy breath is just on the edge of being a snore. This makes me laugh. I’m ready, so ready, and he’s passed out. Or maybe not.

  “You didn’t flush,” he says without opening his eyes.

  “I didn’t go.”

  “Come here.” He reaches his hand toward me, then pats his bed next to him. “Come here.”

  I can’t do this. I shouldn’t. But I sit on the bed and slide my hand under the sheets and onto his bare stomach and chest. And as I lean forward toward him, bracing myself against his chest, his arm comes around me under my shirt and he pulls me to him and our mouths go together all boozy and wet and breathing. He pulls me closer and I bring my knee up onto the bed, and with my left hand I’m fumbling to unbutton my pants and his hand is up the back of my shirt again. I rise up, then back down, our teeth nick and we’re kissing again. Then, for an instant, I think of Gretchen. It feels so not right that I stop and sit up.

  “What?” he says.

  “I should go.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I should.”

  “You probably should.”

  “I mean, we could just rest,” I say. “We could just sleep, for real.”

  “You should go,” he says. Maybe he’s thinking about Gretchen too? His eyes are closed, and he takes a long breath after he says it, like he’s really going to fall asleep. Well, fine then. He probably won’t even remember this.

  “Good night, Pat.” There’s nothing. “Pat?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night, Jess. I miss you.”

  “I know. Call me.”

  “I’ll call you. I miss you.”

  I almost give him another kiss, but I get up and leave instead.

  On Thursday, as Gert works over me in the studio, I try to avoid making eye contact with Josh. I mean, I shouldn’t feel guilty, and I am still sort of angry with him, so why should I feel weird about talking with Patrick last night?

  It was just talking, right? Nothing happened. Well, that kissing, and the near removal of my pants.

  Should something more have happened?

  Is just a kiss something, or nothing?

  To keep it out of my head, I ask Gert what he thinks the project is going to be.

  “You know, Jess,” he says, “I have an idea what the doc is doing with these, but every time I think I know what he’s doing, I’m wrong. So, I guess I don’t know.”

  I’m lying topless on the table while we wait to see if Josh feels we need to re-scan the right side of my rib cage. My arm is covering my chest and my head is on a pillow, and Gert sits next to me up on the table with his cast in his lap.

  “Not even a guess?”

  “I have some guesses.” He lifts his injured hand and scratches around the base of the cast with his left thumb.

  “Oh God, Gert, your surgery is tomorrow.”

  “Yes. Eight a.m.”

  “Are you…do you need to do anything to get ready for it?”

  “I’m just not allowed to eat tonight. They’re putting me to sleep all the way.”

  “What do they have to do?”

  “Just fix the tendon, and then another cast. Maybe another surgery.”

  “How long does the cast stay on?”

  “Six weeks? Not so long.”

  “I’m really sorry, Gert.”

  “No, stop. It was my own fault. And it will be all fixed soon enough. More drugs in the meantime, though. And I’m pretty good at brushing my teeth with my left hand. I can do all sorts of things lefty now.”

  I pass on making the obvious joke. If only Gretchen were here.

  Josh looks up at us from behind the bulk of the scanner. “I think we’re done,” he says.

  “You need me anymore, Doc?” Gert holds out his good hand to help me sit up, then slides my folded tank top across the table.

  “I’m just going to be cataloging these, so stay if you want, but I don’t really need any help.”

  “I’m going to go eat, then. Eat while I can.”

  “Good luck tomorrow,” I say. My top is back on, and Gert’s holding his hand out again for me while I jump down from the table.

  “You send me some chocolates while I’m there.”

  “How long do you have to stay? And where are you having it done?” I reach up under my top to straighten out the shelf bra in there, an act that Gert pays no attention to whatsoever.

  “St. Mary’s. I could leave that day, but they recommend I stay the night. I get more flowers and chocolates that way.”

  “Really, I hope it’s fast and easy for you.”

  “You’re a nice girl, Jess.” He grabs his backpack and says good-bye to Josh, and he’s off.

  “Let me know how it goes tomorrow, Gert,” Josh says.

  I’m left standing by the table, wondering if I should make a quick exit myself.

  “Jess,” Josh says, not looking up this time. “You want to see what you look like?” With Gert gone, his voice seems to hang in the space of the studio. And as much as I wish I could forget it, I do feel a little guilty about last night.

  “Not really? I mean, sure, I’ll look.”

  I pull a chair over to his side of the scanner and sit next to him. On the screen is a wire-frame rendering of something; it doesn�
��t look like a part of me or anyone else. Josh types something and the lines are filled in; he types something else and shading appears to provide relief. Whatever is on the screen looks alien; wrinkled and cratered like the surface of the moon.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s your armpit.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No, really. Look.” He spins a jogwheel on the console with his middle finger and the surface on the screen backs away and sure enough, my armpit is there in ghostly white, framed by my lifted arm and the roundness of my breast.

  Josh types some more, and something new resolves itself on the screen. “I really like this one.”

  “It’s a mountain range.”

  “It’s the top of your foot. Left foot, when I had you point your toes up. Those are your tendons.”

  “Yes, yes. I see it now.”

  “Look at this one,” Josh says. “This is one of my favorites.” He types again, and I see a strange curved space; without any frame of reference I can’t tell if the curve is bulging out or in. I stare and stare, and I must confess that I’m fascinated.

  “I give up,” I say. “What is it?”

  “Right here,” he says, and he reaches to me and touches the space above my right collarbone. He rubs his fingertip there, just for a moment, and it gives me a little shiver.

  “From yesterday? When you had me put my hand up on my head?”

  “That’s it.”

  “That’s so cool.”

  “Want to see more?”

  “I want to know what you’re planning to do with them. That’s what I want to know.”

  “Ah. You’ll see. You will see.”

  “You won’t give me a hint?”

  “Rand McNally.”

  “That’s what you said last time. Just tell me.”

  “You’ll see. You will.”

  “You suck.”

  “I do suck. I need to tell you something. About that phone call.”

  “Josh,” I say, and I scoot the chair back just a little bit away from him. “I’m over it. And I don’t really need that to be my business. I don’t want it to be. Just don’t give people my number.”

  “No, really, it’s the farthest thing from what you think it is.”

  “Fine, tell me then.”

  “Alright. The person who called, his name’s Christian. He’s in El Salvador.”

  “That call was from El Salvador?”

  “It was. Christian has been a really good friend. I lived with his family when I was a grad student, his mom is like, my second mom. They’ve all modeled for me. His little brother was in that PowerPoint—”

  “Ramón, San Salvador?”

  “Exactly. Ramón is here in the States now. But the thing is, his paperwork isn’t entirely straight. And right now, he’s kind of…well, he’s kind of disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? Is he into shady things?”

  “Hardly. He’s a good kid, you know, here to work. But no one knows where he is. Christian’s just trying to track him down. He’s worried. And he wanted me to help him out. That’s all there is to it.”

  “But why my phone?”

  “From Salvador, it’s a lot cheaper for him to call your cell carrier than a landline.”

  I think about this, and I guess it makes sense. Maybe it makes sense? “You swear you’re telling me the truth?”

  “Absolute truth, Jess. And I’m sorry.”

  “Josh, maybe…”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe you should consider getting your own phone,” I say. “For things like that.”

  “It sort of goes against my principles. But I will consider it.”

  “Good.”

  “You left your book in the loft, you know.”

  “What book?”

  “The Hiaasen one.”

  I laugh. “Amy loaned me that book, actually.”

  “That figures. His picture on the back has been taunting me. I had to turn him over so he wouldn’t smile at me anymore. He was rubbing it in.”

  “Rubbing what in?”

  “Your absence.”

  I cross my arms. “If I go up there to get Amy’s book, you’re going to follow me, aren’t you?”

  “I might.”

  “And if you follow me up there, you’re going to get close to me and say the words, right?”

  “I could say the words, and do those things I usually do when I say the words.”

  “And we will undress, and probably have sex.”

  “That would be a possibility. After saying the words and doing the things, if we end up undressed, we may actually engage in sexual intercourse. I am currently thinking of past occasions where things unfolded in a similar fashion.”

  “You expect this to happen, don’t you?”

  “I expect nothing.” Josh’s straight face breaks into the faintest smile. “But I would like it more than anything.”

  I stare at him, with my arms crossed, for a long, long time. He stares back. It is unfortunate that, right now, compelled by the guilt over what almost happened last night, I would like it more than anything too. So I guess I’ll have something else to feel guilty about.

  “If this chain of events unfolds as we’ve described it,” I say, “I’m not going to spend the night.”

  “Understood. But I would also love your company tonight to celebrate the completion of the first part of this project. Scanning done. And by celebrate, I mean, there will be bottles of wine, plural. And take-out food of some exotic variety.”

  “Then I reserve the right, upon the completion of the act, to reconsider.”

  “This too is understood.”

  We stare at each other again, wordlessly daring the other to break. Finally I stand up.

  “Well,” I say, “I had better grab Amy’s book before I go.”

  And I climb the steps to the loft.

  I’m meeting Gretchen Friday afternoon, but I decide that I first should go over to St. Mary’s to see if Gert is taking visitors. It isn’t so far from the Academy and it’s a nice day for a walk.

  Yes, I completed the act last evening.

  Yes, I assisted in the consumption of two bottles of decent wine and one very good bottle of champagne brought over by Hoffman when he heard us, drunk and laughing, from down the hall.

  And yes, I spent the night.

  Josh is busy trying to get some additional computers moved into the studio for the project, and the workers are back to dismantle and pack up the scanner. So there isn’t much of a reason to stick around, and I’d really like to see how Gert is doing, so I go.

  I stop at a drugstore on the way to buy a box of chocolates, and because I’m feeling goofy and I hate kitschy things like this, I buy a little pink teddy bear with a heart stitched on the chest that says: “You’re the BEST!”

  It takes about twenty minutes to get to the hospital. Gert Knickmann is there, says the girl at the front desk, room 516. He’s out of surgery, visitors are permitted. I get an ID tag and directions to Gert’s room, making no eye contact with the feeble, broken people shuffling through the halls on my way there.

  Gert is awake in his room, lying in bed and talking with a plain but cute young woman seated on a chair next to him. They both look at me as I peek in the door, and Gert blinks and smiles.

  “Jess, come in,” he says. His voice is a little wobbly. “Come in. Angie, this is Jessica.”

  Angie’s proximity to Gert suggests she’s the girlfriend, and she stands up and offers her hand over the bed. “Oh! Jessica. You’re the…You’re working with Gert and Dr. Hadden? On the project?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Angie gets jealous when I come home and tell her about seeing you naked all day.”

  Angie slaps the pillow next to Gert’s head. “Shut up. That is not true at all.”

  “I have found Mr. Knickmann to be a perfect gentleman,” I say, smiling. “Gert, since you kept talking about them, I brought some chocolates. And a pink
bear. I had a feeling you’d love it.”

  “Oh, Jess, you’re too nice, but I was only making a joke about the chocolates. I don’t eat them. I’m very happy about the bear, though.” He reaches for the toy and reads it, squinting, before tucking it under his left arm. “I’m the best? I knew this.”

  “You are the worst,” Angie says. Then she says something to him in what I assume to be Dutch; Gert laughs and says something back and she slaps the pillow again.

  “She says she can take the chocolates. I say if she eats them all I won’t ever want to scan her naked.”

  I can’t compete with Gert’s foreign sense of humor. “How was the surgery?” I ask.

  “I think it went okay, I was asleep for it. We know better in a few days, yeah? Why don’t you sit down?”

  “Oh, thanks, but I don’t have a ton of time. I just wanted to say hi.”

  “You’re sweet to come,” Gert says. He blinks his eyes, looking sleepy. “I suppose the doc will be too busy to come by. Tell him everything was fine.”

  “I will, Gert. Get better fast.” I look over to Angie. “It was nice meeting you.”

  “Nice meeting you too,” she says. “I’ll walk out with you. Gert, I’m going to find something to drink. You need anything?”

  “I’m fine. I just rest here with the bear.”

  We go out in the hall and I start to go the wrong way. Angie smiles and motions me toward her when she sees that I’m disoriented.

  “It’s so confusing in here,” she says. “You know, Gert has really, really liked working with you.”

  “Gert has a good poker face. But I like working with him too. How long have you guys been, I mean, I’m assuming—”

  “We’re partners. It’s been, gosh, it will be five years in September. I went to Delft for my undergrad. In the Netherlands. That’s where we met.”

  “Are you Dutch?”

  “My mother is. We were back and forth when I was a kid, there and here. But yeah, that’s where I met Gertie. Did you know he studied architecture? It’s strange, five years. Five years and it seems like nothing.”

  “I’m lucky if a relationship goes five months.”

  “It’s terrible that I’m asking this, but are you and Dr. Hadden like, together? I mean, Gertie has mentioned it, but he never really…God, I’m so sorry, this is none of my business.”