by Matthue Roth
“It’s done,” I said. “It happened about a week and a half ago. It’s just through next Sunday.”
“And just how long were you going to wait to tell us?”
“Since then, Mom. It’s not like they wait to suspend—”
“Can you please stop saying that word? Can you just tell us what happened?”
“It’s nothing! I just got into an argument. We got sort of heated, and then we started, I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know? Were you hurt?”
“No! I can take care of myself.”
“Obviously you can’t! If you’re getting suspended—”
“It just happened once!” I screamed. “It was a stupid mistake! I’m already being punished for it, you don’t need to punish me too!”
“Who was it with?” said my father. His first volley into the conversation.
“What difference does that make?”
“Do we know him? Or her?”
“It wasn’t with a girl—” I don’t know why I felt the need to protest that.
“Was it with Larissa?”
“What?”
Both me and my father stared at my mother for that one.
“I don’t know. You two always used to talk to each other, nonstop. Then all of a sudden, she’s never calling.”
“She never called that much.” My hands turned icy. “We were just friends.”
“Arthur. We know about the late-night phone calls. Don’t be silly. It’s okay.”
“Don’t call me silly. You have no idea—”
“I know we’re overprotective. We aren’t clueless. We know you talk on the phone late at night sometimes.”
“You don’t have the right to—”
“We don’t listen in! We do know it happens, that’s all. We have to know, it could’ve been drug dealers or phone sex or—”
“You have no right.”
“We have every right, Arthur,” she said. “We’re your parents.”
“No,” I growled. “The fight wasn’t with Larissa. That’s ridiculous of you to even say. And it’s awful. I would never hurt Larissa.”
“Well,” said my father carefully, “was she around for it?”
“Yes,” I said. “She was.”
I hadn’t yelled that. I felt the fire leaving my words, dropping out of my voice. I think my parents could feel it, too.
“And what did she think of it?” demanded my mother. She didn’t know when to stop. I remember thinking that, and feeling like a jerk for thinking it, but just: You don’t know when to stop.
“She thought it was a stupid, selfish thing to do,” I said.
“And how long does it last?” my father said. “This suspension?” He said suspension like it was a word in a foreign language.
“Just through Sunday. Then I go back to class, just as normal. My teachers can assign me make-up work. It won’t affect my grades, she said. It’s just a suspension.”
We were powering down. The anger seeping out of us. Our voices lowering in volume and growing hoarse, the blood in our veins slowing to a normal rate. I never thought I’d be able to say the words just a suspension and believe it.
I also never thought I’d be able to say that to my parents, tell them I’d been suspended, and have all three of us survive. It was one of those ultimate wrongnesses, a dark black hole that I’d never be able to recover from or move past.
But that was the thing, right? No matter what, life moves on. Getting suspended. Finding out about Damon’s porn fetish (addiction? compulsion? No, he was just a regular kid. So many people I knew probably watched porn; I just didn’t know anyone else well enough to know about it. Underneath it all, we were all of us weird, all of us total abnormal freaks). Larissa’s rape. Things happen to you, sometimes the worst shitty things happen to you, and you keep going. Like a shark, unable to stop moving until it dies. We have to keep living until we’re dead.
My parents boiled another kettle of water. We all sat around the table, drinking their instant coffee (I drank pennyroyal tea). They took out the cake that they were saving for a dinner party they were going to that weekend, and we cut into it at first tentatively, then greedily, wholeheartedly, cutting ourselves bigger slices each time. My mom started telling us about her job. She was the receptionist at a doctor’s office, and almost every day she came home complaining about her clients. Usually I dreaded it, but today her descriptions were things I could laugh at. My father was laughing, too, and my mother was baffled at first but then she laughed along. The whole world was ridiculous. There was nothing we couldn’t laugh at.
dreaming little dreams
I dreamt about Larissa. We were at summer camp, or on vacation, or someplace with trees and ocean and a bigger sky than there ever was in Philadelphia. I must’ve arrived with my parents, or maybe not. Other kids from my class were there. We were all in swimsuits, and my shirt was off, and I was feeling more exposed than ever. I pushed through the crowd, each time running into someone I knew—first Damon, then Crash, then Perry Kerry. I would make a sort of desperate excuse to each of them about why I wasn’t in better shape and why my chest was sunken-in and concave, a paunch of fat with no visible abs. I needed to find a towel.
Later I was shaking water off myself desperately, like a dog. I don’t remember going swimming, only finding myself wet and dripping. I was in a locker room. I kept watching people enter and exit, positive that a girl was going to intrude on me.
Finally, one did. It was Larissa.
“Don’t you have a towel?” she said. “Everyone should have a towel.”
“I don’t,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I’m cold.”
“Don’t be cold,” she told me. “That’s not a good way for you to be.”
She didn’t have a towel, but she handed me a hooded sweatshirt. It was big enough for us both. I said as much, but she laughed at me and said, “If we ever get together, it’s not going to happen that way. Not with me.”
The next thing I knew, we were in bed together.
I mean—not like that. We were both in pajamas, or clothes that were comfortable enough to be pajamas. I was under the sheets. She was on top of them, but right next to me. Our bodies were touching in a way they never had before. Spooning, people called it, and although that word always sounded like a prelude to sex, I understood right then exactly what it meant. How our bodies were created so that they could fit together, like Legos, and how that was actually what they were doing right now, thigh against thigh, knees to knees, hands fumbling for their match. Every bit of myself was so sensitive. Through the fabric of the topsheet I could feel her skin breathe.
“Have you missed me yet?” she said.
“I’ve been waiting so long to be here,” I said.
“This isn’t what you’ve been waiting for,” she said. “Not with me. This isn’t what you miss about me.”
“It’s not?” I wasn’t sure if this was the dream-me talking, or if this was really me.
“Oh, you miss me, all right,” she said, “but I’m mostly a safety. What you miss is our beginning. The unknown. And we can never have that beginning again. So you’ll just have to make another beginning.”
“I want that!” I cried. I was joyous and also excitable. This was the chance I’d been wanting, the chance I’d been waiting for. I had to seize it now, as loudly and as enthusiastically as I could, or else she wouldn’t know I really meant it.
“That’s exactly what I want! I want us both to start over,” I said, “we can start over together.” We were suddenly facing each other, from sort of far apart, looking at each other across a wide gulf, although we were also still spooning our bodies together.
“But not together,” she said, “or, maybe, not like this,” and then she reached over and touched my nose. Her fingertip was warmer than the rest of her body combined, and oh, it felt so good, just that stupid ludicrous gesture—to be so close to her that we could be weird like that again. As soon as she did, I woke
up.
The LED numbers of my clock burned in the dark like devil eyes. It was just after five in the morning.
*
I didn’t go to sleep again. I lay there for what seemed to be hours, for what probably was hours, trying to remember every second, trying to recreate it in my mind. I thought about taking out my sketch pad and trying to draw the dream in pictures, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture it right. It was the feeling, that warmth and familiarity and safeness, which was already fading into the waking word. If I was motionless, if I could summon the exact feeling of that dream, I could hold onto it forever. I could already feel it drifting away.
Presently I heard the shuffling noises from below, my parents making breakfast, getting ready for their jobs. I knew I should get moving, too. School had completely changed for me. It was no longer something I dreaded. Lately, I was leaving even earlier than usual, making my pre-class time into a real part of my day.
But today, my dream’s claws dug deep. One little part of the past that I couldn’t let go of, no matter how hard I’d been trying. Today, it felt like any struggle against the power of the past was pointless. That dream was the only thing I wanted. If I could have, I would have lived inside it forever.
late night double feature
“Meet us tonight at the Rendezvous Point,” Carrie texted me. “Wear all black. Be fabulous.”
Okay, so: her message puzzled me. Not the part about the Rendezvous Point—that, I knew, was the subway stop where they had dropped me off, that first night. But why? And what did be fabulous mean? And what were we going to do anyway on a Saturday night in town?
Carrie and I had been messaging each other constantly, with a speed and wit that would have impressed Larissa, if I could’ve told her about it. It wasn’t like flirting—our relationship was way less boy/girl, way more student/sensei— but there was always this teasing quality to it, always like she didn’t trust me entirely...or like there were secrets she wasn’t yet telling me. So far our friendship, like school, was Monday–Friday only.
I was sitting on the couch, in a ball, watching a black-and- white Alfred Hitchcock movie on PBS when I got the text. My brain had slipped into a mode it hadn’t been in a while: I was writing mental notes, thinking about the things I’d say in the movie to Larissa. My phone let out a shrill beep, the kind that attacked my nerves like sandpaper.
“Who was that?” said my mother, trying to sound un-prying. “A girl?”
“Just a person,” I said. “You’re always so sexist. Why do you have to be prejudiced like that? And, uh, what do you think ‘be fabulous’ means?”
My father gave me a look. “Maybe we should wish it was a girl,” he muttered.
I ignored them. Feeling singularly directed by Carrie’s message, possessed, as if it were an command rather than an invitation (actually, it did read more like a command), I ran upstairs to scavenge through my few clean clothes and find a sweater and pants that were black, or reasonably close to it.
My parents offered to drive me to the subway. I was going to turn them down, but accepting felt like a sportsmanlike thing to do. That, and it was bloody freezing outside. I climbed up to the elevated train platform, pulled my hood tight against the headwinds, and watched the inbound pull in.
When I got off the subway, my friends were already waiting.
Tonight they crowded into Roderick’s car, an old, large boat of an Oldsmobile that made me feel like maybe the El train had been secretly replaced by a time machine. Of course it had been. Getting out of my neighborhood was like venturing to a secret world where I no longer needed to live there.
The back door swung open. I hopped in. I was sitting next to Little Jen, the last place I would’ve chosen to sit. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her. It was that I did like her, and I was deathly afraid of what she thought of me. She was so cool and distant and elusive, always letting you speak, never speaking. Every time I was around her, I instantly felt like my hair was sticking up and my nose had a booger dangling out.
Carrie leaned over and gave me a half-hug, which we always did, and she handed me a brown paper bag. I took it in my hands. Something crumbled against my fingers.
“What is it?” I asked. “Can I look inside?”
Carrie smiled mischievously and Little Jen waved a cautionary finger. “No peeking,” she warned.
Roderick whistled innocently as we drove through the loud and crowded streets. Back in the Yards, Saturday night was already winding down, but here, in Center City, it was nearing the high point of the evening—when everyone who was out on the town was finishing dinner and deciding what they should do next, when the concert people were moving to bars and the dance-club people were finally arriving at their dance clubs. Roderick drove much like he did everything else, with impeccably precise movements. We skirted in and out of traffic as if inside a video game. In the backseat, Little Jen whipped out a tube of lipstick.
In a moment she was on top of me, straddling my waist.
“Hey!” I shrieked. “What are you doing?”
Carrie reached over and pinned both my arms down. Little Jen lowered herself to my face and cupped my chin in her palm. Her nails raked my cheek. I struggled against Carrie’s large firm hands, not sure whether I should actually use force or not.
Next to me, Bethany giggled. At least she was only watching.
“Nggh!” I said. Little Jen’s fingers had effectively muted me.
“Just chill,” said Carrie. “Most guys would kill for a view like this.”
I did have to admit, in this position, her breasts were incredibly close to my face. She was wearing some sort of black-and-white bustier, heavily sequined and glittering blindingly. I averted my eyes as best I could—not because I was a monster, just out of politeness. Oh, do you have boobs? I imagined myself saying. How nice they are; I hadn’t really noticed they existed....
Little Jen finished my lipstick quick. Then, barking an order to Bethany, a handbag was quickly produced, and Little Jen burrowed inside it for mascara. She lined my eyes and then started tracing a swirl on my cheek.
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m kind of afraid,” I said. Or, I tried to, with Little Jen’s fingers squishing my cheeks together. It came out sounding more like, Aah oonow waa oor oogie.
“Sit back,” said Little Jen. Her lips were deathly close to my face—her own makeup looked like a cross between a vampire and a zombie, both sophisticated and savage. “And try to enjoy it.”
She smiled. The look on her face was that of someone who was being thoroughly evil and thoroughly enjoying it. My head flopped back into the seat rest. I heaved a sigh, and, indeed, tried to convince myself that I was enjoying it.
We pulled up in front of the old theater, and my suspicions were confirmed. It was 11:15. A crowd of people had already started to gather. Most of them were a few years older than us. Some merely wore black; others were decked out in more extravagant, spectacular costumes.
I marveled how some of them could be dressed that way in this weather and not be either frostbitten or miserably sick. Their noses were solidly, immaculately non-runny. It was nearly inhuman. We were close to the edge of town, and it was easy to find a parking spot, provided you didn’t worry too much about which blocks looked safe to park on. (No block around looked safe to park on.) Roderick depowered the engine, and we all climbed out.
I was wholly unprepared for how everyone had dressed. Carrie wore miniature shorts, a sequined strapless top, and lace-up tap shoes. Little Jen was in a French maid’s outfit. Roderick had on what I first took to be leggings, but his coat bounced back and forth as we moved and I soon realized that they were actually thigh-high stockings. His hands were encased in leather gloves.
“Oh, no,” I whispered. “Are we really going to...”
“You’d better believe it,” demurred Carrie.
I had to remind myself, I had no idea what I was getting into. I had to trust them. Looking down at myself, I didn’
t even had an idea of what I looked like.
We moved slowly past the line of people. At first I thought we were just strolling past to check out everyone, the rest of the audience in their crazy costumes and fetish clothes. Everything was so wild and exaggeratedly sexual that it was hard to believe anyone could find them sexy.
It was also the least weird I’d felt, sexually, in ages. In school, we tried to pretend it didn’t exist. No, we weren’t checking each other out; I wasn’t thinking all these untoward and unmentionable things about you; we’re just talking American History, same as always. Even with Larissa, even when we lay in bed together in matching fetal positions, eyes locked into one another like they were our umbilical cord, it felt like the least sexual thing in the world: as though, if we tried hard enough, if we kept our conversation intellectual enough, we could evade all the weirdness and explosiveness that had to do with sexuality. Like someone else could instantly walk in and say, we were only cuddling, and both of us would think it true.
Here, outside, in the seasonally-inappropriate weather and weather-inappropriate clothing, it was all different. It was like all these people wanted you to look at them. They weren’t teasing you or playing with your head or playing games with sexuality; they were laying it all out, Here I am. Check me out. My mind was spinning.
