Skin Deep

by Sung J. Woo

  Craig, in his haste to reach the porcelain goddess, didn’t see any of this, so there I was, all alone and dripping with gazpacho. I licked some off my sleeve and tasted tomato, cucumber, lime, and garlic. It was good.

  I heard the toilet flush and watched Craig leave the bathroom. He was about to say something but stopped when he saw what had happened.

  He grabbed a stack of dish towels from a drawer and held them out for me like an offering.

  “It never amazes me how something I’d imagined in my mind can be so far away from reality,” he said.

  “Like you thought we’d be sitting at the table, enjoying your soup instead of me wearing it.”

  “Something like that.”

  While I was doing my best to soak up as much of the soup as possible, Craig just stood there, wallowing in self-disappointment.

  “I’ve gotten to all my girl parts, but my pantlegs can use some dabbing?” I said.

  It brightened him to help, and I felt good about that. He went through three towels before he was done.

  “You might want to get out of your clothes,” he said.

  “How convenient.”

  “Oh yes, now you realize my grand plan, to humiliate myself and get you naked.”

  “The garlic is particularly strong,” I said.

  “I put a whole clove in there.”

  “I’ll need a change of clothes.”

  “I can get you something,” he said.

  There were two full baths in the house, but only one of the showers was working, by the master bedroom. As soon as I entered it, I knew what was wrong with Craig, and from the look of mortification etched on his face, he knew it, too.

  The bathroom that he had once shared with his wife, more than a decade ago, was painted in a warm peach outlined with powder blue molding. It had two sinks, and the one on the left was his, the bowl surrounded by aftershave, cologne, deodorant, and razor. That was fine. The issue was the one the right, which was littered with feminine accoutrements: a cluster of nail polish, a bottle of Midol, hair curler with its power cord dangling off the counter, a pair of teardrop-shaped silver earrings crisscrossed in a pile.

  “Why don’t you get undressed? I’ll be right outside, and you can just toss your clothes to me and I’ll throw them in the washer.”

  I did just that. But before I stepped into the shower, I took a finger and ran it underneath the hair curler. As suspected, there wasn’t much dust at all, which meant that either Craig or his hired housekeeper still cleaned here but continued to leave this item, all of Martina’s items, frozen in their final repose.

  I didn’t have to wash my hair as the soup had gotten me only from the neck down. There were two choices for liquid soap, a manly blue and a dainty pink; I went with the blue because the pink one looked also to be preserved. I lathered and washed and re-lathered and re-washed to get all the gazpacho smell off me.

  I’ve often found the shower to be an excellent place of rumination, enabling thoughts to run freely like flowing water. Eleven years was a long time to be carrying a torch, even for a dead wife, but who was I to judge? People moved on at their own personal velocity. Maybe things had gone south tonight because Craig pushed himself to go too fast. I envisioned him stuffing himself with a box of cupcakes, his stomach turning sour from the onslaught of processed sugar, and it bummed me out in a major way.

  There was a loud knock on the door.

  “Just me,” Craig said. “Is it okay if I crack this door and slip a bathrobe to you?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  After I dried myself off, I picked up a white bathrobe still in its brand new package. A large black “M” was embroidered on the chest, so obviously a gift intended for Martina. Whatever weirdness I’d initially felt went away when I put it on, the sheer comfort of the material trumping my reservations. The terrycloth robe was substantial and soft, like a wearable blanket. It had a lovely thick collar that caressed my neck like a stole. A matching pair of slippers lay by the door, equally luxurious.

  When I exited the bathroom, I found Craig in the kitchen, which was now looking a whole lot neater. Also, he was wearing the same bathrobe over his t-shirt and pants, except his had a “C” on the chest.

  “I didn’t want you to feel odd, wearing just a bathrobe while I’m in my regular clothes.”

  “Except now you feel odd.”

  “A little. Your clothes are drying now, so our collective oddness will end soon. These are both new, by the way, gifts from years ago. It was meant for me and Martina, but she never got a chance to wear it.”

  I nodded.

  He nodded.

  Silence.

  “Well,” we both said at the same time, giving us a welcome entry into laughter.

  “You first,” I said.

  Craig let out a sigh. “I don’t even know why all of her stuff is still here. I used to know, but I don’t anymore.”

  “Just easier to let things be.”

  “Maybe. Inertia is a powerful force.”

  “You must have loved her a great deal,” I said.

  “I did, sure. But she’s now been gone for longer than we were married. Well, I don’t think I’m going to solve all of my problems tonight, so how about we finally have our dinner?”

  I asked if I could help, so Craig put me on table-setting duty while he got the food going again. What was to be a four-course meal became a three-course meal, a bowl for the salad, a plate for the linguine, and a small plate for a chocolate cheesecake, the only thing that was store-bought. The freshly-made pasta was fantastic, so different than the boxed kind, and the sauce, topped with finely-chopped bits of parsley and cilantro, enlivened the dish. It felt good to return to normality, do what was expected tonight. With each course, I could see Craig relaxing a bit more. He told me about his work in Syracuse, a labor contract dispute between the haves and the have-nots. By the time we’d arrived at the dessert portion, I’d caught him up with my own case.

  “Scope creep,” Craig said.

  “How the scope of any work tends to slowly but surely get larger as time goes on.”

  Craig nodded.

  “More creep, the better,” I said. “Even in my rather brief experience at this profession, I’ve never seen it work any other way. It’s like you start off at a clearing, and ahead is this forest you have to hack your way through. And as you hack, stuff piles up. The key is to keep moving forward.”

  “Fast enough that the piles don’t come down on you.”

  Craig topped off my decaf coffee, then his. He made it stronger than Starbucks, my kind of joe.

  “So, you’re now off to Krishna for…?”

  “The weekend for sure,” I said. “Could be longer. All depends on how quickly I can find Penny.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be there like this Beaker said?”

  “It never hurts to have low expectations.”

  Craig raised one eyebrow, Mr. Spock-style.

  “You don’t subscribe to that idea?” I asked.

  “I believe in positive thinking—imagine it just the way you want it, and it’ll happen.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Not always, tonight being an excellent case in the point, but, regardless, I’ve always been attracted to the brighter side.”

  As we did the dishes together; him doing the washing, me doing the drying, I thought about Craig during his wife’s sickness, how he must’ve tried to imagine her getting stronger, recovering—and seeing the opposite. If he had opted for my low-expectation theory of living, would he have been better off?

  After handing me the cutting board, the last item to dry, Craig turned to me. “I’d like to ask you something. Totally up to you. Please feel free to say no.”

  “All right.”

  “I have a fully furnished guest room. Would you consider spending the night there?”

  Baby steps, I thought. But they were steps nonetheless, and the first one was alw
ays the hardest. I stared into Craig’s blue eyes and saw his struggle, his strength. I wanted to help.

  “I have to leave pretty early in the morning,” I said. “I probably won’t see you.”

  “That’s fine,” he said.

  I leaned into him and grabbed his hand.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “It’s a deal.”

  50

  I usually sleep in on Saturdays, but not today. My phone’s alarm annoyed me to wakefulness at five. I had to go back to my house and pick up my suitcase; I wasn’t looking forward to the long drive ahead of me.

  Craig’s house was as dark as night at this ungodly hour. Outside of the kitchen, I hadn’t seen much else, so I took the scenic route on my way out with my phone’s flashlight on. Descending the staircase, I examined the photographs on the walls. It became clear to me just why Craig had trouble letting Martina go—he’d known her for just about his entire life. Even when they were toddlers, they looked like tinier versions of themselves, their faces unmistakably theirs. Martina looked quite bookish when she was a kid, with very large glasses that threatened to overtake her small round face, but as she grew into a woman, she definitely exuded that sexy librarian vibe. They went to the prom together, which was when Craig started to get a bit plumper. They both attended Lenrock University, because the second set of graduation photos was of them in cap and gown, in front of the Jebediah Lenrock statue on the main quad. Wedding pictures of the happy couple, honeymoon pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower, and the two final photos were of Martina by herself, one where she’s looking radiant with a slightly protruding belly, and the last where she’s definitely lost weight and maybe the baby, too. It’s the only shot where she’s not looking at the camera, half her gaunt face in shadow, her eyes downcast.

  Twenty years together is considered to be a lot nowadays. Craig was around my age, which meant Martina died a year or so shy of hitting thirty. That meant they’d known each other for more than a quarter of a century. This woman wasn’t just the love of his life; she was his life.

  On the first floor, in addition to the kitchen, there was a living room, a TV room, and a formal dining room. Above the mantel in the living room fireplace, there were picture frames of what looked to be Craig’s parents and also of another family whose young mother could’ve been Craig with a wig on—probably his sister. A pair of pictures of children, one with Craig’s sister, another with Craig’s brother-in-law. There was space here at the end of the mantel, and seeing that gap made me sadder than anything else in this house.

  In my life, I’ve been seriously involved with two guys, almost getting married to the second one until we realized, thankfully, that we actually sort of hated each other. That was the extent of my romantic career, which upon reflection would ordinarily get me down for its brief duration and lack of intensity, but here was the flipside, the dark side: having it all and having none.

  Standing at the kitchen counter, I hovered over a memo pad, struggling to come up with the appropriate set of words. What were we at this point, exactly? Before last night, it seemed like we could be something, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  Craig, thank you. I’ll see you after I get back from Krishna.

  That could’ve been a note for a UPS driver. I ripped off the sheet and put it in my pocket.

  Craig – the road to happiness can be rocky

  Who did I think I was, a Hallmark card? Rip, pocket.

  After standing there for another ten painful minutes, I figured it out.

  I drew a heart on the middle of the page. Signed my name underneath it. And jotted inside: See you soon.

  When in doubt, be vague.

  51

  Speaking of hearts, the road that led to Krishna was not for those with a faint one. There were no guardrails as the graveled path spiraled its way up the peak, and things got really hairy when another car came barreling down the mountain, as the road was barely wide enough for two vehicles.

  According to Google Maps, the drive from Athena to Hawthorne was three hours. The first two were New York Thruway, but the last leg of the trip was pure uphill, cresting up almost four thousand feet.

  What a view. It was past peak foliage, but not by much. When I saw the sign for a scenic overlook, I parked in the little lot and got out. I’ve always loved the Adirondacks for their gentleness, that even at these soaring heights, its mountains were calm, curvaceous mounds. A river snaked between the base of four mountain ranges, and from up here, the curls of that bright blue water were two perfect continuous S’s under a cloudless, endless sky.

  Another half hour of gravelly low-gear ascent later, I laid my eyes on Krishna. Half of the gray block of a building, the left side that was embedded in the mountain itself, was in shadow even under the full gaze of the late morning sun because of the overhanging trees above it. Solitude, fortitude, aloofness, majesty: that’s what I felt gazing at it, a diametrical combination of severity and grandeur.

  The open gate at the bottom of the hill was a giant circle of black wrought-iron steel, and around the campus were emerald green arborvitaes planted in such a way to make a fifteen-foot-high natural fence. At the top of the gate were seven skewered letters, gunmetal gray: NAMASTE. Seeing those giant capitals didn’t exactly fill me with peace. It was more like a command.

  The driveway up to the main building was well-marked, so I followed the one for guests and parked around the back, which was where registration took place. As soon as I opened my car door, a man and a woman, about college age, greeted me. They put their hands together as if in prayer, in front of their chests, then closed their eyes and lowered their heads.

  “Namaste,” they said in unison.

  When in Rome, so I mimicked their gesture and slogan.

  “Welcome to Krishna. May we help you with your bags?”

  I showed them the duffel I’d brought.

  “Light packer,” I said.

  “To have nothing is to have everything,” the girl said. Yellow flowers were woven through her golden hair. She was in an all-white tunic and so was the guy, both in matching white sandals. The girl was wearing a name tag: Chandini; the guy: Udai. Considering they were both as white as Wonder Bread, neither looked like their names, but then again, maybe I shouldn’t be the one to talk.

  They pointed me to the entrance, which they didn’t have to because of the excellent signage, but I thanked them anyway and let them bestow their low-key charms onto the next visitor.

  At the Guest Registration counter, Aadrika signed me in.

  “That’s a beautiful name,” I said.

  “Celestial,” she said. “That’s what it means in Sanskrit.”

  “Everyone seems to have interesting monikers around here.”

  “It’s because we get to choose our own. We’re told who we are from the moment we are born, so why not empower ourselves and choose? If you had a choice, wouldn’t you pick something unique and interesting?”

  I handed her my driver’s license and credit card.

  “I see you have a pretty cool one already.”

  “Especially when I get all fancy and slash that awesome accent over the ‘a,’” I said.

  “Oh yeah, that’s the stuff,” Aadrika said, laughing.

  She placed me on the third floor of the main building, which was called Meadowlark. “We refer to it as the Meadow,” Aadrika said. “The new addition is called Javani, which is ‘child’ in Sanskrit.” She handed me two key cards like the ones at hotels.

  “The meadow and her child,” I said. “Even the buildings have interesting names around here.”

  “Interesting is an excellent descriptor for what we do around here.”

  “Speaking of interesting, a friend of mine is staying here. Penny Sykes?”

  I pulled out my phone and showed her the photo. I was hoping my question in the middle of our pleasant conversation would catch her off guard, and it did. Something crossed Aadrika’s face, but she reset herse
lf quite nicely.

  “I’m afraid it’s not ringing a bell. I only man the desk for a few hours a day, so…will there be anything else, Siobhan?”

  “Yes, just one more thing, if that’s okay with you?” I said. Aadrika wanted nothing more than to be done with me, which was why I was pushing. Sometimes you push, and the other person pushes back, and something valuable might come of it. Or not. All you can ever do is try.

  “Yes?”

  “Christopher Vachess.”

  “The bell remains unrung.”

  I showed her a photo Beaker had texted me, Christopher in a suit and tie.

  “That’s Prasad? Wow,” Aadrika said.

  “Prasad?”

  “That’s how I know him.”

  “His Sanskrit name,” I said.

  “Helps out in the kitchen. I’ll let him know you want to speak to him.”

  “Sure, that’ll be fine,” I said. Actually, it wasn’t fine—I wanted the element of surprise on my side. But I didn’t want to tell that to Aadrika, which meant I’d have to find my way into the kitchen sooner than later. Like right after I was done here. I thanked Aadrika, raced up two staircases, found my room near the end of one of the many branching, identical beige-bricked hallways, dumped my duffel onto the bed, and got out my map of Krishna to see where the kitchen was. It wasn’t marked, but I figured going to the dining hall on the second floor and seeing the food traffic would reveal its location pretty quickly. No rest for the weary—I ran right back out.

  52

  Lunch was being served, and damn, did it ever smell good. I watched a man in a brown apron and a hairnet replace two large trays of yellow noodles in the buffet line. When the empties were on his cart, he rolled it to the far end of the hall and turned a right then disappeared through a set of swinging double doors that read: STAFF ONLY. Two round windows on the door revealed him waiting for the service elevator. The arrow pointed down.

  I watched him and once he disappeared, I pushed through the double doors and watched the floor number indicator blink from 2 to 1 to LL. Next to the elevator was the entrance to the staircase, so I descended two flights and prepared to act like a lost tourist in case anyone questioned me.