Be Mine (19 page)

When he was done, I said, "Fine. Okay. Okay."

"Great," Jon said, standing up, headed toward the bathroom. "Good girl. Friday?"—so casually he might have simply suggested having another couple over. Sue and Mack. Or going to a movie.

And then he was in the bathroom, and I was surprised to find my hands clenched in fists at my sides. I was surprised to find myself thinking,
Fine.
I lay in bed listening to the sound of the mourning doves outside as Jon showered and got ready for work, and to the sound of something making what must have been a nest under one of our bedroom windows (a fussy ticking, a flustering, something intricate and exhausting being prepared) just as they did every year—wrens, finches, building their nests in the eaves troughs, under the windows, in the hanging plants on the front porch, any sheltered nook they could find, as if the house were no longer ours, but theirs.

He was right, of course. Who was I to think I hadn't already brought a stranger into our home?

When Jon came back into the bedroom wearing his suit, smiling, smelling of soap, I thought,
Yes, okay, all right.

O
N THE
drive into work, I saw her, at first, from a distance, and mistook her for an old coat in the median—a camel's hair coat—empty, tossed out of a passing car, a nice coat, the kind my mother used to wear, and I thought,
Now why would someone toss out a coat like that?
before I recognized her for what she was, and what I'd done.

"H
OW HAVE
you been?"

Sue, on the other end of the line, sounded much farther than a few offices away.

"Why are we talking on the phone?" I asked her. "I'll be right down."

When I got there, she looked papery, and shiny, sitting at her desk. There was something strangely poreless about her skin—the way Chad's skin had looked a couple of years ago when he'd been prescribed Accutane for his acne.

Yes, the acne had gone away, but what was left was a mask-like perfection that scared me. It was unnatural. When I read about a boy in Illinois who'd killed himself, and the parents had blamed the Accutane, I made Chad go off of it. "Fine," he'd said. "You were the one who didn't like my zits, not me."

And he'd been right. It
had
been me who'd worried over those red eruptions on his flesh, and it had been, hadn't it, because they meant he was not a baby any longer—his flesh hairless, poreless, blemish- and perspiration-free?

But after he went off the Accutane, Chad never got a single pimple again.

Sue, now, was the one who looked as if she were wearing some kind of mask. She looked as if she would be dry to the touch. "Are you okay?" I asked.

Her side of the office was a mess, which was unusual. Usually Sue was the one who complained about the bad habits of her office mate, an eccentric old woman from Alabama who taught English as a Second Language and whose students—Syrians, Koreans, Nicaraguans—came out of her class speaking their second language in a long aristocratic southern drawl. "Look," Sue would say, pointing to a cup of coffee that had been left un-drunk on MayBell's desk and molded over, "someone needs to teach her to clean up after herself. She's still waiting for her slaves to come back from the fields."

A stack of old newspapers had slid off Sue's desk onto the floor, and no one had bothered to pick them up. I bent over to do it for her.

"I'm great," she said. "I guess you must be, too. But, I'm only guessing." Her tone was frankly angry. It surprised me. I took a step backward.

"What?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you asked me how I've been. I wonder
where
you've been."

"I've just been—
here,
" I said, pointing to the air around me. "I haven't been
anywhere.
"

Sue laughed under her breath. It sounded brittle. "Oh," she said. "Well, I guess in the last twenty years I was getting kind of used to hearing from you every few days, so when two weeks go by..."

"Oh, no," I said. I put my hands to my heart. "Oh, Sue. Has it been that long? I'm so—"

"Don't be
sorry,
Sherry. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I'm just surprised."

"Oh, dear," I said. "Sue, I've been—"

"You've been what?" Her eyes were narrowed. She was, I thought, studying me closely.

"I've been—I don't know. Sue." I stood for a moment, feeling the closed-up air of her office embrace me too warmly. I inhaled. I sat down across from her. I exhaled. I said, in a different voice, a deeper voice, "How can I tell you, Sue?"

"What is it, Sherry? What's been going on with you?"

I opened my mouth.

She was waiting.

I had to tell her.

I inhaled again, and this time I could feel the dust particles in the air enter me, settle in me. I said, "Oh. Oh, Sue. How can I tell you this?"

"Try me," she said. "What is it?"

"I don't know," I said. "Midlife crisis? Sue, I've—"

I realized I was using my hands as I said these few, vague words, churning them in the air—something I usually did only when I was teaching, when I was actually trying to show the enormity or complexity of something, or to point to something I'd written on the blackboard. I saw my hands in the air in front of me and realized that Sue was looking at them, too, seeming annoyed.

"I'm sorry," I said again, and put them in my lap.

She exhaled raggedly. "Forget it, then," she said. "I don't have to be privy to all your secrets, if that's how you feel. Friendships change. I—"

"No!" I said, my hands leaping to my throat this time. Why did I say it so loudly? Was the idea of the friendship between us changing,
loosening,
that unbearable to me—so unbearable I couldn't even stand to hear the words come out of her mouth?

Yes, I realized, it was. For two decades, she'd known me. I'd known her. It was sacred. I
couldn't
bear it. I said, "Sue, I'll tell you the truth. But, you'll think badly of me."

She turned her hands up on her knees and said, "Try me," as if she'd been waiting for this information, as if she'd brought me to her office to receive exactly the news I was going to give her.

"Sue," I started. I looked down into her empty hands. I said, "I've been seeing someone." I looked up at her face. "A man."

Sue opened her eyes wider, but then glanced away from me quickly, looking over my shoulder, at the bulletin board behind me. There was nothing on it—just tacks, and the holes left behind by previous tacks. Then she looked back at me. "Oh. My," she said, and seemed to be unable to say anything more.

Now, I had to tell her.

The silence between us was full of the sound of the fluorescent lights burning too brightly over our heads. The hallway outside her door was empty. The phone sat on her desk without the slightest indication that it had ever rung, that it would ever ring again. That silence simply hovered around us, waiting for me to fill it. I bit my lower lip, and then I said, "It started, you know, with those letters—"

At this, Sue snorted, and I sat up straighter, feeling stung. I looked at her for some explanation, but she just shook her head, looked down at her own shoes, flat, black, rubber-soled—the shoes of an older woman, nothing like the sandals and stilettos she used to totter around on in the halls between classes.

"They weren't from Bram," I said. "You know—Bram?"

"I know
Bram,
" Sue said with such sarcasm it sizzled for a minute in the emptiness between us. "We all know
Bram,
" she said, more softly this time.

"Well, the letters weren't from Bram, but, I thought they were, and then I met him, and—things started."

"Shit, Sherry. You're having an affair with Bram Smith?" Her mouth hung open for a moment. She was shaking her head in disbelief. She said it again. "Shit, Sherry. Are you—"

I couldn't stand to hear her say it again, so I said, "Yes, yes. Sue, I'm—I am."

She kept shaking her head for what seemed like a very long time, as if to clear something, or see something, or to deny something completely, and then she stopped and leaned toward me, her eyes narrowed, as if trying to see me through some sort of mist, or brilliant glare. She said, "Are you kidding?"

This time, I shook my head, but only a little.

She sat back and looked up at the ceiling. I would have followed her gaze, but I knew what was up there. Nothing. Ceiling tile. Gray, institutional, weightless.

I looked, instead, at the floor.

Neither of us spoke until Sue said, "Oh. My. God."

"Sue," I started, but could think of nothing to follow it with. "Sue," I said, making it sound, this time, like a statement, or an appeal.

"So," she said, in a more sober tone, as if we were discussing lesson plans or wallpaper choices. "So, are you going to leave Jon?"

"No!" I said. "No, of course not."

"Well," Sue said, "I'm sure Mr. Auto Mechanics is great in bed, Sherry, but have you ever tried
talking
to him?"

"No," I said. "I mean, yes, Sue, I've talked to him. He's a fine man. He's a really very gentle, and—"

She stood up then, quickly, deliberately, as if to silence me—and for a crazy moment I thought she might strike me. But, of course, she didn't. Her hands were on her arms. She was gripping her own arms so tightly I could see that the flesh on her biceps was turning white. She licked her lips, swallowed, then looked at me. She said, "I just don't think I can hear about this, Sherry. If you're going to start telling me you're in love with Bram Smith ... I mean—I just don't see myself sitting here taking this seriously. I think, honestly, that you should grow up, Sherry. I think this is disgusting, if you want to know the truth."

I flinched, as if she
had
struck me. I said, "Sue, please. I'm—I'm sorry. I'm—"

She said, "Please, quit saying that, Sherry. You say 'I'm sorry' way too much. And, hey, don't apologize to
me.
But I do think you might owe
Jon
some kind of apology."

"It's not like that," I told her. I put my face in my hands. I said into them, "It's not like that. Jon knows."

"Oh my god," Sue said. "So you
are
leaving Jon?" She began shaking her head so fast this time that her earrings—two little black ships on hooks—rocked wildly around her neck. They looked dangerous, I thought. Furious.

"No," I said, shaking my own head now. "Jon knows. And he's—he's not upset."

"What?" Sue asked, sinking back down in her seat. "Jon
knows?
Jon
approves?
" I said nothing. Sue opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Then, she said, standing up again, "Now I
have
heard enough, Sherry. I'm the one who's sorry now. We've been friends a long time, and I'll be there for you when this is over, but right now, I just—"

"I know," I said. "I know, I know, I know. I shouldn't have told you. It's just, I wanted you to understand why I've been out of touch. It's not
us,
Sue. I love you. You're my best friend. I'm just"—I shrugged, I tried to smile—"I'm just—really stupid right now. A stupid middle-aged woman, doing something incredibly—stupid."

Sue blinked, then opened her eyes widely, looking more amused, perhaps, than angry this time. She said, "Lord, Sherry Seymour. I thought I knew you, woman. I mean, you'll always be my best friend, but it's going to take me a while to get to know you again." She stepped over to me and put her arms around me. The act pinned my shoulders to my sides so I couldn't embrace her back. She stepped away, looked at me, and said, "I've got to go now. The boys have a dentist appointment. Just"—she hesitated—"just keep me posted, huh, I guess?"

She walked over to the door and opened it, then stepped out into the hallway, reached back in and flipped her light switch, shut the door behind her, leaving me still sitting on the edge of her desk in the dark.

I
CALLED
out when I saw him in the cafeteria in the morning, "Garrett!"

He was standing in the spot where he often stood in the mornings before his first class, Auto II. Again, he was talking to the boy who resembled Chad, and the boy was wearing, as usual, his red nylon jacket. When I called out Garrett's name, this boy looked over at me, too, and I could see a flicker of something like resentment cross his face as I walked toward them. I was a teacher, an old woman, someone's dull mother, interrupting something interesting. But Garrett looked pleased. He brightened, turning toward me. "Do you have a minute, Garrett?" I asked. "Can you come to my office?"

"Sure!" he said.

We walked together through the gathered groups of students, through the cafeteria. The chatter was deafening, the colors so vivid—jackets, scarves, skirts. Spring had come to the cafeteria. All the black down jackets, the heavy flannel, the browns and grays, had been discarded or packed away.

Now, it was like passing through flocks of tropical birds, through the furious mayhem of nature. Here and there, someone's iPod or Walkman, turned up too loud to be healthy, leaked a scrap of music from an earphone—a symphonic buzzing, a wailing teenager, the sad angry chant of rap. At one table someone was telling a joke, and although I couldn't hear the words, the rhythm of narrative unfolding was familiar enough, the building of a story,
and then he said
... A small crowd of boys in T-shirts emblazoned with the names of football teams huddled around the joke teller, waiting with anticipation for the punch line. A female voice shouted,
Fuck you!

Garrett walked ahead of me, making a path I could follow, parting the students as he walked, and then—I saw her coming, knew what would happen before it happened but could do nothing to stop it—a pale girl in a white dress, walking backward, quickly, while waving to her friends, bumped into me with a strange force, more like a car traveling at a high speed hitting me than a teenage girl wearing a white dress slamming into my side, knocking me off balance. I stumbled forward in my high heels. Two steps, three steps. Garrett reached out to catch me by the elbow, and he almost steadied me, but it was too late. I fell to my knees at the pink ballet slippers of the girl, who was apologizing profusely before she could even have realized what had happened.