Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 (2 page)

"I've been better.” She slumps. “Michael left about a month and a half ago. Or maybe I left. I'm not sure."

The moment of awkward potential. What's needed? Pity, sympathy, silence, anger? None of the above?

All of the above. “Geez, I'm sorry. The asshole didn't deserve you anyway.” This is broadly true, but it sounds like the daytime TV drama incarnation of what I need to say.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. He just up and left. Took all his things, not a word spoken. I tried calling but his number was disconnected. And then one day I saw his car.” She rests her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand. “At the theater, actually. The one on Briar? I walked up to it, not really sure why, and found him in the backseat with a sixteen year old. Girl I knew, actually. From down the street. I babysat her when she was younger.” As she speaks her cheeks flush, and her eyes seem incapable of resting on any one place.

A moment of silence. My hand crabwalks across the table and comforts her fingers, seemingly without input from the central processing unit.

"Jesus. Did you ... report him or anything?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. I sent her parents an anonymous letter telling them to keep an eye on her. I don't know. I still don't want him to go to prison or whatever. Seems a little extreme."

Not for the first time, it occurs to me that love is fucked up. I'm not quite sure if this is a good or bad thing.

"Anyway,” she says, “I'm just trying to get away from him in every way possible."

I nod.

"How is Jean?"

"Oh. You know.” I balk like a nervous monkey. “She's Jean."

"And work?” Liz still hasn't ordered. I wonder if she will.

"Good question. I wouldn't know."

"What, you were fired?"

I sigh mildly. “In the most euphemistic way possible. I was ‘let go.’ Set free. Pharaoh let my people go."

Liz's eyes droop. “Wow. We're an unfortunate bunch."

"Yeah. Well. Now I can write, I guess."

"And depend on Jean?"

"I don't use much. And I've still got the money from my dad.” An inchworm of unease makes its dreadfully slow way down my spine and through my stomach. This isn't a place my mind wants to be. It's the same feeling I got as a kid when my thoughts drifted to future vaccinations. My stomach wouldn't have it.

Liz's hand crabwalks across the table and comforts my fingers.

Home. Jean. Sex as a form of nature worship. My lips brush her breast and navel, and they are golden. This is idolatry. This isn't kosher.

The room is on mute. No breathing, no background static. All reverence in the synagogue. Still, neither of us breathe. I am licking, kissing. Breast and shoulder. Shoulder and neck. Even the air conditioning is silent. There is activity downstairs. This will need to be explored. This is significant. Ear, cheek, forehead, eyelid. This is significant. Saliva, but no sweat. Not yet. We are not fervent followers.

Nose. Chin. Not kosher. I reach the lips and make my devotionals, but idols do not respond. Idols do not kiss back. That's not the point. Golden lips do not yield, but that's not the point at all.

Cafe, part
deux
. May 29. Summer has lowered its spears and commenced its assault. Cold drinks are advertised. Navels are exposed. Liz bites her tongue and grins despite herself. Behind her, a seventeen-year-old girl sheathed in makeup describes her clearly dysfunctional boyfriend to an equally mascara-laden comrade.

"...And he was all like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ And I say, ‘It's just a quickie, Michael, what's your problem?’ I mean,
really
, what's his problem? It's not like it meant anything."

Her friend sighs theatrically. “Guys are babies."

Liz clasps her mouth shut with her hand in order to prevent herself from laughing too loudly. My amusement is too mingled with disturbance to be very vocal.

"We have to get out of here,” she hisses with a smile. “I'm not going to be able to keep myself from beating them for very long."

"You need to learn restraint,” I answer.

The teenagers have changed the subject. It occurs to me that we're being a bit pretentious.

"...Some people can wear hats, and some can't. It's that simple."

A fresh bout of giggles from Liz. I strain to grimace and smile anyway. Cleared for liftoff, Captain Condescendo.

I pour a smidgeon of socially maladjusted yuppie flavored creamer into my coffee. Lactose spiral galaxies form and fade. “This feels wrong."

I'm overly ambiguous but Liz understands nonetheless. Par for the course. “Oh, shut up. You think it's funny and you know it."

I lower my voice. Do teenagers have super-developed hearing now? It seems possible. “Yeah, but I feel like I shouldn't. It's not like we're any better. You know?"

She looks me straight in the eye. I want to look away or cough or pee but I don't. I can see the gears rotating free and clean in her head. “You have to first recognize stupidity to prevent it in yourself. So why not laugh? If people are going to be stupid shits, you may as well get a laugh and a lesson out of it. It's a pretty good deal, most of the time."

"Most of the time."

"Yeah.” She sobers.

The girls giggle about something that doesn't matter, and it becomes abundantly clear that we don't have the slightest clue what we're talking about.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so Jean and I like to keep up pretenses. Lunch is McDonald's (with a side of regret), noodles and flavor packets masquerade as dinner, but breakfast is a fair and balanced ordeal. Often there are eggs. Oatmeal is a must. Bacon is not entirely out of the question.

When we moved in together we bought an abnormally tall table from an antiques dealer. I suspected that it originated in a bar, circa 1980-1990, and thus did not qualify as an antique. Jean, however, adored it, and as I had the money from my dad, Jerry's Antiques became substantially richer. Tall tables necessitate tall chairs, and so Jerry gained two sets of clothes, a kitchen sink, and half of a soul. I wonder, sometimes, if we boosted him from the middle to upper class. It seems possible.

Our Michael Jordan table sits alongside the porch, with our Titanic chairs arrayed opposite one another. On summer days like this one breakfast is bathed in light.

Today is a bacon day. We are in the midst of June, and so the sun and the grease cause it to glisten like Barnard's Star. This seems disconcerting for a reason that is hard to pin down. Food should not glisten. One should not trust glistening sustenance. The milk on cereal advertisements glistens, and it is actually glue.

One should not consume glue. There is a lesson here.

"Have you ever thought about the end of the world?” I ask.

A fork clanks. French toast is sliced. “Yeah, I guess,” Jean says. “In a way."

I nod, make eye contact, and stuff scrambled eggs into my mouth in order to indicate that she should elaborate.

"I mean, if there's something I really want to do, and I start to tell myself that it can wait, to save it for later, I always think, ‘What if I'm sucked up by an earthquake or hit by a tire from an airplane or something on the way home?’ You can't spend every second thinking about that kind of stuff, you'd go insane or spend yourself dry, but you sorta have to sometimes. Or else you'll always push back good things."

I swallow, and my digestive system grumbles that it needs a vacation. “What if you
knew
the world was going to end? Like, you
knew
. In three months or something. What would you do?"

She raises an eyebrow. “My, you're morbid today. I guess I would do everything I could think of that would make me happy."

"Anything?"

"Why not?"

I scratch my head and pick at my ear. Small flakes of dandruff rain on the table and glimmer like fairies. “Well, I mean, what if you screwed up what's left of your life?"

She shrugs. “There's
always
that possibility."

She's right. Naturally.

"Merry Christmas!"

It is July 31. Liz allows me to open my eyes. In her hands are my keys. In the last ten seconds she has stolen my keys from my jeans pocket without my noticing. I wonder if she is Catwoman. It seems possible.

"Why are you giving me my keys?"

"You get to drive me to the park!” she beams.

"Why am I driving you to the park?"

"Because I want to go to the park."

Oh. Alright, then. “That seems fair."

She scowls, lays down the tip, and pulls me from my chair. “You didn't say ‘the park.’”

"I was supposed to?” I am being tugged toward my car. I suspect that I can accomplish this on my own. It does not seem like it should be a team endeavor. I allow her to pull me anyway.

"Yes. The last three statements that we had made included ‘the park.’ You ended that. It was depressing. I've yet to make a statement without mentioning ‘the park.’ I am crafty. I am cute and bubbly and amusing. You are a washed out child actor."

If Liz were anyone else I would ask her if she is high. She is, however, Liz. And subsequently, manic-depressive. And subsequently, cute and bubbly and amusing. For the moment. “At least I have money."

"Your parents took it."

"Oh. Damn. I wasn't aware."

She opens the driver's side door to my car and ushers me in. “You're not very smart."

I don't even know the way to the park. I was only dimly cognizant of its existence. “Oh. Damn. I wasn't aware."

"You also look like an orange and smell like a buffalo."

This seems possible.

At Liz's behest I hurtle through several red lights. No one honks, no one cares. I'm smoke, a ghost. The park, in point of fact, is within walking distance of my house.

"Oh,” I say.

"You've never been here?"

I regret never having been here. It doesn't seem possible that something so immediately pleasant exists in Porterville. Sunlight branches through trees that are sculptures. There is a playground, but it is unobtrusive, and the trickle of children's shrieks and laughter only adds to the warmth the place exudes.

"No.” We get out of the car, and I don't bother to lock it. Theft doesn't exist here. It's not kosher.

"It's beautiful."

Yes. Suddenly I am an environmentalist. Direct me to the whales, I must save them. Have you seen Ralph Nader? I need a word.

"Do you want to take a walk?” Liz glances at me and smiles. My hands migrate into my pockets. I
do
want to walk. Yes.

"Yes. I would like that.” I am making decisions like nobody's business. All your base are belong to us.

There are occasional stampedes of bicycles (which I had in truth believed extinct), and rare passersby that smile and wish us good afternoons. There is also a man wearing a walkman who steadfastly refuses to meet our gaze, as if in deep and vital concentration on a very specific piece of bark on a very specific tree straight ahead of him. Liz and I mock him when he is out of range. If we knew the truth of his life we would probably be ashamed. We don't care.

For the most part, however, our walk is unmolested by the rest of the world. At one point our path branches. We abscond the exercise trail and say our hellos to the nature hike. Gravel gives way to dirt. Squirrels and birds rise in frequency. Trees seem to lean closer, breathe easier. You can hear it.

You
can
hear it.

"Do you hear that?” I murmur.

"Hear what?” Her voice lowers to match mine.

"Breathing."

We are silent. Something trills. A bird. It flutters from one branch to another, and the tree creaks minutely. Someone is breathing heavily, just off the path. It's the sound people make when they've been stabbed or shot, in the movies. Or when they're hiding. Or both.

"Yes,” she says.

It is coming from our left, off the path. I distract a phalanx of grabby twigs and bushes and beckon Liz through. We move ten or twelve feet in relative silence before I step on a stick. The breathing—maybe a dozen feet away, now, and coming from the other side of an enormous oak tree—races.

"Do you think they're hurt?” I whisper.

"I don't know. Why are we whispering? Why don't we ask them?"

I nod assent. “Hey, are you alright?"

No answer. After a pause, a hissed, “
Shit.
” Liz and I share a look of perplexion and step closer.

"Don't come any closer!” A man's voice calls. Not the shit hisser—that was a woman. The man sounds familiar.

"Oh.” Liz blushes. “They're—” She makes a circle with her thumb and forefinger, and inserts the opposite forefinger.

He's crafty.

The butterflies in my stomach have been crossbred with antelopes. I take another step, and another.

"Jeff!” Liz admonishes. I'm sure this looks a little creepy.

"
Shit
,” says the woman behind the tree.

I'm there. This is the way the world ends. Jean, propped up against a gargantuan oak tree, resting on a crumpled sleeping bag. The sleeping bag is soaked, and I guess most of it must be sweat, because it's pouring off of her.

Girls don't sweat, they perspire. I forgot.

Jean's breasts heave when she breathes, and the mailman glances frantically from them to me. I wish he would look her in the eyes, instead. I'd feel a little better. A tiny bit.

The mailman's pants are several feet removed from his body. I don't even see Jean's. I see too much of the mailman, but too little of Jean's jeans.

I wish her legs weren't still spread. I wish she wasn't so flush.

Liz smacks my arm and tries to pull me back before she recognizes the paramours. I do not budge. I am rooted. “Oh,” she says quietly. “Oh. Oh."

They don't say a word. The mailman's hand—furry and stubby and grimy and everything wrong—strokes my wife's stomach. It's like they're bored with this. It's like they want to get back to it and Liz and I are afterthoughts. We're smoke, ghosts.

"I guess,” Jean says finally, “I want to do everything I can think of that'll make me happy."

I bite my lip until it bleeds. This is the part where you're not supposed to cry. I wonder if Liz feels weird. It seems likely.