The Dark Lake (11 page)

"I am so sick of you sabotaging."

"I have nothing to do with this," she said.

"Oh, you don't think so?"

"No. You've made your own choices
—"

"Yes
, but I could have done better if I'd have had your encouragement. Especially I could have used just not having your discouragement."

"Oh Jane
, shut up."

And I did, by leaving and slamming the door. Great. Now I was going to be all upset and jinxed for my interview. Well, I still had a couple of days, and a bunch of therapy before Friday
, and I would just stay away from her.

I spent the next couple of days in the library, when I wasn't at therapy of some kind, working on my attitude and my knowledge, for the interview. I was also practicing spelling and trying to learn the rules of grammar, which I had never particularly enjoyed or understood. I had passed between the two lions that lay on either side of the stone steps a dozen times, between grabbing lunch, going out for a smoke, going out for coffee or junk to munch on. I read tourism books on Morocco and Casablanca. Didn't have to worry about learning the language, since I knew French already. Looked at plenty of pictures so I could describe the city in detail. I also researched the nature of the job. I really didn't think I had that good a chance of getting it, which is probably why my mom's words hurt, but at least I would be prepared.

"I think it's terrific that you are trying
to get this job," Miriam said.

It was a bright, sunny day. I liked the way her walls looked when the sun filtered in through the blinds. The blinds were several shades darker mauve than the walls, giving the room a beautiful aura. And she had a lot of big leafy plants in the room. Ferns, big
philodendron, little dainty, leafy ones that hung from their baskets the names of which I didn't know. I could never keep plants alive—maybe the philodendra. I kept a fern alive once. I used to give it long showers. I used to keep that fern alive and dream of getting a job one day, and living on my own in an apartment. I dreamed of that clear back in high school.

"I agree, I think it’s great that I’m looking for a job. Of course, I have no chance at all of getting it," I said.

"Why do you say that?"

"I had to lie on the application. I lied and said I had a high school diploma."

"People don't care about high school when you've been out of it this long."

"Yea
h, but I have no schooling, or experience," I said, looking down at my feet.

"It's just a proofreading job."

"I could also apply for a library job, maybe just to shelve books or something.” My eyes brightened up a little. "Maybe I could get one of those jobs."

"What is it that is making you
want
to work at that job?"

"I don't know. It makes me feel less like a…"

"Less like a…"

"Loser?"

"Why do you think you are a loser, Jane?"

"Oh God, we don't have to talk about that night again
, do we? Actually, isn't the way I'm living proof enough that I am a loser?"

"I think maybe the way you are living might have something to do with that night."

There was a period of silence.

"Don't you?” she asked.

"Oh for God's sake, you are like a broken record. And please, don't threaten to stop therapy if I don't talk about it again. That was traumatic,” I said, suddenly focusing all my intensity on her.

I looked at the clock. We still had at least a half an hour more of this.

"I just want to prepare for this interview, so I can get a job," I continued.

She gave me a silent,
oh-come-on-now stare.

"What?” I said
. "What do you think I should look at about that night that is relevant to my job interview on Friday?"

"Did you go to the police station to ask about the article?"

"Yes. They knew nothing about it." I started thinking about my dad. That had been really weird that day with him.

"What is that thought that you are having right now?"

"What do you mean?”
God,
could she read my mind?

"Your eyes, what are you thinking. What happened there?"

"Nothing, just that they didn't know anything about it.” I thought about it for a minute and then said, "Do you know anything about it? I mean … did you see the article?"

Silence, combined with another ‘oh come on’ stare.

Exasperated … twenty more minutes of this. I started tapping my foot and just looking around the room.

"Do you want me to get the article out of my drawer?” she asked, eyebrows raised way up too high, head turned sideways, slightly mocking smile.

"What?” I screamed it. Did I actually scream?

"Why did you scream?"

"I have to go.”

I stood up.

"I need water."

"You've had enough water. Sit down."

"I have to get out of here!"

"
Out of where, Jane; where are you
?"

I felt like I couldn't breathe
.

"Why are you torturing me?"

"I'm not. I am trying to …"

"Forget what you're trying to do. I have to go."

Half afraid she'd block the door, I ran out of the room and to my car. My heart was pounding. I shook so bad I could barely get the key in the keyhole. Saying, "Oh my God, oh my God,” as I started the ignition. I thought she might even follow me, and I was too scared to turn my head around to look to see if she did as I squealed out of the parking lot and down the road.

"Why is she so mean? Why is she so mean?” I screamed in my car as I drove, unfocused. Trying to drive away from the horrible feeling. It made me a danger on the road.

***

"Don't feel that feeling anymore," Krishna advises and then giggles at her own absurd statement and then she says, "Here, smoke this." She loads a pipe, hands it to me.

We drive around Menomonee Park, near Lake Winnebago. It’s that long curve that goes around from the street where I live to her house, which overlooks the lake.

I take a hit, draw it deep into my lungs and blow it out slow. I loved watching the smoke leave my lungs. It felt like power.

"Ad lucem," she says.

"I hate it when you speak Latin," I say.

"Pour qua
?"

"At least when you speak French I can understand you."

"Pari idioma infatti."

"Stop speaking Latin."

She laughs and looks out her window, loads up her little, red, wooden pipe again, and takes a hit. She blows the smoke out slowly and lays her head back on the seat, closes her eyes and holds the red pipe and the black lighter tightly in each hand.

***

I drove by the lake, by Krishna’s old house. Someone else was living there now. Who were they? I was tempted to knock and tell them I used to live there and ask if I could come in and look around. I parked across the street in front of the little white house in the funny, angular shape, like it couldn't make up its mind what shape to be. Part of it looked like an L-shaped thing. But then it went off in the back as if it were a quaint English cottage. The rooftop was rust red and quite sloped, like an English Tudor. Behind the house there was what looked almost like an Italian garden, complete with those white, vine-covered, lattice awnings.

White
, round garden tables used to stand back there. I wonder, were they still there? I don't know, and I wasn't going to go knock. I pulled my car slowly forward and drove past, around the rest of the curve of Menomonee Drive, past the beautiful homes along her street, past the other streets, where other friends had lived: Ann Binder, from eighth grade, Ann Jenson, who used to have a pool in her back yard. If you kept going down Menomonee Drive it curved back and crossed Bowen again, where, if you turned left, you could go straight back to my street. New York Street. Signal. Turn right. Home.

My job interview was in one hour. I was so nervous I could barely stand it. I stood in the blue and white dining room with the Danish tiles and stood looked at myself in the cabinet mirror that I'd looked in all my life: going on dates, going to prom, homecoming, cream-colored dresses with lacey gauze draping around the sides and flowers dotting here and there.

My
anger-management group yesterday had made me so mad I had to spend the entire day today and the entire night last night calming myself down. I had to watch about three solid hours of nineteen-fifties, black and white reruns to get over it.

I had wanted to talk about my interview today
, and they would not shut up.

And the leader could not make them. He was too weak
—light-brown mustache, curly brown hair, and frail frame. What could he know about anger anyway? Some egg-headed degree he had? What do these people know? His charts and his handouts with the cycle of violence printed on them as a diagram of our feelings? But then what the hell does he do about it when somebody keeps interrupting you? Nothing. He just lets people walk all over each other in his classroom, and then if I were to get angry about it, then boy would he ever write that down.

And those morons in there, I was so sick of them and their drivel, same crap week in
, week out.

Leaves had turned the bright golds, reds
, and yellows signifying Halloween and Thanksgiving, and still they chattered away about the same issues. One person's husband refused to get up off the couch. If I were that woman's husband I would refuse to get up off the couch too.

Outside the leaves had been raked up and put in big black trash bags and set on the terrace
—six or seven of them. They looked like Halloween ghouls of some kind, waiting. The lawn had been mowed, but an occasional wayward leaf flew across it and spoiled its pure, green look.

I better get going.

I said nothing to my sullen-looking mom and got in my car and drove down New York Avenue toward Main Street. Across the railroad tracks and left at Open Panties.

Down past the Sears on my right, the hardware store, the bank where I took out my three hundred dollars and snorted it all up in coke. What's on my left? All I can see is what's to the right of me.

I pull into the parking lot of the
Gazette
, walk in the beautiful double doors, feel the fancy, old, brass, lion-head doorknobs that open into the wide, long, empty hall with the shiny, black flooring. Nice. Old. Like I'm in a Sam Spade movie.

"Sweetheart
, I’d like to talk to you about a job,” I’d say.

I took the elevator to the third floor. Office number 310, she had said.

I told the secretary I was there. She gave me a long stare. Annoyed, I held my tongue and opened a magazine on the table.
Hunting and Fishing
. Oh, how Wisconsin of them.

"Jane? You want to come on back here?"

A tall, thin, well-dressed woman with tight, black curls and red lipstick—just like a dame.

"Hello
.” I reached out to shake her hand.

She motioned for me to sit in a big
, heavy, brown, leather chair in front of her desk.

"My name is Leelah."

You've got to be kidding.

"Nice to meet you."

"So, you lived in Casablanca," she smiled.

"Yes."

"Like the movie."

"Ha
, ha, ha."

"You're a long way from there now
, huh."

"Ha
, ha, ha."

"Long time ago
, though, wasn't it?"

"Relatively."

"Done anything since then?"

Ok
ay, here it comes. Damn it, I immediately started fiddling nervously with something on her desk. What was it? A paperweight? It was a glass ball in which the snow falls if you turn it upside down. It was a Snoopy sitting on his red house.

"Well, I've worked in some different capacities. Nurse
’s Aide. Clerking. Some yard work."

"Anything to do with proofreading?"

"Well, not exactly the same, but, I can learn it and…"

"You're hired!"

"Really?"

"Ha
, ha, ha."

"Hey, I can take a joke. I think you'd like working with me.”

She paused, leaned back in her chair.

"You know, I believe you're right. I believe you might be right about that. But aside from your lack of experience
, I do have one serious concern."

"What's that?” Was she seriously considering me?

"Your ability to get here on time."

"Huh?”
How in the hell did she know about that?