This Is Between Us (17 page)

You put your left hand on my knee. I put my hands over your ears, so you wouldn’t have to hear. Our protective instincts.

“People should just be nice,” the lady said. When she got off the bus, we saw her still talking as she walked down the sidewalk.

…

We were at Victoria’s Secret because I told you I would buy you something new and sexy. You asked me if I had any erotic underwear stories. I told you about Theresa, who wore bras that were too small for her, so that her breasts looked like they were constantly spilling out. I mentioned the first time I’d ever seen garter belts, during a one-night stand with an anorexic girl I used to work with. There was one girlfriend who didn’t have a very good face but probably had the best ass I’d ever seen; she wore leopard-print panties. You made a face at me like you were offended, or maybe disgusted. I thought about backpedaling and saying that you had the best ass but I imagined you would sense the untruth of those words.

I walked around the store with you and tried not to imagine the other customers in their undergarments. There were a few other guys in there as well, but they mostly tried to blend into the wall while their wives or girlfriends or mistresses shopped around. A couple of them had the distinct look of men pensively exiting the doghouse. Their credit cards trembled between their twitchy fingers and thumbs.

I looked, perhaps perversely, at where the dressing rooms were, and I thought it was strangely erotic that some of the bras probably had had many women’s nipples pressed into their cups. I was a little nervous about pointing out some of the bras I liked because there had been a time, early in our relationship, when I bought you a shirt and you got mad. You said I didn’t know you well enough to shop for you. You said that men shouldn’t clothes shop for women, but that women should clothes shop for men.

“I thought of another underwear story,” I suddenly blurted out, before realizing it would probably be upsetting as well.

“What is it?” you asked.

“I think the most memorable underwear for me,” I said carefully, “were these pair of silky panties that I took from my mom.”

“Yeah,” you said, as if it was no big deal. “And what about them?”

I tried to think of a funny way to say it. “I used them to whack off.”

You laughed a little, just enough to let me know I was in the clear.

“And I sniffed her bras too,” I said.

“That’s nothing,” you answered. “I used to smell my dad’s underwear.”

I wanted to ask you if you sniffed my underwear too, but part of me didn’t really want to know.

…

I realized that I didn’t know what formaldehyde was, but I didn’t think you did either. We were at our neighborhood bar, getting drunk.

“Formaldehyde is something you put on walls to remove paint,” you said.

“It’s like really strong alcohol,” I said. “Or you can put it in a dead person if you don’t want them to disintegrate.”

“You’re thinking of those jars of dead babies,” you told me.

I squinted at the bottles behind the bar to see if they had any formaldehyde. One bottle had a big radish or some kind of root in it that looked like a dead baby. My stomach roiled.

“I wonder what would happen if you soaked your hands in a tub of it,” you said. “Would it keep them young?”

“I don’t think it’s good for . . . you . . . that way,” I stammered. “What do you mean by
young
, anyway?”

“It would be kind of funny to have a withered hand,” you said.

I drank more of my Mexican beer and imagined you with a withered hand. A beautiful, young withered hand.

…

Sometimes you had to take Ambien to fall asleep and it led to strange things. Like eating binges and loss of memory.

We woke up one morning and thought that someone had broken in and trashed the apartment. There were dirty dishes and half-eaten pieces of food everywhere, even in the hallway and around our bed. Cheetos were scattered all over the bathroom like shrapnel from a bomb. A jar of pickles was in the microwave and a frozen burrito was jammed into one of the toaster slots. In the other slot was a piece of ham.

“Did you hear anything at all last night?” I asked you.

“I went to bed right after you and slept like a rock,” you told me.

The kids were up and watching television, seemingly unconcerned. “Did you and my mom try to do some kind of experimental cooking last night?” Maxine asked me.

“Is that burrito supposed to be in the toaster?” Vince asked.

You came out of the bedroom, rubbing your eyes and reading the label on the Ambien. I saw Cheeto dust on your fingers.

…

We went to your dad’s farm for Christmas. He lived between Portland and Mount Hood, in a place called Sandy. Your sister and her husband and son were there too. Your dad gave Vince and Maxine a Wii. We opened presents and played virtual tennis all morning.

You and I had decided to take mushrooms in the afternoon, right before dinner and about an hour before we were going to meet some friends to go out for the evening. The kids were going to spend the night at your dad’s.

I was eating turkey and mashed potatoes when I realized that the mushrooms had killed my taste buds already. I piled a bunch of food that I don’t usually like on my plate—stuffing, squash, cranberry—and I ate it without the slightest grimace on my face. I asked for hot sauce and challenged your dad to a “hot-sauced turkey contest.” He drank a beer and sweated through his new polo shirt. I was laughing and taking the smallest sips of water, chased with hot coffee. Suddenly, there were loud thrusts of wind banging against the window and snow swirling everywhere outside. Our friends called us and told us that they couldn’t come and get us because they were already snowed in. You were looking out the window and holding the phone to your ear for several minutes, even though no one was on it to talk to anymore.

Your sister was standing behind you, wondering what you were doing. She said, “Hello?” and you started talking on the dead phone like she was on the line. I walked over to you and took the phone from your hand and turned you around to face your sister. You started laughing uncontrollably, at first like something was really funny and then like an insane person. Your laugh sounded backward:
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
. I was trying to usher you away, maybe to the guest bedroom in the back, but I felt the rush coming on too. My face stretched into a mad grin and my shoulders hunched. The house was surrounded by a tornado of snow and I realized that we were stuck inside with everyone while our brains turned to goo in our heads. Your dad was shaking his head like he knew what was going on, but your sister asked in the most innocent way, “What could be so funny?”

Once we were alone, we quietly tried to come up with a game plan. We knew we couldn’t stay inside with the sober family so we told your dad that we’d go check on the cows. We found them in the two shelters by the pasture, but there was one that was still out in the storm, walking in circles, almost like she was enjoying it. We stumbled around in the wind and tried to steer the animal to a shelter, but it turned at the last moment and headed back toward the middle of the pasture. “She likes it!” you shouted through the wind. You climbed up and got on her back. “Come on,” you said. I tried to climb on too, but just draped myself over her like a blanket. I felt warm like a blanket. You ran your fingers through my hair and I stared down and watched the cow’s hooves dancing around the glowing white dance floor.

…

I took Maxine to Dairy Queen for dessert one night when Vince was at his mom’s and you were working late. I got a Hot Fudge Volcano or something like that. Maxine got a dipped cone. She carefully ate the strawberry-colored shell from the ice cream swirl as she studied a flier that listed the calories for everything on the menu. “Yours is like five thousand calories,” she said, looking gravely at me. “Mine is only 340.”

I tried to snatch the flier but she held it away from me. “Maybe you should save some for my mom,” she said.

“I can handle it,” I said. I took another lumpy bite of brownie smeared with whipped cream and hot fudge, but her words had a sly effect on me. I was already starting to feel full.

I didn’t get many chances to talk to Maxine one on one, so when I did it took me a while to get the conversation going into a comfortable flow.

“How’s junior high life?” I asked.

“It’s fine,” she said. Her usual response to any topic she didn’t want to speak further on.

“How is band going?”

“It’s fine too.”

“Do you ever see Vince in the hallways or at lunch?”

“The eighth graders and seventh graders have different lunch times. But yeah, I see him sometimes, by his locker. My friend Phoebe thinks he’s cute, but I haven’t told him.”

I felt a flash of pride that a girl found Vince attractive. I wanted to ask about this Phoebe but I also wanted to stay on topic.

“Does he hang out with many kids?” I asked.

“Do you want to hire me as a spy or something?” she asked.

I chewed up some more brownie and spooned melted ice cream into my mouth. I wondered if she was serious about her offer. Talking to Vince was more difficult than conversing with Maxine, and I was curious about his social life at school.

Maxine’s face took on a more serious squint. “Is that why you brought me here? You thought,
I’ll give her some ice cream and she’ll tell me what’s wrong with Vince?
Is that the scoop you’re looking for?”

It felt like we were suddenly starring in some sort of film noir. I couldn’t figure out my next line. I looked down at my clichéd raincoat and black leather shoes. My right hand dropped the plastic spoon into the mess of dairy below it and then shot up to my lips. I hadn’t smoked in years but my fingers shook like I was holding a cigarette there. I craved a cup of coffee as black as the sky outside. This twelve-year-old girl in front of me seemed like someone new, someone I didn’t know. Her gaze was steady on mine and I waited for more words, sharp and fast, to come out of her mouth. But she waited for me, her cards on the table. Ice cream dripping down her fingers.

…

We were driving around and they were playing eighties music on the radio. They were playing “Sexy & 17.”

“There was a time when I really liked the Stray Cats. I had their first two albums,” I said to you.

“I don’t really remember them,” you said. “But my brother may have liked them. He had a lot of cassettes.”

A song by Supertramp came on. It was “Take the Long Way Home.”

“This song reminds me more of the seventies than the eighties,” I said. “I always thought it was weird that they say ‘wife’ in this song. I mean, rock bands don’t talk about marriage much.”

You patted me on the knee and said, “Maybe that’s why it sounds so sad.” We laughed a little but I realized you were right. The song talks about the wife treating the guy like a piece of furniture and then the wife says the guy is losing his sanity.

No wonder he takes the long way home.

I pictured the
Breakfast in America
cover in my mind: the waitress with the platter held above her head, the glass of orange juice on the platter, the New York skyscrapers in the background. The Twin Towers. I remembered a lot about it, even though I only ever listened to my cousin’s copy. On eight-track tape.

I almost started crying for some reason. I wondered if Vince would have memories of music like this when he got older. Notes and rhythms and lyrics that worked like scents. You looked over at me and saw that my mood had changed. A song by Elton John came on. “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues.” You slouched forward in the passenger seat and put your hands up to your face. I couldn’t tell if you were laughing or crying. “I hope Maxine has songs that make her feel things,” you said. I put my hand out for you, and you grabbed it. Your palms were wet. “God damn you, Elton John,” you said.

…

You told me about some scientific study that said people find their sexual partners more attractive than they actually are. I reevaluated some of my past girlfriends and realized that the study is probably right.

We looked straight at each other for a long time, as if we were now other people, recalibrating each other’s level of attractiveness. All this did was make me think of one of our first nights together. We were in my car in a giant parking lot by the shopping mall. The windshield wipers on my car weren’t working, so we sat there and waited for the rain to ease up. But it just got stormier, and the rain got heavier and pounded on top of the car like someone playing a drum solo. Sometimes other cars would drive by and their headlights would scan over your smiling face. The rain was pouring down the car windows like we were under a waterfall, and these lights reflected that water over your face like it was melting and melting and melting, but your smile got bigger, like your face was saying,
I’m so glad we’re trapped here!
That was the moment I knew we’d probably be together forever. If we both lived to be ninety and died and went to heaven or someplace like heaven, we’d meet there and fall in love all over again. We sat in that car, with the rain and passing lights and the willingness to wait forever to start moving again. Our molecules seemed to fuse together right there. Our cells. Our
DNA
.