Barbara the Slut and Other People

Barbara the Slut and Other People Lauren Holmes ‘Astonishing – one of those rare books that manages to be both poignant and hilarious. The last time we had a debut this big was Junot D?az with ‘Drown’. Holmes is a major talent.’ Philipp MeyerA fresh, honest, and darkly funny debut collection about family, friends, and lovers, and the flaws that make us most human.One woman takes a job selling sex toys in San Francisco rather than embark on the law career she pursued only for the sake of her father. Another realises she much prefers the company of her pit bull — and herself — to the neurotic foreign fling who won’t decamp from her apartment. A daughter hauls a suitcase of lingerie to Mexico for her flighty, estranged mother to resell there, wondering whether her personal mission — to come out — is worth the same effort. And Barbara, a young woman with an autistic brother, a Princeton acceptance letter, and a love of sex navigates her high school’s toxic, slut-shaming culture with open eyes.Fearless, candid, and incredibly funny, Lauren Holmes is a newcomer who writes like a master. She tackles eros and intimacy with a deceptively light touch, a keen awareness of how their nervous systems tangle and sometimes short-circuit, and a genius for revealing our most vulnerable, spirited selves. With heart, sass, and pitch-perfect characters, BARBARA THE SLUT is a head-turning debut from a writer with a limitless career before her. Copyright (#ulink_42eafd24-0809-5d02-b217-1e605abe5795) Fourth Estate An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF www.4thestate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk) This eBook first published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2015 First published in the United States by Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House in 2015 Copyright © Lauren Holmes 2015 Cover design by Rachel Willey Lauren Holmes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008123031 Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780008123055 Version: 2015-12-08 For my family Contents Cover (#ud74eee30-080e-5dfa-8566-5ef32d0786a6) Title Page (#ueb921827-38c4-5e2b-93b4-c4b2aa2671af) Copyright (#uce1bffa2-9246-55f4-8fc1-919ea108785c) Dedication (#ud26a1357-d396-5245-8255-afda0e4deebd) HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TALK TO YOU? (#u1366b728-c465-5811-823e-96715b07efad) WEEKEND WITH BETH, KELLY, MUSCLE, AND PAMMY (#u82bc7aa2-f713-588d-becb-061574fba915) MIKE ANONYMOUS (#ube8c49d7-0b10-5449-ab3d-259e6b17044c) I WILL CRAWL TO RALEIGH IF I HAVE TO (#litres_trial_promo) DESERT HEARTS (#litres_trial_promo) PEARL AND THE SWISS GUY FALL IN LOVE (#litres_trial_promo) NEW GIRLS (#litres_trial_promo) MY HUMANS (#litres_trial_promo) JERKS (#litres_trial_promo) BARBARA THE SLUT (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TALK TO YOU? (#ulink_b3ad8356-7058-5a50-b3f5-50b5822cb1f4) In Mexico City the customs light lit up green, which was lucky because I had fifty pairs of underwear with tags on them in my suitcase. They were from Victoria’s Secret and they were for my mom to sell to the teenagers in her town for a markup of three hundred percent. She managed a hotel in Pie de la Cuesta, a fishing town six miles west of Acapulco, and she said the kids there wanted this underwear more than marijuana. I thought this sounded like a second grader’s plan, but I said I would do it because I hadn’t visited her in three years. In addition to bringing my mom the underwear, I was supposed to use this trip to tell her I was gay, to ask her to start talking to Grandpa again so I didn’t have to feel bad about taking his tuition checks, and to generally make up for the ten years I was in California, in middle school and high school and college, and she was in Mexico, in the city and then at the beach. She was supposed to meet me at the airport, but at the last minute she told me it was safer to take buses than cars late at night. She said I had taken buses in Mexico before but I was pretty sure I hadn’t. All the other times I’d visited my mom in Mexico, she’d been living at her parents’ house in Mexico City, and Grandpa’s driver would come and get me at the airport. My mom told me to take a taxi from the airport to the south bus station, a bus from there to Acapulco, and another bus from Acapulco to Pie de la Cuesta. In Mexico City, the taxi passed the exit for R?o Piedad, and I wished I were going to Grandpa’s house. My mom had told me not to tell him I was coming, but now I wondered if it would be a good way to get her to talk to him, to tell her she had to come to his house if she wanted to see me. In the meantime I could go to sleep right away, and swim in Grandpa’s pool, and have his driver go get me tacos. I slept on the bus to Acapulco, and when we got there it was still dark. I was half awake waiting for the bus to Pie de la Cuesta and when it came it wasn’t a bus with air-conditioning and a stewardess and soda and chips like the one I’d just taken. It was a city bus that wound along the coast at what felt like a hundred miles an hour, but when the bus wasn’t turning and I wasn’t looking off the dark cliff, I realized it was probably more like twenty. The five other passengers were asleep. Only the bus driver and I were awake and listening to the staticky radio. The sun rose behind the bus. I started to get nervous when we wound down the cliff. My mom said that when the bus got to town and passed her pink hotel, El Flamenco, I was supposed to yell “?Bajan!” and get out. As we drove, there were more and more houses on the right side of the road and more and more hotels on the left side, where the beach was. Finally the houses were stuck together, and the hotels were almost stuck together. The hotels looked like motels to me, and there was more than one pink one. Finally I saw El Flamenco and stood up to yell but I couldn’t do it. I sat back down and pretended like, Oh man, I almost got off at the wrong stop again. Five hotels and ten houses later, the teenager in the backseat yelled, “?Bajan!” and I got off with him. I pulled out the handle of my suitcase and started walking back toward the motel. My mom was standing outside, under a string of lights. “Lala!” she said and ran toward me. She was wearing woven shorts and a white tank top and she looked really good. Her boobs were huge and her arms were toned and she was so brown. She gave me a million kisses all over my face and my hands. She touched my hair, which had always been long but now was short. She started to cry. “Hi Mama,” I said. “Hi baby,” she said. “I knew that was your bus. You’re so beautiful.” She took my free hand and I wheeled my suitcase into the courtyard. There was a pool in the middle with strings of lights around it, and the doors to the rooms were around the courtyard in an L shape. The office was separate from the L, between the pool and the street. She opened the door and we went inside. It was cool in there and I wondered if she was the only person in Pie de la Cuesta with air-conditioning. Her apartment was above the office, and we walked up the stairs. It looked like no one lived there—there were no plants or pictures or glasses of water, just a couch and a wooden chair in the living room, and a square table and two more chairs in the kitchen. In the bedroom she put my suitcase down. There was a bed with no frame and another chair. But the bed had her same white sheets on it, these sheets that cost a million dollars and feel like clouds and smell like clouds. My mom got into the bed and I got in with her. She traced the spot on my forehead where she said I had a swirl of hair as a baby. Every muscle in my body relaxed. She stroked my head and then I was ten years old and we were lying in the cloud sheets in Los Angeles and I was crying because we had to put our dog Maria von Trapp to sleep. That night my mom had stroked my head until I fell asleep. I don’t know where my dad was—he was there when we put Maria to sleep but then not there later. After a while my mom said, “Are you hungry, baby?” and it brought me back to the present and being twenty and I felt embarrassed to be in bed with my mom. I wanted to sit up but I was too weak. I tried to open my eyes and my mom laughed at me. “I’m starving,” I said. She went to the kitchen and made me an egg sandwich, which is one of my favorite things, with Oaxacan cheese, which is another one of my favorite things. She cut up a papaya and two bananas and she ate the fruit while I ate the sandwich. After breakfast I asked my mom if I could make a phone call. “Of course, baby, who do you want to call?” “I want to tell Dad I got in safe.” “Oh,” she said. She said that the phone in the office didn’t make long distance calls, but she gave me a phone card and told me there was a pay phone to the left of the hotel. When I got to the phone I dialed Dana’s number. I had told her I would call her every day but now that I was here I didn’t really feel like it. “Hey it’s me,” I said when she picked up. “Hi!” she said. “I was so worried about you.” “Why?” I said. “I told you I would call you when I got here.” “I know, but I was worried. How’s your mom?” “She’s fine. How are you?” “I’m really great. I haven’t eaten or used an animal product in forty-two days.” “Oh right,” I said. “That’s good.” “Did you come out to your mom yet?” “No. I’ve only been here for like an hour.” “I can’t wait for you to tell her. I’m so proud of you.” I told her I would call her the next day and then I hung up by accident. Then I called my dad and made the mistake of telling him about the buses. “You got in in the middle of the night,” he said, “and your mother couldn’t pick you up?” “It’s safer to take the buses at night,” I said. “This is not what we agreed,” he said. “I’m going to call her.” “Dad. Please don’t call her. I’m fine. I want to have a good time.” He said he would wait until I was back to call her, and I said okay and hoped he would forget by then. He told me to call Dana because she had called the house twice. He made me promise to wear sunscreen and to not go swimming. He said he was reading about Pie de la Cuesta on the internet and the undertow was deadly. • • • When I got back to the apartment my mom said, “Ready to go to the beach?” “Yeah,” I said. “Do you have the underwear?” she said. “Yeah.” I opened my suitcase and took out the underwear and my bathing suit. “Did you get the bags?” said my mom. I was supposed to get fifty striped bags to go with the fifty pairs of underwear. “They would only give me ten,” I said and gave them to her. “Okay,” said my mom. “I can give them to the girls who buy a lot.” I went into the bathroom and took off my shorts and T-shirt. My mom came in behind me and snapped my underwear band and said, “You should get yourself some new underwear.” I imagined myself wearing the pair I had bought that said “Boys Boys Boys” a thousand times in black letters. My mom had said to get as many pairs with English words on them as possible. Another pair said “See you tonight,” and I thought those were really funny, because if someone else was seeing them, wasn’t it already tonight? Unless it was a reminder to yourself, like, see you tonight when I take my pants off again. “I like my underwear,” I said. “They’re kind of sturdy,” said my mom. They were gray and boy-style but for girls, and I wondered if she thought they were butch. I wanted her to think so, so that I wouldn’t have to tell her. “I’m going to put my suit on, okay?” I said. “Oh, okay,” she said and left the bathroom. When I was done I went back out to the living room. My mom came out of the bedroom wearing a terry cloth dress. “Do you want to borrow a beach dress?” she said. “No,” I said. “We have to sell ourselves if we want to sell the underwear,” she said. “I don’t want to sell myself,” I said. “Okay, don’t sell yourself,” said my mom, “sell the American dream.” “Really?” I said. “This underwear is going to fly people to the U.S. and get them green cards and jobs at hotels and then they’re going to win the lottery?” “Ha,” said my mom. “Come on, let’s go. I have to be back for checkout at noon.” “And then they’ll buy forty cars and go bankrupt and have to come back to Mexico?” “Ha ha. Are you ready?” She had the underwear sorted by size in three of the bags. “We’re selling the underwear now?” I said. “Of course,” she said. “It’s Saturday, a lot of kids are going to be at the beach.” It was starting to get really hot outside. We walked through the row of palm trees that separated the hotels from the beach. On the other side was sand and water, and some sets of tables and chairs under a thatched roof. The sky was almost clear except for thin stripes of clouds. As we made our way to the water I saw that there were already people weaving in and out of the sunbathers and selling things—women with buckets of something, a woman carrying a bottle and calling “Masajes, masajes,” and a man leading a pony and offering rides. I wondered what my mom’s plan was. She was ahead of me at the water. “Put your feet in,” she said. “It’s nice.” I went in up to my knees and it was nice. The rest of my body was getting hot and I wanted to go in all the way. There were kids swimming and I wondered if my dad was wrong. “I can go swimming, right?” I said. “I wouldn’t, baby, the current is so strong.” “Those kids are swimming.” “They’re pros.” “I really want to go swimming,” I said. “You can swim in the pool,” she said. “And I’ll take you to the lagoon on Monday, it’s gorgeous.” We walked along the water toward where it looked more crowded. “So, are there any boys I should know about?” said my mom. Always her first question. “Nope,” I said. “Still no boys.” That was always my answer, and she never seemed to think it was weird or some kind of clue, which she shouldn’t have needed anyway. Shouldn’t she have noticed when I was born? Wasn’t there something about me that told her I was going to grow up to cut my hair and wear sturdy underwear and date a girl who brought her leather biker boots to textile recycling and then bought vegan ones? And if not when I was born, she should have noticed in elementary school when I was obsessed with amphibians and reptiles and with my friend Emily. And if still not then, she definitely would have noticed in middle school, when I hit puberty and was really confused and, according to my dad, really weird. But she was already gone. I followed my mom out of the water and into the crowd of towels and people. She didn’t say anything or approach anyone. “How do you say ‘underwear’ again?” I said. “Pantis,” said my mom. “?Pantis!?Pantis!” I called. “Lala!” said my mom. “What?” “I was going to go up to girls that looked like they would want them.” “Okay,” I said, “good plan.” We walked through the people until my mom spotted four girls and an older man together. She went up to them and said she was selling ropa interior from Victoria’s Secret, and would they like to buy any. One girl sat straight up and said, “?Pap?, me encanta Victoria’s Secret!” The dad looked at her and at my mom and frowned. “Huh,” he said. The other girls sat up too, and soon my mom was spreading out the underwear on one of their towels. The daughter picked out like eight pairs. One of the other girls looked at “See you tonight” and said, “Hubba hubba.” “Those are my favorite,” I said. “Su favorito,” said my mom. I wasn’t sure that they were impressed with me because I was starting to get really sweaty, but the daughter grabbed a pair of the same ones and looked at her dad. “?A cuanto?” he asked my mom. “Ciento cincuenta.” The dad raised his eyebrows but they bought three pairs. Then we sold some more pairs to another group of girls nearby, and when we were walking away my mom said, “See?” • • • Back at the motel my mom checked some Swiss people out and I went swimming in the pool. Later my mom came out and read, and I spent the afternoon sleeping until I was too hot, and then swimming until I was too tired. At the end of the day we went back to the beach to watch the sunset. My mom said that when the sun set in Pie de la Cuesta, it lit up the backs of the waves, and you could see the silhouettes of kids swimming. Tonight the waves were too small, although they didn’t look small to me. If I were braver I would have gone in and felt the water rush over my body and my head, and I probably would have been fine. But I was scared. My mom wasn’t one to tell me something was dangerous if it wasn’t. And she was sometimes one to tell me something was safe when it wasn’t. • • • When the sun went down we went back to the apartment and got ready to go out to dinner. My mom came out of the bathroom with makeup on and said, “My friend is going to meet us at the restaurant. Is that okay?” “A man?” I said. “No, a woman. Of course, baby, a man. His name is Martin and he’s from Pah-ree. You’re going to love his accent.” I assumed Pah-ree meant Paris. “Great,” I said. The restaurant was ten motels down and when we got close we saw Martin waiting outside. He was tall and skinny and he waved at us. “Oh shit, I forgot to tell you something,” said my mom. “I only speak Spanish, okay? I’ll explain later.” “How am I supposed to talk to you?” I said. “You speak Spanish.” “I haven’t spoken Spanish since I was five,” I said. Now Martin was twenty feet from us and he said, “?Hola!” “Bonsoir!” called my mom. “Jesus,” I said. Martin gave my mom a kiss on the cheek. He shook my hand and gave me a kiss on the cheek too. He had a big nose but he was handsome and he had a lot of hair, which my mom likes. He didn’t have a French mustache or anything. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and gray shorts. The restaurant was a big patio, and there were folding chairs and folding tables with picnic covers. There were a lot of families with little kids. We sat at a table in the back and it felt like we were right on the beach. It was dark but I could see the waves licking the sand. I ordered a pi?a colada and my mom ordered a bottle of wine for her and Martin. I looked at the menu and didn’t know what any of the fish were except for camarones, and I hate shrimp. “I don’t know what to get,” I said in English. “The pulpo, it is very good,” said Martin. “This is octopus.” “A ella no le gusta comer pulpo,” said my mom. “Mija, te encantar?a el pargo de piedra.” “Okay,” I said. While we were waiting for our food, Martin asked me what I was studying in school. I gave him the speech I give strangers about my research—how there’s so much information about lead poisoning in paint, but almost none about lead in soil, and kids are so much more likely to eat soil, and the community where I’m doing research relies on its gardens for food. “This is very interesting,” said Martin. “Your mother has not told me about this.” “Te lo he dicho,” said my mom. “Pero es tan complicado y ella es tan inteligente.” They talked to each other in Spanish for the rest of the dinner, about me and stuff that I did when I was a kid, like one time in San Francisco when I kept catching fish and no one else caught any and they thought I could talk to animals. My mom said she knew I was going to be a doctor or a scientist. I tried to laugh at the right times but I had trouble following what they were saying. After dinner we said good-bye to Martin and he walked in the other direction. On the way back to the motel, my mom told me that Martin didn’t know about Grandpa or Grandma or that she had lived in the States with me and Dad. She thought he wouldn’t think she was interesting if he knew that Grandpa was rich and not Mexican, and that Grandma came from a government family and was legally Mexican, but genetically at least fifty percent Spanish, and emotionally one hundred percent white. My mom didn’t want Martin to know that she spoke English and went to Berkeley and lived in California for fourteen years and drove a Mercedes and then a Range Rover, so she told him she lived in Mexico City the whole time and drove her old VW the whole time, and I went to live with my dad in the States so I could go to a good school. My mom said the first time they met, Martin told her he loved her simple life, and she didn’t want to tell him about me at all, but then she had to because I was coming. When we got back to the apartment my mom kept her sandals on. “Baby, you’re just going to go to sleep, right? Would you mind if I went to Martin’s apartment to say good night, and I’ll come right back?” “Sure,” I said. “Are you just going to go to sleep?” “I think so,” I said. “I’m exhausted.” “Okay baby, you go to bed then. Do you have everything you need?” “Yeah.” My mom left and I took off my dress and put on a tank top. I washed my feet in the shower and brushed my teeth with her toothbrush. I got into bed with my book but when I put my head on the pillow it was all I could do to reach over and turn off the light before I fell asleep. • • • When I woke up it was early. The light coming into the room was white but not hot. I looked at the clock and it was seven twenty. I didn’t want to wake up my mom so I read in bed until seven forty. Then I really had to pee, so I left the room quietly and was about to turn into the bathroom when I realized there was no one on the couch. “Mom?” I said. She wasn’t in the bathroom and she wasn’t in the kitchen, and I figured she must be in the office doing an early checkout or something. I peed and put on shorts and a T-shirt and went downstairs, hoping that no one would see me. She wasn’t in the office and she wasn’t outside the office and I didn’t see her going in or out of any of the guest rooms. I went back up to the apartment. I had a feeling she was still at Martin’s, but what if she wasn’t? I started to feel sick. I sat down in one of the chairs in the kitchen. What if something happened to her when she was walking back from Martin’s? There was this town in Maine where I went with my dad and his girlfriend a couple of summers in high school, and every year when we got there, there had just been a murder on the beach. The murders were never premeditated; they just happened because drunk people got knives, or people with knives got drunk. I was sure my mom was fine but my chest felt tight. I picked up my book to distract myself but I couldn’t read. I felt like I should eat something but I wasn’t hungry. Finally I did the kind of breathing my doctor taught me to help me sleep at night, where you breathe in and breathe out and you don’t think about anything else, which I now know is called meditation. It never worked that well for me but I didn’t know what else to do. I thought I should call Martin, but I didn’t have his number or know where he lived. Instead I called Dana from the phone in the office. I hoped it cost a million dollars. “Hello?” said Dana. “Lala!” I had woken her up. “Did you do it?” “What?” “Did you tell her?” “What? No. I don’t even know where she is.” “What? What do you mean?” “I don’t know where she is. I think she’s at her boyfriend’s house. But she never came back last night.” “Oh my god, Lala, that’s horrible.” “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll be home any minute.” “God, I hope so,” she said. “Are you going to tell her when she gets back?” “Yes,” I said. “Of course, I’ll tell her right away.” “Are you being sarcastic?” “Not at all,” I said. “Maybe I’ll hide in the kitchen and when she comes in I’ll jump out and shout, ‘I’m gay!’” “You’re being sarcastic.” I told Dana I had to go. Even when I found my mom, I wasn’t going to tell her. Maybe I would tell Dana that I did it and that my mom and I both cried, and my mom told me she knew all along and she loved me no matter what. I didn’t think it would count as lying because it didn’t really matter if my mom knew or not. I hung up and dialed my grandpa in Mexico City. • • • I heard the office door open a little after nine, and I heard my mom’s sandals on the stairs. I went into the living room as she opened the door to the apartment. “Baby,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be up.” “Where were you?” I said. I didn’t want to touch her but I gave her a hug because I wanted to feel that she was okay. “I stayed at Martin’s. I thought I would get back before you got up.” “I got up really early,” I said. “I had no idea where you were.” “Oh baby,” she said. “I thought something bad happened to you on the way back last night,” I said. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry. Let me make you something to eat.” She went into the kitchen and started cutting up fruit and I went into the bedroom and started packing my bag. When I went back to the kitchen she said, “What do you want to do today, baby? Do you want to just lie on the beach? You’re so pale.” “That’s because I thought you got murdered,” I said. “Oh Lala, are you really that upset about it? I wouldn’t have left you if I knew you would worry, but you’re a big girl, I thought you’d be fine.” “I wasn’t fine,” I said. “I think I might go to Grandpa’s.” “What? Why?” “Then you can hang out with Martin as much as you want.” “I only saw him when you were sleeping, baby. I didn’t think you would care.” “And at dinner. And you said you were coming right back.” “Okay,” she said. “I won’t see him again while you’re here. I’ll take you to Acapulco. We’ll go to the beach and we’ll go see the cliff divers.” “I told Grandpa I was coming.” “You called him?” She started to cry. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was mad.” She cried and cried and I looked at the ceiling. Finally I felt too bad and said, “Maybe we can go to Acapulco before I leave.” She looked up. “Yeah?” “Sure,” I said. “It’s on the way.” She cried harder for a few seconds and then she slowed down and her breathing went back to normal and after a minute she stood up and went to the sink and splashed her face with water. “Should we go now?” she said. “We might make it to see the divers at noon.” “Sure,” I said. “If we wear bathing suits we can go to the beach after. You can go in the water there.” “Okay.” “I should bring that Victoria’s Secret underwear. Those beaches are full of rich Mexicans. I could charge a lot more. I could make a killing.” “Great,” I said. I could tell that this had been the plan all along. “Grandpa would help you, you know.” “That is such a smart idea, Lala. I don’t know why I never thought of that.” “Fine,” I said, stung. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was mean.” We put on our suits and got ready to go. “Should I bring my bag?” I said. “It’s up to you,” she said. “I can always bring it back here,” I said. “Right,” she said, and gave me a weak smile. We took the bus to Acapulco, and when we got there we bought juices and walked up to the Quebrada. I wheeled my suitcase and my mom carried her bags of underwear. When we got to the entrance she bought tickets, and we went in and found a spot at the wall. We could already see the divers on top of the cliff, in the bright sun. Below them, the cliff went down at an angle, and it looked like when they dove they were going to hit the rock. “Martin and I came to see them at night,” she said. “They dive with torches, and we met some of those boys. Some of them are pretty cute.” “Oh yeah?” I said. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re going to meet such a cute boy, you’ll see. I didn’t meet your dad until the end of college.” It felt like I was either going to tell my mom in the next minute, or my mouth was going to do it for me. My heart started to pound. “I don’t want to meet a boy,” I said. “Oh I know, baby, all you want to do is your research. But that will change.” “No, Mama, I want to meet girls. I like girls.” “Oh,” she said. Her eyebrows went up. “Wow.” “Yeah.” “I had no idea,” she said. “Really?” I said. “You never wondered about it?” “No,” she said. I waited for her to say something and then I decided to help her because I didn’t want to be mad at her. “Now you’re supposed to say that you love me no matter what,” I said. “Oh, baby,” she said, “of course I love you no matter what.” She pulled me into her shoulder and held me tight. “Of course I love you no matter what.” After a minute she said, “Are you going to tell your dad?” “He knows,” I said. “Oh really?” she said. “How did he take that news?” “Fine,” I said. “Huh,” she said. “Why wouldn’t he?” I said. “I don’t know, he can be so rigid.” “He’s been really good,” I said. Now there were more divers on top of the cliff and they stood in a circle and put their arms around each other and their heads down. “When did you tell him?” “I don’t know,” I said. “High school.” “Oh my god. Lala. Why didn’t you tell me?” “I don’t know,” I said. “It didn’t seem urgent.” “Why are you telling me now?” She sounded mad. “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s this girl and she thought I should tell you.” “You didn’t want to tell me?” “No, I did, I wanted you to know.” Now one of the boys was climbing down the cliff, and he stopped and stood. The people around us cheered, and he flew off the cliff, his back arched and his arms spread like eagle wings. “I wish you told me when you told your dad.” “You weren’t there,” I said. The diver entered the water with a high splash. “You came to visit,” she said. “I don’t know, Mom.” She looked away and I could hear her breathing. “Lala, you are breaking my heart,” she said. She didn’t look at me. “I’ll meet you outside.” She walked up the stairs and I stayed and watched the cliff. The boys prayed and dove forward and backward and did flips and double flips. Right after they jumped they were still in front of the sun for a split second, and then they rushed into the water. At the beginning I had been worried about them, but now it seemed less real, like they were on automatic or something, or like I was watching them from very far away. From very far away I watched them jump off the cliff one or two at a time, and finally three at a time. • • • My mom was waiting outside the entrance for me. We walked back down to the Z?calo without talking. When we got there she said, “I guess you have to get on that bus, huh? If you want to get to the city before dark.” “You could come to Grandpa’s,” I said. “You know I can’t,” she said. “I don’t really understand why not.” “That’s okay,” she said. We walked to the bus stop and when she saw the bus coming she hugged me. “Bye baby,” she said. “Bye Mama,” I said. “Maybe I’ll come to the States.” “Okay.” I hugged her again. “I love you,” I said. “I love you too,” she said and kissed me. I took the bus to the bus terminal and then waited for the bus to Mexico City. I was really tired. When the bus came I sat in my seat and closed my eyes. I imagined my mom on the beach, kneeling on rich people’s towels, telling them that the “See you tonight” underwear was her daughter’s favorite. WEEKEND WITH BETH, KELLY, MUSCLE, AND PAMMY (#ulink_9b773e11-aaa3-53f5-b6a2-e5ba4874fd61) They say men and women can’t be friends. Because men will always want to have sex with women, even if we say we don’t. We might even think we don’t, but if we see the wrong body part in the wrong way, it will be over. Our penises will end us. But I think there’s a loophole. If the man in question already had sex with the woman in question and was so drunk that he doesn’t remember it. Or he only remembers it enough to know that it was not good. And then the man becomes friends with the woman, and because he has no memory of her vagina, he doesn’t think of her as having one. That’s what’s up with me and my friend Beth. I don’t want to sleep with her even though everyone, meaning my sister, Kelly, thinks I do. I’m also not gay. Which everyone, still meaning my sister, also thinks. That’s not why I don’t want to sleep with Beth. I’m attracted to women. I’m not attracted to men. But for a straight guy in New York City, I’m not doing such a good job. For a tall guy with almost all of my hair, I am not doing such a good job. I did great in high school. I did fine in the beginning of college. I did horrible later in college and after that I took a break. I’ve been trying to make a comeback since I got to New York. But New York is weird. And I live with my sister. And back to my sister, the point is she says I have issues. I’m sure I do, just not the lying to myself kind, or the gay kind. • • • I met Beth the first night of college. We got wasted and had sex. I did two things wrong. Apparently I laughed when she told me to lick her pussy. In my defense, I probably just laughed because I had never heard something like that come out of a girl’s mouth. And I had never done that before. I don’t know why, but I hadn’t. It’s probably better that I didn’t take my maiden voyage into that salty sea when I was blackout drunk. It turns out that I like it very much, but I found that out too late for Beth. I found that out with Tiffany, which was the other thing I did wrong. When we woke up in the morning, I saw Beth’s roommate sleeping in her bed, looking like half Playboy Bunny, half cross-country runner. Which is exactly my type. So I said, “Who’s that?” And that was Tiffany. Beth, on the other hand, wasn’t my type. I could see that she was attractive. But I was not attracted to her. At least not when I was sober and had a better sense of how tall she was. I’m six one in shoes but Beth is six two, barefoot. And that morning when I stood up and asked who the blond angel in the other bed was, Beth stood up and told me to get the fuck out. I looked up at her and tried to rearrange my brain. Then I followed her instructions and got the fuck out. You know the rest of that story. I dated Tiffany. The ratio of times I went down on her to times she went down on me was ten to one. Beth forgave me. We got to be friends. We thought it was funny that we fucked. I was glad I didn’t remember it. Tiffany cheated on me with four different guys. A new guy each semester, sophomore and junior years. I never would have found out except I met the guy from spring semester junior year. It was an Italian guy she was fucking in study abroad. I visited her there, in Florence, and we ran into him. Something was lost in translation and he thought I was her brother. He asked if I was as flexible as she was and he laughed. At first I thought it was some kind of compliment. Then I realized something was wrong. When it dawned on me what it was, I punched him in the face and broke his jaw and I told Tiffany I hoped she choked on his dick and died. Either that, or I cried in front of Tiffany and Luca the Italian stallion, and Tiffany broke up with me and put me in a cab to the airport with some napkins. I forget exactly what happened. I honestly thought we were going to get married. That’s how fucking stupid I was. By that time Tiffany and Beth weren’t friends anymore. According to Beth, Tiffany was a motherfucking cunt. According to Tiffany, Beth was volatile and had no filter. Tiffany may have been a cheating whore but she was very polite. It drove her nuts that Beth said “pussy” and “retard” and told the chair of the biology department that her biology professor was the worst teacher she had ever had and demanded to know if he even had a PhD. I liked that Beth was rude. It was funny. And her referring to her own vagina as her pussy was disgusting and part of what made our friendship possible. When we graduated Beth and I got an apartment together in town. I had been offered a job at the college’s development office. None of my other friends were staying around. My two best friends fled the country, one to China to teach English and the other to Haiti to be some kind of hero. Beth wanted to stay in town to keep her suspiciously lucrative job at a pizza place. She worked three days a week and she was rich. I asked her more than once if she was sure they were only selling pizza. She said of course they were only selling pizza, expensive pizza. She took home two to three hundred dollars on a regular night, and she always wanted more shifts. One of the girls who worked six days a week drove a brand-new Mercedes and apparently slept with a Yankees player. Beth got fat that year. She stopped exercising and she didn’t know how to cook. Whenever I cooked, she had already called for takeout. She didn’t eat at her restaurant because pizza was fattening, so she ordered from the Chinese food place, the Indian place, the Thai place, and the Korean deli down the street from our apartment where everything tasted like Korean food, including the buttered rolls and the brownies. Beth and I got very comfortable in that apartment. I tried to keep up decorum but she really let it all hang out. By the end of the first week she was walking around in T-shirts and underwear. I had to ask her to put pants on if anyone was stopping by. I still couldn’t be sure she was going to. She left clumps of her hair on the walls of the shower. She left tampons bleeding through wads of toilet paper on top of the garbage. She never washed her dishes. We had cockroaches and she didn’t care. She talked to them. Like, “You little cocksuckers are getting big. You like that fucking pizza, huh.” It was like living with a much grosser but much nicer version of my sister. Or of Tiffany. Or really, a grosser but nicer version of any other girl. Beth gave me a hard time, for sure. But she also wanted to talk to me every day. She brought me pizzas. She watched basketball with me. So I missed her when I moved to New York. We tried to keep in touch, but she said she was too busy to come to the city. I was too busy to go back down there. We were supposed to celebrate twenty-four together in August. We have the exact same birthday. But when she got to my apartment and I wasn’t home, she had a panic attack and drove back to Pennsylvania. My sister was the one who invited her because she said I was lonely. They wanted it to be a surprise. It wasn’t, because they kept asking me for each other’s phone numbers. Then the real surprise was that Beth didn’t show up. Several weeks later Beth said she was coming to the city to see me. Then she said if I wanted to see her I could meet her and her friend Marnie to go salsa dancing. I did want to see her but not for the price of going salsa dancing. She said she was going to go anyway. I asked her why she told me she was coming to see me if she was really coming to see Marnie. She said I was being a little bitch. She said she knew it wasn’t my fault that I was so sensitive but it pissed her off. I wanted Beth to come see me because I didn’t know anyone else. A couple of guys from college worked downtown. I had drinks with them when I first got here. But they weren’t close friends and they were hard to track down. Kelly wouldn’t let me hang out with her friends. She was still mad that I slept with her best friend in high school. This girl was unbelievably hot. I never would have gotten to sleep with her if she hadn’t been at my house every day of her life, and then decided to let me take care of her when she was drunk and on a shit-ton of mushrooms at a graduation party. The next night she came over to say thank you and that I was the nicest guy ever. And by thank you I mean she let me have sex with her then and several other times that summer. And that is called karma. So Kelly made it clear that her friends were not my friends. Also because of Kelly, the women in my office thought I was gay, but apparently not the fun kind of gay. Kelly got me a purple shirt to wear on the first day. She knew I would think it was blue because I can’t see reds. It never occurred to me that she would do that again. The last time was in high school. She knit me a yellow hat that turned out to be pink. When I got mad at her about the purple shirt she said it didn’t matter what color shirt I wore. Everyone knew that all men in development were gay and all women in development were straight. Except for on the finance side, and then the women were also gay. In any case, my coworkers kept to themselves. I spent most of my free time with my sister’s dog, Muscle. Other than that I was all alone in the big city. Each night, as I lay under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, under the polluted moon, I wept out of loneliness. Ha. Just kidding. But I was really fucking bored. A month after Beth said she was coming to see me and then didn’t, she called. She said she felt bad about the birthday not-surprise and about the salsa dancing, and she was going to visit me for real. I told her I wasn’t going to hold my breath in case she couldn’t find a parking spot on my street and just kept driving until she got to Canada. She said very funny. She was coming Saturday. On Saturday morning I made omelets for me and Kelly. Kelly fed half of hers to Muscle. Muscle was a Pomeranian. Kelly shaved him in the summer and it actually did look like he had muscles. But now he had long hair and Kelly called him Pammy because she said he didn’t have a penis in the winter. I preferred to call him Pammy year-round because Muscle was a stupid name for a dog. He was very cute and I loved him. He wasn’t mean like small dogs are mean. He would just sit and keep you company while you were watching TV or eating dinner or taking a crap or whatever. At night he liked to sleep between Kelly’s side and her arm, with his head on her shoulder. When Kelly was out he slept between my side and my arm. He loved to be under the covers except for his head. A tiny, very hairy, yellow person. • • • Beth called to say that she would be there at one. She got there at twelve forty. Beth had a lead foot. She drove sixty miles an hour in towns, and ninety on the highways. She drove with her left leg up on the dashboard, her left hand holding a cigarette and resting on the steering wheel. It always seemed likely that I was going to die when I drove with her. One time in particular she was driving seventy through town, on a road full of potholes, and the car sounded like it was losing big pieces. I was absolutely certain I was going to die. She called me a pussy for holding on to the door. I let Beth in and she gave me a big hug and said, “I love those slippers more and more every day.” My mom gave me these shearling slippers when Tiffany broke up with me and I was spending a lot of time in my dorm room. Now they were full of holes. It felt good to see Beth. Since I hadn’t known if she was going to show up, I hadn’t made any plans. Now I was thinking we could take a long walk with Pammy. Talk about life and internet dating. Get sandwiches and eat in the park. Watch a game and cook something healthy, something that Beth could learn from without me explicitly teaching her. I tried to do that when we lived together, to indeterminate effect. When I moved out I thought I’d be glad not to have to take care of her. Now I kind of missed it. At least she showed some appreciation. My sister showed none. “What should we do?” I asked Beth, thinking she would say, “Whatever you want.” “Shopping!” she said. I had never known Beth to want to go shopping before. Fine, I could do shopping. Beth said she wanted jeans and stuff for yoga and a perfume sample for a girl she worked with. Kelly said she couldn’t come because she had work to do, but she made a list of stores for us to go to in SoHo. When we left she was taking turns putting coats of paint on her nails and her dog’s nails. “I think nail polish is toxic for dogs,” said Beth. “This is dog nail polish,” said Kelly. It was yellow and Pammy was licking it. “What do you two want to do for dinner?” I said. “Something free,” said Kelly. “What, I buy you dinner?” I said. “Oh would you?” She smiled. “Let’s cook here,” I said. “Sure,” said Beth. “You know what I feel like? Diner-style grilled cheese and french fries and root beer,” said Kelly. So much for teaching Beth how to make something healthy. “Fine with me,” I said. “Beth?” “Sure.” • • • On the way to the subway Beth and I went into a store with crafts and stuff. I tried to wait outside but Beth wanted to try on all the jewelry and have me tell her how it looked. I thought all the jewelry looked the same. The crafts looked like stuff that Kelly’s friends made, maybe worse. Beth bought a ring. We looked in a junk shop next to the subway station and then got on the train. We sat down next to a deaf couple who were signing to each other and laughing hysterically. “What’s been going on?” said Beth. “Not much,” I said. “Work, bad dates, work.” “Bad dates,” she said. “There’s no way your dates are as bad as my dates.” She told me about this guy who was a regular at the restaurant. He turned out to be married with kids but took his wedding ring off when he went there to eat lunch. She said she didn’t like being the other woman but she couldn’t stop. Before that there was another guy. Her age, but a socially conservative Republican. They couldn’t talk to each other about anything but they also didn’t need to. They were always having sex. Then it turned out that he was not actually her age. He was still in college. He was the head of the campus conservatives, a group that we had not taken seriously when we went there. Back when we lived together I would have given her a lecture about both of these guys. Now I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t like the lectures had worked. All of Beth’s lovers were basically the same. Good in bed but deeply morally flawed. In college she had been less discriminating, but she had developed this particular taste in the last four years. It seemed like she thought good men and good sex were mutually exclusive. They probably had been back in college. Good guys didn’t know what they were doing, and bad guys did. I didn’t do an anthropological study on this or anything. But I know that I thought I knew what I was doing and I definitely didn’t. The one nice thing that Tiffany did for me was to tell me that I didn’t know what I was doing, although I have never been more ashamed in my life. And obviously I didn’t improve quickly enough to not get cheated on. But Tiffany taught me that you have to assume you know nothing. I do think that makes me better in bed. At least less arrogant. Basically this is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever thought about. I didn’t want to talk to Beth about sex, but I did want to tell her about the girls I had been meeting on the internet. I wanted to ask her if she thought I had tried hard enough and could give up. I had been on eleven first dates and two second dates. I had sex with two of the first-date girls. The first girl I wouldn’t have slept with, except her grandma died between when we were e-mailing and when we got together. When she halfheartedly suggested we go back to her place, I felt like I should take her up on it. I pretended I was really into it. There wasn’t anything wrong with her. But nothing made me feel drawn to her, other than how cheerful she was trying to be despite obviously being so sad. It ended up being very high energy, very good sex. But we both understood that that was that. The second girl I had higher hopes for. The sex was good in a more routine way, but I think she dated a lot. My friends might have called her a slut, but I didn’t have any friends. And when I was in high school my mom sat me down to talk about the word “slut” and to give me a general lecture about how to make her proud despite my being a man. That girl never called me back. But before I could talk to Beth about any of this, we got to SoHo. Beth wanted to go to the jeans store first. She tried on about a hundred pairs. She didn’t like the way any of them looked because she was still a little bit fat. “This brand does not fit well at all,” she said. “Maybe they fit Kelly but she’s a lot shorter than me.” Because Beth was thin and then fat and now almost thin again, it was like she didn’t remember being fat. She didn’t even act fat when she was fat. When we were living together she found out she had high cholesterol and said, “But I thought that was for fat people.” We left the store and walked down Greene Street. Beth grabbed my arm and took a couple of bouncy steps. “If I lived in New York, I would live in SoHo,” she said. “Oh really,” I said. “Do you even know how much apartments here are?” “They’re expensive, huh?” “They’re like four grand for a hundred square feet.” Sometimes Beth seemed to know nothing about how the world worked. “Well I like it here, it’s my favorite neighborhood.” “What other neighborhoods have you been to?” “I don’t know.” “You can’t even walk down the sidewalk, there are so many people. I like my neighborhood.” “I like your neighborhood too. Calm down. I don’t not like your neighborhood. I just like this neighborhood too.” “Fine,” I said. “Live here when you move to the city.” “Maybe I will,” she said. The sporting goods store didn’t really have any sporting goods. Unless you think stretchy clothes that cost more than a nice steak and a bottle of wine are sporting goods. I looked at the men’s clothes. When I got to the back of the store Beth was freaking out about some underwear. The girl who was helping her was looking through a rack of bras and Beth was jumping up and down. “These bras and shorts are special for hot yoga,” she said. “Those are shorts?” “Oh my god, I’m so excited.” She took a bunch of things back to the dressing room. I sat in the most comfortable chair ever. “What kind of chair is this?” I asked a different girl, who was putting hangers on clothes at a table. “What?” When she turned around I realized she was gorgeous. She had huge blue eyes and she was tiny. She looked like a little elf but without pointy ears and with a really nice body. The stretchy clothes fit her like a dream. “Never mind,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.” “What kind of chair is it? Do you want me to find out?” She had a killer smile, her teeth were perfect. “No, that’s okay,” I said. “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t need a chair.” I smiled at her. “Jason?” said Beth. “Do you want to see this stuff or not?” “Uh,” I said. “I love love love this stuff.” She opened the dressing room door and came out wearing a bra and the so-called shorts. “Please tell me you don’t go to yoga like that,” I said. Beth’s hair was coming out of the sides of the underwear. There was a lot of it. Once we reached the point where no amount of information was too much information, except any information about me having sex with Tiffany, Beth told me that the place she went to get waxed charged her extra. I mean I used to see her in underwear all the time. But now it was at eye level. It was not a good surprise. And it caused some involuntary stirring, which made everything worse. “Of course I do.” She stuck her tongue out and let it hang there. She turned around and went back into the room. “Tell your girlfriend I’ll be right back if she needs another size,” said the beautiful elf. I started to say, “She’s not my girlfriend,” but only got as far as “Sh—” “Thanks!” Beth said through the door. Beth came out. Another girl came over to take the things she didn’t want. Beth handed her everything. “What are you getting?” I said. “I don’t think anything,” said Beth. “What? Why not?” She shrugged. “I don’t know, I just don’t want to get anything.” “Okay,” I said. On the way out I smiled at the elf. Beth rolled her eyes and said it was lame how I hit on her by asking about the chair. “I wasn’t hitting on her,” I said. “Oh please, Jason. I would recognize your lame moves through a brick wall.” “I swear. I didn’t even see that she was hot until after I said the thing about the chair.” “Whatever,” said Beth. “Where do you want to go next?” I said. “I think I’m fucking getting my period,” she said. “I need a cupcake or something.” We went to a gourmet store where I once accidentally got a cup of yogurt and granola for eleven dollars before an interview. “I think I want a cookie,” I said. “Me too,” she said. We decided to split one peanut butter and one ginger. After we paid we stood at the counter eating them. The peanut butter cookie was crunchy. “Damn,” I said. “It looked like it was going to be soft.” Beth took a bite of hers and chewed carefully. “It’s probably old.” “What? Why would it be old?” “Because it’s crunchy.” “Crunchy cookies can be not old,” I said. “I don’t think so,” said Beth. “No.” • • • Next we went to some special store that only had one kind of perfume. Beth’s friend ordered a sample and it never came, so Beth wanted to get it for her. The girl handed Beth a tiny vial, and Beth said, “It’s fifteen dollars, right?” “Wait, what?” I said. “It’s complimentary,” said the girl. “Oh my god, really?” said Beth. “Thank you so much.” “Sure,” said the girl. “Have a good day.” We left and Beth put the sample in her bag. “Tell me you weren’t just going to pay fifteen dollars for that,” I said. “Yeah I was,” said Beth. “Beth, come on. They give those out at every store. Kelly has like a hundred in the bathroom.” “I know, but this one was supposed to be fifteen dollars, Camille said so.” “There’s no way,” I said. “Come on, please be smart about this stuff.” “Well Camille really wanted it,” said Beth. “She waited for it to come in the mail for a month.” Beth was really killing me. I couldn’t even look at her on the way to the grocery store. She didn’t notice. We had had moments like this before. But today I felt really out of patience and I didn’t know why. I was supposed to be Mr. Patient. I would wait for you to stop cheating on me for years and years if you needed me to. That’s how fucking patient I am. When we got to the grocery store Beth said she wasn’t that hungry, and I wasn’t really either. We had a fight about whether to get rustic bread and cheddar cheese or white bread and American cheese, and finally Beth decided she wasn’t going to eat grilled cheese anyway. She only wanted to eat fruit for dinner. So I bought the white and American, frozen french fries, and a six-pack of sugar-free root beer for Kelly. Beth bought a fruit salad and at the last minute, some dumplings. The subway didn’t come for a long time. Neither of us was over our fight about the grilled cheese yet. Beth pointed out the rats running around the tracks like she was glad to see them. I missed that about her. Right before Tiffany’s semester in Italy, Tiffany and I stayed on a houseboat in Berlin. It was full of spiders. There were ten or twenty spiders on every surface. The bunk beds. The table. The chairs. Our suitcases. Our shoes. At least two or three hundred total. I counted more than eighty as I threw them out the window. I was sliding them onto pieces of paper and brushing them off into the water. It seemed like as many as I was throwing out were coming back in through the open window and under the door. Tiffany sat on the top bunk, whimpering and flicking any she could see with her long nails. Until she saw the webs on the ceiling, only a foot or two from her head. Her scream shook the boat. If I had been a spider I would have jumped out the window voluntarily. Instead I caught her arm as she threw herself off the bed. I hugged her and kissed her. That night was the last time we had sex. Tiff gave me an amazing blow job. She said it was because I saved her from the spiders, but I think it was because she knew it was the last time. Beth and I watched the rats in silence until the subway came. On the subway Beth said, “So, what about your bad dates?” “Oh,” I said. “You know. New York is weird.” “You should go back and ask that girl out.” “What girl?” I said. In a deep voice Beth said, “What kind of chair is this? It’s really comfortable but I bet it’s not as comfortable as your vagina.” The old man across the aisle looked up at us. I started to laugh. Beth started too. We cracked up for a minute. Then we stopped. We didn’t really have anything else to say. • • • When we got home, Kelly was making lanterns out of jam jars and wire and hanging them on the fire escape with candles in them. “That’s so beautiful,” said Beth. “Thanks,” said Kelly. “I hope they’re sturdy.” “How do you know if they’re sturdy or not?” said Beth. “I don’t,” said Kelly. “Well they’re beautiful,” said Beth. “I’m very impressed.” “Thanks.” Kelly smiled. I let Beth ask Kelly a million questions about lanterns and beaded chandeliers and stripping furniture. Since Kelly was Kelly, it was a win-win situation. I put the french fries in and constructed the grilled cheese. I wondered what to do about Beth’s dumplings. “Do you want me to warm up your dumplings?” “Yeah baby, warm up my dumplings,” she said. “No, I like to eat them cold.” When everything was ready she got them out of the fridge and started eating them out of the package. Then she went to the cabinet and took a glass down and held it up to the light and put it in the sink. She took another and did the same thing. “Beth,” I said. “What?” “Are you putting our glasses in the sink because they’re not clean enough?” “Yeah, should I not?” “No, you should not. It’s rude.” “Oh, is it?” said Beth, not sarcastically. “My mom does it to me.” “That’s different. That’s your mom.” “Okay. What should I do?” “If you don’t see one that looks good then wash one.” “Okay,” she said and washed a glass. Kelly came in and we sat down to eat. Beth asked where the forks were and I got up to get her one. “Is this clean enough for you?” I said. Beth inspected it. “Yes.” “Jason is mad at me because I put some dirty glasses in the sink,” she said to Kelly. “Why is that bad?” said Kelly. “Not from the counter,” I said, “from the cabinet.” “Oh,” said Kelly. “Well that’s probably my fault. I think I did dishes last.” It was definitely Kelly’s fault. She did dishes like she was blind and also had no fingers. There was always dried orange juice pulp on the glasses. After dinner Kelly got dressed and went out. Beth and I watched a basketball game. I worked on a proposal letter. When the game ended I opened the futon for Beth and gave her a pillow and a blanket. I brought Pammy into my room, closed the door, got into bed, and jerked off. The next morning I woke up early by accident. I took Pammy out for a run. On our way out he licked Beth’s feet, which were hanging off the futon. Beth’s feet were like everything else about her. Oversized but fine. She didn’t have anything gross like bunions and her toes were the right length and right width. I started to pay attention to this in high school because the only thing I could say to Kelly that really upset her was that her feet were ugly. They were and she knew it. And then in college I turned into kind of a foot guy. Tiffany’s feet were sexy. They were tiny and she had perfectly shaped toenails, like little shells. She had them done all the time and sometimes I did them for her. She told somebody about that, probably one of the guys she was fucking. My friends asked me if I wiped her ass for her, too. I have all my epiphanies when I’m running. I had three contradictory epiphanies on the run with Pammy. I needed one more epiphany to tell me what the real epiphany was. The three options were: 1. The reason I didn’t want to sleep with Beth wasn’t because she kind of grossed me out, or because I didn’t really want to sleep with anyone after Tiffany the life-wrecking whore, but because she was like a sister to me, which explained all the fighting. 2. I actually did want to sleep with her, which also explained all the fighting. Or 3. We didn’t actually have anything in common, and I neither wanted to sleep with nor be friends with her. I wanted it to be number 1 so that we could still be friends, and I didn’t want it to be number 3. As for number 2, I really didn’t think I wanted to sleep with her. Although I would have liked for her to know that I was better in bed now. And it would have made sense if the inverse of us hating each other all day was fucking each other all night. And I really did want to have sex. But I just didn’t want to do it with Beth. I gave up trying to figure it out. Instead I thought about how I had too many women in my life. Too many women and all the wrong kind. On the way back from the run, Pammy and I went to the bodega to get buttermilk and eggs to make pancakes. Beth was still asleep on the couch. I let Pammy into Kelly’s room and I measured ingredients in the kitchen. When the girls still weren’t up I opened my proposal letter but then played Minesweeper instead. I heard Beth get up and go into the bathroom. Then she came into my room and said, “What’s cooking, good-looking?” “I was going to make pancakes,” I said. “Are you hungry?” “Sure,” she said. “Is Kelly up?” “No, but she sleeps forever,” I said. We went into the kitchen. I mixed everything up and heated the griddle. Beth washed berries. We put them in the pancakes. When Beth was looking through a drawer for a spatula she found a bone-shaped cookie cutter. She put it on the griddle and made a pancake for Pammy. Kelly got up when the pancakes were ready. She is psychic about food. “Aw,” she said when she saw the bone pancake. “That is so cute. I love that you love my little Muscle-wuscle.” “I don’t know if I love him,” said Beth. “I just thought it would be funny.” Kelly looked hurt. I laughed. They sat down to eat. I made more pancakes. After breakfast Kelly left and Beth helped me do the dishes. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said. “Me too,” I said. “Are you still mad about the glasses?” “No. It was just a weird day.” “I know,” she said. “It’s not my fault the glasses were dirty. Kelly can’t do dishes to save her life.” I hadn’t planned on throwing my sister under the bus. I wanted to take it back. “Okay,” said Beth. I was ready for the weekend to be over. But I had already asked Beth to take me to the store to get paper towels and toilet paper, so she did. When we got back she parked four feet from the curb. She got out to open her trunk for me. “Thanks for taking me to get these things,” I said. “Of course.” “Have a safe trip home.” “I will. Let’s do this again soon?” She gave me a hug. “Sure,” I said. I didn’t think it would be soon. “All right,” she said. “Back to my crappy fucking life.” She got into her car and lit a cigarette and peeled into the street. The car turned out of sight at the end of the block. I went inside. I tried to work on my computer in bed. But it was hard to keep my eyes open. Pammy came in and got under the covers. We slept for a long time. MIKE ANONYMOUS (#ulink_e04f2932-9a0e-5a1d-8aad-ae955f74d1c3) When Mike Anonymous first called the clinic they made me pick up the phone. I didn’t know what the hell he was saying so I put him on hold. They always made me pick up when someone with an Asian accent called, like I could speak a word of any Asian language, which I couldn’t. This guy was actually Japanese, I could tell that much. I was a quarter Japanese, but my Japanese grandma died when I was five, and I had never been able to understand her either. Mike Anonymous was the fourth caller on hold, which was the maximum, so at least all the lines were busy and the phones were going to stop ringing. It was my lunch break but I was sitting at the security window, and people kept calling and coming in and needing things. I was looking out the front door straight into the sun. I wished I had sunglasses or ski goggles or something. Every time someone opened the door, cold air rushed through and made me shudder. Louisa was wearing her coat at the check-in desk, but she kept asking me what was wrong with me, like I shouldn’t be freezing my ass off. Finally I was like, “Fat people get cold too,” and she cracked up. I picked up line one but the caller was gone, and the phone started ringing again. “Hello, thank you for calling Gonorrheaville, would you mind holding just a minute?” Louisa pressed the hold button. “Oh my god,” I laughed. “What if someone from administration calls and you say that?” “They’d call the private line.” “What if they didn’t?” I said. “They definitely wouldn’t call the patient line. They know we don’t pick it up.” “We try to pick it up.” I picked up line four and it was still the guy I couldn’t understand. Something something HIV, he said. “Do you want to make an appointment?” Something something HIV, he said again. “Do you want to be tested for STDs?” Something something, he said in a high voice. “Sex-u-ally trans-mit-ted dis-ea-ses?” I said. “Yes!” The private line started ringing. “Okay, hold on,” I said, and picked up the private line. “Viv?” It was my stupid boyfriend Davey. “What time are you coming home?” I hung up the phone and wondered if Davey definitely knew it was me who picked up. I picked up line four. “Okay, what’s your name?” Something something anonymous, he said. “You want to be anonymous?” I said. “Fine, but you have to have a first name. What’s your first name?” “Ano … Mike-des,” he said. “Mike Dess?” “Mike!” “Okay, Mike. Do you have any symptoms?” It sounded like Mike Anonymous didn’t have any symptoms, so I made an appointment for an STD testing with no symptoms at seven the next night. I ate the last bite of my eighth brown rice cake with peanut butter and went back to work. • • • The next day Louisa had to work the front desk with Boss Donna, so she answered the phones, “Thank you for calling the clinic, this is Louisa, how can I help you?” instead of “Gonorrheaville, please hold,” or her other favorite, “Chlamydialand.” I was in the dirty lab getting instruments out of the autoclave when Donna paged me. “Vivian to the front, please. Vivian to the front.” Boss Donna loved the intercom. I walked to the front, stepping on only the pink tiles. “Your patient is here,” Donna said when I got there. “The one that called yesterday.” “What?” I said. The waiting room was empty except for a man filling out paperwork in the closest seat to the check-in window. He was sweating and his face was flushed. He looked like he was in his thirties or forties. He wasn’t fat-fat but he had a round face and he filled out his suit. “That guy?” I said. “No, one of the other guys,” said Donna. “Yes, that guy.” I shut the window between the check-in desk and the waiting room. “He speaks no English,” said Louisa, “not one word.” “That’s Mike Anonymous?” I said. “He’s not supposed to be here until seven. How come he’s my patient?” “Because we can’t understand him at all,” said Louisa. “Neither can I!” I said. “We’ll let you know when his chart is ready,” said Donna. His chart was ready quickly because he didn’t answer any of the questions on the questionnaire. I brought him back to the bathroom to pee in a cup and told him to leave the cup in the window and meet me in the lab. But when he came into the lab he was holding his urine cup. He was still sweating. I smiled at him but he didn’t smile back. He sat in the blood-drawing chair and I asked him all of the questions he hadn’t answered. I rephrased them so that he could answer yes or no. His breathing got heavier and he answered the questions in gasps. When I got to the questions about who he had sex with and how, he said yes to being married. He didn’t answer how he had sex, and I wasn’t about to ask yes-or-no questions about whether he had oral, vaginal, or anal, so I skipped that part. He shook his head like he didn’t understand again when I asked him whether he had had more than one sex partner in the last six months. Two drops of sweat fell onto his shirt. I wondered if it was possible that he understood me perfectly. “We’ll test your urine for gonorrhea and chlamydia and your blood for HIV,” I said. He took some gauze from the supply table and dabbed his chin and then his forehead. Now I was pretty sure he actually had no idea what I was saying. I pricked his finger for the rapid HIV test, set the timer, and sent him back out to the waiting room. • • • I started working at the clinic after I graduated from college. I was supposed to do some other stuff, like med school, but I kind of crashed and burned in the fall semester of my senior year, and now I was trying to figure out what to do about my life. My childhood dream was to be a girl-scientist. I started conducting chemistry experiments in the kitchen before I could read. My parents gave me a drawer to keep my potions in, and the only rules were that I couldn’t use anything with a green Mr. Yuk sticker on it, and I couldn’t use anything from the garage. In first grade, my half brother Charlie got sick, and I imagined that if one of my potions cured him, I would be such a famous girl-scientist that I would have to wear disguises when I went outside. I made more and more potions, and when Charlie came to visit he tried the ones I picked out for him. He took a tiny sip from each, and once he threw up from smelling one. Charlie was eighteen years older than I was, and he lived in New York City. I remember thinking that he was the person who knew me best in the world, because he sent me fancy dresses for every holiday except Halloween, when he sent me costumes. Later my mom told me that he bought them at a special store and cut out the tags, but at the time I thought he made them for me. My mom said she told him to stop sending them because she knew he couldn’t afford them, but he didn’t care what he could afford. When my dad sent him money for food and bills, he used it to buy dresses, records, and pieces of china for his Royal Copenhagen collection, which he left to me. After that, I started thinking I might become a girl-doctor instead of a girl-scientist. I thought that through high school and most of college. And now I was supposed to be applying for something for next year, but I didn’t know what. I didn’t know if I still had it in me to study medicine, or even chemistry. I was thinking I might want to study public health, but I was also thinking I might want to move to the forest and eat berries and mushrooms and hibernate with the bears in the winter. • • • Mike Anonymous’s test was negative. I called him back in. His shirt around his neck and under his armpits was see-through with sweat. I showed him to the closest counseling room. I could hear him breathing as he went into the room in front of me and sat down, and I told him it was negative before the door even closed, because I thought he was going to pass out if I didn’t. But instead of being glad, Mike Anonymous stood up and slammed his hand on the table and said, “No!” I jumped. Then I think he said the test was wrong, or I did the test wrong. He wanted the traditional test, and he wanted to see a doctor. I was starting to understand him better but I was also starting to get scared of him. I told him he couldn’t see a doctor unless he had symptoms, and he said he did have symptoms. “You told me on the phone you didn’t have symptoms,” I said. “No,” he said. “Okay fine,” I said, “what are your symptoms?” He showed me a dot on his hand that looked like a freckle but was black. “Are you sure that’s not ink?” I said. “What?” he said. “Ink,” I said, “like pen?” Mike Anonymous shook his head and waved his hand in my face so that I could get a better look at the symptom. “Okay,” I said. “Anything else?” Something something penis, he said. “Something is wrong with your penis?” I said. Something something penis, he said again, louder. I told him to hold on and went out to the hall. A med student had arrived with Dr. Wagner, and they were talking to the clinicians about what patient to take. “I have a really good patient for you,” I said. The med student looked excited, like he thought it was going to be a woman with a double vagina or something. He was new to the clinic and he was technically a resident, which allowed him to see patients under Dr. Wagner’s guidance. He was too tall and he walked like it was hard for him to balance on such long legs. I wondered if that was why Dr. Wagner didn’t seem to take him seriously. “This guy is sure he’s HIV positive but he had a negative rapid test, and when I told him it was negative, he decided that something was wrong with his penis,” I told them. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/lauren-holmes/barbara-the-slut-and-other-people/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.