Pete and Sara’s apartment was small. Their old wool couch had white stuffing peaking through the seams, the cushions on the dining chairs were plastic, and the window screens were fraying apart, but there wasn’t a thing out of place, and the gray carpet on the floor had recently been cleaned, I could tell by the way the living room smelled. Like a new car.
“Pete just went to your place,” Sara said. She shut the door behind me.
“Jacob called him?”
She nodded. I felt like I was back in high school. I hated high school, it was the most godforsaken four years of my life and the last place I wanted to return.
“Sara, what did Jacob say?”
“I don’t know. All Pete told me was that Jacob bumped into Nina today, and that you freaked out about it and ran off for no reason.”
“I didn’t freak out.” That was a slight exaggeration on Jacob’s part. He was a writer, and writers exaggerate. “Besides, maybe if he would’ve talked to me first, instead of staring embryonically at the wall, I wouldn’t have felt the need to freak.”
I offered Sara some popcorn. She took a tiny handful.
“What’s Nina like?” I said.
“A mess. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.” Sara said she’d heard Nina’s drug problem had gotten worse since she and Jacob broke up.
“She stopped by the salon once to ask about Jacob after he moved in with you. She wanted to know where he lived but I wouldn’t tell her. She was so strung out she could barely walk.”
“I thought she was a lesbian now.”
“That was just a phase.”
“Do you think Jacob still loves her?”
Sara gave good dramatic pause. “I’ve known Jacob for five years. I have never—and I mean never—seen him happier than he is now. With you. Do you want something to drink?”
“No, thanks.”
Sara opened a bottle of red wine anyway, and we polished it off over the course of an hour. Sara was brutally candid when she was tipsy. Her voice got squeaky. She talked about how badly she wanted to have a child—she started to cry, telling me about all the doctors she’d seen, and all the poking and prodding they did to see if she was working properly. They promised her there was no medical reason she hadn’t conceived yet. Then she said Pete had a small dick. She secretly thought that might be the problem, like the smaller ones didn’t have as much power.
“How big is Jacob’s?” she said, suddenly giggling.
“It’s normal,” I said. “Not too big, not too small. But he knows how to use it, that’s the key.” I told Sara about this special technique Jacob had. “Because he’s kind of skinny, he can get his pelvic bone, or whatever the bone is that sits above the dick, he can get that bone right up against me, and he makes these little circles, round and round, until I’m nearly about to come. Then he just starts drilling. It makes me delirious.”
“Pete can’t do that. He’s too chubby,” Sara said. She looked disappointed.
When Pete came home, Sara was putting tiny braids in my hair, and we were in the middle of comparing notes on celebrities we’d spotted in Yoga class. I’d seen Cary Grant’s daughter the week before. Sara one-upped me because she told me she accidentally farted in class the day Madonna was doing down-dog behind her.
Pete looked surprised to see me parked on his floor.
“You’re here?” he said.
I smiled, trying to imagine just how small his dick was.
“Come on, Trixie,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“Yes, you do,” Pete said.
“Jacob doesn’t love me anymore.”
“Yes, he does. Even though you’re completely irrational, like all women are, he loves you.”
“He loves Nina,” I said.
“He doesn’t love Nina. Nina’s a disaster. Let’s go.” Pete pulled on my arm and I floated to the door with him, waving good-bye to Sara.
“Hey, Sara,” I said before I left, “do you think I should cut my hair? I’ve never had short hair.”
“I’ll cut it for you. It’ll be great!”
“Okay. Bye, Sara. Thanks!”
Before he took me home, Pete decided we needed to make a quick stop. He pulled in to a late night coffee shop, ordered me a double cappuccino on ice, and made me drink the whole thing. The instant brain-freeze did nothing but exacerbate my already excruciating headache.
“Let me tell you something about our little friend, Jake,” Pete said. “He isn’t like most guys, you know?”
“I know.”
“No, but do you really know? I mean here’s the deal, what do most guys want from a woman? I’ll tell you what we want. We want a warm body to sleep next to, preferably one with a nice pair of tits, maybe someone who’ll cook for us and fuck us on a regular basis. Pretty simple, huh? Now, what we don’t want is someone who’s going to come in and disrupt our lives and steal our souls. That’s what we fear most. We call it our freedom, but it’s our souls we’re talking about. You following me?”
I nodded.
“Okay, good. Now forget it. Forget all that,” Pete said. “Because Jacob’s not like that. He’s never been like that. He’s a damn fool and he wants the exact opposite of that. He wants someone to obsess over, someone to possess his soul, and those are his corny words, by the way, not mine. It’s what he lives for. It’s what he thinks life’s all about. Do you get what I’m saying?”
I nodded again.
“So there you have it. Do with it what you will. Just don’t be so hard on him. Don’t worry so much. Shit, if I was him, I’d kick your ass, running-off and slamming doors and all that.”
“Pete,” I said, “he didn’t talk to me for hours. What was I supposed to think?”
“He’s Jacob. He’s weird, for Christ’s sake. Believe me, I’ve known him a lot longer than you have. I lived with him back when our apartment was six hundred square feet, and sometimes he’d go days without talking to me. That’s just the way he is. You better get used to it.”
When I walked in the apartment, Jacob was lying on the couch watching The Late Show with David Letterman. The sound was muted but I could see the screen—Pete Townsend was the guest. I interpreted that as a good sign. Pete Townsend wrote one of my favorite lines of all time: No one respects the flame quite like the fool who’s badly burned.
I wanted to whisper those words into Jacob’s ear. I wanted to remind him that I’d been more than just burned, I’d been practically incinerated. And not by some random guy, either, but essentially by the one man in the world who was supposed to protect me. That’s why I acted like a baby. I had scars. But my scars also served to instill a kind of reverence in me. Reverence that, during times of weakness, became shrouded in darkness.
I had a fleeting desire to ask Jacob to turn up the volume so I could hear Pete Townsend sing, but I thought better of that request. Jacob had a serious scowl on his face. I’d never seen him look so angry and I wasn’t sure what to do.
After I shut the door, Jacob flicked off the TV, sat up, and crossed his arms in front of his chest. I stood frozen against the wall and decided to wait until he said something, or at least until he glanced in my direction.
He kept focused on the dead screen. He was waiting for me to talk.
I should have been nice and said I was sorry. That’s what I’d wanted to do. That’s what I’d intended to do prior to walking in, but his disposition caught me off guard and I changed tactics.
“Jacob, what’s with the attitude?”
He looked at me, shook his head in disgust, then went back to the idle screen.
“Are you enjoying the show?” I said. I stepped in front of the TV to try and get his attention. “So what, you’re never going to talk to me again?”
A sarcastic “nice hair” was all he could
muster.
“Whatever. See if I care.”
I spun around and pretended like I was going to walk out again. That got him up in a flash. And it was a good thing too, as I don’t know where the hell I would have gone if he’d let me run off a second time.
I had the door cracked about an inch when he was upon me. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, and slammed it shut. My back was against the wall. He straddled me with his outstretched arms.
“Why should I stay here if you’re going to ignore me?” I said. I was trying to get around him. He wouldn’t budge. He stood there for at least a minute, burning his silence into me with his eyes, as if I owed him an apology.
“Move!” I yelled.
“No,” he said, simply and calmly.
“Let me go!”
I struggled to get away from him, but he was stronger than I was. I didn’t have much of a chance. I was determined, nevertheless, to fight the good fight.
“Get out of my way!”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“You can’t control me!”
“Looks like I can.”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck off!”
“Suck my dick.”
I bit him on the arm as hard as I could. Mature, I know. At least it opened up an escape route. Jacob grabbed his wound and I dove toward the bedroom. I thought I’d make it there and be able to lock him out for the night, but he was quick on my trail. He tackled me just as I got through the door and we fell, face down, onto the bed. In a frenzy, he flipped me over and held my arms flat. Before I knew it, his tongue was in my mouth—deep in my throat. I could hardly breathe and I loved it. I wanted to bite it off and swallow it and digest it and have its protein nourish me.
I wanted Jacob to be part of me forever.
I freed my hands and undid his pants. He ripped open my shirt, sending buttons flying across the bed. It was just like a movie. I know that uptight, pseudo-doctor woman on the radio tells the poor stooges who call her talk show that sex in real life isn’t like sex you see in the movies, but she can just speak for her own sorry ass.
Jacob hiked up my skirt, forced my underwear over, and tried to get inside me. I wanted him—badly—but I resisted with all my strength. Partly because I was still pissed at him, but more so because I could tell he liked it. The more I struggled, the hotter he got.
“Fucking bitch,” he said, trying to pry my legs apart.
“Come on, you can do better than that.” I kept taunting him. I was trying to get him to haul off and slap me but he wouldn’t do it.
“Don’t pretend you don’t want it,” he said.
I drew my fingernails down his back, just like you’re supposed to do when you’re having rough sex. He winced, re-pinned my arms to the bed, and called me a whore. That’s when I stopped fighting. I opened up and let him in and we went like mad, violently devouring each other like fucking food and we hadn’t eaten in months.
Afterward, Jacob lingered inside of me, motionless, until the sound of a siren on Wilshire reminded us we were still alive. He shifted his body and I turned onto my side so that we were facing each other. He kissed me sweetly, almost brotherly, and brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes. He pulled the blanket up and covered both of us with it. We went to sleep without another word spoken.
I woke up in the exact same position about seven hours later. When I opened my eyes, Jacob’s were on me. A thin strip of sunlight was slashing him diagonally in half; it made the whole left side of his face glow and gave his hair a coppery hue.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Watching you.” He took my hand and traced the lines of my palm with his finger.
“I’m sorry I acted like such a jerk yesterday,” I said.
“You should be.”
“I’m sorry I bit you.”
“You should be.”
“I’m sorry I’m neurotic and stupid and irrational. Don’t you dare say ‘You should be’ again.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you when we got home. And I’m sorry I called you a bitch and a whore.”
I told him that, in the heat of the moment, I didn’t mind the name-calling so much. A wry smile pursed his lips, he looked away, and I swear I saw him blush. Jacob suddenly turning bashful could very well have been the cutest damn thing I’d ever seen.
“Do you hate me?” I said.
“I could never hate you, Trixie. Never.”
“Jacob…,” I took a deep breath and my heart started to beat in a quick rhythm, “I love you. More than I ever thought it was possible to love someone. Siamese twin lovers, identical wombs, whatever the hell you called it. All I want in life is to drive out of this horrible, soul-destroying state with you someday. Please don’t leave me for Nina.”
He smiled. “That’s the first time you ever said that.”
“I know.”
“I say it at least twice a day. You have a lot of catching up to do.”
“I know.”
“Say it again.”
“Don’t press your luck.” I picked a stray lash from his cheek and told him to make a wish. He closed his eyes tightly, then blew the tiny hair into the air. When he opened his eyes I asked him what he’d wished for.
“Trixie,” he said. “Nina just found out she’s HIV-positive. She told me yesterday when I ran into her. It kind of knocked me for a loop, you know?”
Faster than you can say “Elizabeth Taylor,” I saw both of us lying next to each other, side by side in twin cots, with IV’s sticking out of our arms and brown liquid dripping through tubes, while drug cocktails squeezed every ounce of life from our decaying veins. Jacob must have realized, by the look on my face, what I was thinking. He caught my fall.
“Oh, no. It’s not that. Don’t worry about me, I was tested months ago, long after she and I had been together. I’m fine. You’re fine. Besides, she knows where she got it, from some dealer she was living with over Christmas. He even knew he was sick, he just didn’t bother to tell her.”
“Jacob, I had no idea…”
“She’s alone right now and she doesn’t know what to do.” He paused. “I’m not going on a date with her, all right? I just need to try and convince her to get some help. That’s all.”
I felt like such an ass. “I won’t say another word about it.”
“You can say anything you want about it, just don’t think I’d ever do anything to hurt you.”
It was time to change the subject to a happier topic. I whipped out the book I bought at the museum—the Eggleston. I showed it to Jacob and told him my silly fantasy about the house and the waitress job and the grits. He didn’t think it was silly at all. Except the part about me being a waitress.
“I doubt that will be necessary,” he said.
We studied each photo as if we were looking through a family album, all the while rhapsodizing about our future.
“I want us to paint the house ourselves,” he said. “And we’ll sand the floors and plant stuff in the yard. Maybe we’ll even get a dog.”
I asked Jacob if he ever wanted to have kids. He told me about a dream he’d had years before.
“I was pushing two little girls on swings. They were laughing and calling me Dad, and nothing else mattered in the world.” He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe my father didn’t feel that. I can’t believe he could just put down his kid and walk away.” Jacob shifted his head to face me. “That’s fucked-up,” he said with sympathy. I wasn’t sure if the sympathy was for himself or, oddly enough, for his father, nevertheless, I could see the clutter of years obscured inside his eyes.
“What did they look like,” I said. “Your daughters?”
“They had a mess of black hair, just like you. And they had French names. Simone and Ma
deline, or something like that.”
SIXTEEN
Jacob had asked Nina to meet him at our apartment. He was on the phone when the buzzer rang. I had to let her in.
“Who is it?” I said, even though I knew damn well who it was. I was sorry Jacob had ever fixed that fucking buzzer.
“It’s Nina. I’m here to see Jacob,” she said with a raspy, chain-smoker voice. I was sure, at one time, Jacob thought that voice was sexy as hell, and I immediately hated Nina for it. When she knocked on the door two minutes later, I shuffled into the kitchen, to a spot where I could still see the entryway. I pretended I was washing dishes. Jacob opened the door with the phone still on his ear.
“Hey, come on in.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
I wondered if that word had the same effect on Nina as it had on me.
Jacob wrapped up his call and started showing Nina around the apartment. He held her hand. I hated that, too.
Nina wasn’t at all what I’d pictured. She was demure, doe-like; not the tough, streetwise chick I expected. It was obvious she had the potential to be quite attractive, but she wore the last year of her self-destructive life like a bad car wreck. Her hair hung in stringy pieces of flaxen thread, and her eyes were dark buckets of sludge. Still, she looked more like someone with a bad case of the flu than someone strung-out on smack.
“Nina, this is Beatrice,” Jacob said when they walked into the kitchen.
“Nice to meet you,” I lied in my most welcoming voice. When I shook her hand I got a whiff of something sweet and floral. Nina smelled pretty. Like rose water.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she said. She looked at me with regret in her eyes. She thought I was the luckiest girl in the world, I could tell. I knew I was lucky. I certainly didn’t need Nina to remind me of that. But the whole scenario struck me as perversely gruesome. Basically, Nina’s loss, her downfall, was my salvation—a fateful technicality that made me strangely, unbelievably sad. It seemed cruelly unfair to me, even then, how fast your life can change before you have an opportunity to rethink your choices. We should get second chances on the big stuff. We should come equipped with erasers attached to the tops of our heads. Like pencils. We should be able to flip over and scribble away mistakes, at least once or twice during the duration of our existence, especially in matters of life and death.