Note: Although Madeleine L’Engle did write a book called A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the character who bears her name in this story is a complete fiction, as is the character of her husband.
Ten True Things
Some of those women are really good sewers and you wonder, Why are they taking a beginning sewing class? I like to think it’s because they have low self-esteem. They seem totally in control and born to make the rest of us feel clumsy, but inside, they have an almost psychotically warped vision of themselves. At least I am in touch with my skill level. I am a really bad sewer. Interestingly, though, I am not the worst in the class; the tiny Asian woman next to me is. I was sure she would be a really good sewer because most of the clothes in the world are made by Asian women, and also, who’s going to be better at making a kimono, me or someone who is Chinese or Japanese. Boy, did she teach me a thing or two about racial prejudice. Is she even trying to make a kimono-style robe, or does she think we are making dog beds? I used to get incredibly distracted by her; I was just so amazed at her interpretation of the directions. Like the teacher would say, Trim the excess cloth, and the woman would carefully fold her pink flannel in half, pin it, and then sit back, waiting for the next instruction. What happens when you do the exact opposite of everything you are told? How would she know when she was done? And why wasn’t anyone doing anything about this? Should I do something? What should I do? But then one day the teacher came around and told me to rip out my last five seams and I wanted to yell, My seams? At least my seams are for bipeds, what about her last five seams? Right then, as if she was reading my mind, the teacher put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and said, Sue, you are such an artist. And Sue laughed and the teacher laughed and they laughed together. So whatever. Obviously, I don’t know anything about anything. It doesn’t matter, because I’m not even taking this class to learn how to sew. I have my own personal reason for being here.
He thinks I don’t know anything about computers, but I know enough to know he spends all day e-mailing. I know the difference between a spreadsheet and Eudora. He doesn’t even turn down the sound on the computer, so all day I overhear the “you have mail” tone. And I have to pretend it’s the sound of math. I can tell when he’s gotten a good one, a sex one, because he gets all loose and casual with me, to counteract the raging of his heart. I am not being poetic here, I can see it pounding, moving the pocket of his shirt. I know this man, I am the neck he breathes down. I am his secretary.
He used to rent two offices, his own and a tiny one for me. But then he said things were getting tight and we should share an office. Tight. He adds thirteen to seventy-two. Two plus three is five, check the e-mail, one plus seven is, check the e-mail, eight, check the e-mail, which comes to a total of, who the hell am I anyway, eighty-five. This is how he dismembers his day, in the most painful way, moment by moment. A bigger man would just shoot it, put it out of its misery. Or a better accountant might actually account for something instead of hiring another, slightly cheaper accountant to do the accounting, and skidding by on the difference. You act surprised, but surely you know. Accountants do this all the time, and so do Indian restaurants. Sag paneer? Very good choice. The waiter hands the order to the cook, the cook hands it to the busboy, the busboy runs down the block and orders sag paneer from the other Indian restaurant, the shoddy one, takeout. This is why the more expensive restaurants take longer to bring out the food. It’s all that running. In this case, I am the busboy, I am the one who hires the real accountant, I spare him the indignity. Why would someone do this, go through all the trouble of pretending to be an accountant when it would be so much easier to not be one. Because you get bound in, you say you will and then you have to and then they expect you to and it just seems easier to do it. I think he told her he was an accountant on their first date. Then he got business cards made that said RICK MARASOVIC, ACCOUNTANT, 236-4954, and he handed her one. Then he got a phone, for the number, then a desk, for the phone, then an office, for the desk, and then me. So in a sense, we are both working for her.
I wanted to know who she was. Was she terrifyingly beautiful? Was she so ignorant she didn’t deserve the truth? Was she also a liar and thus it was something they did together? I don’t believe in psychology, which says everything you do is because of yourself. That is so untrue. We are social animals, and everything we do is because of other people, because we love them, or because we don’t. She never came to the office, but she called sometimes. Usually, he’d tell me to tell her he wasn’t in.
Rick Marasovic’s office.
Dana, it’s Ellen.
Hi, Ellen.
(Rick nods, yes, he’s in, or shakes his head, no, he’s not.)
Is Rick in?
No, he’s not. Can I take a message?
Can you ask him to pick up my flower essences on the way home?
What’s a flower essence?
It’s a type of medicine made out of distilled flowers.
Like rose water?
Well, in this case, it’s pink monkeyflower.
What’s it medicine for?
Overcoming body shame.
Oh. I’ll tell him.
(Or another time)
Hi, is Rick in?
No, he’s not. Can I take a message?
Can you tell him to call me as soon as possible?
Where’s the fire?
What?
What’s the hurry?
I’m at loose ends.
Oh. I’ll tell him.
Thus, over the years, I came to know her. Not the way I knew him; I didn’t watch the minute tides of her sweat roll in and out over the course of each day. But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us. She seemed to have room for me; she never turned away in the pauses that allow for turning away. She never inquired, but she never recoiled, either. This is a quality that I look for in a person, not recoiling. Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can’t see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.
Rick Marasovic’s office.
Dana, it’s Ellen.
Hi, Ellen.
Is Rick in?
He just stepped out. Can I take a message?
Can you tell him I’ll be home late?
Why so late?
I have a beginning sewing class.
Where?
At the Adult Education Center.
Oh. I’ll tell him.
It was a hand outstretched, a woman’s dry open palm, and I clasped it. I went home early to study my apartment before the class. I wanted to look at everything through her eyes. I do this before I bring someone new into my life; I try to get a sense of who I am so that I can make it easier for them to know me. I walked around the apartment, looking through the eyes of someone who had body shame and an interest in sewing. I moved some things around in the kitchen and threw my best sweater carelessly across my bed. I dusted the television but messed up the papers on my desk. She wouldn’t come here, but I would return to this place after having met her, and I knew I would appreciate my forethought.
It was not immediately obvious who Ellen was because we did not play any name games at the start of the class. Past a certain age, they give up on the name games, which is regrettable for someone like me who loves anything that involves going around a circle and saying something about yourself. I wish there was a class where we could just keep going around the circle, around and around, until we had finally said everything about ourselves. This class was in rows, so it was hard to see all the faces. There were fourteen Singer Scholastic sewing machines, and we each sat in front of one. Somehow I had not anticipated the machines; I had imagined a needle and thread, women sitting around sewing and chatting. I guess that’s more like a quilting bee. But when the teacher came around to watch each of us sew a straight line, I listened carefully, and the soft brown head in front of me murmured that she was having trouble threading the bobbin, with “threading t
he bobbin” said like “pink monkeyflower” had been said. A dear brown head, soft brown hair, dear dear hair, dear soft head. At work the next day, I looked at him newly, I tried to see some grace in him, something that such softness could land on. Maybe it was there, maybe it was, and I just couldn’t see it from my point of view as a person who, more or less, hated him.
The next weekend I bought red and blue plaid at Fabric Depot, and as I was leaving the store, she was walking toward it from her car. I paused and then realized she wouldn’t recognize me because I had sat behind her in class. So I let her go. I watched her walk into the store as unself-consciously as an animal in a nature documentary. In class the next day, she pulled out the most breathtaking fabric. It had pictures of feathers, all the different kinds of feathers from all the different kinds of birds on earth. And from where I was sitting, they looked photographic. Can they do that? Put photos on flannel? I imagined her flying around the world, taking photographs of all the birds, them flocking around her, them teaching her to fly, her flying through the air on her back, totally unafraid. She was still having the trouble with the bobbin this week, as I was. Sue took out her bobbin entirely and set it on the floor. Bobbinless and with great confidence. That Sue.
Ellen turned to me first. It often happens this way, because I am large. Smaller things flow toward larger things, and in the case of oceans and rivers, the smaller thing becomes one with the larger thing. We did not become one, but we introduced ourselves after class, and I said I was her husband’s secretary. I told her she had inspired me to take the same class, and that I hoped we could know each other. It’s important to build friendships on honesty. She nodded and was completely darling in every way. I’m not talking about lesbianism here, though I don’t object to that, and I suppose I could be seduced if a woman did a particularly slow, skilled striptease in front of me in candlelight with subtle body contact. I’m open to new things, but this wasn’t like that. We went back to my apartment after this second class. I gave her a tour, and when she peeked into my bedroom, her eyes fell on my best sweater, which I had rethrown across the bed each day. She said, How cozy, and a feeling of coziness encircled us. When she saw my messy desk, she said she was the same way, and there was no dust on the TV, and I was easy to love. People just need a little help because they are so used to not loving. It’s like scoring the clay to make another piece of clay stick to it.
I made orange juice from concentrate and showed her the trick of squeezing the juice of one real orange into it. It removes the taste of being frozen. She marveled at this, and I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again. The day felt like a birthday, our first, and we ourselves were the gifts, to be opened again and again. One thing we did was try on each other’s shoes. My shoes were almost twice as big as hers, and this seemed okay. It wasn’t just my shoes; it was my feet and all the other parts of my body, too. She held her arm against my arm, and it looked like an embryo next to a child. She said maybe she was still growing, and we pressed our legs against each other’s legs, and these, too, were radically different sizes, and our curiosity was blossoming like a rose, we wanted to know, we really wanted to know, all the unknowable things about each other and how we were the same and how we were different, if we even were, maybe nobody is. We wanted to strike lightning in dark waters, to see, if only for a second, the entire world that lives down there, the ten million species in amazing colors and patterns; show us life, now. We pressed our stomachs and lips together, and these, too, were different sizes, but my lips were roughly the same size as her ear, and her arm, when wrapped around my waist, felt long and, more important, was warm. We grew still and stared at each other. It seemed incredibly dangerous to look into each other’s eyes, but we were doing it. For how long can you behold another person? Before you have to think of yourself again, like dipping the brush back in for more ink. For a very long time; you didn’t need to get more ink, there was no reason to get anything else, because she was as good as me, she lived on earth like me, she suffered as I did. It was she who looked away and pulled the sheet to her chin.
After this I poured more orange juice and showed her how to make orange juice ice cubes. But she said she already knew how to make those. She put on her skirt and tiny shoes. Suddenly, it was very late, and from where I was sitting, I could see the dust starting to reunite on the TV. I would probably never dust the TV again; I wouldn’t have a reason to. This made me feel so violently sad that I got a cloth and began dusting it right then and there, and as I did, she said, Can I ask you a personal question? I said, What? And she said, Would you ever touch a woman? I paused in my dusting. This wasn’t a question, it was an answer, and I could only agree. I said, No, probably not, not unless there was a slow, skilled striptease involved, and maybe not even then. She said, Me, either, and I stopped dusting and folded the cloth into a little square and held it in my fist. My feeling then was that I had drunk too much orange juice and the acid was destroying my stomach and maybe the rest of me, too. I sat very still in order to retain my human shape and not release any gases. I looked down at my large thighs, and they reminded me of her husband. She was gathering up her purse and keys. I straightened my back, took a step toward her, and said, I am now going to tell you ten true things about your husband. I held up a finger. Numero uno: he’s not a real accountant. She said she already knew this and what were the nine other things. I said there was really only one, the others were just related details. I asked if she had thought of the Indian-restaurant analogy, and she said, What do you mean? I explained it, and she asked if I was making a racist joke, and I said, No, this is a secret true fact. But we were no longer interested in secret true facts, or the truth in any form.
After she left, I stood in the middle of the living room and decided it was okay to stand there for as long as I wanted. I thought I would eventually get bored, but I did not get bored, I only got worse. I was still holding the dust cloth, and I knew that if I could let it fall, I would be able to move again. But my hand was built to hold this dirty cloth forever. I had been his secretary for three years, and each of these years was made of thousands of moments, all of them unbearable if not for her. This seemed obvious now, that we, or at least I, had labored in her name. As mothers work to feed their children and husbands work for wives. I felt the foundation begin to shake, and in my head I said, Run. But I couldn’t run, not from this place that had taken me three years to build. I held the cloth and let everything fall on top of me. My knees buckled, I went down to the floor. I cried in English, I cried in French, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world. Esperanto.
I went to work the next day out of curiosity, as people return to their villages after the war to see what is left. The tape dispenser was still standing, and there was my chair and desk, and him and his desk. But everything else was gone. All the invisible things were gone, and in their place, there was just a bad accountant and his secretary. He came over to my desk at noon and said, Ellen tells me you two had a little tête-à-tête. I looked at his sleeve as if it were his face. It had not occurred to me that it would get this bad, that indignity would dance upon bloodshed. I didn’t even know what “tête-à-tête” meant. I thought about quitting right then, and also about cutting off all my hair and his hair, too. I thought about cutting off our hair and then mixing it together and lighting it on fire and then quitting. But I did none of these things.
On the last day of class, fruit punch was served, and we all wore our robes. We took them off the machines and ironed them and then put them on over our clothes. We looked like a group of women who know each other very well. Women who wake up together in the morning and stretch and put on their robes. Plaid robes, fuchsia robes, her feather-patterned robe. I stood far away from her, and she stood even farther away from me. I turned to another woman and touched her sash tie and asked how she got the corners so square. She said she had used a pin, that it
was easy, that she could show me how. She lifted the ends of my tie into her lap and began picking out the corners. Each pick sent tiny vibrations through the sash and around my waist; I hoped Ellen was watching. There was a softness in the air from all the flannel; it seemed to muffle the chill of the Adult Education Center. Two women were tenderly dabbing at the chest of a third woman who had spilled punch on herself. A group of younger women were braiding each other’s hair. But the linoleum between Ellen and me remained measured and waxen. Then Sue suddenly stepped out of the bathroom holding her robe in one hand, naked. She had discovered she couldn’t put it on because it wasn’t really a robe, it was nothing. All the women paused and fell silent, and Ellen and I quickly looked at each other. Our nakedness was recalled, like a seizure in the air. There was no apology in her eyes, no love or caring. But she saw me, I existed, and this lifted the beams off my shoulders. It takes so little. Sue boldly walked across the room and planted her wad of flannel in the middle of the floor like a pink hive or a giant tulip bulb. All the women gathered around it like fire, like fire we knew better than to touch it, but we could not look away.