AM/PM (3 page)

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Hazel said. She closed her eyes when the rubber-band ball struck her forehead.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“You could
not
do that.”

“Sorry,” he said, catching the ball and throwing it again in rhythm. “I won’t define myself by what I am
not
, and what I
will not
do.”

She sighed. “You could throw it at the wall next to my forehead.” She kept her forehead still for him when she pointed.

“No go, unfortunately,” he said, scooping up the ball. “I place too high a value on human interaction.”

“You could throw it at somebody else for a few hours.”

Sam looked wounded. He winged it hard enough to leave a red welt between her eyes.

“I’d never do that to you,” he said. “I love you.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“At least we have that,” he said, aiming for the welt.

After Carla left, Andrew discovered that their house had three secret hiding places. In the second bedroom, he found a small cubby in the upper right corner of the closet, enough room for a medium-sized box or a small child. Under the sink, loose planks covered a few inches of secret space.

At the bottom of the stairs in the entry hall closet was the most exciting secret area. Close inspection revealed a panel that lifted up to expose the underpinnings and pipes of the house. He was shocked he hadn’t found the secret earlier.

The space had its own climate. In an emergency, Andrew could possibly fit in the area. This would be an emergency that required not exiting the house through the front door, five feet away. It would be an emergency requiring escape or concealment. The wood around the panel was original to the house, sixty or seventy years old. Andrew felt terribly safe.

Charles decided to see if he could live without worldly possessions. He said that giving them up one at a time was the scientific way to do it, which made sense to Doreen because she had bought him a subscription to
Nature
the previous Christmas, and since then he had been fascinated by the scientific method. Doreen’s friends suggested that she give him time, then they suggested that she draw the line at items important to her. Her friends made no suggestions at all for one week, when Charles packed their cell phones into the garage. When he brought them out, her voicemail was full of messages saying
This has to stop.

That night, Doreen watched Charles dismantle the ceiling fan. “This has to stop,” she said.

“You only concern yourself with larger things,” he said. “You didn’t notice the week I went without socks.”

“I do your laundry. I notice everything.”

“Speaking of, I have the clothes dryer on schedule for next week.”

The base of the ceiling fan came down in one piece, and he wrapped the globes carefully with newspaper before unscrewing the blades. He lay them in a neat stack and arranged them all in a box.

“The girls are talking about you again,” Doreen said.

“Those women need to learn a thing or two about compromise,” Charles said.

He took the ceiling fan away. Doreen looked at the bare wires dangling from the ceiling and wondered how a scientist might see them.

Reginald closed down the furniture store on Mondays. He tried not to keep a set schedule on his day of rest, but he was an organized man by nature and did find satisfaction in loose guidelines. Before noon, he would ride his horse across his property. Sometimes he would find the cows, and sometimes he would ride the perimeter, checking the electrified fence. Around noon, Olivia would bring him a cold lunch on the porch. It was often a sandwich made from the leftovers from the previous night, chicken salad made from the dinner cutlets, or meatloaf soaked in ketchup. Olivia gave old meat new life between bread.

To appease her in the evenings, Reginald would fix something small around the house. To show her that he was still vital, he would change the dead bulbs in the foyer chandelier or put new hinges on the driveway gate. At night, he bathed in a bathtub she filled with gallons upon gallons of mineral oil.

Olivia dreams that her body becomes pliable enough that she can stretch very thin and cover most of the rooms of the house. Her body is so thin that the bones are clearly visible, and the veins stretch, and the blood has more distance to travel and as a result, the edges of her body are very cold. Reginald opens the front door, removes his shoes, and takes only one step before recoiling in horror at the chilly mass that is Olivia’s body, stretched and waiting. In her dreams, she controls every aspect of her life.

They are conduits of emotion, kids are. They’re parrots who wear little shoes. The only difference is, when you see a parrot, you never say, gosh, that parrot says the darndest things. You might look at the parrot and say
Polly? Polly?
even when the owner says very clearly to you that the parrot’s name is not Polly. You might say to the parrot,
Polly want a cracker? Polly? Why are you wearing little shoes?

They were in love! At night, Carla would read a book and soak her feet in the kitchen sink. Leonard found it charming, and would sometimes kiss her feet when she came to bed. Sometimes there was still soap between her toes, and he cherished the soap and cherished the toes. She would laugh and kick at him playfully and call it a feast of love. If he had nightmares she would praise his fantastic imagination until he slept again and dreamed that he won a highly respected award. He made crepes for lunch, and they would spread butter or chocolate or pesto sauce inside and discuss if savory or sweet was superior. Their discussions often ended with a cavalcade of laughing shoves, and then he’d return again to the feet, kissing the soft pads of her toes while she squealed.

Eventually something wasn’t right, and the two moved on, and Carla told her new boyfriends that she’d always thought the foot thing was creepy.

E,

 

Baby, you give me hives. You’re lucky. I happen to think it’s an essential function of any relationship that one party be covered in hives at all times. Even in business relationships. Secret hives. You know what I’m talking about.

—M.

Just because you made it warm doesn’t make it yours: A lesson for felines.

Feline Posits: What if one makes it warm for a long time?

A Response: I will still put it on the towel rack, because it is still a towel.

Feline Posits: What if one conveys pride of ownership via claws?

A Response: Nothing is truly owned, supporting nothing is truly yours.

Feline Posits: What of one’s blood, in one’s body?

A Response: Blood does not own the body, and body does not own the blood, so says the Rite of Communion.

Feline Posits: What is to become of us, then, and our loneliness?

A Response: Be blessed with the temporary nature of the towel, and of your body.

Doreen sat naked at the table, uploading her photographs. “I have complete control of my cropping area!” she said.

Charles closed the science magazine he had been reading at the breakfast nook. “That’s comforting,” he said, taking up his tea.

Her black hair was so long by now, it coiled around the base of her chair. She was too lazy to put it up, or had misplaced all of her rubber bands, and it spread out so thick behind her that it looked like she’d grown from it, instead of the other way around.

He watched the hair like it was his wife, and his wife like she was an adornment of her hair, a barrette or peach-colored band. “Would you like a glass of water?” he asked.

“That’s strange.”

“Water is strange?”

Doreen’s hair was bright and soft. She hadn’t showered, and the oils gave it a healthy luster. “Once you’re married for ten years,” she said, “you should start forgetting to ask if I want water.” Charles was mesmerized by the way it fell over her shoulders, which were not beautiful, or which were beautiful but not as beautiful as her hair.

“We are among the lucky,” Charles said.

And may the women hold their brave faces to the sun as the men become afflicted with a terrible pestilence, and may their flesh rain upon the heads of the chosen people. May their hair clog the sewers in the streets, and their broken bodies tumble into the sea! May their useless fury fail to stir the tapestries in the temple, and may the LORD find solace in their swift destruction!

Leonard decided that the chaise longue was his favorite piece of furniture and that he would never leave it. We had to bring his soup upstairs, and even then he didn’t like to eat, because he was afraid he would drip on the chaise longue. We’d all sit around and talk a little, but none of the chairs in his house were as comfortable, and once Leonard claimed it, it felt strange to sit on it with him. We were closer than we meant to be, even if we were sitting on the far side of the chaise longue. After a while, it felt strange to be in the same room with the two of them.

Sam came out of the bathroom glowering, like it was Hazel’s fault.

“Feeling better?” Hazel said.

“Coffee hurts when it comes back up.”

“I’m sorry, dear.”

He sat next to her on the couch, his hands balled into fists. He smacked his lips.

“We should go to breakfast,” said Hazel.

Sam looked at her.

This massive PDF file is a symbol of my love for you. It is graphic and full of information. It takes time to fully load, and when it’s running I find it difficult to complete other work. There are parts that I would rather not read, parts I have to read, and parts I’ll never read or even know about, but they will always be there. I cannot change the content of this massive PDF file, and I cannot decide when it will begin or end. In fact, it is always there, on my desktop. Even if I put it in my Recycle Bin, it is there, and even if I empty the Recycle Bin it is still there
somewhere
. I would have to powder the hard drive to be rid of all traces of this massive PDF file, which is a symbol of my love for you.

Tess felt rather certain that she would die alone. She blamed her arms, which she found to be fatter than normal arms. She blamed her poor body image, which she couldn’t seem to shake, even as she got older and found that the girls around her had turned into women, had gotten pregnant and lost their shapes entirely. She took too many pictures of herself and scrutinized them for flaws, and then made copies of the prints and taped them on telephone poles across town with her phone number printed clearly across them.

People called from all over, mostly men, asking about the girl in the photograph. Tess told them, That girl is a runaway, and if you find her, try to keep her in one place and secretly phone the police.

The men said, She looks a little old for a runaway.

Tess said, She’s disturbed.

When she went out, Tess was much bolder than usual. She wore sleeveless shirts and made eye contact with the boys at the check-out counter. In the library, she sat at a center table and held her face to the light as she read. Whenever anyone approached her to ask if she had been helped, or if she had read other books by that author, she gathered her things and ran. Nobody could ever see what she was running from.

The intense regret of purchasing inexpensive curtains one cannot afford! Feeling doubtful about the idea that suede curtains will make this room look something other than laughable! Panicked financial insecurity, linked closely to a fear of being alone! Sinking emotions related to a worthless mass of completed work! The desire to do all one can to rip off an honest business! The creeping disgust directed toward the cat with worms!

“We’ll get a babysitter,” Betty said, shifting the baby from one arm to the other. “I’ll find a restaurant with good lighting.”

“Good,” said Simon. He was reading a book about organic gardening.

“Lighting is essential,” she said.

Gardening, Simon learned, is easiest when you respect the land and the tools you are given.

She was flipping through the phone book, reading carefully for any intimations of weak lighting. “We’ll have dinner,” she said. “Then, we’ll meet up with everyone. What about Italian?”

“Too spicy.”

“Cheese isn’t spicy.”

He shrugged. Planting the proper seeds at the proper times means respecting the land, and the land will bear fruit in answer to your respect. “Indian?” he asked.

She looked at him. “Everything’s spicy.”

“You have to order a curry,” he said. He kissed his fingers, as a gourmand.

Betty shut the phone book and walked into the bedroom. Simon read about winter plants, tubers and flowering squashes.

The power went out during the storm. Hazel and Sam talked in the darkness without touching.

Sam had given up on finding a flashlight and instead lay on the kitchen floor. “Goethe said that everything is metaphor.”

“I can never pronounce his name correctly.”

“Gerr-tay.”

“Gare-tah.”

“Gareth.”

“Certainly it’s not ‘Gareth’.”

“Certainly not.”

A flash of lightning briefly illuminated them both. They listened for the thunder. “The correct pronunciation is right around the corner,” she said.

“Guer-tuh.”

The crack of thunder startled Hazel. She reached out for Sam’s hand.

“That might be it,” she said.

The cats were arranged like matchsticks, Martha said. She joked that she wanted to pick the fat calico up, strike it, and light her cigarette. Emily shut her eyes.