Lying in Bed (27 page)

He left very quickly. I'm sure he's worried about confronting me in the morning at the gallery. Next time I'm going to let him see me.

Sometimes I think the best thing that ever happened to me was my father taking the pictures. Because if he hadn't I wouldn't be a virgin. One thing would have led to another and
I would have started fucking those boys. Beginning with Andy. Even though I loved him I know I would have fucked others. My mind is too full of fucking even now, and I haven't fucked anybody. I don't even know what it's like. Sometimes when I'm watching a man touch himself, I feel my eyes are magnets and they aren't just attached to him but they pull him toward me, into me, and I can almost feel the flesh I'm watching disappear within my body. But what does it really feel like. That's the mystery.

I don't want to know. My curiosity is not as great as my contentment. I feel so pure. I feel like a heroine. I am what American girls are supposed to be. I am untouched. I am innocent. I am immaculate. I am alone.

I don't mean I'm lonely. I mean I stand alone. I'm apart from everybody else. Here I live in this city where when you just walk down the street you bump into strangers with your shoulders and your clothes brush and sometimes the backs of your hands touch and still my flesh is not tangled up with anyone else's. That's what I mean by alone. I am totally unto myself.

Everyone should be a virgin. Forever.

When we were making love tonight, Johnny said, “Clara.”

I didn't know if it was a question or what.

“Clara,” he said again.

What does he want?

“Clara.”

It was my name, and it wasn't. I mean, Clara, Carla, both of them are my names and they're not. Nobody's born with one. It isn't like a nose. It's no more attached to you than a scarf. It isn't
yours
, not even when you chose it for yourself, like me.

If I were the only person in the world, I wouldn't have a name. I wouldn't need one. And if there were only 2 of us in the world, we wouldn't need names either. When he spoke, I would know it was to me.

He and I are the only people in the world, when we make love. There are no others, except as we imagine them, and they aren't real. So each time he said my name as he said it over and over, he took my name from me. He pulled it from my body, from my skin, from my lips. Clara. Clara. Clara. Clara. Each time he said it ground me deeper into the mattress. And pulled him deeper into me. My name was leaving me. It was a bird above the bed. I didn't want to let it go. I turned beneath him, side to side. I shook my head. I struggled. But he said, “Clara. Clara.” It became a name I didn't recognize. A sound I didn't know. It wasn't me. And that left only me beneath him, a stranger, nameless, new. It was like being born. It was the most exciting, joyous feeling in the world. And the world was empty, truly empty, of anyone but us.

When Johnny fell asleep, I got out of bed. I don't usually do that. I usually stick some tissues between my legs and hold him in my arms. I write in here before. But tonight I got up and sat down here to write about this. I wanted to think about what happened to me. I wanted to try to understand it. I wanted to describe my ecstasy. I wanted to say this about it

He asked me, “Would you rather love someone more the first day you meet or the last day you're together on earth?”

“The last day we're together on earth.”

He held out his arms to me and we danced. No music was playing.

I finally have a girlfriend. (Not to mention a new job) I lost all my girlfriends when I got interested in boys. I thought I'd have millions of girlfriends when I got to New York. I pictured myself leaving boys behind and walking down the avenues holding arms with girls. But that turned out to be a hair commercial. First of all, I didn't leave boys behind. I just don't let them touch me. And I don't touch them. Secondly, I had forgotten how to talk to girls, if I ever knew how in the first place.

Then I get hired to work at the Labrovitz Gallery and I walk in to start working this morning and there's another girl sitting at what I figure is my desk, since it's the only desk there. It's the only place to sit there.

“May I help you?” she says.

“I'm starting today.”

“Starting what?”

“Working here.”

She looks bewildered.

“What are you supposed to do?”

“Reception. Catalogs. Hang paintings. Artist relations, whatever that is.”

“I'll tell you what that is. It's telling painters that their latest work's the best thing they ever did.”

“What if it isn't?”

“They're artists. You lie. It's the only language they understand. Except money. Money talks.”

“What does it say?”

“Fuck you.”

I didn't know if she was saying that to me or telling me what money says when it talks. So I didn't answer.

“So who hired you?”

“Well I went through an agency. But—”

“Have a seat.” She got up.

“I don't want to take your seat.”

“It's yours now.”

“What about you?”

“I'm fired.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the same thing happened to me.”

“What?”

“I walked in here and told the girl sitting here that I was starting. That's how he does things.”

“Who?”

“Labrovitz. He doesn't like confrontations.”

“But it isn't right.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“What?”

“Do you really believe in right and wrong?”

“That's …”

“Complicated?”

“Yes.”

She came around the desk and put her arm around my shoulder. “You'll do just fine.” Then she took my arm and walked me to the back of the gallery. There were 3 doors. “That one's storage and supplies. Canvases. Coffee filters. Plastic cups and barf bags for openings. That one's the W.C.
Customers only, needless to say. Watch out for art connoisseurs among the homeless.” She knocked on the third door and opened it before anyone answered.

There was a young man in a beautiful black suit sitting behind a desk. We seemed to interrupt him staring off into space.

“Isaac Labrovitz,” said the girl.

He finally looked at us. “I see you two have met. If you're who I think you are.”

“She is,” said the girl.

“What's your name again?” he asked.

“Clara Bell.”

“Clarabell what?” asked the girl.

“I believe that's her name,” said Mr. Labrovitz, if that's who he was. I had imagined someone much older.

“It is,” I said.

“From Howdy Doody?” asked the girl.

“Yes.”

“You must have strange parents,” she said.

“Very.”

“Don't we all,” she said.

“Isn't it remarkable,” said Mr. Labrovitz.

“I like her name,” the girl told him.

“I was referring to how much alike you 2 look. You give the impression of being willowy without having the gall to be taller than I am. I detest towering women. Have you noticed how many more of them are being made that way these days? And you both look a bit like boys without giving up a dram of your femininity. That's very important. It's 1984 after all. We must challenge conformity in every way. I tell you, that agency is first-rate. Are you sure you aren't sisters? Now Monica, why don't you show Clara the ropes and then take
her out to lunch. On me. Just bring me the receipt. I'll reimburse you. And by the way, you were magnificent. The best assistant I've ever had.”

“Then why are you firing me? I need the work, you know.”

“Need you ask—because I get tired of looking at the same person day after day.”

“Turnover,” she said.

“That's the key,” he answered. “In life as in art. As for you, Clara, the same thing will happen. About a year from now you'll look up from that desk out there and share a precious moment of bewilderment with someone who I can only hope is as fetching as you. In the meantime, you will be the most important person in my life. Goodbye.”

Monica took me for lunch to Da Silvano on Avenue of the Americas. I refuse to call it 6th Avenue. To me New York City is America. The rest of it's another country.

“Spend a lot,” she said.

I looked at the menu. “It's very expensive.”

“Yes, it is. But put that down. You should never order from a menu, especially in an Italian restaurant. The waiter wants to seduce you. The chef wants to cook something he didn't cook yesterday. The owner wants to be able to charge you something unprintable. And Ike won't be happy unless you bring him back a huge bill. Let's have a bottle of wine. An old one.”

We ended up having 2 bottles. It was like a date, and I fell in love with her.

“What will you do now?” I asked her.

“Work for the competition.”

“Another gallery?”

“Don't be silly. An artist.”

She told me artists were always asking her to work for them. “Some of them are the most disorganized people in the world. And the rest of them are the most organized people in
the world. So they all need all the help they can get. What about you? Are you organized?”

I told her about my diary. I have never told anyone about my diary. I showed her my handwriting (not in my diary!) I told her my life story, or at least the interesting parts. I told her about the photographs (after a lot of wine)

“That's sick,” she said.

“Yes.”

“It's a form of rape.”

“Yes.”

“It's almost incest. By both parents.”

“Yes.”

“But how lucky you are.”

“Why?”

“To be such an object of desire.”

I told her I was a virgin.

All she said to that was “I wish I were.”

I asked her if she'd slept with Mr. Labrovitz.

“He's gay.”

“Did you try?”

“Of course.”

“What happened?”

“He told me to go practice my sgraffito on someone else.” (I just looked that word up so I know I spelled it right. I also know Monica really does know what it means)

“What does that mean?”

“Not to try to scratch beneath the surface.”

She paid our bill with a credit card. She gave me the receipt and told me to give it to Ike and tell him to mail her the money along with her last paycheck.

“Aren't you coming back?” I asked.

“I'll walk you to the door.”

I gave her my phone number.

She gave me hers.

We walked arm in arm through Soho.

Thank you for being my friend, Monica.

He says, “Have you ever been fucked like this before?”

“Oh, yes,” I lie. “Many times.”

Which only makes him fuck me better than I've ever been fucked before.

Today I closed the shop for lunch and took Johnny shopping. For somebody with so much money he never wants to buy anything. All he gets are CDs and books, usually through the mail. Sometimes he splurges on a fancy bottle of wine. And presents for me. The only time he goes out of the loft without me is when he's going to buy me something. He says the reason for that is this is where he lives, not out there. I kid him that he meets one of those strange maiden girls he's always looking at when we're out together and that's why he buys me so many presents.

I love to be out in the streets with him and watch him watch women. He doesn't do what men do when they put that stare on you like they were capturing your image on some film that loops behind their eyes. It's more that he watches them leave. Even when they're walking right toward us. I can almost hear him saying goodbye to them. It's not that I want him to have them. I don't want to be the only woman in the world, the way he said I was. I want to be them all and then for him to have them.

I took him into Armani. It was very crowded because it's lunchtime but there must be something about Johnny that
makes people think he's got money to spend, because we had a boy and a girl on us right away. They were both almost as tall as Johnny and looked like incestuous siblings. Their clothes were the color of eels. I was about to make some excuse for what Johnny was wearing when the boy said, “That's an amazing look.” And the girl said, “Your shoes are presumptuous.” “I'm square,” said Johnny. “Exactly,” said the boy. “Fadulous,” said the girl. What a ditz, I thought, but Johnny said, “I like that word.” She said, “It means …” Johnny held up his hand. “No need.” She was his forever. He could read her mind. Which would take all of 2 minutes, and that's with a bathroom break. “Let's get out of here,” I said. But they wouldn't let him go. “Do you model?” asked the boy. “Oh no,” said Johnny. “You should,” said the girl. “You look … you look … you look …” “Gifted,” said the boy. “No,” said the girl, “not gifted.” “What then?” said the boy. “Whole-some,” said the girl. “Exactly,” said the boy. “Your clothes are unapproachable. Your shoes … well, Shibboleth told you. And your glasses … they remind me of my favorite professor. He was like a father to me. Are you a teacher?” “Good heavens no.” “Well what do you do then? Don't tell me you're a designer.” The girl thought she had it. But Johnny said, “I'm a husband.” “Don't I wish,” said the girl. “It goes with the clothes,” said the boy. “I'm glad you like them,” said Johnny. “But Clara admires your wares. What might you have for her?” That son of a bitch, he bought me 4 thousand dollars worth of things. He called me his little onion in front of those 2 dummies.

So I took him up the street to Barnes and Noble and told him I'd buy him any book in the place. And what does he buy? A blank book! And he gives it to me. I can't believe it. “Did I ever tell you about my first day in New York?” “Tell me again.
Over lunch.” I tell him I have to get back and open the shop. But he takes my arm and pulls me a couple of blocks south to Union Square Cafe. Even though it's late, they don't have a table. So we sit at the bar and we both order tunaburgers and I tell him how I got a room at the Martha Washington Hotel and I threw my bag down and walked out of there and through some park and got to Fifth Avenue, which I couldn't believe they actually let you walk on, and came to this bookstore and bought a blank book. “Isn't that amazing,” said John. I asked him what. “You told me that story, but you never told me what you bought that day.” So the book he bought me becomes all the more precious to him. He takes it out of the plastic bag and opens it up and leafs through the blank pages. I don't know if he's trying to read what I'll write there or he's just trying to see me at 16 with a book like this one in my hand. He wants the impossible: me before he met me.