Paulina & Fran (4 page)

She got very close to the mirror trying to discern the pattern on the fabric. Sailboats? Flowers? Nope. Paisley! Allison and Sadie still hadn’t appeared. What are they doing, she thought, fucking on a used mattress? Until that moment, the thought of anything sexual between them had never occurred to her. She frowned at the idea and made the “gross” face.

All day, Sadie and Allison had seemed distant. Upon first greeting Paulina, Sadie had made a snide remark about Farm Girl Fashion Disaster, and though it sounded familiar, it took Paulina a moment to decode. They’re jealous, she thought to herself posing in the mirror. She remembered fondly how her old dog, Mildred, had gone crazy with jealousy whenever Paulina had the smell of another dog on her. Maybe she hadn’t fully accounted for the amount of time Julian had taken away from them. Well, whatever, she thought, a girl couldn’t always be with Sadie and Allison or she’d perish! She smiled at herself in the jumper,
so cute.

Where were they?
She called out to them again. The jumper
began to look silly in the mirror.
Sadie wouldn’t approve, would make fun of the jumper.
Also, it was way too tight. It clamped around her stomach and pinched under her arms.

Then she realized—it was a child’s jumper. Her face flushed. She felt hugely stupid.
Sadie will burst out laughing at this, yes, uncontrollably. Allison too.
She tried to shimmy out of it, but it shrunk with every movement.

“Yes, what?” asked Sadie finally. Paulina saw her through the gap where the curtain failed to meet the wall.

“Oh, nothing. I had it on, but nothing now.”

“Let me see,” Allison said.

“No, I don’t need any opinions,” Paulina said, still imprisoned in the jumper. It looked like a doll’s apron. Sadie poked the curtain. Paulina hastily pulled it shut.

“Chill, girl,” Sadie said. She poked the curtain with her elbow and Paulina flinched.

“We found a lot of good things,” Allison said.

“Where?!” Paulina asked. Defeated, she stopped struggling and stood before the mirror, one arm in and one out. Her hair had looked ideal when she left for
SUPERTHRIFT
, but all order had been destroyed by the wind. Her life felt like a mistake. She looked and felt like a shipwrecked alien whose mission had gotten horribly derailed.

Art school had been an impulsive decision. Paulina hadn’t really thought she’d get in. Her portfolio was mostly doodles
she’d drawn over the photos in her high school yearbook. When she showed up, she found that the other students knew much more about art history than she did. They drew better. They worked harder. After a week, she abandoned her artistic goals. It was preposterous to have “artistic goals.” She cringed at the very words.

Then she’d seen the Venus Flytrap crack up an entire party with her exceptional laugh. Wearing only a cardboard headdress and Troy’s boxer briefs, the Venus Flytrap danced with total abandon. She trembled and shook, sacrificing her body to the song, letting it fill with spirits. Paulina envied the performance. She decided her personality would be her art and revamped her closet with
SUPERTHRIFT
treasures. She overheard the disturbing life story of a deranged man downtown and adopted it as her own.

Paulina’s ass hurt from sitting on the tiny corner seat in her dressing room. With concentration, she finally managed to take off the jumper without ripping it too badly. Then, slowly, she put her clothes back on, as if her existence were futureless and blank, and dressing just an automatic, ceremonial act of the life she’d left behind. She listened to Allison and Sadie try on their finds.

“Oh my god, those pants rule!” Sadie told Allison.

“You think? I feel like a tightrope walker or someone,” Allison said.

“Check it out, Paulina,” Sadie called, but Paulina refused to view their successes.

While the two of them paid, Paulina moped in the parking lot. She missed Fran, and the feeling was unique, as Paulina made it a rule to miss no one. When Sadie and Allison came out, they barely acknowledged her and continued their conversation. This stung Paulina, but she followed after them, pretending she was an alien sent to study Sadie and Allison’s feeble minds. She thought,
My findings are quite abysmal, Rolan, ruler of Rolanzil. Their preening techniques are surprisingly rudimentary. Especially the tall one, whose tresses hang off her head like dead grasses.

“You’ll be there, right, Paulina?” Sadie asked nonchalantly, like the three had been talking all along.

“Where?” Paulina asked bitterly.

“My apparel show!”

“If I’m alive,” Paulina said, clutching her fur as if it could leave her.

J
ulian sat in movie theaters long after the credits. He slumped around the cafeteria. He’d begun school with friends, until one day he realized it was easier to see movies without inviting anyone along, and this turned him into a loner. He completed his assignments mechanically, and the films were dim and infuriating. A salt pile growing and melting. A glove wandering through the grass. When his classmates discussed his work, he could hear the clock ticking on the wall.

In the library, Julian spied on Paulina and Fran, wondering what was between them. He imagined Blood Axe, muscular and blond, Fran, naked and shivering on a zebra-skin rug, and Paulina, bathing in a claw-footed tub, all of them lounging in a log cabin with crude quilts and knitted things nailed to the walls. At first the story hadn’t made sense, but with every step away from Paulina he’d begun to accept it. Of course it made him nauseous to imagine her with Blood Axe, but almost im
mediately his mind found refuge in Fran. Just a semester or two before, he had been a virgin too, before Paulina took him home.

The library was a maze of bookcases and parquet floors. Big windows were covered with dusty velvet curtains. There were few people in the library. Students were clicking away in the computer labs, wasting their eyes in the white light, while the library creaked on without them. A library is like a sunken ship, thought Julian. It doesn’t change as the world changes.

He walked down the aisle toward Paulina and Fran, scanning the stacks. He took a big book from the shelf and pretended to read it.

“Hey, Brains,” Paulina said brightly.

He turned as if surprised. “Julian,” he said, and extended his hand to Fran. Before the breakup, he’d never thought of Fran, but now saw she had her own peculiar beauty. She wore a long knit skirt and a Little League jersey. Between buttons, Julian could see a swatch of her bra and a small triangle of pale skin.

“I know who you are,” Fran said.

Julian leaned against the stacks.

“Your reputation precedes you, Fran,” he said, looking to her face for a reaction.

“I don’t have a reputation,” Fran said laughing.

“Really, she doesn’t,” Paulina said plainly.

“How are things?” he asked.

“Thingy,” said Paulina.

Fran studied him. He was holding a book on ancient casting techniques. There was something in his voice, something he had taken from Paulina, or something Paulina had gotten from him. Though Paulina had dismissed him, at some point she had chosen him for herself. Fran tried to see him this way, in Paulina’s high opinion.

Julian slid the book back into the stacks, stretching this motion out to draw their attention.

“What’s my reputation?” Fran asked. Paulina sighed loudly.

“That you don’t refuse an adventure,” Julian said. Fran laughed, but Paulina turned away as if to leave.

“Until we meet again,” he said, like the heroes of old movies the girls had never seen. Then he was off, ducking out the door, anticipating with pleasure the certainty that they would discuss him. Again, he imagined Fran in Blood Axe’s cabin. There was something peaceful about her nervousness.

“So corny! God,” Paulina said. A boy glared at them. The girls moved to another row and sat down. They often hung out at the library before their sociology class, lingering in the most boring stacks where they could talk freely. To the girls, a library was a dignified place. Like a graveyard, it made one feel very alive.

“Have you seen him since the river?” Fran asked.

“He’s obsessed with me!” Paulina said. She had no idea where he’d been before the library or where he’d go after. It unnerved her.

“I keep thinking about the river!” Fran whispered.

“I think a family saw us,” Paulina said, reliving it.

When Fran went to the Painting Building that weekend, Marvin was the only one there, crouched in James’s studio. “Look at these mouse babies,” he said and held one out to Fran. The captive mouse scratched at Marvin’s fingers. Light shone through its pink, round ears.

“Oh, wow!” Fran exclaimed. Marvin put the mouse in the fishbowl where he kept his colored pencils.

“I was going to dip their feet in paint and have them run around on the canvas,” he said. “But first, I wanna put costumes on them.”

“I have costumes for them!” Fran said, rushing to her studio. “Last semester I got these kids’ gloves with
Wizard of Oz
finger puppets.” She dug in a box of corroded paint tubes. Marvin caught another mouse.

“If you can’t find them, I have pipe cleaners,” he said. Fran threw aside some sketches she’d done of the Norway trip. One of them had her and Paulina dancing on top of a cake. She hadn’t realized its lesbian undertone until her classmates hap
pily pointed it out in crit. I was just being surreal, she told them again in her head.

“Found them!” Each finger of the glove was a different character. The Dorothy finger had little braids of yarn. The Tin Man had a shimmery metallic hat.

“These are perfect,” Marvin said. They went to his studio and cut the fingers off the gloves and the tops off each finger. “It’s like a tube top,” he said, forcing a costume on each squirming mouse. Marvin is a natural born artist, Fran thought, everyone else is just a kid at art school.

“They look amazing,” Fran said.

“The Dorothy one is ridiculous!” he said. Fran wanted to lean against him. As he scratched his head, Fran could see a few exhilarating inches of his stomach and the hairs that grew there. She wouldn’t have minded being one of those hairs. She would have been good as one of those hairs, she thought. She would have been silent and still, and moved in the wind, and gotten flattened in the shower, and caught in the waistband of his pants, and smoothed by the hand of a girl . . . Fran leaned toward him until her leggings touched his jeans. Inside the bowl, the mice clawed at each other’s costumes. “Let’s give them their freedom,” Marvin said.

In the field by the canal, the baby mice scurried away in their costumes. “I bet the other mice will worship them,” he said.

“They will radically change mouse culture,” said Fran. With Marvin, she felt she was playing with the world in the right way.

“They’ll be the first mouse celebrities,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t get to them.”

He’s childish, but in a sexy, home-schooled-by-wolves way, thought Fran. She felt destined to be alone with him in the night. She struggled to remember which bra and underwear she was wearing. On Ridge Street, they leaned in different directions. His mind seemed dazzlingly blank.

“Can I walk you home?” Fran asked Marvin. The words sounded outrageous to her. They dangled gaudily in the silence.

“Why?” Marvin asked, laughing.

“I don’t know,” Fran said, blushing. She had made the wrong moment. But she was wearing her good bra. Her hair looked good too; she could see it in the windows of parked cars. It didn’t matter. All her looks and artistic talent, and other qualities people had liked—
your so dreamy,
someone had written in her high school yearbook—none of it mattered. The
your so dreamy
guy had probably completely forgotten about her. She tried a smile to conceal what was happening behind her face.

“Okay, bye!” Marvin said. Tears burned her eyes. She watched the back of him as he walked away. His cool, uncaring back.

Paulina walked dreamily toward the Furniture Studios. Sex with Tim continued to be one of the more disappointing experiences of her life, but chasing Tim was electrifying and occupied her like a job. She touched her hair and liked how it felt. She must have had more than a dozen hair clips keeping it up, but the clips were dark and blended in with her hair. She passed the student store and the slick, new Graphic Design Studios. She passed high school skaters and spiritless adults.

It was one of those glorious days when Paulina had charmed the registrar into dropping her incompletes, and she felt high above the system. She did little actual work, but the scholarship of a dead art historian kept her funded. In the corner of her eye, she saw Sadie and Allison coming out of the mail room. She had neglected them these last few weeks, but now was ready to embrace them.

“Hello, beauties!” Paulina cooed while mentally chastising their fashion choices. Allison was wearing a bag-like dress.
She should really use a leave-in conditioner.
Still, Paulina walked toward them with open arms. Sadie glared at Paulina.

“I didn’t see you at my apparel show,” Sadie said. “Were you in the back or something?”

“Sorry, doll, I got caught up,” Paulina said. Something was different about Sadie. Her bangs were swept off her forehead. She was growing out her bangs! Paulina applauded the move.

“You should have seen her dress,” Allison said. “You missed out.”

They stood on the mail room steps, staring at a disappointing clothing sale on the sidewalk. Paulina studied Allison’s vacant face, and remembered befriending her in Foundation Drawing. Back then, Allison dressed like a Depression-era newsboy and read
The Stranger
during breaks. Allison didn’t speak, in class or out of class, and her roommate made jokes about it. Her classmates called her the Stranger, but Allison didn’t seem to care. Paulina wanted to open up Allison like a dusty, locked chest and hear whatever oddities hid inside her.

Stoned in Paulina’s dorm room, Allison told Paulina what she thought of everyone in their class, and how her favorite romance wasn’t one of her own, but between Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. When Paulina expected her to smile, Allison’s lips merely twitched. It was an accomplishment to make her laugh.

Allison painted abstract oil paintings. Anytime something figurative emerged from the mess, she blotted it out. She examined the paintings for hours, making sure none of her marks had mistakenly formed any conceivable face. They were chaotic paintings with jarring color choices. The paint was so thick in places it took years to dry. Paulina remembered dragging Sadie to Allison’s studio sophomore year and watching Sadie tense up, afraid of getting paint on her clothes.
Back then, Allison thought Sadie a total flake, and Paulina did nothing to defend her.

“Were you with Fran?” asked Allison. A headache spread behind Paulina’s eyes and there was a wild burn in her chest.

“This isn’t about Fran,” Paulina hissed. “It’s about her stupid dresses.”

“Why are they stupid? Because they have nothing to do with you?” Sadie’s voice rose to a troubling pitch. Sadie was the first real friend Paulina had made at school. Many times they’d gotten dressed in Sadie’s dorm and survived the walk to the goth club in heels.

“Keep it down,” said Paulina. “You sound like a malfunctioning hair dryer.” Freshmen hovered around the clothing sale. A girl tried on a long green sweatshirt and declared it her “soul outfit.” A cloud of hatred exuded from Allison and Sadie, but Paulina pretended she couldn’t feel it. “Fashion here bores me,” Paulina said. “It’s always a dress made out of recycled bottles and cans, or something ‘inspired by nature.’” Telling them off was exhilarating. It felt like cutting the sickly branches off a magnificent tree.

“You’re being cruel,” Allison said, pulling her lifeless hair behind her ear, “as usual. First you ditch Julian and now us. Just admit you’re in love with Fran!”

Allison never stood up to Paulina like this. It created bad lines in her forehead.

“Your new work looks like a sad child’s finger painting,” Paulina told Allison. “I just thought you should know.”

“That means a lot, coming from a sad child!” Sadie screamed. The three had fought before, but never with this much contempt, and never in front of the mail room, where people had gathered to watch.

“I can’t believe I wanted Eric to meet you,” Sadie said.

“Eric?” Paulina asked. It felt beneath her to acknowledge him.

“God! I’ve only told you a million times!” Sadie said. “My boyfriend. He lives in Chicago. He’s visiting this weekend.”

Paulina sighed loudly.

“You don’t even like yourself,” Allison said, and they started walking away.

“I love myself!” Paulina shouted after them.

Her headache pounded on. It was an elite headache, she told herself. She’d have to shoo people away from it—it was all hers! People leaving the mail room stepped around her and she made no attempt to get out of their way. They can have each other, Paulina thought. I’ve got Fran.

Julian leaned against the brick wall of the Painting Building. Paint-stained cigarette butts were stuffed in a gap in the sidewalk. The weather was breezy and warm and made him feel he could will things into existence. The pretty boy
walked out, the one Julian had wanted for his film, but had never asked.

Fran pushed open the heavy studio door.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Julian said breathlessly, unable to lie. All week he had walked in a daze, addicted to the idea of her. When he talked to Fran in his head, he spoke in a low, suggestive voice. He’d hung around the library waiting for her and never saw her.

“What? Shut up!” Fran said. She fleetingly wondered if he loved her, and decided he just wanted to sleep with her. Either way, it put her deeply at ease. She saw herself the way he saw her. This happened without her trying. She often felt the impression she gave off. Sometimes it was one of shyness and pretension, but through Julian’s eyes she saw herself as independent and cool. She looked at him and he smiled. She started to walk down the street and he kept her stride. He asked her about her paintings and her semester and what freshman dorm she’d been in. She reminded him they’d taken the same art history class sophomore year.

“Are you hungry?” he asked as they passed the cafeteria.

“No.” He was almost handsome. She was walking to her apartment. She hesitated. “Where are we going?”

“You tell me.”

Fran rolled her eyes and allowed him to walk her home. They stood awkwardly at her door. Apollo crossed the street
and they both stared at him. “One time at Riff’s, I watched him play pinball for hours,” Julian said.

“Was he good?”

“Phenomenal. I wanted to use him in a movie of mine, but he got totally paranoid about it when I asked,” Julian said. Fran tried to imagine Julian at Riff’s, Julian with Paulina, but couldn’t.