The Brutal Language of Love (5 page)

I grabbed my sunglasses, still floating nearby, and put them on. By now Shawki had put so much distance between us that I knew he wouldn't turn around again, so I excluded him from my plans. In an effort to conserve energy, I experimented with how slowly I could tread water and still stay afloat. I was hoping to save myself, and would need every ounce of strength I could muster. A last check on Shawki revealed him to be a billowy speck. He had wanted me covered up and now I was, in deep green water.

It made the most sense to head for one of the private docks near town, roughly an hour's swim. The breaststroke had always been my favorite so I went with that until my arms got tired, at which point I pitched my sunglasses and switched to freestyle. I wasn't a bad swimmer. I had joined the swim team in high school, attracted by the idea of getting to take off my clothes for educational purposes (Allison had joined the ski club). I'd even set a school record. Shawki knew this, which was probably why he felt okay leaving me in the middle of the lake.

I swam as long as I could without stopping. While my face was in the water, I imagined Shawki turning around after all. He might have found my sunglasses on his way back and worried that I had drowned. When at last he stopped to help me back on, the glasses would be waiting for me on the boat, dried and folded.

Finally I looked up but Shawki was nowhere in sight. Or if he was somewhere in the distance, he was obscured by the bright sun and the film that coated my eyes from having opened them underwater.

At last I heaved myself onto one of the docks, my lungs burning. I stomped my feet, trying to get some of the squish out of my sneakers, and adjusted my bikini, which had shifted during the swim. I was irritated with Shawki but at the same time proud of my accomplishment: I had not needed his help getting back to shore. In fact, I did not need him at all; I would break up with him the next time I saw him.

I walked up the dock and into the backyard of a large beige house with black shutters. The grass looked untouched, and for a moment I wondered if I should take off my shoes. A brand-new picnic table sat about halfway up a slight incline, and close to it were a swing set, a jungle gym, and a red wagon, all draped in bright bows. Panting lightly, I made my way toward the house. As I passed the elevated, screened-in back porch, I heard a voice say, “Excuse me.”

I stopped and looked up. A woman in her mid-twenties with a messy blond ponytail peered down at me from the porch, both hands supporting her back. She was standing as close to me as her stomach, which was touching the screen, would allow. I had visited Allison in New Jersey when she was seven months pregnant and I guessed this woman was about that far along.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I was just swimming. I didn't mean to trespass.”

“Where did you get that?” the woman asked.

At first I didn't know what she meant. I didn't have anything. Then I said, “You mean my bikini?”

“Would you mind telling me?”

“No, I got it in Syracuse. The Addis Company.”

“Were there any left?” she asked.

“Sure, a few.”

She nodded.

“Sorry about trespassing,” I said.

“I don't care,” she said. She sighed. “Did you swim across the lake or something?”

“Sort of. Yeah.”

“I swim at night,” she said. “I don't want anyone to see me like this.”

“My boyfriend pushed me off his boat,” I blurted out.

“My husband's a doctor,” she said.

We stood quietly for a moment until the woman abruptly said good-bye and headed back into her house. I waited until she was safely inside—as Shawki sometimes did for me when he dropped me off at my apartment—then cut through her circular driveway and woody front yard, out to East Lake Road.

The walk back to the launch was a couple of miles. I stuck close to the trees on the shoulder, occasionally glimpsing a house through the trunks and branches. A few men whistled as they drove by, and one yelled, “Hey baby, want a ride?” but none bothered to pull over. I felt as comfortable with myself as ever in that moment, even glad Shawki had knocked me into the water. At last I was free to go, to leave him for who he was, not where he came from.

As I walked, I started thinking about my sister and the time I visited her in New Jersey. We had picked peaches from our aunt's tree and made a pie with a crisscross top. Allison ate half of it in one sitting, then burped and lifted her shirt to show me her maternity pants. She laughed and said she would keep them after the baby was born; they might come in handy over the holidays.

I had almost cried to see my sister's stomach through the stretchy white fabric that day. Now I thought I might call her tonight after breaking up with Shawki. Maybe we could work something out, I thought. Maybe I wouldn't date another exchange student.

Suddenly I had to pee, urgently. I remembered feeling the same way after swim meets at school, as if by osmosis my bladder had filled up in the pool. I ducked into the brush between houses, pulled my bottoms down, and squatted. The delicate sound of my pee hitting the dirt was periodically interrupted by the whoosh of cars just a few feet away. When I finished, I drip-dried, pulled my bottoms up, and looked briefly at the dark spot I had left on the ground. Then I headed back out to the road, where, in an instant, Shawki's boat passed me by.

At first I thought it was Shawki himself, taking this whole thing too far and leaving me in Skaneateles. But it wasn't his car; it was the station wagon we'd parked next to at the launch. Besides carrying Shawki's boat on its roof, it was pulling another boat on the trailer. But it had definitely been Shawki's boat on top. There was no mistaking that gold hull.

I ran the rest of the way back to the launch. I got more honks and whistles running, but I didn't care. I needed to get back to Shawki, to make sure he was okay—and then break it off with him.

When I found him, he was sitting on the ground near the car with his knees pulled in close to his body and his head between them. There were red marks on the sides of his calves. “What happened?” I asked, out of breath.

He looked up and I realized he wasn't wearing his glasses. It took me a couple of seconds to notice the other red mark across his cheek. “The boys take my boat,” he said. His eyes were watery.

“What boys?”

“Who like your swimming suit.”

I looked down at my bikini, then reached around the back and tugged at the bottoms where they had hiked up. “Let's call the police, Shawki,” I said. “C'mon. Let's get to a phone.”

“No,” he said firmly.

“Let's get your boat back, Shawki.”

“I don't want it!” he said. He stood up and looked out at the lake. “Please drive. I cannot see.”

I drove us to the police station, but Shawki wouldn't go inside. When I tried to go in alone, he grabbed my arm so tight it hurt. For as long as I'd known him, it was the only time he had ever really scared me. I started the car back up and drove us home.

Shawki was upset about the boat, but he seemed more upset that the boys who had stolen it had called him a nigger. “I tell them I am Egyptian!” he cried. “I tell them, ‘Do you see this rope that you are tying my boat to your car? This rope is from me! I invent you this rope for to steal!'” They had hit him with the rope. The boy with the captain's hat had taken his glasses and thrown them in the lake.
The Captain,
Shawki called him simply: “The Captain roll down his window when he leave and tell me he will find you, Vanessa. He will find you and take you home safe.”

I didn't break up with Shawki that night, nor did I
call Allison. A couple of weeks later Shawki and I were still together; two years later, we were married. Nothing much ever changed between us. Shawki bought me turtlenecks for my birthday. When I got pregnant and started to show, he refused to walk down the street with me.

I did call Allison after Shawki and I divorced in 1971. She said she was sorry for the way she had acted that time long ago—that she had been bitter over her pregnancy and having been sent away and was looking for someone to punish. Her husband now, Vance, was a good man. He had two grown children from a previous marriage and made a nice living selling heated driveways. He and Allison didn't have any children of their own and enjoyed traveling in Europe.

I went to visit her in New York, where we spent hours walking around the city. My sister knew every street, timed everything so we would end up in front of the perfect bistro at lunch, the most charming tearoom in late afternoon. This was the real catching up for me: learning what Allison had learned in all that time we were apart, watching her chart her course.

Recently, while going through some old boxes, I came across my pink bikini and put it on. My daughter, Ellen, who was home from graduate school, walked in on me. I offered her the bikini and she laughed, saying even if it were in style—which it wasn't—she wouldn't be caught dead in anything that objectified women. This made me feel foolish so I took it off. “Mom!” Ellen screamed, storming out of the room. She had grown up to be more like Allison than me, and generally preferred for neither of us to see the other without clothes.

I lay down on my bed then, naked, as I had done when I was a teenager. It was hard to remember what had once made this ritual so satisfying to me, so important as to disturb my sister with it. According to Ellen, whose field was sociology, I had been a precursor to the hippies, a foreshadowing of the civil rights movements and bra burnings to come. And though politically I remained fairly savvy, she felt I had ultimately not transitioned well into the nineties, a time when people appreciated their privacy and preferred not to share as much.

“A provocative analysis,” I told her, though it saddened me to recall my love affair with my body as merely a sign of the times. Rather, it had once seemed like an entire belief system to me, a political party even. At the very least it had brought me Ellen, the brown-skinned girl people were forever assuming I had adopted.

I got up and put my clothes on then. Lots of clothes. Sweaters, long johns—everything I could think of. Piled it all on. Not just because it was winter but because I could do this now; it didn't bother me. When at last I was sufficiently encumbered I scooped the bikini up off the floor, folded it as best I could, and headed for Ellen's room. She would take it, I planned to tell her. She would wear it at least once.

Brigitte was a nontraditional student—a polite
way of saying she was thirty and not twenty-one, like the rest of the kids in her Florida film program. She was also single, childless, and possibly a lesbian, though she wasn't completely sure yet. She had unique feelings for her Intermediate Film Production professor, Shirley Mayer, who was openly gay and struck Brigitte as a sort of absentminded type who needed looking after. Mostly Brigitte thought things like it would be nice to do Shirley Mayer's laundry, or help her with her taxes. Occasionally she imagined kissing Shirley Mayer, but only occasionally, for it was a little overwhelming to feel so pleased by something so unfamiliar.

It was Brigitte's idea to explore her burgeoning sexuality on film that autumn. A recent bra-shopping trip had inspired her to write a sensual short script about a customer and the sales associate helping her, all of which would take place in a dressing room. (A minimal number of locations, Shirley Mayer had instructed the class, would be cheaper and less strenuous in terms of moving equipment.) Brigitte turned in the requisite treatment for
36C
only to get it back from Shirley Mayer unmarked and with a note at the top saying to please see her.

“What is this?” Shirley Mayer asked Brigitte during office hours that afternoon. She was sitting at her desk holding Brigitte's treatment, which she had quickly reread before posing the question. Shirley Mayer was a pink-faced blonde in a stylish gray suit with black buttons who never, ever removed her jacket.

“It's my script,” Brigitte said. She shifted in her seat and recrossed her legs, feeling suddenly underdressed in jeans.

“Jesus,” Shirley Mayer said. “You too.”

“Me too?”

Shirley Mayer handed Brigitte back her treatment. “The whole class is writing about being gay,” she said. “We'll screen these films for the parents at the end of the year, and I'll get fired for converting you all.”

“I'm not converted,” Brigitte said, immediately wishing she could take it back.

“Well, that's a relief,” Shirley Mayer snapped.

“What if the films were all good?” Brigitte asked quickly. “I mean, festival quality?”

Shirley Mayer shook her head. “They're not,” she said. “Yours is the best one.”

Brigitte smiled. “Thank you.”

“It's flattering, you know? All this gay pride. But it's going to get me fired.”

“I could make a different film,” Brigitte offered.

Shirley Mayer waved this away. “No, no,” she said, laughing. “Make your film. I really only called you in here to tell you I liked your treatment.”

“You probably won't get fired,” Brigitte said.

“Probably not,” Shirley Mayer said.

“I'm a nontraditional student,” Brigitte blurted out.

“Yes,” Shirley Mayer said, smiling. “That's admirable.”

On the drive home, Brigitte thought about how she didn't want Shirley Mayer to get fired, but how if it did happen, it would be Shirley Mayer's own fault. She was pretty and charismatic and had seduced them all with her practical knowledge, thought-provoking exercises, and unfriendly demeanor.

On the first day of class, for example, she had offered a third of them chocolates from a huge See's Candies assortment. She offered a second third of them chocolates as well, but this time from a somewhat less varied assortment containing only dark fruit creams. The students in the last third were offered a choice between marshmallow creams and toffees. Afterward, when Shirley Mayer asked them what they thought the exercise meant, they responded—mouths full—that they didn't know. “You,” she said then, pointing to Ely Gimble, who had been in the first third. “You took forever to decide.”

Ely nodded. “Are there any fruit creams left?” he asked, and Shirley Mayer absently handed him the box.

“And you,” she said, pointing to Brigitte, who had been in the last third. “What was your experience?”

“I chose faster,” Brigitte said immediately, desperate even then to make an impression.

“That's right,” Shirley Mayer said, nodding. “And so my point is?” she asked, looking first to Brigitte, then to the rest of the class. Nobody said anything. “What about you?” she asked Paige Cox, who had been in the middle group. “State your name and describe your experience, please.”

“Paige. I don't like chocolate.”

“But you picked one,” Shirley Mayer said.

“I'm going to give it to someone else,” Paige said. Then she added, “To my girlfriend.”

Two boys in the back of the room giggled.

“What's funny, guys?” Shirley Mayer asked them.

They sat up straight in their chairs and turned instantly, mockingly solemn. “Um,” Davis Bonaire said, “that she's a lesbian?”

Everyone looked at Shirley Mayer, who they already knew to be gay. She paused briefly before saying, “Take out a sheet of paper, please.”

“Who, me?” Davis asked.

“Yes, you,” Shirley said. “And your friend. What's your name?”

“Jojo,” Jojo Mankowski said.

“And you, Jojo. Take out a sheet of paper.”

The two boys shuffled their notebooks and came up with some paper. When they were ready, Shirley Mayer said, “Now, please write a hateful letter to Paige.”

“Excuse me?” Davis said.

“This isn't high school, you know,” Jojo said. “We're paying for this class. If we want to be taught a lesson, we'll call our mothers.”

“Lesson?” Shirley Mayer said. “What lesson? I would like you both to write a hateful letter to Paige, please, so I can get on with this lecture.”

Paige turned around then and looked at the two of them. “Yeah,” she said. “Write me a hateful letter.”

Davis and Jojo looked at each other. “I ain't doing that,” Davis said, laying his pen on the desk.

“Me neither,” Jojo said, copying Davis.

Shirley Mayer shrugged. “Suit yourselves,” she said. “Just trying to be accommodating.”

Paige turned back around then and smiled at Shirley Mayer, who ignored her. “Now,” Shirley Mayer said, “getting back to the chocolate. What was the purpose?”

Jojo Mankowski raised his hand. “Yes?” Shirley Mayer said, pointing to him.

“It's easier to choose when you've got less to choose from,” he said.

“Good man!” Shirley Mayer said. “I want you all to remember that now as I pass out my list of creative limitations. They're designed to help you, not make your lives harder.”

The list was called the “Mayer Memorandum” and consisted of six guidelines, all beginning with the letter
M
: no machine guns, no monkeys, no mission impossibles, no Mafia, no murder, no madness.

“You got something against action movies?” a guy named Benny Parisi asked her.

“Yes,” Shirley Mayer said. “Any other questions?”

Brigitte raised her hand then. “Is the monkey literal or figurative?”

“Let's not overanalyze,” Shirley Mayer told her. When no one else raised their hand she asked, “Everyone unhappy now?” They all nodded except Brigitte and Paige. “Good!” Shirley Mayer said. “Then things can only get better.”

“Damn!” Davis Bonaire said and, quite unexpectedly, he began to laugh, followed by the rest of the class, and finally Shirley Mayer.

Brigitte's movie was about a young woman who
goes bra shopping and finds she likes the way the sales associate touches her skin. The sales associate fastens the young woman's bras even though the young woman has been fastening her own bras all her life, then smooths her hand across the young woman's shoulder. At the sales associate's suggestion, the young woman tries on more bras than she'd intended—some violet, some lacy, some push-up—but only buys a couple of plain white ones in the end. As she pays for them, a young man approaches the sales associate and kisses her. The young woman looks questioningly at the sales associate, who looks away. “Come back and see us,” the sales associate says meaningfully when she hands the young woman her receipt.

This had happened to Brigitte in real life, and when she'd described the event to Raoul, her stocky French roommate, he had suggested she write it all down and submit it to
Penthouse Forum.
“Just forget about the guy at the end and make the women get it on in the dressing room,” he'd added.

Now, on a warm Saturday in September, Brigitte and Raoul sat together at their pink Formica kitchen table, watching the smoke from Raoul's cigarette mix with the morning sunlight. Raoul wore boxer shorts and extremely short, dyed blond hair, while Brigitte was in dirty Levi's, with no bra underneath her T-shirt. “I wonder sometimes,” Raoul said, watching the swirly, smoking air, “if this type of effect would register on film.”

“You probably wouldn't want it to,” Brigitte said. “It's kind of prosaic.”

“Prosaic?” Raoul said.

“Prosaïque,”
Brigitte said, translating.

Raoul, understanding now, was dismissive. “You Americans,” he said. “Always trying to invent something new. The trick is to learn to live with the banal.”

“You French,” Brigitte said. “Always bugging the shit out of me.”

Raoul laughed and kissed Brigitte on both cheeks before heading for the garden shed in the backyard, where he lifted weights every morning. He had graduated from the film program the year before and now spent most of his time bodybuilding and bartending. Occasionally a local band would ask him to shoot a music video for them and Raoul would do it in return for beer or pot. Sometimes he did it for free. Film school, he liked to say, had taught him more about how to watch films than how to make them, and so this was his main focus at the moment.

Brigitte and Raoul had moved in together as lovers, but when that didn't work out, they were loath to separate since they were such compatible roommates. So she took the second bedroom in the small house they rented, while Raoul relocated his weight-lifting apparatus to the tin shed from Sears. They were only slightly jealous of one another when a third party entered the equation, and occasionally fell into bed together under extenuating circumstances, like when Brigitte told Raoul about her bra-shopping trip. “Shit, man,” he had complained to her. He called everybody
man.
“You got me horny.”

Afterward, in bed, Brigitte asked him if he would shoot
36C
for her. “Two girls getting it on?” he said, lighting a cigarette. “No problem.” It had taken Brigitte a long time to figure out that even though everything that came out of Raoul's mouth was sexist, he himself was not. This was confusing, though, and his attitude had lost him several female friends over the years. “You don't understand, man,” he would say in his own defense. “I love women!” Something must have gotten lost in the translation was all Brigitte could think. As she understood it, Raoul's suggestion that she publish in
Penthouse Forum
was really a testament to her storytelling abilities; his agreeing to film two girls getting it on meant lesbians were okay with him.

Still, Raoul had a hard time believing that Brigitte herself might be gay. “Everybody loves Shirley Mayer,” he once told her. “Don't take it so personally. Besides, you fuck like a maniac!”

“Maybe I'm bi,” Brigitte said.

“Everybody's bi.”

“You're bi?”

He shrugged then. “Maybe. If I thought about it. I just don't think about it. I prefer women, man. It's easier that way.”

Which pretty much summed up the problem with Raoul for Brigitte. He did whatever was easiest, no matter how much harder it might make things for him in the future. Not that he really was gay, or even bisexual. He wasn't. But he was a halfway decent cinematographer who wasted his time serving beer for a living; a fitness freak who could not see the harm in a little pot.

For Brigitte it was better to know the truth up front. If she was gay, so be it. If she wasn't, she would sort her way through that mess, too. But she hoped she was. She hoped beyond hope that her problems were at last about to become interesting.

Brigitte received an inordinate amount of help on
her film from Jojo Mankowski. He worked part-time in a department store and lobbied one of his managers to let Brigitte shoot
36C
in the lingerie department. “Just so you know, I told him it was about shoplifting,” Jojo informed her before the shoot. “I didn't think he'd go in for all that homo shit.”

Brigitte nodded. Now that she knew the entire class was making gay-themed films she felt safer with them—even people like Jojo and Davis Bonaire, who himself had offered to record sound for her, one of the least popular jobs on a film set. The two of them still had a tendency to sound foul when they spoke on sensitive topics, but Brigitte decided they probably suffered from an affliction similar to Raoul's—one in which their mouths did not accurately represent their beliefs.