The Woman Who Married a Cloud: The Collected Short Stories (56 page)

At once she realized a person didn’t need to be mysterious at all—only their skin did. From then on she studied any tattoo she saw. She sidled up to people on the subway and once sure they weren’t looking, peered closely at their arms, their legs in shorts, the backs and sides of their necks, their forearms thick with muscles or thin as a chopstick, so long as they were inked.

Most tattoos she saw were dull or trite—cartoon characters, Celtic or Maori designs, advertising logos like the Nike swoosh or once even the McDonald’s hamburger arch. Why? She constantly wondered why people volunteered their skin as a billboard to tell the world they were clichés, unoriginal, or worst of all—they just wanted to be like everyone else.

In contrast, the blue accordion on that woman’s hand was enthralling. An accordion? Why? What did it mean? Was the woman a musician, or was there a deliciously enigmatic meaning to her tattoo that only she and a few select others knew, but the world would never discover. How could anyone see that tattoo and not wonder about the person who owned it? A Nike swoosh or a dragon on a bicep? Snore. An accordion across the back of a delicate female hand? Brilliant.

She was so smart yet uninspiring. She worked in magnetic bubble technology. When she told people that, their eyes either turned off all the lights or else got jumpy and nervous, wanting to escape. If you were interested in vortex dynamics of high temperature semiconductors, she was your girl. But let’s face it—nobody was and that was perfectly okay. She knew in the world’s eyes she was like a store that sold only one rarefied thing like Iranian caviar or antique French needlepoint. But she had other interests. Come on—give her some credit. She liked to go swimming, line dancing, and absolutely loved to kiss. When she created a profile for online dating services, just trying to describe herself in an interesting original way was a challenge. What she wanted to say was I am smart, have a great sense of humor, like sex, and am up for more or less anything. But you probably wouldn’t believe that if you were just to look at me. Get in touch, let’s talk, and maybe we can dance. In the end after much soul hemming and hawing that’s exactly what she did say but the results of her candor were unfortunate, to say the least. The only men who responded were creeps, bores with dubious issues, or guys who started whining in their very first email to her.

But seeing the accordion tattoo revived her. It changed her attitude from ¾ hopeless to hopeful by giving her a concrete plan that she’d put into action as soon as she walked out the door of the tattoo shop.

How happy she would have been if she’d been able to glance in a rearview mirror and see the look of puzzled admiration on the tattoo artist’s face as she left his place that day. Whoever she was, she must be cool to want that tat on her palm, no matter what it meant. He even wrote the enigmatic words down on a scrap of paper so he would remember: Elizabeth Thug.

A few nights later at a popular downtown bar, a stranger glanced at her hand. After doing a small double take and narrowing his eyes, he reached over and took hold of it. A nervy gesture and she winced slightly because it still hurt from the tattooing, but she didn’t mind. This was the beginning.

“Elizabeth Thug.” He said the name without a question mark at the end. He was decent looking. His tie was pulled to one side and his shirt collar was open.

She looked at her hand as if to make sure they were talking about the same thing. Then she smiled at him and nodded once.

He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t he asked if she was Elizabeth Thug.

She shook her head.

“But it’s tattooed on your hand.”

She nodded again. “True.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Her voice was soft and friendly but gave nothing away.

He looked at her as if she’d just spoken in a foreign language. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you think ‘Elizabeth Thug’ is tattooed on my hand?”

He smiled but it faded. He smiled again but it was different this time; confused, quickly gone. “Is that you, or a relative?”

She said nothing and made a sour face that said come on; you can do better than that.

“No?”

She sighed and withdrew her hand so she could lift her glass.

He sat up straighten “Are you Rumpelstilskin? Do I have three guesses and if I get them wrong, you’ll put a spell on me?”

“You never know,” she winked.

“Okay. You’re a feminist and Elizabeth Thug was the world’s first female boxing referee.”

She tipped him a nod for his clever answer. “Not bad. Wrong, but original.”

He rubbed his hands together. He liked this. Liked that she got his humor and didn’t push his answer away like it smelled bad.

He guessed two more times and was wrong of course because the secret was ‘Elizabeth Thug’ meant nothing. They were simply two words that came to her out of the blue when she was showering one morning. But moments after they arrived in her mind she knew exactly what to do with them. Once she was sure she wanted two disparate words, she tried out many others just to be sure. But she kept coming back to these two and they were the words she had tattooed onto her palm.

That first evening at the bar with the man was useful and sexy. The guessing game opened things up between them and although she never revealed the secret of the words, he was clearly interested in her. When he asked for her telephone number she wouldn’t give it. She teased that if he had given the correct answer she would have, but oh well—maybe next time. He asked if there would be a next time. She said she came to this bar fairly often. Maybe they’d see each other here again. And then she left. On the cab ride home she stared at her tattoo and knew she had made the right decision.

Scheherazade was so wrong; she had it all backwards. For 1001 nights, she told her king new stories to keep him interested and spare her life. But men don’t want to hear stories—they want to tell them. They want to talk; they want to hold the floor. Males want the world to listen to whatever it is they have to say. That was the single thing she learned from her dismal period of Internet dating—most men really only want to talk to someone who listens. Some want to download while others want your sympathy. Some want admiration but not as many as she had originally imagined. More often than not, men just want to tell you what they’re thinking or how they see the world. They prefer an appreciative audience but willingly settle for an attentive one. She realized after meeting so many men in a short period of time that the best way to start things going on a date was to give the guys a little verbal push and off they’d go—talking about themselves, their world, their take on things.

‘Elizabeth Thug’ was a natural outgrowth of that discovery. She presumed correctly that most men preferred guessing what her tattoo meant rather than hearing the truth. If Scheherazade had done it right, all she’d have had to do was get her king talking about a subject that intrigued him and she wouldn’t have had to tell a new story every night for three years.

A dog, a cat, her sister, her mother. A friend, a car, her favorite bar. These were some of the guesses men made about her tattoo. In the beginning when she was just getting used to the attention those mysterious two words created, she was coy or ladylike in her denials. No, I’m sorry, that’s not it. Oh, that’s an interesting guess but you’re wrong. Some men tried to charm the answer out of her. Others were derisive and taunting. Why would I care what it means? She was sweet even to them. She smiled and said because you asked. If you’re not interested, that’s fine. But of course they were interested and all their gruff was a bluff.

However as time passed and more and more men got it wrong, she became impatient. She knew that was ridiculous because how could anyone get it right when there was no right? Still, she grew irritated and positively snapped at some of them when they guessed.

“The family boat? Are you joking? Would you want the name of a boat tattooed on your skin?”

This man took a long drink of his double Jameson’s and then wiped his mouth with a cocktail napkin. “I was just kidding,” he said defensively.

She looked at him like a teacher who’s just caught a student cheating on a test.

No boat, no best childhood friend who died tragically, no title to her first novel. She sort of liked that last guess and considered giving the man her telephone number but in the end said no.

Her sister came to town and two minutes after they hugged hello, noticed the tattoo. “What the hell is that?” When she heard the explanation she slapped her hands against her cheeks and hooted, “I love it! You’re out of your mind.”

The two women went to a bar that night so she could show her sister what happened when men noticed her hand. They were there forty-five minutes and three men struck out guessing.

“Ooh, look—see the really handsome guy at that corner table? Go over and ask him.”

She looked over and saw a hunk with short hair and a three day beard sitting alone with a beer mug held between his two hands, staring intensely into the off.

“But I’ve never done that—gone up and just asked.”

Her sister shoved her shoulder. “Come on, be brave. It’s like cold-calling in telemarketing. Let’s see if you can get him to bite.”

After finishing her drink for courage, she walked over to his table. He looked up at her slowly and smiled, but it wasn’t warm or welcoming—only a hello-what-do-you-want smile.

She put up her right hand like an Indian chief going “How!” The handsome man saw the writing on her palm and squinted to decipher it.

“Elizabeth Thug?”

She nodded.

He took a sip of beer. “Am I supposed to guess what it means?”

She nodded, feeling awkward and uncomfortable now so close to his handsomeness.

“I don’t want to.”

She took a quick breath, a little gasp of humiliation, and turned to go.

“But wait a minute—can I ask you something?”

She stopped but didn’t turn around. The bastard could talk to her back.

“Do you ever scare yourself on purpose? I must do it five times a day.”

She frowned and half-turned to him. What was he talking about?

He addressed his beer mug but loud enough so that she could hear. “For some absolutely unknown reason I need to scare myself at least a few times every day. Maybe it’s just the adrenalin rush, right? Maybe I just dig that body-buzz you get when you’re scared or nervous. ATM machines, right? They scare me.”

“You’re scared of money machines?”

He nodded and tapped the table to qualify. “I make myself scared of them. That’s the big difference, you see. As I’m walking up to one to get some money, I think this machine is going to eat my card and then what? How am I going to get around without any cash?”

“But even if that happened, just go into the bank and tell them to get the card out for you.”

He shook his head. “Not on Sunday, or ten at night which is when I usually end up needing money.

“Or how about this one—I’m riding alone in an elevator in the middle of summer. It’s a small car and not air-conditioned. Every time, every time I’m halfway there I suddenly think what if this elevator broke now and stopped? What if I had to stay in here for hours because nobody came to get me out, or no one was in the building? And as soon as I think that, I get boiling claustrophobia. So I say shut up—just stop it. Stop being stupid, but it does no good. Being reasonable never works. It’s like I create demons to eat me alive from inside ...

“Or I’m in line at the post office ...” he made to go on but stopped. “I do it to myself, understand? An ATM machine is just a machine. They’re tested a zillion times before they’re installed, so they never fail. But no matter—it’s gotten so bad that just about every time I go up to one, I get nervous. Sometimes I almost physically lose my balance because I’m so worried.

“Why do we do these things to ourselves? Life’s hard enough, right? Why make it worse by scaring ourselves, or making ourselves unhappy by creating stupid imaginary things that never happen anyway?”

She could think of nothing to say. Instead she just opened and closed both hands and then pushed them against her sides. How did she get into this? She just wanted to go back to her sister.

“It’s not even masochism. It’s weirder than that. The things we do to torture ourselves, you know? I used to think I liked me, but not so much anymore.

“Know what I was thinking about before you came over? I’m going to name it. So that every time it happens to me, every time it comes, if I have an actual name for it I can say ‘George, go away.’ Or ‘George, go back to your room now and quit screwing around.’ Treat it like a bad little kid who needs to be disciplined.”

He lowered his gaze and looked at her hands. “Elizabeth Thug.” His eyes moved up her body and when they reached her face he was grinning. “Elizabeth Thug! That’s what I’ll name it. That’s perfect. The next time it happens I’ll say, ‘Elizabeth—get out of here. You can’t do it. Not this time.’ ” His entire expression showed how much he liked the idea. “Get away from me, Elizabeth
Thug
. I’m only getting some money from the machine.”

He raised his beer mug to her, a toast. “You don’t mind me borrowing the name, do you? I will worship you for the rest of the week.” His glance dropped to the table, dismissing her, but he did look sort of transformed. “Elizabeth Thug. That’s exactly it.”

There was nothing else for her to say or do but return to her sister who’d watched the whole thing from the bar. What could she tell her? What had just happened? Walking back, she looked down at her right hand and saw a bit of the tattoo there, the name he would remember. The name that meant something now, but not to her.

I
CAN’T SAY FOR
sure when it started because he never told me. And I’m not a mind reader. I’m not an exceptionally observant person and am the first to admit it. I like life the way it is. I watch the passing parade uncritically, rather than with a pair of high powered binoculars and a scorecard so that I can identify all the players and details. I don’t care how well or poorly the costumes have been sewn, so long as they look good from afar. If that clown on stilts is having an affair with his neighbor so what? If he’s fun to watch now, that’s all that matters. I’m like most of the crowd—ooh’ing and aah’ing at the big floats, clapping at the beauty queens and championship teams as they pass, tearing up when the brass band plays the national anthem.