There were many times a day when I needed her. When I walked or took the bus to Deagan, when I was in motion, and when I was still. When I was inspecting purses and all of them were perfect, down to the last grommet. Day after day, no flaws, just a building tension, a growing fog that could be cut only by a backward strap or a missing buckle. Some people go on forever without flinching, without crying out. But I cried, Blanca! When the sun became unusually high and bright, or when it sank, especially when it sank far below the hills and I felt something similarly bright falling down inside of me, I called, Blanca. I called out to my own heart, as if she were within me like an egg. White like an egg and not quite ready; about to be, like an egg.
I had never thought much about Victor, but now he became this exciting person because he was Blanca’s brother. Victor thought of me differently, too, more as a member of his family. As if Blanca and I were already a couple. He invited me over to a family-style dinner with Blanca and their parents. It was in an old people’s home, and Mr. and Mrs. Caesar-Sanchez were the oldest people I’ve ever met who were still alive. The food they ate was all intravenous. When I asked Mrs. Caesar-Sanchez where her daughter was, she looked so incredibly confused that I let it go. There was a picture of her on the wall, not Blanca but her mother, as a girl. She had Blanca’s look in her eyes: come hither, come yon. Victor talked to his parents as if they understood him, but I knew they didn’t. He gave them each a purse, the popular SOHO-style shoulder tote in pebbled leather. It didn’t seem like his parents would ever stand again, and shoulder totes really demand standing. Walking, living, needing, caring, toting. It seemed they were so far beyond these things, but I don’t know, my parents died before I was old enough to give them anything. Victor and I ate the Chinese fried chicken that we had brought with us, and then we all watched a show where couples compete at remodeling their kitchens. Victor drove me home, and we did not speak in the car because what was there to say. For the eighthundredthmillionthtrillionth time, she hadn’t shown up.
I had never been in love, I had been a peaceful man, but now I was caught in agitation. I accidentally hurt myself with my own body, as if I were two clumsy people fighting. I held on to some things too tightly, ripping pages as I turned them, and let go of other things too suddenly, plates, breaking them. Victor sat with me at lunch all week and tried to interest me in things that were not interesting. Finally, he invited me over to his apartment to have drinks with Blanca. I could tell this was it. I had wowed their parents with my comfortable silence. Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I will ask myself: Is it worth it? And it just isn’t. I wore the same thing I had worn all the other times I thought I was going to meet her, the all-beige, but this time I was more careful. I tucked my shirt into my boxers before I pulled up my pants, and when I pulled them up, they stroked the hairs on my legs. I was noticing everything, I was electric.
Blanca, of course, was late. Victor and I laughed about this, and I really laughed because now it was really funny in a way it had not been before. Goddamn that girl! She knew how to tease a guy. Victor and I toasted to Blanca and her lateness. I filled her cup and drank it for her, here’s to my girl! My little girl!
At midnight Victor cleared his throat and said there was something he hadn’t told me.
She’s not coming?
No, she’s coming.
Oh, good.
But I had a little plan for tonight, for you and Blanca.
What.
I have E.
What?
E.
What’s E?
Ecstasy.
Oh.
Have you ever had it?
No, I’ll just stick with my beer.
You’re gonna like this.
I had a joint once and I didn’t feel right for a whole year.
This isn’t like that; it’ll make you nice and loose with Blanca.
I don’t think she wants me loose.
Trust me, she does. She’ll have the third tab when she comes in.
Blanca likes this stuff?
Of course.
Is she like a … wild, out-of-control teenager?
You know she is.
God, I thought maybe she was, but I didn’t want to ask.
Just put it under your tongue, like this.
Okay. Is she seventeen?
Yeah. Now let’s just listen to the music and wait for it to kick in.
We sat on Victor’s couch and listened to Johnny Cash or someone who sounds like that. A cowboy singer singing his cowboy song. I thought about Blanca and could feel her coming closer. I could almost hear her shoes on the street below, the sound of her running up the stairs, the door flying open. I imagined this again and again, hoping the door would fly open at the exact moment that I was imagining it flying open, and it would be a dream come true. The music, the cowboy, was a part of this. It made the air thicker, like I was thinking on the outside of my head. My thoughts were in the air, riding the song like a horse. I began to think of Victor as the cowboy. And for some reason I said this. Even though I don’t like call and response, I called out.
Victor.
Yeah.
It’s like you’re the cowboy.
Yeah. What cowboy?
Singing the song, the cowboy song.
That’s me, all right. You hear that sadness in my voice.
I do.
There’s a lot of sadness in me.
I can hear it.
I think you’ve got a similar pain.
I do. I want to see her so bad, Victor. You have no idea.
I know.
Can you just show me a picture? Please.
You know I can’t do that.
Why not?
Come onto the couch.
I sat beside Victor and I knew it was happening, the drugs. He held my hand and I rubbed his arm harder and harder and it felt okay. But then the rubbing was all of us, the whole length of our giant old selves. It was like a humping thing. I was thinking of eagles humping each other and then I remembered they don’t hump, they lay eggs. I pushed him away.
What if Blanca walked in? You’re her brother.
Let’s just take our shirts off. The pants can stay on.
Are you gay?
I said the pants can stay on.
When do these drugs stop? If I drink water, do they stop sooner?
Just let this happen. It’s okay. Just let it happen. There’s no Blanca.
I didn’t believe him for three hours. I sat in Victor’s bedroom and he stayed on the couch and we waited for the drugs to stop and I waited for Blanca. When the drugs were over, I suddenly knew he was right. It was as if I had been on the drug for the last three months, and now I was back. I came out of the bedroom and sat on the couch.
I feel like she’s been killed.
I’m sorry.
Do you even have a sister?
No.
Why did you take me to meet your parents?
I wanted them to meet you before they died.
Oh.
It felt like the air was multiplying, and I couldn’t even think about what Victor said because I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the air. I tried to think of myself as a breathing machine. I told myself: You won’t die from overbreathing, because you are a breathing machine, specially calibrated to adjust to the changing amounts of air in the room.
He said, Tell me about the girls.
What girls?
You like little girls.
No, teenagers.
Where do you meet them?
What? I don’t do that, I just think about it.
That’s good.
Yeah. I wouldn’t do that.
Not even with Blanca?
Yeah, I guess with Blanca, but she’s—that’s different.
You don’t like grown women?
Not so far, not yet.
Have you ever had sex with a woman?<
br />
Yeah.
What about a man?
No.
Victor brought his arms around me and I felt sick in my stomach and my cock felt sick, too. It felt feverish and painful and I rubbed it just to clear my head. Victor rubbed it, too, with tears on his cheeks and lips. I wanted to punch him, punch a hole right through him and then fill that hole with my body, and I was, I was doing that. He was sobbing now the way Blanca would sob, like a child. When I came, I came on the couch; I didn’t want to come inside him because of what sperm can do. But he ate it off the couch and then he kissed me with a deep tongue, so whatever sperm can do, it was doing it to me. We slept. It was the sleep of one hundred years. And when we woke, it was still night, and Victor reached across me and turned on the lamp.
We were two old men. Everything seemed ordinary, even overly ordinary. There was a fly in the room and it buzzed around in a way that told us nothing amazing had ever happened in this place. I began to think about work, about the new hires in grommeting. I had to remember to tell them about the missing clamp on the heat sealer. I knew if I said something about this, if I said the word “grommeting,” then everything would be as it had been, forever, amen.
We’ll have to talk to the new hires tomorrow.
Yeah? Didn’t Albie train them on Wednesday?
Yeah, but the ones in—
I was about to say “grommeting,” the word “grommeting” was pulling up from the wet darkness under my throat; the G was coming forth with the grimace that makes the G sound. But in that instant the buzzing fly lurched toward my ear, and with animal reaction, fierce and unthinking, I swung at it and knocked over the lamp. It broke more than was fitting, crashing and shattering as if it were a lamp twelve times its size. In a final gesture, the bulb exploded in fireworks that fell quietly, extinguishing themselves. We said nothing, but the sudden return of darkness seemed to be a question, raised like eyebrows, waiting. Whatever I did next, whatever I said, would decide me. I didn’t say “grommeting,” but the G stayed in my throat, gathering voice.
I growled.
And Victor turned to me, right away, pressing his face against my neck. The new life came easily after this, a growl.
This Person
Someone is getting excited. Somebody somewhere is shaking with excitement because something tremendous is about to happen to this person. This person has dressed for the occasion. This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this person will be in a car or a store or under a vinyl canopy when it happens. Or online or on the phone. It could be an e-mail re: your knighthood. Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying, You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that. This person is laughing out loud with relief and playing the message back to get the address of the place where every person this person has ever known is waiting to hug this person and bring her into the fold of life. It is really exciting, and it’s not just a dream, it’s real.
They are all waiting by a picnic table in a park this person has driven past many times before. There they are, it’s everyone. There are balloons taped to the benches, and the girl this person used to stand next to at the bus stop is waving a streamer. Everyone is smiling. For a moment this person is almost creeped out by the scene, but it would be so like this person to become depressed on the happiest day ever, and so this person bucks up and joins the crowd.
Teachers of subjects that this person wasn’t even good at are kissing this person and renouncing the very subjects they taught. Math teachers are saying that math was just a funny way of saying “I love you.” But now they are simply saying it, I love you, and the chemistry and PE teachers are also saying it and this person can tell they really mean it. It’s totally amazing. Certain jerks and idiots and assholes appear from time to time, and it is as if they have had plastic surgery, their faces are disfigured with love. The handsome assholes are plain and kind, and the ugly jerks are sweet, and they are folding this person’s sweater and putting it somewhere where it won’t get dirty. Best of all, every person this person has ever loved is there. Even the ones who got away. They hold this person’s hand and tell this person how hard it was to pretend to get mad and drive off and never come back. This person almost can’t believe it, it seemed so real, this person’s heart was broken and has healed and now this person hardly knows what to think. This person is almost mad. But everyone soothes this person. Everyone explains that it was absolutely necessary to know how strong this person was. Oh, look, there’s the doctor who prescribed the medicine that made this person temporarily blind. And the man who paid this person two thousand dollars to have sex with him three times when this person was very broke. Both of these men are in attendance, they seem to know each other. They both have little medals that they are pinning on this person; they are badges of great honor and strength. The badges sparkle in the sunlight, and everyone cheers.
This person suddenly feels the need to check her post office box. It is an old habit, and even if everything is going to be terrific from now on, this person still wants mail. This person says she will be right back and everyone this person has ever known says, Fine, take your time. This person gets in her car and drives to the post office and opens the box and there is nothing. Even though it is a Tuesday, which is famously a good day for mail. This person is so disappointed, this person gets back in the car and, having completely forgotten about the picnic, drives home and checks the voice mail and there are no new messages, just the old one about “passing the test” and “life being better.” There are no e-mails, either, probably because everyone is at the picnic. This person can’t seem to go back to the picnic. This person realizes that staying home means blowing off everyone this person has ever known. But the desire to stay in is very strong. This person wants to run a bath and then read in bed.
In the bathtub this person pushes the bubbles around and listens to the sound of millions of them popping at once. It almost makes one smooth sound instead of many tiny sounds. This person’s breasts barely jut out of the water. This person pushes the bubbles onto the breasts and makes weird shapes with the foam. By now everyone must have realized that this person is not coming back to the picnic. Everyone was wrong; this person is not who they thought this person was. This person plunges underwater and moves her hair around like a sea anemone. This person can stay underwater for an impressively long time but only in a bathtub. This person wonders if there will ever be an Olympic contest for holding your breath under bathwater. If there were such a contest, this person would surely win it. An Olympic medal might redeem this person in the eyes of everyone this person has ever known. But no such contest exists, so there will be no redeeming. This person mourns the fact that she has ruined her one chance to be loved by everyone; as this person climbs into bed, the weight of this tragedy seems to bear down upon this person’s chest. And it is a comforting weight, almost human in heft. This person sighs. This person’s eyes begin to close, this person sleeps.
It Was Romance
This is how we are different from other animals, she said. But keep your eyes open so you can see the cloth. We all had white cloth napkins over our faces, and the light glowed through them. It seemed brighter under there, as if the cloth actually filtered out the darkness that was in the rest of the room—the dark rays that come off things and people. The instructor walked around as she talked so that she was everywhere at once. Her face and permed hair were forgotten; there was just the voice and the white light, and these two things combined felt like the truth.
You will never be a part of the world. She was standing quite near.
Humans make their own worlds in the small area in front of their face. Now she was across the room.
Why do you think we are the only animal that kisses? She was near again.
Because the area in front of our faces is our most intimate zone. She drew a breath. This is why humans are the only romantic animal!
We were quiet and wondering under our napkins. How did she know this? What about dogs? Don’t dogs feel everything we do times one hundred? But we couldn’t see to form a chain of doubt between each other’s eyes. And her voice had a vibrant certainty that made believing her feel liberating and obvious. Why pull your finger back when you can just let it be part of the hand? It is the hand! Of course! Fingers and hands are all one thing, these distinctions are like shackles. I see the light; it is coming through the napkin.
The tiny world in front of your face is an illusion, and romance itself is an illusion!
We gasped. But it was a delayed gasp, we were a slow group. Even the distribution of the napkins had been hard to organize. We had finally settled on take one and pass the rest down.
Romance isn’t real, and neither is your world under the cloth. But because you are human, you can never lift the cloth. So you might as well learn how to be the most romantic woman you can be. This is what humans can do: romance. You may now remove the cloth.
We felt we might not be able to, because we were human, but it slid right off, and the auditorium seemed darker than before. I had hoped we would now be another type of animal, one that could be part of the world. But the cloth was just a metaphor, and we were forty women gathered on a Saturday morning to become more romantic. One woman still had the napkin on her head, possibly asleep.
We worked hard because we wanted results. We mirrored each other, and we breathed in no and breathed out yes. We wrapped our hands around our ankles and pretended they were someone else’s, and then we tried to run and pretended that someone else was trying to run, someone we loved, was trying to run away. We held them by the ankles and we breathed in no and breathed out yes and released the ankles and ran, all around the auditorium, forty women. Then we came back to the circle and talked about pheromones and other kinds of mists.