A Little Change of Face (25 page)

“Uh-uh,” I said, rolling the condom onto his hard penis and inserting him into my body.

I sat upright on him, not even letting him touch my breasts, as I looked down at him, at that incredibly handsome face. My hips rocked back and forth gently, taking him in a little deeper, letting him go for a while, sometimes pulling so far back that we almost separated.

“You really are an incredibly beautiful woman,” he said.

I didn't say anything, didn't thank him, just kept rocking, a little bit harder.

“Oh, Lettie,” he said.

“Not. Lettie.” I took him all the way in, tightening my insides around him until I felt him shudder inside of me. “Scarlett.”

 

Afterward, as I got my clothes together, he wanted to know when he could see me again.

“Um, never,” I said, distracted as I looked for my other shoe.

“Never?”

“Well, okay, maybe not
never
in the purest sense, since I have no intention of leaving town and you probably don't, either. And, no, if I run into you somewhere, it's not like I'm going to spit in your face and walk away. But as far as
seeing each other again goes? Romantically? Or
as friends?
Never.”

“I don't get it,” he said.

Well, of course he didn't. The Sauls of this world are not used to women not wanting to see them again.

“Do you remember your list from before, about the things you look for in a woman?”

He nodded cautiously, on his back, looking vulnerable as a flipped beetle.

“Well,” I said, “when I first met you, I was intelligent, I had a sense of humor. But you didn't want me. It wasn't enough.”

He didn't say anything.

“Tonight, though, I wasn't intelligent, I wasn't funny at all. What have I done here that was smart or funny? But still you wanted me.”

“I still do,” he said, and from the accompanying rise in the sheet, I could see he wasn't kidding.

I thought of Jeff Polanski, only being interested in Sarah once she started to look a certain way. I thought of how he'd hurt her, been thinking about it in the back of my mind all night long.

“No,” I said, “you don't want
me.
You want someone who looks a certain way or performs a certain way, but you don't want me.”

“What can I do?” he asked, abject.

I knew he was asking me something else entirely, but I answered, “You can help me with my zipper.” I turned my back. “That's what you can do.

 

Who knows what I'd really been looking for in going to Chalk Is Cheap that night? Surely, I'd come to realize, if only on some subconscious level, that the kind of attention that
accrues from good physical appearance was satisfying in some way. And, not so much that, but it was also so much easier to deal with than putting your real self on the line, letting the world see inside.

Who had I been kidding? I'd wanted the validation, again, because it was easier, because it was less scary, because it had absolutely nothing to do with being myself.

I was scared shitless of the kind of future Steve represented, a future in which we were always our truest selves, and in anger at Saul, in fear of Steve, I'd had one last fling.

W
hen I got home from Saul's, I saw right away that Best Girlfriend was no longer there. Had she decided to return home? I wondered. But her things were still there, her backpack still in one corner of the couch. Oh, well, I thought. She wasn't chained to me. She could go out and do something on her own.

I changed out of my clothes, tossed the shoes back into the bottom of the closet, threw some water on my face, tied the robe around my waist. Then I went downstairs and grabbed some caffeinated soda out of the fridge, hoping to stave off the next day's hangover, and settled down in front of the TV, not even noticing what program was on.

Once upon a time, I'd been a little girl. I'd been the kind of little girl that gets told, at an early age, how pretty she is. I'd been the kind of little girl who, every couple of years, finds her picture on the front page of the local newspaper—snapped in a fire engine on a class trip to the fire depart
ment or in a pumpkin patch on top of a giant pumpkin—because some photographer had decided that she was the cutest-looking kid around.

I looked good, people liked that I looked good, I liked that it gave them pleasure.

But somewhere along the way, it had grown confusing.

I grew a bit older and I realized that lots of people didn't have the advantages that I did and this bothered me. I became the kind of person that's known for being nice to everybody, until given reason to behave otherwise; the kind of person that has their cooler friends rolling their eyes in high school whenever she stops to talk to some dork that no one else will stop for unless it's to make fun of. I had been kind of like Sarah. But it wasn't enough. I couldn't level the playing field for everybody else. Hell, I couldn't even make the playing field be what I wanted it to be just for myself.

And then it had really grown confusing. I'd wanted to separate the person from the looks and hadn't been able to—maybe a little bit, but not entirely.

And, okay, maybe I wasn't as virtuous as I'd thought, maybe Saul wasn't as awful as I'd thought.

Not that I'd ever go out with him again.

Had I sometimes been dismissive of guys, of men, because they just weren't good enough on some external scale?

There had been Tom in high school, the French horn in the band. I'd liked him. He was smart, made me laugh. But when he asked me out, hopefully, tentatively, fearfully, I'd said no. He'd been my friend, right? Why would we want to louse that up? But what, I wondered, if Tom had looked like Saul?

And then there was the whole way that, when I thought about it, I realized that T.B., Delta, Kelly, all of us were
judged by externals. T.B. could no more change the fact that the first salient feature people saw about her was that she was black; despite the desirability of ultimately judging people on the content of their character, skin color and sex are the two most salient features we take in when we meet new people, and we make snap judgments based on those features—racist, sexist and liberal alike. Delta could not change what people thought of her based on her kids, except for when she'd hidden them away with me. And as for Kelly, well, even I had prejudged Kelly. I'd assumed that because she was the Good-Looking Woman that she must somehow be snooty or malevolent. I'd assumed, wrongly, that she was a red M&M. So, I figured, if we were all going to be judged by externals, anyway, the only way we could affect things was by how we chose to react to the world's reactions to us; it was how we all felt about those externals themselves that would make the difference.

It was too confusing. I wasn't going to find any answers. The essential truth I had been searching so hard for had turned out, quite simply, to be confusion.

It was more than I wanted to think about.

All I knew was that every time I'd made it hard for Steve, I hadn't been saying
Don't hate me because I'm beautiful
and I hadn't been saying
Don't hate me because I'm ugly.
What I'd really been saying was
Just love me. Love me, anyway. Love me.

O
h, the things that happen off camera while your mind is occupied elsewhere.

Apparently, Pam, in her eagerness to finally best me with a man, had attempted to seduce Steve.

Apparently, he, in his eagerness to dull the pain of what he saw as my deception, let her.

It was Best Girlfriend who sussed it out.

“It was at that bar you always want to take me to when I come to visit. You know the one. What's the name of that place again?” She snapped her fingers. “Texas? Wyoming?”

“It's called Minnesota's. Actually, it used to be called Minnesota's, but now it's called Chalk Is Cheap.”

“No wonder I could never remember it before.”

“I don't see why it should be so difficult. They do have pool tables there.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And that's why they called it that? Because they play lots of pool in Minnesota?”

“How many times do I need to tell you? You don't play pool, you shoot it.”

“The NRA must be loving you.”

“And I don't really know if they play lots of pool in Minnesota or not. You're the one who keeps moving all the hell over the country. It was just the guy's name, that's all.”

“Whose name?”

“Minnesota Fats.”

“What?”

“Look,” I sighed, “are you going to tell me whatever it is that you saw that you don't really want to tell me, or are we going to play stupid all night?”

“Stupid could be good.”

I just looked at her, staring her brave again. “Come on,” I said. “You can trust me to handle whatever it is you have to tell me. And if I can't handle it, you'll pick me up afterward, I know you will. Now,” I said again, voice soft, “spill.”

“Fine. I was worried about you.”

“Go on.”

“You looked strange when you left here earlier.”

“Go
on.
”

“So I figured, why not pop into that Minnesota place? Sure, it's not the cleanest place in the world, and everyone there's always already drunk, no matter how early in the day it is, but so what? For such a dirty, alcoholic place, it—I don't know—always seems so
safe
there.”

“True…
go on.
”

It was as though that last
“go on”
was the final brake release on the train, because all of a sudden, her words came speeding down the tracks at me, with no pauses, no more
station stops in between. By the time I realized where what she was telling me was headed, I felt like Penelope Pitstop lying facedown on the tracks, all trussed up and with no Canadian Mountie in sight to untie me.

“By the time I got there, you'd already left with Saul. Delta—the one I met here last week?—she told me. She also introduced me to T.B. and Pam. Well, of course I'd met Pam a few times before, even though Delta and T.B. didn't seem to know it. I liked T.B. She's nice.”

I didn't bother asking what she thought about Pam.

“Anyway, they told me you'd been and left with Saul. T.B. was very worried about you and I told her how I'd been worried about you, too, that I knew you were confused about how things were going with Steve and that I was worried about what you might do.”

“They didn't know about Steve before,” I told her.

“No,” she said. “I realized that as soon as I saw their reactions. I was still worried about you, though, more worried than before, so I drove around for a bit, hoping I could find you.”

“I'm a big girl,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know you are,” she said, “and you're responsible for your own actions, too. It doesn't mean I can't try to stop you, though, from doing something stupid.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Not that it did any good,” she said. “Anyway, I quickly realized that it wasn't doing any good, that I wasn't going to find you. So I went back to Minnesota's.”

“Chalk Is Cheap.”

“Right. I felt like having a beer, didn't want to spend the whole night here waiting and worrying about you, and I had liked T.B. And Delta, a bit. By the time I got back there, ap
parently someone else had come looking for you—Steve. Your friends had figured out who he was when they heard him ask the bartender if he'd seen you. He must've figured that since you'd taken him there on a date, it might be a place where he could find you when he couldn't reach you at home.”

“What did he want to see me about?” I asked.

“Who knows?” she said. “You'd have to ask him. Maybe he didn't want to see you about anything. Maybe he just wanted to see you.”

I let that sink in.

“T.B. told me that Pam had already told him that you'd been and left with Saul. And there was Steve and Pam at the bar together, looking like they'd just got there, but looking like they'd been together for at least a few hours already, if you know what I mean. When he saw me, when T.B. introduced me as the friend from out of town who'd been staying with you, he got one of those guilty looks on his face, except I got the weird impression that he'd already been wearing some version of that look before he saw me, but that seeing me somehow advanced the feeling for him somehow, exponentialing remorse into all-out regret.”

“
Exponentialing
is not a word,” I automatically corrected.

“I know, but it should be, shouldn't it? Anyway, Pam didn't look like she was feeling remorse or regret at all, neither one. Instead, she looked positively happi
er
when she saw me, like making sure you'd find out was the whole point of the exercise.”

“I'm not sure that the English language allows for positively happi
er,
either.”

“Probably not, Scarlett. But, God! Don't you want to hear what I'm trying to tell you?”

“Actually, no,” I said, because I'd realized that it was the truth. “I don't want to hear this at all. Can we stop now, please?”

She grabbed my hand. “Oh, shit, Scarlett. You don't want to hear it, and I sure as shit don't want to be telling you about it. But I have to, you know? If it'd been anyone else, if he'd been with anyone else, I'd never say a word.”

“You wouldn't?”

“Of course not. Why would I? I mean, come on. It's not like him deciding to deal with his feelings of betrayal by you by possibly sleeping with another woman is exactly what we'd choose for him to do, not in a perfect world, but people do have a tendency to deal with things that way. Sure, we'd like it if, while hurt, he recognized somewhere deep down inside that you're the one, that you're the only one, and even though he was angry he still managed to remain true to you. But come on, we've all seen
Friends.
When people are confused, and wounded by love, they have a tendency to react, sometimes in ways that are self-destructive and counter to their own interests. Men have a tendency to find someone to fuck, preferably while very intoxicated, and—”

“And women eat tons of ice cream. I know, I know.” And I did know, even if I didn't want to, not then, not when it was me. And of course I also knew that I'd behaved self-destructively myself earlier that night, more like a man than like a woman.

I knew it was unreasonable, for me to be upset at what Steve might or might not have done with Pam, in light of what I'd done with Saul. But what can I say? I'm not always reasonable. I'm a woman.

And. It. Was. Pam.

“I know it's weird for me to be telling you that it doesn't matter that he did this,” she said, “but it doesn't matter.”

“Tell me,” I said, feeling the knife twist in my heart. “Tell me how this doesn't matter.”

“Because it wasn't about wanting another woman, or loving another woman. It was because of wanting and loving you too much, and then feeling let down, maybe not forever but for now. He wasn't going to sleep with her because he stopped loving you—he was going to sleep with her because he loved you so much.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, not at all. It's just supposed to make you think.”

“And you wouldn't have told me this, not if it'd been some other woman he was with?”

“No, I honestly wouldn't have. I would have left it up to him whether to tell you or not, and I'd have found a way to make it clear to him that I wasn't going to decide his future for him. After all, it is his story to tell. Or not.”

“But it being Pam makes everything different?”

“Well,
yeah.
I mean, the way I figure it, he didn't betray you at all. But her? Shit, yeah.”

I mirrored her words back at her in a whisper of dawning realization: “Shit, yeah.”

Best Girlfriend got it: it wasn't the What of the thing; it was the Who With.

“And you have to know, Scarlett, I just plain couldn't stand it, seeing her sidling up next to him, having co-opted your clothes, your style with just about everything, your look—some of the best surface parts of you—not to mention the man you so much love, even if you're too stupid to know it. It was like I could see the whole thing right there, how everything had played out to that point, her always being
jealous of you and wanting to have everything you have—”

“Well, except for my job,” I put in, getting into the spirit of things, trying to think about Pam objectively as opposed to thinking about her as a vampire that I had willingly, mistakenly invited into my life. “I don't think she ever wanted my job.”

“True enough. But everything else? Your look, your sense of style, the way you are in the world and the way that the world feels about you—oh, yeah, baby, she wanted all of that.”

“How long have you known this?”

“Like, hmm—” and here she consulted the ceiling “—like since you met her? Like since that time you introduced me to her for the first time when I came home to visit right after you originally met her? Like when I could tell right away that she hated who I was in the history of your life and that she would have done anything to erase me?”

Infuriation speaking here: “And why didn't you tell me?”

Soft whisper: “Oh, no. I could never tell you that.”

“How come?” I was offended. “I thought we tell each other everything. Well, except of course for the fact that the man I'm in love with might have slept with someone else because you think I'd be better off not knowing, but that's a whole new situation we never encountered before, so I'll accept the precedent you've set for now.”

“Actually, I did tell you. I only said that I wouldn't have told you if it'd been anyone else but Pam.”

“Right. Pam. The snake in the grass. The snake you always knew was there. I believe you were about to tell me why you couldn't tell me that, even though you knew it all along?”

“Because I can't tell you who to be friends with.”

“Not even if you're fairly certain they're going to hurt me?”

“Nope. Not even then.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because it wouldn't be right.”

“How could protecting your best friend ever not be right?”

“Because what if my radar started going all phlooey on me? What if I started seeing shadows? What if I was wrong about somebody and only saw the bad in them because I was jealous of your other friendships and wanted to keep you for myself? Huh? What kind of friend would I be then?”

“You'd be Pam,” I said.

“Damn straight. And that's a risk I can't afford to take. Not for me. Not for you. If I really love you, then I need to trust you to choose your own path with people…well, for the most part.”

“And Pam? What happened at Minnesota's?”

“You mean Chalk Is Cheap?” she said.

I made an impatient gesture.

“Well, like I started to say, I could see just looking at her doing her spider-on-a-stool act there—”

“Spiders sit on stools?”

“When I'm telling this story, yeah, they do.”

“Go on.”

“And I could see what she was trying to be—you—and I could see how she'd gotten herself to that moment in time, how she'd been the one to first oh-so-innocently spill the beans to him about your oh-so-slight indiscretion—”

“Well, I did leave with the intention of screwing another man's brains out, an intention I fulfilled, I might add.”

“True. But those are just details compared to Pam.”

“Go on.”

“And I could see how she'd made sure to position herself to be the one to offer him consolation over his hurt. And I could see that even though he wanted to be as far away from her as possible, she'd appealed to the chivalrous part of his nature and had guilted him into buying her a drink preparatory to sex.”

“
Guilted
doesn't spell-check, either.”

“Sure it does. Fuck spell-check.”

“Go on.”

“And I could see one thing for damned certain.”

“Which was?”

“That even if it was acceptable for him to sleep with her, and even if it was on some teeny-tiny level acceptable for her to sleep with him under the guise of ‘my life has been one huge long disappointment, I'm bitter, and I just want to have a little closeness and this guy, even if he is my ostensible best friend's guy, looks like he could use a little human closeness, too,' even if all that could be made to fly, there was one small thing that just couldn't.”

“Which was?”

“Her coming on to him right there in Wyoming's.”

“Minnesota's.”

“Whatever. The point is that while Danbury might be a relatively small city, it's got its fair share of places to grab a drink. So why did she insist on having a drink with him, him who was surely not in his right mind, in your favorite place to drink? Because she wanted to hurt you. Because that was the whole point all along.”