Heartbreaker (5 page)

*   *   *

Frog, she says on the phone, into his answering machine. It's me.

What do you want? Mrs. Hoff says, picking up the phone, and the girl is too startled for a moment to say anything.

What? Mrs. Hoff repeats.

I want to talk to Frog, the girl says. Where is he?

At a friend's.

A
friend's
? Natalie says. She is lashed by jealousy, rage. She clenches the phone until her knuckles go white.

He can't talk to you, Mrs. Hoff says, and hangs up.

*   *   *

It's almost noon by the time she gets to school. She doesn't have her books or her backpack; her hair is uncombed, her top from the night before wrinkled and stained under the arms. As she cuts through the main building, she sees that someone has written on her locker in black marker
Natalie Harper fucks retards.

She punches through the heavy double doors and strides toward the special ed bungalow at the back of the field. Soon the bell will ring for lunch and there will be students everywhere, streaming across the hot grass. But for now it's just Natalie, and the bungalow, and Frog's face through the window, turned toward a piece of paper on his desk.

Chris! she shouts, slapping an open palm against the glass.
Chris!

He lifts his head, looking first in the wrong direction, then catching her eye. She's hitting the thick glass so hard she can feel it vibrating in her elbow, her shoulder; she must look crazy, she thinks, with her bad hair and ugly clothes, her fist coming down again and again, but he just smiles, a smile so wide it swallows her, it breaks her heart.

 

STILETTO

The garage belongs to my father. We—three half brothers, not a single mother in common—work for cash stuffed in envelopes and pinned to a board next to the refrigerator. I am the shortest of my siblings by far, my head not even hoping to graze their chins. When they want to describe how small something is—a mini-fridge, an enemy's penis—they say it is
Robert-size.
Among us brothers there are meth addictions, adult acne, and missing teeth, but my height is the crown jewel of our misfortunes, so constantly, awfully funny that my brothers have to choke back laughter every time they see me, even though they see me almost every day, even though, at 5'1", I am technically not a midget but merely below average. A distinction lost on them. On everyone.

*   *   *

Where I live is what they call a “garden” apartment; it sits mostly belowground, damp, low-ceilinged.
Perfect for you!
the landlord bellowed when he showed it to me, and it is perfect—not because of the ceilings, but because of the single dim window above my bed. Through it I see STILETTO. I also see dog paws—dog shit—bicycle tires—sneakers—rubber—pure sidewalk. My window grows filthy with cigarette ash and piss. Trash caresses the glass, twitching in between the bars of the iron grate, a sensual shudder mirroring my own as I wait for STILETTO to walk by. Her passing lasts a miraculous three seconds, slow enough for me to see what I want to see, fast enough to keep me hoping for more: skin, muscle, tendon, bone, the briefest flash of a blister above the patent lip of her high high heel.

After I see STILETTO I do this to myself: my foot up on the back of the sink, the razor skimming down and down, down and in. The blood goes in fat lines to the drain, some to the floor. The whole time I'm cutting I'm also saying
Fuckfuckfuck
: then I drop the blade, rinse my fingers, and turn on the water. I wrap a white towel over my ankle and knot it tight.

I wish I could explain this to you, what I'm doing, why I'm doing it. I've tried all the short man's voodoo: lifts in my shoes—stretching—vitamins—diets. My brothers just laughed harder. And now I think, there's already so little of me, what's a little less? Pain is not the point, though it tags along.

*   *   *

At work I can barely walk. In the kitchen I pour some coffee and Dad says What are you, drunk? I shake my head, one hand on my stomach, and drink my coffee. It's agony trying to ease myself down on the creeper but once I'm off my feet the pain simmers down to a dull constant throb. I can feel my pant leg hitched up and I know the bandages are showing. Carl stops at my feet and says What the fuck, dude. Then his boots move on. When I know the coast is clear I roll out, go inside to use the bathroom. Carl can probably fill the mirror over the sink with his reflection. Not me. Just my face and the top of my shoulders show. But I'm not looking in the mirror, I'm unwinding the bandage, which is stained through. The wound is sticking to the bandage and it will hurt if I peel it off now so I don't, I just rewind the bandage tight, trying not to inhale the sickish-sweet odor that rises from it. Ray bangs on the door, says he has to piss. I ignore him. The bathroom window looks out onto an ordinary street, residential, clean, empty—it means nothing to me. Most windows don't, most feet don't. It's not like I'm some kind of fetishist. Or if I am, it's a new thing, it happened since the apartment, since STILETTO, and it's not my fault. The thought of holding a razor now makes me feel sick. But I know I'll go home and I'll see her and then the razor will seem harmless, will seem good, and I'll be right back where I started.

I bend down, unroll the cuff on my pant leg, and open the door.

Christ, I thought you'd fallen in and we'd have to fish your ass out, Ray says, shoving my head, and I am so tired I don't even tell him to go fuck himself, I just slide back under a car and stay there.

*   *   *

On payday I come home and find my envelope short $20. I count the bills over and over—we are paid in ones and fives—and then I sit staring at the envelope, chewing my cheek. I hobble to the phone and dial my father's number. Take it or leave it, he says, and hangs up. I hit the receiver against the wall and am surprised when it breaks, plastic shooting under the fridge, clattering across the stove. There is only room for one person in the kitchen, and when I stand still in the middle I can touch the fridge, the sink, and the oven without taking a step. It's a shithole, I realize, this kitchen, this apartment. I eat some SpaghettiOs out of the pot. My ankle flares.

Outside the window traffic is heavy and I am roadkill beneath it all night long.

*   *   *

On Monday, a workday, a miracle: lying prone beneath the corroded belly of a Ford I hear the click-clack I'd only ever heard through glass approaching in full stereo—STILETTO coming straight toward me! I am breathless, instantly hard, terrified. I am a panicked dog in its cage hoping for a kick.

Carl, she calls. Carl!

What's her voice like? Like your mother threatening to take something away from you.

You've had it since eight yesterday morning, she says, and I realize that the clean midprice Saab convertible just a few feet away from me belongs to
her—
how could I not have guessed it, the gleaming black paint job a perfect echo of STILETTO's heels.

I told you it'll be ready at six, Carl whisper-whines, and I flinch again, because he knows her,
knows
, maybe not quite fucking her, but almost? Or wants to? Or used to want to? She is Dad's age—it's in her voice, the skin on her feet—and Carl is almost handsome, long hair bleached yellow, though all of our hair is naturally brown: their shoes are so close together, the brutal steel-toed boots, the teetering heels.

I can't take the bus back, she says, and he sighs. I hear his hand run through his hair, I hear his hair fall back over his eye.

There's a Starbucks two blocks down, why don't you wait and it will be done in an hour, he says. I see the toe of one shoe lift as STILETTO stretches her Achilles, a gesture of consideration, impatience; finally she agrees, though not before saying that it isn't worth the deal Carl's giving her, it's no deal if Carl can't do something simple on time. I know Carl is less than interested in her complaint—he must have made the promise to her long ago, not expecting it to be cashed in—and I think
You stupid fucking bastard Carl.
I watch STILETTO walk back down the drive, tight steps hobbled by a tight skirt, and I braid my arms deep in the guts of the Ford's undercarriage.

Dad's boots come down the backdoor steps. What's it need? he barks, and Carl
pff
s. Fucking oil, he says. Dad says You're an idiot and Ray laughs from the lawn, where he is messing with a dead engine. I'm done with the Ford—I hardly have any work to do all day—but I stay beneath it. Carl tests the Saab and I listen; it hums. Dad's fist raps the hood of my car. YOU GOT THAT RUNNING GOOD, ROBERT? he yells and I feel myself draining into the bandages as I shout YES SIR.

Carl finishes with the oil and bangs the hood of the car shut. Vacuum, he orders, and drops the Shop-Vac at my feet. While he eats his lunch on the porch step I vacuum STILETTO's car with ruthless precision. The floor mat below her pedals is an especially tender area and I stroke the nozzle over every nook and cranny, the vacuum's hungry sucking music to my ears. I polish the pedals with a damp cloth, Windex the glass on the dashboard. I could lick the steering wheel—the pedals—the pale leather seats—there are so many temptations to resist. For a moment, for many moments, I refrain. But in the end I am only human.

The rear door opens with a click. I get in, coil on the floor behind the driver's seat. I breathe. Already my back aches. With my dark hair, my dark clothes, pressed against the dark carpet, I might be a backpack or a duffel bag, a dropped cloth. I wait.

*   *   *

Less than an hour later I hear STILETTO approach, her heels
cawk-cawking
as she steps up to the kitchen door and calls for Carl. There's a muffled conversation about payment; I can almost hear the sound of STILETTO's money being crushed in Carl's greasy fist. Then she opens the car door and her body slides into place, displacing lesser molecules, and I turn my nose toward the floor so I can get a better look, my whole body tuning itself to this vision: the wink of patent leather against flesh. The slamming of the door, the car ON; I am made of flames. STILETTO's high heel, indented minutely—by gravel, or stones—nails the mat as she depresses the gas. I'm doing it wildly, my hand between my legs, the sound of the road eating the sound of my terrible pleasure. Did she notice how I polished her steering wheel, sucked the dust from her console—the cup holder—the coin tray? Fuck Carl, I could be her mechanic for life. She turns on the radio—voices, not music—and the turn signal
click click click
s
.
Shadows are passing over me, caressing me—trees, buildings, streetlights—and I shiver beneath them, a hunchback, a fetus, curled so tight, my eyes narrowed and burning. And the air rancid with her perfume.

*   *   *

She parks somewhere quiet. Still. Complete stillness. The engine ticks down. Suburb? Which one? Without the sound of the road, without the radio, I have to be quiet; I hold my breath. She's waiting for something. I inch my hand, wet, under the seat; I can sense her weight through the sag of the springs, and her nearness radiates like an X-ray right through me.

*   *   *

Maybe it's a minute that she stays here, part of the air she is breathing my air, part of her body a part, in a way, of mine. Then a hand reaches down and my chest surges and she eases off her shoes, releasing a delicate, private bouquet. With a sigh the door opens, her fingers hooked to carry the shoes, lifting them out of my sight, and there is a glimpse of her bare feet—a flash of toenail (red! as expected!)—and then the door is shutting and the locks are locking—

And because she is barefoot I can't hear her walking away, she is instantly a ghost, ghosted, STILETTO soft now and shoeless and who knows when she is coming back. I whimper; my ankle is killing me. I need to pee. I could get out—I have to get out—I could stand outside her house, look through her windows, find her face. But I don't; I stay where I am, pleasureless, inhaling the cold sick smell of car carpet and my own damp crotch.

I ease my phone from the pocket of my coveralls and dial each of my brothers until one of them answers. I close my eyes and say I need a ride, and Carl makes a farting sound with his mouth and says Where are you? I imagine STILETTO's front door—I imagine knocking—I imagine her letting me in.

I'm here, I say, and then I hang up.

 

SHOP LADY

There's a woman, I don't know if you know her, she works downtown, she's a clerk at Kessler's jewelry store. Men come in and stare at the ropes of silver and gold she lays across her hands; they never know what to buy so they say What do you think? And she always recommends the middle-priced one, so they'll understand she isn't just trying to get more money, she honestly thinks this is the best one. They pull out their wallets and put them on the counter, they flip through a stack of cards and rub their foreheads. She wraps what she's chosen in tissue paper and a box with a shiny ribbon. That makes the men happy, they can barely remember on the way home what she has put inside, but they don't worry. It's always a hit, she has the touch, she knows what people are going to like. When it's slow and there are no husbands or groups of women whispering and looking at their phones the woman leans against the counter, she's tired, she has one foot wrapped around the ankle of the other as she rubs her tights together. Then someone comes in and she puts both heels on the floor; she smiles and runs her hand along the glass counter looking like she has just come out of a dream.

*   *   *

How I know all this is I'm watching her. When I moved here with my dad a few months ago I made friends with this girl, Charity, and we started to skip school and come down here almost every week to this coffee place across from where the jewelry shop is. When we sat on the curb to smoke I started noticing this woman in the shop. The store is almost all windows so you can see everything and after a while you get to know the kind of customers who go in and you know which one is shopping for his wife or girlfriend, which one is just looking, which one is bored or whatever and doesn't care how much something costs. The shop lady smiles at everyone, not in a fake way, but like she really cares about selling all this stuff. She has dark skin, maybe she's Spanish or Italian, and she wears long dresses and little quilted jackets and some of the jewelry they sell in the shop.