Hummingbirds (17 page)

Binhammer watches the man’s hands, which seem to build something invisible and impossibly complex. He feels like he wants to know what that thing is—the thing that Ted Hughes holds square between his artisan fingers.

“That’s what I feel like,” Ted Hughes continues. “I don’t know any women. I only know situations.”

He is quiet again for a long time. Then he starts talking about a woman he once knew—a woman who wasn’t anything like Sibyl. He describes the way she sat, the way she crossed her legs and looked at him as though there were nothing in the world that he could get away with. He describes a windowsill, like this one here, where they sat and looked out and saw a group of children playing hopscotch outside on the sidewalk—except they were playing it wrong and she wanted to go outside and explain to them how to do it, and he wanted to see her do it too but she didn’t.

Then he laughs and brushes it off, but he’s still looking down at his hands, shaping the clay of memory, when he nods and says, “She was a situation. She was a whole gorgeous situation.” The way he says it makes Binhammer think that the woman he is describing is probably his wife.

And Ted Hughes, too, Binhammer realizes, has become a situation. Where Binhammer should feel jealous, he only feels sympathy. Where he should be angry, he only feels grateful. Ted Hughes, the center of so much feminine attention. Binhammer realizes, embarrassed, that what he wants most is to beat those women and girls at their own game, to be dynamic enough to hold the gaze of Ted Hughes. To be the center of attention of the center of attention. That would be something.

Good lord, he thinks. What now? Where do you go from here? Perverse, the idea of wanting to befriend your wife’s lover behind her back. It would be so much easier if he could hate the man—and hasn’t he tried?

Binhammer gets up from the chair, suddenly awake. Outside, finally, the darkness coming out from over the sea is tinged with color. On the boardwalk below two men emerge drunkenly from the doors of a casino to greet the sunrise. They support each other for a while, loping from side to side and declaiming to the sky in big gestures like ancient Greek stage actors. Then something happens and they become belligerent, pushing each other until one of them loses his balance and sits down on the boardwalk with a heavy thud. The other begins to walk away, but turns around before he’s gotten twenty feet and says something to the sitting man, who is now holding his head in his hands. The sitting man nods and the other one nods and they say some more things and then they both nod. After which the one offers the other a hand and raises him up, and they punch each other playfully on the shoulders and walk toward the beach again, laughing heartily.

“Should we wake up our girl?” Binhammer asks.

“Let’s go get something to eat first.”

“Okay. We’ll bring her back something.”

“Sure. And then we’ll kick her out.”

“Do you have your door key?”

“Yes.”

“So I don’t need mine?”

“No.”

“Listen,” Binhammer says as they shut the door behind them and wait for the elevator in the hall. He feels generous, magnanimous. “You and Sibyl. It’s not such a bad idea.”

“You think so?”

“I think she could use someone like you.”

Ted Hughes nods, as if considering an algebraic proof—and then, as they step into the elevator, something seems to occur to him and he smiles boyishly at Binhammer, as though the two of them have reached some kind of final accord after hours of debate. The elevator doors close and the two of them ride down to the lobby, watching the floor numbers tick by.

D
uring the days that Binhammer is out of town, Liz Warren finds herself sitting in the back of the class staring at the substitute with a face as close to porcelain still as she can get it—trying not to react in any way to the inane exchanges between Dixie Doyle and her ridiculous cadre of confidantes. She considered not going to class at all, but she’s getting something out of this exercise: a study in military stillness. She gazes at the lumpy shape of the substitute, who has not even made an attempt to teach but instead sits at the front desk, casually turning the pages of her magazine and looking up once in a while to make sure that nothing untoward is occurring.

Can she even see me? Liz Warren wonders. I am invisible. I have willed myself invisible. The invisible girl. I will find out what people really think of me.

She remains still as death even as she overhears Dixie Doyle relating the ridiculous story of her weekend.

“So my mother made me go talk to this girl in the hospital. Her leg got run over by a truck. Can you believe it? A truck! It was so awkward. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hi, I’m Dixie, how’s your leg?’ ‘Crushed, thanks. How’s yours?’”

“How did her leg get run over, Dixie?”

“She was crossing the street against the light. Someone tried to pull her back, but they didn’t in time and her leg still got crushed. Can you believe it? I mean, what do you say to someone like that?”

“How come you had to go see her, Dixie?”

“Well, apparently she’s my cousin.”

“Your
cousin?”

“I know. That’s what I said.”

Despite her extraordinary control up to this point Liz Warren flinches, and, just as she thought, with that slightest movement her invisibility pops off. Now Dixie is looking at her from four rows ahead.

“So, Liz,” she calls. “I hear tonight’s the big night. You better be careful—Jeremy’s a little pushy, if you know what I mean. At least he was with me. He might be more
gentlemanly
with you.”

“Shut up, Dixie,” Liz says, swinging her book bag over her shoulder and heading toward the door. The bell starts ringing by the time she gets there, and she’s the first one out of the room.

Earlier in the week, when Jeremy Notion asked her out, she said yes without thinking—that autonomic function of girlhood that makes her embarrassed now. Does she really want to go out with him? There is a part of her that wishes she could simply be asked out by boys, accept, and have it recorded in her journal without ever having to go on the dates themselves. The worst part about the date, it seems, is the date. Would she feel differently if it were someone else? She tries to imagine different boys, but she soon feels ridiculous—like one of those girls in frilly socks pining over pictures of movie stars in magazines.

Let’s be practical about this.

How does Dixie do it? The performance—how does she pull it off? How is she able to say the things she says?

During a Bardolph/Carmine-Casey canned food drive last year, one of the boys started talking to Liz while boxing up the cans. At first she was flattered by the attention. But then she began to suspect that there was something behind it. In her head, a scenario played itself out in which: he liked her from a distance; but when he started talking to her, he lost interest because all she could talk about was how much homework she had, and nobody wanted to hear about that; and then he wanted to be rid of her but couldn’t because he felt sorry for her and was a pretty decent
guy and so went out of his way to continue talking to her even though he didn’t really want to.

She felt in her bones that this was the case. She wanted to let him off the hook since he was at least nice enough to talk to her in the first place, so she kept telling him, “You know, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t feel like it,” and “You don’t have to walk me home. I have some work to do anyway,” and, regarding their one date, “You can go see the movie with someone else if you want to. I know you said we would go, but you shouldn’t feel obligated.”

And she was right, because eventually he took her up on her offer and stopped walking her home and stopped talking to her altogether. So far, that is the closest Liz Warren has come to having a boyfriend, and she supposes that it’s rather pathetic if you look at it for too long.

It doesn’t help her mood that when she gets home that evening her mother stands in the doorway of her room, wanting to help her get dressed.

“What are you going to wear, Lizzie?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.” She says it as though it would be the very summit of absurdity to even consider the question. She can hear the way she talks to her mother, but she doesn’t know how to stop herself.

“You haven’t thought about it? But, honey, isn’t he going to be here in an hour?”

“He’s not coming here. I’m meeting him.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Warren frowns and picks a thread from the front of her blouse.

“I have to finish reading this chapter, Mom.”

“I think you should wear—”

“It’s Tolstoy, in case you were interested.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”

“I think you should wear your green skirt. Green always makes you look so
sophisticated.
Against the color of your hair. A lot of women wish they had your hair.”

“They can have it. I’m not wearing a skirt.”

“Oh, I really wish you would consider it. You don’t have to wear those jeans all the time. Sometimes it’s nice to dress up. What if he gets dressed up? You don’t want him to think you don’t care. Boys like skirts.”

“Can we just—” says Liz, who has been flinching throughout her mother’s speech. “I’m not going to wear a skirt.”

“I don’t know why you have to be so difficult about it.”

“Mother—”

“Uh-oh. I know I’m in trouble when you start calling me Mother. Okay, okay. I’m going.”

When her mother has gone, Liz calls her friend Monica Vargas to complain that her mother won’t leave her alone about Jeremy Notion. Monica Vargas explains, with the preternatural wisdom of a child of divorce, that mothers are the broken reflections of their daughters, deeply flawed and shimmering at you full-length from the closet door. “They’re just like anyone else,” Monica says. “They like to look forward to things. But really they just don’t know what to do.”

Talking with Monica about mothers and fathers is like seeking the counsel of a Tibetan monk. While all the other girls are whining about how unfairly they have been treated at the hands of their parents, Monica sits cross-legged on her bed and utters koans that bend your mind back upon itself. And suddenly, before you know it, you feel like you want to make your parents breakfast in bed.

Then Monica asks, “So what are you going to do on this date of yours?” She does not approve of Jeremy Notion, and neither, to be honest, does Liz. So whenever they talk about it, it’s as if they’re discussing a scientific experiment.

“I don’t know. I think he’s taking me to dinner.”

“Where? I’ll put twenty bucks on Italian.”

Italian food is the only way teenage boys know how to be romantic.

After she hangs up with Monica Vargas, Liz looks up to find her mother pretending to walk nonchalantly by her door.

“Oh,” she says, as though it has just occurred to her in pass
ing, “by the way, you can borrow these earrings if you want.” She holds out two green teardrops in her palm. “But they’re emerald—you may want to wear something that goes with them. Just an idea.”

“Okay,” Liz says, trying to be sympathetic. “But I think I’ll just wear the ones I have on.”

Her mother takes this as an invitation to come into the room and examine Liz’s ears—whereupon Liz makes a face and uses her thumbnail to scratch the side of her nose. She pulls herself away from her mother’s groping hands and sits with her back against the pillows of her bed.

“You know,” her mother says, “I was really hoping to meet him. Will you bring him around next time?”

“We’ll see.”

“Tell me,” her mother says, brightening suddenly, “what does he look like? Is he cute?”

“Oh my god.”

“Do you want to know about a boy I dated when I was your age? He had a big mop of curly hair. It was adorable.”

Liz cringes and pulls her knees up to her chest. “Listen,” she says, trying to be nice, “I have to go pretty soon. Can we talk about this later?”

“You know, Lizzie, this is a big time in a mother’s life, too. I mean, I’ve loved going to all your award dinners and everything. I couldn’t be more proud. But this…You know, for a mother, her daughter’s first real date—”

“Can we just please stop talking about this? Please?”

“Okay, okay,” her mother says, holding up her palms in retreat as she exits the room.

Before leaving to meet Jeremy, Liz closes her door and tries on the green skirt that her mother wants her to wear. Standing before the mirror, she thinks it makes her look okay. But then she thinks about him thinking about why she would wear the green skirt. So uncharacteristic of her. He’ll see it as a pathetic attempt to impress him. So she takes the thing off and tosses it aside and puts her jeans back on.

She doesn’t want him thinking that she takes this whole thing too seriously.

They meet at the fountain in Central Park—his idea. When she gets there, he hasn’t arrived yet, so she walks in a wide circle along the winding paths, and by the time she comes back there he is, leaning against the concrete edge of the fountain with his ankles crossed like some kind of larval James Dean.

“Hey,” he says and reaches to hug her—but she’s not prepared and doesn’t get her arms uncrossed in time, and so he ends up embracing her awkwardly with her arms pressed between their chests.

“Okay,” she says, whatever that means.

“You smell nice,” he says. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” because she really doesn’t. “Just my shampoo, I guess.”

She wonders if she smiles too much—or not enough. The thought bothers her, and she decides to keep a tally. On the left side of her brain she’ll count the number of times she smiles, and on the right side she’ll count the number of times Jeremy does.

“Are you ready to go?” He smiles.

She smiles.

Then she begins to suspect that she’s not actually smiling when she thinks she’s smiling—that what feels like a smile on her face just looks like a thin-lipped nonexpression to everyone else. When they get to the restaurant, she’ll go into the bathroom and check in the mirror.

While she’s thinking about the concordance of her smiles, Jeremy begins talking about the weekend he spent swimming in the lake at his uncle’s house upstate. By the time they reach the restaurant she discovers that she only has to listen to about ten percent of what he says to respond appropriately.

After they’re seated, he asks if they should try to get a bottle of wine. “I look pretty old. Sometimes I can get away with it.”

But she shakes her head.

They order, and the waiter brings their food, and while Jeremy Notion is twirling his fettuccini around his fork, he be
comes philosophical and says, “Yeah. I don’t know what happened with Dixie. I’m not sure why I was going out with her in the first place.”

“Well, she’s very sophisticated,
n’est pas?”

“I guess she was sophisticated—oh, I get it. You were joking.”

She’s embarrassed. How did she get so petty? So mean? She gives herself a brutal pinch on the thigh as punishment, hard enough to make her eyes water.

“I guess it was just nice to think she wanted to go out with me. You know. The way she is.”

The way she is.

Throughout the evening Liz has the feeling of being watched, the uncomfortable sense that her actions are being monitored by a note-taking critic. She has frequently felt this in circumstances that require social grace, but tonight she can actually name the critic gazing at her from the wings: Dixie Doyle. That’s right. No matter how much she tries to lose herself in the soft, blue, innocuous puddles of Jeremy’s eyes, she cannot get past the feeling that she is actually on a date with Dixie herself. Dixie Doyle by proxy—the inane, grinning, pigtail-wearing, lollipop-licking incarnation of plastic-doll girlhood. Sure, on some level she feels an obligation to impress Jeremy—the
boy
in the matter (she thinks of romantic espionage, of Graham Greene)—but overriding that feeling is the obligation to impress Dixie.

Dixie, she realizes with a sickening twist of her stomach, would have wanted her to wear the green skirt.

Liz drops her fork onto her plate with a clatter and leans back. She can’t eat anything else.

“What’s the matter?” Jeremy asks worriedly.

“Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. I’m just full.”

“Oh. Okay. I just thought…I mean, that’s okay. You don’t have to eat any more…. You know, I really like your play. The play you wrote. It’s really good.”

After dinner he walks her home, and when they get to the corner of her building he stops and stands in front of her and
looks at her deeply for a second, like a party magician trying to hypnotize someone. They are standing in front of a newsstand, and the fat oily man behind the counter is smoking a cigar and staring at them. She notices that one of his ears looks like it’s been chewed away, and she wonders what it would be like to be attacked by a dog.

Then Jeremy leans down and kisses her. First once, tentatively, and when she doesn’t do anything he readjusts his whole body and sinks himself into her face again, for longer this time.

She thinks she should put a hand somewhere on him, on his shoulder or his hip or something, but she can’t quite focus on what’s happening.

The newspaperman with the chewed ear watches them solemnly and scratches himself.

At any minute she expects Dixie Doyle to pop out from behind the newsstand, laughing and pointing, pointing and laughing—shrieking in that preposterous bubblegum voice of hers, that voice that seems to trick people into melting over it, the voice that rings out clearer through the halls than any bell at Carmine-Casey.