Inside Madeleine (10 page)

“I said, swallow them.” Mary grabbed Carol’s jaw and tried to shut it. For such a big woman, behaving in such an intimidating fashion, she felt like Jell-O in Mary’s hands and fell backward on the bed as Mary mashed her jaw together. Carol began laughing, muffled by Mary’s hands, but laughing all the same. Then Mary stood back and slapped her, hard, across the face.

Carol sat up. “
Oooh
, you’re not supposed to do that.”

“Fuck
you
. You’re a cow. A disgusting cow.”

“
Oooh
, miss pretty said a bad word. You’re not supposed to talk to me that way.
Tsk tsk
. I always knew you were
bad
.” Then she began to laugh again.

Blood poured into Mary’s face, the same blood that made her blush easily, the same blood that betrayed her nervous nature,
that showed her easy shame, and she pulled back her arm and punched Carol’s soft, greasy face, as hard as she could. A glistening circle of red appeared on Carol’s mouth and began dripping down her chin. She cowered on the bed, looking momentarily frightened. Then she smiled.

“That was
wrong
. You did the
wrong
thing, missy.”

The phone rang. Horrified, Mary ran down the stairs. It was Brigid.

“I think Carol is really manic,” Mary said.

“Can you get her to take some extra Valium?”

“I’m trying, but she’s not being very cooperative.”

“Well, keep trying.”

“I need help.” There was a silence. “I’m afraid.”

“She won’t hurt you. She may seem menacing, but she’s never hurt anybody.”

“I think she should be hospitalized.”

“Maybe I should come.”

“Maybe I should call the hospital?”

“You could do that. Call an ambulance. I feel like I should be there for such a decision, but … do whatever you think is right.”

The ambulance came in five minutes.
Maybe
, Mary thought,
no one will find out I hit her
. Or believe her. A crazy woman’s word against hers. The two paramedics escorted her out as Mary stood on the porch. It was dark and unusually cool for August, although it wouldn’t be August much longer.

“What happened to her mouth?” asked one of the
paramedics. He was holding Carol’s arm, standing right in front of Mary.

“I don’t know,” Mary said, her right hand shoved deep in her jean pocket. “She’s been out of control for hours. That’s why I called you guys.”

They walked toward the ambulance. Mary stood on the porch, watching them.

“
You shouldn’t have done that, Mareee!
” Carol screamed at her, and then she disappeared in the back of the van.

The next morning, Mary met her father for lunch at an Italian restaurant on Newbury Street. There were red and white checkers on the tablecloth, and opera music played on a radio. They sat outside, but it was bit chilly. He leaned over the table, so close to her, his glasses slightly fogged from breathing too hard. His face looked creepy: he was getting old. Why had she never noticed this before?

“It’s so good to see you,” he said, reaching his hands out to grab hers. She pulled her hands away and watched her father’s face fall.

“What happened to your hand?”

“Nothing.”

“You look so beautiful, Mary.” He put a hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged him off. “What do you want from me?”

“Want from you?”

“Yeah?”

“I just want to see you, Mary. You’re my daughter. I don’t
want
anything from you!”

The look on his face! The pain! And it was all because of her. Mary got up and walked to the door.

“Mary? Mary!” He called after her.

That night, Larissa and Mary had a party at their apartment. Larissa bought a half keg and bottles of whiskey and vodka and laid out colorful plastic cups. She called everyone she knew. Mary did nothing, except help her carry stuff up the stairs and then help her arrange things; she pushed the kitchen table against the wall, as Larissa pointed her finger at her, telling her to do it.

“And I’d like you to chip in for the booze.”

“Of course,” said Mary.

Larissa stood there, looking thoughtful, one hand on her now well defined hip. She’d lost so much weight that summer that her once childish pudginess was gone entirely. Her dark hair, once short and framing her face, now hung in thick long curls around her shoulders. Her face had cheekbones that stuck out angularly and her breasts curved low on her chest, like a woman much older than nineteen. She was mesmerizing. Beautiful. Mary stared at her.

Mary set up the keg and pumped and pumped it. She began drinking before people arrived. She kept drinking once they did arrive. In fact, she stayed standing, next to the keg, drinking, until the keg was empty. She served other people, who came and went. The music was loud. The Velvet Underground, Joy Division, David Bowie. It bothered her. Why had she thought this crap more sophisticated than Van Halen? Why had she
been so impressed? She longed for her room at home, with its bland furniture and posters of horses. She longed for the quiet of her small town. Stumbling, she went into her back room to lie down. People were sitting on her bed, talking. Other kids sat on the floor, their legs bent up so they could fit in the tiny space. She fell on the bed and passed out.

The next morning, the apartment was a mess. She knew she had to clean it. Larissa would tell her to. She thought if she cleaned up before Larissa woke, that it would make her happy. Her head hurt and her mouth tasted awful. While collecting cups filled with the dregs of beer and cigarette ashes, she felt bile rise in her throat. She went to the bathroom and threw up. When she came out, Larissa was standing there, wearing a dark green nightgown that went down to her ankles.

“Are you okay?” she asked, voice unfriendly.

“I got sick.”

“I can see.”

“I’ve been cleaning up after the party. The smell of stale beer and cigarettes made me ill.”

“I think it was all the beer you drank. You drank half of that keg yourself. Now, can I get in there?”

“Yeah.”

After Mary had finished cleaning the apartment she took a hot shower. She was supposed to work the next day. And it was a group meeting day, too. With a towel wrapped around her, she headed back to her room.

“I need to talk to you,” Larissa said. She was sitting on the purple couch, smoking. The smell of the smoke made Mary’s heart pound.

“Okay.” Mary stood there.

“Go get dressed. Don’t just stand there in your towel.”

Mary headed into her room and shut the door. Larissa found her repulsive. She could tell. Funny how that was, how Larissa’s body excited her, moved her, really. And she had the exact opposite effect on Larissa. She didn’t look at herself as she threw on jeans and a T-shirt.

“That was quick.” Larissa said, and it sounded like an insult. “Listen, you have to move out. Clay is moving in.”

“What?”

“You have two weeks,” she said and blew a perfect smoke ring.

“Where will I go?”

Larissa laughed. “That’s your problem, honey. You know, you never do anything. You’re so … so passive. This will be good for you. Force you to take some responsibility for your life.”

“But the plan was to live here for the next school year—”

“The plan changed.” Larissa interjected. “And you aren’t on the lease, anyway.”

“Why don’t you like me?”

There was a pause, as if Larissa were really thinking about this question. Then she said, “What’s there to like?”

“What did you ever like about me?”

“I don’t know if I ever did.”

“Then you’re just as fucked up as I am.”

“I doubt that,” she said, dryly.

“
You don’t know me
,” Mary said, and her voice was different than she’d ever heard it before. She lifted her bloody knuckles at Larissa. “
You don’t know the half of me
.”

She ran out of the apartment, down the rancid smelling stairs, out onto the street.

On Harvard Avenue, the traffic was light. It was two o’clock on a Sunday. She looked wildly back and forth. She saw no one she knew. Somehow, this comforted her. Then she thought, what did she care if she saw someone she knew? What did it matter what anyone thought of her? She turned up Commonwealth Avenue and started walking toward Cleveland Circle, toward Cleveland Circle House.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Mareee!”
Where would she go now? She kept walking until she came to a bus stop. There, she stopped and sat down. A bus came, and she got on it. It drove up the hill, toward Cleveland Circle. There was the house. She saw the smokers smoking on the porch. She wouldn’t go to work tomorrow. No, she’d never go back there. The bus kept going, and Mary panicked. At the next stop, she got off. She ran to a pay phone.

Her mother answered the phone. “Yes, I’ll accept the charges,” her mother said, her voice familiarly stiff with barely suppressed rage.

“Mom. Is Dad back yet? Is he there? I need him …”

“No. He’s there visiting
you
. Where are you? Why in God’s name are you calling collect? Mary? Mary! Are you there!?”

Mary hung up. Here was a woman who hated Mary for some power she perceived Mary to have. Just like Larissa hated her for her lack of it.

She’d try calling the hotel. Maybe he hadn’t left yet. He’d forgive her, he
loved
her. Yes, he did, and that was all that really mattered.

“S
EE THIS
,” L
ISE SAID, SHOWING ME A BEAUTIFUL, INTRICATE TATTOO OF AN
A
SIAN DESIGN ON HER RIGHT FOREARM, JUST BELOW HER WRIST
.

“It’s beautiful,” I said without touching it, although I wanted to.

“This is my ‘I’m never going to be a fucking bank teller’ tattoo,” she said, smiling. Her hair had recently been shaved into a military-like flat top and dyed white. Lise was much cooler than me. Her family had tons of money, so why would she ever need to be a bank teller?

I was her doormat friend. This was a good thing for me to be at the time, for various reasons. For one, it was the only way to be her friend at all. I treated her with adoration and she tolerated me and mocked me gently from time to time. As good as my adoration must have felt to her, it also felt good to adore her. It felt like love in my heart, like the unrequited love I once had for my older sister when I was seven and she was twelve. It felt a bit like my love for Ron, my boyfriend at the time, a drummer in a rock band, who wasn’t a very good boyfriend.

Lise lived off of an enormous trust fund and had never held a job in her life. At the time, I was waiting on tables at an Italian restaurant on Newbury Street in Boston. I had come to New York to visit her. We had met years before, in a summer abroad program in Mexico during high school. Now, she lived in a spacious one bedroom apartment on the twenty-first floor of a doorman building on Sixteenth and Third Avenue. The windows held stunning views. I looked out at the fall sun, bright, but holding the chill of the air in it. I wanted to say, what’s wrong with being a bank teller? But I knew the answer. It wasn’t cool. It was being average. It was working for
the man
. It wasn’t making your art.

“Well, it’s beautiful,” I said again, and I meant it. Mostly, I was jealous. I could never get such a tattoo. I needed to work and I had no idea what kind of work I would need to get in the future. Bank teller? It seemed better than sucking dick for a living. I was only twenty-two.

“Let’s go shopping after I feed the cats,” she said and put her coffee mug in the sink. She had two cats, one enormous, half-blind cat named Dave and a little thing called Susie. I did the breakfast dishes while she tended to her pets. Then we went out. It was a gorgeous day and the East Village was so different than Allston, the neighborhood where I lived in Boston. It was so much cooler, like Lise was cooler than me. It had a secret language I could feel, but couldn’t decipher. I wanted more than anything to hold the key to its language. But in the meantime, I would have to walk around, craning
my overly long neck around, absorbing the people and stores as they passed me by.

“Careful, Linda,” said Lise, annoyed, as always, with my clumsiness. “You keep bumping into me.”

The next time I visited her I was very sad. My boyfriend, Ron, had been treating me like shit. I’d been going out with him for two years and he was the first man to ever give me an orgasm. In fact, he gave me an orgasm before I ever gave myself one, so I was very attached to him. But he was an asshole. He had borrowed six hundred dollars from me and then hadn’t returned my phone calls for two weeks. The last two days of those two weeks I had stood outside of his apartment at night, staring in at the light in his bedroom window, feeling thick with self-hatred. When he did call me back, he said he couldn’t see me right now. That he needed his space. I had three days off in a row from work, so I took the Greyhound to visit Lise. She was good that way. She never turned me away. She let me visit.

“Check it out,” she said, tilting her chin upward. She had a new tattoo on her neck in gothic style writing.

“Is that your name?” I asked.

“Yeah, man. It hurt so much. But it was worth it. It’s so jail. No one is ever going to fuck with me now.”

I tried to think of any time that anyone had fucked with her and I couldn’t. She went to a posh private school, a Quaker school, in San Francisco. There were some stories of mean nannies. But still, her life always struck me as quite safe.

“Wow.” I said about her new tattoo. “That is really rad.”

Her live-in boyfriend, Dylan, who played in a punk band, was back in LA, visiting his friends from Crossroads, she explained.

“Crossroads?” I asked. “Isn’t that a rehab?”

“No, Linda,” Lise said, like I was the dumbest person in the world. “It’s the school he went to in LA.”

Because Dylan was out of town, I got to sleep in Lise’s bed with her. This was an enormous treat for me. I could run my hands over her bristly yet soft, closely shaved hair. She was on the zaftig side. We would spoon, and my hands could touch her bosomy chest. She was like a big, comfy pillow to my angles and corners; my straight, bony body. I savored the closeness: I was so hurt then, so mad at my boyfriend and mad at myself for needing him to go down on me to get off. Before we went to sleep, we tented the blanket over our heads like children playing a game. Suddenly our warm, damp bodies blossomed into the bubble the tented blankets had made. We had entered another world, like children do. Oh, the intimacy! The heat of our bodies, our animal selves, safe and covered! We heard a tiny meow above us, felt the tender steps of little paws. Lise opened the blanket to let the kitty in.