Inukshuk (19 page)

“So,” he said, leaning toward her over the table as soon as the server had gone.

“And so, and so,” she replied.

 

 

 

MAYBE IT WAS THE PILLS—an ensuing numbness and dizziness mixed with heart-racing sleepiness—or maybe it was just as she said: It was his turn now. She'd shared something that terrified her, a secret of sorts, and also let him put his hand in her shirt. Now it was his turn. He needed to bare something too, share a secret. So he did. He told her everything. Spilled it all—about the diet and making himself throw up and eating antacids to block or neutralize stray traces of ascorbic acid, the whole deal; what he hoped for and why he kept failing, breaking down, eating fruit leathers and puking them up again—hemorrhagic sores, teeth falling out, blackened skin, old scars reopening, long-healed broken bones unmending. Didn't go as far as to share with her the thing he'd discovered only the night before, that it was purest self-hatred motivating him and making him wish he'd disintegrate from the inside out. That was too new, and anyway he was not entirely sure of it.

Afterward, she was silent for so long beside him in the thickening shadows, he wondered if the pills had kicked in, knocked her out or sent her off to a similar state somewhere between sleep and waking. He lay on his side, facing her, a hand on her rib cage moving up and down with her breaths, and trying to discern whether her eyes were open or shut. Beyond her, in the corner of the basement beside the exercise bike and NordicTrack machine, her father's upright golf bag had transformed into one of the sailors. He was sure of it. Maybe more than one. Their eyes blinking at him where the club handles would have been, bodies bent and bulky as overstuffed bags, blackened, bearded faces indistinguishable from the shadows. He heard them whispering back and forth, a sibilant, senseless stream of sound.
See-see-shoe-shoe
. . .

“See, sea, C,” he said.

Jill raised herself on an elbow, pulling hair from one side of her face. “What? See what?”

“Nothing. I was just saying. I was thinking. They're all the same thing . . . sound the same. C, sea, see. See? Isn't that cool?”

“What in the world?”

“Never mind.”

“You are very strange,” she said, and again lay down. “And I am . . . very tired. Is it affecting you that way? Just
so
sleepy and maybe a little light-headed, and actually like . . . I feel pretty good, actually.”

“Can I?” he asked, and again slid his hand back inside her shirt, where it had been most of the time since they'd come downstairs.

“OK, but the weird thing is . . .” she began.

He waited, but nothing more followed. He squeezed lightly. Her flesh felt warm and clammy under his, still weirdly pliant and unskinlike, nothing he was accustomed to, but now behaving more like actual skin in response to his own skin and getting hot and kind of annoying. “Yes,” he prompted finally. Removed his hand. “The weird thing . . .” Still no answer.

He rolled onto his back, sat up, and looked around.

The men had detached from the shadows and come forward, not shimmering and holographic like cheesy Spielberg specters, nothing Disney or CGI about them at all. Completely real. He waved a hand at them. No reaction.
Guys,
he wanted to say.
Hey guys! You found me!
They were more like paintings of the old Flemish masters he remembered from his mother's art books—a onetime favorite of hers—grim and sorrowful, big-nosed and terribly detailed, with heavy greens showing through the underpainting. One younger, one older. Hoar and Work. Had to be, though mostly unlike his drawings of them. Both bearded and wearing clothes that seemed assembled from canvas or burlap sacking, maybe sailcloth, combined with wool and fur and felt. Boots torn and nobbed with brass nails, completely wet, and wrapped all around with more wool and canvas or burlap cloth, fur, mummified, so it looked as if they'd tried putting on motley shredded socks over the top of their boots in order to hold them
together. No, it would be because of the swelling. Of course. Feet would swell from cold and frostbite and infection to the point where boots no longer fit except by brute force or by having seams relieved or cut away, so why not put the socks on top for additional insulation? How else could you do it? Just beside the enormous TV, they stopped and leaned against each other, breathing hard, and toppled together into a seated position. Again he waved at them.
Guys!
he mouthed. No response.

“The weirdest thing is . . .” Jill began again. He scooted halfway around to face her. “Well, what I was going to show you before, when I said
There's more,
you know—” Again she broke off.

“Yes?”

Work removed something from his pocket. Looked like a golf ball. So they
had
come out of Jill's father's golf bag! They passed the ball back and forth, holding it up, scrutinizing it, sniffing and licking it, rolling it between their blackened, broken-seeming fingers, and shaking their heads at each other until Work produced a pocket watch and something else—looked like the remains of a pipe bowl—and began juggling the three things together, to Hoar's apparent delight. Thomas's, too. He grabbed his knees and leaned toward them. So real! They couldn't be mere projections of his own imagination, bits of too-intense dreams left floating around the room when he awakened, as usual, though he was sure, too, they must still have
some
connection with his dreams and imagination. So he needed to be careful. Play dead and stay to the side; don't stare too long at them. He'd been wrong to hail them, but never mind that. They were here for now. Soon enough, they'd evaporate back to wherever they'd come from; no need to hasten it. Meanwhile, this fantastically fun show. Juggling! He'd had no idea.

“OK,” she said. “Thomas?”

“Yes.”

“Don't take this the wrong way, but . . .” She rolled upright, stood, and removed her pants. Stepped out of them and snapped the elastic of her underwear higher.

“Jill!”

“What. It's
not
an invitation, I said. All right?”

“But you just took off your pants!”

“Very observant.” She nodded and again lay beside him, belly down, feet kicking. “OK, now look. On my butt,” she said, gesturing with her chin. “Go ahead.” Thomas didn't move. “Look!”

And finally, sliding closer and leaning right over her, he understood. At first, he wasn't sure, thought it must be a shadow or some other trick of the light, but no. From the outer fringe of her underwear's waistband to the top of her left thigh seeped another blue-purple patch of skin.

“See?” she asked, lifting and pulling aside her underwear, lowering them until the mutant shoreline shape of the stain was mostly in view.

He nodded. “Yes. But what . . .”

She snapped the underwear back. Rolled to a seated position, facing him. “Birthmark. Same as my face. Covers like the whole left side of my butt. Nothing anyone can do about it and nothing to feel bad about. Doesn't
hurt
or handicap me or whatever. It's just
there
. And it's not that uncommon, either—not an uncommon place for them, I mean, on your butt. Lots of Korean girls get them.”

“Korean girls get . . . what? Where did you hear that?”

She shrugged. “But don't you think it's
weird
? Like, here you are trying to
give
yourself scurvy and I already
have
it.”

“What are you talking about.
Scurvy
. You don't have scurvy.... It's nothing like—”

“Not
all
of it. Just the one thing. Look.” She slid an arm from inside her shirt and bent, hugging herself to present a view of her bare shoulder and, as she snaked her arm back through the armhole of her sleeve to face him again, a half glimpse of bare breast, all so fast, he almost didn't catch what she'd evidently meant to show: another inlet of purple-blue, smaller and backward C-shaped, ending just below where her bra strap would have connected. “See?”

He nodded. Reached a hand toward her and let it drop. “Wow. So it's like . . . all over?”

She shook her head. “Not
all over
. Jerk. Just those places. So
what
if I never get to wear a bathing suit or an evening gown, or even most
tank tops,
for that matter . . . or get to sunbathe with my friends or sit on the beach or go on a real date. It's not like it anyone
cares,
right?”

“Jill, I . . . That's not necessarily . . .” Again he lifted a hand toward her.

“I'm
not
a freak show! Just get,
get
—” She slapped at his hand, and then, realizing what she'd done, covered her mouth. “Oh no,” she said, and began to cry. “I'm so sorry. Oh my god, Thomas, I'm sorry.”

That fast, when only moments earlier she'd seemed fine, ready to take off her clothes and say crazy things about scurvy. Crying. What was he supposed to do about this? He had no experience. Sometimes, when they were younger, Devon would erupt into terrifying fits of rage against him or one of their parents, and these had nearly always ended in tears. Not the kind you'd dare get close to (angry, face torn open, snot everywhere, teeth bared), though generally one or the other of their parents had eventually had to wade in, wrap arms around him, to put a stop to it. Aside from that, the only person in his family to cry openly was himself. Less violently than Devon, to be sure, and requiring much less in the way of provocation. There was also the one time, more recently, weeks after his mother had left for good, when he'd walked in on his father alone in the study, lights out, and found him sobbing and making a crazy, repetitive hiccupping
wa-wa-wa-wa
noise so much like a windup toy, that at first Thomas had thought it must be a joke. But it was not a joke—in fact, there was nothing funny about it—and he'd slipped back out of the room, unnoticed.

None of which prepared him. Jill didn't sob or gasp, or crumple her mouth and wave her fists around like Devon. No theatrics or hiccupping. She just stared and let the tears slide down her face with strings of mucus until the front of her shirt was soaked.

“It's OK,” he said. Rubbed his hands together. “Didn't even hurt. See? Those pills . . . I'm totally numbed up now anyway. Didn't feel a thing.” Flicked a finger at the back of his hand to prove it. “Really, didn't hurt. No worries.”

She scrubbed knuckles into her eyes and smiled at him. Laughed
once. Lifted the bottom of her shirt to wipe her nose and cheeks and said, “Relax, OK? It's no biggie. Girls
cry,
all right?”

“If you say.”

She leaned her elbows on her knees and hunched toward him but made no move to put her clothes back on. Like she'd forgotten. “Are you really
stoned,
Thomas?”

“A little, yeah. I guess. Mostly numb. You?”

“My mouth feels all, like, rubbery. Does it look weird?” She stuck out her lower lip at him.

“Like that it does, sure.”

“And I'm just super
tired,
” she said. She yawned, stretched her arms over her head, and abruptly fell onto her back. Closed her eyes. Said, “I hope you don't mind. Nightie-night.”

“Really?”

For a few moments, he watched her. Wondered if this was some kind of joke or test. Was he supposed to leave? Keep her awake? Go to sleep himself? He didn't get it.

“Jill. For real?”

Her eyes stayed shut, hands folded over her solar plexus, feet tucked one against the other. The picture of tranquillity. He started thinking maybe she truly was asleep, or even in a coma.

Devon:
Dude, she took her pants off for you and pretended to go to sleep and you did nothing about it? Let me get this straight. Are you on crack or are you just some fairy who lost his balls in his art project?

Thomas:
It wasn't like that. She was crying. There was other stuff.

Devon:
Other stuff! Dude, Thomas. I've got news. A girl takes her pants off for you, you can bet it means one thing: She wants you to jump her, harelip or not.

Thomas:
It's not a harelip. Fuck off and leave me alone.

Beyond her, the men were still crouched by the TV, Work attempting to skin or otherwise pick apart Jill's father's golf ball with what appeared to be a large bone-handled hunting knife. Having already nicked a thumb and twice caused the ball to become airborne, both men swatting desperately at it, catching it and returning to their study with renewed awe and intrigue, passing the ball back and forth,
Work seemed at last to have settled on a more aggressive course. He braced the ball between his feet and spun the blade of his knife point downward on it like a top, like how they'd taught Thomas to start fire with sticks in Scouts; and, having at last penetrated its surface, he set about methodically sawing it in half with the edge of his blade. Only, the ball wouldn't stay put. Kept rolling from under his numb and ruined feet. They were like twin Chaplins or two of the Three Stooges! Hilarious. It had never occurred to Thomas that the men should be funny. But of course they should be funny. Funny was the answer to everything!

“Jill! Hey, Jill!”

She rolled toward him finally. Blinked. “Oh.”

“My turn again?”

“Turn?”

“Yeah. Come here.” He scooted to the back of the couch with an arm out. “Just come sit here right next to me and tell me what you see. Try it. Come here.”

Weirdo
. She didn't say it, didn't have to say it (he knew her well enough to predict), and given how things had developed between them this afternoon, probably had lost the grounds for saying it anyway; still, he saw the word on her lips. He narrowed his eyes, looked back at her, and shook his head. Said, “Don't even think it.”