The Beginners (8 page)
Authors: Rebecca Wolff
“Now, looking back on the trip, it seems obvious to me what we thought we were doing. We were forging ever westward. We were pioneers, luring each other on with the nugget of that last frontier. We wanted something new, and what could be newer than the huge landscape in front of us, so unsettled to our crowded New England eyes? We passed through farm towns, dairy towns, mountain towns, cowboy towns, ranch towns, tourist towns, and in all of them I could see a place for us. I had no trouble visualizing our niche and just how we might come to occupy it. I would have babies, Theo could read. We both could have jobs at the local toothbrush factory, or teaching at the high school. God knows young minds always need forming.” Raquel smiled, comfortable as she was in her monopoly on our attentions.
“By the time we got to Glacier National Park, in Montana, we were completely fatigued, not to mention malnourished from subsisting on peanut butter and soft white bread. So we decided to stay there for a while. We rented a spot in a campsite. It was late May and still quite cold. You could see snow up on the peaks. Even down where we were at night it might drop to thirty-five degrees, and in the morning we would wake up in the back of the car all cramped and stiff from sleeping clenched together.
“I can’t remember a more idyllic time. Every morning we got up and had instant coffee and bread and apples, then we’d go hiking. The park is infested with bison. You find their huge spiral droppings all over the place, on every trail, in every meadow. They look just exactly like a massive cinnamon roll made of shit.” At this we giggled, ceremoniously.
“But I was reluctant to go on any of the more difficult trails.
Reluctance
characterizes my attitude toward this brief sojourn in the wild. I know exactly what relationship I am supposed to be enjoying with the environment—it’s meant to be one of sublime, transcendent communion. An understanding, if you will, is meant to spring up between me and the leaves on the trees, me and the meadows and the wildflowers growing wildly on those meadows, between me and the warm rain that fell on our heads and shoulders one day when we were caught in an early summer storm.” Cherry coughed lightly, and when I glanced her way she caught my eyes purposefully, but I did not want to be distracted. I returned to Raquel my full attention.
Reluctance
characterizes my attitude toward this brief sojourn in the wild. I know exactly what relationship I am supposed to be enjoying with the environment—it’s meant to be one of sublime, transcendent communion. An understanding, if you will, is meant to spring up between me and the leaves on the trees, me and the meadows and the wildflowers growing wildly on those meadows, between me and the warm rain that fell on our heads and shoulders one day when we were caught in an early summer storm.” Cherry coughed lightly, and when I glanced her way she caught my eyes purposefully, but I did not want to be distracted. I returned to Raquel my full attention.
“But no acorn can be my friend, when I know what sort of growth will come out of the bond. The wet grass drives me mad with discomfort. The wood elves shun my tread. My gosh, girls, look at the time! Am I boring you?”
I did look at the clock on the bedside table; it was two-thirty. Cherry stretched beside me, and yawned a little. “I guess we do have to get going soon,” she said, her voice thick from long silence. But I figured I could stay for another twenty minutes and still make it to the Top Hat on time for my shift.
“Well, where was I . . . oh, yes. So. We left the park finally, and set off again, on little back roads, and made our way through town after town, all rife with possibility, until we reached the Pacific coast, in the state of Washington. We stayed in a motel in a logging town, took showers and stretched out between stiff, bleach-saturated sheets for several days. That was where Theo was struck with the desire to call home—‘just to let them know that we’re all right,’ he said.” Raquel paused here, sighed. I regarded her solemnly, aware that some great plot-twist was approaching.
“We never made it to the promised land. Sadly, it turned out that everything was not all right at home. Theo’s mother had found a new lump in her remaining breast, after years in remission. They had started her on chemotherapy immediately, and she was very ill, throwing up all the time, weak, dizzy. Ted Senior said that he needed Theo’s help. Could we please come home?
“We got hitched at a stop on our speedy, no-frills return journey, at Details National Park. A justice of the peace performed the ceremony at our campsite. I have snapshots—do you want to see them?”
I was about to say that I
would
like to see them, very much—not that I needed proof of the veracity of her tale—but then Raquel spun to look at the clock by the bedside. “Ginger, don’t you have to be at work?” She was cajoling me. I had an unpleasant awareness suddenly that I might be a third wheel. Did Raquel like Cherry better than she liked me? That would be no surprise. Certainly Cherry was the gregarious one, the entertaining one. She had more winning ways. She was, on the whole, more representative of the norm of teenaged girlhood, and I understood already that Raquel greatly admired whatever was normative. “I don’t want you to be late on my account. All that’s left of this story, anyway, is the sad part, the boring old adult part, where we settle down together and try to make each other happy.” I had risen off the bed, was about to make my parting address, when Cherry answered for me.
would
like to see them, very much—not that I needed proof of the veracity of her tale—but then Raquel spun to look at the clock by the bedside. “Ginger, don’t you have to be at work?” She was cajoling me. I had an unpleasant awareness suddenly that I might be a third wheel. Did Raquel like Cherry better than she liked me? That would be no surprise. Certainly Cherry was the gregarious one, the entertaining one. She had more winning ways. She was, on the whole, more representative of the norm of teenaged girlhood, and I understood already that Raquel greatly admired whatever was normative. “I don’t want you to be late on my account. All that’s left of this story, anyway, is the sad part, the boring old adult part, where we settle down together and try to make each other happy.” I had risen off the bed, was about to make my parting address, when Cherry answered for me.
“Oh, please, that’s not boring. What was it like? Did you call your parents right away after you got married? Were they
so
excited?” I noted Cherry’s new expression. Greedy. Lustful. It was as though Raquel had opened a thick vein for a freshly minted vampire, one burdened, burning, with the hunger of a lifetime.
so
excited?” I noted Cherry’s new expression. Greedy. Lustful. It was as though Raquel had opened a thick vein for a freshly minted vampire, one burdened, burning, with the hunger of a lifetime.
I felt stifled in the damp coziness of Raquel’s bedroom, the rising smell of drying textiles. The patter of the now-light rain on the windows promised some relief outside and so I made my exit. Raquel waved a little wave and made warm promises of future days just like this one. Cherry said to call her after work. I left them comfortably established, and as I went down the stairs I heard Cherry say, in her soft, slightly toneless voice, “But were you in love?”
8.
Sunday Night
L
ater that night, as promised, I spoke with Cherry on the phone, as I did almost every night, even when we had just spent the whole day in each other’s company.
ater that night, as promised, I spoke with Cherry on the phone, as I did almost every night, even when we had just spent the whole day in each other’s company.
“I
have
to
tell
you,” she said. “Something about the Motherwells. You’re not going to believe this.”
have
to
tell
you,” she said. “Something about the Motherwells. You’re not going to believe this.”
On the contrary, I thought that I would probably believe anything anyone told me about the Motherwells. I had just spent the afternoon and early evening leaning against the counter at the Top Hat, musing over all the fantastic truths I had yet to absorb, all the credulity that was still mine to be exercised. Another form of power.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but those people are so bizarre. Raquel told me the weirdest things about her and Theo. Maybe I shouldn’t even tell you. It’ll just freak you out . . . I know how squeamish you are about boys, and sex, and that stuff.”
She was only waiting to be convinced of the impossibility of the idea that she would withhold
anything
from me. I suppose this is one of the bonuses of such a friendship: until something unspeakable comes to pass that truly cannot be repeated,
even to your best friend,
there can be no doubt that you are like books open to each other’s eager eyes. This is probably the lesson of such a friendship, in fact: if there is one person whom you tell
everything
to, there must be some people you only tell some things, and some whom you tell nothing. Parents usually serve well in this last capacity.
anything
from me. I suppose this is one of the bonuses of such a friendship: until something unspeakable comes to pass that truly cannot be repeated,
even to your best friend,
there can be no doubt that you are like books open to each other’s eager eyes. This is probably the lesson of such a friendship, in fact: if there is one person whom you tell
everything
to, there must be some people you only tell some things, and some whom you tell nothing. Parents usually serve well in this last capacity.
“After you left . . .” she began, and I shifted my weight from my right hip to my left, where I knelt lopsided in front of the desk on the thin gray carpet in the telephone nook. “Raquel started to tell me things. I’m sure she would have told you, too, if you’d stayed. How was work?” Typically, her narration was scattershot.
I assured her that work had been, as always, uneventful. I suppressed a problematic visit from Randy: he had lingered outside the café with his coffee-to-go, smoking a cigarette, and more than once thrown his wiry glance in the direction of where I sat—although perhaps he was just checking the clock on the wall above the counter, or perhaps the glass was impermeable at that moment, glazed as it was by the low late-afternoon sun skimming down over the row of opposing brick rooftops, and he glanced luminously in the direction of his own reflected self. Cherry resumed.
“Wouldn’t you think that everything was perfect between them? They seem like such a good couple. But here’s what happened. This is so weird.” Cherry proceeded to tell me a tale of a dream Raquel had had—or was it a dream? This was as unclear to me as it had been, probably, to Cherry. Apparently Raquel was a heavy sleeper, but since sharing her bed with Theo she had been visited by strange visions and sensations. In her bed she was smothered by a limb over her nose and mouth, dumb and immovable; in her bed the skin of her buttocks was pricked, over and over, by needle-like protrusions, as though she were a pincushion, or a voodoo doll. “She loves him,” Cherry asserted, reassuringly, “but sometimes she feels a little bit scared of him, she said.”
My own mouth was stopped with a heavy burden of dumb flesh. I woke unbreathing, in an incredulous panic; my friend’s arm, my friend whose body I slept next to each night, had come to smother me, maybe involuntarily, as some kind of fatal by-product of our mutual unconsciousness. Or, even more frightening, of the subconscious. The closer to conscious desire the implied impulse rose, the more unthinkable it became. I felt the words frothing like distemper in my mouth:
What just happened?
I would say, inquiry arising out of a silent state that knows no hesitation, no calculation, only pure utterance.
What just happened?
I would say, inquiry arising out of a silent state that knows no hesitation, no calculation, only pure utterance.
I was spacing out, while Cherry vivaciously spilled more of the details of an increasingly troubling tale. My own dreams usually have something to do with the insides of houses.
“. . . And he’s like ‘What? Why would I be sticking pins into your ass?’ And this time, she said, it was like the roles were reversed, because he was the one who sounded hurt and betrayed—it was like he couldn’t believe that she would think he would do such a thing.”
OF COURSE that’s the question: What part of her was it that believed him to be capable of doing such a thing? And how could she allow him to see this part of her, even in half-sleep? It seemed an atrocious intimacy, a violation in itself.
“So, what do you think?” Cherry asked me again, all charged and full of appetite. “I don’t believe a word she says. She seems kind of nuts to me. She kind of creeps me out.” But I was still caught up, the casing of my body actually punctured, like the skin of a sausage, by a fork.
“I think they’re both really weird,” Cherry prompted, hopefully, but when I did not feed her the line she required she gave up, said that she was going to go catch something on TV, and that she would see me tomorrow. “Sweet dreams!” she cooed, and laughed, and hung up.
BUT OF COURSE I could not sleep, and of course I decided to ride my bike for a little while. I say
of course
because it was dark out;
of course
because I was already afraid, even before I thrust myself out the sliding glass door into the backyard and around to the side of the garage. My back as I rode away from the house felt larger than my whole body, like a target, with the raw, unprotected feeling of full exposure, total vulnerability to whatever forces might alight. It was really like an invitation to these forces, to be out in the night alone with my thoughts, which grew increasingly loud as I pumped along toward the Motherwells’, fighting off visions of what might be behind me. I said
of course
to myself, out loud, because there are some things we know not to do if we wish to stay safe, to avoid danger. Watching a scream-fest we know the young girl must not, if she wishes to keep herself out of the plot, allow herself to be separated from the group. She must not go skinny-dipping in the lake. Certainly she must not display any willingness to be touched. Activity of a playfully flirtatious nature will get her a nonspeaking role, but if she were to offer herself to the dark, the dark would certainly take her. And here I was: I could not tell to whom I wanted to expose myself more.
of course
because it was dark out;
of course
because I was already afraid, even before I thrust myself out the sliding glass door into the backyard and around to the side of the garage. My back as I rode away from the house felt larger than my whole body, like a target, with the raw, unprotected feeling of full exposure, total vulnerability to whatever forces might alight. It was really like an invitation to these forces, to be out in the night alone with my thoughts, which grew increasingly loud as I pumped along toward the Motherwells’, fighting off visions of what might be behind me. I said
of course
to myself, out loud, because there are some things we know not to do if we wish to stay safe, to avoid danger. Watching a scream-fest we know the young girl must not, if she wishes to keep herself out of the plot, allow herself to be separated from the group. She must not go skinny-dipping in the lake. Certainly she must not display any willingness to be touched. Activity of a playfully flirtatious nature will get her a nonspeaking role, but if she were to offer herself to the dark, the dark would certainly take her. And here I was: I could not tell to whom I wanted to expose myself more.
A LIGHT WAS ON in the kitchen. I went around to the back and stood at the door for a minute. At the bottom of the dingy lace curtains I could see elbows on the round table and the remains of dinner. Wineglasses and a candle. I knocked, and, after half a minute, knocked again. I thought I heard a faint call to come in—the wind, or my ears playing a trick, fulfilling a wish. I opened the screen door, then the inside door, and I was in the hallway. As soon as I heard her voice, so clear, so definite, I knew that the invitation I had heard had not been spoken out loud.
“For example, when I hear a phrase like ‘dewy pussy.’ It gets me completely wet.” Raquel. I froze.
“Oh, and do you hear ‘dewy pussy’ often?” Theo’s voice, gently quizzical.
“If you only knew how many of my waking moments are spent rehearsing new word combinations. Or sex. Rehearsing sex. Or rather, thinking about sex.”
“There is nothing conceptual about sex. Sex is not in the abstract.”
“It depends on what you define as sex. I can come in a split second if I think of certain words, certain phrases. When I’m all alone. Dewy pussy.” Dryly; sotto voce.
“Oh, really?” Theo sly, teasing. “Why aren’t you thinking about me, when you’re alone?”
She laughed, sighed. “It’s all about separation from reality.”
“Isn’t everything, for you.” This was not a question.
“Oh, but this especially! If I were to try to conjure up a vision, a fantasy, of actual physical contact with you . . . it just wouldn’t do the trick at all.”
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