What She Saw... (28 page)

Is it any wonder she began to let
herself
go?

At least, that's how Phoebe viewed her subsequent, seven-pound weight gain. To hide the ill effects, she dressed in elastic-waist skirts and oversized men's shirts. And she stopped looking in the mirror for days at a time, after which point she'd be unable to do anything
but
look in the mirror—and chastise herself for having been so negligent, so careless, so cavalier with what she still regarded as her greatest asset. It was in those moments that she'd vow to run four miles a day three times a week for the rest of her life and never eat another hot meal. A few days later, however, her resolve would be lost. Because her and Neil's home was built for comfort and satiety, warm blankets and three-cheese ravioli. And because Neil didn't seem to care if she was thin or fat. “I'll love you whatever you look like, Booboo” was among his favorite lines.

You'd think that would have been exactly what Phoebe needed to hear.

In fact, it was part of the problem, her adult identity having been constructed (by and large) on the response she found herself able to elicit in the opposite sex.

Except the opposite sex (minus Neil, whom she came to think of less as a man than as a kind of third-sex family member) was nowhere in sight. Indeed, on Friday nights, while her peers hooked up with strangers at downtown Manhattan martini lounges, Phoebe could be found eating nonfat peanut-butter-cup frozen yogurt in bed. And when the yogurt was all gone, she and Neil (more often than not) eschewed coitus for the far less frenetic and arguably more therapeutic pleasures of cuddling. That sex was far from the centerpiece of their relationship— in practice, it came as something of a relief; in theory, it left Phoebe dissatisfied. It made her think that everyone else was having all the fun, and that the love she and Neil had for each other was somehow insubstantial. She still expected love to be as tirelessly tension-filled as it was in movies and novels.

Is it any wonder she began to resent the very domestic arrangement that, only months before, had filled her with a kind of silly pride?

Where once keeping house had felt like playing house, now Phoebe grew exhausted and listless at the very idea of a supermarket expedition—began to dread the completion of mindless chores like mopping as if she were awaiting surgery on her own heart. And where once she'd dreamed of having a boyfriend who cooked for her, she now recalled eating Lucky Charms for dinner with misty eyes. It wasn't long before she began to blame Neil for having made her fat—as a ploy, she was readily convinced, to keep her away from other men who might otherwise have been attracted to her were it not for
this tumescent tummy,
these turgid thighs.
She was mad at Neil for letting himself go, too. For the first six months of their relationship he'd donned crisp shirts and smart suits. Now whole weekends went by during which he wore the same sagging sweatpants and holey Brandeis T-shirt.

Even more offensive, soon after they moved in together, he stopped holding in his farts. At first he'd say, “I'm sorry.” Then he stopped saying anything at all. Then he did it willfully. To think that his gaseous emissions had once been a source of amusement, and even hilarity!

Phoebe had stopped laughing.

Seemingly overnight, the smallest things of Neil Schmertz began to vex her beyond reason. There was the way he dispensed with old coffee grinds (directly into the sink) and felt the need to justify his existence (“I'm the kind of guy who works behind the scenes”) and walked with his ass sticking out (why couldn't he slouch like everyone else?) and always left the toilet seat up (and sometimes forgot to flush). And he cleared his throat before he made an important phone call. Which is to say, before he made almost any phone call. And he used the word
perspire
instead of
sweat
(Phoebe found it pretentious). And he left her dirty clothes in a pile by the door, as if they needed to be taken out to the trash. And he was always so cleanly shaved—why couldn't he let his beard grow out for even one day?

And he was always nicking himself shaving and glueing little bits of toilet paper to his face to stop the bleeding. And he took even more time in the bathroom than she did (sometimes, just to be annoying, she'd pretend to have a menstrual emergency two minutes after he'd gone in there). And he repeated stories, and hoarded aspirin. And he let his savings fester in the bank when he could have been investing them in high-yield mutual funds. He couldn't get his finances in order, either. In March he'd filed for an extension on his tax return. In June he still hadn't done anything about it. The mole on his back with the three brittle whiskers growing out of it was another matter. Why oh why wouldn't he let her pluck them?

They were minor aggravations—sure.

They began to seem representative of larger deficiencies in Neil Schmertz's character.

A real man, Phoebe thought to herself, wouldn't buy such expensive shampoo and conditioner; he'd wash his hair with whatever he found in the shower. And he'd lose his temper once in a while (just hearing about how Neil let this guy at work, Ernie, “dick” him over filled Phoebe with frustration). And he wouldn't feel the need to talk to his mother every day on the phone (whatever Neil's mother wanted, she got; if she wanted to see Neil tomorrow, he'd get on a plane that night). And he'd wear blue jeans once in a while (Neil only wore suit pants or sweats). And the suit pants he did wear were unfashionably pleated. To think that Phoebe had once considered him a natty dresser!

Increasingly, she was embarrassed to be seen in his company.

And he “made love” to her so carefully, so tactfully, so goddamn generously—always waited until she'd had her orgasm before he had his. Considered himself the reigning King of Cunnilingus. Displayed unrivaled responsibility when it came to birth control. Just as he was only too convinced that Phoebe had been exploited in the past, and only too intent on being the one who really loved her, the one who wasn't just using her. It never occurred to him that she might have had an opportunistic streak herself. He treated her as if she were this tragic slut, this defenseless child. As if she needed protecting. And maybe, in some ways, she did.

She also needed conquering.

She fantasized about being chained to a fence. She wanted to lose herself in someone else's power trip. In the best of moods, she liked to imagine that she needed nothing—nothing but a funny joke and a sweet cocktail and a slow hand sliding up the back of her swan neck,
if you know what I mean.
But in the worst of moods, which was most of the time—that was the problem—she needed a lot more than that. She needed to be worshipped. She needed to be pampered.

She needed to know that someone would be there if she fell apart.

But it began to seem as if Neil might even have preferred it if she did fall apart. Indeed, on those one or two or three occasions when Phoebe had taken steps in that direction—found herself lying on the bathroom floor digging holes in her chest with the sharp ends of her fingernails for no discernible reason, her breath shortening, her pulse quickening, her mind reeling with the possibilities—he'd seemed to love her even more. Or maybe it was just that in those lamentable moments he was the most convinced she'd never leave him. He'd say, “Looboo, I'm here. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm never going anywhere.” He'd say those things as if he were trying to convince himself of their veracity. Then he'd hold her even tighter than he usually held her. He'd hold her so tight she could hardly breathe.

There came a time when she couldn't—when the safe haven she and Neil had established began to feel as constraining as the Brooklyn House of Detention.

Because as needy as Phoebe was, Neil was even needier. He wore that on his face—on his prematurely striated forehead and on his perpetually downturned mouth. And thanks to his own shattered family, he was one of those people for whom the prospect of staying together was the most romantic prospect of all. For Phoebe, the same vision of the future had less to do with romanticism than it did with resignation. Because in the back of her mind, she was still waiting to have her “big adventure”; still thinking she owed it to herself; still thinking she “hadn't really lived”; still hating herself for liking the
idea
of adventure better than she liked actual adventure—and for plotting her escape before she'd ever been captured.

It was the image of Emily standing on the back porch, her pale face lit up the color of Wedgwood china, a frenzy of moths circling overhead, that continued to haunt her. And then the
tick-tick-tick
of the gas lighting beneath a pot of stewed chicken; the
krik-krik-krik
of suitcase wheels on wood. “I could really use something to eat . . . Delayed for three hours in London . . . Wow, everything looks the same . . . How are you, Feebs?” Emily's eyes curled with empathy. Or was it pity? And “Maybe at Christmastime,” and “Akim and I this,” and “Akim and I that.” Emily hadn't been home in twelve months. Emily had spent her junior year abroad in Beirut. Emily had done everything first, and better. Phoebe couldn't get over that feeling—that in some fundamental way she'd failed to realize her youth, the lacunae of which seemed ever more notable than the narratives it did contain.

Nor could she fault Neil for the fact that somewhere in the course of life, ambition had trumped Eros. Which is to say that one got to a certain age when one's professional life became the measure of one's self-worth. Which is to say that love was no longer the solution. Now you had to have a title, a tag line, and three phone lines ringing at the same time. And your business card had to reflect that. And you had to know the right people and appear at the right parties. At least, this was the message Phoebe had internalized. Such that her career frustrations— how would she ever make a name for herself playing turn-of-the-century show tunes? How could she ever forgive herself for having a boring desk job at a nonprofit research foundation catering to Ugandan fertilizer experts?—became inseparable from her frustrations with Neil Schmertz himself, as if they were two sides of a coin whose value had plummeted during a time of runaway inflation.

To make things worse, Neil had been hired away by an up-and-coming cable station specializing in pop-culture nostalgia, as a vice president for New Media Development, whatever that meant—Phoebe wasn't entirely sure. But that he had a title at all made her jealous. It made her think Neil got all the breaks. But at whose expense? Phoebe punished him for his success by refusing to partake in it—by moping around their apartment in her terrycloth bathrobe looking miserable and refusing to talk about it. Though if her depression began as a performance, it soon grew into an actuality. Or maybe it never stopped being a performance. Maybe Phoebe's particular brand of depression, like Phoebe's particular brand of sexual fulfillment, required an audience of at least one. (And what closed-door crying jag has ever not benefited from the solicitous knock of a willing listener?)

It was the sounds that got to her the most. The sounds of “domestic bliss.” How the toilet went
“prrrushhooooo.”
And the coffee grinder went “ZZZZiinnggg.” And the freezer door went
“kuplunk.”
And the television went
“kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh”
as Neil rolled it across the parquet floor of their mix-'n'-match living room so he could watch the evening news while he stir-fried vegetables in an enormous discolored wok. “Neily's making Wooboo her favewit dinner!” he'd call out over the frizzle of snow peas, the twaddle of talking heads.

“Oh, yay,” Phoebe would mumble disconsolately.

Not that she didn't like stir-fry. But it wasn't enough—to be cooked for. To be cared for. To be Neil Schmertz's favorite Wooboo. She'd be sitting on their pilled futon couch drinking a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio, thinking about exactly that. And about the men she used to know, the other men she had yet to meet. It wasn't like that in the beginning. In the beginning it was Phoebe and Neil against the world. In the beginning Neil referred to himself in the first person. It was only later that he began to refer to himself as Neily. It was around the same time that he began to speak primarily in baby talk. He'd say, “Neily doesn't think his favewit bunny wabby wanth to be hith bestest fwend anymore.”

To which Phoebe would reply, “Neily's favorite bunny wabby needs a little time to think.”

Because she thought time would shed light on why those sounds (“kuplunk,” “prrrushhooooo,” “ZZZZiinnggg”) depressed her as much as they did.

But time only made her sadder—then madder. Though picking fights with Neil Schmertz was never an easy trick, since he never actually fought back. He'd just sit there looking like a circus clown—Phoebe kept expecting a red circle to appear spontaneously on the tip of his nose—and uttering guilt-inducing inanities like “I've tried to make you a really nice home.”

“But you're already trying to control me!” she'd bark back.

“How has Neily tried to control you?”

“You always want to go to bed early!”

“Has Neily ever told you that you had to go to bed at the same time as him?”

“What am I supposed to do—go out by myself?”

“You could go meet friends. Neily never told you not to see your friends.”

“What friends? I don't have any friends! I lost them all when I moved in with Neily!”

So the conversations would go. They'd go on for hours, and they'd end with dire predictions on Phoebe's part: “Maybe it wasn't meant to be”; “Maybe we're just hanging on for the sake of hanging on”; “Maybe we're only together because we're too scared to be apart.”

“But I love you!”

That Neil could come up with a line like that in the face of such abuse—to Phoebe, it seemed so terribly weak. She would have had more respect for him if he'd told her to go fuck herself.