When Watched (14 page)

He explained that he'd been watching her for a while, even watched her sleep by climbing up the fire escape and squatting there for hours. He said she looked great sleeping and she felt her face heat up. “I don't snore or drool?” she asked.

“Never,” he said, and with shy delight she looked up into his
one lit-up eye. The man was dressed more to host a cocktail party than a kidnap. He wore a black bow tie. Moonlight pooled on the tops of his tuxedo shoes.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

“I am going to put you in there.” He pointed beyond tall weeds to a lake. Every star winked, every star had the heartbeat of a tiny baby shark. He carried her into the water like a fireman from a burning building. He was sure to tell her everything she was about to feel. Like a good doctor, he described what a lungful of lake water felt like.

She is sitting in bed with a mug of red wine and a book. She is barely reading the book. Mostly she is thinking. Occasionally she drinks from the mug. She is thinking that she is a weak person. She is thinking that her main weakness is her fear of fighting with people. She cannot bear to fight, not with anyone, even people she hates. This means she will do anything to resolve a disagreement right away, even if it means admitting she is wrong when she is not wrong, or apologizing when she is not sorry.

Her ex-husband was not afraid of fighting. He even seemed to enjoy it a little. She decides that this is why he always got his way.

She pictures them in bed after an argument: her crying and him silent. Sometimes he would leave the room when he noticed that she was crying but most of the time he would remain in the room. She would heat up and stare into space and give lengthy imagined speeches. She would stay quiet and it was like being quiet while being pinched very hard. She would wait for him to
speak, or to show some signs of longing for her to speak. But he showed no signs of longing and he continued not to speak.

Often, she first broke the silence with a few soft, inarticulate sounds. Then, with mounting panic, a herd of language followed like frightened animals. She would say she was sorry and his face would morph into a gentler face. She remembers her merging sense of relief and defeat. She feels embarrassed.

Outside it is snowing. She looks out her small window and is soothed by the great load of whiteness. One bundled man is walking slowly by, leaving a trail of dark gouges in the snow. It is coming down harder now than it was earlier, when she walked the dog. On the steps of her building someone had dropped a few Polaroids and she stopped to look at them. In one she identified an arm and half a smiling head but the other two Polaroids were entirely defaced, just marbled squares of brown and yellow.

She wonders now if her husband was also giving imagined speeches during the silences that followed their fights. She thinks a moment and decides not. She decides that he was as detached as he appeared to be. She thinks that she would not want his skill of leaving in the presence of someone. But an instant later she realizes that this is a total lie. Because she would certainly rather be like him than like her. She would certainly rather leave than be left.

She reads three lines in her book but doesn't hear them. She rereads them and the words seem to dissolve. She worries, as she always worries when this happens, that she will never be able to read again. That she will be spending the rest of life trapped in a chamber of her own thoughts, just a tortured head talking to itself. But she assures herself that these voices—her voices—always die down to a static hum. Probably, she thinks,
her mind will be emptied by tomorrow, like a shaggy forest after a storm, cool and dripping and still.
Then,
she thinks,
I will be able to read.

She puts the book down and finishes her wine. She lies on her side and begins to relax. She thinks she can only relax when she is exhausted. But she is glad to be exhausted. She likes to sleep. She likes when it comes down like an
ax.

James arrived at Margo's apartment in the early evening. He had wet hair, which she took as a compliment, since it usually looked oily, falling in sections over his forehead.

“Hey,” he said and walked right in, looking around freely, like a prospective buyer. He wore an olive army jacket like a shirt, buttoned low, a triangle of his pale chest exposed. Margo stood and watched as he perused the bookshelf, then picked up a framed photograph of herself and her sister as kids.

“There I am suffering.” Margo smirked.

“This is you?”

“Yeah.”

“You have a twin?”

“Yeah.” She secretly loved the poolside shot. The two little red-haired girls were obviously identical, but she felt that her own face blazed out of the photograph, as if her child self knew something extra. “That's me,” she said, pointing.

“Why did your parents buy you the same bathing suit?”

“If we got different gifts—like even if they were just
slightly
different—one always seemed better and we'd get in a fight. We were kind of like dogs that way.” She paused. “It
was
weird though. Everyone stared at us. My mom loved it. She hated when we started looking different.”

“What do you mean looking different?”

“Baby got her nose pierced and bleached her hair.” Margo laughed. “It looked so bad. We were thirteen.”

“Baby?”

“When she was eleven she started insisting we call her that. Her real name is Kate.”

“Weird,” he said, setting the frame back down.

“I think she saw people saying it to women on TV.”

He laughed. “What's she like now?”

Margo couldn't think of much that had changed. At twenty-three, Baby was the same moody, protean creature. She hated sharing a face with Margo and often reasserted her desire to get a nose job once she had enough money. The two lived together but Margo had begged Baby to stay with their parents that night. “I'll do anything,” she said and Baby groaned. But then after much coercing she packed a little bag and left.

“Now her hair is black,” Margo said. “And she's really smart. Probably smarter than me. The thing is, she does
nothing
!”

“What do you mean nothing?”

“I mean she just watches TV. And makes
brilliant
passing remarks.”

He smiled. “I know those types. There's no society for them.”

“Yeah,” Margo grinned. “Which is fine. But now she's on antidepressants.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I'm so against it.”

“You liked her better when she was depressed?”

“She didn't seem
clinically
depressed to me. I mean . . . for a
shut-in who does nothing but watch TV, depression seems like an appropriate response. Taking pills just seems . . .” Margo broke off. “It's just something she's doing to be different from me.”

“Everyone I know is on antidepressants,” he said.

“Yeah and they're all on the
same
antidepressants,” Margo chimed. “Like, as if our insides aren't particular.”

“Right,” he said, nodding.

“In fifty years we'll look back and find these drug treatments barbaric,” Margo continued. “It's gonna get a lot more refined, I think.”

“Well I won't ever take that shit.”

“Me neither. But at a certain point we won't have a choice. Pharmaceuticals get in the water. People flush pills and pee them out. Hormones too.”

“Hormones?”

“From birth control.”

“Oh right.” He looked down at his hands. “Shit.”

“We treat water like it's endless,” she said. “But there isn't much left.”

They both tensed when she said this. Margo took a breath.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He looked at her. “It just makes me think about the apocalypse.”

“I know. A lot of things make me think about the apocalypse,” she said, eyes wide. “I think all these women dying to get pregnant are insane.”

“You don't want a baby?” He looked genuinely surprised.

“No.”

He stared at her.

“Why let this stranger into your body, then into your home?” she said, wishing she could stop the speech building in her
mouth. “It seems mentally ill. People never talk about the fact that babies are strangers. I mean, you don't know this person.”

“But you love them. I mean, usually you love them right away.”

“So why bring them to this awful place?”

He smiled. “I don't know. To meet them I guess.”

This silenced Margo. She wondered if she appeared grim. James fixated on the owl wall clock and she strained to decipher his expression. The dark turn in conversation had snatched from the room the feeling that anything could happen. Margo wondered if she had imagined the flirtation to begin with.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” James asked, pulling a pack of Marlboro reds from his shirt pocket.

“No,” she said. Margo despised smoking but she wanted him to have it—the thing he wanted.

James poked a cigarette between his lips and lit it with a match. “Do you wanna take the pictures?” he asked, shaking the match out.

“Okay. We should go to my room, then,” Margo said, blazing with dread. She had forgotten all about the pictures. That was why he was there, she reminded herself.

James sat in front of her in Oceanography—a summer class and the very last one she needed to graduate college. She was in love with him so she said she was a photographer. It was the first thing that came to mind. She said she was putting a portfolio of portraits together and would he mind posing. Then he said “Sure” and she stood there, marveling at what had just occurred.

It didn't feel like a total lie because she had always wanted to be a photographer. And maybe, she thought, the lie would inspire her to take photography seriously and she would
develop as an artist, blow everyone away. It would be like the time she was cast in
The Wizard of Oz
in high school and had to learn how to sing. Now she could sing.

In her room James began taking his clothes off without being asked to, the cigarette drooping from one side of his mouth, smoke obscuring his eyes. Margo turned on the ceiling fan and the whole room hummed. “Sorry,” she said. “The air conditioner's broken.”

James shrugged. He stood naked by the white brick wall. “Tell me what to do,” he said and tapped ash into one cupped hand. It was shocking.

“Here,” she said, handing him a mug. He promptly squashed the cigarette out and lit another, his dick hanging frankly. Margo blushed as she held the camera. Helplessly she glanced at herself in the mirror—that fearful, horny person.

“Mark of the devil,” her grandfather had said to her once while drunk, petting her red hair.

“I'm not the devil,” Margo shot back. She was six.

“You're not,” the old man said. “But he designed you.
Twice.
” He chuckled to himself and Margo just stood there, staring up into the red holes of his nose.

“Are you doing anything this summer?” she asked James. “I mean when class ends.”

James nodded. “I'm going on a road trip with my friend Jack.”

“You can drive?”

“Yeah.”

“I can't,” she confided. “I don't even wanna learn. I'm pretty sure I'd kill someone.”

“No you wouldn't,” he smiled. “Driving is great. You're forced to be the person you're not.” Streams of smoke issued from his nose. “What about you—any plans?”

“I don't know,” Margo said, staring through the lens. “Taking care of my sister I guess. She lives here.”

He looked confused. She took a picture.

“She gets really depressed,” Margo explained, lowering the camera from her eye. “Last summer it was much worse. She was talking about killing herself.”

“Shit.” James took a drag. “So your parents are
making
you live with her?”

“No. I like living with her. I mean, we argue but whenever she goes away I miss her. Last summer she stayed at this like,
loony
bin in New England. Only it sounded really great to me. Like summer camp or something.” She looked down at the camera in her hands. “I remember going to Kmart and thinking I saw her. I said, Baby!” Margo looked up at him. “But I was seeing myself in a mirror. It was
me
.”

“Whoa.”

“It was eerie,” she said. There was a pause. “Turn around,” she said and snapped a picture of his broad back, the violet bruise hovering on his shoulder blade. “Try to stand up straight,” she said softly and he did, seemingly without a care in the world. But when he faced her, Margo saw his vanity. Behind a wavering ribbon of smoke, James seemed to be watching her carefully.

Margo walked up to him and moved her hand across his chest. She couldn't believe what was happening. She couldn't believe that she wanted something and was now getting it. Of course, he wasn't the sort of person she could really
have
. He seemed to her like a wild thing and that was his beauty.
I'm an animal too,
she thought.
My animal loves his animal.

It was minutes before sundown. The air was cooler. Electric blue light spread throughout the room and over his skin. Margo set the camera down.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Seven.”

“Crazy.”

“I know,” she said and crawled onto her bed, highly aroused. “Come here.”

He did and her heart pounded. They lay by the window, the weakening blue light on their faces. Margo leaned forward and kissed him, pressing her hands to his chest. It was a long, plunging kiss. He held her face. Then they rolled around, feeling each other up, her dress hiked halfway up her body.

“You have like a porno look,” he said.

“What?”

“No it's good. I like that your face can't hide its excitement.”

She got on her back and stared up at him. What he said felt funny, like it wasn't his. She guessed someone had said this to him once. “I like that your face can't hide its excitement.” She wondered who it was.

Margo lifted her butt and James pulled off her underwear. He looked at the lower half of her body for a moment, then walked across the room, where his jeans were on the floor. Margo watched as he pulled a condom from his back pocket and tore it open. He rolled it onto his hard-on, then walked back to the bed and pushed into her.

“Did you know this was gonna happen?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I didn't know.”

 • • • 

In the morning, Margo put on the
White Album
and made coffee.

“It's weird that everyone likes the Beatles,” James said, not unkindly, as he walked into the kitchen, his face marked by the folds of her sheets. He was dressed, his hair snarled on one side, flat and greasy on the other.

She smiled. He could've said anything. “It
is
weird.” She handed him a mug of coffee and a carton of milk.

“No milk,” he said, taking the mug. He sat at the table and lit a cigarette.

“I didn't think this was gonna happen,” she said, smiling, sipping her coffee. “I thought I was freaking you out when I was talking about water and the end of the world.”

“No,” he said and dragged on the cigarette thoughtfully. “I mean,
you
weren't freaking me out but the end of the world does. I have dreams about it.”

“I wish I could visit you in your dreams,” she grinned. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” started playing and she switched off the stereo.

“Mostly they're nightmares.”

“Well I could protect you. I'm very brave in dreams.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Oh yeah. I'm a big hero.”

The front door slammed and Baby walked in looking pale. She set her bag down and a white cat came running.

“Hi,” James said.

“Hi,” Baby said curtly, barely making eye contact. Her short black hair was combed sideward. She wore a ratty green dress and her chest was crowded with glinty charms on chains: a little jeweled guitar, a sneaker, an ax.

James squatted to pet the cat, his cigarette raised. The animal accepted his hand with a full-body lean, purring continuously.

“Has she been here the whole time?” James asked.

“It's a he,” Baby said.

“That's Chowder,” Margo said. “He was under the couch. He hates me.”

“He's my cat,” Baby clarified.

“Beautiful,” James remarked, tickling under Chowder's chin.

“I know,” Baby said, grinning. “I'm like his homely keeper.”

They all laughed and James stood up. “I'm gonna go.” He jabbed his cigarette out and smiled. Then he was gone.

Baby slunk over to the couch. She lay on her back and closed her eyes.

“You look awful,” Margo said.

“I threw up this morning,” Baby croaked. She put a round pillow on her stomach and laced her fingers over it. “I drank too much wine with Mom . . . wine and salad.”

“Jesus, you can't just eat salad if you're gonna—”

“I
know
,” Baby said, a weak rage gathering in her eyes. She moved the pillow and applied both hands directly to her abdomen. “I hate throwing up,” she said. “You're surrendering utterly to your body and you don't get like, a baby or a turd. You get a puddle of food.”

Margo laughed.

Chowder bounded up onto the couch as if it were a beach and Baby remained staring from the standpoint of a shovel. “My head is pounding,” she said.

Margo sat on the edge of the sofa and patted her sister's foot. Chowder turned and glared at her. “God,” she said. “He's such a little
meanie
.”

“No he's not,” Baby said. She looked at the cat. “He's melancholy. Because he's so smart.” She extended one hand and the cat approached it, sniffing her fingertips. “He's trapped in a life that doesn't suit him.”