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Brew City Magazine | |
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Guidelines About the Magazine Editor-in-Chief: Managing Editor: Associate Editor: |
He looked at her with a sick half grin. “Sure, Christine, I see people all the time. I talked to the concierge this morning. I said good-morning to the maid. I ordered some coffee from a waitress. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was bone dry. “Now, where are we headed? You still need a matching set of towels, don’t you?” He sounded perky like a mother. He removed her arm from its hold and walked right through her. I crept up behind Christine and touched her left shoulder. She refused to move. A man with headphones bumped into her. Three young girls approached, tittering. As they passed, two of them stayed together, arms linked; the other had to go around us. Bread and butter, she said, a little too loudly. A young man selling hotdogs out of a silver truck called out, hey baby. Christine glanced up at him momentarily, biting her lip. Then she ran to catch her father, and again I followed. We came up next to him, and, almost inaudibly, she said, “K-Mart.”
I waited until Christine was ready to talk about it. She hadn’t even told me everything, but what I knew was enough. She presented the rest of the evidence over an omelet at Katina’s. I drank coffee and watched Christine chew. I hated to eat anything before noon. “So then, on Wednesday morning, when we were supposed to have dinner together that night, he told me he might have to cancel—but he wasn’t sure yet.” Christine held out her arms and puffed up her cheeks, “I mean, he wasn’t sure? He’d know later, he said.” “Later?” I asked. “Yeah, he’d know probably sometime around four p.m. whether or not he’d be meeting me that night,” Christine said, dryly. She shook her head and rolled her eyes at the same time. “Around four? What … the debate was between him, his elbow, and the left side of his brain, and they’d have it worked out by four p.m. on the dot?” “Yeah, something like that,” Christine said, a faint smile on her lips. “Jesus. He’s some smooth criminal,” I said sarcastically. I looked at her and shook my head. Christine stared back. “I mean,” Christine started, eyes glazing into my coffee, “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but …” she trailed off, parting her mouth with a cynical grimace. I lost it. “Jump to any conclusions?” I shouted, incredulous. “Are you fucking kidding me? He’s obviously boning some chick every time you’ve got your back turned. And he’s hardly careful about it!” I was practically screaming. The waitress came over and asked Christine if she wanted any more coffee. She did. And more cream. The waitress returned. On second thought, I asked for decaf. A sickly sweet smile spread across Christine’s face. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said disingenuously. “Why the hell would my father come all the way to New York just to help me move? Why would he come out here just to be supportive? Why would he do that?” Christine wasn’t asking me, she was telling me. And she was dumping sugar packets into her coffee after whacking each one against her wrist to force the sugar to the bottom. The coffee was near to overflow. She must have noticed my distraction, because Christine grabbed my chin. “You’re right. My father would never do that for me. You sure told me, Anna. I’m so fucking stupid, and he tricked me into thinking his intentions were genuine. Again. Jesus, Anna, you saw right through it all. Thanks for informing me.” Christine’s dark eyes flashed, her words dripped with cynicism and anger. I looked down into my coffee and suddenly felt myself blinking back tears. Softening, Christine brushed my cheek gently with her finger. “Hey,” she said. “Forget what I said. I know you’re right; it’s just hard to hear the truth sometimes. Forget it. Listen, I’m just gonna call him and talk to him directly. He has to talk to me if I keep confronting him.” Christine dialed her father’s number on her cell phone and I heard him pick up. But apparently, though Christine could hear him, he couldn’t hear her voice. “Hello?” I could hear him say. “Hello,” Christine said. “Hello!” he said again, with irritation. Then a woman’s voice, clear as a bell. “Who was that?” she said. “I don’t know,” Christine’s father said again, “I thought it was my daughter, but she must have hung up.”
Christine hadn’t eaten anything for three days straight. She reported this information from her perch at the breakfast table, where I found her when I stumbled home in the middle of the night after a party Christine had refused to attend with me. We played this game periodically: I would tell her to eat, and she would answer that she wasn’t hungry. Then Christine would say, You can’t tell a person with an eating disorder to eat, and I would start to feel like a bitch. Christine sat there braless in a white T-shirt, her face piqued. Loose hairs were forming a messy halo around her face. Her usual mask of foundation was gone, old mascara left dark arcs under her eyes. She was drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, and she was eyeing me angrily, looking her up and down. I knew she’d probably had way too much caffeine. I looked at her tenderly, reaching my hand across the table to stroke the side of her face. I hoped that my look would betray how badly I wanted her to let this go, for Christine to set herself free. But at the same time I was exhausted; I really wanted nothing more than to fall asleep next to her. I started as gently as I could. “Christine.” I could already feel Christine’s antagonism, but for some masochistic reason, I proceeded. There was desperation in my voice. “You’re an adult, you’re years away from home. Is it really that big of a deal if your father is having an affair?” That was all Christine needed. Instead of responding, she put her cigarette out, right on the kitchen table. She got up coolly, walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. I cocked my head in confusion, but I continued anyway, stupidly. “Don’t you remember, Christine? My father fucked someone else for nearly a year, and I eventually just forgave him.” Christine had grabbed a six-pack of Yoplait yogurt and a spoon. It was key lime pie flavor. She had a mean look in her eye. I must have been suicidal, a kamikaze pilot. “Really, monogamy is such a fucking joke. After 30 years, can you really blame your parents for being sexually curious?” Christine sat down on the table right in front of my face. Her chest was eye level and her triangular breasts hung at disparate angles. She ripped open the first container of yogurt and threw the spoon in. She took her first bite, violently. Then she drew her face within an inch of mine and took a second bite, nearly finishing the container. With the spoon in her hand, she grabbed the back of my head by the hair. I could feel the cold of the metal spoon and bits of key lime pie yogurt invading her scalp. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?” Christine whispered, in the sickest tone. “Your father is just like mine. Your father’s affair is just like my father’s affair. You are just like me. I am just like you.” “No,” I said, “no, it’s not like that.” “You’re depressed, so am I. You must be bulimic, just like me,” Christine said, sarcastically. “You don’t eat for three days; neither do I.” “You know that’s not true,” I shook my head. Christine wasn’t listening. “After you starve yourself until you can’t handle it, you sneak a large pizza, all by yourself. No one will know. After that you eat three bowls of soup and maybe a few slices of bread. Then, how about a whole box of cereal.” She stuffed each container of yogurt into her mouth, barely swallowing. She had finished the fourth one already, and each foil wrapper lay discarded on the wooden tabletop. Tears started streaming silently down my cheeks. Christine continued. “And some ice cream. Maybe the whole pint. Then a little cake to top it off.” Globs of the light green, viscous substance were sliding down her shirt, beginning to seep through to the skin. “Yeah,” Christine hissed, “you know exactly what that’s like.” She consumed the final container of yogurt and her eyes were like daggers. “Please stop,” I pleaded. Christine leaned even closer, so that her nose grazed my eyelashes. “Fuck you.” Yogurt slid out the corners of her mouth and landed on my lap.
On Saturday morning, Christine’s father called and said he was at the airport already, taking a flight back to Phoenix a few days early. He and Christine had been planning on moving a few last boxes over to the new place, but plans clearly meant nothing. And I could tell moving was the furthest thing from Christine’s mind. I let a few days pass, let her settle in, and life seemed to normalize. She finally called me one evening and asked me to come make dinner with her. That night we slept together in her new apartment, peacefully, or so it seemed. But there is something about the feel of a new apartment that is difficult to endure alone. It is too engulfing. It is too clean, too white. The boxes loom monstrous; odd shapes like old skis and crooked lamps turn into bogymen. In the middle of the night Christine turned to me. I sleep lightly, so when Christine’s face came close to mine, I could feel her breath make its way into my dream. I opened my eyes. “I’ve got to tell my mother, I’ve decided,” Christine said. “Okay,” I said, unable to hide my confusion. “It’s going to kill her, but I’ve got to tell her.” She paused. “You know what? I think he wants to get caught because he still loves her. But he’s too chickenshit to tell her himself. And maybe he wants me to tell her, so they can reconcile. Because he’s too weak to do it alone.” My heart hurt. It was clear that this monologue had been practiced, recited incessantly, and regurgitated once Christine had gotten sick of obsessing in isolation. “Yeah, maybe,” was all I could muster. I said it gently and closed my eyes, so any harshness would soften on my eyelids. Christine seemed satisfied and turned over. In less than a moment I heard her breathing change. I placed her hand on Christine’s hipbone under the blanket and crept slowly upwards towards her breast. She had eaten that night. I had come over with garlic bread and pasta. We chopped vegetables for the salad and we had listened to Puccini like foolish romantics. Christine had even apologized for the three a.m. scene and the fuck you. My hand brushed her nipples and Christine’s breathing quickened. I took my hand away.
The next morning Christine called her mother. The apartment felt fresh and just a little breezy; I made coffee in the kitchen and had turned off the morning news to give Christine the quiet to think. I watched her over the breakfast counter. Christine sat cross-legged on the couch and dialed the numbers on her cell phone slowly with purpose. She had waited until she knew her father would be at work and before her mother had left for her walk at the high school. Her mother would be feeding the cats and then maybe throwing beef and vegetables and beans in the crock-pot to stew during the day. It would be ready by the time her father came home at seven. Christine knew this schedule like clockwork. I heard Christine reach the final number and watched her anxious face wait through the rings. Finally her mother picked up. “Mom.” Christine said, “oh, I’m fine.” “Oh, its fine, the apartment’s fine. It’s nice.” Then she said, “Mom. There’s something I have to tell you.” I came close to her then, wiping coffee grounds on my jeans. I came up behind Christine and held her. I nuzzled my nose into her neck. I could smell her shampoo, could almost hear her mother’s breathing through the phone. “Mom, when dad came to see me, he wasn’t really here to see me.” I could tell she was already on a roll; there was no stopping for breath or for questions. “Mom, he was here to see another woman. I’m sure of it. I know everything. I heard her voice; it was like … he was trying to get caught. It was that obvious. Mom, it was horrible. And I wasn’t sure if I should tell you, but I couldn’t not.” She stopped then. For a long moment, there was no answer. Then, we heard her mom draw in a long breath. I thought she might begin to cry. And I thought of my own mother, receiving a similar phone call at the family dinner table, and how she’d begun to cry silently, without any explanation. How she walked out. Without an explanation, she’d gotten into the car. She left for the whole night. Without an explanation. In the morning, still nothing. Christine waited. And then we heard something neither of us could predict. It was a deep voice, coming from Christine’s mother. It was a mother neither of us had ever known or heard before. “Christine.” She said her daughter’s name in a non-mother voice, a voice before children, before marriage, before anything adult or planned. “Don’t ever tell me about your father’s affairs again.” We heard the click of the receiver, and a dead tone. We sat there in shock and let it fill up the room like the morning alarm, frozen in time. Then Christine spat violently, her body bent over mine, as though she were trying to vomit out her very self all over me, and the new couch.
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