CHAPTER SIX
The Open Palm fundraiser is a big hassle every year and not even very lucrative but I’m always giddy as I get dressed for it, knowing Phillip’s getting dressed too. If this were a movie they would cut back and forth between me pulling up my nylons, Phillip polishing his shoes, me brushing my hair, and so forth. It used to be this was the only time I saw him outside the office—now I could say He texts me all the time and it wouldn’t be a lie. When he saw me in the new persimmon blouse he might feel embarrassed or ashamed about the texts. “Hey,” I would say. “Look right here.” I’d point to my eyes. “There’s no room for shame in this relationship, okay?” Would he then pull me toward him with the farmer’s market necklace, which I decided to wear again? And then what would happen? Someone else might have to give Clee a ride home, I might not be available. I’d tell her this when she was done showering. Why was she even coming? She hadn’t been to an Open Palm fundraiser since she was a little girl charging around the dance floor.
I changed my mind when she clomped out of the bathroom; she needed a chaperone. Her top forced a person to look at it even if they didn’t want to. It was just two pieces of black material attached to a giant gold ring—not a street-safe outfit. I could drop her off on my way to Phillip’s if need be.
“Will there be beverages?” she said on the drive to the Presbyterian Fellowship Hall. Her pungent feet stabbed the dashboard; she’d dug up some very high heels with many crisscrossing straps and buckles.
“Not alcoholic ones. You won’t think it’s fun.” She’d traded her sweatpants for very, very tight jeans. Jeans reminded me of Kirsten. He wouldn’t dare bring her.
“That’s okay. Jim’s got something for me.”
“Jim from Open Palm? He’s bringing you alcohol?”
“No, something else. You’ll see.”
We were quiet for the rest of the drive.
Suzanne and Carl hugged their daughter and Clee surprised me by complying. I stood next to the long three-way hug like a guard or a docent.
“Cheryl!” Suzanne squawked as they pulled apart. “What happened to your legs?”
We all looked down at my calves. They were striped with bruises from the old way.
Phillip wasn’t here yet. The girls from Kick It did a self-defense demonstration to rap music and then the DJ took over. I asked him if he thought the volume might be a little on the loud side.
“I think it’s too quiet,” he yelled, one hand holding an earphone up to his ear.
“Well, don’t turn it up.”
“What?”
“It’s perfect the way it is!” I made an A-OK sign.
While the caterer explained a problem they were having with the coffeemaker, I watched Clee talking to the Kick It girls. They were all dressed just like her and she seemed to know some of them—probably the daughters of her parents’ friends. I tried to imagine doing scenarios with one of the other girls, a girl with brown bangs who was showing Clee something on her phone.
“So we should serve less coffee? Or water it down?”
“Serve less.”
It was unthinkable—the girl with brown bangs was just a little girl. Clee glanced at me from time to time; I looked away. Seeing her in public, with her parents, was unsettling. The DJ put on a song that was everyone’s favorite, and the girls rushed to the dance floor with their hands in the air. They danced in a hip-hop style and Carl wiggled among them in a purposefully goofy way that made the Kick It girls laugh. He caught sight of me and beckoned. I held my neck to explain I was up to my neck in managerial duties. An invisible lasso began spinning over his head; he roped me. Everyone was watching so I allowed myself to be pulled onto the floor. Clee took one look at my hips swaying in my crinkly ethnic skirt and turned her back, horrified. I snapped a little to show I was having a terrific time and watched the girls do movements that looked more appropriate for a strip club than a fundraiser for self-defense. They were all in high heels—not one of them could run from an attacker, not to mention the amount of self-inflicted foot pain they must have been suffering. “Holla,” they kept yelling, “holla!” Was that even a word? Or was it holler? People were giving me funny looks; I probably wasn’t “on the beat” or whatever. Where was Phillip? Someone bumped into me and I turned to glare. It was Clee. She did it again—as if we could fight right here, wrestle down to the floor. Or else this was just her way of dancing. She bumped again and this time put her hand lightly on my stomach while standing behind me, containing me in a way that forced our rhythms together. I looked around and realized this was an actual dance, a lot of people were doing it. I couldn’t see her face but I could tell she thought this was funny, she was trying to make the other girls laugh. And hey, I could take a joke, for a minute, but the song went on and on and it felt, quite frankly, inappropriate. From Suzanne’s expression I could tell she agreed with me. I broke away with a little shimmy. My phone vibrated in my pocket.
Phillip. This text didn’t mention Kirsten. It pertained only to me and unequivocally revealed his true feelings about us.
SENT A DONATION—PLS SEND RECEIPT WHEN YOU GET A SEC.
A dull and respectable text for a dull and respectable woman. We had never been a couple, not on any level or in any lifetime. But wait—my phone shook again. Maybe he was kidding and this text would say I was kidding.
HOPE TONIGHT WAS A BIG SUCCESS!
Polite—the only thing worse than dull. I had waited too long to reply about my decision and this was my punishment. It was hard to type with the music pounding. I used all caps like him, yelling through the night.
I’M CLOSE TO A DECISION!
I stared at the phone, waiting. No reply.
I added: :)
No reply.
I waited twenty more minutes. No reply. I stared grimly at the sea of dancing people. It was time to go home. Jim could manage the rest. I told Clee I was going and she surprised me by immediately walking off the dance floor.
“Let me find Jim.”
Jim carried something out to my trunk. He asked Clee what she wanted it for and she shrugged. It was wrapped in a flowery sheet. In the rearview mirror it seemed to be moving.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see,” said Clee.
She carried it into the bathroom with her. A few minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder. She was in a full pummel suit. I hadn’t seen one like this since the late nineties—the giant head and gloves, the shoulder pads and groin guard. She immediately began grabbing me, no script. It was like being hit by a monster, something from a nightmare. I forgot the simulations and fought to kill. No mercy, no advanced mercy, just blood. I punched Phillip in his balding head and Kirsten in her flat stomach, I punched them both at the same time, pounding on them like a door.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said, holding my arms, “slow it down.”
I slowed it down.
Clee was almost motionless, not assaulting me so much as moving her padded body into mine. My slow punches felt like tai chi. After a while the giant-headed alien just pinned me. Or held me. A strange minute passed. I counted to seventy and then coughed. She stumbled backward and pulled the foam head off. Her hair was messed up, her face sweaty and red.
“This was a dumb idea,” she said. No squeeze squeeze.
THE NEXT DAY CLEE ANNOUNCED she’d been moved to the night shift for two weeks. I crept around her in the mornings, going to the office so she could sleep. Did she miss simulating? She didn’t seem to. I was having trouble working or sleeping. My phone was very still. Ever since my reply, Phillip and I were at an impasse. I regretted the smiley face. Sometimes I went to the bathroom at five A.M., when she got home, just to show her I was awake and available, but she ignored me, watching TV with a T-shirt oddly wrapped around her head like a person lost in the desert. Often her pillow was over her face, so I couldn’t be sure if she was cocooned in her sleeping bag or still at work. Once I patted it, to check, and she reared up like a mummy awakened, her hair matted, eyes frantic.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “I wasn’t sure if you were in there.”
She stared at me, waiting, as if another explanation was coming.
“The way your sleeping bag puffs up,” I reiterated, “sometimes it’s hard to tell . . . so I was just . . .” She pulled her head back under the pillow.
AT THE END OF THE two weeks she slept for a full day, then took a shower that seemed to never end. While she was in there Phillip texted: BATH. MUTUAL SOAPING BUT NOTHING MORE. And then: DECISION STILL CLOSE? He was still waiting for me, of course he was. But instead of relief I felt more agitated. I paced around the kitchen. Clee’s shower pounded on and on. It wouldn’t be hard to determine the shower’s gallons per minute, using a bucket. When the water finally shut off I checked the clock—forty-five minutes. We had never discussed splitting the utilities but maybe it was time. Two checks or I pay and she pays me back half? What was that sound? Blow-dryer. She was blow-drying her hair. She came out of the bathroom dressed in slacks and a satiny blouse, her hair a warm, shiny line. Her feet were coated with some kind of mentholated fungal cream. If she was going out, “A Day at the Park” would be a great option and didn’t take too long. Then I could have the house to myself. I put my purse on my shoulder, strolled around the living room and then sat on the “park bench.” She looked at my purse.
“You going out?”
“No . . .” I said suggestively.
“Me either.”