CHAPTER EIGHT
She didn’t attack me for the entire month of July. Or talk to me. Or look at me. I was the vulgar one, I had dirtied her, not the other way around. How had it come to this and how could I clear my name? I was ready to throw myself into penitent acts as soon as an opportunity arose, but none did. Instead the hours limped by and each working day she was a little closer to moving out of my house. This would probably be for the best, though the thought was gutting, absurdly so.
On the last day of the month a blanket of heat descended in the middle of the night, waking every living thing and setting them against each other. I stared out the kitchen window into the moonless night, listening. An animal was being mauled in the backyard, possibly a coyote attacking a skunk—but not well, not deftly. After a few minutes Clee padded out from the living room and stood a few feet away from me. We listened to the squeals change as the animal approached death; the pitch had entered the human register, every exertion contained a familiar vowel. If words began to form then I would go out there and break it up. Words, even crudely formed ones, would change the game entirely. Of course they would be accidental—the way a tortured human might accidentally make sounds that were meaningful to a pig—but I would still have to step in. We both listened for a word. Maybe help, maybe a name, maybe Please no.
But the thing died before any of that, an abrupt silence.
“I don’t believe in abortion,” whispered Clee, shaking her head ruefully.
It was an unusual way to think about it, but no matter: she was talking to me.
“I think it should be illegal,” she added. “Do you?”
I squinted into the dark corners of the yard. No, I didn’t. I had signed petitions making sure of that. But it seemed like she was referring to what we had done just now, or hadn’t done.
“I’m definitely on the side of life,” I said, meaning not that I was pro-life, just that I was one of life’s fans. She nodded several times in full agreement. We walked back to our beds with a formal feeling, like two diplomats who had signed a treaty of historical import. I wasn’t forgiven, but the air in the house had changed. Tomorrow I’d ask for directions. Do you know where the nearest drugstore is? I saw her smiling with relief, as if I’d asked her to dance. Everything forgiven.
TOMORROW BEGAN WITH A PHONE CALL. Suzanne was outraged.
“I want no part in it. And I don’t feel guilty about that. Did I wake you up?”
“No.” It was six A.M.
“If she was keeping it, I would be mad but I would feel I had to participate. But according to Kate’s mom that’s not the plan. It’s just false stupidity. She’s doing it so she can feel like a trashy Christian girl, like Kate, like all of them.”
There was a little tickle in my brain, like the feeling of being about to remember the word for something. I knew I would understand what she was talking about in just a second.
“You have my permission to kick her out immediately—in fact, I insist on it. She needs a taste of reality. Who’s the father? She can live with him.”
The father. Father Christmas? Feather, farther, fallow? Was there liquid running out of my ear? I looked in the mirror; no liquid. But it was interesting to watch my face as it happened. It gave a very large, theatrical performance of a person being stunned: the mouth fell open, the eyes widened and protruded, color vanished. Somewhere a large soft mallet hit a giant cymbal.
The word for the thing we were talking about was pregnant.
Clee was pregnant.
Were there many ways to get pregnant? Not really. Could you get pregnant from a water fountain? No. My ear was being so loud I could barely make out Suzanne asking if I knew who the father was; even my own reply was hard to hear.
“No,” I yelled.
“Kate didn’t know either. Is Clee there?”
I cracked my door the tiniest bit. Clee was sitting up in her sleeping bag. Her face looked blotchy from crying or maybe just from being pregnant.
“She’s here,” I whispered.
“Well, please tell her she’s on her own. I’d tell her myself but she’s not answering my calls. Actually, you know what? Don’t talk to her. Just make sure she doesn’t leave. I’ll be there in an hour and a half.”
She broke the contract. It didn’t cover this, of course it didn’t, why should it? What did I care? What contract? We didn’t have one. I pressed my face into the bed, smothering myself. Was it the plumber? Of course it couldn’t be the plumber; that was imaginary. But something unimaginary had happened, probably not just once, more likely many times, with many people. That’s who she was. Perfectly fine. Not my business. She could have as much unimaginary intercourse as she wanted. Of course, she would need to leave immediately; our contract was terminated. What contract? Where did they do it? In my bed? I would throw her garbage bags onto the street myself. I put on exercise clothes for swift movement.
Suzanne’s Volvo rolled up silently; she must have cut the motor for the last block. I tried to give her a thumbs-up through the window but she didn’t see me. She was also wearing athletic clothes and she looked as if she had been battle-crying for the whole drive and now was ready for the kill. There was a sharp rap on the door, a metal beak or her keys. I rolled my shoulders back and came out of the bedroom, stone-faced.
Clee was peeking through a crack in the living room curtains. She looked from her mother’s wrathful face to mine, from my exercise clothes to her mother’s. With her arms folded across her stomach she stepped back until she was against the wall with her garbage bags. Rap, rap, rap went the beak. Rap, rap. My eyes fell on Clee’s bare feet; one was on top of the other, protecting it. Rap, rap, rap. We both looked at the door. It was shaking a little. Suzanne began to pound.
I swung it open. Not the big door, but the tiny one within it. It was just big enough to contain all of my features. I pressed them against its rectangle and looked down at Suzanne.
“Is she still in there?” she mouthed, pointing at the windows conspiratorially.
“I don’t think she wants to see you right now,” the door said.
Suzanne blinked; her face sank with confusion. I pressed myself against the oak door. Stay oaken.
“No one home. Keep out.”
“Okay, Cheryl, ha ha. Very theatrical. Let me talk to Clee.”
I looked at Clee. She shook her head no and gave me a tiny grateful smile. I redoubled my efforts, retripled them.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Suzanne snapped. The door handle rattled desperately.
“Double dead bolt,” I said.
She slammed her fist against the small iron grate that covered my face. That’s what the grate was there for. She examined her fist and then gazed at her parked car and Clee’s car behind it, her old car. For a moment she just looked like a mom, tired and worried with no graceful way to express herself.
“It’ll be okay,” I said. “She’ll be okay. I’ll make sure.”
She squinted at me; the rectangle was starting to cut into my face.
“May I at least be granted permission to use the bathroom?” she asked coldly.
I shut the tiny door for a moment.
“She wants to use the bathroom.”
Clee’s eyes were shining.
“Let her in,” she said with careful magnanimity.
I unlocked the door and swung it open. Suzanne hesitated, eyeing her daughter with a last-ditch harebrained scheme. Clee pointed to the bathroom. We listened to her pee and flush and wash her hands. She exited the house without looking at either of us; the Volvo rumbled away.
Clee took a long swig of old Diet Pepsi and tossed the empty bottle in the general direction of the kitchen trash. It bounced on the linoleum a few times. I understood. She had temporarily forgiven me in the heat of the moment without really meaning it. With all the fuss I had forgotten to make my bed; I headed to go do that.
“So,” Clee said loudly. I stopped. “I don’t really know a lot about health and stuff? But I figure you probably know what I should be eating. Like vitamins or whatever.”
I turned and looked at her from my bedroom door. She was standing on the moon and if I responded I would be on the moon too, right next to her. With her and away from everything else. It looks so far away, but you can just reach your hand out and touch it.