“It’s got a lot of dirt in it. I know.”
She looks down again, then slowly slips out of each shoe, leaving the laces tied. When she sets her feet down on the grass she does so gingerly, arching the balls of her feet upward so that the only parts of her touching the ground are her toes and heels. In the back pocket of his jeans, Paul’s iPhone vibrates and he reaches instinctively to silence it. It’s the sixth time today that it’s rung. The first time the call was from an unknown number bearing an Indiana area code—some telemarketer, he figured, wasting away behind a desk in some nameless office park. The five remaining calls came from his sister, Alice, and he dutifully ignored each one. Eloise, their half sister, was getting married—and in England, no less. There’d be expensive hotels where he’d be afraid to touch anything, and embroidered cloth napkins, and a reception at some estate straight out of Masterpiece Theatre. He’d told Alice once already that he sure as fuck wasn’t going, and he suspects that’s what she wants to discuss. So far, she’s left two messages—the first politely asking to speak, the second threatening him with physical violence if he failed to call her back. Now, it seems, she’s switched to a strategy of pure harassment.
“Is that it?” Wendy asks. She’s still balanced on her heels and toes, and now both her hands are gripping the hems of her shorts, which she pulls higher and higher up her thighs.
Paul says, “It’s not.”
“Then…”
“I’m going to need you to step into the trash can,” he says.
Wendy doesn’t say anything.
“You can use my shoulder to balance yourself, because I realize it’ll be a … a big step. But I’m going to need you to climb into the trash can.”
“I can’t do that.” Wendy shakes her head.
Paul says, “Then you don’t have to.”
This, he admits, is off-script. If Goulding were here he would’ve insisted that Paul pushed harder before offering a way out, and ostensibly for good reason. But with Wendy—well, with Wendy.
He slaps at another mosquito, this one on his neck.
“Remember, this is entirely voluntary. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do. If it’s too difficult, you can walk away, and we can suggest some other treatment options. You don’t have to do it.”
“Yes, I do,” she says.
“You really don’t, though.”
She glances up at him. “You know how much I’m paying for this bullshit? To crawl into a goddamned garbage can, and with no refund policy, no less?”
“It’s expensive because—”
“You do. You do know how much I’m paying. So don’t go saying I don’t have to do this, because you and I both know damned well that I do.” She adds: “Besides, I’m getting sick and tired of washing my hands. Every month I spend as much money on soap as most people do on car insurance. And if I burn away any more skin from my fingers the only thing I’ll be left scrubbing is bone.” She stares down at her hands. “So I have to do it, all right?”
Paul nods and takes a step forward. Now he is standing directly beside Wendy. Her Yves Saint Laurent mixes with the sourness of overripe cabbage. She grips his left shoulder and, bearing firmly down on him, lifts one leg into the steel bin. She stands like this for about a minute—one leg in, one leg out—catching her breath, repeating wordless mantras to herself. Paul still supports her, and as he feels her weight on him, he thinks of what else he put in the trash can earlier that afternoon: half a roasted chicken, week-old mashed potatoes from the clinic’s kitchen, the assorted contents of waste bins from three different women’s bathrooms. There is more, he knows—stuff that he pulled out of the Dumpsters behind the clinic that morning—but he prefers not to think about it. Because here is Wendy, who forked out over twenty thousand dollars just for the privilege of lowering her second leg into that mess. Paul sucks on his teeth: How much would someone have to pay him to stand in a trash can in suburban Philadelphia? It would have to be a lot of money. Too much money. And unlike Wendy, he is someone who has a relatively healthy relationship with germs. Sometimes he can’t even be bothered to wash his hands after taking a piss.
He sucks on his teeth harder. Flattens out his grimace into a straight face.
“How you doing?” he asks.
She doesn’t answer, and he looks down into the bin. A half-eaten Big Mac has split apart, and bits of orange cheese and beef cling to her calf.
“You’ll be here for twenty minutes,” he says, returning to Goulding’s script. “And in that time I want you to imagine all of the possible germs and all the possible diseases that you’re standing in right now, and that are touching your bare skin. As they come to you, say them out loud. I’ll be recording them here, on my clipboard. Do you understand?”
Wendy takes her hand away from Paul’s shoulder and lets it lie limp against her side. Still, though, she is silent.
“Wendy,” he said. “I need you to tell me that you understand.”
She doesn’t, though. She keeps her lips pressed shut and her gaze fixed forward. After a minute or two, she shifts her right heel; something beneath it pops, and she begins, quietly, to cry. Paul looks back toward the clinic’s main facilities, where a few lights have flickered on. He licks his lips and reaches into his pocket. Discreetly as he can, he works his fingers into a clean latex glove. Then, using his clipboard to shield himself from any observing eyes, he reaches out and takes hold of Wendy’s hand, which he gives a good, firm squeeze.
Alice
May 3
She pokes her head beneath the stalls to make sure the bathroom is empty, and once she’s sure she’s alone, she turns on the faucet farthest from the door, takes a Klonopin, and throws some cold water on her face. She does this a few more times—filling the cup of her hand, letting the frigid splashes sting her cheeks and hang from her eyelashes—before she turns the water off and ventures a look in the mirror. There have been days when she’s looked worse, she tells herself, tilting her chin left and then right. But then, there have also been days when she’s looked a hell of a lot better. Her skin, which two days ago sported an early-summer tan thanks to a Sunday spent in Santa Monica, now looks red, blotchy. And her hair—God, if all the men who’ve called it “honey” could see it now. A bucket of dirty dishwater, hanging limply to her shoulders. She leans in closer and pulls the skin away from her eyes. Miraculously, they’re fine: still that pale shade of blue. Free of the red spiderwebs you’d expect if you hadn’t slept the night before (she didn’t) or hadn’t spent the last nine hours staring at an Excel spreadsheet (she has).