I wrote this story as part of my honors thesis my senior year of college; I was trying to capture a mood I have sometimes where everything feels like so much I just go mute. It’s the first story I wrote that year that felt like me. It has been rejected by some big names, but I still like it. It’s an imperfect reflection of something that felt intrinsically important at the time. I don’t know if I feel that way now, but I still feel proud of this and wanted to give it a home outside of my laptop.
Step
1:
Ignore Helen’s nut covered cheese
ball. Who wants pecans mashed onto a giant, sticky wheel of cheddar? Not you.
She’ll get huffy because she needs external validation on her domestic
achievements because her husband hasn’t given her a compliment since 1992. Not
your problem. She’ll complain passive aggressively to Rebecca, Terry, and
Marianne. They’ll nod in agreement. You really don’t appreciate the hard work
of others at these kinds of events, you know.
Step
2:
Grab a bottle of red wine from the
pantry. This is your house after all, and you really don’t want the white wine
that Anne brought. It’s pinot grigio and how old are we, anyway? 19? Tell
someone that. That’ll anger the remaining women who don’t like Helen. Helens’s so particular and she was probably harsh earlier, but this? So rude to drink
your private stock in front of guests. Especially since Anne spent $12 on that
bottle. And can you believe your nerve, telling your guests that you don’t like
the wine they brought? This is just like you. Remember the fundraiser at the
elementary school a few years ago, where you didn’t buy a single baked good
because they all looked ugly? Everyone else at this party sure as hell does.
Step
3:
Drink too much red wine. Stop
responding to the polite conversation starters so that Paula, the last woman at
this party who doesn’t hate you, finally gives up. You don’t care about
interior décor or the fact that Lydia got her porch redone and the contractor
was just so gosh darn attractive. The men outside are talking about golf,
another thing you don’t give a shit about. But you like grilled meats more than
the vegetable platter and collection of cupcakes inside, so you excuse yourself
out to the porch. You hold your glass of red wine close to your face, your legs
crossed as you ponder the gender division of this party. So many people talking
and saying nothing, you think. Then you think that sounds like a Simon and
Garfunkel song, that you sound dramatic. But maybe it is true: nothing has been
said that needed to be said, and you are tired of it, tired of it all. Men
talking about golf and grilled meats and women with their interior design and
baked goods and it all feels so
cliché. You consider saying that, but who would
listen?
Step
4:
Two glasses of wine later, you have
finished the bottle. You have stopped responding to all questions all together.
You are back inside now, your blue plastic plate covered in grilled chicken and
broccoli casserole and a white frosted cupcake and you have not touched any of it.
The women and men are mixed now, wives next to husbands. Clumps of them
together across the room and no one is talking to you. You can feel them
talking about you, can see their little skittered side glances and the shhhhhhhhhhof a group conspiratorial whisper. Todd is outside still, cleaning off the
grill. You sit on a bar stool that you moved to the back wall of the living
room in order to make room for your guests. Todd sees you through the window
and he looks concerned, mouthing Are you okay and you just shake your
head. No? Or yes? Does it matter? You go with no, but you don’t know if
you actually aren’t or if it’s the wine.
Step
5:
Now you’ve done it. Your weird
silence in the corner did the trick: now no one is talking. The cheese ball has
diminished in size and the pinot grigio is gone and the broccoli casserole is
caving in on itself. You feel like crying and you don’t know why. Todd is back
inside now, fluttering between you (Are you okay? What’s wrong? Babe, why
won’t you talk?) and the rest of the party and because you don’t know what
to say, you say nothing. You see Helen gathering the remains of her
nut-and-cheese ball, sharing a glance with the other wives, then a concerned
look towards Todd. Oh poor Todd, you can see her saying later, after she
had a glass and a half of white wine in bed with her husband, Frank. He
really does put up with a lot. And what a shame—what a nice man. Frank will
grunt, either agreeing or disagreeing; it’s impossible to tell. That
Charlotte really is…something, Helen will say at the next homeowner’s
ashsociation meeting and the women will silently nod. But for now, you are
silent in the corner of your own home and no one is saying anything worth
listening to, anyway.
Step
6:
After Helen leaves, everyone else
follows. Lovely party, thanks for having us, they all say as they leave,
talking to Todd, not to you, and you can’t help but grimace. They notice, and
so does Todd, and he looks at you with a cold, sharp glance. It says: just
let this end, let them go, let this be done but you don’t know what “this”
is or how to let go or if you can. “This” feels hot and angry and dangerous and
like letting it go would mean blowing it up and, after all, you don’t know what
“this” even is.
Step
7:
What was that, Todd says
after the door closes after the last guest. What is up with you, Charlotte? You
stare at him and you can feel how cold it is in this room. Outside, the sun is
going down, draining the chlorine blue sky of the day into the inky blanket of
night. You want to comment on it, want to explain how you feel like the sky
right now, getting dragged down into something different and darker than how
you’re supposed to be, but it feels natural, this drowning. But how can you say
that? Are you going to say anything, he asks, but it’s not really a
question. He knows the answer already. I can’t keep doing this, he says,
and you know that he means it, that he’s right. He can’t, you can’t. I’m
sorry, you say, and you mean it. He runs his hands across his face, and he
softens for a moment. Just a moment. You always are, he says.
Step
8:
Wash the dishes slowly in the sink.
Let the water run too hot, then too cold, and then turn it off for a moment.
Rest your chin on your chest. Examine your wedding ring. It looks the same as
it did the day you got married. Think about telling Todd that. But he would ask
why you thought that, what it meant, and you don’t have an answer. I miss
you, you want to say. I haven’t gone anywhere, Charlotte is what
he’d say. You have, is what he’d think but wouldn’t say. I have, is
what you’d think but wouldn’t say. Finish the dishes, all 27 of them. Dry them
off with the good cloth, put them away. Todd is outside, ostensibly cleaning
the grill. He is staring at the sunset and you can’t help but think that maybe
he’s thinking the same thing. You pause by the stairs, willing him to turn
around, to see you. He doesn’t.
Step
9:
Take a bath and start sobbing as the
water runs. Imagine that Todd will hear and come in and cradle you. Oh poor
Charlotte, he would say. Poor you, poor you. I love you, I love you, I
love you. But he does not and you’re glad he doesn’t because you would just
push him away with watery, naked arms. And so you sit alone in the dirty green
water of your bathtub, a sinking ship of one. You let yourself cry in
shuddering gasps, deep throated and mucus-y until you abruptly stop. It feels
like someone has scrubbed your insides with steel wool, polished away at your
rib cage until it gleamed. You let yourself lean back into the bathtub, let the
lukewarm water rush up into your ears so that the world sounds wavy. You think
about how you used to float in pools, rivers, streams, gorges, lakes, oceans,
arms outstretched, how you would be weightless in the vast emptiness of the
water. You wonder if maybe you soaked some of that emptiness up, let it curl
into your sternum and make a home inside your heart. That’s the red wine
talking, Todd would say. It’s nothing that dramatic, he would say. Sometimes
the world can be a lot. You would counter by saying Sometimes I am a lot and he wouldn’t have a response to that.
Step
10:
You sit in the tub like that until
you notice how cold it is, and then you sit up, shivering. Your bones feel like
they’re suspended in Jell-O, like your body has soaked up all the water in the
tub, like your flesh is viscous and barely holding your skeleton together. You think
about the first time you got high, really high. It was with Todd in college. He
held the bowl to your mouth and coached you to breathe in when the weed was on
fire, to suck up the musky smoke into your lungs and count to five before
letting it come out in a steady stream. You didn’t cough the first time and he
was proud. The high hit later, and you fell into a beanbag and told him you
felt as though all the connecting parts of you were replaced with water. Like
all your joints had been loosened just a little bit. You remember that he
laughed, that he said You really don’t see things the way other people do, and you remember thinking that you could love someone like him a whole awful lot
if he let you. And he did.
Step
11:
You start crying again, softer this
time. You pull yourself out of the tub, grab a towel. Pat yourself dry slowly
and carefully. Like you’re made of porcelain. Todd said your skin reminded him
of it, once, long ago. How smooth and delicate it was, how he could see your
veins. After sex you would both lie in the bed, on top of the covers, and he
would trace from your shoulders to your collar bone to your navel and back
again with his index finger. I feel like a topographical map you’d say
and he would ask if you minded and you would say No, I like feeling like
this and then there would be silence for a while. And he would tell you that
you were something precious without any words at all. Where has that gone now,
you wonder. And you know that maybe it’s your fault, that you started hiding
yourself away under thick wool sweaters and slapped his hand away, crawled
under the covers. But he never fought back, never questioned why. What would
you even say? I am lost and I don’t know how I did it. I am tired, so tired.
Step
12:
The bath and the sobbing took longer
than you thought they did, and now it is firmly night. Todd is asleep on his
side of the bed, arms splayed out like he is trying to hug the ceiling. He has
always slept like this, and you find it equal parts charming and annoying. He
is snoring gently and the sound is slow and steady. You want to wake him, want
him to pull you into his arms and hold you until are rocked to sleep by the
feeling of his breathing. That used to be how you fell asleep every night. You
pull the covers back on your side of the bed. You curl into a cashew shape,
knees up to your chest. You curl around the emptiness on your side of the bed. There
are no more tears, no more anger. You are worn out, strung out to dry on a
clothesline you fashioned yourself. Todd’s arm is outstretched towards you, his
fingers moving gently. You reach your arm out, put your hand around his, curl
your fingers through his and tell yourself this is enough, this is
enough. You can feel his pulse in your fingers, can feel it beating into
you as you fall asleep. This is enough, this is enough.
