Hem

Same thing every night. When her light goes out I’ll leave. I know if she looks out here she’ll see my car. I know that. But she never looks out. I see it as more obsessive than stalkerish. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t used to date. It’s not like I don’t know her. I just want to see what she’s doing. I want to see if she’s hanging out with anybody. If I think about what I’m doing too much, I get embarrassed. So I don’t overanalyze. I simplify. All I’m doing is sitting in my car. All I’m doing is looking over at the second floor of this house apartment. All I’m doing is drinking the rest of this beer. All I’m doing is listening to the radio. All I’m doing is turning the radio off.

One thing at a time.

Her light goes out and I grimace as I start up the car. I finish my beer, crush the can and toss it out the window. I feel guilty immediately and think of turning around to go pick it up. I should’ve at least aimed for someone’s recycling bin.

It takes me exactly six minutes to get home from her place. Five if I blow through the stop signs, but I don’t this time. I don’t want to get pulled over. I’m not drunk but I know I smell like beer and there are four left of the six pack, still cold and waiting behind my seat. I grab them as I’m getting out of my car. I open one before I put my key in the lock and take a big drink as I use my shoulder to nudge my front door open. The first thing I see is that picture of Bethany and me sitting on top of my bookshelf. She put it in a frame for me. I snatch it off and toss it in the kitchen garbage can like I’ve done at least three different times. This time I promise myself I won’t fish it out. I won’t. I can’t. I have to stop this.

I’ve been sitting in front of her place every night for a month now. It was a month ago when she broke up with me. I started going over there because I figured she’d already found someone else and I wanted to know who he was. Why he was better than me. Why I wasn’t good enough. I never saw anyone else, though. Just her.

Bethany and I were pretty serious for about eight months before she broke it off. I thought we mattered, but I guess we didn’t. I’m too lazy to move on. I used to love her. I loved her even when she was frustrated with me and talked to me like I was a yellow balloon that had foolishly slipped away, floating up and up out of her reach.

Sitting out in front of her place has become a ritual for me and I don’t have very many others. I’d miss it too much if I stopped now. It’s pathetic and stupid, I know. But I like what I like. And right now I like going over there at midnight every night and sitting until her light goes out and coming back to my place to finish my beers and go to bed. Then I get up and teach senior English at the high school around the corner like I have every morning for the past two years. Every morning I wish I was in high school again. I wish I still believed in all of that you can be whatever you want to be you can change the world you can do anything if you set your mind to it bullshit.

“Mr. Raynor, can I turn in my book report late? Tomorrow, I promise!” One student says to me after class has ended. She’s holding her hands together as if she’s praying. She takes her fingers and crosses them and grits her teeth at me. She says Pretty please.

I nod my head okay.

“You should be glad I’m in a good mood. It’d better be the best book report I’ve ever read. I mean it. I want it to make me howl, weep and beat my chest,” I say.

“Thank you, Mr. Raynor. It will, I swear,” she says before turning to leave the room.

I stand up from my desk and slip my hands in my pockets as I walk to the doorway.

“Howling and weeping!” I say to her as my next class files in.

“Is your band playing tonight, Mr. Raynor?” Another student asks me as he enters.

“You’re underage. That’s confidential information,” I say to him and smile.

“I’ll be eighteen next month.”

“You’re still gonna have to wait three more years.”

“Well you’ll see my band play at Battle of the Bands next week and maybe if you guys need a bass player, I’ll fit you into my schedule. I’m awesome,” he says, pointing at me with that bravado only an almost-eighteen year old can get away with.

“I bet you are. Make sure your book report is awesome too. Go put it on my desk,” I say, motioning with my head.

After school, I wait until I’m down the steps and by my car to light my cigarette. I see another English teacher, Merit Woodland, walking towards me in these great, ridiculous high-heeled shoes. She usually wears black slip-on Vans, which I’ve secretly noticed and love. She has a red ribbon tied around her wrist.

“Is that so you won’t forget something?” I ask and point to her wrist.

She rolls her eyes as I’m lighting the cigarette for her. She takes a big drag and puts her bag up on the top of my car with a thump.

“Whatcha got in there, bodies?” I ask.

“Hell yes. The tiny little bodies of the miniature people I’ve murdered. That’s what it is. Not books, of course. That’s too normal.”

“Well, you are a freak. A nice one, but a freak none the less.” I do a big exaggerated shrug like I’m waiting for an oldtimey laugh track to kick in.

She laughs and tells me to shut up. She holds her cigarette out behind her with one hand and fishes around in her bag for something. She pulls out a half-full bottle of Diet Coke and opens it. A flock of geese flies over us, honking loudly. I’m so fucking glad it’s finally spring, I want to scream.

Merit touches the ribbon around her wrist.

“I thought it was pretty,” she says.

“It is. I noticed the shoes too,” I say, motioning towards them. I lean against my car and loosen my tie.

“You like? I’m trying them out. I’ve been wearing the same black Vans every day for like, four years. It’s time to spice it up, right?”

“Totally,” I say. She’s a pretty little thing and I like that she doesn’t take my shit. I never noticed how well we got along until Bethany broke up with me. I didn’t notice anything about anyone when Bethany and I were together. Too much of my brain was spent on her. It’s a wonder I remembered to get dressed and eat and sleep.

“Are you still sitting in front of your ex-girlfriend’s apartment every night?” she asks without looking at me. She’s staring down the road and flicking her ash.

“No. Not every night,” I lie, feeling a hot pit in my stomach. I hate that I told her about that.

“Well how is she gonna know you mean business if you can’t even commit to stalking her every night? Show some dedication, Mitchell. When I was stalking my ex-boyfriend, I pulled out the big guns. I was this close to hiding in his garbage can with nothing but a pair of night vision goggles,” she holds up her fingers to show how close she was. She takes another drink of her Diet Coke and puts the bottle back in the bag.

“Why were you stalking him?”

“Because I hated him. Or because I loved him. I don’t know. It was both,” she says, shaking her head as if to make herself stop talking.

“How’d that work out for you?”

“I stopped stalking him. So that part worked out for both of us,” she says.

“I really wouldn’t call it stalking. I’d never hurt her. It sounds crazy now that I’m saying it aloud. I’m stopping. Officially stopping. It’s crazy. What the hell...” I say, scratching at my head and smoking.

“Well don’t stop smoking. At least promise me that. You’re the only person I like who smokes around here,” she says.

“Promise,” I say, squinting in the sun.

Every Friday night, my band plays at this little dive run by some old hippies. We call ourselves Skeleton Wolf. I play guitar and sing. My little brother plays bass.

There’s a good-sized crowd here already. More than usual. It’s probably because it’s warm and the winter was so cold and long, at the first sign of green buds and warm sunlight, everyone threw open their doors and windows and climbed out. We took to wandering around aimlessly, glad to be alive.

I know this will keep me distracted. Maybe I won’t be tempted to go by Bethany’s tonight.

And then I see Bethany out of the corner of my eye. She has feathers in her hair. She looks different because I haven’t seen her up close in a month. Her face is new to me even though I know it well. When I look at her I feel the same way I feel whenever I come back to my house after I’ve been on vacation for a week.

I look away quickly. I didn’t see if she was with someone or not. I bend down to pretend like I’m adjusting the amp. I get down on my knees and turn my back to the crowd.

“Mitchell! Hey Mitchell,” I hear Bethany say behind me.

I turn my head around and all I can think to say is Oh.

“I was walking past. Thought I’d pop in and say hey,” she says. She’s holding a small plastic cup with a red stirrer sticking out of it. I know it’s vodka and cranberry juice because that’s her drink. I notice her nails are red too, like a warning.

I reach down for my bottle of beer and nod at her.

“It’s crowded tonight. Good for y’all,” she says, smiling.

“Yeah,” I say. I don’t want to talk to her. I was only beginning to feel better. Shit.

“My friends are over there,” she nods towards the bar.

“Cool.”

“Good to see you,” she says.

I put my arm straight up to raise my beer and I say Sure. I turn back around when she walks away. When I step up to the mic to start singing, I purposely focus on a spot straight ahead in between the bathrooms, where there’s a lantern with a fake flickering light. I stare at the light and sing our first song. I wrote it about Bethany and tonight I sing it and pretend like I wrote it for someone else.

We play a couple of songs and take a break. I go up to the bar to buy some beers for the band. I scan the girls to see if any of them are Bethany. I don’t know if she’s still here or not but I don’t want to be surprised by her again. I spy her sitting in a corner booth with some girls and maybe two guys but I can’t tell. I decide to go over there.

I stop at the edge of their table and catch Bethany’s eye.

“Hey, Mitch,” she says. She introduces me to the people I don’t know.

I say Hello to them and then I ask her if I can talk to her for a second even though I have no idea what I’ll say. She says Okay and follows me. I walk out of the side door and stand out back on the gravel over by the fence separating the back patio from the road. I get a cigarette out of my front pocket, light one and smoke it.

“Why did you come here?” I ask her.

“I told you. I was walking past and wanted to stop in and say hey,” she says, crossing her arms like it’s cold out here, even though it isn’t. Watching her do that made me miss her arms. I missed her whole body, the curves and fleshiness of it and how we’d fit together when we tangled ourselves on her couch or in my bed. I missed how warm she was when we slept in the same bed together. I missed brushing my teeth with her and how sometimes I’d come back to my place after work and she’d be in my bedroom fussing at me about leaving wet towels on the bed. I really missed her and now that was spilling out of my brain and heart again like a broken faucet I couldn’t shut off.

“I’m angry with you for coming when you know I play here every Friday night,” I say softly, leaving my eyes on the gravel underneath my shoes for a moment before looking back at her.

She leans her back against the wooden fence, jutting her hips out towards me and looking away.

“I’m seeing someone else. His name is Roger. The guy sitting in there by the window,” she says.

“I don’t care, Bethany,” I lie.

“And I wanted to come here tonight. That’s all. I can go where I want.”

“You’re exactly fucking right,” I smoke and nod.

“And it’s not like I don’t care about you.”

“Whatever.”

“Roger just fits me better, that’s all. He’s a better fit than you and me.”

“What, like he’s a fucking dress?” I say, moving my hands too much. I realize it and stop.

“You’re right. Like he is a fucking really great dress. And you weren’t for me. You were like...the hem of a really great dress,” she says, uncrossing her arms and putting her hands on her hips.

“As if I have a clue what that means,” I mumble, because I know she hates when I mumble.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it...come here. I don’t know why I’m so mean.”

“I’ve gotta play,” I say. I put my cigarette out and walk back inside, leaving her out there with strangers and the feral cat that hangs out by the garbage cans. It hurts to walk away but I do it anyway.

We play some more songs and when our set is over my brother asks if I want to grab something to eat at the diner like we do sometimes. I tell him I’m tired and I’m going home. But I don’t go home. I sit outside of Bethany’s until her light goes out. She and Roger probably turned it out so they could fuck or maybe they fuck with the lights on. I’m thinking about that as I ditch one empty beer can out of the window. And on my way home, I call Merit even though it’s late.

“Merit, it’s Mitchell. This isn’t weird, is it?”

“No. No it’s not weird. Unless you’re doing something weird. Are you doing something weird?”

“No. I’m not. I was on my way home and wanted to talk to somebody, that’s all.”

“You out stalking your ex-girlfriend again?”

“Last time, I swear.”

“Why don’t you come over here? I’m up. And let’s see...I have half a pizza and half a pack of cigarettes. We’re set,” she says. She tells me where she lives and it’s not far. I imagine having sex with her and it makes me feel better.

Apparently she has a huge dog because I hear its deep, monstrous barking after I knock on the door. Merit’s standing there soon afterwards and she still has the red ribbon tied around her wrist.

“Hey boyfriend,” she says as I walk inside.

I love seeing someone’s digs for the first time. Her house is full of color and strange things, like I thought it would be. I’ve known Merit for a year. She teaches down the hallway from me. Sometimes I’ll go down and borrow her stapler. Sometimes she comes to my room for an extra copy of a book. She usually has a boyfriend. Or at least, I think she does. I’ve seen guys come to pick her up after work. One time I saw her at the coffee shop downtown, holding hands with some dude.

And her dog is a big, friendly, hairy mop of a beast. He reminds me of the dog on Sesame Street. I tell her that.

“He totally does. His name is Sean. I love animals with human names,” she says petting his head. I pet his head too. I ask her if she has a boyfriend. I tell her I don’t want any confusion if some guy comes to the door.

“Eh,” she throws up her hand, dismissing me.

I scrunch up my nose.

“I never have a boyfriend for very long,” she says.

“I’ve seen you before. With a couple of guys,” I say, not knowing if I should sit until she motions to the couch.

“Oh, so now I’m a whore?” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“In every way,” I say.

“Yaaay,” she claps and asks me if I want a piece of pizza. I say Yes.

We talk shop for a while. Our principal and budget cuts and some students we both know.She says she’s thinking of moving to Colorado. She has some friends who live there. She asks me if I think I can ever get over Bethany and I tell her of course.

“Then why don’t you do it?”

“Maybe I have to find something else to do instead. It’s basically just mismanagement of time, that’s all,” I say.

“Oh we both know that’s not true, Mitchell Raynor,” she says. She asks me what my middle name is.

“John. What’s yours?”

“Paige.”

“Merit Paige Woodland. Sounds like a faerie name. I like it,” I say, relaxing some more.

She flutters her eyelashes and wiggles her fingers at me.

I keep changing my mind about her. We should be better friends. We should sleep together once just to try it out. We should fuck a lot all the time and pretend like we aren’t. Or maybe we should get married and move to Colorado together. We should have more times like this with the windows open wide like mouths—breathing in and out, the warm spring air and holiness Ginsberg wrote about in “Howl.” Everything! Madness! Love! Eternity!

I need a cigarette and a moment of not thinking. I ask her if she wants to step outside and smoke with me. She hops up with her bare feet and striped pajama pants that brush the floor.

She’s smoking and talking. I watch her mouth a lot. Her top lip is smushy and goes sort of crooked when she talks and I wonder if she’s self-conscious about it or if she loves it. It makes her look younger than she is, even though I realize I don’t know her age.

“I didn’t do anything tonight. I had exciting plans to get drunk on champagne and shop for earrings online, but you called and I’m glad you did. I don’t have people over that much,” she says.

I listen and wish I was drunk so I could get away with kissing her right now. The bottom of our legs are touching, our thighs leaning on each other. We’re sitting on the front steps of her porch and I don’t know how she feels about me. Maybe she’s this nice to everyone. Maybe she feels sorry for me. Maybe I want to sleep with her because she’s not Bethany. But I know that’s not true. See. I’m always talking myself out of things.

I snatch a leaf from the bush next to the steps and twist it between my fingers while I smoke and talk.

“Shitty friends are overrated. I don’t want to hang out with people just so I can say I’m hanging out with people. What’s that about?” I add.

“Exactly. That’s the worst.”

“I’d like it if we could be friends, though. I like talking to you.”

“You don’t think we’re friends?” She widens her eyes and puts her head on my shoulder.

“Well, I mean. Better friends. We should be better friends, then. That’s what I’m saying,” I say, trying not to stumble over my words. I got nervous halfway through the sentence. I toss the leaf into the darkness and brush my hand off on my shirt.

“I think you’re cool people,” she says. And maybe this is it. Maybe I should say something more or touch her somehow.

But she stands up. She asks me if I want to go for a walk with her. She says We’ll take Sean. I say Okay and finish smoking while she goes inside. We circle the block, letting the dog shit in the grass by the flagpole. Merit picks it up with the plastic bag she brought with her. I realize I’ve been feeling more like that shit than I’ve admitted to myself.

I don’t try anything when we get back. I tell her thanks for letting me come over and I give her a hug and go home. I drink two beers and fall asleep on the couch watching some show about animals that makes me sad.

The next night, I’m getting ready to go sit outside of Bethany’s place again. I don’t have anything else to do. I’m feeling sorry for myself and knowing better and all of that. My phone rings and it’s Merit asking if I want some company so I say Okay. Yes. I do want some company. I need to feel like someone cares about me. I don’t say that aloud but I’m thinking it as I hang up the phone.

I go around putting my clothes where they should be. I start a load of laundry and empty the dishwasher. I take out the garbage and change my shirt.

Merit’s here and she admires my bookshelf and talks about how she organized her bookshelves by color and I tell her I noticed. I ask her if she’ll help me do mine. She says Only if. I say Only if what. She says Only if we go to Bethany’s tonight. Together. For the last time.

I don’t want to. I really don’t want to. But I say Okay half because I want to impress her and half because it is time to go. Somehow my body knows it. I feel like part of me is underwater, not real.

We get in my car. I stop at the gas station for a six pack and Merit gets one of those huge fountain Diet Cokes in a red plastic cup with a long blue straw. She also gets a pack of gum, another pack of cigarettes and two bags of spicy potato chips.

“Provisions,” she says, reaching for some Ring Pops.

I park a little further back this time. I feel like the biggest asshole as I turn the car off and open a beer. I light my cigarette, lean my seat back.

“It’s the perfect temperature tonight,” Merit says, sticking her hand out of the window, the wet purple Ring Pop on her finger, catching the streetlamp light.

“It’s what, like sixty-five degrees?” I put my hand out into the Kentucky spring darkness, to its crickets and waning moon.

“Let’s go with that,” she says, leaning her seat back so she can turn and see me eye to eye. She takes my can of beer and sips it. She asks me what’s so special about this girl anyway. And I realize I haven’t told her anything real about Bethany. I look down at the bag of chips and decide I’m not hungry.

“I don’t know. Isn’t that awful? I was in love with her and she broke up with me. That’s all.”

“I think in a way, everyone breaks everyone’s heart,” she says. She asks me if Bethany is crazy-fantastically pretty and perfect. I tell her that sure Bethany is really pretty, yes. She asks me if Bethany was crazy-fantastic in bed. I tell her that Bethany was good in bed, sure. I get embarrassed when she asks me that but I try to hide it. I ask her about her last boyfriend, not the ex she sorta kinda stalked but the latest one. She says she shouldn’t have dated him in the first place. Her body screamed it, but she ignored it.

“He was gross,” she says, sticking her tongue out, “let’s not talk about him anymore.”

“Fair enough,” I say, smiling at her crooked top lip.

“I came to hear your band play one night. It was a couple of months ago. I never said anything. I don’t think you saw me. I should’ve said something,” she says, tapping her finger on top of her straw.

“That sucks. I didn’t know you came. I didn’t see you,” I say.

“You guys are good. I’ll come see you next Friday,” she says. I hope she’s not just saying that to be nice. I hope I do see her out there in the crowd, in her black slip-on Vans and maybe she’ll wear the red ribbon around her wrist. Maybe we’ll hang out afterwards.

“Is this all you do when you come here? Sit, smoke, drink beer, and stare at her window?

I say Yes.

“It makes me sad, thinking about you doing that,” she says softly.

“I think it makes me sad, too,” I say, “and I can’t believe I brought you with me tonight. It’s so fucking stupid.” I lean forward so I can turn the keys in the ignition and get out of there.

“Mitchell, don’t. It’s your last night here. Let’s enjoy it,” she says and takes her hand and puts it on my chest. We hold hands, our fingers laced and warm in between our seats, our other hands hanging out of the windows, smoking. When Bethany’s bedroom light goes out, Merit says Okay good and lets my hand go. I start feeling all empty again.

We go back to my place and pull off all of the books on the shelf in my bedroom. We sit on the floor. I ask if she wants some wine and she says Yes so I go get both of us a glass. I bring two Mason jars of Shiraz back to my bedroom and Merit takes a jar, tells me she loves Mason jars and asks me to promise her something.

“Shoot,” I say, taking a sip.

“I know I said before that you weren’t taking the stalking seriously enough. And I told you the thing about my exboyfriend, night vision goggles...all of that,” she says.

I nod.

“Well I think you should stop. It’s hurting you. You’re tenderhearted.”

“Am I?”

“You know you are.”

My eyes are nearly welling and I look down at the floor.

“You’re worth more than that,” she says, looking at me until I put my eyes on hers.

She starts with the blue books. She makes a stack and sets aside the green-blues, saving them for later. We work in silence and after I finish my jar of wine I stand up and wish I had the nerve to tell her how much this means to me. All of it. But I don’t yet. I want her to stay here. I want her to spend the night and wear my clothes in the morning. I’ll make her pancakes and coffee. I want to say stay. I want to say I need someone, aloud. I go to the kitchen to refill our jars and by the time I get back, she’s putting the green-blues on the shelf. Fuck it.

I begin, “So um, thank you. Bethany told me I was the hem of a dress and not the whole dress last night. And that shit can crush a person, y’know? And to be honest, I don’t even know what it means,” I say, laughing nervously and shrugging before giving her the wine.

Merit takes off her shoes and grabs the jar in both of her hands, sits cross-legged on the floor next to a newly-made stack of books with green spines.

“That’s terrible. I hate that,” she says, letting her face fall, “but also—”

I look at her and turn my head to the side. I probably look a bit like a puppy that has heard its name or a high-pitched sound.

“That woman in the Bible just wanted to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment so...that’s something too.” She lifts her shoulders up in the tiniest way—like she’s already finished trying to convince me of it if I’m not buying it, but I am. I am buying it.

“I forgot that story. I always liked that one,” I say.

By the time we’re putting the yellow, orange-yellow, and orange books on the shelf, I’ve let her see that I’m on the verge of tears. Not crying is like walking a tightrope for me right now; I’m shaky, using my long arms for balance, wildly trying to catch myself. Once we get to the so-deep-they’re-almost-black reds, she reaches out to hold my hand. I tell her she’s more beautiful than mountains and I mean it. I do.