What’s funny is I never expected her to be there. As if the apartment I went to and the apartment she lived in existed in parallel universes. That it would be impossible for her to be there when I arrived. And yet if I think like that I could also say that the Mark she sleeps with and the Mark I sleep with, my husband and her lover, exist in parallel universes, so we’re not sleeping with the same man. In a way, it’s what Eric’s been talking about: getting away from either/or thinking. Negative capability. What Yeats would call Unity of Being.
I wonder what Yeats’s wife would have called it.
Let’s face it. Yeats’s wife didn’t fool around. While her husband is banging his head on Madame Blavatsky’s table, she figures out the perfect strategy and invents that stuff about automatic writing. On their honeymoon.
I guess I really didn’t believe Mark was having an affair. Even after I saw it in his journal. Y again. He never actually said he slept with her. Maybe he’s just thought about it. Maybe he feels guilty? I know about guilt. Guilt can come from just thinking about a thing. Anyway, he knows how I love Christmas Eve. He would think it cruel to be with his lover on Christmas Eve when his wife was miserable and alone.
Yvonne’s apartment looked pretty much the same. Every pillow in place.
On the kitchen counter was a typed list:
CONCETTA COULD YOU PLEASE:
Fix the curtain
Take out garbage
Change lightbulb in bathroom (60 watt)
Clean refrigerator
Take in drycleaning (in basket)
This is for you ——————>
Merry Christmas, Y
(p.s. See you Jan. 8)
So she did have a cleaning woman. Next to each item was a checkmark in pencil. I figured Concetta had done that. Whatever Yvonne had left as a gift was gone.
I went into the bathroom. The lightbulb was changed. The soap was new. I wonder if Concetta puts fresh soap in every time she cleans, because the soap always looks new. I came back to the kitchen and stared at Yvonne’s list. I stared at it until I was bored.
There wasn’t much in the refrigerator so I guess she wasn’t expecting guests. She’d hung a few Christmas cards along a black ribbon and strung it between the kitchen and living room. It looked pretty pathetic. I turned the corners back but the names meant nothing to me. Wishing you peace in this sacred season, one of the cards said. I crossed it out. She’d probably never look at it again. Who looks at Christmas cards more than once? I threw my coat—her coat—over the couch and then sat down beside it.
I couldn’t think of anything to do. I’d already tried on most of her clothes and anyway I didn’t feel like changing. I had an urge to wreck the apartment, but I couldn’t even muster the energy to mess up her books. I am alone on Christmas Eve I kept thinking. Alone. That’s the thing. Just a couple of months ago it was Yvonne who was alone. Standing in her apartment, eating salad out of a plastic container. I remember the first time I followed her to the Korean vegetable stand—how alone she looked. Even then, miserable and afraid as I was, I was still looking at her from a relatively safe place. I mean I was still with Mark. I had only to get downtown and home to my husband. Now I realize how smug and safe you feel when you’re with someone. Anchored. How you could be in some unfamiliar part of town and just have to picture home to start to feel safe. Someone there, waiting for you. How the minute you get in the cab you begin to feel safer as it pulls you closer and closer home. The first familiar thing you see, St. Mark’s Bookstore or Dean & DeLuca, almost makes you completely peaceful.
And now here I was alone, in Yvonne’s apartment, and she was safe somewhere with my husband. Now it was Yvonne, not me, who was safe and smug. And I had nowhere to go. I thought about Sarah. How had she stood it all these months without Karen? Why wasn’t she on the phone with me continually, howling about being alone. How did she stand it? How did Brian? Why hadn’t he—Jesus, he’s even in a strange country—why hadn’t he begged me to spend Christmas with him? Now we would both be alone.
The apartment had never felt so quiet. I turned on the radio and switched to an all-news station so I wouldn’t hear even a snatch of Christmas music. Then I turned on the TV. It was a little cold, so I pulled a sweater out of the closet and wrapped it around my shoulders. I opened the bottle of wine, poured a glass, and sat on the couch. On TV a small family was hugging one another and exchanging gifts—it was a commercial for batteries—every one of which needed several batteries to work. The father beamed and handed his son a battery-operated razor. The mother for some reason got a Walkman. When the husband gave a fond little squeeze to his wife, I thought about Eric and his wife and baby, warm and snug in their little house on the Cape. His wife wrapping last-minute presents while he held the baby, walked it around their cosy little living room, singing “O Holy Night” to put it to sleep. How could he understand how scared I was? How could he understand I felt as unanchored, as unmoored, as that ridiculous boat in his office? You’re afraid to be alone. Of course I’m afraid. Only an idiot—or a hermit, or maybe a poet—would willingly spend Christmas alone.
The wine was making me tired and I had an urge to stretch out on the couch and sleep. Then it occurred to me Yvonne might have a journal. I’d never thought of that before. I started looking for it. All the likely places. The end table drawer was maddeningly neat. A spool of white thread, a spool of black thread, and a packet of needles. Scissors. A couple of photographs—no one I recognized. There was a number two pencil and one of those pens that has an image floating under its plastic case. A gondola slipping through the canals in Venice. When I was seven I found a pen like that in my father’s drawer. A curvy woman in a strapless bathing suit and high heels. It was the first thing I ever stole. One side of the pen showed her from the front, the other from the back. When you tipped it, the ink passed out of the suit and she was naked. I used to sneak into my father’s drawer and tip the pen back and forth. The suit sliding over her naked behind excited me. She didn’t have any pubic hair, but I wouldn’t have noticed that then. One day while I was watching Sister Thomas Aquinas write helping verbs on the board I started thinking that anytime, without any warning, my father could take that pen out of there, that I’d go for it and it would be gone. I ran home after school, snuck into his room, and took it. That night at dinner I couldn’t look at him. I thought if I looked at him, he’d know it was me who had stolen that pen. Nothing happened that night. He didn’t say a word. I waited. Days passed. Weeks. He never mentioned it. I’m sure now that he’d thrown that pen in there and never given it a second thought. But I didn’t know that then. For months I couldn’t look at him.
There were times I thought I should put it back, that it would make me feel better. Once I threw it under the couch so my mother would find it while she was cleaning and they’d both think it had gotten there by accident. But before an hour went by I crawled behind the couch and retrieved it.
Hiding it was a problem because there wasn’t a drawer my mother wouldn’t open. I switched the hiding place every day. I’d pull Valerie out (for some reason I thought of her as Valerie), tip the pen back and forth, saying the word ass to myself, and bend over. I pictured Father Murphy telling her to bend over so he could spank her. I’d tip her suit up and back. Then I’d crawl on the bed holding her, whispering Valerie, Valerie, and rub myself until I was calm again. And all that time I couldn’t look at my father. I was embarrassed by him. It’s funny how something little, some misunderstanding like that, something you imagine, becomes so real it actually changes the course of your life. Maybe my father and I could have been close. Maybe he would have teased and joked with me, the way he did with my sisters. Maybe it was me feeling so guilty and embarrassed that made us both so awkward together.
Maybe it was me acting so weird now, so guilty and suspicious, that was pushing Mark away. Maybe I would cause him to have an affair with Yvonne.
I put Yvonne’s pen back. There was nothing else in the drawer. The same for her desk. Nothing but the things you’d expect to find in a desk. Not even an obsessive accumulation of Wite-Out or Post-it pads. I checked the drawer beside her bed. No condoms. No diaphragm. Nothing unusual. It was almost like she didn’t exist. How could anyone be that uninteresting? That unreflective?
The radio was starting to get to me. And the TV. I felt cluttered and full of static. I turned the radio off, turned the sound down on the TV, and went back into the bedroom. The bough I’d left in the window was gone. I wonder what she thought when she found it. Maybe Concetta had found it and thrown it out.
It was getting dark. All the lights were out so the TV flickering in the living room made wavy blue-gray patterns on the bedroom wall. I tried Eric again but there was no answer. Where could he be on Christmas Eve? I was sure he’d given me the wrong number. I was getting so anxious that I made myself lie down to meditate. Most books on meditation say not to lie down, to sit up so that your mind is alert, so that you don’t fall asleep. But I was tired from that wine and I figure you can meditate in any position. I mean, people who are paralyzed meditate.
I tried to clear my mind, but the more I tried the more agitated I got. I saw Mark lying on his back with Yvonne straddling his hips. Those moles on her thighs. I saw Yvonne at the loft, sleeping in our bed, fucking Mark in the back room of the gallery, meeting our friends. Sarah and Yvonne becoming friends. Yvonne and Glenda going shopping for those big earrings they both wear. I saw a tree. A tree in a living room. I could see the roots twisting under the parquet floor. It started getting bigger. It kept growing and growing until its tip pushed through the ceiling and pieces of plaster started falling all over, speckling the floor. But I couldn’t see me there. Mark was there. He was looking up at the tree chanting and flicking his fingers in that hocus-pocus gesture, as though he could make it stop growing. Tree, tree, tree, he kept saying. Tree, tree, tree. The more it grew the more you could see what kind of a tree it was. It looked like a Christmas tree, but it had a long bare trunk at the bottom and the body of it was round. It started shaking, as if it were dancing. Then I heard a long whistle.
It took a few seconds before I realized it was the phone. Yvonne’s voice came on and said to leave a message.
“Eve? Evie, it’s Mom,” the voice was saying. “Honey, are you there?”
I tried to get to the machine but I’d been in such a deep sleep that I couldn’t get my balance right away.
I watched the tape turn. I couldn’t move. Eve.
“Dad can pick up you and your friend at the station in the morning, sweetheart. Just let us know what train you’ll be on. I thought you might get the 9:11, which pulls into East Hampton at 12:32. Give a call tonight. We’ll be at Midnight Mass, so you can call late. Merry Christmas, honey.”
Honey. Sweetheart. She made me sick. I know mothers like that. I prefer my mother’s sonofabitchin’bastard. I can trust that.
You and your friend. I had no doubt Mark would be there. East Hampton. It’s perfect. All those art collectors. Now I realized how perfect a setup it was. Better than Brooklyn, anyway. I could see Mark sitting there on that 9:11 gearing up to sell some work. Yvonne filling him in on all those stupid WASP holiday traditions. Her mother probably has her own herb garden, makes her own decorative wreaths. It made me sick. Well, I would be on that 9:11 too.
I called the Long Island Rail Road to check the other times, just in case. I stayed on the line while a machine kept repeating how important my call was to them and not to hang up. I heard a recording of “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” I kept waiting. “Do You Hear What I Hear?” “White Christmas.” When the recording switched to a sickening version of “Sleigh Ride,” I was ready to scream.
“Calm down, Terry,” I said to myself. I started singing with the recording. I picked up Yvonne’s painting of the dog and stuck it in the end table drawer. I slammed the drawer shut as I shouted the alto parts I sang in high school glee club. “Giddyyap, it’s grand,” I shouted, “holding your hand.” I could see Yvonne and Mark and that whole stupid WASP family out riding in a sleigh through the Hamptons, singing and sharing hot chocolate. Cross-country skiing. I wanted to puke.
“Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy cozy are we,” I was singing when I heard the door.
The TV was still on. My coat, Yvonne’s coat, was on the couch. The bottle of wine was open on the counter. The lights, thank God, were out. I put the phone down. I heard voices. I yanked the coat off the couch and walked quietly toward the bathroom. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I was shaking and scared but I walked straight into the shower. I kept thinking about the bottle of wine open on the counter. Let her think Concetta left it there. I heard a laugh. A man’s voice. I put on the coat. I stood behind the shower curtain, which was green with little fish all over it. At least she didn’t have one of those frosted doors.
I put my bag down over the drain and tried to stay still enough to hear them in the living room. They were laughing. Then I didn’t hear anything. Maybe they were kissing.
I could hear only muffled voices. I heard Yvonne say something about the TV. I heard her come into her bedroom. She must have been less than twenty feet from me.
“It’s weird,” she said, and walked back out. Then she came back into the bedroom, walked into the bathroom. I was shaking. I was sure you could see the shape of the black coat through the green shower curtain. I held my breath. She switched on the light. There was a pop and the light blew out.
“Shit,” she said.
It was a new bulb. It must have been defective.
Yvonne walked out. Just like that. This woman walks into her apartment, the TV is on, a scarf is lying on her couch where she hadn’t left it (I’d realized about the scarf after I got in the shower), a bottle of wine is open on the kitchen counter (I couldn’t remember where I’d left the glass)—and she walks in and out of the bathroom without checking behind the shower curtain. I mean, I always check behind the shower curtain when I get home. Either she was drunk and careless or she is just really bizarre.
I was sweating and shaking. I could hear the man’s voice. Mark’s voice, was it? I couldn’t hear enough to tell. You’d think after knowing someone for six years—living with them, being married to them—you’d be able to pick out that voice even in an earthquake. But I couldn’t.
“I can’t believe this,” Yvonne was saying. “The Spirituality of Waiting?”
I heard her say something about knowing her for such a long time. I guessed she was talking about Concetta. Probably thinking she was a closet alcoholic who’d just discovered religion. Then it was quiet. I imagined Mark coming up behind her, kissing her, lifting her skirt. I tried to lean closer to hear, but the swish my coat made against the shower curtain stopped me.
The man’s voice asked something. I really couldn’t hear if it was Mark. Maybe I was too desperate to hear. And maybe it’s just that men’s voices are harder to hear than women’s—more muffled.
“God,” she said. She didn’t sound panicky or upset. I would have been terrified. At least suspicious. I have been coming into this woman’s life regularly for two months and she has not the tiniest bit of suspicion. I was getting furious. How could anyone be that unobservant? How could she be so oblivious to me? I mean, how much invasion can one person stand before they start to notice it?
“Eve? Evie, it’s Mom . . .” When she started playing the messages back I almost felt ignored. I bet I could have walked into the living room at that moment and Yvonne would have had some kind of logical explanation for it. Where the hell did she think that scarf had come from?
I heard another laugh, both of them. Then Yvonne came back into the bathroom. She turned on the water and started brushing her teeth. She gargled. She was only about two feet from me, that curtain between us. Sweat poured down my body.
“Come on,” she whispered. I could hear her feeling through the medicine cabinet. I remembered that’s where she kept the condoms. How many packets had she bought since my first visit? I heard jars and bottles clinking, then something fell and smashed. It sounded like a glass.
“Shit,” she whispered, then louder she said, “Don’t come in here without your shoes.”
So he had his shoes off. I half expected her to rush back with a broom and dustpan. She must have been pretty horny to let it go.
I didn’t hear anything for a while. I had nothing to do but look at those fish. Big green fish. And little green seashells and conchs. Seahorses. Silvery, frosty white stuff that was supposed to look like seafoam. It was the kind of shower curtain you can get in a junk store for $3.99.
I was staring at a big puffy fish when I heard Miles Davis on Yvonne’s cheap tape player. Kind of Blue. So they were going to fuck. The Miles Davis could have been a coincidence. I mean a lot of people listen to Miles Davis during sex. Mark used to say he always listened to Miles Davis when he was with someone new. After the novelty wears off he forgets about the music. He’s still a great lover. With or without the music.
Impossible as it sounds now, after a while I began to realize I was pretty safe behind that shower curtain. There were moments when it felt like nothing more than stopping by a room where a TV is on and watching from the doorway for a minute. I thought that once they started to fuck I could probably even get out and sit on the toilet seat and watch. I have to say I was almost curious. I wanted to know how he would be with her. How loud or soft she would come. Whether Mark would force her to come louder, the way he had with me. Scream, he used to say to me, you’re keeping it inside you. I wanted to see how tenderly he’d talk to her. Whether he’d be rough with her, the way he is sometimes, whether he’d go down on her. They were pretty quiet. I heard a moan. I think it was him. She might have just gone down on him. Mark really likes to start by getting sucked off.
They laughed. Both of them. So his cock wasn’t in her mouth. I heard a gasp. I guessed he’d just penetrated her. It was like putting together a puzzle, guessing from the sounds of things. I couldn’t see a thing. Only those fish. I didn’t even know if all the lights were out.
Miles Davis was in the second track of Kind of Blue. It was almost cliché. I heard something drop, a shoe, maybe. And I heard things get louder. A few slaps. A laugh. Grunts. “Harder,” Yvonne said. If this was Mark, things could go on for a long time. I must have been absolutely numb, because I definitely didn’t feel freaked out or anything. I wasn’t really thinking at all. I was transfixed. And not just because it was Mark and Yvonne. I think it must always be like that when you are watching or listening to someone have sex.
It went on and on. And then it hit me that I had to get out of there. My body wouldn’t move. I felt like I was existing in two places at once. On the one hand I felt almost normal. On the other I was so numb I couldn’t move my legs. Even my crotch had fallen asleep.
I pulled aside the shower curtain. I saw flickering lights. Candles. I saw feet. Yvonne’s bed. I stepped down and heard the crunch of glass under my foot. I stopped. Held my breath. Nothing happened. I took one large step onto the rug in Yvonne’s room. Even then I thought if they heard me I had the advantage. I was dressed. I could run to the door and out before they realized. I came closer to the bed. I was within, I don’t know, five feet of it. Within five feet of knowing. But they were under the covers. That threw me. Mark never fucks under the covers. Not even in the winter. This would have been a major concession. I stepped on something soft that felt like underwear. I stood there, I don’t know how long, watching the rolling and moving. I say rolling and moving because that’s all I saw. That’s it. Rolling and moving. What looked like an ass under the sheets. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man’s ass or a woman’s. I did have the presence of mind to pick up whatever was under my foot. I could check them when I was safe. I would definitely recognize Mark’s underwear. I moved out to the living room. I have heard stories in which a woman comes upon her husband fucking someone else and confronts them. Where a man decapitates the guy he finds fucking his wife, sticks his head in a bowling bag. I could have yanked the covers off them.
I didn’t.
I didn’t. I moved fast. I passed through the living room. Yvonne’s bag was on the couch. I took it. I didn’t think. I took it. I grabbed the scarf. I got to the door. I opened the door as quietly as I could. And then I ran.