Hat Guy and I have a date. I met him in a writing class and he said that we should hang out. I hardly know him. I have heard he plays poker for money, gambles at kitchen tables in smoky rooms where people’s animals are on chains in the side yard. I know that he skateboards and always wears a baseball hat. I’m not sure if I like him, but I cannot afford to be picky. No matter what anybody says, I am as bad as I think. Probably worse.
We go out to dinner, and I use his arm for balance. He holds it strong. Our waitress looks at us quizzically, like she is doing a silent logical equation. Maybe she thinks we are related. The waitress speaks loud and slow, until I say my order and she realizes that I can both hear and speak.
Hat Guy teaches me how to play Texas Hold’em at his apartment, in his bed. He wears his hat while we have sex, and when we are finished, he goes to the bathroom and throws up. He comes out and says he’s not used to drinking so much. He falls asleep and I cry into the back of his hat. The next morning I start crying again, and he squeezes my shoulder and tells me I have nice, womanly curves. This makes me feel better. We drink soda from a two-liter bottle.
•
I tell my new friend Janey about Hat Guy, and she laughs so hard about his puking that take-out coffee explodes out of her mouth and all over the dashboard of my car. We are in the parking lot of a tattoo parlor. I take the bandage off my wrist, and little beads of blood are seeping through the ink. The tattoo is of two angel wings crossed at the bottom so that the shape is a heart. We got the idea from a necklace we saw minutes before at Urban Outfitters.
“This has got to be good for you, getting out there and sleeping with guys,” she says. “It’s recovery.”
I think so, too. I’ve got to start somewhere.
“My mom could use your sense of humor,” she says, redoing her high ponytail in the visor mirror. Janey’s mom is in the serious stages of multiple sclerosis and does not tell funny life stories. She lives halfway across the country, gets morphine shots every day, and is in a wheelchair. Her hair and teeth are almost gone. I found all this out the first day we spoke.
We were both taking a seminar on how to write a professional book review. One day I showed up with a bag of bagels because the class was so long, and there was a note on the door. The professor was sick and the classroom was empty, except for Janey, who was crying on a wooden desk. We left, and went out for brunch and had Bloody Marys, and she told me about her mom. I told her my story, too. “God, you’re amazing,” she said. “I think you’re gorgeous. I can see it.”
Her phone is always ringing. It rings while we’re in the parking lot, talking about Hat Guy. “Hey lady!” she says into the receiver, which means it’s her mother. She mouths to me. “Wanna talk to her?”
She always asks me this. And I always say no. I don’t want to hear what that kind of sad sounds like.
•
I meet Hat Guy’s friends. He takes me to a place with air hockey and he starts pounding beers and gets the hiccups. Some of the girls try to get me in a group photo. I refuse.
“Come on, Louise, what’s the big deal?” Hat Guy says. “You look fine.” The girls have on thick black eyeliner and high heels, which I never will be able to walk in again.
I tell Hat Guy I don’t like pictures of myself. He gulps his drink, and says, “Nobody notices your face. Nobody cares.” He tugs me into the group. His tug tells me I’m not getting out of this. I link arms with someone I do not know. I make sure to look at the ground.
When we get back to his apartment he throws up again. With his baseball cap still on, he comes out of the bathroom and gets into bed. He calls me babe, and lets me take off the hat. He is bald underneath, with a fringe of hair around the bottom. He says his friends loved me. He doesn’t say what he thinks about me though. He lies on his back and passes out.
•
Janey calls me late at night to sleep on my couch. She does this more and more. She wants some of the prescription pain pills that are left over from the surgeries. I give her more than I should. It is all I know to offer. We have morphed from girlfriends into something more like crippled dependents; there is no more charming or convincing each other of likability or goodness. No more compliments or caring conversation. She seems to expect me to always answer the phone or door, and I always do.
At restaurants she orders too many appetizers and expensive wine and pays for it all. She buys me gifts—one, a necklace of a stone hanging on a thin gold chain that I tangle. She lends me piles of books and clothes I might like. She kidnaps me: picks me up for a quick cup of coffee that turns into a scavenger hunt for the perfect pair of tiny jeans. We drive by the homes of her ex-boyfriends and just sit there, staring. I don’t know what good I am doing her. I am scared that her mom will die. Then she will only have me.
•
Hat Guy keeps suggesting that we go jogging or bike riding or that I try skateboarding. “It will help you get better,” he says. “How do you know you can’t if you don’t try?”
I wonder if he’s noticed that I can’t walk in a straight line. That I rise from a chair and nearly tip over. When I confide to him that being surrounded by pretty girls who wear eye shadow and dangly earrings makes me feel strange, he never responds. I don’t wear accessories anymore—I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I don’t want people to look at me, ever. I don’t know what people see, and this scares me.
Hat Guy refuses to acknowledge the extent of our physical differences. He only sees part of me. It’s like he sees me, but squinting.
One night, on the phone, I end it.
“What?” he says. “Why? I thought we had a good thing going.”
“I know,” I say, “but I can’t have you pretending that I am normal and will get better soon. It annoys me and I can’t be annoyed anymore.” I get off the phone.
What I am thinking is that after Claude, I can’t be the pathetic one. I can’t wonder why a guy is with me, is it guilt or pity, or is it real affection. I am not here to make a martyr out of anybody. That part of me was used up last time. The next guy I meet has to be made of different material.