Sun | October 01, 2006

L'Enfant dans le Metro

I crave small children. I long for them— their toodler proportions, that make them seem like different creatures entirely, like a species of small people. Their quick movements, so many rapid steps taken to traverse all of ten feet. Their chirpy voices, and the fact that they can be enveloped entirely in one’s arms. I wish only to hug one, and kiss it on the cheek—to suction for an instant the luminous infantile flesh.

I look for them at all places—even the somber reading room at the library. Mostly I see adults, and their sagging visages: aged, wrinkled, crumbling, mottled, motley. If I do see children, their parents or nannies are leading them along. One must always see at least one adult.

When I do see a child, I keep an eye on it. And on its surroundings, so that if some danger is creeping close I will be ready to protect it. Often one may make eye contact, and say hello! in that joyful tone used for babies. Sometimes they say hello back. Sometimes they simply stare- which is good as well, because those dilated black pupils are adorable. Sometimes they look away, sometimes they look through you.

Perhaps I crave cuteness. For that woman over there, her need for cuteness manifests itself in a Hawaiian punch-colored turtleneck and a ceramic flower barrette pinned askew above her forehead. I wear dusty sage corduroys, a navy business casual shirt, striped as fine as the wales on my cords, and a navy sweater cardigan. I am not wearing cute things, unless you count my bag, a flowered tote with buttons sewn all over it.

Last Sunday night I got on the A train at 125th Street and I spotted one, standing on the orange seat, next to his father. Of course I sat next to the child.
"Tha train dosa stop there," he gargled, pointing outside the window.
"Yes," I said.
"The train doan stop there!"
"That's right," I said, looking at the tracks.
"The train doan stop there."
"The train doesn't stop there?" I asked.
"The train doesn't stop there."
"That’s right," I said.

The train doesn't stop there! he said at every stop, and I encouraged him, saying yes every time, even though it might annoy the others. I was building something with him, with every exchange. What was the meaning, to him, of that utterance? He said it whether there was a train on the platform or not.

He turned to me, away from the window. He grasped at one of the buttons on my bag, a tote from Old Navy, the fabric already broken in when I bought it, and rendered even rattier from my own use. I had sewn buttons on it- buttons from a small red jar, that I had found in my mother's sewing kit- buttons from "ne shao de su ho." (when you were little) that "ne kuh ee deow diao (you can throw away)."

"No!" I gasped, and shortly thereafter purchased the bag with these buttons in mind.

Those tiny hands grasped at one of these now.
"That's a button," I said.
"Thasa buhuhn."
"That's a button."
"Thasa button."

Since I had sewn many buttons on the bag, the activity repeated itself naturally. He grasped each one in turn.

"Here's a button," I said, showing the snap on my cardigan. And then suddenly I had what I wanted. He was close, and when the train shook and he lost his balance, he fell into my arms. His father pulled him up immediately. Then we resumed the buttons lesson. He attempted to snap them but he was not quite coordinated, nor strong, enough; I snapped them for him. He liked the sound, was fascinated by the snapping. He waited for me to snap them shut and then he pulled them apart, with all his effort, as soon as I was done.

Jay Street. "I'm getting off here," I said to the father. And I said goodbye to the boy but there was no time to get one in return. I missed him immediately, wished that I could have kissed him, have taken him with me, to cuddle with like a teddy bear as I fell asleep.

Posted by Lily at 03:14 PM

Mon | September 18, 2006

le rêve

I was in my room, standing at my desk trying to decide what to do, lost in a haze as usual. Not a drug-induced haze— for those of you who don't know me, I have no fascination with drugs— but my mind plays tricks nonetheless. I was lost in the kind of thought that you don't know what you were thinking about when you startle out of it and realize you've lost a couple of hours. I suppose I was only sorting out all the things in my mind. Suddenly someone appeared behind me at the doorway. He was someone from high school whom I recognized, except that he was someone else. I think his name was Rob but he looked kind of like Porter or that guy Bob Doyle. Rob was dark, like South European, and Porter and Bob are light, like Anglos. Rob had a contraption in his hands.

"I have something to show you," he said, but he didn't say it, he teleported it into my brain. I heard the thought in my own head, rather than in the air. By the same method I understood it was a weapon for sex. I had been thinking about the denied sexuality of Asian males in mainstream media.

Henry came and stopped him. "What did he have?" I asked. I saw the contraption again. Something goes in, loops around, shoots something out. That something is intangible- it's your energy, or your libido, that fuels it.

I picked up my cell phone and text-messaged Alle: meeting tonight? I never text message her. To make it at 7:00 I would have to take the 2:30 train. No, that wasn't right. I rewound my thoughts to remember what they said about Tuesday. "If we don't call you we'll see you Tuesday." So there was no need to reconfirm. Still I wasn't sure.

Hours passed in a minute. I should have gone but I didn't. Then I thought I ought to call to explain what happened. The text message I had sent earlier didn't go through. When I hit reply, Alle's number had two letters added into it that messed it up. I saw them at the time, but had figured it must be right, since all I did was reply to a message she had sent me.

It was now midnight. "Don't go downstairs, he could still be there," I said. When Rob showed up it was day and I said no and he left. Immediately after it was night. I must have lost more time. Mom, Dad, and Henry were by my door now, and one by one they went downstairs. I imagined he might have escaped out the deck. I wondered if I should report him to the police.

"I haven't seen you in years and now you just pop up and want me to talk to you?" I said to him.

"Yeah, I know," he said.

The phone rang. "Excuse me," I said sharply and loudly, and picked it up. He left.

The thing that went in was an agar brick with sparkly stars. It was like a science experiment or something. Rob was a nice guy but I never knew him. But I remembered what he was like, so I could recognize him by his presence, even though he had changed in appearance. He was lighter, in hair color, and bigger, but not as big as Bob Doyle. There are these people in high school that you don't really know who they are. Some of them are really cute, like Rob, and yet they're not cool.

"I can't believe you didn't call the police," a friend said. So I picked up the phone and called. I am not sure who I was calling. The phone just kept ringing.

Posted by Lily at 12:35 PM

Tue | May 16, 2006

The Bedroom Scale

One morning in spring, Dora began to fear that she would marry Chris. The thought had crossed her mind before, like a black cat, but it seemed new every time it occurred. It invoked a sense of forboding.

She lay in his bed. His bed was a mattress on the floor-- not even a mattress with firm springs, but one made of foam. She felt a dull sensation at the small of her back, and also his warm skin against her own. She moved both of these feelings into the core of her mind, where they took the form of two gaseous spheres, and she gauged them each, trying to figure out if one was bigger or denser-- and if either was even tangible.

He never called, and worse, never returned her calls. I don't call anyone in general, he had explained. But his cell phone showed plenty of recent calls. He didn't cover his nose or mouth when he sneezed or coughed-- he would sooner get someone sick than lift his hand. He played whatever music he liked without regard to her preferences. He made fun of Evan for reciting a line of poetry.

The previous night, he had eaten all the baby carrots and forgotten to buy orange juice. For dinner she had oreos and string cheese. Then she crawled onto the foam mattress and resolved to get out before the real talk began.

But out there was emptiness, and here was a comforting, solid presence beside her. The resolution to detach caved in like melted candle wax.

All was forgotten, but not gone. In the morning the mass of discontent materialized in its usual place. She didn't know whether to throw away what seemed to be inseparably a reassurance and a burden.

In the daze of half-sleep, his body seemed like nothing but warmth. She drifted back to slumber.

Posted by Lily at 11:53 AM

Sun | April 30, 2006

Getting Home

Her plan was to go to Hoboken, in the vain hope that the 1:32 train was delayed, as trains occasionally are. She waited for the Path at Christopher Street, awake again with an acquired commuter alertness, and a bit of survival instinct.

She looked at her cell phone and it read 1:50 am. The battery read low. When the train pulled into Hoboken she ran up the empty concrete stairs leading to NJ Transit. The digital clock read 2:14.

"There's no trains," a voice said. She looked over and saw three men standing aside. Two wore a flourescent orange vests with reflective stripes. The third wore a black shirt and a utility belt.

"The last train was at 1:50," the one in black said.

"Oh," she said, looking around for ideas.

"Where are you going?"

She wasn't sure she should tell him.

"I'm a New Jersey Transit employee," he said. He walked up to her. "Look at my badge." She looked.

"Chatham," she said.

"There's no trains."

"Okay." She walked away but then came back immediately. "Do you know if there's a cab I could call?"

"There's cabs on the street over there," he pointed, "right by the curb."

"Do you know how much it would cost?"

"To Chatham? Fifty bucks."

"That much?" She had checked her wallet on the Path-- twenty six dollars.

He shrugged. "I don't know, I'm guessing."

On the cold street the cab driver said, "sixty."

"I don't have it," she said. She turned back, thinking. She had already called everyone she knew who could possibly help her. She walked back to the NJ Transit area.

"I'll give you a ride," he said.

In the car they talked about his job as a train inspector. In the back of her mind she tried to reconcile the fact that none of her friends had come through, but this person she didn't know, had.

Posted by Lily at 11:52 AM

Thu | April 20, 2006

An Attractive Distance

At Pho on 32nd Street, the scent of cilantro and lemon filled the air. These ingredients, and platefuls of sprouts, were added to bowls of noodle soup. The restaurant's menu folded out in three panels, but everybody ordered pho.

Marie and Petra sat across from each other at an orange table for four, consuming these noodles. The conversation continually returned to Morris, Petra’s boyfriend of two months, who was supposed to have met them over half an hour ago. Morris often kept Petra waiting.

"Do you talk to him about it?" Marie asked.

"No," Petra said. "It only bothers him and it doesn't change anything." She proceeded to recount the instances that Morris had been late, and what she had said each time, and what Morris had said in return. Marie wondered what Petra meant by "not talking about it" because it seemed that they had done a lot of talking. Petra related how two days ago he had gone to play pool with his friend instead of hanging out with her.

A guy with spiked brown hair approached the table. Petra turned and greeted him with a kiss, and introduced him to Marie. They shook hands. He sat down next to Petra and put his arm around her waist.

"Where were you?" she asked.

"I got held up," he said.

"You couldn't call?"

"It would only have delayed me further," he said.

"By thirty seconds?"

"Oh, hurry up and order," said Marie. "Let's get drinks, or dessert,” she said to Petra. They pointed to the smoothies at the next table and ordered "two of those." After considering the varieties of pho, Morris ordered "number five." A waitress with a long braid of black hair took their order.

They relaxed into a casual and rambling conversation, but Petra's discontent hung in the background. She carried the weight of previous grievances and dragged them around with her, ready to be unpacked at any moment.

"I want to live in a yellow house," Marie said irrelevantly, "not in rat-ridden New York."

"Morris's apartment has mice," Petra said.

"Oh bleh!" Marie said, looking at him playfully and shaking her head. He crossed his eyes. She noted that they were a greyish blue. He reminded her of the lifeguard at the pool where she had spent her childhood summers.

"There are droppings on the counter in the morning. And I've heard them at night," Petra continued.

"Ahh!" Marie squealed in imaginary terror, squeezing her eyes shut. For no reason, she giggled like a baby. The laughter was infectious. They all laughed, and an onlooker would have thought that something incredibly funny and clever had been said. It swept the sluggish thoughts away.

"Oh I'm so glad it's getting warmer," Marie said in another moment. She talked about the beach and conjured up images of iced tea and the ocean and saltwater. They told stories of summers past.

When they had filled themselves with broth and noodles, they sauntered, humming, out of the restaurant.

"What train are you taking?" Morris asked Marie.

"The 1/9," she said.

"That's my line," he said.

Petra's line was the N/R. She gave Marie an enthusiastic hug. She gave Morris a lingering kiss and then disappeared down the stairs.

Morris walked quickly away and Marie skipped to keep up with him. She half expected that they would talk about Petra, but he didn't mention her. She hardly knew what they talked about, and then they were at the 1/9 entrance.

"Want a smoke?" he asked, taking out a pack of cigarettes.

"I don't smoke," she said.

"Neither do I, really," he said, lighting up.

In the lamplight she looked at his face. She followed the lines of his brows and jawline. She didn't know if she breathed deeply from the brisk walk or from the intuition that floated towards the surface of her consciousness.

"I think I'm losing my hair," he said.

"Are you?" she asked. She extended her hand and tugged his hair above his forehead. "Well it's better to lose it from there than up here," she said, patting him on the top of his head.

They talked on, saying things that were forgotten as soon as they were said. In a few minutes they caught the 1, and in another few the train arrived at Christopher Street.

"Bye," Marie chirped.

She told herself not to look back as she darted out the train doors. But the thought was no match for the impulse, and she turned. He looked steadily at her. Locked in this gaze she answered, without wanting to, the question he had not asked.

Posted by Lily at 05:35 PM

Tue | April 18, 2006

Passengers

On a spring morning the 8:02 train came a minute early. Lara, twenty-six years old and in white sandals, darted up the crumbling concrete stairs to the platform and then onto the train. She settled into a seat-- a blue bench that was coated with grime. She leaned against the window and closed her eyes.

After four minutes she opened them as she felt the train slow down at the next station. She watched the commuters from Oakwood file into the car. A girl with surprised eyes got on, out of breath. She sat down next to Lara. She was not a stranger to her. They had sat together before.

"Was the train early?" she asked.

"Yeah," Lara said.

Lara secretly wanted to talk about work and how unhappy she was. She had recently been passed up for a promotion. It had gone to Vicky, who did nothing but strut around all day and exercise her jaw. It had seemed impossible when Lara first found out, but then it had started to make miserable sense.

"I like your pants," Lara said. The girl wore cropped trousers.

"Thanks," she said.

"Where did you get them?"

"Forever 21."

"Oh," said Lara. "Cool."

She turned back to the window and watched the wasteland mixed with marshland. She thought about how she spent her days moving from one confined place to another. It would never change. Most of all, all the work she had done seemed to have suddenly become worthless.

The previous night Lara had cried from depression. Now she sat pleasantly and quietly. When she walked into the office she would smile at whoever was there. Over the next half hour she would note who came in. She would remember what everyone was wearing so that she could tell who walked by without turning her head. Throughout the day her consolation would be the thought that she would leave. Not just for the day, but perhaps forever. In the afternoon she would close her eyes and take microscopic two-second naps. At five Zack would leave. And then she would watch the clock until six.

The electronic voice announced the train's arrival into New York.

"Have a nice day," Lara said to the girl as they disembarked.

"You too," she said.

Posted by Lily at 12:55 AM

Tue | April 04, 2006

A Disturbing Event

It was a drizzly night, and the dampness seeped into the subway station. There, below the ground, a few people waited in the grime for the train. The sound of roaring trains passing on other tracks filled the tunnels.

Anthony, an artist, kicked the vertical metal beam. Under layers of threadbare clothing, his last reserves of fat burned away. He had gone to a party simply to eat their snacks for dinner. He had even eaten the leftover crusts of a girl's pizza. He had eaten around the bite marks until he could not tell which were his and which were hers. To hell with it, he thought, and ate it all.

Now he was hungry again, as he was always hungry, in the middle of the night. As an assistant in an office, he made barely enough to pay the rent. He bought only enough food to stay alive; he spent the rest of his income on art supplies. He thought of his latest project, an industrial sculpture of torn paper, burnt metal, and cracked glass.

A large man sat on the bench. He filled the middle seat and overflowed on either side, so that no one could sit there. Anthony looked at the large man, and how his head sank into his neck, which flowed into his torso.

The man got up to look for the train. He was drunk, and so fat he did not see his own feet; he overstepped the yellow line. He fell with a sudden wail into the pit.

For a second Anthony did not believe what he saw. He looked around to see the reactions of others around him. A young woman with sleek hair remained impassive. A salty old black man had paused and resumed his pacing. A woman with tattered hair twitched her mouth.

"Ooof," the voice of the man came up from below, and Anthony saw him get up confusedly. The man turned about, evidently disoriented.

"Over here," Anthony called. The man hobbled over and stretched his arms up to the edge. Although his head rose above the level of the platform, it was clear he would not be able to pull himself up.

Anthony didn't feel capable of lifting the large man out of the tracks, yet he did not want to see a train collide with this corpulent body. He went over to the man. He hoped to hear someone say, "you cannot lift him," or even better, offer to help. No one moved.

As he arrived at the edge, it occurred to him that he could be dragged into the pit. He hesitated in his mind at this thought of his own death and yet there was no disruption in his motion as he instinctively met the hand that reached for his.

One pudgy hand grasped Anthony's bony fingers and the other grasped his forearm. Every muscle and bone in Anthony's body suddenly tensed and strained to prevent himself from being pulled in. He let go of the hand and pried his arm loose, falling back.

He had lifted the man up a few inches so that the man had gotten his elbows on the platform and was now struggling to pull himself further up.

"I see a light," someone said. It was the salty black man.

"Help me pull him up," Anthony said to him.

The black man leaned over, looked at the conductor inside the oncoming train, and made a stopping motion with his hand. He made that motion with one hand and pointed down at the man with the other and shook his head.

The train stopped.

The conductor got out. The large man had fallen, and stumbled, in the commotion, and stood just under the platform.

"There's someone on the tracks," the black man said.

"I saw em," the conductor said. "Where is he now?" Seeing the motion below, he called out, "Stay right there. You hear me?"

"Yes," said the large man.

"Stay coo, stay coo," the conductor said. "Watch out for that metal track."

The conductor directed the man to the end of the platform where there were a few steps. In a few minutes the man was on the platform. His shirt was drenched with sweat. He struggled to breathe.

"Thank you sir," he exhaled at the conductor between breaths. "You saved my life. Thank you," he said, nodding to Anthony.

"Thank him also," said Anthony, gesturing at the black man. "He stopped the train."

"Thank you," said the man.

The conductor went back to the train and the people got on. As Anthony sat on the plastic seat he noticed the people inside the train who had stood indifferently on the platform. "What if it were you that were down there?" he wanted to say.

"I would have been able to pull myself back up," the svelte woman would say.

"I have a mind to shove you onto the tracks! See how you like it!"

"It's not my business. And he was a pig," another might say.

"So you wouldn't care if he were hit by a train? You could stand there and watch him get run over?"

They sat on the train in silence.

"I don't see why you're so upset." the woman with the matted hair would say in a hoarse voice. "The train stopped; he was saved."

Another would add, "he is not the type of person to help others. He would not have moved a muscle to save you."

The woman who had posed indifferently got off at Spring Street. Anthony looked at her as she walked away: artfully dressed, exposing toned arms and gams, all for nothing but show.

"And you are rich, and I have no money!"

As Anthony walked away from the station he had to deliberately command his legs to move. At home he lay in his bed and stared through the darkness at the bolted door. He thought that if a burgular were to come through that door, there would be no reasoning with him.

He felt sick, and his teeth chattered. In a cold fever, he fell asleep.

Posted by Lily at 01:44 PM

Thu | March 30, 2006

Powerful Friends

Nick, in a blazer that was slightly too big on him, met his friend Andria one day for dinner. Andria wore a shirt that was slightly too small.

"So I called Grace," he said. "That girl I told you about."

Andria raised her eyebrows. "And?"

"Well I called her three times. The first time her phone was off. It went straight to voicemail. That was about three weeks ago. Then I called her again, two weeks ago, and there was a busy signal. And last week, her phone was just dead."

"It was dead?"

"It was dead."

"Did you leave a message?"

"It was dead. It was just blank."

"I mean the first time."

"Yes."

"And you haven't left her a message since?"

"How could I? It was dead." Nick sat back in his chair and crumpled his napkin.

"Well then you haven't really called her three times," Andria offered, sipping her margarita. "You left one voicemail and the other times it was busy she wouldn't know that you had called."

"That's true," Nick said.

"It's weird that it was busy."

"Yeah."

"I've never heard of a cell phone with a busy signal."

"Yeah. It should go to voicemail."

With a glance Andria summoned the waiter. "You should call her," she said.

They split the bill.

The next night Nick visited his friend Dan Marrow, who had been accepted into Columbia law school. Dan had gotten a hold of the syllabi for some of his fall classes and was getting a head start. Nick sat on his couch and read the New York Times while Dan read at his desk.

"Perhaps you put too much pressure on her," he said. "You only saw her that one time. You hardly know her."

"She said she wanted to go to dinner. She said yes."

"Maybe she changed her mind. Or maybe she still wants to but she is just really, really, busy. I would say probably not. But you still have a shot."

"How?"

"People think things have to start a certain way when they don't. Try to see her again, in any capacity. Say, 'my friend and I are going to dinner next week and I was wondering if you'd like to come.'"

"That could work," said Nick.

Dan answered Nick's next question before he even thought of it. "I can be the friend," he said. "Or anyone will do, it doesn't matter."

"I'd like you to be there," Nick said. "You would turn things my way if you could."

"I'll certainly turn things your way. I know that I can."

Nick called, and left a message. It contained a summary of Dan's plan, which he now thought of as his own. She answered the next day, and the next week they went out— the three of them. They had a nice time. They found they had things in common. They had all had watched Seinfeld. There was that episode where Elaine finds new friends and they are new versions of Jerry and Kramer and George. "We already have a George," says Elaine, to George, on the street.

Dan, Grace, and Nick laughed.

Nick asked her out again, and this time they went alone. Once it began it unfolded like a storybook, unwound like toy. He felt that in a city of eight million people, he must be the happiest. He could see them getting married and living happily ever after. These are the phrases and ideas that circulated in his head.

They had sushi and sake and pet names. He called her cupcake. One night she fell asleep before he did and he watched her breathe, her neck stretched, her arms limp. Although he saw only shadows in the dark, he filled in her features from memory, with information he snatched from many furtive glances.

Nick was a good friend to neither Andria nor Dan. He was merely present. And then he was gone without a word-- and he had less value than the plant on the bathroom windowsill.

Six weeks later Dan finished his three hundredth page of reading and caught Nick on the phone. Nick talked about Grace. He could not stop; he blabbered. He exasperated Dan, who liked to do the talking.

"You've lost your head." Dan said. "Listen to yourself. You are twenty-two. You are talking about getting married. What are you talking about?"

"How many women have you been with?" he added a while later. "Live a little."

Three word sentences had power over Nick.

He had dinner with Andria for the first time in over two months. He didn't know how much time had passed, but she did. They had a nice dinner with so many laughs and it felt like just last week that they had talked. They said a little of everything.

When the bill came Nick mentioned that he paid for all the expenses with Grace.

"Oh how nice of you," said Andria. "You can afford that?"

Nick took in ideas like a dog eats anything that it smells before its nose.

Although they adored each other as much as ever, Nick and Grace began to fight. They hardly knew what they fought about. In three weeks, he was frantic.

In another three weeks, he lost her.

Posted by Lily at 01:04 PM

Sun | March 26, 2006

One Night

He said hi to me when I was standing on the balcony of Mason's apartment, sorry I came and waiting for the courage to leave. On another Saturday I would be at home, dozing on the couch, the pillow between my knees. I would sit up occasionally, lift my shirt up, and look at the fat above my waistband. And I would resolve to spend less time blubbering on the couch.

He brought me a beer, and I thought of my waist but made an easy exception. I considered the consumption before me, beer flowing into throats salty with chips, not a vegetable in sight. The girls stuck out their chests and stretched their torsos, always aware of which way their asses were aligned. Everyone was solitary... everyone looked happy while scanning the room.

In the kitchen there were pretzels and the sink was full of dishes. The black cat lept onto the counter and licked the mouth of the Stella Artois that had just left my hand.

"I'm going." I said. "Leave with me."

I looked to the side while I said it, so that I could not see his response. In the pile of black jackets on the bed I found the variation that was mine. I walked down a flight of stairs before I heard a sound. It was not him.

Outside I drifted towards the subway entrance. I measured the time it would take to walk sixteen blocks to Penn Station against the time that I had to get there against the laziness of wanting to take the subway against the need to save two dollars against the fact that the train would probably not come right away anyway against how comfortable my shoes were that day against the knowledge that if I walked I would think and move and comfort myself.

When he walks he bobs a little, as if he were on a carousel. That was the first real thing I noticed about him that night. It was a warm spell in January and a night that made me think of fireflies.

"Are you coming?" I called out.

Soon I watched him move not with reason but with instinct, the muscled shoulders and the hairy chest incongrous with the shaven face and glassy eyes, now closed.

Every minute I felt that he would call. I would hear that grainy voice, a textured paper wasted on phrases like "a bit of beauty in an ugly world." I would cringe again at his words while comforted by their sound, and shake my head at the squeeze bottle of hair gel in his bathroom.

Later-- weeks later-- I fell asleep and did not think of it.

Posted by Lily at 01:05 PM

Fri | March 24, 2006

At the Doctor's

Kara, a young girl of sixteen, was a member of the National Honor Society and the Key Club. On Valentine's Day they sent candy grams to their classmates. How this related to the mission of the club had been long forgotten, or not considered to begin with.

In the fall, she found herself at the doctor's office for a yearly physical. Though she imagined the doctor's to be a healthy place, the waiting room smelled like stale vomit. This doctor had graduated from Yale. That was all her mother told her. They filled out forms. They waited for twenty minutes. Then Kara went into a sterile examining room.

After another twenty minutes, the doctor appeared. She was tall, and very pale. Her bony frame was a wooden hanger for a lab coat. When she spoke, her voice sounded distant, thinned out as voices do when they sing out of range.

They said hello.

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"Have you gotten your period?"

"Yes."

"When did you get it?"

"When I was twelve. No, when I had just turned thirteen," she said. She reflected on the day she woke up and realized the meaning of the dark stain she had noticed the night before. Her mother had seemed proud and satisfied.

The doctor did not ask for the story. She looked attentively at Kara but indifferently and impassively.

"Have you had sex?"

It was not an unexpected question but the girl did not enjoy saying that she had not. It seemed to be an admission of immaturity.

"I'm going to have a look at you," the doctor said.

Kara responded to the instructions and lay down on the paper. She found herself coaxed into an unfamilar position. At the touch of the doctor's gloved fingers, Kara lifted her head and glimpsed the doctor's scrutinizing face. She felt the air touch her skin.

The doctor straightened up and the girl sat up on the examining bench. She wondered whether this doctor had sex and could not imagine it. She looked at the doctor's face and thought how dull it looked. There was no color in her face at all; her lips were thin and her eyes, though large, seemed dead.

The doctor seemed to take on a patronizing tone. "I see you have a tan. Do you wear sunscreen?"

"Yes," said the girl.

"Do you wear it every day?"

"Yes."

"You would not have a tan if you wore it every day."

"Okay," Kara said. She suddenly felt she wanted the interview to be over quickly.

The doctor told her to wear a hat—not a baseball cap, but a wide-brimmed hat. Kara promised that she would. She thought to herself that she would not. She answered the remaining questions with the briefest responses possible.

Later Kara realized that she had been wounded—a surprise like suddenly looking at your hand and seeing a cut, though not knowing when or how it happened. She did not like the ghastly, patronizing doctor. She thought angrily that her skin was naturally that color and that she should not look at it with the disapproval that the doctor had looked at her. It was the doctor who was unnaturally pale.

Posted by Lily at 06:25 PM

Wed | March 22, 2006

The Office Romance

At work I sometimes go to visit Sara, the administrative assistant at the front desk. Nothing is at stake to talk to her— she neither reports to me nor is above me. The front desk is my favorite place, where I can talk without consequence, as well as get interoffice envelopes. And I enjoy the walk— not much of a distance, but it is something. I go every hour or two. Being on the way to the bathroom, the mailroom, the elevator bank, and the other wing, there are any number of reasons to pass by. It's nice to talk to someone who has simple duties, whose only concern is the next fashion trend and how to get a good manicure.

Sara has dark hair, cut short, but piled high on the top of her head, as if a dark creature sat there. That doesn't make her sound pretty. She is pretty. With her glowing face, she looks like a kid in an animal costume, the jumpsuit kind where the kid’s face is the only thing showing out of the fur.

Everyone has their own cubicle, and some do more work than others. I want to be one of those who do no work, and sit, all day, and think about the gym. But I am not; I work all day and my only respite is an occasional walk to look out the window of the kitchen. I do not think of lunch until 1 pm, and I get the first thing that comes to mind. Bill thinks about lunch from the moment he sits down in the morning until noon when he gets it. Lunch is his perfect accomplishment of the day.

I have never gotten lunch with Sara, although I suggested it once. It has been in the air ever since- captured in her graceful figure, with a curve in the small of her back which is fashionable now. Even her body is fashionable.

She is always taken up by some task, such as organizing her pen jar or typing who knows what— IM'ing, sometimes. She always seems to be busy. The job fits her well-- her personality and her intelligence. I envy people who have something that actually makes sense.

On Monday I happened to be hanging about her desk. We were talking about her new fragrance, a vanilla musk custom blend that she got from a boutique. It smelled like cake. I was looking at her sweater-- she always wore new clothes- that day, a yellow sweater with a tinge of lime green. It had a flowered lining. I was wearing an old blue sweater with permanent wrinkles bent into the sleeves. The dirt never quite gets off the insides of the wrinkles. Her phone rang and I left and went to the bathroom. When I came back she had just gotten off.

"Who was that?" I asked.

She didn’t answer. Perhaps I didn’t wait long enough—I never wait for people to answer. I don’t want to push them. so I said, "How was the weekend?"

"It was good," she said. "How was yours?"

"Ok," I said.

"What did you do?"

"I laid in bed and slept and dozed." And I had-- I had looked at the wall for two days and then come back.

She laughed at me.

I returned to my desk, and started to pick at the dead skin on my lips with my teeth.

Posted by Lily at 11:15 AM

Mon | March 20, 2006

In the Laundry Room

It's 5 am and the young girl goes down to the laundry room. She forgot her clothes down there last night in her hurry to get out on Saturday night. She hopes they're still there.

She gets to the basement and there's a woman there, dressed in rags.

"What's the matter?" the woman asks.

"I'm looking for my clothes... that I left here last night."

"Last night. That's a long time to leave your clothes."

She doesn't answer. She opens every dryer even though it's possible to tell from the outside that they're empty. One of them has a sweatshirt but it's not hers.

"What do they look like?"

"They're just... they're my clothes."

"What about that pile over there?" the woman says, gesturing at a table in the corner, next to the trash.

The girl doubts they would be all the way over there but she goes and soon recognizes her terry cloth sweatshirt.

"They are mine. This is so obnoxious," she says, as she looks in the trash and sees that some of the clothes have fallen, or been tossed, into the can. "Who would do this?"

The woman moves away, shifts, and straightens her hands, like she is soothing her fingers or putting on rings. She has no rings; she is dressed in faded black clothes that are more lint than fabric.

"Whatever," says the girl.

"I didn't take them," the woman says defensively. "I have a way of acting guilty of things I'm not even accountable for."

The girl doesn't respond. She is folding her clothes on the table.

Posted by Lily at 01:01 PM