Talk Before Sleep (19 page)

“Eric was not a wonderful man,” I say. “I wish you’d stop feeling bad about leaving him.”

“I know,” she says. “I can’t. Isn’t it funny?”

“No,” I say.

W
hat I really didn’t get,” Helen says, “is why they were so desperate to feel us up. I mean it. I remember being at the drive-in the first time I let a guy feel my boobs. It took him about five hours to get my damn bra unhooked, and he was
panting
and
wheezing
like he was an asthmatic and I was feeling nothing. I mean nothing! I was looking out the window at the car next to us, and it was a family, you know, a mom and dad and two little kids in their jammies and the mom had fallen asleep, her head was against the window and her glasses were all crooked. And I just wanted to shove this guy off me and go get in the car with that family. And then he finally gets to my boob and just …
holds
it, like it’s his fucking
lunch
money or something!”

It is Friday night, late. We are sitting on the floor in Ruth’s bedroom. Ruth is in bed, and the rest of us are leaning against the wall facing her. We look like a lineup accused of some eccentric crime. “Well,” Sarah says, “for him, touching you was like … I don’t know, I mean they fantasize for what, months? years? about feeling a real breast. So when they do, that’s enough. To just feel it.”

“Well, it was cold,” Helen says. “I remember feeling a little breeze against my nipple and thinking, God, this is so weird. I’m sitting here in a car with my boob hanging out like laundry. And then that guy came around with the flashlight, you know, the morals squad?
so I smacked my date on the top of his head to make him quit. He came up like a fish, I swear, his eyes all pop-out and his mouth hanging open.”

I am laughing so hard and I think, God, this is strange. This is the best time I’ve ever had.

L.D. has been cleaning out her fingernails with the small blade of her Swiss army knife. Now she snaps the blade closed and says with disgust, “How could you have done that? What was the point? You weren’t having any fun!”

“Well, did
you
have fun the first time?” Sarah asks L.D.

“Absolutely. We knew exactly what we were doing.”

“How did you know?” Helen asks.

“We were alike,” L.D. says. “The translation was simple.”

We are all quiet for a moment, thinking. I suppose we are all imagining L.D. making love for the first time, and for me, anyway, the thought is a tender thing.

Suddenly Ruth lifts up her nightgown, baring her chest. “What’s this?” she asks.

No one answers, and she says, “A back.” And then, into the awkward silence, “That’s a joke, you guys.”

S
aturday morning, Joe calls and asks if he and Meggie can come to visit. “Of course,” I say.

“What should I tell Meg?” he asks, in a low voice.

“What do you mean?”

“About, you know, what to expect.”

“I don’t think you have to tell her anything other than you’re coming to visit Ruth.”

“Well … Don’t you think she’ll be scared?”

“We are talking about
Meg
here, right?”

He says nothing. I know where he is. He is standing in the kitchen, talking on the blue wall phone. The receiver has a hairline crack down one side from my once dropping it, and I have noticed that Joe and I both seek that crack out—both of us with our ring fingers, in fact—when we are talking on it. I suppose we find imperfections comforting, as people do. I imagine Joe holding the phone now, feeling the crack, looking at the floor, noticing and not noticing the crumbs under the kitchen chairs and thinking, how will I do this, do I have to do this? I’ve stood in that same spot.

“Just come,” I say. “It’s not as bad as you think.”

“Should I bring something?”

“I think all we need is paper towels,” I say. “But wait, I’ll ask.” I go into the bedroom, then come back to the phone. “And a couple of boxes of doughnuts. Not little ones. Big ones. Bow ties and cinnamon coffee
rolls, the big ones. And go to McDonald’s and get a Sausage McMuffin.”

“L.D.’s there, huh?” he asks.

W
hen L.D. came back—two hours after she left—she told Ruth she was taking her to the airport. “Just to browse,” she said. “I don’t think I can do that,” Ruth said. “I can’t walk very far, L.D.”

“Then I’ll push you in a wheelchair. They have wheelchairs there.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I want to.”

L.D. looked at me, wanting an ally.

“Well, what do you mean,
‘browse?’
” I asked. “What does that mean?”

“Why don’t you learn the language?” L.D. asked. “You’ve been in this country a long time. Now go start my car, so it’s warm for her. I don’t want to talk anymore about this.”

“She doesn’t
want
to, L.D. She’s too tired.”

“Oh, I’ll go,” Ruth said. “What the hell. I need out. What should I wear?”

L.D. handed me her keys. “Start the car. I’ll help her get dressed.”

When I came back in, Ruth was in a sweater and jeans, her high-top sneakers tied into neat bows. Her wig was on, slightly askew, and I straightened it. L.D. was in the bathroom, and I whispered, “Why are we going to the
air
port?”

“Because she said to.”

“Are you afraid of her?” I asked. “Do you want to do this?”

“No,” Ruth said. “And yes.”

L.D. came out of the bathroom, put Ruth’s coat on her. “Can you make the stairs?”

Ruth said she could, but halfway down it was clear that she couldn’t. L.D. carried her the rest of the way, then helped her into the car, assigned me the rear seat. It was hard to sit there, because of the incredible pileup of junk on the floor. My knees were almost to my chin, my feet resting on empty food containers, shoes, paperbacks, random pieces of clothing, junk mail, and mysterious looking tools from L.D.’s landscaping business. I was curious about what they were, but didn’t want to ask any questions. Up front they were listening to k.d. lang and L.D. wouldn’t tolerate any interruptions of her. I’d made that mistake once.

Inside the main terminal, L.D. found a wheelchair and pushed Ruth up to various monitors showing departure times. “Where would you go?” she asked. “New Orleans? San Francisco?”

Ruth smiled, said nothing.

“Paris?”

She stopped smiling then, turned around in her chair. “What’s up, L.D.? I mean, what do you want me to say?”

“Just … I’m just asking where you’d go. If you could go anywhere you wanted.”

There was a long moment of silence. All around us, people were hugging each other through the bulk of their winter coats, saying good-bye, wiping away tears.
I hate seeing people cry when they say good-bye. “Don’t go, then!” I always want to say. “Obviously you love each other! So don’t go!” But of course they have to, and they do. Every day. Everywhere. It’s the ones who are left behind at the gate that I worry about, those with their hand pressed uselessly against a huge plate-glass window, watching, while outside engines roar so loud that no matter what you say, you can’t be heard above them.

An announcement for a flight leaving for Phoenix made me jump, and Ruth finally said, “Well, I’ve never been to Arizona. They have coyotes there. And desert. I’ll bet the moon looks bigger.”

L.D. pushed Ruth to the nearest airline desk and told the curly haired, sleepy looking agent that she wanted two round-trip tickets to Phoenix, first class, dates open. While the agent pushed blankly at the keys of her computer, I felt L.D. looking at me. I didn’t move. I stared straight ahead. Some people pray, I was thinking. Others buy airplane tickets.

M
eggie brings Ruth two presents: a book of riddles, and a Baby Ruth. She puts them down on the kitchen table, then points to the candy. “Get it?” she asks. “A Baby
Ruth.”

“You,” Ruth says, pulling Meggie to her, “are a very clever girl. Are you in college yet?”

“No. Only fourth grade.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Is that your wig?” Meg asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

A little moment, and then Ruth asks gently, “Would you like to see how my real hair looks?”

Meg nods. Ruth pulls her wig off, bends her head down low so Meggie can see the top of her head. Meg stares wide-eyed and I see her fingers curl into the safety of her hand. “Does it hurt?” she asks.

“Well,” Ruth says. “Not like when you cut yourself. More like when you miss someone.”

“Oh.” A big breath in. “Remember when you built the snow lady with me?”

There have been times in the past when I have been proud of Meggie. And there will be many times more to come, I know. But none will surpass this moment. She’s only nine. It would be all right for her to pull away, out of fear, out of strangeness. But she doesn’t. She looks up fully into Ruth’s face and she is smiling. Love is there.

“I certainly do remember that snow lady,” Ruth says. “You couldn’t say ‘lady’ then. You said ‘yady.’”

“Yes,” Meggie says. “I remember. I was little. I was only three.”

I remember too. It was shortly after I’d met Ruth. She baby-sat for me while I went to get groceries. I’d been having a bad week. The prospect of standing before the tomato bin for as long as I wanted with no one yanking at my sleeve seemed roughly equivalent to a week at Canyon Ranch spa. And I did stand before the tomatoes for a good long time. I also looked at every single kind of cereal. I pressed the buzzer for the
butcher, just because I had time to wait for a special cut. I got rack of lamb, which I knew nothing about, including how to cook it. I just wanted it. I was hoping the check-out clerk would say admiringly, “Oh, rack of
lamb,”
and I would say, “Yes.”

When I came home, I’d found a snow woman, wide-hipped and big-breasted, standing beside the lamppost in my front yard. She wore a wreath of evergreen around her head, and her arms were shaped so that it looked as if her hands were on her hips. She had an attitude, even as she melted.