I originally wrote this story in early 2009, as a fictional letter to Theo (a character in “The Prescribed Burn”), but I wanted to challenge myself by whittling it down to 500 words.

I broke my long, jangling necklace again. At least two of the little bronze bells rolled under the radiator, to be lost forever.

Please don’t scold me for neglecting to take it off while cleaning. I like the sound it makes when I move. Especially on a summer day like today, I craved something cold and familiar against my skin.

I don’t expect you to remember my jewelry, but you know this necklace. I wore it the night we met at the Stateline Diner, our halfway point. You arrived in your new car, which you had been wanting to show me.

I felt pretty. My necklace chimed when I hugged you.

The diner was crowded, and I wondered if we had made a poor decision, agreeing to meet at such a noisy place. The waitress brought us ice water in tall, sweaty glasses painted with pictures of football helmets. I was relieved.

At least, if we exhausted all conversation topics, I could impress you by finding your favorite team on the glass, by pointing to the green helmet with the white writing. Until then, I would tell you how my necklace made me proud because I had purchased it during a solitary city adventure. I wanted to prove to you that I had never needed you.

But I tugged on the necklace. I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

“Want to see my new car?” You asked, after we finished eating.

“I guess I can stay a few minutes,” I said.

I sat in the front passenger seat, and you demonstrated the cruise control. I admired your efforts to become a man. Before I could leave, you handed me the pocket-sized notebook where I had written our story. Once, that had been my present to you.

I cried, and you let me rest my head on your shoulder. I heard the necklace jingle when you put your hand on my chest, and I hated that my jewelry was trying to speak for me, expressing things I couldn’t say.

I wanted you to kiss me so I could remember how it felt. You responded, and the next few moments were a tumble of limbs and unbuttoning.

We were young.

We could still jump over the emergency brake to the back seat. You could still push me down on the cloth, not leather, cushion. The back of my head could hit the door release repeatedly, and the door would remain shut because you had, for unknown reasons, chosen the child safety lock.

I didn’t feel pain until you put your hand behind my head to soften the impact. I didn’t even realize my necklace was broken until you collapsed on top of me, brushing one end of the chain off the edge of the car seat like a crumb, like something we had left behind so help could find us.

I gathered the metal in one hand. I thought only about how I could fix it.

(Photo by ralphunden)

I stopped wearing makeup because I no longer had anyone to impress, at least not with my looks.

I never felt the need to wear it in the studio with Edgar. Whenever we were working, we were concentrating on crafting the best shots possible and concerned with our beautiful models, not with ourselves.

But on the day of the opening, I put on makeup. I wanted to look my best because I was proud of Edgar and proud of the show.

We had spent weeks preparing for the opening at Lantern Gallery in Chelsea, on the far West Side. Lantern would be showing a retrospective of Edgar’s food photography from the past five years, mostly stuff he had done in his spare time. The “hobby” work was easier to sell because it was more unique and inspired.

I had been staying late nights to help matte and frame the photos, cleaning the glass and making sure that all the frames were dusted and pristine. Edgar would leave me alone at night, instead of helping me, but I was okay with that. He was so stressed by the whole endeavor, and I enjoyed the time alone.

I would go home with Windex stains on my t-shirts and an unbearable desire to take my own pictures. The more time I spent looking at photos I admired, the more I just wanted to go out into the world and create my own work. After work, I would stay up even later once I got home and do what I could with the poor light in my bedroom.

Putting on makeup, now that I thought of it, would probably be a useful tool to cover the dark circles under my eyes and give depth to my tired-looking skin.

When I arrived at the gallery at 5 PM to prepare for the opening, I saw that the gallery staff had carefully hung all the photos that I had been preparing for the past few weeks. They chose to arrange the photos chronologically, with the earliest nearest the entrance and the latest on the opposite wall.

I walked around the brightly-lit, spare space to make sure that no one put their fingerprints on the glass which was so clear I swear you couldn’t tell it was glass unless light was shining on it. I was inspecting a picture of a burrito truck when Edgar came up behind me and made me jump.

“Doesn’t that make you hungry?” Asked Edgar. “Burrito truck, Chinatown, 2008.”

“Yeah, I actually spent a lot of time trying to figure out where this was,” I said. “But I stopped trying to guess because it doesn’t really matter. It exists in the frame.”

“You get it,” said Edgar, smiling. “By the way, you look so pretty today, Veda. Are you wearing makeup? What’s different about you?”

Usually, I felt uncomfortable when people, especially men, complimented my looks. Sure, I liked flattery as much as the next person, but I liked it even more when I was trying to look pretty. I equated trying to look pretty with creating a work of art.

I think I’m pretty, and I understand why people compliment me. But I don’t occupy the world with the dominating thought that I am a pretty girl. I think of myself as creative first, pretty later.

Hearing Edgar, who was always either criticizing or complimenting me on my ability to be his assistant, tell me I was pretty was odd.

“Just makeup,” I said. “I wanted to look nice for your opening, which is perfect, by the way.”

I had been working with these photographs for weeks, but now I could acknowledge that they were truly beautiful and worthy of being purchased by people who could afford them.

My favorite photo in this exhibit was one of a poached egg on a pink plate with a flowery oilcloth table covering beneath it. The egg had a sexy quality, even though it was just an egg. It had a sheen that was both natural and out of this world. The colors really popped.

“Have you seen the catalog?” Asked Edgar. “They really did a great job preparing the show.”

I was kind of hurt that he hadn’t immediately thanked me for all my work, but I was a paid assistant. Why should he thank me?

He handed me the catalog, and I tried not to look wounded as I stared at the titles of the photographs. After looking through the gallery’s price list – $4,500 for an 8×10″ photograph – I found myself jealous.

I had never worked with Edgar on a gallery show before so I didn’t realize how much he charged. I knew what he made on commission for publications and private contracts, but I couldn’t believe someone would pay that much for a photograph.

I wondered about the people who might buy his work – how did Edgar feel about separating the collection? In an ideal world, I would want my art to stay together as a collection.

You know how they try to adopt puppies with their siblings? So that the puppies have familial ties? That’s kind of how I feel about my pictures.

“So when the customers start to arrive, the gallery staff is going to take care of most of it, but I don’t want them to see me until later, if at all. I want to watch them from security camera feed in the back office,” said Edgar.

“I would like you to be as much me as you possibly can. Out of everyone attending tonight, you probably understand me the best.”

“Well, obviously I look very different. No one is going to want to listen to a 24-year-old female photographer’s assistant,” I said, then immediately regretted how little credit I ever gave myself.

At 7 PM, guests began to arrive to the party. Edgar fled to the back office, as he promised, and I was left with the two gallery employees and the owner, Sharon, who was busy handing out catalogs and greeting the guests. The two employees were holding trays with champagne and fancy snacks.

I pretended to greet people but tried to defer to the gallery employees, who were used to doing that sort of thing. I was nervous that Edgar was watching me via the security camera, and I felt so self-conscious so I at least tried to approach people and seem friendly.

I helped pass out champagne flutes and mini quiches whenever I saw an opportunity to grab an extra tray.

But of course I started getting the wrong kind of attention because I no longer looked like Edgar’s assistant. I looked like some pretty, outgoing girl who attends art openings because they are trendy and chic, a great opportunity to meet artists.

While I was standing by the door, sort of greeting people and sort of not, a skinny man wearing skinnier jeans asked me if he could get me one of the free drinks. He would buy me one if they were selling them, he said. But they weren’t.

I didn’t want to hate men. I really didn’t. But the older I got, the more each one I met was a mash-up of bad traits from all the men that I had met before. And they pretty much begged for me to hate them.

You, I wanted to say, every time I try to pull myself out of this hatred and resentment, men like you do something to push me back into it.

I was in a hole of hatred, and I was constantly trying to climb out. When my hands reach the edge and I was about to pull myself up and out, men like you stepped on my fingers. And everything would become dark again.

I wished the light in the room wasn’t so bright because I was feeling really down and probably had that kind of look on my face that showed I was on the verge of tears.

I really was tired from preparing for this show, and I really didn’t have the patience to put up with these people. I got the feeling that none of them actually cared about the photos or about Edgar – they were just here to impress each other and to be seen and possibly add to their art collections, if someone told them it would be cool to do so.

Edgar deserved better than that, and where were his actual friends? Did he have any? I didn’t actually know.

Finally, Edgar decided to emerge, and a few of the guests recognized him immediately, rushing to him with praise.

He walked to the front of the gallery and took a champagne glass from one of the employees.

“Everyone, thank you for coming,” he said. “I have an announcement to make.”

I could tell he must have been drinking in the back too. He was not completely sober.

“The photographs in this gallery tonight are the result of five years of hard work and a great love for food, as you can see,” said Edgar, patting his slightly rotund belly. “I am so happy to see all of you here and feel so blessed that people support my passion and encourage my talent. I couldn’t have done it without Sharon, who owns this gallery, and my assistant, Veda, who has been doing way more than her share of work these past few weeks to ensure that the opening would run smoothly.”

He made an elaborate hand gesture toward me and then bowed.

I smiled but could feel my face become hot. The guy who offered to get me a drink looked at me and seemed to regret even giving me the time of day. Was it because I was the assistant?

“So please, if you have any questions about the work, feel free to ask either myself or Veda. I know many people are usually interested in the stories behind the photos, and I’m usually happy to share them, if it enhances your experience.”

“Thank you, Edgar,” said Sharon. “We feel so privileged to be able to showcase your work. And do let us know if you have any questions about purchases or are interested in buying something tonight.”

“Oh, and in case you get bored with my work, I have a surprise,” said Edgar. “See that open door in the back? We have a special surprise collection for sale tonight. It’s a limited edition by a photographer who I both admire and respect.”

Sharon seemed confused. I had no idea what he was talking about – he hadn’t told me about any new photographers. I was definitely intrigued because I was always interested in seeing the latest work.

When Edgar finished talking, and the crowd started to chatter again, I slipped to the back of the gallery and peered my head into the office. Edgar had set up a felt divider and mounted a group of photographs there.

I recognized these. They were mine.

Before Edgar would hire me, he gave me one of his cameras and asked me to walk around the city and take photos of things that interested me so I did. He wanted me to prove myself to him. And I had completely forgotten about that project. He had developed the images himself and had inspected them on his own time, apparently.

“How much for that one?” Asked a voice behind me.

Before I could turn around to see who might be interested in purchasing my photo, I had to remind myself: hope they don’t ask for the story, and be grateful when they don’t.

(Photo by Idle Type)

The following excerpt is the second part of “The Prescribed Burn”. You can read the first part here.

“That’s gross,” I said. “Did he start to drool?”

“Basically,” said Madsy. “And I could see into the mesh pocket of his backpack. Full of condoms.”

I started to laugh, and I felt my greasy forearms slide over the armrests of my chair. While I laughed, my butt sank into the fabric. I broke the tight weave of plastic fibers, and I fell almost completely through the chair, just above the wooden floor of the deck.

Maybe I had gained so much weight that the chair could no longer hold me. I worried about how mad my parents would be about the broken lounge chair.

Now Madsy was laughing.

“Oh, are you okay?” Madsy asked.

“Wow, how did that happen? Did I really get that fat?”

“It’s probably just because these chairs haven’t been used in a while,” said Madsy. “All the temperature and weather changes really fuck with the material, you know?”

“My parents are not going to be happy,” I said.

I stood up to avoid any further damage and sat down on the end of Madsy’s lounge chair, by her feet.

“Calm down,” said Madsy. “Just say an animal chewed through it or something. You basically live in the wilderness. They’ll believe it.”

I hoped that the two of us on one chair wouldn’t break it. My arm brushed Madsy’s leg, and my limb slipped over hers, greasy from the tanning oil. Madsy’s skin, from the brief encounter I had with it, was so unlike Theo’s, which pulled closely around his bones and muscles. Madsy’s skin was so soft and new to the touch that it actually made me want Theo, simply because the feeling of him was more familiar.

I squinted my eyes and saw clouds, even though the sky had previously been cloudless. The masses were dark and definitely looked like smoke, which would explain why I had smelled it. I became very afraid and wondered why the forest behind my house was burning.

“Okay, do you see that?” I asked. “I told you something was burning.”

“Oh, it’s probably nothing though. Wouldn’t we be hearing firetrucks by now?”

“True,” I said. “Okay, keep telling me the story so that I can stop thinking about everything else. I want to know what he did with all those condoms.”

“Well, basically we were partners all day. He touched me a few times, to adjust my posture, and I was completely charged. He really turned me on,” said Madsy.

I sort of remembered what it was like to feel completely charged by someone, by Theo, but that feeling was so far behind me that I didn’t understand how it could have been possible in the first place. Had I imagined it? How could anyone in the world make me feel that way?

“I could tell he wasn’t really boyfriend material, just based on the condoms, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wanted to try some of those poses with him in private.”

“You did not just say that,” I said.

“After the workshop, he invited me to the juice bar with him so that we could get smoothies.”

“What the hell is burning?” I asked. “What is that?”

“It’s okay,” said Madsy.

She turned over on her back to face me. Madsy started breathing the way that she wanted me to breathe when I became nervous, and I got the hint. I inhaled through my nose, pushing my stomach out and opening my diaphragm. Pushing out my stomach made me look fat. I exhaled through my mouth, releasing all the tension.

Madsy was reminding me to calm down. After eight years as my best friend, she knew what to say and do when I was feeling anxious.

I wondered if I was somehow being punished for the bad thoughts I had about my home and its ability to inspire gnawing nostalgia. I wondered if the fire would burn down my parents’ house, destroying everything that bothered me.

“So anyway, after the juice bar, Ramón invited me back to his hotel room. He was just staying temporarily for the workshop. Did I tell you that part?” Asked Madsy. “He actually travels a lot, doing private workshops with his high-profile clients. Athletes, celebrities, rich yoga fanatics, you know.”

“Weren’t you afraid to go back to a hotel room with someone you didn’t know?” I asked.

I wondered what it might be like to be alone with Theo again. I didn’t think I could do it. I would need someone else there with me, or I would need to meet him in a crowded place, in a busy restaurant. I was sure that if I called Theo and asked him to have sex with me, for old times sake, he would agree to fuck me. Afterward, he would make a comment about making sure I didn’t get under his skin.

I liked the idea of attracting Theo’s attention, but the consequences would not be worth the experience.

“I felt pretty comfortable with him,” said Madsy. “We were touching all day, and I knew what I was getting into, emotionally. I just thought it would be fun. Also, the ginseng in my smoothie made me hyper.”

I could understand that. Exercising with someone generally made me feel closer to them. Theo and I used to go for long runs together sometimes and then afterward collapse into a sweaty mess. The one thing that always annoyed me, though, was how much faster he was and how he taunted me. At least, without Theo, I could run at my own pace.

I suddenly had trouble breathing, and I couldn’t tell if my breathlessness was a result of my inability to do Madsy’s breathing exercises, from the smoke, which was still billowing from the trees, or from the tightness in my chest that occurred when I tried to make sense of Theo.

“So I don’t want to get too graphic, because I know you won’t approve, but basically Ramón started kissing me the moment we entered his room. It was so immediate,” said Madsy. “And then things moved to one of the two queen-sized beds, the one he wasn’t sleeping in, of course. He didn’t want to mess up his bed.”

I missed the immediacy that Madsy described. Theo and I had that on good nights, sometimes after a bottle of wine. Even during our worst arguments, when we felt most estranged from and strange to one another, like Madsy and Ramón must have felt that day, we would still be slaves to the spark.

“I’m going to call my mom and ask her if she knows what’s going on with the smoke,” I said.

“Wait, don’t you want to hear the rest of my story?” Asked Madsy. “Anyway, if your mom finds out that you and I have been tanning then she’ll know that you broke the chair.”

“True. Okay, finish your story,” I said. “Did he use one of the condoms?”

“Yeah, I asked him why he had so many, and he gave me some generic answer about being prepared for anything.

So we started doing it on his bed, and it was pretty hot but mostly theatrical, you know? He just didn’t seem genuine and was only interested in impressing himself. I don’t think hand-waving and hip-shaking are for me. I got the impression that he spends a lot of time in front of his mirror, naked, practicing his sex moves. Also, his forehead was really greasy, and I kept staring at the way the gel from his hair seemed to be melting onto his face.”

“That’s disgusting. Is that the whole story? We really need to go inside. I hear crackling now. It sounds like trees are crackling and falling, actually. Yes, falling,” I said.

I sat up straight and used the towel to wipe the grease from my body. My skin was stinging, and I wondered if I was burning too. Usually the sunburn didn’t appear for a few hours, after it was too late.

“Do you hear that?”

“Yeah, but I don’t hear any sirens,” said Madsy. “And anyway, that’s not the end of my story. It gets better.”

“What could possibly be better than fucking Ramón?” I asked, impatiently.

“Okay, so you’re not going to believe this part,” said Madsy. “So then he started to get really into it. And he moved his lips close to my ear and kept saying these two words over and over again.”

“What the fuck was that?” I asked.

I noticed a figure move between the tree trunks. The figure appeared to be wearing something orange and reflective. I thought, for just a moment, that it might be Theo. Maybe he was coming back. He seemed to be walking closer to us. The figure was wearing a yellow hard hat, a thick vest, and heavy work pants.

“Over and over, Ramón kept whispering in my ear que rico, que rico, with the rolled ‘r’ and everything, and I just didn’t know what to do. I thought I was just going to burst out laughing so I told him that I speak English and that I had no idea what he was saying,” said Madsy. “Que rrrrrrico. Que rrrrrrico.”

Madsy’s loud moans attracted the attention of the man in the woods, and I stood up, ready to run inside.

“Don’t come too close to the trees,” said the man in the forest. “We’re conducting a small prescribed burn.”

“Come on, Madsy,” I said.

I was relieved that I finally knew the cause of the smoke. Madsy grabbed her towel and finally followed me inside.

“See? It was nothing,” said Madsy. “Anyway, so he kept saying that, over and over, louder and louder, until he finished. And then I asked him to go down on me, but he said he was too tired to continue.

“That’s ridiculous!” I said.

Now that we were inside the house, I was better able to focus on Madsy.

“What a jerk. He could have at least tried to make you come. I wish I could punch him.”

“Yeah, in the end I didn’t really get anything out of it.”

“Don’t ever say that. You got a good story, right?”

I pressed my face against the glass of the deck window, watching the man stomp through the woods, making sure the fire wasn’t burning out of control.

“Listen, I don’t mean to scold you, but you really should have known better,” I said.

“I know,” said Madsy, slumping down into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “I know. I didn’t spend the night, and then I felt shitty afterward. And I had to see him every day for the rest of the week.”

Madsy started to cry, and I was surprised because I didn’t realize how upset Ramón had made her. I was under the impression that Madsy’s encounter with the yoga instructor was simply a playful fling that hadn’t worked out like she had hoped. Madsy had told the whole story in such a joking way that I assumed she wasn’t much bothered by it, but now Madsy was crying at my parents’ kitchen table, soaking the fabric placemats.

In the midst of my own preoccupation with Theo, I had neglected to truly notice Madsy’s pain.

“Don’t cry, Mads. He’s a jerk, and you couldn’t have known that he would treat you that way,” I said. “Look, you said you were hungry. Can I make you some lunch?”

I went to the refrigerator and actually found some meat and vegetables. I motioned for Madsy to wait for me while I ran up to my bedroom and knocked my art theory books on the floor. When I stooped to pick up the books, I saw the portfolio from the art project that Theo and I had done together. I had almost completely forgotten about it.

When I returned to the kitchen, I asked Madsy to grab the food and follow me out to the deck. I was holding the portfolio under my greasy arm, and the tanning oil left smudges on the cover.

“Let’s go outside. The man said it was okay, as long as we don’t go too close to the trees. I will grill you some lunch, like you wanted. It will be alright,” I said.

“Okay, I’m really hungry,” said Madsy.

We stood there, watching the trees burn. Madsy lit the grill.

“Hey, could you do me a favor?” I shouted.

The man in the reflective vest approached the deck, and Madsy pulled the towel more tightly around her body. I held out the art portfolio and motioned for him to take it.

I needed to let go of at least one thing.

(Photo by Wayne National Forest)

The following excerpt is the first part of “The Prescribed Burn”. You can read the second part here.

I just needed a break. I wished that everyone and everything would disappear, and I wanted every relationship to unravel itself like yarn I used in the winter, the only time I ever wanted to knit.

I escaped to my parents’ house, if that could be called an escape. Somehow, my bedroom unearthed more emotion than I thought possible. Everything reminded me of something from my past, of things I hadn’t even thought about for a while, like the slumber parties I had with Madsy in high school, all the time I had spent sitting on the floor, painting, and the night I secretly brought Theo to my room.

I woke up in my bed alone, but I wasn’t expecting the loneliness. I thought my parents would be home to distract me, but they left early to attend a garden show somewhere in central Jersey. I called Madsy.

“I’m home,” I said.

“Veda, don’t get me wrong, I’m so happy to hear from you, but do you know what time it is?” Asked Madsy.

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t doing anything,” I said. “It’s only nine, and I’ve already spent too much time in my head. Do you want to come over and tan?”

“Too early to tan,” said Madsy. “I’ll come over at noon. Can you remain mentally stable until then?”

“I’ll try, but noon is my breaking point, so don’t be late,” I said.

I got out of bed and found my inspiration box, a cardboard container that Madsy had decorated for me in high school. It was covered with pictures of glamorous women from magazines and words that she had clipped, even whole lines from books she had gotten from the library book swap.

Madsy had given me the box as a high school graduation present. I was so proud of my best friend when I realized she had actually learned something from all the decoupage lessons I had given her in Sister Mary’s art class.

I scooped my hands into the compartment with the beads and let the cool spheres roll over the tips of my fingertips. If I really wanted to get over Theo, I could totally immerse myself in art supplies.

The sensation of the beads on my skin was more familiar to me than the body of any man could be. I moved my fingers over the scraps of paper and fabric and even let one scrape my finger so that it stung. I liked the feeling because it was familiar; I associated the paper cuts with creation, which never really hurt, at least not physically.

I had no idea if I would ever kiss Theo again, but my art supplies provided me with tactile release. I could turn to them whenever I wanted, and they would always be available. Unlike Theo, my art supplies were also something I could change and mold.

Did I even want to kiss Theo again? Would it feel the same as before? I pulled some colored scraps out of the box and also some tubes of acrylic paint. I chose colors that appealed to my mood at the moment, blue and purple and gray, and I arranged them in random fashion on my rug. I wasn’t sure what to make of this collection, but I knew I wanted to create something. I was waiting for an idea to come to me, and this waiting made me feel violently connected to my life.

In the same way that I waited for the colors and shapes to make sense to me, I decided to wait for to Theo call me, for him to tell me that he wanted me because I was sick of meddling in things that were uninspired, sick of being the one taking initiative when the circumstances just didn’t seem right. I was going to release control of the situation. Art, like love, sometimes created itself.

By the time I knew it, Madsy was ringing the doorbell of the house, and I had made nothing out of the materials on the floor. When I got to the front door, Madsy was standing on the front steps in her bikini top and gym shorts, holding a towel under her arm and a tote bag in her other hand.

I hadn’t seen my friend since January; she looked thinner, and her black, wavy hair looked neater, like she had recently had it trimmed. I noticed the sexy style of Madsy’s bathing suit, which was a little much for sunbathing on a deck with a friend, but I smiled to myself because Madsy hadn’t changed.

“Why were you so down this morning when you called?” Asked Madsy. “You’re home, you’re supposed to be happy.”

“That’s the problem,” I said.

We went through the kitchen to the sliding deck door. In the backyard, my parents had a large, wooden deck, which jutted out onto the grass from a sliding door in their kitchen. The view from the deck included a backyard filled with garden statues and, beyond the terra cotta gnomes, a thick forest.

I had sometimes played there as a child, and I knew all the paths, which lead to another part of town that was being developed for houses and a recreational center. In addition to a table, two lounge chairs filled the space of the deck.

The sky was completely cloudless. All we could hear were the rustling of the trees and the birds chirping, but I still wasn’t used to the quiet, which made me nervous.

Madsy covered one of the chairs with her towel, and I covered my own. We began the arduous process of coating ourselves with greasy tanning oil, an art that we had perfected. My finger stung from where the paper had cut me, and I had a hard time applying the oil without wincing.

Madsy had rolled over on her stomach and untied the strings of her bathing suit top.

I watched Madsy as she seemed to pose. Madsy rested her head on the back of her hand and pushed her hair back with her sunglasses. I was always jealous of Madsy’s confidence. Madsy knew how to use her body to its fullest advantage.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said.

I hated the false sense of privacy and security that the suburbs gave everyone, including myself.

“Last summer I was out here, just like this, and two strange men came into the backyard,” I said. “Apparently they were gutter-cleaning employees, and they were looking for the hose connection. I had to wrap a towel around myself and waddle to the side of the house to show them. It was really embarrassing.”

“Whatever,” said Madsy. “Don’t ever feel embarrassed. If anything, they should have been embarrassed knowing that they couldn’t have someone as sexy as you.”

“I don’t think it works that way, Mads,” I said. “If I’m so sexy, how come I still haven’t heard from Theo? I don’t think I’m going to hear from him ever again.”

“Is that why you’re so bummed? Are you seriously still stuck on that jerk?” Asked Madsy. “Theo should mean nothing to you.”

“It’s going to take a while. He really got my hopes up when he said we might be able to try for the summer,” I said.

“Screw that. I have a good story to tell you that will take your mind off the Theo nonsense.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“I went to a yoga instructor certification camp a few weeks ago. Did I tell you? I don’t think I did,” said Madsy.

I hadn’t been telling Madsy all my stories either. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell her about Pretend Boyfriend because I was so embarrassed about what had happened. I was so ashamed of myself for spending so much time pursuing romantic dead ends instead of focusing on my work.

I knew that Madsy had always loved yoga. She had been the one to coach me through yoga poses when I was trying to become more flexible in preparation for Arthur. She was the one who would tell me how to breathe if I ever felt like I was going to have a panic attack.

“Shit, you’re going to love this,” said Madsy. “But if I tell you this story, you have to promise not to mention Theo though, at all, not for the rest of the day.”

“Okay, I won’t mention him. Doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about him, though,” I said.

“I met a guy,” said Madsy.

“Of course you met a guy,” I said.

I adjusted myself in the chair, resting my arms on the armrests and fixing my hair so that my bun wouldn’t press into the back of my head. I wished I had brought some magazines outside, but at this point it was too late to go back into the house, greased up as I was.

Instead, I covered my face with another towel so that the sun wouldn’t bother my eyes and so that I could focus fully on Madsy’s story, which I hoped would amuse me enough to take my mind off Theo.

“So let’s hear it.”

“Okay, so this workshop, it was at the Jacob Javits Center, in one of the classrooms they have in the basement,” said Madsy. “When I got there, he was the first person I saw.

Tall, broad shoulders, wearing a five o’clock shadow at eight in the morning. So fucking sexy. He was standing behind a table with a clipboard, checking people in.”

“Sounds hot,” I said.

I tried my best to imagine the situation. At first, I was sad because Madsy’s description made me think of Theo’s broad shoulders and facial hair. I had been having trouble paying attention to people lately anyway, because my mind was always somewhere else. If I was going to give my best friend her full attention, I would have to forget about Theo, for the moment at least.

“He immediately caught my eye because he was totally unlike the other guys that were hanging around,” said Madsy. “I mean, you know yoga guys. They are usually scrawny and skinny.

Anyway, I went up to him and asked him where I needed to go and what I needed to do, and I saw his nametag: Ramón. So he told me that I will need to go to room 111A for the orientation speech and that I would have to choose a partner for workshop.

I looked around at most of the other people waiting to sign in and, you would have been surprised, most of the people were old and out of shape. They had these lumpy, misshapen bodies, and I thought, there’s no way I’m going to work with these people.”

I had never realized that Madsy was so judgmental about people’s bodies. I looked down at my own belly to make sure it was flat and saw that it was smooth and glistening, covered with the oil.

I thought about the way Theo would sometimes, when he was in a good mood, kiss my tummy and tell me how beautiful it was, but I had to remind myself that those memories couldn’t matter to me because they were so inconsistent with reality.

I moved the towel up to my forehead and allowed my eyes to adjust to the sunlight, which was now beating down from directly overhead. I had to concentrate on Madsy’s story.

“So what did you do?”

“I asked him, all flirty, well, Ramón, how do I choose a partner? And he said that he was free, if I was interested.”

“Provocative and also quite stereotypical,” I said. “Was that really his name?”

With the towel no longer on my face, I began to smell smoke. I assumed that one of the neighbors was grilling something for lunch. The scent was pretty strong and was less like burning charcoal and more like burning trees. I was reminded of the sticks and logs we burned once at summer camp, at the vatras.

“Do you smell that?”

“Yeah, it’s making me hungry,” said Madsy, pointing to the grill, which stood in the corner of the deck, by the table. “Want to make something for lunch? Do you have any propane in that thing?”

“Are you serious? I don’t think we even have food,” I said. “My parents stopped cooking since I moved out.”

I wasn’t hungry, and I really wasn’t in the mood to eat.

“Anyway, it doesn’t smell like food. It smells like trees,” I said.

“I don’t know. Anyway, so I told Ramón that we could be partners. And once he was done checking everyone in, we went to the room where we started with the warm-up poses.

One person had to do the pose, and the other person had to observe. So I went first, and I could tell he loved my downward dog.”

(Photo by Jennie Faber)

The following excerpt is the second part of “Pretend Boyfriend”. You can read the first part here.

“First, I screw up my chances with that guy,” said Ashley. ” Now I’m going to ruin your night.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. How could she ruin my night with Pretend Boyfriend if I didn’t know what kind of night we were supposed to have? I let Pretend Boyfriend respond.

“You’re not ruining anything. We’re all friends here,” he said. “And you need to be safe.”

Part of me wished that Pretend Boyfriend would tell her to take a cab home or fend for herself, but letting Ashley stay with us was the right thing to do. Pretend Boyfriend was a good guy.

On our way out, Pretend Boyfriend was no longer the stud with a girl on each arm. This time, Pretend Boyfriend and I were holding Ashley, even though all three of us were drunk. She was hysterical and thrashing like a panicked bird.

She would not stop talking about how she had ruined our night, and her words made me more and more uncomfortable each time she said them. But Pretend Boyfriend didn’t seem to take it personally or think anything of it. He just kept looking at me and shaking his head.

In the hotel room, Ashley remained awake long enough to watch Pretend Boyfriend perform a show for us. In an effort to distract her, Pretend Boyfriend stripped down to his boxers and button-down shirt and danced nonsensically to the top 40 station playing on the radio he had brought.

But the dancing made him cough violently. I was surprised we both held up for as long as we did because neither of us had felt well at the beginning of the trip. My head hurt a little, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the alcohol or because I was still coming down with something. Pretend Boyfriend’s coughing fit signaled the end of the night.

Ashley slept in one bed. Pretend Boyfriend and I slept together in the other bed, but he rolled far to one side. He kissed me on the cheek and turned away.

“I don’t want you to get sick, Veda,” he said.

But I was sure I was already sick.

In the morning, I heard Ashley leave, but I was still drunk and too tired to say goodbye. I heard Pretend Boyfriend get up to help her with her things and then fell asleep again.

When I woke up, more awake this time, I realized that Pretend Boyfriend and I were alone, in bed together in an empty room. I also noticed that I wasn’t wearing any pants; they were thrown on the floor next to me. I must have been too hot in the middle of the night and took them off. Now, I was simply wearing my panties and a black camisole tank top.

Pretend Boyfriend was sleeping or at least he was pretending to sleep. I started to rub his leg with my foot, hoping he would come closer to me, at least. He was still on the other side of the bed with his face turned away. Finally, he moved, and I touched his shoulder.

“Come closer, I’m cold,” I said.

I was practically begging him to take advantage of me. How pathetic.

Shouldn’t a guy with a pretty, half-clothed young woman in his bed be the one making the moves? Shouldn’t I be the one fighting him off?

I thought about the night before and the way he couldn’t keep his hands off me on the dance floor. Presented with an opportunity, why wasn’t he taking advantage of it? He moved closer, but he didn’t try to kiss me.

“I’m sick, Veda. It’s better if I stay over here.”

I moved his hand to my butt so he could see that I wasn’t wearing any pants. He seemed more startled and scared by this action than aroused or interested. I climbed on top of him, kissing his forehead and his cheeks, trying to get him to realize that I wanted something to happen, but he dodged my kisses and avoided my mouth.

“Don’t you want me?” I asked. “We finally have some privacy. We should take advantage of it.”

“I really don’t feel well,” said Pretend Boyfriend. “And, to be honest, I don’t want anything to be complicated between us.”

“But I want this, can’t you see that?” I said.

“I don’t want to be the jerk when I move away at the end of the summer. I know you’re a good girl, and I don’t want to be responsible for making you sad,” he said.

“Are you really going to turn me down? I’m ready to go.”

“I don’t have condoms, anyway,” he said.

“I brought some,” I said.

I felt really embarrassed then. What kind of girl has such high expectations of a night in an Atlantic City hotel room that she brings condoms? I felt dirty and slutty and reconsidered everything, but I had already pushed the matter so far. I started to cry but didn’t let him see by turning away.

“Are you absolutely sure?”

I nodded, even though I knew the sex couldn’t be good or fulfilling, not now. But I had been waiting for the chance to have sex with Pretend Boyfriend, to affirm the hunches I had about the way he perform in bed, to finally meet someone who might help me get my mind off Theo.

Pretend Boyfriend finally agreed to have sex with me.

We had our eyes closed the whole time, and he seemed to be somewhere else. I knew that we would never have sex again.

I didn’t even try to get off. When he finished, I was grateful. Neither of us was feeling well anyway. Pretend Boyfriend started coughing again, and my throat burned so badly I could hardly swallow. I put my pants on because I was cold.

When we got out of bed for good, the day seemed to start the way it should have started, if I hadn’t been so demanding. We both dressed, got our things together, took showers, and went downstairs for breakfast. We ordered coffee and eggs, and the only time that whole day that either of us mentioned the sex was when Pretend Boyfriend asked me if I was using birth control.

I nodded, and he nodded in return. While we ate, we talked about Ashley and laughed about the night before.

After breakfast, we used the rest of the money that we had budgeted for our trip at slot machines and roulette. Pretend Boyfriend had never played roulette before so I taught him what I knew. We were sitting close to one another, whispering comments about the other people at the table. We actually won a few hundred dollars together, and he let me use his chips when I ran out of my own.

“I love this game,” said Pretend Boyfriend. “Thanks so much for teaching me how to play. I would never have come here on my own.”

The dealer kept yelling at us because we were talking too loudly and forgetting to remove our hands from the table between bets. We could sense that she wanted us to leave. We placed the last of our chips on red, which hit, but the dealer pushed our chips off the red space, along with the other losing chips.

“Hey! We bet on red.” I said.

“Nope! I already moved the chips. You lose.”

“But she’s right, you moved our chips,” said Pretend Boyfriend.

The dealer called for a security guard to check the casino camera, and we were sure we would be able to get our money back. But the security guard returned from the camera, accused us of cheating, and told us to leave.

Angry and broke, Pretend Boyfriend and I decided that our trip was over. We checked out of the hotel and waited for the valet to retrieve our cars while I began to cough violently. I pressed my fingers into my forehead because my sinuses burned.

Pretend Boyfriend hugged me. He pulled a small tin of cough drops from his pocket and offered me a cherry-flavored lozenge. The sweet, melting medicine quenched the dry taste in my mouth and relieved the pain in my throat.

“I was worried this would happen,” he said.

(Photo by tamakisono)

The following excerpt is the first part of “Pretend Boyfriend”. You can read the second part here.

Pretend Boyfriend was very handsome, and I felt proud and happy to be with him in public. He was tall, the way I would want a real boyfriend to be. He had dark hair and dark eyes, and he possessed an athletic build. He looked great in a button-down shirt and blazer, and I admired his body.

Pretend Boyfriend and I first met when he arrived as a guest to my 22nd birthday party. Madsy invited him because she thought I might like him. She was right.

The best kind of Pretend Boyfriend shows up to a birthday party, with flowers, even though he barely knows me. At my party, Pretend Boyfriend and I danced the whole night, and I felt like such a lucky girl. We even danced through Theo’s text messages regarding something unrelated to my birthday, signaling to me that Theo had forgotten my special day.

I let myself be sad for just a moment. But how could I be upset when I had Pretend Boyfriend pressed up against my body?

Both of us had been drinking rum and Cokes, and we danced ourselves into something like love. When Pretend Boyfriend touched me, when he brought me to find water after I told him I was thirsty and too drunk, I decided that I wanted Pretend Boyfriend for the rest of the summer, at least.

“I want to see you again soon, okay?” Said Pretend Boyfriend, when the night was over.

Seeing him soon would be easy. I found out that Pretend Boyfriend worked at the Starbucks in Hoboken. I would come to the store after work, when his shift was just beginning, and he always seemed impressed that I went out of my way to spend time with him.

Why should he be impressed? He always made me laugh, and we would make fun of the customers.

Our favorite regular was a teenager who always brought his plastic cup, asking for an iced coffee refill but without the ice. Whenever the teenager entered the store, Pretend Boyfriend would walk away from the counter and let another employee deal with it. The other employee would always wear a puzzled face.

But the teenager always got his way, always had his cup filled with cold coffee, minus the ice. Then, the teenage would dump half of his coffee into the trash and refill the cup with milk from the silver canister on the serving tray. Neither of us understood the appeal.

“Iced coffee without ice. It’s kind of like us, right? A relationship without the relationship,” I said. “The elemental part is missing.”

Pretend Boyfriend just laughed. He knew that I referred to him as Pretend Boyfriend. We kind of knew that we couldn’t have a relationship because he was looking for a “real job” out of state and was bound to leave as soon as he found one.

One day, I felt bolder than the coffee blend of the day and asked the teenager why he always ordered coffee that way.

“Because ice means less coffee. I feel like they’re ripping me off,” he said. “Try it some time. The coffee might not be as cold, but you’ll get more of it.”

I tried to apply his reasoning to the thing I had with Pretend Boyfriend. I wondered if the admiration and affection we had for one another was more pure because we weren’t in a real relationship. We were just friends who really liked each other, friends who had not yet had sex.

I really wanted to have sex with Pretend Boyfriend, even though the opportunity had never presented itself. We had never been alone.

“I’ve never been to Atlantic City,” he told me, one afternoon at the coffee shop. “We should go.”

“I’d love to go to Atlantic City with you,” I said.

I was excited to do with Pretend Boyfriend what real boyfriends and girlfriends might do together.

While we were planning our trip and reserving our hotel, Pretend Boyfriend came down with a really bad cough, but I liked kissing him so much that I ignored the risk of getting sick. Pretend Boyfriend told me we shouldn’t be kissing until he got better, but I wrote it off as one of the risks of having a Pretend Boyfriend. Eventually, I started coughing too.

We went to Atlantic City despite the fact that neither of us was feeling completely healthy. We had reserved one hotel room, but the room had two beds so I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen. Would we finally have sex? I hoped so and brought my sexiest panties.

Pretend Boyfriend was looking especially handsome that day. After waiting an hour in line for the elevator in the budget hotel and laughing about it, we went to the room and got ready for dinner. He had brought a travel-sized radio, and we listened to music while moving efficiently around the room.

While I was in the bathroom, fixing my makeup, Pretend Boyfriend ordered a bottle of champagne from room service. By the time I finished putting on my little black dress and curling my hair, Pretend Boyfriend was popping a cork and spilling champagne all over the carpet in the room.

“Be careful!” I said.

“This is for the elevator,” said Pretend Boyfriend.

He was wearing his boxers and a t-shirt, completely unselfconscious with his black dress socks pulled high on his hairy calves. I felt something like love for Pretend Boyfriend then.

I hugged him, and he gave me a glass of champagne, which was cheap but still bubbly enough to fill me with warmth and gratitude for men as a species and for places like Atlantic City, where I could be an ambitious young woman who just wanted to feel pretty and sexy from time to time.

We sat on one of the beds and drank most of the bottle, laughing. He hugged me until my stomach started to growl. He rubbed my tummy and asked me if I wanted to get dinner.

It was already 8 PM, and I was very hungry. The champagne was going straight to my head, and I could feel the room was starting to spin. I wouldn’t mind staying in bed for the rest of the night, but I wanted food.

“Yes, let’s get dinner.” I said.

“Sure. By the way, I told some of my friends that I’m here. I’m waiting to see if anyone wants to come out with us. Might be more fun with a big group,” he said.

My heart broke. I thought I would have Pretend Boyfriend to myself. I thought we could pretend until the morning. But now there was a chance that other people might join us.

“Ashley lives nearby so she might come too,” he said. “I used to work with her and haven’t seen her in a while.”

Another girl? I didn’t mind other women and was always happy to make a new friend, but I didn’t want to share Pretend Boyfriend.

After we had mojitos and Cuban food at a restaurant downstairs, Pretend Boyfriend announced that Ashley had messaged him. She was going to meet us by the elevators.

Ashley was pretty and bubbly, and I immediately liked her, in theory. She had a black dress similar to mine, and we bonded over our outfits and the prospect of a good night. I was drunk and happy and hugged her and welcomed her to our group. But I still wasn’t happy to share.

We went back to our hotel room while Ashley changed, and we drank some of the whiskey that she brought as a gift. Feeling glamorous and like Hollywood movie stars, we found a bell hop to hail us a cab.

Pretend Boyfriend and I sat in the back of the cab, and we held hands while Ashley made friends with the driver in the front. The window was open, and the lights on the street were spinning because I was already drunk. My hair was stuck to my lip gloss, but I was so happy to have the warm night air blowing on my face that I didn’t even bother to fix it.

Pretend Boyfriend was twirling the large rhinestone ring on my finger, and I held on to the moment so hard I thought it might burst.

“Why are you so happy back there?” Asked the cab driver.

He had to shout it because he was playing a Reggaeton radio station very loudly, and he looked at me in his rear-view mirror. Ashley was waving her arms in the air, and I had to lean forward to tug up her strapless dress because it was falling dangerously low.

When we arrived at the luxury casino where the club was located, we all got out of the cab, and Pretend Boyfriend paid for us. He took one of us on each arm, and we walked the red carpet into the hotel. All eyes were on us.

I suddenly didn’t care about looking like an accessory. I actually felt powerful and happy.

The club was very crowded, and the music was playing loudly. Girls in booty shorts and cut-off shirts were dancing on raised platforms, and men were staring at them. We got drinks and found a place to stand so we could assess the situation before joining it.

Ashley ran into some people she knew and disappeared for long periods of time. Each time she reunited with us, she was more drunk than before. She kept complaining to Pretend Boyfriend that another young man wasn’t paying attention to her. Pretend Boyfriend kept buying Ashley more drinks because what else was he supposed to do?

I kept trying to reenact my birthday, pulling Pretend Boyfriend on the dance floor and making him dance close to me. He seemed happy, glancing away every few moments to look at the girls dancing on the raised platforms. He was my Pretend Boyfriend, and I couldn’t mind. I didn’t. Because he had his hands on me, I was feeling sexy enough to not care.

When we were both sufficiently drunk and achy from dancing, we decided to tell Ashley it was time to leave. When we found her, she was crying.

“He won’t pay attention to me,” she sobbed.

“It’s okay, Ashley,” I said. “Be glad you have friends who care about you and who will make sure you get home safely.”

I couldn’t stand seeing other young women cry over men. Their tears hurt me to the core, even when I was so drunk that my face was numb, and I could barely tell whether or not Pretend Boyfriend was kissing me.

“Please don’t cry,” I said. “He’s not worth it.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to get home,” she said. “I have to work tomorrow.”

“What? You told me you have the day off,” said Pretend Boyfriend. “You’re in no shape to drive home. You better spend the night with us. We have two beds, you know.”

(Photo by geishaboy500)

The following excerpt is the second part of “Smuggling a Boy into Baba’s”. You can read the first part here.

We waited to cross at a busy intersection. Eric and Sam were arguing about the location of the alley where Sam felt up a waitress he met the last time they were out. I felt like I was intercepting insider information. Theo moved his lips to my ear.

“Can I come home with you?” He whispered. “I’ll accompany you to Baba’s at the end of the night.”

Immediately, I knew that bringing Theo to Baba’s would be a bad idea, but I was so surprised that Theo wanted to spend the night with me that I considered the possibility. Of course, I wanted him to spend the night with me. It would be nice for someone I really liked to sneak a peek into my life.

None of my friends had visited me at Baba’s house yet. I wanted to show someone the Ukrainian embroidery, Baba’s drawings, the way that I had decorated my room, the new paint on the walls, and the phone with the quarter-sized buttons. I wanted to point out the smell of cabbage that always permeated the house. Living there would be more real for me if Theo could witness it.

His breath was still hot on my ear, and I wanted more of it. The space we could share in my twin-sized bed would remind me of my tiny bed at school and the times we had to sleep pressed so closely together to keep from falling out of it.

“Let’s see how the night goes,” I said.

I tried to cover all my emotions the way I covered my shoulders with the sweater.

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Where are we going, anyway?” Asked Eric.

He seemed to be the only one paying attention now to our surroundings. Sam concerned himself with a glob of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe. I forgot we were going anywhere.

“Let’s go there,” said Theo.

He pointed to an orange neon sign surrounded by a strand of multi-colored Christmas lights: Cantina Loca.

I rolled my eyes. Cantina Loca was the kind of bar I would never visit with serious intentions. Madsy and I would come to Cantina Loca if we just wanted to dance, dress in tacky outfits, and pretend to be the kind of girls that we were not.

Should I tell him what Madsy and I used to do at Cantina Loca? No, he wouldn’t want to know.

The guys liked the flat-screen televisions behind the bar because they broadcasted sports games from other time zones. Televised sunlight on the west coast contrasted harshly with the dark in the bar.

The guys also liked that the female bartenders wore little red bikini tops and the free tacos Cantina Loca distributed after 10 PM.

“I wish I lived in Mexico so that I could eat these every day,” said Theo.

I reminded myself not to be a snob. I shouldn’t criticize someone for liking rancid corn taco shells with greasy meat and too much cheese.

I longed for the hilly billy bar that Baba had described. I imagined warm spätzle served by beautiful blond women and a live performer, someone like Johnny Cash. I wanted large steins of good German beer and a full belly of noodles with fried onions.

The inauthentic Mexican paraphernalia nailed to the wall behind the bar made me miss Baba and her authentic Ukrainian things, which fell off desks and dressers whenever she happened to bump into them. I missed her unique brand of cultural mess.

“I wonder what Baba would think,” I said.

“Cool, want a tequila shot?” Asked Theo.

“I’ll have a beer, please.”

Theo ordered a Bud Light for each of us. What, no Weißbier or Weizenbock?

He drank it so quickly that he was ordering a second beer within five minutes. I couldn’t drink my beer that quickly. I guess we were drinking hard tonight.

I could get drunk with him tonight. This wouldn’t be the first time it ever happened. But I wondered if I could keep him from drinking so much that he wouldn’t want to have sex with me, throw up, or pass out. I wondered if I could remain sober enough to remember how I was going to smuggle a boy into Baba’s.

“So, I’m taking you home with me?” I asked.

“I knew you would agree eventually.”

“You will love it at Baba’s house,” I said. “She has such a strange and interesting array of artwork on the walls. She draws, did you know that? I think I get my skill from her.”

“I can’t wait to break the rules with you, sexy girl,” said Theo.

Eric and Sam were watching the sports channel and checking out the bartenders. They looked longingly at the young women who were getting tequila poured into their mouths, straight from the bottle.

By the time Theo finished his sixth beer, I was only halfway through my second, and I was working enough of a buzz to laugh when he pulled me over to a secluded lounge sofa, even though I kind of wanted to dance.

“I love you, Veda,” said Theo.

He pulled my hair away from my sticky neck so that he could kiss it. He had never said those words before. I knew for a fact that he didn’t love me. His kisses did feel amazing, though. He could continue kissing me for as long as he wanted.

“You mean the world to me,” he said.

“Don’t say things like that when you’re drunk,” I said.

I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t let myself believe him. I could let him into my bed, I could bring him home to Baba’s house, but I absolutely could not, no matter what, believe him.

I had wanted Theo to say those words to me since the first time he kissed me, after our visit to the art museum. But now that Theo was actually saying them, with the same breath that carried the scent of cheap beer, I didn’t like the way they sounded.

“I’ve been afraid to tell you, because I wasn’t sure how you felt about me,” said Theo.

He spilled beer on my knee and tried to kiss my hand. I sat in silence. I closed my eyes and imagined the smell of spätzle moving through the air. I imagined that, next to me, was a handsome young gentleman in a sport jacket holding a flower. In this imaginary world, I had to be home by 10 PM.

“Then why the hell did it take you so long to call me?” I asked, turning to him again.

“I was busy,” said Theo. “Don’t take everything so personally.”

I was so disappointed with Theo but even more disappointed with myself for having expectations for a guy who didn’t have the greatest track record.

“Why don’t we go dance?” Asked Theo.

I wanted to dance, but I didn’t want to look like a fool dancing with him.

“No, let’s just stay here,” I said.

He pulled from the couch and onto the dirty, wet dance floor. I felt like a rotisserie chicken under those colored hot lights. Theo was rubbing his crotch against my butt, and my cute dress was sweaty and already beer stained.

The time when I should have left was lost and gone forever. This scene would never have taken place at the hilly billy bar, where patrons used coasters.

Finally, Eric saved me. He wasn’t that drunk, just transfixed by the bartenders.

“Theo, you should probably take a break,” he said.

I smiled at Eric and nodded to encourage him. Eric took Theo’s half-empty glass.

“I’m sure Veda doesn’t want to take care of you for the rest of the night,” said Eric. “Sam and I are leaving soon anyway.”

“I don’t mind taking care of him,” I said. “He’s my friend. I won’t let him get in trouble.”

Why the hell was I always standing up for Theo? Why was I always making excuses for him? He was so good at rejecting me, then returning in mysterious and enticing ways.

I loved his attention, which was so rare. I wanted to be one of the things that made him excited, one of the things that made him feel like a hopeful and bright little boy. Would I ever stop seeking his approval?

“Alright, then we’re going home,” said Eric.

Without any prospects for one-night stands, alleyway makeouts, or phone number exchanges, Eric and Sam were done. I finally had Theo to myself, right? We were going home together. We were going to leave the city for the quiet and quirkiness of New Jersey.

“We should go too,” I said. “Let’s head to the PATH station before it gets too late.”

The later trains arrived more infrequently, and the people who rode them became more obnoxious and incoherent. When we arrived at the station, Theo stumbling, a train had just arrived. I was so grateful for our timing.

“I feel nauseous,” said Theo.

He sat down on the dirty ground. I wasn’t really feeling well either, but I was excited to go home. I squatted down, despite my dress, and rubbed his lower back. Despite my annoyance, despite my feeling sick, I hoped he would remember how patient and kind I was being with him. Could he just realize already what a great girlfriend I would make?

“Stop, it’s too hot. Please don’t touch me,” he said.

When the train doors opened, Theo refused to board.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

He started pacing. I just watched him. I was not going to miss this train. Other people waiting for the train noticed my predicament; I was playing caretaker to someone who probably should have been taking care of me.

A few attractive guys looked at me and shook their heads at Theo. They probably felt sorry for me. They probably wished they were the ones taking me home. I nodded at them.

Sure, Theo was a lousy on-again, off-again thing, but we were friends. At least, I thought we could be friends in a perfect world. Friends had certain obligations to one another. If something happened to him, Sam and Eric would be mad at me.

The conductor announced the train’s departure, but Theo wouldn’t come on the train, even after I tried waving to him from within the compartment. I felt a little sorry for him, but I really wished he could just suck it up and get on the train. Otherwise, we would have to wait another half hour in the hot PATH station.

“Come on,” I said, annoyed. “Come on, we have to go.”

Instead, Theo wandered to the parallel track and vomited between the cars of an out-of-service train.

“Are you serious? Are you seriously puking right now?”

I couldn’t leave him. The train was about to depart, but I stood next to Theo. The train pulled away and left me with this vomiting guy who claimed to love me.

Theo was so focused on puking that he didn’t even realized that the train was gone. When he finished, he straightened himself.

“I feel better,” said Theo, covering his mouth with his hand. “Do you have any napkins?”

“No! Fuck you! We missed our train,” I said. “Where am I supposed to find you a fucking napkin?”

“Why are you mad?” asked Theo. “I feel really sick.”

I would want someone to help me if I wasn’t feeling well, no matter how much of a shithead I was. Puking in the PATH station was really low and probably one of the worst things ever.

I tried to shed my anger and be his friend. Being angry wasn’t going to make the train come any faster or make the temperature any cooler. To my knowledge, the PATH station had no public restrooms, and the guys at the newsstand didn’t have any napkins.

With a half hour to spare before the next train would arrive, we had to resurface to ground level to find a public restroom. Where the fuck were we supposed to find a public restroom at 4 AM? All bathrooms were locked and either accessible only to employees or by key for customers.

The hilly billy bar would probably have a bathroom with a personal service employee who charged anyone who wanted it 50 cents for a spritz of cologne or perfume. The lavatory attendant, would hand me a three-ply quilted paper napkin after I washed my hands with lavender-scented soap.

We found a street vendor who sold hot dogs and asked him for a bunch of napkins. Luckily, he gave Theo a small stack of napkins without asking him to buy a hot dog. The smell from the boiling hot dog water made me feel sicker.

Theo wiped the vomit from his face and put some of the unused napkins in his pocket, a bad sign.

Finally, we went back to the platform to continue waiting for the next train. At this point, I didn’t want to talk to Theo at all so I sat on the ground and read the timetables. I would stick out the night with him, but I wasn’t going to be nice.

The strange and belligerently drunk were beginning to gather in the station. Women with ankles wobbling from drunkenness and heels grabbed the ticket turnstiles and their boyfriends for support. Men with shirts half unbuttoned were already reminiscing about the night that wasn’t quite yet over.

When the train arrived, I literally pulled Theo into a car. I was not going to miss another train. Though I was no longer drunk, my mouth was dry, and my head was pounding so hard that I thought my heart was going to leak out of my ear. The car was so crowded that we had to stand, holding the handrails by the door. I could feel the sweat dripping between my breasts.

Theo kept looking at the floor. I didn’t want to touch him, and I didn’t want to ask him if he was okay.

When the train started to move, Theo lasted for about five minutes before pushing his way to the back of the car and sliding the door that connected the cars.

I knew he was going to throw up in between the cars, while the train was moving, but I just didn’t care anymore. He had the napkins in his pocket, he was an adult, he could deal with it himself.

I didn’t even care if Theo fell between the cars. At least I was on the train, on my way to Journal Square, to Baba’s house. When he finally came back to stand next to me, he smelled like vomit.

“I didn’t even drink that much,” he mumbled.

“Whatever,” I said.

When we got to the steps outside of Baba’s house, I quietly unlocked the door and told Theo to wait for me while I made sure that Baba was asleep. The main hallway was dark, and Baba wasn’t in the living room, watching CNN or praying with her rosary.

“Alright, follow me,” I said.

He wouldn’t see very much of Baba’s house because it was dark, and I rushed him to my room, which was at the end of a very long hallway, off the kitchen.

“Walk down the hall as quietly as you possibly can.”

When we made it safely to my bedroom, I realized how sad I was that Theo wouldn’t get a chance to see the drawings on the walls, the embroidery throughout the house, and the display of pysanky, elaborately-dyed Ukrainian Easter eggs in the display case in her dining room.

In the morning, I would have to quickly sneak Theo out of the house, and he probably would never get to see anything besides my newly-painted walls or understand what I was talking about when I talked about Baba.

“Let me wake up Baba and tell her that I made it home safely,” I said. “I don’t want her checking on me in the middle of the night and finding you.”

I went into Baba’s bedroom, with the bed so high she needed a stepstool to climb into it, and I gently shook Baba’s shoulder.

“I’m home safe,” I whispered.

Baba opened her eyes a little, confused. The thick comforter engulfed her small, frail body, and she looked startled.

“Did you have fun?” Asked Baba.

“Tak,” I said, because it was late, and I didn’t want to explain anything.

I wouldn’t even know how to begin or how to explain the night in a language she could understand.

When I returned to the bedroom, Theo was already asleep, taking up most of the space.

At the very least, I wanted an explanation, something to confirm or refute his proclamation of love. Even as he slept drunkenly on my bed, sweating beer on my nice comforter, I was the one who felt powerless.

I washed my face and changed into my pajamas. I brought the broken digital clock from the dining room, the one that always read 9:42, to my bedroom. The display part was broken, but the alarm somehow always worked.

I set it so that we could wake up before Baba and then tried my best to fit into Theo’s arms.

(Photo by russelljsmith)

The following excerpt is the first part of “Smuggling a Boy into Baba’s”. You can read the second part here.

On the Friday that I was supposed to meet Theo in the city, I kept dropping Edgar’s lens caps. One of the models even asked me, in a bitchy tone, why I was staring at her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just daydreaming.”

I was so trapped in my head that even the smell of the Belgian waffles from downstairs didn’t torture me. Instead, they made me nauseous.

I was not sure that meeting Theo was a good idea. No matter how many times I reminded myself that I gave in to him too easily, that I always made myself too available, I still agreed to his every whim. In fact, I was always so mesmerized by Theo that I practically threw myself at him.

I kept checking my skin in the makeup artist’s mirror and couldn’t decide if I was having a good or bad hair day. I wanted Theo to be completely blown away by me, since this would be the first time we would be seeing each other since the end of the semester.

After work, I came home with Pad Thai to share with Baba. She asked me about the Puerto Ricans who made the food. Of course, Puerto Ricans had not made the Thai food.

“They were nice,” I said.

“Huh?” She asked.

I didn’t have enough energy to explain so I went to the kitchen and removed two plates from the cupboard. I often shared takeout with Baba because her kitchen was small and not exactly functional.

The oven didn’t work and was stuffed with old papers, like a filing box. The stove, which Baba mostly used to boil water and heat borscht, was covered with little ceramic trinkets and a picture frame with the paper photo of a child that came with the original packaging. Why couldn’t Baba put a picture of me there?

I spooned some Thai food (less for me, and more for Baba) on each of the plates. My stomach still hurt, and I wasn’t sure how much I could eat, even though the food smelled delicious. I also didn’t want to look bloated.

I brought the plates to the living room and set them on a large ottoman covered with a red and black embroidered Ukrainian cloth. Baba and I watched CNN and ate quietly until she started to shake her fork at footage of violence in another country.

“It’s okay, Baba,” I said. “Just eat your dinner.”

I didn’t like that she watched CNN because she didn’t understand most of it anyway. She would work herself up over things that didn’t make sense to her, and this stress was harmful to her blood pressure. But she would never let me change the channel.

“You go out tonight?” She asked.

“Yes, but not until nine,” I said.

“Where you go so late?” Baba asked, angrily. “What kind of young woman goes out at that time?”

“We are going to a bar, Baba,” I said.

“What kind of girl goes out at nine? What you thinking?”

“No one gets to the bar until 10,” I said. “I’ll be okay. Lots of people go out at this hour. It’s actually very safe.”

“Are you meeting boyfriend?” she asked.

“I guess,’” I said. “I don’t know.”

I didn’t want to eat anymore. I tried to push the noodles to one side of the plate and covered them with my napkin so Baba wouldn’t ask me why I wasn’t eating. I was getting up to shower and throw the rest of my food in the garbage when Baba tugged on my sleeve.

“You go to a hilly billy bar?” she asked.

“What’s a hilly billy bar?”

I could only ever understand bits and pieces of her stories. I understood Ukrainian pretty well, but Baba’s language was not pure Ukrainian; it was a mash-up of words from German, Ukrainian, English, and sometimes even Polish.

The Polish came from the three Polish tenants who lived upstairs and also from Baba’s other Polish friends. The German came from World War II and the period of time she lived in Germany with Dido, my deceased grandfather.

“Oh! At hilly billy bar, you would hear a man with a beautiful voice, singing country songs. Everyone loved those country songs,” said Baba. “When I lived in Germany, I was a cook at a hilly billy bar. That was right after I first met Dido. We were both lonely and spoke Ukrainian.”

“And that was it? You fell in love?” I asked.

Baba didn’t answer my question because she was so caught up in her own memory. I laughed.

“I was in the kitchen, in the back. I made everyone spätzle. The Americans came there to listen to hilly billy. They loved it.”

“I never knew you worked in a kitchen.”

“I hate it. I stopped after two weeks. It was hot in kitchen, and my back hurt from standing,” she said. “The music was nice, but my head spin after while. Too much, too loud.”

“Yeah, I hate when the music is so loud at bars that you can’t talk to anyone.”

“What?” Asked Baba.

I never knew why I bothered to respond because could hardly hear me anyway. We might as well have been in the loud hilly billy bar, trying to have a conversation.

“I remember woman name Hrooba Ashka who kept trying to steal food from us. We think she had a poor French lover who she gave food to. One day Dido saw she steal tomatoes from us, but he was afraid she was going to hurt him. She was very fat.”

Hrooba meant fat, which was pretty much how I felt with my stomach bloated and hurting from nervousness. I was Hrooba Veda.

I still had to shower and get changed. To be honest, I did want to keep listening to Baba’s story about the hilly billy bar, but I didn’t want to be late. It took so much effort to understand her stories.

“Baba, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I have to get ready. I wish I was going to a hilly billy bar, but I probably won’t be.”

I threw out my food and left her there with CNN. Before getting into the shower, I called Mama and asked her to tell Baba not wait up for me. I really wasn’t sure what time I would get home. I knew the bars were open until 4, but I also didn’t know how the night would go.

I might stay for an hour, be annoyed and then leave. Or I might have a great time and stay out all night. I might not even come home until the next day. I didn’t want to set any rules for myself.

After my shower, I spent way too much time thinking about my outfit. Though I wanted to look great for Theo and out at the bar, I would be traveling alone and didn’t want to attract attention to myself.

My long sleeveless tank could have passed for a mini dress, but I opted to pair it with tights because I didn’t want to call too much attention to my legs. I also wore a small sweater that I could bunch up and put in my bag once I got to the bar. I really didn’t want to show off too much skin.

No matter how liberated a woman I was, I still didn’t feel comfortable walking around by myself and showing that much skin. As much as I laughed to myself about Baba’s opinions regarding women going out late, part of me still felt the way she did. Sure, I liked attention, but not from men I didn’t like or didn’t want to like.

I was about to leave for the PATH when the house phone rang. I usually didn’t answer that phone because Baba had many friends who also didn’t really speak English.

In order to get to the phone Baba had to leave CNN, walk down the long hallway, and sit down in an overstuffed armchair covered with two different types of Ukrainian embroidered towels. The receiver volume was set to such a high volume that I could hear Mama.

“Don’t wait for Veda,” Mama said.

When she got off the phone, Baba took her blood pressure monitor and began to measure her blood pressure. She kept a notebook next to the monitor so that she could record her blood pressure reading daily.

I couldn’t stand to watch her perform this obsessive task because it reminded me of obsessive things I used to do, like only signing my name on paintings a certain way.

The monitor beeped loudly as if Baba were in danger, and she waved at me to come over to her and look at the screen. The systolic reading was blank, and I got scared for a moment, thinking that maybe I had done something to make Baba ill.

But we tried it again, realizing the machine was wrong. Baba recorded the number, 140 over 72 in her notebook. I sat down and began to roll the white beads of Baba’s rosary between my fingers.

Baba noticed that I was playing with her rosary and told me that she had jewelry that I could wear to the bar, if I wanted to borrow something. Baba showed me a handful of gold-plated chains; they were Baba’s treasures, but I thought they were kind of ugly and poorly made.

One ring looked like something I would get from those coin prize machines at the bowling alley. Another necklace looked like it could have been part of a chain pull for a ceiling fan. I could tell she was trying to keep me from leaving by showing me the jewelry, but it wasn’t going to work.

“I need to leave now,” I said. “Please go to sleep at a reasonable hour. I don’t know what time I’m going to be home.”

I was sad to leave her alone, especially since I still wasn’t sure that seeing Theo was a good idea. I wanted to hear more about the hilly billy bar, which was probably infinitely more exciting than whatever bar we would visit tonight.

At least the PATH station was comforting in its filth and crowdedness. Every time I rode the train, I was less disgusted and more reassured by it. The smell was familiar and not unappealing.

It did not smell of urine or body odor, like one would expect, but of must and old. It smelled like an orange upholstered chair from the 1970s that could be found in an antique store. It had been cool and innovative once. Now, it was just dependable.

I was so used to that smell, but I still noticed it every single time. Some things I could notice over and over but never really think about them. I thought about the PATH train, and I knew deep inside that the smell would later break my heart, reminding me of one of the best summers of my life.

I was so aware of that impending heartbreak, but I loved every detail anyway.

Anyway, I was really happy that I had decided to dress conservatively, at least for the train, because it was crowded. I had to stand, holding a pole so that I wouldn’t fall over. I was pressed up against the people near me, and I was happy to have my sweater so that I wouldn’t be so exposed.

When I met Theo above ground, on 23rd and 6th, he was wearing dark jeans and a grey cotton t-shirt with a black splatter pattern on the front. His face was dark around his mouth, and his hair was just messy enough. But I wasn’t as attracted as I thought I would be.

Yes, I thought he looked great, but he seemed distant; it had been months since I had seen him. My heart sank when I saw his friends.

“Hey,” I said, trying to act casual. “You brought friends?”

“Yes, Veda. Meet Eric and Sam,” said Theo.

“I wish I had known,” I said. “I could have asked Madsy to come.”

He smiled and put his arm over my shoulder, pulling me toward him as if I was his prize. Eric was shorter, but he was very handsome, arguably more handsome than Theo.

Sam wasn’t that good looking, but he was wearing really cool shoes, snakeskin. I liked his taste in footwear.

The four of us walked about six blocks, and actually Theo held my hand, something he didn’t like to do in public. He didn’t like any public display of affection. I remember the one time he hugged me quickly on the quad at school. I was so shocked that I had to run home and tell my roommates about it.

The only time he ever held my hand was when we were alone. He might be telling me a story, so excited that he would grab my hand and hold it tightly. I loved this so much that sometimes I couldn’t even pay attention to him. I was too focused on the feeling of his fingers intertwined with mine.

His hand-holding gave me false confidence, the sense that he could be mine no matter what.

Why I wanted that was a mystery to me. I could tell that Theo was unhappy with himself. He was disappointed with the world, disappointed that his fantasies about life, especially about work and relationships, could never be real.

However, when the passionate boyishness emerged, I was such a fool for Theo. I was addicted to the possibility that he could care about me too.

But I didn’t let it stop me from flirting with the other two as we walked.

“So why would handsome guys like you hang out with someone like Theo?” I asked, clearly joking but satisfied with myself.

Theo didn’t seem to react to my flirtatious behavior. He kept holding my hand and walking straight ahead, through the crowds of people who were always, eternally, walking too slowly for him.

Theo was always in a rush, always ready to get to the next thing. Even in bed, he would jump up immediately after we finished to get a snack, clean up, or get dressed, right away. Lingering was not Theo’s style.

“Well, he promised to buy us drinks,” said Eric. “That’s one reason.”

I laughed. Would Theo buy me a drink? Drinks?

I felt sexy. The air was humid and thick, too warm for the sweater, so I took it off to reveal my bare shoulders.

(Photo by travelswiss)

I had found a temporary summer job assisting Edgar, a photographer in Hoboken, and living at Baba’s house in Jersey City would afford me the easiest commute.

My closest friends would be living in or just outside of Manhattan. Madsy would be taking summer classes, and Theo got an internship in the city. I wanted to be near them too.

I would stay in the room where Mama once lived, in a row house near Journal Square, just a block away from the PATH, the train that ran under the Hudson River.

I was curious about living in Mama’s childhood home and looked forward to the opportunity to imagine my mother’s past life, as it had been before I existed, even before Mama met Tato.

I repainted the walls a pale blue because I couldn’t stand the previous paint: a green that looked like the inside of the stale Andes mint candies Baba left out in a glass tray in her living room.

I covered the bed with a bright plaid comforter and hung up random items I had found in the neighborhood: a string of colorful “good luck” elephants that I had found in an Indian gift shop and a mess of colorful take-out menus that I collected from local restaurants.

Living with Baba might inspire me. Baba herself was an amateur artist, and she spent a lot of time with colored pencils, crayons, and paper. Baba liked to draw pictures of the flowers and also of Ukrainian villages, with horses and wooden fences and thatched roof houses.

All her pictures lacked perspective, which made them childlike yet brilliant, like religious icons made by artists in Medieval times.

The commute from Baba’s house was even more convenient than I had expected. I only had to walk one block to get to the PATH station, and a train was usually waiting on weekdays.

But I mistrusted convenience. At school, my relationship with Theo had been one of convenience, which meant we only had to walk a block to eachother’s dorms, on nights when we didn’t have too much to read and could watch rented films and drink cheap wine until we got drunk enough to not mind making out on the itchy, blue, university-issued couches.

I only had to ride the PATH two stops, to Newport/Pavonia, where I would transfer to the train that went to Hoboken. I loved the quiet on the morning train. Even though the PATH was packed with commuters, the only sound was the rustling of newspaper pages and the squealing of the brakes.

Everyone either sat on the smooth orange plastic seats or stood very still, holding onto the metal bars, swaying with the motion of the train.

Edgar’s studio was on Washington Street, Hoboken’s main drag. He had a large lofty space on the third floor of a brownstone building that had a Belgian waffle shop on the street level. Whenever Edgar opened the windows for fresh air, the scent of sizzling waffle batter filled the mostly empty, high-ceilinged studio and made me drunk on sugar smell.

I usually tried to make it through the day without buying lunch, to save money, but the smell always made me unbearably hungry.

Edgar was known for fashion and food photography for magazines and ad promos. My first project was assisting Edgar for an editorial photo shoot. A tall, willowy model had arrived for the shoot, and a stylist, with a trunk full of clothes, and a makeup artist, with her case of makeup, came after the model.

I thought the model was beautiful as she emerged from makeup, and she arranged herself on a prop bench in front of the white backdrop. I wondered if the model had relationship troubles, if men treated her badly, and if they had ever broken up with or cheated on her. I was tempted to ask her these things but thought better of it.

“Can you hold this light reflector up for me?” Asked Edgar. “The natural light is gorgeous.”

The light reflector shook when I held it because I was weak and hungry, but I did my best to follow Edgar’s directions. I was grateful to be working for him, and I learned a lot about light and perspective just by watching him take pictures.

The editorial jobs were most lucrative for Edgar, but he sometimes took me outside, where we would take action shots in the park. I was going to learn as I went, understanding how Edgar worked and which lenses and tools he would need. I would have to become used to his style and intuitively understand what he needed.

Some evenings, after work, I would meet Madsy in the city, and we would flirt with men we met in restaurants and bars. We liked to window-shop in quirky boutiques, trying on clothes we couldn’t afford. Other evenings, I would run along The River.

One evening, during a particularly energetic run, I noticed a young man crouched by the fence along the water. Beside him were clear plastic bags filled with empty plastic bottles that he must have collected from the recycling bins in Hoboken’s alleys.

His fingers were pushing tiny, rolled-up pieces of paper into each bottle and then throwing the bottles into The River, one by one. He was balanced so carefully that he could have been a bottle-launching expert. He barely even rocked as he reached for the next bottle from the bag.

In Hoboken, good-looking young men frequently caught my eye. But this man was extraordinarily handsome, in a tangible way. He had something I could access. I was so drawn to his concentration and fervent dedication to his task that it took me a few minutes to realize he was doing something I hated: littering.

Throwing bottles into The River in broad daylight? Why wasn’t anyone trying to stop him?

Feeling angry and bold, I approached him. First, I pretended that I was just admiring the view of the skyline. I could hardly avoid being filled with love and awe every time the line of buildings caught my eye. But then I moved closer to him and opened my mouth.

“Why are you throwing those bottles in The River?” I asked. “The water is dirty enough as it is.”

“I’m sending messages,” he said, without looking at me.

“You do realize that you can send messages in at least ten other ways, right?” I asked. “Without having to litter.”

I grabbed one of the plastic bags and started to walk away.

“I’m stranded,” he said. “No one here will listen. But someone over there might find my note.”

He pointed to the opposite shore, and the water was glimmering. I had to shield my eyes to see where he was pointing: nowhere in particular, just over there, at the island of Manhattan.

“Are you lost?” I asked, pulling money from my pocket. “I can show you how to cross The River. Here’s two dollars. Just stop. Please stop throwing these bottles into the water.”

The young man neglected to respond and continued to stuff message after message into the bottles. They would float, crash back into the Hoboken pier, and then drift away.

I grabbed his shoulder and shook him, demanding a response or a reply. He simply handed me one of the messages.

“Leave me alone,” he said.

“You’re a jerk,” I said.

His handwriting was so illegible that I couldn’t read the message. I crumpled the piece of paper in my hand and stomped away.

Where were the cops when you needed them? Every day, the world seemed to be slowly collapsing before my eyes. Landscapes were decaying, buildings were becoming uglier, and no one seemed to care. No one wanted to do what little they could to improve their surroundings, to keep them from deteriorating any further.

Did he think himself so small that he couldn’t matter or make a difference? Did he think launching bottles into The River would save him but not be enough to matter in the greater scheme of things?

I couldn’t stand men who were constantly seeking salvation but ultimately believed they were nothing, that they were not actually worthy of it.

Walking along The River to find a police officer, I was so angry that I kicked a soda can and looked away when a jogger tried to smile at me and make eye contact. I was so frustrated that I wanted to cry. The litterer had filled me with hatred, confusion, and desire, all at the same time.

I reached in my pocket, hoping to find a tissue, but all I had was the young man’s message, which I had shoved into the pocket of my running shorts. It would be too rough to use as a tissue.

I hated the sight of it so much I tossed it, without thinking. It fell over the railing, and the breeze caught it. The crumpled paper flew into the water.

Fuck, I said, out loud.

I leaned over the railing and watched the ball of paper bob up and down in the water. I smacked my forehead with my palm and hated myself. The piece of paper started to float toward the city, away from me. Could I swim to retrieve it?

“Hey!” Shouted the young man. “You can’t send my messages. Why did you do that?”

“It’s your fault,” I said. “Do you think there’s a way I could fish it out?”

“What’s the point? Do you see all the trash?” He asked. “Come here, toss one with purpose. These soda bottles make pretty good boats.”

And what was on the other side of The River? What, there, would save him?

I stopped again, transfixed by the view. On a sunny day, the light glinted off the buildings like they were a stack of vintage jewelry at a flea market.

I wanted to communicate something but didn’t know what. I wished for a canvas and a beat-up easel so I could paint the skyline the way some artists did.

I sometimes thought about bringing these things but was always too self-conscious to do it. I didn’t want anyone peeking over my shoulder to judge my interpretation of the view across The River.

Surely, another person would notice something I couldn’t see.

(Photo by Ryan Vaarsi)

The following excerpt is the second part of “A Breakthrough, Bleeding”. You can read the first part here.

When I returned to the table, my food was waiting, but my appetite was gone. I looked at the scrambled eggs and felt they were mocking my own feminine discomfort.

I drew a smiley face on the eggs with ketchup and realized that I was too preoccupied for even this to amuse me.

Tato’s chicken-egg omelet confused me even more, with the pieces of ground chicken in the egg. He flipped through the selections on the miniature jukebox attached to our table and placed one quarter into the machine, playing a song that I had never heard before. Mama started to hum and sway in her seat.

“I remember when this song came out,” said Tato. “Your mother and I were having a picnic in a park, talking about whether or not we were ready to have a child. Little did we know, Veda, your mom was already pregnant with you.”

“Weren’t you afraid?” I asked. “I mean, you didn’t even have a chance to plan for my arrival.”

“That’s just what happened. A lot of women didn’t want to use the Pill because it was new, and the side effects were horrible,” said Mama. “I tried it for a while, but then I gained a lot of weight. I didn’t think it was worth it.”

When we were done eating, I stood up from the table and looked twice at a thick, red smudge staining the pleather booth material. More than likely, the spot was dried ketchup, but I felt my face redden and hoped no one else noticed.

The gynecologist was open until noon on Saturdays. After breakfast, I drove myself to Dr. Girard’s office. In the main reception area, Caroline, the front desk attendant, was pregnant. Why was everyone pregnant?

Caroline’s breasts hung over the front desk. When she stood up to find my file and check my health insurance information, one of the doctors in the practice walked in large swooping movements around her. Caroline even bumped into the copy machine.

I felt sorry for Caroline because her body would probably never fully recover from the pregnancy. But maybe Caroline wanted to become soft and matronly. What did I know? The only thing I knew for sure was that I was not ready to sacrifice my body for a child.

I thought the way pregnant women ate was disgusting too. On the desk, Caroline had unpacked not only a breakfast sandwich but also a tub of hash browns and a yogurt parfait.

When she waved me over to the door that would let me into the hall of examination rooms, Caroline’s two-carat engagement ring caught the fluorescent light. I knew that Caroline was trying to make me jealous, but her tactics weren’t working.

“Please undress and put on the paper gown,” she said. “Dr. Girard will be with you in a few minutes.”

I did what Caroline said and was glad I had an extra pair of panties because mine were already soiled, despite my heavy duty tampon. The room was cold, and I folded the paper gown under my butt as I sat on the examination table, worried that I would bleed all over it.

My examination room was in the corner of the suite on the second floor of the medical building and had a view of the park across the street. Today, the view disturbed me. It included balloons, children with balloons, balloons attached to carriages, and balloons leaving hands and floating off into the sky until they were no more than a colorful speck among the clouds.

The stupid Pill was no bigger than the colorful speck in the sky.

I wondered what Theo would say or do if he knew I was going through this crap today. Knowing Theo, I guessed he would probably want to use condoms during all future encounters. Maybe the news would scare him and bring us closer as a couple.

Dr. Girard entered the room while reading my chart.

“So you’re bleeding, and it’s not time for your period?” Asked Dr. Girard.

“Yes, since this morning. I know breakthrough bleeding can be normal, but this is violent and particularly messy,” I said. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be disgusting.”

“I deal with disgusting,” said Dr. Girard. “Medications?”

“Just the Pill, that’s all.”

“Is there a chance you could be pregnant?”

“I mean, I don’t know. I take the Pill consistently. I’ve never missed one.”

I thought about all the tiny pills I had swallowed since I had first starting taking birth control and about how those hormones built themselves up in my body.

“You know it’s not one-hundred percent effective, right?”

“Well yeah, of course. There’s always a chance then, yes, maybe, I don’t know. What’s your definition of pregnant? Because I read something today that made me wonder.”

I pulled the “Catholic Truths” pamphlet from my purse. I opened to the page with the information and held it out for the doctor, who looked at it skeptically.

“See? Here, it says that the Pill doesn’t always prevent an egg from being released. Do you think I could have gotten pregnant and had a miscarriage because of the low-dose hormones?” I asked. “Did they kill the fertilized egg? Is that what this is?”

I felt relieved that I said what I wanted to say, even though I knew it was probably a crazy and convoluted diagnosis.

“We practice medicine here, not religion,” said Dr. Girard.

She took the pamphlet, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the trashcan. I shivered under my paper gown. I didn’t want to ask the doctor anything more.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t trust literature that hasn’t been written by a medical professional. I’m sure you’re fine, but we can give you a blood test to check the levels of the hormones in your body,” said Dr. Girard. “You can check for pregnancy yourself, with a home pregnancy test.”

“If I had been pregnant within the past twenty-four hours, would the test be positive?”

“Yes, but you really should be more concerned about whether you’re pregnant now,” said Dr. Girard.

“But why would I be pregnant now?” I asked. “I thought the Pill was supposed to protect me from that.”

“Because the Pill isn’t one hundred percent effective.”

“But I don’t want to be pregnant,” I said.

The doctor prepared the needle and stuck me in the arm.

“Here’s a super pad,” said Dr. Girard, holding a sanitary napkin out to me. “You’re fine, Veda. We should have the results in a few days, and they probably won’t tell me anything I don’t already suspect.”

The doctor asked me if I had any more questions, and, when I didn’t respond, she left the room to let me dress. When the doctor closed the door, I fished the pamphlet out of the garbage can, smoothed the paper on the examination table, refolded it, and put it in my purse.

I dressed and shook a little bit, holding my hips and pressing my fingers into my abdomen, which burned.

I wanted to know that something was wrong so I could explain to Theo what had happened and give him a reason to worry about me. I couldn’t wait for the blood test results from Dr. Girard. I rushed out of the waiting room and ran down the three flights of stairs to the pharmacy on the first floor.

Caroline was there buying a chocolate bar, and she was flirting with the cashier in between customers. It would be impossible to buy anything without her noticing. I saw Caroline lean over the counter, her swollen breasts brushing the plastic container filled with travel-sized nail files, from where I stood by the large freezer with the bags of ice.

I was disgusted by Caroline’s protruding belly and also by the way she flirted with the young man, blatantly, not even attempting to hide her engagement ring.

I found the Family Planning aisle and made sure that I was out of Caroline’s view. The shelf of pregnancy tests held boxes of different colors. I had never imagined myself buying a pregnancy test.

Perhaps at a later, more stable time in my life, I would choose the most expensive test and want everyone in the store to know the possibility that I might be pregnant. But today I did not feel that way. I chose the least expensive test and hoped that cost had little to do with accuracy. Caroline was still standing by the counter.

I stuffed the cardboard box under my shirt and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror-covered pillar at the end of the aisle. I wondered if my own stomach looked larger than before, but the cardboard box under my shirt distorted my figure.

I went to the back of the store to the swinging door with the peek-through window to the stockroom. I pushed against the employee bathroom door and found it open. I slipped behind it and closed the lock, relieved to have found such luck.

I dropped my purse in the corner and removed the box from under my shirt. I unfolded the many-creased instruction sheet, scanned the directions for the most important information, and hoped I didn’t miss anything important.

I tried to remember something funny about the instructions so that I could tell Theo later, when the whole mess was over, but there was nothing particularly funny about them.

I placed the open cardboard box on the toilet paper dispenser and ripped the plastic wrapper that held the wand. I tried my best to hold the wand under my urine stream and counted “One Mississippi, two Mississippi…” up to five, the way I learned to do in preschool. I didn’t know any other way to accurately count seconds.

I pulled the stick out of the stream and stared at it.  Only one line materialized. Meaning negative. Now what?

I stood there for a few more minutes, waiting for the other line, which would complete a plus sign. Nothing happened.

I gathered everything: the wrapper, the box, and the pregnancy test, and I threw them in the trash can. I no longer cared if anyone found me with the stolen merchandise. I thought about saving the instructions to show Theo proof of what I did, but they were not really of any use anymore.

On my way out, I saw the pharmacists in their white coasts behind the pharmacy counter and remembered that I had forgotten Arthur’s textbook at the diner, in the rush of wondering whether or not I had bled on the pleather seat. The stupid book!

I returned to the diner. When I got out of my car, I heard two voices arguing behind a dumpster, and I decided to see what was wrong.

“You know you can’t take breaks right now, since it’s lunch hour. We are short on staff,” said Jimmy angrily.

“I’m sorry, I was feeling nauseous and needed some fresh air!” Screamed Sally. “Could you at least have some sympathy?”

“I know you’re pregnant, but I have a business to run,” said Jimmy.

Just as I had suspected, Sally’s pregnancy was making work difficult for her. I had never been behind the diner before, despite having visited so many times. This part of the parking lot was unkempt; the ground showed potholes and was covered with colorful soda cans. By the dumpster, rusted shopping carts with bent wheels, missing plastic hand-grips, and tilted carriages had gathered.

I heard Sally stomp away angrily, and my heart raced when I realized that I might be caught. Without any better ideas, I decided to climb into the shopping cart and crouch down, hiding in it, even though anyone could see into the spaces between the steel bars.

I remained as motionless as I could and cursed myself for choosing a hiding place without any escape. Where could I go from there?

I thought of the scene that my mom had described over breakfast: Baby Veda in the carriage, bumping over the sidewalk. But no one was around to push me. I was stuck, and the cart rolled a little, crackling over the rocks beneath the wheels.

“What is that? Who’s there?” Asked Sally, startled.

I must have been in shadow because Sally didn’t notice me. I was happy, at least, that I didn’t have a lot to carry and that my body was small, capable of maneuvering in tight spaces. In my purse, all I had was the Catholic pamphlet, my car keys, and my wallet.

I could rest in the cart for a while, until Sally and Jimmy were safely out of sight.

I may have been trapped for the time being, but I was relieved anyway. The situation was risky, but Arthur’s textbook was still in the diner. I had to get it back to him, in case he still needed it.

(Photo by klynslis)