Falling Under (24 page)

I nearly scream.

I want to hit him.

It’s not really him I’m seeing, it’s just... hands... hands that want me, that want to do things to me and make me feel, and make me surrender and push past who I am and who I need to be and poke and prod and squeeze where I am young and raw and hurt. I cannot be touched. I might lose my mind. I might scream and howl for centuries. I might break into small, bleeding fragments and never be whole again because there is no safe place, no safe place...

I don’t hit him.

I have felt this before and while most of me is roaring, still another part holds me in an icy grip and says, “Stay. Stay or you will not find love again. Stay because you will be alone. Stay, you fucking loser, because you are a freak and you must hide it and you do not deserve love.”

I push everything away, all the voices, all the emotions, all the pain. I push it back, push it down. I put my hands on Hugo’s hands and hope he does not know the real reason for my panting. I draw his hands from my breasts and put them on my hips.

“Hold me there,” I say, and start moving again. “Hold me there and don’t let go.”

He does what I ask and I lay myself down so my breasts are on his chest. I wrap my arms tight around him so noth- ing, no intruding hand or finger or mouth or tongue can get between us. I bury my face in his neck and squeeze my eyes shut. I move my hips in tight circles, hoping he will come fast.

Don’t cry, Mara. Don’t you fucking cry.

I lay awake all night, failure in the bed beside me. Failure lies awake too and smirks at me, taunts me. Failure says I am, again and still, less than I need to be. I am wired wrong, broken, unable to control reactions that are, in face of the facts, ridiculous.

Erik would laugh if he saw me now. No, that’s not true. He wouldn’t be surprised, but he wouldn’t be so cruel as to laugh. And I can’t help thinking, if he were the one having sex with me, he would know.

In the morning Hugo and I have coffee, then he goes to work and I go to the studio. I mix my colors, sit down, and force myself to trace a circle. Around me are the Uglies, as I’ve dubbed them, left out from showing Bernadette, and the other new pieces, which are also disturbing and too weird for furniture stores. They reproach me as I begin to fill in the circle with even, controlled strokes.

I must have something for Sal.

I must regain some control, some simplicity.

I paint over last night, erasing it with each stroke of midnight blue. I yawn and sip my coffee and try to stack my insides up, creating order and space.

But every breath reminds me, takes me back to that mo- ment of searing, of inner chaos, of the battle that has raged in me so many times, that I hoped I could escape with Hugo.

I cannot escape.

And that means everything I have been building can tumble down in an instant and my love and my hopes can become bleeding, crumbling dust.

It takes me a while to realize the noise I’m hearing is knocking on my back door.

I look outside. “Fuck,” I say. It’s Sal.

I go to the door, open it, and step forward so I’m leaning on the frame and, hopefully, blocking his view of the studio.

“Yo, babe!” Sal says. “You gonna let me in or what?” “Hi, Sal. Um.. .”

He grabs me in the two-cheek kiss and then gives me the customary butt slap.

“I haven’t heard from you, so I thought I’d better, ya know, come and check you out.”

“I’m fine,” I say, still attempting to block the door even though it’s freezing outside.

“Since when do you leave me in the yard?”

“Oh, well... I’m working Sal,” I say. “I’m kind of... into something.”

“You’re actin’ like you got somebody tied up naked in there.”

“Ha ha.”

“Hey, don’t think I’ve forgotten what you’re like.” “Sal—”

“You’re a fuckin’ demon, babe. It’s been years, but I swear to God, my dick still hurts!”

“There’s no one tied up in here, Sal.”

“All right, well let me see what you’re doin’ then, cuz I got five furniture stores busting my balls for more of your stuff.”

He pushes past me, and I step aside and follow him in.

I point toward this morning’s work, hoping somehow that he won’t see what lines the walls.

Fat chance.

He stops mid-stride on his way to the easel and lets out a bark of surprise.

“What the fuck!”

Jesus. He’s going to hate them. Or worse, he might like them. There is no way I’m sending them out into the world, it would be like strangers reading my journal, not that I keep one...

I can’t tell from the look in his eyes if he loves them or hates them. Fuck. I start to babble.

“Oh, Sal, those are nothing. I was, um, playing around. I was blocked. And as you can see they’re just experimental, well, shit. I’m going to paint over them and start over because I know none of your customers would . . . Actually I might burn them. As you can see, I’m back at the geomet- rics. You don’t have to worry.”

Sal turns to face me and his look shuts me up. “I’ve done a lot for you, babe.”

“I know.”

“And nobody lies to me. It gives me hives.” “I’m...I haven’t been.”

“You been hiding this stuff from me?” “Um.. .”

“And lyin’ about it? Yes or no, babe?”

“No. I mean, yes. I have been hiding it, but.. .” “YES OR NO?”

“Y-yes.” I close my eyes. How could I have forgotten about Sal’s temper?

“There’s a thing called loyalty, babe,” he says, his voice dangerously quiet now.

There’ll be no talking to him. That is, if I
could
talk to him, if I didn’t feel like I was being strangled.

“So,” he says, walking right up to me. “Who’d you make a deal with?”

I try to swallow. “Who’s buying it?”

A bead of sweat runs from my armpit and down my side. He likes them. He thinks they’re good. I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

“You told me you couldn’t paint like this anymore and I fucking believed you.”

All I can do is shake my head.

“You got a deal with somebody,” he says, his voice dangerous and low. “You were gonna keep giving me this... this geometric shit and let me keep sellin’ it to piddly fuckin’ furniture stores and all the while you were capable of this?! What the fuck!”

His arms start waving and suddenly he is raging. I’m terrified.

“YOU GOT NOTHIN’ TO SAY, IS THAT IT?

NOTHIN’ AT ALL?”

My legs start to shake. I open my mouth, then shut it. Apparently not.

“Well, babe, your silence is fuckin’ deafening.” He marches toward the door.

“Go get yourself a job, chicky, cuz’ there won’t be any more deposits from me. We’re done.”

He slams the door hard enough to make the windows rat- tle, and then storms to his car and drives away.

I hear the tires squealing and I sink to the floor and bury my face in my hands.

When I can speak again, I call Bernadette at work. She arrives within an hour with ice cream and chocolate syrup.

I am too sick to eat.

I try not to cry as I tell her about Sal. “It’s a disaster,” I say in conclusion.

“You probably don’t want to hear this, but you’re better off without him,” she says.

“How can you say that? Without him I have NO MONEY, Bernadette! No money, no livelihood, nothing.”

“Yes but—”

“You’re suspicious of him—you’ve always been suspi- cious of him.”

“And my suspicion is now confirmed!” she says. “No matter what his intentions, he has too much power over you. And I don’t like that you’ve felt you had to just... crank out the same kind of stuff over and over.”

“I thought you liked my ‘stuff’.”

“I do, but...I remember, Mara—I remember the work you were doing before you started dating Lucas.”

I flinch.

“You had a chance. But instead you met him and started to close up. And then he went and died and you holed your- self up here with barely enough money to live on and started painting circles and squares like some kind of lobotomized zombie-genius. And now, when you finally start to try some- thing new, you feel the need to hide it from your supposed mentor.”

“I didn’t hide it because of him,” I protest. “I hid it because I didn’t like it—it’s crap.”

“It’s not crap, Mara, and I’m sure you know it.”

And here, suddenly overwhelmed with everything that’s been going wrong, I burst into the tears I’ve been repressing.

“It is crap!” I sob. “Everything is crap!”

Bernadette grabs me and holds me by the shoulders. “Shh,” she says. “Shh, it’ll be okay.”

“It won’t,” I say. “Because it’s not just Sal. Everything is going wrong... with Hugo too.”

“What about Hugo?”

Shame fills me and though Bernadette is my closest and only real friend, the thought of explaining is almost too much. Fighting with the shame, though, is the need to tell someone, to confess it, to get it out.

“I can’t . . .” I start. “There’s something wrong with me.

And I can barely...I can barely have sex.” “Okay . . .” she says. “Tell me.”

“Last night while we were in bed, I nearly hit him,” I con- fess. “I came really close.”

Bernadette frowns.

“I don’t get it,” she says.

“Neither do I. I start feeling so . . . violated. It starts to hurt, not physically, but psychically, emotionally—although I guess I feel it physically.”

“Has he done something to you?!” Bernadette asks. “Has he hurt you, or forced you into something?”

“No, no! No, Bee, that’s not what I meant. He’s been great, very sweet.”

“So... is the sex bad? Is he bad in bed?”

“No, up till now it’s been amazing—he’s good. But all of a sudden it’s like my skin, the surface of my skin is one huge bruise, or an open wound and Hugo is, with his hands, pok- ing into the wound, pressing on the bruise. It’s my skin, my skin and his hands. He touches me and I want to deck him.”

“You’re sure he hasn’t done anything?” “It’s not him, Bee, it’s me.”

“How do you know?” “It’s happened before.”

Bernadette’s eyes widen. “With Lucas?” she says.

“Yes.”

“Ah ha.. .”

“Only when there’s love, it seems.”

“So with Sal, and with . . .” she grimaces, not wanting to say his name.

“Erik,” I say for her. She nods.

“Never happened,” I say. “With them, or any of the others, the casual ones, it’s always been easy.”

Bernadette shuts her eyes and shakes her head.

“Mara, Mara . . .” she says. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Chapter Twenty - nine

“H
oney?”

“Hi, Mom,” you say. “How’s it going?”

As if ringing her doorbell at midnight is a normal occur- rence.

“What’s wrong?” she says, and pulls her robe tightly around her.

“I need help.”

“What is it?” Her eyes are sharp—she quickly notices the taxi waiting on the street. “Who’s in the cab?”

“He’s sick, Mom. He’s really sick.”

“Lucas? You’d better take him to emergency.” “No, um.. .”

“You want me to come?”

“No. Mom, it’s not Lucas. Lucas is fine, but he’s, um, he has to finish his thesis piece or he’ll fail the year, so I can’t disturb him.”

“Then who—?”

“It’s Dad. He won’t go to the hospital and I can’t handle him by myself. He’s sick.”

Her posture changes—she stiffens, stands up straighter. “Mom?” you ask when the pause gets too long. “Please,

will you help me? Can I bring him in? I don’t think he’d hurt anybody but he’s.. .”

“Drunk?”

“Well, yes.”

“Take him home and chuck him in a cold shower.”

“I can’t take him to his apartment, Mom. If he causes a disruption he’ll get evicted again. And I can’t take him home because Lucas . . .”You trail off. “Because there’s no room at our place.”

She considers it, glancing from you to the car and back. “No,” she says finally. “I said I would never let that man

in my house again, and I meant it. I’m sure there’s some- thing else you can do with him.”

“But Mom.. .”

“I gave years of energy to him, honey, and I’m done. Some people will suck you dry, Mara. Maybe you need to ask yourself if this is doing you any good.”

“He’s my father.” “Nevertheless.”

She’s saying no. She’s actually fucking refusing.

“What am I supposed to do with him? He’s gone crazy, Mom, he’s not just drunk.”

She looks you straight in the eye and says, “Some people have to hit bottom before they’re willing to change, Mara. Maybe you have to let him hit bottom. Stop rescuing him.”

You hear shouting behind you and you look back to see Dad lurching out of the taxi.

“Uh oh,” you say.

Mom steps back from the doorstep.

“Do you need money for the cab?” she asks.

“No thanks.” You lift your chin, fight the tears. “I don’t need anything from you.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and shuts the door.

By the time you get Dad back into the taxi, the driver in- sists on taking you to the police station. You beg him not to, but he radios ahead and by the time you get there, two uniformed officers are waiting.

“You promised,” Dad says. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry.”

He tries to fight, which makes it all worse.

6

Lucas opens the living room door with a flourish. “Ta da!” he says. “What do you think?”

You haven’t seen the inside of this room for a month— since Lucas began his grand effort to finish his thesis piece on time. It’ll be nice to have the room back, to sit on the couch, look out the window...

Or not. Because the couch, what was the couch, has been transformed. The entire room has been trans- formed. The walls and (beautiful hardwood) floors are painted glossy black. The wooden arms of the couch and chairs have been covered in a papier-mâché of dollar bills and newspaper and the cushions have been completely resurfaced with tennis balls, all sitting shoulder to shoulder. There is cardboard duct-taped to the window and the only

light comes from a blinking string of blue and red Christmas lights.

You stand very still.

“Check this out,” Lucas says, and practically bounces past you into the room. He points to a pair of jeans he has shellacked to the floor. They’re yours. Your eyes now follow the path of the jeans and then land on another piece of clothing—a beige bra. Next is a T-shirt, then a sock, and finally, crumpled on the floor in front of the couch, a pair of not-so-new yellow cotton underwear. All of it is shellacked to the floor. All of it is yours.