Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (46 page)

I’m getting sick of being your damn
chauffeur. Get your car fixed. Okay?”

Henry rolls his eyes and salutes with his
middle finger.

The party was weeks ago. Now, on this night,
I’m sprawled on the couch, barefoot, with my hair tied up in a
messy knot. I’m waiting for Valerie to take her turn at chess
while, in the background, the stereo plays
Abbey Road
by the
Beatles.

The doorbell buzzes. Valerie hops to her feet
and ushers in an acquaintance of her roommate, who has left for the
evening. We know him by name and by sight from parties. His
girlfriend smiles–we know her slightly too. It’s unusual that they
should have come here, but not altogether surprising. Weekends in
our town are always spent dropping in on anyone we know with his or
her own apartment, ringing doorbells, looking for parties. Our
entire crowd mills around in this manner.

“Just looking around for something to do,” he
says. “Is anything going on tonight that you know about? Any
parties?”

Valerie shakes her head and waves them
through the door, grateful. They have just spared us the hassle of
going out and actively searching for something to do. That would
have required putting on shoes.

“Come in for some wine,” she says.

Following behind them is the young man I saw
at that party. His name, we learn, is Michael. There’s nothing
unusual in his expression when his eyes fall on me, except that he
looks away as if I’m of no concern to him.

They all settle in on the few pieces of
cast-off furniture Valerie can offer them, or sit cross-legged on
the floor. One of them lights a joint.

I go to the stereo to select some music while
they smoke without me. Michael offers me a hit, and I shake my head
and turn back to flipping through the record albums looking for
something to play. Michael doesn’t ask why I don’t smoke pot, but
he kind of likes it for some reason. He kind of thinks he would
probably scold me if I said ‘yes’.

“Stones!” Michael calls out. I’m about to
place a record on the turntable, but hesitate and put it back in
its jacket. I find an album by the Rolling Stones and play it one
time, for him.

Even though Valerie has a boyfriend and isn’t
interested in Michael (at least as far as I can tell), she appears
to be flirting, and looks flattered when he flirts back. I’m not
interested in him either, really, but the flirting bothers me. I
say to myself that I’m angry with Valerie on behalf of her
boyfriend who is working tonight. Beneath that, though, it’s more
personal. It’s as though Michael is supposed to notice
me
,
and the fact that he doesn’t is vaguely insulting. Wasn’t it
me
he stared at all night, that time?

Where’s
mine
? I think to myself.
Nowhere, evidently. He ignores me.

I aim toward Michael a number of off-handed
remarks that I consider witty. There is no change in his
expression. When I speak to him directly, his responses are polite
and reserved.

With Valerie he’s completely goofy. The two
of them are now talking to each other with sock puppets in Warner
Brothers cartoon voices. Earlier, they had been singing “I Am The
Walrus” with chop sticks up their noses.

I don’t know what to make of this. Men never
ignore me.

I decide I want Michael to ask me for a date
so I can turn him down. I’d enjoy that because he needs to be taken
down a notch, I think. I have nothing in particular I can point to
to support this except, perhaps, that he’s paying me no attention,
but there it is. I’d like to punish him for that. At least I think
that’s what it is. There is no other explanation for this
compulsion I have to make him want me desperately so I can reject
him.

“You’re such a bitch with men,” Valerie
remarks when I confide in her in the kitchen. The marijuana is
gone, and everyone is hungry. We scrounge for something edible to
serve, finding only peanut butter and stale potato chips.

She doesn’t care, really, if I’m a bitch or
if I’m not. If that’s the way I came, it’s fine with her. But I do
have my moments, usually around men, and Valerie feels it’s worthy
of note at times. I don’t take offense when she periodically
reminds me.

“And a vain one. He likes
me
. In fact,
I might just pounce him. I think he’s cute.”

“I am
not
a bitch.”

“Honey, I love you, but
you
are a
bitch
.”

“I am
not
. I’m just misunderstood,
that’s all.” My “that’s all” trails off into a pouting lower
lip.

“Aren’t we all.”

She dumps the potato chips into a cracked
bowl while I repeatedly slam an ice tray on the counter. She then
commences a fruitless search through the cabinets for glasses that
are clean. She can’t find any primarily because she hasn’t washed a
dish in days, perhaps weeks, and her roommate hasn’t washed them
either. Valerie keeps reaching into higher cabinets, patting the
shelves and feeling around for something she might have missed. She
hoists herself up onto the counter, nudges the mess aside with her
bare foot, stands there with her head brushing the ceiling and
conducts a final, futile inspection of the dusty, uppermost
shelves.

“Be brave, men,” she says as she jumps down.
“We’ll just have to wash them.”

I look with revulsion at the pile of dirty
dishes in the sink.

“Ew. Not me. Too gross.” I put the ice tray
back in the freezer, grab the bowl of potato chips and carry it
into the living room. “Nice try though,” I call over my
shoulder.

“Another fine vintage from the makers of
Ipecac. Bottoms up. No pun intended.” Valerie, underage, passes out
bottles of 89 cent apple wine from her illegally-procured soda-pop
wine stash as if they were party favors. “No glasses,” she
adds.

“No problem,” says Michael, accepting his
wine with very charming mock hauteur. “I prefer to suck this
particular brand from the bottle.” He uncaps his, and takes a long
swig.

Valerie settles in on the rug beside him and
gives him her biggest dimpled smile.

I don’t know why that irritates me.

Michael asks how old I am, phrasing his
question so we’ll think he’s more interested in obtaining facts
about Valerie, and is merely asking me as a polite afterthought. I
truthfully tell him my age.

I’m six years younger than he is. His eyes
flicker just a little, and he scratches his chin. Jail bait. Shit.
He’s thinking that I’m the very same age as the little uniformed
girls at the Catholic High School, and that I could be one of them.
He imagines me in a plaid uniform and saddle shoes, and comes up
with a few ribald comments he plans to make later, when he is among
his male friends.

Then he shudders at the thought of giggling
girl conversations. There are midnight curfews. He can’t bring me
into a bar. There is always the threat of being charged with
statutory rape. Of course, he is
so
looking forward to
meeting the parents, God help him. (“Yes sir. Your fresh-faced
teenaged daughter will be perfectly safe with me—I only intend to
ravage and seduce her at the very first opportunity. School sir?
Finished, sir. Yes, sir. I
am
too old for your daughter,
sir. Job sir? Sort of. I’m a musician, sir. I’m in a band. No, sir.
We haven’t actually been paid yet.
Real
job? I won’t cut my
hair as a matter of principle so, of course, no one will hire me
for a
real
job and there’s no point in looking. But if one
were to reach out and grab me, I’d probably show up for work,
unless I had a hangover. Army sir? Why no, sir. I happened to duck
the draft a few years ago by showing up for my physical totally
wasted on LSD. It’s a hallucenogenic, sir. So I was exhibiting
signs of schizoid behavior at the time of my interview—which was
pretty darn lucky for
me
, don’t you agree, sir? They threw
me out and referred me to a shrink. Hell no I won’t go! There’s a
war on, you know, and someone has to stay home to take care of the
women. Old joke, sir. Ha ha. Yes sir. Yes
sir
. I see the
door, sir. Goodbye, sir.”) And he couldn’t even take me to
Summerfest in Milwaukee for fear of getting stopped for a traffic
violation, then being jailed for crossing state lines with a minor.
This all runs through his mind in a continuous loop fought down by
two words: “I want.”

He nervously taps his fingers on the table in
time with his thoughts: She’s the one. I know it. God help me. I’m
sunk. Oh shit.

I only want to sleep with her, he reminds
himself. I probably wouldn’t even call her again. It’s just sexual
attraction gone a little haywire. That’s all. It’ll pass.

But he sees my profile and notices a tendril
of hair curling over my cheek, and he feels a tug in his chest. He
wants to brush the curl over my ear. He has never been this stirred
before.

She’s incredibly beautiful, he thinks. That’s
all it is. I turn in his direction and catch him looking at me. He
looks away with an expression of boredom and disdain.
God
, I
hate that! I run my hand over my hair, fretting suddenly, because
he doesn’t like me or think I’m pretty. I’m even thinking that I
wouldn’t
turn him down, if he were to ask me out. He
wouldn’t do that, though, I remind myself. He likes Valerie.

Those two are having a little too much fun
together, I think. Two couples, and me. I’m always the odd one. I
bristle suddenly, because I’m being left out, and because Valerie
is being just a little too charming for someone who has a
boyfriend.

I’m angry with Michael, suddenly, because he
seems to be taken in by it all.

I don’t understand why he doesn’t notice
me.

I can’t tell that he has spent the entire
evening watching me from the corner of his eye, and that he’s being
charming for my benefit, not Valerie’s. I don’t suspect that he’s
spent weeks trying to find me, and that the visit this evening was
solely to see if I might be here. I have no suspicion that he
doesn’t have the courage to ask me for a date, and doesn’t mind
that my hair is a mess.

I run to the bathroom to tuck in some
tendrils and to quickly apply some mascara and blusher I find in
the medicine cabinet.

He notices that I’ve done this. He notices
everything. It strikes him as a positive sign, but he can’t make
himself speak to me directly, or even look at me. He finishes off
his bottle of wine, then uncaps another. (“Look everyone!” Valerie
observes. “He can even walk without falling. He exhibits virtually
no evidence of intoxication at all. Very manly of you, Michael, my
friend. You’re a very manly man.
More
than a man, in fact.”
She waves her bottle and solemnly taps her chest and gives him a
mischievous flash of her eyes. “A
prince
! A
princely
man!” That said, and with a coquettish smile, Valerie coaxes
Michael into supplying her with next week’s wine stash. Michael,
helpless in the face of flattery, however coersive or contrived,
darts out to the corner liquor store and comes back with several
bottles of the more “upscale” $1.19 wine to impress me.)

He waits for nerve to hit him, postponing his
move just a little longer, and then a little more.

The evening passes. It’s now late, and he
still has barely acknowledged me.

Valerie can have him, I decide. I have to go
home.

He sees me walk into the kitchen to get a
drink of water. It’s now. It has to be now. It’s getting close to
midnight, and I’ve said I have to leave. He’s gripped by a growing
sense of helpless urgency. He can’t screw this up.

He follows me and stops in the doorway.

He doesn’t seem at all terrified of me as he
stands there filling the doorway, blocking my exit. There isn’t the
smallest of hints that his stomach has sunk to his knees and then
rebounded into his throat. He has a remarkable ability to hide his
feelings when he chooses to.

I smile at him politely, and he approaches a
step, but he doesn’t say anything. His eyes catch mine and hold
them.

I can’t look away.

All of my defenses are now on alert. I don’t
like this. I don’t like his eyes and the way they grab
my
eyes. It’s worse than feeling undressed. I feel violated and
threatened. He’s gotten into my “space”, so to speak, and I feel
panicky, as if I’m suffocating. I pull my eyes away, and yawn to
cover up my nervousness.

The spell is broken.

“So, Kiddo, how’ve you been?” Michael asks
pleasantly. He tilts his head and raises an eyebrow.

“Since the living room, a minute ago?” This
is marginally better than silence, but I’d still rather be
somewhere else.

He shrugs. “Since that party. Since whenever.
Just making polite conversation is all. Just being conversational .
. . ” He hears himself and winces.

He’s between the door and me. I don’t know
how to get past him and out of here, and I’m sorry I wished he
would like me. I didn’t mean it. He’s large. He’s old. He does that
thing with his eyes. I’ve changed my mind. I need to go away now
because my throat is closing. I’m afraid.

I’m so much braver in theory.

“In that case, I’ve been wonderfully well,
thank you.” I dip my head politely. “And you?” I keep looking at
the doorway, then at him.

“Good,” he says, nodding. “I’ve been
good.”

“Good. That’s good. That you’ve been . . .
you know . . .
good,
and everything . . .”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah . . . ” We’re both nodding helplessly
and looking around the kitchen for a topic of conversation. None
seems to present itself.

I look at my watch. “Scintillating though
this conversation
is
, I really have to go—”

“Where does a bubble-headed teenager learn a
two dollar word like ‘scintillating’?”

He moves a step closer to me.