The Appetites of Girls (25 page)

So the following morning I unpacked, from beneath my dormitory
bed, the violin and stack of sheet music I had decided at the last minute to bring back with me to Brown. For the first few days, unsure of how I would sound, not wanting to humiliate myself, I only risked practice in private, in the solitude of my room if my suitemates were out, or in one of the music department’s soundproof cubicles. To my surprise, fingerings and bowings returned more quickly than I had anticipated. For my audition piece, I selected a section of Tartini’s “Sonata in G Minor.” I began to play every spare moment, and though uncertain if my sound had the precision, the style, the fire necessary to be chosen, I soon felt glimmers of hope.

For some reason, my time on the violin seemed to make my appetite grow. Often, after an hour or two of practicing, I discovered I was starved. From the snack bars on campus, I would buy cheese-filled calzones, plates of fried falafel, bowls of sesame noodles, savoring each bite, scraping every last crumb. And though I intended to repent later, to restrict my diet as I had done before, I found myself too ravenous at each meal for such discipline.

As I grew more careless in my eating, I became, also, less particular about where I practiced. After the hesitation of the first week or two had worn off, I dared to play in one of the larger common areas of the music department if the individual cubicles were taken or even, on occasion, at James’s apartment before he returned home. So one early evening when I discovered him leaning in the doorway, his thumbs tucked into his belt loops, silently watching me, the bow faltered in my hand and I lost my place on my page of music.

“I’ve decided to try out after all,” I laughed, feeling warmth rise to my face. My hands shook, but to my surprise, I heard a confidence in my voice. I believed I had sounded as definite as Francesca would have. For a moment James did not respond. He was chewing the inside of his cheek in concentration and seemed to be mulling over some private thought.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.” He nodded with unusual
formality, then disappeared down the hall to the kitchen, leaving me gripping the violin neck, the bow dangling from my other hand. I could hear him loudly dropping cubes of ice into a glass.

That night throughout dinner and later, curled beside him in bed, I waited for James to mention my playing, to give some small hint of approval or dismay. But he made no allusion to it, as if he’d forgotten what he’d seen and heard.

The following day, he came down with a cold. His eyes swelled; the skin around his nostrils reddened. He was too ill to attend classes, and I should have offered soup or company, asked what he needed. But every time he blew into his plaid handkerchief, I felt only irritation. Of course he had his own concerns, but I could not help noticing that, as he recovered, the violin case, which I had stowed in the corner beside his bedroom chair, where I kept my coat and textbooks and a spare change of clothes, continued to go unmentioned. As I practiced, though, certainly strains of music must have reached where he lay in bed. So, once he was well enough to go out, I could not stop myself, as I played, from listening for James’s returning footsteps on the veranda. Once or twice I thought I recognized the familiar thud of his feet then a long pause before his hand turned the doorknob, bringing in a rush of icy outdoor air. But still I waited, and still he said nothing.

“Men are so insensitive,” my suitemates sometimes complained—especially after the parties Fran occasionally convinced Ruth and Opal to attend with her—and always I had contradicted with stories of James’s thoughtfulness. But what would they say of this? And I supposed, if I chose, I had every right to tell them.

With just two months until the audition, I continued to practice the Tartini whenever I could find time. But now I began to fear that my optimism of the past weeks had been hasty. There were tricky spots where I thought I caught mistakes in my rhythm, notes that needed more vibrato, phrases that required faster bowings. And soon, though I knew
James was no musician, though I knew the impossibility of such a thing, I could not help feeling that somehow he, too, detected flaws in my playing—as Toru once had—that this, all along, had been the reason for his silence.

One afternoon, returning from a practice session, I found Francesca, Ruth, and Opal at home sprawled on the floor of the common room, sections of the
Brown Daily
Herald
open before them. Their textbooks and class notes lay piled on the coffee table, the favored spot for any deferred work. And since they seemed to be reading only absentmindedly, I confided my worries.

Ruth put her section of the paper aside, reaching out her hand, placing it on mine. “I’m so glad you’re using your talent again, Setsu. It’s incredible! Really. I wish I had a gift like that.”

“But it’s been such a long time since I’ve played—”

Francesca stopped reading. For a moment, she gazed at me, the corners of her mouth curving almost indiscernibly, her brows lifted ever so slightly. It was an expression she wore when someone contradicted her with an argument she found persuasive. Perhaps she had not truly believed I would try out, but I could see she was pleased I had. “Just stay focused, Setsu. Don’t get distracted. If you really want this—” Francesca stopped for a moment. “You do really want it, don’t you, Setsu?”

“Yes, of course. Of course. It’s only . . . Well, I don’t think James—”

“James!
What
does this have to do with James?” The forcefulness of Francesca’s tone startled me, and I caught Opal glancing at Fran.

But they were wrong. James would understand once he knew what it meant to me. Still, for the rest of the day, I thought of what Francesca had said. For some reason, it made me feel quarrelsome, though with whom I was not quite sure.

I began to wake early in the mornings to play before my first class. I practiced during the late afternoons while James was teaching. And with this more strenuous work, many nights I found too many thoughts sparked through my mind for sleep.

•   •   •

A
uditions were on a Saturday. James had some research to do at the Science Library and had left early, before I had wakened. Other mornings when he’d done so, he had placed a romantic note or a blossom from his potted violets on the pillow where he’d slept. I had not mentioned the chamber ensemble tryouts since first telling him of them weeks before, but somehow I had expected him on this morning, especially, to leave reminders or written good-luck wishes. I tossed off my blankets, neglecting for once to smooth the sheets and coverlet, to arrange the pillows as James liked.

On James’s kitchen counter, I found a thin paper bag filled with croissants and sugared doughnuts and on a shelf in the back of the refrigerator, three kinds of marmalade and a brick of butter wrapped in gold foil. I gobbled part of a doughnut, an entire croissant, then removed a second from the bag, slathering it with preserves and leaving it on a sheet of paper towel, knowing that thirty minutes into my practicing I would crave more.

I calculated that I had an hour and a half to warm up and run through the Tartini before heading to campus, to Grant Recital Hall, where auditions would be held. Perhaps it was my excitement; perhaps with the nervous thumping of my heart I could not hear the imperfections, but as I played the piece once and then twice, I could not help pressing my lips with expectation. But in my enthusiasm, I must have been deaf, too, to the tramp of James’s steps on the front porch, to the heave of the door, and the clip of his heels against the floorboards on his way to the kitchen and then back to the living room where I was playing.

“Setsu—” I was startled not only by his presence but by the strangeness of his voice, tensed and hushed as though something had frightened him. Slowly he seated himself on the long living room sofa, then extended an arm, motioning for me to join him. It was only that he was worried for me, he said. He had seen, in the kitchen, the evidence of my
breakfast. And though he hadn’t mentioned it, two days ago, unable to find his apartment key and searching my trench coat for the spare, he had discovered a handful of egg roll wrappers and crumpled, emptied bags of fried noodles. “This is not you, Setsu, is it? I hardly recognize the way you are eating.”

I bowed my head and stared at my stockinged knees and my violin, which I had laid across my lap. For days I had imagined how, if necessary, I would defend my decision to James, but now I could think only of how humiliated I was by his discovery, and by the disappointment I had heard in the way he spoke my name.

“You’ve just taken on more than you can handle, yes?” he said, pinching his chin between his forefinger and thumb. “It’s nerves, don’t you think?”

“No, I believe . . . I’m really fine—”

“But you were planning to audition after all? On top of everything else? Maybe you should take a break, hmm? Or—” He paused for some moments. “Maybe it’s this that you don’t want.” To my horror, he made a small semicircle in the air with his hand, gesturing to himself and then to me. “Life doesn’t allow us time for everything, does it? You have to prioritize. You must make choices. It is too painful for me to have you in fragments, Setsu.” He straightened in his seat, slowly turning his head so that his profile was to me. From this angle I could see the nearly imperceptible shiftings of his rain-gray eyes, the slight narrowing of his lids, and I knew, as a coldness like frigid water passed through me, he was considering other choices.

“No, no. You won’t have me in pieces! You will have all of me. It’s what I want, too!” And it was. It was!

As I placed my violin down on the couch cushion, James beamed at me, then began tenderly to kiss my cheeks and chin and mouth. “All I wish for is your happiness,” he said as he stroked my brow, wound a wisp of my hair around his finger. “I hope you know that. It hurts me to see you so burdened.” He leaned over to caress my neck behind my ear.

How deeply James cared for me, how wisely. It seemed he knew me better than Ruth or Francesca or Opal, even better than I knew myself. How wrong Opal had been in her concerns. And Fran in her dismissiveness. I belonged to him, and he to me. It was what I needed, more than anything, more than claiming some part of myself, as Francesca had said. And because of their influence, I had nearly lost him by not accepting who I was, who I had to be! I was blessed, yes, truly blessed. Because James loved me in ways my suitemates could never understand. Only
he
had seen that, over the last several days, I had been different, not felt my old self at all. Glancing at my watch, I saw that the audition would begin without me in less than twenty minutes. But there was no reason for sadness, was there? No reason for these tears brimming at the corners of my eyes. For what was I sacrificing? It was not that I had ever been found to be a significant violinist. It was only for fun I had decided to try out. Only a few months of time I had dedicated to practicing. So it was a matter of small consequence. After all, I was not Toru.

James massaged my right shoulder. “Why don’t we get away for the day? I know a beautiful drive along the shoreline. The weather should be mild enough for a picnic lunch.” He had bought chicken salad the night before. With the leftovers he could make sandwiches, he said. “How does that sound?”

“Yes, lovely,” I nodded.

“And, sweet girl, I nearly forgot. I bought you something when I was downtown yesterday. Something only you could do justice to.” He kissed the tip of my nose then rose from the sofa. He returned with a red rectangular cardboard box tied with a gauzy white ribbon. “I’m going to the kitchen.” He leaned close so that his mustache tickled my bare neck. “Maybe you could surprise me when I come back. Wear this,” he whispered, “until we leave?”

I could hear James in the kitchen removing dishes and utensils from cupboards. I crossed the living room to gaze out the window. Outside on Benefit Street, clusters of students, their cheeks rosy from the still-cool
spring air, were hurrying to one place or another—a Brown lacrosse game, friends’ dorms, a late breakfast at the Ratty. After a time, a solitary girl with braided hair, in kneesocks, and carrying a pennant that I recognized from one of the neighborhood middle schools, was singing in a clear, pretty voice. The Danube Waltz. It was part of a collection of Strauss waltzes my parents had played again and again when I was young. How beautiful I had thought the piece. I could remember standing motionlessly before the record player, humming, trying to make my voice swell and recede to follow the cadence. I pressed my forehead to the glass, watching the girl as she moved down the sidewalk, straining, straining to hear the notes until they faded and then finally died.

My gift was a filmy pink negligee and matching robe.
Extra-Extra Small
, read its label, and I had to work some minutes to fit into it properly. Countless tiny silk ribbons wound the nightgown’s bodice, wrapping me like a spool of thread. At the slightest inhalation my ribs ached. But James would think it perfect. I could see that in my reflection in the windowpane. When he saw me, he would say something generous, something admiring.

James had prepared sandwiches. He had crackers, a wedge of cheese, fruit salad. How much would I eat? he called from the kitchen. Exactly what should he pack for me?

“Oh. Just a half sandwich. Thank you.” I breathed carefully, carefully, shallowly in my gown and robe. “A half sandwich and maybe a little fruit salad.” Yes, yes, that would be plenty. That was all I needed.

(Opal’s Story)

•
Junior Fall
•

M
other’s patience for the occasional reports I gave of my suitemates’ lives was limited. Ruth’s pregnancy, Setsu’s relationship that left no time for her music—these were simply part of the unpredictabilities of life, she said. Anyway, why was I fretting over someone else’s journey? What I needed was to find my own. “Routine is death, Opal,” Mother pronounced loudly into the receiver. She had a philosophy that the moment one’s life began to follow any sort of pattern, it was time to make a fresh start. “Always over the next horizon are a thousand new experiences.” It was for this reason that after three years in the Caribbean, we had moved to Sanibel Island, Florida, where Mother had painted pottery and small watercolors, selling them to several of the local shops. And the reason we had spent a year in Puerto Rico, another two in the blistering heat of Acapulco, and then, three months before my junior year of high school, returned to California. This time we had settled on the southern coast, an hour south of Los Angeles. Crossing the
border to reenter the U.S., I had asked about our old neighborhood in San Francisco. But Mother only laughed. “Haven’t we used up our adventures in that city? Won’t it be more exciting to try someplace new?”

Wherever we went, Mother found boyfriends. In Florida, of course, there had been P.T., the sporting goods salesman who took us deep-sea fishing on his motorboat. In Mexico, a series of men she’d met in the nightclubs where she went dancing—the handsomest one had given her welts on her arms and black-and-blue marks on her legs, which she’d masked with the same creamy foundation she applied to her face. Not long after I returned to Brown for my second year, Mother had sent a letter: in California, she had found someone new—Antonio, a travel agent. “We fight like cats and dogs. But he’s gorgeous and the most exciting man I’ve ever known.”

Despite what she referred to as their fiery relationship, Mother had agreed to go into business with Antonio. Together they had opened their own restaurant on the cliffs overlooking the water. They called it Paradise Jungle. The menus, the chairs, the bar stools were covered in animal prints. Thick vines wrapped the railings of the outdoor terrace. The restaurant served every exotic dish Mother and Antonio could think of: venison, buffalo, sea turtle, shark. “World food,” Antonio called it, the selections changing daily depending on what was available. And soon local papers and magazines began to hail Paradise Jungle as the newest hot spot.

Since I would be living at home during summer break, Mother expected me to work nights at the restaurant waiting tables. “I don’t think I’m up for the hustle and bustle of a restaurant. Maybe I’ll just volunteer at the women’s shelter like I did last summer,” I told Mother my first night in the new apartment she and Antonio now rented together.

But Mother would not hear it. “No, no. This will be a broadening experience,” she’d insisted. “Mingling with our diverse clientele will be a
far
better use of your time.” The summer before she had complained that my time at the shelter made me mopey. “You soak up the worries of those
women. But it does no good for anyone! You’re sponging up their unhappiness just as you did with that suitemate of yours who got herself into trouble.” And she had tossed waves of hair over her shoulder as though shaking off the very thought, almost annoyed, it seemed to me, by Ruth’s problems.

The apartment Mother and Antonio had found was a small two-bedroom just blocks from the ocean. Its kitchen walls were painted pink, the living-room-dining-room aqua-blue. Everywhere there were closets with mirrored sliding glass doors; I could not turn my head without glimpsing my reflection. How perfect for Mother, I’d thought, and for Antonio, too, who, with his shellacked black hair, designer, torso-hugging shirts, and perfumey aftershave, reminded me of some evening game show host.

At Paradise Jungle, the rest of the waitstaff were a few years older than I, transplants from as far as Vancouver and Tulsa, aspiring actresses and musicians in need of money. Despite the gap in our ages, they seemed to find me a worthy companion. They cooed over my clothes and the way I wore them: the bright, spangled skirt from Cabo San Lucas that fluttered against my thighs, my dangling coral earrings from Barbados, a white blouse with a plunging neckline I had borrowed from Mother’s closet. Almost nightly they asked to hear stories of the places I had lived, the sights I had seen. Chewing candied mints from the straw basket near the entry, they bemoaned what they claimed was the comparative dullness of their own lives. “God, Opal, I would
die
to have done those things.” For a time, I enjoyed their attentions, until I learned the reason for their interest.

Though I would stay only through mid-August, I dreaded the nightly shift at the restaurant and the way the men who came to dine winked at me across the room or tugged at the ties of my apron as I passed. What was it, I worried as I scrutinized my reflection in the mirrors over the bathroom sinks, that made them single me out, made them think I would like their overtures and that I might respond? I tried to walk quickly
when I crossed the room, holding my hips straight and steady. I played a game with myself: if I could hold my breath from the moment a group of men entered until they were seated, they would be guided to another girl’s table; if I couldn’t, their table would be mine. Sometimes, however, they broke the rules of my game and made a special request. I could see them murmuring in Antonio’s ear, glancing in my direction. Some asked me riddles, or complimented my eyes or the way I wore my hair—far more, it seemed to me, than they did with the other girls. Occasionally I felt, from beneath the table, a knuckle grazing my knee.

The other girls at Paradise had countless friends, social plans every night after work. They made regular trips to the restaurant’s pay phone, arranging and rearranging their coming evening activities. So why did they pull me aside, seeking advice in rushed whispers? There were things they had done with the California men they dated, things their boyfriends wanted them to do. What did I suggest? Should they? What was it like? What did they see in me that made them disappointed and confused by my fumbling replies? And why did they stare at my high-heeled sandals and the chiffon of my shirt as if certain I was keeping secret knowledge?

It seemed they concluded I was experienced but aloof. I knew this from the snatches of conversation I overheard in the restroom stalls or from behind the kitchen’s swinging doors. In spite of my attempts at friendly chitchat, my offers to cover their shifts when they were busy, there seemed nothing I could do to improve their opinion.

“Don’t be sulky,” Mother would chide if she caught me rushing through an order, hurrying from a table of men. “Do you want to chase away good customers?” She pressed fingers to the corners of her mouth, lifting her lips, her signal for me to smile.

So I tried to look pleasant as I served. “See, Mother, I will be the picture of cheerfulness!” But I could not help my disgust with the way they tore meat from their chops and ribs, until nothing remained but tiny bloodied shreds. Drink glasses collected on their tables more quickly than
I could clear them away. Their lips and fingertips glistened with gravy, with marinades, with butter, with chocolate mousse, and dark fruit juices, their eyes seeking, every now and then, to meet mine. I glanced at the other members of the waitstaff, who formed giggling circles near the kitchen sinks. But they had no such complaints or revulsions. So during lulls in our work, while they joked and gabbed, I hunched on the corner kitchen stool over a magazine or a book I had brought from home.

One late afternoon, as we were getting ready to leave the apartment to open Paradise Jungle for the evening, I knocked on Mother’s bedroom door. She was thickening her lashes with black mascara, massaging dabs of perfume behind her knees.

“What is it, dearheart?”

Feeling suddenly too uncomfortable to look in her eyes, I pulled at the ruffled edge of her bedspread. Did she ever tire, as I did, of the reactions of men? I asked. I never greeted the men at the restaurant or introduced myself. I said not a word until necessary. Maybe I gazed back too long. Or swayed my hips. Eduardo, a boy I had dated one summer in Acapulco, once told me my lips were like ripe berries and that my hips, when I moved, rocked like a boat on waves.

“Is
that
what’s bothering you? I thought Brown was so progressive, but old conservative New England must be taking its toll!” Mother pinched my cheek as if to show how I charmed her. After all of the people we’d met, all of the places we’d been, had I learned nothing? “Men will be men,” she laughed. “Most women would kill for a walk as sexy as yours, for pouting lips, for your figure.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, studying her reflection. She blinked slowly, pleased, I could tell, by what she saw. “Believe me, Opal, getting noticed more than other girls is something you will soon stop complaining about.

“Feel better?” She smiled as she clasped a silver choker, a carved tiger’s head at its center, around her neck.

I nodded, but the loose, watery feeling in my stomach had only grown worse. The notion that I might somehow be contributing to the
urges of “men being men” sickened me. “Don’t you think there can be consequences to enticing a man?” I asked Mother. I thought of Ruth and Setsu and the notions they had picked up in school about how to dress, how to carry themselves—small sparks that had ignited roaring fires. But Mother was rummaging through her closet in search of shoes that matched her outfit and had not heard.

•   •   •

B
efore I returned to Rhode Island, Mother took me shopping for some early-fall items—a stylish trench coat, two silky, light wool skirts, and what Mother referred to as “a lady’s bathrobe,” a thin, satiny one to replace the frayed cotton one I wore around the apartment.

In the car on the way home, stopped at a red light, she squeezed her fingers to my wrist and whispered, “If you like, Opal, I can make an appointment for you with my doctor before you leave. You know, if there’s
anything
you might need.”

I knew what kind of doctor Mother meant and exactly what kind of things the doctor would give me. “There’s nothing I need!” I shook my head vigorously as I gazed out the window at a group of schoolchildren walking in double file behind their teacher.

During the last few days of August, Mother had arranged for us to visit her East Coast friend, Marla, and her family before classes resumed. “Marla and I haven’t caught up in years, and I know she’s looking forward to seeing you. You were just a bit of a thing the last time we were together!” But at the last moment, Mother’s plans changed: Antonio’s brother, whom she’d never met, was flying in from Rome. She absolutely had to stay to meet him. “Marla’s still expecting
you
, though.”

The Dunhams lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, and Marla and her
husband had three sons. The youngest, Daniel, was my age, and when I arrived, he was filling duffel bags in preparation for his own return to Amherst College in Massachusetts.

“Did you remember your windbreaker, Dan? And those all-weather boots we just bought?” Marla dashed in and out of his room a number of times, checking his progress.

“She still worries I can’t organize my own belongings,” he laughed after Marla’s last trip upstairs to be sure I had everything I needed in my room across the hall from Daniel’s, then bringing him a folded stack of laundry. “Mothers! They just can’t help themselves, can they?”

“I guess it goes with the territory,” I answered, laughing agreeably, though I could not remember the last time Mother had overseen
my
packing.

The Dunham home was rambling and old, with sloped floors and ceilings, and more corridors and staircases than I could follow. There were fireplaces everywhere, their mantels cluttered with family photographs and children’s artwork. Three little-boy handprints in plaster casts hung on the wall near the door of my guest bedroom. Despite the late-summer heat, the Dunhams used no air conditioners, only a few dusty window fans.

Marla called us to the table at seven my first night, the regular dinnertime in the Dunham home, she mentioned. “It’s such a treat to have you here, Opal. I wish your mother could have joined you. How is she? I haven’t seen her in
eons
. I want to hear all about her restaurant. Oh, and I want to hear about Brown! My niece is applying for next year—such a great, great school.” Marla smiled and set her fork down, tucking her thin, yellow, chin-length hair behind her ear. In her striped Izod shirt and her belted Bermuda shorts and her pea-shaped pearl earrings, it was hard for me to imagine she and Mother had once been close. She seemed like the women whom Mother rolled her eyes at in airports, toting their golf bags or tennis rackets in zippered cases, and their compact suitcases that
matched their husbands’. “You look at them and you just
know
nothing in their lives ever distinguishes one day from the next. God, I think I’d shoot myself! If my husband didn’t do it first!”