The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (3 page)

I want to jump the chair over and pounce on him, but I can’t steer it very well, so instead I turn my head around and stare at him, first seductively and then like a pain in the ass.

He looks up after a while. “Yes?”

“I’m bored,” I say.

“You want to go home now?”

“But we have six hours.” It comes out sounding whiny. I wait for him to react, but he doesn’t tell me to shut up and then unbuckle his pants with one quick rip. His face is kind, still tired, cheeks slack. I want to lay his head on my chest and soothe him, poor man who lives alone in this shitty apartment. Poor man. Let me love you here on your green couch for the street to see, let me offer you something magical in the space between my breasts. Please. Please. Let me.

“Lady,” he says again, “you ready to go home?”

I’m thinking about the walk home. I’ll have to go into one of the stores and buy myself another dress. I’ll borrow one of his T-shirts, or if he doesn’t let me, then I’ll wrap the satin around me like a towel. The salesgirl will note the strange outfit but acknowledge the fineness of the material, and decide
I’m a good bet. She’ll tell me her name and hang up my choices while I still browse around. Maybe I’ll tell her the story of this dress, but leave it open-ended. And she’ll giggle, for after all, I am the customer. I’ll take a cab home in a new glorious brocade cream-colored gown. My apartment is big and I have a big TV. I have a velvet couch and it’s one of a kind. I have cable. I have better reception than this stupid nipple man. I have a remote control that can work through walls.

I look at him again; he’s lighting up another match to continue smoking that same first cigarette.

“No,” I tell him, slumping back down in the chair. “I don’t want to go home yet.” He turns to look at me. “Is that okay?” I ask.

He gives a little nod. “That’s fine,” he says, leaning forward to change the channel. “So. Game show or the news?”

“Not the news please,” I say. He clicks the knob three times over. The game show host looks really old. The shy man puts his elbows on his knees and he starts to call out answers to the trivia questions. I close my eyes and listen to the noise of winning fill the room.

Steven returned from the war without lips.

This is quite a shock, said his wife Mary who had spent the last six months knitting sweaters and avoiding a certain grocery store where a certain young man worked and looked at her in that certain way. I expected lips. Dead or alive, but with lips.

Steven went into the living room where his old favorite chair stood, neatly dusted and unused. I-can-eat-like-normal, he said in a strange halted clacking tone due to the plastic disc that covered and protected what was left of his mouth like the end of a pacifier. The-doctors-are-going-to-put-new-skin-on-in-a-few-weeks-anyway. Skin-from-my-palm. He lifted up his hand and looked at it. That-will-work, I-guess, he said. It-just-won’t-be-quite-the-same.

No, said Mary, it won’t. That bomb, she said, standing on the other side of the chair, you know it took the last real kiss
from you forever, and as far as I can remember, that kiss was supposed to be mine.

That night in bed, he grazed the disc over her raised nipples like a UFO and the plastic was cool on her skin. It felt like they were in college and toying with desk items as sexual objects. Her boyfriend of that time, Hank: Let’s try a ruler. Let’s measure you, Mary. Let’s balance a paperweight on my dick. I’m over that, Mary thought. I want lips now. I just want the basics.

She didn’t say anything, but began to shop at the other grocery store again.

The young man there had always had lips but now they seemed twice as large and full and incredible, as if his face was overflowing with lip. While he ran her milk and eggs and toothpaste over the electronic sensor, she couldn’t stop looking at them, guessing what they tasted like. The warm, salty taste of flesh.

Good to see you, he said, moving those lips. It’s been a while.

Mary blushed and fiddled with the gum at the counter.

Just take a pack, he told her. I won’t tell.

Really? She looked at the flavors and picked cinnamon.

Sure, he said, smiling at her, glancing around to see if his manager was in sight. Think of me while you chew.

She blushed again, pocketed the gum and then grabbed her two full bags in both arms.

Need help? he asked. Let me help you.

Okay. She passed the weight to him, and he walked her to the car which was parked near the river. While he placed the bags into the trunk, she was taken by the desire to join them. She wanted to sit in there and invite the man in with her, shut the trunk down and lock it and just make love and eat groceries until they suffocated or her husband needed the car.

Back at home, Steven was in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror. Mary stood and watched him touching the disc with his fingertips, a bag under each arm, until he felt her and turned around.

Honey, he said, back-so-soon! He took the bags from her, peered inside them and -oohed- and -aahed- over her food choices.

Oh-Mary, he said, God-I-missed-you-so-much. In-that-ditch, when-I-thought-of-you, I-saw-an-angel. His voice broke. I-saw-Mary, my-angel, in-this-house, with-these-bags. You-brought-me-back-home. He reached out his hand and fingers trickled down her arm.

She kept her back to him and shoved tin cans into the cupboard. Maybe, she was thinking, if you’d concentrated better you’d still have lips. Maybe you’re not supposed to think of your wife at the market while people are throwing bombs at you. Maybe you’re supposed to protect certain body parts so she’ll be happy when you come back.

But instead she just piled the cans one on the other, edge to edge in tall buildings, kidney beans on top of tuna. She turned to Steven.

You’re alive, she said, and hugged him. You’re Steven. He pressed the disc hard to her cheek and kissed her, - - -, and she held herself in and tried not to shatter.

Steven ate more than she remembered so she was back at the market in two days. The young man was there, and she offered him a stick of the same cinnamon gum. He grinned at her.

Thanks, he said, taking a piece.

She touched the back of his hand while he was writing her driver’s license number on the check, and said, Do you take care of yourself?

He looked up at her. What do you mean?

I mean, what if they called you to fight in the war? Her hand was stilled on his.

He snapped his gum. He drew a little gun on a corner of her check. No, he said, I don’t think I would do it. I think I’d run away, because, you know, I don’t want to fight in the war. I mean, how would you do it anyway? How would you know what to do? He drew little bullets coming out of the gun and sliding down the side of the check, near where her name and address were printed.

Mary nodded and placed her license back into her wallet.

I know, she said, me too. I would move away somewhere else. I wouldn’t leave people and maybe never come back. You can’t do that to people, you know?

Right, he said, looking up at her: I know what you mean. The most unbearable thing is losing someone like that.

Oh no, she said to him, wrapping the plastic handle of the
bag around her wrist several times, I don’t think so. I don’t agree. The most unbearable thing I think by far, she said, is hope.

At night Steven twitched with nightmares. He never used to; he used to sleep straight through the night, and Mary would carve shapes into his back with her stub of a fingernail and watch the goose bumps rise and fall like small mountain populations. Now he was bucking in and out of the sheets and she still carved the shapes and the goose bumps still emerged, but they didn’t calm him. She wondered what he was seeing. Sometimes she woke him up.

Steven, she said, it’s okay. You’re here. You’re back.

He looked up at her with a frame of sweat around his face and breathed out. -Mary-, he clacked, it’s-Mary.

It’s Mary, she said. Yes. That’s me.

He held her so tightly she was uncomfortable. She wiggled loose and finally fell asleep for a couple of hours but woke up again in the middle of the night and left the bedroom. Steven was sleeping quietly, his back to her, arm out, palm open, belly sloping down to the sheets. She tried the TV but everything was either without plot or in the middle so she couldn’t understand what was going on. Clicking it off, she went and sat in the backyard, on the edge of the patio with its red paint chipping. The sky was oddly light, but it was nowhere near morning.

Leaning down into the dirt, she began to dig a hole. The
dirt was grainy and soft and lifted out easily, and she wondered why she never took up gardening. It’s supposed to be so soothing, she thought. Perhaps that is the soothing that I need.

She leaned down into the dirt and dug until there was a hole a few feet deep. She placed her feet in it.

I built this hole, she said, now what to put in it? She wandered in through the kitchen to the hall closet, opened it and saw the three sweaters she knit for Steven At War piled on the shelf by the sewing machine. There, she said, my sweaters. He won’t want these. No one wears sweaters here anyway.

She lugged all three sweaters outside and gently folded them, placing them on top of each other in the hole. She remembered knitting them, singing songs into the thread about Steven, pretending she was keeping him alive although she knew he was dead. He had to be dead. She was just more honest with herself than the other wives. With each purl and knit and knot, she felt the coldness of his stiffening legs, the draining of color from his cheeks, knew that never would she feel his forearms warm and veined around her waist, never again would his voice whisper praise into her ear.

She let the dirt dribble through her fingers over the pile of sweaters and it slid down the sides, slowly filling up the space, covering the colorful sleeves. Dead sweaters, she thought. Isn’t that funny, the way it turned out?

•   •   •

At the grocery store, the young man was wearing a gray button-up shirt and looked particularly handsome.

I was hoping you’d come in, he told her. I was thinking about you.

Really? His skin was so young, so new.

I get off in just a few minutes. He looked at his watch. Do you want to go on a walk or something? We’re right by the river and I could use a break before I go home.

She watched the bag-packer put the eggs haphazardly on top.

Sure, she said. Why not.

She packed the bags in her trunk again and after a beat, pulled out the bouquet of gardenias that she’d bought because they’d smelled so strongly. She waited for the young man, feeling like a bride. After a minute, he exited the store without his apron, let loose, looking younger.

This way, he said, come this way. Nice flowers.

She felt embarrassed and asked him to hold them for her, which he did, blooms down. They walked side by side and she was aware of his breathing, easy and confident, and aware of his lips. Lips, she thought. I really really miss lips.

The river leapt over stones, gurgling as rivers do. Its voice lowered and deepened as they walked and the young man told her about his life, about how this was his summer job away from college and one day he wanted to own an art supply store. Interesting, she told him, that will be an interesting store to own. You will buy many different colors of paint.

Yeah, he said. I like paint.

The river was speeding up. It made a rushing noise, rocks breaking up the water into foam.

I want to throw myself in, she thought. I want to crack up on those rocks.

She looked at the young man.

Can you swim? she asked.

Oh, yeah, he said. I’m a great swimmer.

Would you rescue me, she said, if I went in? Because I’m not a good swimmer.

Went in that? He pointed to the river just in case there was a choice he didn’t know about. It’s cold in that, he said, and fast. Not a good idea to go in there if you can’t swim.

But, like I said, she said, would you save me?

He seemed confused. This was not what he expected from her. I guess I’d try, he said, you know, if it was really dangerous. He took a step back. She walked to him.

I’m glad, she said.

He stepped down to a lower plain so he was suddenly her height and she went into his face and kissed those lips, reminded herself. They were so soft. She kissed him for a moment, and then she had to move away; they were too soft, the softness was murdering her.

Hey, said the young man, nice.

Mary sat down on the ground and felt like she could not possibly survive with something that soft in the world with her. The two of them could not exist together. No. The
young man sat down, he wanted to kiss her again but she said, I have to go now. Did I tell you I was married?

No, he said, I didn’t know you were married. He looked to her hand and pointed to the ring. Oh, right. Check it out. Cool.

She thought about Steven and the disc and about pressing her lips down on those plastic curves, pushing hard on them until she pressed her face into his. Pushed past his skin and through his bone and into the quiet warm space underneath, her eyes shut, cell to cell, both unarmed. In there, she thought, inside his mind and flooded with blood, without windows or doors or her knitting or his chair, maybe in there she could hold their faces in her hands and consider something like forgiveness.

She stood up and the young man reached out his unflowered hand, wanting to pull her to him, wanting her attention again.

Really, he said, I would rescue you, you know, what you were saying before.

Yeah, she said, I’m sure you’d try.

She started back along the path and he followed her. He was so young, he just talked about himself again and she tuned out and watched the shadows of the trees cut lines into the ground. She kicked a few rocks. Back in the parking lot, she held out her hand and grasped his for a second. He had a firm grip.

Come back, I’ll give you more free gum, he said, handing her back her flowers.

Okay, she said, I can always use free gum.