After Delores by Sarah Schulman Page A

well.
    â€œI’ll meet you on the street,” I said.
    Since I slept in my clothes every night, I didn’t need to get dressed. I just paced back and forth across the room, thrilled to the teeth. I wanted to see Charlotte in my house. The possibility of her being there made living somehow easier. I wanted to watch her crossing her legs on my couch, thumbing through my belongings with her big hands, tough and bony like the Wild West under a big sky. I wanted to see her engrossed, thinking something over and coming to an important conclusion. So I threw a bunch of towels over the machine and put the gun in the refrigerator, just in case.
    I was waiting so hard that I almost forgot to breathe, and so got transported into a series of distant thoughts. By the time the buzzer sounded, I was in a dream in which I had become something frilly and lilting, like a Southern belle waiting for her gentleman caller. I descended the staircase of my imagination feeling like Scarlett O’Hara at Tara, but probably looking more like Norma Desmond. Or maybe I was one of those blonde creatures, a debutante at the cotillion drinking Brandy Alexanders, unconsciously garish in green eyeshadow. The drink left a frothy brown mustache that set off my wardrobe of various unnatural colors like beige or powder blue.
    â€œCharlotte!”
    She was sullen under the streetlight, her white skin luminescent in the night. My hero.
    â€œWhen was the last time you changed your clothes?” she said. “You look terrible.”
    I watched myself grimy and wrinkled. Oh no, there were restaurant grease stains everywhere, baggy pants and the worst, light green socks with a pink shirt. How could I be wearing light green socks at a moment like this when Charlotte was just about to fall in love with me?
    â€œCome on, let’s walk.”
    She started off with a quick pace, leaping over the broken sidewalk with those huge legs. She was talking, but I couldn’t hear the words. I was in my private movie and Charlotte was the star. In this scene, she slumped into her gait, in a hurried dissatisfaction, like the Irishman she was in cap and stooped shoulders, glum over his dinner. The grouse, though, was all appearance, for she was easily content. She could happily watch television every night and drink her beer quietly in a corner while the other men played darts. Underneath the coal dust, she was really a champion, a resistance fighter, a king.
    â€œWe’ve been at it all week. It’s about secrets. I can’t tell her about Marianne because she wouldn’t understand. If she knew I’d had another lover, it would hurt her and yet, it’s on my mind all the time, of course. So you must never say a word to her about any of it.”
    She passed her thumb back and forth across her mouth exactly like Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless .
    â€œYou see, Beatriz knows intuitively that something is awry. But she can’t put her finger on exactly what. I mean, realizing that your lover had a sixteen-year-old mistress who had just been murdered is not necessarily the first conclusion one jumps to when there’s mysterious discord at home. She doesn’t know anything for sure, and I want to keep it that way.”
    She grabbed my wrist and turned it until my whole arm turned with it.
    â€œDo you understand?”
    â€œCharlotte, what are you talking about?”
    I loved the feeling of pain that was taking over my arm. But as soon as she saw the pleasure in my face, she let go, and was sweet again.
    â€œBeatriz is Latin. They have a sense of pride that is different than yours or mine.”
    She was lying. But she was lying so well, it drew you in. She had that expression on her face that some people use when they want you to know that they realize what’s coming out of their mouths is rubbish, but they need you to play along so you do. Then it becomes your lie too.
    â€œShe would leave me in a second if she knew that