holding a book
(Mrs. Dal-loway)
so tightly in my hands that the pages held the indentations of my fingers forever. He was standing over me, and I suddenly realized how vulnerable I was—how easily my bones would break, my skull, if he wanted them to, or even (maybe especially) if he
didn't
want them to, but lost all control of himself, all notion of what it was he wanted.
What was my body made of, anyway, after all, I thought then, but so much tissue, and blood? I would rip open, like a pillow. I would crack to pieces, like an egg—and, still, stubbornly, absurdly, I was thinking about Ferris, the pencil behind his ear, pushing an overhead projector through the hallway, looking tired and intelligent and overwarm in his button-down shirt, telling me he was in love, for the first time in his life, and too late (two kids, a pregnant wife) with me.
Go ahead and kill me,
I'd thought, looking at Jon with the lamp in his hand over me, raging.
But he put it back down on the nightstand and walked away.
No, I thought.
My husband did not really want me to fuck another man.
Even if he thought he did, holding my shoulders as he said it—
I want you to fuck another man
—he was wrong.
Surely, if my secret admirer revealed himself, Jon would feel jealous, threatened. The titillation was in the possibility, not the act itself, I felt sure.
And what about me?
Had I ever really wanted a lover?
Until now, no. I was sure of that. Not even Ferris. I could still remember the relief that washed over me along with the fluorescent light when he told me in a corner of my classroom after the students were gone that he'd taken a job in Missouri, the way my whole life seemed opened up to the possibility then of being the woman I'd wanted to be—the farmhouse, the child, the car that started on the first try—forever.
But Chad had been a toddler then. I was so much younger. Now, I'd already been that woman. Now, I was free to be someone else if I wanted to be. Now, did I want a lover?
In the dark, beside Jon, in our bed, I thought about that for a long time, without any idea of what the answer would be. Trying to look for the answer to that question in my own mind was like finding myself suddenly inside an echoing tunnel:
Do I want a lover? Do I want a lover to want me? Do I want Jon to want me to have a lover? Do I want Jon to want me to want a lover?
I couldn't even decide on a question long enough to decide on an answer.
Finally, I fell asleep.
And woke up like this—blinking in the wan morning light, too hungover to go to work. All these dull aches—the stomach, the thighs, the skin. My lips, parched. My eyes, stinging. Thirsty. A warm throbbing just behind my cheekbones.
Cheap beer.
I called in to cancel my office hours.
I showered, drank three glasses of orange juice, made a grocery list:
Milk, linguine, bread, cereal, orange juice
—and a hundred other little things written out shakily on the back of an empty envelope (spring dress, department store credit card bill opened and paid several days ago) addressed to a Ms. Sherry Seymour—a woman I could not imagine would have woken up on a Wednesday morning with a hangover after dancing all night at Stiver's with two truckers, but a woman who, I realized after staring at that name long enough, I also was.
A FTER the shopping, I put the groceries away and lay down for a cool, dry, but delicious nap.
It was a gray morning again—a misty rain on the way to the supermarket, but the sun had been attempting, at least, to burn its way through the clouds.
This,
I thought, opening the car window just an inch to smell the air,
will be the last real winter day.
Spring—I could feel it there, at the edges of the world, or waiting, impatiently now, beneath all the layers and layers of winter that had been so painstakingly laid down. I thought of the bulbs in the garden—how they'd be stretching, pushing, triggered by the change. Soon, they'd writhe to the surface and
(Mrs. Dal-loway)
so tightly in my hands that the pages held the indentations of my fingers forever. He was standing over me, and I suddenly realized how vulnerable I was—how easily my bones would break, my skull, if he wanted them to, or even (maybe especially) if he
didn't
want them to, but lost all control of himself, all notion of what it was he wanted.
What was my body made of, anyway, after all, I thought then, but so much tissue, and blood? I would rip open, like a pillow. I would crack to pieces, like an egg—and, still, stubbornly, absurdly, I was thinking about Ferris, the pencil behind his ear, pushing an overhead projector through the hallway, looking tired and intelligent and overwarm in his button-down shirt, telling me he was in love, for the first time in his life, and too late (two kids, a pregnant wife) with me.
Go ahead and kill me,
I'd thought, looking at Jon with the lamp in his hand over me, raging.
But he put it back down on the nightstand and walked away.
No, I thought.
My husband did not really want me to fuck another man.
Even if he thought he did, holding my shoulders as he said it—
I want you to fuck another man
—he was wrong.
Surely, if my secret admirer revealed himself, Jon would feel jealous, threatened. The titillation was in the possibility, not the act itself, I felt sure.
And what about me?
Had I ever really wanted a lover?
Until now, no. I was sure of that. Not even Ferris. I could still remember the relief that washed over me along with the fluorescent light when he told me in a corner of my classroom after the students were gone that he'd taken a job in Missouri, the way my whole life seemed opened up to the possibility then of being the woman I'd wanted to be—the farmhouse, the child, the car that started on the first try—forever.
But Chad had been a toddler then. I was so much younger. Now, I'd already been that woman. Now, I was free to be someone else if I wanted to be. Now, did I want a lover?
In the dark, beside Jon, in our bed, I thought about that for a long time, without any idea of what the answer would be. Trying to look for the answer to that question in my own mind was like finding myself suddenly inside an echoing tunnel:
Do I want a lover? Do I want a lover to want me? Do I want Jon to want me to have a lover? Do I want Jon to want me to want a lover?
I couldn't even decide on a question long enough to decide on an answer.
Finally, I fell asleep.
And woke up like this—blinking in the wan morning light, too hungover to go to work. All these dull aches—the stomach, the thighs, the skin. My lips, parched. My eyes, stinging. Thirsty. A warm throbbing just behind my cheekbones.
Cheap beer.
I called in to cancel my office hours.
I showered, drank three glasses of orange juice, made a grocery list:
Milk, linguine, bread, cereal, orange juice
—and a hundred other little things written out shakily on the back of an empty envelope (spring dress, department store credit card bill opened and paid several days ago) addressed to a Ms. Sherry Seymour—a woman I could not imagine would have woken up on a Wednesday morning with a hangover after dancing all night at Stiver's with two truckers, but a woman who, I realized after staring at that name long enough, I also was.
A FTER the shopping, I put the groceries away and lay down for a cool, dry, but delicious nap.
It was a gray morning again—a misty rain on the way to the supermarket, but the sun had been attempting, at least, to burn its way through the clouds.
This,
I thought, opening the car window just an inch to smell the air,
will be the last real winter day.
Spring—I could feel it there, at the edges of the world, or waiting, impatiently now, beneath all the layers and layers of winter that had been so painstakingly laid down. I thought of the bulbs in the garden—how they'd be stretching, pushing, triggered by the change. Soon, they'd writhe to the surface and
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