it, but she didn’t turn to face me. “I’m going to take a deep breath here and then make a short speech, and if you’re nottotally tone deaf, you’ll let me finish it.” She took a deep breath, as promised. “I
do
realize that I haven’t told you much about myself, and I know it bothers you. There are things I can’t talk about. I don’t even talk about them to myself. It’s not that I did horrible things,” she said. “It’s that some horrible things were done to me and they didn’t make me a better person. That is
not
a play for sympathy.”
I said, “Want me to rub your shoulders?”
“You lack talent.” She squeezed my hand. “Okay, counting down.” She took another breath. “When I was seventeen I stopped secretly cutting slices into the skin on my forearms and began to behave in a way that a shrink would describe—
has
described—as ‘acting out.’ Running away from home, getting involved with the wrong guys—crooks, some of them violent crooks. When you leave a violent home and hang with violent guys, you develop a set of skills. You learn how to laugh at things that don’t amuse you and how to look like you admire stupidity, you learn that no argument, no matter how good, is going to open a closed mind. You learn how to get way down into your center and hide there in a little ball while things happen to your body. You learn how to find the place in the room where you’ll be least conspicuous.” She licked her lips. “You learn, eventually, how to get even.” She rolled onto her back, sat forward, took one of the pillows that had been behind her, and hugged it to her chest. She leaned back against the headboard, but immediately sat up again. “Are you using that pillow?”
“My head is.”
“Well, give it to me anyway. Your head has been through worse.”
I rolled over and she snatched the pillow, put it behind her, and resettled herself. “Better. Do you know how old I am?”
“Twenty-five.”
“I’m twenty-seven. I even lied to you about that. From seventeen to about twenty-three, I just hung with wrong guys. I was on the sidelines of some pretty bad shit. It scared me senseless, but not bad enough to go home again. Whatever I was going through, home scared me more. When I was twenty-three, someone offered me a job tending bar. I grabbed it. I worked there every hour they’d let me, stealing a little every night, until I had enough to get out of Trenton or Albany and get a job where nobody knew me. You still with me?”
“Sure. Wherever you were.”
“Atlantic City. By then, it was Atlantic City. People who come to Atlantic City carry a lot of cash and they gave me a bunch of it as tips. I bought some of the books I’d refused to read in high school. I read all day and I worked all night. When we first met each other, you and I, once I got past the way you look, I watched the way you studied my bookshelves when you didn’t know I was watching. If you hadn’t looked at them that way, we probably wouldn’t be here.” She looked into my eyes and gave me a smile that was more thought than anything else. “So I read and read. I got a little less crazy, I stopped looking behind me all the time and jumping at every noise. I read some more. I still went out with bad guys because bad guys were what I thought I deserved, if that makes sense. And I got better in a lot of ways, although every time somebody would slap me around or punch me in the mouth I’d go right back into the
what did I do to deserve this
mode. Until one night I asked myself why the fuck I accepted it. And that was a real light bulb moment, you know? I’d kept getting hit without ever asking myself why, I’d kept climbing into the ring when there were perfectly good seats on the other side of the rope. And that was when I decided to come out here where the sun shines and I could take a shot at being somebody else, and I hooked up with those guys who brought me here in stages.”
“As I remember, a
do
realize that I haven’t told you much about myself, and I know it bothers you. There are things I can’t talk about. I don’t even talk about them to myself. It’s not that I did horrible things,” she said. “It’s that some horrible things were done to me and they didn’t make me a better person. That is
not
a play for sympathy.”
I said, “Want me to rub your shoulders?”
“You lack talent.” She squeezed my hand. “Okay, counting down.” She took another breath. “When I was seventeen I stopped secretly cutting slices into the skin on my forearms and began to behave in a way that a shrink would describe—
has
described—as ‘acting out.’ Running away from home, getting involved with the wrong guys—crooks, some of them violent crooks. When you leave a violent home and hang with violent guys, you develop a set of skills. You learn how to laugh at things that don’t amuse you and how to look like you admire stupidity, you learn that no argument, no matter how good, is going to open a closed mind. You learn how to get way down into your center and hide there in a little ball while things happen to your body. You learn how to find the place in the room where you’ll be least conspicuous.” She licked her lips. “You learn, eventually, how to get even.” She rolled onto her back, sat forward, took one of the pillows that had been behind her, and hugged it to her chest. She leaned back against the headboard, but immediately sat up again. “Are you using that pillow?”
“My head is.”
“Well, give it to me anyway. Your head has been through worse.”
I rolled over and she snatched the pillow, put it behind her, and resettled herself. “Better. Do you know how old I am?”
“Twenty-five.”
“I’m twenty-seven. I even lied to you about that. From seventeen to about twenty-three, I just hung with wrong guys. I was on the sidelines of some pretty bad shit. It scared me senseless, but not bad enough to go home again. Whatever I was going through, home scared me more. When I was twenty-three, someone offered me a job tending bar. I grabbed it. I worked there every hour they’d let me, stealing a little every night, until I had enough to get out of Trenton or Albany and get a job where nobody knew me. You still with me?”
“Sure. Wherever you were.”
“Atlantic City. By then, it was Atlantic City. People who come to Atlantic City carry a lot of cash and they gave me a bunch of it as tips. I bought some of the books I’d refused to read in high school. I read all day and I worked all night. When we first met each other, you and I, once I got past the way you look, I watched the way you studied my bookshelves when you didn’t know I was watching. If you hadn’t looked at them that way, we probably wouldn’t be here.” She looked into my eyes and gave me a smile that was more thought than anything else. “So I read and read. I got a little less crazy, I stopped looking behind me all the time and jumping at every noise. I read some more. I still went out with bad guys because bad guys were what I thought I deserved, if that makes sense. And I got better in a lot of ways, although every time somebody would slap me around or punch me in the mouth I’d go right back into the
what did I do to deserve this
mode. Until one night I asked myself why the fuck I accepted it. And that was a real light bulb moment, you know? I’d kept getting hit without ever asking myself why, I’d kept climbing into the ring when there were perfectly good seats on the other side of the rope. And that was when I decided to come out here where the sun shines and I could take a shot at being somebody else, and I hooked up with those guys who brought me here in stages.”
“As I remember, a
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