AM:39
This massive PDF file is a symbol of my love for you. It is graphic and full of information. It takes time to fully load, and when it’s running I find it difficult to complete other work. There are parts that I would rather not read, parts I have to read, and parts I’ll never read or even know about, but they will always be there. I cannot change the content of this massive PDF file, and I cannot decide when it will begin or end. In fact, it is always there, on my desktop. Even if I put it in my Recycle Bin, it is there, and even if I empty the Recycle Bin it is still there somewhere. I would have to powder the hard drive to be rid of all traces of this massive PDF file, which is a symbol of my love for you.
40:PM
Tess felt rather certain that she would die alone. She blamed her arms, which she found to be fatter than normal arms. She blamed her poor body image, which she couldn’t seem to shake, even as she got older and found that the girls around her had turned into women, had gotten pregnant and lost their shapes entirely. She took too many pictures of herself and scrutinized them for flaws, and then made copies of the prints and taped them on telephone poles across town with her phone number printed clearly across them.
People called from all over, mostly men, asking about the girl in the photograph. Tess told them, That girl is a runaway, and if you find her, try to keep her in one place and secretly phone the police.
The men said, She looks a little old for a runaway.
Tess said, She’s disturbed.
When she went out, Tess was much bolder than usual. She wore sleeveless shirts and made eye contact with the boys at the check-out counter. In the library, she sat at a center table and held her face to the light as she read. Whenever anyone approached her to ask if she had been helped, or if she had read other books by that author, she gathered her things and ran. Nobody could ever see what she was running from.
AM:41
The intense regret of purchasing inexpensive curtains one cannot afford! Feeling doubtful about the idea that suede curtains will make this room look something other than laughable! Panicked financial insecurity, linked closely to a fear of being alone! Sinking emotions related to a worthless mass of completed work! The desire to do all one can to rip off an honest business! The creeping disgust directed toward the cat with worms!
42:PM
“We’ll get a babysitter,” Betty said, shifting the baby from one arm to the other. “I’ll find a restaurant with good lighting.”
“Good,” said Simon. He was reading a book about organic gardening.
“Lighting is essential,” she said.
Gardening, Simon learned, is easiest when you respect the land and the tools you are given.
She was flipping through the phone book, reading carefully for any intimations of weak lighting. “We’ll have dinner,” she said. “Then, we’ll meet up with everyone. What about Italian?”
“Too spicy.”
“Cheese isn’t spicy.”
He shrugged. Planting the proper seeds at the proper times means respecting the land, and the land will bear fruit in answer to your respect. “Indian?” he asked.
She looked at him. “Everything’s spicy.”
“You have to order a curry,” he said. He kissed his fingers, as a gourmand.
Betty shut the phone book and walked into the bedroom. Simon read about winter plants, tubers and flowering squashes.
AM:43
The power went out during the storm. Hazel and Sam talked in the darkness without touching.
Sam had given up on finding a flashlight and instead lay on the kitchen floor. “Goethe said that everything is metaphor.”
“I can never pronounce his name correctly.”
“Gerr-tay.”
“Gare-tah.”
“Gareth.”
“Certainly it’s not ‘Gareth’.”
“Certainly not.”
A flash of lightning briefly illuminated them both. They listened for the thunder. “The correct pronunciation is right around the corner,” she said.
“Guer-tuh.”
The crack of thunder startled Hazel. She reached out for Sam’s hand.
“That might be it,” she said.
44:PM
The cats were arranged like matchsticks, Martha said. She joked that she wanted to pick the fat calico up, strike it, and light her cigarette. Emily shut her eyes.
AM:45
Missy had legs, and she knew how to use them. She slid them into jeans or wrapped a skirt around them. She walked with her legs to the grocery store. She used her legs to help haul everything up the stairs and into her kitchen, and she used her legs to walk back into the bedroom and back into bed. It was easy to use her legs, she thought, drifting off.
46:PM
June continued preparing her apartment for Terrence’s visit, even after it became apparent he would not arrive. She arranged the furniture, thinking Terrence is not going to like this chair or I wonder what Terrence will see first and then she would stand at the entry, letting her eyes fall on the problematic chair, and the carefully arranged photographs, and the strange carved bowl that June loved but knew for a fact that Terrence would not love, and there it was, anchoring the whole of the room together, sticking out like a bruise. It was wood with tarnished metal accents, nothing fancy, something she had found at a secondhand store when she was looking for curtains to hang so that Terrence would not see the metal blinds and think less of her.
It concerned June that she was taking the sentiment too far, but there was a certain enjoyment to be had from preparing the house for a man, for cleaning and waxing the floors with the thought that he would, at any moment, walk up the stairs (in these fantasies, he had his own key), drop his bag on the couch, and touch her casually on both shoulders before stepping around her to open the fridge. June told herself, This fantasy could be of any man. This was, in theory, true. But for that night, it was Terrence, and in the morning it would be Terrence, and June tried not to think beyond that.
AM:47
The dog’s ears twitched. Simon rubbed scar solution onto the tops of his hands as he had every day for the past six months, trying to erase the marks left by a cooking accident. He had grown accustomed to the scar solution, an elixir of onion peel extract that smelled like the waitress girl at the Italian restaurant when her downy arm brushed his cheek as she leaned over to refill his drink.
Simon stood over the dog on the back porch, surveying the overgrown grass and peach trees and cobwebbed grill that, combined, represented his set of summer projects. He tried to remember the time of day he was born, deciding eventually on five thirty-two in the morning. It was a Presbyterian hospital back then. That was before it was bought and turned into a research center where they studied people with night terrors. Patients woke at all hours, screaming for their mothers. Everybody’s got to start somewhere.
48:PM
Dear June,
I want you to know that when I said I would never wash my hands again, I was serious.
Sincerely,
Terrence
AM:49
When you’re tangled up with your woman in a bed, it feels right to further tangle yourself.
“I wish I had a hat,” Simon said.
“I wish you were a hat,” Betty said. “I wish you were my hat. I would carry you with me, wrapped around my skull, when I was having a bad day. You could protect my image, if you were my hat.”