But, there’s always a moment before it all becomes okay.
WHEN I WAS OLD AND UGLY
The creature had come absurdly close to our window. It had lifted its chin — face — specifically toward mine while we were at breakfast in the country.
I’d say the animal looked and looked at me and looked, ardently.
I was reminded how to fall in love by meeting its eyes and by how long the rendezvous lasted — until doomsday, say.
I am unhappily married. Today I was dressed up in red-fox orange — orangutan orange — apricot orange, candlelight orange. I had on a wool plaid coat and had been racketing around my city precinct doing errands.
Returning home, while in the elevator of our building, facing the closed door, I combed nearly every hair — all that thinning hair along the sides of my skull.
That massive man that I didn’t know at all, who had a stiffness of manner at the back of the elevator, he acknowledged me. And the doorman Bill had not averted his eyes.
No, not the sort of thing that I usually report. No, that I had withdrawn the tortoiseshell comb from my purse to do the smoothing with and then re-stowed it on the way to 3A, our apartment.
The comb I keep in the quilted sack, where I also conceal a tiny toothpaste, the easy-to-carry traveler’s toothbrush, and my eyeglass-lens polishing cloth.
The carpet was unmarked by dirt, but one important thing in our foyer was missing — the color with the green leaves in a vase. The old floor gets better with age, but boy it needed to be cleaned up — then it will shine.
I also have affectionate and friendly wishes for the brass, crystal, silver dishes, vases and pitchers.
My conversation with my husband was as follows: “Are you all right? What do you want? You’re looking at me.”
In the park I had wanted to talk today to a bird who wasn’t interested in talking to me.
Lust and temptation are sometimes personified. I heard the bird cry—Chew! Chew! I took pains to say Chew! Chew! — loudly, too.
PALM AGAINST PALM
It is a pity there is also the nature of the surface of the skin — combined with the error of her eyes and the divots at the centers of her breasts.
Her tiny skirt is much like a figure skater’s skirt that may — as she lets her legs fling forward to walk — flap.
Clap. Clap.
The girl — to get here — goes in the direction of the vanishing point, on up the steep grade.
These living quarters with the man, that she has entered, are bordered in the front by bluet and merrybells and by the myrtle and foam flowers at the back.
Her exit requires her to go through a door that shuts, ta-ta! — with those two little beats of sound.
Come along! — for wonderful it may seem that those hills are presenting themselves not just as technical details or as small regions near the tollway.
Did she see those birds that were falling like leaves? — the leaves that were flying like birds?
The girl will extend herself to travel and to sway beyond the sweepgate into somebody else’s household and she will hurry to meet up with somebody.
So when she arrives at the northern suburb, she finds a high house with a heavy gate. There is a seat near the door.
Whose house is this?
There is a tent bed, a hearth, and a sectional bookcase.
“At least I don’t keep people waiting. Am I doing everything?” the girl asks.
“Hey!”
“Now look at you.”
Then she was pulling her blouse together and she went to get a glass of water, a pot of coffee.
The brightly scaled moon was rising, but this girl never became a well-liked businesswoman with a growing family in the community.
Neither is she endowed with any remarkable qualities. We never spoke of her specialized skills or of her inclination to be otherwise. My fault. Go fuck herself.
Apology accepted.
HUMAN COMB
A pastel portrait of the deceased Mrs. Meldrum senior, as a young girl, was placed over a console table with flared legs, and I stared at Mrs. Meldrum’s face and got to know her, for no purpose, for no benefit, none. But like a bird, I might have been eating out of her hand!
Her son, Melvyn, had forgotten he’d invited us. And thank you, Melvyn, for that. He suggested gin, rum, Scotch, rye, sherry, schnapps, Pepsi, cold tea, or beer.
And here I was in the company of a private detective and other pet owners. Some of them became scornful when the conversation centered on the next election or on Melvyn Meldrum’s unsympathetic mother and what was really so bad about her.
And even though I have no teeth — they’d all been pulled, because I was set to get implants and my dentures were just too painful to wear — I consumed a Diet Pepsi and some soft pizza topping.
This is not to say I am old. Far from it! Sometimes I just go to any lengths — and I had gotten started clearing out my God-given, skimpy, and in some cases, my diseased teeth.
So Melvyn had come to the door dead drunk and had told us we might as well come in for a drink. And where was his wife Yvonne, just then? She was upstairs getting ready for a different social event.
Yvonne Meldrum, when she appeared, brought in a tray of Limburger cheese, saltines, and Cheddar Goldfish.
And, I don’t forget what has happened to my pal Jack — he was there — a man I’d once had a fine time with — with my legs hanging up over his shoulders.
I wrote a note to the Meldrums after our return that it was so lovely to see you, so much fun. It was a joy.
Did Melvyn’s wife Yvonne leave him? Had she planned on finding somebody else to take her by the breasts? Because that night, while we ate, when June Hockett said, “Get Yvonne,” we discovered that Yvonne had left the premises!
I believe that this incident occurred before Vic’s and my son was born — soon after my divorce from Jack.
Had I been unhappy with Jack? Well, certainly Jack had been very woebegone.
One of the little girls at the party played a child’s version of a sad song on the spinet piano, while the other younger girl came up behind her to spoil it.
Vic said, as we went out for a taxi, “That was fun.” He stood just beyond the curb, stretching his arm out and by and by we arrived at our hotel.
Back in New Paltz, the next day, I needed to, but I could not go to the post office, but I could groom our dog Demon because it was Labor Day.
When I comb out Demon’s hair I may use a human comb and I always get under his belly. Sometimes I use an undercoat rake. I don’t ever use medicated shampoo for the genital area. And, I don’t need to imagine the pain of any teeth rotting out of Demon’s head! — so I let the vet tend to that.
But I have never had any discussion with Vic about whether he, Vic, is actually a jealous spouse — or about what happened to Yvonne.
I am unemotional about the abrupt ending of friendships and there’d be no purpose, no benefit, none, to exploring these subjects further — such as: have I come clean enough?
I am — yes — utterly at ease in the company of others, secretive, sexually active, quite adaptable.
And many have said of me, I hear — She’s very charming.
~ ~ ~
The following stories have appeared in Harper’s: “A Little Bottle of Tears,” “Living Deluxe,” “Girl with a Pencil,” “A Gray Pottery Head,” “With Red Chair,” “Head of the Big Man.”
These stories first appeared, sometimes in a slightly different form or with a different title, in the American Reader: “Try,” “How Blown Up”; in Granta: “Specialist”; in La Granada: “Gulls,” “Of the True and Final Good”; in The Lifted Brow: “The Mermaid Pose,” “Glimpses of Mrs. Williams,” The Skol”; in London Review of Books: “Lamb Chops, Cod,” “Perform Small Tasks,” “Removal Men”; in PANK: “Lavatory”; in Queen Mob’s Tea House: “There Is Always a Hesitation Before Turning in a Finished Job”; in Salt Hill: “Flying Things”; in Tammy: “Palm Against Palm”; in Tin House: “At a Period of Exceptional Dullness,” “A Mere Flask Poured Out,” “Sigh”; in Unsaid: “Head of a Naked Girl”; in VICE: “Cinch,” “Greed,” “Personal Details,” “The Thickening Wish,” “When I Was Old and Ugly”; in The White Review: “Love, Beauty, and Vanity Itself.”