When I wake up the first time, the sun is nowhere in sight. So I think it’ll be okay if I go back to sleep for a little while. But when I wake up again the sun has pounded its way through the shades, dropped to the floor, crawled across the carpet, over my clothes, up onto the bed, and into my hair.
I am already in a terrible mood when I gather my clothes. Luckily, it is a Saturday, so I’m not late for work. Alex is still asleep as I start to get dressed. After too many mornings spent searching in vain for my stockings, I stopped wearing them to pick up guys. So now it’s my wedding ring I’m looking for when I realize that I’ve forgotten to take it off again.
I wake Alex up to tell him I’m leaving. He says okay and doesn’t even roll over before he goes back to sleep. He stopped offering me cabs a long time ago.
April in Pittsburgh is schizophrenic. Sometimes it feels like December. Today, it feels like August. I try to read the Post-Gazette on the bus back to Squirrel Hill, but my head is brimming over with stories about last night and no one to tell them to. I’d never done it in a bar before. But when I replay the scene under my eyelids all I can see is that little band of gold on my fourth finger. My clothes feel heavy and out of place, like they’ve soaked up a little of Alex’s apartment. Maybe I have too; I feel a little generic.
By the time I get off the bus, I have taken my mind off of the bar and focused it on how badly I need a shower. I spot Evan across the street. I don’t know his real name, but he looks like an Evan. I can walk for blocks on autopilot without ever taking in the scenery, but I never miss Evan, even in a crowd. He’s on his way to work and I curse myself for going back to sleep at Alex’s. He has a folded copy of the paper in one hand and with the other he is idly twisting the little gold band mine is designed to match. I wonder if he notices me. For a second I almost feel a connection. I imagine that the rest of his paper’s sitting on the kitchen table next to my clean coffee mug. I ignore the fact that I wake up at my own place so seldom that I don’t even get a paper delivered there anymore.
When I get to my apartment, I notice that my clothes are starting to smell like me again, but my bag still reeks of stale cigar smoke and the Irish shower I took at Alex’s. Figures. It’s the only piece of my outfit I can’t wash. I bet a real designer bag would blend seamlessly from life to life. The second I came back it would smell like vanilla-scented candles and carpet that’s been vacuumed too often. Instead, my bag reminds me of the Squirrel Cage and how I had to try and clean up the mess between my thighs with cocktail napkins. They were the brown, recycled kind with the name of the bar screened onto them. The ink left little black streaks on my legs. Plus, I was sore and they were scratchy, but Alex was hissing at me to hurry up because the bartender was giving us looks. We got out of there and I tried to lighten things up a little by saying thanks and flashing him a secret smile. He ignored me until we got into his car and he asked if I was on the pill.
After my shower and a shot of Febreze to my bag, I try to meet Evan for lunch, but he doesn’t show up to the Murray Avenue Grill at the usual time. Instead, he ambles in just as I am leaving. I open my lips to say something, but he walks past.
It is moments like these that ruin my fun, when Evan refuses to play along. I know he isn’t really my husband. He’s just someone I noticed on the street once and followed to work. And then home. Then to where he eats. And shops. I bought a ring that looked like his and inserted him into my fantasy. Because I don’t have anyone to cheat on. And I love the rush. It makes me feel dangerous and exciting, and I am neither of those things without it. So I tell myself that it is worth the work I have to do in these moments. I reinvent the exchange. In my mind: I opened my lips to try and explain, but he mistook it for a smile and walked away.
I wake up on Kevin’s couch at six a.m. He isn’t next to me; I didn’t expect him to be. I look for him in the bedroom, but he isn’t there either. Even though the sun is still low enough to cling to the ceiling and not the floor, both sides of the bed are cold. I try the kitchen and the shower before I accept that he’s gone and start to get myself together. My wedding ring is in my empty champagne glass and most of my clothes are still on from the night before.
We’d met at Fanattics, a sports bar, where I’d pretended to cheer for his hometown basketball team and he took me home with him. He led me away from the bedroom, saying his girlfriend would smell me on the sheets. We did it on the couch, which is plastic, treated to look like leather. I had to spread my jacket down under my bare legs and constantly rearrange myself to keep from sticking to it. It was less than comfortable, but the champagne we spilled and anything that leaked out of the condom were easy to wipe up afterward. I only felt a little unsanitary when I woke up with my mouth pressed against the pleather. The sex was good. I was drunk enough to be loud and he was drunk enough not to notice that I was leaving the “K” off of his name.
I walk around his apartment once, slowly. I tell myself I’m making sure I haven’t left anything; but when I start to look around rooms I was never in, I realize I’m searching for some kind of goodbye. Or some sort of affirmation that I was close to someone the night before, even for a little while. I don’t find anything.
I was drunk when we left the bar, so I have no idea which bus to take home from Kevin’s building. Luckily, he bought the drinks and I have just enough money to cab home on.
The cab ride is my first chance to think about how I feel. I have come down completely from the night before, and I start to think about grade school when they taught us about drugs. My hair is crunchy from dried champagne that the couch didn’t soak up and my legs feel sunburned from peeling them off the plastic. I can still taste Kevin’s hair gel under my fingernails when I bite them. My bag smells like champagne and pine tree air freshener. I am glad I cannot smell my heart. Seven a.m. is not a good time for me. Maybe I am going through some kind of withdrawal.
I try to focus on the positive. The cool thing about sleeping with different people is the constant string of surprises. Kevin, for instance, started reciting the Our Father about twenty minutes in and didn’t stop until he came. There will probably be a time when I find that creepy, but for now I am fascinated.
By the time I get to my apartment it’s too late to catch Evan on his way to work. After an hour or so of doing nothing I start to feel transparent, like I’m bleeding into the wallpaper. So I shower and get the hell out of there. I don’t realize where I’m going until I hit Shady Avenue. Then, I instinctively walk toward Evan’s office building. Maybe it’s because I feel guilty. Examining my motivations doesn’t seem important.
Evan is outside on a cigarette break, a stubby Parliament looks ready to drop from his fingers. He stares right through me and I think, Wallpaper.
“Hey.”
“Hello,” he says.
I can’t find any emotion in his voice at all. “I’ll make this fast, I know you’ve got work to do. I was thinking maybe we could have dinner later in the week.”
He looks confused and glances over his right shoulder. “I think I’m busy,” he says, and gestures to his wedding band.
My hand instinctively goes to mine. I can’t find anything between us at all. His eyes look dead and I take a second to wonder if I’ve killed this. I try as hard as I can to think of the perfect thing to say, but I’ve got the Our Father stuck in my head and I can’t think of anything at all.