Julia Pierpont - Among the Ten Thousand Things

“Well, but it’s true. I’m not using it, but it scared me.”

“Of course you’d say it’s work. Of course you say that.”

“Let me finish, please. Before you say. You know how I get, these things, they carry me. What next. It’s all I was thinking about: What next. Every day, what next. And nothing was good enough, and everyone had their eyes on me.”

“With bated breath.”

“Don’t — You were there. You know what I mean.”

“I was there.”

“But what you don’t know — or what I didn’t — and I am trying to tell you something here, all right? I really, really am.”

“What?”

“Is that, sleeping with someone…”

“Sleeping with someone what, Jack?”

“Yes, okay? Yes, she flattered me. She admired me. Like it was important, what I was doing. I think I thought if I could just hang on to that feeling—”

“Vampires do that. Parasites. You can’t fuck somebody and have that not hurt us.”

“Why?”

“Because those are the rules .”

“This was never supposed to touch us.”

“This is us. Every time you chose to be with her, you chose not to be with us.”

“People don’t have a limited amount of — affection, of interest.”

“People have a limited amount of time .”

“But, Debby, we fuck up. You of all people should know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Nothing. You know what it means.”

“Don’t you use that either.”

“But why? It’s how we happened. I, we fucked up.”

“Please do not go there with me now.”

—

“I’m sorry. I was making a point. You there?”

“It was a shitty, bullshit point.”

“I know.

—

“It’s your birthday tomorrow. Deb? You didn’t think I’d forget?”

“Wish I could.”

“Happy almost birthday.”

“You stopped talking to me about your work.”

“I didn’t know that bothered you.”

“I was so, I don’t know, honored, or flattered, when you wanted my opinion. That you thought I could help you. I didn’t know a thing about art.”

“You knew more than you thought you did. Instinct.”

“But I was so young, you know, and a dancer. God. I’m not a lot of things I used to be.”

“You are more than you used to be.”

“You talked to her about your work.”

“It’s how we met.”

“You stopped wanting that in me.”

“I want that in you now.”

“Oh. Fuck off.”

—

“So what did you think of the show?”

“Fuck off.”

“Come on, tell me. What does it matter now?”

“Well. I thought you made a mistake.”

“Obviously.”

“No, stupid. I mean the Tigger.”

“The whatter?”

“The stuffed animal, the Tigger.”

“The tiger?”

“He’s from Winnie-the-Pooh.”

—

“They sell those all over the world, though, right?”

“In Ramallah?”

“I didn’t say in Ramallah.”

“It’s just funny to me, since you bought it for him.”

“I bought it. For Simon.”

“Yes, of course for Simon.”

“Will you let me come see you?”

“Don’t, not — no.”

—

“What you were saying about time, how when I was away from you I was with her, how we only have so much time?”

“I remember.”

“You assume that when I was away from you, I was closer to her, but I was far from her too. I was running from her the minute it started, my own mistake I was running from, and where I ran was into my work. You see? It’s why people have these messes. We make our lives impossible places to be, and that’s when we do our work.”

“Not everyone is like you.”

“Well, that’s what this was for me, more than anything. This was about work. Deb?”

“You want to know if I believe you, or if I believe you believe it?”

“Both. I do believe it.”

“Both is I don’t care.”

“Okay.”

“Both, I don’t think it matters. Not one shitty bit.”

“I understand. I get it. You know, I went to her apartment. She wasn’t home, but I wanted to tell her what—”

“You saw her?”

“She was gone, I said.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, after she sent the package.”

“So the very next day you’re there.”

“To tell her off. I wanted her to know what she did.”

“I don’t get why that mattered, to tell her that.”

“Because she should know what her actions—”

“Who cares what she knows? You do, obviously. You saw her?”

“No, are you not listening? I didn’t see her.”

“Too bad, maybe next time.”

“Listen to me.”

“ No. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you I don’t trust you I don’t trust you. Say what you want; I won’t believe you. It’s too much. Definitely, definitely do not come here. You will not be welcome here.”

—

She’d been down in the kitchen when they started talking, though she was vaguely aware, in the interim, of being other places too. Vaguely up the stairs, vaguely down the hall. Touching her face, absently, in the bathroom, in the angled mirrors where Rockettes of her receded endlessly. Staring into the empty hall closet, not seeing. She was at some point sitting at the top of the stairs and at some point sitting at the bottom. The phone warmed and sweated her hand.

There, on the last step, she became aware of her breathing.

“Deb, don’t — don’t do that,” the voice in her ear was saying. “You can’t say that. Please, Debby, don’t do that to me. Don’t tell me you would have let me come if I hadn’t told you that.”

She did not think she could tell the voice anything. Her throat had cracked open, and in place of lungs she had two produce bags. They seized, fuller and emptier than her actual lungs had been ever.

“What’s — Deb?”

These bags! They took so much air and couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. She thought: I am a bicycle pump. I am some kind of wind-powered machine. Her breath was something being done to her, violent and involuntary, like sneezing.

“Breathe. Debby? Baby, breathe. What’s wrong?”

Wrong was that they’d talked themselves to where it felt natural, and it was good to hear Jack’s cello voice, the one every other man’s was higher or lower than. But talking wasn’t natural, the words weren’t right, and she’d let him too far in. That was what all the moving around had been about, as though new rooms could keep the minutes from collecting and catching up with her. Of course, everywhere she went, there he was.

She let the phone down but could still hear the hum of him against the step. She stayed that way for she didn’t know how long. “I’m okay.” Seeing if it felt true. She picked up the phone and said it again. And yes, she’d thought of telling him, yes, that if he hadn’t confessed to her that last part, about going to see the girl, she would have let him come. It would be easy to say, but cruel, and untrue. “I wouldn’t have let you come anyway.”

“How can you make up your mind without seeing me?”

How was the phone this hot. She switched hands and wiped her palm on the step. “Because you’ll come and you’ll be sweet, and it won’t be real, is the point.”

“You’re afraid it will be good.”

“Obviously. Obviously I am.”

“Fear is never a good reason.”

“We’re afraid of the things that hurt us. That, repeatedly, hurt us.”

There was a quiet, and when he spoke again she almost didn’t believe it, that this was the same — well. “You can’t do it, you know. Officially, you can’t make it so I can’t see my kids.”