Rabih Alameddine - I, The Divine

At first, he fell for it. “You’ve done this before,” he said. “If this were your first time, you’d be coughing like crazy.”

“Of course, I’ve done this before,” I said haughtily. “I’ve been doing this since I was ten.” I kept swallowing over and over, drunk on my own pride for not coughing or wheezing.

He noticed what I was doing, though. He smacked me on the side of the head. “When you swallow, you don’t swallow, you baby.” He shook his head, smirking. “I’ve been doing this since I was ten,” he repeated sarcastically.

I could not for the life of me figure out swallowing without swallowing, so I stared at him intently, earnestly pretending not to look. “Well,” I said between swallows, which were beginning to sound more like gulps, “this is how we do it in my family.”

“Yeah, right. I believe that.” He inhaled on his cigarette, took a long drag, and blew in my face. He laughed and I had to smile. Finally I figured out how to smoke, but it was too late. I might not have coughed hysterically from smoking my first, and what was to be my last, cigarette, but the smoke I had swallowed upset my stomach. I began to feel more and more queasy until I threw up, right there in front of him. He worried about me, asking if I was all right. I was so embarrassed. I lay on the ground and teared up.

I sat up and he moved closer to me, shoulder to shoulder, extinguished his cigarette saying, “I think smoking is overrated anyway. It tastes like shit.”

“I have to drink something,” I said. “I have to get rid of this taste in my mouth.”

“Let’s get a Seven-Up.” Excited to be doing something helpful. “It’s good for your stomach anyway.” He helped me up, even though I was feeling better.

“I have a better idea,” he said. He zipped his anorak, but did not pull the hood up, running out into the rain. He stood five feet away from me, all smiles, impish as usual, calling me with his hands and eyes. I walked out tentatively. He pulled me close to him and hugged me, still smiling, hair all wet. He tilted his head backward, opening his mouth to the sky. I did the same, rain falling on my face, drinking whatever drops fell in my mouth, quenching an unnamable thirst, laughing. We hugged closer and drank. We were sopping wet. I looked down to see a craned neck, elongated like a swan’s, and my heart fluttered. He looked at me, mouth open, tongue distended to capture more. And then he kissed me. Two thirteen-year-olds who knew nothing about anything, French kissing in the rain. I wanted to swallow his tongue.

I was in New York last week and saw two retrospectives, Pierre Bonnard’s and Rothko’s. Besides noting that Bonnard could not draw if his life depended on it and that Rothko did not even try, I was stunned by a major realization. When it came to a choice between a beautiful color and the correct color, Bonnard always picked the beautiful one, while Rothko, in his great paintings, picked the correct one. I realized when it came to men, I did not pick the beautiful or the correct. I picked the wrong one. I chose David.

I stared out of my window onto the bleak, leafless branches of the tree in front of my Victorian flat. The late afternoon light was fading to violet. Noisy sparrows appeared, a bustle of activity before they retired for the night. January of 1992.

My ex-husband Joe had called and asked if I would be willing to fly and attend a party in his honor. His company had just promoted and relocated him to Dallas. Both he and his wife wanted me to join them in celebration, to see their new house and so forth. Joe was in constant touch with my brother, Ramzi, in whom I confided, so they knew I was feeling blue.

I started to make tea, but decided against it. I took a walk to Duboce Park, a short distance from my flat. Every weekday, beginning at four in the afternoon, the park transformed into canine heaven. Barking, frolicking dogs of every breed, color, and shape raced around the grass. Owners stood in groups chatting while their pets played, sniffed, chased, and did group somersaults. I had been coming to the park every day for the last two weeks. I was dogless, but I came prepared.

The instant Sally, a collie, saw me, she bounded over, jumped with joy as I reached into my coat pocket for her biscuit. I tossed it and she caught it in midair. Mindy, a tan pug, began licking my jeans. In less than a minute, I had ten dogs to play with.

“When are you getting one?” Annette, Sally’s owner, asked me. She towered over me, looking taller from my new position, flat on the ground with dogs all over me. “Get off there. You’ll ruin your coat.”

“It’s cheap,” I joked. The dogs disbursed in different directions, forgetting me as I stood up. Annette was popular with the other dog owners; a couple of women moseyed over. “Besides, you know I can’t get a dog. I can barely take care of myself. I don’t even have a job right now. Anyway, my cats would hate me.”

“A dog does wonders.”

In a couple of minutes, a thin, lanky woman showed up, a sprightly spring in her step. I recognized the leashed dog, but it took me a moment to realize it was Sandra. She released her cocker when she reached us.

“Jesus,” Annette exclaimed. “You’re looking wonderful.”

“I’m dating.” Sandra beamed. She looked as if only her heavy coat kept her grounded.

“That really works,” Annette laughed.

“We just had sex,” Sandra giggled. “I left him sleeping on the bed.” She looked ten years younger than she had the day before. Her appeased lust had softened her face, smoothed her miniscule wrinkles.

After polite time had passed, I excused myself and walked the six blocks back home, alone.

I locked myself in, clicked on the teakettle, and sat on the sofa in the big mess otherwise known as my living room. I picked up the phone and dialed Joe and Charlene.

“I would love to come,” I said. “It’ll be good to see you both.”

“I’m so happy you’re coming,” Charlene cooed. “You might even find Mr. Right. You should think about moving to Dallas. San Francisco is so depressing and morbid.”

I was actually thinking of Joe. I would go to Dallas to show my support and try to give him the approval he always sought from me.

I overbrewed my tea; drank it slightly bitter.

I called my hairdresser and made an appointment to cut and dye my hair.

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him.

Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily.

I decided on a short, fitted black Chanel for the reception, scoop neck, a tad risqué, but I figured one can never go wrong with black, and this dress in particular highlighted my best feature, my legs.

“I wish I had the nerve to wear something like that,” Charlene said. She wore a long pink gown with white chenille daisies. She scrunched whatever was left of her eyebrows, lifted her dress, showing a purulent cyst on her upper right thigh. “Look, I can’t wear anything above the knee until this is gone.”