Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

“Hop in,” she said, and we were off.

A slop of Vaseline, the occasional sock, hole in the pillow — my victories in the ejaculate of love had been circumscribed by diffidence and, before the infarction and weight loss, the more apparent problem of repelling women in my age bracket because women under thirty do not yet realize they can’t be this picky.

So you can imagine how it was with Esme. I was awkward in bed. Angles of penetration that were obtuse and painful. Slippage. The indiscriminate lapping of skin between her legs until she told me to stop, just stop it. She said good-bye with tenderness and relief. And in the instant that followed her leaving, it was clear: I would be with her again or kill myself.

That night I went to bed a wreck. The resolve of but a few hours ago had given way to anxieties about why I would never see her again. I turned off the light, keen on pursuing my thoughts. I needed to understand which failure had driven her away. I was a young man. I couldn’t know then I’d be asking these questions for the rest of my life.

I mooned away the hours. I floundered at Cypress College. Esme had vanished. Her parents had vanished. I had no way to find her; it made me nuts. I started to lose even more weight. To think about food as the thing denied, the thing indulged, and to see in both a mortification of the body that I deserved. The closeness I had felt with Esme set my other relationships in relief. I would never be comfortable with my peers. I did not have any friends. I worked the Helix all the time.

Three months later, the phone rang. And just like that, she was at my place.

I made her some chocolate milk. We talked.

I said, “It’s okay. We can handle this. I’m just so happy you called. That you’re here.”

“Handle? What’s to handle? There will be no handling. None whatsoever. No way.”

“What do you mean ‘no way’?”

I wanted to crawl under the table, hasp my fingers around her waist, and stay there for the next six months.

“I can’t believe you,” she said. “You’re supposed to flip out when I tell you, split the cost, and disappear.”

I was appalled. “Disappear? What do you mean? We’re a family now. We’re in love.”

“Good God,” she said, and she stood up. Three months in, and it was terrible already. She had mistaken the spotting of early pregnancy for a normal, if light, cycle. She menstruated irregularly; how could she have known? But now that she did, it had to be done. Any longer and the procedure could get dangerous.

I tried to listen, but I was too happy. She had called. She was in distress, so she called. That would have been enough, but now this. A baby together. Surely we had to marry. Only we were not marrying. She was going to a motel.

I stammered. “But you called me. You came all the way to campus.”

She reached over and put a hand on mine. I guess my incapacity to understand what was going on moved her.

“If you can just help me with the money, everything will be fine.”

“Can you stay the night? Maybe if you stay the night, we can talk more about this tomorrow.”

“No,” she said. “You send me a check. You get on with your life. Do something useful. Forget the Helix.”

I shook my head. If I couldn’t have her, I obviously needed the Helix.

“I can’t afford this on my own,” she said. Her voice seemed to point itself at me. “You have to help.”

“Then stay the night.”

“On the couch.”

“No. With me.”

“But your roommates.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need them.”

That night I crawled into bed with Esme. She wore one of my T-shirts. She did not want me to touch her, but I curled up behind her in spoon formation. She didn’t resist. I put my hand on her stomach and tried to tell the baby I was there. We stayed like that for hours.

“I could babysit,” I said.

She laughed. “You could darn socks.”

“I could! What, you think I can’t learn to knit? I could.” I sat up and showed her my hands. “Look at these. They can do anything.”

“ Shhh. Your roommates. Let’s go to sleep — I’m tired. Then I can go home and make an appointment.”

I refit myself behind her and pressed my lips to a tendon at the base of her neck. She seemed interested in talk of my parenting skills. I would convince her yet.

“We’re going to stay together,” I said. And I believed this. Child or no child, we were bound.

She turned to face me. “Let me put this as best I can: I am not keeping this baby. Tomorrow I will go home, and you will not hear from me again. Ever. I know it sounds cruel. You’re very sweet to understand. I have a life of my own. It doesn’t include you.”

She turned away and moved to the edge of the bed.

I blinked. Stunned. I could not lose her again. I could not return to my life without her. I tried to calm down and sync my breath with hers, and when I could not accomplish even this measure of intimacy, I went for the keys in my pocket. Locked her in my bedroom. Made for a spot under a desk in the common area, drew up my legs, and rocked myself to sleep.

The next morning, I ran to the store. Bagels, cream cheese, orange juice, raspberries, an egg-white omelet in case she was the type, a jelly donut in case she wasn’t. Got home and prepared a tray. Coffee and tea, plus an origami flower, because I knew how to make exactly one origami gift, and it was this.

A breeze lilted across my room. I found Esme dressed and framed in the window, which was open. She bent the morning light. And as I watched her jump the sill and tear down the road, I was returned to the work that has been my life’s thrill and challenge ever since.

Thurlow’s cell phone rang; it was Norman. He’d been in touch with the FBI negotiator, who said it was now or never for the ransom tape. Seriously. Now or never. Dean had found a new chair that pleased him well enough, so they were all set.

“Any calls come in that weren’t FBI?” Thurlow’s ear sweat into the phone.

“The press.”

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

He went to the kitchen. Put a saucepan on the range. Added sugar, water, gelatin, lemon juice, grenadine, coconut. Heated it up, let it sit. Coated the result with silver luster dust, wrapped it in edible foil, and voilà: pink-lemonade coconut jellies for the playing of his last card.

It was almost four. He walked the central artery of the residence but was in no hurry. The house was quiet, though he bet the TV networks were in a tizzy. They awaited the ransom tape and were ready to preempt whatever was on air the second they got it, never mind that if you were watching Oprah at the very moment she disclosed the secret to painless and permanent weight loss, the last thing you cared about was some guy who just wanted everyone to get along.

He lumbered, dawdled, dragged ass. Heavy is the crown of self-disgust. It was true what Norman had said: Everyone would see the tape. And they would be appalled. To be sold out by the man in charge? Just so he could have a family of his own? Wasn’t the Helix family enough? Wasn’t it?

Outside the commissary door, he stood with an ear pressed to the wood. His plan was not to listen but to rest, only he heard what he heard, which added a new dread to the one already fixed in his mind. He swung the door open. No Dean, no film crew or even Norman. Just the four hostages on the floor — cuffed but unguarded and each staring up at him with the cow faces of kids in freshman comp, day one — and Vicki plus former TC Charlotte, screaming at each other.

The women verged on physical contact, so Thurlow took Charlotte by the arm.

She wanted to be on the ransom video. He said, Okay, just go get changed, because she was wearing boy shorts and a tank top. She debated whether it was wise to abandon the room, knowing he might lock her out. He swore up and down that he would not lock her out. She left, and he locked her out.