Joy Williams - Taking Care

She wets her hands and wipes off the mirror. She cannot imagine him dead really. She is just a child embracing the crisis of a woman. The death she sees is that of herself in his emptiness. And he fills her with it. He floods her with emptiness. She grasps his thick, longish hair. She feels as if she is floating through his hair, falling miraculously away from danger into death. Safe at last.

“Jenny, Jenny, Jenny,” her mother calls.

“I want a baby,” Jenny says. “Can I have a baby?”

“Of course,” her mother says, “when you get to be a big girl and fall in love.”

Jenny will write on the stationery of the Hotel Principal:

The claims of love and self-preservation are opposed.

The man looks over her shoulder. He is restless, impatient to get going. They are going to the baths outside of town, in the mountains. A waterfall thuds into a long, stone basin which has been artificially heated. It is a private club, crowded with Americans and wealthy Mexicans. When Jenny and the man arrive at the baths, they first go to a tiny stone cubicle where the man strips. He hangs his clothes carefully from the wooden pegs which are fixed in the stone. Jenny looks outside where a red horse grazes from a long, woven tether. There is water trickling over the face of the hillside. There is very little grass. The water sparkles around the horse’s hooves. The man turns Jenny from the window and begins to undress her. She is like a little child with artless limbs. He rolls her pants down slowly. He slips her sweater off. He does everything slowly. Her clothes fall to the floor which is wet with something, which smells sweet. With one hand, the man holds her arms firmly behind her back. He doesn’t do anything to her. She cannot smell him or even feel his breath. She can see his face which is a little stern but not frightening. It holds no disappointment for her. She tries to move closer to him, but his grip on her arms prevents her. She begins to tremble. Her body feels his stroking, his touch, even though he does nothing. Her body starts to beat, to move in the style of their lovemaking. She becomes confused, the absence of him in her is so strong.

Later, the man goes out to the pool. Jenny hates the baths, but they come here several times a week on the man’s insistence. She dresses and goes out to the side of the pool and watches the man swim back and forth. There are many people here, naked or nearly so, tossing miniature footballs back and forth. She sees the man grasp the ankles of a woman and begin to tow her playfully through the water. The woman wears silver earrings. Her hair is silver, her pubic hair is silver. Her mouth is a thickly frosted white. The water foams on her skin in tiny translucent bubbles. The woman laughs and moves her legs up in a scissors grip around the man’s waist. Jenny sees him kiss her.

Another man, a Mexican, comes up to Jenny. He is bare-chested and wears white trousers and tall, yellow boots. He absently plucks at his left nipple while he looks at her.

“Ford Galaxie,” he says at last. He takes a ring of car keys from his pocket and jerks his head toward the mountains.

“No,” Jenny says.

“Galaxie,” the Mexican says. “Galaxie. Rojo.”

Jenny sees the car, its red shell cold in the black mountains, drawn through the landscape of rock and mutilated maguey. Drawn through, with her inside, quietly transported.

“No,” she says. She hates the baths. The tile in the bottom of the pool is arranged in the shape of a bird, a heron with thin legs and a huge, flat head. Her lover stands still in the water now, looking at her, amused.

“Jenny,” her mother laughs. “You’re such a dreamer. Would you like to go out for supper? You and Daddy and I can go to the restaurant that you like.”

For it is just the summer. That is all it is, and Jenny is only five. In the house which they are renting on Martha’s Vineyard, there is a dinghy stored in the rafters of the living room. The landlord is supposed to come for it and take it down, but he does not. Jenny positions herself beneath the dinghy and scatters her shell collection over her legs and chest. She pretends that she has been cast out of it and floated to the bottom of the sea.

“Jenny-cake, get up now,” her mother says. The child rises heavily from the floor. The same sorrow undergone for nothing is concluded. Again and again, nothing.

“Oh Jenny-cake,” her mother says sadly, for Jenny is so quiet, so pale. They have come to the island for the sunshine, for play, to offer Jenny her childhood. Her childhood eludes them all. What is the guide which Jenny follows?

“Let’s play hairdresser,” her mother says. “I’ll be the hairdresser and you be the little girl.”

Jenny lets her comb and arrange her hair.

“You’re so pretty,” her mother says.

But she is so melancholy, so careless with herself. She is bruised everywhere. Her mother parts her hair carefully. She brings out a dish of soapy water and brushes and trims Jenny’s nails. She is put in order. She is a tidy little girl in a clean dress going out to supper on a summer night.

“Come on Jenny,” her mother urges her. “We want to be back home while it’s still light.” Jenny moves slowly to the door that her father is holding open for them.

“I have an idea,” her mother says, “I’ll be a parade and you be the little girl following the parade.”

Jenny is so far away. She smiles to keep her mother from prattling so. She is what she will be. She has no energy, no talent, not even for love. She lies face down, her face buried in a filthy sheet. The man lies beside her. She can feel his heart beating on her arm. Pounding like something left out of life. A great machine, a desolate engine, taking over for her, moving her. The machine moves her out the door, into the streets of the town.

There is a dance floor in the restaurant. Sometimes Jenny dances with her father. She dances by standing on top of his shoes while he moves around the floor. The restaurant is quite expensive. The menu is written in chalk on a blackboard which is then rolled from table to table. They go to this restaurant mostly because Jenny likes the blackboard. She can pretend that this is school.

There is a candle on each table, and Jenny blows it out at the beginning of each meal. This plunges their table into deep twilight. Sometimes the waitress relights the candle, and Jenny blows it out again. She can pretend that this is her birthday over and over again. Her parents allow her to do this. They allow her to do anything that does not bring distress to others. This usually works out well.

Halfway through their dinner, they become aware of a quarrel at the next table. A man is shouting at the woman who sits beside him. He does not appear angry, but he is saying outrageous things. The woman sits very straight in her chair and cuts into her food. Once, she puts her hand gently on the side of his head. He does not shrug it off nor does it appear that he allows the caress. The woman’s hand falls back in her lap.

“Please don’t,” the woman says. “We’re spoiling the others’ dinner.”

“I don’t care about the others,” the man says. “I care about you.”

The woman’s laugh is high and uneasy. Her face is serene, but her hands tremble. The bones glow beneath her taut skin. There is a sense of blood, decay, the smell of love.

“Nothing matters except you,” the man says again. He reaches over and picks up the food from her plate. It is some sort of creamed fish. He squeezes it in his hand and lets it drop on the table between them. It knocks over the flowers, the wine. “What do you care what others think?” he says.

“I don’t know why people go out if they’re not intending to have a nice time,” Jenny’s mother whispers. Jenny doesn’t speak. The man’s curses tease her ears. The reality of the couple, now gone, cheats her eyes. She gazes fixedly at the abandoned table, at the garbage there. Everywhere there is disorder. Even in her parents’ eyes.