Mary Gaitskill: Don't Cry

But he was neurotic; he was weak. Once when they were arguing, she said, “And everyone in the art department hates you,” even though she had no idea if that was true.

They were sitting on her front porch in the dark of night; she could not see his reaction, but she could feel it: He withdrew into himself and almost began to quiver with emotion. For a moment, she thought he would cry. “Not all of them,” she said hastily. “Just a few.” And he said, “Who? Who are they?”

And still he held her and said, “I want you to be a strong woman. I know you can be. I want you to be productive.” He held her and she talked about her adulterous, alcoholic father as if he were a character on TV “He ruined my mother financially and mentally I don't even know where he is now. Somewhere in South America, trying to set up a tropical-fish business and fucking some fat eighteen-year-old who's in the Peace Corps. He's been through five failed businesses in the last eight years. He ruins everything he touches. Everybody said my mother was crazy when she went after him with the scissors. But I didn't think so.”

Her mother was putting her life back together, even though she was murderously unhappy Right after Dolores got out of the hospital, her mother invited her over for sandwiches cut up into four pieces. Her mother sat on the very edge of the couch and Dolores sat on the edge of a chair, with the sandwiches on a table between them. Her mother gripped her cream cheese and olive morsel like she had tweezers for hands. “The problem is that I just never asked ‘What about me ?’ “ she said furiously “And now it's time for me. Me!”

Dolores had pitied her terribly.

But her mother was tough in her way. She ran her travel business and went to a yoga club and was even having an affair. She was strong, even if her face looked as if it were a mask held in place with staples.

Dolores lay in the dark of her room and said, “And now it's time for me! Me!” She said it as vehemently as she could, but she knew she had nothing but the dozens of eyebrow pencils and the nail polish and face cream she'd stolen and piled up on her dresser.

Lily and Patrick were having a fight. Dolores looked on with interest, although there wasn't much to watch. They were only eating breakfast, but they were doing it furiously. “You don't have to pretend that anything's normal,” said Lily.

“I'm not.” Patrick held up his slice of rye bread and spread it with apple butter evenly and meticulously Lily was angry at Patrick for not telling off his friends who were mean to her. Maybe they would break up, and then Lily and Dolores could spend more time at the bar talking about how awful men were.

Lily got up in the middle of eating her soft-boiled egg and began sweeping the floor like a robot. “This place is fucking filthy,” she said.

It was. Lily had already swept up a huge pile of dirt and dust and papers and food, and she hadn't even come close to finishing.

“You don't have to act like we're living in a nuthouse,” said Patrick.

“We are.” Lily threw the broom on the floor and went back to her egg, which sat in its rose cup. “It's not surprising that your friends treat me like shit, when it's obvious you don't have any respect for me. You let them do it. If I had friends who called me up and invited me to parties and wouldn't invite you, I wouldn't go. I wouldn't treat you like that.”

“You could've gone.”

“I wasn't invited. You and Dolores were. Sasha's always nasty to me anyway. You saw how she was last week.”

Patrick put down his bread, picked up the knife, and began resmoothing the apple butter. “I saw how you were, too. You didn't extend yourself at all.”

“Whenever I say anything, she ignores me or pretends to misunderstand. I'm tired of your dumb friends anyway, especially that dumb bitch Sasha. I'm tired of hearing these middle-class bitches who've never worked in their life, whose parents pay their rent and buy them college degrees, sit around and talk about how depressed they are. I don't have any parents and I don't have any friends and I've had to work for everything I ever got, which hasn't been much.”

She was yelling now. Patrick's eyes had become very soft.

What a mess I live in, thought Dolores. Isn't it interesting, even though she could be talking about me.

Mark walked into the room with his hair on end and his shoulders knit together, his eyes flickering at Lily. “Oh God,” spat Lily She grabbed her eggcup, tossed the egg in the garbage, and left the room.

“It's so horrible living with two people who are involved in a relationship,” hissed Mark at Dolores. “Especially when one of them is mentally ill.” He raised his voice. “Who threw the broom on the floor?”

The bar was full of familiar, attractive people; plates of cheese sat on several tables, and plants hung above all heads. Dolores had been coming here almost every night. No waitresses were mean to her here. Lily was disappointingly calm, though, and only half-interested in talking about how awful men were.

“I know we have to break up eventually,” she said. “I just don't want it to be about something as stupid as this. It's just gotten to the point that I can't tolerate it anymore. I mean the way his friends act toward me.”

She wasn't showing anger at all. Her voice was flat, her expression blank. Dolores wondered if Lily looked that way because it was her nature or if the outside world had been so painful for her that she couldn't stand to be in it fully. She looked at Lily's long, slender fingers against the iced glass of her drink and felt touched by her vulnerability Why should people dislike her? “It's really shitty” said Dolores.

“I don't know why it's happening.”

Her passivity made Dolores feel a little contemptuous. She ordered another drink. “It's a small town. People like to gossip, and you're a natural subject because you're different.”

“How am I different?”

Dolores sighed and looked at the ceiling, both hands on her drink. The question stirred memories of answering a professor's questions and loving the sound of her intelligent voice. “Because on one hand you seem completely unaware of people, completely self-contained and happy to be that way. And then you'll suddenly be so open and needy. I think the abrupt contrast disturbs people. And they can be aggressive with you because you're actually gentle. Even if you don't talk that way.”

Lily didn't answer, but Dolores thought she looked pleased with the explanation.

“I'm sort of glad you're dumping Patrick. I know he's my brother and everything, but it's about time somebody dumped him. He's been picking up and putting down girls for years. It's sickening.”

Lily shrugged. “He's told me all about what a heartbreaker he is. I guess it means I'm supposed to be the one to bring him down.”

“You should. It would do him good.”

“I don't see how it would do him good.”

“Because it would teach him something about life. He's never been hurt before in that way. He thinks everything's so easy and that he's never been hurt because he's so smart.”

“Being hurt doesn't teach anybody anything,” said Lily. “It doesn't help. It just feels bad.” She nipped up a piece of cheese and munched. “Although there is the Jesus stuff” she said through her cheese. “Suffering and redemption, suffering and purity”

“That's not what I'm talking about,” said Dolores.

“What are you talking about?”

Dolores sighed abruptly; her eyes went ceilingward. “Morally, in the Christian sense, strength isn't necessarily a good thing. You're supposed to turn the other cheek, be sacrificed, you know? But I think that kind of meekness is weak, and when you think about it, weakness is really … evil in a way. It's like being connected with the ugly things in the world. You're the clubfooted straggler endangering the herd. You make people depressed and sentimental.”