Mary Gaitskill - Two Girls, Fat and Thin

Then the pounding stopped and I heard another voice, also male, also angry. It said something about “butt-naked” and “jerkoff.” Justine’s friend seemed to make some kind of response. I leapt off the bed, hastily found the male clothing strewn around the room, and ran to the door. I opened it. His back was to me; he stood, with no shame apparent in his posture, facing a much larger, fully clothed fellow who was half-emerged from the apartment across the hall, an aggravated look on his face. Both men looked at me, the naked one whipping his head around to do so. I threw the clothes. He dove. I slammed the door and locked it. I listened. The shower was running in the bathroom.

“Look,” said Justine’s neighbor through the door. “I don’t give a shit about your problems. I’m trying to sleep. Stop screaming or I’ll throw you down the goddamn stairs. Get it?”

Justine’s boyfriend seemed to contemplate this silently. I heard the door across the hall close. I heard rustling and floor creaking; probably he was getting dressed. I relaxed slightly.

The bathroom door popped open, and Justine minced out, a towel precariously wrapped about her nakedness. Her short hair was sleekly wet against her head. At first glance she seemed much refreshed. She looked at me, blinking rapidly, rubbed her face, and stood in the middle of the room with her arms around herself, staring at the door.

“Justine,” he said from the hallway. “Justine.”

His voice surprised me. It was mournful and gentle, full of remorse. It was vulnerable as a child alone in the dark. I looked at Justine. I could see in her face that the voice affected her, but she made no move to open the door.

“Justine,” he said. “Honey.”

She shook her head and approached the door, her buttocks peeking out of her towel. “Bryan,” she answered, “you have to go away.”

“Will you call me later?”

“No. Go away.”

He made no response, nor did we hear him walk away. Justine listened attentively for a moment, then shrugged. She went to the bed and sat on it, looked at me, and then looked away. “Shit,” she muttered. She covered her face with her hands and hunched forward.

I didn’t know what to say.

“So,” she said into her hands. “I guess you didn’t like the article.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think you would.” She came out of her hunch and faced me. “But I couldn’t help it. I had to say my opinion.”

“You certainly didn’t say your opinion when you were talking to me.”

“Well as a reporter I don’t have to. And I did say enough that—”

There was a quiet knock at the door.

Her little face coiled furiously, she shot off the bed and attacked the door with vicious, flat-footed kicks. “Dumb fucking scumbag!” she screamed. “Get away!” She stood combative, panting, I thought rather ridiculous as she faced down the door, clutching her towel. After a few seconds of silence, she daintily adjusted the towel and returned to the bed. She looked at me. “But I don’t think I can talk about it now. I’m exhausted. I’ve been up all night.” Somewhat incongruously, she blushed.

“Me too,” I said.

In the ensuing silence we heard footsteps retreating down the stairs. “Thank God,” said Justine. “I thought he’d never leave.” She stood up and walked past me to the kitchenette against the wall. “Would you like some camomile tea?”

I said yes and looked for a place to sit. There were no chairs or couch in the tiny studio, only the bed. I moved to sit on it, and she stopped me. “Wait,” she said, “let me change those sheets.” She dropped the towel and momentarily revealed her wounded body.

“Why,” I said, “why did you let him do that to you?”

She didn’t answer me. She took a robe from the closet and put it on. She began to strip the sheets from the bed. I waited, but she just said, “I’m glad you came.” Her voice trembled, and she seemed to be trying to hide her face from me. She turned and stuffed the sheets in a laundry bag then drew a folded new sheet from the closet. She cracked it open and let it float over the bed. Then she crawled over the mattress tucking it under, looking like an animal in its burrow. “There,” she said. “Have a seat.”

We sat against large pillows and drank tea from china cups with flowers on them. We were silent at first, looking at each other, then looking away. I noticed that our hands were still shaking. I said again, “Why did you let him do that to you?”

“I didn’t let him do anything,” she snapped. She looked at me almost insolently. “I told him what to do.” Her jaw twitched violently. “Except towards the end.”

“Why?”

She looked away and slightly down and shrugged one small shoulder, the gesture of an adolescent in the principal’s office. “I don’t know.” With tight lips, she sipped her tea. I noted the outline of her naked eyelashes and the fine curve of her cheek. She looked back at me. “Does it disgust you?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I think so.”

“Well, you’re probably right. Although it’s not as awful as it looks when you just sort of burst in on it like that. I mean when you’re doing it, it’s, you know. Except this got a little. ” She put her teacup on the table near the bed and lay back against the pillow, curling her legs up and tucking her feet securely under the robe. She didn’t finish her sentence.

“You don’t disgust me,” I said uncertainly. I looked at her cheaply beautiful old vanity with its chipped wood, its carved mirror under a gray veil of dust. On it were musty old perfume bottles with sticky remnants on the bottom, scattered rings and brooches, a piece of ribbon, and different colored candles in holders of all shapes and sizes, all lightly layered with dust. Pasted to the mirror was a black-and-white photograph of a very young child in a bathing suit, posing with a seductiveness that was unsettling in a preschooler. “I always thought you were interesting,” I said. “I thought about you a lot.”

“Really? What did you think?”

“Just that I would like to talk to you. Of course,” I continued, rather bitterly, “that’s probably because I don’t have any friends. When you came to interview me, it was the longest talk I’d had with anyone for years. So naturally I fixated.” I drank my tea.

“I don’t have any friends either.” She spoke sorrowfully.

“Really?” It was hard for me to believe. I thought all pretty people had friends.

“Well, I know a few people. I go out sometimes. But I don’t have real friends.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard for me to be close to people.” She sat up again and allowed her hair to shield her profile.

We sat silently for some time. As my body systems slowly regained their usual stately plod, the adrenaline drained from my flesh, and I imagined going home to sleep.

Then I realized she was crying. Tears dropped from her chin onto her folded hands, and she trembled small and hard. She sat erect and contained, dabbing at her face with the sleeve of her robe and gulping discreetly. I didn’t comfort her because her body did not invite it. But I sat with my heart opened to her, feeling her heart mournfully opening to me, sending me the messages that can be received only by another heart, that which the intellect can never apprehend.

Still crying, she said, “I’m sorry about the article. I really am.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Frankly I haven’t had so much excitement in years.”

I felt her smile inwardly; her trembling stopped.

“I thought of you too sometimes,” she said, tears still in her throat.

“What? What did you think?”