Heather Lewis - Notice

I told myself I had to keep seeing her. That it was merely practical. I tried to reorder my need, make it about legalities. This was so thin even I could see through it. Still I worked hard to stay on this plane. Not drift into thinking about how she could make me feel, when she wanted to, which didn’t seem often enough.

I couldn’t face calling her. Spent the day – Saturday – avoiding this impulse. Finally went out to avoid it because I couldn’t stand that she might play cool and aloof and impossible. That this weekend might completely match the last one, with me ordering myself around her, running to her and not knowing how I’d find her. I already had this sense that she took up too much of my life, or maybe all of it. And right when I needed badly for this not to be true I ran into Burt.

This was not a hard thing to do. It was only a matter of going to certain places at certain times. And so I did these things believing I had no plan in mind. He was at that bar, with Jeremy. And I’d seen his car in the lot with the same guy waiting behind the wheel.

They sat me down at their table. Began buying me drinks and all through this I had that same nagging sense of wondering just what they wanted me for. They weren’t talking to me really, not exactly. I was just there listening to them. Then they got up and we all went out and they gave me a ride home, which was good since I still wasn’t driving my car.

This put me pretty much where I’d been, only later and drunk. My resolve was nowhere and so eventually I found myself calling her. She sounded sleepy and irritable and not quite surprised, so I couldn’t help feeling she’d won.

I didn’t ask to see her. Not asking felt like the only way I could preserve some kind of pride. This seemed to confuse her, and since I hadn’t called with anything else in mind we stumbled around for a while with her finally saying, “Why don’t you meet me at noon.”

She said it in that in-between way. We’d slipped back to that. Fallen back into playing each other. Playing with each other and ourselves. And it almost made me say where and, besides, her office seemed too small and not right. But we didn’t say any more, and I went to sleep feeling, well, happy’s not quite the word but secure maybe. Drunk anyway.

I woke up later than I’d intended and with that same sense of having made a mistake. I thought quite seriously of standing her up. Really wanted to, but the motive was flimsy, hard to determine, harder to act on.

I arrived at her office disheveled and discouraged. She’d gotten there already. She came out to the waiting room and took my arm in a way that reminded me we hadn’t always been like this. From here we went into her room and sat down. I felt oddly comforted and it made me unsure what I wanted from her. She seemed that way too – tentative, different than she’d been in a long while.

I didn’t say anything but found myself looking at her intently. Meeting her eyes for what seemed like ages. When she spoke, when she said, “Are you all right these days?” the sound of her voice startled me.

I didn’t know how she meant this. How widely she meant it. How much ground I was allowed to cover if I answered. The easy thing would’ve been to say, yes, I’m fine, but this was so far from true I couldn’t shape the words. What I said instead was, “I don’t really think so.”

I looked at her when I said it and wished I hadn’t because it seemed to have hurt her. She maybe wanted the other answer. How could I know what she wanted? “Are you?”

Her face changed again. She looked like she had no idea what I’d said and so quickly I added, “All right, I mean.”

Her eyes went cloudy and then teared and my own vision blurred from these same things, and we just sat there staring at each other.

I wondered about the way through this, how to come out the other side and quickly. But just when I thought I couldn’t stand this another moment, it grew sweet. Like we shared something, even if it wasn’t a good thing. And I felt a type of closeness I hadn’t felt in what had to be months.

And while this took over my body, while this sweetness roamed my chest and then the rest of me, taking hold in my limbs, I willed my brain to keep out of it, to stay still and not to wreck it, not to start me pumping to leave or push this into – sex because those escapes were there too – always there and calling.

She didn’t fidget, and she didn’t look away. But she didn’t say anything either. Not for the longest time. And then finally what she said was, “I’m afraid I’m not helping you.”

I couldn’t imagine how she meant this. I wanted to laugh, but she seemed genuine. Seemed not to see the absurdity of what she’d just said. This left me lightheaded, nearly giddy, unsure I could keep hold of what seemed maybe like anger.

There was so much room here for nastiness, for sarcasm. The only thing stopping me was the look on her face, still truthful and gentle. To meet that with cruelty seemed wrong. Instead, I said, “How do you mean?” And I truly wanted to know because the eeriest thing was the way I could never tell if she acknowledged all of what went on between us.

“I mean, I think you’re getting into trouble.”

I wondered if she was talking about herself more than me, if she meant I was getting her into trouble, because now her eyes left mine and stared out the window until this began to feel like all the other times she’d tried to keep herself away from me.

“How?” I asked her.

“You’re going back to it.”

“Not really, not that much. Not lately.”

“Weren’t you just last night?”

This threw me. And when her eyes met mine, they looked sore, achy. I tried to see what she’d said in some other way than that she’d gone looking for me.

At first I thought she’d maybe seen my car in the parking lot. Made her conclusions from there. But then I realized I hadn’t been using it and so what did that mean? That she’d actually been in that bar last night?

“I tried calling you,” she said. “I wanted to see if you were okay. I hadn’t heard from you. I was worried, and so I went by your place but there were no lights, and you didn’t answer but your car was there.”

Her eyes drifted away and when she started again, she said, “I saw you at the train station. With those men.”

She said all of this like it made sense. Like it was the most ordinary thing for a person to do, and it was hard not to go along with her. Not to feel that yes, of course, she’s the one who knows what she’s doing.

I kept my head just above water. I said, “What is it you think you saw?”

“I saw you get in a car with them.”

I wanted her to look at me because all I could see was her sitting in her car, watching for me. I couldn’t stand what this had me wondering and it made me plainer than usual. I said, “Look at me.”

But when she did she seemed to almost be crying and so I looked away.

I said, “So you imagined the rest of it.”

“Should I have stayed and watched?”

I wanted to say, what were you doing there in the first place? But this gave me too much to sort through. I felt both unnerved and afraid of her, and at the same time cared for – that she would go to such lengths, but out of what?

“They drove me home.”

“Oh, and that’s better?”

“No, that’s it. That’s all of it.”

I said this not quite understanding how quickly I’d become the one defending my actions. It served both of us, though. Let her stay above question and let me avoid thinking what the questions should be.

I stole a look at her and then another. And when I could be sure she’d gotten hold of herself I kept looking. This put us back to staring at each other, which started hard and almost mean before it went gauzy. I wouldn’t touch her. I kept telling myself this over and over in my head until I believed it, but I began to see leaving as the only way to ensure it. I thought, this time might really hurt.