Heather Lewis - Notice

I wasn’t at all clear what to do. I wound up getting dressed, taking some money from the envelope. Then I went to the store. Not the actual grocery store, which was way too far away, but a deli across the street. I bought food, though I wasn’t hungry. I did better at the drugstore next door, bought things I might actually someday use. Then I went back home.

I soaked for a long time in the bathtub. Did this until something woke in me, telling me to get up and dressed because otherwise the phone might start ringing. That I needed to prevent this.

I went to Beth’s office. I was late, I suppose. My sense of time so jangled by now, close was the best I could hope for. I saw her car there, parked where it always was. I nearly stopped, or did for a little bit, just to stare at it. I wondered how she kept up her life. How she kept it going normally through all of this. And so I went inside feeling suspicious of her in some way. Feeling away from her, that we weren’t in sync.

She came to get me before I’d crossed the waiting room. She didn’t touch me, but still there was this shepherding feel to the way she walked with me – a little behind, between me and the door, guiding and preventing escape.

I sat down right away, which left her the one standing. She stayed standing for a bit, close to me, then moving back toward her chair, stopping briefly to look at something on her desk.

I waited for her. And then we sat there looking at each other and saying nothing. She appeared a bit off, and tired too. Tired like me. This was reassuring, though I still wasn’t sure whether she’d pretend last night away. And this time, I wasn’t sure I didn’t want her to pretend it away. Didn’t need her to.

Maybe that’s why I’d come here instead of letting her come to me. Maybe I thought it’d make all that go away. But she wasn’t going to let that happen anymore. Already she held her hands out to me and I took them and then we were standing.

At first it felt like a long time ago, and safer because of this. But then I kissed her, awkwardly, like I didn’t know what I was doing, and so already I’d given over to her. Given in to us being the same to each other day-to-day. The thing I’d thought I’d most wanted but now wasn’t sure of.

She pulled at my shirt and put her hand underneath it and I began shuddering. I couldn’t stop the shake in my legs, in one leg especially.

She seemed to be fighting something herself – her hands trembling and uncertain, staying for a long time with my breasts. She didn’t really feel there. She didn’t feel sure to me until she began touching my stomach, unbuttoning my pants.

I felt the need to move on her, to gain some kind of footing. But by the time this even registered she’d already gotten into my pants. And then I was sinking to my knees and she with me. Her hand already inside me and the rest of her holding me up, and so here again she had me.

And, like last night, just when I thought I could let this be, let her have me, I couldn’t. I wanted away. Away from that big baying thing coming up now to breathe. And I couldn’t get away and I couldn’t get my breath. It took all the air. And did she feel any of this in me?

Afterwards, I couldn’t go home. Instead, I went to the only other place that felt familiar – the parking lot. There weren’t many people there and I had no clue about the trains. I’d lost track of the timetable. It’d been that long.

For these reasons I went into the bar, though as soon as I saw Burt and Jeremy, sitting at that same table, I realized they were why I had come.

I sat down without them asking me to. They barely noticed me; didn’t say anything to me. They didn’t miss a word in the conversation they were having, which seemed encoded. But then ordinary words gave me a lot of trouble these days.

When the waitress came over Burt ordered another round and tacked on a drink for me. A vodka, so at least he remembered something about me. I began to remember things about him. About them. I knew already this wouldn’t work. And from here the urge to go home took me over. I felt too tired to walk, though. And even with money in my pocket and cabs waiting right outside, this way out didn’t occur to me.

When I’d left off expecting him to, Burt turned my way. “Where’ve you been?” he asked.

But then he laughed like he already knew, and Jeremy laughed with him, and then he said to Burt, “I told you she’d turn up again. I told you we wouldn’t need to make any effort.”

I sat there, still not speaking or understanding. Sat there still with this tremendous urge to go home until I finally said it. Asked them would they take me there.

They both were laughing again and then we were all getting up and Burt was paying the bill.

Out in the parking lot, I found myself looking for that hapless guy. Expected to see him parked there and waiting. But I knew he wasn’t, knew I would’ve noticed him on my way in.

I followed them across the lot to a nondescript car. Jeremy got in to drive. Burt motioned me in beside him, put his briefcase on the floor and pulled me into his lap. Once we got to my place he got out with me. He told Jeremy, “Why don’t you go take care of that thing we discussed. This won’t take too long.” And then, like an afterthought, he said, “Give me the case.”

He followed me up the stairs and into my apartment and then into the bedroom. He put the briefcase down and sat in a chair – one I’d almost forgotten because it was buried beneath clothes, clothes now strewn on the floor, except for a slip I’d also forgotten. Burt held this in his hands.

“Why don’t you put it on,” he said, and I hesitated for a few moments before taking it from him.

“I really need another drink,” I said. “Do you want one?” I said these things as I made my way toward the door. He caught me by the arm and twisted. He said, “I’ve got something you want more.” And I knew he meant drugs – even before he’d gone into his pocket, I knew.

He tossed two bags on to the bed. “Fetch,” he said. Said it in such an ordinary way that I simply complied. When I started for them, though, he said, “Put that on first.”

I took off my clothes, except for my underwear, started to pull the slip on over it but he told me to take it off.

“I don’t think you’ll be needing those, now will you?” This was what he actually said.

I couldn’t decide what it was about him tonight that made me unable to disagree, made the things he said make sense. I didn’t know whether it was anything about him really, or something about me. Where Beth had left me, what she’d left me with.

I clearly understood I’d gotten in over my head. I literally felt this way – underwater, my movements all slow and slurred. I crawled on to the bed, picked up the bag that looked more promising – full of pills I mostly recognized and a packet I knew held the thing I most wanted. The thing I’d needed badly since last seeing Beth, probably ever since I’d met her.

Her name crossing my mind again bothered me and not too long after I heard the phone. Heard it as I opened the packet and tapped some on to my hand and snorted.

Burt answered the phone. “She’s busy just now.” And then he unplugged the phone.

“Who was that?” I asked, as if he’d know.

“Just one of your girlfriends.”

I snorted some more and this put me further underneath. Put me to a place I could keep going with this.

Burt took the other bag, the one full of coke, and he snorted some and he watched me, except I wasn’t doing anything.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing him. He told me to pull up the slip. I did what he said and then I opened my legs and he told me to touch myself. He said, “Come on, now, sweetheart. I want to see you.”