Laura Adamczyk - Hardly Children

Alex stands before him. Her face has gone flat, eyes dulled. That old satisfaction pulses in Adam, the one that comes from finding out exactly how much someone will put up with.

How does it feel? she asks.

Like my skin is being ripped off, Adam laughs.

Alex smirks. That’s a shame.

ADAM DRESSES IN THE OFFICEat the end of the night. There’s a voicemail from his sister asking that he not come home, saying that she’ll buy him dinner later in the week to make up for it. Her voice comes to him from a strict distance. The objects in the room shift toward then away from him, as when he finished reading his father’s letter. The porch, the plants, the trees all converged into one point, curving and stretching from one place to another while remaining static, unmistakably the same. The man his sister is bringing home for the night is faceless, nobody Adam knows. She won’t tell him who this man is nor will he ask.

He finds Alex rinsing out a wineglass in the kitchenette across from the office.

You’re here late.

Oh, she says, turning to face him. Yeah, just cleaning up.

They have people to do that, you know.

I know. She puts a hand behind her on the counter, the other at her hip, a pose just awkward enough for Adam to notice. She sighs and crosses her arms. Would you like to get a drink? she asks.

Sure.

Where should we go?

How about your place?

She drops her head into her chest, then raises it. Her cheeks have gone red, but her smile is slow and controlled. All right, she says.

You’re blushing.

THEY TAKE THE TRAINto Alex’s neighborhood and cut through the park. Twenty years ago, the place was filled with needles and bums and drug dealers in hooded sweatshirts. Now there are couples with strollers and a group of twentysomethings throwing a Frisbee.

I chose you for a reason, you know, Alex says.

Because I’m not too skinny.

No, she says. Well, partly you were the right body type, but mostly it was your face. Your features are classic. Like an old movie star. No one famous, though. No one recognizable.

I see.

I wanted people to be able to project onto you whoever they wanted.

The distance helps.

Of course, but still.

Who are you projecting onto me?

She looks away and back. Isn’t it obvious? she says, her voice sad yet reprimanding.

Her loft is at least four times the size of his sister’s place—airy and open. The apartment’s lights and the fuzzed shapes of their bodies reflect back at them in the tall glass windows. Before them sits a long, sleek couch with a stack of folded blankets and pillows in white cases. It takes Adam a minute to realize what’s missing.

Don’t you have a bed?

It’s in the gallery, she says, from the kitchen, uncorking a bottle.

You’re kidding.

No, it’s all actually mine. And his. Our broken bedroom.

That’s a little over-the-top, don’t you think?

She approaches, carrying two glasses of red wine out ahead of her body.

That’s the point, she says, handing him a glass.

He follows her to the couch. She turns her glass slowly in her lap, a wave of quiet moving over her. Her sadness is plain and bare and Adam can’t decide whether or not he wants to see it.

It’s funny, she says, her face moving closer to the one she uses in the gallery. Seeing you half-naked all these nights, I kind of like you better in your clothes. He is, like Guy, wearing slim jeans, a black T-shirt, and black canvas shoes.

I guess I’ll just keep them on then, he says, smiling.

Don’t be ridiculous.

They move from the couch to the floor, laying out blankets and using pillows. She looks small naked. He feels like a blade trying to whittle her soft body down even smaller. They turn each other over, say, How about this? Let’s try this on. Then: Put your leg here. No, here. He pulls her hair, digs his thumbs deep into her forearms. She curls her body into his hands. It’s the way she dresses—sloppy, her body an afterthought—he knows he can do anything with her.

Adam will not remember who, but somewhere in the heated middle, one of them will say, I love you. So much. And the other will reply, I love you too. So fast, it will feel simultaneous, slowing nothing down to say it. They keep on until they grow bored and tired and there’s nothing left for them to do but crawl up onto the long, thin couch and try to claim a spot as their own.

THE BRIGHT MORNING LIGHTpushes through the apartment’s tall windows. Alex sits up on the opposite end of the couch, rolling her neck. Adam doesn’t realize how much makeup she wears until now, until there is none. She looks washed-out and faded, and he feels oddly reassured that she isn’t more vain, isn’t one of those women who won’t let men see them without makeup. She regards him for a moment, as though an object that used to hold meaning for her but no longer does. He has the sudden desire to hold her hand—this open, blank sadness so real that he wants to touch it.

She disappears into the bathroom then pads into the kitchen, wearing a tank top and a pair of white underwear, loose around her hips.

It’s not until the teakettle builds to a howl that he remembers, as if recalling a dream, what they said the night before. He watches her pour the water into a French press at the kitchen counter, the steam, for a moment, masking her face.

She brings him his coffee in a white mug and sits beside him, folding her legs beneath her. Adam used to grow annoyed with too much morning-after chatter, but the silence feels expectant, like he’s been asked a question but can’t remember it.

I’m adopted, he says.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

I didn’t know. I found out a couple weeks ago. My dad told me.

Just now? She sips from her mug. How do you feel about it?

I don’t know. The weird thing is my sister doesn’t know. My dad didn’t tell her.

Are you going to tell her?

I don’t know.

She purses her lips and says, I don’t understand that kind of indecision.

Why complicate things?

I don’t know, so you can have an honest relationship? Her face is guileless. It makes her look younger, the strain of her everything-is-easy persona now shed, as though she had also disclosed a secret.

You think you’re always honest with people?

I don’t lie, she shrugs.

That’s not the same thing.

Still, I don’t lie.

Never? He’s almost laughing now.

I might question later whether or not I actually believed something when I felt it, but I always believe things when I say them. Why pretend?

You’re so weird.

I know! She smiles and it grows deeply into her face.

He puts his hand on her thigh.

WHEN ADAM RETURNS HOME, his sister is smoking in the armchair at the foot of her bed, knees to chest, hair in a loose mass atop her head.

Aren’t you supposed to be at work? he says.

I took a sick day.

Adam looks at her bed, stripped of its sheets, the comforter crumpled on the floor.

Everything okay?

Fine.

You sure?

She nods.

You seem a little—

I’m fine, really. Her voice is calm but firm, her face clean of emotion.

You have a cut, he says, stepping closer, putting a finger to his cheek.

There’s a red line within the half circle of skin beneath her eye. She turns and exhales her smoke toward the window behind her, the sun coming in white-hot.

Sandy, did you hear me? He stops just next to the chair, letting his thigh lean onto the arm. There’s a little red—

She turns back, looking straight at him. Adam, there’s a little red all up and down your back. And your legs and your arms. It’s all crusty and pus.